Dennis Kucinich

Kucinich is one of several Democrats who is seeking the party's nomination for the next presidential election in 2008. We hear mostly about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. However, after watching some of the first debate between the Democratic contenders last week, I wanted to learn a little more about the lesser-known ones.

Wouldn't it be nice if this man was a genuine frontrunner?

The Kucinich Plan

* Creating a single-payer system of universal health care that provides full coverage for all Americans.
* The immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq and replacing them with an international security force.
* Guaranteed quality education for all, including free pre-kindergarten and college for all who want it.
* Immediate withdrawal from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
* Repealing the USA Patriot Act.
* Fostering a world of international cooperation.
* Abolishing the death penalty.
* Environmental renewal and clean energy.
* Preventing the privatisation of social security.
* Providing full social security benefits at age 65.
* Creating a cabinet-level "Department of Peace"
* Ratifying the ABM Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol.
* Protecting a woman's right to choose while decreasing the number of abortions performed in the U.S.
* Ending the war on drugs.
* Legalizing same-sex marriage.
* Creating a balance between workers and corporations.
* Restoring rural communities and family farms.
* Banning hand guns.

(From Wikipedia)

Boris Yeltsin

French election underway...

I'm not an expert on the French system, but I understand that if the margin separating the two frontrunners (of the four main contenders) is close enough, then there will be a second round of voting - which will be the decider. The frontrunners are Ségolène Royal of the Socialist Party and Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union for a Popular Movement.

I am hoping that Royal wins. However, despite the pair being neck and neck in the days leading up to the election, many are predicting a Sarkozy victory. We'll see. It is important, of course, that Jean-Marie Le Pen is kept well away from the Elysée Palace.

Streep!

Dark Matter

I've mentioned this one on here previously. It premieres soon at the Sundance Film Festival.

Evening

I just watched the trailer for this one and it looks really good. Meryl Streep plays a much older woman and the rest of the cast includes Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes, Glenn Close, Eileen Atkins, Patrick Wilson and Hugh Dancy.

Lions for Lambs

Meryl is reunited with Robert Redford, and is also alongside Tom Cruise in this one. She herself has described it as a "complicated political thriller", and she plays a journalist.

Rendition

This one sounds very interesting. A CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) "based in Cairo finds his world spinning out of control after he witnesses the interrogation of a foreign national by the Egyptian secret police. Reese Witherspoon is playing the pregnant American wife of the national. Alan Arkin also has been cast, playing a senator. Meryl Streep is a government official who orders the rendition of the national."

Mamma Mia!

The screen version of the stage production. Details about the cast remain sketchy, but it'll no doubt mean dancing and more singing for Meryl.

The Last Station

There is no official confirmation, but if indeed Meryl does appear in this film about Leo Tolstoy, her co-actors will likely include Anthony Hopkins and Paul Giamatti.

(the above image, a still from Dark Matter, is from SimplyStreep.com)

Wires crossed

I went via a nearby convenience store on my way to the bus early yesterday morning to buy one of those ten-trip-saver cards that can be used on buses and ferries. The regular behind the counter is an extremely quiet Asian woman. I think her English is relatively limited.

I buy the adult version because my student card expired late last year, and drivers do occasionally ask to see concession cards if you have a concession ticket. Anyway...

I said
"Can I have a concession, two-zone ten-trip saver, thanks?"

She proceeded to get one, scanned it, handed it to me and told me it was $10.80c. I realised when I heard the price that I'd accidentally asked for a concession, not an adult. It was early and I wasn't fully awake.

I poked a look of frustration (with myself), and said
"Did I say concession? I meant adult. Sorry."

I then received a horrified look, before she responded
"but you said concession."

Thinking at the time that she was stating the obvious back to me, I just looked at her and she looked back. A couple of seconds later, she scanned the card again before fetching an adult version. I paid for it and left.

I have concluded that she misinterpreted and/or misheard me as
Did I say concession? I said adult.

And she must have seen the frustrated look on my face as being directed towards her.

Her upset expression made me feel quite bad afterwards.

The Big Dry

For what seems to have been quite a while, I have been telling people that this drought isn't going to end. It isn't very optimistic of me, but I honestly believe that this is a new way of life now.

I just can't see it ending. I can't see the dams being full. I can't see weeks and weeks of rain. Mother Nature, long ago, became fed up with the abuse she was being subjected to and packed her bags, leaving us to our own devices.

It'll rain, but it'll only be for a few hours before those utterly irritating blue skies return for another long stay.

Remember a time when a hot and humid day would end with rain? A time when UQ and the Botanic Gardens had sprawling lushness? When lawn sprinklers were left on for hours? When people hosed their driveway? When weddings were ruined by damp weather? When people actually complained about rain?

It's depressing.

Rudd will be judged

I was halfway through a post about all this Sunrise nonsense before I realised I was indeed posting about nonsense. But let me ask, did Kevin Rudd's actions (whatever they were...not reading an e-mail or something) result in anyone's death or vilification? No? Well, I'm sorry, but he remains an extraordinarily more respectable human being than the Prime Minister as far as I'm concerned.

And I've also got to tell you... I checked Google's online news for Australia not long ago, and the leading headline was Voters to judge Rudd over 'Sunrise': Howard. ...Well, as we're on the subject of the sun, can I just say that I would have thought global warming was a marginally more important issue than morning television.... So can we get back to real issues, thanks?

Bill Clinton - Crowd Control in Ghana

I remember 'Good News Week' used to start its program with a series of different clips, one of which briefly showed a panicked Bill Clinton yelling out at a crowd of people. I now finally know what that was. Can you imagine people getting this excited around Bill's successor?

"Can't see the light or sense the heat"

I do love Phillip Adams.

Reading his most recent column on Tuesday was a joy. And it was somewhat coincidental that he highlighted Michael Duffy, who I'd intended to make a post about.

I would normally give you the link, but I'm going to copy and paste Tuesday's column word for word. The bolding is mine.

10 April 2007

THE Weekend Australian's front-page story was headlined "Planet in peril, says UN". No, it wasn't about an invasion of aliens combining H.G. Wells with Orson Welles. Or about a huge asteroid heading for New York, invariably the preferred target. It was another episode in the ongoing story of humanity's attempts to commit suicide via climate change. Previously known as the greenhouse effect or global warming, the new name was coined by US conservatives because it sounded more comfortable.

Whatever you call it, it's nasty. The scientific consensus as of now? The Australian's science writer Leigh Dayton explained: "Nearly a third of the world's plants and animals face extinction, billions of people will be affected by water shortages and countries ... will be racked by disease and starvation." And, like the world's temperature, Dayton was only warming up.

This newspaper erred on the side of caution, but climate change is no longer the province of left-wing ratbags. Grim meteorological predictions crowd our pages. Yet many a conservative sceptic refuses to surrender.

Michael Duffy is a full-time bias balancer. Show him left-wing bias and quick as a flash he'll balance it. Duffy's ABC radio program Counterpoint is intended to neutralise this columnist's left-wing whingeing while The Sydney Morning Herald sees his columns compensating for the anti-Howard rants of Alan Ramsey. Better balanced than most conservative pundits, Duffy is too smart for simple-minded denial. Feeling duty-bound to rubbish climate change, he does so from a more sophisticated angle. Instead of deriding the science, he insists the crisis is wildly exaggerated because of the Left's psychological need for an apocalypse, that we get our rocks off by contemplating catastrophe. Anything less than the death of billions would disappoint.

There's some truth in some people needing to believe that the end is nigh. Millenarian members of Pentecostal Christianity are forever predicting the end - the Rapture - and regard the prospect of Judgment Day with jubilation. Far from being leftists, the fateful faithful identify with the hard Right, swearing allegiance to God-botherer extraordinaire George W. Bush.

It is Bush who pushes this barrow, which has always included blind support for Israel. According to American evangelicals the existence of the Jewish state is a precondition for the Second Coming, and an opportunistic Israel isn't going to say no to the backing of millions in the US.

Yet Duffy overlooks this brand of doomsayer while talking up the Left as Chicken Lickens on global warming. The people I know who've been warning about climate change for decades remain motivated by a desire to reduce it, whereas most Pentacostalists remain indifferent. Heading for heaven, who cares if there's climatic hell on earth?

Xenophobia is another odd tactic from those willing to make Australia a burnt offering for the coal industry and John Howard's prospects for yet another term. Alexander Downer is one of the voices chorusing that we shouldn't be taking notice of these foreign blow-ins, the likes of Al Gore and Nicholas Stern. Who do these people think they are? Coming here and telling the Australian Government, the Australian people, what do to!

This from the Government that takes its riding orders from blow-ins with their own Boeings: Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

This line of attack ignores the small problem that the Government has been ignoring Australian climatologists for 10 long, ever hotter years. And we now know that they've also been ignoring their head of Treasury.

But any excuse for inaction is gratefully received, whether it's in the form of private advice from mining chief Hugh Morgan to Howard, or pseudo-science from the nuttier think tanks. Switching from Bush-style denial to what he calls climate realism (think-tank code for "it's left-wing bullshit but we have to pretend to calm the voters"), our Prime Minister will strike appropriate poses and announce more time-wasting policies, macro and micro. Macro? A move to nuclear power that will take a mere 10 to 20 years, or to "clean coal", which may take forever. And in the micro category? A switch to fluorescent light bulbs. All this allows business as usual. Nothing changes, except the bulbs.

Or we're to have faith in the free market which, by and large, got us into this mess in the first place. Odds are our governments will fail us.

Our industries, lacking the lash of legislation that smog-choked California used to try to force responsibility on Detroit, dawdle. The Prime Minister's main concern remains the next election and corporate leaders remain focused on the bonuses they'll get from next year's profits.

Some apocalypse. Our world ends not with a bang or the Rapture. Just with very bad weather.

Maxine

I refer you to Maxine McKew's clever and concise article in The Australian today.

Here are a few snippets...

"I'm sure that the young couple leaning over to inspect the CaesarStone kitchen bench tops will recall the Prime Minister's promise in 2004 to keep interest rates at record lows, but I'll remind them anyway."

"One anecdote doesn't make a case, but all across the country parliamentarians are hearing a similar tune: Work Choices goes against the culture of a fair go. Today it's your neighbour who's lost his penalty payments. Tomorrow it could be you."

"What's odd is that John Howard, normally such an astute reader of the political mood, has misjudged this issue [industrial relations]. Conviction politics is all very well, but an arrogant disregard for entrenched community sentiment is something else altogether."

Chaser 07

I'm so far, expectedly, enjoying the current season of The Chaser's War On Everything. Along with being clever and witty, they're brave and willing to do almost anything it seems. Nothing will beat The Election Chaser from a few years back, when the politicians in Canberra had no idea who they were. But it's still good viewing.

Forgive my protection of the Clintons, but I have to comment on Charles Firth's segment from tonight's program. If Chaser is going to get that close to Hillary Clinton - I mean, to the point of shaking her hand and speaking to her face-to-face - why oh why must the opportunity be wasted with a clichéd, lame cigar joke?! It really didn't work, and it didn't deserve to. They could have made a gem from those few moments, but alas, no. I felt sorry for Hillary. It wasn't funny.

Apart from that low point, they're doing a good job - particularly with their regular analysis of A Current Affair and Today Tonight.

What is Emo?

Wikipedia's display of "stereotypical emo fashion"

As any person who frequents the city (be it by choice or not) would know, a large group of what many would describe as emos are very regularly gathered in the centre of the Queen Street Mall, and often in areas of King George Square. The ones in the mall tend to sit/stand around a lot, talking to each other in their own familiar groups. Whilst the way they take up vast amounts of space in the middle of the city's busiest area for hours on end does sometimes bother me, I must say I personally have never experienced any trouble with any of them, or any other so-called emos for that matter. They keep to themselves somewhat. I've encountered many an unpleasant person in the city, but I'm pleased to report that not one looked like a member of the emo clan.

But what is an emo? I still can't say I really know. I have a general idea, but I have no idea when the labelling began. According to trusty old Wikipedia, the term "originated in the 1980s to describe a genre of music stemming from the hardcore punk music scene in Washington, D.C." But why the word emo? One source told me it derives from the word 'emotional', but I'm still not certain...

Personality-wise, Wiki suggests that emos are "candid about their emotions, sensitive, shy, introverted, broken-hearted, glum, and often quiet. Emo personality is also often connected with writing poetry, which addresses confusion, depression, loneliness and anger, all resulting from the world's inability to understand the author." It also refers to the other aspect of the emo culture: self-harm and suicidal tendencies (be they real or not), and draws the parallels between emos and the goth culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_%28slang%29

I would be very interested to know what emos talk about. Does an emo have to do more than just look like one to be one? And if the individual in question is not a fan of self-harm? Must one be depressed and full of self-pity? When people refer to "the emos" sitting around in their black and white attire in the middle of the mall, what are they talking about? I know I dyed my hair black a few months ago, and one of the first comments I received was that I looked like an emo. So does it come down to the hair colour?

I really wish there was a clearer understanding, at least on my part, of what it's all about and why, precisely, it came about.

Let me tell you about my boat

City...

Thankfully, I no longer work in the city. I do, however, pass through it most days. Once, I didn't mind it. In fact, any sort of social activities I engaged in took place, largely, within the city. Now? On cue - as I step into it - I become tense. Anxious. Frustrated. Impatient. Disillusioned. Don't you love the way television promotions portray Brisbane's Queen Street Mall as classy and sophisticated? Spend some time in the middle of the mall, any day of the week at any time of the day. See if those clean and glossy magazine images match what surrounds you. What you'll find is a place seemingly determined to destroy any sign of even an ounce of classiness.

I have an ever-increasing problem with noise. Congregations of people who enjoy sitting in pedestrian thoroughfares at peak hour have always set me off. That's old news. But what I've found recently is how much I despise loud and ongoing noise. The noise of cars, trucks, buses and horns. I must be ageing abnormally rapidly. I jump when someone blows their car horn. I feel assaulted when some massive truck roars past, or when a motorbike tears by and drowns out the conversation I was in the middle of. It's an about-face for me, but I no longer carry any great desires to live in cities in the future. And Brisbane least of all. Any character it might have once had seems to fade more and more every day.

David Hicks

Despite the madness of the way in which these military commissions work; despite the utter unfairness of the so-called "trial"; despite the way in which John Howard and friends failed so miserably in pretending to care about the welfare of David Hicks and his family; despite the fact that America and the Bush administration will get away with this absolutely sickening system they've got going; despite the fact that no one will ever be held accountable for the torture that is so unapologetically conducted at Guantanamo Bay; and despite the last five years,

...I am thrilled by the idea that on New Year's Eve this year, Mr Hicks will be free. Well, not free like you or me. But much, much freer than he has been for the last half a decade. I have no idea what his mental condition is or what it will become, but I am just so happy that a life away from confined spaces and bars and monsters in uniform does indeed await him.

May Bush and Cheney and their dear friends rot.