BUCKLEBLOG

Gay marriage and the search for a clear Christian perspective

2009-08-19T09:54:00.000+10:00

I have been working on this issue in my head for a while.
Australia, while not exactly at a crossroads, is certainly feeling the eagerness of the gay lobby to make gay marriage a point of public debate. As well it should be.

So if the essence of that debate is to hear both sides, I sure wich I had heard or could write down a coherent Christian perspective on it.

It's worth noting, should anyone read this, that the debate is not Gays vs. Christians.
No. Yet Christians seem the only group called on for their opposing view. (Right-wing conservatives are too but always seem to invoke God sooner or later.)

And for most Christians the idea of widening marriage to include same-sex couples is uncomfortable.

Now, I am just looking for a better explanation, from Christians, of why society should prohibit same sex couples from marrying, beyond the argument that it contravenes the Bible's family model and thereby makes us uncomfortable.

I am eager to get comments on this from Anyone.
Will post more later.
Luke
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Sydney muggers, beggars, buskers and chuggers

2009-07-29T13:42:00.001+10:00

Just tried to have a pleasant walk from Chifley Square to Macquarie Street, up to the Hyde Park Fountain then back to Martin Place.

It's the banking and courts sector of the city, a city that prides itself on cleanliness and modernity.

But we don't need rubbish other cities have to get that 'lived-in' feel... We have annoying people.

Apart from the homeless, of which there is more than ever (and in the middle of winter) the charity muggers and buskers are way out of control. Way!

Cancer Council are the worst. No amount of money you give one will stop their galpal asking you tomorrow when you walk by.
I hate that I so often fit their target demographic. I hate that their demographic is busty backpacker.

And then the buskers.
Hyde Park, if u were there right now, is held hostage to a seedy Latin classical guitarist. He's playing on bended knee to nobody like a lonely Zorro. His amplification was that of a booming Holden Monaro or possibly a Wiggles concert.

But no chicks were fawning and the kids weren't screaming out of joy.

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My Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen review. Beware of motion sickness.

2009-06-24T10:17:00.001+10:00

The iMax phenomenon has struggled to keep attracting crowds over the years.

Was it that no one wanted to pay $25 to see the same film other cinemas were showing for half that?

Did teh tension wane during the third revision of Creatures of the Deep? Or did teenage boys figure out that the latest action prequel looked pretty much the same on a 10-storeyhigh screen as it did on a 5-storey high screen?

Last night, I went to see the Transformers (Revenge of the Fallen) sequel at iMax Sydney and found a new reason to never go back.

Motion sickness.

I blame director Michael Bay. And let's be clear, he's such a blatant megalomaniac that if Megatron was real he wouldn't have the balls to take Bay down. (Plus, wasn't megatron a gun in the cartoon series? A gun can't fire itself, kids.)

So, Bay has made a fast-cut 200 minute training video of how to make sand explode.

I may be too old for such mindless action - and it has never been so mindless, or continuous, and endless - but the absolute absence of a coherent plot and characters worth caring about, (human or otherwise), meant that the death of Autobot CEO Optimus Prime washed over me like just another wave of sand.

Worst of all, the action moved so fast between the Transformers that I felt giddy trying to follow who was hitting who. I should not have cared. There are no death blows, no sweet spot that takes out their flux capacitor or secret move to render them undriveable. No, that would stunt Bay's plans to film essentially the same fight scene for two soulless hours.

Oh, and if one of the characters, say, Optimus Prime, does die? Just resurrect him.

It wouldn't be the first thing the film steals from The Matrix.

The US rating system provides the most concise review available: PG. Bloodless Violence.

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Donnie Darko Damndamn

2009-05-05T18:49:00.000+10:00

I accidentally just read the solution to what's going on in the film Donnie Darko.

Forever damn damn.

Now, who wants to know?

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Obama's first 87 days

2009-03-26T10:01:00.001+11:00

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everybody. It is good to see you. Just had an excellent meeting with Prime Minister Rudd and his team. Obviously there are very few countries that are closer than the United States and Australia. And Prime Minister Rudd's government, I think, has shown the kind of vision not just domestically but on the international stage that we greatly admire.
--------
It's really rather remarkable that we're at this place. Not just because it seemed an impossibility with ballsy Hillary leading the polls, or in Australian when Howard was re-elected and some of us considered getting in a leaky raft and heading for Java.

Obama has been elected, he's reversing some repulsive Bush laws and trying to reverse a major economic meltdown by consulting both sides of congress.

Howard sits smug sipping chamomile in Wollstonecraft while Rudd further buries his asinine legacy in - oh, the glorious irony - a cloak of openness and transparency.

And now Obama and K-Rudd are striking up a chummy rapport that looks scarily like the wide-grinned, smirky good times Howard had with Dubya at Camp David.

But how has Obama gone, now that the symbolic 87 days has been reached (symbolic because no one else cares about it and I get in 13days early)?

Obama has struggled to fashion a clear message - is he pessimistic or optimistic about the recession. Bit of flip-flopping there - and that point, about two months in, was when I first realised that he has spin doctors in his ear. They don't have the sway of Karl Rove et alm - See Obama on every mag cover except the most obvious one: O magazine - but his cards were played a little wildly until he started looking stern yet hopeful when he was asked about the economy.

Obama's face can tell a thousand words. Jon Stewart noted Obama hasn't pulled out his 'shut the **** up' face since his deputy made some major gaffes. Through his first 87 days Obama has kept a look of 'I was made for this job' as much as a look that silently yells 'I'll get you, you kids that left me to clean up your unholy mess'.

I listen to the New Yorker's 'Comment' podcast which observed this week that Obama as had it easy from the Republicans as they squabble over the best stance to take on O's stimulus package. Hilariously, most are happy to say it's irresponsible to spend so much cash when the economy (and debt) is swelling under so many GFC pressures. But spending IS at least half the method to getting out of a rut. That's why men got out and dug useless holes in the great depression, only to fill them in again. (Tax cuts are the other half, which just shifts the source of the money to be spent).

And can they complain about overspending when they just unloaded a 3trillion dollar debt onto the next President.

At least Howard isn't sniping at his replacement from the sidelines.

Costello is doing enough sniping for Rudd to feel he has an impotent opposition in common with Obama too.

Lastly: good speeches. Where are they Obama? It's not West Wing enough for me so far. We have only hjad one HOPE CHALLENGE AMERICAN DREAM oration so far!!

Thankfully, the humour and wit is back in the oval office. Obama is razor sharp and can hild journos at bay in a media scrum without missing a chance to make an awfully risky joke now and then. Rudd has some work ahead to keep up with his new buddy if he is still to become Deputy Sherrif.

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Auden's poem

2009-03-22T19:23:00.001+11:00

What a poem.

Auden; September 1, 1939
sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night
.Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's faceAnd the international wrong.Faces along the barCling to their average day:The lights must never go out,The music must always play,All the conventions conspireTo make this fort assumeThe furniture of home;Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood,Children afraid of the nightWho have never been happy or good.The windiest militant trash Important Persons shoutIs not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About DiaghilevIs true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal loveBut to be loved alone.From the conservative darkInto the ethical lifeThe dense commuters come,Repeating their morning vow;'I will be true to the wife,I'll concentrate more on my work,'And helpless governors wakeTo resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now,Who can reach the dead,Who can speak for the dumb?All I have is a voiceTo undo the folded lie,The romantic lie in the brainOf the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of AuthorityWhose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone;Hunger allows no choiceTo the citizen or the police;We must love one another or die.Defenseless under the nightOur world in stupor lies;Yet, dotted everywhere,Ironic points of lightFlash out wherever the JustExchange their messages:May I, composed like themOf Eros and of dust,Beleaguered by the sameNegation and despair,Show an affirming flame.

Do u enjoy this poem?
What would take u there? Maybe if u were in there, unravelling his contradictions and sorting the rhetoric from the moral pronouncements. (Those to whom evil is done...)

But what's going on that u were challenging yourself on such brutally obvious standards (love each other or die).

I haven't read this poem before (shock!) And now I find it became an author's-grave-turning hit in the days after sept.11. (Horror!)

I enjoy the poem for the way the simple life of people is put up against the calamity and distress of his predicament - and ours, eternally.

Hang on. Skyscrapers? Is he dead even? Seems he could still be kicking. Ring him! Allege that as a child u were afraid of the night and that in God's eyes we are neither happy nor good. That should put the fire up his conservative dark.

Buckle-blog.blogspot.com

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Latest thoughts on U2 NLOTH

2009-03-03T18:17:00.000+11:00

I think they have put the sense of humour back in but maybe its TOO irreverent?

I also can't get the image out of my head that its a shimmery pink ballon covering a rough object. Spherical, but pointy in parts. Like sputnik!
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Schoolgirl, 15, makes small fortune as prostitute | News.com.au

2009-03-02T18:01:00.000+11:00

The terms "child prostitution" must not have got enough clicks. This headline is appalling base logic from Australia's biggest news website.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25113466-401,00.html

Up next: pedophile gets hilarious sneak peek at friend's kids
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How that U2 album was leaked

2009-02-22T21:13:00.000+11:00

Some poor web guy at Universal Music is getting more attention than any web staffer could ever desire.

Universal Australia - located primarily in a cool, renovated warehouse in Sydney's The Rocks, accidentally released the latest U2 album for a few hours last week.

I'm a web producer that worked in the music industry for 6 years and can see how itKs occurred.

The release date was not until March 3 for Oz but a standing element would have appeared a fortnight out to pre-order the album NO LINE ON THE HORIZON. Poor sod has made it for sale.

He/she must now be sitting at home, fretting - not just that he/she is now jobless - that they:

A) got on Bono's angry radar
B) set back Universal a few hundred-thousand in CD or download sales
C) U2's manager Paul McGuinness is a large Achtung Baby himself and he's got heated before over file-sharing (strangely Bono amnd The edge are on record saying they don't care bout illegal downloads, just if u on-sell it)

D) started such a serious online boondoggle between file sharers and lastFM.

LastFM is an online radio/playlist sharing service. Allegedly, the US music industry's copyright agency RIAA got riled after the U2 release ended up on p2p sites 3 miliseconds after our web worker flicked the wrong switch. The RIAA is said to have demanded the playlist info from lastFM of thousands of subscribers.

Clearly, that raises lots of privacy issues of the kind that got facebook doing an about-facebook this week.

I knew the person doing the job previous to the current person in the role and they went on to great things in a global tech company.

This guy needs to start his CV afresh.

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Twitter goes mainstream but Australians still looking for "ON" button to PC

2009-02-16T18:43:00.000+11:00

It all just gets away from us so quickly down here in Australia.

The websites now known collectively as 'social media' escape many people I know and even friends of mine who believe they are practically 'linked in' wouldn't have heard of a site with that name yet. Some are yet to join facebook and seem to be still waiting for it to die leaving all of us patsies exposed as trend lemmings.

Then twitter walks in the door. This facebook-lite seems to me a perfect follow-up technology for when we all get tied of posting items and albums hoping for a friend to post a three-word comment of recognition.

Twitter is like all the best RSS feeds amalgamated and thank God, it's usually made more personal by the human posting it.

Even CNN's postings have personality thrown in and they've already been credited with taking tweets mainstream.

You can run a twitter account from tjhe web but using a phone or computer application makes reading and posting nuch simpler.

It works with not 'friends' but 'followers'.

But start following a lot of regular twitterers and the feed of update jumps from distracting to overwhelming.

Twitter will probaby end up more like a news-social widget on people's devices where they follow a select bunch of people (friends and celebs) plus a few news /entertainment/ sport/business services.

So why is our nation of luddites skeptical at every new morph of the web?

Baby boomers are holding a lot of the most influential posts and until that changes, I imagine little else will.

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No Spoiler On The Horizon

2009-01-21T14:32:00.001+11:00

I have gone in search of more on U2's new album after they just released a single hours after an appearance at Obama's We Are One concert.

Irish music writer Neil McCormick's one of the lucky few who has been privvy to No Line on the Horizon. He talks about it in his blog post today. Here's a nugget from his entry today:

So what can I tell you without infringing copyright? It took two listens to find my way into it, which has to be good a thing. It is dense, twisty, shiny, modern pop music, a big mash up of Eno ambience, Edge electricity, rhythm and soul. There are verses and choruses, though not necessarily in that order (and quite often its hard to tell which is which). It doesn't feel the need to hit you over the head, but has the Ninja confidence to sneak up and take you unawares. It makes love like its making war. It hasn't frontloaded all its big guns. There is a surge in the middle perfectly timed to quell any uprising, and a killer twist at the end. It could be the glittering sonic mind meld of pop rock and soul that Zooropa wanted to be. Or maybe, like Bono, I'm am just prone to exaggeration.

from www.atu2.com

<a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/neil_mccormick/blog/2009/01/15/u2s_no_line_in_the_horizon_the_new_album">read Neil's blog entry here >></A>

Arts and the church. Integration vs. inclusion

2008-12-05T08:45:00.001+11:00

I approached a guy at church this week who looked about my age. I had seen he and his wife coming for a while - I've only been at this church a year - and was always stunned that they kept coming.

To be brutally honest, they looked too worldly, too connected, too with it.

I wonder why there aren't more people like that in pews and what a rather massive segment of the population churches miss in them.

Again, to be frank (and keep my posts to a readable length) I think church appeals much more to the inner dag in people. Creativity is rarely promoted and nearly never on show.

Areas of life people enjoy in other circles - fashion, music, film, art - have no comfortable place in the modern church. So people leave them at the door, or they don't even make it through the door.

And when churches try to appeal to people who take these things seriously, it's often with the subtlety of a clanging cymbal. A one-off gallery night, a cardmaking, scrapbooking or Gingerbread House making event.

This must change.

Churches manage to include poor 'contemporary' music all too easily. They find a place for prayer book recitals despite their incongruence with the rest of the service...

We need integration more than inclusion.

Thankfully, my minister uses art in every sermon (albeit on powerpoint slides). But that's just one way it can be done.

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Snow patrol – a band half-baked band on a roll

2008-11-28T21:14:00.000+11:00

I was looking on video sites for a Snow Patrol clip (of a car driving non-stop around Paris) the other day. I came across an inspired one that made me to like the band considerably more.
Sadly, this happened before I saw them live.

Half-baked seems to be one of this rock critic terms that help deride anything the writer finds unwarranted or unlikable. Stick it with underrated or immature.

But for Snow Patrol, four UK guys promoting their second major album, half-baked is entirely accurate.

Half sure of themselves, half-produced and half-written, SP’s songs, both old and new, fall into a crater of unimportance by the second verse.
It’s not devastating, and it’s not even that surprising – maybe they have decided that ‘ponderous’ is their bag and it sells – but for me and my brother, watching last week’s gig at Sydney’s Metro Theatre, the verses stay afloat only with the suspense that they may go somewhere. They do not. Often, they do not even lead to a discernible chorus.
We kept looking to each other mid-song and yelling “NO CHORUS!”

And those that do have a clear chorus, feature the predictable build-up made famous in Chasing Cars – which inevitably bursts out with drums and guitars that were spine-tingling the first time but after the forth song does it, it’s like watching a magician do a trick everyone knows the secret to.

Other tricks they tried were the big crowd singalong.

Bono, Coldplay and Ben Folds are also very guilty of this. Some people seem to love this but after a few goes, I’m thinking ‘we didn’t pay to hear ourselves sing, guys’.

So as SP try to recapture the magic of Chasing Cars, they are spinning out songs from a mid-tempo rock-ballad vat of irrelevance.
Try not to get hit by one.

Why I say no to NO CLEAN FEED

2008-11-28T20:55:00.005+11:00

I have been disturbed at the number of people I admire signing up to the NO CLEAN FEED groups on Facebook (example 1, 2).

They are putting their names down to support the cause of opposing the Rudd government’s plan to force ISPs (internet providers) to provide a ‘clean feed’ of a censored internet for kids and a less strict version for adults.

The debate is currently revolving around censorship with a concern by web users that it will slow their download speeds.

All number of groups – IT workers, left-wing groups and free-speech activists, all good-intentioned I’m sure - are now getting involved.

Two things –

!) The list of sites the govt plans to ban has not yet been seen. No one knows any of the sites on it as it has not yet been released. Senator Conroy has been coy (and he does seem a little suspicious) but he claims the child-friendly feed will restrict “pornography” and “inappropriate” content.

2) The alarm and misinformation these groups are spreading should be rejected by people claiming to support a censorship-free internet and unrestricted free speech.

NOCLEANFEED and other groups including The Greens have compared the move toward compulsory censorship to teh actions of communist China.

Activist group GetUp – who I have supported for other human rights causes – are now pitching in with a petition peddling the same fear tactics begun, it seems, by the Greens.

“Already, the wrangling has begun for the inclusion of material relating to anorexia, euthanasia and gambling."

I asked Senator Conroy’s office where the examples of sites above came from and they stated that they ‘were not mentioned by the government but by Greens Senator Ludlum at a Senate Estimates meeting last Monday.’ This was in late October.

Another factual fudge by GetUp In their ‘factsheet’ is the use of selective quotes from the govt’s Closed Environment Testing of ISP-Level Internet Content Filtering.

I downloaded this doc and found many positives they chose not to mention:

e.g. pg 48

“Under similar test conditions, the previous trial reported that performance degradation ranged from 75 % to a very high 98 % between the best-and-worst performing filtering products.”

GetUp says “net speeds will be limited by up to 87%.” Will? They could be, if the government wanted a worse case scenario and their own websites to crash.

The GetUp factsheet says:

:Will the proposed scheme slow down the internet? The measures will make the internet up to 87% slower..."

The exact quote from the government report is:

“Performance degradation measured in the current trial varied across a significantly greater range – from a very low two percent to 87 per cent between the best-and-worst performing filtering products.”

So the net may be slowed by as little as two per cent. It would be unlikely the govt would choose a tenderer with as terrible a result as 87% when 2% was available.

Lastly, with actual facts very hard to come by form either side, the government does state: "we have laws about the sort of material that is acceptable across all mediums and the internet is no different.”

I can find no reason to oppose this.

Working in website content roles for 8 years, as I have, I am as eager as anyone to push broadband speeds and keep information as free flowing as is it wise for a democracy.

This does not extend to making any kind of opinion or material available (post a Jihad site and see what happens)

The web is a new form of information delivery that the Howard government failed to exploit. Like Facebook, the web it spreads faster and wider with increasing detail for increasingly small niches of interest than any government will ever keep up with.

Howard also misunderstood how smart young users are in side-stepping ‘netnanny’ programs and how evil by adults can propagate at a much greater rate than ever before.

The Rudd government is attempting to limit the worst parts of the internet at the ISP level. Ideally, this will stop sites none of us would ever search for, look at and if we did we would rightly be repulsed.

NOCLEANFEED is alarming people that regular sites may be blocked by faulty filters or if the blacklist is hijacked by interest groups.

There are many groups one can join in favour of fixing problems in our world. Social justice, world peace, make poverty history, support nurses, house the homeless, Aboriginal welfare etc.

The NOCLEANFEED movement, while earnest in wanting to keep net speeds up and support free speech, remains poorly informed and open to influence of anti-authority spokespeople.

I don’t think this is a moral argument when facts are being misused on both sides. If you think it is, question why NOCLEANFEED is making things up and GetUp is misconstruing the findings of independent research. Senator Conroy may be shady and hiding an agenda but until legislation is written, the plan is just a plan and its intentions – as far as they are known – are to be encouraged.

We all want fast internet and less evil infecting people’s minds.

Australians could be more constructive and courageous if they supported government moves to limit child pornography and other illegal content in a way that won’t slow our broadband. And if we managed to block a whole lot of nastiness no one should be promoting, wouldn’t that help society, protect kids and save victims of abuse?

Net censorship is a fraught area for any government to consider, even a Labor one, but if it works in the main, who cares it if it slows my net speed a touch.

Bond - Quantum of Solace - a 005 out of 10

2008-11-27T17:43:00.001+11:00

Hype for bond was massive. But the film chose action over class, coolness over character.

Good points would be the more modern depiction of the Bond girl - Olga Kurylenko. The tradition of Bond girls is, famously, as sex objects. Denise Richards would have to be the high/low point.

Olga is real and rough. Doesn't speak much but that was more mysterious than dim-witted apathy.

I have a non sexual crush on Daniel Craig.

Less secure fellows I know freak out when I say this. But they're probly hiding a similar crush.

Lastly, the cinema played it too loud! Yes. I know I sound old but I enjoy films more when I don't have to wince.

Hoyts Broadway I'm wincing at u.

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RIP McCain

2008-11-04T17:17:00.001+11:00

Finally, the US media is making their closing arguments - essentially on why Obama will win.

Where were these bold opinionated writers three, six or even 20 months ago?

It has been very obvious. And that's not using hindsight with many consistent polls on my side - I've been banging on about him for months (just not here on this blog)

The following blog has little to say but much can be gleaned from it.

http://potus2008election.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-mccain-will-lose.html

Obama will win in a semi-landslide that commentators will want to call an 'embarrassment' if that wouldn't humiliate the aging veteran loser, Mr McCain.

MAC is BACK??? Why say that - cos it rhymes?

McDonalds have used this line too - so there goes the health conscious demo and anyone who saw Supersize Me. Mac is gone would be better.

Besides, where is he back FROM? Surgery?

Seeya old man. Stay off the fries or u might need Obama's universal health plan.

Buckle

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West Wing delivers obama

2008-10-30T17:09:00.001+11:00

One of the most captivating an unmentioned features of this US election has been its correlation with the plot of the WEST WING 7th Season.

I am rewatching it this week to time the climax in real life with the fictitious one on the series that concluded, sadly, in 2006.

The quick summary is a relative unknown, black democrat candidate scores the nomination and eventually the presidency with rousing, inspirational rhetoric with an anti-washington tone.

I have kept a close eye on many news sites and aggregators (politico.com , realclearpolitics.com) but barely seen a mention.

Then, today on CNN, warming up Obama's crowd in Florida, was Jimmy Smitts! Jimmy played the black candidate on WW.

Life doesn't just imitate art now, it predicts, reinterprets and makes real life a high-rating series worth watching.

The epilogue here is that Obama, from the platform, thanked the 'most recent democratic president, Jimmy Smits'.

I wonder how many Florida voters understood.

Postcript - "I drew inspiration from him in drawing this character," so says West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie of Obama's influence on Jimmy Smit's character Matt Santos.
Full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/barackobama.uselections2008

Obamas book and faith and hope

2008-10-23T10:29:00.000+11:00

Am up to page 206 in Barack ObamaKs second book 'The Audacity of Hope'.
I will review it later (the end perhaps?) But I can say that it is timely, inspired and induces a clarity when looking at America that I have wanted to have for years.

This passage on 206 has Barack broaching a new topic, his faith in God, and so gave me a small, deep thrill...

(With the polls looking as good as they do)

"I came to realize that without a vessel for my beliefs, without an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith, I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the ways that she was ultimately alone."

Not only does it confirm him as a solid thinker on issues outside politics but I agree with his idea that church is an expression of Christian freedom more than it is a suffocating cultural tradition.

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Fake lesbians

2008-10-14T17:22:00.000+11:00

The demise of australia's leading news websites is well documented.
The tits-for-clicks phenomenon (running with bare flesh or celebs as the main picture) is just one result of the decision not to use the paper media's online face as another avenue for good journalism and stories relevant to our nation.
www.Smh.com.au is the worst offender.
But lo, ninemsn news, the online news site of Channel Nine, has just turned a corner by delivering us a story on 'fake lesbians' as the forth most important story facing Australians.
And it gets worse.
This story, on the apparent increase in women posing as homosexual to be cool - haven't u noticed how trendy it's become lately? - is not even the main thrust...

ninemsn is reporting breathlessly that ninemsn readers say it's fine women fake lesbianism.

I am gobsmacked but not for the right reason.

The online media - surely the least credible is reprting on itself.

I have worked at a few good websites, some in news. I once had an interview at ninemsn where an office tour showed me they had a good twenty back and front-end employees. Say, ten content producers.

Yahoo7 news has two.

By my guess, smh has about three for the homepage and theaustralian a similar number.

That leaves livenews (mostly feeds) and news.com.au (about 20 across affiliates).

With this number of staff I don't see how even the daftest philosophy of 'what people want to read' can excuse such mindless, sex-based recycling of content.

I hope I never need work for any of those sites pretending to be 'news' deliverers.
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Why Obama is not caning McCain

2008-10-08T20:37:00.000+11:00

Why is it that the great black hope, Barack Obama not swamping Old Man McCain in the polls?

The economy is eating itself, the republicans have overseen an unforgivable and seemingly endless war and John McCain is a good senator and nice guy but well past his used by date, especially at the lectern.

Obama on the other hand, is spritely in front of a crowd, youthful sounding and eloquent etc etc. But with just weeks to go he is only just starting to pull away. Today's debate offered some hints - they are both too nice and committed to avoiding slander.

I think it's become very difficult to stand out from other contenders if u are not pulverising them with one hand and and beating your chest with the other.

That, and two comparisons of some worth:
1) palin is their pauline.
Consider this... When Pauline Hanson arrived on the scene here and divided politics to the media's great thrill, it was with plain speaking, typical mum vernacular that connected with hordes of non-latte sippers.
Add to that some ill-considered and contradictory views on other cultures, very little international awareness and sheer ignorance of current affairs.

2) Obama is their kevin07
Apart from what Kevin Rudd has become sunce elected, he campaigned for Change, differentiated himself through his (comparative) youthfulness and had a centre-left platform that aped the opposition and softened his own party's policies to a near-populist level.

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Track by track review of new ben folds - way to normal

2008-10-02T10:37:00.000+10:00

1. Hiroshima
Hmm. This must be a deliberately ott ode to his singalong concert style or if not that, the wild crowds of Tokyo. Am worried 'they're watching me fall' line is related to his 3rd failed marriage. I smiled at the last line - does this song end?

2. Dr Yang - Grimy guitars jump out of this song like it has shocking tourettes. 2nd verse has bipolar and chorus has both - dealt with the incorrectly prescribed medication of a manic depressive drummer.

3. The frown song - rock on rock on with a fashionable frown. This song reminds me of the vulnerable first person ben voice we heard in 'give the people what they want.' Album is starting to sound like synths are making up for some thin arrangements. Lyris are wonderfully absurd.

4. You don't know me - the title is certainly for the female co-singer herein. Most light-hearted melody so far. And catchy! Touches of pavement. No sign yet of Cheers-theme cheshire piano.

5. Before cologne - finally! A breakup song. Seriously, how can he go thru three wives and think 4th time lucky!!?

6. Kylie from connecticut - another sparse number I find quietly thrilling. Sure to improve with repeats too.

7. Effington - tracks now out of order. This is filler! Crap and empty story. Not amused.

8.Brainwascht - great stomping rhythm starts this one. Dominant theme emerging; About the third track angry at a woman. Is ben turning into an old crank? Good storytelling here at least, and less whizz-bang electro additions.

9. Bitch went nuts - seems like track 8 by the title but actually a jolly swingalong number about a co-worker's comical cubicle-rage. This could become a fave. Continues the pattern of verses paying little respect to rhyming.

10. Free coffee. What a b-side; not unlike his "3 lines to go" song from the EP supersunnyspeedgraphic. Disturbingly, though, this one could be the biggest window on the artist's heart. He sings (in spoken word) of his ex-wives and children but how now he's rich he gets free coffee. Sad.

11. Errant dog - another b-side. Am I missing something? This is a very thin idea for a song. He just isn't pulling of the quirky stories as convincing songs anymore.

Coincidentally, I saw ben folds interviewed on sunrise this morning. They used just one question and answer - never a sign of a ragingly good chat.
The answer involved a pregnant pause and then the comment "experience... means not caring as much what peiple think anymore.
Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra

Talking Business - Stuck in Google’s Doghouse - NYTimes.com

2008-09-15T00:25:00.000+10:00

Here is a great piece of writing on the power of Google and how this power may be tainting it with the same rep microsoft earned when they started to control too much.

Talking Business - Stuck in Google’s Doghouse - NYTimes.com: "Google’s opponents may fear its monopoly power, but the company insists that everything it does is aimed at “enhancing the customer experience” — a claim that harks back to Microsoft’s claims once upon a time. And like Microsoft, Google built its near monopoly in rather exemplary fashion: by building a better mousetrap."

This story got me interested enough to check out microsoft's share price to see if their antitrust problems had hurt their share price. Computer says no. Looks like the brand and its wealth have remained stable since the tech boom shot of a leg in late 2000.
From what i can tell the departure of Bill Gates didn't even hurt Microsoft.

That must have hurt Bill, I'd imagine.

myles lambert - the conman and the Google Search

2008-06-09T14:40:00.003+10:00

"myles lambert" - Google Search: "Your search - 'myles lambert' - did not match any documents."
I find this remarkable, after all Myles Lambert has done. He is a wild conman - deceitful, lying, pathological and he has spent thousands of dollars that are not his. Crafty, sociological, but charming and generous.

Myles Lambert is a con artist who ripped off my family and friends tens of thousands of dollars. I have found many others who he has burnt also.
The police are looking for him.
He was last seen in the Blue mountains where he was borrowing more large amounts of money from people who he would soon disappoint. Katoomba, Glenbrook..

Contact me for more details if you would like to know more.

Rent, car, crime, unlawful, wanted, deception, conman, fraud, thief, scam, myles lambert, stolen, police, money, rent, sick, wrong, trick, pathological liar, avoid, myles lambert, glenbrook, nsw, blue mountains, sydney, myles lambert, wanted, cops, criminal, australia.

San Francisco Art Music Style Fashion Culture - Jungle Life » Search

2008-06-09T11:47:00.001+10:00

San Francisco Art Music Style Fashion Culture - Jungle Life » Search
Sweet crazy shoes that attrcated me as I used to have this exact model of Reebok during my heavily branded youth. They are now still mass-produced for cultural uniformity but you can feel a tad more unique if you pay extra for a limited edition like these.

Man in the News - Calm in the Swirl of History - NYTimes.com

2008-06-04T22:52:00.000+10:00

Man in the News - Calm in the Swirl of History - NYTimes.com
nice shot. somehow, Obama, without notes, makes profound statements without even a grin, as 18,000 fans scream.
What about how it all feels as if we are living in West Wing series 7? Anyone? More on that later.

Man in the News - Calm in the Swirl of History - NYTimes.com

2008-06-04T22:47:00.000+10:00

Man in the News - Calm in the Swirl of History - NYTimes.com: "But his insistence that he can bridge the nation’s ideological chasms without resort to partisan warfare leaves some with the nagging sense that he makes it sound too easy, and that his full measure as a politician has yet to be taken."
This take on Obama impressed me. He is a man who I find it hard to find fault with. Blinded by hope, but hey, lifted by faith.

Fairfax turns guns on journos | The Australian

2008-05-31T11:49:00.001+10:00

Fairfax turns guns on journos | The Australian

Fairfax seems to not be pursuing the paper business any more. And judging by the low-grade content filling smh.com.au lately, web may not be their priority either. So as money has been pulled from the news room and less journos are asked to fill more pages, what has happened to our last great non-Murdoch media factory?

I have a friend who used to work at the SMH. He recently took a redundancy package, as, being a sub-editor, he noticed that every time another subby took a payout and left, he was left with increased load and no talk of even incremental pay increases to compensate. It was untenable, and sounds that way for others I know sticking it out there.

That said, his pay out must have been solid, as he hasn't had a permanent role in over six months and living in the eastern suburbs can't be that cheap.

Hundreds of journos and sub-editors have been cut in recent years. The moving in of the accountants coincided with the journos' move out of Darling Park - the glorious views from their top level cafe could see easily to the Blue Mountains.

Now, with Fairfax media located over at Pyrmont, (near where I used to work at Foxtel) the views are of the casino's pokie-style lights and the 15minute walk into town means that most Pyrmont workers settle for a steak sandwich or quiche from the local shops.

It's by no means terrible, but working in the CBD, with myriad lunch and drinking options, the convenience of meeting contacts, a parade of good fashion and the likelihood of running into friends cannot be matched. Working anywhere else feels drab and uninspiring.

I certainly found this when Foxtel moved from its harbourside wharf location, sitting under the shadow of the entire Sydney skyline, to North Ryde. They call it the next CBD. I call it purgatory without the fun.

So now, if you work at Fairfax, what do you have left? A less than ritzy location, a mgt that won't play ball
on pay discussions and website that is two steps from being a genuine threat to TMZ.

ABC's Media Watch has paid out on their Britney obsession more than once.

---------

Like many others, celebrity coverage is not why I liked the herald. But it's the old tits-for-clicks question. If it's going to drive more traffic, can you resist making that your hero (biggest picture/headline)?

And that's not all that is wrong with smh.com.au. Oh no.

I have a pal at Sunrise who is particularly pained by that strip of images just at the fold (bottom of screen before you scroll).

And I have to agree.

The five shots are basically celeb faces, that are invariably cropped to within a pixel of their lives, and generic, bland photos at that. E.g. youtube screen captures, TV captures, or hi-contrast red carpet ugliness.

----

The last great thing about Fairfax's new barney with its workers, is the still-simmering controversy over the appearance of Rupert in the office furnishings during the Pyrmont relocation.

It was a calamitous mistake by some office fitout boffins, who unfortunately, have about as much design cred as those who fitted out Foxtel's music channels (Channel V, MAX, Club V - later to become V2).

The office design was an error of quite serious proportions to a creative crowd.

Channel V, when I started, was a loud, unconventional mass of twenty-something music fanatics, the passionate, slightly unhinged type.

It was also in a dynamic, open, airy environment with all the mess of a teenager's room plus all the TVs and plasma screens of a news room. F-words and C-words were thrown about like cheetos at a party. And the space reflected the people.

Then Foxtel moved to North Ryde, a suburb that reflects little more than traffic noise.

When Channel V staff walked in, it was as a feeling as close to starting work at a call centre that any of us would ever have. Low ceilings, white furniture against white walls, and, as we soon found, some under-desk drawers were so cheap they wouldn't open.

Like the move for Fairfax workers, it was an unhappy one for the most optimistic staff who decided not leave, to see how it pans out.

Eventually, management got around to looking at the design to see what could be done. And after many committee meetings, which I was a vocal part of, the new designs appeared. Enormous stands at the end of each row of desks, depicting (kringe) mainstream rock stars, TV personalities and beside them, brand logos just as large.

So it looks like Fairfax's creative team got the same deal, uninspired office art that wasn't going to help anyone think outside the square, reconnect with their audience or feel the workplace reflected them and their peers.

And like Fairfax, we could not even recognise some of the faces. None turned out to be the opposition (which would have been MTV hosts, I guess) and so, if I recall correctly, The Dixie Chicks were replaced eventually with Beyonce.

Now that's inspiring.

NME.COM | In The NME Office - Post details: RADIOHEAD: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

2007-10-03T18:42:00.000+10:00

NME.COM | RADIOHEAD: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: "Jonny spent a year and a half reading manuals."
One of the first interviews to get out with Radiohead, ahead of their pending opus, In Rainbows.

Thank goodness someone is thinking of a new way of selling albums. Having just got out of the music industry after ten years, i am tempted to write a satirical expose on the thing. This helps push me closer.

buckleup - Google Search

2007-10-03T00:46:00.000+10:00

buckleup - "Farm Safety 4 Just Kids: Buckle Up or Eat Glass"
their words, not mine.

: : The Cat Empire : :

2007-09-26T12:27:00.000+10:00

: : Need tattoo ideas?
This comes from the Cat Empire blog:
Later, we found some Cheetos in the vending machine backstage. Remember Cheetos? If you're in the USA you probably won't be impressed. But I'm pretty sure we haven't had Cheetos in Australia for about 20 years. Just when I started to think Cheetos had become passe on this side of the Pacific, Pat proved me wrong when he revealed his Cheetos TATTOO.

Arcade Fire: Funeral: Pitchfork Record Review

2007-09-06T00:03:00.000+10:00

Arcade Fire: Funeral: Pitchfork Record Review
Two things I implore all of you to get from the internet; this review, and the music of this band.
- From the review, " We are not the first, or the last, to be confronted with this dilemma... a type of universal disaffection synonymous with drowning." More
- And from the band: " Somethin' filled up - my heart with nothin', someone told me not to cry.
But now that I'm older, my heart's colder, and I can see that it's a lie."

I discovered the band when U2 played the song Wake Up as the intro to their recent Australian Vertigo concerts. This song, played to a stadium over the largest speaker-stacks I ever hope to see, moved me nearly as much as the U2's all-powerful first song. (Shame for them that my first response when seeing their live show is to go by the background music, but they'll cope).

I now own the only two albums this diverse Montreal mod-rock group has released, Arcade Fire (below) and Funeral (above).

With compelling basslines, all their songs run headlong into a furnace of piano and rhythm. The lyrics are invariably complex and bleak, but the advanced musical arrangements have optimistic rises to match the falls, and are as close as rock may get to classical composition. Delicate and propulsive - a little like Nick Cave's latest Abbatoir Blues.

Why Everyone hates parenting, except celebrities

2007-09-02T13:22:00.000+10:00

Koch named the nation's top notch dad - National - smh.com.au: "'I love being a dad,'' David Koch said in a statement. 'Someone once said to me 'enjoy your kids when you're young because they only get worse!'. 'How wrong they were. I have as much fun with my kids now that they're adults as I did when they were little."

I always did like Kochie.

But sadly, these comments are the antithesis of those offered to my wife and I since we announced we were expecting. We were and are thrilled to be having children. It has been a long and hard road. It is nothing short of a gift.

[ Some background: We took around 20 months to fall pregnant. When we did, my wife had a full molar pregnancy, which is a complicated and potentially cancerous form of tumour that forms in the uterus - in place of a child. This, as you can imagine is traumatic, even beyond the severe and under-appreciated trauma of a 'normal' miscarriage. ]

So, to now be told;
"get all the sleep you can"
"make the most of your last few months of freedom"
or that children are variously; inconvenient, painful, noisy, an error...

It is not just unhelpful and rude, it is as damaging as it is ludicrous!
I have lived for thirty years, so I have had enough sleep-ins.
Nor can I enjoy the sleep I am having now, any more.
We know children act childishly, they are dependent on their parents for attention, are a distraction from going out and will mean a major life change. This is what we have been aiming for, just as all our parents did too, at some point.

The strange thing is that since we have had this happening, I have come across a few big names acting more like loving parents than most people I know.
David Koch - just named Aussie Father of the Year - and much maligned new dad Brad Pitt!

Brad Pitt has said publicly this week that he loves raising children and is considering a fifth!

I always did like Brad. Especially in Kalifornia. And Kochie has always worn his fathering badge on his sleeve.

I hope and plan to be a father who doesn't criticise his children behind their backs, nor regret having children to pregnant couples (of all people!)

As a final quote, I read recently Johnny Cash's autobiography.
In it, Cash believed, "bragging about your kids is one of the most wonderful feelings you can have in life."

I always did like Johnny.

Underware

2007-08-13T23:11:00.000+10:00

Underware: Good script fonts do exist.
I apologise to anyone who has put up with me banging on about how terrible and outdated script fonts have become.

Facebook | Marketplace - Medion USB Graphics Tablet

2007-08-07T22:57:00.000+10:00

Facebook | Marketplace - Medion USB Graphics Tablet: AU$80 - Medion USB Graphics Tablet

Condition: used for 1 week. in perfect condition.

TEVION USB Graphics Tablet with Cordless Mouse and Drawing Pen

And let's call it AUD80.00

This has now sold. I was inundated by people who thought the tablet was edible. Idiots.

The new Missy Higgins. Not boring. Bored.

2007-08-07T21:19:00.000+10:00

She started off so strong, she played every festival, we couldn't escape her catchy-as-measles song 'Scar'. But something has happened to our girl-next-door, Missy Higgins.

Has anyone else noticed that Missy Higgins, in her latest incarnation, presenting her latest album On A Clear Night, seems quite disinterested in the whole process. Not just bemused either. The monotony of being Missy seems to be getting her done and she probably wishes we'd all just leave her and her music the hell alone.

Missy was on Sunrise last week; approachable, gorgeous smiles and a cheeky joke here and there, but she let slip that she never wanted to be famous. "I wanted to be successful but I didn't realise that fame necessarily came with it."

This now puts her recent behaviour in perspective. In my last job I got to meet her a few times as photographer, and watched a two recent interviews from behind the camera. I got a feeling then that Missy was looking over it. During her live appearance on Live Earth, I got the same vibe. And it goes beyond her having to recycle Scar, or The Special Two another twenty times.

The most convincing evidence is Missy's most recent songs. The first single, Steer, is rather pleasant pop but lacks the swing or originality of Scar. The video was the real let down. Playing out a metaphor of a girl employed to be a crash test dummy (Steer, get it?) was not profound or even clever. It felt thrown together.

Remember the compelling clip for Scar? We all watched it over and over. Steer hardly keeps you to the end of one viewing.

Missy's second single is Where I Stood. Song's so sad it feels like it was meant to embody a kind of depression or fatalism. Fun!

The video features a very disappointing clip of Missy moping about in Sydney's Museum station, pining for a lover I presume. But, unless Missy is an outrageously good actor, the overwhelming impression you're left with is that Missy is bored to tears by all of it. The musical cycle, the publicity, interviews, the performances, the rigmorol of fame. This clip. This take. This angle.

Still, if you are feeling sorry for Missy, do what I do and go back to hear her at her sparkiest - on the Sound of White.

EDUN stores and retail outlets worldwide

2007-08-07T21:14:00.000+10:00

EDUN stores and retail outlets worldwide: "ARIDA
61 Macleay Street, Potts Point, Sydney, NSW 2011."
I am glad to report that Edun's fine fashionable gear, all ethically produced, is now available to us in Sydney.

Read about the Edun story here.

I only own a tee so far, but now, with Arida on board, maybe it won't take a trip to NYC to score more.

Yes, ethically produced clothes cost more - protecting all workers, from grower to sower - but so does organic milk. So don't waste too much time on it.

Ben Folds Photos

2007-08-07T20:55:00.000+10:00

Ben Folds' Photos: "Ben's Photos"

How irritating that this courageous singer/songwriter who refuses to rock like his contemporaries also takes a good photo. I just found Ben has a new website up. Which he also oversees, regularly posts on, and does well. Check it all out.

This is one artist whose music i still pay for.

Best Godcasts

2007-08-07T00:31:00.000+10:00

1) Wired Jesus Podcast: "Wired Jesus Podcast
The Wired Wanderings of a Postmodern Pilgrim" -

This philosophical but very accessible audio feed comes from a midwestern Lutheran minister with a whole load of cred in my book. His pop-cultural references and indie rock throws are up there with Stephen Colbert while his ideas on what church could be shame our Sydney-centric debate. In his own words, a regular podcast exploring the spiritual journey as it is lived out in the wired world - on the net, in film, in song, where ever questions of faith, life and meaning are being asked.
Biggest bugger - he doesn't do enough

Gimme - Wired Jesus

2) The Piper Podcast

John Piper, another minister high on my chart, wrote the inspired book Desiring God, and now makes his sermons podcasts. Nothing classy there, except you have probably never heard any string of messages so clear and driven by his close connection with God that you can't help but listen,be moved and then be moved to action.

Biggest bugger - who has 40minutes to hear one in full?

Gimme - Desiring God

3) The Daily Show With John Stewart

Because we should all lighten up and satire is the last remaining vestige of good reporting. In fact, it's getting just as much flack as journalism, surely enough proof that it is to be taken at least as seriously.
Plus, if satire is the one of the best ways to hold those in power accountable, as i believe it is, then it is also the best way to keep religious and moral leaders under an equally strong microscope. Remember Christians, you can't laugh at jokes about gays, politicians or any other groups, if you can't let others laugh at your group.

Biggest bugger - too many American-only in-jokes

Gimme - Don't pay $2 to iTunes, watch best bits on comedy central's website

roller blade in paris

2007-08-04T01:01:00.001+10:00

Here was I, lookin for tips on how to stop while i am rollerblading, and i find this phenomenal group of frenchies who know no fear on 8 wheels.
This has not helped my courage.

eBay Australia - u2, u2 Apple iPod

2007-08-03T23:02:00.000+10:00

Apple U2 iPod many extras! 4thGen (20 GB) black,g.cond.: "* New

This seller accepts PayPal
* Used and loved, belkin car pod, recorder, 2skins +more
* AU $150.00
AU $190.00Buy It Now
* Ends: 12th August 07

Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab

2007-08-03T22:57:00.000+10:00

Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab

Wild new ipod holder

I may or may not have a fascination with retro outfits for the iPod. My iPod has more attachments than a dialysis machine. It is, by the way, on ebay right now. Buy it! Someone!

gleebooks Events Upstairs @ 49 - Events

2007-07-30T22:56:00.000+10:00

And suddenly, with a whimper, i am back blogging.

gleebooks Events Upstairs @ 49 - Events: "Tanya Levin
People in Glass Houses:An Insider's Story of a Life In and Out of Hillsong
Published by: Black Inc.
In conversation with Steve Cannane

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
Cost: $10/$7 conc. gleeclub welcome
Book: gleebooks - 9660 2333 or Request a place
Buy People in Glass Houses:An Insider's Story of a Life In and Out of Hillsong"

This looks interesting, based on this woman's somewhat emotive but still well-documented departure from Hillsong, as seen on tonight's Enough Rope with Andrew Denton.

u2 photos

2006-11-12T23:57:00.000+11:00

CHRISTMAS DAY AT THE SHEAHAN'S BEACONSFIELD

2005-12-26T06:52:00.000+11:00

(And not a beacon was to be seen!)

VISITING OXFORD ~ WITH COUSINS HAIDEE AND MATTHEW

2005-12-26T06:19:00.000+11:00

"Underfoot we encountered many fine stones, probably from the bronze era".

"Arriving on the main street via the park n ride bus, Anna had been sure Matthew was much taller"

"The architexture (sic) was... bountiful, and full of bounty".

"Vines grew wildly over the buildings like academics let loose in a library after closing time"

"Matthew looks on in amazement as Luke tries to eat his traditional ploughman's pie while still taking photos"

holiday 05/06

2005-12-25T10:07:00.000+11:00

more photos... post your captions!

2005-11-18T07:51:00.000+11:00

I organised my 10 year school reunion, so now, as reluctantly as I organised it, I now put up the photos. I hope you're all happy.

Winmalee High School Class of 1995 Reunion

2005-11-18T06:55:00.000+11:00

The photos should do a better job than me of describing how well this day went....

post your comments/memories/claims below

2005-11-17T14:05:00.000+11:00

mainly boys...

2005-11-17T12:52:00.000+11:00

please send more pics...

2005-11-16T23:54:00.000+11:00

if anyone has pics to add, please send them to the old reunion address

winmalee.reunion@gmail.com