AmeriNZ Blog

SNAP! Gutiérrez on the ‘food stamp president’

2012-02-10T08:15:00.000+13:00

In this video, US Representative Luis Gutiérrez (D-Illinois-04) good-humouredly explores the facts and figures behind Newt Gingrich’s declaration that President Obama is “the food stamp president.” In the process, Gutiérrez exposes how shallow Gingrich’s intellectual depth really is, something that’s always fun to watch. Gutiérrez concludes his remarks with the one obvious fact that seems to elude the Republican candidate and his allies: "Hunger knows no race or religion or age or political party. Hunger is colorblind."

I’ve long been a fan of Luis Gutiérrez. I knew him primarily as Alderman for Chicago’s 26th Ward, where he was a leading champion of Chicago’s Human Rights Ordinance and other progressive causes. The Human Rights Ordinance banned discrimination against GLBT people in Chicago a couple decades before the state of Illinois finally followed suit. In so doing, it extended human rights protections to roughly a third of Illinoisans. It was a very big deal.

Gutiérrez ran for Congress in 1992, and I was a little concerned because it would me the loss of a progressive leader in the Chicago City Council. However, he carried that leadership to Congress where he champions many of the issues I most care about, including comprehensive immigration reform.

So, that’s why I’ve admired and respected Rep. Luis Gutiérrez for a 25 years. This video gives just a little hint of why.

D is for Dickens

2012-02-08T21:30:00.000+13:00

February 7 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, one of the towering literary giants of literature in English. I put it that way on purpose: While Dickens was English, he is one of the English writers who has most influenced other writers throughout the English-speaking world. He’s still so famous that he’s one of the few authors who are often referred to by their surname alone.

The video above from the BBC is a brief animated look at the life of Charles Dickens.

I first encountered Dickens in high school when we read and studied his best-selling novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Years later, I finally read A Christmas Carol, one of his best-known works, though I’d seen many of the movie versions, including the 1938 version starring Reginald Owen and Gene Lockhart, among others, and even odd versions like the one with Mr. Magoo.

However, while it was high school where I first read Dickens, I’d been aware of him pretty much my whole life. My family had the Authors Card Game (link is to Amazon), which included a portrait of Dickens.

However, it was my mother who introduced me to English literature, including Dickens. She was a self-described Anglophile and shared that love with me. I have to admit, however, that not all her enthusiasm transferred to me. Still, Dickens is one author I did enjoy, probably in part because he was a champion of the poor and of social reform. I have several e-book editions of his books.

The slang term “dickens”, meaning devil, is far older and is not, as some suppose, some sort of retaliation for Charles Dickens’ calls to end debtors’ prisons, workhouses and in support of other social reforms (though it may have originated—in the 16th century—from that surname).

So, happy birthday Mr. Dickens.

Charles Dickens' books are available as free text files from Project Gutenberg. They are also available from Amazon, which has free or low-cost Kindle editions as well as printed books.

More good economic news for the US

2012-02-04T22:22:00.001+13:00

In this video, the Associated Press reports that the unemployment rate fell for the fifth straight month—down to 8.3%, the lowest in three years. This comes hard on the heels of good economic news last month, namely that the US had experienced 22 months of job growth, and that 2011 was the best year for job growth since 2005 and the second best since 1999.

All of which is a good start—and good news.

SPLC Challenges DOMA

2012-02-03T21:00:00.000+13:00

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has filed a legal challenge to the US’ blatantly unconstitutional “Defense” of Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbids the US government from recognising same-sex marriages for any federal purpose whatsoever.

Currently, same-sex marriage is legal in six US states and the District of Columbia, along with many countries, but those marriages don’t exist according to the US government. What that means is that the US government is unconstitutionally treating different citizens differently.

This case involves the US military unconstitutionally treating the legal spouse of a service member differently on account of gender. The SPLC case is sound, and no one seriously doubts that if it’s not repealed, DOMA will inevitably be struck down. Sooner is better than later. Kudos to the SPLC.

Blogger confusion

2012-02-02T22:16:00.001+13:00

Contrary to what some may think, I am not, by nature, a conspiracy theorist, anti-establishment moaner or even a full-time cynic, though at times I can be one or all three. Having said that, I want to throw a concern "out there" and see if anyone can help me understand something.

Recently Google made a change to its Blogger blogging platform (which powers this blog). It now takes the URL which normally ends in dot com and has it resolve for readers outside the US to the same URL, but with one's country TLD instead. So, for example, instead of seeing my blog as "amerinz.blogspot.com", New Zealanders will see "amerinz.blogspot.co.nz" and, I presume, other countries will see something similar (like "amerinz.blogspot.co.uk" and "amerinz.blogspot.com.au"—maybe folks in those countries can let me know if that's true).

My question/concern is this: What's the point of this if not to enable country-specific censorship? Is there anything even remotely beneficial to the blogger or reader in this change? I honestly can't see or think of a positive reason for it, unless Google is mirroring the blog locally, maybe, but I seriously doubt they are.

I first found out about this when all the comments on a Blogger blog I visit every day suddenly disappeared. It turns out, Google’s change wreaked havoc with blogs that use custom comment systems (like JS-Kit, for example). I can't see any comments left on a dot com Blogger blog that uses such a system—including my own comments I left before the change. I assume the change could also muck-up other customisations, too.

I’ve since discovered that using an anonymiser like Little Tunnel Bear (http://www.tunnelbear.com/) can get around this problem. I’ve also read that the IP blocker Hotspot Shield (http://hotspotshield.com/) does the same thing, though I haven’t tried it yet.

The point is, it shouldn’t be this hard, and it doesn’t really matter whether the problem lies with Google or JS-Kit: Location doesn’t mean anything for the users of the Internet, it only matters to certain content providers—and governments—who have a vested interest in restricting access. Also, Google lets you use the dot com or, in my case, the dot co dot nz version, so why don’t they allow that for Blogger?

I'm well aware that I could use another blogging platform or self-host as my podcasts are, but I'm not even sure I care that much. However, if it really is all about making censorship easier, that could be reason for me to abandon Blogger.

I hope that someone can shed some light on this.

I first published an earlier version of this post on Google+.

C is for City

2012-02-01T22:27:00.000+13:00

Cities are as ancient as civilisation itself. As soon as we humans worked out that it was in our best interest to live together in settlements, it was only a matter of time until those settlements grew large, then larger still. Today, of course, cities are a very big deal—and today was an especially big deal for Auckland.

The United Nations estimated that by 2008 half the world’s population lived in cities. Other estimates suggest that three-quarters of the population of developed countries lives in cities, while only 44 percent of the population of less-developed countries do. [source]

The precise definition of what a city is varies from place to place, even within some countries (such as, different US states have different methods and mechanisms for creating cities). Nevertheless, at a minimum, a city generally refers to a specific geographic location governed by one government. That means it’s not a city’s metropolitan region, which is bigger in both area and population.

New Zealand has a useful definition to illustrate this, saying that in New Zealand, cities “must have a minimum population of 50,000, be predominantly urban in character, be a distinct entity and a major centre of activity within the region.” This is contained within the Local Government Act 1974.

Just today Auckland, my current home, reached a population of 1.5 million. It’s a very big deal for us and for New Zealand.

Auckland is by far New Zealand’s largest city. It has roughly a third of the entire country’s population—though that’s not enough to make the list of the 100 most populated cities in the world. The current Auckland Council was created by the New Zealand Parliament out of seven former city and district councils, and came into being in November 1, 2010. It covers 4,894 square kilometres (1,889.6 square miles), a fact that means Auckland is in the 20 largest cities by area (again, this refers only to cities and their specific geographic areas of jurisdiction, not to metropolitan regions).

The distinction between city and region is an important one, and not as obvious as one might think. For example, when a Kiwi talks about the population of, say, Los Angeles, Chicago or New York, they’re almost always talking about the region, not the legally defined city (until last year, the same would have been true if they were talking about Auckland; now, of course, city and region are the same).

This distinction shows up something that’s very different in North America and New Zealand: Suburbs. In North America, a suburb is an outlying town, not legally part of the city, but within commuting distance of it. In New Zealand, a suburb is a geographic area within the city—analogous to a neighbourhood in an American city. New Zealand suburbs are used by New Zealand Post for delivering mail and also by delivery companies.

I was born in a small city, grew up in suburbs, went to university in a small city, moved to Chicago, then to Auckland (twice—interrupted by a couple years spent in a small, rural town). I’ve learned through this that I’m a city boy. It doesn’t have to be a big city, and I don’t have to live in the heart of it, just as long as it has all the urban amenities a city has to offer. I particularly appreciate being able to get a service done or go get something in particular (like, for example, a part to repair something in the house) without having to drive hours or order online. I also enjoy the excitement and multi-culturalism that a city offers—that and all the entertainment and food options.

So, add it all up, and the city is best for me. I know plenty of people for whom that’s not true, though. So, what about you? Given your choice, would you rather live in a city, a small town or out in the country?

I took the photo at the top this post from North Head, Devonport, on Auckland’s North Shore, in 2006. You may notice that it’s also the background image for this blog.

A busy hiatus

2012-02-01T18:57:00.000+13:00

I hadn’t planned on being absent from all my social media stuff, in particular this blog or my podcasts, but things got in the way. Actually, it was far more than that sounds.

We’d long planned some projects to the house this summer, chief among them, having the house painted. In addition, we’re making some small repairs, finishing a few projects and, while we’re at it, having a major de-clutter. All of which is far more involved—and tiring—than I ever could have imagined. On this plus side, I’ve lost a couple kilos over the first two weeks of this project, and expect I’ll lose more this week.

This huge project is nearly completed—just in time for real, real life to resume as I head back to work.

And that’s what I did on my summer vacation.

Miss Piggy FTW

2012-01-31T08:48:00.000+13:00

From the video description on YouTube:

“Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy hit back at Fox News during a UK press conference following the London Premiere of their new film. Fox had publically criticized the film for supposedly pushing a 'dangerous liberal agenda' at kids.

“Kermit mocks their blatant and pointless fear mongering before Miss Piggy offers her own opinion on Fox News.”

So, since Kermit says Miss Piggy’s comment will be “all over the Internet”, naturally I have to help make it so. Plus, she’s right, of course.

Tip o' the Hat to Joe.My.God.

B is for Books

2012-01-25T09:23:00.000+13:00

I love books, and always have. I love having them around, looking at them and sometimes even reading them. Mostly, I like having them around.

I come by this naturally: My mother was a book lover, too. My father, on the other hand, could easily throw books away. My mother and I thought that was sacrilege.

Over the years, I built up a pretty good library—twice. First, when I was living in the US and helped by inheriting books from my parents, then again in New Zealand, where I helped add to the library Nigel already had—but with very few from my US library, most of which I left behind.

I used to say that I drew power from having books around, until I realised that sounded a bit quasi-spiritual, which wasn’t at all what I meant. Instead, I meant that books energise me. When I see all my books in front of me, I think of all the ideas and words within them and become inspired to keep searching for a few of my own.

But things are very different now. I still love having a library of books, but having packed and moved them many, many times now, I can definitely see the attraction of a small library. That’s going far too far for me, though.

Instead, my biggest shift in attitude has been nurtured by the Internet and all things computer. It began when I started downloading free “plain vanilla” texts of classic public domain books from Project Gutenberg. It was a great thing, I thought, but frankly a little hard to read on a computer screen. So, graphics person I am, I tried turning a couple into real books and found it was much harder than I’d imagined.

And so it stayed for many years until the Kindle was introduced. At the time, I thought it was too expensive and failed the “bathtub test”: Drop a book in a bathtub, and you’re out around $40; drop a Kindle, and at the time it was many times that price.

Nevertheless, in July of 2010, I downloaded my first Kindle edition of a book, which I read on my iPod Touch. I found it easier to read Kindle editions once I had a iPad, but the darn thing was heavy. Then, Nigel gave me a Kindle for my birthday, and so far I love it.

It turns out, I’m in good company. Yesterday, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a report that found that over the holidays there was a huge surge in the percentage of Americans who have a tablet computer (like an iPad or similar) or an e-reader (like a Kindle, Nook, etc.): “The share of adults who own either device [nearly doubled], from 10% to 19%.” The overall percentages are still relatively low, but the rate of increase is impressive.

There are many things about them that are good, and they have many features that make them a great way to read books (chief among the benefits, in my opinion, is that readers can carry suitcases of books on the one device, which makes packing for trips much easier and with far less back strain).

Still, e-readers and tablet computers are not books. Books to me a special thing, far more special than merely a page displaying on an electronic device. I like having them around, after all. Turns out, I like having e-readers around, too.

Are you a book person? If so, is it ink-on-paper-only, electronic only or both?

The image at the top of this post is a Creative Commons licensed photo, “Old book bindings at Merton College Library” (25 August 2005), by Tom Murphy VII. It is available for download through Wikimedia Commons.

Three years ago today

2012-01-24T22:37:00.000+13:00

Three years ago today, we had our civil union and became recognised as a couple under New Zealand law—not that it mattered then or now to the US Government (it may now be different in my home state of Illinois, for strictly state matters, of course). Similarly, the civil union we had three years ago today was made possible by a Labour-led government; the current prime minister, John Key of the conservative National Party, voted against it and refuses to say if he’d vote for it if the vote was held now.

But that’s all backdrop, the behind-the-scenes stuff that doesn’t actually affect us. On that hot day three years ago, we formally and legally pledged our lives together, even though at that point we’d already been together thirteen years. Even so, it was nice to be able to stand in front of friends and family and make that long-term commitment formal and recognised under law.

Tonight we went out for a fancy dinner at a local restaurant. We were celebrating not just that event three years ago, but the fact that we’re as strong as ever. Sometimes, love really does conquer all—even politics.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Steps Down

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000+13:00

A sad video, but the correct move, I think. I’m not going to comment on her politics or the timing of the announcement or the incident that led to this result, except to note how remarkable her recovery has been. I hope she continues to improve to the point where she’s happy with the result.

However, I'd strongly urge that people don’t read the comments on YouTube—they’re filled with the usual anonymous Internet haters, some extremely vile and many outright deranged (like the one that said all the vile comments were being posted by Democrats trying to make Republicans look bad. Whatever.).

I get that politics in America are polarised, with an unbridgeable divide between Republicans and Democrats, but can’t there be at least some situations in which people just, you know, restrain themselves? It seems as if some people just haven’t learned the lessons from that fateful day, about how toxic and extreme rhetoric benefits no one, only making things potentially dangerous. I’m not saying people shouldn’t criticise their opponents and adversaries, just that a little common decency doesn’t get in the way of robust debate—and it sure would be a nice change.

Update January 26: Today Rep. Gabrielle Giffords officially resigned from the US House of Representatives. US Representative Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee and a friend of Giffords, read the letter to the House (video below). Wasserman-Shultz was often tearful, as were other representatives. I thought that the way the House treated her was classy. If only they could be like that more often.

Not an indicator

2012-01-22T14:31:00.000+13:00

Probably the only thing that irritates me more than people having zero understanding of history is when people completely misunderstand history and read into it all sorts of nonsense, almost as if history itself is some sort of magic.

We’re seeing this right now with the South Carolina Republican Primary in which people are saying that because a pattern exists, it therefore predicts what always will happen. This isn’t about the politics of that election or the campaign generally, but the absurd declaration that in the years since Reagan won it, no Republican has won the Republican presidential nomination without first winning the South Carolina primary, and so, Mitt Romney is in trouble. What a load of codswallop.

To be sure, Romney has many problems—his elitism and the fact he’s a Mormon are chief among them—but losing South Carolina is not one of his problems. What’s happened in South Carolina since 1980 is a coincidence, possibly somewhat interesting, but nothing more than that.

For the meme to be true, it would mean that all Republicans in all the other states would have to say, “gosh, Newt won South Carolina, so we have to vote for him now.” That’s just absurd. Or, it would require some sort of magic spell, because nothing else could bring about something as absurd as having Republicans in more mainstream states vote according to the whims of South Carolina Republicans.

A meme we heard earlier was that in recent elections, the winner of the Iowa Republican Caucuses didn’t often go on to win the Republican nomination, a meme the news media quickly dropped when their anointed frontrunner, Romney, won. I suppose that now that the final votes have given the victory to Santorum it means that they’ll quote it again. I saw an AP story that said, “this the first time in history a different candidate has captured a win in each of the first three presidential nominating contests,” as if that is in itself a shocking fact, as if history’s magic spell is broken.

This sort of thing isn’t unique to politics. I’ve often seen sports commentators say equally absurd things, like, “Over the past 24 years, Team A has never won a game against Team B at Big Huge Stadium”. They forget to mention that the scenario they set up covers only 4 games over that time and the fact Team A lost all four isn’t weird at all.

I know that people can come back at me with longer streaks, ones that seem to defy probability, but human behaviour doesn’t always fit neatly within the laws of probability—which, by the way, also include the possibility of the improbable happening, like long losing streaks or historic “patterns” in election wins and losses.

Superstition can be fun—I always throw a pinch of spilled salt over my shoulder (in my case, to feel a connection with my superstitious ancestors). But superstition is no way to pick someone to vote for or to “predict” future voting behaviour. It is, no matter how long the pattern goes on, nothing more than irrational superstition.

Romney may not ultimately be the Republican nominee, and Newt might not be, either. But when whoever wins that nomination steps up to the podium of their convention to make his acceptance speech, I can absolutely guarantee his doing that will have nothing to do with who won the South Carolina Republican primary over the past three decades. Yes, the past is prologue, but it’s absolutely not an indicator.

The annual increasing number

2012-01-21T23:47:00.000+13:00

Today is my birthday, always a highlight of my personal year. I first talked about that back in 2008, when I was a mere lad of 49. That means, of course, that the next year was a rather big deal—so much so, apparently, that it used up my energy for the following year’s birthday post. Last year, I kind of rounded out what I said in that first birthday post.

I was thinking this morning that, technically, I’m just one day older than I was yesterday, even though I’m now also one year older. I suppose if you want to be super technical about it, I’m neither until tomorrow, when January 21 arrives in the place I was actually born. Whatever—though I do kind of like the idea of celebrating my birthday over two days!

Tonight we had pizza for my birthday dinner. In past years we’ve had a barbecue on the weekend closest to my birthday, and I’ve always thought that was kind of exotic, since I was born, my mother told me, during a blizzard. For the first 36 years of my life, cold and snow were the backdrops to whatever celebrations I had.

Still, even as a child in the wintry Midwest of the US, a bit of summery flourish on my birthday wasn’t uncommon. I remember one year when I was quite young my mother froze corn on the cob so she could cook it for my birthday dinner (I loved corn on the cob); at that age, I was still easily led by her. As I got older and started to choose my own dinner, none had, as far as I can remember, any summery treats.

That changed when I moved to New Zealand; with its upside down seasons, my birthday was suddenly in summer. All of which is why the idea of a barbecue on my birthday seems exotic. Still, variety is good, so some years we’ve gone to a restaurant and this year it’s one of my favourite foods, something that I don’t have very often.

The pizza came as a bit of a reward. Yesterday afternoon, Nigel and I started staining the deck we’d extended last winter. We’ve been waiting months for a couple stable days of weather at the same time we were free to do the staining—a seemingly impossible combination. Today, we finished staining the new deck and part of the old. Good progress.

So, we earned that pizza. However, I actually earned it mainly by managing to make it to another birthday. And the best part? Cold pizza for breakfast. Bliss.

The image accompanying this post is a detail from a Creative Commons-licensed photo by Babymestizo, taken in Joliet, Illinois in 2010.

Gift of reading

2012-01-20T23:26:00.000+13:00

I may be a slow reader, but I nevertheless enjoy the endeavour. Getting books, and affording them, are often a challenge in New Zealand, as any American expat will tell you. Today I took one step further toward solving those dilemmas.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and Nigel (the most wonderful husband in the world, by the way) gave me my present early: An Amazon Kindle (WiFi version). I’ve barely had a chance to do more than set it up and download all my purchases to it, but I already love it!

Last September, I wrote about the Kindle arriving in New Zealand. I think it was pretty obvious that I was smitten, and yet, I didn’t think I could “justify” it when I already had the Kindle software on my i-devices. I was wrong.

Even in the box the Kindle weighed a fraction of my iPad, and weight has always been a major issue for me with e-readers. No one device can yet do everything well, and if I was buying a content-rich multimedia publication (or even a magazine or book with lots of photos), I’d use my iPad.

But for ordinary books, especially ones that may change or that are horribly expensive in New Zealand (which is nearly every book on the New York Times bestseller list…), Kindle is the best way to go.

I’m absolutely NOT abandoning traditional books; there are some that are, in my opinion, absolutely required to be traditional ink on paper. But for the rest, there’s Kindle, one of the best birthday presents ever from the best husband ever.

Familiar activism

2012-01-19T21:54:00.000+13:00

Today several US-based Internet companies blacked-out their sites in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA-PIPA), a proposed US law that would, in essence, allow US media conglomerates to censor the Internet—or even wreck it completely. Above is a screen capture of the English-language Wikipedia.

This is all very familiar. Nearly three years ago, New Zealand Internet sites blacked out in protest over Section 92A, a truly vile piece of arse-licking for the US entertainment industry backed by former Labour MP and all-around useless political hack, Judith Tizzard. As a result, the National Party-led government backed down and abandoned Tizzard’s rubbish law. The new one is slightly better, though many of us are waiting for a Labour-Green government that will repeal this bad law.

The US protest seems to have worked, too, with the Los Angeles Times reporting that three Republican co-sponsors have seen sense and withdrawn their support. President Obama has also expressed his opposition, too.

One of the things that was remarkable about this opposition is that it came from people all over the political spectrum, from the left through to the “tea party” people. It just goes to show that there are, indeed, some issues on which all freedom-loving people can agree. Even some New Zealand sites joined the protest.

There’s been a trend over the past couple decades toward concentrating power in the hands of corporations, but every once in awhile people prevail. One day, perhaps, the people will prevail once and for all.

A is for Adventure

2012-01-18T23:14:00.000+13:00

I’ve always loved change—thrived on it, even. Sure bad change, like an accident or illness can be, well, bad, but change that involves moving forward is for me always a good thing. I’ve always thought of life itself as an adventure, and have thought the same about some specific things I may have been doing.

But, are they really adventures?

Adventure is usually properly defined as some bold, exciting, unusual and probably risky activity. Life in general may fit that definition sometimes, but day-to-day life probably seldom does. And yet, some of life’s most seemingly mundane tasks can, in my opinion, still be part of a larger adventure.

For a couple years, we lived in Paeroa, a small faming service town in the Waikato. We bought an older house and did it up. The whole experience was, for us, an adventure as we lived in small-town New Zealand and took on building/renovation projects that neither of us had ever done before.

I think most of us have those kinds of adventures. We’re all probably more Huckleberry Finn than Odysseus (probably with a bit of Bill and Ted [watch the trailer] thrown in), which also goes to show that our adventures, even when not the stuff of epics, can still be interesting.

Some of us have adventures when we travel, and if you’re talking about adventure tourism, there’s probably no better place than New Zealand, a country bounding with all sorts of activities. For me, of course, moving to New Zealand was the start of an adventure, so there’s really no need for me to engage in specific activities.

And that’s kind of my point: Adventure is where we find it. Even if we don’t choose to take ten years to sail around trying to get home, what we do can still be an adventure if that’s how we look at it—and I think we should. I love the adventure in change.

What do you consider to be an adventure?

Footnote: I’ve never done an ABC Wednesday blog post before, but thought I’d try it because the discipline involved in participation kind of intrigues me. Still, I thought I’d better keep it simple for the first post, to kind of ease in slowly. We’ll see how it goes. Be sure to check out this week’s posts on other blogs.

The public domain illustration at the top of this post depicts Sherlock Holmes in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" from Stand Magazine (1892).

Please explain

2012-01-18T19:52:00.000+13:00

There was an odd incident that hit the news this week: New Zealand on Air, which funds the production of television programming, will forbid voter education. That’s what the political line was and, of course, it was exaggerated—but the truth is still worrying.

NZOA funded a documentary, “Inside Child Poverty: A Special Report” for TV3’s Inside New Zealand series. TV3 scheduled the documentary for shortly before the election and the board members of NZOA became “concerned”. Board member Stephen McElrea was the first to complain about the documentary airing so close to the election, and NZOA went on to claim the concern was about its own independence and impartiality being questioned because of the documentary screening close the election. The was the dubious excuse used for the board seeking legal advice on whether it could add a clause to funding contracts forbidding the airing of documentaries on subjects “likely” to be an election issue, during the weeks of the official campaign.

This was silly on its face. Had anyone raised an eyebrow, it would most likely have been about TV3 airing the programme close the election (even though TV3’s owner, Media Works, has close ties to the National Party’s powerhouse, Stephen Joyce). I seriously doubt that anyone would question the impartiality of the funding agency any more than they’d question the impartiality of advertisers during the programme.

So, if there’s no real threat to the perception of NZ On Air’s impartiality, what’s going on? Stephen McElrea, who first complained and led the fight, is also John Key's electorate chairman. It looks as if McElrea was concerned about the documentary because he thought it was unflattering toward the National Party-led government. If so, the story about NZOA’s image was merely a distraction.

Personally, I think the political interference of the NZOA board has done far more to damage its perceived impartiality than airing the documentary ever could have done, even if the news media hadn’t been too obsessed at the time with the “tea party tape” silliness to take any notice of it. NZOA ought to stick to what it’s set up to do—funding New Zealand programming—and leave the broadcasting decisions to the broadcasters, because that’s what being impartial both means and requires.

But there was another “controversary” that requires an explanation: Apparently the husband in the spokesfamily used in the TV commercials for the Countdown supermarket chain in New Zealand looks to be a bigamist! To be honest, this is far more entertaining than any lame politicians could ever be.

Worth quoting: Andrew Sullivan

2012-01-18T10:17:00.000+13:00

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Andrew Sullivan on this blog, much less quoted him. I often disagree with him, sometimes strongly, but when I agree with him, he puts things far better and more strongly than I could hope to do.

So here’s an excerpt from a piece he wrote for Newsweek, “How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics”. Read the whole thing—it’s well-stated and a must for any Obama supporter, as well as those who suspect (correctly) that Republican propaganda, like that of some progressives, isn’t entirely correct:

“[Liberals] miss, it seems to me, two vital things. The first is the simple scale of what has been accomplished on issues liberals say they care about. A depression was averted. The bail-out of the auto industry was—amazingly—successful. Even the bank bailouts have been repaid to a great extent by a recovering banking sector. The Iraq War—the issue that made Obama the nominee—has been ended on time and, vitally, with no troops left behind. Defense is being cut steadily, even as Obama has moved his own party away from a Pelosi-style reflexive defense of all federal entitlements. Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels. Under Obama, a crucial state, New York, made marriage equality for gays an irreversible fact of American life. Gays now openly serve in the military, and the Defense of Marriage Act is dying in the courts, undefended by the Obama Justice Department. Vast government money has been poured into noncarbon energy investments, via the stimulus. Fuel-emission standards have been drastically increased. Torture was ended. Two moderately liberal women replaced men on the Supreme Court. Oh, yes, and the liberal holy grail that eluded Johnson and Carter and Clinton, nearly universal health care, has been set into law. Politifact recently noted that of 508 specific promises, a third had been fulfilled and only two have not had some action taken on them. To have done all this while simultaneously battling an economic hurricane makes Obama about as honest a follow-through artist as anyone can expect from a politician.”

Tip o’ the Hat to Joe.My.God., the comments for which are, sadly, filled with the usual supposedly progressive/liberal Obama haters who prove Sullivan’s point by dismissing, disregarding and disrespecting the progress the country has made under Obama because it doesn’t fit their mental picture of what should have been done in their perfect world, or because it wasn’t done by whoever their perfect candidate was.

Useful clarifications

2012-01-16T20:05:00.000+13:00

Update January 17: As you can see from the screenshot above, the video I posted was taken down after the cry-babies at Focus on You Own Damn Family threw a tantrum. I put it like that because although I’m not a copyright lawyer, it seems to me that the video I’d posted fell well within “fair use” since it was for purposes of education and criticism, and the rightwing does the same thing all the time, usually without attribution, never with permission. So, what FOYODF engaged in was nothing less than censorship for purely political reasons—that, and they hated that someone dared to stand up to them and their hypocrisy. I’m leaving the rest of the post as it was because the larger points are still valid.

This video improves and adds clarification to an ad run by Focus on You Own Damn Family. It adds the context that the original ad failed to include, thereby showing the rank hypocrisy of FOYODF.

The rightwing group made the commercial because—well, I’m not sure why they were running it, actually. Obviously it’s proselytising Christianity, but I’m not sure why, exactly, they’re not leaving that to expressly religious groups. What? They’re not secular? I’m shocked!

Seriously, FOYODF spun off “Family” Research Council some years back because the latter group’s expressly political (and often partisan) activity threatened the charity status of FOYODF. Since then, of course, the “F”RC has become one of the US’ leading SPLC-certified anti-gay hate groups. Most recently, the “F”RC led a Klonvocation of “Anybody But Mitt” far-right Republicans who, not surprisingly, settled on “F”RC’s own favourite candidate, Rick Santorum.

What this all boils down to, really, is this: “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” FOYODF ignores the good works their big piles of cash could do for people who really need help, in order to stop two consenting adults who love one another from marrying. That’s pretty sick and twisted.

And if this sounds harsh in any way, consider that this is after I invoked the two-day rule. Some criticisms just don’t deserve to be softened.

Weekend Diversion: Bookshelf stop-motion

2012-01-15T20:09:00.001+13:00

There are some people with way too much time on their hands. This is fortunate for them, because it helps capture their boundless imagination, and that’s fortunate for us because it all provides hours of distraction. Well, maybe having hours of distraction available isn’t that fortunate for us, but still.

These two unusual videos are basically animated bookshelves. The one above was posted in July of last year, the one below about a week ago. To say they’re ambitious is a bit of an understatement.

The videos, the top one in particular, reminded me of the video for OMD’s “The History of Modern, Part 1”, which I posted in February last year. Then, in the wonderful world that is YouTube, I found a short video posted five years ago that was similar in some ways to the first video. That then led to the discovery that there are a lot of videos from people who conduct tours of their bookshelves, and a few who talk about how they organise their bookshelves. I didn’t watch all those. I don’t have that much time on my hands.

Romney's delusion

2012-01-12T22:22:00.000+13:00

From the news:

"I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 percent versus one percent — and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent — you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. The American people, I believe in the final analysis, will reject it."
Mitt Romney, frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, in an interview.

Fresh from telling America that he likes to fire people, Mitt Romney has now underscored how far out of touch he is with the needs and concerns of the 99% of Americans who aren’t as wealthy as him. It has nothing to do with “envy”, and everything to do with a sense of being screwed over by the rich corporate elites.

The chart above (and apologies—I have no idea where it originally came from; click to embiggen) shows the growth in average after-tax income since 1979 and adjusted for inflation. What it shows is that the folks like Romney in the 1% have done spectacularly well, and the other 99% did not. The lower the incomes, the worse people did, so that the bottom 20% saw basically no income growth at all for three decades, and for two-thirds of that time they were simply trying to get back to where they were in 1979. In stark contrast, folks in the 1% like Romney never actually lost income; their income growth declined in some years, but the income itself nevertheless continued to grow, and far faster than middle income earners.

What all of this means is that average, mainstream Americans see the obscene growth in the wealth of the 1% and they see themselves fighting hard just to stay afloat and not go backwards. They see the Republicans giving the 1% tax breaks and refusing to make them pay their fair share, instead burdening ordinary, mainstream Americans with heavy taxed that hold them back.

Mitt Romney likes to fire people, and as head of vulture firm Bain Capital he did that thousands of times as he destroyed jobs—and lives. So what people feel about the rich elites in the 1% like Mitt Romney isn’t “envy”—it’s disgust and anger. And deservedly so.

Rhetoric matters

2012-01-11T22:45:00.000+13:00

On Monday, I mentioned what appeared to me to be a new tactic used by a morals crusader, namely, suggesting that the word “gay” when applied to gay people is an offensive epithet. And then I saw a related, even synergistic, attack on the word.

First a bit of background. Time was, rightwing bigots used to decry the word, declaring in basso profundo, “there’s nothing gay about them!” The somewhat less dour bigots would simply complain about how we’d “ruined a perfectly good word”.

Times change, and apart from the deviation into the youthful fad of saying “that’s so gay!” the English-speaking world pretty much moved on and accepted “gay” in its modern usage. Well, the mainstream did: Hardcore rightwingers still don’t.

And that lies at the heart of all this. Fundamentalist religionists prefer the term “homosexual” precisely because it sounds so clinical. At best, it sounds like a disease (which they think it is), or perhaps a crime (which they think it should be), but they also know that most people hear only or especially the third syllable—sex—which is what the right wants people to think about, namely, that gay people are all about sex, sex, sex.

Personally, I think this is what was at the heart of the BSA complaint I wrote about on Monday: Remember that the campaigner first claimed that the use of the word “gay” instead of “homosexual” was not objective or impartial. Most of us focussed on the bizarre bit about “gay”, used correctly, being a slur; to the rightwing, however, it would be a slur since they think there’s hardly anything worse than being gay.

So then today I saw a post on Joe.My.God. quoting from a press release by the anti-gay hate group, Illinois Family Institute. The group was complaining about a public apology issued by Chicago’s Roman Catholic cardinal, Francis George, who apologised for comparing the city’s annual Gay Pride Parade to the Ku Klux Klan. George realised, finally, he was wrong to do that (after criticism from public officials and even the conservative Chicago Tribune) and sincerely apologised.

While agreeing George never should have used the Klan analogy (which frankly surprised me), the hate group said he should have described homosexual acts as “abominable”, “soul-destroying” and “detestable”. Well, that’s nice and friendly, huh? They went on:

“Cardinal George should not use the terms ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian.’ Those terms do not merely denote same-sex attraction and volitional acts. They connote biological determinism, immutability, and an inherent morality. What other groups would Cardinal George choose to identify by their disordered inclinations and freely chosen sinful acts? Rhetoric matters.”

And there, in the last two words, we see what their problem is: Rhetoric matters. If people refer to us by the correct name, gay, that will mean accepting us as full and equal citizens, deserving of equal rights and equality under law. The word “lesbian” is, of course, every bit as clinical a word as “homosexual”, so I can only assume this is a testament to the success lesbians have had in taking back that word.

Yes, rhetoric matters. Using “homosexual” instead of “gay” is intended to dehumanise gay and lesbian people, to make language itself do the bigots work for them.

On this blog, I often have fun turning the rightwing’s rhetorical tricks back on them, writing “Christian” when referring to protestant or catholic fundamentalists, in the same way they write “gay” when they can’t avoid the word. Similarly, I sometimes use the phrase “counterfeit Christians”, turning their slur against progressive Christians back on them. Whenever I do that, I’m laughing at them and their dour seriousness. It’s probably a bit naughty, but I just can’t resist. The difference is, apparently they don’t see what jokes they are.

Instead of worrying so much about rhetoric or semantics, maybe they should try and state simply and with no religious justifications whatsoever why it is, exactly, they think gay and lesbian people should be second-class (or worse) citizens. They can’t do that because without their religious appeals, they have no argument to make.

Rhetoric matters for that, too.

Primary elections explained

2012-01-11T21:30:00.000+13:00

Here’s something for my non-American friends (and probably a few American ones, too…): In this video, my favourite YouTube explainer, C.G.P. Grey, explains how the US presidential selection process works, including the differences between caucuses and primaries, and so much more.

Long-time readers may recall that in the run up to the New Zealand elections last November, I posted several of C.G.P. Grey’s videos explaining the various election systems we were presented with as part of our referendum on MMP. They were all very helpful.

But he does so much more than explain voting systems: Recent videos have talked about the end of the world, death to pennies, the real history of Santa Claus, and so much more. I love his videos. You can check them all out on his YouTube Channel.

The Tory Trifecta

2012-01-11T10:45:00.000+13:00

A few months ago, I took advantage of the “subscribe” function in Facebook to follow the postings of rightwing Auckland Councillor George Wood, who represents my Ward. I didn’t vote for him, so I had no desire to be “friends” with him, but I nevertheless was interested in what he was doing as my representative.

What I ended up with was a window on the worldview of Tories at the local level in Auckland. I can’t say I understand them any more than I did before, but I at least appreciate how they view the world, and nowhere has that been more evident than in the strike against the Ports of Auckland.

I won’t get into the specifics of the dispute, in part because even after all these weeks, I don’t think I understand it at all—and neither do most Aucklanders. This, of course, plays into the hands of conservatives, including in the newsmedia, who can slant the story to fit their agenda. And they did.

At first, the rightwing meme was that this was all the fault of the evil labour union, whose members, they declared, are without exception lazy, grossly overpaid, belligerent, selfish and myopic. Their rhetoric exceeded reality, of course (which is a nice way of saying they often lied, exaggerated or distorted in the nature of a lie), but the average Aucklander would have no practical way of knowing that. However, mainstream Aucklanders also probably didn’t really care, being more concerned with the holidays.

Enter meme 2: It’s all Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s fault. Tories hate Mayor Brown because he’s from the centre left (reason enough, in their view), so they look for things to blame on him. In this case, they insisted he should have personally intervened to end the dispute, but the fact that he didn’t meant he was a failure. Or something (their logic was difficult to follow).

The problem for them is that when Rodney Hide and the N’Act Party set up the new Auckland, they deliberately kept assets like the port at arms length from the Council, mainly to make it easier to sell off to private foreign investors (the port is currently owned by the people of Auckland). What this means is that the structure that the conservatives themselves put in place makes it virtually impossible for any mayor of Auckland to have a role in ending a strike, except, perhaps, a largely symbolic one. So, this meme didn’t stick, either.

Enter the third rightwing meme: The port’s problems would all disappear if it was privatised: The unions would disappear, profits would skyrocket and the sun would be shining all day. Their logic is that if the port is taken away from the people of Auckland and sold off, that will make the port “better” and operate “more efficiently” (meaning, apparently, with no unions), thereby delivering higher profits. Why, it’d be Tory Magic in action!

Their agenda-driven meme has major holes, the biggest of which you could drive a port-load of container ships through: WHO owns the port has nothing to do with profitability, “efficiency” or anything else. Such things are the job of management to bring about, and they alone are accountable. In the Holy Private Sector™, if a company does poorly, no one fires the shareholders—they sack the CEO and other top executives. It’s no different with Ports of Auckland. Unhappy with its performance? Then sack the managers!

This saga shows The Tory Trifecta of memes: 1. All unions are bad/evil and must be destroyed, 2. All centre-left politicians are incompetent by virtue of being centre-left and not from the National Party, the Natural Party of Government™, and 3. All problems facing society could be solved if only everything could be flogged-off to foreign buyers.

In my brief exposure to the Tory worldview of local government, I’ve seen one or more of these memes used for any topic they may be discussing (and there have been several), but this is the first in which I’ve seen all three Tory memes. It’s been fascinating to watch.

Much as I disagree with these Tories on asset sales and their anti-union, anti-Mayor Brown posturing, I do give them one thing: They generally don’t display the unhinged ravings of commentators on newspaper websites, and that leads me to think that maybe critics of the Internet are right: It’s the anonymous nature of most comment boards that leads to the vitriol and extreme rhetoric we so often see. On Facebook, after all, people can only comment using their real name (since most Facebook users don’t seem inclined to try and get away with a “nom de web”). All of this means they’re more likely to express honestly-held opinions, even when they’re extreme—but generally not too extreme.

There’s a saying that local government in New Zealand is for politicians who aren’t smart enough to make it in Parliament. There’s another that local government politicians and political activists are made up of the “mad, sad and unemployed”. This Facebook window has shown me why those sayings persist.

Related:
Someone finally went there - the last time I talked about George Wood.
My political secret - I referred obliquely to Tory commentators in this post.

A busy year for marriage equality

2012-01-11T08:45:00.000+13:00

Above is the latest Marriage News Watch video from Matt Baume. When I posted the first video of these videos for this year, it looked like it would be a busy year in the battle for marriage equality, and this video confirms that. What struck me, though, wasn’t how much is going on, but how much of it is good news.

There’s not just news in this video, but some real examples of why marriage equality matters—like the desperate situations created when the anti-gay Republican (isn’t that phrase redundant?) Michigan governor stripped away “domestic partnership” benefits for the partners of state employees. There’s even an item about a bi-national same-sex couple getting a temporary reprieve—subject to who wins the White House in 2012.

This will be a very busy year.