AmeriNZ Blog

Interruptions continue

2013-05-21T21:43:00.000+12:00

Our Internet connection continues to be disrupted and interrupted. When I do have a connection, I often don’t feel like blogging. Unlike my friend Roger Green, I seldom write posts in advance, so if I don’t feel like blogging on the day, nothing gets posted. I really must be more proactive.

I’ve also realised that the weird feelings I described last week turned out to be caused, at least in part, by feeling a bit sick. Nothing specific, just kind of icky. Probably change of seasons and all that. Whatever the cause, it, too, makes me feel like blogging is too hard some of the time.

And all that means that my posts will continue to be a bit sporadic for some time yet.

More evidence

2013-05-19T10:34:00.000+12:00

A few days ago, I wrote about how the radical right is losing their war against LGBT people. A couple days before that, I noted how marriage equality is an idea whose time has come. Today I saw further evidence of both.

Last week, ThinkProgress took a look at an anti-gay group called the Alliance Defending [sic] Freedom [sic] (ADF), which used to be called the Alliance Defense Fund. ThinkProgress noted how they presented testimony to several state legislatures in an attempt to stop the legislatures enacting marriage equality. They failed every time.

They were undone by the typical dishonesty used by the radical right as it tries to restrict freedom for LGBT people: They constantly argued that marriage equality would lead to “Christians” having to choose between their religious convictions and obeying the law. As the radical right always does, they didn’t say that laws preventing discrimination exist NOW, even in places without marriage equality. The reality is that these states’ experience with anti-discrimination laws shows why a lie this argument actually is.

The radical right’s argument is far more serious—and dangerous—than merely being anti-gay: If someone’s “sincerely held religious beliefs” gives them the right to discriminate against LGBT people, then it also gives them the right to discriminate because of race, colour, religious belief, national origin, marital status, whatever.

While many, perhaps even most, on the far right think that they actually should be able to discriminate, the vast majority of people support anti-discrimination laws. So, the radical right loses, in part, because it argues that their “religious beliefs” should allow them to discriminate against everyone they don’t like.

The same day as they suggested that the ADF’s dishonesty was actually helping to enact marriage equality, ThinkProgress also noted that every living Democratic president and presidential nominee supports marriage equality. They also noted that before his death, George McGovern also expressed support for marriage equality.

By contrast, among Republicans, only Gerald Ford supported marriage equality—back in 2001, around a decade before ANY of the Democrats (which is also evidence for why I respected him, and why I think he was the only decent Republican to serve as president in my lifetime, apart from Eisenhower, who was president when I was born).

Taken together, these show how support for marriage equality is gaining momentum, and how appeals to bigotry or that demand a right to discriminate just don’t work. They also show that the far right, clinging to its bigotry, and the Republican Party, which takes its marching orders from the radical right, are falling farther into irrelevance.

The bigots on the far right will eventually fade into the obscurity they so richly deserve. The question remains, will the Republican Party follow them, or are they capable of growing and changing—evolving, to use a word the radical right hates—so that they move closer to the mainstream?

I don’t know that the Republican Party is capable of change. The evidence shows that if they don’t, they, too, will fail. It’s their choice.

We Must Go

2013-05-18T18:20:00.002+12:00

I saw this video, “Support Exploration: We Must Go”, posted to the “I Fucking Love Science” Facebook page, and I thought it was interesting. The Facebook post said about it:

NASA is a government agency and thus not allowed to advertise, so others decided to do it for them. The Aerospace Industries Association partnered with the Challenger Center for Space Science Education to rekindle public support for space exploration. Over 1,700 people donated to make it possible to run the ad in 50 cities across the United States before the latest installment of Star Trek.

However, the commercial isn’t completely selfless, done to promote space exploration for its own sake; the Aerospace Industries Association is a trade group for companies that make the equipment used in the aerospace industry. So, it’s obviously in the AIA’s self interest for there to be more space exploration. Even so, it’s also true that they’re the only ones who can fund such a commercial. It seems to me that this is one of those times when industry and science have a common goal.

The video is narrated by actor Peter Cullen, who is the voice of Optimus Prime in the Transformers movies. I’m not sure if that helps or not, but it’s interesting.

Space exploration is one area of science that needs help selling itself to the public. This ad is a start toward doing that.

Wait management

2013-05-17T23:42:00.001+12:00

As we get older, we find we have to take better care of ourselves. Maybe a doctor says something, maybe we don’t recognise the person staring back at us in the mirror, but whatever the motivation, we decide to make changes—real changes, not mere promises to change.

Six months ago today, I started working on losing weight. It wasn’t a “diet” in a conventional sense: I’m eating more sensibly, yes, and definitely less of whatever I eat, but I don’t deny myself anything. I increased exercise, but only just. My goal has been slow, gradual change that’s sustainable, not some quick weight loss that I’d gain right back (plus some).

Since I began this effort, I’ve lost 11.3kg (just under 25 US pounds). That works out to an average of 434 grams per week—just under one US pound (15.33 ounces) per week. I’m very okay with that.

In fact, I’ve lost some 15kg (33 US pounds) since I hit my all-time heaviest weight some months back. I’m proud of that achievement. I think I should be.

The hardest thing for me has been to be patient. I thought I was doing well until the week I realised that the weight I’d just hit was where I’d started in my big weight loss of 2005-06. Truth is, proud as I am of losing those 11.3kg, I’m still some 13kg heavier than I was when I hit my lowest point back then. By that measure, I’m not even half way. Reality check.

Among the 26 weeks I’ve been doing this, there have been seven weeks in which I’ve lost nothing at all. There have also been three weeks in which I (temporarily) gained back some weight. Patience is a virtue.

I don’t yet know what my new target weight will be, but I think I’m finally getting myself to relax and wait for it, whatever it is. The point, as I said before, is sustainable (and maintainable) weight loss.

Still, even now, there have been benefits: I can wear “thin clothes” that I haven’t fit in, um, awhile. I have better stamina, and my knees don’t seem as strained. I haven’t been to my doctor since I started this, but I’d expect all my numbers to be better. How could they not be?

I’m doing all this because I want to be healthier and live longer, yes, but I also simply want to feel better. That part has already started to happen. That means it’s all a success already.

I’m not following any diet, but because some people will want to know, my diet is basically high protein/low carbohydrate, and I have a lot of lettuce salads to fill me up. I also avoid white sugar. Generally, I only eat when I’m hungry. Like I said, no special diet.

This is a journey, not a destination—or diet. I’m trying to make changes for the long term. Making myself wait for the changes has been the hardest part. But it IS worth it.

Disconnect

2013-05-17T22:07:00.000+12:00

We’ve had interruptions to our Internet connections for the past week or so, as I mentioned before. Today, I had no connection at all and it was—weird.

I think that I check Internet “stuff” (email, websites, social media) far too much, so, if I’m right, not having access to any of that should make me more productive, right? No. Not at all. More like the opposite.

I found myself feeling disconnected, not just in the literal sense, but also like I was standing outside my normal life. In fact, I suppose I was. Part of it was that I was disconnected without my consent, while on a normal day I can choose to walk away. Today, I had no choice.

I got things done today, some things beyond what I would normally get done on a Friday, and yet overall it was less than I would have done if I’d had access to the Internet. I think this is a really strange thing.

We humans come to rely on all the technology we create; what starts out as novel, and possibly irrelevant, eventually becomes so intertwined with our lives that we can’t imagine life without it. In fact, we sometimes don’t know what to do when the technology is gone. Today was that sort of day for me.

The closest thing I can compare it to is a power failure: The power goes out very rarely, but when it does, I always end up having to stop myself from time to time because what I was about to do requires electricity. That’s kind of what it was like for me today.

Our Internet will get back to normal, and so will life. But I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t choose to disconnect from time to time—my choice, of course. Maybe I’m too comfortable with modern technology and ought to step back a bit, maybe harken back to a time before the Internet was ubiquitous.

That won’t happen. Once everything is back to normal, I’ll almost certainly forget the weird disconnect between what life was and what I felt it should be. We humans are good at compartmentalising, too.

Right now, I’m mainly just thinking about having Internet access to post this…

The right’s defeat

2013-05-16T23:59:00.001+12:00

Reality is catching up with the radical right: Their lies are failing as more people know and accept the truth about LGBT people. This helps explain why we are winning so often now.

As I’ve pointed out far too many times to list, the radical right uses lies, deception, distortion and defamation to attack LGBT people and our struggle for our civil and human rights. The problem the radicals now face is that mainstream people now know the extent to which the radicals have lied about reality, and polls reflect this.

A couple days ago, I mentioned a Gallup poll, and that their polls show “support for marriage equality now consistently polls above 50%”. This shows the extent to which the radical right has pretty much lost the war.

A new Gallup poll shows why they’re losing:

Currently, 47% of Americans view being gay or lesbian as a sexual orientation individuals are born with, while 33% instead believe it is due to external factors such as upbringing or environment. That 14-percentage-point gap in favor of "nature" over "nurture" is the largest Gallup has measured to date. As recently as two years ago, the public was evenly divided.

People don’t think someone should be discriminated against because of something they’re born with, even if some religions endorse discrimination. The acknowledgement that sexual orientation has a genetic component leads naturally to people supporting marriage equality.

No wonder the radical right is getting so desperate, and using ever more vile and hate-filled rhetoric: They’ve lost, they know it, and they see their power—and ability to make money—slipping through their fingers.

I found Gallup’s analysis equally as interesting as the raw results:

Compared with 2011, when Americans were equally divided on the origins of same-sex orientation, most major U.S. subgroups have shown at least a slight increase in the percentage believing same-sex preference is something a person is born with. Now, a plurality of most subgroups hold that view, except for Republicans, conservatives, and weekly church attenders.

There we have it in a nutshell: “Republicans, conservatives, and weekly church attenders” (and the first two are almost always also the third, but people who are the third are not necessarily the first two); they alone don’t accept that homosexuality is something that some people are born with. That grouping also calls the shots in the Republican Party, which explains the party’s intransigence on marriage equality, an issue where they’ve already lost, and that continues to cost the party votes, especially among the young.

So, what we have are a majority of Americans supporting marriage equality and a clear plurality accepting that homosexuals are born, not made. Why does the radical right keep fighting a war they’ve already lost?

Money and power.

By demonising LGBT people, they can raise a LOT of money. This is particularly important for those people who’d struggle to find well-paying jobs outside the anti-gay industry, but none of them want to give up a source of easy money. Power in this case mainly means controlling the Republican Party, since neither Democrats nor mainstream voters pay any attention to the radial right.

The core threat that the radical right is facing is that their entire ideology—and thus, money-making machine—is built on arguing that homosexuality is entirely a “choice”, one made by very, very naughty people who must be punished for “choosing” it. If mainstream Americans understand that gay people are born, not made, then ALL of the radicals’ arguments collapse: Since NO child can be “recruited” into homosexuality, then there’s no problem with anti-bullying campaigns in schools, gay teachers, gay scout leaders or gay parents. Their absurd, “won’t someone please think of the children” bullshit is seen as exactly that. And donations dry up.

All of this means that the radical right has a strong incentive to keep up with their lies, deception, distortion and defamation of LGBT people: Their livelihoods depend on it.

Mainstream America has already started moving on. In a few short years, these poll results will seem positively conservative as mainstream people continue to move past the radical right. The question then becomes, having failed at oppressing GLBT people, who will they next turn their fires of bigotry on?

Missing husband

2013-05-14T23:11:00.000+12:00

Watch this video, and you'll see why the USA's treatment of bi-national gay couples is, as US Rep. Jerrold Nadler called it, gratuitous cruelty. IF the US Supreme Court strikes down the infamous and blatantly unconstitutional Defense [sic] of Marriage Act, then legally married same-gender couples like David and Jason in this video will be treated equally by US immigration law. It will be an important FIRST step, but only that. The USA needs comprehensive immigration reform that includes LGBT people.

But if the Court doesn't strike down DOMA, then we are left waiting for Congress to repeal it, and since supporting DOMA (and being against marriage equality in general, too) is still a requirement for all Republican congressional and presidential candidates, this means it won't happen any time soon. That's why so much is riding on the Court's decision, and why it matters so much.

As long-time readers of this blog of course know, the USA's anti-gay immigration stance is why I moved to New Zealand in 1995, the year before DOMA (although marriage wasn't legal for same gender couples anywhere in the world at the time). Leaving the USA was the only way Nigel and I could be together because New Zealand recognised same-gender couples for immigration even back then—ten years before civil unions came to NZ, and some 18 years before marriage equality in NZ. Nearly 18 years later, US immigration policy is still the same—no, actually, it’s even worse because of DOMA.

So, when DOMA is finally struck down or repealed, life will get much better for legally married bi-national gay couples. But without comprehensive immigration reform, unmarried gay couples (like Nigel and I were in 1995) will face the same separation or exile that all gay couples do now. And it will still be legal to discriminate against LGBT single people.

I am NOT an absolutist: I want DOMA gone so married same-gender couples can have the same immigration rights—along with the other 1100-odd rights from marriage—as married opposite-gender couples. It’s just that getting rid of DOMA is not enough.

But, it’s a start.

For more information from the people behind the video, check out The DOMA Project.

An idea’s time has come

2013-05-14T18:55:00.000+12:00

Today Minnesota became the 12th US state to enact the freedom to marry, and the state’s governor will sign it into law tomorrow (the graphic comes from the governor’s office). That makes three states in two weeks! In fact, there have been so many countries and US states enacting marriage equality in such a very short time that I've actually lost count (no joke).

Marriage equality is an idea whose time has come, and the increasing ferocity of the rhetoric of our adversaries underscores the point: They’ve lost the war and they know it. It’s made them frantic, desperate to try and find some way to stop the inevitable, but, as Victor Hugo put it, "Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come."

Not at all long ago, victory seemed impossibly far off. For years, our opponents’ tactics of lying, scaremongering and sowing division among the coalition on our side of the war worked exactly as they intended, and they kept winning all the battles. But in May of last year, President Obama announced he supported the freedom to marry and Democratic politicians—and a couple Republicans—started tripping over themselves to declare that they, too, supported it.

November happened: Five out of five ballot victories for our side, including the first time we’d won the freedom to marry at the ballot box—in three states! More politicians jumped on board. Since then, the freedom to marry has passed numerous times, though not all of them are yet law. Some Republican leaders now openly talk about moving beyond social issues, especially dropping their fight against the freedom to marry, since their party is so clearly on the losing side.

Mother Jones reported that the Mormons have pulled back in the battle for marriage equality, after being the chief funder and organiser for California’s Propostion 8 (and before that, in Hawaii and also California). They left the field mainly to rightwing Catholics who can’t match the Mormons’ ability to mobilise a grassroots effort or raise money.

So, our adversaries find themselves unable to raise money or organise volunteers, and with a viewpoint clearly in the minority. Gallup reported today that support for marriage equality now consistently polls above 50%: It’s currently at 53% support, which, they note, “is essentially double the 27% in Gallup's initial measurement on gay marriage, in 1996.” It’s also ten points higher than it was just three years ago.

The fact that a clear majority of people in the USA support marriage equality is probably the single most important factor in the recent string of victories. Growing support leads to more support, which leads to victories, and that, in turn, leads to even more victories.

Of course, it’s not over yet. The Supreme Court is unlikely to issue a Loving v. Virginia sort of ruling on marriage equality (at least, not yet…), so eventually we’ll run out of states where the freedom to marry can be enacted: Some 2/3 of the US states have specific bans on same-gender couples marrying, usually enshrined in their state constitutions, and those will need to be removed first (as Oregon is getting ready to do).

Still, the momentum is clearly on our side, and marriage equality is inevitable in all 50 US states—though some will probably wait a VERY long time for it.

"Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come." Freedom to marry is an idea whose time—clearly—has come.

So, congratulations Minnesota! Now, it’s time for Illinois to join the other two Midwest states with the freedom to marry. It’s time has come.

Well played

2013-05-13T22:26:00.001+12:00

Labour Party Leader David Shearer posted the above graphic to Facebook, adding:

John Key has essentially written a blank cheque for SkyCity. They get more pokie machines, more gaming tables, ticket in – ticket out systems, cashless gambling and the ability to increase playing limits. SkyCity has hit the jackpot.

He’s absolutely right—but I’m actually not bothered by SkyCity. They’re a corporation doing what all corporations do under the rules of capitalism: They’re trying to maximise return (profits) for shareholders.

However, I have a HUGE problem with the National Party-led government “selling” our laws to advance the interests of corporations. This smacks of dirty backroom deals among rich mates.

In any case, this deal will have consequences that will hurt New Zealand (in my previous post, I pointed out one of the least talked about). The harm to democracy and national sovereignty is a big problem, too.

On this issue, as with so many others these days, the arrogance with which National is treating New Zealand is truly appalling.

Bad deal

2013-05-13T21:40:00.000+12:00

The current National Party-led government is dealing New Zealand a VERY bad hand. Much of that has already been discussed elsewhere, but one thing that hasn't been talked about in the SkyCity deal for a convention centre is that Auckland's sinking lid on pokies (slot machines) means that over time they'll be concentrated at SkyCity. That matters because the profits from pokies in pubs and clubrooms go to community groups, while the profits from SkyCity go overseas.

So, not only will the community have to deal with more problem gambling and the problems related to it, we'll also have community groups being left to do more with less money. In contrast, the overseas owners of SkyCity get more profits, with the National Party-led government’s legislation trying to guarantee that those profits won’t be affected by future (non-National Party) governments.

So, yeah: The current National Party-led government is dealing New Zealand a VERY bad hand.

See also: "Green Party threatens SkyCity law repeal" - Stuff

I originally published a different version of this post on Facebook.

Why not?

2013-05-10T14:51:00.002+12:00

Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames.

Today’s good news

2013-05-08T22:47:00.000+12:00

This has been a very good week for marriage equality. Today, Delaware became the 11th US State* to enact marriage equality: The state senate passed the bill and Governor Jack Markell signed it into law shortly afterward. This is less than a week since Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee signed that state’s marriage equality law.

Illinois and Minnesota have marriage equality bills before their legislatures, and the Illinois bill has already passed the Illinois Senate and is now waiting for a vote in the House of Representatives. The governors of both Minnesota and Illinois have pledged to sign marriage equality bills into law, should their states’ legislatures pass them. Votes in both states are expected soon.

What I think is especially relevant for Illinois is that less than a year ago, Delaware enacted civil unions (which will cease being offered on July 1, and after that, all existing civil unions will be automatically converted to marriages over time). The Illinois General Assembly passed civil unions not quite two years ago; Delaware shows that there’s no reason not move on full marriage equality right away.

For me, the quote of the year in all the marriage equality battles came from Delaware Senator Karen Peterson, who came out as lesbian during the debate. Sen. Peterson said:

"If my happiness somehow demeans or diminishes your marriage, you need to work on your marriage."

I’ve never heard that put better.

I am very busy this week, but this is something to celebrate. Congratulations Delaware and Rhode Island—now, on to Illinois and Minnesota!

*The District of Columbia, which has the city of Washington, the US Capital, also has marriage equality, but DC is not a state.

Graphic above is from the American Foundation for Equal Rights' blog post on Delaware.

Technical difficulties

2013-05-07T22:15:00.000+12:00

This has been a week: Heavy work commitments have left me with little time for blogging, and I’ve also had some “technical difficulties” (chiefly around Internet access). All of which has meant no blogging—in fact, I may not have time until later this week. Life happens.

In the mix

2013-05-05T23:48:00.000+12:00

Twitter was once called a “microblogging platform”—anybody else remember that? Well, it never was one, and Facebook isn’t a blog, either. But, I think they’re both part of the mix.

The other day, Roger Green posted this:

When I noted that I’ll be doing less blogging someday, I should have made it clear that I won’t be filling up that time using Facebook. I mention this specifically because many of my original blogging buddies from 2005 and 2006 have done just that.

None of my blogging buddies have done that, but there are some people who, in my opinion, should be blogging, instead post things to Facebook (or Tumblr) that would make great conventional blog posts. I think it’s all about reach.

Facebook is a social network without equal (sorry Google+ fans; much as I like that platform, it’s barely used by people I know). Depending on one’s privacy settings, there are potentially millions of people who could see a posting. It’s not just your friends, but who they share it with, and so on. And, if you have loose enough settings to permit public viewing, the total number who might read your words could be many millions.

Even though most ordinary people would never—ever—reach such stratospheric numbers of readers, I nevertheless think that it’s the huge potential reach of Facebook that makes it so tempting for some people to use a kind of mini-blogging platform. A conventional blog post on any platform—Blogger, Wordpress, some other site or even self-hosted—is very unlikely to offer that same huge potential audience.

My own blog has a consistent and rather small readership (quality, not quantity!). If I wait for people to discover it on Blogger alone, that’ll never change. So, like most bloggers, I try and reach other readers, perhaps even those who don’t ordinarily read blogs.

So, I have Networked Blogs publish a teaser for each new post to Facebook, and that’s resulted in something interesting: I often have more interaction about my blog posts on Facebook than I do here. Friends will “Like” a post or make a comment there, something they never do here. Similarly, a teaser is automatically posted to Google+ and I’ll often get a +1 there, which people could do here, but seldom do.

What all of this means for me is that Facebook, Google+ and Twitter are all important parts of my blogging: They let people who often are not ordinarily readers of blogs know about my posts, and sometimes they read them. But the thing is, all those places point back here—the post is here, not in any of those other places.

Roger’s post lays out some of what’s good about Facebook, though his mention of the designated hitter rule baffled me; I never understood it—or, perhaps, baseball—at all. But I—we—digress.

After I read Roger’s post, I said on Twitter:

For me, Facebook is for people I know IRL—family and old school friends—and Twitter is for people I WISH I knew.

Sometime in the past year or so, Facebook became a place with a high percentage of people I know in real life; all the others remain quite low. But all the networks I take part in have interesting people who are willing to engage in conversation—and isn’t conversation part of the whole point of blogging? It is for me.

Facebook cannot replace a full blogging platform, I don’t think, at least in part because social networks don’t have as much overlap as many people assume. As a blogger, I’d like to reach, yes, but more to engage with all sorts of people. For me, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc., aren’t a substitute for traditional blogging, but they’re definitely in the mix.

Creating a voter

2013-05-02T23:42:00.001+12:00

My parents made me a left-of-centre voter. I don’t think they set out to do that, but then again, yes they did. Obviously there’s a story in that.

This post topic came about because of my friend Kit’s comment on Facebook about yesterday’s post, “May Day and me”, which got me thinking about the specific influence my parents had on my political development and growth. This post expands on what I said in reply to her. Kit explained how her parents were left of centre, but mine certainly weren’t.

My parents were staunch Republicans. As I’ve mentioned before, one of my earliest memories is of a mock presidential election in my Kindergarten, and I said on my podcast that I “voted” for Barry Goldwater—because my parents did. Four years later, my parents backed Nixon, then Nixon again and then Ford.

One day, when I was still pretty young, my dad was getting ready for the day and his jewellery box was open after he’d gotten some cufflinks out. In it, I saw a red, white and blue Nixon/Lodge campaign button. He often talked about that election and complained that Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had “stolen” it for John F. Kennedy. Something about voting machines tossed into the Chicago River (I didn’t pay much attention…).

So with a clearly Republican family, it seemed I was destined to be one, too—but things didn’t work out that way.

As far back as I can remember, my parents talked about the issues of the day. Although much of it was from a more or less right of centre perspective (and the voting machine conspiracy theory wouldn’t be out of place among modern Republicans…), they also valued facts, evidence and the free exchange of ideas.

As I grew older, we discussed the issues as equals. What I wrote back in 2011 in a post for my mother’s birthday sums it up:

“…neither my mother nor father ever dismissed what I had to say, or told me to be quiet, even though I had far less life experience than they did, and very little of my own. If they ever thought that I was naive or immature or my views simplistic, they never said so, even though some of my views had to be one or all of those things at least sometimes.”

I also said in that post that “by encouraging me to think, to discuss and to debate, [my parents] nurtured my growing interest in all things political.” I could have added that this led to my steady move leftward.

I know for certain that my parents voted in Democratic primaries at least twice: 1974 and 1978. In 1974, our local police chief, E.J. "Chick" LaMagdeleine, was running for sheriff of our county against the incumbent, Republican Pat Clavey, who was widely regarded as corrupt (he was later convicted of income tax evasion and perjury and served time in prison). LaMagdeleine won that election, but the county was very Republican and in 1978 the Republican candidate defeated him. LaMagdeleine died in 1998 and Clavey died last year.

My parents were both dead before the 1980 election, so I have no idea who they’d have voted for. I like to think it wouldn’t have been Reagan, but I really don’t know. However, they were pretty centrist overall—conservative-ish at most—and would be appalled by the extremism of the modern Republican Party, so I’m convinced that, like me, they’d be voting for Democrats now.

What my parents taught me through our discussions and their own behaviour was that it’s okay to grow and evolve. So, while my parents didn’t set out specifically to make me a left of centre voter, they did try to guide me into being a good voter and responsible citizen. Were they still alive, I’m sure we wouldn’t agree on every issue—we never did—but we’d be in a similar place on most political issues.

All of which is more evidence for why I think my parents were pretty damn awesome.

May Day and me

2013-05-01T22:04:00.000+12:00

May Day (also known as International Workers' Day) always seemed sinister when I was a kid. It took me decades to learn it wasn’t.

Growing up during the Cold War, it wasn’t hard to find May Day scary. TV news reports showed a parade through Red Square in Moscow, with the masses marching, waving huge red banners or carrying portraits of Marx, Lenin and whoever the Soviet leaders of the day were. The crowds seemed so fervent, so committed to their ideology. It wasn’t hard to be convinced that all the US propaganda was fact.

But it turned out the origins of May Day were much closer to home.

May Day began as a remembrance of the Haymarket Riots in Chicago, which happened on May 4 1886. During a peaceful rally supporting workers striking for an eight-hour day, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police. That, and the gunfire that erupted afterward, killed seven police officers and at least four of the crowd. Dozens were injured.

A “red scare” followed, with police often brutally cracking down on socialists, anarchists and activists for workers’ rights. The bomber was never identified, but authorities tried and convicted 8 people for conspiracy—in a trial widely regarded as unjust. Four defendants were executed by hanging, the other four were pardoned in 1893 by the progressive Governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld (who was defeated in the next election, largely because of his support for labour).

In 1889, a privately funded statue honouring the dead policemen was erected in Haymarket Square. It was damaged several times, and was actually blown up twice by the Weathermen (in 1969 and 1970). Each time the statue was damaged, it was restored. In 1972, it was moved to the Chicago Police Headquarters (later to its training academy), but the pedestal remained empty for decades. In 1992, bronze plaque was placed on the spot where the wagon from which speakers addressed the crowd had stood. In 2004, a memorial sculpture—depicting a 15-foot speaker’s wagon—was unveiled.

Growing up, and believing the anti-socialist propaganda of the local, state and federal governments of the day, I had no reason to learn the real story of the Haymarket Riots, so I didn’t know it was the reason behind the selection of May Day as a day for workers. For that matter, I didn’t know the truth about social democratic countries.

Now, of course, I live in a social democracy, with its mix of market socialism, welfare state progressivism and market-focused capitalism. I’ve seen firsthand that social democratic programmes condemned in the USA, such as national healthcare, are actually good things that benefit society, and that such things are not evil, as I’d been taught to believe.

Still, on May Day in New Zealand we don’t break into a rousing rendition of “The Internationale”. I bet most Kiwis, like their American cousins, probably don’t even know what that is. Our Labour Day holiday—celebrating the 8-hour workday—is at the end of October.

The video at the top of this post is of Arturo Toscanini conducting a version of “The Internationale” in 1944. It’s part of a film featurette to honour the Allied victory in Italy in World War 2 in which Toscanini conducted Verdi’s “Hymn of the Nations”, adding “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the USA and “The Internationale” for the Soviet Union (until that year, “The Internationale” was the national anthem of the Soviet Union). In the “red scares” of the 1950s, US censors had other ideas about all this and deleted “The Internationale” from the film. The complete, uncensored version is on YouTube, of course (and, oddly enough, “The Star-Spangled Banner” follows “The Internationale”). The music was performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, with the Westminister Choir and the tenor Jan Peerce as soloist.

It turns out that the world is much more interesting than American propaganda led me to believe. History is almost never a simplistic binary story in which one side is all good and the other is all bad. Humans, and our stories, are far too complicated for that. So, the struggle for workers’ rights or the attempts to stop them, the Haymarket Riots and the origins of May Day, or even socialism itself—none of these are simplistic morality tales. They’re far more interesting.

Feijoa time

2013-04-30T23:38:00.000+12:00

It’s feijoa time in New Zealand. We Americans can be forgiven for not knowing what that means—but we really should.

Feijoas, Acca sellowiana, a member of the myrtle family, are a fruit native to Brazil but hugely popular here in New Zealand. I know the trees are gown ornamentally in Australia and other places, but I have no idea whether they’re as mad for the fruit as Kiwis are: We have the fruit, frozen concoctions, and even feijoa-infused vodka. Among other things.

This time of year, workplaces see people bringing in bags of the fruit to give away to co-workers before the fruit goes off—as it does, rather quickly. But while it’s around, it’s a feast.

One eats feijoas, typically, by scooping out the sweet centres with a spoon. The closer to the outside, the more tart—even astringent—the taste, And gritty, too. With so little return from each fruit, it’s no wonder people concentrate on the sweet (full disclosure: I quite like the more tart bit nearer the outside, but not TOO far out…).

It always used to be that people needed to plant a male and female tree to get fruit, but there are now self-pollinating varieties (there’s a Bob McCoskrie joke in there, but I couldn’t possibly comment). When ripe, the fruit just drops to the ground—rather a lot, apparently, and nearly all at once. Which is why people bring in bags full to their workplaces: How else are they going to get rid of such bounty before it rots?

I’d never heard of feijoas before I moved to New Zealand. Now, I can’t imagine life without them. Apparently, it’s a seductive fruit, too.

Photo accompanying this post is by Arthur Schenck. This blog's Creative Commons licence applies.

Solutions and problems

2013-04-30T21:55:00.000+12:00

Today the NZ Parliament’s Justice and Electoral Committee reported on the 2011 General Election. It was, um, interesting.

I found out the report was released from a Tweet (I forget who it was from). I immediately went and downloaded it and read it right then (yes, I really am that much of a politics nerd). My overriding impression is that while some points were valid, overall the report seemed to be made up of solutions looking for problems.

Most of the report is taken up with the minutiae of running elections in New Zealand, some of it interesting, if only slightly, to people it does not affect; most of it is completely uninteresting. Download and read the report for yourself to determine which you think is which.

For me, one of the eyebrow-raising moments was in Section 5 “Statutory and regulatory frameworks”, specifically, the parts about “Election Advertising.” The committee report said:

We recommend to the Government that it consider prohibiting electioneering activity on election day, including the wearing of rosettes, lapel badges, ribbons, streamers, and party apparel, other than the wearing of a party rosette by a scrutineer inside a polling station.

Quite frankly, I think this is utterly daft. Under current law, anyone can wear an official party rosette (for American readers: A bit like a ribbon one might win at a fair, in the colours of a part and with the party’s logo on it). They can also have ribbons or streamers in party colours affixed to their car or person (no bumper stickers, though), so long as they don’t have the party logo. On election day, people can also wear lapel pins with party name and logo.

The point of all these somewhat odd and complicated rules is to prevent voters from feeling intimidated or feeling coerced. While a few hundred complaints are received by the Electoral Commission every election, and even though 76 percent, according to the report, deal with this stuff, there has apparently NEVER been any suggestion that any voter felt intimidated or coerced under the law as it is now. Why change?!

Current law restricts free speech: People are not allowed to openly express political opinions on election day except in certain restricted ways (and even less so online, which the report doesn’t adequately address). The committee heard no evidence that the situation under the current law has caused any harm. Even so, the committee wants to further restrict freedom of speech—why?!

I was a Scrutineer (what we in Illinois called “poll watchers”) in two elections: 1999 and 2002. In both cases, I wore a Labour Party rosette in the polling place (weird to me as an American-born Kiwi), and in both cases I could hear voters asking elections officials about it (they said, of course, it was permitted under the law). To be honest, as a Kiwi of American origin, I’m not sure that scrutineers should be allowed to wear party rosettes IN the polling place, but I see no reason to further restrict other people’s free speech—and, to reiterate, the committee is NOT proposing to end rosettes in polling places, just an end to such displays for others.

The committee report notes the rising importance of early/advance voting (before election day) and notes that the Labour Party members of the committee saw no point in the election day restrictions because “no such restrictions apply prior to polling day and in light of the increasing and significant numbers of voters who choose to exercise an early vote.” I completely agree with that.

Still, other parts are worth note: The committee dismisses stand-alone referenda, and suggests that the government move toward electronic voting, make things easier and better for Kiwis living overseas, and a whole host of other things. But the area I’ve highlighted is one where I think they got it totally wrong.

Democracy is both robust and fragile: It can survive despite all the odds, and yet it does best with careful nurturing. The report of the committee advocates some minor and needed tweaks to New Zealand’s election system, misses others, and makes wacky suggestions about one—like a solution in search of a problem.

Democracy, however, is not a problem to be solved; attempts to restrict it are.

Our weekend diversion

2013-04-30T20:04:00.000+12:00

On Anzac Day we visited family in Hamilton. Not unusual by itself, but we haven’t been there in quite awhile.

Anzac Day (April 25) is a Public Holiday in New Zealand (well, the morning is…), and like a lot of New Zealanders, we too the Friday off, too. So We headed off to Hamilton to stay the night—dogs, too. We were staying with Nigel’s cousin, who we’d never visited in her new house.

First, though, we were meeting up with family for lunch at the mall in Hamilton called Te Awa (bad phone camera photo above) at The Base. The site itself is a former NZ Defence Force base that was no longer needed, so the land was handed back to the local iwi, Tainui. Sensibly, they’ve redeveloped the land, and it is now a major shopping destination for Hamilton and the Waikato Region.

The last time we were there, we were living in Paeroa and the mall hadn’t been built: It’s very different. Now, after many years back in Auckland, two things struck me about the mall. First, the clientele was much browner than the malls I usually go to (just a fact, not a value judgement), and second a value judgement: The younger men were particularly attractive. Sure, we get both in our local malls, but not with such density.

I probably didn’t see as much of the mall itself as I could have, but I have to say that one other impression overshadowed everything else: The American-ness of the way in which the carparking area was very pedestrian unfriendly. Just like American shopping centre areas, it would have been easier—and safer—to drive than to walk. I though this was really weird, and really—really—bad planning. Maybe one day they’ll fix it.

Still, the lunch was very nice, the time with family even better, and we enjoyed our time with them and at Nigel’s cousin’s house. The dogs seemed to like the trip, too.

We went home on Friday, and still had a whole weekend ahead of us—now THAT is what I call a good holiday weekend!

Weekend Diversion: Beautiful

2013-04-28T23:03:00.002+12:00

I don’t usually do these Weekend Diversions about a specific song, but this one warrants it. “Beautiful” (written by Linda Perry and performed by Christina Aguilera) is a positive song from 2002 in a genre that sometimes doesn’t encourage that.

I blogged about Linda Perry, who wrote the song, last week. What I didn’t know until I was researching background information for that post, was that Perry originally played the song for P!nk, who asked to record the song. Perry refused. She later also played it for Aguilera who sang it, and Perry knew she was perfect for it and agreed to let her record it. Supposedly this caused a divide between Perry and P!nk that has never healed.

I referred to this song twice before: Once (briefly) to mention how TVNZ censored it, and also last year about how it was one of those affirming songs that come along every so often:

I noticed awhile back that every few years, or maybe once a decade, a song comes along that reminds youths that they’re okay—despite what their peers say, despite what society says, they’re really okay and they just need to hang on and things will get better. Some examples: “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” – Billy Joel (1985); “You Get What You Give” (aka, incorrectly, as “You’ve Got The Music In You”) – New Radicals (1998); “Beautiful” - Christina Aguilera (2002), and others.

That was written in the context of my effusive praise for P!nk’s “Fucking Perfect”, which has a similar theme (at the time, I didn’t know her connection to “Beautiful”). Someone really ought to do a study on these sorts of songs and why they pop up every so often.

Anyway, “Beautiful” is one of my favourites, though I like all the others on that list, too. It was also one of the last CD singles I ever bought, and it included the video above. I loved the affirmative imagery in the video as much as the lyrics or performance.

TVNZ’s censorship made me angry.

When it was still a charted single, TVNZ decided to censor the video. The specific section they censored is this (link takes you to YouTube). A few seconds, but ones that mattered. TVNZ claimed they were acting in place of parents, which was a bullshit excuse for blatant homophobia. New Zealand has among the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world, and positive images like that could have helped some struggling young people to feel better about themselves. There’s the old joke about, “no sex, please, we’re British”. Add to that, “no gay-affirming, please, we’re TVNZ”. No, I’ve never forgiven them for that act of homophobic bigotry. Deal with it.

Maybe that bit of official censorship cemented my appreciation for “Beautiful”, not that it really needed any help. In any case, I still find it a positive, affirming song, and an affecting video—and one of the best things that Christina Aguilera has ever done. Reason enough to watch again.

Fighting the fight

2013-04-27T23:03:00.001+12:00

The photo above is from one of the NZ folks I follow on Twitter and whose blog I read regularly, Frank Macskasy. I’ve consistently found his blog to be among the most thorough NZ politics blogs out there and, unlike some others, very accessible. I highly recommend it.

The photo is from his post today about the Stop Asset Sales March today in Wellington. Some of his other photos depict children participating, which is something that frankly makes me uncomfortable, no matter which end of the spectrum is doing it. Parents can and should teach their values, and that should mean political values, but taking children to political rallies and having them hold signs that they can scarcely read, much less understand, just seems a bit wrong to me, again, not matter the end of the spectrum.

Still, I think it’s important to help convey the message that plenty of ordinary New Zealanders oppose asset sales, and the photo above is one of my favourites that Frank posted. Honestly, I don’t see anything that can now stop the partial sale of Mighty River Power, and those shares will inevitably end up in foreign ownership. Both are colossally bad for New Zealand.

But it’s important to document that the National/Act Government started selling off the property of the New Zealand people without a real mandate (despite their propaganda claims) and with huge opposition. A saner future government, one that actually cares about New Zealand and its people, must fix this—and learn from it.

In the meantime, reality—not spin—must be documented.

Update 28 April: Protesters at the National Party Conference being held at Hanmer Springs came up with a clever way to protest: The set up a "toll booth" at a "privatised bridge" to show what New Zealanders can expect from National's privatisation agenda, in this case, its so-called "public/private partnership" method for building infrastructure. The protesters weren't collecting money, just making a point.

Twitterversary

2013-04-24T18:38:00.000+12:00

Today is my “Twitterversary”: I joined Twitter on April 25, 2007—six years ago today. I don’t seem to have mentioned that before. I now mention it mostly in other ways.

I had a look through my blog archives, and the earliest post about it I could find was February 6, 2009, nearly two years after I joined. Twitter itself began in 2006, becoming publicly available in July of that year.

Twitter was the second social network I joined, after MySpace (I joined Facebook a few months after Twitter). My original plan was to use those social networks to promote my podcast. I did that for awhile, but Twitter was one of the first that I started using for other things—or, to put it another way, it was the probably the first that I stopped using to promote my podcast (although in those days I hardly used Facebook for anything). I set up a separate Twitter account for my AmeriNZ Podcast in December of 2009, and one for 2Political Podcast in July of 2010.

Over the years, I’ve tired other social networks, including several from Google: Buzz, Wave and Google+ (the first two are defunct), along with Diaspora and several podcast-specific ones. I stopped using MySpace pretty much when most everyone I knew did: When Rupert Murdoch bought it. But it’s only been in the past couple years that I’ve actually used Faceboook. I still use Google+.

However, Twitter has endured through all that, even if there were periods at the beginning when I’d go a very long time without signing in, much less Tweeting. As the service has grown, it’s gained some useful inventions that came primarily from users—especially “@” replies and hashtags. And that growing usability made me use it more.

I’ve watched quite a bit of history unfold in real-time: Storms and natural disasters here and overseas (including the Canterbury earthquakes, the fatal tornadoes here in Auckland’s North Shore and the Japanese earthquake), the Iranian rebellion, the Arab Spring, demonstrations all over the world. There has also been live commenting on live TV (including interesting things like the recent enactment of marriage equality in New Zealand). Some of it has been fascinating, even exciting, and of course a lot had been pretty banal. Still, I’ve enjoyed every minute—and when I didn’t I just closed Twitter for awhile.
I’ve also interacted with dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of people. Some of them I knew already, most of them I didn’t. Some I later met in real life. There was also one I’m sorry that I never got to meet. That human connection is part of what has kept Twitter fun for me.

In the early days, I sometimes got in Twitter arguments, until I realised how silly the very idea was. Now, I just have discussions that, even when the remarks are pointed, remain civil. One such sometimes-heated discussion had a very positive result.

I’ve also enjoyed the discipline of the 140 character limit—brevity being something I obviously pay little attention to on this blog. I enjoy being able to make an observation, wry remark or joke in 140 characters or less, and I know when I’ve done it well when the Tweet is Re-Tweeted (shared) or favourite. Instant feedback is part of the allure of social networks for me as it is for many people I know.

The image above is my first Tweet. Well, sort of: The image comes from a service called My First Tweet (not affiliated with Twitter). I retrieved it on my Second Twitterversary. I believe that the photo was what I was using at that time, not what I originally used (which, if memory serves, was my podcast album art). In any event, of you think the Tweet isn’t very spectacular, consider that the very first Tweet ever sent was “just setting up my twttr”, sent by Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey on March 26, 2006. In fact, the next 13 Tweets were all the same thing.

Twitter really is what you make of it. At the moment, I’ve made 29,289 Tweets, an average of about 13 1/3 per day. Some days I send a lot, like when a news event is happening. There are also periods in which I won’t send any at all for days. The future is likely to be more of the same.

And it will be Tweeted.

Still unhelpful

2013-04-24T14:08:00.001+12:00

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: NZ’s far-right religious “coalition” created to fight against marriage equality says their website was attacked, and they instantly accuse their opponents of having done it. Actually, this is a new story.

Bob McCoskrie, the guy behind the anti-gay marriage Protect [sic] Marriage NZ (and the related Family [sic] First NZ), claims that his website was attacked. According to a press release reported by last night by the website for TVNZ’s One News, McCoskrie says that about 9pm on Sunday night, four days after marriage equality was enacted by the New Zealand Parliament, his site was subjected to a Denial of Service attack.

Bob said his site was taken down by his webhost, adding, “This is no ordinary webhost—we are using a host in the US that specialises in hosting websites that are likely to be attacked.” Meaning… what, exactly? That this was a huge DoS attack, so big his webhost couldn’t cope? He doesn’t say.

But what he does say is extraordinarily unhelpful for someone who claims to value honest debate:

“It is disappointing that some opponents [of] our stance towards marriage are resorting to desperate—but failed—attempts to shut us down. We were also disappointed that our original web host company based in Christchurch was targeted with offensive emails simply because they were a business that we wanted to support and who were willing to host some of our websites.”

What would Bob’s opponents have to gain, now that the bill is law? He says, “We know that campaigns around the world seeking to protect [sic] marriage are benefitting from the resources on our site.” Maybe, but all of it is available from other sites, and most of it is just reposted from foreign, mostly American sites.

What else does Bob offer as a motive? He says his site as “has registered close to 25,000 pledges” from people who say they will vote against any MP who voted in favour of marriage equality. Um, so? At the moment, there are 3.3 MILLION eligible voters in New Zealand, of which 3.087 MILLION are enrolled. 25,000? That represents about .008% of enrolled voters—less than one percent. That’s hardly a serious threat. As time passes, people will move on—they always do—and by the time the election rolls around in a year and a half, even those who were opponents last week will have moved on, too (apart from Bob’s most ardent far right supporters, possibly).

Bob is merely projecting, making assumptions that, because Bob thinks his opponents feel threatened by him, they must be behind it. This is the second time that Bob has claimed that his site was attacked by his opponents, and neither time has Bob produced any actual proof.

Bob is defaming all of his political opponents by accusing “some” of being behind the alleged attack (and alleged is the appropriate word here since Bob is making accusations of criminal behaviour). This is extremely offensive.

As I said back in July:

No one should support censorship in a political debate, nor the suppression of arguments for or against a matter of public policy. Similarly, politically-motivated attacks on any website to suppress its speech and ideas, or to make it appear that is happening, are unconscionable and must be denounced. But in doing so, offering unsubstantiated smears against one’s opponents is no more acceptable, and completely unhelpful for robust fact-based debate.

That’s every bit as true now: Bob must not make unsubstantiated smears against his opponents.

But let’s play Bob’s game: The attackers were actually people from HIS side! They’d have a lot to gain: They’d get media attention for Bob, something he often struggles to get otherwise. As a bonus, it look like reinforcement of their absurd claim of being “victims” of what his supporters like to call “homofascists” (though, as far as I can remember, Bob himself has never used that slur). This MUST be what really happened, right? I mean, it makes total sense to me, so it must be true! Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

My point is simple: Anyone can make a plausible claim about one’s political opponents when one doesn’t have to provide any proof. Allegations of criminal activity are serious, and should not be a soundbite for political propaganda.

Because, propaganda is what Bob’s press release actually was. He ends by declaring that he expects his website “to operate for a few years yet as the full impact of the law takes effect and as new attempts are made to redefine marriage even further to allow polygamy and group marriage.” Far right religious activists are obsessed with polygamy—despite the fact it’s illegal in all the countries that have enacted marriage equality for same-gender couples, and that the only countries that permit it are also the most stridently anti-gay.

Bob’s obsession with polygamy is related as more than the silly closing line of his propaganda: He never lets facts get in the way of a good yarn. If he wants to be taken seriously, he needs to start dealing in the fact-based world. If he has verifiable proof that his opponents were really involved, he must produce that proof. Otherwise, we must assume he’s lying for political gain.

Hacking and DoS attacks are very real problems, but let’s have a little perspective: Just today, the AP's Twitter feed was hacked, sending out a fake Tweet about the White House being bombed, which instantly sent the Dow Jones plummeting 140 points (the FBI is investigating). Also today, servers at Auckland University were hacked, affecting 4500 students, potentially including illegal access to their enrolment information and scholarship applications. This is what real cybercrime is and does. I’m sorry, but a NZ political site getting a DoS attack is an inconvenience for maybe a day, and unimportant compared to attacks like these.

So, yes, cybercrimes like hacking and DoS attacks are wrong, and the perpetrators should be prosecuted. But it’s every bit as wrong to make unsubstantiated smears against one’s political opponents just to try and score some propaganda points. Once again, Bob’s contribution to New Zealand’s political debate has been very unhelpful.

Looking ridiculous

2013-04-24T09:20:00.000+12:00

It’s not easy to win good attention on the Internet, as self-proclaimed experts constantly remind us. However, losing the Internet is easy.

In New Zealand,we have a couple prominent far-right religious political activists (that description is my honestly held opinion). A lot of people, me included, think that they tend toward self-parody, more often than not, but part of the reason for that is we’re political adversaries. Fair enough.

One of the two, Colin Craig, is a millionaire businessman who also runs a registered political party he calls the Conservative Party. It ran candidates in the last general election and failed to gain any seats in Parliament. Craig himself previously failed in an attempt to be elected Mayor of Auckland. As a result of all his political activity, he often tends to end up on the wrong end of Internet “buzz”. This time, he’s really shot himself in the foot.

New Zealand has a satirical website along the lines of The Onion. I’d never heard of it until yesterday, but now thousands of New Zealanders know it exists, and we have Colin Craig to thank for that.

The site, The Civilian, ran a satirical piece on the enactment of marriage equality called “Maurice Williamson looking pretty stupid after floods”. As such sites do, it attributed a quote to Colin that he didn’t actually say. Because satire sites make stuff up. By definition.

Colin didn’t think it was funny and called in his lawyers. Yesterday they demanded (the letter is viewable on The Civilian), on Colin’s behalf, that the article be taken down, a specific apology be posted and $500 be paid to help cover Colin’s legal fees. They claimed that quotation marks made the quote appear real, particularly when it appeared along side an MP’s quote that “we understand may largely be accurate.”

Debatable as all that is and may be, when someone sets his lawyers after someone and threatens a defamation suit, it’s pretty serious. Which means, of course, it then became a massive joke on the Internet.

The Civilian itself responded in character (see article link above), adding the apology, slightly modified, to the beginning, and adding: “We would like to note that we have also taken the additional measure of bolding the statement in question so that everybody knows which thing it was that Mr. Craig did not say.”

This was an extremely mild reaction compared to the many people who took Twitter and other social media to mock Colin far more pointedly than he ever was in the original piece. Some of what I saw was even verging on being nasty (and no, I didn’t save any of them, so I can’t link to them to illustrate this).

All of this made it a story that was reported by New Zealand’s newsmedia, and this morning the New Zealand Herald posted it’s story—and quoted in full “What Colin Craig did not say in the satirical post on the Civilian.” They even put that line in boldface.

What we have here is a perfect example of what many call The Streisand Effect: “The phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.” Colin didn’t like being made fun of, and ended up making sure that anyone in New Zealand who wanted to see it for themselves could—and would. The vast majority of us would never have known about it had he not tried to censor the piece in the first place.

In that Herald article, Colin asserted that he does indeed have a "well developed sense of humour". Obviously, many people disagree with him on that, and he’s as entitled to his opinion of himself as others are to disagree with him. However, he also said, again according to the Herald: "But when it comes to statements being reported in the public sphere ... there is no room for humour." Is Colin joking?! Politics is the BEST place for humour!

Let’s not forget this whole thing happened because Colin proudly placed himself and his party as opponents of the marriage equality bill and tried to persuade Parliament to reject it. After his defeat, he still talked about trying to get his way on this issue. As a self-proclaimed opponent of a matter up for public debate, as someone who advocated a position on a public issue and tried to influence Parliament, and as someone who apparently wants to be an elected politician, he has to learn to expect ridicule, satire—and also strident opposition. ALL politicians and persons debating in “the public sphere” must expect that! Colin doesn’t get any special treatment or special rights or a special exemption. Quite frankly, if he can’t handle that, then he may want to reconsider whether politics is really a good career for him.

We all hope that political debate (and election campaigns) are focused on the issues. In New Zealand, they are most of the time. But satire and humour are an integral part of any debate or campaign—indeed, they may help keep things from getting too serious and too pressured.

And that’s no joke.

Update: Colin Craig has withdrawn his complaint, according the Dominion-Post. Unsurprisingly, the article reports that The Civilian's editor said the site's "servers had been struggling to keep up with the massive spike of traffic caused by publicity of the incident." The same article also reported that Colin "said after legal advice, he would be filing a complaint against a television network by the end of the week." It'll be interesting to see how folks on the Internet respond to that.

Language of love

2013-04-22T20:00:00.000+12:00

Social networks are an amazing thing. I find all sorts of blog topics through them, and this video is no different. My good friend Stephen Fry* Tweeted a link to this video, and when I watched it, I was amazed.

The video, “The Language of Love”, features 17-year-old Charlie struggling to find the words to be true to himself and his best friend. It was written and performed by Kim Ho, under the guidance of Australian playwright Tommy Murphy, and was directed by Laura Scrivano as part of the Voices Project from the Australian Theatre for Young People. I think it’s really powerful.

As I’ve said several times before, I like spoken word performance, whether a monologue, performance piece, dramatic poetry—I think there’s something magical about words performed by the human voice. As a podcaster, that probably figures. But this video is also notable for the writing and acting, which make it even more appealing.

They’ve also posted a “making of” video to go along with this video. It’s also worth checking out. The original version, “Transcendence” (which became “Language of Love”) is also online.

I love social networks. I find all kinds of amazing things through them. This video is just the latest.

*I am, of course, joking. Stephen Fry is the biggest celebrity to follow me back on Twitter (I’m one of 51,621 people he follows, and one of 5,713,561 people who follow him), but I’m quite sure he has no idea who I am and never sees my Tweets. Still, the fact that he does follow me does make me smile.