Don't muck with the ducks

Five foot under the worst head cold of the season and I couldn't care less about politics.
So, in North Coast Voices just-for-fun tradition - a para from ANU's student mag Woroni on the wonderful world of Canberra ducks.

The ducks own the campus.
They own the creek. They own the ovals. They most definitely own the roads, defiantly taking way too long to waddle across the pedestrian crossings (yes, they use them) while cars are backed up into the distance. University regulations place harming a duck alongside killing a unicorn, and you must learn to respect their dominion.
You may wonder why I conclude with this observation. But by spring, you too, fresh first year, will understand the dominance of these creatures when you’re running for your life from a fiercely maternal duck going straight for your shins, after you dared to enjoy the sight of her ridiculously cute offspring.
Even as I write this, somewhere in the Chancellery, Professor Chubb is sitting at his desk, receiving orders from a militant duck barking over his shoulder.
Don’t muck with the ducks.

This sort of political self-indulgence has got to stop, Mr. Rudd

ABC News this morning.

 

The Senate Estimates Committee has been told that the 2020 summit in April has already cost the Government $1.9 million in contracts and other invoices are yet to be received.

The costs cover things such as uniforms, catering, events management and transport.

Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson has been particularly critical of a funding for a time capsule he has described as self-indulgent.

"What a lot of fluff, honestly and truly, $11,000," he said.

The Federal Government has also faced a grilling over a media contract for the 2020 summit, which was awarded to the wife of the Defence Minister's media adviser.

The Opposition has questioned the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet about a contract that was given to a media company called CMAX.

 

On the NSW North Coast we have some of the least affordable housing, lowest individual incomes and longest public dental treatment waiting lists in Australia.

So it is a real slap in the face when the level of indulgence displayed by the Rudd Government is exposed.

This is the same government who cries it's budget is too restricted this year to bring disabled pensioners up to the same financial status as other pensioners receiving Centrelink or Dept. of Veteran's Affair's payments.

 

It is even more galling when it is revealed in the estimates committee hearing last Monday that taxpayers footed the bill for the Clerk of the Senate to attend because of the position he held but not in any official capacity.

Apparently the taxpayer was paying for all manner of politician and public servant to attend as recipients of unsolicited invitations.

It seems we paid a great deal of money for government shepherds to herd the summiteer flock.

The other side of the debate about Bill Henson's art

The Age has this full text of writer Alison Croggon's letter on behalf of "Creative Australia 2020 Summit representatives".

"As members of the Creative Stream of the Australia 2020 Summit, we wish to express our dismay at the police raid on Bill Henson's recent Sydney exhibition, the allegations that he is a child pornographer, and the subsequent reports that he and others may be charged with obscenity.

The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists is no way to build a Creative Australia, and does untold damage to our cultural reputation. The public debate prompted by the Henson exhibition is welcome and important. We need to discuss the ethics of art and the issues that it raises. That is one of the things art is for: it is valuable because it gives rise to such debate and difference, because it raises difficult, sometimes unanswerable, questions about who we are, as individuals and as members of society. However, this on-going discussion, which is crucial to the healthy functioning of our democracy, cannot take place in a court of law.

We invite the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and the NSW Premier, Mr Iemma, to rethink their public comments about Mr Henson's work. We understand that they were made in the context of deep community concern about the sexual exploitation of children. We understand and respect also that they have every right to their personal opinions. However, as political leaders they are influential in forming public opinion, and we believe their words should be well considered. We also call on the Minister for Environment Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, to stand up for artists against a trend of encroaching censorship which has recently resulted in the closure of this and other exhibitions.

We wish to make absolutely clear that none of us endorses, in any way, the abuse of children. Mr Henson's work has nothing to do with child pornography and, according to the judgment of some of the most respected curators and critics in the world, it is certainly art. We ask for the following points to be fairly considered:

1. Mr Henson is a highly distinguished artist. His work is held in all major Australian collections including the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of SA, Art Gallery of WA, National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia. Among international collections, his work is held in the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Houston Museum of Fine Art; 21C Museum, Louisville; the Montreal Museum of Fine Art; Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; the DG Bank Collection in Frankfurt and the Sammlung Volpinum and the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna. Major retrospectives of Mr Henson's work at the Art Galleries of NSW and Victoria attracted more than 115,000 people, and produced not one complaint of obscenity. His work has also been studied widely in schools for many years.

2. Mr Henson has been photographing young models for more than 15 years. Until now, there has been no suggestion by any of his subjects or their families of any abusive practices. On the contrary, his models have strongly defended his practice and the feeling of safety generated in his process, and have expressed pride in his work. We suggest that the media sensationalism and the criminalisation of laying charges against Mr Henson, his gallery and the parents of the young people depicted in his work, would be far more traumatic for the young people concerned than anything Mr Henson has done.

3. The work itself is not pornographic, even though it includes depictions of naked human beings. It is more justly seen in a tradition of the nude in art that stretches back to the ancient Greeks, and which includes painters such as Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Many of Henson's controversial images are not in fact sexual at all. Others depict the sexuality of young people, but in ways that are fundamentally different from how naked bodies are depicted in pornography. The intention of the art is not to titillate or to gratify perverse sexual desires, but rather to make the viewer consider the fragility, beauty, mystery and inviolabilty of the human body. In contrast, the defining essence of pornography is that it endorses, condones or encourages abusive sexual practice. We respectfully suggest that Henson's work, even when it is disturbing, does nothing of the sort. I would personally argue that, in its respect for the autonomy of its subjects, the work is a counter-argument to the exploitation and commodification of young people in both commercial media and in pornographic images. Many of us have children of our own. The sexual abuse and exploitation of children fills us all with abhorrence. But it is equally damaging to deny the obvious fact that adolescents are sexual beings. This very denial contributes to abusive behaviour, because it is part of the denial of the personhood of the young. In my opinion, Mr Henson's work shows the delicacy of the transition from childhood to adulthood, its troubledness and its beauty, in ways which do not violate the essential innocence of his subjects. It can be confronting, but that does not mean that it is pornography. Legal opinion is that if charges were laid against Mr Henson, he would be unlikely to be found guilty. The seizure of the photographs, and the possible prosecution of Mr Henson, the Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery or the parents of Henson's subjects, takes up valuable police and court time that would be much better spent pursuing those who actually do abuse children.

4. Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the trial-by-media to which Mr Henson and his work has been subject over the past few days, is how his art has been diminished and corrupted. The allegations that he is making child pornography have done more to promote his work to possible paedophiles than any art gallery, where the work is seen in its proper, contemplative context. It is notable that the attacks on Mr Henson's work have, almost without exception, come from those who are unfamiliar with the photographs, or who have seen them in mutilated or reduced images on the internet.

If an example is made of Bill Henson, one of Australia's most prominent artists, it is hard to believe that those who have sought to bring these charges will stop with him. Rather, this action will encourage a repressive climate of hysterical condemnation, backed by the threat of prosecution.

We are already seeing troubling signs in the pre-emptive self-censorship of some galleries. This is not the hallmark of an open democracy nor of a decent and civilised society. We should remember that an important index of social freedom, in earlier times or in repressive regimes elsewhere in the world, is how artists and art are treated by the state.

We urge our political leaders to follow the example of Neville Wran, when in 1982 a similar outcry greeted paintings by Juan Davila. At that time, Mr Wran said: "I do not believe that art has anything to do with the vice squad". With Mr Wran, we believe the proper place for debate is outside the courts of law."

Alison Croggon, Writer

Signatories:

Louise Adler, CEO & Publisher-in-Chief, Melbourne University Publishing
Geoffery Atherden, Writer
Stephen Armstrong, Executive Producer, Malthouse Theatre
James Baker, Tax advisor and accountant
Geraldine Barlow, Curator
Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney
Cate Blanchett, Actor
Daryl Buckley, Musician
Leticia Cacares, Theatre Director
Karen Casey, Visual Artist
Kate Champion, Choreographer, Artistic Director Force Majeure
Rachel Dixon, New media developer
Phoebe Dunn, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Commercial Galleries Association
Jo Dyer, Executive Producer, Sydney Theatre Company
Kristy Edmunds, Artistic Director, Melbourne International Festival of the Arts
Saul Eslake, Economist
Richard Gill, Artistic Director, Victorian Opera
Peter Goldsworthy, Writer
Michael Gow, Playwright
Marieke Hardy, Writer and broadcaster
Sam Haren, Artistic Director, The Border Project
Frank Howarth
Cathy Hunt, Creative consultant
Nicholas Jose, Writer
Andrew Kay, Producer
Ana Kokkinos, Film maker
Sandra Levy
Matthew Lutton, Theatre director
Nick Marchand, Artistic Director, Griffin Theatre
Sue Maslin, Producer, Film Art Doco Pty Ltd
Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art
Callum Morton, Visual Artist
Rosemary Myers, Artistic Director, Windmill Performing Arts
Rachel Healy, Director Performing Arts, Sydney Opera House
Liza Lim, Composer
Jan Minchin, Director, Tolarno Galleries
Helen O'Neil, Executive producer
Charles Parkinson, Artistic Director, Tasmanian Theatre Company
David Pledger, Theatre director
Marion Potts, Theatre Director
Katrina Sedgwick, Festival Director, Adelaide Film Festival

Additional signatories:

The following support the appeal contained in this letter without necessarily endorsing the detailed argument:

John Coetzee, Novelist
Ramona Koval, Writer and broadcaster

Bloggers who may have posted Henson images as part of their participation in the public debate on this issue should be aware that NSW Police have issued thinly veiled threats relating to such postings.

They say that laughter's the best medicine

There's one thing you can always rely on a Aussie pollie for - a good laugh.

Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson raised a laugh on Monday for calling the values police out on the Labor candidate in the Gippsland by-election because he was a Water Water cultural festival director when Beautiful Losers was performed.
The laugh arose because Nelson himself had so recently endorsed the anti-social behaviour, chair sniffing.
Yesterday we all found out that Nelson had forgotten to look into the history of this risque musical.
It seems that another festival director and a Liberal Party state leader to boot, was in the chair when the same musical was performed much earlier at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
So if Wee Brennie were to try to hold to his twisted logic, then 'Red' Ted Baillieu would also be displaying behaviour inconsistent with expected standards.
Can't have it both ways, mate.

The second guffaw of the week came when the Prime Minister was caught out in a very similar way.
Rudders has spent much of his air time since Budget night hammering the Opposition for its behind the scenes disunity over fuel policy, only to have one of his ministers outed as opposing his own pet petrol scheme, Fuel Watch.
The PM's mouth did the cat quince thing during Question Time everytime this was pointed out.
What's sauce for the goose....

Their hypocrisy appears to be plastered on so thickly, that I imagine before either Rudd or Nelson lay their heads on the pillow each night, their wives have to breakout a chisel and hammer to find the man underneath.

You make the rules: Appsie sends a letter to Rudd and Swan

Prime Minister and Treasurer,

We elected you to make the decisions and frame the legislation for the good running of this great country.

You have been in government now for six months so take the "bit in your teeth" and start telling the Banks not to put extra on their rates just because they want to.
Stop letting the likes of Woolworths and Coles have a mark up percentage of up to 1000%.

We as your constituents have to manage our money to make ends meet, these big companies just do what they like to please their share holders.
It is time for you and your government to tell them what to do and that failure to do so will incur huge fines. Eliminate the "loop holes" and the "shades of grey."

In the 50's and 60's shops were only able to have a mark-up percentage of 33 1/3 % with perishables being able to be sold with a mark up of 100%.
My late father had a small shop in the little town of Maclean, he employed two men to help out with the running of the business.
One of these men had three children and a wife and the other had seven children and a wife.
Dad met all of his commitments and supported a wife and two children and in many cases gave stuff away to help the less fortunate survive.

If the country could survive with such small percentage mark ups in those years I can't see why the country can't manage now on the same margins.
Forget what the economists say, as in most cases they are looking after their own interests and probably getting a "sling" for doing so. The mere threat of introducing such a form of price fixing would send a shudder right through the business world.
Many people in the electorate would applaud such action, particulary if it was like old "true Labor practices."

We are depending upon your Government to set the ship on a true course and eradicate the practices of the Howard Government.

It is you and "The New Broom" that we depend upon to get this country, (and if you will allow me to use the good old Australian term) "out of the sh*t." We must stop "greed" or control it if we are to receive the benefits of what our Soldiers fought for to make it a better place for all.

You probably won't agree with what I have written but may I tell you, at the age of 68 years , I and my peers have seen the best of this country and would greatly appreciate it if our children and grand children were able to enjoy the same.

The "Ball is in your Court", you don't need a miracle all you need is common sense and a will to look after those who put you in the position that you now have.

For Authentication Purposes :-
[redacted for privacy reasons]
Clarence Valley NSW

* Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical guest comment from Northern Rivers residents.

British academic freedom definitely in WTF territory, as allegedly 'illegal' al Qaeda documents found absolutely everywhere

On Saturday 24 May The Guardian reported that a UK uni student was held for six days, then released without charge, because he had downloaded information from a US Government site concerning the training practices of al Qaeda.

The post-graduate student was held under the Terrorism Act 2006 and could have been held for up to 28 days.
He was reported to authorities by a staff member at Nottingham University.
The student, his supervisors and tutor say that he was researching for legitimate study purposes in order to complete his masters degree and appears to have downloaded the edited version.

From the newspaper's description this downloaded information is very similar to information which has been freely available for years from a number of sites, including the US Dept.of Justice.

In fact a 28 page excerpt from the so-called al Qaeda training manual were released in 2001 for PR purposes and can still be found on the world wide web here.

In 2003 the blog Smoking Gun published around 160 gif images of the manual pages here.

The Federation of American Scientists has a 140 page version complete with cover gif here.

As this manual is almost always found on the Internet in alleged translation, the blogosphere is still unsure of its provenance and it may be that it is part of a government propaganda exercise.

An allegedly third edition of this document around 5,000 pages long is supposedly found at Yahoo Geocities here.

This is what Global Security says about the document.

The legend that ricin can be made from a recipe on the Internet using only household chemicals will probably never die. A big reason for this is its regular vetting by authority figures and government agencies.
The best example of this can be seen in how the "al Qaeda training manual" is regarded. Discovered in a search of an al Qaeda member's home in England and entered into the public record in the January 2001 trial of the embassy bombings in Africa, the manual includes a page devoted to explaining how to purify ricin from castor beans. With minor changes, it is the discredited formula that was common in "anarchy files" uploaded to private bulletin boards and the web over the past decade. In other words, it's the same useless lye and acetone procedure that has long been in residence on the Temple of the Screaming Electron web site. (See National Security Notes 02/20/2004.)
The al Qaeda training manual was translated in its entirety and made into an Adobe Acrobat file prior to September 11. With some searching copies can still be found on the Internet.
However, on September 11, America was seized by fear. The manual's section on poisoning and ricin concoction was expurgated by government authorities and subsequently republished on the Department of Justice's web site. The surgical removal of this section granted it gravity, effectively validating what was actually a procedure of no worth.
The validation was echoed in other places, notably the popular Smoking Gun web site, which displayed a fragment of the item.
"The manual ... instructs [al Qaeda] members on how to produce poisons from readily available materials," read an article in the National Journal on December 3, 2001. "For example, dimethyl sulfoxide, which is used as a topical analgesic by veterinarians, can be mixed with herbal poisons such as ricin, which is obtained from castor beans."
Even simple common sense broke down when considering the al Qaeda training manual and its supposed recipe for ricin. The expurgated portion also contains a passage which suggests that the consumption of three cigarettes could be used in assassinations. While this might be inspirational to those searching for a reason to give up smoking, normally it would raise doubts in even the most disinterested reader on the knowledgeability of the author of the section of the manual in question.
But the war on terror is not a normal time and often clear thinking and sophisticated analysis goes right out the window when evaluating potentials for mayhem.

Literally thousands of people world-wide have viewed one or all of these 'training' documents.
In fact this particular 10 minute search appears to indicate that a credit card will get me a complete copy of the manual.

Given that all this information is out there and freely available in hyperspace, why was this student detained under British anti-terrorism laws and why is the person who printed out the document for him to be deported?
One has to suspect that ethnicity and religion played a big part in the minds of Nottingham police.

In response to the wrongful detentions, academics from the University of Nottingham will be doing a public reading of the research material that led to arrests under the Terrorism Act on campus, outside the Hallward library, University Park Campus, at 2:00pm, on May 28. The reading will be followed by a silent protest where students and academics will symbolically gag themselves to object to the attack on academic freedom.

This establishment stupidity is a salutary lesson for us all. Reading material on the Internet, downloading and emailing it, is dangerous for your health and safety in our topsy-turvey world.
The Australian Federal Police also tend to lose their commonsense whenever the word 'terrorist' is mentioned.
I wouldn't be going anywhere near His Holiness when he visits in case either Sydney or Commonwealth police decide to look at me sideways.
After all I clicked the links to that manual - ooh aaah.

The Beeston Quakers on the subject of arbitrary arrest and censorship here.

Little Brennie unleashes the values police, but gets nabbed himself for supporting snedgers

Everytime I switch on the radio or open a newspaper these days, it seems that the thought and values police are setting the dogs on someone.
Yesterday was Little Brennie Nelson's turn, as he suddenly decided that Labor's candidate for the Gippsland by-election (caused by a former Howard Government minister deciding that the money we pay isn't good enough for him to hang around and do the job for which he was elected) was a B-A-D man when he promoted a musical as director of a Gippsland cultural festival.

Fer gawd's sake Brendan, mate. Fancy saying stuff like; "(Mr McCubbin) has been promoting a show which is sexually explicit, would offend the vast majority of Australians and is inconsistent with the sort of values we would want to see represented in a candidate for the federal parliament.", when you personally support strange snedgers in your own party.

Need I remind you, that you went on the record less than a month ago.
"FEDERAL Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the chair-sniffing Western Australian Liberal Leader has his "full support and confidence".
Troy Buswell, WA's Opposition Leader, yesterday admitted to sniffing a female Liberal staffer's chair in 2005.
He broke down at a press conference yesterday as he confirmed the woman's account but said he would not be standing down.
Dr Nelson said Mr Buswell was apologetic and still had his backing."

Know whose character I would be backing here and it wouldn't be the snedger over the musical featuring a blowup doll.

And Glen Milne loses it because he thinks he IS the values police

Glen Milne in The Australian yesterday.

"And just as Rudd's failings are beginning to make an impression nationally, along comes Darren McCubbin, the ALP candidate for Gippsland. McCubbin, you'll remember, was shoehorned into Gippsland by Labor's Melbourne head office over the local branch's preferred candidate, David Wilson, a veteran party member.
McCubbin, a local mayor, only joined up as a true believer on the day of his preselection. It was apparently enough to satisfy the moral conscience of a once great movement.
Labor's Victorian headquarters is in West Melbourne, spitting distance from the inner-city theatre district. Which might explain McCubbin's tastes. And his enthusiastic party endorsement. He is, you see, among other things, a director of the local Gippsland cultural festival, Water, Water, whatever that means.
In fact, we do know what it means, in part because McCubbin, as a director of the festival last year, chose to include and promote a lovely little act called the Beautiful Losers in his local show in the regional city of Sale, slap in the middle of the conservative rural electorate.
Listen up. According to a laudatory review in Melbourne's InPress magazine the Beautiful Losers consists "of three men, a piano and a guitar, not to mention some very wrong and rather amusing lyrics about all manner of depravity".