Radio Australia Today Editorial
Archive for June, 2008
Entertaining the Troops in Dili.
18 June 2008
Bob Hope started the trend way back in the second world war.
He went into war zones with a troupe of singers and other comics and played to the troops to keep morale up during that most horrific of wars.
In this time of relative peace, we might forget that Australian soldiers are still on duty across the world. From hot places like Iraq and Afghanistan, to relatively stable centres like East Timor, Australian soldiers are in place trying to keep the peace, but are always in danger.
And entertainers are still doing their thing, doing their best to keep morale up.
This was brought to attention only a few weeks ago, when one female entertainer was wrongly accused of sleeping with soldiers in the Middle East in the midst of one such tour. It was a nasty allegation that was muishandled by all concerned, including the military.
That has been bad publicity, but shouldn’t take away from the good work that so many artists are doing.
This morning we spoke with one singer who is heading off to East Timor this weekend.
Amy Pearson is a young singer, barely out of her teens, and who already has a slew of hits behind her. She is also the voice of Australia’s beijing Olympics anthem.
So next time you think of the soldiers in hotspots, why not take a couple of seconds to think of the civilians who go there to make the soldier’s life just a little more pleasant. They’re good people.
– Phil
Coming Face to Face with a Heart Throb
17 June 2008
William McInnes is a real Australian Idol.
He has starred in television (Seachange) on movies (Look Both Ways) and as an author.
He has just starred in a new movie (Unfinished Sky) about an Afghan refugee who finds herself on an outback Australian farm with an Aussie man with a horrendous secret (played by McInnes).
Like when we met Donny Osmond, Olivia Newton-John and Kiss’s Paul Stanley, when you have an icon in front of you, youfind they are just people, beautiful people, nice people, talented people, but just people nonetheless.
William McInnes is an ordinary bloke who acts for a living to a camera that loves him.
In the studio he bantered about football, disparaging my Aussie Rules team (the poor Richmond Tigers) and showing no mercy.
Still a lovely guy who made us laugh.
– Phil
Paul Keating. A Blast from the Past
16 June 2008
Those of you who don’t know who Paul Keating is, let me say that he is one of the most original people to come out of Australia.
He is an extraordiary wordsmith, a great communicator, a man of ideas, and a person of great style too.
He was also prime minister of the Land of Oz from 1991 to 1996.
His years in office, first as treasurer in the 1980s, and then as prime minister were marked by controversy. Not corruption, or anything like that, but by his words, which more effect on the economy than anything Ben Benanke might be saying out of the Federal Reserve in the U.S.
It was Paul Keating who told Australians in the late 1980s that they were in the recession that Australia had to have.
People don’t like being told that they deserve hardship, and many voters never forgave him for that little gaffe.
Like Ben Benanke, he also used words to slow the economy. His famous quote on morning radio about Australia coming close to being a banana republic did just what he wanted, it slowed peoples’ extravagance.
But the lines that stay in the heart of his supporters are the barbs he threw across the floor parliament. Here are a few examples:
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up”
“His performance is like being flogged with a warm lettuce.”
” You boxhead you wouldn’t know. You are flat out counting up to 10.”
” Mr Speaker can I have some protection from the clowns on the front bench?”
In school of course, he would’ve been sent to the back of the class. In parliament, lines like these, which were never malicious, had many of us in stitches.
Perhaps his biggest gaffe was when he put his arm around Queen Elizabeth when introducing her to someone. It was a small touch, but the British media went crazy, telling him to leave her alone, and dubbing him the Lizard of Oz.
So it might be of interest to learn that Paul Keating might be used in a new tourism and business campaign. In England.
Whether it comes off or not, it is good to see the ex-PM back in the media.
He may have presided a pretty appalling recession, but in these days of automation politicians, it’s nice occasionally to reflect on the days when leaders were not afraid to say something controversial. Or to be themseves.
– Phil
Depression. The depressing truth.
13 June 2008
This morning we spoke with a man who is riding his motorbike around Australia to raise awareness about youth depression. In the western world at the moment youth suicide is increasing, but people don’t seem to be talking about the depression that leads to it.
Joe Campbell is jumping on his BMW and is taking himself to country towns around the Australia to talk to people. The problem here in Australia, he says, is that men don’t like to talk about their problems. If they feel down, they believe that admitting to this will mean they are being wimps, woozes and sooks.
So these self-contained young men keep it all inside, and spiral into a depression pit that ends in self-harm.
13,000 kilometres Joe is doing on his bike to get his message across. But the sad thing is that much of the local media here in Australia is not covering his journey. They say that they fear depressed people will commit suicide if the issue is brought to public light.
This is nonsense of course. Letting people know that they are not alone, and that others care about them, is never a bad thing. The truth is that these media outlets probably don’t want to do something as serious as suicide, and are offering up this moral high ground excuse to avoid having to do the story.
The fact is that you are not alone. There are places that you can check on the web if you are feeling down:
http://inspire.org.au/
and if you are a school age person:
http://reachout.com.au/home.asp
These sites show that if you are feeling really bad, there are ways of making yourself feel better. I know a few people who went to confidential counsellors after deaths in their families, and were told that the blues they were feeling were normal for the circumstances. They immediately felt better, just knowing that there was nothing wrong with them.
The bottom line is, you are not alone, and you can feel better. So do something about it, eh?
– Phil
You Can’t Win ‘Em All (Part 2)
12 June 2008
It’s happened again.
Our prime minister, Kevin Rudd is in Japan right now, and in the theme of damned-if-you-do, he has been criticised for paying attention to the other guy. The other guy in this case is, of course, China.
It might just be that the PM has walked into the middle of an international relations rift between the two countries, but he probably thought that he was just being a good world citizen by talking with everyone in the region. After all, having dialogue with a major power, let alone a big trading partner like China, could only be a good thing.
As I noted yesterday, Barack Obama has been flogged for daring to suggest that, if elected, he would talk to certain countries (Iran and its ‘axis of evil’ partners).
It comes to something when opening dialogue with other countries becomes a scandal.
One of our comments on this blog suggested that this dialogue is akin to appeasement (which has been a dirty world ever since British PM Neville Chamberlain was duped by Adolph Hitler).
But there is a big difference here. Chamberlain also turned a blind eye to Hitler’s early invasions in Europe. That was appeasement. It would be a big stretch to suggest that it would be equivalent to Chamberlain’s appeasement to be simply communicating with a sovereign government, good or bad a government as it may be.
When I was a kid we were taught to talk things out. Never ignore problems, but at least try to sort them.
Barack Obama may become president, and maybe his plan of speaking with difficult governments will not produce results. But it won’t be appeasement.
And Kevin Rudd’s attempts to speak with opposing sides in Asia can’t be a bad thing. There will only be a little bad media to come from it. The only appeasement here would be if he buckles to pressure and doesn’t talk to who he wants to.
I don’t think he’ll be doing that.
- Phil
