Radio Australia Today Editorial
Archive for December, 2008
Christmas. Another Year Over.
24 December 2008
A new one just begun.
As a kid, I never had much time for John Lennon’s song ‘Happy Xmas War is over’.
It was produced during the war in Vietnam, and was part of Lennon’s canon of protest warbles about Attica State prison shootings, the jailing of Angela Davis, the English presence in Ireland. You name it, he protested about it. As far as Happy Xmas is concerned, I always thought it was rich that a fabulously wealthy man could go around preaching that everyone else was not doing the right thing by the world.
Maybe it’s been the ageing process, and the entry of a bit of maturity into this thick head, but I’ve recently come to reassess the song, and seen it for what it was, a plea for people to look at their lives and to give thought to making it better. It’s all in the one line: “And look what you’ve done”.
And with Christmas here, the song is playing all over the place again. It’s probably time to to reflect on just what we have done.
Have we apologised enough?
Have we thanked enough?
Have we smiled enough?
Have we helped enough?
Have we listened to the quiet people enough?
Have we looked up into the trees enough?
Have we cut ourselves a break enough?
Enough. Have a great Christmas. Feel good about yourself. Lay back and watch the stars and remember all the good things in your life. When your dog gets excited to see you, give it right back to ‘em. Life’s pretty fab, actually.
- Phil
Toyota. When it loses, it really loses.
23 December 2008
Did you see the news today about Toyota having its first-ever loss?
And what a loss. Two and a half billion US dollars.
For a company that has never posted a loss before, this is hard news. Toyota is a company has really been doing everything right. It’s been producing reliable, fuel efficient cars, including a hybrid. It has diversified its manufacturing, producing cars in the US, Australia, Thailand, China and just about everywhere else. (A smart move which insulates the company from any problems that might affect the Japanese economy).
Unfortunately, no matter what Toyota did, it could not make up for the problems in the world economy. First the price of fuel went up, which turned people off all cars, not just the gas guzzlers. Then the bad economic times hit, which stopped people from buying anything, including cars. The recession has brought down the price of oil to a third of its year-ago levels, but this is not enough to get people back into car yards.
In the US, General Motors and Chrysler are in trouble, bail-out or no bail-out. Ford, which received no part of the bail-out loans from George W, also faces lean times. You would think that Toyota is one of the few companies that would be immune to the ills of the world economy, but it is clearly not.
There’s the adage about what doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger. That’s fine, but in the process a lot of people, workers in Hiroshima and Lansing are going to find themselves without jobs by the end of the recession. They won’t be stronger. GM and Chrysler may have brought their woes upon themselves, but at least the Toyota story tells us that it isn’t always boss’ bad board decisions that cause the problems.
What we’ll know soon enough is who is going to make it out of this thing alive. Somehow I think Toyota will be one of them.
- Phil
Playing Doctors and Nurses. It’s no game.
22 December 2008
I’ve just spent five days in Sydney looking after my mum, who is ailing in hospital after a series of strokes. Her physical health is apparently very good for an 86 year old, but her mind is slipping away.
She needs to be fed, dressed and toileted. In fact all the things that she used to do for we, her children, when we were newborn. There were times when I was spoon-feeding her that she showed some real obstreperousness. She didn’t want to have her potato; she was only interested in dessert. Somewhere deep in the back of my brain I remember making the same kind of fuss once. Or more than once.
The sight of seeing your beloved mum attached to tubes, with her cracked lips and that hospital odour of disinfectant and poo made me respect more than ever the people who work in this environment every day. I came in for a few hours at meal times, did the feeding, stroked and kissed and pretended to understand everything my mum was mumbling, and then went off to the rest of my life. The nurses are the ones who stay to change the sheets, dressings and nappies. Doctors are the ones who mend the ever more present broken hips for people who may never walk again anyway. Yet they do it with the same enthusiasm that they would give to an Olympic marathon runner with the same injury.
Meanwhile I’m back in Melbourne presenting a radio program and talking to the wife about which restaurant we’re going to eat in tonight.
Sure my sister and brother are checking in with mum everyday, and she doesn’t really know them that much anymore. The day after a visit she has certainly forgotten that they were there yesterday.
In many communities the family matriarch is kept at home and cared for, not just just by daughters, but by the whole family. Grandchildren and friends will feed and love, and in the process, the kids learn about life. I do wonder whether our ways are good ways. Sure, putting our olds in hospices and care facilities allows us to get on with our lives. But..
- Phil
Shoe Thrown at George W. Bush. Misses.
16 December 2008
It was the day that George Bush got the backlash he had to have.
Since September 11, 2001 security for the Chief has been extreme. There was no way that anyone with a bullet, knife or club was going to get anywhere near George W. Hell, security is still so tight everywhere that you can’t even take a pair of nail clippers on a plane in most places in the world.
So what gets George Bush in the end? A shoe. Actually two shoes. A very angry Iraqi journalist threw them at the Prez during a media conference the Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was co-hosting with George W. The Prez ducked the first time (obviously remembering Ronald Reagan’s quip “Honey, I forgot to duck” after an assasssination attempt in 1981).
Then the second shoe came. George Bush’s reflexes were slower this time, but luckily for him, the aim was way off.
The interesting thing here is the expression on the face of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He appeared to be resigned, possibly thinking “This happens to me all the time”.
Interesting also is the public’s reaction to the arrest of the shoe-throwing journalist. Early reports seem to indicate that Iraqis are on his side. Even his own employer, Al Baghdadiya TV, has come out saying he was merely exercising freedom of expression.
For many journalists across the world, to throw shoes at a president at a news conference in the presence of the world media is extraordinarily bad judgement. If he had been just a member of the public or a observer, then a protest could be understood, but for journalists everywhere, tying your colours to a mast so boldly is a tricky thing to do. Think about the next time a journalist is kidnapped. This journalist’s action makes their argument that they only report the facts, a little less credible.
That can’t be good.
- Phil
George Bush: Financial Crisis or Iraq?
15 December 2008
The out-going US president has just announced that he is going to Iraq. He will undoubtedly have touched down at Baghdad by the time you’ve read this, and will have been in discussions with the Iraq government about extricating US troops from an exercise that has variously been called a war, an incursion and a quagmire.
Like President Carter in the late 70s with his Israel-Egypt accord, Nixon with his Soviet and Chinese agreements, and Clinton with his attempts at a Palestinian-Israeli pact, George W. would like to leave office knowing that his last big act was to bring peace somewhere, and preferably in a conflict that he initiated.
Don’t be surprised if he pulls it off and makes an announcement that a lot of his combat troops will be out of Iraq sometime next year.
The problem with this mission to Iraq is the fact that the auto industry back home in the US is in real trouble, and the big three makers are waiting on George Bush to do something about a rescue package. For much of last week the financial markets yo-yo’ed while sporadic news came through of a 34 billion rescue, which was then reduced to a 15 billion dollar rescue, which was then reduced to a Senate impasse with not a nickel headed the way of the folk who make Chevvies and Mustangs. At this point the car makers turned their collective noses from the Senate to the White House, and increased their warnings that at least one of them, and possibly more, could collapse unless a rescue came from the president. The president gave good signs that his hand would be extended towards Detroit. Breaths remained bated.
Then the Prez surprises everyone by announcing that he’s heading to Iraq.
I suppose the reality is that a couple of days is not going to make much of a difference when we are talking about an auto industry that has been heading the wrong way for a lot of years now. For these companies to demand the undivided attention of the leader of the free world to fix the very problems that they largely created is a bit rich, but you can understand their anxiety.
Perhaps it would have been better to get the auto resuscitation out of the way first before jetting off to fix another problem. But again George is the president. I’m not. He’s the one who is obviously fearing for his place in history. Making this trip right now will not help though, because I suspect that this trip may well be viewed by historians as having a comedic timing, and as they say in comedy, timing is everything.
– Phil
