Radio Australia Today Editorial

Mike Rann. Memories of Bill Clinton.

23 November 2009

Australians love a good political sex scandal.

When the then U.S. President Bill Clinton decided he was going to get very personal with an intern, the Australian media was just as interested in the affair as the American media. Perhaps even more so. Maybe it was because Australians see politics as a humorous endeavour. Perhaps it’s the egalitarianism of this country, and they like to see proof that world leaders are just the same as the rest of us.

So the claims by an Adelaide woman that she had sex with the South Australian premier a few years ago have been big news too. What the woman told TV last night was nothing special in itself. She claims that she had sex with the Premier in his office. They play-acted a steamy scene from a movie; they had sex on a desk. Ho hum. Why tell us all this stuff?

Well she says she feels bad about her husband, and she told the TV interviewer ( in the interview for which she was paid) that she wants her husband to know what happened in the affair.

Telling him what happened by blasting it all over the media is not what I call a way to break it to your husband that he was a cuckold. It sounds to me that if she was really thinking of her husband, she (1) would not have had the affair and (2) would have told him privately.

Premier Mike Rann has not denied the ‘friendship’ with the woman (‘friendship’ being an obviously carefully selected word chosen after, I suspect, great discussion), but he says it was over by the time he got engaged to his wife in 2005.

If Mike Rann is right, and the relationship was simply an affair, then Mike Rann’s wrongdoing is limited to having an affairs, unencumbered himself, with a married woman.

The woman’s husband allegedly whacked Mike Rann a while ago with a rolled up magazine. The man has been charged over that incident. Since that time the rumours have been around, and those rumours may well have led to a TV journalist finding the woman and the story.

In all, it’s a seedy story that we didn’t need to know about. The media would argue that it is important that this comes out, because it popints to the moral fibre of the South Australian leader.

But that’s tosh. This is a story that the TV station knew would grab it a swag of viewers, and will sell a lot of newspapers. That’s why it was run, and there’s little more to it.

Now comes the question: why did we all go to the newspapers and read the story with such relish this morning?

- Phil Kafcaloudes

Read More >

Thierry Henry’s very own Hand of God

20 November 2009

It will go down as one of the greatest controversies in soccer history.

French captain Thierry Henry used his hand to help score a goal, winning France the match, sending the Frenchmen into the World Cup finals.

The referee didn’t see the hand contact, but the rest of the world did, courtesy of about a million TV cameras perfectly positioned to capture the moment from every possible angle. Also seeing it were the opposing Irish side, who are ropeable.

As they should be. That goal denied them a World Cup berth.

What I can’t believe this morning are the chorus of people who suggest that Thierry Henry did nothing wrong in pretending he didn’t handle the ball. Some even say he did nothing wrong in the actual handling itself.

These are people who probably see making a false insurance claim okay in a kind of nod-nod-wink-wink way.

It’s not okay. The same as it’s not okay in cricket to stay at the crease when you know that you have nicked the ball to the keeper. You’re out. You were beaten. Walk, dude.

Thierry Henry must’ve got an instant attack of conscience, because he openly admitted after the game that he had touched the ball. Mind you he had no choice to admit it, because, as I’ve mentioned, everyone saw it.

Even Maradona came clean eventually. He was suspected for decades of having used his hand to score a goal in the quarter final of the 1986 World Cup against England. He said at the time that the goal was scored a little by Maradona and a little by the Hand of God. Twenty-two years later he admitted his cheating.

So what to do? There probably won’t be a re-match; Irish political protests will come to nothing; and Henry looks like getting away with it. But there are calls for video referees to be put in place.

I don’t think so. Referees would need to refer matters to video refs before they can be judged. If the ref doesn’t see anything untoward, how could the matter be referred to the video ref?

No, I think players should be honest. It would send a good message in this corrupt world. No amount of posturing about previous wrong refereeing decisions should be allowed to stand as a justification for lying and cheating. If the rule was formalised that players must own up, then players will be liable to sanctions if they do cheat.

Thierry Henry should be so sanctioned. Admitting his wrongdoing after the event, and not at the time only makes the Irish pain worse.

- Phil Kafcaloudes

Read More >

The Top Ten Barrel

19 November 2009

I’m taking time off from the serious and intensive stories of the day to answer a recurring request from our listeners.

It’s about the Top Ten barrel. This is the device that Kim Taylor and I use to select a winner for our weekly Top Ten competition.

If you don’t know how it works, we invite listeners every Wednesday and Thursday to give the thumbs up or thumbs down to our Top Ten of new Australian music.

It doesn’t maatter whether you give the yay or nay, your name still goes into the barrel, to be drawn out at the end of the segment.

As you can see, the barrel is an important part of the segment, and of our lives.

Clearly it’s important to Garth from New Caledonia too. He has been one of a few listeners who have been agitating for a photo of the barrel to be posted on the website.

Well, with the appropriate caveats, you can see a photo of the barrel below:

Just scroll a bit.

A bit more.

Read More >

Asylum Seekers to go. But that’s not all folks.

18 November 2009

So it’s over.

Or is it?

The remaining asylum seekers on-board the Australian customs ship, Oceanic Viking, have agreed to disembark and go to Indonesia for processing. This ends a month of angst for the asylum seekers, the government, Indonesia and the customs officers on the boat.

But as a journalist, I can tell you that this is nothing like the end of the story. The questions now turn to how much Australia has promised the asylum seekers to get them to go off the boat. Resettlement is certainly the central pin of the Australian offer. The parliamentary Opposition here in Australia say that the government has sold out; that it has announced that it can be beaten in an arm wrestle; that it is more worried about Australian popularity polls that doing the right thing; and that Australia will now be a more popular destination for people wanting to forge a new life.

For its part the government says that it fulfilled all its international obligations; that it has cared for the asylum seekers and ensured their well-being at all times.

There are two issues here. The Immigration Minister in New Zealand Jonathon Coleman referred to boat people as ‘queue-jumpers’, and in this he means people who are not necessarily in fear of their lives, but simply wanting to make a better life for themselves in another country and are unwilling to go on a waiting list.

But these are people seeking asylum. They claim to be fleeing persecution. It is a different thing. We have very credible reports that there are retributions going on against the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government denies these abuses, and their argument is not helped by the claim that they haven’t even heard of any cases of abuse. This is hard to understand, especially when the news of the alleged abuses are all over the world media.

Perhaps some of the asylum seekers are queue-jumpers. Maybe they are ‘economic refugees’. But that is what the assessment process is for. No-one on a waterlogged boat is going to just be let into Australia. They will be processed, checked-out and then assessed to see if they are genuine refugees or not. The ones that are not genuine will be sent back to Sri Lanka. Simple as that.

But imagine though if there were just a few among them who had suffered persecution. Imagine if just some of them had seen family members raped or murdered. That would be an experience worse than most of us will ever know. And politicians call them cheats.

The least we can do is give them a chance to prove their claim, rather than branding them as liars and cheats and doing everything we can to stop them from coming to safety.

- Phil Kafcaloudes

Read More >

A couple of photo hungry penguins

17 November 2009

Every Tuesday I do a segment on our television cousin, Australia Netowrk, which goes out to at least 44 countries.

I chat about what’s in the newspapers, which means I get a chance to talk about the issues of the day. It also means I get to show people the cartoons and photos that have made the papers. During the bushfires around Melbourne earlier this year I showed that famous photo of a koala being given a drink from a firefighter’s water bottle.

Today it was a glorious twin set of pictures taken by a photographer in the antarctic.

The first photo happened when he had to leave his telephoto camera, with long lens, on a tripod on the snow. He had only just moved away from the kit when a penguin came up behind the camera and appeared to be looking theough the viewfinder. At the same time two other penguins came around the front and looked for all the world like they were posing for a shot.

That was beautiful enough, and should win the photographer a few awards. But when the photographer managed to get back behind the camera, the penguins stayed around and, in an amazing bit of either intelligence or coincidence, one of the penguins put a flipper around the back of the penguin next to him, making it look like a family photo.

I showed these photos to Joe and Mary on The News Breakfast program, and the reaction from the viewers and listeners was HUGE.

If you want to see the photos, you can go to the website for the photographer (Davidf C. Schultz) at the bottom of this page.

The first photo is on the page as you open it, but you will need to scroll to find the second picture.

Wish I could take photos like that.

- Phil Kafcaloudes

http://www.westlight.net/gallery/Penguins.htm

Read More >