Radio Australia Today Editorial
Archive for December, 2009
Connie Hedegaard. You can fool some of the people..
17 December 2009
..some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
That was a phrase used by U.S, President Abraham Lincoln to decry those who believed that politicians can get away with lying to the public.
A good phrase, but not one which has stopped politicians putting things over on people.
Take the case of the demise of Connie Hedegaard. Until today she was the President of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. From the first day she made impressive impassioned pleas to the delegates to come to an agreement.
She soon incurred the wrath of developing noations, particularly those from Africa, who claimed that she was favouring the richer countries over them. The leaked Danish communique which seemed to confirm those suspicions, didn’t help her cause.
So Connie went overnight to the surprise of most delegates and the relief of the developing nation bloc. She announced that she had resigned, to be replaced by the Danish Prime Minister, but played it down saying it was purely procedural: “With so many heads of state and government having arrived, it’s appropriate that the prime minister of Denmark presides.”
You can fool some of the people etc.
For this was a wholly unexpected resignation, and came just two days before the end of the conference, the most important time, when confidence in the process was already ailing and needed to be restored. If this was ‘procedural’, then why wasn’t it flagged months ago? If it was procedural, what was the need for her resignation at all? She could’ve kept the post and handed over to the prime minister as an interim move.
No, this was a huge development, certainly one that will have at least some of those present asking whether the conference has become a shamozzle at the very time that it needed to be at its most resolute. Already there is an assuption in much of the media that the Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen had given Connie a firm shove.
Why would he do it? As our climate conference correspondent suggested this this morning, Mr Rasmussen is noted for his ambition, and maybe wanted to be there at the head of the table when the deals are made. A alternative reason is that it could have been a sop to the smaller countries that will help bring them on side as we get to the final crunch negotiations.
It could be any of these things. Just don’t tell us that it’s a little nothing, just a bit of paperwork. If it was, it was done on paper so thin that anyone could see through it.
- Phil Kafcaloudes
Air strikes and new planes. A day for aviators not.
16 December 2009
I don’t know if you believe in synergy and the cosmos, but as a watcher of news for many years, I’m becoming a believer.
Like today, when the neutrons and protons aligned to deem that if anything was going to happen in aviation, it would happen today.
First of all workers at British Airways announced that they would be on strike across the Christmas period, a strike that will affect not only BA passengers, but also people who fly on affiliated airlines, like our own Qantas (the airlines share aircraft, so often if BA doesn’t go, neither do the Qantas passengers).
Then here in Australia Virgin has been interrupted by a computer glitch which had holiday-makers stranded at Melbourne airport overnight. Everyone was confused: the computer, the passengers, and apparently the Virgin staff who didn’t seem to know whether they had organised accommodation for the unhappy little campers. In the end dozens of people slept under the malfunctioning departure signs. Frowny faces, even in their sleep.
Then we get the news that a timely strike is probably going to happen next week at the two major airports in Melbourne, Tullamarine and Avalon. Qantas and Jetstar security screening staff are upset about plans by their employer to introduce part-time casual labour.
On the positive side, we had the first flight today of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This is a plane that is much lighter than your usual plane, using a lot of carbon compositie materials, reducing its weight and cutting fuel costs by twenty percent.
A big news day for flying indeed, the overall ledger being that the news is bad.
I half expect to see a pelican fly into my window.
Hope not.
- Phil Kafcaloudes
The Toyota ad. When crassness meets crassness.
15 December 2009
Have you seen the latest TV advertisement from Toyota in Australia?
The scenario is that a young man goes to pick up his girlfriend. He is met at the front door by the girlfriend’s father. What follows is a string of innuendo along the lines of:
“I’m here to take Jennifer’s virginity out tonight. Is she ready to go?”
” I hope I haven’t come too prematurely.”
As you can surmise, it is not particularly subtle. To give a modicum of credit to the ad-maker, it does manage to squeeze in features of the car being promoted, like its rigid cell frame. In this case, after the young guy makes the obligatory crack about big airbags up-front, even the father joins in with what is probably the worst line of the lot (and remember here he is supposed to be talking about his own daughter):
” So she can take a pounding in any direction.”
The crime in this case is that the ad is not nearly as funny as a 1970s Benny Hill sketch, which at the very least had cleverness about it. This ad has a sleazy feel about it that even half-drunk patrons in a pub would find offensive, especially if they have daughters themselves.
The ad apparently won a prize in a competition. The fact that the comp was sponsored by Toyota might or might not have anything to do with it, but from the outrage in the community today, at least this advert has been a marker that shows that we have moved on, and are not about to revert to cheap sexist jokes at the expense of women.
To kick the point home, I should leave you with the final line from the ad, which has the young guy promising: “I’ll have her on her back by 11.”
I think that it’s the advertising agency that will be on its back by the end of this episode.
- Phil Kafcaloudes
2009. A year of memories.
14 December 2009
I don’t know if ‘nine’ is a powerful number or not, but just listening to the On This Day segment on Radio Australia Today this year, I have been amazed at how many anniversaries we had that fell on ‘nine’ years.
To give you a clue.
2009 was the 60th anniversary of Mao’s China
2009 was the 60th anniversary of West Germany
2009 was the 60th anniversary of India
2009 was the 60th anniversary of Indonesia
2009 was the 60th anniversary of Hungary
2009 was the 60th anniversary of the first Israel election
2009 was the 60th anniversary of Republic of Ireland
2009 was the 60th anniversary of Thailand (after changing from Siam)
2009 was the 50th anniversary of Castro’s Cuba
2009 was the 50th anniversary of Singapore
2009 was the 40th anniversary of Moon landing
Yes, it seemed that every day there was another commemoration.
I just want to know why it all happened on a ‘nine’ year. One explanation could be that 1949 was only four years after the second world war, a period when many nations were born. Still, there aren’t THAT many countries founded in 1950, or 1951. Or 1952.
And when you consider that the two biggest emerging nations, India and China were founded in the same year, 1949, then this is the cue for the Twilight Zone music to be piped through the corridors of the United Nations.
What other big anniversaries happened on a ‘nine’ year? Let us know.
- Phil Kafcaloudes
My house invaded by nuns
11 December 2009
The Parliament of World Religions has been on in Melbourne over the last week, and all over the streets of this fine city have been people dressed in red or yellow robes, some with bindis on their forehead, turbans or fezs. Six thousand people trying to do for religious interconnectivity what politicians in Copenhagen have been simultaneously trying to do for climate.
It all wrapped up two nights ago, and the assorted robes and headgear are now being seen at Melbourne’s airport as the six thousand or so delegates head home.
Yesterday one group, a delegation supporting Dharma Master Hsin Tao from Taiwan, checked out of their apartment, and my generous wife offered our humble home as a place to stay until their midnight flight.
So I was a little surprised to come home from walking the dog yesterday afternoon to find my house full of grey-robed Taoist nuns. My first reaction was to I warn myself to be on my best behaviour. No joking. No rummaging through the snacks with my fingers. No complaining, and absolutely, and I say absolutely, no swearing.
But it wasn’t like that. The nuns all had their cameras out, and were taking photos of every detail of our house. Every interesting bit of furniture, every nic-nac. Even the joke toilet roll holder that a friend bought us a few Christmases ago that had two procelain feet sticking out from the bottom of the rolls. I realised pretty quickly that these people, who had lived for many years in a monastery on a Taiwan mountain, had not been to a suburban house for a long long time, if ever. They were fascinated, and were the first to make the jokes about toilet rolls. Monastic toilet humour I suppose you could say.
I made dinner, a vegan chicken rice dish, which was suitably blessed and eaten with gusto. They even asked for some to take on the plane with them, which is very gratifying considering chicken rice, vegan or not, is a genuine Chinese meal. When the Chinese want seconds, you can feel you’ve done okay.
Especially since nuns wouldn’t lie to you.
Well that’s what I want to believe anyway.
- Phil Kafcaloudes (fake chicken rice king)
