Author Archives: Zak de Courcy

The Sunday Screening Session….. How the West Was Won (1962)

17 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Film

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How the West Was Won (1962) (159 min)
iReview: Version: How the West Was Won: 2 Disc Edition (Blu-ray);
Video: VC-1 1080p; Audio: Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.1.
Genre:: Adventure | Drama | Epic | History | Romance | Western |
Sub-Genre/Type:: Classic | Epic Western | History Fiction |
Settings:: 1839-1889 | American Civil War Era | Frontier Region |
Rural Setting | USA | Wild West Era.
Image

Mood?:: Slice Of History | Tough Guys.
iRate:: 4 / 5
Directors:: John Ford
(segment “The Civil War”);
Henry Hathaway
(segments “The Rivers”, “The Plains”
and “The Outlaws”);
George Marshall
(segment “The Railroad”).
Writer:: James R. Webb (screenplay).
Cast:: Henry Fonda, Karl Malden, Gregory Peck, James Stewart, Debbie Reynolds, John Wayne (General William T. Sherman), Eli Wallach, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Widmark, George Peppard, Spencer Tracy (narrator), Harry Morgan (General Ulysses S. Grant), Carroll Baker, Carolyn Jones, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan, Andy Devine, Raymond Massey (President Abraham Lincoln), Agnes Moorehead, Thelma Ritter, Russ Tamblyn.

Click for Credits Enlargement
Credits (Click to expand)

Trailer:

(Note: The vertical bands that appear in this theatrical release trailer, have been digitally removed in the Blu-ray release of the film)

iReview:
In this week’s Sunday Screening, I’ve gone back 51 years to 1962 to seek out films in my library worthy of another look. 1962 was awash with more than 2,000 films released but after a quick scan, I was humbled by my few representatives from that year. But, my small sample does include some notable films: Dr. No, the first Bond film; To Kill a Mockingbird, with Gregory Peck’s outstanding portrayal as Atticus Finch, the lawyer who defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge; Lawrence of Arabia, the story of T.E. Lawrence’s desert war (my favourite film); Lolita, a story of forbidden infatuation by my favourite director, Stanley Kubrick; The Longest Day, the story of D-Day (6th June 1944); The Manchurian Candidate, with a brilliant Frank Sinatra as a brainwashed former captive of North Korea; Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando in an overwrought remake of the 1935 classic; and How the West Was Won. It’s the Blu-ray version of the last of these that I’ve selected for this week’s screening. I’ll be having another look at the rest of this eclectic bunch of 1962 films soon.

How the West Was Won is a curiosity in that it was one of only two narrative films produced using the Cinerama three lens camera system; the other being The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). And, given the complexity of filming in this format and the cost of building theatres capable of screening them, it’s not surprising. Cinerama required three projectors for the three screens used in the curved ultra widescreen presentation. Where the three projected images overlapped, there were thin blurred join-lines, but given the impact of the overall experience as projected onto the unique and enormous screen construction, this was a small infraction. As well as the stunning surround visuals, the system was also one of the first to employ 5.1 audio, giving an unparalleled audio-visual experience.

Story
Story (Click to expand)

For this epic western, three legendary directors, Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall, were employed to shoot different segments of the stories of three generations of the Prescott family and their travels from east to west across America between 1839 and 1889. The film chronicles the family’s triumphs and tragedies as they encounter river pirates, suffer drownings and make and lose a fortune in California after travelling the plains together in a wagon train.

This all-star ensemble includes Karl Malden as pioneer Zebulon Prescott who sets out west with his wife (Agnes Moorehead) and their children, Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) and Eve (Carroll Baker). They travel down river and along the way, encounter mountain man and fur trader, Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who marries Eve.

Lilith continues west after joining a wagon train led by Roger Morgan (Robert Preston), and is accompanied by roguish gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), who saves her during an Indian attack.

These first two vivid segments, dubbed ‘The Rivers (1840)’ and ‘The Plains (1850s)’, were directed by Henry Hathaway.

Moving into the 1860s, the Civil War erupts and Linus and Eve’s son, Zeb (George Peppard), enthusiastically follows his father into the Union army. However, after the Battle of Shiloh, he becomes disillusioned and contemplates a different path. This ‘Civil War (1861-1865)’ segment was directed by John Ford

Richard Widmark also stars as railroad boss Mike King, building the transcontinental railroad, who wants to cut a line straight through Indian territory but is resisted by mountain man, Jethro (Henry Fonda). Zeb, who has rejoined the army as a lieutenant in the U.S. cavalry, is tasked to secure a peace treaty with the Arapaho to allow the railroad construction to proceed peacefully. This segment, titled ‘The Railroad (1868)’, was directed by George Marshall and includes his famous buffalo stampede sequence.

In the final segment, The Outlaws (1880s), directed by Henry Hathaway, Lilith who made it as far west as California, has done well for herself in San Francisco but, after a change in circumstances, auctions most of her possessions and relocates to her ranch in Arizona, inviting Zeb to join her. However, Zeb, now a marshal, has a run-in with an old foe, Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach).

Many more characters and stories are woven throughout this epic film which also features appearances from Raymond Massey as President Abraham Lincoln, John Wayne as General William T. Sherman, and Harry Morgan as General Ulysses S. Grant.

In my earlier description of the plot, I’ve tried to limit the spoilers, so I don’t give everything away. I hope I haven’t just made the story completely obtuse in the process.

As a dramatic narrative, How the West Was Won works more like a travelogue, with emblematic scenic locations providing a visual feast, interrupted by action and dramatic set pieces. The characters are not on screen long enough to develop their identities but that is often a drawback of films that seek to cover an epic story over such a daunting time-span. And with so much visual splendour on offer, it’s only a minor criticism.

The technical restrictions of shooting with three fixed 27mm lenses meant that depth of field variations and close-ups, employed on traditional single lens films were not possible. One of the inadvertent benefits of this constriction is a vivid screen image with the incredible clarity of waving blades of prairie grass in the foreground against crisply defined mountain peaks in the distance. The fact that everything in shot is always in focus, also means that the entire image, including background action is invariably in motion, adding to the window-on-the-world quality of this film. As breath-taking as the magnificent vistas are, the shortcomings of the format are evident. The 400kg Cinerama camera was entirely mechanically rooted and most of the action is front-on because shots needed to be framed in such a way as to avoid foreground actors moving quickly across the boundary between one lens-view and another. These limitations, though, forced directors to become creative in the way shots were constructed and so, there are many wonderful and inventive tracking shots as the camera gracefully glided along its tracks.

When How the West Was Won was first released on VHS and DVD, the presentation was marred by the butchery required to crop the frame for display on the old 4:3 TVs. This compromise also negated one of the film’s main viewing attraction, its wonderful cinematography, rendering the movie barely watchable. Thankfully, for the three disc Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray releases, the film has been painstakingly restored with almost all evidence of the vertical three-panel join lines, digitally eliminated. The stunning result is an image that is brilliantly saturated and a joy to watch. The restoration has also left just enough occasional evidence of the vertical panel lines to demonstrate the ingenuity of the directors in utilising aspects of sets, like doorways, poles and building uprights as well as natural features like trees, to obscure the boundary lines.

For me, the work of John Ford, who filmed the short ‘Civil War (1861-1865)’ segment, is the most evocative and beautifully constructed. In its three scenes, there is the battlefield at Shiloh which ebbs into night with wonderfully lit horizon shots that stretch over and brilliantly amplify the ultra widescreen image. The shots beautifully juxtapose a war scene with the liberal ornamentation of Cherry blossoms, giving the night the look of Christmas decoration. The battle’s aftermath also reveals the short but effective scene with two disheveled Generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. The quiet rhythm of the scene moves into the next, when Zeb returns home. The pacing and atmosphere of these scenes is exquisite.

Dave Kehr of the New York Times, in his 2008 review, wrote: “The best reason for buying a Blu-ray player right now is Warner Home Video’s high-definition version of “How the West Was Won,” a film made 46 years ago in the highest-definition moving picture medium the world had seen: Cinerama”. He continued, “Not even the finest home theater installation will be able to reproduce the scale and resolution of the Cinerama experience, or anything close to it. But moving from standard-definition DVD to Blu-ray generates a shock analogous to what the audiences of 1962 must have felt when the curtains parted to reveal the panoramic screen.”

Films like How the West Was Won and Ford’s other western masterpiece, The Searchers (1956), have languished in VHS hell for too long, waiting for the advent of Blu-ray and a big wide home screen on which to showcase their brilliance. This result is a riveting revelation and richly recommended.

iRate:: 4 out of 5.

4Movie Tragics

Extras:
• Feature Commentary by: Filmmaker David Strohmaier; Director of Cinerama, Inc. John Sittig; Film Historian Rudy Behlmer; Music Historian Jon Burlingame; and Stuntman Loren James (This informative and interesting track appears on both the Blu-ray and Special Edition 3-disc DVD versions).
• Cinerama Adventure (This fascinating 93 minute documentary tells you everything you didn’t know you needed to know about the revolutionary Cinerama format and appears on both the Blu-ray and Special Edition 3-disc DVD versions).
• The 2-disc Blu-ray version also offers a Smilebox version of the film, which attempts to mimic the curved screen of the original Cinerama process. The effect is hard to describe so you’ll need to get it to see it.

You want More!
How the West Was Won – IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
How the West Was Won – Rotten Tomatoes
How the West Was Won – allmovie.com
How the West Was Won – Wikipedia

I’d love to hear your impressions of this film. Am I wrong to rate it so highly despite its shallow plot and dialogue? I’d also welcome your impressions and anecdotes, if you’ve been one of the lucky few to have seen this at a Cinerama cinema.

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Higgs bosun Particle Confirmed:

14 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in Religion, Science

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Image
(image: Martial Trezzini/KEYSTONE/Associated Press)

On this birthday of the greatest scientist of the 20th Century, Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955), it’s amazing to watch as the mechanics behind the Universe are slowly revealed. CERN Physicists working at the $US10 billion Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, believe they have confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson particle, greatly solidifying our knowledge of the fundamentals of the universe.

Unfortunately, the intellectual chasm between the guys revealing the origins and mysterious underpinnings of our universe, Einstein and his successors, and the rest of us, is still so massive that ‘creator’ and ‘interventionist’ gods can still profitably fill the gap. It was only a little under 400 years ago that the Catholic Church and its inquisitors, locked up Galileo and threatened him with torture, for the heresy of suggesting that the Bible was wrong in that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe. Those fearful and blinkered churchmen must have trembled at the thought of the consequence of his heresy. For, if a book of absolute truths, written as the word of God, could be disproved in only one part, then that would call into question the whole. Now the heresy is a largely accepted theory and a settled consensus of fact for humanity.

Likewise, the widely accepted Theory of Evolution, will one day soon achieve the same settled status and Creationists will be relegated as an embarrassing joke in history.

Science has now largely abrogated the notion of a god as an omnipotent being who can miraculously disrupt the laws of physics and chemistry on our behalf. These magical beings will soon be archived alongside Norse gods of an earlier age when simple but incomprehensible things like storms, rain, lightning, life, the sun and the moon, needed supernatural explanation: Odin (the ruler of the gods), Thor (the god of thunder) and Hel (queen of the underworld). As famed cosmologist, Carl Sagan put it when dismissing the existence of a sentient interventionist god, “it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.” What will become of all those magnets of greed and wealth, the televangelists, when the core message of their wealth ministries, that God showers money on followers, is finally confirmed as the folly it is.

So with the ‘interventionist gods’ on very shaky ground, that leaves just the ‘creator gods’.

The Higgs boson particle is key to current understanding of the Big Bang.
First theorized in 1964 by British physicist Peter Higgs, as part of the Standard Model of Physics, the Higgs boson was until very recently, the only Standard Model particle yet to be discovered. The model explains how the constituent particles of matter interact.

CERN scientist, Professor William Trischuk explains, “The Higgs field is everywhere around us, and all particles are moving in the presence of this field,” All these particles “interact more or less strongly with it, and they are either slowed down or not slowed down so much and that’s what gives them mass. The heavier ones interact strongly with this field and the light ones interact very weakly with this field.”, he said.

Now with the confirmation of the Higgs boson Particle’, one of the last pieces of the puzzle needed to explain the origin of our universe, has been confirmed, and the Big Bang is also a little closer to being settled (if they could just figure out that pesky ‘dark matter’). With this significant step, the ultimate fate of the creator gods is also closer.

In his 2010 book, The Grand Design, the world’s most famous living scientist and Big Bang pioneer, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” he writes. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” Hawking added that, “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

And, if a universe can be created spontaneously, there’s no need for a ‘creator god’ to explain why we’re here.

In time, humans may look back on our time in much the same way as we look back on those arrogant and misguided men of God who imprisoned Galileo in 1633; as a time when people who, frightened for the existential consequence should their god prove not to exist, desperately clung to a vision of life on Earth as a court room for sentient, judgmental gods who held humans in special regard and rewarded the deeds of followers and burned the rest.

I predict that it’ll be less than 50 years before a final consensus is reached when all the interventionist and creator gods and their blood-soaked history, can finally be retired.

Happy birthday Albert.

Check out the New York Times report on the confirmation of the Higgs boson:
• CERN Physicists See Higgs Boson in New Particle (NYT, 14 March 2013)
Also see this Huffington Post Report:
• Higgs Boson Discovery Confirmed After Physicists Review Large Hadron Collider Data At CERN (Huff. Post, 14 March 2013)

Will the deity religions be able to hang on for another 50 years? Will a religion fueled war emanating from the Middle East, devastate the world in the meantime? Will fusion propulsion open up exploration of our solar system? will we solve the mystery of ‘dark matter’ any time soon? What do you reckon?

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Who Said This about Climate Change?

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Australian Politics

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Who said this about Climate Change and carbon emissions pollution reduction?

“First, let’s get this straight. You cannot cut emissions without a cost. To replace dirty coal fired power stations with cleaner gas fired ones, or renewables like wind, let alone nuclear power or even coal fired power with carbon capture and storage, is all going to cost money.”

“To get farmers to change the way they manage their land, or plant trees and vegetation all costs money. Somebody has to pay. So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr. Abbott, `bullshit’. Moreover, he knows it.”

“It is not possible to criticise the new Coalition policy on climate change because it does not exist. Mr. Abbott apparently knows what he is against, but not what he is for.”

“…the fact is that Tony and the people who put him in his job, do not want to do anything about climate change. They do not believe in human caused global warming. As Tony observed on one occasion “climate change is crap” or if you consider his mentor, Senator Minchin, the world is not warming, it’s cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world.”

“Now politics is about conviction and a commitment to carry out those convictions. The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is “crap” and you don’t need to do anything about it.”

“Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental fig-leaf to cover a determination to do nothing. After all, as Nick Minchin observed, in his view the majority of the Party Room do not believe in human caused global warming at all.”

“…we have an Opposition Leader who has in the space of a few months held every possible position on the issue, each one contradicting the position he expressed earlier”.

 

 

 

You probably guessed right… It was the Liberal federal Shadow Minister for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull. (Samantha Maiden, The Australian, 7 December 2009)

“Many Liberals are rightly dismayed that on this vital issue of climate change we are not simply without a policy, without any prospect of having a credible policy but we are now without integrity. We have given our opponents the irrefutable, undeniable evidence that we cannot be trusted,” Turnbull said.

And who was also reported in the Australian, on 7 December 2009, as attacking Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan to reduce carbon pollution, in a Shadow Cabinet meeting, warning it would cost tax-payers over $50 billion…. Liberal Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey.

The Liberal Party leadership don’t believe that humans have caused the change in climate that has seen records tumble with super-heatwaves, super-storms, and many more floods and bush-fires. They profess the so-called Direct Action plan, that Turnbull and Hockey derided, to replace the Carbon Price. But does anyone believe that Tony ‘climate change is crap’ Abbott would implement any effective carbon pollution reduction plan… Hardly.

The rest of the world, including even China, are slowly changing their economies to reduce carbon pollution, while taking opportunities to retool industry for a new more competitive, energy efficient world. An Australia, under Abbott, would see us continue as the the world’s highest per capita carbon polluter, with an old-world high energy, low efficiency, and less competitive economy.

Check out Chief Political Correspondent, Lenore Taylor’s Sydney Morning Herald piece on the effectiveness of the Carbon Price:
• Carbon tax contributes to emissions drop (SMH, 18 October 2012)

Is there any chance the Australian Liberal Party will ever come to terms with “Climate Change” or are they destined to remain “climate change deniers” until we’re cooked?

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Richard Dawkins in The Simpsons

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Religion

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Richard Dawkins in The Simpsons

A recent photo of Richard Dawkins stirring up some of his speciality:
Catholic Saint stew. Bon Appetit!!!
Dawkins appeared in a Ned Flanders nightmare in The Simpsons episode: Black-Eyed, Please; which aired on Fox (USA) on Sunday, 10 March.

Thanks to:
• The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (Official)
And The Simpsons.

Is it possible for a fundamentalist to have a sense of humour?

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It’s Time! or It’s Over!

11 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Australian Politics, WA Politics

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The weekend election in WA has brought the fate of federal Labor into sharp focus. Although the swing in the primary vote against Mark McGowan’s State ALP team was a little over 2%, with the collapse in the Greens vote, the 2-party preferred swing of almost 7%, produced a bitter result for Labor.

Various pollsters have put the Gillard ‘drag’ effect, on the ALP in the West, at between 1.5 and 2 percent. This accounts for almost all the primary loss for McGowan’s WA Labor team. The retirement of the iconic, Bob Brown has undoubtedly caused some of the drop in the Greens vote. But when the third party vote collapses as has recent support for the Greens, it suggests that sharp differences have brought voters back to a choice between ‘Black and White’. The Greens generally provide a reliable stream of preferences to Labor. But, with most of the slumped Greens primary vote leaking to the Coalition, this is bad news for Labor.

Defence Minister, Stephen Smith
Defence Minister, Stephen Smith

Defence Minister, Stephen Smith conceded on the weekend that federal Labor had caused a “drag” on McGowan’s chances. The always colourful, former WA Labor planning minister Alannah MacTiernan went further, saying the party faced an “absolute massacre” in the federal election and called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to resign. On Monday, she told ABC news that she believed the result for federal Labor could be even worse than that suffered by McGowan in WA, such was the animosity towards the Prime Minister that she heard in the electorate. “It’s pretty simple and it’s pretty brutal,” Ms MacTiernan said. “They’re saying they don’t like Julia Gillard, they don’t believe her”, she added. “The overwhelming reportage from the doorstop, from the shopping centres, was that people were saying, in Labor heartland, they were saying ‘ok we’ll vote for you guys but no way are we voting for federal Labor and Julia Gillard‘. And if we do not take note of this there is going to be an absolute massacre in the federal election.”

While Ms. MacTiernan can often be relied on to shoot from the hip, she voices an opinion that is haboured by many alarmed Labor members and supporters.

The Prime Minister’s caravan tour to Rooty Hill and western Sydney last week, looked like a stunt, walked like a stunt and was a stunt. About all that came from it were traffic stop opportunities which showcased Ms Gillard’s makeover, with her stylish new eye-wear and suits, and a clumsy attempt at worker solidarity with her attack on 457 visas. Whether her points about the exploitation of 457 visas have any validity, is another issue. The fact is, her handling of the issue was terrible. You know the Prime Minister is in dangerous territory when the Xenophobic Pauline Hanson supports her. And the optics of Gillard’s own British media adviser, John McTernan, working here with a 457 visa, standing in back while she stumped for the employment of ‘Australian workers before foreigners’, smacked of hypocricy.

Respected as Ms. Gillard might be within Caucus, there’s no escaping the reality that she’s not believed as authentic in the electorate. Neither is she perceived as a strong leader with a personality that engages. Her lack in these areas, is not compensated by gravitas, authority or perceived strength. In short, the recent sartorial style change is not enough to begin to change the public narrative that has been set in concrete for the last two years.

Tanya Plibersek-sm
Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek

It might only be my opinion, but I think last year’s boost for Gillard as preferred prime minister, was more an ‘antidote to Tony Abbott‘ response, than any warming to Julia Gillard. In contrast, Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek, always a star on Q&A (ABC), looks and sounds like the genuine article with a warm personality, a sense of humour and a relaxed, authoritative, competent and compassionate style.

I would not normally counsel a panicked reaction to an election loss or the recent diabolical poll numbers, but in this case, the window of opportunity to change the leader and staunch the bloodbath that will ensue in September, is closing. The next two sitting weeks are the last, the members of the federal Labor caucus will be together, before leaving Canberra until the Budget in May. By that time, the noise of the Budget and its aftermath, will make it difficult for a new prime minister to find any air. As well, the short lead in to September makes it strategically unthinkable to wait that long.

I think the current poll-driven, reactive politics that eschews thoughtful policy and rejects an ideologically infused theory of government, is eroding public support for democracy as well as party membership. I also think the poll-driven dumping of Kevin Rudd in 2010 and Ted Baillieu last week were a symptom of a political system suffering from ‘Anxiety and High Blood Pressure’. And while my call for Julia Gillard to resign might seem to fall into this trend, it is however, rooted in a very long-held belief that she cannot lead the federal ALP to victory. The figures don’t yet show it, but I’m fearful that the looming, but wholly avoidable, disaster for Labor will rival the sad tsunami that hit my hero Gough Whitlam in 1975.

The change must be made by Julia. She can either lead Labor to a humiliating and catastrophic defeat or she can do the right and gracious thing and resign and give her party a chance to recover before September. Caucus members in vulnerable seats, which now even include Defence Minister Stephen Smith (Perth), need to urge the PM to act before it’s too late. This next two weeks is the last real opportunity that exists to make the change and give Labor Caucus members any hope.

If Kevin Rudd hadn’t challenged last year, the obvious choice for transition would be clear as he’s still the most popular politician in Australia. However, It is the most high-risk, high-return option. His 2012 leadership tilt, was an extremely bloody event that provided the Opposition campaign boffins with a Chocolate Box Selection of damaging quotes and footage with which to attack him if he were prime minister.

That leaves the affable Bill Shorten or the telegenic and honest but introverted, Stephen Smith. Defence Minister, Smith might lack a little in charisma but he is eminently authentic and has a reflective, thoughtful style which might be welcomed by an electorate tired of the hyped drama surrounding the humourless, Gillard and the one-dimensional ‘Red Speedo Brawler’, Tony Abbott.

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten
Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, another star of Q&A, has an easy ‘Let’s sit down and have a chat’ style that draws you in. His disarmingly quick wit and self-deprecation don’t do him any harm either. He also projects an honest, straight taking manner that contrasts with the Prime Minister. These are all traits the brittle Julia Gillard could use in spades.

Last week’s bloodless coup that saw Ted Baillieu resign as Victorian Premier, adds yet another leadership change story, that should make a federal Labor transition seem a lot more routine than it would have, even just a week ago. As well, it further robs Abbott of the argument that leadership coups are a Labor phenomenon.

Trying to tough it out is not an option; the negative narrative that is attached to Julia Gillard is too strong, sustained and concrete for that. And, make no mistake, Tony Abbott is loathed by as many people as Julia, women in particular. I know many conservative women who openly talk of spoiling their ballot rather than vote for that ‘awful man’. That Labor is as high as 32% on the primary vote, is as much a reflection of the passion of the dislike for Tony Abbott. A ‘Someone-who-isn’t-Tony’ could lead the Opposition and drive the Gillard government even lower in the polls.

Only a circuit breaker that forces the media, the public and the Opposition to find a new field of battle, will give federal Labor any hope of fighting back and maybe even saving itself and Australia from Tony Abbott.

The federal Labor Caucus needs to act now!

Will Julia see the writing on the wall and resign now or will she desperately hang on, and the day after the election, lamely try to explain why the Labor Party lost 30 seats?

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Shiny Objects, Beat Tube Map:

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Australian Politics, WA Politics

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Well it seems Colin Barnett has won the ‘Boom State’ election which pitted his grandiose vision of shiny objects against Mark McGowan’s (well really Ken Travers’) Tube Map. Largely missing from the campaign menu, were the usual Cost of Living issues and the focus on service delivery like Health, Law and Order, Power, Housing and Education.

Labor Leader Mark McGowan, leapt out of the blocks early with his pre-emptive ‘Metronet’ campaign launch in January, stealing the spotlight and seemingly irritating Premier Barnett who became ‘Grumpy Colin’ for about a week. This clear air allowed Labor to establish Metronet as the iconic policy for the first part of the campaign. This left Barnett’s team scrambling in a desperate ‘me too’ catch-up phase with its own hurried Airport Rail Line pledge. The downside for McGowan in pitching early with Metronet, was that his campaign peaked early and got distracted by costing arguments.

Without a major second phase focus for Labor to pivot to, their campaign only simmered towards the end.

McGowan’s attempt to turn what should have been a secondary issue into a major winner, the ‘A Vote for Barnett is a Vote for Buswell’ suggestion, came in too late to have any impact. The seeds for that proposition should have been germinating in elector’s minds, long before the start of the campaign. Instead, it came off as a bit desperate in the eyes of many. The question raised, though, is a valid one and if better handled, this issue could have worked for Labor. Instead it was overshadowed by the seemingly hysterical optics of the protagonists.

If Colin Barnett were to complete this term as leader, he would be at least 67 before he could contemplate a succession transition. While that’s not exactly doddering by today’s standard, it would nevertheless make him the 3rd oldest of the state’s past 29 premiers. As well, previous leaders were a sprightly 54 years old, on average, when they left office. With a front-bench pretty slim on talent, other than the ever-present Troy ‘Chair Sniffer’ Buswell, is it any wonder that the harbinger of a Buswell succession looms in 2014. At least the cartoonists will be ecstatic.

Of course, the ALP were at a huge disadvantage coming into the campaign because the electorate had been primed with the Barnett Government’s $2million ‘Bigger Picture’ advertising blitz. This tax-payer funded promotion, featured the shiny vote-sweetening projects, his spending frenzy was bringing to Perth, as well as the much needed hospital projects begun under the previous Carpenter Labor Government. During his election coverage on the ABC, even host Kerry O’Brien seemed incredulous that our State Government was spending $1bn on the Burswood Stadium.

The large state-wide swing against Labor resulted in the loss of at least 6 seats, with 2 more still in doubt. The most surprising result might be the huge 7.9% swing (after distribution of preferences) against former minister, Michelle Roberts who is in a struggle to retain Midland. Of the many Labor members who lost their seat, perhaps the most poignant was John Hyde, the popular member for Perth. Hyde, first elected in 2001, seems to have drowned in the sea of money splashed by the government on expensive inner city projects like Elizabeth Quay and the Burswood Stadium.

With the swing fluctuating wildly, some southern ALP members bucked the trend with small gains. Opposition Leader, Mark McGowan and Deputy Leader, Roger Cook performed strongly with small swings to them. And Labor veteran Peter Watson (Albany) has again proved his fighting value, defending a miserly 83 vote margin from the 2008 election. He might yet pull off the most unlikely win in this otherwise horror election for Labor.

For the geeks:
Check out this bit of ‘Town of Vincent News’ nostalgia, featuring: John Hyde; Deputy Premier, Kim Hames; and former Labor minister, Bob Kucera, who unsuccessfully attempted to resurrect his career in the seat of Mt Lawley.
• Town of Vincent News, March 2001 [pdf]

Will Barnett keep his promises this time or will they get dumped like the “Rail line to Ellenbrook” promise from the last election?

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Why Obama can’t do a deal with Congress:

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in International Politics

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House of Representatives Speaker, John Boehner seems to be quite an amiable fellow (and certainly sensitive, judging from his frequent tears). He also has a hell of a job with the lunatic fringe comprising 1 in 3 of his caucus. This makes his task of leading his party and the House through a legislative program very difficult. House Democrat Leader, Nancy Pelosi’s got it easy by comparison… Her liberal wing (the left of the party, Jay Rockefeller, Barbara Boxer etc) is only 1 in 10.

Speaker Boehner can’t get anything reasonable through his present caucus with such a large chunk of his members (Tea Party and fanatical Ron Paul-like libertarians) locked into uncompromising, fantasy positions that prevent him reaching any compromise with President Obama and/or Congressional Democrats.

It must have been humiliating for Boehner to handball the new year ‘Fiscal Cliff’ temporary fix to Senate Democrat Majority Leader, Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, knowing that his only chance of getting a deal was a tacit alliance between a small rump of Republicans and the overwhelming majority of Democrats when the fix came back to the House from the Senate.
Unfortunatley for him, this inability to make deals and legislate, renders his hold on the Speakership pretty shaky.

The parties (in particular the GOP) are now so entrenched in their own version of the Battle of Flanders, that even a Christmas Truce would be impossible because anyone venturing out of the trench with a hint of Christmas goodwill towards the enemy would be cut down with a hail of bullets from his own side (Tea Party Primaries and the enemy of reasonable, Grover Norquist).

So, I can’t see any ‘big deals’ being done between President Obama and the Congressional G.O.P., in the near future, unless it’s done by Boehner using the deflection device to the Senate, outlined above.

I think that’s one of the main reasons why Obama has adopted the long-term ‘Theodore Roosevelt’ strategy of taking his message out on the road and through ‘Oganizing for Action’ (which is still filling my in-box) instead of going the traditional ‘Lyndon Johnson’ legislative route. I think Obama knows that the possibility of doing ‘Johnson’ type deals in this Congress is nill. Instead, Obama is hoping to discredit the Tea Party and Norquist from outside, by slowly changing the current ‘Deficit Hawk’ media narrative and moving the conversation back to the middle and away from the current ‘slash government spending and burn the economy’ political orthodoxy that seems prevalent in the USA (and which has resulted in a triple-dip recession in one country where it was unleashed, the UK under Cameron). It was this continuing campaign strategy that President Theodore Roosevelt adopted, at the turn of the last century, to fundamentally change the way Americans saw corporate regulation and the promotion of the interests of the average citizen instead of powerful political and wealthy elites.

Encouragingly, talk of the need for investment in the future (education, R&D, infrastructure etc) coupled with revenue increases – eliminating some industry subsidies (corn, oil etc), closing some tax  loop-holes for the rich, and means-testing safety net welfare for the wealthy (Social Security and Medicare payments) – and long-term deficit reduction (instead of the Sequester’s ‘Shock and Awe’), is already beginning to gain traction.

That the Sequester is a very blunt, indiscriminate instrument that is going to cause a shock to the US and World Economy, is almost beyond question. And, In the short term, there’s not much that can be hoped to wind it back. Obama’s strategy of continuing the ‘fairness’ tour campaigning, banging on about Republican’s protecting generous tax loop-holes for the rich while demanding cuts in programs benefiting the poor and middle-class, might just provide enough media cover to force a narrative change.

So, although a chorus of commentators, including the New York Times’ David Brooks, are urging Obama to quit his campaigning and get back to deal-making and governing, I think Obama is doing precisely what he needs to do to win the long game. He’s not thinking of the next 10 minutes (like Congress, commentators and the media), he’s thinking of the next 10 years and a possible seachange in America. I hope he succeeds.

Gee that boy can prattle on…. Enough!

Check out Nobel Economics Prize-winner, Paul Krugman’s New York Times Column and his piece on the Sequester:
• Sequester of Fools by Paul Krugman
(NYT, 22 Feb. 2013)

For the geeks:
* Although Theodore Roosevelt was a successful president, his long-term legacy was tarnished by his successors who ensured he was the last of the progressive Republican Presidents. From Taft on, the GOP became the ‘cut government’ conservative party of the rich and powerful and the hitherto generally conservative Democrats became the progressive party under the presidency of the husband of Theodore Roosevelt’s niece, Eleanor Roosevelt.
* Yes indeed folks, Franklin Roosevelt was a distant cousin of Eleanor, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1918 launched her career as the most powerful political spouse in American History, before or since, with the possible exception of Edith Wilson, who in late 1919 effectively and secretly assumed the Presidency after Woodrow’s catastrophic stroke.

Is there any hope that Congress can get anything done on issues like immigration, gun slaughter, the budget, the sequester?

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Washington’s Political Sclerosis:

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in International Politics

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I was reading a recent Washington Post report about the redoubtable Sth. Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s threat to ‘put a hold’ on the confirmation of nominees, Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel and CIA Chief, John Brennan. At first glance, I wondered… Are you a right-wing lunatic hiding beneath a relatively moderate Republican skin?… But then I remembered that the competition, these days, isn’t between Republicans and Democrats at elections but within the parties at Primaries; meaning that Graham was pitching to the rabid base to shore up his position against a primary attack. The new reality is, the enemy within is more dangerous than the foe across the aisle.

How has this anomaly of the democratic process arisen that has made compromise between parties, impossible and government, sclerotic?
In the 2012 elections, 85% of House seats and 60% of Senate races, were considered Safe (a winning margin of at least 10%). In the past, staking a claim to these prized pieces of Congressional real estate could give the holder a job for life. Many incumbents took the opportunity to grow fat and comfortable while many others took the relative safety of their position to carve out meaningful and illustrious legislative careers. Until the recent past, ‘lunatic fringe’ primary challenges were rarely successful but with the rise of the rabid right-wing Tea Party within the G.O.P., that all changed. The threat from this intractable faction has led previously rational Republican legislative negotiators to behave like cornered Rottweilers. That coupled with the ludicrous 60% Senate vote (close to that often required to change a national constitution elsewhere in the world) now needed to enact simple legislation; and national government, in any meaningful sense, has ceased to exist in the USA.

It is grievously frustrating to see the lurch from crisis to crisis of Congress’ own design. The members don’t seem chastened by the flirtation with recession, in last quarter 2012, said to be the result of uncertainty generated by Congressional brinkmanship over the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ or the sledgehammer surgery applied to the US economy by the ‘Sequester’ as a result of Congressional failure to act last month.

Republican House members and Senators seem only to be concerned, like Senator Graham, with potential Primary challenges from Tea Party fanatics. And why need they care how low the esteem of the G.O.P in Congress sinks in the eyes of electors, when the only threat to their Congressional survival lies within their own ranks.

Until the threat of a party losing a seat becomes greater than a Primary loss, this sorry state appears destined to continue. In Australia, seat (district) boundaries and redistricting is established by an independent Federal Commission rather than the incumbent majority party in each State. With the Republicans in the ascendancy in ‘State engineered redistricting’ in recent years, the electoral map greatly favours the G.O.P. I noted with interest that at the November election, Democrats won millions more votes than Republicans but 33 fewer seats; a product of majority party redistricting, the Texas Perry-mander etc.

I remember looking at gerrymandering in my political science classes at university and discussing it as a quaint relic of the 19th century ‘rotten borough’ era in England and 1812 Massachusetts (where the term originated). But then I became interested in modern USA politics… Such a glaring and catastrophic democratic flaw would be an amusing subject of harmless banter if the country in question was Chad but when manufactured crises in the Congress of the USA, such as the 2011 ‘Debt Ceiling’ and the recent ‘Fiscal Cliff’, and ‘Sequester’, can cause the US credit-rating to be downgraded and other financial ripples around the world then it becomes a worry for the rest of us.

I just watched Casino Jack and the United States of Money, a documentary about Jack Abramoff and the way he allegedly bought the Republican Party. It was horrifying.

Read New York Times Columnist, Sam Wang’s piece on the 2012 Election:
• The Great Gerrymander of 2012 by Sam Wang
(NYT, 3 Feb. 2013)

I can see China with its booming economy, looking on with envy at the remarkable excercise of democracy in the USA, with its sensible Senate rules that prevent anything getting done. Will any other American organisation adopt the requirment of a 60% vote in favour of any action or would they just laugh? Would any democratic institution anywhere in the world, outside the USA, ever adopt a 60% rule to get anything done? Will the Congressional gerrymander ever be exposed and fixed?

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Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” Bill

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in International Politics, Religion

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In Uganda, it’s already illegal to be gay. But some government officials — with support from American evangelicals — want to take government sanctioned homophobia a step further. They’ve proposed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would, among other things, institute the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” for repeat offenders. This bill was forced off the agenda in 2011 following an international outcry against Uganda but this year it’s back.

If Uganda passes this disgusting legislation, it will represent an irredeemable stain on the beautiful country of my birth and confirm it as one of the ugliest places on Earth, deserving of pariah status.

Is there hope for real progress on human rights in much of Africa while regimes can hide behind religious dogma and repressive culture?

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Choose your Religion

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in Religion

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The only thing I’d gripe about this chart is that Buddhists don’t need to believe in gods to be practitioners but they are free to do so if they wish. And yes, many Mormons do wear magical underwear.

Thanks to:
• The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (Official)

I can see you laughing at the Mormons and their magical underwear but can you see them laughing at a chalice containing wine that magically turns into the blood of Jesus?

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