Spoiler warning: Australia

Being allergic as I am to all Australian movies, it seems a fair assumption that "Australia" would cause a breakout of hives even if I walk past the cinema door while it's playing.

There is no doubt at all that many Australian critics are giving it an extra star or so just for being a large scale film by Baz Luhrmann; a director who, although married, has always seemed to display a "gay sensibility" in his movies. (He works in "operatic style" is how they put it on At the Movies last night, where both critics spent a lot of time on the faults but still ended up giving it 3 1/2 stars each.)*

Anyhow, apart from every review, whether good or bad, agreeing that the film is riddled with cliche, there is no doubt that the way the film deals with aborigines is going to attract a lot of derision from some quarters. This will be well deserved if these comments by Roger Ebert (who liked the film overall, but his judgment is wildly erractic) are anything to go by:

Luhrmann is rightly contemptuous of Australia's "re-education" policies; he shows Nullah taking pride in his heritage and paints the white enforcers as the demented racists they were. But "Australia" also accepts aboriginal mystical powers lock, stock and barrel, and that I think may be condescending.

Well, what do you believe? Can the aboriginal people materialize wherever they desire? Become invisible? Are they telepaths? Can they receive direct guidance from the dead? Yes, certainly, in a spiritual or symbolic sense. But in a literal sense? Many of the plot points in "Australia" depend on the dead King George's ability to survey events from mountaintops and appear to Nullah to point the way. The Australians, having for decades treated their native people as subhuman, now politely endow them with godlike qualities. I am not sure that is a compliment. What they suffered, how they survived, how they prevailed and what they have accomplished, they have done as human beings, just as we all must.

The film is filled with problems caused by its acceptance of mystical powers. If Nullah is all-seeing and prescient at times, then why does he turn into a scared little boy who needs rescuing?

Amongst the bad reviews that are out there (it scores a 51% on Rottentomatoes), I like the start to the one by Dana Stevens in Slate:

It's a mystery to me how Baz Luhrmann continues to be regarded as a director worth following. A long time has passed since I've regarded his lush, loud, defiantly unsubtle output with anything but dread.

As for the aboriginal content, she writes:

I guess I don't know enough about Australian racial politics to opine at length on this movie's vision of its aboriginal characters, but I will say that if my people were subjected to this simultaneously idealizing and condescending "magical Negro" treatment, I would seriously consider aiming a boomerang at Baz Luhrmann's head.

I certainly hope Anthony Lane writes the New Yorker review: I can imagine him being very witty about this.

* well it took a couple of attempts with different search terms, but it would appear that Luhrmann has not only admitted to a gay sensibility, but to active bisexuality.

UPDATE: Andrew Bolt points out Luhrmann's blatant dishonestly in one key plot point in the film. I wonder if this was co-writer Richard Flanagan's idea? Here he is, going on in great seriousness about the film.

The Indian attacks

Analysis: a new tactic by Islamist militants - Times Online

Some early analysis here, which also discusses more broadly the range of terrorist groups and issues within India.

Too much information: the Dutch method

Sex education: why the British should go Dutch - Times Online

Well, if all of this article is correct, the famous Dutch openness in sex education is enough to make every Australian parent I know squirm:

Next year, 12-year-old Sasha explains to me, they will learn how to put a condom on a broomstick (she says this without a trace of embarrassment, just a polite smile). Across the city, nine-year-old Marcus, who lives in a beautiful 18th-century house on a canal, has been watching a cartoon showing him how to masturbate. His sister, 11, has been writing an essay on reproduction and knows that it is legal for two consenting 12-year-olds to make love. Her favourite magazine, Girls, gives advice on techniques in bed, and her parents sometimes allow her to stay up to see a baby being born on the birthing channel.

Then there is Yuri, 16, who explains to me in perfect English that “anal sex hurts at the beginning but if you persevere it can be very pleasurable”. When I ask whether he is gay, he says “no” but he has watched a documentary on the subject with his parents.

Such mind-boggling openness is what is often credited for the remarkably low teen pregnancy and abortion rate in the country. And it's not that they are having "safe sex" early either: they actually start much later on average too.

The article becomes less salacious when it starts discussing the other social reasons why teen pregnancy is not so common there, and oddly enough, these are consistent with a more conservative ideology:

Another reason why the teenage pregnancy rate is so low may be that in the Netherlands there is still a stigma attached to having a child before the age of 20. In Britain, a baby who can offer unconditional love, a free home away from parents and a cheque every month is not considered a disaster for a teenage girl. The Dutch Government still penalises single mothers under 18, who are expected to live with their parents if they become pregnant. Until six years ago the Government gave them no financial support. ...

Braeker was shocked when she first came to Britain. “Young girls here seem to have babies to prove that they are adults. In the Netherlands it would just prove how uneducated and naive you are,” she says. “There you can have a boy as a friend, here it's almost always about sex.”

The other reason given is that families are closer because they are somewhat similar to the much derided ideal of a 1950's Australian nuclear family:

Dutch children are five times less likely to be living in a family headed by a lone parent, divorce rates are far lower and fewer mothers are in full-time employment.

“I think my eight-year-old son has probably learnt more about sex from David Attenborough than from school,” she says. “It is the family that makes the difference. Parents leave the office by 5pm in Holland and eat dinner with their children at 6pm. They then watch TV or play sport together, so they tend to be closer to their children and can guide them to do the right thing.”

Mind you, we then veer into the hard-to-believe openness again:

Trudie, a fashion stylist, has always talked about sex with her daughter. When, at 16, her daughter asked her what sperm looked like, Trudie asked her husband to provide a sample.

Bloody hell, whatever happened to having a couple of mice in a cage to teach the kids about reproduction?

Well, here's hoping that its possible to have the social change of kids believing that it's dumb to have sex too early, but without the addition of masturbation videos for 9 year olds.

Obama and FOCA

Obama's threat to Catholic hospitals and their very serious counterthreat. - Slate Magazine

Here's a good article on the issue of Obama, the highly contentious Freedom of Choice Act, and the Catholic Church's threat to close hospitals if it goes through.

I reckon Obama will secretly be hoping that there are enough Democrats in Congress with reservations to prevent it getting through, so that he doesn't have to sign it after all.

Janet & Ziggy today

Janet Albrechtsen has been to Israel (as a guest of the government and a Jewish group), and writes on a topic mentioned here many times before: the near impossibility of a long term solution if the Palestinians keep educating their kids to hate the Jews and not think seriously about accommodating Israel. She writes:

Look at the geography books for Palestinian children that encourage children to see no Israel, books that feature maps of Israel in the colours of the Palestinian flag, and described as Palestine. Learn about the May 2008 soccer championships for young boys in honour of terrorists such as Samir Quntar and Muhammad al-Mabhuh. Or the July 2008 summer camp held for young girls named in honour of female suicide bomber Dalal al-Mughrabi, who hijacked a holiday bus in 1978, murdering 12 children and 25 adults. Listen to Fatah-funded children’s television where children are taught to continue the way of the shahids (the suicide bombers) and quizzed about Mughrabi. She is presented as “the beloved bride, child of Jaffa, jasmine flower”. Or quizzes where children routinely identify Israeli landmarks, towns and ports such as Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat as Palestinian.

This was something I hadn't heard before:

According to the PMW, more than half of the Palestinian educators in the teachers’ union are affiliated with Hamas.

In other opinion in The Australian, Ziggy Switkoski continues his lonely promotion of nuclear power as a serious option for Australia. He never mentions pebble bed reactors, or other new technology, though.

The dark continent

It's amazing the extent of bad news that Africa is generating at the moment. The current "highlights" include:

1. Zimbabwe is on "the brink of collapse" (so they say; unfortunately, the government has hovering on the brink for an awfully long time). Cholera is the latest misery being added to the appalling government generated problems:

About 6,000 people have contracted cholera in recent weeks, according to the UN, and almost 300 have died. A chronic shortage of medicine has sent hundreds of people south to seek treatment in South Africa....

In the meantime, the economy has disintegrated and the health system is close to breakdown. Four big hospitals, including two in Harare, have effectively closed their doors to new patients owing to a shortage of basic supplies and running water

2. Ethiopia. Foreign Correspondent tonight had a story on famine in Ethiopia. (The video is not up on the website yet, but should be by the end of the week.)

It was odd to see that the countryside looked incredibly green and lush after recent rains, but apparently the failure of last year's crops still means there is not enough food now. The population was said to be about 80 million, which was much higher than I would have guessed.

The story was also noteworthy for showing up the questionable reliability of World Vision. The journalist visited a 14 year old girl that he had been sponsoring for years. It appeared that she had been barely aware that she was being sponsored until recently, when she was given a jacket and a pen. Certainly, the feedback that World Vision supplies as to what the sponsored child is doing (learning english, for example) does not appear reliable.

World Vision apparently said that the sponsorship money goes to community projects that benefit the children, but it was not clear in this story what they may have done for this child's community. It was not a good look, and World Vision will certainly be hoping that this does not get much coverage.

While watching undernourished people living in the lush green countryside, it was hard to avoid the thought that this was a country that really needed help with developing modern, efficient farming. According to Wikipedia, the problems range from the small farm size, to some of the farm practices:

Since the land holdings are so small, farmers cannot allow the land to lie fallow, which reduces soil fertility.^[114] This land degradation reduces the production of fodder for livestock, which causes low amounts of milk production.^[115] Since the community burns livestock manure as fuel, rather than plowing the nutrients back into the land, the crop production is reduced.^[116] The low productivity of agriculture leads to inadequate incomes for farmers, hunger, malnutrition and disease. These unhealthy farmers have a hard time working the land and the productivity drops further.

These are problems that are in principle solvable, but it would seem none of the necessary reform is happening.

3. Somalia continues to be pirate capital. The Economist paints this grim picture:

With no proper government since 1991, it has been a bloody kaleidoscope of competing clans and fiefs. More than 1m, in a population once around 10m, have fled abroad; this year alone, the UN reckons, some 160,000 have been uprooted from Mogadishu, the capital, which has lost about two-thirds of its inhabitants over the years. The country is too dangerous for foreign charities, diplomats or journalists to function there permanently. Thousands of angry, rootless, young Somalis are proving vulnerable to the attractions of fundamentalist Islam in the guise of al-Qaeda and similar jihadist brands. The cash from piracy is probably fuelling the violence.

4. The Congo. I am currently reading "Congo Journey" by Redmond O'Hanlon, about his mid 1990's trip into the Congo. (Currently this is available as a $10 "Popular Penguin" edition in Australia.)

The corrupt, dangerous place that O'Hanlon writes about is in an even worse state now. In May this year, The Economist wrote about widespread use of rape as a weapon of war, and now the 17,000 strong UN peace keeping force needs re-enforcements that it is unlikely to get, and there is talk the place looks primed for a Rwandan style genocide.

What a depressing continent.

UPDATE: In an effort to be more upbeat, people could do worse, I suspect, than to donate to Catholic Relief Services, which appears to do a lot of work in Africa. It may just be my bias, of course, but I suspect that Catholic agencies would be pretty credible in the efficiency with which donations are used.

Out of curiosity, I just did a search for Islamic charities, and turned up Islamic Relief Worldwide, which currently features on its front page a graphic headed "donate now" that points out that "The practice of sacrificing an animal at Eid ul Adha acts as a reminder of the Prophet Ibrahim's obedience to Allah". Hmm.

UPDATE II: the BBC has this recent feature on the problem with foreign aid for Africa.

Your next weekly dose of bad ocean news

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Marine life faces 'acid threat'

Man-made pollution is raising ocean acidity at least 10 times faster than previously thought, a study says.

Researchers say carbon dioxide levels are having a marked effect on the health of shellfish such as mussels.

They sampled coastal waters off the north-west Pacific coast of the US every half-hour for eight years.

The results, published in the journal PNAS, suggest that earlier climate change models may have underestimated the rate of ocean acidification.

To be fair, some reported comments of one of the researchers involved are misleadingly expressed:

"Many sea creatures have shells or skeletons made of calcium carbonate, which the acid can dissolve," said Catherine Pfister, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study.

That could easily be taken to mean the ocean is actually turning into an acidic pH, but ocean acidification at its worst will still leave the ocean alkaline (just significantly less alkaline than it used to be.)

Anyhow, it's still bad news, by any interpretation.

The eternal critic

Robert Fisk: Once more fear stalks the streets of Kandahar

So, Robert Fisk is reporting from Afghanistan at the moment, noting the misery suffered by the population caught between the Taliban and Western forces. (Acid throwing on girls attending school has made a recent re-appearance.)

Fisk ends the above account by the spurious advice:

Barack Obama wants to send 7,000 more American troops to this disaster zone. Does he have the slightest idea what is going on in Afghanistan? For if he did, he would send 7,000 doctors.

A letter writer to the Independent responds appropriately:

....in the absence of western forces, what is not explained is how medics and civilian contractors might operate in a region ruled by well-armed fanatics who don't want redevelopment, and who don't want schoolgirls they've maimed with acid to be treated. Even worse is the suggestion that we leave fellow members of the human race to such an appalling fate, when it is within our powers to try to help them.

But a comment made after the original article sums up Fisk perfectly, even if the spelling is lacking:

What you do Mr Fisk with your baby shaking naarratives that tunnell in on the details to obscure the big picture truth is preach a counsel of despair so the truly uncaring people of the world can continue to walk by on the other side of the road.

Exactly.

About Hillary

The last thing we need is a Clinton in charge of foreign policy. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Actually, given his intense dislike of all things Clinton, I think Hitchens sounds slightly restrained in this criticism of Hillary as Secretary of State.

A bunch of stuff to keep you going

Here's a quick post of links to this and that:

* Bryan Appleyard is back, and posting in amusing fashion about the rich and travel, the BBC and "risk taking", his ailments, and John Lennon's "Imagine" (he dislikes the song; so do I).

In fact, I seem to be in basic agreement with him about everything since his return. If only he didn't have that strange aberration of enjoying Olbermann!

* I have no idea whether the author of this article is a reliable pundit on China, but the picture he paints of the dramatic consequences of a serious economic slow down in China sounds plausible enough. (Basically, it's of social disruption on a pretty massive scale, as former factory workers return to the countryside to eke out a living in agriculture, or whatever.) I do get the impression that the West is overly optimistic on China being able to spend its way out of trouble.

* Victor Davis Hansen makes a list of ten politically incorrect complaints about America. Points 3 (about Hollywood being in a terrible creative slump at the moment) and 6 (about the American male accent not being what it used to be) are the most interesting. Here's a sample:

.....increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female. How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper much less a Struther Martin, Jack Palance, L.Q. Jones, or Ben Johnson? I watched the movie Twelve O’clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet.

Certainly, having read this, I could not think of one convincing, male action hero who is currently in his prime and particularly "manly" in the way Hansen complains. Matt Damon? I don't think so.

* A lot of his commentors to this post by John Quiggin think that a carbon emissions trading scheme is too open to the abuses of a trading market, and argue a carbon tax avoids this problem. JQ does not answer them. (He may have elsewhere, but he - and nearly every other economist - just seem to be taking an ETS instead of a tax as a "given".)

* Finally: did you know that Japan has an all woman musical theatre troupe, owned by a train company (!) that has been doing large scale shows for nearly 100 years? The women play the male roles, and about 90% of the audience is women (causing much speculation as to what it is the audience is responding to.)

Anyhow, I had never heard of the Takarazuka Revue before, but there is a detailed Wikipedia entry. The shows they have put on have included such oddities (remember, it's women playing men) as adaptions of The Great Gatesby, Tom Jones, and (from "normal" theatre) The Sound of Music and West Side Story.

Very strange if you ask me.

Otherwise occupied...

For a day or two, is my guess.

Impressive storm video

Brisbane's been getting international attention for its storms this week. Fortunately, my side of town has missed the worst of it, although there is still tonight to worry about. If you want to see how bad it was in the worst hit part of town, have a look at this video. (Don't be misled by the first 90 seconds. Things really get going after that.)

Embed deleted for now.

The robot director

As I type this, SBS is showing Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange."

Not having seen it before, I have watched about 45 minutes now. It is one seriously strange movie. That great movie critic Pauline Kael hated it. Even without seeing it all, I can tell that much of her assessment seems correct.

But the main comment that I wanted to make here is this: did Stanley Kubrick ever make a movie in which the actors seemed like real humans? (I haven't seen Barry Lyndon: maybe he made a breakthrough there.)

From his work that I have seen, their most distinctive characteristic is that he always seemed to be able to get the actors to make their character appear not quite human, rather as if they were robots acting as humans. In 2001, I thought that this was perhaps deliberate, since a certain blurring of the line between human and artificial intelligence played well into the subplot about HAL . Maybe Dr Strangelove, as a black satire, didn't need good acting either. As far as I can recall, Nicholson was pretty good at acting mad in The Shining , although I caught a little of it again the other night, and some of the supporting actors had the Kubrick "not quite there"-ness about them.

The same artifice was in Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket, when they certainly could have benefited with more naturalist acting. (The former was eccentrically memorable, if far from realistic. The latter I thought a complete failure.)

It's actually a bit puzzling as to how he achieved the robotisation of his actors. Was it because of his famous willingness to shoot the same scene tens of times over, trying to achieve some kind of perfection in detail that only he could see? One can imagine that this would drain the actors ability to appear human.

Or was it just a certain clumsiness in his scripts?

Of course, the issue of artificial intelligence was again dealt with in the Spielberg collaboration "AI". It's another peculiar movie in many respects, but A Clockwork Orange certainly removes any doubt that its strangeness sprang from Kubrick, not Spielberg. But you can see from AI that Spielberg is like the reverse Kubrick: he can get actors playing robots appear very human!

Spielberg has said in interviews that Kubrick told him the project needed his (Spielberg's) touch, and if his goal was to have the audience sympathetic to the plight of robot intelligences, this was certainly true.

Kubrick was an interesting film maker, and for all of his deficiencies, 2001 was a remarkable achievement. It's just a pity that in his other films, he showed so little sign of being able to replicate convincing human behaviour on screen.

But the Olympics looked good

ABC News: Mom in China Freed Without Forced Abortion

A six-month pregnant mother of two who faced a forced abortion by Chinese authorities has been freed and allowed to continue her pregnancy, according to Radio Free Asia. The case had attracted international attention and outrage.

The case was reported in The Age some days ago, but I had missed it.

Last year, NPR reported on a spate of forced abortions in at least one part of China, some very late term. The report notes a possible reason for such draconian action:

...the Baise government missed its family planning targets last year. The recorded birth rate was 13.61 percent, slightly higher than the goal of 13.5 percent. This is significant because the career prospects of local officials depend upon meeting these goals.

And people wonder why the Olympics left me cold.

Confusion and the Quran

A new translation of the Quran. - By Reza Aslan - Slate Magazine

I've noted before that the Quran is difficult to read as it is not a narrative, or laid out in any other logical or consistent style. This article in Slate goes into more detail about its confusing and highly uncertain nature.

I hadn't heard this before:

....Sura 4:34, which has long been interpreted as allowing husbands to beat their wives: "As for those women who might rebel against you, admonish them, abandon them in their beds, and strike them (adribuhunna)." The problem, as a number of female Quranic scholars have noted, is that adribuhunna can also mean "turn away from them." It can even mean "have sexual intercourse with them."

Well, to say the least, that's a rather wide range of possible interpretations. (Rather like the issue as to whether the martyrs are to expect virgins or grapes in Heaven.)

The article notes that an author of a new translation tries to paint this confusing and mystifying nature of the book in a positive light:

It is through the attempt to make sense of our confusions, to work through them with reason and with faith, that the Quran's dramatic monologue transforms into an eternal dialogue between humanity and God. Indeed, of all the sacred texts of the world, Khalidi argues that the Quran is perhaps the one that most self-consciously invites the reader to engage with it, to challenge it, to ponder and to debate it. After all, as the Quran itself states, only God knows what it truly means.

Well, if true, this would suggest that it's a religion primed for liberalising interpretations. But the situation in the real world is quite to the contrary.

It also seems a bit mean-spirited of God to deliver his word via a language which is (apparently) especially capable of misinterpretation.

Next action: suring for the right to leg space

Obese have right to two airline seats | Oddly Enough | Reuters

From the report:

The high court declined to hear an appeal by Canadian airlines of a decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency that people who are "functionally disabled by obesity" deserve to have two seats for one fare.

Anything in the decision preventing an airline charging a premium for the extra weight, though? Extra weight means extra fuel costs, and they already offer discounted fares for those who limit the weight of their luggage.

Indian journalism: a continuing series

Time for more examples of Indian journalism, with its amazing disregard for any sense of privacy, and delicious deadpan delivery:

1. A man diagnosed with HIV commits suicide by jumping out of a hospital window. Are you wondering why?:

Investigating officials said that they recorded his wife's statement in which she has mentioned that Jhatak had lost interest in everything and wanted to die. "It could have been the reason why he took the extreme step," said officials.

2. A nurse commits suicide in another city. Curious as to why?:

The exact reason for the suicide could not be ascertained, but her mother Mordi Devi alleged that Jagbir [the late woman's husband] was having an extramarital affair and that was why her daughter was depressed.

Jagbir says: "Thanks for sharing, mother-in-law."

3. OK, this one doesn't have anything to do with privacy, but take note. When in Delhi, watch out for the Blueline buses:

More than 70 people have been killed this year under the wheels of Blueline buses.

Last year, at least 120 people were run over by Blueline buses.

They should never have shown Death Race 2000 in India.

4. Finally, this story puts me very much in mind of Bonnie & Clyde, with the added element of pigs:

A 48-km chase for four hours and firing of 10 rounds by the police, breaking of barricades as well as running over police vehicles, and pigs being hurled at the police vehicles preceded the arrest of two suspects who allegedly stole pigs from a piggery at Sutardara.

The details are worth reading. I suspect the police actually found it kind of thrilling:

When sub-inspector Satish Shinde tried to stop the thieves by placing his jeep in the middle of the road, the tempo dashed the jeep and sped off. Near Warje octroi post also they ran over a police block and constable Amol Tanpure fired six rounds at the tempo.

"During the chase, the suspects threw stones and the stolen pigs at the police vehicle. Meanwhile, several police vehicles joined the chase.... The Dattawadi police had blocked the road near Rajaram bridge. But the tempo driver sped over the block and sub-inspector Ramakant Shinde of Dattawadi police station fired a round at the tempo," Deshmukh said....

Speaking to TOI, constable Amol Tanpure said, "We were chasing them from Sutardara. When their tempo reached the Warje octroi post, "I fired four rounds, but they managed to flee. I chased them and again fired two rounds at them."......

Sandip Mane, a relative of Jadhav, who was driving the car which was chasing the thieves, said: "At first the thieves pelted stones at my car, damaging its windscreen. Later, they hurled pigs towards us at Chandni Chowk, near Warje octroi post and on Sinhagad road. All the pigs died as they came under the wheels of the police vehicles. They even hit my car twice."

Defending Disney

Defend Disney from his Mickey Mouse critics | Daniel Finkelstein - Times Online

Finkelstein gives a spirited defence of Disney the man (and the corporation too, by the way.)

I haven't talked about Tokyo Disney yet. This weekend, maybe. Yes, I know you can't wait.

A new skin cancer fighting compound

Vitamin helps prevent skin cancer (ScienceAlert)

Ain't democracy grand?

Power Line - How Obama Got Elected

A funny/slightly disturbing article at Powerline about what Obama voters apparently knew about certain issues.

The only thing against worrying about this sort of stuff, I suppose, is that either side of politics can benefit by popularly held but mistaken beliefs. (Also, there is only so much that can be done to stop people being mistaken. I mean, do we expect the media or the Republicans to even realise that they have to keep reminding people that the Republicans already don't control Congress?)

Obama is the beneficiary of this time, but its probably all swings and roundabouts in the long run.