I’ve felt quite uncomfortable watching a lot of the coverage related to the disappearance and death of Australian backpacker Britt Lapthorne in Dubrovnik. In particular, I wondered whether her mother, Elke, was really helping matters any by so publicly displaying her grief and distress - or rather, I wondered also at the ethics of both the media and its viewers in representing and consuming so immediately her emotional reactions. I honestly don’t think this sort of coverage - in Australia - would have had any effect on the investigation in Croatia, and I was wondering whether Ms Lapthorne was taking appropriate care of her own psychological well being by working through her emotions so publicly. It’s difficult to know how to write about these sorts of events - and I really wanted to just link to an excellent piece by Audrey Apple on “vicarious grief”.
Author Archive for Kim
An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Continued from this comment on another thread. Celebrate Kasey, and/or Australian music cultures should you wish. It’s Friday after all.
Glenn Milne used to be frequently accused of being a mouthpiece for Peter Costello. Guess who he’s talking to now?
Pyne, one of Turnbull’s key leadership backers, has now been promoted into the frontline education portfolio and it is Julia Gillard, his opposite, whom he now has in his sights. Pyne has finally assumed his rightful position at the epicentre of the Opposition, a role that was bloodymindedly denied him by Howard for two reasons: he was a Liberal progressive and he was a supporter of Peter Costello. It was enough to generate such negative personal energy from Howard that he continually blocked Pyne’s promotion in what turned out to be part of an act of self-destruction.
Pyne is now where he wants to be in the Liberal pantheon and, more critically, where Turnbull wants him to be.
In case you don’t feel like reading the rest of this guff, Christopher Pyne has “lighted onto” a “proposition” - that while Kevin Rudd and his ministers are portrayed as “Howard lite”, they’re actually hiding their socialist lights under a bushel! Exposes such as Christopher’s clever realisation that transparency in private school funding might lead to Class Warfare will be their secret weapon as they go on the front foot…
Memo to Kevin Rudd: these guys think they can win. And they will now do whatever it takes to do so.
Whatever…
An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Michael Costa has taken a leaf out of Mark Latham’s book… Forced out of office and Parliament? Write op/eds attacking your former party!
LISTENING to Kevin Rudd at Council of Australian Governments meetings as he tried to connect the global economic situation to the more mundane items on the national reform agenda was often excruciating.
Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics would have quickly concluded, as I did, that the Prime Minister didn’t have a good understanding of these issues.
Can a tell all book be far behind? Would it need to be a three volume set to contain slurs on all the people Michael Costa doesn’t like?
Here’s a suggestion for the under-employed former pollie - why not join the Liberal Party? You’ve already got News Limited Columnists eating out of your hand (you actually are one too!)… And your right-wing views should see you fit in nicely. Perhaps with your added ruthlessness, you could spark endless speculation about Malcolm Turnbull’s polling and leadership and unlike the Great Pretender seize the top job by the power of the Word!
Well it’s October so it must be time again to condemn. Here’s a twenty seventh open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this month so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything you like except Emma Peel.
Well, I shelled out $24.95 for David Marr’s book, The Henson Case. I’m still inclined to think that Marr is being a bit disingenuous in claiming that he’s horrified and surprised by the furore that’s arisen over the “scouting in schools” affair/beat up and I still think it raises some broader questions about the appropriateness of the use of schools for any commercial/culture industries purposes, but that horse has probably bolted now. I’m not sure everyone’s aware that this particular media storm didn’t arise via some journo or researcher for tv or radio pouring over the book and striking headline paydirt on p. 108. Marr was actually the first to highlight this aspect of the book, featuring it in an article he wrote for his own Sydney Morning Herald on Friday - tagged as an exclusive. The book wasn’t on sale on Monday, and advance copies would have been tightly controlled by his publisher prior to that - I can’t see Alan Jones or Andrew Bolt or whoever being on Text Inc’s reviewers list.
I really don’t think Marr is so naive as to believe that others in the media wouldn’t pick up on that one aspect and make it into a very predictable story - as a senior journalist, and a former host of Media Watch, and incidentally someone who traces minutely and with great acuity the process by which the Henson story blew up in the first place (and displays an intimate knowledge of pr strategies) in his book. While Pavlov’s Cat has a lot of things to say that I agree with in this excellent post, I would respectfully disagree with her argument that Marr, publisher Michael Heyward and Text Inc. wouldn’t be attentive to the need for publicity for the book. Sure, Marr’s a very well known writer and the case was big news. But attention spans are short, and surely the whole point of marketing in book publishing is to create a buzz about a book and generate free publicity. When I bought it on Monday in a Brisbane CBD bookshop, it had been walking out the door and I was lucky to grab the last copy.
As a bit of an update to my post last night, the Essential Research poll is now out, basically showing no change from last time. Possum has more on all the other questions asked. So, we can now be more confident about suggesting that Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has yet to really shift any of the trends that were evident under Nelson - this also highlights the vast over-inflation of the importance of Preferred PM and Opposition Leader approval ratings in most of the punditariat’s commentary. It will be very interesting to see what the delayed Newspoll says - since this is apparently the only poll the punditariat focus on. Where to now for the famous “media narrative”?
Peter Martin has all the wonky stuff worth reading on the Reserve Bank’s 1% rates cut, which a number of banks and lending institutions have indicated will lead to a .8% cut in their variable mortgage rates. Dennis Atkins, writing at Party Games, thinks that the Reserve has given the Rudd government political breathing space.
There’s a really fascinating post at scatterplot from sociologist Tina Fetner. She reports on research with Bob Andersen just published in the American Journal of Political Science. Their interest was sparked by a sudden shift in Canada and the United States towards more accepting attitudes towards same-sex relationships and lesbians and gays - among people from all ages contrary to the usual stickiness of attitudes formed early in the lifecourse. (Note that the shift was from a smaller base in the US than Canada.) They wondered whether the post-materialist thesis - the idea that when material wealth increases, other issues come to the foreground in such a way as to promote greater tolerance. The new study found:
Continue reading ‘Economic inequality and attitudes towards same-sex relationships’
I wonder if no Newspoll is bad news for the pollsters and those who own them. This must be the first Monday in living memory (well, since anyone started paying attention to this stuff before last year’s campaign) when there hasn’t been an early release of selected Newspoll numbers. It couldn’t possibly be because the numbers don’t show any leadership bounce for Malcolm Turnbull, could it? [Update: Or could it be because NSW had a public holiday yesterday?] After all, last week’s Morgan face to face poll showed a straight swap of primary vote from the Coalition to Labor - 1.5%, with Labor on 57.5% 2PP. And ACNielsen and Newspoll a fortnight ago showed a very poor bounce by historical standards for the Opposition.
No doubt we’ll find out.
Malcolm Turnbull has been playing a dangerous game on interest rates. Continue reading ‘No early Newspoll; interest rates to be cut’
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