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below is a copy of a lecture given to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Andrew Ollie, who was an intelligent and articulate television News Reporter.

With typical tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, this speech was dellivered to the Press Club last October, by John Doyle, one half of our infamous sports commedian duo Roy & HG... about the dire state of News Media Reporting today both on radio and television.

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THE ANDREW OLLE MEDIA LECTURE 2005
Presented by John Doyle
Friday 7 October 2005
"Embargoed against delivery"


It was during the bombing of Baghdad that I reeled in shock, awe and disbelief when I saw Fox news coverage. Two immaculately dressed presenters were genuinely excited by the pictures they were seeing. One of them shouted ‘I want to see the Moab! [The mother of all bombs.] Bring on the Moab!’ And I thought it’s come to this. The news had degenerated into watching people wank at a snuff film. They were the new type of journalists. The fact is, rarely has there been a more important time for truth in journalism.

I should begin by putting my journalistic credentials on the table – I have none. As a radio presenter I once managed to conduct quite a long interview with John Howard who was then a shadow minister in the Downer shadow cabinet, and covered a lot of ground without extracting any indication one way or the other that a leadership challenge was on.

Whichever corner I tried to box him into, he deftly changed from a solid to a gas, only to reappear as a solid on another part of the canvas, with me clumsily smoting the air. Within a few days he was Opposition leader, within twelve months, Prime Minister and, on paper, the most successful one in living memory. As a television presenter I had quite a productive if unfocussed interview with the then Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer in which we extensively canvassed his future and the future of the National Party. Within an hour of finishing the interview he announced his resignation and retirement. It’s clear that while we were talking he knew what he was going to do, but all I could wheedle out of him was that it was ‘steady as she goes’. Again a no-contest. In short, I’ve been thrashed by both champions and plodders. And the boxing metaphor is apt. The media is charged with aggression. Newspapers battle newspapers, radio stations spit at each other and the Television networks hate each other’s guts. And journalists joust with politicians and journalists claw at each other, and politicians even on the same side of the street do likewise. It’s a cold, cold-hearted world out there. Look at the way Mark Latham treated his Labor family. Look at the way the Liberal family treated John Brogden. To state a truism politicians and journalists need each other, feed each other and form marriages of convenience. I remember working with a high profile journalist on a commercial network a few years ago who stated that his ambition was to work as Peter Costello’s press secretary when he assumes the Prime Ministership. His newspaper column has been nothing but full of praise for the Treasurer ever since.

As a means of preparation for tonight, I had another look at some really engaging lectures delivered on previous occasions in this forum by some pretty heavy hitters in the industry and there have been some outstanding insights into the media. Kerry Stokes talked of the need for different voices, different perspectives and diversity of opinion and how vital this was for the health of the media and therefore the health of democracy itself. I notice that this year has seen Seven’s Today Tonight and Nine’s A Current Affair put to air the same story at the same time on the same night. As nearly as I can tell the programs are the same: same old foot in the same old door philosophy, same mock outrage at feuding neighbours and total dependence on losers, or sad losers, or violent losers, or losers ripped off by shonky gold tooth rat type losers. They now make the ABC’s brilliant 90’s farce Frontline look less like parody and more like reality television. Both current affairs shows depict a world where it’s not only not safe for anyone to leave their home, it’s not safe to live. And the commercial news services are carbon copies of each other as well. If one uses a blue background, the other will follow. If one uses a cityscape as a backdrop, the other will follow. Testament to the superficial nature of news as news is seen in whatever happened to Jim Whaley. Jim had been groomed to follow Brian Henderson – the former host of Bandstand, but it began to go wobbly when people started to watch Nine’s Ian Ross over on Seven instead. It was decided Jim might have been scaring the viewers a bit, so they began moving the camera back making Jim appear smaller and therefore seemingly less scary. But then Jim was disappearing altogether and by that stage it was all too late. Enter Mark Ferguson a bloke who looks about nineteen, who is then marketed as the man with the experience. Unlike Jim apparently, who has, to my knowledge, been seen in the flack jacket more times than any bloke ever to read a bulletin. So forget diversity of opinion – it’s out there on the margins. If you really want diversity go to the ABC or SBS.

Then I watched Jana Wendt’s excellent address where she spoke candidly about the immense difficulties of providing popular quality journalism on any commercial network. And she was right. But in the end you can take the girl out of Mary Magdalene’s world for a time, but it’s very hard to take the Mary Magdalene out of the girl completely. And then we had Jana usher Sam Chisholm into the Logies Hall of Fame and suddenly Sam’s back at Nine, and while middle management now have to call him Mr. Chisholm and wear suits, Ray had to lose the suit and loosen the tie in promoting A Current Affair. It was to give people the impression Ray had been at it all day at the coal face tracking down the spivs, the plastic surgeons and the weight loss miracles.

The fact is, as Lachlan Murdoch pointed out in his address here, the media is a business, and if going low sells, then let’s mine really low. Lachlan’s remarkable thesis seemed to be that elite opinion is to be avoided at all cost. What is preferred is opinion that fuels nationalism. And profits made serve to improve the systems of delivery of information to consumers – colour printing and the like. What is overlooked is that, in the end, delivery and delivery systems are meaningless. Content is all that matters. Rubbish is still rubbish be it on an old 21inch black and white HMV or in high definition through the digital set top box. The Beatles and the Stones sounded great through the crystal set attached to the iron frame of my bed as a ten year old. As for elites: well it’s best to encourage worship at the feet of sporting elites, for those who dabble in elite thought may well come to conclusions that are at odds with the prevailing wisdom within the culture of the organization. And while on the one hand the Murdoch organization bleats on about its abhorrence of political correctness and the need to enshrine freedom of speech and opinion, on the other, when dealing with China, is quite sanguine about removing the BBC channel from its Star service because the opinions expressed might upset the burghers of Beijing.

But to give it its due News Limited is digging its heels in regarding Freedom Of Information laws. And is supportive of two journalists who are under threat of gaol for not revealing their sources over a leaked government document. Maybe the time has come for a bill of rights.

I think Jana is right, Lachlan is wrong and Kerry seems to be living in a parallel universe.

I come to this forum as a consumer of media and as someone who’s been fortunate enough to sit a little on the inside and observe aspects of how it appears to work. At my first real job at the Small Arms Factory in Lithgow I bought the Daily Mirror every afternoon on my way home. I used to savour the football and cricket think pieces from the likes of Phil Tressider and Ian Heads and Geoff Prenter and they brought me up to speed with the notion of cliché. At the time I had no idea that this would be my career-making preparation allowing me to express moments of life in terms of a traditional softening-up period, forwards stamping their authority on the match, players having either good hands or quick hands or both, being able to sell a dummy or sell a dump or both, being able to bundle people into touch with either a grass cutter or ball and all tackle while second rowers hunted in packs or made busts up the middle or the hard yards before creating something out of nothing and being able to score from anywhere on the paddock while you could throw a blanket over the defence. Players could have the ball on a string in a moment of individual brilliance or weave their magic in a desperate bid requiring courage and commitment in the trenches in a game played in two halves where both teams were a credit to themselves with one player being an ornament to humanity in a match where the game was the ultimate winner. In thirty five years about the only new contributions are American ones: this rookie stepping up to the plate, could end up a hall of famer at this level. Yet despite the tightly spin doctored homogenized responses of sports stars and commentators there is still the odd surprise. Ray Warren suggesting at one stage that the ball popped up like a plume of molten lava or Benny Elias on SBS saying it’s like comparing apples and apples, you just can’t do it.

I’ve always loved radio. Mornings was Gary O’Callaghan and Sammy Sparrow until pop meant the 2SM Good Guys introduced the songs that would become the diary of adolescence. Many years later, what’s changed? Talkback. That’s all. Commercial radio now: AM. Bandwagon talkback, water cooler drivel as talkback thought starters, competitions, finance and weather, quizzes, traffic, more talkback, then an inflammatory lunatic with talkback. FM. Whacky clubs or Crews, old music or a balance of old music with unthreatening new, competitions, requests, racy talkback with swearing and repetition. All programs are substantially written by the daily newspapers. Breakfast and Mornings used to have a deal – Breakfast got the stories on the odd pages and Mornings got the ones on the even pages. The quirky stories are good for the Crews – often they are survey - based stories. Four out of every ten Swedes prefer briefs to boxers. ‘Come on guys, what do you prefer? Give us a call.’ ‘G’day Brian, love your show. I wear briefs, mate.’ The Crew might ask blokes who freebag to phone in. One of the Crew will have an insight. ‘I always freebag in my trackies’. ‘You’re wearing your trackies now’. ‘Bloody hell!’ – much hilarity and that becomes a promo sound bite for the next month. And don’t be scared to use the Melbourne chuckle. That’s when everything is so funny you can hardly speak for laughter.
Sadly I've only caught John Burgess on radio once: the grab I heard was ‘and we’re coming up to the bottom of the hour, so let’s just ease our way through with a little Anne Murray.’ Perfect.

Least forgivable is the program that begins with ‘Why don’t you just give me a call and tell me what’s on your mind’. It’s dead air space with a host.
As are TV shows like The Up Late Game Show on Ten which may be telling us what TV will be like down the track when the digital revolution gives us thousands of channels – all with nothing on them.

For some reason or other as an immediate response when first approached to speak at this occasion I wrote down the word Symmetry. This is the tenth Andrew Olle lecture. Like many I can remember where I was and what I was up to when the shockingly sad news arrived. I last saw Andrew in the canteen at Gore Hill at lunchtime on a Thursday. We chatted in the sandwich queue. Not long before he’d worked on a Four Corners special entitled ‘What’s wrong with the Liberal Party?’ a program that ended with Andrew angrily railing at the panel of John Howard, Robert Hill and John Moore for being in denial. I talked about work, his work, and he wanted to talk about anything but work. He looked and was exhausted. He was doing mornings on 702 and The 7:30 Report at night. He had every reason to be exhausted.

Andrew was very generous to me when we were working at the same station. He always offered story ideas, wry observations and encouragement. I did afternoons and it was the only time of day apart from midnight to dawn when nobody seemed to give a bugger about what you did. There was no minute by minute scrutiny that Breakfast in particular has to endure. One of the traps with radio is that it caresses the ego in the most dangerous manner imaginable. The first skill to leave is the ability to listen – when someone else is speaking you are automatically forming your next thought. The long-term affect must be a specific type of narcissistic madness. The trade is in part about finding a performance mask that can be slipped on and can evenly disguise days of euphoria or despair. Andrew was helped on radio because we knew what he looked like. He had a natural elegance and an interesting mask that really exposed itself on television: he had a look of almost permanent skepticism brought about by the asymmetry of his face. Science tells us we are attracted to symmetry. Symmetry equals beauty equals biological success so the argument goes. Yet there was Andrew, a sort of walking proof that the exception can also be true.

I’d see him annually at the NSW Tennis Open at White City. Here he presented as a sort of ‘what ho’ Bertie Wooster type with attractive slacks and lemon sweater casually draped across the shoulder with the picnic basket in the boot of the Audi parked on the lawn courtside. Yet in the background was this tearaway kiddie from Queensland who’d terrorized neighbourhoods and missed out on gaol by the skin of his teeth. His mask of performance had obliterated this part of his life completely as nearly as I could tell. But I never had a night on the tiles with Andrew and I suspect a few good reds might have allowed a different spiritual genie out of the bottle. As is the case with many journalists.

Journalists like a drink. Often to excess – it’s an occupational health hazard. Robert Haupt became a regular commentator on my show. He had tremendous style. And a mission to find truth. But there were days when Haupty would have had a long lunch. And then it was different. A rosy warm smile can make for difficult radio. Then he learnt Russian and went to Russia as a correspondent because he thought that’s where it was going to happen. And he was right. Many a time at awards do’s I’ve gaped in awe as highly respected journos have slammed yet another one back and bayed at the moon, or thrown a glass in anger, or picked a fight. At the Walkeley's, fistfights are part of the card. I suspect drink in the journalist’s culture might have something to do with massive overexposure to the darker side of human nature.

I’ve always enjoyed reasoned commentators. I loved the sturdy assuredness of Paul Murphy and now Mark Colvin. I lean forward when I hear Catherine McGrath or Fran Kelly in attack mode. I love Kerry O’Brien getting angry. I pull up a chair for any Chris Masters or Sally Neighbour Four Corners special. I flick the page to the Paul McGeough article. It’s the mixture of gravitas and style. As a family in the late fifties we used to sit around the lounge room at night letting Arch McKirdy guide us through Benny Golson or Oscar Peterson or Charlie Parker. A cigarette company sponsored him. It might have been Ardath. And with voice alone he fashioned the smoky atmosphere of a New York Jazz Club. His live commercials for Ardath had him ignoring the copy and the ad would sometimes be reduced to a pause, followed by the sound of a match being struck and an ecstatic draw. And that was the ad. Arch always struck a warm yet authoritative tone. He was a master of the medium having the easy confidence of one who has made the time, the moment, his own and he knew his subject and somehow gave the impression of having left the ego behind. John Cleary has a similarly elegant style. Andrew also, despite his particular asymmetry, had reasoned objective balance. Which leads us to Opinion. Suddenly the world is awash with Opinion. Sadly more Arch Tambakis than Arch McKirdy. Newspapers too, are full of it. Any half-baked dickhead who can string a few sentences together is given a go, particularly if the opinion is inflammatory or somehow ratchets up the climate of fear or loathing – simply and obviously because it sells more newspapers.

When I had a regular radio show I was constantly astounded by the easy access to some of the great minds of our time. It seemed to me that radio had such portability and potential that there was no excuse just to throw the lines open. I had an American physicist called George Smoot on once. He helped discover cosmic background radiation – the echo of the Big Bang, the microwave image of which was given the title ‘The face of god’. We pick it up as snow on our television screens. And he was talking about String Theorists whose Maths had rewound the tape of time to escape this universe and seriously postulate that the Big Bang was caused by a collision of two other universes in a cataclysmic event. He said the Maths was pretty good. I thought fair enough. Certainly the idea of other universes seemed redolent with possibility.

Then I spoke with another American physicist, Robert Kirshner who shrugged and said that in the end, a mathematical formula must have Elegance to have truth and to his mind, String Theory still lacked elegance. And I’ve wondered in wonder about Elegance in this context ever since. To me the doctrinally unencumbered search for the big picture answers of where we came from, where we’re going and how we might survive as a species are far more interesting, intriguing and satisfying and more revealing of truth than Faith based examinations that eschew proof and lessen us as humans. While the echoes of the Big Bang provide the clues, the echoes of the Age Of Enlightenment remind us that we are but the stuff of stars.

I remember reading some years ago about the series Dallas being beamed in to the New Guinea highlands. It was being viewed by mountain tribal people who were just a generation removed from First Contact, people who’d had little or no connection with European society at all apart from the odd Christian missionary. Tim Flannery recalls seeing a burial service in the highlands whereby the deceased was picked up and swung over the grave with the family and onlookers solemnly chanting the incantation ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and into the hole he goes’. What were they to make of Dallas? A highly camp styled vacuous rich oil family living the life of Reilly in a bed-hopping fun-filled soap operatic adventure, laced with stylized irony. Probably the highlanders saw it differently - a lifestyle that was heaven on Earth. Irresistible. Vast houses, huge cars, heated pools, money, booze, guns and loose women. And no morality to speak of. Ancient and modern cultural universes brushing against each other. Again a cataclysmic event.

The truth is that in the belly of any society there’s a violent brutal core that exposes itself when the thin veneer of culture is stripped away. The recent Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico partially revealed the feral world that snuggles so closely within the first world. And there are web sites that explain that the shape of the hurricane was that of a womb and that while ever the US continues to allow abortion, God will rein such punishments down. Without doubt there are other web sites that suggest the shape is that of a bum hole and is a warning against the legalization of gay marriage. And others suggesting this is simply Gaia attacking the oil industry. The fact is New Orleans has been known to be a disaster waiting to happen for decades. Being in denial about global warming is to court disaster. And Tokyo is a disaster waiting to happen – the earthquake is already 250,000 years overdue.

Welcome to the age of infinite Information. Small cataclysmic events are happening all the time at the speed of light. The Internet allows anyone anywhere to access information that might be true, might be false, but you can find whatever information you need to prosecute any argument you want. Conspiracy theories abound. History can be written any way you wish. In the past, information bound culture. There was a shared sense of a gradually expanding library of sensible and responsible scholarship whereas now information is serving more to fracture culture. The future of information is with bloggers. And who knows what the blogging implications might be of a generation aching for the steely coldness of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and other games involving cyber murder, cyber torture and on line sex and anonymous chat rooms and bomb-making instructions and clubs dedicated to nihilism and terrorism and all manner of misguided madnesses designed to accelerate Rapture.

The genie of limitless spin and unlimited market power has been unleashed. The result is to squeeze the commercial lemon shamelessly with a never-ending stream of services offered that come with the tacit irresistible message of the promise of the good life. And somehow people spending 150% of what they earn makes for a robust economy. And then there’s the promise of globalization which has still done little for the Asian sweatshop worker being paid fifty cents an hour to build the shoes for the golfer who is being paid fifty million a year to wear. Never before have we been aware of just how obscene has become the remuneration amongst our top company executives. Five to ten million a year seems to be unexceptional – whether successful or not. And nobody bats an eyelid. We’re becoming a nation of acquisitors: special interest, real estate and the stock market.

Changi and Marking Time were written as companion pieces examining the Australian Character – the sweet and sour journey towards the hardening of its heart. It’s fitting that we are now exporting our homegrown Aussie version of Christianity to Europe that comes with the powerful message that Jesus wants us all to be millionaires. Paul Keating commented almost as an afterthought that without Reconciliation, we’re just here for the view. Speaking of which, it’s amazing to think that Reconciliation was so recently a part of mainstream public debate. Mention Reconciliation now and there’s a generation of Australians who haven’t the least idea of what you are talking about. If it doesn’t affect the economy, it’s not on the radar. The economy is everywhere. Paul Keating made it pop. He was so successful at it that Peter Costello has modelled his parliamentary performance mask entirely on Paul Keating’s: he is walking proof that imitation is the highest form of flattery.
God almighty. The economy.

It’s assumed that everyone is now a shareholder, everyone has a portfolio – many with those T2 shares just sitting there as a reminder of how close to gambling the stock market really is. But it’s a source of celebrities. There’s always someone from Comsec bobbing up in an audition piece on Channel Ten’s news, or Karen Tso on Nine or Alan Kohler on the ABC. And when it’s budget time, Bill Evans or Saul Eslake. They are as predictable as Phil Koperburg appearing when the temperature reaches 34 degrees in summer. Then there’s Koshie who bears all the hallmarks of one having loomed out of the dismal science.

Religion too, has again become a source of celebrity. Archbishop George Pell is probably at the top of the tree with the Jentzens jockeying for position now Peter Carnley has exited stage left, and the Rev. Doctor Gordon Moyes has almost become invisible. But bobbing up on the inside is Sheik alHilali who came out of nowhere during the Doug Wood incident. Well almost out of nowhere. There was an incident involving an unregistered vehicle and an unlicensed driver and some plumbing supplies that were protruding precariously from one of the windows. I don’t know what the upshot was. But the Mufti and Kaiser Trad have become Australia’s Islamic odd couple. And if they seem a little like rabbits caught in the spotlight or appear to be treading on eggshells with their speech, bear in mind how difficult it is for anyone in the Muslim community to put their heads up in 21st century Australia. And the media doesn’t help when it depicts quite falsely Australian youths of Arabic background supposedly claiming an unwillingness to ever integrate. Mercifully some media does attempt to reveal truth and if it wasn’t for the excellent work done by Lateline this year with the ABC Investigations Unit, I doubt whether the Rau or Sarlon cases would have appeared at all on the radar. Let alone the exposing of what has been described as an overarching cultural problem within DIMEA. And I think it’s fair to say that in days gone by under our Westminster system, any Minister who oversaw such a rancid cultural climate within a department would have been expected without question, as a minimum requirement, to fall on his or her sword.

It’s not always so great for a society when God turns up. Reason is often the first thing jettisoned. Evolution is back on the agenda in the United States – which means here as well. Creationists want what they are calling Intelligent Design incorporated into the curriculum and it’s meant to be treated seriously. But it doesn’t surprise me. Battles won in the past are having to be won again. And as long as within the media elite opinion is reviled, untested populist positions will prevail. I can only imagine what the cost was of the burning of Constantine’s great Library in Alexandria: so much knowledge of Astronomy and Maths and all manner of literature, history and art: universal truths that had to lie dormant until rediscovered by another purple patch of human intellectual endeavour. The sadness of today is that the truths are still with us, sitting side by side with uninformed nonsense. Do we need to revisit through individual work contracts the factory life of Dickens for collective bargaining to grow again? And while ever the media allows truth to be bended, more old battles are going to have to be re-won. Humans are not related to chimps. Astrology has answers. There is no connection between Iraq and the increase in terrorism. The earth is flat. The holocaust never happened. To be born in poverty is your own fault. A society is safer when human rights are compromised. There is no such thing as greenhouse gases. Certain races are not as intelligent as others.
And now there’s Terrorism. Will it become common, a sort of angry graffiti?

It’s complicated. The same political figures who today kiss the hem of Nelson Mandela in a time not so long ago were happy to see him rot forever on Robben Island. Saddam Hussein was the friend of the West, and armed by the West in the war against Iran. Somalia and now Zimbabwe can go to hell in a hand basket because their lack of resources has no affect on the West. And there’s the overarching issue of sustainability. To imagine that everyone on the planet can aspire to the lifestyle of JR Ewing at the cost of the global environment and the resources of other nations is to live in a fool’s paradise. Arm poverty and ignorance with moral rectitude and hang onto your hats. We live in interesting times.

If commercial radio is so slight because it is under resourced, so too is Television. And if more channels are allowed then the resources will be even further stretched. As it is the ABC has been cut to the marrow and can no longer afford to do much Drama, and commercial networks have decided Drama is too flakey and expensive. Meanwhile our very fine drama schools are pumping out scores of new young actors each year and there is nothing for them to do. The lucky ones might get to appear in a Holden advertisement or survive for a season in the Bell Shakespeare Company. So our local content is reduced to game shows, dancing shows, lifestyle shows and talent quests all creaking under the weight of diminishing returns. Think of something mindless, rope in a couple of celebrities and there’s your show.

Big Brother is such a waste of an opportunity. The housemates live in a state of perpetual boredom, unless they’re pissed. Why not engage them. A house of really smart gifted young people from various fields: scientists, engineers, mathematicians, builders, a Latin scholar, a poet etc and they have a problem to solve. With a shared incentive of a few million dollars they have to find a solution to Australia’s water problems in ten weeks – there’s a show.

To get on my hobbyhorse for a moment. Because historically the ABC has been the powerhouse for new ideas that are often taken up by the commercial networks, perhaps the time has come for those networks to subsidize the ABC. After all, the ABC has been the training and testing ground for the commercial networks for fifty years - it’s about time the situation was redressed. What I would propose is a tax deductible levy on pre-tax network profit of around 25% to 30% that is pooled exclusively for ABC Drama. In return, the networks get second viewing rights and the right to franchise any series on a rotating basis that is deemed commercially viable. The fact is, it is only the ABC by virtue of being unencumbered by what is popular, that is capable of taking risks. Why is there such a paucity of great locally made drama? Because the ABC isn’t doing it. The Americans would hate such a plan and see it as not being in the spirit of the Free Trade Agreement, but so what? This isn’t cheese or rice we’re talking about. It actually is Culture. A fully funded ABC Drama unit would be to the advantage of the commercial networks. The ABC could become Australia’s HBO.

So, what has changed in the ten years since Andrew left us? A conservative Labor government has been replaced by a conservative Coalition government, and the organization he worked for, the ABC, has had to steer through some pretty treacherous waters. ABC News and Current Affairs has somehow survived the Shier era and the petty ideologically driven hounding by former Minister for Communications Richard Alston. The ABC still provides the best news services in the country and arguably services that could be described as being among the best in the world. Radio National is still impossibly excellent. ABC TV has too, somehow managed to survive with its current affairs programs intact, loathed by Labor and Coalition alike, as it should be. And as it should be, it still strives to put forward an alternative view. So that when the commercial media is dictated to by myopic intrusive ownership and ill-informed populism, is forced through thoughtless need to make irresponsible programs that lack both style and substance, caresses inflammatory and cheap, nasty demagoguery that seeks to marginalize the already marginalized, that describes the world in simple terms, provides simple solutions to complex problems and is purely a servant to fiscal outcomes, then the ABC will always seem to aggravate, annoy and frustrate and it’s precisely when the ABC is doing this that it is serving its charter. It’s preserving its sceptical asymmetrical mask.

Andrew missed out on seeing the events of September Eleven, a blunt cleaver that questioned Western certainty. One of the pilots of the first American Airlines plane to smash into the World Trade Centre was Mohammed Atta. He spent his last hours on this earth in Las Vegas roaming amongst the gambling dens and strip clubs theoretically to further steel his resolve such was his loathing of the excesses of the West. The quest for our media is to ask why it happened and why it’s continuing to happen, to understand the motivations of those who are willing to end their lives at a young age on the altar of sectarian anger. To join the dots between that state of mind and the mindset of those in the New Guinea highlands cutting down their pristine forests to feed the generators that provide the power for the television to screen Buffy, or The OC or Joe Millionaire or if they’re on line, to power the modem to any cyber freak show the mouse takes them. If this examination isn’t exacting and truthful and without fear or favour, then this universe’s accidental experiment with self-awareness and consciousness may well have been a total waste of time.

Hope and sadness DownUnder. Life is precious... pause to acknowledge it's sacredness.

You may have heard about the two miners who've been trapped underground after a landslide for the past 12 days? The mine team has been drilling for days through incredibly hard rock, and we're hoping they finally get out in the next few hours.

This drama has really put the sleepy mining town Beaconsfield, Tasmania on the map.
For those who don't know... Tasmania is a small island way south of Australia. It has raw, rugged, natural, and unforgiving, beautiful scenery, and weather to match, and a mix of hi-tech, hippy, laid back Aussies and the odd red-neck. Everyone wishes them well.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/miners-coping-with-...7/1146940396244.html

On the flip side of happy endings is a more heart-breaking tale that has grabbed every Australian. After a freak car accident a car ploughed into a pre-school, bursting into flames and burning and injuring a lot of the children. One of those little girls was Sophie - aged 2 - who not only suffered 85% burns to her body, but lost both her feet, one ear, some fingers, and was badly scarred. This brave little girl was in hospital recovery for 7 months, then made it out of the burns unit and went home to recover. Sophie is now 5 years old. Yesterday, an 80 year old driver (age is no excuse) decided to drive around a car already stopped at a Pedestrian Crossing, running into the stroller Sophie was in, on the crossing, and the impact of the car hitting her push chair, giving her brain damage. She is now in hospital fighting to regain consciousness and the next 24hrs are critical. Her parents, obviously, are beside themselves. If you have a spare prayer... if you would be so generous, I'm asking you send one in her direction.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/brave-little-girl-w...6/1146335964633.html

We all have heart ache but we must remember to hug our special people - especially our children - and acknowledge that whatever we believe, life is a sacred gift - whether times are good or bad.
... we all need to remember to love those around us, and stretch ourselves out of whatever it is that holds us back.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FireFly,

Congrats!! Your miners were rescued. Great news especially since I live close to the Sago Mine disaster where 1 survived and 12 perished.

quote:

Originally posted by Diamond:
Congrats!! Your miners were rescued. Great news especially since I live close to the Sago Mine disaster where 1 survived and 12 perished.

thanks Diamond... the two miners kept joking during their 12 day ordeal that they felt like they were "in a 2 star hotel, and they were the 2 stars".
I think they're keen to see whether Dave Grohl (sp?) from the Foo Fighters makes good on his promise to buy them a beer at the Beaconsfield pub. (hotel). It was, however, tough on the family whose man died, being surrounded by all the 'excitement' while mourning their loss.

A further update on Sophie is that she is out of critical zone but still on a ventilator in Intenstive Care.

You might think... Australia...so what?
Well, when you consider that my country has only recently begun to actively mimic some of the USA's least appealing political and sociological traits... it's important...

Amnesty International:
Australia: Australian Government must use US Supreme Court ruling as springboard for action
AIA Index: HRS 01/06/2006
News Service No: 001
30 June 2006

Amnesty International Australia welcomes the decision overnight of the highest court in the United States of America which rejected the US military commissions as unfair as they contravene international law.

The decision is a triumph for the rule of law and sends a clear message to President Bush that he cannot act unilaterally to create a system of law from thin air.

The court ruling confirms what Amnesty International Australia and other human rights bodies have been saying all along - that is, that these commissions should never have been established as they did not meet international standards for fair trial.

Amnesty International Australia calls on the Australian Government to ensure that David Hicks gets an immediate fair trial or is released without delay from Guantánamo Bay.

David Hicks has been languishing for over 4-and-a-half years in unlawful detention in the US run facility in Cuba and his inhuman treatment should immediately cease.

Amnesty International also urges President Bush to treat the ruling in this landmark case as a spur to a major rethink of the full range of his administration's "war on terror" detention policies and practices whether in effect in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, Iraq or other undisclosed locations.

The US Supreme Court affirmed the applicability of fundamental protections under the Geneva Conventions and specifically trials under "regularly constituted courts affording all the judicial guarantees recognised as indispensable by 'civilised peoples'".

ANCIENT HUMAN FOOTPRINTS UNCOVERED IN AUSTRALIA
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 26 July 2006
04:16 pm ET


About 20,000 years ago, humans trekked along the margins of a shallow lake in Australia, leaving behind records of their passage in the soft, wet sand.

In 2003, an aboriginal woman who is likely a descendant of those early Australians stumbled across dozens of timeworn footprints in the same area. Excavations of the site have since uncovered hundreds more.

The discovery, detailed in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, represents the largest collection of Pleistocene human footprints in the world, and the only footprints from that era ever found in Australia. In total, 457 footprints have now been uncovered.

"The preservation is just remarkable," said study team member Matthew Cupper of the University of Melbourne in Australia. "You can see quite clearly how mud oozes between the toes."

The Pleistocene stretched from about 2 million to 12,000 years ago. Highlights from the era:

- A series of climatic upheavals, the worldwide spread of human-like primates, or hominids;
- The extinction of Neanderthals and large land mammals—including mammoths, giant sloth and saber toothed cats;
- The rise of modern humans.


The footprints were found in southeastern Australia, along the shore of one of 19 dried up lakes that comprise the Willandra Lakes system.

The researchers believe the prints were made over a series of weeks or months about 20,000 years ago when the site was exposed. Males and females, ranging from children to adults, are represented, and many of them seem to be doing different things.

"Quite a few people seem to be running and heading the same way," Cupper told LiveScience. "Some of the little children were walking slower. This may suggest that there were several events represented."

Australia is thought to have first been colonized by humans about 50,000 years ago. Those who made the newfound footprints were likely the ancestors of today's Australian aborigines, the researchers say.

Then and now ...

Like most of modern Australia, the area where the tracks were found is today dry and desert-like. Yellow-white sand dunes shift across the landscape, blown by arid winds, and little rain falls.

"It's not the most attractive landscape today, but back during the last Ice Age, there was substantial [water] drainage off the Eastern Australian highlands," Cupper said. "It would have been large freshwater expanses filled with fish and crustaceans that could support a human population."

Humans weren't the only ones that passed through the area. The prints from two kangaroo hind paws are visible, as are the tracks of a baby emu, a large flightless bird similar to an ostrich. Cupper says the emu prints might be an important clue about when the human footprints were made.

"This emu is between 50 and 70 days old, so it's just a small chick," he said. "Emu's generally nest in the winter time, so it could reveal that the site was exposed in the season of spring or early summer."

Source: http://www.livescience.com/history/060726_pleistocene_footprints.html

quote:

Originally posted by FireFly:
Hope and sadness DownUnder. Life is precious... pause to acknowledge it's sacredness.

You may have heard about the two miners who've been trapped underground after a landslide for the past 12 days? The mine team has been drilling for days through incredibly hard rock, and we're hoping they finally get out in the next few hours.

This drama has really put the sleepy mining town Beaconsfield, Tasmania on the map.
For those who don't know... Tasmania is a small island way south of Australia. It has raw, rugged, natural, and unforgiving, beautiful scenery, and weather to match, and a mix of hi-tech, hippy, laid back Aussies and the odd red-neck. Everyone wishes them well.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/miners-coping-with-...7/1146940396244.html

JUST FOLLOWING ON...

Grohl to fulfil miners beer pledge
(Thursday August 31, 2006 09:53 AM)

Dave Grohl says he plans to make good on a promise to buy beers for two miners who listened to his band, the Foo Fighters, during their ordeal of being buried underground for two weeks.

Grohl said he'd catch up with the two when the band tours Australia later this year.

"You know what? I'm not just having one beer with those dudes - we're going for it," Grohl told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio. "This is going to be a big night."

Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, spent two weeks trapped underground when the mine they were working in at Beaconsfield in Australia's southern Tasmania state collapsed.

As rescuers painstakingly dug an escape tunnel, the pair were handed music players among other things to keep their spirits up.

When Grohl heard that Webb had requested Foo Fighters music be downloaded onto the player, the rock frontman sent a message of support and later offered to fly the pair to the US so he could buy them a beer.

That rendezvous never came to pass, but the chances of the three getting together leaped with the announcement that Grohl and his band will tour Australia in October.

Webb and Russell, who became celebrities in Australia after their escape, did not immediately comment, but their manager Sean Anderson said the pair would likely be happy to take Grohl up on his offer.

"I'm sure they will be very keen to meet him," Anderson said. "Brant's the big fan (of Grohl), whereas Todd's more into his country and western stuff."

YeY!! Spring is here ... and ruby papayas are now coming back into season....

Steve was no Crocodile Dundee... he was real. And as down-to-earth and sincere person as you could ever meet.

'Crocodile Hunter' dead



SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Steve Irwin, the Australian TV presenter known as the "Crocodile Hunter," has died after being stung in a marine accident off Australia's north coast.

Australian media reports say Irwin was diving in waters off Port Douglas, north of Cairns, when the incident happened on Monday morning.

Irwin was killed by a stingray barb that went through his chest, according to Cairns police sources. Irwin was filming an underwater documentary at the time.

Ambulance officers confirmed they attended a reef fatality Monday morning off Port Douglas, according to Australian media.

Queensland Police Services also confirmed Irwin's death and said his family had been notified. Irwin, 44, was director of the Australian Zoo in Queensland.

He and his American-born wife Terri Irwin became popular figures on Australian and international television through Irwin's close handling of wildlife, most notably the capture of live crocodiles.

They have two children, Bindi Sue, born 1998, and Robert (Bob), born December 2003.

Irwin's enthusiastic approach to nature conservation and the environment won him a global following. He was known for his exuberance and use of the catchphrase "Crikey!"

But his image suffered a setback in January 2004 when he held his then one-month-old baby Bob while feeding a crocodile at his Australian zoo.

Irwin's wife Terri was believed to be on location in Tasmania, filming another documentary.

NSW ablaze
More than 50 fires broke out today as the state suffered under unseasonably hot weather and gale force winds.

[it's only Spring and we don't usually get 33 degree Celsius temps - or fires - until December, which is the start of our Summer - global warming??]

Thursday, October 19, 2006. 9:02am (AEST)

Ancient fish was advanced for its age
By Anna Salleh for ABC Science Online



Fish developed features characteristic of land animals much earlier than once thought, researchers say.

Dr John Long of Museum Victoria and his colleagues base their conclusions on an uncrushed 380 million-year-old fish fossil found in Western Australia.

"The specimen is the most perfect complete three-dimensional fish of its kind ever discovered in the whole world," says Dr Long, who reports the team's findings online today in the journal Nature.

"It looks like it died yesterday. You can still open and close the mouth."

Dr Long says the preserved remains of a Gogonasus fish from the Devonian period were found last year in the remote Kimberley area at the Gogo fossil site, once an 'ancient barrier reef' teeming with fish.

He says previous analyses based on limited material suggested Gogonasus had relatively primitive features.

But when his team used a CT scanner at the Australian National University to analyse this new fossil, it found the fish had a number of features common to land animals.

"It's hiding a lot of deceptively advanced features that were not recognised before until we had such a perfect specimen," Dr Long said.

For example, Dr Long says Gogonasus had hole in its skull similar to that found in the first land animals.

He says this hole eventually became the eustachian tube in higher vertebrates.

Dr Long's team's analysis also revealed the fish's pectoral fin had the same pattern of bones as the forelimbs or arms of land animals, called tetrapods.

"It's definitely a fish. It's got gills, it swims in water, it's got fins," Dr Long said. "But it's a fish that is showing the beginnings of the tetrapod's advanced body plan that would eventually carry on to all living land animals."

Dr Long says Gogonasus also had a cheek bone structure similar to early amphibian and a single pair of nostrils, like humans.

Wolf in sheep's clothing

Earlier this year scientists reported the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million-year-old species of fish that filled the evolutionary gap in the transition between water and land animals.

While Tiktaalik had a skull that was identical to an amphibian, Dr Long says Gogonasus looks much more like a fish.

"This particular fish is a bit like a wolf in sheep's clothing," he said.

In fact, Dr Long says Gogonasus is more closely related to land animals than a fish called Eusthenopteron, which until recently was considered the common ancestor of all land animals.

"It's replaced Eusthenopteron as the best fish to use when studying the ancestry of the first tetrapods," Dr Long said.

Dr Long says there are still many unsolved questions about the evolution of land animals, such as how fin rays evolved into digits.

And he says such questions will only be solved with the discovery of more fossils in combination with embryology and other evolutionary development work.

Dr Long named Gogonasus, meaning 'snout from Gogo', in 1985 when he discovered a snout of the same species, also at the Gogo fossil site.

Last Update: Saturday, October 21, 2006. 9:20am (AEST)



UK museum urged to negotiate over Aboriginal remains

A British museum expert says he wants to "hang his head in shame" because the Britain's Natural History Museum is refusing to negotiate with the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

The museum is believed to hold at least 17 skeletons of Tasmanian Aborigines, but it is refusing to tell the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre what it plans to do with them.

Tristram Besterman, formerly of the Manchester Museum, says he is disappointed the Natural History Museum is keeping the negotiations secret.

"From the British side of this discussion there is clearly only one appropriate and morally right outcome and so as far as I'm concerned this ain't rocket science," he said.

"They've got to come back, and the more swiftly the process and the more inclusively that is done the better."

More tales from the bookstore...


This week I've had 2 customer encounters that have made me want to them.

1.
French accent man explains he is a Tour Guide (someone with influence ) and asks me to suggest a book on "Australian history". I ask indigenous and/or first contact?
"Oh, from white people on" he says.
"What about indigenous history? Have you got info on that?"
"OH, I only need that if I'm doing tours in the Northern Territory".
I didn't realize only the NT had any indigenous history.

2.
American couple on holiday ask for "a book on Australian history". So I ask indigenous and/or after first settlement?
"OH," says the wife, "I want a book that tells both sides of Aboriginal history."
Meanwhile, her husband is busily taking the selection of european AND indigenous books I hand him and is suggesting he'll buy them.

Wife then says, "there must be a book that tells BOTH SIDES of indigenous history".

I point and say... "there are both sides of Australian history..." pointing first to "indigenous history" and "then you have settlement histor