A woman of the streets

ONCE, she was the queen of all their hearts, the irrestible object of Trades Hall desire.

A new front fence? She had only to mention it in passing for Bill the Greek to lay his bricks and woggy efforts by her front door.

A new bathroom? No sooner was the old one's disrepair offered as an excuse for inadequate personal hygiene than a volunteer work crew was on hand to gut the old one, not even bothering to ask for permission.

A little cash shortfall? Not to worry. Bruvver Bruce would send a lackey to the bank with a $5000 cash deposit.

Ah, life was good back then ... but not these days.

Leadership!

IF you have ever wondered how The Age can maintain such a permanent distance from fact and reality, look no further.

Judith Sloane has found the answer in its editor's office.

Dammit! Must mop floor after all

AS the Billabong is located rather close to the shore of Port Phillip Bay, self-interest has meant that the news one hears of rising sea levels is treated very seriously indeed. It is quite the chore to mop the floor, so why bother if it is only a matter of time until a flathead takes up residence beneath the kitchen table? This sort of thing is already happening, or so we are assured, in other spots about the globe, most prominent of these being the scatter of Pacific atolls now known as Kiribati. Formerly, while a British protectorate, they were the Gilbert Islands, although that is not the name most commonly associated with their past. That would be Tarawa, the chief island and seat of government, where US Marines fought an extraordinarily bloody four-day campaign against entrenched Japanese resistance late in 1943. As a recent article at The Global Mail noted, the island remains littered with the detritus of war, including several large, century-old British-built guns, which the accompanying photographs  suggest, without actually saying in as many words, are being swallowed by the rising waters of carbon-addicted humanity’s indifference to the planet’s health. To further advance that impression, one of the emplacements is pictured at high tide and festooned with children, the cruel sea lapping at its very foundations.

                     It's always high tide at the Global Mail.....

         ...but not for those without a barrow to float

One cannot expect too much in the way of accuracy from The Global Mail, which is the plaything of Graeme Wood, an eccentric Tasmanian millionaire, generous supporter of the Greens and, most recently, sponsor of The Guardian’s bid to snaffle the small section of the population that still takes The Age and Silly seriously. If there is enlightment to be found at The Global Mail it is of a biblical nature, as Wood’s entrepreneurial success would seem to confirm Ecclesiastes’ observation that life just isn’t fair. “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding,” the verse advises. The strange fact that the Great Bunyip gives us cane toads, bleeding piles and an Internet entrepreneur overflowing with admiration for Christine Milne is nothing if not the confirmation that He has a very peculiar sense of humour.

So, one gathers, do the citizens of Kiribati, who must find it very hard to keep a straight face while conducting the latest representatives of the press on the ever-popular Drowning Island Tour. The Global Mail sent Bernard Lagan, but several years ago it was Adam Morton of The Age, a man who will believe anything and report nothing he has not been told by those who are gulling him. Visitors to this blog who share The Professor’s disinclination to mop the floor should take a look at both, as they will provide a persuasive case for the further avoidance of scrubbing and cleaning in all low-lying precincts.

Others, however, might care to consult this report, prepared in 2006, which deals at length with Kiribati’s changing shoreline. Climate change is not mentioned, not even once.

Morton of The Age stepped ashore not long before 2009’s Copenhagen gabfest, where Kiribati’s elders eyed the prospect of bagging large sums of other people’s money just as greedily as did their ancestors the arrival of tasty missionaries. “Kiribati hopes for billions of dollars from the countries responsible, to help it deal with the problem of climate change,” Morton wrote, apparently untroubled by the practicalities of accommodating all that cash in a country not much bigger than Luna Park. Had Copenhagen not devolved into the merciful shermozzle it did, we can assume the natives would still have been standing calf-deep in their lagoon, as no room would have been left ashore for anything but bales of banknotes.

Like Morton, Lagan appears also to have been jammed into a tinnie and shuttled off to a little spit of land that goes by the name of Tebunginako, where a village has been abandoned. First, Morton’s appraisal:

At Tebunginako, the money might have to be spent on another relocation. The village was rebuilt about 15 years ago, initially about 50 metres from the shore. It wasn't far enough. Each day at high tide a handful of houses and the village's biggest buildings - a dishevelled Catholic church and giant concrete maneabe - are surrounded by a saltwater moat as the sea flows in and floods what was once a fresh-water pond.

Lagan, too, visited the ghost island:

….one village, Tebunginako, which villagers have battled to save for the past 30 years from the encroaching sea, has had to be moved inland — a development that is often referred to as hard evidence that Kiribati is being ravaged by climate change. Tebunginako’s fate is held up as a barometer for the rest of Kiribati by the government, which facilitates the two-hour boat trip there for visiting journalists (including The Global Mail).

That would be the same government, remember, so keen to solicit billions of guilt-edged Western dollars.

So two reporters have seen the island, sloshed through the rising tides and both tell us for a fact that globalwarming/climate change/extreme weather (or whatever it is being called this week) is to blame. Who could doubt them?

The authors of that 2006 report, linked above and again here, for starters.

It turns out that the very name of the village's hinterland, Terawabono, is a variation in the local lingo on “blocked channel”, and it is this perfectly normal and typical example of foreshore dynamism that explains why the island is shrinking. But not by much, mind you, as the vanished sand is simply being moved elsewhere.

Ground truthing confirmed this hypothesis and later graphic presentation of the study to the Tebunginako community found general agreement that there was an oral history that such a channel existed (possibly about 100 years ago). Indeed the name of the land in the area immediately south of Tebunginako is Terawabono – “the blocked channel”.

The coastal instability experienced at Tebunginako is therefore an ongoing adjustment of this shore to the blocking of the channel and consequential halt of sand supply from the ocean to the lagoon beaches.

Predominant northerly transport on the lagoon coast continues to redistribute material accumulated by the former channel northwards, causing erosion in the southern areas of the bulge and accretion in the northern areas of the village.

As to those billions of dollars Morton, Lagan and Kiribati’s leaders are so keen to see dispensed, the reports authors have a somewhat cheaper solution: move your grass huts to higher ground.

The people of Tebunginako have settled in areas which are unstable and the shoreline will continue to change over time for many years to come. Over the last 30 years the people of this village have spent a huge amount of time, energy and money trying to stop the natural movement of the lagoon shoreline. This has failed and much of the protective structures built have been destroyed by ongoing shoreline change and westerly gales.

In past times, people lived in harmony with shifting coastlines and their local buildings could be easily moved if the shoreline changed. Many of the houses in Tebunginako are still local but some large and important buildings (the village maneaba and church) are built of permanent materials and can not be easily moved.

During discussions with the people of Tebuninako Village it was agreed that the changes on their coast were caused by the blocking of the channel many years ago and that this coast would remain unstable for many years to come. It was also agreed that it would be better to use their time, effort and money to rebuild important buildings east of the road on high safe ground and not to try and rebuild seawalls.

It was understood that there was no need to move the whole village right way. In some areas accretion is occurring (the land is getting bigger) and so long as local houses are built in these areas, they could always be moved if need be. Certainly, permanent buildings should not be built anywhere west of the road and people in flooded areas should also be encouraged to move east of the roadway...

There is one other thing worth noting about Lagan’s account of death by carbon in the Pacific. It is his assertion that “as far back as 1992, a technical report, funded by the Canadian government, said increasingly severe El Niño events were producing the large waves that were eroding the Abaiang coast.” Because many Global Mail readers vote for the Greens and are self-evidently thick, Lagan adds that, “Only very recently — in the past year or two — have some climate scientists begun to suggest a strong link between severe El Niño events and global warming.”

The internet, being a wonderful thing, makes it very easy for the curious to dig up that report,  written by an erosion specialist, J.B. Holden. Here is what he says of el Ninos:

Although the lagoon shore of Abaiang is sheltered from the direct impact of the prevailing westerly winds, it is affected by occasional westerly winds associated with the occurrence of El Nino events ... There have been notable El Nino events in 1972, 1977-78, 1982-83, 1987 and in 1991.

It is possible that the westerly winds associated with these El Ninos have caused abnormal short-term erosion. Several severe El Ninos in succession could have caused more erosion than could be restored naturally in the interim.

Since El Nino events are natural and have always occurred, the westerly wind and waves are also natural events and the resulting beach fluctuations are part of the natural coastal process. These events can be expected from time to time and the beach should adjust naturally as it has in the past.

One cannot help wondering if Lagan actually read the 1992 report he cites in asserting “increasingly severe El Niño events” are “eroding the Abaiang coast”.

Or was it a case of those Kiribati PR persons handing out their re-written version of “the science”, along with a cut lunch and tickets for the two-hour jaunt to inspect the village drowned by carbon pollution?

Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. Except they do, every single day.

Up a tree

WHEN climate worrywart Graham Redfearn parted company with The Courier-Mail he may well have left behind something nasty and quite contagious. Read this story, which would seem to confirm that suspicion, concerning the sad plight of a koala whose home forest was allegedly knocked down by Gaia-raping loggers. The timber-getters responsible are also getting a hard time from the Huffington Post,  which apparently believes koalas go walkabout for days on end. Perhaps they nip out for pedicures.

In any case, marsupial beauty regimes notwithstanding, it seems the poor little fellow had a nasty eye infection, which may explain why he was sitting there dazed and confused. Another thing worth noting is that the cleared forest consisted of pine trees, which kolas don't eat. All this comes from the rescue service that dosed him with antibiotics, pointed him at an edible tree and sent him on his way.

As this fanciful tale involves a photogenic koala, expect other international outlets to depict the little chap as one more victim of environmental outrage. And not a word of it will be true.

What would Jack Dyer say!

ALONG with the Pink Round, the Black Round and the Green Round (when football is played under lights and barrackers are expected to feel guilty about it), it can only be a matter of time before the AFL's Andrew Demetriou launches the Lavender Round, perhaps kicked off by a pair of umpires plighting their troth at the centre circle before flinging to the crowd an origami'd bouquet made from the rule book, which umpires no longer read nor understand in any case. As everyone loves a wedding, this should go down quite well in the grandstand, where spectators will consider themselves let off easy for not having had to endure 20 minutes of possum-skinned palaver from a professional Welcomer to Country.

In any case, once the AFL has found a suitable poster boy for playing the man and the Fairfax press has gushed itself dry with editorials about how wonderful it is that sodomy and Sherrins have been publicly united, the question of more appropriate uniforms will soon arise.

For some time now, players have been wearing elasticised garments beneath their shorts, their peeping lower edges strongly suggesting a shared fetish for panty girdles. Quite obviously, as this will no longer suffice, a stronger statement of sexual preference will be needed, because what would modern footy be if the simple of business of kicking goals came to be regarded as more important than Demetriou's mission to make the game a vehicle for redressing societal ills and historic injustice?

Fortunately there is an Australian company ready to meet the challenge.

 The only matter to be resolved will be if that fetching outfit (above) can be produced in the red, white and black of St Kilda, a team whose well-known interest in waxing and depilation suggests a perfect fit

Give Myer (and David Jones) some feedback

A LADY of the Professor’s acquaintance recently enlivened a pleasant dinner by launching into a tirade about the cost of shoes. Mid-way through the grilled seafood platter for two, she thrust a shapely ankle from beneath the table’s skirts and demanded an estimate of her footwear’s cost. Low-heeled and pointy-toed, the shoe on display was a remarkably practical specimen in tan suede, the only interesting thing about it being that some fey little fellow in Milan or similar had equipped it with a kiltie in an apparent attempt to evoke what golf shoes looked like when society still had standards. No woman will ever understand the male perspective on the way she dresses, which is probably just as well. Season-by-season, the world’s arbiters of feminine fashion hike or lower hems, pad shoulders or bare them, ordain loose and flowing skirts or make it quite the adventure to mince in hobbled steps down flights of stairs. Men accept all this with the good grace of children who have noticed that, while the Christmas wrapping on the present changes year by year, the gift inside remains always the same and no less enticing for its familiarity. Apart from explaining why women are more keenly appreciated than the train sets, it also speaks well of the rather more practical male capacity for diplomatically feigning an interest in bows and fripperies. Thus does our species maintain itself, and a good thing it is too.

It emerged that the shoe in question was half of a pair purchased on the Internet for $170, which seemed such a remarkably large sum that a lament for the injustice of it all was half-formed on the Professor’s lips when the evening’s companion removed the need for sympathy. Burbling with delight, she let it be known that the same model in David Jones goes for around $400. She was certain of this, as she had visited the chain’s Bourke Street store, tried them on, noted the size and gone straight home to place an online order. Her saving, of course, was David Jones’ loss, which helps to explain why the big retailers have been doing it hard lately. It cannot be easy to cope with the treachery of shoppers who, after a lifetime of fronting the counter with purchases in hand, turn suddenly and viciously against you.

Nor are they only ones department stores cannot trust. For years, word of bargains and mark-downs has been conveyed via the pages of our major newspapers, as indeed remains the case. Over the past week, for example, The Age published several pages of expensive ads for Myer and David Jones, and if the average cost per page came in at under $20,000 it would be quite the surprise. No doubt, when Fairfax executives get together with their big-spending clients, they make all sorts of noises about partnerships and how no department store can have a better friend than the newspaper that is broadcasting its messages to consumers.

One gathers that Fairfax editorial executives do not attend these gatherings, because even as The Age last week carried retailers’ ads,  it also gave over part of its Opinion section to the thoughts of contributor Alecia Simmonds, who was moved by news of the recent factory collapse in Bangla Desh to bemoan the entire and sordid business of shopping.

The question of responsibility stretches from the global to the minutiae, from international labour standards to the clothes racks of Myer. It's a question that stems from our commercial imperialist past and will continue into our neo-liberal future. And it's a question that centres on the lives of women.

So, Myer advertises a perfectly legal product and a contributor expresses the Age’s gratitude by citing the company as a toxic relic of our “commercial imperialist past”. And Ms Simmonds was just getting warmed up, too. We further learn that “global capital sniffs like a ravenous wolf around the world in search of cheap labour”, that “First World women's consumerism collides so dramatically with the conditions of Third World women”, and that the merchandising wing of “global capitalism” is “a prowling, salivating beast that needs to be tamed with regulation and personal ethics.”

These views must be de rigueur at the University of New South Wales, where Ms Simmonds lectures in law, but surely they cannot be appreciated in the boardrooms and advertising departments at Myer and David Jones. It is, after all, rather hard to imagine some ad person exclaiming, “I know! Let’s give Fairfax millions of dollars so they can bag us right and left.”

Of course there is a distinct possibility those same execs read nothing in the Fairfax press other than their own ads; indeed, it is hard to imagine them doing so. One imagines them to be career-minded sorts with little interest in the sermons of the Occupy Fairfax crowd who now determine the sequence in which capitalism’s depredations will be excoriated from one edition to the next.

So why not do the retailers a favour and let them know. While Myer is having its lunch eaten by internet competition it has also tapped the web’s capacity for providing instant feedback. So why not let the company know that The Age has persuaded you never again to spend a dollar in its stores, sullied as they are by the blood of butchered Third World women.

And do make a point to note that you read all about the company’s evil in The Age. A few less ads, another revenue shortfall and Gina Rinehart might finally deliver the coup de grace to the company she has been stalking for several years.

And if The Age were instead to fold, well that would be no big deal. Green Left Weekly will still be available to denounce free trade and capitalism, so the few readers The Age retains will hardly notice its loss.

    

Poll Axed

YOU have to feel sorry for the poor dears at Fairfax. There they are, adrift on their sinking ships, yet content enough in their own simple way at the thought that they have driven off all those nasty conservatives who used to buy their papers. At The Age, where not even one conservative columnist is allowed to sully the newly shrunk pages, the big effort appears to be invested in making sure bad news appears less so .... before being made to vanish altogether.

Take this morning's poll showing that Gillard's dills now enjoy the support of only 29% of the voting population. Fairfax paid for the poll, so you might imagine it would wish to give it much prominence. And so it did, for a while.

What follows is a frame-by-frame record of the incredible shrinking poll story:

At 9am we saw this on the Age homepage:
 

A bit after 10.30, the headline had been softened somewhat and pushed down the page:

And finally, at around lunchtime, Peter Hartcher weighed in with an analysis -- correct, as it happens -- that rather neatly deep-sixed the actual, shocking polls numbers:

There are some polls, however, that do get a prominent display, with no fudging of headlines or hack columnists' attempts to cushion the bad news with a dribble of interpretative insight. On the same home page where word of that dreadful poll was made to vanish, we also find this:

The Age will be dead soon, done in by its own left hand. It will be no great loss.