’Blog Notes
You may recognize Thomas Ashelford’s name from Ether Productions, because that’s the outfit, formed of himself and his wife, Ingrid Spielman, that produced Upskirt, but he’s also got a ‘blog: Wood & Wire. Posting seems to have gone into hiatus nearly immediately upon (re-)startup, but it’s a nice looking ‘blog, as I’d have expected given Thomas’ expertise in matters webish. Right now he’s finishing the sound edit on Upskirt, but later we also look forward to seeing The Pure Drop, Ether’s world music documentary.

State Watch
2006 can be the year we take back Congress, and in case you don’t know what’s going on around your state, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has provided this handy little web app. It’s just the House, so don’t forget to keep an eye on Senate races, too.

Bagging the Minister
I’m not a fan of Amanda Vanstone, Immigration Minister in the Howard government, but calls by the opposition for her to be sacked over comments about the governments anti-terror efforts seem counter-intuitive to me. When a minister speaks out against the party line, I’d think her comments at least might be applauded for their worth to the opposition . Besides, she’s right: most of what’s being done is just for show. The example she cites, outlining a plan for an in-flight attack, is insensitive, but everyone who’s had to give up a nail-clipper at the airport has thought much the same way. Until the airlines start handing out “sporks,” the existing measures are just an annoyance at best. Sure, the cockpit’s been “hardened,” but taking over a flight isn’t the only method terrorists have for wreaking havoc. So Vanstone’s point stands: address the substantive, strategic issues, or you’re just treating the symptom and not the disease.

Please, Sir, May I Have Some More
The Howard industrial relations laws have come through the Senate committee with a recommendation for seven changes, but also that the laws should be passed even if no amendments are made. A bad result, and no surprise: the committee, is, of course, the Coalition’s. The news has been reporting various levels of discontent even within the Coalition, suggesting that amendments would inevitably be proposed, but it’s still surprising how the committee acted. If the laws as presented for inquiry don’t contain sufficient protections, then they don’t, and amendments are needed. Otherwise, no amendments. Instead, the committee has said the laws are inadequate but they don’t care. Either they are so in thrall to Howard they can no longer think for themselves or they hold the Australian public in contempt. Assuming Labor (28) have the courage to stand together against this and are joined by the Greens (4) and Democrats (4), it would take only a handful of Coalition (38) backbenchers to put an end to this monstrosity. With their party’s polling numbers falling dramatically, it may be that there are enough Liberals concerned for their seats two years from now to do the trick, but that’s a long way off, and the public has serious ADD problems. While some among Howard’s triumphalists claim a Labor win in two years would allow them to reverse these hideous laws, that isn’t true: they’d need to have a Senate majority itself at that time to ensure a reversion to labor-management equity. It has to be stopped now, before we end up with debtors’ prisons and workhouses.

Bondi Weekend
Yet another weekend packed with entertainment. After the movie premiere, with houseguest in tow, we headed out early for the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition (re the article linked here: didn’t much like the faces; oh, well), marching along the cliffwalk from Bondi to Bronte. As usual, for me, the best part of the exhibition is at Tamarama, where much of the beach is devoted to very large installations, including, this year, a giant beach chair, which I rather liked.


Also as usual, there were a couple of instances of Christo-lite: wrapped or netted rocks. They look good, but they’ve been done enough at this stage. After a period of recovery we made our way to Café Pacifico, one of the few places around town doing Tex-Mex food, since our guest is an expatriate American and expressed a hankering for something with chillies from that side of the Pacific.


This suited us, too, and we made a fine meal of margaritas, fajitas, tacos, enchiladas and so forth. Rather done in, we elected a quiet remainder of the evening at home following gelato in Stanley Street, where we watched the bats make their way out of the Botanical Gardens, with a bit of music before our guest left the following morning.

More Adventures in Movies
Last night was the gala premiere of Upskirt, the 15-minute short film M. wrote and co-produced, inspired by research she'd done for an article in Salon.com. When I read the script, I thought it was one of the very best things M.'s done, so the production was a little fraught for me, although never quite so much as it was for M. herself, or the director, Antonella Franchini, and producer, Ingrid Spielman, both friends of ours, the latter of whom, with her husband, Thomas Ashelford, have a production company, Ether, which has largely focussed on broadband video and similar output (and all three of whom, along with Astrid Spielman, of whom I've written here previously more than once, form the occasional band, The Yokos, whose music is featured throughout the film).

Well, it was all worth it. Upskirt is a finely realized short, with emotional depth, humor, and sensitivity dealing with a subject not often addressed, fetishism, as well as the overall topics of desire, sexual power, and emotional need. The performances by Emma Grant and Graham Harvey, along with support from Lena Cruz and Oriana Panozzo were first rate, as were those turned in by veteran character actor Gary Waddell, and Stewart Armstrong, Madison McKoy, and Brett Danalake, all of them volunteering their efforts, as did the production crew, notably director of photography Steve MacDonald and editor Karin Steininger.

I'll come back in later and add some links, but the important one is the film's website itself (again: Upskirt-the-movie.com, which I recommend using, and not just because trying to do a Google search is going to get you in trouble at work if you're not careful). The website's got some scenes off the cutting room floor, a slideshow of stills, and the usual site material.

The movie was great fun, and our after-party at the new Hilton was a worthy celebration. Congratulations all around and many thanks for everyone's efforts.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year
But it seems to arrive earlier every year and stay longer, too. Eventually the decorations will stay up year ‘round. Last night, we were riding the bus down to Circular Quay, and as we passed Martin Place I saw the annual tower of fake-fir plastic already in place. I’ve got to speak to the mayor about this: why plastic? This country’s got plenty of very nice Norfolk pines, a favored configuration for ein Tannenbaum, so other than because they put these up down by George Street, where the Anzac cenotaph is, why not plant one and just decorate it each year, leaving the tree bare the rest of the year to provide a nice bit of shade and comforting greenery in the midst of the CBD?

Wildcat
The Australian Industry Group, an employer representative organization, has issued a broadcast warning to all employees of member companies that they may face penalties for attending tomorrow’s anti-IR rallies around the country. The AIG is recommending to its membership that they take action against any employee who goes to a rally. I expect some employers to so act, but if the proposed changes were actually fair, none of this would be necessary. Since they’re patently unfair, I’d prefer to see employers actually work with their employees to allow attendance, and, in fact, many employers are doing just that. The debate in the Senate begins today and will last only 5 days. State IR Ministers get 7 minutes apiece to address their concerns, but even if all 5,000 submissions on the matter were to be addressed, hope resides only in the actions of the Coalition itself, that some backbenchers might stand up and do the right thing. Little chance of that, when even the “WorkChoices” call center staff are under threat already. (Thanks to Larvatus Prodeo on that last bit. Meanwhile, check in with the ACTU on tomorrow’s rallies.)

In other labor-related news, the PM won’t step in to help resolve a strike between Boeing and 25 engineers, for which the strikers have expressed their disappointment. Given the last time Howard meddled in a labor dispute, maybe they should be grateful instead.

))<>((
M. and I went to see Me and You and Everyone We Know over the weekend. Somehow, when we make the effort to go see something in the cinema, it’s always, well, almost always, a good pick, whereas renting ends up being a much lesser experience, by and large. I suppose I’m just being reactive to how much I enjoyed Miranda July’s movie. After all, Batman Begins wasn’t bad, really. Me and You is, for a commercial film, quirky, which I hate, but it’s also not a commercial film. This is an art movie, a performance piece, with very little story, very little connection between the characters, except for a very desperate need in each of them to find some connection somewhere. The broader outlines of the different failures and forms of success in establishing relationships are seemingly all encountered and treated with great sympathy and humor. I’d be interested to see some of Miranda July’s performance pieces, to find out if they’re anything like the work her character creates in this movie, if this movie is anything like what else she’s done. I’m not expecting her to become a new cinematic presence of any particular note, but this movie is enough to her to have a place as an artist of film.

Transparency
Sunlight is a great disinfectant, so I agree with the lawyers for Sydney’s terror suspects: open the proceedings to public scrutiny. I don’t think the need for this is entirely or even in any large measure to maintain government accountability, but rather because the more we all know, the safer we actually become. Ignorance of the threat of terrorism, whether internal or imported, has been more the source of the present precariousness than other factors, that and ignorance of the internal and external conditions that have given rise to such hatred. Our own lack of knowledge and understanding is where our efforts need to be concentrated. Once it comes to arrests and prosecutions the damage is already done, even without any bombs going off. So let’s see who these people are, let’s hear the evidence, let’s hear all of it, and let’s really pay attention.

24/7
So the five-day week is dead? Anyone could have told you that, but it doesn’t mean the same thing the Prime Minister says it does. He wants to eliminate penalty rates, the excess paid for overtime and shift work and weekends at the office, but wouldn’t it be better to use the demands for a 24/7 lifestyle to create rather than destroy? If the demand for the goods and services is that high, the supply can be raised to meet it, and the workers can be paid to provide it. Tanya Plibersek’s right: there isn’t the child care infrastructure to support Howard’s changes, but that’s just one of the problems working men and women will face once employers have been given the freedoms the PM is proposing. And before anyone claims I’m proclaiming some kind of apocalypse, no, the effects won’t occur overnight; it will take years. And that’s what the Liberals are banking on. By the time the full effect is achieved, the public’s attention will have shifted elsewhere. The time to oppose the change is now. The bill’s already through the House, with Tony Abbott playing standover man to gag debate. 24 working hours isn’t a long time to discuss the effects of over 600 pages of legislation, but it’s on its way to the Senate. Call, write, make yourself heard. By the time Labor gets back in power it’ll be too late.

Off to See the Wizard
So Kansas has not only decided that creationism is science, but that science isn’t science. I’d expect to see Harry Potter in the Physics curriculum, except it’s about witchcraft and these nuts wouldn’t put up with that. Really, they just never got over Scopes, did they?

Music
I’d heard about this new performer, Bright Eyes, some time ago, on Gothamist, I think, and thought, “yeah, sure, Bright Eyes . . . how good can he be? But it stuck in my head, so when a friend turned out to have a couple of Conor Oberst’s discs, it was a short time thereafter before I had a chance to hear the songs for myself. Well, they’re that good. The music itself may not be the most inventive, especially on I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, where it’s largely acoustic, but the lyrics are the most poetic stuff I’ve heard in ages, highly inventive, highly evocative. Listening to the second of his recent releases, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, the cumulative effect is like an audio version of the movie Tarnation. I think some of his recent notoriety would have to be due to the song, “When the President Talks to God,” but that’s all right; it’s a good tune and a fine protest piece.

Immanence vs. Imminence
At the beginning of last week, our Prime Minister assured us that the word “the” needed to be changed to “a” in order for police to foil a terrorist attack. It now appears to have been foiled. These appear also, however, to be the same people identified a year ago as having been videotaping landmarks and industrial sites as part of a planning operation towards maybe conducting an attack of some kind. At that time, they were merely kept under surveillance as “persons of interest,” and nothing further was done. Now, however, that they can be arrested regardless of whether “a” terrorist action occurs, instead of the one they were planning under the old wording, arrests have been made.

Yeah, I’m being a bit snarky here, but not because alleged terrorists have been arrested. No, I’m mainly interested to see what will happen in the courts. The word change in the law under which they’ll be charged seems vague to me, suggesting that the government is attempting to reduce its burden of proof to such a level that the case may end up being thrown out. I don’t suppose I’ve got any Q.C. reading this, so it may be hard to find a solid opinion, and I’ll just have to wait to see if it travels up to the High Court.

Meanwhile, over in France, rioting continues, and while it has nothing to do with what many are taking the opportunity to describe as a clash of civilizations, linking the riots to terrorist groups without any regard to the facts, there is a concern that disaffected and marginalized Muslims in the slums of Paris are prime recruiting targets for terrorist organizations (n.b., the WSJ article – and, hey, look: the Journal’s free this week; thanks, Gothamist – is addressing mainstream groups gaining influence, not terrorists, although they still don’t like it), just as outfits like Hezbollah used the failure of the PLA to transition itself into a mainstream political party to gain support among Palestinians. France’s tradition of what might be called “monoculturalism,” which has always been a hollow promise of equality among its citizens, at least for those who come from former colonies and the like, is proving the success of multiculturalism, but also the pitfalls for any society where distinctions of class or race or ethnicity or gender or . . . are allowed to excuse prejudices. Reading Gotham regarding the rise of the Irish in NYC in the 19th century, it’s clear that historically, a failure to allow integration lies at the heart of conflicts between groups, rather than any refusal to assimilate, and this is where France is having its problems now. So while it’s important to note that what’s happening in Paris and increasingly around the nation is class-based, the potential for it to become cultural is a danger that must be addressed as much as the law-and-order issues, and one that even multicultural societies would do well to act on, too.

Such a Curious Tree
Ah, it’s jacaranda time again, with the lovely purple flowers putting bold splashes of color in eye-catching drops across the city.
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I love this time of year.

15 November
Via the masked ones, notice arrives that this will be the day we gather to let Parliament know we value our rights at work and put them on notice that we're not fooled by the AU$55 million ad campaign. Spread the word and join in.

Le Fee Verte
I’d be interested in trying out some absinthe sometime, but at AU$130 for some Nouvelle-Orleans, it might wait until I’m more solvent.

New Justice
Is Samuel Alito a Constitutional constructivist? So far it seems so. I’m opposed to that line of thinking on the bench, preferring Breyer’s approach, if anything. So it’s been interesting reading the New Yorker’s occasional series of the present set of Justices, Breyer’s being the most recent. It was also fascinating to read what Ann Althouse, University of Wisconsin law professor, has to say on the latest candidate to the highest court in the land. Her opinion of Judge Alito is based on decisions regarding the establishment clause, protecting the free exercise of religion and in apparent opposition to the Supreme Court Justice Alito’s most often compared to, Antonin Scalia. It’s nice the Native American got to keep his bears and the cops their beards, but there’s a lot more at stake than religion. Yes, indeed, Professor, liberals will “anguish” over Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which Judge Alito decided that a woman is merely her husband’s chattel when it comes to child-bearing. And regardless of whether we commend Bush for “nominating someone with so substantial a judicial record,” let’s keep in mind that this is his second appointment and the first hadn’t nearly the record. So warning’s that the Democrats will find their nominees thwarted someday in the future, while not falling on deaf ears, are nevertheless insulting. Either the man’s qualified for the role or he isn’t. And he’s not looking all that good right now.

The Risk
ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, is at the forefront in protecting the country from terrorist attack. The chief, Paul O’Sullivan, has recently appeared before the Senate to address the genuine threat of attack here. Or anyway, the feasibility of such an attack. I agree, it is indeed feasible. But that’s not the question I’d ask of ASIO. Instead, I’d ask, how likely is it? To that, Mr. O’Sullivan has no answer.

Mr. O’Sullivan references four instances of terrorism having previously occurred in Australia: in 1986 the Turkish Consulate in Melbourne was bombed. In 1982, the Israeli Consulate and the Hakoah club in Sydney were bombed (negligible damage, two people injured). In 1980 the Turkish Consul-General was assassinated by Armenian separatists. And in 1978 the Hilton hotel was bombed. The perpetrators of the 1978 attack remain unknown, damage was negligible, and casualties limited to three deaths and a few injured. Interestingly, in every instance the attack was carried out by foreigners against foreign interests. Some have suggested that the 1978 attack was actually ASIO itself, acting to obtain increased funding at a time when its usefulness was seen as slight.

But despite the increased threat – yes, one that has existed before September 11, 2001, but that doesn’t negate the increase that’s occurred since joining the Iraq debacle – no credible threat has been received of an attack here. That there was no warning received of attacks in Bali is of little relevance to actions anticipated within Australia, especially since ASIO is only charged with “collecting foreign intelligence in Australia.” They are not, in other words, the CIA, an agency charged with overseas operations. The Bali attacks were carried out by Indonesian national on Indonesian soil using Indonesian materials. Unless Indonesia had information and elected to share it with ASIO, Australia wasn’t going to get any warning. As of Australia itself, protecting against attacks is why ASIO exists, and it needs to anti-sedition legislation to conduct surveillance or investigations.

So while it’s gratifying to know that ASIO will conduct itself within the limits of the law, now that we’re looking at unwarranted and ineffective increases in their powers and those of the police, that isn’t particularly reassuring. I note that former Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer has been hired on as a per diem consultant to investigate terror attacks but without the power legislated to actually do anything, let alone anything to actually investigate. That the legislation is expected no earlier than sometime next year is a telling indicator of how unnecessary the new anti-terror laws themselves are. There has been no attacks, and ASIO’s got Australia all sewed up regarding the alleged 70 or 80 “persons of interest,” some of whom it’s already been shown weren’t even interesting.

Although it appears the legislation has popular support, it looks increasingly like a put-up job, one of those instances where “you can fool all of the people some of the time,” as the saying goes.

Making Things Worse
As if the “USA Patriot Act” wasn’t bad enough, prior to the renewal of some of its already egregious provisions, House Republicans have decided that the 20 capital crimes covered in the legislation aren’t enough; another 41 are somehow called for, including imposition of the death penalty for donating money to a charity that turns the money over to someone else who then goes on to commit a terrorist act. They’ve also decided that the jury system is not reliable enough in condemning convicted criminals to death, so the legislation has been amended to reduce the size of juries and allow prosecutors to go back before the court again and again until they get a death penalty verdict. This is disgusting. I’ve railed against what the Howard government is doing here with anti-terrorism laws, but the Coalition’s nothing compared to the GOP’s exhibition of blood-lust.