Good on ya, Scott

There are plenty of people who probably won’t know it, but New Zealander Scott Dixon won the Indianapolis 500 (to be fair, most years I'd have no idea who won). Obviously winning’s a good thing for him, and plenty New Zealanders will be happy about it. But if we all were Australian, there would be national spasms of joy. I caught a report about it on Sky News Australia this afternoon and they mentioned where the Australians placed. Of course.

In any case, well done, Scott.

McCain needs to do better

You’d think I’d applaud John McCain for finally rejecting the endorsement of the far-right Texas TV preacher and hatemonger, John Hagee. A little over a week ago, Hagee expressed “regret” about some of his remarks, but McCain didn’t repudiate Hagee. He now has, along with another far right preacher in Ohio.

So what?

McCain is only rejecting the endorsements because they were becoming a problem with rational people: Both said incredibly stupid things about other religions, things ordinary Americans would strongly reject, or things that the newsmedia would harp on about. That’s why McCain belatedly rejected the endorsements.

However, Hagee also said incredibly hatefilled things about gay people, but McCain wasn’t moved to repudiate Hagee over them. That’s because among the far right christianists that McCain’s trying to win over, being anti-gay is a badge of honour. If he repudiated the anti-gay hatemongering of Hagee and other preachers, he’d further risk losing the support of the frothing right of his own party.

So, yeah, McCain did the right thing in rejecting the endorsement of Hagee. But it would seem that attacking gay and lesbian Americans is still okay with him, just like Bush-Cheney. If he really is a “different kind of Republican”, he still has a long way to go to prove it. This was just one baby step.

AmeriNZ 91 - Monique Rhodes

Episode 91 is now available, and it's free no matter where you get it from. You can get it here, or subscribe for free through iTunes here (you must have the free iTunes player installed). You can also listen to it through the player on the right hand side of my blog, or on my MySpace page. You can also download the file directly by right-clicking here.

Today’s special guest is New Zealand singer/songwriter, Monique Rhodes.

We talk about Monique’s music, her career, and her debut album, “Awakening”. Monique uses many online avenues to promote her music, and we talk a bit about the opportunities the online world offers to independent musicians.

Monique lives in France most of the year, so we even talk a bit about being an expat. Naturally, we talk about New Zealand as well, along with some of what influenced Monique’s development as a singer/songwriter.

She was wonderful to visit with, and I thoroughly enjoyed our chat. I also really enjoy her music. You can buy it through her website, www.moniquerhodes.com, as well as through iTunes. I’ll have complete links in the shownotes on my blog.

Leave a comment. Or, you can ring my US listener line on 206-339-8413. Email at arthur{at)amerinz.com. You can also still use my other address, amerinz[at) yahoo.com.

Running time: 46:16 (32.1 MB)

Links for this episode:
Monique Rhodes’ links: Podsafe Music Network
Monique’s website
Monique's MySpace page
Buy Monique's CD on CD Baby
Amplifier music site
iTunes (USA)
iTunes (New Zealand)



Get AmeriNZ Podcast for free on iTunes

A new podcast episode is up—sort of

Yesterday, Podomatic, the current host for my podcast, “upgraded” and, in the process, pretty much imploded. Apparently, everything is taking around 24 hours to happen, which means my latest episode won’t be available on iTunes for at least 12 hours. This is just another in a long list of examples of why I’m moving my podcast away from Podomatic as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, you can listen to and manually download my latest episode at the new blog for my podcast. You can get there directly by clicking here (the full permalink is http://amerinzpodcast.com/?p=26). I’ll post the episode shownotes here later, but probably the only way to actually listen until it’s on iTunes is to go to the new site.

Rice a liar, too?

Condoleezza Rice, the current US Secretary of State, is either a liar or a moron. Take your pick.

In a recent appearance, she talked about the Bush-Cheney regime’s torture programme and said, “President Bush made clear that we were going to live up to our obligations at home and to our treaty obligations abroad.” That’s absolutely not true and, in fact, the regime went out of its way to come up with supposed legal “justification” for using torture, even though it was—and is—clearly illegal. As an insider, Rice was part of those deliberations, making her subject to war crimes charges.

If she now wants to rewrite history and claim something that’s clearly not true, she’s welcome to try. But too many people now know the truth, they know that the Bush-Cheney regime—of which she was a critical part—authorised and practised illegal torture. They know that she took part in clearly illegal activities, which, by the way, their buddy John McCain has steadfastly refused to denounce.

Torture is not just illegal, it’s also morally repugnant. We’re supposed to be better than that. No matter how much Rice tries to re-write history, that fact doesn’t change. Neither, apparently, do Bush-Cheney-McCain apologists.

Taxing times

One thing about this year’s elections in New Zealand is certain: Tax cuts will be an election issue. Forget all the important problems facing the country, the debate will be over who will cut taxes the most.

Yesterday Finance Minister Michael Cullen delivered his eighth budget and it included tax cuts that were higher than expected. Nevertheless, the right wing parties were quick to condemn them. The Opposition, the National Party, has made taxes cuts its central issue for the past five years or so.

Not so fast: Poll after poll shows that average Kiwis want money invested in the core areas of health and education. As times become harder, people look at tax cuts and think a little more money in their pocket each week would be nice. How to solve the dilemma?

The tax cuts announced by the Labour-led government are, as promised, aimed squarely at average New Zealanders, with the biggest percentage going to lower income workers. But when National talks tax cuts, they aim for upper income earners. That’s been National’s history for decades.

Labour has announced a budget that continues strategic investment in the country—its people included—and offers manageable tax cuts, too. They’re able to do so because their sound management of the economy has allowed investment in social services, the buying back of state assets sold off by the neoconservatives in the 1980s and 1990s and the prefunding of retirement funds for Baby Boomers. As a result, New Zealand has among the developed world’s lowest unemployment rates.

How would a National-led government fund its tax cuts? We can only guess, because their pledge is still an empty promise with no specifics, but their history suggests their cuts would be aimed at the rich and would be funded by a combination of “privatisation”, cuts to social services (even if by stealth) and chronic under-investment.

National is committed to selling off state owned assets, as they have in the past. However, they’ve also pledged not to do it in a first term. To get around that problem with state-owned companies, they’d increase dramatically shares sold to the public, thereby diluting the people’s shareholding—effectively selling off the asset without selling it off. They’ve already announced plans to have school buildings privately owned and rented back at market rates and to raise doctors’ fees so that average Kiwis will pay more for basic healthcare and schools will have less money to teach children. Politically they may not be able to get away with cutting health and education budgets, but by holding spending levels it amounts to the same thing—a cut by stealth. And they wouldn’t invest in public housing or other social infrastructure.

We know what National would do because that’s what they’ve done before, and many of the crowd that allowed New Zealand to decline in the 1990s are still in the National Party Caucus, still wielding power.

We also know what Labour will do because we’ve seen it over the past nine years: Invest in the people of New Zealand, make the country a better place than it was in the 1990s and position it for even greater things in the years ahead. Given a choice between the sound, steady policies of Labour and the empty stealth policies of the National Party, I know what I’d choose: I’m sticking with Labour.

End ‘marriage’?

The recent California Supreme Court ruling in favour of marriage equality in that state has again stirred up opponents who cling to the weird notion that it will somehow destroy marriage. Despite lacking any intellectual justification for their position, it’s one they cling to fiercely.

An often-suggested alternative is to allow same-sex couples to enter into marriage-like relationships. Some are equivalent to marriage, like New Zealand’s Civil Unions, but others are dramatically inferior, and none have equality with marriage when it comes to US federal law, including taxes (in fact, even same sex marriages from Massachusetts and, soon, California don’t exist for federal purposes).

I’m not a big fan of “separate but equal” as a matter of principle, but if calling our legal relationships something else makes nervous heterosexuals willing to give us the rights, privileges and responsibilities of marriage, then I’ve said I can live with “separate but equal” provided that it’s truly equal to marriage in every way.

But what if we ended “marriage” as a state function altogether? What if the only legal recognition went to civil unions, open to gay and straight couples alike? Marriage itself could be left to churches to argue about, getting government out of the business of managing a religious function.

Eric Zorn, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, just suggested exactly that. Zorn points out, correctly, that at its core, marriage is a contract between two people. It has nothing to do with religion, which is primarily concerned with other matters. He wrote:

Let the various churches, denominations and other belief groups decide who gets to perform the marriage ritual with whom, and leave the blessing and the consecrating to religious institutions. And let the government handle the contract end of things. That's government's job—outlining the binding nitty-gritty of mutual obligations and privileges in legally sanctioned relationships.

I’ve been saying the same thing for years.

What about the huge disagreement among religions? Some would marry gay couples, others wouldn’t. Who would “really” be married? In answer to such a question, Zorn said “who decrees who is baptized and who isn't? Who is confirmed and who isn't? Who is ordained and who isn't? Who is a true convert and who isn't?” All very good points, and none of the things that Zorn lists are concerns of government. Why should marriage be, either?

I don’t expect to see any move in this direction in most places, and I don’t think most heterosexuals will see this a compromise, as Zorn suggests it is. However, I do think this is a way forward, one that focuses on what gay people want—legal equality and the dignity that is their right as citizens—and what some heterosexuals want—keeping marriage for themselves.

But in any case, getting government out of the business of managing what is essentially a religious sacrament has got to be a good thing for both government and religion. Or is this just too practical a solution for either side to adopt?

Oily liars

The other day, New Zealand’s TV One News reported on the rising costs of petrol, recreating almost directly an American CBS News report in which they played 2005 person-at-the-pump interviews about high prices. The report quoted—without a hint of irony—oil companies declaring that they weren’t gouging New Zealand drivers with high profits, but that they were subject to the same increasing costs as in other countries.

The same sick joke was played out in front of the US Senate. Dick Durbin, the US Senator form my home state of Illinois, was one of several Senators to grill oil company executives over their high prices. “Is there anybody here who has any concerns about what you’re doing to this country?” he asked.

Some oil executive (doesn’t matter who it was, since they all say the same thing) replied that it wasn’t their high profits driving fuel prices higher, but soaring worldwide demand. They stick to that line because—in a literalist sense—it’s true. But that doesn’t make it the truth.

The huge demand for petroleum in China and India, along with the continued high demand in Western countries, has been met with flat supply on purpose: The oil producing nations aren’t increasing production, but, if anything, suppressing it to drive up the cost of petroleum. In addition, refining capacity, especially for the United States, hasn’t increased. All of that has, as the oil companies say, driven up prices. That much is true.

However, as the prices soar, so, too, do the profits of the oil companies. As they reach ever more obscene profit levels, ordinary people have a right to wonder why they’re allowed to get away with that. After all, it’s not like they’ve done anything to deserve the higher profits, they just automatically go up as the price does.

So when the oil industry says their profits aren’t causing soaring prices at the pump, they may be accurate, but they’re not being truthful. They could very well cut their profits to slow rising prices, but their shareholders would sack them if they tried to act as if they had, you know, an ounce of humanity.

We all know that whatever the corporate propaganda says, oil company profits are, in fact, helping to squeeze ordinary consumers so that shareholders can get rich. Sometimes, it seems, it’s possible to tell the truth and still lie.

Two weeks later

Two weeks ago today, I had my Intralase CustomLASIK eye surgery. I haven’t talked about the actual procedure on the blog, so I thought I’d go over the highlights, followed by a small update.

First, the highlights of the highlights: The whole thing was remarkably fast, I had no real pain and recovered pretty quickly. The results have been very good.

I arrived for my appointment early, and was given a mild sedative. They put a topical anesthetic in my eyes, followed by antibiotic/disinfectant (to kill any bugs lurking there). That stung a bit but, I was told, it would’ve stung a LOT without the anesthetic.

I was led into theatre (what we Americans call an operating room), and helped to lie down on a bed thing. I was manoeuvred under the first laser, which cuts a flap in the thin film that covers the cornea. They placed a sort of retractor thing on my eye to keep my lids open, which was a little uncomfortable, but not nearly as bad as it sounds.

I was told to look at a light and the laser did its work. I was told my eyesight would get very cloudy or even go black (mine went black), but not to worry (I didn’t). This procedure hurt; I think it was some sort of pressure on my eye or something, but it was pretty uncomfortable. Fortunately, it only lasted maybe 20 seconds per eye.

I was swung over to the second laser, the one that reshapes the cornea. The eye doctor flipped back the flap and the laser went to work. They put a retractor on my eye again, and this wasn’t at all uncomfortable (I have no idea if they were the same or different, or if the first laser was pressing down in it, but the first was definitely more uncomfortable). I was told to stare at a red light, but as the machine worked, it turned into a sort of cloud of little red dots.

The machine made a kind of buzzing and clicking noise as it worked, and it only took a little longer than the first procedure. There was an odd smell, a bit like slightly singed hair mixed with some other smell (spice?), but not offensive at all. They finished one eye, put the flap back, covered the eye, then did the other one. When they were finished, they covered the second eye and uncovered the first so I could see where I was going as they led me out of theatre.

I sat in a recliner, they put some drops in my eyes, and I rested. After awhile they took me into an exam room where the eye doctor checked my eyes, put in some more drops, and taped goggles to my face. That was it. The actual procedure was only a few minutes, and with waiting and exam time, the whole thing was maybe an hour and a half or so.

My eyes were sensitive to daylight afterward, and if I opened my eyes they teared quite a bit. Once I got home, I had some lunch and went to bed. By this time, my eyes felt as if dust had blown into them—not gritty or painful, just uncomfortable. I dozed for about an hour, took another round of pain relief and went back to sleep.

Four or five hours later I woke up, and my eyes felt pretty good—the discomfort was gone. I couldn’t see very well, in part because of those goggles, but I watched a little TV anyway. I went to bed early. I didn't use the sleep aid they sent home with me, nor any more pain relief.

The next morning, I went in for my first check-up appointment. They removed the goggles, did a quick check, put in drops, and told me to put in various drops myself. I then saw the eye doctor who checked everything thoroughly and I was cleared to drive.

One week later, I went for another check, the eye doctor said my corneas look really good (and how often does somebody say that to you?). My next appointment is at the one-month mark.

The adjustment I’ve had is comparable to getting a new pair of glasses or contacts—the new, stronger prescription takes awhile to get used to. When I wore contacts, my left eye was stronger than my right; now it’s the other way around, and that’s taken some getting used to, as well.

I can now see all day, ever day—including in the middle of the night—all of which is a new experience for me. I’ve had no discomfort, not even any dryness, and I’m adjusting to the new, better vision.

My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. Still, I’m glad it’s done and I’m enjoying the results. I’d recommend it to anyone, even big ol’ chickens like me.

I also discussed the procedure on my podcast, AmeriNZ Podcast episode 88.

AmeriNZ 90 - Kiwi Kustoms

Episode 90 is now available, and it's free no matter where you get it from. You can get it here, or subscribe for free through iTunes here (you must have the free iTunes player installed). You can also listen to it through the player on the right hand side of my blog, or on my MySpace page. You can also download the file directly by right-clicking here.

Today I tell you some of what it’s like living in New Zealand. This comes from a question from a listener who asked about the character and pace of daily life in NZ compared to the US. So I tell you about a few small things you probably wouldn’t read in a book or article, and put those things into a larger context.

This is all in a lead-up to my episode about moving to New Zealand, which I’ll be recording next week. If you have a question about that, or about New Zealand generally, send an email to me at arthur(at]amerinz.com by the weekend.

I also have an update on the changes to my podcast hosting, including the new website/blog for the shownotes, though it’s too early to make any changes, like to bookmarks, etc.

After comments, I tell you about Episode 91, which will be a special episode.

Leave a comment. Or, you can ring my US listener line on 206-339-8413. Email at arthur{at)amerinz.com. You can also still use my other address, amerinz[at) yahoo.com.

Running time: 25:37 (23.8 MB)

Links for this episode

Get AmeriNZ Podcast for free on iTunes

No buy, no fly, no sense

Everyone knows how the Bush-Cheney regime has used its supposed “war on terrorism” as a justification of all sorts of draconian, fascistic, even, anti-civil liberties rules and laws. The regime has sometimes gone out of its way to repeal fundamental human rights in its zeal to wage war—far too often—on innocent people.

There’s been a lot of publicity about its “no fly list” which is supposed to keep alleged terrorists and others off planes in the US. Reports have shown how the list was so badly put together, so poorly maintained and, in typical Bush-Cheney incompetence, that many, many innocent people have been denied seats on flights. There’s also documented evidence that the list has been used to make it harder for dissidents—opponents of the Bush-Cheney regime—to fly around the US.

Now we find out there are similar problems with a “no buy list”. The list is maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and, according to America’s CBS News, “keeps track of known terrorists, drug traffickers, and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction”. That last one doesn’t include US arms manufacturers, by the way.

CBS News goes on to report that the list “has more than 7,000 names and aliases, and companies aren't allowed to do business with anyone on the list. In fact, they have to check the list before any credit transactions can take place.”

Trouble is, with typical Bush-Cheney regime incompetence, the list is administered very badly, with no guidance given to those who are forced to refer to it. CBS News reported that Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights “put out a report documenting dozens of cases of consumers who were denied homes, health insurance, even the purchase of a treadmill because of an OFAC alert.” Just like the “no fly” list, it’s very difficult to get off the “no buy” list once you’re on it.

The Republicans in Congress established the Bush-Cheney list and required that banks and other institutions refer to it. But the Bush-Cheney Treasury Department has done nothing to clarify how the list is to be used.

Add this to the seemingly endless list of reasons why the end of the Bush-Cheney regime and Republican rule in Congress can’t come soon enough. Roll on January!

The Christian gene

Satire is something that people get or they don’t. There’s not much middle ground. This video (via Kim Beaver) is satire by the team at “Chasers” on ABC television (Australia). They became infamous when they managed to get through the “tight security” at the APEC summit in Sydney with a cast member dressed as Osama bin Laden.

This video pokes fun at the whole search for a “gay gene” and how absurd the very pursuit is. The hard fact is that no one’s interested in “curing” heterosexuality, so they’re not looking for its “cause”. Those facts are lost on the far right christianists who are also implicitly lampooned in the video.

As it happens, researchers have pretty conclusively shown that sexuality has a genetic component and that homosexuality is just a normal human variation, occurring with roughly the same frequency as left-handedness. You won’t read about that in the American media, however, because far right christianists persist in saying, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that homosexuality is a “choice”. If the genetic origin of sexuality were found without the means to “change” it, then all their justifications for their hatred and oppression of gay people would vanish and they’d be exposed as the bigots they are.

The fact that far right christianists want to “cure” homosexuality means they can’t see the satire in a video pretending that researchers found a “Christian gene”. For proof of that, all you need to do is read the YouTube comments to see how thick and/or blinkered some people really are.

Hearing is believing

There are few things as satisfying as vindication. To say something but to have no proof, nor any way of proving it, is annoying, even when other people agree with you. When that proof finally arrives, there’s almost a sense of relief about it.

There are a lot of people who will be feeling that now.

For a long, long time, people have talked about how TV commercials in New Zealand are louder than the programmes. It’s annoying and it’s obvious to everyone, but the networks consistently denied that was the case. In other words, they were telling us it was all our imagination.

The New Zealand Herald has done what needed to be done and commissioned tests of the loudness of TV commercials. Surprise, surprise, the results found that commercials are louder—ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent louder than the TV programme they were interrupting.

The networks weren’t too keen on talking about the results, and mainly continue to say that commercials fall within allowed limits. They then descend into techno-babble about how the commercials aren’t really louder. The study, however, proves the truth.

Consumer advocates are demanding regulation to end the blaring ads, much as Britain is introducing limits. We either need that or for the networks to accept some responsibility for what they broadcast. In the meantime, I’ll do what I’ve done for a long time and hit the “mute” button when the ads come on, which means I won’t hear the advertiser’s message at all, regardless of the volume.

In any case, it’s nice we were finally proven right.