Media

In December 2012 the Australian Labor government introduced plain packaging laws for cigarettes. The effect was that cigarettes are supplied in drab olive/brown packages, with the main visual element being an (often disturbing) picture of the health effects of smoking. The tobacco industry (in co-ordination with the ubiquitous American Legislative Exchange Council) has fought tooth and nail to stop the laws, notably by ginning up trade disputes with Hong Kong and Ukraine, jurisdictions which have no significant tobacco trade with Australia and which (you might think) have more serious problems of their own to deal with. But so far, they have lost in every Australian court, including the court of public opinion. Despite a change of government, there’s no significant likelihood that the laws will be repealed or substantially modified.

Nevertheless, the leading Murdoch press outlet, The Australian, lovingly known here as the Oz, has launched a bizarre campaign, using secret tobacco industry data to claim that, by depressing prices, the laws have led to an increase in cigarette sales. These claims have been shot down in flames by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Treasury, and by health experts and bloggers, most notably Stephen Koukoulas .

The campaign is interesting for a couple of reasons

* First, the commentators wheeled out by The Oz to defend this ludicrous claim are (without exception as far as I can tell) also climate science denialists. This is part of a much broader pattern – nearly all of the climate science denialists who’ve been around long enough got their start in tobacco denialism, as did much of the thinktank apparatus

* Second, although the campaign was regarded as a bizarre oddity in Australia, where the Oz has lost a lot of credibility with this kind of thing, it was immediately picked up in the UK where (unlike in Australia) plain packaging is still a live issue. It certainly looks as if the Oz is taking one for the team here – shredding its remaining credibility to no real purpose at home, in order to provide a vaguely plausible Australian source for tobacco hacks to cite abroad.

Ha, just kidding! Sorry, sensei! It’s actually me, your friendly yet irreverent and over-enthusiastic Belle Waring. I read so much manga, dudes. So much. In Singapore, we use the metric system and everything, (which is way more rational, except for acres which are totes intuitive and based on a meaningful connenction to the land) so I know for certain I read a metric f$^Kton of manga. There are just piles around, and John is like “we’re reading Black Butler now?” Me: “Mmmmmaybe. Zoë said she was going to stop reading it at volume VIII. [For free, online at mangareader.net (since we only own I-V) which, OMG it’s gonna kill the print business! But no, because it bitens the ween.] There were about to be zombies (she’s scared of zombies). 1hr 15 minutes later she said the zombies weren’t as bad as she thought. Sebastian’s hot, so.”

The truth is that we never acquire great amounts of anything until a) John has already bought the full (iff sub 20, for he is an frugal Oregonian) run. Then, slowly, like a hopeful NYC resident of his new summer house in Bridgehampton feeding corn to deer, he coaxes us out by telling us that these are, in fact, excellent manga such as normal people read, and we all ignore him and say things like “you bought the hardback edition of Lois Lane: Superman’s Girlfriend, which is like a moving, 12-minute-long youtube-tribute-to-Paul Walker supercut of the Fast and Furious movies, except of superdickery–we don’t believe a word you say, man. Saying you wanted to read the entire thing to us aloud over a series of like 20 f&c*#ng nights ironically is not a valid objection.” And you shouldn’t feed the deer because they are adorable vermin and they eat every single thing you have every planted that is not actively poisonous to deer (don’t think this isn’t a bigass section at at the nursery). That’s why we haven’t read 20th Century Boys, despite owning the books. Or b) the other way we get stuff is I start to like it (this is the win scenario for my children). When I started reading Naruto, we had volumes 1-23. We now have volumes 1-66, roughly 8 weeks later. Why am I reading thousands of pages of comics about ninjas? Oh, golly, I thought you’d never ask!
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Nate Silver’s relaunched [FiveThirtyEight](http://fivethirtyeight.com) has been getting some flak from critics—including many former fans—for failing to live up to expectations. Specifically, critics have argued that instead of foxily modeling data and working the numbers, Silver and his co-contributors are looking more like regular old opinion columnists with rather better chart software. Paul Krugman has been a prominent critic, [arguing that](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/data-as-slogan-data-as-substance/) “For all the big talk about data-driven analysis, what [the site] actually delivers is sloppy and casual opining with a bit of data used, as the old saying goes, the way a drunkard uses a lamppost — for support, not illumination.” Silver has put is tongue at least part way into his cheek and [pushed back a little](http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/for-columnist-a-change-of-tone/) with an article titled, in true Times fashion, “[For Columnist, a Change of Tone](http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/for-columnist-a-change-of-tone/)”.

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Do you know how I would describe the actions of a powerful black woman against a defenseless fraulein, if I were, like, not racist at all? CANNIBALIZATION. *[I am wrong here–please read the ETA for why.] Buh–huhh? What now? WTF? Cannibalization, are you out of your ever-lovin’, blue-eyed, mind; this is part of your defense against people thinking you’re racist? Probably that’s just from laying down with the Daily Mail and getting up with pubic lice, as the venerable British saying goes. Oh, what’s this you say, over here? The original article in German? “Sie ist so mächtig, und ich bin bloss eine Verkäuferin. Ich habe niemandem etwas zuleide getan. [Sniffles audible–ed.] Ich verstehe auch nicht, weshalb sie das so gross im TV ausschlachten muss.” My German is rusty, so first I thought, that’s just some form of ausschlagen and the Daily Mail are being a bag of racist dicks per the uge’, but–naw, this is–oh, no, I can’t eve–God, why? For real, cannibalize! Apparently Swiss people are so racist, this is how you can explain you’re not racist! Also, by explaining that you can’t be racist because you’re Italian! [Raises hand, tentatively, ‘excuse me, I–] And, erm, this explanation works great for British people, apparently. And American Gawker readers eat this shit up with a spoon! OMG! Racism is the Cronut for the summer of this August you guys! CANNIBALIZE. No, for real. Cannibal.

I started writing the other day because I wanted to talk about how John’s question, “when did it stop being acceptable to say mind-bogglingly racist things in public?” is half a good question and half a misleading one. In politer society certain awful things were never acceptable to say. As time has passed the band of “can say ‘x’ and retain future political career” has been getting narrower, and higher, and that’s a good thing. But on the other hand, people who were racist never really stopped much being racist, or saying and doing stupid racist stuff. One thing that remained true was that certain words and phrases continued to be considered low-class and redneck even as many other whites remained very racist indeed. Thus we have the continual problem of rural whites doing something obviously racist (like the MO rodeo clown show (I am pretty certain this applies to their state legislature but have not done the research)) and then they are stuck simulaneously saying ‘that wasn’t racist’ and ‘you’re the real racists, playing the race card,” and “AIDS is thinning the herd in Africa and among blacks here in America–I call it natural selection for our country–no racism.” [Promise for real quote which I have cleaned up and can’t be bothered to find among 4,000 new ones on the rodeo article.]

Everybody on the internet is dissecting this thing 12 ways to Sunday and why? Why? Because they’re sexist and racist, I’m so flattered that y’all even asked! No, but a boringly obvious thing happened: A store attendant in Zurich didn’t recognize her (fine), so she treated Oprah like crap because she was racist. Yes, racially prejudiced against black people, is where I’m going with this. R-A-C-I-S-T. OMG, and yet an Italian person! Totally unbelievable, right, be… Later, Oprah was asked in an interview about the last time she experienced racism or racial prejudice. She said that because of her current social position it’s rare, but that when she’s the only minority and the only woman in a huge boardroom she still can tell they think she doesn’t belong. Then she told this story and that it had happened in Zurich, while she was out sans entourage or fake lashes but with [gestures to face] “my full Oprah on.” She did not name the boutique (this detail was ferreted out by gossip site TMZ) or the shop assistant (who is still anonymous.) THE END. CANNIBALS.

Please, please, go read the comments on the Daily Mail, and at Gawker, and elsewhere, and think, ‘these are my people over here. This is who I’m all about identifying with in this situation.’ Y’all know to whom these comments are directed, ye “I’m Richard Dawkins, except about all of left politics, fnarf! Sucks to be you, women and most non-white people, unless you’re willing to take part in the matinée, evening and sometimes midnight showings of the ‘Richard Dawkins is Right About Everything Finger Puppet Theatre'”-types. You begin to cease to interest me.

In conclusion, CANNIBALIZE.

*ETA: My German being, as I said, not the greatest, I trusted my dictionary for this one word and got only “cannibalize,” but I didn’t read carefully enough and get examples. I assumed the Daily Mail was just completely making things up, and my shock at seeing them (apparently) be right overrode my lexical caution. I was wrong. Commenter js suggests and commenter David Woodruff pretty well confirms, that this is “cannibalize” in the “we cannibalized the three crashed planes for enough parts to get the fourth off the ground” sense and not the “we stood around with bones in our hair saying ‘ooga booga’ while stirring a huge cast-iron pot with a skinny Italian woman inside, and we had it on a nice simmer, with some celery and carrots and onion and bay leaves in there” sense. So, we can continue to marvel at the racial cluelessness of a woman who argues that she cannot possibly be racist because she is Italian, and you should read the Daily Mail article carefully to see why her story is implausible in every detail, but I was wrong in my central accusation that she was calling Oprah a cannibal.

Nonetheless you all should continue to read the comments on the article, at, perhaps most surprisingly, Gawker, where the “cannibalize” quote is taken for granted and yet most everyone, every, everyone takes the shop assistant’s side. What reason does Oprah have to lie? How many reasons does this other woman have to lie?

Today’s Observer (at the Guardian website) has a review of Roman Polanski’s new film Carnage by Philip French. Here’s what Mr French had to say about Polanski’s past:

bq. At the age of six, Polanski began a life of persecution, flight and the threat of incarceration – first from the Nazi invaders of Poland, then an oppressive communist regime, and finally the American criminal justice system after his newfound sense of freedom led him into transgression. The world must seem a prison, society a succession of traps, civilised values a deceptive veneer, life itself a battle against fate.

Like a number of other people, I posted a comment on the site. I can’t reproduce my comment exactly, because it has now been deleted for “violation of community standards” but it read something like “What? ‘transgression’ hardly seems to be an appropriate word.” Other commenters have been deleted, again for “violation of community standards” merely for quoting Mr French’s exculpatory paragraph _in extenso_ and say that it is “ludicrous”. The Guardian’s guidelines on “community standards” are here. They are not unreasonable and contain the assurance:

bq. In short: – If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should have no problems.

It is hard, therefore, to see why politely objecting to Mr French’s words should provoke deletion. Apparently, the Guardian thinks otherwise.

The National Interest has just run a piece I’ve written on the S&P downgrade. I had understood this was a conservative publication, but I tend to got lost in the varieties of US conservatism (and, for that matter, liberalism). Anyway, they seemed happy to run this as well as an earlier piece on Europe. A quick look at the website didn’t suggest I was in bad company – most of the foreign policy stuff was anti-war, and the other economic pieces were eclectic.

Is there an up-to-date guide for overseas visitors to the US scene? It’s nice to be called up from the Australian farm team, but I don’t want to end up in some glossy publication that turns out to be funded by LaRouche.

Last night’s BBC Newsnight in the UK featured “an item on living standards”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0132003/Newsnight_03_08_2011/ (at about 29′) and an interview with Doug McWillians of the “Centre for Economics and Business Research”:http://www.cebr.com/ think tank (whoever they are). McWilliams asserted that the UK faces a decline in living standards of 25 per cent over the next 20 years or so because of wage competition from overseas: “we” are going to be 25 per cent worse off. I have no idea how plausible this is.{fn1} However, if I’d been the interviewer I’d have followed up by asking McWilliams, “so, the economy is going to shrink by 25 per cent over the next few years?” Because I’m pretty sure that the economy is going to continue to grow, and that McWilliams also believes this, (eventually, and maybe sluggishly) and asking that follow-up would have forced him to make it explicit that he thinks we face a future of contraegalitarian redistribution (and, judging by some of the other elements in the item, longer hours). Unfortunately, the question never came. Until these questions get asked though, we’ll still have a political debate dominated by the assumption that growth-promoting policies will provide people with better lives, even though it seems that they won’t. (Which doesn’t, of course, establish that in the absence of such policies things wouldn’t get even worse.) To protect and improve the real living standards of ordinary people, we need to get redistribution explicitly onto the agenda and not just allow the assumption that rising tides lift (the key political assumption of “left neoliberalism” it seems to me) to stand.

1. To be fair, McWilliams says the decline isn’t predetermined, but can be avoided if “we” provide ourselves with enough in the way of high-tech skills to “command a premium”. Of course this is another feature of the “left neoliberal” toolkit, but as the experience of new Labour shows, it is one thing to sloganize (“education, education, education”) it is another to actually change things.

UPDATE: For some reason Matthew Yglesias has “linked to this post”:http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/04/287553/the-new-labour-record-on-income-growth/ taking it to be a data-free assertion that Blair and Brown failed on inequality (I believe that they failed, but it isn’t the subject of this post) and then waving around a Lane Kenworthy graph that he’s fond of in refutation. Two points: (1) the only point in the post that touched on the failure of New Labour was the footnote, which alludes to their record on education not inequality; (2) “Brian posted a few months ago”:https://crookedtimber.org/2010/10/01/fun-with-gini-coefficients/ in response to “the last time”:http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/30/198683/new-labour-and-inequality/ Matt deployed his favourite graph against “me on New Labour’s record”:https://crookedtimber.org/2010/09/30/its-about-the-distribution-stupid/ on inequality, given that, I’m surprised Matt is still waving it around.

I’ve received the ultimate accolade from News Corporation, graduating from snarky asides and dark mutterings in which I’m identified only indirectly to a full-length hit piece in our only national (general) newspaper, The Australian. This worked out pretty well for me, giving my friends the opportunity to say nice things in my defence, and even the Oz comments thread was mostly favorable. I was even, briefly, a trending topic on Twitter! Perhaps the spell of Murdoch is starting to fade?

With the news that the BSkyB bid has been withdrawn, a pretty amazing week in British politics (with ramifications beyond) seems to have come to a climax. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, who had, frankly, looked pretty hopeless only a few days ago did a superb job on the Tories and the Murdoch empire, and kudos to people like Tom Watson and Chris Bryant who have had the courage to stand up to a threatening and vindictive organization and respect also to the great journalist who really cracked it, Nick Davies. Hard to know what the future holds, because so many of the assumptions recycled by Britain’s lazy commentariat depend on the fixed notion that Britain’s politicians have to accommodate themselves to Rupert Murdoch (that Overton Window thingy just changed its dimensions). Even the erstwhile victims of Stockholm Syndrome, like Peter Mandelson, are now declaring that they were always privately opposed. Well of course! Enjoy for now.

The ever-expanding scandal surrounding hacking, bribery, perjury and obstruction of justice by News Corporation in England has already brought about the closure of the venerable (at least in years) News of the World newspaper, but looks likely to go much further, with significant implications for the Murdoch press in Australia, where Murdoch started out in my hometown of Adelaide (I should mention that, despite being born here, Murdoch is not an Australian by either citizenship or residence. He took out US citizenshup citizenship quite a while ago to further his ambitions there) .

The scandal over hacking and other criminal behavior has now become an all-out revolt of UK politicians against Murdoch’s immense political power , which has had successive Prime Ministers dancing attendance on him, and rushing to confer lucrative favors on his News Corporation. Those, like Labour leader Ed Miliband, who are relative cleanskins, are making the running, while PM David Cameron, very close to the most corrupt elements of News, is scrambling to cover himself.

The hacking and bribery scandals appear (as far as we know) to be confined to the UK, but the greater scandal of Murdoch’s corruption of the political process and misuse of press power is even worse in Australia. The Australian and other Murdoch publications filled with lies and politically slanted reporting aimed at furthering both Murdoch’s political agenda and his commercial interests. Whereas there is still lively competition in the British Press, Murdoch has a print monopoly in major cities like Brisbane.

It seems likely that News International will be refused permission for its impending takeover of BSkyB on the grounds that it is not “fit and proper” for such a role. That would have important implications for Australia (and perhaps also for the US, though Australian regulators are more likely to be influenced by UK precedents).

Regardless of how the current scandal plays out, we need to remember that while the Australian productions of News Corporation may be papers, what they print is certainly not news.

Tabloid Shutters Doors.

Brooks Cries Crocodile Tears as Reporters Go Home Jobless to Tots.

Union Scum Pick Fight at Sun.

Filthy Rich Editor Weeps in Chelsea Townhouse.

There’s “a nice piece”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-link-between-climate-change-and-joplin-tornadoes-never/2011/05/23/AFrVC49G_story.html by Bill McKibben in the Washington Post about the rationality of people who repeat the mantra that single extreme weather events can’t be tied to climate change:

bq. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing. It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.

Well read the whole thing, as they say. (See also “the stunning pictures from Joplin at The Big Picture”:http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/05/deadly_tornados_strike_again.html . )

The fact that, with no observable exceptions, the Republican Party relies on delusional beliefs for most of its claims about economics, science and history has been obvious for some years. But, until recently it’s been outside the Overton Window. That seems to have changed, as witness:

* Jacob Weisberg, who only a little while ago was giving qualified praise to the Ryan Plan, now says the Repubs have

moved to a mental Shangri-La, where unwanted problems (climate change, the need to pay the costs of running the government) can be wished away, prejudice trumps fact (Obama might just be Kenyan-born or a Muslim), expertise is evidence of error, and reality itself comes to be regarded as some kind of elitist plot.

* USA Today comparing Republican climate change delusionism to birtherism and saying

The latest scientific report provides clarity that denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. It paves a path to a future fraught with melting ice caps, rising sea levels, shifting agricultural patterns, droughts and wildfires.

* The Washington Post, home of High Broderism says “the Republican Party, and therefore the U.S. government, have moved far from reality and responsibility in their approach to climate change.”

* Even GOP house journal Politico draws the formerly off-limits link between “skeptics” and “deniers”, regarding the Republican adoption of fringe economic theories suggesting the US can safely leave the debt ceiling unchanged.

Why is this happening now, after years of apparent Republican immunity from any kind of fact-based challenge? And how will this affect public debate in the US and elsewhere?

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No surprise there, we all knew that. The surprise is to read that headline over a piece by Fred Hiatt (last seen defending George Will’s right to his own facts) in the Washington Post. And the article is actually better than the headline.

Hiatt slams the Repubs not only on climate change and birtherism but on the illogical arithmetic (his words) in the Ryan plan, which all the “serious” pundits were swooning over only a few days ago.

And while he gives a nod to the false equivalence that is virtually mandatory in such pieces, saying “Democrats aren’t honest in these areas, either”, his examples point to Obama understating the need for higher taxes to extend beyond the very rich, and for more serious and costly action on climate change, and he concludes “To say that Republican irresponsibility makes it more difficult for Democrats to speak honestly is not an excuse. But it is a partial explanation”

And, at the end, he calls out the favored candidate of “serious” Republicans (At least, those who aren’t still still clinging to the hope that Romney will somehow become electable), Tim Pawlenty, in terms that would be strong even from one of WaPo’s house liberals, saying

Does Pawlenty believe what he says now? I’ve spoken with the former Minnesota governor. I know he is a smart man. As recently as 2008 he was supporting congressional action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. I do not believe that he believes those 998 scientists are wrong.

Which leads to another question: Should we feel better if a possible future president is not ignorant about the preeminent environmental danger facing our planet, but only calculating or cowardly?

To paraphrase Pawlenty, I don’t know the answer to that one.

I really don’t know what to make of this. Is it
(a) A temporary aberration, with normal service to be resumed shortly
(b) Hiatt breaking out of the Village for some personal reason
(c) The Post management realising that its rightwards trajectory was ultimately bound to be disastrous
(d) An indication that the rapid exposure of the Ryan plan as a fraud, coming on top of increasingly blatant delusionism on climate, and flirtations with birtherism, has crystallised a shift in the Wisdom of the Village, one that finally recognises the fact that the Repubs operate in a parallel universe, where reality is irrelevant.

I’m sure there is some more cynical explanation, probably correct, but until someone points it out, I’m going to hope for (d). A fact-based media-consensus, replacing “opinions on shape of earth differ” would, I think be disastrous for the Repubs. The base would still get their worldview from Fox, of course, but conservative independents would be exposed to the fact that the party they naturally prefer is too crazy to be trusted with political power.

And while I’m at it, I’d like my pony to be a palomino.