The Desolation of Smaug

I will not transgress the sturdy boundaries of brevity in this review. I am not engaging in either intense criticism, nor protracted fawning. If you haven't yet seen The Desolation of Smaug then I offer you a frank, yet humble reason why you should.

Firstly, I write with the assumption that you, dear reader, sustained a degree of disappointment with An Unexpected Journey. A solid preamble to be sure (if rather protracted, to the discomfort of the less bladder controlled), but something of a narrative mess. Furthermore, the high frame rate (HFR), coupled with the busy nature of 3D, left much (or a lot less!) to be desired. Middle Earth felt familiar, but less genuine.

The aforementioned issues compounded the usual problems encountered by the first in a pre-concieved trilogy (so the Matrix, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and initial Pirates of the Carribean are exempt from the rule). The first film has to introduce the core characters, build audience sympathy, thoroughly illuminate the many strands of the plot, and remain (in this case) reasonably close to the book. The curse of the first film is that the pay off for all this trouble does not occur until its sequel.

Think of the movie sagas that were conceived as more than one film in the first instance. The Empire Strikes Back is often considered the jewel of Star Wars. The Godfather Part II is the finest film Frances Ford Coppola has ever made. Every issue plaguing the success of the first movement in these grand cinematic endeavors is absent in the second - by definition.

Aiding The Desolation of Smaug is the slight modification of the effects, and the year we have had as audiences to come to terms with HDR. If you are one of the unfortunate viewers for whom HDR and/or 3D is always trouble, then you don't have to try it this time. Simply see the film in old school glory and enjoy yourselves.

Greame Tucket mentions in his Dominion Post review that the difficulty with the Hobbit from a screenwriting perspective is the great proportion of characters. The company of Thorin Oakenshield sits at fourteen and though all their names may be hard to keep in mind (I still confuse Oin, Bifur, Dwalin, Orry, and Norry), their individual characteristics are so particular, and thanks to Journey so familiar that you shouldn't get lost. The classic barrel sequence, and Bilbo's introduction to Smaug are highlights - Oscar fever is rightly warming.

I promised to be terse and so I shall, the reason to go to The Desolation of Smaug is it vindicates An Unexpected Journey, and proudly hits the mark of a great film.

Smarmy vs Smug

Chin-up David, It's not a blow but an opportunity.

In the most recent Fairfax Media-Ipsos (how many bloody names does it need?) poll, the post leadership election high David Cunliffe was enjoying, has burned out. No matter, it was always going to. I predicted as much although I have to admit being wrong on the timing (I thought the numbers would remain solid until the lead up to Christmas) but right in principle: the swell of support for Labour was shallow, only a temporary side affect of a fresh presence and frequent media attention. See the news story about the poll here.

This is not to say that Cunliffe has failed however, his greatest risk was the thin bubble of support not bursting until much later, for then he would not have the luxury of time to build a sturdy base of support before the next election. John Key is in a strong position, this cannot be contradicted, and he now has a strengthening economy and returning expat population to add weight to his bid for a third term.

What this does for Key is cement his position as National Party Leader until after the general election. Judith Collins in positioning herself to succeed him, but she won't stage a coup this term. In fact she will likely wait until Key goes of his own accord, then step in with the support of the 2008 and 2011 intake of National MPs

This should not concern the leftists, because David Cunliffe is at his best when his back is up against the wall. It's how he rebuilt his profile after Shearer demoted him, it is the nature of strong leaders. Helen Clark in 1996, Tony Blair in the lead up to the campaign in Kosovo. Achievements have to be taken though struggle and effort, and that is what Cunliffe is good at. Now he has the time and the opportunity. You want people to get out and vote? Then tell them you are going to save them from a disastrous National majority government, the likes of which no seen under MMP. Cunliffe will do this with his characteristic evangelical flair. 

Zero Dark Thirty

I finally got around to sitting down and watching Kathryn Bigalow's tale of the decade long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden. While just as uncomfortable in parts as I expected it to be, this film is utterly captivating. Having not yet seen the Hurt Locker (I know, I know) I don't have a point of reference from which to hang an in depth analysis, but I shall do my best in a few words. There is no romance, nor sex to give relief from the gritty and superbly realistic scenes of, Jessica Chastain gives a phenomenal performance. Charged by some as supporting torture, by others as criticizing the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of the Bush-era, Zero Dark Thirty does not actually do either of these things. Rather, it shows the torture and water-boarding as realistically as possible, showing too the toll it takes on the perpetrators, and the reliability of information gleaned from such means.

Bigalow avoided taking any particular stance with her film, few subjects are as mired in controversy and it would have been easy to get lost in political propaganda. The relentless search for Bin Laden needs no justification beyond that he was still managing Al-Qeada, and since 9/11 they had attacked Spain, Bali, London, New York. His location inside Pakistan and the need for the United States to engage in a covert operation without the prior knowledge of the corrupt Pakistani government narrowed the options of the team that went in and killed the terrorist. In a more perfect world I confess I would like to have seen him captured and put on trial, but that simply was not possible. He had to die. The film treats this extremely well by portraying it as a hard won end in a decade long enterprize that brought neither joy nor sadness. Chastain is critical to making this feel genuine, and she does with great aplomb. 

I really can say no more except that Zero Dark Thirty is an indispensable film. It is as crucial to the story of the war on terror as Schindler's List is to those studying the holocaust. Its remarkable to have lived through the post 9/11 period and now have a bookend like Zero Dark Thirty to conclude the epoch.  

The assault scene is gripping and spectacular.

Kick-Ass 2: Review of Sad Spoils

2010 delivered a stunning dash of originality with Kick-Ass, a fully realized comic book adaption that floated above the sea of the washed up cinematic failures, despite the existence of a fair number of narrative cliches and archetypal traps. It did so because it featured charismatic and memorable characters, a plot grounded in believable motivation, startling emotional depth, and it had the feel as if the film itself was ironically winking at you. Kick-Ass 2 while not sinking in the washed up sea, was content to float in it.

The main problem (though not the only one) was that the concept was misconceived. The original sin was to not make it clear at the outset that it was either Hit-Girl, or Kick-Ass's story. Jeff Wadlow endeavored to do both and therin lies the root of the problem. Hit-Girl stole the previous film, and Hit-Girl was who audiences wanted to see. The studio knew that and that is why they engaged in their misjudged fiddling with the screenplay, to try to lessen Hit-Girl's abrasiveness and take her on a journey through stereotypical high school girlhood. The reason ostensibly was to better reflect her older age. But that's not what we wanted. We fell for the Hit-Girl who puts a blade through a thugs chest and then addresses the four remaining thugs as 'cunts'. Fortunately we were not entirely deprived of the old Hit-Girl and Chloe Moretz is as brilliant as ever in her fight sequences. She even did her best with the banality of the material she was given in the conformity storyline.

The issue with that particular narrative soiree is that the idea of debutante style popular girls running the social gaol of high school, is a fiction to most people. I have never met an inmate of an American high school who says that a similar state of affairs exists at their institution. This is important because in holding up a stereotype for Ht-Girl/Mindy Mcreedy to conform to and ultimately reject, weakens the strength of her character, and it reduces all supporting characters around her to a single dimension. We like Hit-Girl because she is so radically different from us. By rejecting a place in a construct mired in cliche, she makes the same choice we would (that of refusing to conform) and becomes more similar. Thus she looses some of her power.

In basic terms the difference between Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl is the same as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. As viewers we really want to be Han, but we feel more like Luke. We may not want to be Hit-Girl in quite the same way, but she is the bad-ass we admire. Kick-Ass is who we are.

Compounding the difficulties of the aforementioned story is that it plays out in tandem with the character development of Dave Lizuski aka Kick-Ass. First of all he is far less interesting than Hit-Girl, secondly his power as a character is he reflects us the viewers. He never really had a motivation to don the wet-suit and mask beyond that he was tired of petty thugs mugging with impunity, and the vague frustration that no-one before had tried to become a super hero. The makers of this film (I am not sure whether to accuse director Jeff Wadlow since the studio did interfere with calamitous results) decided it would make sense to give him one. Not content with this they chose to kill off his father to achieve a Bruce Wayne style dedication to the punishment of crime. As buttock-clenchingly cliched as this is, it serves to distance the audience from its ambassador, and waste the versatile talents of actor Garrett M. Brown. The abbreviated nature of his death deprived it of much of the emotional impact the film desperately needed. Nicholas Cage's death scene as Big-Daddy in Kick-Ass pulled this off superbly, and Chloe Moretz desperate fight in the strobe light as Big-Daddy burned was an absolutely stunning piece of cinema.

With the character development mishandled the final confrontation felt contrived, entertaining though it was. Again Moretz deserves high praise for her physical performance, Aaron Tailor-Johnson was also much more convincing in the physicality of his role. He clearly worked very hard to get into shape, and the lean, tough shape his character suggests. All the performers were exemplary, it is a very great pity that they were served with such drivel and expected to exceed the success of the first film. I hope I do not convince anyone to not see the film who otherwise would (it seems a trifle arrogant to believe I ever could do that), it is very entertaining and the action is of a high standard. Just don't expect the glory that was 2010 Kick-Ass, as we now know that really was one of a kind.

Post Script: On the off chance that a Universal executive reads this, if you do greenlight a sequel please for the love of all that is holy make it focus on Hit-Girl! That's the movie we wanted, with as many cuss words as possible.

Laws opines, I overturn.

I aimed to be in bed early, alas reading the latest column by Michael Laws entitled Journalists can't handle the truth, compelled me to continue to fight Morpheus and write a terse riposte. Laws opinion piece can be found here.

First of all I have to point out that even if Michael Laws is of average intelligence, he is significantly challenged in the business of cobbling together a clear argument. How someone so spectacularly stupid can be a featured columnist for the Sunday Star-Times vindicates my low opinion of both. He begins with a whine about how we as voters do not have faith in the leaders we elect. He says this is "One of the great dichotomies of democracy". Well, to begin with it is not a dichotomy its a paradox. As is his assumption that we avidly consume the news while maintaining a grudge against the media. Again this is a vague paradox, not a dichotomy.

The central fallacy of Laws's snotty piece is his haughty pronouncement that the job of journalists is to "... relay the facts and let us make up our own minds". Journalists are not courtroom stenographers, and no piece of information in public life can reach the ears (or eyes) of the humble voter without some degree of spin and prior interpretation. It is simply erroneous to cry havoc over a journalist seizing upon a piece of data and using it as part of an argument. In the squalid world of Laws's feeble imagination there would be nothing readable, and every tedious article of mindless fact relay would be an insult to most of the public who posses the fortitude to sort through fact and opinion, reaching conclusions on their own anyway.

Its very surprising that two terms as an MP, a smattering of years as an incompetent mayor, and his constant vitriolic mouthing off on radio has left Michael Laws with no appreciation of the role of the media. As with anyone who gets their botox in a clump over an incidence of hypocrisy, Laws forgets that everyone is hypocritical, and we all manage to maintain two sets of books while continuing to operate without the obvious effects of cognitive dissonance.

As for Laws clumsy attempt at pumping up his deflated article by referencing George Orwell's Animal Farm, see if you, dear reader can make heads or tails of it, I cannot see his point. It is outrageous to me that he goes after journalism in this half-baked fashion, since I (or anyone else) could defend it with ease if his attack was more coherent. Just don't dare mischaracterise the profession, as it is one I hope to join it just pisses me off.

ALP No Roadmap For NZ Labour

With the inevitable switch around of Australian Prime Ministers in June, the movement to oust NZ Labour leader David Shearer before the 2014 election, may to some extent face renewal. The reasons are obvious, the latest poll results show a dismally flattened Labour caucus looking forward to another term in the airy cold of political irrelevance. Further, the Australian Labor Party under Kevin Rudd (who looks exactly the same as if the Julia interregnum never happened) is enjoying a period in the sun. The election date has been set for September 7 and it looks likely that the government will claw its way back to the cabinet table.
         
However it is vitally important to sustain in the mind the following crucial differences. The pressure on an under-performing government to shed its dead weight in order to keep itself in office, is unequivocally greater than the pressure on an opposition party to change its face and snatch the government benches. From atop the mountain the risk and fear of falling is fundamentally stronger than similar fears at base camp.
         
Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard are not the same fruit as David Shearer and David Cunliffe. The relationship between Rudd and Gillard was close, perhaps not in terms of trust, but close nonetheless. They took Labor to victory in 2007 and were in government as leader and deputy until Brutus's blade appeared in Julia's hand. Both have been elected Prime Minister in their own right, in 2007 and 2010 respectively. Shearer and Cunliffe have never enjoyed a close working relationship, their political positions have clear differences, and neither have led Labour to a general election. This diminishes the effectiveness of taking an Australian example to predict developments in New Zealand politics.
         
Where does this leave us? Here is my prediction as it stands at the present point. David Shearer will not be toppled this year, he remains a greater force than Cunliffe (who's supporters I predict will abandon him soon after he takes the job), and needs to face the test of an election. Labour will loose. It remains half smarmy inexperience, half the sour dregs from the last government. The stars of the Clark era played themselves out of parliament, because they were smarter than the pilot fish left behind. This incarnation of Labour can not, and should not govern. The Key government will scrape through along with their support parties to a slim majority, the cracks appearing now will open into fissures and there will be plenty to make fun of in the next term. I don't count on John Key remaining for the whole term, and I expect a mess of political corpses at the end. In the meantime Labour's ghosts (Mallard, Goff, King, O'Conner, Jones, Dyson, Cunliffe) should be exorcised, their brand renewed, and a proper leader elected. Then they will truly be a government-in-waiting.

A Green Riposte

After Green Party co-leader Russel Norman posted a qualification of his comparison of John Key and Robert Muldoon on his blog, I thought I would briefly offer some rebuttal. You can access Norman's blog here.

The way Russel Norman argues in favor of the broader comparison is by applying three categories: concentration and abuse of power, rigidity against change, and overall divisiveness. I will try to be terse, here we go:

Concentration and abuse of power.

The essence of Norman’s criticism is that John Key is sidelining Parliamentary process by putting it into urgency numerous times to pass legislation that negatively impacts the rights of citizens. I cannot and do not argue with this point and I think that the Prime Minister has relied on this particular lever of power far too often.

I concur with Dr Norman’s criticism that the temporary shutdown of local democracy in Canterbury and empowerment of the Minister in charge to effectively change local law in isolation, while the people continue to pay rates without representation.  The GCSB tightening has also taken a nibble at the proverbial pie of liberty, as has the pernicious outlawing of protest on the high seas. This raises my hackles, as it should others.

But John Key and the government have also taken the devolutionary measure of establishing the Auckland Super City, and are currently clashing with Len Brown over transport/infrastructure policy. If we view power as being zero-sum, John Key has certainly lost some power. This is not what Muldoonism is made of. So while I agree that the PM has abused his power, I cannot let the assertion be uncontested that there has been an unusual concentration of power.

Rigidity against Change.

Despite the problems found in asset sales, John Key is refusing to budge. I find this a puzzling accusation, because it requires acceptance of the proposition that campaign pledges of the victorious party in an election, should be abandoned because of a few bumps in the road, or a petition so far insufficient to trigger a referendum. It is my view that the opposition parties have been whipping a horse so long dead, that not even the knackers would take it.

On the environment John Key and his cohort are definitely rigid, even backward in their policies. But again the charge of rigidity as a broad definition of the government is misapplied if it is to be wholly regarded (as I believe Russel Norman intends) as a negative attribute.     

Divisiveness.

On the point of John Key’s divisiveness, Russel Norman is most feeble. He argues that National began in 2008 on a stance of greater unity, with deals with the Maori Party, and the Greens (an understanding, not a confidence agreement). The charge that a government past the median of their second term is unusually divisive is to take a blindfolded reading of recent history. It is the nature of governments that they become less cooperative as time goes on. Helen Clark’s labour-progressive coalition government in 2005 was a far cry from the labour-alliance coalition in 1999.  The longer the Bolger/Shipley ministry stayed in office the more fractured and discordant it became. This pattern is the norm.

The Prime Minister and the right wing commentators who have disgustingly suggested that Russel Norman shut up because he is a migrant is, as he quite rightly puts, worthy of Muldoon. But that is the only thing that is. 

Tedious Smearing, the Greens appear Yellow

Last week the co-leader of the New Zealand Parliamentary Green Party Dr Russel Norman, struck out at Prime Minister John Key and the National-led Government. I don't want to unintentionally misrepresent myself when I say that his attack was overwhelmingly dull and predictable. Political attacks of this sort and at this point in the electoral cycle are the bread and butter of opposition politics; the proverbial sword is unsheathed from now until the election. It was annoying to wait so long. But here after all the anticipation the attack by Dr Norman was uncharacteristically primitive, and such a disappointment.

The most soporific part was his invocation of the worn cliche that is comparing the current Prime Minister to the notoriously obstinate Sir Robert Muldoon. A similar comparison was drawn between Key's predecessor Helen Clark and Muldoon at about this time in her tenure (and continuing with increasing frequency until her defeat). This has become the cliche that stupid people can draw and respond to. Rather like comparing Margaret Thatcher to Caligula, or arguing in favour of the 'Presidentialisation' of Tony Blair. It is unlikely that Norman was after the National voter with his attack, nor was he going for any more of Labour's tepid support. His saccharine praises for David Shearer tell that much. He was merely appealing to his base and I argue that the fuel he used is cheap; his base easily satiated, and the Greens less formidable than they appeared earlier this year.

The reason the comparison with Sir Robert Muldoon is an unhelpful cliche, is that he was a Prime Minister with a vast array of buttons and leavers, to control the political system and the country. New Zealand had a statist face completely unrecognizable next to the face it wears today. Quite a few of the buttons and leavers Muldoon had at his disposal just don't work any more, many are absent altogether. Reliance on the picture of government thirty years ago is to critically misread the present narrative of politics. If a misapplication of the narrative informs the attack designated to appeal to the base, then both the attacker and the base are walking in the sunny transience of their own fantasy.

The Iron Fault

Margaret Thatcher prided herself on her resolute consistency, a lady not for turning, a conviction politician with no time for consensus politics. In the realm of cabinet government, where authority is drawn from a majority in parliament, the ability of a leader to persuade those around them is of paramount importance. As Prime Minister one can get away with a certain amount of unilateral decision making, especially when it is junior ministers who disagree with you, but the ability of a leader to overrule senior ministers (especially the Chancellor of the Exchequer) has a short shelf life.
     If the conclusion above is correct then how then did Margaret Thatcher remain in power for so long? The answer lies in one of the essential components of the Westminster system, a credible alternative government-in-waiting in opposition. After Callaghan's shaky minority Labour government fell in 1979, the party languished in fractious opposition for far too long. It put off modernization and remained committed to unpalatable socialism until Tony Blair re-branded it as New Labour after he took the leadership in 1994. Faced with such a jaundiced opposition the Falklands war gave Margaret Thatcher all she needed to win the 1983 and 1987 elections. She said after leaving the Commons that she intended to contest the 1992 election and retire about two years after that, which would have extended her tenure to nearly sixteen years. For someone who did not learn of the importance of persuasion and maintaining key supporters, this seems like a nonsensical ambition.
     It is painfully obvious to all who study Westminster politics that the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer can make or break the government. The struggle between Blair and Brown has become almost legendary, in New Zealand the falling out between David Lange and Roger Douglas sunk the fourth Labour government. Margaret Thatcher battled her Chancellor Nigel Lawson over joining the ERM and he eventually resigned in 1989. That event did not destroy her but it did deepen divisions within the Tory party and should have triggered a need for caution and rebuilding on the part of the Prime Minister. But she was so self-assured, so egotistical that she continued much as she had, patronizing cabinet colleagues and taking an increasingly hard line against Europe.       
     Geoffrey Howe was her first Chancellor, and longtime deputy Prime Minister, a senior and extremely respected member of the Tory party. He opposed her on European policy but for a long time remained in her government, bound by loyalty and a wish to get other work done. Margaret Thatcher could not persuade him that European federation was something to be resisted, and she could not change her mind, the lady's not for turning after all. Howe resigned on the 1st of November 1990 and delivered a speech from  the backbenches on the 13th that fatally weakened Margaret Thatcher, providing the opportunity for Michael Heseltine to challenge her for the leadership. The conclusion to be drawn from this is obstinacy is damaging. Die hard principle is unsustainable as politics requires the give and take of war, in order to win a battle here, one may have to sustain a loss there. Never say never. Thatcher's downfall was only ever going to happen like it did because politics is ruthlessly Darwinian, if you threaten the system it will try to eliminate you. Thatcher forgot that.

Farewell Baroness: Mourn or Shut-up

It was a sad moment when I learnt of Margaret Thatcher's death last week, sadder still when the leftist cynics from the backwaters of British obscurity cheerfully burned old newspaper clippings they had been saving since 1982, and anti-west whores like George Galloway babbled of their glee and made a fuss about the cancellation of this weeks Prime Minister's questions to make way for the funeral.

I can think of no word more appropriate than pathetic to describe the mewlings of such stuffy grudge holders. This is not to minimize the impact of Thatcherism on Britain's working class, but for these people to maintain such vehement outspoken loathing twenty two and a half years after the Iron Lady strode out of No. 10, is for them to convict themselves of a kind of stubborn selfishness that only exists in the developed world. How marvelous that Britain maintains a level of condition in society that allows people to remain off their rag about a leader after almost three decades, without sacrificing time and energy to put food on the table, or beer in their jugs. This perhaps gets at the core of their grumpy position, Thatcherism worked and Britain got richer and more powerful. It came at the expense of coal miners and industry north of London, the curmudgeons received the pain, for the gain of society as a whole. It is pathetic that these people do not accept their selfless suffering and move on, instead they judge it appropriate to disrupt and darken the farewell of an old woman who spent her life trying to make life in the UK better.

I have not written anything since the death of Margaret Thatcher. This wasn't by design or because I felt obliged to observe a mourning period and neither shave nor pick up a pen, I simply didn't feel I had anything of value to say. Quite apart from politics (I have given up trying to define my own political view) I admired Margaret Thatcher in a very general way. I was born in the final months of her Prime Ministership and I grew up in the Blair era. Like Tony Blair I suppose I have tremendous respect for Thatcher, her courage, and her personality (I suppose I am mirroring her by staying up most of the night to continue working with a scotch and soda by my side). I am not of the cohort who proclaim her as the last conviction politician, that being a glimpse of the pathetic fallacy by which people reduce history to myth-making. To me she is not at all superhuman, her success in politics being as much to do with other people as herself. At the end she was a shadowy figure, reduced by age and impediment to a cold and lonely place in retirement. The conceited curmudgeon's would not allow her to outlive the divisiveness of her government, it is my fervent hope that they allow the funeral the respect that they refuse to extend to the Iron Lady, and either mourn or shut-up.

A dry, boring, incompetent Speaker of the House

Since the installation of the Hon David Carter as Speaker of the House of Representatives, I have had a chance to listen, read, and consider his level of competence in the role. He succeeded Dr the Right Honorable Lockwood Smith (yes he really did insist on doctor coming before Rt Hon) and as many Parliament watchers expressed at the time, the shoes to be filled were large. The former Speaker chaired the house with humor balanced by a patriarchal piety. The crimson stripes on his black robes and his imposing stature gave him the ability to be intimidating without the need fore fire and brimstone bellowing. Furthermore he made a definite effort to push Ministers for an answer, he took standing orders seriously, and this was to the benefit of question time.

Speaker Carter on the other hand is dry as the last summer, catastrophically boring, with a selective ear  discerning statements that bear little resemblance to what is reflected in the hansard. Concerning standing orders and the rules of the house he has an almost bottomless deficit, the extent to which he pushes for answers is allowing the question to be repeated. Addressing questions rather than answering them seems to be the way now. He has a comic fear of disturbance, cutting off members when they start to say something witty, something Lockwood allowed periodically knowing it was better if the house lets of steam once in a while.

It may be to the governments benefit that the new Speaker is such a dunce, even though for the moment the Prime Minister can run rings around David Shearer and the uncomfortably flat Labour party. The rest of his government is taking hits, Phil Goff thoroughly embarrassed Chester Burrows who was answering on behalf of the Police Minister, about the closing of several Auckland stations. While Key is popular (and he is likely to remain so until the election) and the Opposition Leader is so verbally strained, question time is likely to be unremarkable. But once the inevitable dissatisfaction becomes evident to pollsters, the Prime Minister will be glad to have a Speaker who won't push him to take account, and answer questions.

Review of Christopher Hitchens 'Mortality'.

On December 15, 2011 renowned intellectual and writer Christopher Hitchens died in Houston, yet another among millions to succumb to "a vulgar little tumor", as he liked to characterize his particular malignancy.
Stage four oesophageal cancer diagnosed is June 2010 as he was in the cut and thrust of promoting Hitch-22, his best selling memoir. The Vanity Fair columns he penned in the hope of demystifying 'the big C', were collected into a short volume Mortality which had been the intention of Hitchens to be considerably longer, but which he did not see completed. The resulting work is a fascinating look at the process of "livingly dying", in his words. An intellectual journey into the banal machinations of terminal illness, the erudite mind struggling to express itself through ossified vocal cords, and numb fingers.

Hitchens sought to demystify cancer, or at least reduce its power to inspire terror in would be sufferers, and solipsism in those it infects. He certainly spared the reader no illusion, in his writing the anxiety is palpable, there is no attempt at dressing up or playing with the guilt of the healthy. He trashes the late Randy Pausch for taking advantage in this way in his book and film The Last Lecture. Terminal illness is not something to make a pious play out of, and in communicating his gnawing fear at becoming boring, his frustration at being unable to summon the familiar boom of his resonant voice. He also writes of the curious connection he feels with the language of the medical staff, and his famous experience of torture (he wanted to know whether waterboarding was torture and after going through it at the hands of former navy seals, he admitted it most certainly was).

The issue of religion and his staunch abhorrence of it was certainly touched upon in the first part of the book. Any suggestion of a death bed conversion was eviscerated by his argument that it makes absolutely no logical sense to say to someone that since they are in the grips of an immanent demise they might want to renege on the values and principles of a lifetime. To the outspoken evangelists who said they were praying for him, he wondered: "Praying for what?" To the thousands of ardent believers who organised a prayer day, he extended his blessing insofar as "pray if it makes you happy". In one chapter he fully ridicules the practice of intercessory prayer, "please do not trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries."

Through all, Christopher Hitchens held no personal illusions about his illness. He knew precisely why he had been afflicted by this particular malignancy, a redoubtable constitution that enabled him to consume immense quantities of alcohol, and maintain a heavy smoking habit. Burning the candle at both ends to produce a "lovely light" and fuel the conversation and writing that made the Hitch, well the Hitch. Holding that all of life is indeed a wager, Hitchens decided to wager on this particular bit, and the cancer which killed him at 62, also killed his father at the rather more ripened age of 79. Dismissing questions of "why me" as silly and self-evidently nonsensical to an intellectual, Mortality avoids the pit of solipsism as much as it reaches the crest of being a beautiful final conversation with an author who writes in a way that the reader feels personally addressed.

The final part before the loving afterword by Hitchens wife Carol Blue, contains a revealing yet fragmented spluttering of sentences and paragraphs Christopher Hitchens left unfinished before his passing. They indicate through the haze of tubes and medications the razor-blade mind of the Hitch remained sharp to the very end. Through this I feel that if my life is not suddenly blown out before I come to terms with the situation, and I am taken by paramedic ambassadors across the border from the country of the well to the stark frontier of the land of malady, as Hitchens wrote in his first column about his illness, I at least have a kind of guide. Not specifically a travel book telling me where to stop,  eat, and sleep; but rather an example of how to approach the ultimate frontier. Christopher Hitchens was not so much concerned with dying with dignity, but dying livingly, a lesson as we both live and die ourselves.  

A Plague on all three Houses.

On the first of this month the feared budget sequester came into effect after urgent negotiations to solve the debt crisis failed. I will not pretend to possess any expertise in the United States budget system, nor do I have much interest in the fine details of economics. My interest is in the political science of the matter, and as such I will limit my comments to that theater.

Since his inauguration the President's approval rating has fallen to 43 percent, he is weakened by his inability to force congressional republicans to a deal before March 1st. Likewise the Republicans are facing an angry public, around 10 percent more people identify with the Democratic party which is polling better in the lead up to next years mid-term elections. But overall the public is not happy with the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the White House. This is a plague on all three houses, and it is my opinion that because that is the case there is no way either of the players can win the public relations battle. President Obama can conceivably bet the farm if he wants, in budget negotiations he has the ability to refuse to agree to the whims of Speaker Boehner even if it means shutting down the federal government. It happened under Clinton, and what we know is that situation is politically unwinnable too. Except Obama never has to campaign for election again. Speaker Boehner and the house have that coming next year.

So the President can afford to be unpopular. In a game where everyone loses the player with nothing to lose is king. The sequester is costing at least 29000 jobs from the Defense department, as everyone who watches US politics there is no way to spin the constricting of the military in a way that favors congress. The Commander in Chief wins a small part of the PR battle here although I am quite sure he is more concerned with the tension in North Korea, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Maintaining his strategic objectives with fewer resources at his disposal.

Without wanting to be held to prediction since I will probably have to adjust it as early as next week, I would say that it is highly likely that the President will outmaneuver his opponents and attain a result closer to his desires. But this is going to be the key fight that will define this term, he will either come out of this weak, or very strong indeed. If the latter proves to be the case it can be assumed that many boxes of his agenda will be ticked by the time he leaves office in 2016.

So it is a plague on all three houses, but one of them has four years of immunity. Its time for US politics to get tough, and get working.

Blind to Chavez

Hugo Chavez stood and quite rightfully falls on principle. He fought in his estimation for the good of the people, but he eroded their electoral voice and withdrew from protecting his people from crime.

He was outspoken against the United States of America, fueling his populism and gaining sympathy from a world suspicious of US power. But if this same world, or rather the people in it, allow his charismatic leadership to overshadow and erase the record of his sinister abuses of power, they then allow themselves to be utterly morally compromised.

Chavez stopped exporting oil to the US which sparked a feud with the Bush Administration and led to their ridiculously heavy handed interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela, to create fertile conditions for a coup to remove President Chavez. This was almost successful in 2002 when massive protests allowed Pedro Carmona to take power for three days before a lack of support brought Hugo Chavez back to the presidency. The culpability of the Bush Administration is clear in the aftermath, with skewed reporting of events revealed in the American press, and Pedro Carmona escaped house arrest and fled to Florida. There are reports of him meeting with Colin Powell at the end of 2002.

The interference of the United States of America is as disgusting now as it was during the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs. It is arrogant and Chavez was quite right to call it imperialism. But after the failed coup he dramatically expanded the military and instead of negotiating with the USA he favored Russia, Syria, Gaddafi's Libya, and Castro's Cuba. A cult of personality and electoral manipulation characterized his later years in power. It was announced today of the former president will be embalmed and put on display "so the people always have him." This puts him in the same league as Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Kim il-Sung, and (ridiculously) Eva Perone. Not a friendly club to democracy and freedom. 

Hugo Chavez was a critic of US imperialism and stood up against it because he could afford to do so, not something many other states can do. But he must be seen as the tyrant he was or else we convict ourselves of gross moral relativism and unworthy of the democratic systems we live under. Good luck to the embalmers of Chavez, the'll sure need a lot of formaldehyde to prevent the last bits of him from rotting.  

Lebanon: A dogged position

It is quite a collection of demoralizing and dismal failures that make up the recent history of Lebanon. An intensely sectarian country, which still seems bleary eyed from the civil war that ravaged it from 1975 till 1990. Numerous arbitrary killings and arrests, the disappearance of at least one political figure, reports of the government engaging in torture, which is not even prohibited by law.

The government cannot even claim to control all the territory. Armed groups remain active despite two UN security council resolutions requesting the government to forcibly disband them, including Hizbollah which lobs the occasional missile into Israel. Sunni and Shia authorities claim significant influence, clashing with violent effect. Religious courts hold authority over personal law, like marriage. They have recently focused on watering down a law protecting women from domestic abuse. Such a law they fear would jeopardize their position, as it would all Lebanese men, since to them sharia protects women sufficiently, including a husband's basic right to rape his wife. All the better to force her into an endless succession of pregnancies to make it as hard as possible for women to find the courage to leave their abusive spouses. 

A few women have nonetheless managed to leave, with the help of NGOs like Kafa (Enough) who have helped women trapped in chronically abusive marriages divorce their husbands and leave. But it is rare for a woman to successfully free herself. If the shock of her parents and reality of heaving behind their children and being vilified by those around her is not sufficient to scare her into staying put, the husband may murder her. Ar least 15 women are known to be murdered each year by their spouses.

The women are fighting back, there were significant protests on the streets of Beirut recently, women taking their anger into the public domain, challenging Judges who claim a husband has exclusive rights to his wife's body whenever he sees fit, regardless of her protestations. Still the law protecting woman has been reduced to severely that is will not be worth the paper it is written on, and certainly not worthy of the blood of the women who are suffering under the unmerciful Sharia.

This should shock western society, who should never be reluctant to lend a hand to liberate such backward, disgusting societies. We also need to guard against the intolerable threat posed by fundamentalism, masquerading as multiculturalism. The former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, once advocated in a speech giving the Muslim community in Britain the right to practice Sharia among themselves. This is a dangerous and philistine attack on civil society, where everyone must obey the same laws. Of course the old Welsh sheep can rattle on about accepting Sharia on the basis of multiculturalism, and extremist Muslims can keep demanding that "their" women in western countries wear the full chadri form of the burqa (where only the woman's eyes may be seen), but we must also speak up in rebuttal. Freedom of speech works both ways, it has to otherwise the entire doctrine is meaningless. Far to often the inhabitants of civil societies fail to make themselves heard, and for the sake of wanting to appear progressive and multicultural they allow the prelates who enslave women and castrate enlightenment values to gain an advantage.

But where women thrive and empower, poverty and disadvantage for all in society diminishes. Therefore as the women of Lebanon fight bitterly for their rights, and little by little ground is yielded to them, the country will begin to strengthen and prosper. It is with this in mind that we can afford to be a little optimistic when contemplating the nations of blood and sand. Any chance you get dear reader, to support the women campaigning in Lebanon for the right not to be raped, I implore you to seize it.  

Smarty Pants John Key, Parata's his pet

I thought for this post I might swap the endlessly frustrating depths of international issues, and instead transverse into the parochial soiree of New Zealand politics. There has been a long standing feud between the public and the Minister for Education Hekia Parata. Upon taking her post in 2011 she got off entirely on the wrong foot by proposing to increase class sizes in schools. This is something of a pressure point for kiwi parents who argue that smaller classes are more academically successful. This sentiment was shared by the Prime Minister who gave a quote some years back to that effect. The opposition found the quote, embarrassed the government, and Hekia Parata reneged on her proposal.

This was not the last of Parata's woes, the Novopay system introduced to cover teachers wages was found to be riddled with holes, thousands of teachers being paid late if at all. Hekia Parata became the most unpopular minister in the government. It was a surprise to many then when she kept her job after Prime Minister Key's recent cabinet reshuffle. Crack minister Steven Joyce was given the task of fixing Novopay, making some wonder why Parata was still in her post at all, when others were dealing with her problems.

This dear reader leads us to the here and now. Today's copy of the Dominion Post contains the results of a Fairfax Media-Ipsos poll, showing that 60 percent of the public believe the education minister should have been relieved of her post. The number is 70 percent in Canterbury where Parata just announced the closure or merger of nearly 20 schools. So why is she still in her post? This is a question the media seems unable to answer, an indication that imagination and guile have bereft our dear print media.

The reason is abundantly clear, it is smarty pants John Key. Hekia Parata could easily be fed to the public, but more than a year away from the next election there would be no tangible benefit. The support for the government is still high, Parata's inept conduct is reflecting on her, she is not yet radioactive as they love to say, toxic to the government. So it pays to have her continue, have Joyce clean up the big messes, while further mistakes are absorbed by the sand bag minister. Then Mr Key knows that when his government starts really slipping, and the howling public demands cabinet flesh, he can feed them Hekia Parata. She is now a buffer-minister, a shield for use further down the track.

It is cunning of the Prime Minister, and also what one would expect of the "smiling assassin" from Merrill Lynch. It is also indicative of what sets the Prime Minister apart from his counterpart on the opposition benches, he is smarter and more of a consummate politician than David Shearer will ever be. 

For whom the gun fires

At this still rather early juncture of the year, the headline issue above economic woe, civil strife in the middle east, and runaway Popes, is guns.

We in the non-American slice of the western world can not fathom how a country as powerful and proud as the United States of America, can possibly allow itself to be ravaged by gun violence and stand idly by while more guns are supplied to any who seek them. It is an incomprehensible tragedy that of the total amount of children killed in the 23 wealthiest countries in the world, 87% of them are American. It is a sick and twisted argument that the answer to bad guys having guns is to have good guys packing too. It is an argument divorced from reality, as former space shuttle commander Mark Kelly (husband of the former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head in Tucson, Arizona in 2011) reported recently in an interview with Diane Sawyer, there was a "good guy" with a gun in the Tucson car park that day. He almost killed the person who took down the murderer. 

It is arguments that do not meet common sense, that the opponents of gun control hide behind. The same people who would claim that proponents of gun control hate guns, by definition. This is demonstrably not so, as both Giffords and Kelly remain proud gun owners. President Obama has been reported to shoot skeet to relax at Camp David. It is not inconceivable that someone can be for guns, and in favor of sensible gun laws. Holding both opinions does not condemn anyone to untenable hypocrisy. One's head will not automatically explode, although in the USA one might expect it to fall prey to a shattering bullet. Nearly twenty thousand people experienced that from 2010-2011.

Overall crime has decreased in the United States, as it has elsewhere in the west. Gun crime too has decreased. But major mass shootings are on the rise, whether it be in Tucson, a Colorado movie theater, or an elementary school in Connecticut. In response to these shootings a paranoid population rushes to arm itself, fueling greater profits for manufacturers (the gun industry was worth $31 billion in 2011) and higher stakes overall. The decline of crime including gun crime since the 1990s must not be taken for granted. 270-300 million guns in the country raises the risk of the crime trend reversing; 62% of online gun retailers reporting they probably could not pass a background check, demonstrates that the flood gates have opened and guns are more readily available than ever before. 

The tinderbox is stocked and the fuse lit. It has not yet gone off, but we are running out of time to deactivate it. President Obama is in his most powerful position after the first State of the Union address of his second term. He clearly intends to pursue gun legislation this year, but by the end of the next year he will already start lamely quacking. If he can't make gun control happen this year, he never will. In the meantime schools will become more like fortresses or prisons, everyone will have a gun and no-one will be safe.

The Popeless Breath

By Joe Boon

At eight o’clock on the evening of the 28th of February, the holy see becomes vacant and the ossified Pope Benedict XVI discards his white robes and dons his old dusty crimson as Cardinal Ratzinger. After an indeterminate breath of time (there won’t be the usual mourning) the Cardinals under the age of eighty will cloister themselves in a historic conclave to set about electing the 266th bishop of Rome.

They are not by any stretch spoilt for choice. The Catholic Church is at a dire crossroads, crumbling under the weight of conservatism delaying a long postponed rendezvous with the modern world, shamed by its disgusting compliance in the revelations of clergy raping and molesting children, and eroded by the intolerant stubbornness of its position on female priests and married clergy, while poaching the married Anglican priests to try to maintain its pathetically waning priesthood. The resignation of the pontiff (and since the last three have been inaugurated rather than crowned, I shall not employ the term abdication) presents a golden opportunity to turn the ship around and steer it to calmer and altogether more ecumenical waters. 

The Catholic Church claims 1.2 billion followers, a figure presumably reached by comparing baptismal records. The actual number of practicing Catholics therefore is much smaller, nonetheless the true figure is significant and the Church is extremely influential. The expanding congregations in Africa, South America, and Asia indicates that in the developing world the Church hold immense sway, its capacity to improve the lot of hundreds of millions is very high indeed. However, the Church has and is poisoning this very capacity by refusing to budge on issues like sexuality, contraception, the empowerment of women, and maintaining a supercilious outlook on other religions, thereby hurting the chances of religious cooperation. That is the case for a new direction, possibly a third Vatican council to redefine the role of the priest and the place of women, among a host of other issues.

It would not be unheard of or even unprecedented for the Church to alter its doctrines, it did so with the nauseating belief in limbo as “a place on the edge of hell” for unbaptised children killed in infancy. This was repudiated in 1992 when the church decided that although the only way to enter the kingdom of heaven is to have first been baptised, God is not bound by his own sacraments and may save them if he wishes. Since the logic that God is not bound by his own sacraments and therefore presumably his own statements, the Church could validate the reversal of almost any doctrine. It could recognise homosexuality on the grounds that Jesus preached the golden rule of love thy neighbor as thyself, therefore since God passes the final judgement, the Church could ignore the ugly scribblings of Leviticus and still wholeheartedly embrace the teachings of Christ, on whom the Church is based. It certainly would not be beyond the pale to do so, the rules for selling one’s daughter into slavery are wisely ignored, as are the godly warnings about idols (where would the church be without the veneration of saints, and the rich history of religious iconography).

No, there is no valid excuse for holding back on drastic reform. However, after nearly 35 years of ardent conservatism in the holy see, the college of cardinals has been bled dry of liberals and progressives. That brings the shortcomings of the Church’s capacity to produce a reformist pope into grave doubt. Change may be forced upon the succeeding pontiff, for without it the Catholic Church can only expect fewer ordinations, more empty pews, and a public that is after their scandalous clergy. Individual parishes and diocese must foster grassroots demand for reform, and not leave it to an empty chasuble Vicar of Christ. 

This is an exciting time to be looking on the Catholic Church from the point of view of a secular humanist. While it is true that I favour the decline of faith and hope that more people will shake off the mind forged manacles of religious belief, I see the potential good the Church can do with its great power and influence. This popeless breath could be the most important moment for the Church this century, I sincerely hope the chance is grasped by the new pope.