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.