Tangled up in blue-chips

Tangled up in blue-chips
Dylan's deal with Starbucks should not surprise us

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1517624,00.html

Mike Marqusee

Thursday June 30, 2005
The Guardian

'One more cup of coffee before I go / To the valley below ... " Will Starbucks customers be dwelling on death's incoming darkness as they sip their mocha frappuccinos and listen to Bob Dylan?

Clearly the corporation is confident that its appeal can withstand even the most mordant Dylan lyric. It's just announced a deal for the exclusive marketing rights to a new Dylan CD, or rather a new release of one of Dylan's earliest recorded concerts, a historic performance at the Gaslight coffee house in New York's Greenwich Village in the autumn of 1962.

The alliance will dispirit many of the master's fans, but it should come as no surprise. Dylan has been at war with his protest image since at least 1964, when he publicly renounced the left and "the movement". He's flirted with Christian fundamentalism, played the White House and the Vatican, let a bank use The Times They Are A-Changin' as a TV jingle and starred in a lingerie advert. "I used to care, but things have changed," he drawled bleakly in one of his later songs. The Starbucks deal seems to confirm that self-assessment.

But Dylan's struggle to shed his association with early-60s idealism will not blunt the irony of Starbucks' announcement. Coffee houses such as the Gaslight were once breeding grounds of dissent and nonconformity. The espresso was cheap, the furnishings improvised and the music defiantly noncommercial.

With its corporate regimentation and single-minded dedication to maximising profit, Starbucks is diametrically opposed to the ethos of the Gaslight. In fact its cut-throat policies have pushed independent coffee houses out of business. Yet it likes to present itself as the inheritor of the old coffee-house ambience - informal, hip and socially responsible. It calls its low-paid workers "partners". It wants to be associated with the "fair trade" movement, even though the bulk of its raw material is not bought at "fair trade" rates. In other words, it has a huge investment in persuading us all that it is something it's not. And that is one reason why it's willing to pay handsomely to be linked to folk-era Dylan.

It's impossible not to marvel at the apparently limitless capacity of corporate behemoths to appropriate the trappings of their opponents - from images of Che Guevara to G8 protests. Dylan himself was precociously aware that gestures of rebellion could be reduced to fashion statements. Watching President Lyndon Johnson purloin the civil-rights slogan "We shall overcome" on a TV broadcast, he observed: "If you want to defeat a movement, steal its song."
Long ago, Dylan warned us about heroes with feet of clay: "Don't follow leaders, watch your parkin' meters ... "

Regardless of his apparent determination to demean his own artistry, in his great songs he offers an enduring indictment of the tyranny of commodities: "Money doesn't talk, it swears." So when the apocalyptic lyrics of Hard Rain ring out at Starbucks later this summer, they may not carry the same charge as they did at the Gaslight in 1962, but they'll still challenge anyone who really listens to take a step beyond caffeine-hyped consumerism.

Mike Marqusee's Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the Sixties, a revised version of his Chimes of Freedom, will be published in the autumn
www.mikemarqusee.com

Why Hollywood Sucks

Hi,

I couldn't have said it better myself!!

Tony

Brain drainers
June 17, 2005

Popcorn cinema is insulting our intelligence. So why do audiences turn up in droves to watch Mr & Mrs Smith make a killing? Jim Schembri explains.

Well, it did its job.

Over the past weekend, Mr & Mrs Smith, the $US100 million ($A130.9 million) action comedy romance starring Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and more fireballs than a bad day in Baghdad, positively raked it in.

It was a worldwide hit, easily topping the box office charts in Australia with a $4.7 million take, in Britain with $7.1 million, and in the US, where it made more than $US51 million ($A66.7 million).

This was great news for Jolie and Pitt. It's the biggest film either has ever headlined.
Same goes for director Doug Liman, who's never had a hit this huge. It's great news for filmgoers too, as it's now more than likely that Pitt and Jolie will team up again soon to make a sequel to this monumental piece of crap.

The box office performance of Mr & Mrs Smith, of course, came as no surprise to any of the bean counters at its studio, 20th Century Fox.

The film simply had to do this well on its opening weekend to justify the enormous cost of making it and - much more importantly - of promoting it to the nth degree, so that even the emperor penguins of the Antarctic were phoning up for tickets.

Producers of mass-market multiplex mulch like Mr & Mrs Smith are not interested in relationships with audiences; they are interested in one-night stands. In fact, the relationship doesn't have to go the whole night. All they require are the few moments it takes to purchase the ticket at the box office.

In the modern era of the hyper-hyped corporate blockbuster, this basic transaction has taken on added symbolic weight. For unlike almost any other product on earth, a movie ticket, once purchased, cannot be refunded merely because the film didn't deliver on its promise. Once you've forked over your hard earned, the marketing has done its job and you're on your own.

The weekend a blockbuster opens is the one that counts. Indeed, there is now so much emphasis on how a big film opens that the term "opening weekend" has become somewhat dated.

Nobody ever hangs out hoping for great second-weekend figures, because by then the film's fate has been well and truly sealed. Big films can't afford the luxury of growing or finding audiences.
In fact, the vigour of a blockbuster's performance over its theatrical run is calculated by the rate of the audience decline - or "drop-off" - over successive weekends. After its record-breaking opening weekend, Hulk was declared a dud because of the record drop-off in its second weekend.

If films don't hit large straight out of the gate, recovery is extremely unlikely. That first-weekend take is what matters. So films are geared to maximise that initial bite at the mass-market pie.

Thus it is that we have films like Mr & Mrs Smith. And Miss Congeniality 2. And Catwoman and Hulk and The Day After Tomorrow and The Stepford Wives and Oceans Twelve and Planet of the Apes and Independence Day and Tomb Raider and Godzilla and so on and so forth and such like.

These films are designed and packaged to hoover in as many megabucks as they can as quickly as they can before the next blockbuster lines up for its share.

Big films are not sold on whether there is a story worth telling, let alone whether the story is well told. This is why the art of big-screen storytelling has been in such dire condition, especially since the headache-inducing dopiness of Independence Day in 1996.

Once-important elements such as plotting and internal logic are simply irrelevant to popcorn pulp. How else could a studio have the gall to release The Stepford Wives?

In the case of Mr & Mrs Smith, we have a story premise that is an insult not only to the art of
story, but to Charles Darwin.

Jolie and Pitt play two professional assassins who are married but who keep their real jobs secret from each other. That is, however, until they are sent on the same job. And why are they sent on the same job?

The reasoning given in the film is that their rival employers finally discover they are married, think the arrangement is awkward and so decide to eliminate them. This they hope to achieve by sending them on the same assignment, where, having suddenly discovered the truth, they will promptly kill each other instead of their target.

This conceit is a prime example of a Hollywood blockbuster not giving a shit about story. There are a dozen other examples in Mr and Mrs Smith of narrative holes you could sail an Essex-class aircraft carrier through - not the least of which is why any agency that specialises in killing would choose such a clumsy way of killing two killers.

And if they're professional assassins, why are they such bad shots? Why do they continue trying to kill each other after they realise they've been married for six years? And how can you like a guy who is so happy to subject somebody to torture? Is Mr & Mrs Smith actually trying to be the stupidest Hollywood film since Catwoman?

But surely such questions are too nit-picky. It's all just throwaway, comic-book stuff that doesn't take itself seriously. Come on, hombre. Lighten up. Where's your suspension of disbelief? It's just a popcorn movie. Story doesn't matter.

Yes, it does - especially in popcorn movies.

The refrain "suspension of disbelief" has become the flimsiest, most overused excuse for bad cinematic storytelling in the past decade. Suspension of disbelief is fine but it is not the same thing as suspension of intelligence.

Whether a serious drama or a throwaway piece of multiplex fluff, a story has to make sense on its own terms. However outlandish the premise, there must be an internal logic.

An illustration: We watch a Superman movie and there he is, flying about and fighting evil. We buy it. That is suspension of disbelief. Now, if we see Superman eat a Kryptonite hamburger, drink a Kryptonite smoothie, then fly about and fight evil, we don't buy it. Why?

Because we know Kryptonite is the only thing that drains Superman's powers. To accept such a thing in a movie is not suspending disbelief, but allowing ourselves to be treated like idiots.

Story logic matters. Or it should. But in films like Mr & Mrs Smith, story doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the package. Deals are what sells films in Hollywood, not stories.

Sign up big stars, get a mid-list director eager to please the corporate overlords, throw in lots of money to get those universally understood production values and never mind the story.

It doesn't have to be good - hell, it doesn't even have to make sense - it just has to include all the standard elements of the mono-dimensional global narrative template common to most blockbusters: extreme personal conflict, large-scale disaster, romance, visual comedy and, most of all, action.

Present it in a high-gloss, frenetically edited mish-mash of explosions, gunfire, colour and movement. And with as little dialogue as possible, please.

Why the emphasis of movement over dialogue? After the success of Jaws in 1975, foreign countries became a big part of the business, and you can't draw in big audiences if all they're going to do for two hours is read subtitles.

The intent is to blitz the eyes, rattle the ears and provide plenty of close-ups of those big, expensive stars. Pummel the audience with the package. Overwhelm them with starpower and firepower.

That's what audiences are being sold now - not films, but deals.

This dumbing down of movies - it's still very hard to believe that Miss Congeniality 2 actually does exist - has been accompanied by a dumbing down of audiences.

This condition is achieved courtesy of the studio film marketing behemoth. Fortunately, this dumbing down is not a permanent condition, nor is it foolproof, as the occasional mass-market rejection of the odd blockbuster attests: RIP Hulk and Catwoman.

It is, however, testament to the famous observation made by Canadian satirist Stephen Butler Leacock, who stated: "Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it."

Applying the same principle, and to paraphrase slightly, film marketing is the art of mesmerising audiences long enough to extract from them the price of admission.

So why do film audiences file in to see such staggeringly expensive showcases of mediocrity? Because they have to. Or, more accurately, because they feel they have to.

Publicity blitzes have always been a big part of pushing big movies onto the public. The 1939 classic Gone With the Wind is one of the earliest examples of a film that achieved the ideal of 100 per cent market awareness.

But never before - never - has marketing a movie been so intense, so relentless, so unavoidable as it is today.

With Mr & Mrs Smith we couldn't turn in our beds without seeing signage. TV ads, cinema ads, radio ads, magazine ads, cross promotions on Big Brother, billboards the size of Godzilla, profiles on 60 Minutes.

And that extensive tabloid coverage of the nothing story about how Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were - get this - not having a relationship. The media is so eager to be part of the next big movie "event" it seems even a non-story qualifies as a story.

Then, of course, there's all the carefully co-ordinated collaboration with print outlets to play up Angelina Jolie's glam factor. Her visage presently sports the covers of Cosmopolitan, New Woman, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar and OK.

The exposure has gone beyond saturation marketing, it's virtual wallpaper.

You can't even wait for a bus. As animator John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy, recently said of the Shrek 2 marketing tsunami, it's so full-on it feels like your eyeballs are being raped.
It all serves a form of social conditioning that impels people to see the film not because they necessarily want to, but because they feel they need to.

After all, who wants to be the only one on Monday in the school yard or in the office kitchen who hasn't seen the latest big movie event?

And if the machine has done its job, you get figures like Mr & Mrs Smith got last weekend.
And the film doesn't have to be good. It just has to be good enough so that audiences don't talk it down to their friends and so generate the one thing Hollywood filmmakers have no control over and no defense against - bad word of mouth.

Mr & Mrs Smith is now showing

Humorous article on Aussie racism - 'Racism made easy'

Hi,

A humorous take onthe racism debate that seems to be an ongoing inssue in Oz at the moment.

Tony

Racism made easy
June 17, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Racism-made-easy/2005/06/16/1118869037393.html

Jim Schembri offers some handy tips on a popular Aussie pastime.

I've been looking for a lifestyle alternative for some time now, and given the way so many people have been behaving lately I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and give racism a go.
Some people are very "down" on this lifestyle, and it's easy to see why. It gets such bad press.

Yet, truth be told, it is to be warmly recommended as the benefits are many. Just allow its charms to work their magic and within minutes you, too, will be calling talkback radio to let those (insert name of target group here) know exactly what you think of them.

A big part of the appeal, of course, is how there's almost no overhead. There's no joining fee, no running costs, no uniform, no equipment, no membership renewal. What you spend is entirely up to you! Go nuts or do it on the cheap.

The best thing, however, is the sheer convenience of it. Suddenly the world becomes so much easier to figure out. There's no more thinking or considering different points of view or any of that sort of stuff because now you know exactly whose fault everything is.

And you can blame anything on anyone. Try it. Why are you paying $5.20 for an 80 cent muffin just because you're at an airport? It's all because of those damned dirty (insert favourite scapegoat here) and their lousy (insert country/culture/religious practice/legal system/sport/TV shows/other here). See how easy it is?

Getting into the groove is a breeze, and - get this - there's no training or experience necessary. All you need do is overreact to (insert hot-button news item here), then take an alarmist position as part of a popular backlash by threatening to (cancel holiday/withdraw aid/write sternly worded letter to editor/ban eatery/other).

Give boycotting a go. It doesn't really matter what you boycott, just be sure to do it at the drop of a hat. Issuing boycotts is great, not just because it causes a big fuss on the news, but because, hey, nobody ever checks to see if you're doing any actual boycotting yourself! How sweet is that? After all, it might serve your purposes to declare a boycott on, say, microwaveable popcorn from (insert name of enemy nation here), but are you really going to sit through an entire OC marathon without it?

You can even switch your prejudice any time - from colour to religion to nationality to, well, whatever you like. Let your imagination run wild! How about trying a different bigotry each week? It's really up to you.

Friends and family may initially protest what you are doing, but this can be readily dealt with by simply locating the cable connecting the cerebral cortex to your brain stem and unplugging it (see fig. 1). It's advisable to do this at your earliest convenience as higher cortical functions will only hamper your enjoyment.

And because you don't have to answer for anything you do any more, you can say anything you like about anyone and not worry about lawsuits. Send anonymous letters, make abusive phone calls, slander people on the internet. Go for the classic and yell insults at people from a speeding car. "Hey, you filthy (insert racial epithet here)! Go back to where you came from!" (Note: slur does not work on indigenous Australians.)

At some point you'll need to put out a flyer to tell the world about your views. A crucial part of this is, under absolutely no circumstances, use spell check. Don't even proof read. Bad spelling and poor grammar have been the hallmark of racist street literature for decades, so maintain the tradition. Just whack the pamphlet on the office photocopier and start stapling it to telephone poles. (With an office stapler, naturally!)

When it comes to personal presentation you may feel the need to do something extreme, like tattoo a swastika on the tip of your nose, or trim your moustache until it resembles the 1935 Nuremberg Rally. These are creative options, of course.

A much-favoured style, however, is to simply dress exactly like everybody else in the office - then, at the most opportune moment, such as during a high-level board meeting, stand up and begin singing Why I am a Klansman.

It may not win you any converts, but as they drag you from the premises take comfort in the knowledge that there are many others like you just itching for any excuse to let those (insert favourite target group here) know what's what.

And, above all, remember - have fun!

No wonder the Yankees are so fat!!!

Hi,

This is the tail end of an article on Melbourne's best burger joints, which leads on to Yankee burgers. Seriously, once you've finished reading the article, click on the link to the burger joinst website, and navigate thru to their 'burgers' mini-site - you'll be amazed, flabbergasted and disgusted all in one instant!

Tony

The world's biggest burger

Buxton's 20-centimetre tall Cathedral burger ($9.50) is big but it pales into insignificance compared to those contenders in the "bigger is best" burger war currently being waged in the US.

This all started with chains such as Carl Jr's and Burger King launching self-styled "Thickburgers" like one made of 2.6kg of Angus beef. Then Hardee's launched their "monster thick burger" containing two 140g patties and enough cheese, bacon and mayo to push the calorie count over the 1400 mark and the fat reading up to a hefty 107g!

This flagrant nose-thumbing at Super Size Me went down wonderfully in a country in denial about its weight problem where 13 billion burgers are consumed every year.*

Things started to get out of hand when Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Philadelphia put a 2.7kg burger with 2.25kg of toppings on their menu. This was quickly eclipsed by a place in New Jersey offering a 5.6kg burger known as the "Zeus".

The Beer Barrel responded with a $40 Belly Buster burger that weighs in at almost 7 kg. It comes with gargantuan buns - which is something you'd be naïve not to expect after ingesting that much fat.

Visit: www.dennysbeerbarrelpub.com

Australia's forgotten migrants

Hi,

I like this article - about the British migrant experience in Australia.

Tony

Our invisible migrants

http://www.theage.com.au/news/General/Our-invisible-migrants/2005/06/15/1118645865276.html

June 16, 2005

At first, Australia baffled them but then they settled in, and learned to live with us. Jill Stark reports on the 'Ten Pound Poms'.

A million of them came to Australia by boat, in search of a better life. Many struggled to fit in, and were branded "whingers". They were the post-war British migrants, commonly known as the "Ten Pound Poms".

If they could raise 10 for their fare, the Australian Government paid the rest. But if they decided to return home within two years, they had to pay the 10 back and raise their travel costs again - an almost impossible ask for the predominantly working-class families.

Unlike other migrants, their stories have rarely been told. But now a new book, Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants - the culmination of a five-year project - documents their hidden histories. It charts their experiences through interviews, letters and diaries.

The book was produced in Melbourne and Britain by Dr Jim Hammerton of La Trobe University, and Dr Alistair Thompson, a Melburnian lecturing at Sussex University. They interviewed British migrants who left for Australia between 1947 and 1972.

"Compared with the way other migrant groups have been treated the British are an invisible majority," Hammerton says. "They spoke English so they weren't regarded as migrants and couldn't have the problems migrants have. But the Brits are migrants like anybody else.
"You change your country and it's different," he says. "They still have a migrant identity rather than an explicit Australian or British identity."

Many immigrants from Britain were baffled when they arrived. Some faced verbal abuse and were mocked for being different. In the book, many talk about being asked to bring a plate to an Australian barbecue, and simply turned up with a plate - with nothing on it.

The post-war British immigrants generally dispersed to the outer suburbs of Australian cities and were not known for making their fortune in Australia. They did well in their chosen field but didn't enjoy great wealth like other migrant groups.

"I think the Brits fit the Australian mythology of the battler very well," Hammerton says. "They tell a story about how life was really tough. They'll say: 'It was awful before we left. We made this decision to get out of it, we crossed the seas, we had a hell of a time when we got here, there was nowhere to live, we struggled from job to job, built our own house and in the end we were vindicated."

John Howell, 61, Skenes Creek

Howell has tried to understand Aussie Rules, but he can't shake his love of soccer. It's the only hint of his English heritage.

Since emigrating in 1958, Howell's thought of himself as Australian. When he returned to Croydon in Surrey for a holiday, he found it crowded and noisy, and couldn't wait to get "back home".

"In Australia you can lose yourself more and I prefer that sort of life," he says. "When we went back to England to the street I lived in, the same people lived in the house next door, and that was 25 years after I left. They still do their washing on a Monday and go to Bognor Regis on holiday.

"Everything over here is just so much bigger, and you have a lot more freedom. Our kids have had a wonderful start in this country. I don't think they would have got that in England."
Howell (pictured left) left Britain as a wide-eyed 14-year-old. His older brother had already left for Australia, and when their father died it meant a new beginning. Howell boarded a boat with his mother and sailed to Melbourne.

His knowledge of Australia was sketchy but he saw the voyage as a great adventure. "I didn't really know what to expect. I had an aunt living in Australia and when she'd returned to England on holiday, she brought eucalyptus leaves back. She would set fire to them just to describe what the smell was like. She used to bring home pictures of parrots, and as a child I was full of wonder at this place we were going to.

"My father also came to Australia before World War I, working on a sheep station, so he'd told us a bit about it. I think I expected to find my dad's horse tied up at Station Pier. When we docked I was surprised to see trams running down the street. I imagined it to be a lot more rural."

Howell moved in with his aunt and uncle in Wantirna South before his brother bought a family home in Ferntree Gully. His sister later joined them from England. He took up an apprenticeship in cabinet making and joinery and eventually settled in Skenes Creek, near Apollo Bay. He married his wife Pam, had three sons, and built up a successful building business.

He now lives on 20 hectares and has another 160 hectares in Colac. It's a long way from his humble Croydon council house.

"We felt that we could really get something for ourselves here in Australia that we would never dream of having in England, just from sheer hard work. In England, the chap up the road had a motor car and had bought his council house and he played golf. To play golf in England you had to be someone, but in Australia everyone goes out and has a game of golf.

"I'm very thankful we did come to this part of the world. We've built a lot of houses and put a lot into our community so I feel I've contributed a lot to Australia. I still feel that where I originated from is home in a way, but I don't look at it as somewhere that I hanker to go back to."

Margaret Hill, 73, Edithvale

Hill could be the archetypal Aussie battler had she not been born in England. At 24, pregnant with her fourth child, she left the dreary hardship of Birkenhead (near Liverpool) for Australia.
It was 1956; the Suez crisis was creating tension in Britain. Merseyside was struggling and Hill's husband, recently released from the army, longed for warmth.

The Ten Pound Pom scheme was a chance to reinvent themselves. But for Hill, migration was the beginning of a long struggle to find her place in a strange country, and escape a violent marriage.

"My husband was the one that wanted to come to Australia. I just didn't want to leave," she says. "I saw myself with a little home and a little family and watching my cousins grow up. But we had a couple of bad winters and the kids got bronchitis. In the end I said 'OK, we'll go'.
"It was very traumatic saying goodbye to my family. I didn't ever see my father again. I'd always had this understanding with my parents that if we didn't settle, we'd go back. But it didn't turn out like that."

The family boarded a ship, which they'd been told would bring them to Melbourne. Instead the boat docked in Adelaide. On a stiflingly hot December day they were taken to an "extremely grim" migrant hostel.

"When we pulled into the dockside there was nothing to be seen except this shrub, this bush. It was very disturbing. After the war I'd seen pictures on the television of concentration camps and to me the migrant hostel was like that. We'd had all these brochures from Australia House about nice flats, but once we got there we found out it was all promotional."

A shortage of migrant accommodation meant Hill spent two years in a hostel before her husband took a job with the Commonwealth Lighthouse Service. For 18 months they lived in isolated lighthouses in South Australia. They finally found a home in Adelaide and had four more children.

But Hill's husband was unsettled. The marriage broke down and he became violent. Fearing for her life, Hill escaped to Melbourne; she worked menial jobs to support herself.

By now, her mother and brother had come over from England. She spent several years fighting for custody of her eight children and eventually settled in Chelsea, later moving to Edithvale.
"When my marriage broke down it went against everything I ever thought," Hill says. But she was determined to settle here. "I was able to become my own person. It was cleaner, it was brighter, it was warmer, friendlier, there were no social pressures."

Hill says the "whingeing poms" tag was probably justified.

"We complained, we did. The Italians complained, but they complained among themselves. One of them who could speak English would go out and do the shopping, whereas Poms were in your face the whole time moaning.

"We complained about the heat and the quality of the clothing, and the meat. We complained about everything because a lot of us were unhappy. We were in a strange place. Everything was different. We were missing our families. We didn't mean to complain, we were just letting off steam."

Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants is launched today at Australia House in London.
It will be launched in Melbourne on July 1. Dr Jim Hammerton's sequel will look at British people who migrated to Australia between 1968 and 2005.

If you want to participate, contact him at J.Hammerton@latrobe.edu.au

Australia's current backwards immigration policy - 'Howard's present is our past'

Hi,

this article highlights how far backwards Australia has gone on immigration under John Howard's leadership.

Tony

Howard's present is our past

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Howards-present-is-our-past/2005/06/15/1118645864721.html

June 16, 2005

Arnold Zable hopes for the day we again have a prime minister who can fully embrace an inclusive and plural society.

History has a habit of repeating itself. In 1964, the newly appointed immigration minister, Hubert Opperman, held discussions with prime minister Robert Menzies in which he argued for significant reforms to the White Australia policy and a less discriminatory approach to non-European immigration.

The 1964 meeting has uncanny parallels with recent discussions between Petro Georgiou and his fellow Liberal dissidents, and Prime Minister John Howard, over immigration policies. Like Menzies, Howard has held fast to the old regime and, like Menzies, he is convinced he has public opinion on side. But in the longer term the new reforms prevailed.

This incident is one of many documented in a new book by La Trobe University historian Gwenda Tavan, The Long, Slow Death Of White Australia. Tavan traces the gradual erosion of Australia's race-based approach to immigration and the actions of senior bureaucrats, commentators, academics, church leaders and a range of pressure groups such as the Immigration Reform Group, in facilitating the change. The White Australia policy was finally abandoned by the actions of both ALP and Coalition governments in the 1970s.

Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser were the first Australian prime ministers to embrace a non-discriminatory policy and the ideal of multiculturalism. By the 1980s, Australia had developed one of the best resettlement schemes in the world and a plural society, internationally admired and respected.

It is hard to believe, in retrospect, from Tavan's account, that in the early 1950s new rules required that mixed-race people could only be admitted to Australia if they provided genealogies that proved they had either three European grandparents or two European and two half-caste.

Tavan's book helps place Howard's approach to immigration in perspective. We can see the degree to which he has wound back the clock after almost a decade in power. Before Tampa appeared on the horizon, the Coalition Government had cut benefits to migrants, cut the numbers to the annual refugee intake and family reunion schemes, and cut support to multicultural institutions. Howard also gave tacit support to the anti-Aborigine and anti-Asian views of Pauline Hanson and, in 1999, introduced temporary protection visas for asylum seekers found to be genuine refugees, rather than offering permanent visas as had been the case until then.

Australia became the only Western country with indefinite long-term mandatory detention, a system that has driven some detainees to madness and the brink of suicide. By October 2001, Howard was able to declare, after the children overboard affair: "I do not want people like that in Australia." In a departure from the recent past, populist politics reigned supreme.

There is another side to the story. Tavan's study highlights the actions of individuals who, with the benefit of hindsight, can be seen as visionaries.

In 1947, for instance, Methodist minister the Reverend Alan Walker published a pamphlet in which he argued against the White Australia policy on moral grounds at a time when it was fully endorsed by most Australians. Walker believed that the policy had helped shape a parochial Australian soul. A new policy that did not discriminate on the grounds of colour or race would, said Walker, allow more Australians to know nationals of other lands, and deepen our emotional life, extend the range of our imagination and give new horizons to our mind.

Another forward thinker, future deputy leader of the ALP Jim Cairns, wrote in the Argus newspaper in June 1954, that Australia could be a bridge, geographically and spiritually, between East and West. He pointed out that the White Australia policy was the main obstruction to such a bridge.

Again there are parallels with contemporary events. There have been many individuals who have promoted a more inclusive vision of Australian society at a time when asylum seekers have been denied their basic human rights. Among politicians they include Liberal dissidents Petro Georgiou and Judi Moylan, Australian Democrats Andrew Bartlett, and the ALP's Carmen Lawrence.

The new bridge-builders include national organisations such as Rural Australians for Refugees and support groups throughout the country. In Melbourne they include the Fitzroy Learning Network, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the Hotham Mission and the Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture among many others. They encompass the many Australians who have sent letters of support to detainees in outback centres such as Port Hedland and Baxter, offshore centres on Nauru and Christmas Island, and city centres such as Villawood and Maribyrnong. It includes the growing numbers of Australians who are desperate for an act of compassion that would put an end to mandatory detention and to lives wasted in the limbo of temporary visas.

These individuals have forged enduring friendships between cultures and faiths at a time when, after September 11, 2001, they are sorely needed. They have, in turn, become welcome guests in the temporary homes of new arrivals from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. They have discovered their common humanity.

Perhaps, one day, we will again have a prime minister who can fully embrace an inclusive and plural society based on the recognition that we are, in essence, a land of indigenous peoples and immigrants, a new world with an ancient past.

Meanwhile, we rely on the efforts of advocates and support groups with an alternative vision, and on the efforts of dissident backbenchers. We also need studies like Gwenda Tavan's to learn of the hard-won reforms that took Australia beyond the racially based policies of the past.

Arnold Zable is an author and refugee spokesman for the writers' association International PEN. He will launch Gwenda Tavan's The Long, Slow Death Of White Australia at Readings' Carlton store tonight.

Stupid Aussies, part 2 - 'Dumb and dumber' robber pleads guilty

'Dumb and dumber' robber pleads guilty

http://theage.com.au/articles/2005/06/16/1118869021949.html

June 16, 2005 - 11:05AM

The first of Australia's bumbling "Dumb & Dumber" teenage armed bandits, Anthony Prince, has pleaded guilty to the bank robbery that made headlines worldwide.

Prince entered his guilty plea in the US District Court in Denver, Colorado, today.

The US government and Prince's lawyer, Warren Williamson, have recommended in a plea deal Prince serve between four and 10 years in jail.

Judge Phillip Riga, however, could sentence Prince to up to 25 years in prison.

Prince appeared briefly in court, arriving in a yellow prison jumpsuit and his hands handcuffed behind his back.

His parents, Peter and Jennifer, flew from Australia to be in court today.

Prince told the court his guilty plea was voluntary.

The 19-year-old's alleged bank robbing partner, Luke Carroll, is expected to also enter a guilty plea in the same court next week, Carroll's lawyer has said.

The March 21 armed robbery of $US132,000 ($A171,520) from a bank in the ski resort of Vail caught the media's attention for its apparent string of blunders by the two Northern NSW teens.
Their accents tipped police off to their identity.

They also wore name tags during the robbery from a sports store they worked at in Vail.
Vail police also knew of Prince and Carroll after arresting them on January 4 for shooting windows with BB guns. The pair used similar guns in the hold-up of the WestStar Bank.
Prince and Carroll had also attempted to buy one-way tickets to Mexico after the robbery and were eventually caught by security officials at Denver airport. When Prince was captured he had $US7,600 ($A9,875) in cash stuffed down his pants.

They had also dumped a backpack filled with $US26,000 ($A33,784) outside the airport because they thought it would be discovered when they went through metal detectors at the airport.

Prince and Carroll confessed to the robbery soon after their arrest.

The pair were charged with bank robbery by force or violence and face up to 25 years in jail.
The childhood friends were in Vail on a snowboarding working holiday.

The "Dumb & Dumber" nickname comes from comedian Jim Carrey's 1994 film about two dimwits.

- AAP

Stupid Aussies, part 1 - Me and my stupid mate

Me and my stupid mate

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/06/12/1118514927434.html?from=top5

June 13, 2005

An irrational robbery is set to ruin the lives of two young men who should have known better, writes Robert Wainwright.

AUSTRALIANS are making a big mark overseas, but for once it is for all the wrong reasons. Criminal feats of petulance, stupidity and just plain evil are quickly overwhelming the triumphant deeds of skill on the international sporting field and generosity in humanitarian aid.

While Schapelle Corby continues to argue her innocence from a Denpasar prison, the international spotlight has also fallen on the heroin trails of the Bali nine, Russell Crowe's short fuse and the unfathomable ineptitude of two teenage Australian bank robbers, Anthony Prince and Luke Carroll.

We know how, when and where, but three months after two teenagers from the sleepy surfing town of Byron Bay robbed a bank in the ski resort town of Vail, Colorado, and escaped with $US130,000 ($170,000), we still don't know why they did it or why they thought they would get away with one of the most ham-fisted robberies in memory.

The 19-year-olds face 25 years in jail for a robbery that most who know them say was larrikinism gone mad.

Anthony Prince will appear in a federal court on Wednesday to formally enter a plea. His lawyer, Warren Williamson, says Prince will plead guilty to the crime in the hope of a reduced sentence - perhaps five years - and the chance to serve it at home under a prisoner exchange program, rather than at a federal prison in the US. Luke Carroll is expected to do the same a week later.

It would be difficult to enter any other plea, considering the weight of evidence and public ridicule levelled at the pair since details of their exploits became known, not to mention the public apology issued within days of the robbery by Prince's distraught parents, Peter and Jennifer.

"We are the parents of Anthony Prince, one of the two boys who robbed the WestStar Bank last Monday," it read. "We are so sorry for the damage inflicted on your community by this event. We offer our sincere and unconditional apologies to the people of Vail and especially to the two female employees of the WestStar Bank.

"We also apologise to the local family and to the staff at Pepi Sport who sponsored Anthony and provided the opportunity for employment. We fail to comprehend how our son, who was raised in a family with strong ethical values and all the love and support in the world, could contemplate such an act. We will never understand the reason why. We know this act was so out of character for Anthony and we know that his remorse is absolute. Our thoughts are with you all."

The absurdity of the crime is detailed partly in court documents and filled out by witness statements and media interviews which have emerged in the wake of the robbery, labelled "Dumb and Dumber".

Just before 10am on March 21, the pair walked into the WestStar Bank brandishing a pellet gun bought from a Wal-Mart, manhandled a cashier and ordered another to fill up a bag with cash from the vault.

Although wearing masks, the attempts to cover their Australian accents failed dismally. Neither had they bothered to take off name tags used by employees at a sports store that had sponsored their working holiday.

Shaken staff, one of whom later resigned, told police their voices were "disguised but familiar and with a European or Australian accent".

The young men had been in the bank before. A cashier, Kim Vasquez, recognised them. WestStar Bank's president and chief executive, Dan Godec, said it took less than a couple of hours to work out who was behind the masks: "With their accents and descriptions, we had a good feel of who we thought they were."

It didn't take local detectives long to finger Prince and Carroll. The pair, who had arrived in the town last November, had been arrested two months earlier after a neighbour had reported them for firing air pistols and paintball guns at houses. "I think these guys have seen too many Ned Kelly films," the neighbour, Jim Donovan, quipped.

The description, including their accents, was passed onto the FBI and radioed to police patrols.
The next day the fun really started. Prince and Carroll were spotted making their way through security at Denver Airport after buying one-way tickets to Mexico. Again, it was their accents that gave them away.

Detective Greg Faciane, on duty at the security desk, had been given a flier with photographs of the robbery suspects only a few minutes before the pair sauntered towards him.

He let them through the metal detectors then asked a security screener to talk to them to determine whether they had accents and to check their passports. "When I was sitting there, I made eye contact with one of them and just got a feeling," he told the media later.

The arrest was immediate and without incident. The confessions came swiftly after police found $US9800 on Carroll and another $US33,000 stashed in a backpack dumped in a garbage bin outside the airport. Most of the cash, however, was in Prince's luggage.

Since their arrest, details have filtered out about the fun-filled hours immediately after the robbery. Apparently they used snowboards as initial getaway vehicles, travelling several kilometres out of town to get to their car. A quick change of clothes and they were off on a spending spree which defies belief. First stop was a McDonald's, where they took a series of "gansta" photos of themselves in the toilets, posing with guns and money. Police later found the digital camera with the pictures still on the memory chip.

The next day they walked into a jewellery shop in Denver, two hours west of Vail, and tried to buy a $US30,000 Rolex watch. Not only did the sales assistant think the request was strange, but the means of payment - cash in 6000 $5 notes - was enough for her to threaten to call the police. Prince and Carroll took the hint, left and went to another shop to buy diamonds before renting a limousine to take them to the airport. Their smiles, recorded on airport CCTV cameras, were soon wiped as their world fell apart.

Back in Byron Bay and Lismore, where the two men grew up, there is still disbelief and wonder at the chain of events. Mates and class colleagues from Trinity Catholic College in Lismore, where Prince graduated in 2003, variously describe him as the class clown, likeable and agreeable, who wrote in his final year book of an ambition to "have a successful career in something I love and enjoy".

"He was a bit of a larrikin, I mean he wasn't the studious type. But I don't think anyone expected him to rob a bank," a former classmate, William Richey, says.

Nick Russo, an old school friend, said people who knew the boys were still searching for an answer: "He [Prince] was always a bit of a troublemaker but nothing serious. I think he once got into trouble for stealing some lollies but it wasn't a big deal.

"We are all still wondering why. The only thing I can think of is that they might have been a bit strapped for money in a town where people around them were spending up big. They did something thoughtless without considering the gravity. It's pretty sad really. I think his girlfriend, Clare, is doing it tough. They have been together for a couple of years."

Russo had met Luke Carroll, a former student at the nearby Marist St Johns College Woodlawn, but didn't know him well. The link between the pair appeared to have been a love of surfing.

Jeremy Harrison, who knew Prince during nine years of their schooling, was forced to shut down a website blog because of local anger about the case. "People were a bit upset about the whole thing. It's pretty embarrassing and seems totally out of character."

One of Prince's closest friends, Brett Nebelung, a Ballina labourer, said the pair had saved hard for the trip, working two jobs to pay for the air fares.

Carroll's family has not spoken publicly but acquaintances are equally perplexed by their behaviour. "Never been in trouble" and "out of character" are common refrains from those who know him.

Even the lawyers are saying little. Warren Williamson says Prince is hoping that accepting responsibility for the crime will help reduce the inevitable jail sentence.

"I think he's trying to make the best of a bad situation," Williamson commented after his client's initial court appearance … He's trying not to waste his time. He's doing everything he can to turn this into a constructive experience. He's behaving himself in jail and staying in touch with family and friends."

Carroll's lawyer, Daniel Smith, is even less forthcoming, refusing to say what length of sentence he would try to negotiate. "He's just fine," Smith snapped, perhaps understating the situation just a little.