Island Life by David Slack

If you watch the documentaries that make it onto our local TV then you’ll know the work of Pietra Brettkelly. Ends of the Earth and The Rescue of Iani are her two most recent.

Her film Beauty Will Save the World (on the first beauty competition to be staged in Libya) screened in competition at the International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam, American Film Institute and HotDocs Toronto Film Festival.

When you cart a camera around the world, you meet interesting people. In Sudan, she met Vanessa Beecroft, who you may know from her large-scale installations involving dozens of nude women. She is to art what Madonna is to pop music. And not unlike Madonna she visited a Sudanese orphanage and fell in love with twin baby boys. She wants to adopt them. If she does, they will be moving from a life of poverty to join Vanessa’s family and her millionaire lifestyle in New York and Los Angeles.

You can see the documentary possibilities. Pietra has been filming it for a year, in Sudan, New York, Korea, the US and Venice - and entirely on her own dime - no funding, no grants, no support.

There’s a good chance this film will screen at international festivals and be picked up by broadcasters overseas. But there’s no chance the proceeds will be enough to cover the cost of making it.

So a group of fellow television producers want to help: with a party. To quote from the invitation:

Saturday August 4 is going to be the media party of the year.
Hosted by Paul Henry, this is a party you can’t miss. A koha of $30 will secure your invitation. Even better get some friends together and secure a table of 10. What’ll you get? A great night which includes a special media-style pub quiz (with incredible spot prizes), an exciting auction (nights at a luxury bach, designer clothes, top New Zealand wines, beauty treatments…), excerpts from Pietra’s documentary and a Q&A with the director. Nibbles provided, cash bar.

You can expect to see a few Public Address faces there. Why don’t you add yours? If you’d like to donate and get an invitation: Sharon Brettkelly will be pleased to hear from you:

or Sue Garland,
or Sarah Kinniburgh,
or Kerry,
or Pietra

Seeing we’re in the documentary frame of mind, here are a few historical treats.

Here’s Jack Kerouac, talking about writing a classic in three weeks. On one big roll of paper.

Here’s Nixon talking to his croneys about fags.

And here’s Dan Rather taking us behind the scenes of (part of) the machine that got old Tricky Dicky re-elected. Karl Rove, the voice of a new generation, makes a fascinating cameo.

I imagine the Government would have liked to make this pre-school education deal a lot more straightforward. Given enough money, you could set up a string of centres across the country, put the staff in and let them rip. Free pre-school education for all! No negotiations with providers, no ducking and diving over the intricacies of a free-20-hours system. You wouldn't even have to spend all that dough on the direct mail campaigns. A deal like that would no doubt promote itself.

And you would surely secure the undying devotion of the under-5s.

Consider what all the land and the buildings and the staff would cost. Consider that, and then consider what we already have, and the capital value of the infrastructure that makes it possible to offer free education for everyone from five years of age all the way to their late teens ('donations' excepted).

Certain readers of this blog would argue that there are superior alternatives to consider, and they make a valid case. I just wonder how things might turn out for the kids if we were starting today from scratch.

Not even Nixon had as little regard for the rule of law as this dismal son of privilege.

Grant of Executive Clemency

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

WHEREAS Lewis Libby was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case United States v. Libby, Crim. No. 05-394 (RBW), for which a sentence of 30 months' imprisonment, 2 years' supervised release, a fine of $250,000, and a special assessment of $400 was imposed on June 22, 2007;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately, leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

This morning at the gym a man collapsed and they called an ambulance. It occurred to me as I saw them go to work with the defibrillator that I hadn't seen one deployed in real life before. I have been prone alongside them, three times I've taken an ambulance ride with electrodes stuck to my chest and machine standing by, and if you watch the TV you know to get your hands out of the way when Abby says "clear". It's a wholly darker complexion of grim when some poor soul is lying on the floor, ringed by ambulance officers taking turns at CPR and administering the shock at steady intervals.

A defibrillator gives you "a therapeutic dose of electrical energy". In 1947 Claude Beck, a professor of surgery, tried it out on a patient. He had a theory that ventricular fibrillation often occurred in hearts which were "too good to die" and there had to be a way to save them. Let us all salute Professor Beck.

Let us also mention the late Kerry Packer, as reported by Wikipedia:

In Australia up until the 1990s, it was quite rare for an ambulance to carry a defibrillator. This changed in 1990 when Australian media mogul Kerry Packer had a heart attack and the ambulance that responded to the call did carry a defibrillator. After this, Kerry Packer donated a large sum to the Ambulance Service of New South Wales in order that all ambulances in New South Wales should be fitted with a personal defibrillator, leading to the Australian colloquial term for the device, Packer Whacker.

I like the colloquial style of Australians. I wouldn't give you ten bucks for a trailer-load of John Howard, cynical political football player that he is, but I like the way an unflustered Aussie can undo all the tension. Cardiac arrest? No worries. We'll get you on the Packer Whacker, mate.

Let me testify: when you're lying on your back contemplating your mortality, there's nothing so reassuring as an ambulance officer who treats the whole thing as a ten-minute taxi ride across town.

The months ahead:

July. Government offers Sue Bradford the Fiji high commissioner post, hoping she will abandon her bill to lower the voting age. "This social engineering is killing us, Sue" says an email leaked to Nicky Hager.

August. Bradford accepts High Commissioner position, uses little-known MFAT loophole to send Keith Locke in her place.

September. John Key swings behind Bradford with 'the kids r lrite' campaign, promising to support the bill "as soon as 100,000 kids have texted Helen Clark with the message: jon4me".

October. Government announces extension of local loop unbundling to cellular networks. Outages of previous month "will not b repted", promises David Cunliffe. "Kids really like to use the txting. We need a network that can cope."

November. Government backs Bradford bill. Class sets of Bridled Power to be provided free to all secondary schools, democracy blogger Idiot Savant to get dedicated funding from vote:education. Stinging editorial in the DomPost asks: "Are some voters more equal than others in Helengrad?"

December. Huge turnout for Matt McCarten and John Minto's Supersize My Vote! rally in Queen Street: 3,000 high school students in Aotea Square and another 14,000 inside the CD stores and Burger King.

January. John Key delivers state of nation speech at Burnside High School pledging a vote for "every kid who aspires to have one". Delighted by rapturous reception from party faithful, but asks where the kids are.

February. Bain retrial gets underway. TV cameras follow the Dunedin One for three weeks of saturation coverage. Bill passes, but doesn't make the six o'clock news.

UPDATE: A post on the discussion thread reminded me that this, too, is apposite.