Jason Whittaker
Incompetence, not net, kills media
The recession is not killing Big Media in this country, as the sales department will tell you. Nor is the internet and digital media to blame, as the prevailing theory goes. Media companies in Australia are struggling to make a buck through a lack of imagination. Through short-sightedness. Through commercial timidity, certainly. Ultimately, though sheer management incompetence.
TRIP: Food Lover’s Guide to KL
MALAYSIA DAY 10-12: I feel like Maeve O’Meara (and if you don’t know the reference, shame on you). I’ve had my Food Lover’s Guide to Malaysia, and it was delicious. A wok toss away from the so-called Golden Triangle entertainment district around KL Tower, this food market is where the locals come to eat and shop. You just follow your nose to the best makan (food).
TRIP: Crazy KL and gentle Albert
KUALA LUMPUR DAY 7-9: The Petronas Twin Towers are grandiose monuments to modern architecture and a modern city; all steel and glass reaching to the clouds and glinting in the sun. They were built, shamelessly, as a sign to the world that this city, and this country, had come of age. Yet in so many ways that seems premature.
TRIP: Snake-wear is hot in the City
SINGAPORE DAY 5-6: Way to make friends when travelling alone: wear a boa constrictor like a scarf in front of a couple of hundred people. Instant acclaim, serious kudos. It was my own fault for sitting in the front row of the Night Safari’s Creatures of the Night show. (It was magic.)
TRIP: To shake, or not to shake
SINGAPORE (DAY 3-4): Don’t shake hands with anyone. Ever. After almost 48 hours in Singapore, I feel I can speak with authority in offering this crucial piece of advice as a hapless foreign tourist. Nothing is more important.
TRIP: If you never, never go…
DARWIN (DAY 1-2): I think what all this shows, definitively, is that Darryl Sommers can’t be trusted. Frankly, at least when it comes to Darwin, if you never, never go, what you’ll never, never know is possibly not worth knowing.
The Right does love you. Mostly
The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen writes of the myth – “based on lazy and crude logic” – that conservatives lack compassion. But her brand of tough love isn’t love at all. At least not the inclusive style of love the Christian Right likes to preach. Conservative compassion comes with many conditions.
Gutless politics of protecting coal
There is a great, immovable dichotomy of the climate change debate: governments in this country support emissions reduction AND the coal industry. The two are clearly opposed. Governments continue to prop up dirty, redundant industries for fear of having job losses and economic ruin on their watch. It is bad economics, and a politically gutless act.
After the fires, logistics matters
Logisticians did their best to coordinate containment of uncontainable blazes across the State. They were among the first on the scene to manage rescue and relief efforts. They will be called upon in a variety of ways to coordinate a recovery task that will take many years. They are invaluable and in-demand.
I am always right. Almost always
I am unshaken in my resolve to uphold personal truth. But it comes with a level of intolerance, of righteous duplicity, that doesn’t quite sit comfortably with me. There is a fine line between defending your core beliefs and being a zealot. But do we censor our biggest ideas?
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