There’s so many of these links this time that I’ll publish them over the fold. I think I need to get over my fear of the link being published automatically without my checking them first, and my concern that my website won’t look nice if the first post is just a list of links.

Maybe I should just stick these Delicious-generated links in a sidebar? Or do you like having them in the main stream and RSS feed?

• INFOWAR vs. CORPORATIONS | Global Guerrillas: John Robb’s essay outlines a potential strategy for conducting infowar against corporations — most of which looks to me like it’d be illegal. I suppose that’s what war is about, eh? The comments stream is somewhat amusing.
• “Artists Should Be Compensated For Their Work” | QuestionCopyright.org: Nina Paley’s controversial-looking essay which posits that artists are not entitled to be paid for their art, only for their work. She’s using these and other terms in quite specific ways, so it’s worth reading carefully before passing judgement.
• Post-Medium Publishing | Paul Graham: In amongst the various current discussions of charging for news content online, Paul Graham makes an important point. “Consumers never really were paying for content, and publishers weren’t really selling it either. If the content was what they were selling, why has the price of books or music or movies always depended mostly on the format? Why didn’t better content cost more?”
• Americans on Tailored Advertising: DO NOT WANT | denialism blog: No, Americans do not want tailored advertising on the Internet, even less so when told how their activities are monitored to make it work.
• A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare | Central Intelligence Agency: This eminently readable CIA monograph puts the Stanislav Petrov incident into perspective, explaining how and why the Soviet leadership feared a US first strike.
• The Man Who Prevented WWIII | DivineCaroline: In 1983, Stanislav Petrov was in charge of Soviet monitoring systems watching the US for signs of a nuclear first strike. One night he chose not to react to an alert, suspecting it was a false alarm. He was right, and a potential global nuclear exchange was avoided.
• The Fiction Generator | Wondermark: The Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator 2000 makes writers’ chores a breeze!
• Against Transparency | The New Republic: This essay on the perils of some “open government” initiatives is a pleasantly nuanced read.
• Michael Wolff on Rupert Murdoch | vanityfair.com: Wolff wrote a biography of Murdoch, and presumably knows the man. My take on this fascinating article is that the old guy simply doesn't understand what’s happening online, perhaps because you can inoly understand the online world if you participate in it.
• The News Manual: A free resource for journalists, would-be journalists, educators and people interested in the media. It was developed from a three-volume book The News Manual, published with the help of UNESCO as a practical guide to people entering the profession and to support mid-career journalists wanting to improve their skills.
• Televising Court Proceedings | SSRN: A 1993 paper by Ian Ramsay, then of the University of Melbourne Law School, setting out the main arguments for and against televising the proceedings of courts, and suggests an experimental program to evaluate the arguments in practice.
• The Law of Defamation | Arts Law Centre of Australia: A good introductory overview of how Australia’s tough anti-defamation laws work.
• chiropractic – The Skeptic’s Dictionary: When I was pointed to this article critical of chiropractic, I noted that it used some fallacious arguments which Science itself would not permit. I’m tagging it as an example of the hypocrisy of some perhaps only a few?) bold defenders of Science because it may form the basis of a future post.
• 55 Twitter tips | SmartCompany: While many of these tips for business aren’t entirely new, it’s a reasonable-enough compilation.
• Captain Kirk has taken too much fucking LSD | DoseNation: A nice bit o’music editing by Fall On Your Sword.
• How to Publish a Magazine in a Day and a Half | Derek Powazek: Powazek published a photomag of images from Sydney’s dust storm, sourced from Flickr, without leaving his California base. This is a great step-by-step how-to.
• A history of the English marriage | Telegraph: It seems many of our current “norms” about marriage were invented by the Victorians.
• MoD “How to stop leaks” guide leaks | The Register: In a supreme act of irony, the UK’s Ministry of Defence document Defence Manual of Security has been leaked into Wikileaks. All 2300 pages.
• Twitter and the norm police | Woolly Days: Derek Barry sums up a recent discussion on Twitter, defamation and what constitutes “publication”. I’m tagging it because I want to respond at some point.
• Mash-up: A Short History of the Media Future | The Monthly: While perhaps not completely groundbreaking, this essay by John Birmingham is an excellent backgrounder on the issues facing traditional media companies.
• AUSTLANG: A new database of Australian indigenous languages, cross-linked to Google Maps.
• Uncle Bobby’s Wedding | myliblog: An American library was asked to remove or restrict access to a children’s book about gay relationships. The librarian wrote a detailed and well-reasoned response explaining why it stays.
• Guidelines for Secure Use of Social Media by Federal Departments and Agencies | Chief Information Officers Council: What it says. The first version of new rules for US federal agencies.
• Hyperconnectivity | Wikipedia: The term “hyperconnectivity” now has its own Wikipedia entry. Where’s mine?
• 99 Led Balloons: Social Media Blunders | digitalOZ: A nice list of classic social media traps for young players. A shame 90% of businesses entering the world of social media will end up making quite a few of them.
• The Moguls’ New Clothes | The Atlantic: There is much sense in this analysis of Big Media and how that Internet thing is changing everything.
• Eureka moments | The Economist: How the mobile phone became a key tool for third-world development.
• jQuery Carousel: This is the code that Jeff Waugh used for the rotating carousel of featured stories on the Crikey home page. He reckons he wouldn’t necessarily use it again. But this is my bookmark.

I seem to have some really odd Special Powers. I can walk into a strange pub, buy the last few tickets for the meat raffle, and win — much to the chagrin of the regulars. I can also create inappropriate mental images which then persist.

Like “masturbating to tentacle pr0n”.

Yesterday, I made an offhand comment on Twitter to writer John Birmingham (pictured), who had the misfortune of having to watch the Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion special last night.

This morning, his column Hey, it wasn’t that bad, quotes me by name.

It is, as I say, a Special Power.

It’s been 20 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre. Of the many things I’ve seen commemorating it, one of the most powerful was John Birmingham’s simple blog post of that day’s diplomatic messages from the US Embassy in Beijing.

Cable, From: Department of State, Wash DC, To: US Embassy Beijing, and All Diplomatic and Consular Posts, TFCHO1: SITREP 1, 1700 EDT (June 3, 1989)

PLA MOVES ON TIANANMEN, CASULATIES HIGH. EMBASSY BEIJING REPORTS THAT TROOPS USING AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ADVANCED IN TANKS, APCS AND TRUCKS FROM SEVERAL DIRECTIONS ON TIANANMEN SQUARE JUNE 3. THERE WAS CONSIDERABLE RESISTENCE BY DEMONSTRATORS, AND THE NUMBER OF CASUALTIES APPEARS HIGH.

Please read them all and, as I did, take a moment to reflect.

According to Wikipedia, “There were early reports of Chinese Red Cross sources giving a figure of 2,600 deaths, but the Chinese Red Cross has denied ever doing so. The official Chinese government figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded.”

NATO intelligence puts the death toll at 7,000. Some other estimates are even higher.

China has blocked access to most social media sites such as Twitter, search engines, and many others. Yes. Let’s just stifle conversation and pretend it didn’t happen. Cowards.

I’ll wager this photograph of artist Him Lo, taken in Hong Kong yesterday, won’t be seen across the Middle Kingdom either.

[Photo: Tank Man, taken on 5 June 1989 by photographer Jeff Widener, depicts an unknown man halting the PLA's advancing tanks near Tiananmen Square.]

Dear Mr Rudd, it’s wonderful that you’ve joined Twitter. Of course Mr Turnbull was here a month before you, but Twitter has been around more than two years. Even sceptical old me has been here a year. You’re both complete n00bs. May I offer some tips?

The first thing you must understand is that Twitter is about human communication. We already have more formula-driven spin-doctor-approved crap than we’ll ever need. What we want to see is you, Kevin, that smart hard-working control-freak slightly-daggy-but-endearing father of three. The guy who after a long day’s campaigning could still crack a joke with The Chaser crew when they turned up at your home.

This afternoon you walked into the world’s weirdest non-stop front bar cum water cooler conversation and said “Looking forward to communicating with you on Twitter”. Outstanding. And now 430+ people have turned around to pay attention, and quite a few have even said hello. More will join them. What happens next is a conversation. You’ll be judged on that conversation, not what you do elsewhere — though we’ll certainly want to talk about your work. And your pets.

And your tea towels.

I’m guessing that right now your Hollowmen are analysing every reaction to your tweet (singular), agonising over how you should respond. Tell them to piss off. You’re a grown man — you’re the Prime Minister for God’s sake! — so if you can’t talk with a fellow human when they say hello without someone advising you what to say, you might as well give up now.

Just. Be. Yourself.

The second thing, though, is that you will find it strange and challenging. And that’s OK. We all did.

Twitter is both ephemeral and on the record all at the same time. It represents a new mode of communication. Society (and politics!) will need to adapt to people’s actual humanity. Twitter’s ambient intimacy provides you with a window into the lives of the people you follow, and us with a window into yours. What will we see?

We understand that you won’t want to reveal everything. Old-fashioned tabloid journalists, hypocrites that they are, make a big deal about what is actually normal human activity. Those of us who’ve made the transition to the hyperconnected world don’t care so much, because we see more of humanity’s actual variety. We know that people express frustration after a tough day, or doubts in uncertain times, and we don’t think any less of them. In fact, we think more of them for sharing.

We know that you’ll draw the curtains from time to time. We won’t see tweets like “Ordering the RAAF to bomb Wellington” or “I so want to stab Malcolm Turnbull with a pen, the smarmy prick!” or “ZOMG Julia Gillard is teh hotness!!1!!!1!” — though we’d all relate to that last one! But it’d be good to loosen that media mask just a little. Us hyperconnected folks respect honesty.

The other thing to notice is that Twitter is fast. Very fast.

The inimitable Mark Pesce has already written all about this in his lecture Hyperpolitics, American Style. You might want to put your feet up, make a nice strong cup of tea, crack open the Iced Vo-Vos and watch. He “gets it” more than those Sussex Street machine men will ever understand. If you’ve got time, you might also try Only Connect or even the more challenging This, That, and the Other. If you can absorb the lessons and work them into your personal politics, you will be full of WIN!

If you truly engage with Twitter — or rather, engage with the people who sit right in front of you thanks to Twitter — you’ll be able to bounce around ideas and reach a consensus before one of the old political dinosaurs has even finished his first canvassing phone call.

The real lesson is that you can’t just translate what you do in industrial-age media into this new world. You need to learn new skills, and the best way is to immerse yourself. Take the plunge. We won’t laugh.

Well, not at first.

Of course if @KevinRuddPM is not actually you but a minion, things are different…

There’s nothing wrong with a minion-operated Twitter account. @DowningStreet has even managed to inject real personality into the role even though it’s shared by three humans! Just be honest about that up front, and let the minion be a human.

It’s even kinda OK if the Twitter account is only to tell us about new posts to kevinpm.com.au — though that’s also kinda lame because the website already has an RSS feed and your first tweet did use the word “communicating”. We have expectations.

Over to you, Prime Minister!

P.S. Can you tell Conroy to pull his head in about the Internet censorship thing? It’s not a good look to have been elected on talk of “evidence-based policy” and then ignore the evidence.

P.P.S. Do you agree with John Birmingham when he says that Conroy does a “puckered cat’s bum thing with [his] mouth” when equating freedom of speech with kiddie-porn-watching? Just wondering. You can message me privately about that one, promise I won’t tell.

[This post was also re-published by ZDNet News Australia.]

John Birmingham has followed up his highly-successful Axis of Time trilogy of military thrillers with another “ripper yarn” novel, Without Warning: America is Gone. It’s a good read, but not as good as it could be.

Like Axis of Time, which posited a 21st-century naval task force suddenly finding itself at the Battle of Midway and the final volume of which I reviewed earlier, Without Warning is alternative history. One the eve of the 2003 Iraq War, an unexplained energy field obliterates all human life across most of the United States. As the world realises the last remaining superpower is gone, the novel tracks the political and military conflicts which emerge through the eyes of characters ranging from a US general at Guantanamo Bay to a female assassin working undercover in France.

My perceptions of Without Warning are coloured by Katie Harris’ comment that my recent Gonzo Twitter effort was like Hemingway. I still haven’t read any Hemingway, but I’ve been thinking about writing styles. In a previous review I described William Gibson’s noir prose as “a richly textured cabernet merlot” in comparison with the “slab of VB” simplicity of Adrian d’Hagé’s action thriller. Birmingham’s writing is another slab of VB. It’s a fast, easy read without too many difficult words or complex metaphors to slow you down.

Of course there’s plenty of military and other boy’s toys brand names and train-spotter facts.

Lee… opened the throttles on the big boat’s massive Caterpillar engines, unleashing a stampede from the 1492 horsepower contained in each one…

Three identified shooters there. All white males, dressed casually, armed with FAMAS G2 assault rifles…

She opened the oversized hold-all and pulled out the artillery. The pistol-grip Benelli shotgun came first: customised 12-gauge, extended mag with a side-saddle shell carrier. Next was the deal closer, a specially cut-down Heckler & Koch UMP .45, with an extended box mag housing thirty rounds of .40-calibre Smith & Wesson goodness. She slung the HK over her shoulder. It was a large, excessive arsenal for just one young lady to haul around…

Yeah, I know. Chicks with guns are hawt, and there’s plenty to keep the lads moist. Who’ll be cast for the movie, I wonder?

Occasionally I was forced to look up some piece of military jargon or other to grasp the sense of a scene. Irritating to me, but Birmingham’s fans would reckon that just brands me a n00b.

I agree with the estimable Duncan Riley’s review too (interestingly the first Google hit for the book after the Amazon listing):

The French stream, except nearly right at the end of the novel, was perhaps the worst character development ever delivered by Birmingham…

The ending wasn’t great, and set the story up for a sequel which Birmingham is already talking about writing. It’s a BIG book for a Birmingham novel, and an awful lot to cover, and the need to flip ahead into the future is understandable, but it didn’t conclude strongly.

Still, it is what it is. A thrill for the fans. They won’t be disappointed.

Don’t get annoyed by the about-the-author blurb though.

John Birmingham refuses to build a website, but he has three blogs…

Um, and what is a blog if not a website? Fuckwits.

Where the fuck do I start? For me, Anzac Day is a tangled mess of emotions and ideas — some about grand themes of global and national politics, others deeply personal.

What pleases me most about Anzac Day is that Australia and New Zealand commemorate the sacrifice of their war dead not through parades of tanks and missiles and a glorification of war but with highly personal ceremonies of remembrance starting before dawn.

We talk not of our nation’s military prowess — though Australia is, by all accounts, capable of fielding professional military forces which make almost everybody else look like disorganised amateurs — but of the personal qualities which have made this nation great.

Those qualities were listed in an Army recruitment advertisement designed by a soldier. They were reiterated this morning by Major General Mark Kelly:

Regardless of religion, racial background, or even place of birth, we gather not to glorify war, but to remind ourselves that we value who we are and the freedoms we possess, and to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of those who contributed so much in shaping the identity of this proud nation…

The term Anzac has transcended the physical meaning to become a spirit, an inspiration which embodies the qualities of courage, discipline, sacrifice, self reliance, and in Australian terms, mateship, and a fair go. This is what Anzac means to me.

These are the qualities which once gave Australia such a fine reputation overseas — before our foreign policy became one of subservience to American Neocons, and before symbols of military might were perverted into supporting a never-ending War on Abstract Nouns. Before quiet patriotism turned into loud but ignorant flag-draped jingoism. John Birmingham wrote about this in his Quarterly Essay, A Time for War: Australia as a Military Power. But what does it all mean now under Chairman Rudd?

I ponder my own personal ethical dilemma. I feel the “boy’s toys” thrill when I hear an F-111 strike bomber roar into action, and can rattle off endless facts about military history. I’ve felt the power as I’ve squeezed the trigger of a semi-automatic weapon loaded with live rounds. Yet at another level I know it’s disgusting. We’re fat, (mostly) white westerners at the top the food pile, gorging our way through the world’s resources while portraying a handful of frightened refugees as some mortal threat. We ship them to concentration camps, for fuck’s sake! At gunpoint. And before anyone suggest this is some party-political thing, let us not forget that a Labor government created that policy of mandatory detention.

And in amongst all of that, I remember a dead soldier.

I remember a young man who made his choices with eyes open. He was defeated in a battle filled not with the sounds of gunfire and the splatter of blood — I’m sure he faced those piddly threats with his usual joie de vivre — but the roar of thoughts in his own mind. I remember how his death affected me and devastated his family, how the Senate thought the Army had failed to take proper care of their own, and how lives continue to be lost despite those Senate recommendations.

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them.
Lest we Forget

Nicholas St John Shiels, service number 456021, you are remembered.

I pray that the commanders of Australia’s military forces, and their political “masters”, will one day remember that there are more important, more admirable personal qualities than the ability to cover one’s own arse.

[Photo credit: The rosemary sprig was taken from Matthew Hall's Twitter page. If I owe someone for that usage, I'll make good.]

I recently saw myself described as an ‘overrated misanthropic pot monster.’ I liked that so much I’m thinking of getting a tee shirt printed. It made me think of [writing a column] on the topic of media tags, you know — adjective adjective noun. But I couldn’t get four hundred words out of it. So I thought I’d throw it out here. Invent your own degrading media tag.

I like the challenge. I haven’t thought up one for him. But I’m wondering… What would be a good “degrading media designation” for me? And, for that matter, for the Prime Minister?

(On the latter, “lying rodent” doesn’t count. It has to have two adjectives. Even though a Google search on “lying rodent” gives you… well, look for yourself.)

• Fag daddy: John Birmingham’s take on this week’s “debate” about gay marriage.
• Political correctness, John Howard-style: It’s four years old now, but it’s still a good explanation by Labor’s deputy leader Julia Gillard of why John Howard and his far-right media cheer squad are out of touch with the values of the majority.
• Why Everything You Think You Know About Blog Architecture is Wrong: OK, a bit geeky. But you might see some of these thoughts reflected in this very website soon.

There is no such thing as a “space”.

There is such a thing as a market — that’s a group of people who will directly or indirectly pay money for something.

There is such a thing as a product — that’s an offering of a new kind of good or service that is brought to a market.

There is such a thing as a company — that’s an organized business entity that brings a product to a market.

Marc’s article goes on to explain why there’s no such thing as “Web 2.0″ either — in fact that’s its main thrust. It’s worth reading.

Hell, his entire blog is worth reading.

On the other hand, William Shakespeare is worth reading too.

So are P J O’Rourke, Daniel Petre, George Orwell, David Marr, John Birmingham, James Burke, George Lakoff, Brian Eno, Lao Tsu, Sherry Turkle, Steven Levy, Neal Stephenson, Umberto Eco, Richard Watts, Paul Graham, Bruce Schneier, Father Bob Maguire, Matt Ridley, Daniel Dennett, Zern Liew, Steven Levitt… but you’ve just got to draw the line somewhere!

• My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
• I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum — a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
• If my advisors ask “Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?”, I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
• My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

Sure, the list is a decade old, but I only found out about it just now from author John Birmingham, who continues the discussion. ]]> http://stilgherrian.com/media/become_evil_overlord/feed/ 0 http://stilgherrian.com/personal/thinking_about_values/ http://stilgherrian.com/personal/thinking_about_values/#comments Mon, 02 Oct 2006 15:24:08 +0000 Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/personal/thinking_about_values/ Writing this, my 100th blog post, has set me a-thinkin’ about why. Why I’m writing a blog, yes, but also why I’m doing lots of things. Why I’m frustrated by the work I’m doing. Why I love Sydney (and Melbourne, don’t feel left out, folks). Why I get passionate about certain issues in the media.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about these things for some time, but writing this post focussed my thoughts. And while doing so, the word “values” turned up — twice. Once for the current public debate about “Australian values”. And again when my friend and colleague Zern Liew asked me to list my own “personal values”.

Australian Values

This debate fascinates me. It’s all divide-and-conquer tactics by our Prime Minister, of course. John Howard, I despise the direction you’re taking this fine nation, but I have to admire your ability to play the game.

“Australian values” are tricky. It’s not like the nation came with a value statement — unlike the America’s fine Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Australia’s Constitution is just a British Act of Parliament setting up the mechanics of creating a federation out of disparate colonies.

The term “Australian Values” is usually followed by words like “mateship” and “a fair go” and “tolerance”. All very vague.

Writer John Birmingham says the roots of our core values run deep…

… all the way back to ancient Greece in the case of western political values — although not western sexual values because those Greeks, God bless ‘em, they mighta defended their precious freedoms with some really kickin’ hoplite infantry, but they were also kinda gay.

There’s a great bit in Mississippi Burning, where Willem Dafoe’s super-nerd FBI guy gets all preachy and superior about some murdered civil rights workers and their commitment to American values, lecturing Gene Hackman that some folks believe there are things worth dying for. And Hackman, playing a fatter, slower, deeply cynical and infinitely more dangerous FBI guy, deadpans him right back that in Ole Miss, that’s fine, because there are plenty of folks believe some things are worth killin’ for.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe, stripped right back to bone and marrow, the core values of any society are those things everyone except Bob Brown is willing to spill blood over. An ocean of blood if needs be. It’s unfashionable, but it concentrates the mind to think in those terms.

While the article outlines some history in an amusing way, it doesn’t help explain what those values actually are.

Maybe we can get a handle on “Australian” by looking at what’s “un-Australian”.

Hmmm… a problem there. “un-Australian” is used indiscriminately for all sorts of things. Bosses who block Internet access to football tipping websites, utes that can’t do burnouts, anyone who doesn’t eat lamb, vegetarians, and paying someone to clean your house are all un-Australian according to a fascinating article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

(Yes, apparently since we hired a cleaner, we became un-Australian. Well ’Pong is un-Australian anyway, he’s Thai — though a permanent resident.)

In fact, calling things “un-Australian” has become so common that the Macquarie Dictionary had to re-define it last year.

un-Australian [pronunciation] adjective 1. not Australian in character: an un-Australian landscape; an un-Australian novel. 2. (of conduct, behaviour, etc) not conforming to ideas of traditional Australian morality and customs, such as fairness, honesty, hard work, etc.: Mr Elliott said the idea should not be seen as un-Australian or against the ethos of the nation’s culture of not ‘dobbing in mates’. — West Australian, 1992. 3. violating a pattern of conduct, behaviour, etc., which, it is implied by the user of the term, is one embraced by Australians: It’s un-Australian to drive past a pub. — John Singleton, 1988. 4. Obsolete disloyal to the Australian nation, especially by virtue of being subject to manipulation by an influence from outside Australia, derived from certain political, religious and ethnic affiliations.

So “un-Australian” is just whatever someone asserts it to be. Not very helpful either. After all that, we’re no closer to understanding what “Australian values” are.

And that’s the beauty of John Howard’s “Australian values”. They’re all in the ear of the listener. To rednecks at Cronulla, Australian values are about keeping the lebs off “our” beach. To the Lebanese at Bankstown, Australian values include the tolerance of multiculturalism that allows them to live here in (mostly) harmony.

I’ll never figure out “Australian values” in this blog!

Personal Values

My personal values… that’s tricky too.

Zern asked me to list my personal values as part of the “reinventing Stilgherrian” project — because I’m not happy with where I am professionally right now.

If you’ve known me a while, or if you read About Stilgherrian, you’ll know that the media has been a big chunk of my working life. I was good at doing media stuff, and it was fun. I enjoy writing, and that’s why I blog. Yet somehow I’ve ended up running an IT business — and I simply don’t care about IT.

Sure, I did a major in computing science. But a computer is a tool — the means to an end, not an end in itself. I’m not interested in making tools — let alone fixing other people’s tools when they break. That’s what tradespeople are for.

And yet Prussia.Net is a successful business. I don’t want to kill it.

So there’s a transition process of some kind here. Zern has quite rightly asked about my own “core values”. But I’m not yet sure what they are, and whenever I start listing them I end up with “assertions” and “beliefs” as well as “values”.

• Truth and Integrity. I hate liars, and I believe in dealing truthfully in business.
• Hypocrisy is a sin. Actually it’s one of the Three Senseless Sins of the Church of Virus, along with Dogmatism and Apathy. The Three Virian Virtues are Reason, Empathy and Vision.
• Humans are Mammals. We are apes, and there’s no way you’ll properly understand humans unless you take that into account.
• Everything is Deeply Intertwingled. That’s an observation by Ted Nelson, the man who invented the word “hypertext” and who’s a brilliant genius or an ADD-riddled scatter-brain, or both.

Looking for list of personal values on the Internet gives me a lot of motherhood words.

Obviously this needs more thought. Much more thought. And the long weekend just finished was about decadence such as the AFL Grand Final and the attendant ales rather than Deep Thinking. So this long and rambling post has questions, but no answers. Do you feel cheated?

Maybe if you know me well you can suggest some of my personal values — comments please!

Stella Rimington was head spook at MI5, so she presumably knows how The Game is played. I’d enjoyed her first novel, At Risk, a fairly standard spy thriller featuring female intelligence officer Liz Carlisle. So I figured the second Carlisle tale would be worth a read.

Alas, Secret Asset is disappointing.

The main theme is a nice new twist — an IRA mole doesn’t disappear quietly once The Troubles die down, but instead decides to “screw the Brits” generally with the aid of some Pakistanis. And the pacey writing kept me reading.

But there’s a difference between archetype and stereotype — and the supporting characters are stereotypes. Resident geek-spook “Technical Ted” has a ponytail and swoons into a virtual orgasm when challenged to read data from ancient floppy discs. And the analyst on loan from MI6 is bookish, a former librarian even. The ending’s a cop-out too — but I won’t spoil it.

What grated most, though, were the wave-the-flag patriotic moments. Sohail, a Pakistani law student, for instance, was reading English Torts: A Casebook:

He liked the precision and arid tautness of its prose. The book was almost theoretical in its abstraction, but unlike the Islamic literature he was surrounded by during the day, English law seemed incapable of perversion in the hands of fanatics.

Oh please! The Empire saved by the OED? OK, it’s standard practice for “retired” spooks to add to the propaganda pool, but a little subtlety might be in order from one of The Greats.

Still, Stella kept me moderately amused before bedtime two nights in a row, which at $32.95 is cheaper than a hooker. The Liz Carlisle stories will make excellent fodder for ABC TV’s Friday night sessions.

By comparison, John Birmingham did thrill me with Final Impact because it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than cheap trashy action — and it’s a bloody fine example of the genre.

“Birmingham’s an arsehole,” I used to think — another story for another time. Now I’ve read all but one of his books and loved each and every one.

Final Impact is the third (final?) Axis of Time novel, set in an alternate World War II where a 21st Century naval task force — replete with stealth ships, multicultural crews and nukes — finds itself at the Battle of Midway.

Yes, the “contemporary war-fighters do The Time Warp” trope has been done before. But this is a well-crafted yarn, following on nicely from Weapons of Choice and Designated Targets. Where those books cover the initial “Emergence” and then the issues facing the integration of the 21C and WWII forces, Final Impact is the end-play and the Race for The Bomb — with plenty of surprises along the way.

Birmingham scatters the books with quirky references — Prince Harry as an SAS colonel — and even has Himmler cracking jokes! As the SS supremo struggles to work his high-tech “flexipad” he finds…

… the Windows file management system a diabolical confoundment. And they accuse me of crimes against humanity, he thought as he settled himself at his desk. Willhelm Gates, you are a beast and your family will pay.

Sure, it’s all Boy’s Own action with plenty of technical detail and blood’n'gore. But that’s what the genre is about. And it’s appropriate that Time compares him favourably with the genre master Tom Clancy.

As it happens, today is John Birmingham’s birthday. So what better cheapskate present than to tell him, “Mate, loved your book. Two thumbs up.”