“Let’s just write that down…”

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson reckons Australia needs a Bill of Rights. I reckon he’s right about rights. And that’s because the central issue reminds me of when we were running The Core magazine

The Core‘s sole source of income was advertising, and most of it came from nightclubs. Nightclub managers are [coughs] the most honourable and [chokes] reliable [gargles] businessmen and women who can be found. Their integ… [coughs] [chokes] … sorry, I seem to have something caught in my throat.

They’d brag about how their new club night would be the biggest, brightest thing ever. “It’ll be huge,” they’d say. They’d want to book a heap of advertising — on credit, of course — and wanted discount.

“Sure,” I’d say, showing them our rate card and the discounts on offer.

“We’ll book a full page for 8 weeks then, for that 25% discount,” or whatever it was.

“Sure,” I’d say again. “Just sign here.”

And then they’d freeze.

Continue reading ““Let’s just write that down…””

US newspapers pull “offensive” cartoon

Opus cartoon

Newspapers across the US have pulled this Opus cartoon by Berkeley Breathed, afraid of offending people. Yet as I read it, the only people it’s making fun of are people like character Lola Granola — people who jump onto bandwagons because it’s “fashionable” instead of holding genuine beliefs.

Dan Gillmor says it’s a case of puritan prudishness and political cowardice. Salon have written an editorial. Thanks to BoingBoing for the pointer.

Now watch this cartoon spread across the blogosphere faster than you can say “Danish pastry”.

Day and Night

Day and Night: photograph

I’ve been looking at this photograph for hours, scattered over the last few days.

It was apparently taken from the space shuttle Columbia. No it wasn’t, scroll down for the comments. I shouldn’t need to point out that the big lumpy thing in the foreground is called Africa, and further back there’s the thing they call Europe.

It fascinates me because it — literally! — puts things in perspective. Some of the world’s greatest cities are invisible, at least in daylight. The Low Countries are just starting to blaze in artificial light. But the brightest lights are the flares of oil wells in the deserts of Algeria and Libya, and off the coast of Nigeria.

Hey, aren’t the people there starving? That can’t be right, if they’ve got all that oil, surely?

Thanks to Memex 1.1 for the pointer.