After lunch today, this is what my email inbox looked like. I know the folks at New Matilda wouldn’t be big fans of News Limited columnist Piers Ackerman, but this!
I’ve previously posted a similar faux pas.
Bennelong Time Since I Rock and Rolled
John Howard meets Led Zeppelin? This music video is actually rather well produced. The YouTube election campaign will be interesting, methinks!
This video — and the others by Cyrius01 — raise an interesting issue about “political advertising”. Note that there’s no “written and authorised by” blurb at the end. Does that matter? Or is this really just “a citizen expressing an opinion”, as he might over a pint at the local pub?
It used to be that producing and distributing “political advertising” took money, and plenty of it. Now, the means of production are in everyone’s hands, and the means of distribution, like YouTube, are there for the taking too. No longer is Davo’s incredibly amusing impersonation of George W Bush confined to the front bar — 15 minutes later it’s online for the world to see. And yet our rules on political advertising are still stuck in the 20th Century.
Clearly something needs to be changed, somehow — but how?
[Update 1200 midday: This is now Crikey‘s Video of the Day.]
LOLBible
Excellent. The Bible (you may have heard of it?) is being translated into LOLcat.
1. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat was invisible, and he maded the skiez and da earths, but he did not eated it.
2. The earths wus witout shapez and wus dark and scary and stuffs, and he rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3. And Ceiling Cat sayz, i can has light? and teh light wuz.
“Clever”, but too late?
The government’s Climate Clever campaign is, apart from a wonderful subject for satire, apparently a nice attempt to re-associate the word “clever”.
As Possums Pollytics explains, it’s trying to re-frame the word away from “John Howard is clever” as in “tricky” to “clever policies on climate”.
Word association is a powerful propaganda weapon. Think Beazley and ticker, Keating and elitist, Latham and learner, and now Howard and clever. If the Libs could disassociate the word clever from Howard and re-associate it with climate change policies, not only would they neutralise the ALP attack, but would reduce the power of any residual word association with Howard.
A shame it’s probably way too late to make a difference. Possums also reports on the latest AC Nielsen polls with a simple “Business as usual. Nothing to see here folks, please move on.”
Mr Howard, please just call the bloody election. The longer you leave it now, the more you’re going to piss off the very people you’re trying to impress.
Sydney Life: living in fear
This photo from Garry Trinh’s “Welcome Home” series has won this year’s Sydney Life Prize. And I’ll bet it puts some noses out of joint.
Let’s face it, Sydney thinks it’s pretty bloody special sometimes. Loud, self-centred, self-indulgent, self-opinionated and narcissistic. So I’m always happy to see imagery which reminds us that everything’s not always as pretty as it seems.
That’s why I liked it when the City of Sydney selected ’Pong’s Anywhere Chairs project, and why I like this photo winning the $10,000 prizemoney and public viewing by half a million people — even though it presents a Sydney that isn’t as glossy as the one you’ll see in the Shoot the Chef competition or as “clever” (too clever?) as the winning photo there.
As one of the judges, Sandy Edwards, says, “The image reminds us that real estate is of high value in Sydney, yet this family home in western Sydney is uninviting.”
Sydney Life finalists are on show in Hyde Park North until 22 October, part of the Art & About festival. Thanks to Billy Law for the pointer.
’Pong’s Sleaze Ball photos
’Pong was one of a group of photographers who took some great images at the long weekend’s Sleaze Ball. They’re currently showing in another public slide show event at 76 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, opposite the Snakebean diner. In Sydney. Every evening until it stops.