Tin Pot Hitlers

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A scene near the farm.

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."
Robert X. Cringely

"In nature there are nei8ther rewards nor punishments - there are consequences."
Robert G Igersell

"Only the very young imagine that they can play with fire without getting burned. The rest of us, looking at the world under singed eyelashes, have learned to our regret that the bill for heedless behaviour eventually comes due."
Larsen & Hewgarty.


He had watched them for decades, what seemed like generations, little tin pot Hitlers brushing past the staff, not talking to them, radiating fear. Gerard Stone wrote a book recently, Who Killed Channel Nine? about the impact of a man called John Alexander on the once proud television network. Alexander was editor in chief at The Sydney Morning Herald while I was there, and a similar book could have been written about what he did to that once proud newspaper; indeed Stone's book reminded him of the importance of recording things, of telling stories which would otherwise remain untold.

The Herald was once regularly listed amongst the top 20 newspapers in the world, and was an enormously complex and venerated institution. Now it's written by twenty somethings and reads like it, barely adult, earth changing enthusiasms built on few facts, a campaigning newspaper campaigning for all the ordinary goals of the left. It wasn't a paper for adult readers; in recent years it has had almost no depth; embracing glossy lifestyle journalism but failing to tell the story of the nation as it is.

Alexander was a small man who had the habit of rubbing his hands together constantly, as if he could never get them clean; which was appropriate enough. He, like all his ilk, did his best to radiate fear, the worst small man syndrome you would ever see.

Look at all these reporters, they look like pineapples, he would declare, and that one's stoned, pointing at him.
I am not, I've had my misspent youth, he responded.
Bullshit.

There were always purges, and that Stalinesque concept, the purge of purges; where they would get rid of almost everyone in a bloody slaying which was meant to rejuvenate the news floor. Instead it destroyed it; getting rid of all the paper's historical memory and putting in a generation of twenty somethings who while earnest and enthusiastic wouldn't know a story if it sat on their face.

He remembered one incident because it was typical of these over-paid bullies, and very typical of Alexander. There was this kid, Adam, who had the record for being the cadet who had applied the most times for a job at the paper; dozens and dozens of attempts he had made without success. Finally someone gave him a go, and he was dong well too, producing lots of copy, getting his stories in, a creative type, different, but talented. He could have gone on to have a great career in journalism.

Then one day he made a fatal mistake; a mistake kinder more generous souls would have forgiven; let off with a warning. The kid's best friend was having trouble with his landlord; being tossed out. You don't want to be homeless in Sydney; it's all too massively difficult a place to live. Adam said to the landlord: you can't do that to my friend, I work at the Sydney Morning Herald, I'll write about you.

This did not go down well with the fierce middle class matriarch who thought she could behave any way she wanted to; with the security of wealth; and she promptly rang the editor in chief, who she knew through some vague social connection; and complained about the behaviour of one of his cub reporters. And that was that; Adam was sacked on the spot.

He remembered to this day the sickening sight of the bosses strutting around the news floor that day; blood on their hands and proud of it. They were like little bantam roosters, Alexander in particular, they had shown every body who was boss; they had wrenched up the climate of fear; they went off to lunch with the smug knowledge of a morning's work well done. But the excitement of victory, blood, of pecking some one's dreams and dignity to death, the excitement fades rapidly, you have to do it again and again on ever greater scales to get the same high. And so, with Alexander, it came to be. Half the news room fled in that final purge of purges; and then, taken under the wing of Australia's richest man, Kerry Packer, he went on to new hunting grounds, sacking people with decades of news experience; treating them like dirt, his cold, flittering, brutal personality loving it all, as he sat gazing out the windows of limousines. There was no smiles, there were no easy laughs, unless at the expense of others. There was always the cold knife and the damp metallic sweat, the complete lack of conscience, Calligula, the knifings, the blood, the victory.

The Lords saw them in completely different ways to the rank and file on the floors. They prospered and no ordinary person could understand how, or why. They inhabited a different realm where they thought doing nasty things was part of the art; a hired knife, stabbings for a fee, lunch at Machiavelli's afterwards. It was a brutal cruelty that simply wasn't a part of him, that he could never rise to. He floundered in the lower ranks, and nothing changed. He saw the same darkness creep into other souls, different decade, different people, same story. He clutched his own courage, integrity, decency, his own talents around him as a protective blanket, faced another day of treachery. It would all be over soon enough. He would be protected; he would always survive. He was always the one left to tell the story; a divine hand, a guardian angel, the chronicler, past, present and future.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7289896.stm

A backpacker hostel in Australia could face legal action after it allegedly turned away some Aborigines because of their skin colour.

Members of the group have insisted they were told to leave because they were scaring other foreign guests.

Managers at the hostel in Alice Springs have denied allegations of racism.

Aborigines make up about 2% of Australia's population. They suffer very high rates of ill-health, unemployment and imprisonment.

Last month the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a landmark apology to indigenous Australians for the abuse and discrimination they have endured since European colonisation.

The group of Aboriginal women and children had travelled to Alice Springs from the desert community of Yuendumu.

They had arrived to take part in a lifesaving course ahead of the opening of a new swimming pool back in their remote settlement.

Within half an hour of checking into the Haven Backpackers resort, they alleged they were thrown out because they were black, following complaints from Asian tourists.

"I merely asked the manager why couldn't we stay - they said that it was because of the colour of our skin and they didn't like it," said one of the women, Bethany Langton.

The Northern Territory anti-discrimination commissioner said the group might have a strong case to take legal action.

The hostel's website describes the resort as "stylish and super clean", where guests are afforded "the most friendly welcome possible".

The management has denied allegations of racism. In a statement it said the hostel caters for "international backpacking tourists" and was not suitable for the group of Aboriginal lifesavers.

It went on to say that managers made every effort to arrange alternative accommodation.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23359576-661,00.html

JOHN Howard is earning tens of thousands of dollars each time he trumpets his former government's achievements to American audiences.

The former PM yesterday continued his farewell speaking tour of the US with a speech at Harvard University.

Celebrity publicist Max Markson said American organisations were being charged $50,000, plus travel and accommodation costs, to hear Mr Howard speak.

He is represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau, which also has comedian John Cleese and former British PM Tony Blair on its books.

Mr Markson said the speaking fees earned by Mr Howard in the US were reasonable, given his international status.

"Absolutely -- he was a member of a Coalition of the Willing with Bush and Blair.

"Probably short of Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Olivia Newton-John, he's the most high-profile Australian."

Mr Howard is not accepting paid speaking engagements in Australia. But speculation is growing he could be signed by a major Australian publishing house to write his memoirs.

During a question-and-answer session after his speech to Harvard's prestige Kennedy School of Government yesterday, Mr Howard defended his refusal to offer a formal apology to the stolen generations.

"It seems to me there's a real danger that when you do something like that, there's a psychological reaction, 'Well the indigenous box has been ticked and we've solved the problem'," he said.

"And the commitment to do practical things such as reducing the gap between the life expectancy of indigenous Australians and other Australians, which is unacceptably high, and those sorts of things are pushed into the background."

Mr Howard claimed Australia's sense of national pride and identity as one of the achievements and defended his decision not to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

After his speech, Mr Howard confirmed he had dined with US President George W. Bush at a low-key family dinner in the White House last Thursday.

Asked if the US President had expressed any disappointment in Australia's plans to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, Mr Howard said: "I don't have any comment on that."