A journalism student contacted a real journalist as part of a university class assignment. Here is the email she wrote:
hi my name is Sarah and I’m a bachelor of journalism student. I was wondering if i could please conduct a short phone interview with someone for a news story i have to write as part of my assessment. your time would be greatly appreciated. looking forward to your reply
Here’s the response.
For various reasons, I’m considering wrapping this blog up. It’s got nothing to do with getting tired of blogging – it’s more of a conflict with work commitments. Decision to be made soon.
Here are some brazen predictions, including brief reasons why.
1. The bottom will drop out of the economy over the next six months.
Two reasons for this. First, the economy has been puffed up by “stimulus” money that is basically being wasted. The money will dissolve like sugar in hot coffee, and then, the whole thing will bomb.
2. China will not become the world’s next superpower.
China will not supercede America because they do not have property rights; they have internal ructions; and they are propping their economy up with stimulus spending.
3. The NSW government will not make it till the official state election date in 2011. Corruption is just too endemic.
4. Barack Obama will not be re-elected. He doesn’t have the political skills to push his agenda; his agenda is not particularly good anyway; and he doesn’t have the intellectual strength to deal with things he’s not expecting.
5. Kevin Rudd will probably be re-elected, but he’s only got one more election in him. It will take a couple more years before people figure out what sort of character the man has.
There ya go. Keep score if you like.
update: it’s probably unwise to predict “six months” on the economy when the money is still sloshing around. It could be longer. but not that much longer… just as long as it takes for the stimulus money to stop flowing.
David Marr, appearing on the ABC show Insiders, made this comment on the political term “left”:
“The word means nothing.”
Presumably “right wing” means nothing too, eh, Dave?
No seriously…. what this meme means is that the Left believe they’ve won the war for hearts and minds, and they’re now the centre. The Left is so mainstream, it’s not Left any more.
At least, that’s what I think he means.
It remains to be seen if he’s Right.
For most of the previous presidency, the Left accused George W. Bush of using 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq. Since January, his successor has used the economic slump as a pretext to “reform” health care. Most voters don’t buy it: They see it as Obama’s “war of choice,” and the more frantically he talks about it as a matter of urgency the weirder it seems.
The Obama administration chortles that you should “never let a crisis go to waste.”
In other words, they say, you should use a crisis to further your own agenda. But as Steyn notes, that’s exactly what the Left accuced Bush of when he went into Iraq.
From Rich Lowry at RealClearPolitics, 13 step by step instructions on how to give a speech like Barack Obama. For example,
Tip number 12: At least once a speech, keep talking over the applause. This is inspiring.
I would add the following 8 tips to his list:
14. make sure you look over to the side and slightly up, even if nobody is sitting there. This accentuates your chin and makes you look earnest and statesmanlike.
15. If you’re more than three minutes in, don’t smile. This is serious stuff.
16. Brazenly flatter your audience. For example:
“I want to thank the members of this body for your efforts and your support in these last several months, and especially those who’ve taken the difficult votes that have put us on a path to recovery. I also want to thank the American people for their patience and resolve during this trying time for our nation. “
17. give homely anecdotes about yourself that paint you as a saintly man uninterested in the world’s temptations.
for example
And that’s why I moved to Chicago after college. As some of you know, I turned down more lucrative jobs because I was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement
18. accuse your opponents of playing politics:
Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost.
19. kick business around a bit . Call them “big business” and maybe throw in a reference to CEO salaries. Try to contrast the greed of business with the plight of average americans.
“It’s about the responsibilities that corporate America has – responsibilities that start with ending a culture on Wall Street that says what’s good for me is good enough; that puts their bottom line ahead of what’s right for America.”
or
“the struggles facing working families can’t be solved by spending billions of dollars on more tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs, but by giving a the middle-class a tax break, and investing in our crumbling infrastructure”
20. make sure you talk down on America:
so many of our nation’s schools are failing, especially those in our poorest rural and urban communities, denying millions of young Americans the chance to fulfill their potential and live out their dreams, we have more work to do.
21. Most important: Go for the big finish.
Use short sentences. Make platitudes and empty, grandiose claims. Place the emphasis on unusual words, so that seemingly banal sentences devoid of meaning sound profound. Use repetition of words and syntactic forms.
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
And there you have it.
An instant Obama speech that will bring tears to the eyes of the most jaundiced observer, send shivers down spines, and leave people knowing not a single thing more than before you opened your mouth, but they will have the vague impression that you said something important.
Behold the creativity.
A head made completely of human blood on display in London.
And across the channel, an exhibition of cadavers doing the horizontal tango is planned for Germany.
What’s wrong with modern art? I think the answer is banal: the main problem is simply lack of talent.
Being controversial is a way of trying to distract from a lack of interesting ideas. And note that they’re not even being controversial in new ways – we’ve seen this body part routine many times before.
The art world was once a place for brilliant young minds: Picasso, Dali, Kandinsky… those guys could paint! (and draw, and sculpt, and other stuff). That was long ago.
These days, if you’re a talented artist, you’re probably designing video games. The “arts” as such won’t have much appeal.
There was some speculation that they’d get off, but a Queensland couple are going to be charged for illegal abortion after all.
There are two angles on this.
On the one hand, people should have greater power and autonomy over their own medical care. We have a maze of gatekeepers that we have to navigate to get legally available prescription drugs. There need to be more direct pathways. Adults should be responsible for their own bodies. If they’re going to misuse that responsibility, it’s not the government’s job to wring their hands and try to make our decisions for us.
On the other hand, these two people smuggled drugs into the country and broke the law in administering their own treatment, resulting in a miscarriage.
Plus, well, I personally find abortion to be a primitive and barbaric practice… but I guess that’s not the legal issue in question.
Know-it-some: the sort of person who doesn’t know very much, and keeps on telling it to you anyway.
update: Labelled in Australia. A plan to help you feel patriotic while continuing to buy cheap foreign-made goods. If it was labelled with a “Labelled In Australia” label in Australia, then it’s eligible for the “Labelled in Australia” label! Everybody wins!