By Graham Cooke
Does the Australian Rugby League really have the health of its competition at heart or are its officials and administrators simply incompetent?
That was the question I asked myself after hearing the list of punishments meted out to the Melbourne Storm for its failure to keep within the mandated salary cap.
The Storm deserves to be punished - and the punishments should be severe. This was no bureaucratic bungle, no error of bookkeeping by a slipshod financial officer who didn't understand the rules. This was a deliberate and cynical rort. It is amazing that Melbourne Storm would have been able to assemble such a group of high-quality and obviously high-paid stars without arousing suspicions before.
So agreed there should be sanctions; agreed that the premierships and minor premierships should be stripped away - although the game's historians will be the only ones seriously perturbed about the blank spaces in the record books - agreed prize money should be returned and agreed there should be a monetary fine on top of that.
What I can't stomach is the decision to bar the team from accruing any points during the current season - even though it must keep on playing.
This is an unfair and devastating blow to the playing and coaching staff. For all the brave words currently being bandied around in the dressing rooms, the effect of playing week after week for no reward against teams that still have the incentive of taking two points will eventually sap the players' will to put in 100 per cent effort.
Why risk injury in a futile exercise? Team performances will decline, crowds will drop off and players and their agents will start to look elsewhere. I am afraid I join the increasing numbers of commentators who believe the Storm will not survive.
And if the AFL thinks it can just plonk in another franchise as a replacement it had better think again. League has a perilous enough toe-hold in the AFL stronghold as it is, and what fans the Storm does have will not easily forgive the code for treating it with contempt.
I believe rugby league's administrators missed the obvious solution to this part of the club's punishment - one that has worked well enough in the English Football League.
Instead of simply being told it cannot accrue points this season, the Storm should have been fined points, for argument's sake let's say 50.
The eight points already won this season would go towards the fine, reducing it to 42, and from then on the Storm would be playing to reduce the deficit further - every time it won the fine would be reduced by two points.
With 24 game in the regular season the total number of points available is 48, so there would bound to be a carry-over into the next season, but the storms incentive would be to have as few owed points as possible left at the end of the year, so it would start in a reasonably competitive position in 2011. In effect it would be playing for next season's premiership, while still having the ignominy of finishing at the foot of the table in 2010.
With the season continuing it is probably too late for a re-think, but in its haste to get sanctions into place the NRL may well have dealt the Storm - and the future of rugby league in Victoria - a fatal blow.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Dictatorship false path to prosperity
By Graham Cooke
Nouriel Roubini is an interesting character and it’s worth taking a look at the website of Roubini Global Economics www.roubini.com where he claims to understand and promote ‘the logic of the global economy’.
Professor Roubini is an economist pure and simple. Political and social issues do not concern him, except when they get in the way of his theories for economic growth, in which case they should be brushed aside.
As an example, one his writers currently argues that dictatorships have served Brazil well at times in the past - benevolent dictatorships admittedly, but the problem with that they inevitably end up serving the needs of the dictators and their cronies rather than the people over which their authoritarian rule is exercised. Something about absolute power corrupting absolutely.
China is certainly one major economy that would enthusiastically embrace Professor Roubini’s theories, while the professor himself is an unabashed admirer of the way the mandarins in Beijing conduct their affairs.
For instance, he predicts the Chinese yuan will usurp the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency sometime in this century because of its large current account surplus, focussed government and few of the economic worries that the US faces.
He tends to overlook that its current account surplus is built on the backs of the low wages and appalling conditions faced by its lowest strata of workers – an average of seven miners die every day for instance – that allows it to flood the world market with under-priced goods.
The policy makes a few people very wealthy, promotes a strong middle class of several hundred million, while leaving perhaps half a billion others in conditions that a medieval peasant would recognise. Far from being the communist utopia, China today represents the unacceptable face of capitalism.
There might be more sympathy for a yuan-based world economy if the Chinese Government allowed it to float and find its own level, instead of being artificially pegged in order to ensure China's exports remain riduculously cheap.
Professor Roubini is known as ‘Dr Doom’ for his continuously bleak prognosis of the West’s economic health. What he fails to see are the social problems that China is storing up for itself by retaining an iron grip on its population and giving no outlet to the aspirations of so many of its people.
China is a pressure cooker with no safety valve. It is something the leadership will have to deal with in the years and decades ahead or face a social explosion of its own making.
Professor Roubini and his cohorts may be enchanted by dictatorships, but history demonstrates that dictatorships don’t last for ever, and often end in unpleasant circumstances.
Nouriel Roubini is an interesting character and it’s worth taking a look at the website of Roubini Global Economics www.roubini.com where he claims to understand and promote ‘the logic of the global economy’.
Professor Roubini is an economist pure and simple. Political and social issues do not concern him, except when they get in the way of his theories for economic growth, in which case they should be brushed aside.
As an example, one his writers currently argues that dictatorships have served Brazil well at times in the past - benevolent dictatorships admittedly, but the problem with that they inevitably end up serving the needs of the dictators and their cronies rather than the people over which their authoritarian rule is exercised. Something about absolute power corrupting absolutely.
China is certainly one major economy that would enthusiastically embrace Professor Roubini’s theories, while the professor himself is an unabashed admirer of the way the mandarins in Beijing conduct their affairs.
For instance, he predicts the Chinese yuan will usurp the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency sometime in this century because of its large current account surplus, focussed government and few of the economic worries that the US faces.
He tends to overlook that its current account surplus is built on the backs of the low wages and appalling conditions faced by its lowest strata of workers – an average of seven miners die every day for instance – that allows it to flood the world market with under-priced goods.
The policy makes a few people very wealthy, promotes a strong middle class of several hundred million, while leaving perhaps half a billion others in conditions that a medieval peasant would recognise. Far from being the communist utopia, China today represents the unacceptable face of capitalism.
There might be more sympathy for a yuan-based world economy if the Chinese Government allowed it to float and find its own level, instead of being artificially pegged in order to ensure China's exports remain riduculously cheap.
Professor Roubini is known as ‘Dr Doom’ for his continuously bleak prognosis of the West’s economic health. What he fails to see are the social problems that China is storing up for itself by retaining an iron grip on its population and giving no outlet to the aspirations of so many of its people.
China is a pressure cooker with no safety valve. It is something the leadership will have to deal with in the years and decades ahead or face a social explosion of its own making.
Professor Roubini and his cohorts may be enchanted by dictatorships, but history demonstrates that dictatorships don’t last for ever, and often end in unpleasant circumstances.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Expenses scandal costly for UK's main parties
By Graham Cooke
British Opposition Leader David Cameron is making 'Change' the catchword of his campaign in the British General Election, now fixed for May 6, but if the country's recent history is anything to go by, he may find it difficult to get an enthusiastic response from the voters.
Only once in almost 31 years has the electorate stirred itself to toss out an incumbent government. That was in 1997 when Tony Blair's New Labour image ousted a tired Conservative Party led by John Major after 17 years of unbroken Tory rule. Since then Labour has won two more elections by handy margins and has itself chalked up 13 years in power.
For most of the last three years it seemed the electorate was ready to turn to the Conservatives again. The Cameroons, as the supportive Tory media is calling them, were presenting a fresh, new image, finally shaking off the sleaze that dogged the Major administration during its last days.
It is true that Cameron had to face up to his establishment image - he was educated at Eaton and Oxford, a well-worn path for the sons of the 'ruling classes', but the electorate appeared so tired of the dour, colourless Gordon Brown, the Prime Ministerial successor to Blair, that for once it seemed it would swallow their class prejudices and vote for the 'Tory Toff'.
That scenario began to unravel when early last year, the Daily Telegraph, a die hard supporter of the Conservative Party, broke the MPs' expenses scandal. For weeks the British public were presented with stories about MPs cheating on their expenses - and therefore cheating the taxpayer.
One Member claimed on the cost of cleaning the moat around his country house, another charged for a mortgage that had already been paid off; yet another for a London flat that was actually being used by his daughter - the list went on and on.
To the public is seemed that everyone was on the fiddle - Labourites, Tories and the third party, the Liberal Democrats, were all tainted by the scandal. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, tried to play things down and was forced out of office as a result.
In the 12 months since, what had been a massive Conservative lead over the Government has slowly been whittled away. At the start of the election campaign it is still a handy four per cent, but close enough to suggest there will be a contest. Many political pundits are predicting a 'hung parliament' with the balance of power being held by the Liberal Democrats and a plethora of minor nationalist groups.
Another disturbing possibility is the breakthrough of the far right British National Party whose anti-European, anti-immigration stance has so far limited its success to local elections and, ironically, the EU Parliament.
Anything short of a clear Labour victory could prove curtains for Brown with the Liberal Democrats hinting they would not prop up a minority Labour Government while he was still leader.
In the end it might be apathy that wins the day. With non-compulsory voting it is quite possible that a majority of the electorate will take the position of a 'plague on all your houses' and stay home. In those circumstances almost any result is possible.
British Opposition Leader David Cameron is making 'Change' the catchword of his campaign in the British General Election, now fixed for May 6, but if the country's recent history is anything to go by, he may find it difficult to get an enthusiastic response from the voters.
Only once in almost 31 years has the electorate stirred itself to toss out an incumbent government. That was in 1997 when Tony Blair's New Labour image ousted a tired Conservative Party led by John Major after 17 years of unbroken Tory rule. Since then Labour has won two more elections by handy margins and has itself chalked up 13 years in power.
For most of the last three years it seemed the electorate was ready to turn to the Conservatives again. The Cameroons, as the supportive Tory media is calling them, were presenting a fresh, new image, finally shaking off the sleaze that dogged the Major administration during its last days.
It is true that Cameron had to face up to his establishment image - he was educated at Eaton and Oxford, a well-worn path for the sons of the 'ruling classes', but the electorate appeared so tired of the dour, colourless Gordon Brown, the Prime Ministerial successor to Blair, that for once it seemed it would swallow their class prejudices and vote for the 'Tory Toff'.
That scenario began to unravel when early last year, the Daily Telegraph, a die hard supporter of the Conservative Party, broke the MPs' expenses scandal. For weeks the British public were presented with stories about MPs cheating on their expenses - and therefore cheating the taxpayer.
One Member claimed on the cost of cleaning the moat around his country house, another charged for a mortgage that had already been paid off; yet another for a London flat that was actually being used by his daughter - the list went on and on.
To the public is seemed that everyone was on the fiddle - Labourites, Tories and the third party, the Liberal Democrats, were all tainted by the scandal. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, tried to play things down and was forced out of office as a result.
In the 12 months since, what had been a massive Conservative lead over the Government has slowly been whittled away. At the start of the election campaign it is still a handy four per cent, but close enough to suggest there will be a contest. Many political pundits are predicting a 'hung parliament' with the balance of power being held by the Liberal Democrats and a plethora of minor nationalist groups.
Another disturbing possibility is the breakthrough of the far right British National Party whose anti-European, anti-immigration stance has so far limited its success to local elections and, ironically, the EU Parliament.
Anything short of a clear Labour victory could prove curtains for Brown with the Liberal Democrats hinting they would not prop up a minority Labour Government while he was still leader.
In the end it might be apathy that wins the day. With non-compulsory voting it is quite possible that a majority of the electorate will take the position of a 'plague on all your houses' and stay home. In those circumstances almost any result is possible.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Responsibility needed this flu season
By Graham Cooke
I suppose it must be the chill in the air this Easter weekend, the hint of brown among the green in Canberra's leafy suburbs, but suddenly the stories about the flu season are making their appearances in the media again, along with grim predictions about how Australia is unprepared and the likelihood that a virulent outbreak could overwhelm the health system.
It is difficult to know how much more prepared Australia could be. We have more than enough vaccine stored to combat a repeat of last season's swine flu outbreak, and if the virus has mutated in the meantime, what can we do, we have scientists, not magicians.
That hasn't stopped Professor Peter Collignon, described as a Canberra infectious diseases specialist, who claims to have found a litany of problems with Australia's response to the previous winter's outbreak of swine flu.
The good professor acknowledges that the 191 associated deaths with swine flu in Australia last year were well below the regular 3000 deaths linked to ordinary strains of influenza, that year and every year.
However "there may have been additional influenza-associated deaths that were not diagnosed by laboratory testing," he says.
Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the case, we were not exactly burning the bodies in the streets.
And, of course, the media is to blame for it all. The 'disproportionate fear' generated by their reports leading to people crowding into medical practices and hospital emergency departments when all they needed was a couple of days at home in bed.
Of course the media always loves a good doom-and-gloom story - that's why Professor Collignon is getting coverage - but isn't it time people took more charge of their lives instead of fleeing into the arms of the professionals at the first hint of a sniffle?
I have a friend who travelled to Taiwan and China during the height of the swine flu 'emergency' last year and came back with an undeniably heavy cold.
Instead of running off to her doctor or the nearest hospital, she got on to the well-publicised flu hotline and discussed her symptons with the nurse at the other end. The nurse asked her if she had a fever - she didn't - so the fast-track diagnoses was that it was very unlikely she had any kind of flu, let alone swine flu, and to take a day off to recover.
That was spot on. The cold cleared and she was back at work without wasting the time of medical professionals at clinics, surgeries or hospitals.
If a few more of us took this sensible and responsible course then there would be no danger of Professor Collignon's dire predictions about health system overload coming true.
I suppose it must be the chill in the air this Easter weekend, the hint of brown among the green in Canberra's leafy suburbs, but suddenly the stories about the flu season are making their appearances in the media again, along with grim predictions about how Australia is unprepared and the likelihood that a virulent outbreak could overwhelm the health system.
It is difficult to know how much more prepared Australia could be. We have more than enough vaccine stored to combat a repeat of last season's swine flu outbreak, and if the virus has mutated in the meantime, what can we do, we have scientists, not magicians.
That hasn't stopped Professor Peter Collignon, described as a Canberra infectious diseases specialist, who claims to have found a litany of problems with Australia's response to the previous winter's outbreak of swine flu.
The good professor acknowledges that the 191 associated deaths with swine flu in Australia last year were well below the regular 3000 deaths linked to ordinary strains of influenza, that year and every year.
However "there may have been additional influenza-associated deaths that were not diagnosed by laboratory testing," he says.
Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the case, we were not exactly burning the bodies in the streets.
And, of course, the media is to blame for it all. The 'disproportionate fear' generated by their reports leading to people crowding into medical practices and hospital emergency departments when all they needed was a couple of days at home in bed.
Of course the media always loves a good doom-and-gloom story - that's why Professor Collignon is getting coverage - but isn't it time people took more charge of their lives instead of fleeing into the arms of the professionals at the first hint of a sniffle?
I have a friend who travelled to Taiwan and China during the height of the swine flu 'emergency' last year and came back with an undeniably heavy cold.
Instead of running off to her doctor or the nearest hospital, she got on to the well-publicised flu hotline and discussed her symptons with the nurse at the other end. The nurse asked her if she had a fever - she didn't - so the fast-track diagnoses was that it was very unlikely she had any kind of flu, let alone swine flu, and to take a day off to recover.
That was spot on. The cold cleared and she was back at work without wasting the time of medical professionals at clinics, surgeries or hospitals.
If a few more of us took this sensible and responsible course then there would be no danger of Professor Collignon's dire predictions about health system overload coming true.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Nothing to fear from increased migration
By Graham Cooke
Bob Birrell is at it again. One of the great scaremongers on Australia's immigration policies has the audacity to accuse others of scaring the baby boomer generation into supporting migrant intakes in order to ensure there are sufficient workers to look after them in their old age.
He goes on in an article in Policy magazine to insult aged care workers by implying migrants brought in to fill positions in this occupation would be "second class" doing "dirty work".
Birrell lays a series of horrors at the door of continued migration and population increase: The environment swamped, ghettos created, cities unlivable, sporting culture destroyed, the English language diluted.
All of this because of a projected rise in Australia's population from the current 22 million to a projection, supported by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, of 35 million by 2050.
What is so catastrophic about an increase of 13 million over 40 years? Australia had just seven million inhabitants in the immediate post war period, and I would suggest the country is now a better place following a more than tripling of the population over 60 years.
The United States does not have that much greater land mass than Australia, but manages comfortably with 300 million; even India, with more than a billion people manages to preserve some wilderness areas.
Birrell expresses great concern over Australia's carbon footprint. The solution to climate change - if indeed one can be found - has to be a global one. If the migrants are not in Australia contributing to greenhouse gases, they will be pumping it out elsewhere. There may actually be a better chance of them cutting back on their personal emissions in Australia, where technology and strict controls are going to significantly reduce our greenhouse output in the years to come.
Birrell presents a picture of high-density, inner city living as a kind of enforced hell, while ignoring the fact that increasing numbers of Australians are deliberately choosing that lifestyle. A recent survey of the Brisbane CBD found both young professionals and the over 50s were moving there in significant numbers, the latter forsaking long-established homes in the suburbs. The days of the white picket fence surrounding the quarter acre block are in decline and maybe that is not a bad thing.
As for sport, Birrell should take a look at the 'foreign' names gracing team lists in the AFL, rugby codes, netball, tennis, cricket and a score of others. Migrants have adopted the Australian love of sport which, in any case, is not really the preserve of Australia. I know of few countries that would deny they have a passionate sporting culture. Sport is one of the great unifying influences in the world today.
Language is a problem for new migrants, not for the nation as a whole. There are certainly some older people from non-English-speaking backgrounds who struggle, but their children almost always adapt very quickly. The few thousand migrants who have difficulty coming to terms with a new language are a problem, but a manageable one.
Australia has always been a nation of migrants. It is our destiny and we have done remarkably well from it. Populations are more mobile today than they have ever been in human history and to deny this, or to try and reverse this trend, is Canute-like naivety.
Migration has and will continue to change Australian culture, along with technology, political initiatives and social attitudes, because culture is not something to be frozen in time and stored in a museum. History can teach us that. An Australian of the 1930s would be shocked at the differences to be found in the nation of the 21st century, just as a mid-Victorian inhabitant of the colony of NSW would find it difficult to come to terms with 1930s Australia.
Perhaps Birrell would not agree, but I believe most Australians are prepared to admit that Australia is a better place today than it was 70 years ago. There is no reason to believe it can't be an even better place in the future - even if there are 35 million people to share it.
Bob Birrell is at it again. One of the great scaremongers on Australia's immigration policies has the audacity to accuse others of scaring the baby boomer generation into supporting migrant intakes in order to ensure there are sufficient workers to look after them in their old age.
He goes on in an article in Policy magazine to insult aged care workers by implying migrants brought in to fill positions in this occupation would be "second class" doing "dirty work".
Birrell lays a series of horrors at the door of continued migration and population increase: The environment swamped, ghettos created, cities unlivable, sporting culture destroyed, the English language diluted.
All of this because of a projected rise in Australia's population from the current 22 million to a projection, supported by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, of 35 million by 2050.
What is so catastrophic about an increase of 13 million over 40 years? Australia had just seven million inhabitants in the immediate post war period, and I would suggest the country is now a better place following a more than tripling of the population over 60 years.
The United States does not have that much greater land mass than Australia, but manages comfortably with 300 million; even India, with more than a billion people manages to preserve some wilderness areas.
Birrell expresses great concern over Australia's carbon footprint. The solution to climate change - if indeed one can be found - has to be a global one. If the migrants are not in Australia contributing to greenhouse gases, they will be pumping it out elsewhere. There may actually be a better chance of them cutting back on their personal emissions in Australia, where technology and strict controls are going to significantly reduce our greenhouse output in the years to come.
Birrell presents a picture of high-density, inner city living as a kind of enforced hell, while ignoring the fact that increasing numbers of Australians are deliberately choosing that lifestyle. A recent survey of the Brisbane CBD found both young professionals and the over 50s were moving there in significant numbers, the latter forsaking long-established homes in the suburbs. The days of the white picket fence surrounding the quarter acre block are in decline and maybe that is not a bad thing.
As for sport, Birrell should take a look at the 'foreign' names gracing team lists in the AFL, rugby codes, netball, tennis, cricket and a score of others. Migrants have adopted the Australian love of sport which, in any case, is not really the preserve of Australia. I know of few countries that would deny they have a passionate sporting culture. Sport is one of the great unifying influences in the world today.
Language is a problem for new migrants, not for the nation as a whole. There are certainly some older people from non-English-speaking backgrounds who struggle, but their children almost always adapt very quickly. The few thousand migrants who have difficulty coming to terms with a new language are a problem, but a manageable one.
Australia has always been a nation of migrants. It is our destiny and we have done remarkably well from it. Populations are more mobile today than they have ever been in human history and to deny this, or to try and reverse this trend, is Canute-like naivety.
Migration has and will continue to change Australian culture, along with technology, political initiatives and social attitudes, because culture is not something to be frozen in time and stored in a museum. History can teach us that. An Australian of the 1930s would be shocked at the differences to be found in the nation of the 21st century, just as a mid-Victorian inhabitant of the colony of NSW would find it difficult to come to terms with 1930s Australia.
Perhaps Birrell would not agree, but I believe most Australians are prepared to admit that Australia is a better place today than it was 70 years ago. There is no reason to believe it can't be an even better place in the future - even if there are 35 million people to share it.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Let Shakespeare rest in peace
By Graham Cooke
Two more books about William Shakespeare have been published in the last few weeks, adding to an ever-growing collection that seeks to discover the secrets of the man behind the plays.
I am delighted that James Shapiro in Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare explodes some of the downright stupid myths and conspiracy theories surrounding Will, while in The Final Act of Mr Shakespeare, Robert Winder produces a part-documentary, part novel of the last part of Shakespeare's writing career.
In a delightful bit of fantasy, he suggests that Will regrets his character assassination of Richard III and decides to write a play about Henry VII revealing the Tudors for the greedy usurpers they really were, only for the authorities to get wind of it, forcing him to can the project.
That's the great thing about Shakespeare - we have his words but know so little about his life. so we make inventions and assumptions. Writers have made their careers out of trying to prove that Shakespeare did not write a single line - it was Bacon, it was Marlowe, or some obscure aristocrat who couldn't publish under his own name because writing plays was not what gentlemen did. Four centuries after his death Shakespeare keeps his literary descendants in work. He should be pleased.
Did Shakespeare really write Hamlet, King Lear, Measure for Measure and so on? Probably, but does it matter? Did he have help? Almost certainly, so what? It detracts not a jot from the magnificence of the words he used; of his ability to have audiences splitting their sides at Falstaff or looking on in horror at the blinding of Gloucester.
I think that sometimes we are guilty at looking at Shakespeare through modern eyes, forgetting he was a child of the late Elizabethan era. We are used to the idea of compartmentalised theatre - the playwright writes, the producer produces, the director directs and the actors perform.
Things were very different in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There were acting companies where everyone mucked in. Shakespeare was first and foremost an actor; an actor with a bit of a talent for writing admittedly who was an an asset because audiences of the day wanted a regular diet of new material. So Will got time to write, but sometimes the deadlines got on top of him, which meant others in the company and perhaps friends and associates like Marlowe helped out.
What could be more natural - and does anyone have a better explanation?
Of all the books and newspaper articles I have read about Shakespeare, nothing was more entertaining than a novel by alternative history master Harry Turtledove, who wrote of Shakespeare in an England where the Armada had succeeded and England is occupied. In his account, Shakespeare is caught up in a successful revolution against the Spanish and is rewarded with a knighthood.
Fanciful nonsense? No more, I would suggest, than the vast quantities of suppositions and inventions which have been produced under the guise of scholarly investigation over the past 50 years.
Let Shakespeare rest - the words he wrote (or may have written) will live forever.
Two more books about William Shakespeare have been published in the last few weeks, adding to an ever-growing collection that seeks to discover the secrets of the man behind the plays.
I am delighted that James Shapiro in Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare explodes some of the downright stupid myths and conspiracy theories surrounding Will, while in The Final Act of Mr Shakespeare, Robert Winder produces a part-documentary, part novel of the last part of Shakespeare's writing career.
In a delightful bit of fantasy, he suggests that Will regrets his character assassination of Richard III and decides to write a play about Henry VII revealing the Tudors for the greedy usurpers they really were, only for the authorities to get wind of it, forcing him to can the project.
That's the great thing about Shakespeare - we have his words but know so little about his life. so we make inventions and assumptions. Writers have made their careers out of trying to prove that Shakespeare did not write a single line - it was Bacon, it was Marlowe, or some obscure aristocrat who couldn't publish under his own name because writing plays was not what gentlemen did. Four centuries after his death Shakespeare keeps his literary descendants in work. He should be pleased.
Did Shakespeare really write Hamlet, King Lear, Measure for Measure and so on? Probably, but does it matter? Did he have help? Almost certainly, so what? It detracts not a jot from the magnificence of the words he used; of his ability to have audiences splitting their sides at Falstaff or looking on in horror at the blinding of Gloucester.
I think that sometimes we are guilty at looking at Shakespeare through modern eyes, forgetting he was a child of the late Elizabethan era. We are used to the idea of compartmentalised theatre - the playwright writes, the producer produces, the director directs and the actors perform.
Things were very different in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There were acting companies where everyone mucked in. Shakespeare was first and foremost an actor; an actor with a bit of a talent for writing admittedly who was an an asset because audiences of the day wanted a regular diet of new material. So Will got time to write, but sometimes the deadlines got on top of him, which meant others in the company and perhaps friends and associates like Marlowe helped out.
What could be more natural - and does anyone have a better explanation?
Of all the books and newspaper articles I have read about Shakespeare, nothing was more entertaining than a novel by alternative history master Harry Turtledove, who wrote of Shakespeare in an England where the Armada had succeeded and England is occupied. In his account, Shakespeare is caught up in a successful revolution against the Spanish and is rewarded with a knighthood.
Fanciful nonsense? No more, I would suggest, than the vast quantities of suppositions and inventions which have been produced under the guise of scholarly investigation over the past 50 years.
Let Shakespeare rest - the words he wrote (or may have written) will live forever.
Monday, March 22, 2010
History will judge Obama's health reforms
By Graham Cooke
When United States President Barack Obama signs his landmark Health Reform Bill into law he may pause to ponder the words of one of his predecessors, Lyndon Johnson, at a similar turning point in American history.
As Johnson put his signature to the Civil Rights Bill on July 2, 1964 - legislation initiated by the assassinated John F. Kennedy but which he single-handedly bullied through a dubious Senate, he is reported to have remarked to an aide "this will lose us the South for a generation".
He was overly-optimistic. Although he won a landslide election victory later that year, before the enormity of the changes had sunk in, Johnson's Democrat Party produced only one president in the next 24 years, and it was only with Obama's election in 2008 that there were serious signs voting patterns in the states of the former Confederacy had begun to shift.
But the Civil Rights Act, and the later Voting Rights Act, ending discrimination which for almost a century had prevented most southern blacks from voting, remained on the statute books and over the course of time changed America, and changed it immeasurably for the better. Johnson, whose name is still associated with, and to a great extent besmirched by, the Vietnam War, will nevertheless eventually be remembered as one of the great reforming presidents.
There is every indication Obama may be heading down the same track. He has the tail-end of an unpopular involvement in Iraq and the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan to deal with, while his health care reforms have been labelled as 'socialist' by some opponents. It is an accusation considered laughable in Australia and most other Western developed countries, but which has powerful resonance in the United States.
Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, the 30 or more million Americans who will benefit the most from these reforms also tend to be non-voters, while those who face a rise in taxes to pay for them, will certainly be casting their ballots in the November mid-term elections and again in 2012.
The legislation still has some hurdles to surmount as the grimly opposed Republicans take their arguments probably all the way to the Supreme Court, where its constitutionality will be challenged.
However, it is now probably inevitable that a century after a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, first advocated it, the United States will finally have a universal health care system in place.
Health will always be a contentious issue. Conservatives in Australia will continue to rail against the perceived inefficiencies and fiscal waste of Medicare and seek subtle ways of watering it down when they have the chance, but they would not dare abolish it; Britons complain incessantly about the National Health Service, but no one seriously suggests it should be dispensed with.
As time passes the same will happen in the United States. A service as fundamental as universal health care, once offered, can never be withdrawn.
I certainly do not wish to see it, but there is a very real chance the Democrats are going to face another long period in the wilderness and Barack Obama will be a one-term president as a direct result of health care reform.
If this is so, I believe that history will eventually judge the sacrifice to have been worthwhile.
When United States President Barack Obama signs his landmark Health Reform Bill into law he may pause to ponder the words of one of his predecessors, Lyndon Johnson, at a similar turning point in American history.
As Johnson put his signature to the Civil Rights Bill on July 2, 1964 - legislation initiated by the assassinated John F. Kennedy but which he single-handedly bullied through a dubious Senate, he is reported to have remarked to an aide "this will lose us the South for a generation".
He was overly-optimistic. Although he won a landslide election victory later that year, before the enormity of the changes had sunk in, Johnson's Democrat Party produced only one president in the next 24 years, and it was only with Obama's election in 2008 that there were serious signs voting patterns in the states of the former Confederacy had begun to shift.
But the Civil Rights Act, and the later Voting Rights Act, ending discrimination which for almost a century had prevented most southern blacks from voting, remained on the statute books and over the course of time changed America, and changed it immeasurably for the better. Johnson, whose name is still associated with, and to a great extent besmirched by, the Vietnam War, will nevertheless eventually be remembered as one of the great reforming presidents.
There is every indication Obama may be heading down the same track. He has the tail-end of an unpopular involvement in Iraq and the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan to deal with, while his health care reforms have been labelled as 'socialist' by some opponents. It is an accusation considered laughable in Australia and most other Western developed countries, but which has powerful resonance in the United States.
Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, the 30 or more million Americans who will benefit the most from these reforms also tend to be non-voters, while those who face a rise in taxes to pay for them, will certainly be casting their ballots in the November mid-term elections and again in 2012.
The legislation still has some hurdles to surmount as the grimly opposed Republicans take their arguments probably all the way to the Supreme Court, where its constitutionality will be challenged.
However, it is now probably inevitable that a century after a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, first advocated it, the United States will finally have a universal health care system in place.
Health will always be a contentious issue. Conservatives in Australia will continue to rail against the perceived inefficiencies and fiscal waste of Medicare and seek subtle ways of watering it down when they have the chance, but they would not dare abolish it; Britons complain incessantly about the National Health Service, but no one seriously suggests it should be dispensed with.
As time passes the same will happen in the United States. A service as fundamental as universal health care, once offered, can never be withdrawn.
I certainly do not wish to see it, but there is a very real chance the Democrats are going to face another long period in the wilderness and Barack Obama will be a one-term president as a direct result of health care reform.
If this is so, I believe that history will eventually judge the sacrifice to have been worthwhile.
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