by cameron | Mar 1, 2007 | Australian media, Australian politics, censorship, Podcast, science vs religion
I’m cranky as hell about the way the Christian Right is taking over this country. The leaders of both major political parties are kowtowing to them because they are mobilizing politically like never before, taking their cues from their US counterparts.
The latest embarrassment for us as a free, democratic society is they way our Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock has intervened in the matter of Dr Phillip Nitschke’s book on euthanasia, The Peaceful Pill Handbook.
In this episode I discuss why this whole affair is wrong, immoral and why we need to fight against it. I’m also exploring what we, as the “new” media, can do about it.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Feb 26, 2007 | Hillsong, science, science vs religion
Back in 2002, Scientific American ran this hold-no-punches piece “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense” to provide a concise rebuttal against the arguments of the people who continue to favour mythology over reason.
Why am I harping on this theme again? Someone emailed me a link to this site from the American-import-cum-Australian Christian evangelicals at Hillsong Church:
Many eminent scientists in different fields are currently saying that the complexity and balance of the universe points to intelligent design. This has re-opened the debate about whether God and science should be studied in the same classroom. The answer comes down to our understanding of science. If science is the search for truth, as some scientists argue, then God should be mentioned in any classroom that pursues it.
Much of the debate about the origin of life and the universe is speculation. It comes down to a question of belief.
At Hillsong Church we believe that God created the world. In other words, the universe is a product of intelligent design. We also believe that science is part of humanity’s search for truth, and it is therefore important for science curricula to include all valid viewpoints of the origins of life and the universe, including intelligent design.
* Comments from Ps Brian Houston, Senior Pastor Hillsong Church & National President AOG in Australia.
This is the nonsense these people are filling children’s minds with. Someone needs to defend the kids against having their minds tarnished with this kind of appalling rubbish. Outwardly they present the image of being nice, toothy people who just want to do good works (okay, except for Brian’s father Frank, who held senior positions in the church, but was forced to resign in 2000 “following exposure of his homosexual paedophile activities.”) However they are really subverting young minds, turning them away from reason and rational thinking – and as far as I’m concerned, that is the definition of evil – almost as evil as the paedophilia.
Let’s examine the website quote.
“Many eminent scientists” – who? Name them.
“If science is the search for truth, as some scientists argue” – What do the other scientists argue? That science is the search for falsehoods? This suggests that science could possibly be something other than the search for objective knowledge which is the very definition of the word – “then God should be mentioned in any classroom that pursues it.” – Why? Science uses evidence to support theories for how the universe works. God is a theory completely unsupported by evidence. It is completely unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It has no place in the science classroom.
“Much of the debate about the origin of life and the universe is speculation. It comes down to a question of belief.” – Rubbish. Trying to understand the origin of life has nothing to do with belief. There are a range of scientific theories at present. On the other hand, the origin of the universe, aka “the big bang”, is supported by overwhelming evidence. As we discussed here, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded for that evidence just last year.
“it is therefore important for science curricula to include all valid viewpoints of the origins of life and the universe, including intelligent design.” – again, intelligent design has no relationship to science. It denies facts and ignores the evidence, as several court cases in the Unites States have now determined.
I know we’re unlikely to pass a law preventing people like this from polluting the minds of children with this rubbish – in fact, I’d probably be the first to protect their right to free speech (a right, I’m continually reminded, we don’t actually have in Australia, as we don’t have a Bill of Rights), but I hope we are not far from the day when making these kinds of statements in public will be similar to advocating the genocide of the Jews or suggesting blacks are an inferior species. It needs to become completely socially unacceptable to pollute young minds with the idea that denying evidence is somehow valid and rational.
by cameron | Feb 20, 2007 | media 2.0
People love bandwagons. One of the popular memes at the moment, re-invigorated by some bloke called Rich Skrenta, the CEO of Topix.net, is about “The Failure of We (the) Media”. Anil Dash jumped on it. Even Ben Barren jumped on it.
Are these people living on the same planet I am? The one with 60 million blogs, squillions of YouTube videos and tens of thousands of podcasts? And it’s still the dawn of time as far as new media is concerned. Talking about the failure of “We Media” in 2007 is like the mental midgets who were talking about the failure of the internet to live up to the hype in 2001.
Thank Darwin Chris Anderson gets it.
Every day I get most of my news from blogs. I don’t visit “news sites” or use a “news aggregator”. I use a generic feedreader (Bloglines) and a totally idiosyncratic RSS subscription list that includes everything from personal posts from friends to parts (but not all) of the WSJ. When it comes to the web, I have no interest in someone else trying to guess what I want to read or “help” me by defining what’s news and what isn’t. My news is not your news; indeed, you probably wouldn’t call most of it news at all. I will probably never visit any of the sites Skrenta mentions, and never did visit the ones that are now defunct. In short, We Media is alive and well. It’s just the would-be We Media institutions that are not. A phenomenon is not necessarily a business. That doesn’t make it any less of a phenomenon.
Paul Montgomery – I see he lists TinFinger as one of the “We Media” businesses that failed? Does he know something I don’t?
by cameron | Feb 12, 2007 | TPN
Ewan Spence knocked this together for us yesterday.
THE TPN TOOLBAR.
It’s a toolbar for FF and IE which will make it easier for you to listen to the latest TPN podcasts. It has a built-in media player and is pre-populated with the top 20 TPN shows (based on our previous month’s stats). It also has a button which replicates the “Latest Shows” box on the TPN hompage and which shows you the very latest TPN podcasts published each day. Another button shows you the latest TPN news.
Would a couple of you mind testing it for me in FF and IE and giving me your feedback?
by cameron | Feb 11, 2007 | media 2.0
Richard Sambrook is the Director of BBC Global News and on his blog “SacredFacts” he is trying to suggest that there isn’t a power struggle going on between “old media” and “new media” but that
It’s about integration, not subsititution…
Richard, what is your rationale for saying it isn’t a power struggle? I can only think of three reasons why you would say that.
1. You don’t believe there is a desire, on behalf of audiences, to have more power over the media they consume.
2. You don’t believe any “power struggle” will succeed because “old media” is just too big, politically protected and cashed up for “the people” to take power away from it.
3. Or… You do believe people want it, you do believe they will try succeed to taking it… but because you work for the old guard you’re just hoping that if you keep your eyes closed, and say “Kansas, Kansas, Kansas” over and over again while clicking your heels, it will all just go away?
I think the RIAA tried that over the last ten years but maybe they didn’t have the right fairy dust?
Trust me when I tell you, Richard, that there is a power struggle going on. We, the people, want more control over our media than we currently have. That is a power struggle. We are going to take it (control) away from big media companies. Whether we take it partly away or entirely away remains to be seen. But ten years from now, you will have less power and we will have more. Unless you are willingly going to give it up, I’d say that meets every definition of a struggle.
Meanwhile, over on Mark Fletcher’s “Australian Newsagency Blog”, my radio sparring partner from earlier this week, James Farmer, is trotting out the tired old rationale that:
theage.com.au is the number one News & Info publisher in Victoria – the smh.com.au in NSW. The vast majority of people come to a few sites to get their media fix, listen to a few radio stations, watch a few tv channels and read a few publications…
The problems with this line of thinking are multiple.
1. Australia newspaper circulation is in massive decline. See my earlier posts on this for the facts. Even if the owners of these papers have been able to begin to translate their old print readership into online traffic, it is well known that they don’t make nearly as much money online as they on from print. So their revenues are going to take a battering. As their revenues decline, they have to continue making cut-backs, as Australian print, TV and radio news networks have already experienced over the last decade. As they cut back their news staff, they rely more and more on Reuters and AAP feeds which are undifferentiated everyone else’s. As their unique content declines, do will readership and revenue.
2. What empirical data do you have, James, to suggest that “The vast majority of people come to a few sites to get their media”? Have you asked the majority? Did you poll them? Or are you just assuming that is what they want to do because that is what they have always done? That’s like saying people of 18th century Europe didn’t want democracy because they had always had Monarchs.
3. Even if you are right and people *do* want a few sites to get their media from, what Darwin-Given right does Fairfax or News Corp or Channel Nine have to be the sites they get their media from? Why won’t they want to get their media from Google? Or from TPN? Or from Gnoos?
We have not yet begun to fight.
