Zapwriter

If you were asked to name a schoolteacher from your past whom you considered to be exceptionally dedicated to the well-being of his or her pupils, would you struggle? I would.

There were, truth be told, teachers who expressed particular qualities that were celebrated among my friends. Some used metaphor and allegory to explain math, some possessed a humor that was at odds with the exhaustively bleak Catholic school system in which we were enmeshed, and still others were amusing to watch for their very apparent resignation that the kids just wont listen. I enjoyed them when presented with the opportunity.

It is of no meager annoyance to me, though, that the teachers most memorable were those I would consider the least worthy of remembrance. There was a science teacher who reminded us of his extensive education before insisting that he be referred to by his earned title – Doctor – when addressing him. And I recall – with a degree of discomfort – an irascible, middle-aged lady who would glare through her horn-rimmed specs and down her warty beak as she berated me for not using cursive. She shouted as an uncouth Westerner might shout at a non-English-speaking foreigner, but with the extra fifty decibels of raw passion that comes exclusively from those with an unfaltering belief in the purity of wavy handwriting.

One could hardly blame the woman for her lack of foresight – using a pen is so twentieth century these days – but perhaps a colleague might’ve taken a moment to explain to Mrs. Crabapples that; a) beyond normal speaking pitch, the relationship between clarity and volume doesn’t necessarily improve, and especially so when the speaker is so adenoidal; and b) the message is of greater value than the serifs adorning it. (Or should be.)

In fact, as far as I can recall, nothing that was taught even resembled ethics or morality or – permit me this expression – deeper meaning. Religious classes skirted it, really, focusing attention instead on oft-repeated dogmatic instruction. We were taught we have these good qualities called values because some men had them thousands of years ago, and they were important… because. There was no relevance, no poignancy, no questions asked.

I say this, of course, conveniently forgetting those occasions we read about in the papers where educational institutions were thought to have crossed the line in teaching students about a controversial topic (pick one!); that the children were too young to understand it, that only the parents should decide when their younglings should hear of it, or that the school itself doesn’t even know what it should be.

Toshiro Kanamori, a primary school teacher from Kanazawa, Japan, has clearly never heard of such nonsense and is the teacher everyone wishes they had. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that he is the teacher I wish everyone had. He is the central figure in Children Full of Life, a few-years-old documentary that tells the story of Kanamori and the life lessons he teaches his Grade 4 pupils.

He engages with his students on a level that appears almost incompatible with a typically etiquette-bound Japanese society (to say nothing of the image-conscious West). He encourages them to confront their demons, to confess weakness or wrongdoing, but mostly to let others ‘into their hearts’. Certainly, I’ve never seen ten-year-olds show more respect to an elder than this group.

Kanamori displays a genuine compassion for his kids, and uses it in sharing his wisdom and his beliefs on the importance of being happy. Although not elderly, he appears to possess that indefinable quality known as the “old soul”. Is it the manner in which he speaks confidently but never arrogantly – his head forever turning skyward – or is it the gentle, life-affirming smile he greets his subjects with each day?

I wont say too much of what goes on, but I will tell you that each little anecdote is unnervingly emotional. Even for those watching with their hearts on standby, it is impossible not to be moved at least once throughout the duration of this story.

Be prepared, also, for the moment you wish you had at least one of your childhood years over again.

Apologies to readers for the lack of updates – my new job is stealing too much time. (This will change, no doubt, as I learn to disregard the tendency to impress my employer.)

When Paul Mercurio danced atop a building in Strictly Ballroom, did one of your eyeballs twitch neurotically like a mad hatter’s at the sight of the giant neon Coca Cola sign behind him?

When Will Smith bragged about his “2004 Vintage” Converse sneakers, or parked his fancy Audi in I, Robot, did anyone wonder whether Asimov had in fact written the story as an exploration of 21st century brand recognition, and not a treatise on robotic logic versus human emotion?

Product placement has a colourful history in films – puke green in recent times – and in fact has existed for almost as long as the celluloid itself has been flickering. However, these pocket-liners didn’t really enter the public consciousness until the mid 80s when a big-headed alien showed a strong predilection for some Reese’s Pieces.

Since then we’ve discovered the McFlys love Pizza Hut, Bond gets his rocks off driving a BMW, Fed-Ex employees will get their parcels delivered even after ten years stranded on an island, and all the Transformers (actually only the good ones) transform into General Motors vehicles.

The ones that cinephiles don’t mind – and there are few – are the ads hard to notice. And generally speaking, filmmakers will perform adequately in this task, as they attempt to satisfy both Mr Corporate – who only wants to infiltrate your, uh, retail cortex and make you spend up – and you, the viewer, who wants an undiminished cinematic experience.

(I realise all kinds of arguments can be made at this point about directors’ integrity and vision and ability. Take Michael Bay, for example. Despite having earned himself and his company enough currency to shame Solomon, product placements are sometimes so prominent he almost deserves a nomination for sheer, balls-out courage. He can choreograph action scenes like few others, sure, but have you witnessed The Island? It may as well have been directed by Demtel’s Tim Shaw.)

Of course, the direction of technology and modern commerce suggested that this was inevitable, although a sense of anticipation provides little consolation here. Even in times BC (Before “Connection”), ads had become as much a part of our cityscape as the houses and roads built around them, and then the Internet got all big on us and just blew the floodgates right off their mechanical (pff!) 20th century hinges.

No longer did the use of a service or a product necessarily come at a financial cost to the user. Advertising itself became the business model. Use Facebook for free, read the New York Times without paying, watch your television shows online whenever you like. In this era of online news, music downloads and movie piracy, information is everywhere, easy, and thus, ‘free’.

Can a brother get a dollar? Well, yes, just shake hands with Lucifer and stick an ad on whatever you’re selling.

Google, the world’s most popular search engine (and most powerful entity since Oprah) has cornered this online advertising market, and is completely financed by it. No one is certain how exactly this came to pass, though.

For example, we know from extensive scientific research, that humans, all things being equal, will avert their attention from the television when it begins to shill engine oil or fast food or steam cleaning, lest the brain be sullied and rendered soft and mushy.

We’ve heard unverified accounts of Italian car drivers suffering temporary seizures as they hear advertisements broadcast on – oh God – Vatican Radio. The Vatican, one of the richest organisations in the world, apparently needs a larger collection plate. “God,” George Carlin once mused, “somehow just can’t handle his money.”

You might now be thinking to yourself how fortunate the literary world is, since, aside from the existence of tree-wasters like Dan Brown, books don’t suffer from similar intellectual compromises. There are great books, average books, and fuel for the fire place, all without ads. Right? Well, wrong.

Product placement has existed in trashy fiction since around 2001 – Fay Weldon’s “The Bulgari Connection” is an oft-cited example – but the lecherous monsters lurking behind the scenes have devised an even more insidious (but also unequivocally, unquestionably stupid) method to attempt entry into your wallets.

Online retailer and uber-librarian, Amazon, recently filed a patent on a means of advertising within print-on-demand books. (Print-on-demand is a growing industry whereby a consumer can have a sold-out book printed for them specifically.) What a shame, then, that despite owning in their files the wisdom of every great thinker that has ever existed, the good folks at Amazon still struggle to display a level of intelligence barely approaching that of Socrates after a few too many hemlocks.

Several regions of my brain are stinging as I consider the consequences of auto-generated, contextualised ads. Open a book on Epicurus to find advertisements for a local steakhouse, or a book by Nietzsche promoting anti-depressants, or heaven help us, an ad for Big Brother (the television show-cum-lobotomy-procedure) within the pages of 1984.

I’m not even going to start on texts containing anything remotely Marxist, anti-capitalist, or religious. You probably need no warning as to the earth-shattering, head-exploding ironies that will occur as a result of this patent. And for what? Amazon will already make money from the P.O.D service itself, so the ad revenue will just provide additional profit.

Dear readers, your narrator is nothing if not a poster child for technology’s inexorable onward march; a young, leftist, tech-loving geek who dreams of a future indistinguishable from today’s science fiction. Space travel! Hoverboards! Robot love! But even I must draw the line somewhere, and I’m drawing it with unbranded black charcoal, right between ads and libraries.

Give an inch to anyone in marketing, and I guarantee they’ll take a mile and then proceed to cover the whole thing in ads, catalogues, specials, sales figures, and samplers. One day it’s books, and who knows what’s next? Menswear ads in your late father’s funeral programme? Evian product placement at your daughter’s baptism?

“Our water is so pure…”

Sprawled across the living room floor last week was I, plumbing the depths of my worldly social and political knowledge for a subject worthy enough – and page-filling enough – to command attention for a few minutes. My eyes, however, would not co-operate and would soon drag my remaining faculties through televisual mud as I scratched and clawed at a crippling notion; this is cricket and I don’t like it.

Now, had a thought like this materialised in the mind of your average writer, or female, or, let’s face it, anyone born in a country that wasn’t conquered by the Brits, the other half of the brain would nod firmly in agreement and command the fingers to immediately change the channel. It didn’t, however, and I was left tortured by this idea – this contradiction in terms, to my mind – for several days, until a thoroughly engaging conversation with a friend helped my inner sports lover resolve the conflict with my inner intellectual. (Now that I think of it, that can be the topic of next week’s post; Sports Vs Intellectualism – The Road to Peace. Females and non-Brits should feel free to continue reading though, as this isn’t a cricket-lovers column.)

This revelation didn’t centre on whether Twenty20 (the type of cricket in question) was ‘bastardising’ the skills of the game, as is the prevailing opinion of today’s impassioned followers. On the contrary, it seems to me that a game that demands a batsman hastily score as many runs as possible, while requiring the bowler to counter his opponent’s objective with efficient delivery, is, in a way, cricket distilled to its essence. For what is a batsman who cannot score, or a bowler who cannot maintain consistency and outwit his nemesis? It asks the finest players for their best skills and highest concentration, and punishes them immediately for lapses in either.

It even features dance music and cricket-mad (they’d have to be) cheerleaders. So there’s something for everybody, right?

On the other side of the fence, Test Cricket, it could be argued – which I won’t, but could be by someone willing – employs a different tactic in that the batsman is required to knock around a few balls that stray from optimum length, stick the defensive tongue out at the opposing team for a period deemed sufficient by his captain, and at some point said captain announces his delight in his comrades, turns his nose up at the enemy and declares his intention to now switch roles ‘cause he reckons he’ll do a better job at it.

The bowler, unless he’s particularly good at his craft, must deliver most of the  day. Maybe two. This can be, for bowler and couch-riding viewer, irksome. Why, then, does this form of the game strike a chord that Twenty20 does not?

Microphones.

Okay, not just microphones. Microphones on players. From where exactly this auditory concept originated, I haven’t a clue, but it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of extreme possibility by guessing the Chairman of The International Cricket Whatever It’s Called became all excited when, while watching a game of gridiron or rugby league, heard a referee explain his contentious decision via the technological wizardry attached to his striped polo, and thought “By gee, they’ve mic’d the wrong guy.”

Who wants to hear a sportsman talk during the game? Can you possibly imagine a Colosseum gladiator, bleeding and wounded in the heat of battle, suddenly brandishing a megaphone to wax idiotic to the savage audience above him?

“Yeah nah, these lions are a talented bunch, but I’m just taking it one bite at a time. Hang on a minute, here comes one now. Ooh close one.” (Clearly I cannot accurately picture such a scene, as is shown by my Roman warrior’s decidedly ockerish tongue.)

Removing any sense of mystery as to the players’ thoughts is to eliminate a lot of what makes watching a sport – heck, watching anything – worthwhile in the first place. You can only imagine what Captain Courageous is thinking, as his team fights valiantly to stave off defeat/elimination/lions. Will they choke? Are they soiling their undergarments in terror?

Not that it provides much in the way of drama. The inevitable result is Smithy on the field having a chat with Johnno in the commentary box about the state of play, most of which can already be perceived with moderately functional occipital and temporal lobes. Dramatic irony doesn’t seem a good fit on any kind of sporting pitch, and cricket is not, by any way of looking at it, Shakespeare.

Adding to the hilarity is the sight of players who regularly scowl and glare and annoy each other in international competition now smiling and joking with each other on the same team.

“Doesn’t Player X hate Player Y since last year when Y accused X of match-fixing?”

“Yeah but they both signed on for the Mumbai Moneybags for half a squillion dollars and now they’re best mates.”

Far be it from me to argue that the ability to swim laps in hard currency might negatively affect the integrity of a game or its participants, but surely the general concepts behind sporting competition could be left intact? Officials, acting out of some childlike curiosity – “Let’s see what happens when we feed the cat some beer!” – have apparently latched onto the idea that cricket can earn them truckloads of cash, but only if they meddle with the rules, the length, and the definitions of “rivalry”, “tension”, and “shameless”.

I might describe their affinity for exploring the unknown as brave or exciting, were it not for the comical vision inside me of a team of marketing experts, all arch-fingered and pointy-browed, making their next calculated move; a system whereby underperforming players are, via SMS, voted off the turf mid-game.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Zapwriter is on holiday for a week.

The most memorable news footage of last week – to my disappointment – was the North Melbourne football club standing to attention in full uniform behind their president, as he apologised for off-field indiscretions by two of their clubmen.

The scene actually reminded me of a mother’s apologies to a shopkeeper for her son’s bad behaviour, only these little boys hadn’t actually pilfered any sweets, fractured any laws, or killed any people. They made a ‘funny’ home movie.

Admittedly, they did break the golden rule of comedy – to make the audience laugh – but given the video was found on Facebook, one is expected to turn a blind eye to things such as a lack of comedic timing, production values, wit, creativity, logic… these auteurs are, as you’ll recall from the opening paragraph, footballers.

In the video, a rubber chicken is seen interacting with a highly blurred and pixelated world that sort of almost resembles a world that nearly looks like our own but not quite, and even meets what is believed to be a female chicken, in this instance, acted by a garden-variety frozen chook straight from the supermarket freezer. The poultry protagonist is male apparently, because for two seconds he is shown drinking beer, and the female is so because she is fond of wine.

I will spare you any exploration into gender stereotypes at this point. Suffice it to say I’ll never look at my father or the Yarra Valley the same way again. (Whatever happens on Wine Tour, stays on Wine Tour, right?)

Nonetheless, Chicken One eventually finds itself comfortably ensconced within Chicken Two, and then, from what can be deciphered from the camera-phone footage, Chicken One runs his de-feathered friend over in a van.  If you have that mental picture, blur it, put a terrible soundtrack to it, and make it an order of magnitude stupider, and you’ve got North Melbourne Video Productions.

Despite the canyon-wide void of artistic ingenuity, it became, without even so much as a light tickle of humour or irony, newsworthy. It became a bloody headline. For a bloody week!

After a good seven days of endless repetition, investigation and condemnation, this god-awful video was, strangely, found to possess value of a kind. It held up a shiny, city-sized magnifying glass and all the journalists, editors, fem-bots, save-the-children types (and everyone else who hadn’t seen the film either) all marched themselves obediently and ant-like into comical self-immolation.

“We demand apologies!” shouted one. “Footballers are supposed to be role models!” shrieked another. “Make a donation to a women’s group!” begged a women’s group.

Those with Brain One in their skulls knew instinctively to get out of the way.

It fast became another marker on the ever-sliding scale of what is deemed newsworthy in our country, and it illustrated just how disconnected we are from the rest of the world – from our own world, even – that boyish jokes like these should even be noticed, let alone be given a week’s attention.

Are we not aware that there are whole industries based on the exploitation of women, and that they choose to be exploited? Ever heard of advertising? Modelling? Hollywood? Pornography?

How about the exploitation of children? They don’t even have the good fortune of being able to select their line of work! As you celebrated Easter this year, were you concerned about the hundreds of young African boys and girls who worked slavishly to bring you that chocolate bunny? Probably not, but it sure tasted sweet, didn’t it?

Our country remains participant in two wars, the economy has many thinking we’ll be eating bread and dripping next week, Europeans are rioting over things not concerning football, people are still being jailed/killed/starved for no other reason than being born in the wrong country, Earth is picking fights with us every other month…

“But the chicken, THE CHICKEN WAS A FEMALE!”

Good god.

And what about footballers – sportspeople – as role models? Whoever the sad sap was that first proclaimed jocks should be looked upon as heroes, either spent way too much (or way too little) time looking at them on the school ground. It’s bad enough that educators fawn and kneel prostrate over the sporting achievements of their students, but when society finds greater worth in the extra-curricular activities of footballers than it does in the actual achievements of say, surgeons, engineers, or scientists, something is wrong. Heck, there’s more worth in aspiring to be Superman, and he’s fictional.

To be fair to the humble populace, many did express surprise at what they thought was a huge overreaction. The many letters of outrage were countered with a large – but probably not equal – number of letters calling for the restoration of sanity and for the world to be turned right way up again.

Bulldog player Jason Akermanis agreed, and seemed to me to be the first football-related personality to actually come out and speak his mind, and speak sensibly.

Now there’s a headline.

Earlier last month Victorian Minister for Public Transport, Lynne Kosky, locked up for fifty years all the documents surrounding the construction of Southern Cross train station. This month, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd uttered ‘shit-storm’ in a debate on the economic crisis, and political Lazarus, Pauline Hanson, made headlines again when thirty-year old erotic photos – alleged to be of Hanson – were leaked to the media.

Which of these stories earned virtually no press?

There are no prizes for correctly guessing the first one. While newspapers and news programs crawled over themselves for the Rudd and Hanson stories, reports on this latest attempt by Kosky to prevent anyone from admiring her have been mysteriously lacking.
Kosky, who is known for, among other things, her unmatched skills in achieving nothing on time (or on budget), has clearly dipped into George W. Bush’s Playbook in deciding to bar anyone from examining the circumstances surrounding the billion dollar redevelopment of Southern Cross station. The official figure is, admittedly, $700million – which is astronomical in its own right – but the cover-up suggests a significantly higher figure.

Add to this the billion-dollar cost of the myki-card debacle, the largely ineffective $800million regional Fast Rail project, and one begins to wonder whether this Labor government is not just enchanted by Bush’s techniques, but perhaps Bernie Madoff’s as well.

Whatever her reasons are, she’s afraid of anyone learning the truth before 2058.

Another example of agenda trumping righteousness involves the Obama Administration’s breathtaking endorsement of Bush’s State Secrets policy. In this specific instance, a number of litigants – tortured after being mistakenly suspected of terrorism – are endeavouring to have their cases of extraordinary rendition heard in American courts.

Given a chance to prove that change really has come to Washington, the Department of Justice instead announced that they agree with the previous government; that these cases – already well documented – carry information sensitive to National Security, and therefore they will not be heard. To be clear, this doesn’t mean certain pieces of evidence should be deemed inadmissible (as was the limitation before Dubya came along), but that all cases will not be examined, literally placing the Administration and its intelligence agencies beyond investigation, and above the law.

After voting precisely the opposite way in Senate hearings in previous years, what has caused this about-face? Barack Obama, an eloquent and inspirational leader, who has spoken at length about social justice issues, and who even presided over the Harvard Law Review, is now behaving like, well, Dick Cheney.

Indeed, capricious actions like these  achieve naught but bewilderment in the minds of the people. Thanks to a largely profit-driven media that cares more for selling products than telling truths, however, elected officials like the embattled Kosky and the exalted Obama can, after minor scrutiny and criticism, continue their jobs as though they had said nothing at all. The bewilderment gives way to acceptance; to indifference.

Is there rationale behind these political brain explosions?

For Obama, it is difficult to imagine his situation as anything even approaching a conundrum. He is, after all, a student of law. Habeas Corpus should mean something to him, even if it didn’t to his predecessor.

Kosky is doing herself and the last vestiges of her popularity no favours at all. Her sheer confidence in her ability to get away with it would be almost admirable, were it not so disgusting, and (given the lack of inquiry) justified.

Still, this says nothing of their internal transformation, the moment, or the catalyst that drives an otherwise rational person headlong into lawlessness or immorality. The argument that one must tow the party line – that the group is more than the individual – will elicit begrudging acceptance in casual discourse, but in reality shouldn’t hold weight, especially in regards to a cabinet minister or head of state. In a manner of speaking, they are the party line.

A fervent belief in one’s cause will often impede sound judgment, but for what cause will an infrastructure report be locked up for half a century?

Without knowing the inner workings of government, it is understandably ambitious to merely glance inside and receive answers. It is not unreasonable to expect that with the task of holding a public office comes intense pressure and scrutiny. Is it so demanding a request, however, that our leaders behave in a manner befitting their title? Exactly how difficult is it to obey law?

Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t examine the person, but the job description. Save ourselves the surprise and incredulity by looking upon our politicians as a bear to a honeypot, or a leech to a vein. As Thomas Jefferson once put it, “Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”

“The Oscars are watched by one billion people!” they cry. I remember back in the day when only half that many tuned in. Wouldn’t you love to know their secret? They’re getting the kind of figures Sydney was bragging about back in 2000. Best Olympics ever, they reckoned. It looked, from the vantage point of my two-seater sofa, strikingly similar to the rest of them though. Sure, the Bridge and Opera House were permanent fixtures before and after every ad-break, but the running tracks were red, swimmers got wet, and at least one athlete stole the hearts of viewers everywhere with their own tale of success in the face of enormous odds.

But do you think Eric Moussambani’s suicidal freestyle was more death-defying than my first selection when I grabbed the remote? Hollywood’s night-of-nights, was, I can assure you, the most teeth-gnashingly awful Oscar display, ever.

It was memorable in the way a Logies night always is. Yes, that kind of memorable. The leading man, Hugh Jackman, endlessly talented though he is, has clearly spent too much time as Peter Allen, or with Baz Luhrmann. In fact, Luhrmann even threw together a thirty minute (you weren’t watching so prove it wasn’t) song-and-dance routine that sounded more like a parody of its creator than a tribute to film. They even had the ‘hurl-a-couch-cushion’ temerity to close with “The musical is back!”

I’m sorry, what?

Baz, High School Musical 3 doesn’t count. And nor does the Slumdog credit scene, cool as that was.

Penelope Cruz’s reaction was priceless, and in fact, mirrored mine. It was at this point that I felt compelled to reach out and touch the screen where her shoulder was; not for any teevee-rotic jollies, but to reassure this Spanish beauty that nothing lacked in her translation, that she had indeed heard Hughie correctly. Jackman – goddamn Wolverine – was up there making a go-go-dancing ass of himself at the behest of non-adamantium-possessing clods, and here I was wondering where the bloody awards had gone. Am I so cynical?

It wasn’t even the tunes that really set my nostrils flaring. I let the stage props slide, too, admonishing myself for daring to think that I, or my Grade 6 drama teacher, could do a better job.

No, it was the group-hug sessions. This year, instead of just having a Hollywood star parade up on stage to announce the nominees and winner, they had five Hollywood stars do it. This was the 2009 Oscars though, damnit, and they weren’t just going to read out names. They started admiring. Then they began praising, and fawning and…leaning their heads over to one side and smiling and – oh god! – I had to change station. Dexter was on the other channel, and I guarantee if I hadn’t seen it three times already, I’d have watched that. (Even my favourite T.V. psychopath would have empathized at this point.)

There were moments, though, when I tuned in attentively. I was touched by the applause afforded to the Ledger family, and I enjoyed watching Danny Boyle’s jumping up on stage, and smiled when Cruz spoke Spanish in her acceptance speech. I wondered what Indian megastar Anil Kapoor was thinking while up on stage for Slumdog’s win. “Wow, so this is the American Bollywood!”

Could a billion people have watched the Oscars? It’s possible, but unlikely. It was probably closer to ten percent of that, just switching channels ten times.

History shows us that censoring the Internet is a futile exercise, so why is the Australian Government trying again?

Earlier this week the Australian Government began a trial run of its new multi-million dollar attempt at filtering your Internet. And as one revered writer once put it, this was generally considered a bad move. Not that you’d hear that from a large percentage of this country’s population; most are not keenly aware of the resulting damage that could follow. Neither, it seems, is Senator Stephen Conroy, the man with the somewhat peculiar title of Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy, and the man at the forefront of its legislation.

Disregard if you can, the government survey that states 61% of surveyed parents aren’t actually concerned with their child’s internet usage, try to ignore the ethical arguments against government-controlled censorship, and consider the technical issues of their proposal, all of which have the potential to adversely affect Net users throughout the country, and all of which haven’t been discussed in the public sphere.

In an interview with online news website, ZDNET, security expert Matthew Strahan outlines the very simple ways in which a hacker can compromise the filters themselves, a task made easier if the technology implemented becomes standard-issue. Strahan, a ‘white hat’ hacker in the employ of security firm, Securus Global, states that a hacked filter, among other things, could be used to facilitate the theft of personal data, expose email and other communications, and in a worst case scenario, can result in the total manipulation and rerouting of Australia’s internet traffic. “Depending on how they set it up, an attacker could become the man in the middle of every single Australian home connection, which is a huge thing,” he says.

This is to say nothing of the potential performance hit on your internet connection, due to your internet service provider’s scanning of every website you visit, or of false positives, where innocuous websites are flagged as unsuitable.

It should come as little surprise, then, that the government report (Developments in Internet Filtering Technology and Other Measures for Promoting Online Safety) makes zero mention of these security issues. It certainly neglects to mention the likes of 15-year-old schoolboy, Tom, who succeeded in circumventing the previous government’s $84million NetAlert software – in thirty minutes.

The confidence with which Luddite politicians attempt to save our precious minds from some intangible darkness is staggering, and, well, from the perspective of a man born a little closer to the Information Age than our humble saviour, Senator Conroy, it’s hilarious, too. I laugh and smile to think that while parents take instruction from their younglings on how to use the latest incomprehensible new piece of gadgetry, the kids themselves are learning about things like proxy servers and SSH tunnels to avoid school-enforced blocks on Facebook and Myspace. It is simply a matter of desire; if one wants to bypass the censors, one will. This freedom, this notion of ‘if you can think it, you can do it’ is a defining characteristic of the online world, and because governments cannot comprehend its nature, they consistently try – and fail – to control it.

The ‘save the children’ movement, sadly, is rarely short of parochial members. Just take a look at Jack Thompson. No, not the accomplished Australian actor. I’m talking of the very un-accomplished American lawyer, who, as if willed by God himself, seems to have made it his life’s work to eliminate any video game that contains a trace of wanton violence or, dare the words be uttered, sexual imagery. Every month, Thompson, armed with a burning belief that would shame any evangelist, would make appearances on another news network, lecturing America on what’s corrupting the kid’s minds now.

The warmth with which Thompson was received by Fox News and Conservatives in general belied his unpopularity with the general public though, who stopped paying him much attention. He had become a one-man circus, a court jester even, such was the enthusiasm with which he litigated and protested and self-flagellated (who knows?), crying foul at the faintest hint of virtual sin. He was especially unpopular within the court system, and the Florida Supreme Court resolved that by disbarring him.

South Australia’s Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, whose similar battle has received next to no coverage in the Australian media, doesn’t share the obstacles that Thompson endured. In a country where personal freedoms are implied but not inscribed, Atkinson remains the lone dissenting vote that keeps Australian gamers from R-rated video games (To call it a battle would no doubt be disrespectful to our war veterans – I should liken it to a blindfolded man sitting at a desk with his fingers in his ears – “Lalalalala!”). Here in this beloved country of ours, a lift on the ban of R-rated video games requires not merely a majority vote from all state Attorneys-General, but a unanimous decision from them.

Whether or not you believe that one man’s opinion should be the final word on the subject is a discussion for another time. You might think it awfully strange – unfair even – that films can have an adult audience but a game cannot, and you might be correct. You might even ponder on the idea that World War II, Caligula, Jack The Ripper, and that vile temptress, Eve, were all invented a long time before the PlayStation was, and you’d be right there, too. It doesn’t matter a great deal right now. In fact it matters precisely zero to the gaming audience, because the law doesn’t actually affect them.

The pointy end of the law is pointed in the wrong direction. Quite simply, the programmers, artists, writers, publishers, distributors, and retailers who are responsible for the creation and delivery of this entertainment to Australian audiences all lose a significant part of their livelihood because of this one man from South Australia. The Australian Government, as shows like Border Patrol resolutely maintain, still wields an impressive degree of power over the goods that arrive to our shores. But gamers will always get their software, come hell, treacherous high waters, or censorious politicians, because the mechanism by which they often resort to play them – the Internet – knows no boundaries.

Think the ban on graffiti-loving game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure prevented anyone here from spraying virtual walls? Or what about Manhunt, Soldier of Fortune, F.E.A.R 2, or Silent Hill? Think again. How about the conditions the Australian Ratings Board placed on one of the biggest game releases in recent years, the post-apocalyptic Fallout 3? Apparently Ma and Pa Government didn’t like the animation that depicted drug use, despite the punishment you receive in-game for becoming addicted to it, so it was banned. That didn’t work, either. Gamers just downloaded the full, unedited package from the web.

To many customers sitting on the fence between illegal downloads and legitimate purchases, the government is effectively providing guilt-free justification for the former. I can’t purchase the game legally, therefore, thank you very much Pirate Bay!

These stories form another frustrating chapter in history’s morality war; the never-ending fight between personal choice and We Know What’s Best For You.

It is a concept that eludes culture warriors like Conroy and Atkinson, very much to the detriment of the people who probably voted for them. They seem to miss – or perhaps, choose to ignore – the contradictions within their own political, religious, and moral groups that would otherwise render their arguments completely worthless. Can a person crusade against violent or morally ambiguous video games while turning a blind eye to his Government as they participate in war, or priests, as they abuse their flock? Can we, in good faith, lecture others on the dangers of drugs while engaging in activities sponsored by alcohol and drug companies?

One can fathom the idea of a politician scoring easy votes with scare campaigns about the latest fad; heck, tabloid current affairs programs do it every night. But on the very real chance that these men are serious in their endeavour, might they consider this question: Do video games and the Internet exert greater influence over society’s moral compass than, say, God? What about Government? Religion? Divorce? War? Money?…Harry Potter?

There is no correct response, of course. All of these things influence everyone in myriad ways, and to varying degrees; some in the extreme, some not at all. It follows, then, that while not all parents nurture their children in the way people such as Senator Conroy would like, many do. The result is, and always has been, the same. Some thrive, others wilt. Most will join society and become productive, others will not, regardless of what’s blaring from their iPod or glowing on their computer screen. Developing nations, afterall, produce adults to the same pattern, and without the spoils of wealth. Very often in these situations, the sole difference is the opportunity to learn.

A logical suggestion may be therefore that we not remove choice from everybody, but provide education to somebody where it’s needed. Show unwise parents what their kid might be playing or looking at online. Let’s provide and place greater emphasis on ethics classes for young children. Their values and social habits are not yet entrenched, so why not provide them with the skills to help them live well, while teaching them right from wrong? The knock-on effects could be profound; happier, healthier, more confident youth; self-assurance balanced with respect for others. Forget banned titles like Bully – what might happen to bullying? The benefits of this approach could be profound.

We’ve come this far.

Pixels, I’m certain, will not be the death of us.