Investigate Dec/Jan 2012 by Investigate Magazine

NEW ZEALAND’S BEST NEWS MAGAZINE

JESUS: THE FLAWED CASE ‘The Investigator’ Bryan Bruce’s book

The Rena Diary of a cleanup, and lessons learned

The Hunt

The NZ mum whose children were kidnapped in London in 1981, and finally found this year Dec 2011/Jan 2012, $8.60

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C ONTENTS Volume 10, Issue 122, ISSN 1175-1290

F EATURES

Jesus vs Bryan

The Investigator Bryan Bruce won an award this month for Jesus: The Cold Case. But did he deserve it? Ian Wishart looks at where Bruce got it wrong.

The Hunt

The New Zealand mother whose children were kidnapped in London 30 years ago has finally found them: an extract from IAN WISHART & GEORGE LONDON’S new book

The Rena Lesson

Eight weeks ago we’d given up on a Bay of Plenty summer. Now the beaches are open again. Lessons from the Rena spill.

Is Schapelle Expendable?

New evidence emerges on the Schapelle Corby controversy

Rolling Stones

Mick and the boys are re-releasing their biggest-selling album, 1978’s Some Girls, and preparing for the band’s 50th. Yeah, you heard right.

My Week With Marilyn

Michelle Williams talks about getting into Marilyn Monroe’s head

Cover: Dreamstime

EDITORIAL & OPINION

Focal Point Editorial

Vox-Populi The roar of the crowd

Simply Devine The urge to talk

Mark Steyn St George and the flaggin’

Eyes Right

Points of contact

Gen-Y

The short end of political correctness

Walker’s World

LIFESTYLE

A new social contract

Money

Our fate depends on this

Tech

Consider This

Contra Mundum When scientists make bad ethicists

Upsides and downsides New Kindle Fire

Online

Mobile security

Health

Children and aggression?

AltHealth

Med news you can really use

Travel

Swim with sea lions in the Sea of Cortez

Food

The Seger Sessions

Movies

The organic panic

Pages

The Descendants, J. Edgar

Summer picks

Toybox

Latest & greatest

Music

Hollywood Knight:

Chief Executive Officer Heidi Wishart | Group Managing Editor Ian Wishart | NZ EDITION Advertising 09 373-3676, sales@investigatemagazine.com | Contributing Writers: Hal Colebatch, Amy Brooke, Chris Forster, Peter Hensley, Chris Carter, Mark Steyn, Chris Philpott, Michael Morrissey, Miranda Devine, Richard Prosser, Claire Morrow, James Morrow, Len Restall, Laura Wilson, and the worldwide resources of MCTribune Group, UPI and Newscom | Art Direction Heidi Wishart | Design & Layout Bozidar Jokanovic | Tel: +64 9 373 3676 | Fax: +64 9 373 3667 | Investigate Magazine, PO Box 188, Kaukapakapa, Auckland 0843, NEW ZEALAND | AUSTRALIAN EDITION Editor Ian Wishart | Advertising sales@investigatemagazine.com | Tel/Fax: 1-800 123 983 | SUBSCRIPTIONS – Online: www.investigatemagazine.com By Phone: Australia – 1-800 123 983, NZ – 09 373 3676 By Post: To the PO Box NZ Edition: $85; AU Edition: A$96 EMAIL: editorial@investigatemagazine.com, ian@investigatemagazine.com, australia@investigatemagazine.com, sales@investigatemagazine.com, helpdesk@investigatemagazine.tv All content in this magazine is copyright, and may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher. The opinions of advertisers or contributors are not necessarily those of the magazine, and no liability is accepted. We take no responsibility for unsolicited material sent to us. Please enclose a stamped, SAE envelope. Inquiries in the first instance should be made via email or fax. Investigate magazine Australasia is published by HATM Magazines Ltd

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FOCAL POINT

Editorial And the winner is…

IT’S BEEN A MONTH OF ‘SMACK THE FOREHEAD, DUH!’ moments

of absolute frustration. And not just for John Key. Sure, the Prime Minister fell apart in the latter stages of the election campaign, but personally I blame his advisors rather than Key himself. Having worked at a Cabinet level, I know exactly the kind of strategy sessions and planning meetings that political spin-doctors have. National’s weakness has always been that they are less about standing ‘for’ things than they are about ‘managing’ things. The Nats don’t have the inner mongrel that Helen Clark had. They don’t go into elections as leaders, but as managers. When the world is going to hell in a handcart, bold leadership is needed. John Key has proven through a series of natural and human-caused disasters that he has the common touch, the inner sense of how to lead his people through. However, as the election drew closer Key lost his nerve, or rather, his team stole it. A lack of confidence appeared. Take the tea-cups incident. Instead of hiding behind the skirts of Plod, and allowing speculation and innuendo to run rife, if I had been advising Key I would have told him to front-foot the problem. “Fair cop, you heard me bagging the Act leadership. I’ll own that. I like Don Brash but I don’t think he’s the person to lead Act for the next three years. It’s academic. It’s a dispute among colleagues. We need Act to win Epsom and we’ll live with the result. But if you want uncertainty, who in this room seriously believes Phil Goff will be Labour leader in six months, regardless of whether he wins the election? “The real uncertainty is that Labour MPs are plotting to overthrow Phil whatever the result, meaning if voters elect Labour they don’t actually know who they are ultimately voting in as

John Key has proven through a series of natural and human-caused disasters that he has the common touch, the inner sense of how to lead his people through Prime Minister. They don’t know what sort of deal will be done with the Greens. “You want scary? That’s scary. Voters don’t know who they are really going to get if they vote Labour.” And it’s the truth. If Key had come out on Day One and said that, and held to it, the teacups saga would have been over within hours. Phil Goff’s hold on the Labour leadership is over. By the time the election rolled around he was little more than Labour’s hood ornament, not so much ‘Jaguar’ as household moggy. The big grey area around Labour is whether the Left or the Right will come out dominant in the bloodletting that fol-

8 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

lows, and we have no way of knowing. The media, if they’d been doing their jobs correctly, should have been highlighting this elephant in the room regarding Labour, but they never did. They allowed Labour to present Goff as a future prime minister, knowing full well he’d be rolled fairly rapidly in favour of an unknown. Key needs to spend less time listening to National’s cautious and timid advisory team, and more time finding his inner gut instinct and listening to it.

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VOX POPULI

Communiques The roar of the crowd

A SATISFIED CUSTOMER

Well, do you know what? Sitting here in Invercargill in front of this collection of plastic, wires, metal I can only marvel at what God has allowed man to manufacture. I am just dumbstruck at the amazing technology that allows me to read online the back issues of magazines that I read during the year. That was the first thought I had. Second was the vision of the people involved in producing this service – your team. It will have taken the efforts of many to be able to produce online newpapers – hard work, commitment – but to be able to read this sort of thing by just pushing buttons as I sit in my kitchen well – ok I pay for broadband and all that – AWESOME. Have a good day. Ingrid Lindsay, Invercargill

EDITOR RESPONDS

Thanks Ingrid. For those who don’t already know, our new website, www.investigatedaily.com, has a ‘Subscriber only area’ where subscribers can access full archives of current and back issues of the magazine online, that look identical to the print editions. If you are an existing subscriber on our database, the service is free. Simply email us at helpdesk@investigatemagazine.tv with your name and contact information, and we will email the password back to you.

BREAKING SILENCE

My brother gave me his copy of your book Breaking Silence to read. I approached it reluctantly. Whenever the case came up on TV I would not watch or listen to most of it. I did not want to be endlessly reminded about two babies being bashed, as TV made out. Fortunately your book does not detail this and it was a relief to find that in actual fact the twins were [not subjected to ongoing abuse].

Reading Macsyna’s story, I felt that she had developed a pretty good attitude to, and about, her past. There was a spark of hope in her that I could not work out until the final chapter. Here she states that having you probe into her past and to put it into words, and to be listened to, was a healing therapy for her. What I want to say to you is that not only did you investigate her story in order to be able to write a book and to tell the facts of the case, but you listened to a troubled woman to a degree that she is healing her past and is now surrounding herself with good, and with love – of her son and her partner. You have not just written a book, Ian, you have helped to heal a life. It is a book I would like to see every New Zealander read. Name supplied, Kawerau

TREATY ISSUES

During the course of approximately the last decade this country’s scandalous treaty industry had taken a dangerous turn. While the endless stream of public money flowing into the pockets of Maori elites continues unabated, for those with eyes that see it is blindingly obvious that the main agenda of the treaty agitators and their politically correct white patrons, has now turned towards a naked grab for political power. Proof of this is the publicly unsolicited push for a written constitution for N.Z which is to be based upon a politically cor-

10 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

rect, “revised” and totally false interpretation of the treaty of Waitangi. Here we see an unholy alliance of antiWestern neo-Marxism and tribalism at work – old, decadent, divisive, and supremacist tribalism. The question is not, can such mad ambitions succeed, but how much social damage will be caused in the attempt? There are a diversity of forces working in this country to destroy civil society and the treaty industry is one of them. Colin Rawle, Dunedin (abridged)

POETRY

Is it poetry? Then send submissions to Poetry Editor Amy Brooke: amy@investigatemagazine.tv

In Case of Emergency, Press “Believe They claim to not believe in God all fashion-draped and leather-shod and unconventionally mod yet seeming peas from out one pod. Collectively they cross the quad like singers to an Eisteddfod and join with others of theirsquad to hand a crisp substantial wad with extra-reverential nod to the Richard Dawkins bod and kiss the ground whereon he trod before to suburbs east they plod. Then faced with liquefying sod and crashing Sumner rock and clod did they not call out “Oh, my...!”Cod? Does this strike you as rather odd?” Philip Lync

OUT NOW Ask for it at Whitcoulls, Paper Plus, Borders, Dymocks, Take Note, Relay and all good independent bookstores or online at howlingatthemoon.com INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 11

New Zealand’s most talked-about books:

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See our Christmas specials by clicking anywhere on this page INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 13

SIMPLY DEVINE

Miranda Devine The urge to talk

WHAT IS IT ABOUT WOMEN THAT MAKES THEM SUCH

prodigious whistleblowers? This month we saw Kathy Jackson, national secretary of the Health Services Union, refusing to back down to the jeering mob at the scandal-racked organisation’s annual conference. She is fighting to clean up the HSU, and no amount of name-calling, shovels at her front door, intimidation and votes of no confidence will stop her. “I’m going nowhere. They’re not used to people telling them they’re doing the wrong thing (and) they’re trying to shoot the messenger.” She is not afraid to take on the union movement’s entrenched male power elites – and the membership is quietly behind her. There’s a lot at stake, with the Gillard government’s one-seat majority in the balance as police investigate Jackson’s HSU predecessor, Dobell MP Craig Thomson, over misuse of union funds – allegations he denies. Jackson, 45, never saw herself as a feminist superhero, but her determination to stand up to the union is fast making her an inspiration to other women. So, too, is Gillian Sneddon, the former electorate officer of the jailed paedophile and former NSW Labor minister Milton Orkopoulos. Sneddon, 53, was the first to blow the whistle on the member for Swansea’s sordid activities. For her trouble she was sacked, locked out of her office and had her good name dragged through the mud. This month, she told the Whistleblowers Australia annual conference in Parramatta that people had been raising the alarm about Orkopoulos long before he entered parliament. Yet he went on to become Aboriginal Affairs minister, bringing him into contact with some of the state’s most vulnerable children. “I thought that what I did in report-

ing allegations made to me first by one young man and then another that they had been sexually abused by my boss, Milton Orkopoulos, was the right, the legal and the responsible thing to do,” she told the conference. “I thought it was what everyone else in my position would have done. How wrong I was. I came to understand the forces of power which were mustered, by accident or design, to protect an accused paedophile and discredit his accuser.” She said Orkopoulos should have been stood aside while police investigated the allegations. “Instead he was left with all the resources

a single one of us to appear before their (2009 parliamentary inquiry into the treatment of whistleblowers) recently offered to pay for American whistleblower Erin Brockovich to come to Newcastle over the Orica (pollution) business,” she said. Like Brockovich, 51, the legal clerk who blew the whistle on the industrial contamination of drinking water in a Californian town, Sneddon and Jackson showed courage and integrity that was unique in their workplaces. For years, odious practices had occurred unchecked, but when the women cottoned on, instead of going with the flow like everyone else, they trusted their own judgment

It can’t be that women are more ethical than men. But do they possess a special intuition to detect wrongdoing before their male colleagues? of the electorate office with which to protect himself and cover up his crimes.” Sneddon is calling on the NSW government to hold an inquiry into how Orkopoulos was protected for so long. She likens it to the inquiry announced just a few weeks ago by the West Australian government into how convicted paedophile Dennis McKenna was able to abuse dozens of children at a state-run hostel for years after complaints were made to police. She points out the irony of her own ill-treatment compared with the social justice principles of the party that she once supported. “I am sure you will be heartened to know that the Labor Party, which would not allow

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and called out the wrongdoers. Like Brockovich, both women were single mothers, and both have suffered greatly as a result of their “ethical resistance”. Jackson is still under attack and was hospitalised at one point after suffering a nervous breakdown. Sneddon lost her job and went through a period of depression. “The way I was treated (by those who) shunned and vilified me in public and in private has eaten away at my confidence, my self-belief, my health, my ability to eat, to sleep and to support myself and my family. “I ended up hospitalised for five weeks in a psychiatric facility, having lost the will to live.”

The toll on these women is almost unendurable. Yet they do endure, and inspire other women to speak out against corruption and abuse of power. In the US, the role of women blowing the whistle on corporate misdeeds has been extraordinary – from Sherron Watkins at Enron to Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot in the Madoff fraud case to A.K. Barnett-Hart, the investment bank intern who first raised the alarm on the sub-prime mortgage crisis. So what is it about women that makes them willing to risk all to do the right thing? It can’t be that women are more ethical than men. But do they possess a special intuition to detect wrongdoing before their male colleagues? Or is it the fact that in male-dominated workplaces they are less likely to be “team players” because they are excluded from the mates’ network and thus are able to judge ethical breaches dispassionately? Are they less greedy for power and wealth, and therefore less afraid to rock the boat? Or are they more in touch with the real world because they are used to running households. Whatever the reason, the crucial role of whistleblower seems to be a burden women have long shouldered, from the tragic prophetic heroine of Greek mythology, Cassandra, to the triumphant Brockovich. Long may they prosper. devinemiranda@hotmail.com

Like Brockovich, 51, the legal clerk who blew the whistle on the industrial contamination of drinking water in a Californian town, Sneddon and Jackson showed courage and integrity that was unique in their workplaces INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 15

STRAIGHT TALK

Mark Steyn St George and the flaggin’ WHEN IT’S NOT EXPLICITLY HOSTILE, WESTERN LIB erals’

attitude to Ayaan Hirsi Ali is deeply condescending. One thinks of Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, pondering the author’s estrangement from her Somali relatives: I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Hirsi Ali’s family is dysfunctional simply because its members never learned to bite their tongues and just say to one another: “I love you.” In Somalia, they don’t bite their tongues but they do puncture your clitoris. Miss Hirsi Ali was the victim of what Western hospitals already abbreviate to “FGM” (“female genital mutilation”) or, ever more fashionably, “FGC” (the less judgmental “female genital cutting”). Group hugs may work at the Times op-ed desk when the Pulitzer nominations fail to materialize, but Mr. Kristof is perhaps being a wee bit Upperwestsideocentric to assume their universality. Miss Hirsi Ali has been on the receiving end of both Islam and the squishy multiculti accommodation thereof. For seven years, she has been accompanied by bodyguards, because the men who killed the film director Theo van Gogh would also like to kill her. She was speaking in Calgary the other day and, in the course of an interview with Canada’s National Post, made a sharp observation on where much of the world is headed. It’s not just fellows like Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who knifed, shot, and, for good measure, near decapitated van Gogh. She noted the mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed dozens of his fellow Norwegians supposedly as a protest against the Islamization of Europe — if one is to believe a rambling manifesto that cited her, me, Jefferson, Churchill, Gandhi, Hans Christian Andersen, and many others. Much media commentary described Breivik as a “Christian.” But he had been raised by

conventional Eurosecularists, and did not attend a church of any kind. On the other hand, he was very smitten by the Knights Templar. “He’s not a worshiping Christian but he’s become a political Christian,” said Ayaan, “and so he’s reviving political Christianity as a counter to political Islam. That’s regression, because one of the greatest achievements of the West was to separate politics from religion.” Blame multiculturalism, she added, which is also regressive: In her neck of the Horn of Africa, “identity politics” is known as tribalism. That’s a shrewd insight. We already accept

may claim to be “pan-Arabists” or “Baathists,” but in the end they represent nothing and no one but themselves and their Swiss bank accounts. When their disgruntled subjects went looking for something real to counter the hollow kleptocracies, Islam was the first thing to hand. There is not much contemplation of the divine in your average mosque, but, as a political blueprint, Islam was waiting, and ready. Multicultural Europe is not Mubarak’s Egypt, but, north of the Mediterranean as much as south, the official state ideology is insufficient. The Utopia of Diversity is already frantically trading land for peace,

The “multicultural society” was an unnecessary experiment. And, in a post-prosperity Europe, demographic transformation is an unlikely recipe for social tranquility “political Islam.” Indeed, we sentimentalize it – dignifying the victory of the Islamist Ennahda party in post-Ben Ali Tunisia, the restoration of full-bore polygamy in postQaddafi Libya, and the slaughter of Coptic Christians in post-Mubarak Egypt as an “Arab Spring.” On the very day Miss Hirsi Ali’s interview appeared, the mob caught up with the world’s longest-serving non-hereditary head of state. Colonel Qaddafi had enlivened the U.N. party circuit for many years with his lavish ball gowns, but, while he was the Arab League’s only literal transvestite, that shouldn’t obscure the fact that most of his fellow dictators are also playing dress-up. They

16 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

and unlikely to retain much of either. In the “Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets” — the heart of London’s East End, where one sees more covered women than in Amman — police turn a blind eye to misogyny, Jewhatred, and gay-bashing for fear of being damned as “racist.” Male infidel teachers of Muslim girls are routinely assaulted. Patrons of a local gay pub are abused, and beaten, and, in one case, left permanently paralyzed. The hostelry that has so attracted the ire of the Muslim youth hangs a poignant shingle: The George and Dragon. It’s one of the oldest and most popular English pub names. The one just across the Thames on

Borough High Street has been serving beer for at least half a millennium. But no one would so designate a public house today. The George and Dragon honors the patron saint of England, and it is the cross of Saint George – the flag of England – under which the Crusaders fought. They brought back the tale from their soldiering in the Holy Land: In what is now Libya, Saint George supposedly made the Sign of the Cross, slew the dragon, and rescued the damsel. Within living memory, every English schoolchild knew the tale, if not all the details – e.g., the dragon-slaying so impressed the locals that they converted to Christianity. But the multicultural establishment slew the dragon of England’s racist colonialist imperialist history, and today few schoolchildren have a clue about Saint George. So the pub turned gay and Britain celebrated diversity, and tolerance, and it never occurred to them that, when you tolerate the avowedly intolerant, it’s only an interim phase. There will not be

If Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right, more than a few Europeans cut off from their inheritance and adrift in lands largely alien to them will seek comfort in older identities infidel teachers in Tower Hamlets for much longer, nor gay bars. The “multicultural society” was an unnecessary experiment. And, in a post-prosperity Europe, demographic transformation is an unlikely recipe for social tranquility. If Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right, more than a few Europeans cut off from their inheritance and adrift in lands largely alien to them will seek comfort in older identities. In the Crusaders’ day, the edge of the maps bore the legend “Here be dragons.” They’re a lot closer now. Mark Steyn © 2011 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 17

EYES RIGHT

Richard Prosser Points of contact

AFTER RECEIVING THE LATEST EXTORTION DEMAND

from my friendly local Australian-owned power company, I wrote to advise them of my displeasure and of my intention to change suppliers. Their reply – and my translation of it to English – is below. Dear Richard Thank you for taking the time to write regarding price increases that have been announced for some Wellington and South Island customers, coming into effect on November 1st. [Oh dear, another complaint. That makes 30,000 just this morning.] I appreciate your views and fully understand that price increases are never popular. This is not a step that has been taken lightly and it’s important that we explain clearly, the reasons behind increasing prices in the South Island and Wellington. [Therefore, we are forwarding you a copy of our bog-standard circular response. It only looks like a personal response because we’re a cynical bunch, and we like to think that you’re stupid enough to believe us.] Over the last 12 months the wholesale cost of electricity that we buy to sell to our Wellington and South Island customers has become more expensive, and this is set to continue. [This is because this is the only way we can make more money.] This is a cost increase which is being driven largely by constraints on the national transmission grid. [Actually this is rubbish. Power costs the same to produce (i.e. largely nothing, for hydro anyway, when you consider that the dams were built and paid for, by taxpayers, two generations ago, and the rain keeps falling for free) regardless of whether the tired old Cook Strait Cables can carry it or not.] The result has been that in some instances we have been purchasing electricity on the wholesale market at a price higher than we sell it for. [But it’s not all bad,

because we buy it from ourselves, and write the “loss” off against tax.] To expand more fully, electricity demand in the South Island has been growing at more than 2.5 per cent per year over the last 10 years, which is very strong demand growth. This is faster than the North Island’s growth in electricity demand. [In fact, averaged annual demand for electricity, which used to peak in the winter and fall off in the summer, has flattened out in the last decade, with the increasing use of air conditioners and the like, particularly in the North Island. This has resulted in the Southern hydro lakes being

ity, including 70% of hydro capacity, for 24% of the population, is not something we can see the relevance of. Really.] The impact of this situation is that the South Island has become increasingly dependent on electricity from the North Island to meet its growing demand. As a result, over the last 10 years the flow of electricity from the North Island to the South Island has continued to increase.[Naturally, this isn’t quite true. Power only flows from North to South about 10% of the time, mostly in the winter when demand in the South is high, and inflows to Southern hydro schemes is low.]

You might think you’ve got away with it this time, smartalec, but we’ll get you in the end. We’ll buy the next competitor company you run to, or fix it for them to have an increase as well, at our next unofficial cartel meeting on the golf course drained over the summer in order to feed the North with cheap power (which we make better profits on), meaning that in the winter, we have to supply the South with expensive Northern thermal power instead – but don’t worry, we jack the price up to cover the additional cost of generation (like now), so our profits are still healthy.] However, over the last 10 years, there has been less than 200 megawatts of new electricity generation built in the South Island compared to more than 2,000 megawatts in the North Island. [That the South Island possesses 41% of New Zealand’s installed generating capac-

18 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

This in itself is not a problem – the country (read: taxpayers) should be developing the cost effective sources of new electricity generation, with the transmission system then distributing that generation to customers, [our customers, and therefore our profits] wherever they might be. In this respect, we are investing $3 billion over the next five years in 1,400 megawatts of new electricity generation projects in geothermal, wind, hydro and natural gasfired power stations. [The $3 billion will be funded, incidentally, by further price increases, but when that happens, we’ll blame something

else, like Global Warming, or aliens, or Barrack Obama’s assassination (date to be announced). You can bet your backside we wouldn’t be spending a cent if we didn’t know for sure we’d be getting it back at a profit.] The problem is that while the South Island has become increasingly dependent on North Island electricity generation, investment in the transmission network has not kept pace with generation investment. [This is because none of us privatised power companies could see why we should pay to upgrade a grid which was built by taxpayers – I mean we bought these “businesses” to make money, not spend it. Duh.] The electricity transmission system is increasingly constrained and is blocking the delivery of North Island electricity to the lower North island and then across the Cook Strait cable to the South Island. [Blocking. You know, power can’t get through. That’s why everyone is having power cuts. Oh, what’s that? They’re not? Well, I guess the power isn’t actually being blocked then, so maybe we made that bit up – you know, we lied about it.] The reason for these constraints is essentially historic underinvestment in the transmission grid, [see above] coupled with the removal of part of the Cook Strait cable late last year. [The damn thing was ancient and stuffed and we hadn’t used it for years anyway, but it sounds plausible.] We expect these problems to be addressed, but the Cook Strait cable will take at least four years to be replaced. [Rest assured, you’ll be getting a bill for that, too.] These constraints are leading to increased pressure on the South Island’s electricity generation plant – mainly hydro – and are seeing higher wholesale prices as a result. [Again, we’re lying. There is no additional “pressure” on our hydro generating capacity. There couldn’t possibly be. Installed capacity is fixed to a maximum possible level, and the lakes largely operate at run-of-river volumes anyway. When there is increased demand, we simply use river flows to generate power, rather than dumping excess water down the spillways and out to sea. I mean what on earth else would we do with it? When a lake is full, it’s full. You can’t stack water.] The situation has arisen whereby the South Island and lower North Island will have higher average wholesale electricity prices than the majority of the North Island for at least the next four to five years. [You’re screwed, pal, and there’s NOTHING you can do about it, so there.] This is the electricity that we buy to sell to our customers and the increases we have

announced are in response to these higher wholesale prices. We value our electricity customers and, again, don’t take these decisions lightly. [It’s a balancing act. If we jack the prices by 10% and only lose 8% of our customer base as a result, we’re still ahead, aren’t we? And we know that most people will grizzle a bit, but they’re too apathetic to actually do anything about it. I mean they were stupid enough to vote for privatisation Governments in the first place, now weren’t they?] There will also be no increase in base directors’ fees at this time – this is in response to the current economic environment. [But just

watch the “meeting fees” go through the roof. Clever, eh ;-)] We are sorry to lose you as a customer and if in the future you consider changing suppliers again, we will welcome you back. [You might think you’ve got away with it this time, smartalec, but we’ll get you in the end. We’ll buy the next competitor company you run to, or fix it for them to have an increase as well, at our next unofficial cartel meeting on the golf course.] Sincerely [Up yours] Contact Energy

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 19

GEN-Y

Chloe Milne

The short end of political correctness THERE IS A LOT OF TALK THAT NEW ZEALAND IS

increasingly becoming too politically correct, “political correctness gone mad,” they say. However, I’m not too sure if I agree. It seems as though some people think they can still say whatever they like without consequence. The thing is sometimes political correctness is actually a good thing, except when it comes to midgets; they’re just a little bit funny. I’m all for freedom of speech and expression but there are some things that should never be said. During the World Cup, Pam Corkery claimed that Graham Henry looked as if “he had been taken from behind” or “someone had raped his mother”. This is a perfect example of something you shouldn’t say, or think to be honest. I’m not entirely sure what one would look like if they had been taken from behind but I don’t think Graham Henry’s furrowed brow is necessarily it. Now we all know Pam is a little outrageous, to say the least, but this was probably a little far for TVNZ’s Good Morning show. I just don’t know if the unemployed and elderly are ready for picturing Graham Henry in a precarious situation, nor his mother. You’d think people would have learnt after Paul Holmes’ “cheeky darkie” faux pas, and Paul Henry’s “is he really a New Zealander?” remark. However, now Steve Williams has dug himself into a hole (no pun intended). Seriously, when would calling someone a “black asshole” be a good idea? Now I think we can all agree that Tiger Woods screwed up in a big way and doesn’t deserve a lot of respect. However, I never realised the fact that he has dark skin should have anything to do with it. Why people ever decided to discriminate on the basis on UV absorption I will never know, but last time I checked there is

no scientific evidence that high melanin levels relate to being an “a-hole”. Seriously, it’s now 2011 and about time we moved on, surely having an African American as the most powerful man in the world is a pretty good incentive to do so. Woods claims that Williams is not a racist but clearly that is up for debate. The fact that Williams had to even mention his skin colour suggests he thought it was something he could use against him. It seems racism is not yet a thing of the past but the sooner it is the better.

Racism is at the obvious end of the political correctness scale, but, just so you know, there are other things that you should just not say. Negative comments about women, homosexuals, albinos and midgets are generally no go areas, except when they’re really funny. People can actually find these things offensive, just ask my friend Tiny, a little person, who was driving along one day when someone rear-ended him. (I meant crash) He hopped out of the car and said to the other driver “I’m not happy”, to which the driver replied “which one are you then?”

I’m all for freedom of speech and expression but there are some things that should never be said

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 21

WALKER’S WORLD

Martin Walker A new social contract

THERE SEEMS TO BE NO END TO THE EURO’S SLOW

agony. Perhaps it would hurt less if European governments were to focus on the right targets. But the pain goes on. The downgrading of the credit ratings of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal was widely expected but it still hurt. The downgrading of Austria was less expected. This will weaken Europe’s rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, since its ability to borrow rests on the creditworthiness of the eurozone members. At the same time, the brinkmanship of the Greeks as they try to negotiate the next round of rescue funds is making a hard default more and more likely. Merkozy, the vogue term for the European leadership team of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, will doubtless dash around with more sticking plaster summits and shortterm fixes. But the Merkozy duo is still far from confronting the endemic trade imbalances between efficient Germany and its European partners. And they are still far from grappling fundamentally (as is the United States) with the underlying reality, that the social contract itself lies at the heart of the problem. The social contract which frames public life in the Group of Seven countries was drawn up in the era when men (mostly men) worked until they were 65 and died before they were 70. They now die in their late 70s and increasingly in their 80s. In many countries they can retire in their late 50s or early 60s. Longevity is a wonderful development, a tribute to healthcare. But it is expensive. In the United States, on average, people in their 60s cost almost $10,000 a year in health costs. People in their 70s cost more than $15,000 a year and those in their 80s and are close to $25,000 a year. Alzheimer’s

disease and senile dementia are the second fastest growing ailment after diabetes and, since they require high-intensive care, these diseases of the elderly are going to be ever more costly. This is no longer sustainable. But in democracies, in which people over 50 are usually three times more likely to vote than those under 30, any attempt to redefine the social contract in a way that reduces wealth transfers to mature citizens will be politically difficult. This challenge comes just as youth unemployment rates are soaring in most developed countries. In much of the Organization for

it ever more difficult to produce school-leavers, particularly those from ethnic minorities and poorer or broken homes, who are sufficiently literate and numerate and socialized to be attractive to employers. At the same time the costs of college education, increasingly a requisite for most careers earning more than minimum wage, are becoming more expensive. Whether financed by parents, by taxes or by student loans a university degree is less and less affordable. In the United States, for example, the College Board’s Trends in College Pricing says the 2010-11 average total costs (includ-

Those unemployed in their teens and 20s are far less likely to find jobs or to earn average salaries in the future. The costs, human as well as economic, last a lifetime Economic Cooperation and Development countries youth-unemployment rates are double those of the rest of the population. In Britain, Italy, Norway and New Zealand the ratio is 3-to-1; in Sweden the unemployment rate among 15- to 24-year-olds is 4.1 times higher than that of workers aged between 25 and 54. In Britain the cost of the country’s 744,000 unemployed young is estimated to be almost $13 billion a year in benefits and lost productivity. And those unemployed in their teens and 20s are far less likely to find jobs or to earn average salaries in the future. The costs, human as well as economic, last a lifetime. This threat of a lost generation comes when public education systems are finding

22 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

ing tuition, fees, room and board) were $16,140 for students attending four-year public colleges and universities in-state and $28,130 out-of-state, and $36,993 for students at four-year private colleges and universities. Assume an additional $4,000 for textbooks, supplies, transportation and other expenses. College tuition costs have been rising at double the inflation rate for more than 20 years. The new social contract that must eventually come is likely to see a triple-layered system if it is to survive at all. The bronze level of education, healthcare and pension will be bare bones and subsistence level and financed by public taxation. It won’t include college fees or residential costs. It will impose rationing of care for

those above a certain age or those deemed at risk through their own action, such as smokers, heavy drinkers and those with a history of drug addiction. It may also penalize convicted felons and offer very reduced services for immigrants, at least until they have paid into the system for at least five or 10 years. The silver level will top up this base level with personal or family contributions (paid through insurance) that would ideally match the public outlay, whether for education or pensions or health insurance. The less the

silver-level members pay in, the less they get out. The gold level will be wholly self-financed, although some wealthy universities will continue to provide scholarships for star students. It will be an open question whether states will deem it in the collective interest to pay for the training and retraining of the unemployed. It won’t be a pleasant society in which to be poor or disabled or unskilled or chronically sick. But it will be affordable.

Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia are the second fastest growing ailment after diabetes and, since they require high-intensive care, these diseases of the elderly are going to be ever more costly.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 23

CONSIDER THIS

Amy Broke Our fate depends on this I WAS SPEAKING RECENTLY WITH A MOTHER WHO

had attended a meeting of her supportive weekly coffee group, women who had their babies around the same time – shunted home in unholy haste out the hospital door. She felt both sad and guilty. One of the mothers in the group had been crying: with her own baby now six months, she had no choice but to go back to work, putting him in a crèche. Others were shortly facing the same prospect. Mothers who are able to stay at home can nowadays actually be made to feel guilty about this. How can we possibly call this progress? Many mothers who would give a great deal to look after their own babies have these days had this choice removed. Successive decades of wrong-headed political decisions have made it virtually impossible for thousands of them to stay at home and look after their children. Such policies have not been entirely accidental. The childless Helen Clark oversaw her government’s decisions skewing the outcome against mothers staying at home to mind their children by offering financial incentives for them to return to the workforce – although all the research substantiates the fact that the most stable unit of society is a cohesive family. Successive governments, with the once universal and very important child benefit removed, have engineered policies deliberately undermining the possibility for mothers to supply the day-today continuity of care, love, and permanence which is best for their children. These political decisions are highly suspect. It is almost incredible, too, given the advantages children have who are not farmed out to paid care, that National and ACT can argue for solo mothers to be forced back into work when the outcome for babies is known to be distinctly inferior. And it’s children from the disadvantaged sector of society, in

particular, who are causing us so many social problems – guaranteed to be compounded by such a policy. Our political parties, with their media reef-fish, are now intoning a necessity for delaying the paying out of superannuation, although, as a Dominion correspondent pointed out, by Labour’s projected date for raising the retirement age, baby boomers meant to be the blow-out problem will already have qualified for superannuation, and on their way to relinquishing it. Ironically, while making it very hard for mothers to stay home and raise families, thus sustaining a healthy birthrate to bal-

are most needed – as we see from the Pike River Mine tragedy. New Zealanders are becoming overborne, despondent about the fact that no matter which party manages to contrive to inflict its policies on us for the next three years, we will no doubt see a continuation of the disgraceful vote-buying which has seen minority iwi contrive highly lucrative results for themselves with the continued haemorrhaging of taxpayer-robbed money on now quite blatantly spurious claims – while majority (part) Maoris’ as well as all other New Zealanders’ input is excluded. A caller summed it up: “The political class is

We have to be quite clear about this: the future of this country now depends upon individual action. Both major parties’ pre-election plans contain highly damaging policies ance a superannuated population, successive governments have drip-fed legislation undermining families – with obvious socioeconomic consequences. No matter the results of this election, one thing we can be sure of: politicians will continue to wreak just as much damage on this country, probably even more than they have managed in the past. Not only in the economic, but in every other area in which political interference intrudes now into our lives, individuals, families, small businesses, and our now overregulated, professions and trades are drenched in compliance requirements strangely lacking in areas where they

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not responding to our deeply held concerns, and thoughts.” Whatever has happened is not progress, but regress. As C.S. Lewis noted – “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road: in that case the man who turned back soonest is the most progressive.” An overview of this country yields the information that our universities continue to slip in their international ranking. Our schools continue to churn out incredibly ignorant and highly politicised pupils cheated of the chance to become literate,

reflective, knowledgeable, genuinely educated individuals – who speak even more poorly than celebrity Prime Minister Key – demonstrably quite wrongly boasting about his excellent education…We have among the highest rates in the world of teen pregnancy, sexual promiscuity and sexually transmitted disease. What is accurately called the moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as at the bottom – greed a primary motivation for so many have-lots – as well as ever-demanding have-nots…disadvantaging even more the genuinely hard-working employers, workers, small businesses, trades and professionals squeezed in the middle. With their tireless busybodying, the politically correct, too, are found throughout whatever bureaucratic government or local government bodies they can infest, dreaming up new propagandized requirements – today’s educationists among the worst. Hence the demand from the British Qualifications and Curriculum Authority – reflected in Australia’s new curriculum – to replace history’s traditional BC and AD terms with BCE (Before Common Era), BP (Before Present) and CE (Common Era). Only one thing can rescue New Zealand – the commonsense of people – given a chance to exercise it. We have to be quite clear about this: the future of this country now depends upon individual action. Both major parties’ preelection plans contain highly damaging policies. Many New Zealanders, recognising this, will very probably have switched to the Green Party, which, they do not realise – has the most anti-family policies of all. For all the charm and smarm offensive of our electorate politicians, they no longer represent us: follow-the-leader has become survival for them. The list MPs are a deeply undemocratic contrivance, although New Zealanders, because of their deep distrust of the two major parties, will not have voted to jettison MMP. However, a party vote is essentially a vote against democracy – it allows into Parliament individuals whom nobody voted for – and who then become party apparatchiks, unanswerable to New Zealanders at large. Inescapably, the future of New Zealand is not none of our business... Those who think that they are entitled to the luxury of opting out of putting caring concern into action are a large part of our problem. It can well be argued that it is the actual duty of every rational citizen to contribute to the thinking concerning decisions that affect us all. The most recent article posted on our 100

Days – Claiming Back New Zealand website – (Bad Law – Unaccountable Politicians) – written by an expat New Zealander, one of many who could no longer stand what was happening to this country, points out that this initiative, with its 100% achievable aim of restoring democracy to this country – i.e. empowering New Zealanders themselves to make the final decisions on important issues regarding their future, has become “the most important political initiative in decades. “ How it works, and how we are going to

be able to determinedly reclaim our future from the cynically deal-making, political oligarchy which now rules, can be accessed at www.100days.co.nz. We quite simply have no other realistic choice of preventing bad law, throwing out unaccountable politicians, and winning back our country. © Amy Brooke www.amybrooke.co.nz www.100days.co.nz www.summersounds..co.nz http://www.livejournal.com/users/ brookeonline/

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CONTRA MUNDUM

Matt Flannagan When scientists make bad ethicists ONE THING I FIND PARTICULARLY FRUSTRATING IS reading

commentary on theology and philosophy written by scientists. To be fair, some scientists I have read are informed and do offer astute and insightful comments; commonly, however, one finds a person who is undoubtedly brilliant in their own field, writing with confident gusto, articles that fail to understand the most basic theological and philosophical distinctions. A recent article in USA Today by influential biologist Jerry Coyne is a good example. Coyne, an outspoken atheist, is disturbed that many Americans, including some prominent scientists, believe that our instinctive sense of right and wrong is “strong evidence for [God’s] existence.” He ventures into moral philosophy to explain why this is clearly mistaken. From the get-go Coyne demonstrates he does not understand the issues. It is necessary to accurately understand the position Coyne is criticising before we look at the paucity of his critique. The argument that our instinctive sense of right and wrong “is strong evidence for [God’s] existence” found its most important formulation in a 1979 article by Yale Philosopher Robert Adams. In it, Adams noted that we instinctively grasp that certain actions, like torturing children for fun, are wrong; hence, he reasoned, we are intuitively aware of the existence of moral obligations. According to Adams, the best account of the nature of such obligations is that they are commands issued by a loving and just God. Identifying obligations with God’s commands can explain all the features of moral obligation better than any secular alternative. Consequently, the existence of moral obligations provides evidence for God’s existence. It is important to note what Adams did not claim. Central to Adams’ argument, and to pretty much every author who follows him, is a vital distinction; this is the distinction

between the claim that moral obligations are, in fact, divine commands and the claim that one cannot recognise what our moral obligations are unless one believes in divine commands or some form of divine revelation. Adams illustrates this distinction with the example of H2O and water. Contemporary chemistry tells us that the best account of the nature of water is that water is, in fact, H2O molecules. This, of course, means that water cannot exist unless H2O does. However, it does not mean that people who do not know about or believe in the existence of H2O cannot recognise water when they see it. For centuries people recognised, swam in, sailed on and drank water before they knew anything about modern chemistry.

of kindness, altruism and morality...’;” to this he rejoins that, “scientists studying our primate relatives, such as chimpanzees, see evolutionary rudiments of morality: behaviours that look for all the world like altruism, sympathy, moral disapproval, sharing – even notions of fairness.” This is confused. Apart from the fact that no one who cites morality as evidence for God actually makes the argument about evolution that Coyne sets out, the claim that moral obligations cannot exist independently of God is not the claim that without God people would not have moral feelings. Feeling that one has an obligation to do something and actually having an obligation to do it are clearly different things. People

The claim that moral obligations are, in fact, commands issued by God does not entail that people must believe that God exists and has issued commands in order to be able to recognise right and wrong This distinction has important implications. The claim that moral obligations are, in fact, commands issued by God does not entail that people must believe that God exists and has issued commands in order to be able to recognise right and wrong. These are separate and logically distinct claims. Coyne conflates this distinction from the outset. After noting that some people believe that moral obligations provide strong evidence for God’s existence, he claims that this is an oft-heard argument, “‘Evolution,’ many argue, ‘could never have given us feelings

26 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

can feel that they have a certain obligation without it actually being the case that they do. Coyne makes a similar mistake when he argues that secular European countries like Sweden and Denmark “are full of wellbehaved and well-meaning citizens, not criminals and sociopaths running amok.” This may well be true but all it shows is that people can recognise moral obligations and live in accord with them without believing in God. That no more shows that moral obligations can exist without God or that

moral obligations are not divine commands than the fact that for centuries people could recognise water and swim without knowing anything about modern chemistry shows that water can exist without hydrogen. Coyne equally fails to address the issue when he asserts that the Bible endorses beating slaves, genocide, killing homosexuals, torturing people for eternity, killing children for being cheeky and so on; texts he claims Christians pass over “with judicious silence”. Apart from the fact that Coyne’s interpretation of these texts is in many places dubious and that far from passing over them in silence, Christian theologians working in the field of Old Testament ethics have written voluminous works on how these passages are to be understood, Coyne’s argument here misses the point. The claim that moral obligations cannot exist independently from the existence of a just and loving God is not the claim that the Bible is an accurate source of information about what God commands. Someone could, for example, argue that the wrongness of an action is constituted by God’s commands but that we know and recognise what is right and wrong from our conscience and not from a written revelation. Some leading writers on theological ethics have suggested precisely this. The only time Coyne is remotely on point is when he argues that if moral obligations are constituted by God’s commands then morality becomes arbitrary; anything at all could be deemed ‘right’ as long as God has commanded it – even stealing or infanticide. Coyne suggests this argument is devastating and has been known to be so by philosophers for hundreds of years. In fact, since Adams’ publication, this argument has been subject to extensive criticism in the philosophical literature. So much so that today even Adams’ leading critics grant that it fails. Adams contended that moral obligations are, in fact, the commands of a loving and just God; therefore, it is possible for infanticide or theft to be right only if a fully informed, loving and just person could command things like infanticide and stealing. The assumption that this is possible seems dubious. The very reason Coyne cites examples such as infanticide and theft is because he considers them to be paradigms of conduct that no morally good person could ever knowingly entertain or endorse. Coyne seems vaguely aware of the response, stating “Of course, you can argue that God would never sanction something like that because he’s a completely moral

being, but then you’re still using some idea of morality that is independent of God.” Here he again falls into confusion. What his response shows is that people can have ideas about and recognise what counts as loving and just independently of their beliefs about God and his commands. Now this is true but this does not show that moral obligations can exist independently of the commands of a loving and just God. Coyne again fails to grasp the basic distinctions involved in discussions of God and morality. Not only does this argument not refute Adams position but precisely analogous reasoning provides a serious challenge to Coyne’s own secular account of morality. After claiming that moral obligations cannot be constituted by God’s commands, Coyne offers an alternative: morality comes from “evolution”, humans evolved a capacity to instinctively feel certain actions are wrong and others are right. But couldn’t evolution have produced rational beings that felt that infanticide and theft were obligatory or that rape was, in certain circumstances, ok? As Darwin himself noted, “If men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters, and no one would think of interfering.” Coyne faces a dilemma. If the fact that it is possible for God to have commanded that infanticide is permissible proves that morality is not based on God’s commands then

the fact it is possible for evolution to have produced rational beings who feel infanticide is permissible must prove that morality is not dependent on evolution. Believers of God can avoid this conclusion for the reasons I pointed to above; it is unlikely that a loving and just person could command actions such as infanticide or rape whereas, evolution, guided only by the impersonal forces of nature, is not subject to such constraints. Coyne’s argument does not refute Adams’ position but it does appear to refute his own. Now nothing I say in response to Coyne here is new, much of it has been said in the voluminous literature on God and Morality written and published over the last forty years. All Coyne had to do to realise this was actually read it. Of course, like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and a host of other popular writers, Coyne has not bothered to actually read the literature on contemporary theological ethics before wading in. Instead he hopes that his stature as a biologist and his confident tone will convince many unfamiliar with the field that he has offered a devastating criticism. He has not and pretending he has is about as sensible as pretending that because I am a theologian I can offer informed commentary on contemporary genetics off the top of my head. Dr Matthew Flannagan is an Auckland based Analytic Theologian who researches and publishes in the area of Philosophy of Religion, Theology and Ethics; he blogs at www.mandm.org.nz.

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Jesus

THE FLAWED CASE

HOW ‘INVESTIGATOR’ BRYAN BRUCE FELL FOR A CON

We’ve all seen Bryan Bruce, TV’s ‘The Investigator’ probing recent crimes like the Bain murders, the Mark Lundy case and others. But what happens when an otherwise excellent journalist steps out of their comfort zone. IAN WISHART puts the case for why Bruce’s Jesus: The Cold Case got it wrong

hen TV documentary maker Bryan Bruce won a Film and Television award last month for his Jesus: The Cold Case programme, he was given hearty applause by the audience at the Awards. Question is, did the documentary deserve the acclaim? There’s no doubting Bruce is a skilled programme maker, and his work on modern murder cases has mostly been persuasive, but JTCC was a different kettle of fish entirely. If Bruce had stepped into the role of investigating the history of Jesus Christ with genuine neutrality, his journey could have been interesting. But reading his book on the case it’s clear from the first few pages he has no time for the supernatural, and therefore comes to his task already strongly biased. The second clue that Bruce’s investigation is biased is that he bases his case on interviews with fringe players in the biblical scholarship field – The Jesus Seminar. This was a group of 200 relatively unknown ‘scholars’ – often in the loose sense of the word – who voted using beads on which parts of the gospels they believed and which they didn’t. There are more than 12,000 accredited New Testament scholars working at universities around the world – and the Jesus Seminar findings were laughed at by the world’s leading academics working in the field. “To someone unacquainted with the immensity and complexity of higher education in America,” writes Emory University’s Professor of New Testament studies, Luke Timothy Johnson, “two hundred scholars may seem an impressively large number. In fact, however, it is a very small number when placed against the number of New Testament scholars. “Even the number two hundred is somewhat misleading, since it includes all those who were part of the Seminar’s proceedings in any fashion – by receiving its mailings for example, or reading its reports. A truer estimate of the number of participants who met regularly, wrote papers and voted on decisions is closer to 40.” Johnson made the point that the Jesus Seminar membership included none of the then faculty from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Union, Emory or Chicago – the major universities working on New Testament research – and no 28 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 29

“established scholars from England or the Continent”. Sadly, it is this rag-tag group of unknowns that Bryan Bruce bases his entire book on. “Most of the Jesus Seminar participants are in relatively undistinguished academic positions,” writes Timothy Johnson. “Some are not in the strict sense in academic positions at all.” The shame of it, in terms of Jesus: The Cold Case, is that the Jesus Seminar was utterly debunked way back in the 1990s – fifteen years before Bryan Bruce decided to write his own book.

ryan Bruce, for all of his scepticism on TV, follows the Jesus Seminar findings blindly, like a faithful puppy, without attempting to investigate the criticism that befell the Seminar. All this quickly leads ‘The Investigator’ on a wild goose chase. He decides Jesus was not born in Bethlehem. He does this not from any hard evidence, but just because the Seminar told him the Gospels that mention Bethlehem must have been written many decades after Jesus was crucified. “What Mark is not telling us is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, or that his mother was a virgin (and you would think the early Christians would at least have remembered that particular piece of spectactular information - wouldn’t you?). “It is only with the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, both written some 50 years after the crucifixion, that we are told that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” For Bruce, such old documents cannot contain eyewitness testimony, and must have been made up. Having convinced himself that Jesus must have been born in Nazareth rather than Jerusalem, Bruce then finds himself having to explain why Mary and Joseph would make a 120 km trip from Nazareth to Jerusalem with a newborn to present Jesus at the temple for circumcision at eight days old. It is also highly questionable that they could have achieved such a trip within eight days on ancient goat tracks. This is what happens when you start changing historical references to suit your own biases, you end up creating more dilemmas than when you started. Whereas Bethlehem was just a few miles outside Jerusalem – it would have been an easy trip for the parents to make if Jesus was born in the manger there, as recorded. But all of this hinges on Bryan Bruce

accepting unquestioningly that the Gospels were written 50 years or more after Jesus died – a point I had long ago debunked in The Divinity Code. Bruce writes: “A book that appears in many ancient Bibles but didn’t make the final cut for inclusion in the New Testament is the First Epistle of Clement (who was the fourth Pope), written in the year 95. In terms of our investigation thhis is an intriguing document because Clement refers only to the letters of Paul and never to the Gospels. So at the end of the first century we have a pope who doesn’t seem to know about Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.” Unfortunately for Bryan Bruce, the Jesus Seminar and also Bishop John Spong who Bruce relies on as well, the apostle Paul was quoting passages from the Gospels in letters dated to 50AD. Now this poses a problem for Bryan Bruce’s source, Spong, because he is adamant in his own book that we can trust the dating on the Pauline letters – “the entire Pauline corpus, written no earlier than 50 and no later than 64”. Having established this, let’s now turn to 1 Corinthians, which contains a number of quotations sourced directly from the gospels of Mark and Matthew. At 1 Cor. 7:10-11, for example, Paul explicitly repeats a teaching which he acknowledges is Christ’s directly: “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): a wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.” Compare that to Christ’s words in the Gospel of Mark, 10:11-12: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” Additionally, Paul cites Jesus’ instructions to the disciples in Matthew 10:9 about a preacher being “worth his keep”, and Luke 10:8 on the requirement for disciples to eat what is given to them when offered hospitality. The Lukan reference is not sourced from Mark or Matthew, but we know that Luke accompanied Paul for parts of his journeys so could have passed on some of his own collected quotes of Jesus Christ, which would account for the unique Luke reference. Either way, to claim as John Shelby Spong does, that the Gospel of Mark was not written until 70 AD, 15 years after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, and six years after Paul was executed, is ludicrous. To go further and sug-

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gest that Matthew didn’t get written until the mid 80s and Luke/Acts as late as 100 AD – a staggering 45 years after 1 Corinthians, beggars belief. Spong needs to spin this yarn in order for you to believe the rest of his book. But if he is wrong about the dating of the gospels (and he is), then Spong’s whole analysis collapses. But it gets worse for Spong (and by implication Bryan Bruce). In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul writes: “…for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety’, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labour pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” Now compare Christ’s words in the Gospel of Matthew, 24:8: “…These are the

beginning of birth pains…” And at 24:19: “Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women…” Then, at Matt 24:42-43: “Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch…” The ‘thief in the night’ line does not appear in the earliest gospel, Mark, but instead in Matthew. Crushing for Spong and his late-gospels theory, Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is one of the earliest New Testament documents, dating to as early as 49 AD. Clearly and unequivocally, Paul had access to gospel documents or

pre-gospel documents of some kind. In other words, the claim in Jesus: The Cold Case that even the fourth Pope did not know about the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is a crock – Paul was quoting gospel passages within 20 years of the crucifixion, at a time when many eyewitnesses to the events were still alive and could have challenged the claims. In my view there is so much wrong with Jesus: The Cold Case by Bryan Bruce that it would take an entire book to correct the errors. Er, that’s right, I’ve written that book! I took the trouble to send Bryan a copy of The Divinity Code to point out where he’d got it wrong. It’s a pity he hadn’t read it before he embarked on his award-winning but factuallyflawed journey.

CRUSHING FOR SPONG AND HIS LATE-GOSPELS THEORY, PAUL’S FIRST LETTER TO THE THESSALONIANS IS ONE OF THE EARLIEST NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS, DATING TO AS EARLY AS 49 AD

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The

HUNT

An NZ mother’s 30yr worldwide search for her missing children

On July 31st, 1981, two New Zealand children aged 4 and 2 were abducted from London and never seen again. Not till now, that is, after a 30 year hunt to locate them by the grieving mother and her husband. In this exclusive extract from their new book The Hunt, IAN WISHART & GEORGE LONDON detail events immediately leading up to the abduction

ax Moray had also visited the neighbours before Paulette Moray moved into a new street, and warned them that a dangerous woman was moving in next door and to keep an eye out on her. “Before I moved into 68 Otley Drive Max

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went to all the neighbours telling them not to trust me and that I was evil and not to make friends with me. It was not until I had lived there for some months that I found out what he had was doing. He went to my next door neighbour Sue and Len and played the tapes he claimed to have secretly taped of me.

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“After I had moved into the house, and after a settling down period where I guess they were assessing me for themselves, they came to see me and told me everything Max had done. We became close friends.” There were others, too, who realised what the young solo mother was up against.

ary and Sam Foreman, a wonderful Jewish couple who I loved dearly, lived next door. Mary treated me like her daughter, we saw each other every day. Max went to my best friends and told them bad things about me, but they were not fools. Mary told Max, ‘Get of my property. We are not interested in what you have to say. Go away and don’t ever come back here.’ “Mary and Sam loved Sasha and Naomi like their own. We all became very close. So when my children were kidnapped, Mary and Sam also suffered; they had become like grandparents to my children.” Max, of course, relied on his own network of very close friends to put the knife in and, when the time came, to commit perjury. “Glenda Farron, Pearl, Kalman Horvath and others all say I never got up in the mornings? Reality check: with a young baby, I was up pretty early in the morning. I had to be because I was breastfeeding a child, you’ve got to be up early. Max didn’t have the breasts, I did. His claims and those of his friends that I did nothing – he just paid or coaxed his mates to lie for him in court and present what he hoped would be a winning case against me through sheer weight of numbers.” “In the first hearing he brought in an entourage of people and a suitcase of stuff. They all lined up on one side facing me, and on my side there was just me. ‘How am I going to be able to keep myself together,’ I thought, ‘while they are all sitting there staring at me?’ “So I figured out I would start at one end and look each one in the eye, because I had nothing to hide, and each one dropped their eyes until I finally got to Max, and he’s never been able to look me in the eye. That’s how I got through it. “For each thing that came up, each allegation that you’ve read, I had to answer questions from the barristers. I realised the lawyers were using emotive language and being provocative, trying to get me angry, so instead of looking at them when I answered I directed my answers to the judge. I also learned to take a breath and count to ten

on my fingers under the witness stand. The gave me clarity and focus. And that’s how I got through.” Albert Einstein famously once faced a wall of opponents, who published a booklet entitled “One Hundred Scientists Against Einstein”. His response? “If I were wrong, one would have sufficed.” As it turned out, that’s how the judge saw it too. In March 1981 the judge called an end to the trial after eight days, saying it was “unprecedented” for a custody dispute between two people who were not even married to drag on so long. The court based its decision, after hearing the claims and cross-examination, on reports from independent experts from outside

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the family. Psychologists and the Welfare Officers had monitored the children in the care of Max, and in the care of Paulette. Psychologist Arnon Bentovim told the court that in his view the visits where the children were being left in the overnight care of their father were mentally harming the children.1 Is that because Max Moray was trying to brainwash the kids, even then, just as he appeared to be doing on his own tape transcripts that he released. There was evidence too that Max Moray, quick to accuse his wife of every misdeed, had also bashed Sasha on the head at times. “On Friday 22 August (1980), Sasha returned with a nasty bump on his forehead. Mr Moray accused me of negligence saying

TOP: Sasha with baby Naomi. RIGHT: Sasha’s fourth birthday – the last he would celebrate with his mother. OPPOSITE PAGE: Paulette with her first child, Sasha, at Hyde Park this was already done on the Thursday. This was totally untrue as this could only have happened very recently due to the angry inflammation and swelling. Later that evening Sasha told me his father had hit him, and confirmed this in front of Mr Moray on the following Sunday, 24th, when Mr Moray arrived”.2 The Welfare Officer told the court that INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 35

after viewing the abilities, practices and child interactions of both parents, Paulette was the better caregiver to the children. That was enough for the judge. “I award full care, control and custody of Sasha Saul Moray and Naomi Ruth Moray to the defendant, Ms Paulette Moray,” he intoned, delivering the verdict. “But you can’t!” screamed Max angrily. “I’ve spent 180,000 pounds on this case! Where is the justice?” It’s hard to see how Max could incur such incredible bills – enough to purchase 25 Porsche 911 cars – unless he’d been forking out large amounts behind the scenes to private investigators, or in bribes and other ‘off balance sheet’ activities. Paulette would soon discover just where some of that 180,000 had been spent.

n the way out of the court, as Paulette was crossing the road, Max caught up with her. “You may think you’ve won today,” he snarled. “But when I’m good and ready I’m going to snatch them anyway.” Paulette knew there was an order in place preventing the children from being removed from her care, custody and control. She also knew there was an order in place prohibiting the removal of the children from the United Kingdom, because Max himself had sought that order. But she also knew what her ex was capable of. “I had experienced snatching once already, so I knew his capacity to be able to do it, and regarding the money he had. He had a jewellery shop and was a wealthy man, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to fight him on that kind of level.” Despite the psychologist’s reservations, Paulette had continued to give Max overnight access even after he lost the custody battle because it just seemed like an easy way of avoiding further fights, but by July the welfare officials were having serious concerns about the mental state of the children after they’d been with Max for any length of time. Paulette’s sister Dana’s wedding in mid July 1981 was to be the last family social function the children attended with their mother and their relatives. The morning of the wedding Court psychologist Arnon Bentovim summonsed Paulette and the children to an assessment meeting, and he disclosed that he was recommending to the court that Max’s overnight access visits be terminated. “It will take a few weeks to go through

the system, but that’s the plan,” he told her. It was a double-edged sword for Paulette. On the one hand she welcomed the court getting pro-active, but on the other she knew it would make Max furious, with all the danger that entailed. On the early summer evening of Friday 31 July, 1981, just days after the royal wedding of Charles and Diana, Paulette Moray dressed Naomi and Sasha up in some little matching beige jackets with white fur-lined hoods that she’d picked up for Sasha’s birthday back in May. They looked gorgeous, she thought, licking her fingers to slick back a wisp of Sasha’s hair. The little faces peering up at her were so cute. She gave the pair a cuddle, and told them to be good for their father this weekend. As she waited, she couldn’t shake a feeling of foreboding that had been creeping up on her all week. She’d even rung the court appointed psychologist Dr Arnon Bentovim the previous day with her concerns. “Dr Bentovim, I’m convinced Max is going to do something stupid because of the access decision. I’m really worried about this weekend’s visit.” “Mrs Moray, the court is handling this with Mr Moray’s lawyers. It is routine. I can guarantee that you have nothing to worry about. Just relax. It will be fine.” Relax, thought Paulette as she watched Max from her window, leading the two children, hand in hand, down the road to Pearl Ross-dale’s house. Relax and Max – the words might rhyme but they didn’t go together, not by any stretch of the imagination. And she just couldn’t quell that foreboding, like a harbinger of doom eating away at her. By 8pm she couldn’t stand it any longer. She wanted to hear Sasha’s voice, just to know he was OK, and maybe to hear Naomi’s two year old gurgles and giggles in the background. Then, maybe, she thought, she could ‘relax’ with a good cup of tea. She picked up the phone and dialled Max’s number. But instead of a ringtone, all she got was disconnection pips. The hackles at the back of her neck started to rise as she frantically dialled the number again. The rotary phone dial was frustratingly slow to return to position after each number. Still dead. Paulette was panicking now. It must just be a fault, she kept telling herself. I’ll try again. But she knew when she kept getting the disconnection tones that something was terribly, terribly wrong. The shiver that went

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TOP: Paulette and Sasha sit opposite Italian passport forger Pierre, while Max’s business partner Herbert Kay and his sons look on. RIGHT: Assorted pictures of Sasha and Naomi as they grew up

up her spine made her physically jerk, and she felt like throwing up – her stomach was clenching so much. Paulette was going into shock. “Please, Lord, please don’t let him take my children,” she prayed as she wept. Get it together, she chided herself. Got to stay strong for the kids, stay in control. Paulette found the number for the local police station and dialled it. “We’ll send a car around to your husband’s address and check it out. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” reassured

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the operator. “It’s probably just a BT [British Telecom] fault in the area. We’ll call you back as soon as the patrol report in.” Paulette was on her knees, waiting by the phone, praying, lurching between uncontrollable sobs and moments of hope when her optimism got the better of her fears. The harsh clatter of the bells as the phone rang beside her focused all those conflicting emotions into a laser point of gut-wrenching anticipation, as she snatched the receiver up. “I’m very sorry, Mrs Moray. The patrol has checked your husband’s address – he has moved out. There is no one there. You’d better come down to the station right away and give us a statement.” The crash of the phone receiver slamming onto the floor as Paulette collapsed was itself stark and harsh. Then came the keening of a grieving mother. Screams so loud the neighbours heard them, screams so agonising no caring human could miss the significance of what they meant. “Where are my babies, where are my babies,” she gasped, feeling the panic attack in her chest. Gone, as it turned out. Forever. THE HUNT, by Ian Wishart & George London, $39.99 at Whitcoulls, The Warehouse, PaperPlus, Take Note, Relay, Dymocks and all good bookstores. Released: November 28 References: 1. As he later remarked in a letter to the court after the kidnapping, “The two children were removed from the jurisdiction of the High Court Family Division, to whom they were wards, and have not been seen since that time for a period of 12 months now. This is an extremely deleterious matter to the children’s emotional well being as when seen a year ago there were already signs of emotional distress and difficulty over their relationship, so that to be separated from their mother is extremely worrying and distressing for the children in terms of their long term development and well being.” 2. Paulette Moray, briefing to her lawyers 10 October 1980

“I’M VERY SORRY, MRS MORAY. THE PATROL HAS CHECKED YOUR HUSBAND’S ADDRESS – HE HAS MOVED OUT. THERE IS NO ONE THERE. YOU’D BETTER COME DOWN TO THE STATION RIGHT AWAY AND GIVE US A STATEMENT.” 38 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

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DODGING A BULLET LESSONS FROM THE RENA GROUNDING

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It’s hard to believe as thousands return to the Bay of Plenty beaches that two months ago we were writing off summer and preparing for a ‘Gulf of Mexico’ environmental disaster. MELISSA WISHART & SACHA HARWOOD were there when the cleanup teams moved in, and have followed the progress since

n PHOTOGRAPHY: Maritime NZ

t first glance, one might almost not realise the devastation caused by the grounding of container ship Rena on Astrolabe reef off the coast of Tauranga, but the crowds of people flocking to the dunes along the beachfront are a giveaway. Since the fifth of October when the ship ran aground on the reef, hundreds of tonnes of oil have leaked from the wrecked vessel, and dozens of containers have fallen into the water. With waves of oil washing up on the shores nearby, volunteers have been hard at work to clean up their beloved beaches, which just days before, according to some, were black with the toxic sludge. It’s a hideous mental image, but the sight of large patches of seemingly pristine sand stand as proof of the amazing effort put in by those dedicated to cleaning up the shoreline. The words ‘clean me’ formed in giant capital letters on the sand are a lighthearted referral to the devastation

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caused by Rena and its many tonnes of oil drifting into the sea. “It’s just a disaster for this area really,” said local man, Steve Ranford, “It’s an environmental disaster but also it’s a disaster for the businesses. “Having been a boy, growing up and spending week after week after week after week on these beaches, it’s just so distressing to know that something like this can come along and screw it up. “It won’t so much affect me now. I mean, when you walk around the mount, obviously it looks really unpleasant and it smells, but it’ll probably affect us a little bit closer to Christmas when you’ve got time off and you’re not going to be able to come down to the beach for a swim. There’s going to be a lot of people who just aren’t going to come here.”

ith many people criticizing the slow response to the disaster, Steve sympathises with authorities in charge of cleaning up the mess. “I’m always aware, bureaucracy always slows things down,” He said, “You’ll always find these people won’t move until they’ve spoken to every single point. What shall I do now? Should I do this? It takes time for them to get to a point where they say ‘ok, now we can move.’ The thing is, the man on the street is always going to say ‘why didn’t we just go in there right there?’ It’s not always possible. I understand that, but I understand how the people at the other end are saying ‘why didn’t we just get in there and sort this out straight away?’ Life’s just not really like that, eh? Especially not now. “I watched John Key on TV, there was a lot of people giving him grief about it but I think he probably did all that he could in the parameters they’ve got. I’m sure they did try everything they could. I mean, no one wants this to happen.” We also spoke to Rosemary, a grandmother of two who has grown up on the beach and said she was “devastated” over the grounding of the Rena.

“I’ve been away part of my life for about ten or so years but always wanted to get my children back here to grow up here because it was just such a fantastic lifestyle for them,” Said Rosemary, “ So I bought a house very close to the beach and brought the family up here. The beach is all our life. My kids surf, windsurf, we swim every day we can and surf every day and go long-lining, we take a long-line out in the summer. It just makes you feel sick. It’s absolutely devastating.” With her dream of being able to see her grandchildren grow up on Mount Maunganui’s beautiful beach facing a chance of being shattered, Rosemary expresses her fears for the future health of the environment. “Some parts will be ok, but what about all around the Mount where the rocks are? You know, you go there and there’s all the rock pools and all the micro-organisms in the rock pools and they’ll be all killed, and then the fish coming in to eat those and then all the pipis close to shore, they’ll all be contaminated. The fish, all the snapper are coming in at the moment and feeding on those grounds so they’ll be all contaminated as well. So what happens when you’re fishing, long-lining and that in the future?” Of course, the contamination of fish and shellfish is just the tip of the iceberg, with over 1300 oil-covered birds found dead along the shore. Over 300 more birds are being cared for at a Wildlife Response Centre in the middle of Tauranga. Val Willis was part of a group of people in charge of collecting the affected wildlife following the grounding of the ship. “I’m collecting any injured, dead or oiled wildlife,” She said, holding a plastic bag containing a lifeless, oil-blackened bird, “We’re checking for seals as well. “It’s pretty horrible, but we’re just trying to save as many birds – not quite so worried about the ones that are already dead – but trying to save as many that are contaminated with the oil around the area as possible.” The amount of dead seabirds she had been finding varied depending

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on the area. Mere days after the accident, she and her group had discovered around 60 dead birds. The day we spoke to her, she had only found four. While the news is reassuring, it’s a fairly hollow victory.

irds being washed off in the Wildlife Response Centre are kept in crates for a couple of days and fed nutrients before workers attempt to clean the oil from them. This is because it is stressful for the birds, who are already traumatized enough to begin with. The process for cleaning an oilencased bird takes about 40 minutes and is often done with a toothbrush. [People at the volunteer sign up place: wanted to stay anonymous] “There’s a lot of public frustration and anger for what’s gone on. Everyone’s looking for someone to blame,” Said a man involved in signing up volunteers to clean up the beach, “But at the moment it’s all focussed on just trying to clean up and deal with the

issues right at hand. Just clean up the mess.” One thing’s for certain, local beachgoers are intent on making sure that happens, with three to four thousand volunteers officially on the volunteer site within a week of the accident occurring. At this point, there is now almost 8000 registered volunteers ready to help restore the beach to its former glory. “They all have protective equipment, a kit. Basically overalls, gloves, facemasks and gumboots. The big issue is going to be, for those who just bowl up to the beach and start clearing stuff off, is cross contamination. Getting that stuff on your footwear and taking it off the beach. So it’s pretty much spades, digging up, bags.” Paora Sweeney, a keen volunteer originally from Matata is one of the many working around the clock to keep the beaches in their pristine conditions. “I’m a volunteer; I just came to help out wherever I could. It’s been

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awesome, I’ve been here since about ten o’clock this morning, we’ve been working hard, me and my sister. “Really just like shovelling up the oil off the ground. Closer to the shore, it’s really dry and deeper, but when you get closer to the water, it’s all cloggy and stuff, so that’s basically what we’re doing. Picking up and filling up heaps of bags, I must have filled up 48 bags today. Hardout oil. But it’s pretty cool, it’s fun as.” Paora, although tired from a day’s work, is still full of life and excited about his part to play in the clean-up, with a ‘just get on and do it’ attitude. Like many others though, his anger at the cause of the situation still simmers, but he has come to terms with the fact what has happened has happened. “It just makes you feel good about yourself. You really do feel good because it doesn’t feel like hard work, it doesn’t feel like hard labour because you’re doing something good, you’re helping out. Every little thing counts, I guess.

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“I so was angry at the top person. I don’t know what happened or who the person is, but I know he isn’t from New Zealand. So angry as at him, but I was thinking that it wasn’t going to be that much of an issue. But then obviously it kind of is. “What’s happened has happened. I think the way people are dealing with it now is pretty good. If we can get a lot more volunteers involved, you know, the more hands, the faster we’ll get the job done. I was angry at the person that crashed it, but you’ve got to get over it and you’ve got to figure out ways to go and resolve what’s actually affecting our waters.” Those who live on the beach front certainly feel an emotional tie to the area and are devastated over what could so easily have been prevented.

Like many others though, they’re dealing with it hoping the ordeal comes to a swift end and their beach front houses won’t continue to keep reminding them of the damage done. “It’s pretty bad because it all could have been prevented so easily and it’s not. There’s so many things they could have done to stop it before now.” Jonne’ Pachoud, who lives right on the beachfront, vents her frustrations. “We’re not allowed to leave our property off the front. “We went and cleaned up the other day and then we got told off but then we just did it anyway, kept going. Everyone from pretty much every house along here was just down on the beach wearing full pants and shoes and gloves. We were just clean-

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ing up stuff, like; you just chuck it in plastic bags and then chuck it in this big pile. Then we got home that night and they’re like “It’s highly toxic, don’t touch it!”

espite the mix of hopeful yet frustrated emotions of the Bay of Plenty public, John Key kept the mood light and positive as he spoke to the Papamoa public and volunteers. “We just don’t know how somebody could drive into a reef in incredibly pristine conditions for no good reason when everybody else seems to be able to drive past it, so obviously we’re going to hold those people to account.” He estimated the cost of the cleanup to be around two and a half million

explaining there are various rules and regulations around who is liable. Although the owners of the ship will be held accountable for the costs, it is the damage it has done that is cause for concern. “It’s more the damage it does that we’re worried about. We’ll get it fixed, whatever it takes. “Around compensation, the local chamber of commerce is dealing with the minister of social development, so in Christchurch when we had big problems with the earthquakes down there, we put together a package to sort of help people through. “The thing is, really, the viscosity of it, the thickness of it, it’s really thick. It’s like Marmite or Vegemite. So that’s the problem. It cools down and it’s just not made to come off the boat.

“Basically, if you think about it, the fastest thing to clean up is the beach. The worst case scenario is when you get into the estuaries, cause there’s limited water flow and that’s a very fragile environment in there. Fin fish swim away from it, apparently it’s not very problematic, but obviously we need to go and test that stuff. We can’t let you go and eat scallops or something, it’s going to be at risk.” John Key continued to explain to the concerned Papamoa public gathered around the surf club that there are a group of laws governing what people do, “for the most part everybody gets it right”, John said. When disasters like the Rena occur, it’s not just about fixing it but also finding out why it happened in order to prevent it from happening again.

“We sort of know there’s two sorts of areas that’ll be affected”, Key said, “Commercial fishing and tourism.” Business owner Janet is in agreement with Key and sees the Rena disaster as a potential business threat to her café at Mount Maunganui’s base. “Because the beach is not safe for the people, they’re not going to come down. They might come for a look, but they’re not going to stay for a few days and enjoy the summer holiday like that. So Mount Maunganui beach is not going to be our best destination for the tourists to come over this summer. “If the beach is black with the oil, you’re not going to take your children. You might just come down and wander around if you’re living local, but you’re not going to spend all day.”

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It is hard for most of the public to get their heads around the fact that something like this could happen here, especially to the place so many people call home or their summer holiday get away. Even though the news reports of the same thing happening around the world it is hard for a community to ever foresee something so devastating happen to their own home, the place they are proud of. “Very, very bad luck. It happens in other countries sometimes. Seen it, heard it. That it happened here I cannot believe.” Janet said. Things are beginning to look positive, however, with salvors finally pumping the last oil from the last tank on the Rena. They have been hard at work over the past eight weeks, removing 1700 tonnes of oil from the ship, often having to stop for days at a

time as their battles with the weather became too difficult to handle.

he next task facing those involved with the Rena disaster will be the removal of the rest of the containers from the ship. Around 80 containers fell off the vessel during bad weather several weeks ago. Only half of these have washed up on nearby beaches. Container removal could take a year. To stand as proof that good things can come out of anything, there are suggestions from the New Zealand Underwater Association that part of the crippled ship be left where it is to not only serve as a tourist attraction for divers, but to help create an artificial reef for fish. Most of the beaches have long reopened to the public, bikinis and

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board shorts once again replacing hazchem suits and industrial equipment. But the questions arising from the Rena grounding remain. Shipping companies have for decades paid hundreds of millions of dollars into a government contingency fund for environmental clean-up. When push came to shove, it appears that money had been sucked into the consolidated fund long ago, without the purchase of any specialist oil spill response ships. Privately, one shipping company boss has told Investigate he’s astounded at the lack of preparation given the government levies on the industry. New Zealand dodged a bullet on this occasion. Will we be so lucky next time, he wonders?

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DRUG MULE or FALL GIRL?

Schapelle Corby’s 8th Christmas in Jail

As Schapelle Corby gears up to spend her eighth Christmas behind bars in a Bali jail, efforts are intensifying to gain her release. A research group calling itself The Expendable Project has released hundreds of pages of Australian government documents that strongly suggest Australian authorities hung Corby out to dry to cover up massive airport security breaches. This extract from EXPENDABLE.TV backgrounds their interest in the case

year old Australian woman, Schapelle Corby, was sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian prison in May 2005, after 4.2 kg of marijuana had been found in her boogie-board bag on arrival in Bali. However, her fate had been determined not in Bali, but in Canberra. INTRODUCTION: A POLITICAL SACRIFICE The Schapelle Corby case appeared on the political horizon late in 2004. Even at this early stage answers were lacking to an increasing number of questions, questions which were becoming persistent and which were increasingly being put to Australian politicians. The case itself could hardly have been more contentious. The following extract from a 2009 research paper illustrates some of the reasons for this: “Weighed against these and other extremely plausible well supported propositions, the idea that Schapelle Corby:

hhSomehow obtained 4.2kg of marijuana having worked so hard just to earn the money for the flight, with no criminal record and as a non-drug user hhPlaced it in her bag and then slashed the plastic bag open to release the smell hhChose to smuggle marijuana to a country where the drug is worth a tiny fraction of its Australian value hhSomehow transported, undetected, the pungent smelling bag through Brisbane Domestic airport, Sydney Domestic airport, and Sydney International airport, past check-in staff, sniffer dogs, x-ray machines, CCTV, police, customs and baggage handlers hhPut her full name and address on the board bag when she checked in hhOpenly proclaimed that she owned the bag when it was ‘selected’ by Indonesian customs hhProtested about police/customs handling and therefore contaminating the evidence, which would actually have helped convict her had she placed the drugs

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hhFormally requested that the marijuana be tested for country of origin, which would have added weight against her had it been from Australia hhPleaded for DNA and fingerprint tests which can only have harmed her had she placed them hhRefused to even contemplate a plea bargain despite sentencing advantages hhBegged for CCTV footage from Sydney and Brisbane airports when even a single frame of a pregnant board bag would have damned her hhRequested footage from Denpasar airport which would have validated police claims had they been truthful hhActed out a script so wonderfully at the show trial that she would have swept the board at any Oscar ceremony “The idea is clearly absurd.” A just-published book claims Corby took the fall for her father – that he was the drug trafficker who had packed Schapelle’s bag with the marijuana. But that doesn’t explain

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how a bag containing 4kg of the world’s smelliest narcotic got through Australian airport checks, including x-rays on a flight route where it was policy for “100% of luggage” to be checked, nor does it make economic sense: When you consider that dope was selling for less than a dollar a gram in Bali at the time, and $31 a gram in Australia, according to United Nations narcotics figures, it doesn’t seem credible that anyone would be deliberately smuggling marijuana into Bali. It would be the drugs equivalent of exporting coals to Newcastle or shipments of ice to Eskimos. So where did the drugs come from? Two possibilities exist. One, that the marijuana was Balinese in origin and part of a scam/sting operation being run by corrupt Indonesian authorities. The second possibility is that the drugs were slipped into Corby’s bag airside in Australia by a corrupt baggage handler intending the package to go domestic, and not realising his marijuana stash was going in an overseas-bound bag. Numerous documents have now been released confirming major criminal activity by Australian airport staff. Corby’s bags

went through the domestic airport transfers before finally ending up on the Bali international flight. Earlier this year, the New Zealand Herald reported a major new development backing up this scenario: “New evidence has reportedly emerged in the case of convicted Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, with a claim marijuana found in her luggage may have been planted by a rogue baggage handler. “Corby is serving 20 years at Indonesia’s Kerobokan jail after being caught with more than 4kg of the drug at Denpasar Airport on October 8, 2004. “Almost seven years after the conviction, a woman has come forward saying she believes Corby could have been set up. “The woman, who spoke under the condition of anonymity and used the alias “Sue”, claimed she dated a Brisbane Airport baggage handler for a short period who had a colleague who in October 2004 went to work with a large bag of marijuana. “ ‘When the supervisor was coming down the guy panicked,” Sue told the Nine Network on Thursday.

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“ ‘And the first thing he did was look for somewhere to hide it. And he grabbed one of the bags that was behind him and hid it there. “ ‘When he was talking about a big bag, he meant a big bag.’ “It remains unclear if Indonesian or Australian authorities will pay any attention to the claim. “Sue said she had come forward now because of her conscience. “ ‘What if she is really innocent and she has to do 20 years? What if she doesn’t make the 20 years?’ she added. “Sue said she used to work as a clinical counsellor in north Queensland and signed a statutory declaration regarding her claims for the Nine Network. “She said she was happy to co-operate with police and could give them the name of one of the men allegedly involved.” Political commentary and involvement escalated as the case gradually unfolded, and the above perspective was compounded further by a number of the features of the Bali trial itself, which bore little resemblance to Western judicial standards. Given this, the unprecedented 20 year sentence, and the extensive media coverage, the reaction of the Australian public was perhaps predictable. However, even superficially, the position and response of the Australian government was increasingly curious and contradictory. What emerged, given even the most cursory of investigations, was disturbing in the extreme. THE POLITICS The political dimension was evident even prior to the wide scale involvement of the Australian media, whose reporting had an increasing influence on the case itself. The high profile reporting of such a tenuous drug case soon began to have an effect upon the already tense relationship between Australia and Indonesia. Indeed, this aspect was widely reported in the media at the time. Further, bearing in mind that Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country, and has the world’s largest population of Muslims, Australia’s geographic proximity made the relationship strategic to the west as a whole. This was exacerbated further by the potential threat to Australian investments within Indonesia, a market which was also viewed as strategic by the Australian establishment. Total Australian investment in Indonesia

had reached A$2.6 billion at end December 2005, with annual bilateral trade worth about A$10.4 billion. Thus, given the strategic importance of this relationship to Australia, and the political imperative of maintaining it, the pressure upon Australian politicians created by the case was intense. However, this was not the only political pressure in play. AIRPORT SECURITY In 2004, just three years post 9-11, airport security was a high profile matter, not only with the domestic public, but internationally. Australia’s airport security was woefully lacking. This was evident not only through whistleblowers, who were generally marginalized, but through a number of official reports and documents (see The Library on the Expendable website). The Australian government had failed to act on these, or at the very least, had failed to act sufficiently. In 2004 it is absolutely clear that the security at Sydney and other Australian airports remained severely and dangerously compromised. For the Australian government the Schapelle Corby case raised the prospect that this situation may be reported across the world. The threat that other nations may realize the risks posed to their own security via these exposures was stark and real. Without question, the consequences of this would have been damaging to Australia, and of course, politically damaging to the government itself. The Australian government would have been well aware of this. They would have been well aware that had Schapelle Corby returned to Australia as an innocent woman, or perceived to be innocent, focus would, inevitably, have turned towards the airports. From the Australian government’s perspective, this scenario had to be avoided if possible. AFP CORRUPTION The potential for international and domestic political damage caused by focus upon the lack of security at Australia’s airports was not the only political risk to emerge. The role and status of the Australian Federal Police was equally problematic. Over a number of years many reports had documented systemic corruption within Australian polices agencies, particularly in Sydney. As shown in the Expendable film, whistleblower after whistleblower had spo-

ken out, only to be ignored or worse. As with airport insecurity, nothing of substance had been done to address this. It had, in effect, been brushed under the carpet. The political situation with respect to Schapelle Corby was exacerbated by the demonstrable fact that AFP corruption actually extended to drug syndication, and worse still, drug syndication through both Sydney airports. So, not only were the airports wholly lacking from a security perspective, but police officers, including senior officers, were involved in the smuggling of drugs through them. It has emerged through now-released government documents that records for Schapelle Corby’s boogie board bag – the one found with the drugs in it at Bali – have disappeared from the Australian airports and customs computers. Her other three bags are all still in the system, but not that bag, even though it was checked in and sat with a checked-in baggage tag on the exhibits bench at the Bali trial. Of all the bags whose records in Australia should disappear, why that one? A recently released document from the Australian Federal Police reveals concern if the public were to become aware that a large bag had gone through Australia’s supposedly tough, post-9-11 airport security, undetected. It could have contained plastic explosives. The political implications of this were substantial, and had it been linked to the Schapelle Corby case, a domestic political crisis could easily have ensued. Public confidence in the police could have collapsed, and the reputation of the Australian government, both at home and abroad, may well have been seriously damaged in the short and medium terms. POLITICAL PRESSURE Thus, the pressure on Australian politicians posed by the Schapelle Corby case was

intense. At risk was not only a vital and strategic international relationship, but exposure of chronic airport insecurity and systemic police corruption. Accordingly, two broad axes of interest emerged within Australia’s Howard administration: the Howard/Downer interest, and the Ellison/Keelty interest. The former’s prime concern related to the stability of the relationship with Indonesia, whilst the latter’s main concern related to the impact of domestic institutional corruption Weighed against this, was the welfare of a single citizen. From an exclusively political viewpoint the balance of interests driving decision making could hardly have been more one sided. The cold reality, as demonstrated by The Expendable Project, is that from the moment that this complex political equation became apparent, a political imperative drove the actions of the government and subsequently its organs of state. The Australian government, directly, and through its departments and agencies, acted against Schapelle Corby’s interests with increasing vigour. The degree of orchestration of government departments was unprecedented. THE EXPENDABLE PROJECT The Expendable Project presents the complex political background to the Schapelle Corby case, and documents how the Australian government deployed its departments and agencies against her. It examines the central role of the AFP from an operational perspective, the use of the ABC to manage public opinion, and the actions of a number of other government departments in directly and deliberately undermining Schapelle Corby’s position and that of her family. It identifies a multitude of corrupt acts, including the wilful withholding of vital evidence from the Bali court, and a premeditated web of lies presented to the Australian Parliament and media. It exposes a government sacrificing the life and human rights of an innocent citizen, for political expediency and self interest. With Corby now reportedly mentally ill, and only eight years into a 20 year sentence, there’s no sign of this story going away anytime soon. For details of the Expendable Project, including videos and new document releases, visit the www.expendable.tv.

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Still Stoned

Jagger’s band on the eve of 50 WORDS BY GEOFF BOUCHER

hese are days of unfinished business for the Rolling Stones as they continue to mine their vault for “lost” material – a fascinating cache of unreleased tracks from the 1977-1978 “Some Girls” sessions has just arrive in stores for Christmas – and gather their dark powers for their 50th anniversary next year and perhaps another tour. Lead singer Mick Jagger chuckles when asked about the advice he would give himself as the band sizes up the golden anniversary and its possibilities. “You can’t be too impressed, I think,” Jagger says. “You could wallow in nostalgia if you wanted, couldn’t you? I don’t think that’d be the right attitude. There are lot of ideas and things to do, some of them sound interesting, some of them sound possible and some of them sound difficult and some sound outright schmaltzy, to be honest. I don’t know really know what’s going to exactly happen – but I’m working on it.” The Stones, of course, have been working 54 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

on something ever since the JFK administration. The band defies the laws of time, human endurance and pop-culture physics, but it remains a spiky alliance, especially after the publication of Life, the Keith Richards memoir that got its harshest critique (“a bit bitchy,” “tedious”) from a frenemy named Jagger. “It was the only bad review we got,” the guitar hero rasped with delight last month, two days after he and co-author James Fox won the Norman Mailer award for their bestselling memoir. “Ah, what can you do?” Jagger and Richards sometimes seem a bit like an old married couple who stand together only for family photos and then do so only with thin, hard smiles. But, in separate phone interviews, both are clearly enthused about the release this week of a tricked-out archival edition of “Some Girls,” the June 1978 album that gave the world “Miss You,” “Far Away Eyes,” “Shattered” and “Beast of Burden.” A concert film, “Some Girls Live in Texas

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‘78” will also be released on DVD and Bluray as a tie-in to the newly remastered album, which will be available in different editions (there’s a two-disc deluxe edition and also a lavish boxed-set version that includes a hardcover book, a DVD and vinyl single) and features a dozen previously unreleased songs. Those tracks were in various stages of completion and polish, and Jagger, Richards and company say it’s been a curious and inspir-

ing exercise to fill in the blanks all these years later. “It was an interesting autumn kind of project for me,” Jagger notes, adding that he was prepared for the labours by the 2010 release of “Exile on Main Street” with a similar bundle of salvaged tracks. “I learned quite a lot from doing the tracks on ‘Exile’ about how you do this without it being too much psychological damage. ... The ‘Exile’ ones

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seemed really quite old and even though this is just seven years later it was just more immediate to me in some ways. This album was so much of a piece while ‘Exile’ was recorded over such a period of time, over maybe three years and different sessions.” “Some Girls” and these new unreleased additions reveal a band that sees the music landscape changing beneath the rhythm logic of disco and ethos assault of punk.

“PART OF MICK AND ME IS WE ALWAYS LOVED COUNTRY MUSIC,” RICHARDS SAYS, “AND I MEAN, ‘DEAD FLOWERS’? MICK HAS WRITTEN SOME OF THE BEST COUNTRY SONGS OF ALL TIME. IT’S PART OF WHAT WE GREW UP WITH AND WHAT WE LOVE. IT JUST COMES FROM THE HEART, NOT FROM THE MIND.” are, I can smell it. It was the last album I did on the stuff. ... The interesting thing about making that album was we felt an enormous kick ... from the punks. There suddenly was this other generation coming on and they couldn’t play for (anything) but they were kicking (butt). ‘Some Girls’ was the response because we had been cruising before that, I think.”

On a more personal front, the “Some Girls” sessions marked the full arrival of Ronnie Wood as a band member and there was still anxiety in the air about the legal status and lifestyle of Richards, who was coming off a heroin arrest in Toronto. “Going back to the music, it immediately transports me back in time; it’s like, ‘Beam me up, Scotty,’” Richards said. “When I’m listening to it I can see the room where we

ome of the recovered and refurbished tracks were close to finished – like the Chuck Berry-informed “Claudine” and the leering “So Young” – but just didn’t make the cut when the “Some Girls” deadline approached. Others like “Do You Think I Really Care?” required a sort of throw-back mentality to finish. “It was sort of half done and I had to sort of get back into the mood of the song,” Jagger says. “It was a bit repetitive, I had done two verses but I needed five.” Richards says he enjoys hearing the varied genre paths the band was following in the 1970s and the echoes of Hank Williams and Gram Parsons tucked into the time capsule. “Part of Mick and me is we always loved country music,” Richards says, “And I mean, ‘Dead Flowers’? Mick has written some of the best country songs of all time. It’s part of what we grew up with and what we love. It just comes from the heart, not from the mind.” Don Was, the Grammy-winning record producer who has worked with Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams and Elton John, has been a key figure in the Stones’ archaeology missions. He was the point man on the exhaustive “Exile” project (there were hundreds of hours of material) and, for the “Some Girls” salvage efforts, came across “No Spare Parts,” an artifact deemed so notable that it was released last month as a single. Was says that in a way the Stones are somehow underrated still and he has no interest in listening to the criticism that any rebel outfit has overstayed its welcome when there are 50 candles on the cake. “They are right up there with Duke

Ellington’s band and the Miles Davis quintet from the 1960s as one of the greatest aggregations of musicians ever put together,” Was says. “And watching Mick and Keith through the years – when they get along and when they don’t get along – is like a morality play. When you hear the music all the other stuff evaporates. When the tape is rolling or they are on stage, there’s a closeness there that transcends everything else. And I think they should keep pushing toward that 75th anniversary.” But first, there’s the 50th anniversary. Richards, Wood and drummer Charlie Watts are scheduled to gather later this month in London to rehearse for the first time in three years, a clear signal that the Stones are ramping up in some fashion. “The Stones still work,” says Richards. “I know (the prospect of a tour) it’s an all important point but there’s nothing more I’m going to say about that. But the Stones will pull it together. It always comes easy once you get the bunch of guys together. It’s the getting the guys together that’s the hard part.”

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48 YEARS ON AN ADMIRER’S PORTRAIT OF THE ‘ELUSIVE’ JOHN F KENNEDY

WORDS BY JOELLE FARRELL

ohn Fitzgerald Kennedy once told his friend Ben Bradlee, then a reporter who would become executive editor of the Washington Post, that people read biographies to answer a simple question: “What’s he like?” In adding to the many reflections on JFK, Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s political talk show “Hardball,” aimed to do just that with Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. As the title of his sixth book suggests, it is no easy task to sum up or pin down JFK. Yet Matthews, whose fascination with Kennedy began when he was a 10-year-old boy and heard the then-senator speak at the 1956 Democratic Convention in Chicago, offers a readable and accessible book about the 35th president. Matthews reveals Kennedy’s character through the inner workings of his campaigns and some of his decisions as senator and president. Perhaps it’s natural that Matthews, who talks insider politics for a living, would focus on the “inside baseball,” the political tactics and the compromises struck by Kennedy to balance competing interests. As a political reporter, I enjoyed this angle. Matthews doesn’t gloss over some of the rougher tactics the Kennedy family used to help Jack succeed. And he acknowledges that JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, greased the skids with his wealth. 58 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

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details that spell it out. On the weekend of their wedding, Kennedy’s friend Lem Billings prepared Jackie for her husband’s promiscuities, telling her that he’d been with many women and hadn’t settled down. He told the 24-year-old bride that she would have to be “very understanding at the beginning.” When Billings, a buddy of Kennedy’s since boarding school, told Kennedy what he’d done, Kennedy was “pleased” because he thought it would help her better understand him.

“WHILE KENNEDY SHARES BLAME FOR THE DEBACLE OF THE ATTEMPTED CUBAN INVASION, IT’S HARD NOT TO ADMIRE HIS HANDLING OF THE LATTER SITUATION, A CONFRONTATION WITH THE SOVIETS THAT BROUGHT THE COUNTRY TO THE BRINK OF NUCLEAR WAR” But I would understand if other readers felt let down that Matthews gives less space to more personal elements of Kennedy’s life, most notably his relationship with his wife, Jacqueline.

Still, Matthews offers spare but telling details. Rather than regurgitate well-worn tales of Kennedy infidelities or the problems within the seemingly picture-perfect marriage, Matthews reiterates a handful of

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t first, I thought Matthews was giving Kennedy a pass for his treatment of Jackie, but he later points out instances when Kennedy treated her coldly. After losing the vice-presidential nomination in 1956 to Estes Kefauver, who would run with Adlai Stevenson that year, Kennedy left on a Mediterranean sailing trip with his brother Teddy and a friend. Jackie, eight months pregnant, suffered dangerous complications and underwent an emergency caesarean, but not in time. She gave birth to a stillborn daughter. “He’d shown off his wife at the convention for political gain then left her to suffer her tragedy alone,” Matthews writes. Later, in 1960, when the Catholic Kennedy overcame the odds to win the primary in largely Protestant West Virginia, Kennedy’s celebration excluded his wife. With Kennedy glad-handing a room full of shouting supporters, celebrating his “greatest triumph to date,” Ben Bradlee recalled, Jackie stood alone, ignored. She finally went out and sat in the car until Kennedy was ready to fly back to Washington. Matthews covers some of the oft-told tales about Kennedy, including his heroism as a PT boat skipper during World War II when he towed an injured crew member to safety after a Japanese destroyer sank his boat in 1943. Kennedy suffered from a chronically bad back that forced him to sleep on a sheet of plywood and nearly disqualified him from military service altogether. He also suffered from Addison’s disease, an adrenal gland disorder that can be fatal. But on that night in 1943, Kennedy took a strap of chief engineer Pat “Pappy” McMahon’s life jacket, clenched it between his teeth, and swam the gravely injured man to safety. “As McMahon floated on his back, he had nothing to do but look up at the sky,” Matthews wrote. “He was always aware

of the rhythmic tugs of the skipper’s arm strokes. He would remember most the sound of Jack’s hard breathing.” It’s clear from the way Matthews gushes over Kennedy in his prelude that he admires his subject: “In searching for Jack Kennedy my own way, I found a fighting prince never free from pain, never far from trouble, never accepting the world he found, never wanting to be his father’s son. He was a far greater hero than he ever wished us to know.” Matthews doesn’t hammer Kennedy for skipping the congressional vote to censure U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a Republican whose witch-hunt for Communists damaged reputations and careers. McCarthy was a family friend, and while Kennedy disagreed with his tactics, he believed the United States needed to take a tough stance against communism. Kennedy scheduled back surgery and was out during the vote. Every Democrat and half of

the Republicans voted to censure McCarthy. While Kennedy convalesced after the surgery, which went poorly and brought on infections that nearly took his life, he and his longtime speechwriter and aide Ted Sorensen wrote Profiles in Courage, a book that pays tribute to eight U.S. senators for taking positions highly unpopular with their constituents. Matthews doesn’t point out the irony. Later, when a colleague called Kennedy out on it, he wryly remarked that he didn’t put his own profile in the book, seeming to acknowledge that skipping the vote was less than brave. When Kennedy finally became president in 1961, he faced far tougher decisions: the Bay of Pigs and later the Cuban Missile Crisis. While Kennedy shares blame for the debacle of the attempted Cuban invasion, it’s hard not to admire his handling

of the latter situation, a confrontation with the Soviets that brought the country to the brink of nuclear war. Matthews gives readers an interesting glimpse into these crisis moments in Kennedy’s short presidency, but I wished for more. As for the assassination, Matthews doesn’t touch it, other than with a brief quote from Jackie. The book ends with the final days of Kennedy’s presidency and a short chapter titled “Legacy” that reads like a eulogy. Some readers may grow tired of the nittygritty of the campaigns, but politicians reveal much about themselves in the heat of a campaign. When you can look behind the scenes, as Matthews does, you get a fuller picture than most ever see. Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero by Chris Matthews; Simon & Schuster (479 pages, $27.50)

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The Summer of Ms Monroe MICHELLE WILLIAMS ON HER ROLE AS MARILYN

er eyes were searching the grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel, peeking over the bougainvillea at a row of terra cottaroofed buildings. “I always wonder which bungalow was hers,” said Michelle Williams, staring into the distance at a lodging that could have been home to Marilyn Monroe. The icon, whom Williams plays in the film My Week With Marilyn, lived at the hotel in the late 1950s while in production on the movie Let’s Make Love. “Is it too pretentious to say I feel I have a relationship with her?” the actress said suddenly, as if she could feel the blonde’s spirit. “The more time I spend with her, the closer I feel to her.” On the surface, Williams, 31, doesn’t seem to share much in common with the tragic star. Monroe was all curves and soft flesh; Williams is pixie-like – on a recent fall night,

WORDS BY AMY KAUFMAN she was covered up in black slacks and a sweater with a Peter Pan collar. Monroe affected a ditsy persona that many critics abhorred, and she was never nominated for an Academy Award; Williams, a two-time Oscar nominee, quotes the likes of Gustave Flaubert and Walt Whitman. The late actress was beholden to the studio system; Williams often opts for noncommercial, independent films such as the minimal Meek’s Cutoff or the emotionally raw Blue Valentine. Still, on the set of My Week With Marilyn, Williams felt an inexplicable connection to Monroe. During the shoot, she found meaning in seemingly ridiculous things – like an article in the National Enquirer. “There was a story about a psychic who had come into contact with Marilyn, and she said Marilyn approved of what I was doing. That took on a lot of meaning for me,” she admitted. “Maybe it was Marilyn, but I felt more fragile than I usually do on

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this movie. I felt more dependent on other people’s kindnesses. I would live off a compliment that the cameraman gave me for two weeks. It would feed me. It would get me out of bed.” My Week With Marilyn is drawn from two memoirs by Colin Clark, an on-set “gofer” during the 1956 production of The Prince and the Showgirl. Berated by her co-star and director Sir Laurence Olivier and facing the dissolution of her marriage with Arthur Miller, Monroe reportedly sought refuge in a quasi-romantic relationship with Clark, nearly a decade her junior. While Monroe wore her vulnerability openly, Williams has long appeared outwardly resilient, even as she has faced difficulties as challenging as those Monroe experienced. At 15, the Montana native struck out on her own, legally emancipating herself from her parents and moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting. At 25, she and her

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Brokeback Mountain co-star Heath Ledger became parents to a daughter. Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose three years later, and Williams has raised their child, Matilda, as a single mother.

fter his death, Williams struggled to find her footing in Hollywood. She took a year off, she said, “unsure of how I would go back, or if I wanted to go back” to acting. After she began to emerge from the fog of grief, she recommitted herself to the craft and decided to take a more gut-driven approach to her career. “I read this Flaubert quote once that I really love: ‘I want to live the quiet life of the bourgeois so that I can be violent and unrestrained in my work,’” she said, reciting the words from memory. “And I like that. Live the simple life and save all your extra forces for your work.” When she read the script for My Week With Marilyn, adapted for the screen by Adrian Hodges, Williams instantly felt compelled to do the movie. Growing up, her room had been filled with images of Monroe: a cardboard cutout and a poster of her running through a field, arms outstretched, joyous. “I remember thinking that if even a woman that beautiful clearly has trouble and is damaged and has insecurities, then we’re all entitled,” said Williams, who was born 18 years after Monroe died. When director Simon Curtis visited her in upstate New York two years ago to talk about the role before she’d officially signed on, he left a picture of Monroe in Williams’ home – a small photo beneath a telephone. “I kept staring at her face every day in my kitchen thinking, ‘Can I really?’” the actress said. “With any sort of part that I take, there’s a hint of an idea of how I’m gonna do it. I don’t really know the full scope of it, but there’s something inside of me gravitating towards it.” To figure out who Monroe – “this stranger” – was in the months leading to filming, Williams spent hours practicing Monroe’s vocal cadences in her house while Matilda was at school. She’d teeter around in high heels, tying a belt around her knees to experiment with how to achieve Monroe’s famous wiggle. “The biggest discovery I made was that Marilyn Monroe was a character she played,” said Williams, explaining she reached that conclusion through reading Monroe’s own writing as well as accounts by photogra-

“THE BIGGEST DISCOVERY I MADE WAS THAT MARILYN MONROE WAS A CHARACTER SHE PLAYED. SO I LIVED WITH HER, AND I NEVER STOPPED TRYING TO FIND MORE INFORMATION. EVEN ON SET, ON THE 10-MINUTE BREAKS, I WOULD BE BACK PORING THROUGH PHOTOS OR WITH MY EARPHONES IN WATCHING A MOVIE”

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pher Eve Arnold. “So I lived with her, and I never stopped trying to find more information. Even on set, on the 10-minute breaks, I would be back poring through photos or with my earphones in watching a movie. I was obsessed. I was on the trail of something. There were clues, and I had to solve a mystery.” Harvey Weinstein, whose company is releasing the film, said he was impressed at Williams’ preparation, how she could quote passages from Maurice Zolotow’s biography on Monroe. “Michelle researches a role like no one I’ve ever encountered,” Weinstein said in an email. “She watched and studied the movies and photos; she read every book.... She could describe how Marilyn wiggled and winked while quoting some of her best lines, (like) when she teased that she was nude by saying, ‘I have nothing on but the radio.’”

irector Curtis decided to shoot My Week With Marilyn at Pinewood Studios, where The Prince and the Showgirl was filmed more than 50 years ago. Both actresses were 30 when they were on the film stage just outside London. During filming, Curtis said, he noticed Williams’ delicateness, so he tried to give her additional time and space for her process. “I wanted to give her as many takes as I could, because there’s something about creating this performance – you never quite knew when Marilyn would pop,” said the filmmaker, who would sometimes do 12 takes of a scene with the actress. “I just felt she needed and deserved tremendous support, and I hope – unlike Marilyn – she got it.” Williams’ performance has already generated lead-actress buzz for the Academy Awards. (Her previous nominations came for her supporting turn in 2005’s Brokeback Mountain and her leading role in last year’s Blue Valentine.) Don Murray, who co-starred with Monroe in Bus Stop – which she shot immediately before “The Prince and the Showgirl” – said he didn’t find one false note in Williams’ interpretation of the legendary actress. “Those who have worked with Marilyn say Bus Stop was her best-behaved film, but she was still two or three hours late and also had trouble remembering her lines. The littlest thing would disturb her and send her concentration flying,” recounted Murray, 82. “I was astonished at how Michelle captured that. She got that total confusion – almost

falling apart emotionally. Marilyn suffered every little thing.” Williams – in production on Sam Raimi’s Wizard of Oz prequel – said My Week With Marilyn helped her to finally grow up. It was both the biggest challenge she’s ever taken on and the most fulfilling, she added, because it helped her to accept herself. “I think I became an adult making this

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movie. I’ve always been scared of myself somehow. Or apologetic or something,” she said quietly. “I just felt for a long time that I was grappling with something I couldn’t quite master or understand. But I’ve been a parent for six years now. I have an amazing daughter, and at some point in the last year, it dawned on me that that has to have something to do with me. And I need to give myself a break.”

w w w. n i k o n . c o. n z INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 67

n THINK LIFE

money

Upsides and downsides By Peter Hensley

ell, I never thought it would come to this” said Moira. Out of habit Jim responded, “What’s that dear?” Moira growled “Firstly you should use your hearing aids and secondly you could learn to pay a little more attention when I speak to you.” Moira’s tone made Jim sit up, and habit made him repeat his comment, “What’s that dear?” As soon as he spoke he wished he could reach up and grab the words out of the air. “Whoops” he thought to himself. But then again they had been married for over 40 years and she should be used to his mannerisms by now. That was one thing he

admired about Moira, she always strove for perfection and he never knew her to let her standards slip. “For one thing, the price of gold keeps going up, which is great for our portfolio. I am pleased that we listened to our adviser all those years ago, it sure has helped recoup some of our losses in other areas” Moira said. “I wish we had purchased some silver at the same time, but that can’t be helped now.” Jim replied “He keeps quoting that elderly commentator from the United States, Richard Russell, who says that in a bear market, everyone loses and the winners are those who lose least”. But then again he thought, this was diversification in action. A loss here

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and there made up in part by growth in other sectors. Once Moira realised that Jim was indeed listening, her tone softened and she went on to say, “And secondly, The Guardian Weekly says that some of the countries in financial strife actually have a plan to get their balance sheets back into some sort of order.” Jim knew that one of Moira’s often repeated comments was that, it was impossible to borrow one’s way out of debt. Jim was also very much aware that Moira was keen to understand how the larger members of the First World were planning to fix the gigantic hole in their respective balance sheets. The majority of them had borrowed their way into an abyss and were now seeking to extract themselves from what has morphed into a debilitating debt spiral. Moira said “Listen to this young man, The Guardian Weekly says the Greek Government intends to sell it’s stake in the two main ports, 39 airports, a state lottery , a horse racing concession, a casino, a national post office, two water companies, a nickel mine and smelter, hundreds of kilometers of roads, a telecom operator, shares in two banks, electricity and gas monopolies and thousands of hectares of land.” Jim liked Moira calling him young, he knew that he wasn’t, but he still liked it. He was keen to hear what else could be put up for sale and listened carefully as Moira went on to quote further from the Guardian Weekly article. “Portugal has a list of similar assets including water utilities, media interests and the national news agency Lusa. The list also included the state airline, including airports as well as an insurance business and the state run bank, CGD. This is interesting” said Moira, “Spain will sell off partial ownership in the world’s biggest lottery, Spain’s famous El Gordo (also known as Fat One). They could be talking about you Jim, but I know you are not for sale.” Jim was a good humoured soul and did not take offence. “It looks like most of the troubled Governments intend, not only to sell useless tracts of land, but also the family jewels such as lotteries, airports, bookmakers, totalisators, and there is some talk about student loan books. Now that would get student voters attention. I can see the debt collection agencies rubbing their hands together already.” Jim looked quizzically at Moira and said, “But that’s madness. They are getting rid of

all that future revenue. They will not have any income. What are they going to use to pay superannuation, not to mention the police, schools and hospitals.” Moira look at him with a warm glow of satisfaction, “So you have been paying attention all these years.” Jim’s back straightened, “Those dirty scoundrels, they will have to increase taxes and cut benefits. They will have to bring back means testing, introduce asset testing, hell, they could even bring back death duties.” Moira reprimanded him quickly and said “No-one’s talking about those things just yet, but you are correct. It is now time to pay the Piper. Future Governments around the world will be faced with the unenviable tasks of increasing revenue and cutting expenditure. And this will be at a time when the previous Government sold off some major revenue streams in order to pay off huge debts accumulated by fashionable, popular baby boomer politicians who didn’t know any better. I have said it before, when it comes to finance there are some unbreakable rules. You have to spend less than you earn and it is impossible to borrow your way out of debt.” Moira went to say, “Now Jim, while you

I have said it before, when it comes to finance there are some unbreakable rules. You have to spend less than you earn and it is impossible to borrow your way out of debt have brought up some excellent issues, there is one thing you are missing.” Jim thought for a while and said “ Apart from maybe missing out on the Government Super and having to pay more tax, I can’t seem to see what else there could be” Moira smiled quietly “How about the opportunity to buy into some companies that are almost guaranteed to generate strong dividend streams, that is, if they are run correctly. Our own Government forecasted in the last Budget that they were planning to sell off their stake in companies such as Solid Energy, Meridian, Genesis and Mighty River. That process must be underway.” “That’s the difference between you and me,” Jim said. “I don’t like the idea of paying tax, yet you are constantly thinking about ways to pay more tax”. “The more tax you pay, the more money

you make,” Moira responded. “It is an irrefutable fact.” “Apart from death duties,” Jim retorted. “Well there are none in this country at the moment and let’s hope it stays like that,” Moira responded. This article is meant to be Class Advice and a copy of Peter Hensley’s disclosure statement is available on request and is free of charge. Copyright © Peter J. Hensley November 2011.

EVE’S BITE

THE DIVINITY CODE

“…the most politically incorrect book” in New Zealand. He is absolutely right…Prepare to be surprised and shocked. Wishart may ruﬀle a few feathers but his arguments are fair as his evidence proves. If you are looking for a stimulating mental challenge, or a cause to fight for, Eve’s Bite will definitely satisfy. – Wairarapa Times-Age

Wishart takes up the gauntlet laid down by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, and in fact, uses Dawkins own logic and methodology to launch a counter-attack against unbelief. Challenging…thought provoking…compelling – keepingstock.blogspot.com

Discover the truth for yourself. Get these two books today from Whitcoulls, Borders, PaperPlus, Dymocks, Take Note, and all good independent booksellers, or online at

I’m having a cracking good read of another cracking good read – The Divinity Code by Ian Wishart, his follow-up book to Eve’s Bite which was also a cracking good read – comment on “Being Frank”

www.evesbite.com INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 69

n THINK LIFE

tech

New Kindle Fire: delivers on promises but still disappoints Words By Troy Wolverton

mazon.com’s new Kindle Fire hit store shelves last week as perhaps the most anticipated tablet computer since the original iPad. That’s because the device promises everything previous iPad rivals lacked: an

approachable interface; easy access to movies, music and books; a known brand name shared with a line of super-popular e-book readers, and a low, low price. Even before getting their hands on it, tech pundits, including yours truly, were already calling

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it the iPad’s first real competition. I’m not backing off that assessment now that I’ve gotten to play around with the Kindle Fire a bit. It’s bound to attract consumers in droves, if only for its low price and Kindle brand name. But in my short time with Kindle Fire, I’ve found it somewhat disappointing. It’s not that it doesn’t do what it sets out to do. The Fire runs a heavily customized version of the Android operating system that is generally easier to use than other versions of the software. It has direct connections to Amazon’s robust digital media offerings. And its $200 price is $300 lower than the least expensive iPad, as well as many of the top Android tablets on the market. But the Fire lacks features big and small, and left me wanting more. It comes in a relatively small, featureless black case. Its screen is considerably smaller than the iPad’s – 7 inches in diagonal compared with the 9.7-inch screen of the Apple device. Steve Jobs famously argued that 7-inch screens are a poor choice for tablets, but I’ve generally liked the ones I’ve played with. Tablets of that size are easier to hold than the iPad, and the interface on the Fire maximizes its small screen. The home screen looks like a virtual book shelf. The latest items you’ve interacted with – apps, movies, magazines – are arranged on the top shelf on a virtual carousel. You swipe left or right to bring particular items to the foreground. Below the carousel are smaller shelves of items that you manually choose as your favorites, just as you might put things in a display case. The set-up makes it easy to get into the apps and content you use most. Above the carousel are text links to groups of related items – such as a newsstand where you can access your magazines and newspapers; a books area, which holds your collection of e-books; and a music area, where you can find your digital songs and albums. Within most of these areas are links to Amazon’s stores, so you can buy new songs directly from the music area and download new apps from within the app collection. Some of the areas also divvy up content by what you have stored on your device and what’s stored on Amazon’s computers up in the cloud. The format allows you to easily download – and in some cases, stream – content from Amazon that you don’t yet have on your device.

The Fire works best when you use its native applications and content areas. It doesn’t work so well when you go outside of them

You have a lot of content to choose from. Amazon clearly is positioning the Fire as a means of accessing the company’s vast stores of digital books, movies and music. The company’s Kindle store is the leading e-book vendor. Its music and movie stores rival Apple’s iTunes in breadth of content, and its Amazon Prime streaming video service is a strong competitor to Netflix and Hulu in its selection of popular television episodes and older movies. And the Fire makes it easy to access this content. You can start watching movies or listening to your cloud-stored music immediately. Or you can download songs or books quickly and enjoy them in minutes. If you’re a fan of the company’s Kindles, the Fire will allow you to download all the e-books you’ve bought from Amazon and will remember what page you were on the last time you picked up a particular book. But the device’s ease of use and low price are offset by what it lacks. The first thing you’ll notice when holding the device is that it doesn’t have any buttons other than one to turn it on and off. That can make it difficult to adjust the volume or even to get back to its home screen. That’s a minor annoyance compared with other missing items, which limit what you can do with the Fire. For example, the Fire doesn’t have any cameras, so you can’t use it to take pictures or do video chats. It doesn’t

have an antenna that would allow it to connect to the cell phone data networks, so if you’re not near a Wi-Fi hotspot, you won’t be able to stream video or surf the Web. The Fire works best when you use its native applications and content areas. It doesn’t work so well when you go outside of them. Many of the third-party applications you can use on the Fire weren’t specifically designed for it. Instead, they were designed for Android devices, usually Android smartphones. Many of them just don’t look great on the Fire. Buttons and search boxes often stretch across the screen in unwieldy ways. Menu options are inconsistent with what you’ll find in the Fire’s native applications. And the Fire lacks applications that you’ll find on other devices. You won’t find a calendar or address book applications, for example, even though they come with most smartphones and tablets. The Fire does have a native email client, but that app doesn’t support Microsoft Exchange servers, so you might not be able to check your work email on the device unless you download a separate pricey application. Also, the Fire can’t download applications from Google’s definitive Android Marketplace. Instead, you have to go through Amazon’s App Store. That means Fire users can’t access any of Google’s popular Android

apps, such as Google Maps, Google Goggles or the company’s own YouTube application. Nor will you find some of the most popular third-party Android applications in Amazon’s App Store. Among the missing: Facebook, Twitter and Spotify. I love the Fire’s low price and user-friendly interface, but I’m not so happy about the trade-offs. It’s a great device for content from Amazon – but not good for much else.

AMAZON.COM KINDLE FIRE Troy’s rating: 6.5 (out of 10) Likes: User-friendly interface; easy access to Amazon content; low price; small, easy-to-hold size Dislikes: Lack of buttons can make it difficult to operate; no cameras, so can’t be used for picture taking or video chatting; no native calendar or address book applications; no access to Google’s Android market, so lacks access to Google apps and popular Android apps like Facebook Specs: Dual-core processor; 7-inch, 1024 x 600 pixel screen; 8 gigabytes of storage Price: US$200 Web: www.amazon.com

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n THINK LIFE

online

with Chillisoft

Mobile security Words By Ian Wishart

inally found the ultimate smartphone. This magazine was an early adopter of smartphones. Picking up a Palm Treo 650 back in 2004 running on Vodafone’s GSM network, our eyes were suddenly opened to a realm of new possibilities. We could receive and send emails from the phone, genuinely browse the internet (albeit slowly) and even take Microsoft Office documents on planes and edit them inflight using a Bluetooth keyboard. None of these things were possible on bog standard mobile phones back then. Yet 2004 may as well have been 1874 in today’s terms, because technology has improved by magnitudes since. The Treo series was a good range, arguably top of its class, even against the Blackberry and early iPhones, but market leader Palm was soon eclipsed by the war between iPhone, Windows Mobile and the emerging Android platform. Viewing Apple’s range more as eyecandy for the masses than a serious smartphone, our magazine stuck with the latest Treos on

Telecom’s old CDMA network and Nokia E71s on Vodafone, before graduating to HTC’s Touch Pro 2 on Windows Mobile for XT. The HTC was again light years ahead of the older spec’d Treos, and we gave it a good review a couple of years back. However longterm use wasn’t so endearing. The Windows Mobile operating system seemed far too crash prone, and the ½ GHz processor wasn’t fast enough to comfortably run the HTC’s engine room. You got the feeling there was an awesome phone inside struggling to squeeze out through a narrow gate. The new HTC Sensation on Android, available for XT, changes all that. For the first time in nearly eight years, there’s finally a top-of-the-range smartphone with a blistering fast dual core processor – one of the first of such phones to market – that does absolutely everything you expect it to. I’ve now had the phone eight weeks, enough to qualify as a long-term test. No system crashes. Just plain reliable. Seamless wi-fi performance and Bluetooth integra-

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tion, coupled with the capacity to handle Adobe Flash and HTML5, make this the pinnacle of smartphones we’ve owned or tested to date. The speed is to die for, and the range of applications available in Android Market leaves the previous Windows incarnation of the HTC for dead. Two must have apps, however: ESET Mobile Security. It’s a free beta download from the makers of NOD32 for PC. With the massive popularity of smartphones – and sales expected to quadruple – the risk of viruses and specialised hacking grows every month. ESET’s Android package does exactly what you expect it to do – throw up a wall around your applications and settings to detect and prevent unauthorised intrusions. There are some nifty extras however. These include an Anti-theft security system: “Simple SMS commands help you remotely locate, lock or wipe your Android device in the event it is stolen or simply misplaced. GSM users can prevent unauthorized use of their mobile devices by registering trusted SIM cards. A SMS alert is sent to your alternate phone silently when any other SIM card is inserted into your GSM Android mobile device.” For now, the application is free. The other must-have app is Juice Defender. Those who have smartphones will already know they are to batteries what the Twilight series is to blood-banks – anathema. Like it or not, those wafer thin mobile devices we are carrying around now deliver far more computing power than the desktop computers of a decade ago, and that sucks charge out of their small batteries like there’s no tomorrow. Don’t be fooled by manufacturer’s ‘specifications’ stating six hours of talk-time and 14 days standby. That might be achievable on a test-bench where the phone is right next to the cellphone tower and without any of its other wi-fi functions turned on, but in the real world most smartphone users are lucky to get through a day without topping up at some point. Juice Defender changes that. It works by automatically managing hundreds of tasks that the phone’s computer performs in the background. Many of those tasks are automatic but unnecessary if your phone is sitting on the desk unused for a couple of hours. By controlling what the phone does and when, Juice Defender can turn a six hour battery life into 12 or even 14 hours. Again, it’s free.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 73

FEEL LIFE HEALTH

Aggressive as children – in poor health as adults? By Jeannine Stein

ifestyle choices – what you eat, how much you exercise – may not be the only forecaster of health later in life. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal finds that behavior in childhood, such as aggression and social withdrawal, could predict more sickness in adulthood. The study, released Monday, followed 3,913 children from 1976 to 1978 when they were in grades one, four and seven, through 1992 to 2006. Researchers discovered that displaying aggression in childhood was linked with an 8.1 percent increase in medical visits, a 44.2 percent rise in lifestyle-related illnesses and conditions such as obesity, alcohol dependence and Type 2 diabetes, and a 10.7 percent increase in injuries. That behavior was also associated with 12.4 percent more emergency room visits and a 6.2 percent boost in trips to see specialists. For girls, childhood aggression was linked with more gynecological visits from ages 18 to 23, although that association wasn’t seen when the women were age 29 to 34. Other types of behavior in youth had an impact on health in adulthood. Being socially withdrawn was linked with an increased number of dental visits later in life; researchers think this could be due to lower socioeconomic status or shyness, which could lead to being hesitant about seeing a dentist, ultimately requiring more emergency visits. With popularity, however, came some benefits: being more likable in school was associated with less use of health services later on, suggesting that these people had less risky behavior and more peer support that could relieve stress. Education also had an effect on health. Those with lower levels of education were more likely overall as adults to use more medical services, including trips to the emergency room, visits to the dentist, hospital admissions and doctor visits due to injuries. “Our results,” the authors wrote, “suggest

WORDS BY JEANNINE STEIN PHOTOGRAPHY BY MILENA BONIEK

that childhood aggression has lasting effects on physical health and can have an impact on the level of use of medical services over

74 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January 2012

many years.” They added that targeting this group of kids and offering better health education could pay off down the road.

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FEEL LIFE ALTHEALTH stored around your mid-section, the problem may be stress, not your genes. Yale researchers have found that cortisol, which is released in response to stress, promotes fat storage, and fat accumulation around the abdomen has been associated with an increased risk of health problems such as heart disease and diabetes. In fact, scientists found that women with fat stored at the abdomen felt more threatened by stress than women with fat stored around the hips. So exercise, relax and get more sleep to reduce your cortisol levels. You may find you reduce your stress and your waistline as well. Venus Calling Mars! Come In, Mars! You always knew it: A study presented at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America found that men listen with one side of their brains but females use both sides to process language – the practical side and the emotional side. Is that why men tend to tell women how to fix their problems while women offer empathy as well as advice?

Med news you can really use By Dr. Georgia Witkin/MCT

cience is proving that some old adages you may have doubted are actually true, and that some common activities you never imagined could harm you can actually be dangerous. Laughter Is The Best Medicine Cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore studied 300 people, half who had heart disease and half who did not, and found that those with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations. They were also less likely to recognize humour or to use it to get out of uncomfortable spots. The researchers are not yet sure how laughter may help the heart, but it certainly seems true when it comes to the heart, laughter is

good medicine. So call in the grandkids and have some fun! This Is What Friends Are For Even one friend can make a difference in protecting you against loneliness and depression, says University of Maine research. This is true of children, too – just one loving grandparent can be a critical buffer against loneliness and depression for a child struggling to gain acceptance from his or her peers. In fact, other studies have found that a grandparent’s involvement in children’s lives also reduces the chances that they will smoke, drink, or commit criminal acts. Blame Stress, Not Mum, For Your Shape If you have an apple-shaped body, with fat

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Don’t Drink And Take Paracetamol When you drink, alcohol is broken down into harmless components by your liver. However, warns recent University of Southern California research, while the liver is engaged in this activity it is vulnerable to serious, even fatal damage by acetaminophen. People who drink heavily – “heavily” being three mixed drinks, a six-pack of beer or a litre of wine on a near-daily basis – should never take more than two regular-strength paracetamol tablets within two to three hours of their last alcoholic drink. Scientists continue to study why the combination is so dangerous. Think Well And You’ll Be Well A University of California at San Francisco study finds that people who think of themselves as successful and powerful are more likely to be healthy – even if they were not particularly “successful,” based on usual income, professional or educational standards. The study, published in the journal Health Psychology, also reported that women who thought of themselves as higher on the social ladder fell asleep easier at night, had lower resting heart rates, and less abdominal fat. It seems that all those good thoughts mean less pessimism, frustration and stress. So choose friends who admire you and don’t get down on yourself, and you’ll be more likely to live long and prosper.

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TASTE LIFE TRAVEL

Swim with sea lions in the Sea of Cortez By Brian J. Cantwell

n the turquoise water of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, the sleek and tawny sea lion zoomed past us as if he were a Jacques Cousteau diver clinging to one of those handheld aqua scooters. When he saw our group of snorkelers he stopped like he’d broadsided a blue whale. “Oh – you aren’t sea lions, are you?” he

seemed to be thinking, as he flipped and floated upside down just inches away, curiously studying us with soulful, bassethound eyes. We could see every twitch of his whiskers. In wetsuits and snorkel masks, we were surrounded by juvenile California sea lions, about a year old. Juvenile in age and behav-

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ior – zipping up, down and around us, and at times hanging on our dive boat’s mooring line. These guys just wanted to play. “They’re cute, in a disconcerting way!” a fellow snorkeler exclaimed as we clambered back aboard the boat. We were moored at Los Islotes, a group of rocky islets about a 75-minute boat ride

We spent the next halfhour circling in the sea as bottlenose dolphins leapt the wake of our powerboat, flying as high as Flipper ever did to jump through a flaming hoop

from La Paz, the capital of southern Baja California. Weirdly sculpted by wind and tide, with whorls of rock and minaretlike spires, these are sea stacks like Antonio Gaudi might design. A snow-white coating of yeasty guano is evidence that frigate birds, boobies and other winged wonders take refuge here along with a colony of up to 400 sea lions – whose barking, incidentally, sounds a lot like basset hounds. It’s a popular day-trip tourist outing to “swim with the sea lions.” Once our masks dipped beneath the surface, we saw why fish-eaters like this place. We were in the middle of thousands of shimmering, light-blue anchovies, fish 3 to 4 inches long, schooling in water-ballet unison. For safety, we were told to stay well off the rocks and let the young sea lions come to us, keeping our distance from the big bulls jealously guarding their harems on shore. When

one of the adult, 800-pound females swam by 15 feet from me underwater, barreling like a dark torpedo, it was, yes, disconcerting – without so much cuteness. However, only the youngsters seemed interested in us. “They may come at you, they may even try to hug you, but they’re just playing,” said our dive guide. “They might even try to nibble – don’t pull your hand away, their teeth are sharp.” In other words, swimming with sea lions is safe – until it’s not. So, caveat emptor. (How do you say, “Let the swimmer beware”?) But thousands have done it with nothing to remember but grins. Getting slimed by a dolphin was the day’s other hazard. But for that you get an unbridled show like you’ll never see at SeaWorld. On the way to Los Islotes, our boat circled out beyond Isla Espiritu Santo (it means “Island of the Holy Spirit”), a sprawling, uninhabited outpost of striated pink and ocher promontories that in 2008 was named a marine national park. It’s also part of a UNESCO biosphere reserve and World Heritage Site, in part because it and another nearby reserve harbor 38 unique plant and animal species – desert hares, ring-tailed cats, snakes and the like. Its pocket bays of warm water and caramel-colored sand make it a fabled kayaking and sailing destination. Along the way, our boatload of nine American and Mexican vacationers thrilled to the sight of flying mobulas, a type of ray that breaches out of the water like a placekicked football. “Researchers say it’s males trying to impress females,” said our guide, Chabelo Castillo.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM December 2011/January2012 79

“It’s always about sex!” quipped passenger Lauren Seto, from San Francisco. If we were lucky this day, Castillo said, we would see rays, dolphins, sea lions and maybe even whales. A third of the world’s cetacean species hang out here. Dolphins showed up, as if on cue, beyond Espiritu Santo. “Get your cameras!” shouted Castillo. We spent the next half-hour circling in the sea as bottlenose dolphins leapt the wake of our powerboat, flying as high as Flipper ever did to jump through a flaming hoop. “I have seen dolphins thousands of times, but every time I see one leaping, it’s ‘woohoo’!” exulted Castillo. The younger crowd delighted in lying on their bellies and peering down from the boat’s bow to see dolphins riding the bow wave, close enough to touch. Thrilling, yes, but remember that dolphins breathe through that blowhole right there. It’s a lot like, well, your own nose. One young woman discovered that with some alarm. “I looked down and saw that my finger was covered with goo, and I realized it was dolphin snot!” said Raluca Ioanid, another visitor from San Francisco. Rounding out the day was an idyllic two-hour lunch break – after a good handwashing – and kayaking at pretty Ensenada Grande beach, on Isla Partida, connected by

a narrow isthmus to Espiritu Santo. At 3 p.m. our boat headed back to its base at CostaBaja marina. We’d seen all on our wish list but whales, I noted to Castillo, who shrugged and smiled. Oops, spoke too soon. “Whale!” the cry went up. Every head turned. Ahead, a fluked tail not a whole lot smaller than our 25-foot boat flipped up,

then plopped back underwater with a splash of creamy foam. We sped toward it, then slowed, circling. “Whisssh!” A spout – then another tail flip. “It’s two humpbacks!” Ioanid cried. Our boat zigzagged for 10 minutes as we watched, hushed, waiting for more. Finally, another tail flip, barely 100 feet away. “Yes!” everyone cheered. And, finally, the boat turned for home.

IF YOU GO FINDING A GUIDE: From La Paz, a number of operators offer boat trips to swim

with sea lions at Los Islotes and visit Espiritu Santo or Isla Partida. We went with a well-equipped outfitter called Fun Baja (www.funbaja.com). Costs were (in U.S. dollars) $105 for the daylong tour; $10 for wetsuit rental; $25 for kayak rental, plus 11 percent tax. Lunch provided. Espiritu & Baja Tours offers trips for $75 U.S.; Espiritubaja.com. El Tocolote Beach Club charges about $70 U.S.; www.clubdeplayaeltecolote.com. PROTECTING THE RESOURCE: While battles over development continue, Mexico has made some strides in protecting natural areas in the Sea of Cortez, in part with the help of the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy. After Mexico protected Isla Espiritu Santo as a national park, the Nature Conservancy financed conservation activities such as patrolling, tourism management and environmental education, working in cooperation with local groups. Permits are now required for camping on Espiritu Santo, fees are collected to help support conservation efforts, and personal watercraft are prohibited in sensitive areas. At Los Islotes, permanent mooring buoys reduce underwater anchoring damage and rules prohibit going ashore. Learn more at www.parksinperil.org/wherewework/mexico/protectedarea/loreto.html.

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roses in bloom

Three rings with hand-carved roses in black onyx, pink seashell and apricot aventurine join the ring Upon ring collection. set in sterling silver, you can mix them with rings in gold, silver or two-tone. sterling silver rings from rrP $75. rose rings rrP $117. be inspired at pandora.net INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COMâ&#x20AC;&#x201A; December 2011/January2012â&#x20AC;&#x192; 81

TASTE LIFE FOOD

/CLASSIC/

The organic panic A new study gives James Morrow cause to revisit the natural foods debate

n the subject of children – particularly those other than my own – I have always been something of a cynic, subscribing to the wisdom of such wits as W. C. Fields (who claimed to like his “parboiled”) and Robert Benchley (“Travelling with children corresponds roughly to travelling third class through Bulgaria”). The last few weeks have given me no reason to doubt the wisdom of this approach. While my own offspring are, as always, perfect angels, the behaviour of their contemporaries often leaves something to be desired. Exhibit A: the little girl who announced in our local park on a recent Sunday, with all that top decibel faux-sophistication sixyear-old girls are so eerily able to muster, “Dad, like no offence, but this park is lame”. Exhibit B: the tow-headed delight at my son’s kindy who nonchalantly walked up to me one morning when I was doing the school run, placed his two index fingers in the appropriate spot in his mouth, and announced to me, “Hey! You have rabbit teeth!”

Exhibit C: the eight-year-old girl whom I overheard the other morning on the street rhapsodising about how superior her lunch was because “it’s all organic”, and how her would-be mate’s lunch indicated negligent parenting of the sort demanding an inquiry by the authorities because the enclosed sandwich was made on – shock, horror – white bread. Well, to the first one I say, the park may be lame, but no one’s making you come back. Or stay, for that matter. To the second, it’s not polite to point, and anyway I have a fear of dentists. And to the third, well, I hope your reading skills are above grade level, because you’ve got some reading to do. Specifically, the recent feature in the Australian science magazine Cosmos, which debunks many of the claims of the US$40 billion – and growing – organic food industry. “A comprehensive review of some 400 scientific papers on the health impacts of organic foods, published by Faidon Magkos and colleagues in 2006 in the journal Critical

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Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, concluded there was no evidence that eating organic food was healthier”, reports the article. Surely that can’t be right? Organic food must be healthier – after all, it’s all natural, right? Not so fast: “Regardless of how it is grown, the nutritional content of fruit and vegetables is more likely to be affected by freshness or varietal differences. One study reported by Magkos tried to narrow things down by growing the same variety of plums in adjacent fields, with one using organic and the other conventional methods: the conventionally grown plums contained 38 per cent more of the potentially beneficial polyphenol compounds than the organically grown ones did.” OK, but even if it’s not better for people, it must be better for the Earth. Here again, the evidence doesn’t stack up. If anything, artificial farming methods, especially no-till techniques advanced in often inhospitable farmlands of Australia, are ultimately envi-

ronmentally more sustainable: “Many agricultural scientists estimate that if the world were to go completely organic, not only would the remaining forests have to be cleared to provide the organic manure needed for farming, the world’s current population would likely starve … the poor yield of organic farming means that food production would be a major problem. In Australia, for instance, organic farming yields 50 per cent or less per square kilometre because of pest problems and phosphate-depleted soils.” Yeah, but aren’t all those synthetic chemicals, like, bad for you? Again, the study’s authors have news: “If chemical pesticides are hazardous to health, then farm workers should be most affected. The results of a 13-year study of nearly 90,000 farmers and their families in Iowa and North Carolina – the Agricultural Health Study – suggests we really don’t have much to worry about. These people were exposed to higher doses of agricultural chemicals because of their proximity to spraying, and 65 per cent of them had personally spent more than 10 years applying pesticides. If any group of people were going to show a link between pesticide use and cancer, it would be them. They didn’t.” I am told that in way out in rural New South Wales, there are sheep farmers who are rough as guts and slightly to the right of even your esteemed columnist who are making vast profits on the organic racket, simply because they’ve been too cheap to improve their land for so many years and now their ancient mutton has green cachet. Look, there are plenty of reasons to like organic food. In my experience, organic can but does not always mean quality. Nature is pretty damned dangerous, if human experience and history is any guide, and the genius of our present condition is that we are able to retreat to the redoubts of civilisation. Personally I prefer to look for more meaningful indicators of food that has been raised to meet my taste and ethical standards: Thus I will always pay a premium for free range eggs or pork, because to my palate the end results are

demonstrably better. And while chickens, to my way of thinking, are just feathery balls of squawks and salmonella, somehow pigs to me seem to deserve better than the factory farm. Perhaps it was too much E. B. White or George Orwell as a child. But as I have noted on this page before, while much of the thinking behind biodynamic farming is a lot of New Age hoo-hah straight out of Rudolf Steiner’s brilliant but slightly daffy mind, the technique produces great results in terms of produce. Though here I suspect it is a case of the intimate involvement of the farmer with his land encouraged in a side-long manner by such methods that is doing the trick, not the burying of a ram’s horn stuffed with manure at midnight during a full moon. While typing this I have had a highly unscientific experiment quite literally on the boil. Having picked up a packet of “organic” mince from the local supermarket, and a few tins of organic tomatoes from Italy from the local health food palace, I whipped up a bolognaise sauce to see if there was a demonstrable difference. While the meat does have more flavour than the usual stuff, it seems inferior to a line of “Angus certified” beef my supermarket sells, when I tried some the other week. Somehow it seems wrong to raise an animal for food and then turn it into something as tasteless as the plastic it is ultimately packed in. The tomatoes? Perfectly fine, and packed in a sugo that was more tomato than water, a nice change from many labels. Taste-wise, almost no difference. The beef, however, was another story. After years of foolishly buying sealed plastic trays of insipid mince, this was a revelation: it actually tasted like meat. It was almost lamb-like in its richness. The proof was in the pudding, or the eventual lack thereof. Like elderly golfers who boast their score matches their age, the oldest boys with great chronological assurance went for five and nearly three helpings each. It was, in the words of one, “the best pasta ever”. I’m no scientist, but I know results when I see them. When it comes to taste, fresh and free range are your indicators of quality. Organic on the other hand strikes me as something that is all too often a middle class indulgence – of the sort that medieval Catholics once bought to absolve their sins – which I can do without.

Upstate New York Breakfast Apples Can you believe there was a time when we used to slap our foreheads half in wonder, half in trepidation, at the latest consumer marvel to come out of the land of the rising sun and wonder, “what will those Japanese think of next?” Perhaps I’m biased, but I really think that the high honours in the innovation stakes must go to the Americans, if for no other reason than residents of that wonderful land can subscribe to something called the Bacon of the Month club which sends out a couple of pounds of artisancrafted bacon to lucky recipients every month. I recently signed my father, who lives in upstate New York State, up to this marvellous service, and he hasn’t stopped raving about it. Even better, he’s taken up the pans with all the confidence of a man with a medicine chest full of statins and discovered a late-in-life passion for cooking. This recipe, made with Fuji apples from trees on his own property, is his new favourite breakfast. Multiply numbers as appetites and guests accrete. You’ll need: 1 Fuji apple 1-2 rashers good quality bacon Maple syrup Method: Preheat your oven to 210 degrees C. Core your apple, and wrap it in a turban of bacon. Place on baking sheet and fill cavity with maple syrup. 210 degrees C. Bake for 45 minutes. Bliss.

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SEE LIFE / PAGES

Bury yourself in Prague The Prague Cemetery Umberto Eco Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Mischievous, ghastly, scholarly and facetious, Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery is a novel befitting the author of the The Name of the Rose, and Foucault’s Pendulum – a work so jammed with historical detail and literary allusions that a reader can barely see the narrative forest for its very erudite trees. As the publisher’s jacket copy puts the question: What if the historical upheavals and catastrophes of the 19th century – the bombings and murders; the horrors attendant to the Paris Commune and the Dreyfus Affair; that founding document of modern anti-Semitism, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – were all instigated by a single malodorous character? Well, what if? For one thing, that character would be a tough one to spend 464 pages with. We meet Captain Simonini, an aging Freemason- and Jew-hating secret agent/ master forger, as a venomous old diarist who is, apparently, schizophrenic. Although he

retains no memory of inhabiting his alter ego – that of a priest he murdered some years earlier – Simonini is nonetheless aware of his other self, and the two personalities correspond by letter, one writing by night, the other by day. It is a highly original concept on Eco’s part, and it alleviates the necessity of spending too much time with a character who, for all his highly refined taste and gourmet appetites, is a bottomless well of self-justifying poison. The Prague Cemetery was released last year in Europe and provoked what ought to be called the Huck Finn Response: Readers, many critics warned, are too impressionable – or perhaps they meant feebleminded – to understand that Simonini’s loathsome musings on Jews, Freemasons, women, Jesuits, etc., are not in fact endorsements of those views by the author. It seems obvious that Eco’s portrait of Simonini is meant as a satirical mirror for our own times. Various powers-that-be use Simonini’s talents to foment upheaval within the Italian nation-building campaign of Garibaldi and the clandestine opposition to

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Louis-Napoleon in France; he is influenced by “Dr. Froide,” influences the Dreyfus Affair, works for the Prussians against France and undermines the Commune of Paris. He is a malignant Zelig who reflects not only the complacencies of our supposedly post-racial world but the contradictions inherent in the current global political climate. The Prague Cemetery is a Eurocentric novel; as such it is a rather useful survey for Americans whose historical view of the 19th century is dominated by our own nation building and civil war. But the moral that Eco is imparting is pan-national: Throughout his adventures, Simonini consistently tortures facts to fit his biases. His career as a chameleonic secret agent in the employ of this nation, or that cabal, reflects his soul, as he convinces himself of the validity of his hatreds, despite any and all evidence. “Apart from the pleasures of coffee and chocolate,” he says at one point, “what I most enjoyed was appearing to be someone else.” Or everyone else, as per his creator’s subtly caustic point of view. – By John Anderson

Tolstoy: A Russian Life By Rosamund Bartlett Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

This month marks 100 years since the death of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, who lived a life more tempestuous, contradictory, telling and complex than any of the characters he created. The author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina has been subjected to biographical treatment many times and has survived all intact, including Henri Troyat’s majestic account. The newest tale of the titan, Tolstoy: A Russian Life, comes from Rosamund Bartlett, an English scholar who specializes in Russian cultural history. Her books include Chekhov: Scenes from A Life and translations of Chekhov’s writings. Tolstoy was “tied to Russia body and soul,” Bartlett writes. You’ll learn about both. Her leisurely, sympathetic take on Tolstoy offers a perspective different from earlier ones. She concentrates much less on the literature than on the man; the aristocrat who’d dress like a peasant, the sybarite who’d turn ascetic, the nihilist who’d extol piety, the “devout Orthodox communicant” who’d become a critic of the church.

It’s also, in a way, attuned to this era of reality TV. Bartlett looks at Tolstoy’s family life, especially his troubled marriage. This guy was no fun around the dacha. There are instances when he seems sprung from the imagination of Dostoevsky. For all the social, political and theological views that would mark his life as “conscience of the nation,” Tolstoy held a very conservative, very common outlook when it came to wife Sonya’s role: she’d give birth to children. But Tolstoy often neglected them even as he wanted to mold and educate her “according to his own tastes.” The much younger Sonya accepted that stricture for a very long time. She’d also try to kill herself more than once, and eventually would be diagnosed as paranoid and hysterical. Sonya finally feared poverty. Tolstoy, in his will, wanted to put all his writing after 1881 in the public domain. Their estrangement culminated with the exit of the 82-year old Tolstoy, who “had long yearned to leave home and set off on foot with nothing but the clothes on his back as a wanderer.” He left in the middle of the night with his personal physician so she couldn’t follow him. But Tolstoy became ill. Once “the most famous man in Russia,” he died in a “remote

railroad station in Ryazan province.” Sonya, who’d attempted to drown herself when she learned he’d left her, was kept by his friends from seeing him until he was unconscious. Sonya would write her account of life with “an impossible genius.” Her own last years, Bartlett says, “were ones of loneliness and self-recrimination.” Bartlett covers much more, of course, in an extensively researched text, from the history of the family to how the Bolsheviks and the Soviets sought to celebrate and claim him, how the Tolstoyans fared after his death and what influence he may have in today’s Russia. It’s all informed, often engrossing. But, by story’s end, what lingers is the haunting opening line of Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – By Peter M. Gianotti

The Drop

By Michael Connelly Little, Brown Michael Connelly’s novels, especially those about LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, have never been simple police procedurals. Instead, Connelly’s excellent

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books mirror contemporary issues and Los Angeles’ vagaries while being at the heart, a character study of Bosch for whom justice is more than a word. The Drop, the 17th in this series, continues those high standards as Connelly shows how politics seeps into police work, tainting investigations, crime scenes and even friendships. The Drop also looks at the challenges of being a single father, maintaining relationships and looking at the end of a career. Unlike TV and movies about the police, The Drop illustrates how the police juggle various investigations that stretch days and even weeks. Bosch shared the action with attorney Mickey Haller in 2010’s The Reversal, but the last time Connelly focused solely on the detective Bosch was Nine Dragons (2008). While the team of Bosch and Haller is provocative for many reasons, not the least being their shared history as half brothers, there is a special pleasure in watching Bosch work cases by himself, deal with a partner, his supervisors and internal politics. And the case that takes priority in The Drop is loaded with politics – or, as Bosch calls it, “high jingo. ... The confluence of police and politics.” Working out of the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, Bosch and his partner David Chu are handed a new investigation. The detectives are called to the historic Chateau Marmont where George Irving, a high-powered lobbyist and son of city councilman Irv Irving, may have committed suicide. The older Irving has long been Bosch’s nemesis and has tried to have the detective fired numerous times. Irving believes his son was murdered and, surprisingly, insists that Bosch handle the case. Meanwhile, Bosch and Chu work an old case. A recent DNA hit connects a college student’s 1989 murder with Clayton Pell, a convicted sex offender. But Clayton could not have committed the crime because he was only 8 years old at the time. Has the DNA been compromised? Bosch and Chu work the two investigations, both of which are steeped in politics. Only the detectives put crime-solving first. The Drop is resplendent with the details about police work and Los Angeles that Connelly wraps into an exciting plot. Bosch is quite clear-eyed about the LAPD hierarchy, refusing to allow its demands to interfere with his cases. His former police partner Kiz Rider, now with the chief of police’s office, keeps him informed, but Bosch has no illusions about what happens when

friendship and ambition collide. Connelly still finds new depths to Bosch, introduced in the 1992 Edgar-winning “The Black Echo.” The Drop has several realistic and even lovely scenes of Bosch with his daughter, Maddie, now a teenager. While he is more comfortable at crime scenes, Maddie is definitely his priority. Bosch is not just a devoted father but a parent who listens and is preparing his daughter to be an adult. At the same time, Bosch’s retirement looms and he has three more years on the force, though that might be extended. Connelly continues to show why he is one of the best – and most consistent – living crime writers in The Drop. Three more years with Harry Bosch isn’t enough. We hope he gets that extension. – By Oline H. Cogdill

Agatha Christie: An Autobiography By Agatha Christie Harper Collins

In time for the holiday season, the 1977 autobiography of mystery writer Agatha Christie has been reissued with an introduction by her grandson, Matthew Prichard. An Autobiography is the history of a unique upbringing in a time long gone. It’s a portrait of a childhood and young womanhood that vanished with World War I. What makes this edition special is a CD of Christie dictating parts of the autobiography. The recordings were made from tapes found by Prichard after her death, and painstakingly restored. Agatha Christie was born in September 1890 during the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign. Her happy childhood dominates the first part of the book with rich evocative detail. For example, for her third birthday, “There is a tea-table and it is covered with cakes, with my birthday cake, all sugar icing and with candles in the middle of it. Three candles. And then the exciting occurrence – a tiny red spider, so small I can hardly see it, runs across the white cloth. And my mother says: ‘It’s a lucky spider, Agatha, a lucky spider for your birthday ...’ And then the memory fades.” Christie taught herself to read at 5. In her teens and early adulthood she dabbled in music and singing, and fell into writing almost by accident. It was during the war years that she conceived of her famous Belgium detective Hercule Poirot.

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All writers use their life knowledge in their work, and it’s easy to see where such famous sleuths as Miss Jane Marple and Poirot started. However, fans of the latter may be dismayed to find that Christie disliked her Belgium detective. Christie fell in love and married a Royal Flying Corps pilot named Archibald Christie in 1914 right before he shipped out in World War I. She entered nursing and end up working in the dispensary, or a pharmacy. This played into her novels since she learned a great deal about drugs, their effects and potential for abuse. She and Christie had an ugly divorce in 1926. Anyone looking for insight into the missing 11 days when she vanished needs to look elsewhere; she mentions how unhappy she was at the time and how she was annoyed by the press coverage of her disappearance, but nothing more. Her second marriage, to archeologist Max Mallowan, was a happy one. She traveled often to the Middle East, dabbled in photography and then in writing plays, adapting her own work. To modern eyes, there are jarring elements. She uses the N-word in the title of one book, and in the stage adaptation of it. Her Victorian attitudes are several generations back and some might find them uncomfortable today. Finally, her take on her career? “One of the pleasure of writing detective stories is that there are so many types to chose from: the light-hearted thriller, which is particularly pleasant to do; the intricate detective story with an involved plot which is technically interesting and requires a great deal of work, but is always rewarding; and then what I can only describe as the detective story that has a kind of passion behind it – that passion being to help save innocence. Because it is innocence that matters, not guilt.” – By Tish Wells

Then Again: A Memoir By Diane Keaton Random House

It was always the fragile balance of opposing forces that made Diane Keaton’s face so remarkable – those tilted melancholy eyes above that frequent and infectious smile. She seemed in a perpetual state of emotional contradiction, which is one of the things that made her such a perfect match, at least on film, for Woody Allen, who as history’s most hopeful pessimist is a master juggler himself.

So it’s not surprising that Keaton’s memoir, Then Again, is also an elusive sort of work, part autobiography, part daughterly paean, part love letter to her own children, a book in which portions of her mother’s journals and details of her parents’ travails in old age far outnumber the on-set anecdotes and glamour shots. Keaton writes not so much in chapters, though there are chapters, but in pieces, some rushed and breathless and vague, others almost journalistic in their determination to get the facts right, all of them evocative of her famously elliptical cadence and non sequitur manner, which is just as effective and irritating here as it is on screen. It would seem that at some point an adult woman of certain experience should be able to speak in simple declarative, unapologetic sentences and write a simple, straightforward book about herself. But truth, like beauty, comes in many packages, and if Then Again is not a beautiful book, it seems like a truthful one, revealing a woman still plagued by insecurities, though not enough to keep her from being an actor or writing a memoir, and weighted down with regrets, though not so many to keep her from adopting two children at an age when most women are surveying an empty nest. The big reveal of Then Again (besides Keaton’s claim that Allen had a beautiful body) is that for many years Keaton was bulimic, excusing herself from real life to soothe herself with prodigious amounts of food (lovingly cataloged in detail only a true addict could muster after all these years) of which she then rid herself. The confession is not particularly surprising – Actress has issue with weight/food! Details at 11! – but the aplomb with which she handles it most certainly is. She discusses it in the middle of the book, refuses to offer armchair diagnosis or blame, and then she moves on. She doesn’t use it as a symbol for her life or spine for her narrative; she doesn’t use anything as a spine for her narrative. In fact, while reading Then Again, one would do well to remember Keaton’s love of photography – she has curated several collections and learned, from her mother, the art of collage. Then Again often feels like a collage, or a collection, of moments and thoughts and images, that stay with you longer than you suppose they might because they are so often contradictory and unsettling. Although by any standard save Meryl Streep, Keaton is a successful actor, she spends very little of Then Again discussing

But truth, like beauty, comes in many packages, and if Then Again is not a beautiful book, it seems like a truthful one, revealing a woman still plagued by insecurities, though not enough to keep her from being an actor or writing a memoir, and weighted down with regrets

her profession. The men she met through her profession, yes, but very little of her passion for acting or the craft of making a movie. She does say she hated playing Louise Bryant in Reds because “there was nothing charming about her will to be recognized as an artist in her own right.” Keaton may have come of age in the ‘60s – her breakout role was in Hair, though she kept her clothes on – but she seems to have a very old-fashioned view of romance. When discussing the three big loves of her life – Allen, Warren Beatty and Al Pacino, none of whom, she says, loved her enough to marry her – she inevitably and repeatedly defers to their brilliance. Allen is a genius who remains “borderline repulsed by the grotesque nature of my affection.” Her performance in Reds was “more like a reaction to Warren – that’s what it was: a response to the effect of Warren Beatty” and Pacino made her “think about the difference between being an artist and being artistic. I knew where I stood. I was artistic.” Even Jack Nicholson, her costar in Something’s Gotta Give, was so magnificently distracting that during a kissing scene she kept flubbing her lines. All of which can be a little wearing except, you know, here she still inarguably is, Diane Keaton, still making movies, raising her kids, giving interviews, writing this book that fits no construct or style but her own. Then Again reads like the diary of an ordinary woman who suddenly became a movie star, who doesn’t quite believe any of it happened, but it did, and even though she isn’t quite sure any of it makes sense anyway, she has just enough chutzpah to believe that you might find it interesting enough to read. And you might. In the end, I did. – By Mary McNamara

A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos By Dava Sobel Walker & Co.

Copernicus knew what makes the world go round. Philosopher and mathematician, physician and church canon, he calculated and theorized that the earth moved around the sun. Nicolaus Copernicus “defied common sense and received wisdom” and “fathered an alternate universe,” author Dava Sobel writes. Sobel’s A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos chronicles and dramatizes the story of the momentous discovery and how it came to be published. Her account is generally lucid and engaging. Sobel succeeds, however, in describing the details of a remarkable life and an Inquisitorial age – no time for free thinkers, before, during or after Copernicus. Galileo Galilei would go to prison and Giordano Bruno to the stake. The portrait of modern astronomy’s framer shows a devoted, shrewd scientist and a sensible, adept church administrator who became a visionary. Yet, concerned about expected criticism, he didn’t seek to have his theory published and hid it for 30 years. Mathematician Georg Joachim Rheticus would change that. Drawn by talk about Copernicus’ grand idea at a time when Martin Luther was sparking another revolution, Rheticus visited the elderly Copernicus, who taught him the details of the theory. Worried about ridicule, Copernicus welcomed Rheticus’ enthusiasm for his thesis. And Rheticus would write “an informed summary” of it. The rest is history. –By Peter M. Gianotti

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TOUCH LIFE TOYBOX EPSON MG-850HD PROJECTOR The versatile MG-850HD is an easy-touse and flexible multimedia system for family home users and professionals that fits comfortably into virtually any setting – whether in the family room for a movielike experience, at the office in a conference room presentation, or even outdoors around a barbecue. Watch movies, view presentations, share photos, or enjoy content saved on portable devices on a big screen, easily project and play content from an iPod, iPhone, or iPad (while charging), or share high quality imagery from a variety of other media devices, including smartphones, PCs, tablets, game consoles, and more. MG-850HD is compatible with Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360. RRP is $1,699 www.epson.co.nz

TOSHIBA AT200 Toshiba Europe GmbH unveiled an exciting new product today – the ultra-thin 25.7cm (10.1’’) AT200 tablet. Despite measuring only 7.7mm from front to back, the Toshiba AT200 delivers a broad range of essential ports and interfaces. It offers an amazing wide-view display for comfortable content consumption plus full web browsing capabilities to meet the preferred usage for tablets. Every bit as powerful as it is stylish and robust, this tablet is built to exceed expectations. To connect with other devices the ultra-slim tablet comes with all essential interfaces and ports onboard: amongst them micro-USB, micro-SD, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The micro-HDMI-port allows streaming HD content to the large screen of a TV. Front and back HD cameras are ideal for video conferencing and augmented reality applications. Toshiba’s new tablet also offers a rich web browsing experience including support of Adobe Flash Player, access to more than 250,000 apps on Android Market and Toshiba Places for endless possibilities. www.toshiba.com

NATIVE UNION PLAY Designed by Fabien Nauroy, “Play” is the ultimate videomemo. Slimline and stylish, “Play” has a magnetized back so it can be mounted on a fridge or other metallic surfaces. It is also supplied with a magnetic wall-tape pad that can stick to any surface. “Play” has been designed and manufactured to the highest specification and includes a high quality video camera, a 2.4“ color screen, and a sophisticated 3 minute multiple message recording system. Messages are recorded with time and date. Suitable for all ages, this smart design allows full operation from 3 simple buttons. www.nativeunion.com

REVO K2 K2 is a towering column of aluminium and moulded rubber, capable of delivering reception of a wide variety of radio formats including DAB, DAB+, FM and Internet radio. K2 also offers full audio and video playback from a variety of Apple devices, access to online music service Last.fm and the ability to wirelessly stream music files from any connected PC or Mac. K2â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proprietary audio hardware effortlessly produces 40 watts of room-filling high resolution digital audio, courtesy of a quartet of neodymium Balanced Mode Radiator speaker drivers and dual Class-D amplifiers. The result is near 360 degree dispersion, providing a massively expanded listening sweet-spot, detailed high-end clarity, rich tones and deep bass. www.revo.co.uk

THOMAS SABO WATCHES This watch, completely immersed in black, is absolutely eye-catching. The IP coating in matt black perfectly complements the design of the THOMAS SABO Watches Collection. The sword-shaped stop second hand is based on the jewellery collection. www.thomassabo.com

SONY NEX-7 So much more than a pocket camera, the 24.3MP NEX-7 exceeds expectations. Get performance that would give most DSLRs camera envy, including interchangeable lenses, a 2359K dot Tru-Finder OLED electronic viewfinder, up to 10fps shooting, and outstanding Tri-Navi 3-dial manual control. Record amazing HD movies in super-smooth 60p, standard 60i or cinematic 24p, all at Full HD 1920x1080 resolution. Enjoy the stunning imagery the AVCHD codec delivers or use the MP4 codec for smaller file sizes and easier upload to the web. With the same APS-C sensor size as a DSLR, a higher resolution than most DSLRs and the interchangeable lenses that make DSLRs so attractive, the NEX-7 is still just about half the weight and half the size as its DSLR counterparts. The included E-mount 18-55mm lens will have you documenting the touching, the stunning and the inspirational in no time. www.sony.co.nz

RAZR X HL IRONS Engineered to provide distance, accuracy and forgiveness to golfers looking to take their game to the next level, the super game-improvement RAZR X HL Irons feature a cast stainless steel design with a wide, confidence-inspiring sole for smooth turf interaction. A low center of gravity makes the sweet spot more accessible at lower impact locations on the face where many amateurs strike the ball, delivering longer, more consistent distance and improved accuracy. The RAZR X HL Irons also have a fully integrated clubface/ undercut cavity system, enabling engineers to precisely position the center of gravity and engineer the face of each individual iron to maximize ball speed. The multimaterial medallion on the back of the clubhead is made of aluminum and thermoplastic polyurethane to fine-tune sound and enhance feel. www.callawaygolf.com

SEE LIFE / MUSIC

Hollywood Knight: The Seger Sessions By Brian McCollum/Detroit Free Press You arrive at the little cabin 40 miles north of Detroit, tucked in the woods with the turning leaves, and can’t help but think: This is such a Bob Seger scene. The rustic spot is where the 66-year-old Midwest rock icon comes to get away, think and write. Show up on the right morning, and you’ll find lyric pads and rhyme dictionaries scattered about. On the wall are childhood photos of Seger’s son and daughter, alongside images chronicling his five-decade career from local watering holes to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “If I want to sing really loud on the front porch, nobody hears me,” Seger says with a grin, gesturing at the 60-acre property

around him. “I can work at 3 in the morning and not bother a soul.” Since he eased off the music scene in the ‘90s to raise a family, it has been come-andgo for the artist behind such hits as “Night Moves” and “Against the Wind.” This month is all go, as he takes to the road for a new round of shows in the US with his Silver Bullet Band. He’s completing an album for release next year. And he’s finally taking the digital plunge, with a pair of remastered live albums (1976’s “Live Bullet” and 1981’s “Nine Tonight”) that have now hit iTunes and Amazon. There was a poignant air when Seger’s tour started in March. Unsure about his stamina,

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he was convinced retirement was at hand. But that 27-show run, a hits-filled affair that included six sold-out Michigan dates, earned glowing reviews on its way to a US$22- million gross. “I didn’t think there was any way I wouldn’t call it quits,” he says. “But it went so well and turned out so much easier than I thought, I said, ‘Let’s just go finish it.’” Seger’s voice has held up well. The only real struggles are the low notes, he says, humming the chorus of his 1977 hit “Mainstreet.” He’ll address that this fall by adopting an inear monitor to better hear himself. This latest round of touring is just his fourth in 25 years. His songs might be everywhere – staples of classic-rock radio, soundtracks and his 9-million-selling “Greatest Hits” compilation – but the man himself has been a fleeting figure. For long stretches, the public got just occasional glimpses of Seger, who would pop up at Detroit Pistons games and regattas, the hair a little whiter each time. Though fans

When I was touring in the past, I always thought, ‘I want to go sailing, ride my cycle or play golf.’ Now I’m back to liking the music more than any of it

clamoured for tours, they seemed to understand: He was raising his family, stretching his legs, doing his thing. “But you know what’s weird now?” Seger asked. “When I was touring in the past, I always thought, ‘I want to go sailing, ride my cycle or play golf.’ Now I’m back to liking the music more than any of it. When you see the end coming, you want to go out with a bang. “I’m 66. Wait – 67? No, next year I’ll be 67. So I know I better get it and enjoy it while I can.” Seger’s digital adventure started with his blockbuster concert albums, which arrived a decade after iTunes transformed the record business. He knows all about waiting: It was “Live Bullet” that thrust him to national acclaim after years of trying, with sales eventually topping 5 million. Recorded over two nights at Detroit’s Cobo Arena, the record captured Seger and his Silver Bullet Band in full flight. “It was the show we’d been doing for two hours a night, 300 nights a year, fronting for Kiss and Aerosmith and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, all these groups, and here we

were headlining our hometown,” he says. “It was pretty historic for us.” Seger’s digital move is more welcome news for an industry that is finally enjoying a growth spurt. Album sales are up 3 percent over this point last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan, fuelled by a 20 percent rise in downloads of older work. “We’re getting great digital growth on catalogue, and Bob Seger is one of those iconic artists,” explains David Bakula, a senior vice president with Nielsen. “There’s a big demographic on iTunes that isn’t there to pick out the big hit single of the day, but wants to rediscover these heritage rock artists. And they’re not just cherry-picking songs – they want to hear the full albums as they remember them.” The classics are all fine and well, but Seger isn’t just looking back. He continues to work on his first album since 2006, aiming for release by this time next year. Eight songs are done, including “Hey Gypsy,” a Texas-fried tribute to the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, and “Ride Out,” a muscular commentary on the pace of the modern life.

He plans to write at least four more this winter, sticking with a familiar creative method: playing and writing and waiting and rewriting. It’s always been this way. Songs such as “Like a Rock” and “We’ve Got Tonight” were epics months in the making – “blood on the page,” as his friend Don Henley would say. “You’ve really got to beat yourself up to create what Henley used to call ‘rhymes with dignity,’” Seger says. “He used to tell me: ‘Sometimes we can sing it good, if we’re competent singers. But it’s better to be able to read it good.’ So I like my lyrics to read well, and I think they do.” Even the classics get rewrites: “Looking back on it now, I think ‘Night Moves’ was too fast. So we play it slower live and it’s much more effective. I was singing the words really fast in ‘76, when I was young. And that does change.” Seger figures more work time is coming. He and his wife, Nita Seger, just saw their 18-year-old son off to college, and their 16-year-old daughter got her driver’s license last month. “We’re moving into the empty-nest era,” he says. “If I’m going to write, I’ve got to just be really buried in it.” And while he’s not ready to commit, Seger won’t rule out the possibility of more touring. “Live Nation tells me the way I do it is smart because it makes people miss you,” he said. “Which is the exact opposite of what everybody told me many years ago: ‘Tour as much as you can!’ “I look at Lady Gaga. She toured so much and really built a base. And that’s what you do when you’re young. Then later, you let everyone miss you – it’s even more special when you do go out.”

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SEE LIFE / MOVIES

At the flicks The Descendants

Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause Directed by: Alexander Payne Rated: R Running time: 115 min The Academy Award season is upon us, and it’s time for those films that seem to be beg for Oscar attention. You know the ones where an actor either plays a historical figure, gains or loses a lot of weight, or has lots of opportunities to chew the scenery like a Texas steak. J. Edgar, we’re lookin’ at you. But then there are other types of films where it’s less about the grand gesture and the big moments than the intimate details and the subtle performances. Such is the case with The Descendants, a comedic family drama where nothing brutally explosive happens but is quietly powerful nonetheless. George Clooney is Matt King, a Honolulu lawyer whose wife is in a coma after a boat-

ing accident. He has two rebellious daughters – teen-age Alexandra (Shailene Woodley, The Secret Life of an American Teenager) and 10-year-old Scottie (newcomer Amara Miller) – that he doesn’t know how to raise. He also has a busload of cousins on his back because he’s the trustee over valuable real estate that the family owns and most of the cousins want to sell. The Descendants, then, is a story of a man in the midst of crisis: a guy becoming untethered from the world – marriage, family, the land – that he had long known. Based on a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings and directed/ co-written by Alexander Payne (Sideways), The Descendants possesses a light touch that’s disarming. The cinematography from Phedon Papamichael (The Ides of March) is postcard-pretty – though you get glimpses of an urban Hawaii not necessarily seen in a lot of movies. And, as in Sideways, there are plenty of humorous moments, many of them involving Alexandra’s clueless boyfriend, Sid (Nick Krause). Yet underneath the smooth surface roils an emotional ocean. Before the accident, Matt

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had promised himself that he was going to try and repair his collapsing marriage. And Alexandra, in the throes of acting out in the early part of the film, had had a big fight with her mother. If Mom doesn’t wake up, both of them may end up hounded the rest of their lives by regret. While the (largely unknown) ensemble is excellent, it’s Clooney who really stands out. Avoiding many of the tics and mannerisms that have become his trademark, he plays a man who suddenly finds himself helpless in the face of what life has tossed at him. It’s not a flashy, showy performance, merely one that is instantly recognizable as honest. Also intriguing is the setting, the Hawaii of contemporary reality as opposed to tourist cliches. Many of the peripheral and secondary characters appear to be of Polynesian/ Hawaiian descent and these aren’t faces usually seen in major Hollywood dramas. The Descendants isn’t the loudest film of the season but it doesn’t need to be. This is a case where speaking softly reveals hard truths. – By Cary Darling

J. Edgar

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Josh Hamilton, Geoff Pierson, Naomi Watts Directed by: Clint Eastwood Rated: R Running time: 137 min If you prefer hearsay over history and acting over accuracy, J. Edgar is the biopic for you! This brooding drama examines the public and private life of an odd, tortured man who worked tirelessly – and manipulated others – to become the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He served eight presidents over the course of 48 years, but as this film attempts to point out, J. Edgar Hoover really only served himself. The film begins wonderfully with the 1919 Palmer raids against pro-communism anarchists and other supposed radicals. Here’s a history lesson you don’t hear about too much. In response to several of these anarchist bombings, U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer took the law into his own hands – working closely with the 24-year-old Hoover (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and the FBI to attack people for their ideas without evidence of crimes. It’s the first of the film’s many examples of what can happen when sweeping power falls into the hands of a self-righteous man hiding behind the veil of patriotism. As Hoover himself says in the picture, “sometimes you need to bend the rules a little to keep our country safe.” This point is driven home when Hoover questionably uses wiretapping to blackmail other political officials and uses mere speculation to attempt to defame Martin Luther King Jr., a swelling civil rights leader whom he viewed as a revolutionary threat. But the film also touches on some of Hoover’s greatest accomplishments. He encouraged the use of criminal science, in particular, fingerprint identification. In the ‘30s, Hoover gathered the largest collection of fingerprints to date, expanded the FBI’s recruitment and created the FBI laboratory – a division established to examine evidence found by the FBI. The film shows how criminal science played a big part in the arrests of John Dillinger and other bank robbers as well as the controversial case of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping (yet another event in which Hoover played on America’s fears to increase his power). However, large chunks of Hoover’s long career have been left out of the script. From

his early refutal of organized crime and his public battle with T.R.M. Howard, to his work with the controversial COINTELPRO program and just about any interaction he had with President Truman, there’s a lot not that’s never mentioned in J. Edgar. In fact, the ‘40s and ‘50s are largely passed over. Instead, we’re given significantly longer looks into Hoover’s secretive personal life. According to this biopic, Hoover was influenced as much by his hunger for power as he was by Annie Hoover (Judi Dench), his stiff, smothering mother. It’s interesting watching DiCaprio coil in fear of his character’s mother – those scenes bring flashbacks of Norman Bates in Psycho to mind. In a stroke of homophobia, Mrs. Hoover tells her son that she’d rather “have a dead son than a daffodil.” Those words seem to have a huge effect on the sexually confused Hoover’s relationship with handsome, fash-

ionable FBI underling Clyde Tolson (played by Armie Hammer). The exact nature of this relationship, as well as Hoover’s sexuality, have been the source of widespread speculation for decades. No living person knows the truth. Yet the script of Dustin Lance Black (who deservedly won an Academy Award for writing Milk) insists the men definitely had strong feelings for each other. However, Hoover could barely bring himself to acknowledge their love because of his upbringing. The historical/political drama takes a backseat to forbidden romance down the stretch and J. Edgar becomes more Brokeback Mountain than biopic. After starting as an insightful look at Hoover’s career, you wonder why Black and director Clint Eastwood play up this particular Hoover controversy while so many of his other controversies are merely brushed over. Truly, J. Edgar will be remembered as one of Eastwood’s most unfocused and uneven films, but he also should be praised for bringing out some remarkable performances. DiCaprio will undoubtedly earn an Oscar nomination for his take on the jowly, mixed-up Hoover, who ranged from macho, ruthless and adventurous to conniving, senile and even fragile. Largely, this somber film is too nice to a political figure who was anything but. J. Edgar Hoover was one of the most reviled men in America at one point, so you’d expect this film to follow in the footsteps of Frost/ Nixon. Nope. This one’s more Romeo & Juliet. – By Shea Conner

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