Lili laughs

Gina Rinehart sings Sweet Child O'Mines on Wednesday Night Fever #WNF

McGorry to feature on ABC's show One Plus One?

I saw a promo on ABCTV about an upcoming special on the show One Plus One with Jane Hutcheon featuring Prof. Patrick McGorry. I think they were seeking people for the audience or a forum. Unfortunately I can't find anything at the ABC's website about this to verify the details. 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/programs/one-plus-one/ 

While I would never advocate that anyone personally bother the professor, I do hope that whatever this show is to be that it isn't a festival of back-slapping from a collection of associates and admirers. There are many elements of McGorry's work that deserve criticism, and there are many critics. I hope these perspectives will be well-represented in the upcoming show. 

The two faces of Lateline

How ironic. Lateline on the ABC last night featured an interview with Professor Patrick McGorry. He has in the past expressed his concern, as a professional mental health doctor, for the welfare of asylum-seekers imprisoned in detention centres for long periods of time, and he was again expressing such concerns last night. A less likable aspect of the professor is his insistent advocacy of routine and widespread psychiatric intervention into the lives of young people who show what could controversially be interpreted as the first signs of psychosis, including the definite possibility use of controversial neuroleptic drugs such as Seroquel/Quetiapine. Prof McGorry has been the subject of widespread and effective opposition on this front from other mental health professionals. I thought last night's interview on Lateline gave the professor a sympathetic run, with an absence of questions about psychiatric drug interventions and their negative effects. In stark contrast, apparently tonight Lateline will be running an exclusive story about the serious misuse of this same class of stupefying and damaging psychiatric drugs in nursing homes. I really do wonder whether there is a wilful lack of attention going on a the ABC. It is politically easy to question the questionable use of questionable drugs, except when a charismatic public figure says they are completely necessary. 

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/

I want an assurance from someone in the government that any asylum-seekers who develop mental illness or apparent mental illness while detained overseas will not be inappropriately or routinely prescribed questionable drugs, and will not be included in any trials of interventions of such a nature. 

Tonight's story on Lateline looks like it will be powerful stuff, but I doubt that it will be as big as the expose of the anti-anxiety psychiatric drug Xanax that was on Seven's Sunday Night last month:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/transcripts/article/-/14243425/xanax/

A political quote to ponder from a wise ALP elder

"I've even, Paul, fought more Greens and Liberals and Nationals than you've done media interviews."  (cheers, applause and smiles from the audience at a left-wing conference) "Why don't you just put a sock in it for once?" 

That was a highlight of ALP Senator John Falkner's reply to union leader and ALP faceless man Paul Howe's attack on the Greens over voting preferences. A short excerpt of Howes' and Falkner's speeches can be viewed on the ABC TV show Insiders. In my opinion, the idea of attacking the Greens has many risks for the ALP, and Paul Howes has demonstrated a level of zero expertise in courting the voter.

Aston, Heath (2012) Put a sock in it, Falkner tells Howes. Sydney Morning Herald. July 15th 2012. 

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/put-a-sock-in-it-faulkner-tells-howes-20120714-222tr.html

John Mendoza on One Plus One

Today an interview with the outspoken and controversial Australian psychiatrist John Mendoza was broadcast on the ABC's current affairs interview show One Plus One, along with some other interviews. Journalist Jane Hutcheon was the interviewer. When asked about the current strong advocacy in Australia for early intervention services for young people judged to be at risk of developing psychosis, Mendoza claimed that there was strong evidence, but I don't recall that he stated what of. His words might have sounded quite authoritative to a viewer with only a marginal interest and little background knowledge of the issue, but I was unimpressed, to say the least. Hutcheon also held Mendoza to account for his unprofessional smears of former PM Kevin Rudd during the run-up to the last leadership spill in the ALP, which is surely a question that needed to be asked.

One Plus One.
ABC.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/programs/one-plus-one/

They are still talking about the Ruddocalypse, after all this time

Did Gillard and her colleagues believe that Rudd and the events of June 2010 would fade from the collective memory and fall back into the pages of history books? Dumb call.

I don't get why it is still such a live question as to when Gillard started planning her coup. Fowler unsuccessfully tried to get an answer out of the PM about some new evidence that she had planned well in advance, destroying the story that she was a party to the coup only as a last resort. It was reported by Patricia Karvelas on the front page of the Oz way back in December 2010 that months before the spill the "faceless man" Don Farrell told the US embassy that Gillard was campaigning for the leadership, according to a Wikileaks diplomatic cable release. I wrote about the lack of apparent impact of this story shortly after it was published. At the time it appeared that the ABC had not reported the story.

The Comeback Kid?
By Andrew Fowler and Peter Cronau
Four Corners
ABCTV
February 10th 2012
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/02/10/3427070.htm

"Julia Gillard 'after top job a year before coup': WikiLeaks"
By Patricia Karvelas
The Australian
December 17, 2010
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/julia-gillard-after-top-job-a-year-before-coup-wikileaks/story-fn59niix-1225972416553
http://www.news.com.au/national/julia-gillard-after-top-job-a-year-before-coup-wikileaks/story-e6frfkvr-1225972601117?from=public_rss

A nod of the head means yes

I couldn't help noticing, as it was a quite vigourous gesture, something most interesting in the battling Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's body language during a recent interview. Most Australians will be aware that the High Court's recent decision about the Gillard government's "Malaysian solution" to the issue of dealing with refugees in boats has dealt a heavy blow to the credibility of the government and the current PM, and questioning about Gillard's leadership now has an added gravity. I was just watching a recording of Friday night's Lateline, and at the beginning of the story some video of Gillard being interviewed for Sky News was shown. She was asked "Has anyone approached you about stepping down?" and Gillard replied with a clear "No", but as she said it she nodded her head (once). In my experience, when people are lying in a yes/no type statement, they often nod or shake their head in accordance with the truth, but in conflict with their verbal answer. A nod generally means "Yes" in Australian culture. If "yes" is the true answer, I wonder who did the approaching?

Just after Gillard's nod was shown there was another piece of video of government minister Nicola Roxon being asked "Can you envisage Kevin Rudd returning?" Roxon answered "No" then shook her head and then had a bet both ways with a quick nod. It seems a funny way to answer a simple-enough question.

At present video of this story doesn't appear to be on the Lateline website, but it should come up eventually. Gillard's nod was also shown towards the beginning of the Insiders show on the ABC broadcast on Sunday September 4th 2011.

Lateline.
ABCTV
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/

McGorry on Lateline tonight

Tony Jones asked Prof. Patrick McGorry a lot of questions in an interview tonight, but the answers left me unimpressed. McGorry is now going after the states for support for his plans, not satisfied with what he's already got from the federal government. When is the professor going to stop?

Fitzsimmons, Hamish (2011) Mental health experts disagree on future of care.
Lateline. ABCTV. August 18th 2011.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3297038.htm

There's a pill for that....

I was watching the ABCTV science show Catalyst, and there was a story about the weird sleep habits of teenagers, and among the talking heads shown in the story was the Australian psychiatrist Professor Ian Hickie, who has had a long and happy professional relationship with a number of pharmaceutical companies, and I said he was sure to be there to mention some melatonin-based drug as a treatment. Was I wrong?

Staying Up Late.
21 July 2011
Catalyst.
ABCTV
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3275022.htm

Prof. Hickie shares advice and some rather confused ideas about evolution and health in some extended interviews:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/sleep/

Not long after watching this episode of Catalyst I came across an article in The Conversation from May of this year that provided some interesting and rather concerning information about the professor's relationship with one melatonin-like drug, Agomelatine produced by Servier, a company which has supported Prof. Hickie's research. Take special note of the full content of the comments about this article:

Tackling depression and poor sleep with one drug.
by Sunanda Creagh
18 May 2011
The Conversation.
http://theconversation.edu.au/tackling-depression-and-poor-sleep-with-one-drug-1332

The Prime Minister's Speech

I don't know why it is that some people have an irresistible impulse to imitate funny accents and funny voices the very instant after they've heard a novel way of speaking. It was during one of these childish moments that I stumbled across an explanation for the the strikingly gauche way that Prime Minister Julia Gillard speaks. Her supposedly broad Australian accent has been much celebrated and hated, and is as much a part of her personal mythology as her famous but no longer authentic red hair. I have for a long time wondered about her accent. I have travelled through all of the states of Australia, with the exception of Tasmania, and there are definitely many subtle regional variations of the Australian accent, some from rural Victoria being particularly different, but I don't recall running into anyone with an accent reminiscent of Gillard's. When I watched the story about Julia Gillard's personal background on Australian Story on ABC television which was broadcast only days before Gillard's political assassination of the then-PM Kevin Rudd in 2010, I was fascinated to note that none of her family members shown on that show seemed to have the same strange accent as Julia's. So where did this accent come from? My best guess was that Gillard's accent is not a regional variation, but something peculiar to some union or some political group that Gillard has at one time been a member of.

By some unknown neurological mechanism I find that I have the gift of perfectly imitating any weird accent immediately after hearing it, but not if I delay the imitation for more than a second or two. So there I was speaking like a Julia, and I was surprised at how easy it was. I was really on a roll. I simply pushed my chin in a particular direction as I spoke, as though I had some type of fine motor defect that skewed my perception of the position of my chin. It felt much more like a speech impediment than an accent, so simple was the genesis of this odd mode of speech. The famous Gillard accent isn't an accent, it's a speech disorder. I guess I shouldn't complain that we have a PM who can't speak properly. I do sincerely believe that disabled people have as much of a right to a place in society as anyone, but by cripes, I wish she'd get some speech therapy.

She who waits.
Australian Story.
ABC TV
June 21 2010
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/shewhowaits/default.htm

The Most Dangerous Man in the World worth a read

I haven’t been able to find the time to read Andrew Fowler’s new biography of Wikileaks creator Julian Assange from cover to cover, but the stuff that I have read has impressed me. It appears that Fowler has been able to draw from many important sources, including the man himself, for his book. The events in Assange’s life outlined in this book and also in the interview with Fowler by Paul Barclay give many clues about the possible origins of Assange’s attitudes towards the state, feminism and women. The book also gives an IQ score for Assange, and in my opinion one shouldn’t underestimate how much having such a high level of intellectual functioning can alienate a person from society in general. It is my opinion that Assange is a fine example of a famous person who appears to have a number of autistic traits, but whose life story is such that it is not possible to determine whether it is an essentially autistic neurology or a high IQ combined and an isolated childhood that made the person a definite outsider.

An amusing quote referring to Julian Assange by Fowler in an interview broadcast on Big Ideas:
“I like him at the moment - I haven’t spent enough time with him, quite clearly.”

Fowler, Andrew (2011) The Most Dangerous Man in the World: The inside story on Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks secrets. Melbourne Universty Press, 2011.
http://catalogue.mup.com.au/978-0-522-85866-2.html

Barclay, Paul (2011) The Most Dangerous Man In The World. Big Ideas. Radio National ABC. April 14th 2011.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2011/3190587.htm
[an interview with Andrew Fowler about his book about Julian Assange, audio can be downloaded]

Julian Assange looking rough in interview on Australian TV

I've just watched the (edited) interview of Julian Assange by Leigh Sales on the ABCTV show 7.30, formerly known as The 7.30 Report. I was a bit surprised at Assange's appearance - his face was covered in blemishes, his hair was a mess and he needed a shave. Assange has never been particularly normal in the way he presents himself, but I thought he looked rougher than usual. He blinked a lot, which is normal for Assange.

Assange's rather dramatic question for our Prime Minister Julia Gillard that was delivered a while ago on the ABCTV show Q & A was discussed. The full interview will be available some time soon at the website of 7.30.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/

Rudd to appear on Q & A

Australia's Foreign Minister and former PM Kevin Rudd is scheduled to appear as a guest on Q & A on ABCTV on Monday April 4th 2011. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

Rudd at the National Press Club

It felt a bit like old times watching the Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd's recent address to the National Press Club. I don't have the interest or the background to be able give any type of serious review of the talk, but I do know that the former PM looked smart and confident, very much the way he performed in public speaking before his term as PM started to go pear-shaped. I thought he handled the questioning about "faceless men" with care and intelligence. Over the last five months or so there have been a few times when this interesting man has looked rather lost, but he's back now, for sure. If you wish to record this broadcast, I believe ABC 1 will be repeating it at some ungodly hour of the morning coming up.

http://www.npc.org.au/speakers/kevin-rudd.html

Gillard scrutinised by Four Corners

It has been around six months since Gillard took over the role of Prime Minister of Australia in the coup that removed Kevin Rudd, and after all this time we see a serious journalistic story broadcast which poses the question "... does she have what it takes to lead the Labor Party and the country?" If people are still asking this question, I think the answer must be obvious.

The Real Julia?
Reporter: Liz Jackson
Four Corners. ABCTV.
Broadcast: 07/02/2011
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2011/s3129028.htm