What were they trying to sell?

ANZ took down  billboards  in Auckland and Wellington after a single complaint.

The offending slogan was: “In a perfect world, your son would grow up. And your daughter wouldn’t.”

What does that mean?

What were they trying to sell?

Who was stupid enough to think that was a good phrase to sell it?

Not a good week for unions

It should have been a good week for unions.

The CTU and EPMU got plenty of publicity at the Labour Party conference last weekend and they tried to capitalise on that with marches against the government on Wednesday.

But that was all overshadowed by stories which put them on the wrong side of public opinion.

Few question the difficulties teachers face in their job. But demands for a 4% pay rise are out of step with the generally accepted need for frugality, and refusing to teach some classes when pupils are close to exams isn’t winning them any sympathy.

Nor is there much sympathy for claims by health workers when doctors say  strikes are putting patients at risk.

But the most damage to unions is that by the actors whose actions have put the filming of The Hobbit at risk.

Weta Workshop’s boss Sir Richard Taylor last night said the New Zealand film industry was “at some level of peril”.

He said a $670 million US-backed production of Tolkien classic The Hobbit could be produced elsewhere if a union boycott of the project was not lifted.

“We are deeply concerned it may [go overseas].

“Our industry is being put in a very dire place by very few people who have nothing to do with the film industry in New Zealand.”

A poll on the New Zealand Herald website last night showed 88% of respondents blamed the union for the Hobbit debacle and only 16% blamed Peter Jackson.

Phil Goff and his MPs have been notable for their silence on this issue.

That’s probably because it’s difficult for outsiders to discern much difference between unions and Labour so a bad week for one is a bad week for the other.

October 22 in history

On October 22:

362  A mysterious fire destroyed the temple of Apollo at Daphne outside Antioch.

1383  The 1383-1385 Crisis in Portugal: King Fernando diedwithout a male heir to the Portuguese throne, sparking a period of civil war and disorder.

1633 Battle of southern Fujian sea: The Ming dynasty defeated the Dutch East India Company.

1707 – Scilly naval disaster: four British Royal Navy ships ran aground near the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and thousands of sailors drowned.

1730 Construction of the Ladoga Canal  completed.

 

1734  Daniel Boone, American pioneer and hunter, was born (d. 1820).

1746 The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) received its charter.

1784  Russia founded a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

1790  Warriors of the Miami tribe under Chief Little Turtle defeated United States troops under General Josiah Harmar in the Northwest Indian War.

 

1797 André-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump 1,000 metres (3,200 feet) above Paris,.

1811 Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer, was born (d. 1886).

1836  Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.

1844  The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ.

1875  First telegraphic connection in Argentina.

1877  The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland killed 207 miners.

1878 The first rugby match under floodlights took place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.

1883 The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opened with a performance of Gounod’s Faust.

1895  In Paris an express train overran a buffer stop and crossed more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse.

1907  Panic of 1907: A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company set events in motion that led to a depression.

 

1910  Dr. Crippen was convicted of poisoning his wife.

1919  Doris Lessing, British writer, Nobel Prize laureate, was born.

1924  Toastmasters International was founded.

1934   Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shot and killed notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.

1941  French resistance member Guy Môquet and 29 other hostages are executed by the Germans in retaliation for the death of a German officer.

1943  World War II: in the Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless.

 

1944  World War II: Battle of Aachen: The city of Aachen fell to American forces after three weeks of fighting, making it the first German city to fall to the Allies.

1946  Deepak Chopra, Indian-American physician and writer, was born.

1953  Laos gained independence from France

1957 Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.

1960  Independence of Mali from France.

1962   Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announced that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the Communist nation.

1963  A BAC One-Eleven prototype airliner crashed in UK with the loss of all on board.

1964  Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but turns down the honor.

1964  A Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selected the design which became the new official Flag of Canada.

1966  The Supremes became the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A’ Go-Go).

1966  The Soviet Union launches Luna 12.

1968  Apollo 7 safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.

1970  Tunku Abdul Rahman resigned as Prime Minister of Malaysia.

1972 Poet James K. Baxter died.

1972 Vietnam War: In Saigon, Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu met to discuss a proposed cease-fire.

1975  The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 landed on Venus.

1976  Red Dye No. 4 was banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.

1981 The TGV railway service between Paris and Lyon was inaugurated.

 

1983  Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the Supermax model of prisons.

1991 Dimitrios Arhondonis, was elected 270th Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch as Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Orthodox church.

1999  Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity.

2005  Tropical Storm Alpha formed in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.

 

2006  A Panama Canal expansion proposal was approved by 77.8% of voters in a National referendum.

2007  Raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base carried out by 21 Tamil Tiger commandos.

2008  India launched its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Limbeck – to rack the brain in serach of a new idea.

Biography of My Skin

When Biography of My Skin started with Miranda Harcourt addressing us from a screen I was disappointed – I’d thought it was going to be a live production.

But that was a fleeting thought because I was immediately engrossed in what she was saying and within minutes she called out from the auditorium, strode on to the stage and started chatting to us in person.

It was an innovative start to a unique play which held me spellbound throughout.

Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, often thought-provoking, this is the story of a remarkable woman, her family, relationships and life, written by her husband Stuart McKenzie who also appears, first on screen then in person.

Quite how much dramatic licence has been applied to the stories and performance is difficult to tell, but that’s part of the play’s appeal.

It takes great skill from both scriptwriter and actors to tell a story which is both intensely intimate and personal yet also universal. Biography of My Skin did it superbly. Nearly 24 hours after seeing the play I am still thinking about it and pondering some of the questions it raised, among which is: “how can I be a good mother if I’m not a good daughter?

Men were in a minority in the audience but those I spoke to afterwards enjoyed it just as much as the women.

Biography of My Skin has been touring the country. Last night’s was its only appearance in the Oamaru Opera House.

The tour concludes with shows in Christchurch this Friday and Saturday. If I was going to be anywhere near the city, I’d put it on my not-to-be-missed list.

Jon Morgan wins Rural Women ag journalism award

Jon Morgan from the Dominion Post has won Rural Women New Zealand’s 2010 award for  journalists who highlight acheivements of rural women.

He was commended for writing stories which shine a spotlight on rural issues for a largely urban readership.

The Runner-up for the award was Liz Brook, who writes for Central Districts Farmer.

“We set up the award with the Guild two years ago to encourage greater balance in rural journalism,” says Rural Women New Zealand National President, Liz Evans. 

 “It is rewarding to see more articles being written about women in rural communities achieving extraordinary things, both in farming and in the general rural environment. 

Morgan’s winning stories were: Sweet smell of lambing success and Unlocking women’s rural skills .

Brooks winning stories were: Beefing up the meat industry and Staying true to the land and to God.

These awards were announced at the Guild of Agricultural Journalist’s annual dinner. Other winners were:

BNZ Partners’ Rongo Award recognising excellence in agricultural journalism: Richard Rennie,  for a portfolio of articles which appeared in NZ Farmers Weekly and NZ Dairy Exporter, focussing on issues around the possible sale of the Crafar farms to overseas interests.

Runner-up: the team from NZX Agri’s Country-Wide monthly newspaper, for a series of 12 articles entitled Prime Movers, largely the work of journalist Sandra Taylor.

 BNZ Partners ‘ Farm Business Writing Award: Sandra Taylor, for two articles in the Prime Mover’s series which appeared in Country-Wide.

 AgResearch Science Writers Award, established to enhance standards of science writing, especially about pastoral agriculture: Jon Morgan.

 Horticulture New Zealand Journalism Award, set up last year to recognise excellence in agricultural journalism focussing on New Zealand’s horticulture industry: Jon Morgan. 

 AGMARDT Agribusiness Award, which recognises high quality information about and effective analysis of national, global and other agribusiness: Herald On Sunday journalist, Maria Slade.

Federated Farmers Rural Photography Award, for a single photo that illustrates a rural event or activity – agricultural, horticultural, industry, human interest, on farm / off farm, or any activity reflecting life or work in rural New Zealand: NZX Agri journalist and photographer, Marie Taylor.

The Guild’s own award, designed to encourage and recognise excellence among journalists with three or fewer years reporting on agricultural issues, The Agricultural Journalism Encouragement Award: Blair Ensor of the Marlborough Express.

5/10

Oh dear, the NZ History Online quiz isn’t getting any easier – just 5/10.

It would have been 6 if I’d followed my instinct on the Cobb & Co question.

A tale of two students

Their parents agreed to pay for their accommodation and fees when they went to university.

Both chose to also borrow the maximum available under the student loan scheme.

She finished her first year with nothing left over. He finished his first year with * several thousand dollars in the bank.

This post was prompted by A lifetime of debt? at Kiwiblog.

When student politicians complain about fees and other costs of tertiary education and the burden of student loans, they always assume that everybody has to borrow the maximum amount available to enable them to study.

They don’t. Some get parental help, some win scholarships, some get additional allowances from the state.

Most have the choice of working before they start study, during holidays and at least part time while they’re studying to reduce the amount they have to borrow.

The example I’ve given also shows they have some choice over how much they spend.

* I’ve said “several thousand dollars” because I can’t remember the exact number but it was definitely more than a couple.

October 21 in history

On October 21:

1096 People’s Crusade: The Turkish army annihilated the People’s Army of the West.

1520  Ferdinand Magellan discoversed the strait which was named after him.

1600 Tokugawa Ieyasu defeatedthe leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marked the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan until the mid-nineteenth century.

1772 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet, was born (d. 1834).

1797  In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution was launched.

 

1805 Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeatd a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve.

1805 Austrian General Mack surrendered his army to the Grand Army of Napoleon at the Battle of Ulm.

1816 The Penang Free School was founded in George Town, Penang, by the Rev Hutchings. It is the oldest English-language school in Southeast Asia.

1824  Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement.

1833  Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and founder of the Nobel Prize, was born(d. 1896).

1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.

1861 American Civil War: Battle of Ball’s Bluff – Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker were defeated by Confederate troops.

1867  Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty – Near Medicine Lodge, Kansas a landmark treaty was signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty required Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.

1879 Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tested the first practical electric incandescent light bulb.

 

1892 Opening ceremonies for the World’s Columbian Exposition were held in Chicago, though because construction was behind schedule, the exposition did not open until May 1, 1893.

 

1895 The Republic of Formosa collapsed as Japanese forces invaded.

1902 In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ended.

1917  Dizzy Gillespie, American musician, was born (d. 1993).

1921 Sir Malcolm Arnold, British composer, was born (d. 2006).

1921 President Warren G. Harding delivered the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.

1921 George Melford’s silent film, The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino, premiered.

1929 Ursula K. Le Guin, American author was born.

1931 Vivian Pickles, English actress, was born.

1940  Geoff Boycott, English cricketer, was born.

1940  Manfred Mann, English musician, was born.

1942 Judy Sheindlin, American judge (“Judge Judy”), was born.

1944 The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200 kilograms (440 lb) bomb attacked HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

1945 Women’s suffrage: Women were allowed to vote in France for the first time.

1945 Juan Perón married Evita.

 

1952 Trevor Chappell, Australian cricketer, was born.

1953  Peter Mandelson, British politician, was born.

1956 Carrie Fisher, American actress and writer, was born.

1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened to the public.

1964 Peter Snell won a second gold at the Toky Olympics.

1965  Comet Ikeya-Seki approached perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.

1966  Aberfan disaster: A slag heap collapsed on the village of Aberfan, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren. 

 1967 Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gathered in Washington, D.C..  Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.

1969 A coup d’état in Somalia brought Siad Barre to power.

1973 John Paul Getty III‘s ear was cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome.  

1978 Australian pilot Frederick Valentich vanished in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

1979  Moshe Dayan resigned from the Israeli government because of strong disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy towards the Arabs.

1983  The metre was defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

1986  In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claimed to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy.

1987 Jaffna hospital massacre by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 70.

1994 North Korea and the United States signed an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.

1994  In Seoul, 32 people were killed when the Seongsu Bridge collapsed.

2003  Images of the dwarf planet Eris were taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.

Sourced from NZ History Online & WIkipeda

Word of the day

Tartle - to hesitate while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten her/his name.

I am unfortunately well practised at tartling. Does that make me a tartler?

The Time of the Giants

The Time of the Giants by Anne Kennedy is this Tuesday’s Poem.

Among contributions from other Tuesday poets  are:

 Deep Sea Swimming by Pam Morrison at Cadence.

Harvey McQueen’s Reading Janet Frame at Stoatspring.

Sotto Voce by Clare Beynon at All Finite Things reveal Infinitude.

Thanks by W.A. Merwin at Belinda Hollyer.

Savai’i by Mary McCallum, at O Audacious Book.

And Mariana Isara at Type What You See chose Being the Poem from Walt Whitman’s preface to Leaves of Grass.

2030 and counting

The aftershock count from the Canterbury earthquake was up to 2030 at 9.30 last night.

A friend was in a mall in Christchurch when yesterday’s magnitude 5 one struck. She said the worst thing was that there was nowhere obvious to go that might be safe.

She said that some people are coping better than others. She just takes a deep breath and carries on but a young man who was with her was still shaking more than an hour later.

Paul Nichol’s animated map gives a good idea of the number and frequency of the quakes, but it doesn’t, and can’t, show what life is like for the people for whom normal isn’t normal any more.

The best depiction of that is the speech Amy Adams made in parliament a few days after the first one:

10/10

Bingo!

10/10 in this week’s Dominion Post political triva quiz.

Dairy prices a wee bit lower

Prices dropped a wee bit in Fonterra’s globalDairy Trade auction overnight.

The price for anhydrous milk fat was down 1.2%; butter milk powder dropped 1.1%; skim milk powder was down 4.7%;  whole milk powder was down 1.1% and the trade-weighted price for all products dropped 2.5%.

Prices are still above the long term average.

166 state house rip-offs

Housing Minister Phil Heatly said that since last July 166 state-house tenancies were terminated because tenants had dishonestly obtained the house or subsidised rent.

The 166 tenancies terminated included situations where tenants failed to advise Housing New Zealand about income from employment, business interests, assets, or that they lived with a partner. 

“Over the past two years Housing New Zealand has built a highly effective team of expert investigators. This team has identified $6.3m in debt where tenants have received subsidised rent that they were not entitled to,” says Mr Heatley.

More than 130 cases of tenant related fraud have been placed before the courts – a ten-fold increase from two years ago.

Among the cases investigators found were:

• An Auckland man used his state house as a storage facility for commercial goods for his online business, while living in another property which he rented privately under an alias. The Corporation property he rented had five bedrooms – four of which he sublet for $165 a week each. He did not declare rental income or the profits from his business. His tenancy was terminated, criminal charges have been laid, and $18,270 in debt was identified for recovery.

 

• An Auckland man failed to declare that he was running a motor vehicle repair business, was buying and selling cars and leased large commercial premises. He also owned three rental properties which were under a company name, and was living with a partner. His tenancy was terminated and he was prosecuted for fraud. He was sentenced to five months home detention and 100 hours community work. A debt of $68,410 was identified for recovery.

 

•  
  • An Auckland woman, who lived in a state house for six years, deliberately disguised her position as director of a limousine company by using numerous false identities. She owned six taxis when she applied for a state house, and bought another six during her tenancy. She bought and sold a number of vehicles during the six years. She did not declare she had a partner – but married three times prior to and during her tenancy. She also purchased two houses during her tenancy, both of which she rented out. Her tenancy was terminated, and a debt of $63,319 was identified for recovery. She was prosecuted for fraud, and paid $50,000 at the time of sentencing in reparation to avoid prison.



How do these people sleep at night ripping off the public who pays for these  and taking accommodation which other people desperately need?

October 20 in history

On October 20:

1548 The city of Nuestra Senora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace) was founded by Captain Alonso de Mendoza by appointment of the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.

1632 Sir Christopher Wren, English architect, was born (d. 1723).

1740 Maria Theresa takes the throne of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refused to honour the Pragmatic Sanction (allowing succession by a daughter) and the War of the Austrian Succession began.

1781 Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, was approved in Habsburg Monarchy.

1803 The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase.

1818 The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settled the Canada – United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

 

1827  Battle of Navarino – a combined Turkish and Egyptian armada was defeated by British, French, and Russian naval force in the port of Navarino in Pylos, Greece.

1859  John Dewey, American philosopher, was born (d. 1952).

1883  Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancón, by which the Tarapacá province was ceded to the latter, bringing an end to Peru’s involvement in the War of the Pacific.

1904  Anna Neagle, English actress, was born (d. 1986).

1910  The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the RMS Titanic, was launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

 

1904 English actress Anna Neagle was born.

1932 William Christopher, American actor who played Father Mulcahy in M*A*S*H, was born.

1934 Michiko, empress of Japan, was born.

 

1935  The Long March ended.

1941 Stan Graham was shot by police after five days on the run.

1941  World War II: Thousands of civilians in German-occupied Serbia were killed in the Kragujevac massacre.

 

1944  Liquid natural gas leaked from storage tanks in Cleveland, then exploded; levelling 30 blocks and killing 130.

1944 – General Douglas MacArthur fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines when he commanded an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.

 

1947 The House Un-American Activities Committee began its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevented some from working in the industry for years.

 

1950  Tom Petty, American musician, was born.

1951 The “Johnny Bright Incident“  in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

 

1952 Governor Evelyn Baring declared a state of emergency in Kenya and began arresting hundreds of suspected leaders of the Mau Mau Uprising, including Jomo Kenyatta, the future first President of Kenya.

 

1967 A purported bigfoot was filmed by Patterson and Gimlin.

 

1968  Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

1970 Siad Barre declared Somalia a socialist state.

1971 The Nepal Stock Exchange collapsed.

1973  ”Saturday Night Massacre“: President Richard Nixon fired Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refused to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

1973  The Sydney Opera House opened.

1976  The ferry George Prince was struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River. Seventy-eight passengers and crew died and only 18 people aboard the ferry survived.

 

1977 A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines along with backup singer Cassie Gaines, the road manager, pilot, and co-pilot.

1979  The John F. Kennedy library was opened in Boston.

1982  During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people were crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.

 

1984 The Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in Monterey Bay, California.

1991 The Oakland Hills firestorm killed 25 and destroyed 3,469 homes and apartments, causing more than $2 billion in damage.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Brontide – the low rumbling sound of distant thunder, probably caused by seismic activity.

Stalkers and paraprosdokians

The risk of being stalked was the starting point for my chat with Jim Mora on Critical Mass this afternoon.

It was prompted by three posts by Brendan Moyle at Chthonic Wildlife Ramblings, starting with avoiding stalkers online.

We moved from there to paraprosdokians at Eye To The Long Run.

Next stop was White Sun of the Desert where we found phrases commonly heard but not to be believed in little white lies.

Hat Tip for that goes to Quote Unquote which is where we finished with a guest post from Graeme Lay on New Zealand English.

Tuesday’s answers

Monday’s questions were:

1. Who is the President of Chile?

2. Who is the patron saint of miners?

3. Who said, “The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.”?

4. It’s trabajador in Spanish, travailleur in French, lavoratore in Italian and kaimahi in Maori – what is it in English?

5. Who is the outgoing Director General of Agriculture & Forestry and who is his successor?

Points for answers:

Andrei got four.

David got one, a bonus for deduction and another for not ignoring the quiz when he realised he didn’t know the answers.

Bearhunter got 3 (would have been four if you’d followed your instinct on Wilde) with a bonus for comments.

Gravedodger got four and a bonus for paying attention which earns him the electronic bouquet.

Adam got four.

Bobux gets a bonus for being right.

PDM got one right and a bonus for smile-inducing logic.

Answers follow the break:

A tale of two cultures

A New Zealand businesswoman was in China when the discussion with one of her hosts turned to the Canterbury earthquake.

He said it was impossible that no-one could be killed after a quake of that magnitude. The government must have very tight control on the media and the people to keep the death toll hidden.

She laughed.

Then she said that no, no-one had died which was due in part to an element of luck but also to our building codes. She added that had anyone died there would have been no attempt to cover it up, the media here is free and the government not only doesn’t, it couldn’t control it.

He laughed.