A MUDDY PLACE IN THE SUN

Many and varied are the  items and yarns  which  come the way of  this  blog.   Just arrived  is  this original artwork  cartoon  of  journalist  Ian  Mackay , on assignment in New Zealand , dressed as  a  Maori . It is a souvenir from his  days at  Melbourne's  Sun News-Pictorial (said to be  Australia's largest circulating newspaper for more than  50 years )  where for several years he  wrote the  daily column, A Place in the Sun (APITS for short).  It was the newspaper's longest running column , the first  written by  Keith  Dunstan .

 

 "It  was the lot  of  a columnist to be  frequently  humiliated in  the  pursuit of a meagre contribution  to  his  daily measure, " Ian said . "  Hence , I  was   depicted   sinking in  a bubbling, volcanic  mud  pool  at   Rotorua's  Whakarewarewa  by   cartoonist  Neil  Matterson ."  Compensation  for  the  humiliation  included  heaps of  Bluff oysters  and whitebait fritters  down south in Invercargill .

Matterson , also an artist and  illustrator , resigned  several times from the Sun Pictorial  following  rejection    of  his political cartoons  after the dismissal of PM Gough Whitlam on November  11 , l975 , his resignations not  accepted. One of the  strips he invented  was  Cliff, a talking  Koala , who like an archetypal  Australian  could  not  win .  In 1996 he won first prize  in the open theme  section of  the Rotary National  and International  Awards   for  a  Princess  Di gag . 
 

Ian  now has a leafy  place in  the  sun  on  Magnetic Island, complete with nesting   Sunbirds  fore  and  aft .  

MOSCOW CANDIDATE AT BLACK FRIDAY INAUGURATION

 

Washington Post:
Trump's presidency is doomed
Author : Richard Cohen
 

Whether he knows it or not, the spectre of Lyndon Baines Johnson haunts Donald John Trump. There are some jarring similarities — two big, fleshy men given to vulgarities and gauche behavior, boastful, thin-skinned, politically amoral, vengeful, unforgiving and, most important, considered illegitimate presidents. For Johnson, that took some time to sink in; Trump is already there.

 

Johnson ascended to the presidency upon the death of John F. Kennedy and then won election in a landslide over Barry Goldwater. Nevertheless, an air of illegitimacy clung to him like an odour. It thickened as opposition to the Vietnam War became more and more furious and it peaked, in my estimation, with a hoax in 1967 by Paul Krassner in the counterculture magazine the Realist. Tongue in cheek, it reported that Johnson had climbed into Kennedy’s casket and there done unspeakable things. The story was abominable, tasteless and deserved any other insult you could throw at it, but some people believed it. I know. I heard it.
 

Jump now a half-century to the recent stories relating to Trump and alleged shenanigans in Russia at a time not all that distant. The accounts, unverified and as revolting as any concocted about Johnson, had a currency that can be explained only by Trump’s own behavior — a persona that seems so self-indulgent, so juvenile, that almost any sort of behavior seems credible. Trump called the report fake news and, as always, blamed the messenger (the media, the intelligence community, etc.), but he ought to have looked in the mirror and wondered why he looks so ugly to so many people.

 

Krassner is an obscure 1960s figure; Rep. John Lewis is not. The Georgia Democrat said the other day that Trump’s presidency was illegitimate and he would not, as an invited member of Congress, attend the inauguration. Trump, of course, tweeted a disparagement. As he did when he belittled John McCain’s heroism under torture, Trump said Lewis was “all talk” and “no action.”

 

Lewis is one of the last of the great civil rights-era heroes. He marched. He protested. He had his head cracked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. It was 1965 and the Alabama police nearly beat him to death. He is a man of immense courage and morality, so much greater than Trump in those respects.
 

Yes, Trump won in the electoral college, and that, alas, is all that matters. But on the larger point, Lewis is right. Trump conducted a dirty, dishonest campaign that sullied the very presidency he won. He questioned Barack Obama’s legitimacy, trafficked in racism and demagoguery, and seems to have had poll workers in far-off Moscow. Still, he’ll be the president.
 

But Trump ought to pay attention to Lewis and what he represents. The president-elect will take the oath with a minority of the popular vote — a substantial deficit of almost 3 million votes. He enters the Oval Office with historically dismal poll numbers, lower now than right after he won the election. He has done nothing to woo the majority of Americans who rejected his candidacy and has, instead, adhered to his schoolyard habit of tweeting his every grievance, denigrating his every critic, making cameos with vaccine and global-warming doubters and, as if to show some versatility, rascals such as Don King and Kanye West. It is a “Gong Show” with  no  gong  in  sight.
 

Lyndon Johnson would no doubt warn Trump that he is already on thin ice and he will plunge through it the moment Congress takes the measure of his unpopularity. Johnson was a man of huge political abilities and experience, and his achievements in civil rights entitled him to greatness. Yet, when Vietnam went sour, so did the public, and it seemed, after a while, that his personal characteristics, scathingly caricatured by artists such as David Levine and Jules Feiffer, oozed out of him so that they obscured both him and his accomplishments. He was deemed capable of anything — of lying and perversion of all kinds. This is where Trump stands now.
 

By the end of the week, Trump will be the president. I wish him the best; I wish him the worst. The dilemma is how to separate loathing for him from love of country. I am leaving it to time to work that out. Meanwhile, Trump will have his moment, that’s for sure, but when things go wrong he will be chased from office — just like Johnson once was. The ancient Greeks knew why: A man’s character is his fate. In that case, Trump’s presidency is doomed. 

 

London  Review  of   Books:
How to read the Trump Dossier

Author: Arthur Snell-16 years in  Foreign Office , now runs a business intelligence   firm .

 

A former MI6 agent is commissioned, by the opposition, to investigate an American presidential campaign that most people regard as a joke. He uncovers an international conspiracy led by the Russian secret services to put their man in the White House. He tells the British government about it, but they ignore him, believing the ‘Russian’ candidate will never be elected. He turns to the FBI, which takes his dossier more seriously. Then, two weeks before the election, the FBI’s director announces an investigation into the other candidate, the ‘Russian’ candidate’s rival. The Russians’ man wins and the British agent goes into hiding … Oh, and there’s a great sex scene in the Presidential Suite of the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow.

The events that  came to light last week – when a dossier of intelligence reports surfaced online alleging Donald Trump’s eccentric sexual exploits, a long-running conspiracy between Trump and the Russian regime, and inappropriate financial deals over sanctions against Russian companies – read like the plot of a spy novel. None of the claims made in the dossier has yet been verified, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it seriously. Intelligence is information, from a privileged source, that supports decision-making. It is seldom verifiable because that information is rarely in the public domain.

This is especially true of ‘strategic’ intelligence, as opposed to ‘tactical’ intelligence. The latter concerns specific incidents or individuals: a suspected terrorist who is known to be operating in a particular city at a specific address. Tactical intelligence is verified by operational activity, the bin Laden operation being a good example. Strategic intelligence, on the other hand, seeks to explain people’s opinions, intentions and aspirations. France’s foreign intelligence agency, the DGSE, for example, might persuade a senior member of staff at Number 10 to provide intelligence on Britain’s negotiating strategy for Brexit (let’s pretend such a strategy exists). The French can’t verify this intelligence, because until the negotiations begin there is little information available to the public of what that strategy might be. The DGSE could try to suborn another member of May’s ( PM )  team to provide corroboration, but this is risky and could expose both the DGSE and their contact.

At the heart of this game of betrayal is trust: the source of the intelligence must be trusted by his or her handler. The reader of the intelligence report has to trust the provider of the intelligence while remaining critical. Intelligence is about degrees of credibility, and reading it is not the same as reading reportage, or a piece of political analysis. In order to make an assessment of its reliability, a reader needs to examine how it’s been sourced, insofar as that’s possible.

A large number of news media organisations have reported that the dossier is the work of Christopher Steele of Orbis Business Intelligence, a British corporate intelligence consultancy. Steele’s background in government service, including a stint in Moscow, is not in doubt, and the format of the reports in the Trump dossier is the same as that used by most Western intelligence agencies. Surnames are fully capitalised, as they are in MI6 house style.

The dossier’s most explosive report claims that ‘the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting … TRUMP for at least five years,’ and that ‘the TRUMP operation was both supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir PUTIN.’ The same report makes allegations of Trump’s ‘sexual perversion’ (Trump is supposed to have paid prostitutes to urinate on a bed that had been slept in by Barack and Michelle Obama), which the Russians apparently documented in order to possess useful kompromat (compromising material). It explains that two separate sources have attested to a long-term Russian plan to support Trump. One of those sources is a senior figure in the Russian Foreign Ministry, another is a ‘former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin’.

They affirmed the existence of the Russian plan, the report says, while in conversation with ‘a trusted compatriot’. This is an important detail, because it tells us they weren’t speaking to the British author of the report and spinning a line for his benefit, but also because it implies that the chain of information is long, which can easily lead to misunderstandings. A third source, also a Russian official, comments on the Trump operation without demonstrating any specific knowledge about how it was conducted, thereby supplying only limited corroboration.

There’s a further allegation that ‘the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents.’ This claim is made by the Foreign Ministry source and confirmed by another source, described as a ‘close associate’ of the President-elect, who organised Trump’s visits to Moscow and accompanied him on them. The Russians might have confected the allegations and fed them to Steele in order to discredit Trump; but that argument can’t account for why one of Trump’s own people repeated them, unless we suppose he had been suborned by the Russians.

The allegations of a Russian campaign to support Trump are examples of strategic intelligence. The claims about Trump’s unusual sexual activities in a Moscow hotel suite, on the other hand, are tactical: the incident either occurred or it didn’t. The report mentions four different sources referring to it. The ‘close associate’ who arranged the Moscow trips is one. It’s also claimed that the incident was ‘confirmed [by another source] … S/he and several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently.’ This source appears to have had some connection with the hotel where the incident took place, and is said to have introduced one of the intelligence company’s team to ‘a female staffer at the hotel … who also confirmed the story’.

All the other sources in the dossier have had their gender obscured to make it harder to identify them, so this female staffer, we can assume, was a one-off contact used to verify the hotel story rather than an established source. Finally, the Kremlin-based former intelligence officer mentioned earlier is reported to have said that ‘TRUMP’s unorthodox behaviour in Russia’ gave the authorities sufficient material for blackmail.

So, three sources with differing perspectives claim to have specific knowledge of the incident. Two of them appear to be connected with the hotel; one is Trump’s ‘close associate’. A Russian official also claims to have enough material on Trump to be able to blackmail him but doesn’t say what the material concerns. Neither of the hotel-related sources are described as having any formal relationship with the Russian authorities. It is entirely possible that the authorities pressured the hotel employees into confirming the allegations, but again, that doesn’t explain why Trump’s ‘close associate’ made the same allegations. The incident remains unverified, but from an intelligence perspective the reporting of it is at least well-sourced.

Not all of the reports in the dossier have the same degree of sourcing (and some of the reports are not about Trump at all). A report about Trump’s adviser Carter Page’s alleged meetings with senior Russians is based on the testimony of a single source. The report’s content is striking – it claims that discussions took place concerning the removal of sanctions against Russia for its policy in Ukraine – but given the lack of corroboration the reporting lacks credibility.



Other reports are based solely on the word of ‘a Russian émigré figure close to’ Trump. There is no explanation of why this émigré would be party to Kremlin thinking; one report says that s/he merely ‘opined’ and ‘understood’ the Kremlin’s intentions. In another report, a source described as ‘an ethnic Russian associate of … TRUMP’, and who is possibly the same person as the émigré (is the author trying to give the impression of more sources by varying descriptors?), speaks of a ‘well-developed conspiracy of co-operation’ between Trump’s team and the Russian leadership. He/she doesn’t explain how they managed to get access to this information. An experienced reader of intelligence would have little reason to credit the claim without more evidence of co-ordination between Trump’s team and the Kremlin.

One report, possibly based on a statement by an associate of the Kremlin’s former chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, alleges that Michael Cohen, a high-profile lawyer working for Trump, met Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016 to discuss making ‘deniable cash payments … to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the CLINTON campaign’. This allegation has been widely discredited, not least by Cohen himself, who has stated that he was in California at the time – this has been confirmed by witnesses at the University of Southern California, where Cohen was attending a baseball game with his son. Some in the media have suggested that it was a different Michael Cohen who travelled to Prague, but have said nothing about who he might be.

The reporting on Cohen is flawed at best, though the dossier’s author does seem to have received the intelligence from two separate sources, at different times, and to have produced at least three separate reports on the subject. This may be evidence of a Russian misinformation campaign – both sources are described as Kremlin insiders – but elements of the reports can be checked. A man called Oleg Solodukhin is claimed to have been one of the key organisers of the meetings. Solodukhin is a Russian official based in Prague in a quasi-diplomatic role. ‘No such meeting took place,’ he has claimed in interviews with Czech media.


In one of the Cohen reports there is a reference to a company called XBT/Webzilla that allegedly engaged in hacking against the Democratic Party leadership. XBT’s CEO, Aleksej Gubarev, has denied the allegations in interviews and the report itself offers nothing in the way of corroboration, but government agencies such as the NSA or GCHQ may be able to establish whether or not there’s anything in them.

What should an experienced reader of intelligence make of the dossier overall? A small number of the reports appear to contain well-sourced, triangulated intelligence. That does not make them true, but the reader may usefully assume their likelihood while considering wider evidence. Other reports are hard to credit; this does not make them false, but the reader should treat their claims with scepticism even where there seems to be corroboration or confirmation. Many uncertainties remain. The Russians say Christopher Steele (if he really is the author) fabricated the entire dossier as part of a misinformation campaign by MI6; perhaps the Russians fabricated the dossier and fed it to Steele in order to destabilise Trump. But there are enough testimonials vouching for the reliability of Steele and his company to make those interpretations seem unlikely.

For intelligence to have value the reader must trust the author, without being clear on the identities of sources, the methods of collection or the integrity of the process. Blair on Iraq, Obama on bin Laden; both trusted the spooks with little, if any, means of further corroboration, and with varying results.

GREEN CENTRE , SOGGY TOP END

 

After the recent heavy rain in Central Australia , Darwin resident, Rob Wesley-Smith , on  another  transcontinental  crossing  from Adelaide on a  Japanese  camel , named  Honda ,  took  this  photograph  north of  Ti Tree . Arriving back  home , he  found  the  grass  as  high as  an  elephant's eye  on  the  ranch , the billabong  overflowing .

NOMADIC , UPPITY BANK CLERK SIPS WITH PROMINENT ARTIST

( Magnetic Island  researcher  Gary  Davies  recalls drinking sessions with   internationally   regarded  Leonard  French  OBE  , who  died , aged 88 , on   January  10 , at    Heathcote ,Victoria , where  he  lived  and   had  his  studio.  The award  winning artist  was  responsible  for  one of  the world's largest stained  glass  ceilings , below,  in  the  main hall of  the  National  Gallery of  Victoria  ) 

 

In the  late 1960s I was a bank clerk in the service of  the  Commercial Bank of Australia NOT to be confused with the modern Commonwealth Bank. I used to go from branch to branch  filling  any vacancies  from   teller to accountant ... all  at  the  age  of  19.   For a very short time , I was  even made  acting manager when the manager, who had a few problems , disappeared  just before the inspectors   arrived   to   interview  him .

One of my stops was  Heathcote , and at night I would go  to the  pub  for a counter  meal and a few beers. It was a small, friendly and intimate bar filled with a curious mix of   imbibers. One was  Len French , and I was lucky, as occasionally he let a  brash young  bloke who knew nothing about art, wine or stained  glass  chat  with  him . 

 

My memories of him  are still  fresh nearly  50 years on . Tall, upright and distinguished , he wore a  near  full  length suede jacket . I asked him why he wore  such a  long coat and he  explained that  he  worked with stained glass  and it is very  sharp  and could  tear  ordinary  clothes   to   pieces.  

 

He  looked very classy sipping a glass of red  from a half bottle of Lindeman's Cawarra Claret  that  he  kept on the  bar . There  was no sign of  arrogance , although he  was certainly  the  only bloke  in  the  bar  drinking wine . He did not mention  to  me   his  huge 60 metre  long ceiling in the Great Hall  of the National  Gallery of  Victoria , but  his friends made me aware of this .   When I raised  it with  Len , he  told me how excited  he  was   about  the  project .

 

He  also chatted about struggles in his own life  and in  the  art  world .  I  formed the  impression  that he was a  highly skilled  artisan who was about to fly. Even though his feet  were firmly on the ground , he was big enough  to have his head in the clouds, a great combination .

 

 Our conversations were regularly  interrupted by  another  artist  who gave us beautifully inspired  renditions of  Italian operas . I  was really lucky  to have been in Heathcote  at  that  time, an experience which left me with  an ongoing appreciation  for a  glass of  red  and   Puccini .  RIP, Len . 

 

BACKGROUND   INFORMATION

 

FRENCH: Born Brunswick , Melbourne, of Cornish family  origin , left school at  14 , worked on farms  and studied  epics of  Homer in spare time  , apprenticed to signwriter ;  studied  art  at  Melbourne  Technical College   ; first  mural was  for a Brunswick church at the age of  19; worked  passage to London , studied in Ireland , struggled , seven hungry weeks in Amsterdam . Returning to Melbourne , his work displayed in various galleries in the  early 1950s  and in 1955  he painted seven panels ,  The legend of Sinbad the  Sailor , for the Legend  Café . His wide body of work  included  stained  glass and   mosaic windows  for  a  Melbourne  chapel, artwork in  the  Great Hall  at University House   ANU , paintings on the life and death of 16th century British   Jesuit priest   Edmund   Campion who was hanged, disembowelled , beheaded  and quartered . Along the way  he won the   Sulman Prize  and the Blake  Prize for  Religious Art  twice  . Three wives . 

 

DAVIES : Deeply involved  in research into   artists  connected with  The  Bulletin , an  early  Australian  weekly news magazine , now defunct ;  likes a  drop  of red , when it comes to caffeine, not  a latte  drinker  ;  recent  acquisition  a  book   about  wartime  art  . 

CURLEWS INSPIRED KIPLING ?

Kipling was spot on when he wrote  that East is East and West is West , and never the twain shall meet . At the  front of the Little  Darwin cluttered  den , Wingy , seen here standing  defiantly  in  the gutter ,   a raucous  Curlew   with an injured  wing  and  a  partner named Skinny Minnie  , in  a  moment  of   confrontation . 

Frequently at the back  door  are  our  resident  Curlews and their now big, ever hungry  chicks . When   the   pair  of adults  and  Wingy and  mate  meet  there  is a  territorial  battle .

Early one morning  there was  uproar  out  the front , Wingy heard  shrieking . On investigation, feathers were  found  on  the  lawn . Wingy often takes up  a  position    outside  the  wire  door  and   peers  inside , making impatient noises  indicating  he  wants  to  be  fed .  

Like the Where's Willy  game,  if  you closely  examine  this  Curlew, in a secluded spot at the front of the Little Darwin zoo/bookworm farm , you   will find  the beak and  tiny  head of  one of  two  new chicks. The  latest arrivals were  discovered  during  a  break in  the most  welcome   wet  weather . The family  has  since  vanished to  a hopefully  safe  position , away  from  the  road  and   marauders.

CALL FOR PRIME MINISTER TO INTERVENE IN SUGAR DISPUTE

The  North Queensland  Tully Sugar  Mill, above, owned by the Chinese   agribusiness  company COFCO , which  will   undergo  a  $6.5 million upgrade between  now and  the  start of  the   next crushing  season  in  late May .


Meanwhile ,  Prime Minister   Malcolm Turnbull   has been   called  on  to  play a leading part in settling  the  contract  dispute  between  canegrowers  and  the  large  Singapore  based   agribusiness ,  Wilmar  International.  A full page  newspaper  advertisement   inserted by   Geoff  Cox, of Ayr ,a substantial supplier of sugarcane  to Wilmar's  Pioneer  Mill  in the Burdekin ,  says  he  is aware that  the company's chairman , Kuok  Khoun Hong , third richest man in Singapore, has written to the PM  seeking his intervention in the dispute, negotiations   said to have become "personal and bitter ."  He  urges  the PM  to  seriously consider  the letter  and  adjudicate a meeting between  Kouk  and  fresh eyes in the hope to resolve the issue , taking  into account  there are  factors relating to  the  Australian  industry that he  has  not  fully  appreciated.

DOCTOR INVOLVED IN MAJOR WHISTLEBLOWER CASE

Dr  Pauline  Wilson   AM    who   died   recently in  Darwin  was  involved in an interesting  case  involving  outspoken  activist  doctor  , Philip Nitschke , who  later  became   internationally  known   for   his   euthanasia   advocacy .  

For  many  years  she   was   the  Royal   Darwin  Hospital medical superintendent  and  became  a   key  player  in   the whistleblower    episode   which  resulted  in   a Senate  inquiry   into a   claim     that  Dr   Nitschke    had   suffered   possible  penalty  or  injury   as  the result  of having been a  witness    before   the    Standing Committee on  Industry, Science, Technology , Transport , Communications   and   Infrastracture, resulting in contempt of  the committee.

Briefly, in  1993 , he  got into  hot  water. Speaking    for  the  Medical Association for the Prevention of  War , during the  visit of  the  USS  Houston   to Darwin , he  said the  Royal Darwin Hospital  (RDH) could not cope with a nuclear accident,  his  views said to  have  caused  great disquiet  to  senior management .The  Senate report   said  he had  been " vigorously "  reminded  of  the  guidelines governing all  public servants  .

However, the NT Health Department acknowledged inadequacies in the Royal  Darwin Hospital  protocols for dealing  with nuclear ship visits  and  Dr Nitschke's   contribution  . 


 Later , giving  a lecture sponsored by the NT  Branch of  the  Public Health Association , entitled  Public health and private conscience : whistleblowing and its impact on health,  given to the Menzies  School of  Health Research, he again mentioned  the   RDH   nuclear protocols  and   discussed    the needle  exchange situation  .

 An ABC radio interview   upset the  NT Minister for Health and Community  Services , Mike Reed , of  Katherine, who supported the RDH  needle exchange and    said   the   doctor  seemed unable to  come to  grips with the fact that public health policy was not set by him but by the NT Government and the Health and Community Services  Department . If he could not cope with this fact of  life , he  could  go .  Dr Wilson asked  Dr  Nitschke   for a  written explanation , which she subsequently accepted .

 The  explanation    was  supplemented by  a letter from the Public Health  Association   NT   branch , outlining the  circumstances of the lecture  and expressing disappointment  that RDH  had  started an investigation of  the  doctor.     A     proposal   by  some within   hospital management   to  discipline   Dr  Nitschke  by  failing  to   conduct a  first round  interview   for renewal of  a  six month  contract  did  not  go  ahead.  However , life was  made  difficult  for  him  ,  he  departed   in  1994 .  The  committee   failed to find that  there had  been  any  contempt  due  to  Dr  Nitschke  having   given  evidence  before   it .

 It  went  on  to say that it would be  especially worthwhile  if a remedy could  follow " from  those who  have  punished  Dr Nitschke  for  exercising  what should be  his right as a  citizen , as a representative of a  community organisation  and  as an informed    professional to state publicly his medical opinions ."  

 

NEXT: Little  Darwin's sometimes smelly connection with  Dr  Wilson's  champion   wayward   dog .