David Irving

On the other hand of the Jyllands-Posten issue, there's this.

Putting odious fools like Irving in jail only proves them right. The entire meta-narrative that people like Irving espouse is a continuation of the old, anti-semitic line that Jews are engaged in a global conspiracy to control the world. In order to perpetuate that conspiracy, the theory goes, they have to control all the flows of information. Thus, putting 'brave truth-tellers' like Irving in jail. The most disturbing thing about the sentence given to Irving is that in handing it down, the Austrian court has only given Irving's foul arguments undeserved credibility.

Free speech is not just a law like jaywalking, there's a whole philosophy behind it... and decisions like this one, and the whole Jyllands-Posten thing, make me wonder if all free nations shouldn't be teaching their children about that underlying philosophy in schools, because an awful lot of people don't seem to understand why free-speech should be free. Free speech needs to be free because that's how we determine that, on average, the better arguments win. Arguments about history, politics, religion etc help to determine the future direction of society. In order to make sure we pick the right direction, and not the wrong one, we need to see every argument put forward, warts and all. Including the nasty ones.

In fact, especially the nasty ones. To believe the average citizen needs to be protected from the rhetoric of holocaust denial is to enter into nanny-state thinking, and to assume that ordinary people aren't smart enough to see vile nonsense when they see it. But of course, by censoring the argument, they make the average citizen that much less likely to be able to tell the difference. Free speech is a process of public education, and encourages ordinary people to become involved in the issues of the day. I'm not scared that people like Irving have a platform -- let him speak. Give him enough rope, and let him hang himself. I'm much more scared that court decisions like this one will make Irving a martyr, and confer upon him the automatic credibility of anyone censored by government machinery.

The common thread here, between this and the Jyllands-Posten affair, is that certain well-meaning people are trying to save others from being offended. Well, when offending someone becomes illegal, free speech is dead. It's sad that we live in a world where people say nasty things and hurt other peoples' sensibilities, but the way to counter such things is to prove the hurt-sayers wrong, or to debate them to the point where a majority of citizens come around to your opinion. Locking them up is an admission that you CAN'T.

Jyllands-Posten

Jyllands-Posten's editor speaks out on why he printed the cartoons. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

I've heard many opinions that it would be better if we could resolve these kinds of tensions without having to resort to obviously inflammatory, and probably offensive, acts like this. Maybe we could talk about it, start a dialogue, do some persuasion, etc.

Problem is, if you look across the length and breadth of human history, it almost never works. Modern western civilisation has reached the point that it has through much the same process as aircrash investigators have made airtravel safer. First a plane crashes, and then they figure out why. The crash is useful, because it identifies the problem, makes everyone realise that the problem exists, and encourages those responsible to do something about it.

It's absolutely tragic that people die when the airline crashes, and it'd be nice if we could solve the problem before the airline crashed... but you can just imagine how that'd go, can't you? The first person to raise a safety issue would be dismissed by the airline for scaremongering, by the manufacturer for defamation, by the governments and tourist-industries as costing jobs, etc. The only absolute proof that can't be denied is a smoking pile of wreckage and bodies. What's more, the process works -- airline travel has become enormously safer over the years. Modern western civilisation stands where it stands because we've seen the horrific, flaming wrecks of fascism, communism, militarism, etc, and we've said 'okay, that design is malfunctioning, let's try another one'. And liberal, capitalist democracy is the only system still standing after that rigorous examination.

Now we have Islamic fundamentalism, either inside our own societies, or outside and pressing against us. The values of this fundamentalism, like most fundamentalisms, are antithetical to our own. It's a problem. But many, many people don't want to admit it's a problem, for a whole variety of reasons. What Jyllands-Posten did was cause an air-crash. It's nasty, but it certainly focuses attention on the problem in a way that no one can ignore any longer. Maybe one day we'll find a way of defusing these kinds of things more peacefully, but for now, finally, it seems that those who value freedom (many Muslims amongst them) are starting to wake up.

Boys in School

There’s quite a lot being written lately on how boys are suddenly doing much worse than girls in school.

I’m not a teacher or a psychologist to analyse the differences in the way boys and girls learn, but I’ve paid close attention to the sociology of the male-female dichotomy. I’ve had to. I hated school, I wasn’t popular, and being an outsider was never exactly fun... but it did teach me to observe, and be critical, of things that otherwise just seemed to be taken for granted. (I’m speaking here of course about Australia, but the problems here seem to extend to most western democracies right now).

I’m convinced that a lot of this male academic collapse is social, not just a technical issue of teaching methods -- although that certainly plays a very large part, possibly the larger part, I’m not sure. But a lot of boys define masculinity as whatever is not feminine. Once upon a time, education itself was masculine, as were all the best jobs, so hard study was socially accepted as masculine -- no problem there, for boys at least. Now, however, girls are doing well, there are fewer and fewer male teachers, and education is perceived as increasingly ‘feminine’. Adolescent boys (the ones I remember) will do just about anything to convince themselves and others of their masculinity. That means embracing everything that isn’t feminine. If girls are good at school, then boys have to be bad. And so they are.

This is a simplistic analysis, I know, but when dealing with large groups, generalisations are inevitable, and indeed necessary, to some extent. What to do about this dichotomous thinking? It comes naturally to all human beings, sadly, this black-and-white thought structure, that if it’s not one thing, it must be the other. (Sugar and spice and all-things-nice versus... slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails). You can’t reform human psychology, and it’s probably not a good idea to try.

The problem, I think, is that women have intruded onto what was previously ‘male only ‘ territory, and now men are left with nothing that is ‘exclusively masculine’... save contact sports and bad behaviour. Physicality, in other words, as opposed to intellect. Now I hate this conclusion, because I like seeing women getting into all the non-traditional roles it was previously assumed they either weren’t good at or had no interest in. I hate that the social conservative types who regret women ever left the kitchen might have a point on this. But they might.

My concern is that by devising a separate strategy exclusively for educating boys, you only end up exacerbating the gender dichotomy. Can boys and girls ever agree to ‘share’ education, as an equally feminine and masculine concept? I don’t know. This is primate-brain logic we’re talking about, compromise isn’t one of its more visible traits.

Next point; How do I reckon social factors are as large as technical factors in explaining boys’ decline? Well one, because boys never used to be bad at school, it only coincided with girls’ rise -- so scientifically speaking, that’s the only variable... save maybe the increasingly rare male teachers. And two, because the fact that girls are suddenly doing better than boys at stuff everyone used to say (and some still do say) that girls are biologically inferior at (mathematics and science) seems to indicate that those biological-determinate arguments were very silly in the first place.

Girls were never naturally worse at maths and science, and when those who agree with me tried to explain why you had to take all the social factors into consideration when considering girls’ worse performances in the classroom, the biological-determinists snorted, and called all such arguments ‘politically correct sophistry’. But the only conclusive evidence they had to demonstrate that girls were worse than boys at maths was that the test scores, at that time, showed that it was so.

Well times have changed, and in many classrooms in America or Australia today, you can find maths and science classes where the girls’ grades are superior. So where are the biological-determinists claiming that therefore, girls are biologically superior at maths and science, because their test scores prove it? Well today, they’re all arguing that the social and cultural factors have to be taken into account when analysing these results. Crazy.

The formation of a separate gender identity is so natural, it’s considered a right of passage. How many men reading this had really good female friends in high-school? Not just girl friends, but real buddies with whom you’d hang out on weekends, and tell all your most personal thoughts to? A few, maybe, but not many. I certainly didn’t, and I’m one of the few who might have actually liked to. And how many women can say the same of male friends at the same age? The need to establish a separate gender identity is tribal and primitive, and it dominates adolescent thinking. If girls go one way, boys must go the other... even if that road takes them off the edge of a cliff.

If I go off into la-la land for a moment, I might wish for more gender-neutral emphasis in primary schools, more co-ed uniforms (I’ve read some fascinating things about girls becoming more extroverted and boys and girls mixing far more in play groups where a single, co-ed uniform was introduced), more co-ed sports, etc. Yeah yeah, social engineering and all that... hey, all society is engineered, none of it’s natural -- if our culture were naturally determined by our genes, then there’d be no cultural diversity on Earth (as most human races are almost genetically identical) and all human beings would have the same values. Society is what we make it. You’re engaged in social engineering every time you tell your kids how to behave. They’re engaged in it every time they turn on the TV. If it were not so, we’d never have to have all these debates about what values we’re teaching our kids... because values are flexible, and are constantly shifting.

If girls and boys had more in common, from earlier ages, some of this dichotomous boy/girl stuff might not develop as radically. Boys and girls will always be different, and viva la difference... but difference need not dictate exclusivity, any more than black kids need only hang out with black kids, and white kids with white. Still happens, of course, but it shouldn’t. But you’ve gotta engineer it to make it stop.

It’s not a total solution of course, but I’m not hearing very much recognition of the role of gender identity in all this at all, when I listen to experts voicing their solutions. Because the boys, I think, are basically just suffering from a bad case of ‘girl germs’.

Good News from Pakistan

Okay... so I don't post all that often. There's a whole bunch of fascinating stuff going on, particularly with the Mohammed cartoons that I could go on about... but it's all being covered elsewhere in great depth, and I'd rather not just repeat what others are saying. Instead, I'll look for big events I don't think are getting enough attention.

Like this. Pakistan had economic growth of %8.4? That's awesome. It also fits in with a broader trend on the subcontinent that's extremely encouraging for a whole range of reasons.

A couple of things are happening here. Before 9-11, Pakistan was drifting steadily in a dangerous direction. Cut off from its traditional American ally, it funded the Taliban in Afghanistan to create 'strategic depth' to its north, and encouraged all kinds of Islamic extremist groups conducting jihad against India to the south, focusing on Kashmir. Since 9-11, however, reengagement by America has thrown Pakistan a lifeline. That lifeline has given President Musharraf the confidence to change direction, and jump on a new horse. This horse is not exactly a liberal-democratic horse -- it's kind of a motley half-breed, part-autocratic and part liberal-reformer. It's staying power remains a mystery, but it certainly seems to be fast.

Yes, anyone purporting to support liberal-democratic ideals can be accused of hypocrisy for backing Musharraf. Yes, he led a military coup, and has paid the reintroduction of democracy only lip-service since taking power. But it's worth noting that a) democracy hasn't worked very well in Pakistan since independence, with government after government absolutely notorious for the worst kinds of corruption and nepotism, and b) Musharraf seems very popular in Pakistan amongst the right kinds of people -- ie; the young, the moderate, the forward-looking. He's extremely unpopular amongst the conservatives and the Islamists (who have tried to kill him on several occasions), so he must be doing something right. The entire democratic system in Pakistan needs to be overhauled before democracy can be reintroduced in full, I'm no expert but what I've read suggests there's fundamental flaws in the way the democratic system works there. In the meantime, we can hope Musharraf keeps on doing what he's doing -- the good bits at least, his critics do a fine job at pointing out all the flaws.

This move away from the Islamists, underwritten by American economic and strategic support, has allowed Musharraf to embrace the peace-process with India more seriously than any Pakistani leader has since the two nations' founding. Which doesn't mean that Musharraf believes in the process any more than his predecessors, it just means that he's the first one for whom it made strategic sense to implement it. Already there is a bus and rail link. More are being discussed, and there's even talk of direct flights. And of a pipeline from Iran, which may not be great for Iran-specific reasons, but it's encouraging that India is even considering trusting Pakistan enough to let a major gasline run through their territory. There was cross-border cooperation during the recent Kashmir earthquake, and government officials at all levels seem to be talking to each other, at least on occasion.

Best of all, there's the economy. The long list of potential trade items, that were once prohibited, are now being freed up. Pakistan and India are natural trading partners, and India is booming. For example, India has a massive and growing textile industry, while Pakistan is a major cotton producer. The synergies are obvious. Furthermore, Pakistan enjoys all the same advantages that allowed India to become a major outsourcing power -- a large, educated, English-speaking upper class who can do high quality work for low wages. As Indian investment and expertise becomes available to them, expect Pakistani software and call-centers to flourish, with other industries to follow. Pakistan's population means they'll never be a rival to India... but 160 million is still the same size as Brazil.

There's already far more synergy between India and Pakistan than many outsiders might expect. Bollywood movies are all the rage in Pakistan, while Pakistani rock groups like Jinoon are popular in India. Both nations love cricket, and many people who live on either side of the border once lived on the other side (Musharraf himself, indeed) or have parents or grandparents who did. A liberal economic environment between the two nations could bind both sides together far faster than might have previously seemed likely, given the recent history of conflict -- many Indians and Pakistanis themselves admit that they remain basically the same people, with the same culture, and the same history. Rapid economic growth that was shared between the two nations would create even more incentive to develop further ties, and would marginalise the war-mongers of both nations.

This would be wonderful news for Afghanistan, who would find themselves sitting on the doorstep of a modern economic miracle, with direct land-links through Pakistan to India. Afghanistan is already growing very fast (easier to do off such a low base, it's true, but good news all the same) and good news in Afghanistan is bad news for Islamists.

Then there's Islamism itself. Wealth by itself does not necessarily neutralise fanatical ideals (look at the wealthy Saudis on the airplanes on 9-11) but in a developing liberal democracy like India, it certainly can. Look at Sania Mirza. One of the most popular people in all India, she's forcing a reassessment in many quarters about what a young Muslim woman actually is. Yes, there was a fatwa against her on-court dress, but more importantly, that fatwa was recently dismissed by a senior muslim council -- an example of how such things can further constructive debate and advancement. I read a story about how Sania's emergence has coincided with a huge jump in the number of Muslim women in India (even those in purdah) attending fitness centers, for example.

In a fast-developing, liberalising, urbanising nation, there will be plenty more like Sania. We in the west can guess such things, because we've been there ourselves -- cultural liberalisation and economic development do go hand-in-hand in liberal democracies, as a quick glance at the 1960s should show. They're kissing now in Indian movies, which was taboo just a few years ago. There's a big culture-gap developing between the generations, in expectations of marriage, women's-rights, and 'acceptable behavior' in general. It happens. It's usually a good thing. If this wave of cultural liberalisation begins to sweep the Pakistani middle-classes along with it, and if those middle-classes continue to grow as fast as rapid economic growth suggest they could, it'll be the worst thing that could happen to Pakistan and Afghanistan's Islamists. It'll take a long time, but the most lasting changes always do. Expect further trauma, protests, national days of anger, etc, etc. The dark ages will resist with everything they have, once they realise the mortal nature of the threat. But make no mistake -- in the long term, the greatest threat to Islamism in Pakistan and Central Asia is not American bombs or 'zionist plots', but Bollywood, music television and designer jeans.

Erin Phillips: From football to the WNBA

Since I've been on the topic of female athletes lately, time to post the last article I wrote for Fullcourt Press. FCP is usually a paysite, but publisher Clay Kallam tells me he only needs exclusivity for a week, and that's finished now.


Having been away from the Australian basketball scene for a few years, and living in France for the last six months, the first player I wanted to see up close when I got back was 20-year-old point guard Erin Phillips. I’d seen her play quite a few times on TV, but actually being at the game can show you so much more. Luckily, she plays for what is now my home team -- the Adelaide Fellas (formerly LIghtning).

If you know what you’re looking for, you can see immediately if a player has something special. When Adelaide began their pregame warmup, I saw it in Phillips’ first running steps up the court. She runs like a sprinter, with an effortless bounce like she’s got springs in her shoes.

Considering her genes, that’s probably not surprising. Erin’s father is Greg Phillips, a legend in South Australia for his feats as one of the state’s greatest ever Australian-Rules footballers. He played 447 senior games, including 84 for AFL club Collingwood, and won more Premierships with South Australian powerhouse Port Adelaide than seems reasonable. Up until the age of 13, Erin too played Australian Football, against the boys, and was by all accounts extremely good.

In 2002, as a 17-year-old, Erin played in a charity match between mostly-retired players representing Adelaide’s two AFL (national league) clubs -- Port Adelaide and the Adelaide Crows. For those of you unfamiliar with Australian football, its structure is somewhat like basketball in that players tend to pair-off against a direct opponent, who they will shadow for either the entire match, or until the coach decides to change the matchups. Playing for Port Adelaide (naturally), Erin was matched up on Australian tennis star and mad-keen Adelaide Crows supporter Lleyton Hewitt. I didn’t see the game, but some who did tell me that she kicked his backside.

When I interview her, Erin says she didn’t drop out of football because she worried about playing against boys post-puberty. Indeed, when asked, she says, “I think a girl can achieve pretty much anything she wants, if she works hard enough.”

Including the AFL? Against the men in one of the toughest, most physical contact sports in the world? “Sure,” she says, utterly unfazed. “If she worked hard enough. Maybe not in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” (back when players were less athletic, precision skills less important, and brute strength more decisive) “but these days football is more of a running game.” And her father, apparently, agrees with her assessment.

But at the age of 13, Erin fell in love with basketball. “I wanted to play for my country,” she says, “and that’s something you can’t do in football.” Also, one could guess, becoming Australia’s first-ever female AFL player would be an incredibly hard, politically and emotionally challenging thing for any young woman to achieve -- even before you get to the question of whether a woman could actually do it. In basketball, at least, the trail is already blazed.

It would be a remarkable achievement for a basketball forward, starting so late as 13, to acquire the ball skills necessary to make her nation’s national team by age 19, as Erin did. And Erin is a point guard, the most skill-intensive position on the court, which makes the achievement almost freakish. This season, she’s averaging 5.1 assists against 2.9 turnovers in the WNBL, and 15.4 points-per-game at 49.2 percent from the field. Obviously her football has helped her develop general skills, and Erin agrees -- Australian football is proudly known amongst those who follow it as perhaps the most skill-intensive sport in the world, particularly in the way it has developed in the last ten years. Also, however, it’s pretty clear that Erin Phillips is just one of those rare people born with a remarkable natural gift.

For example, she rebounds like a forward, averaging 7.5 per game this season -- sixth best in the entire WNBL. A vertical leap of 62 centimeters (a shade over two feet, better than most male athletes her size) doesn't hurt either. Many Australian players struggle in their first WNBA season, due to the physicality of the American game, but if there’s one player unlikely to be troubled with that aspect of the transition, it’s Erin. She’s a very strong, broad-shouldered 5-8, and she’s not scared of using her strength.

Getting drafted by the WNBA came as a shock to her. “I was at home on the Saturday,” she says, “washing my car, when I got a call from Michael Thibault. He said ‘We’re thinking of drafting you’. I couldn’t believe it.” At that point, she hadn’t even been sure the Americans knew who she was.

“And so later that night, at about 4am, I was up with my sisters following the draft on the internet. I didn’t know the internet broadcast was delayed, so right when I’m waiting for Connecticut’s second pick to come through, Michael Thibault calls again, and he says, ‘Are you following the draft?’ I say ‘Yeah, I’m just waiting for the second pick to come up.’ And he says, ‘We’ll, I’m going to spoil the suspense. We’ve picked you.’ And then my sisters are screaming and jumping up and down...”

It was very hard for her, Erin explains, to stay home during the 2005 WNBA season. But her primary goal all her sporting life had been to play for her nation, and 2005 being her first selection for the Opals, she was determined to make the most of it. She played in tournaments in New Zealand and China, and got the opportunity to show the national team staff what she could do at that level. This year, she hopes to make the team for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in February, and then she’s off to Connecticut once the WNBL season finishes, no matter what.

“What if the Opals staff say you have to stay home to prepare for the World Championships in Brazil?” I ask her, echoing the same old problem that comes up for Australian WNBA players every two years, with World Champs or Olympics.

Erin just shrugs -- which, in my opinion, is the perfect response to Australian officials and their psychological, financial and patriotic blackmail.

Erin is also unusual for a young Australian player in that she didn’t come through the Australian Institute of Sport program. “I attended for six months,” she says, “but I was leaving such a well-structured program in Adelaide under Jan Stirling. After six months in Canberra, I just decided that I was learning more and developing faster as a player in Adelaide, so I sat down with the AIS staff, and we talked about it, and they agreed.”

Perhaps that’s a good thing for another reason, too. The only thing legendary ex-AIS coach Phil Brown ever said (when I spoke to him one time) that I disagreed with was that a point guard, in his opinion, should distribute the ball amongst her teammates primarily, and only shoot as a last option. I think this is a perfectly good way of inhibiting a young player’s development, and depriving a point guard of an invaluable tool with which to break down the defence. If the PG can’t or won’t shoot, defenders will take liberties in how closely they guard her. A good shot can gain a PG some respect, and force her opponent to stand closer, thus exposing her to a good crossover-and-drive. Erin has a very good jumpshot, likes to use it, and likes to drive even more. She can draw an horrendous number of fouls, too, from exhausted defenders frustrated to see her flash past them once again. All of which, in turn, opens up her passing lanes, because the help-D is always rushing over to stop her, and leaving someone else exposed. It is, all in all, a very American style of point guard play, perhaps unseen in Australia (at this quality, at least) since Michele Timms.

I for one am very glad no one ever told Erin, as a developing player, that a good point guard should pass and not shoot. But Erin likes to play as she does for another reason too. “The way Adelaide plays under coach Chris Lucas, we like to get out and run. The way some teams play, going through their structured halfcourt plays, it’s boring for the fans to watch. The faster game is just much more exciting for everyone.”

You get the feeling from talking to Erin that she really likes where she is in her life right now, and that enthusiasm shows in the way she plays basketball too. On the court, she’s confident without being arrogant, and aggressive without being nasty. Speaking to her offcourt, I found her easygoing and smiling a lot. She needs to work on her three-pointers (although 37.5 percent is not tawdry) and defence, which she admits, but at the rate she’s shown she can improve, that shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, if she keeps improving this fast, she could follow in her father’s footsteps to become one of the hottest sporting talents ever to emerge from South Australia.

Rocket Racing League

There's some news updates at the Rocket Racing League website.

Why is this exciting? Well partly, I'm just an aeroplane nut, and I like watching aeroplanes, especially fast ones. (I can name by sight most of the warbirds that flew in WW2 for any nation, for example, courtesy of youthful obsession). But also it's exciting because there's a theory behind the RRL that ought to help the development of human spaceflight.

It's capitalism again. If this league makes money, it will create incentive for rocket engine manufacturers to re-invest in new engines and new technologies. Racing teams will want basically what private operators want -- more safety, more fuel-efficiency, more performance, and all at affordable prices. Whether you like motor racing or not, you can't deny it's done a lot for commercial motoring in a whole range of fields. Hopefully the same will apply here.

Assuming all the technology works, there's still a lot of things that'll have to go right for all this to work. Rocketplanes racing through virtual aerial courses at high speeds ought to look spectacular, but there has to be drama and entertainment in the contest, too. I hope they spend some time just finding what looks cool, with in-aeroplane cameras and the like. If they need any help with visual ideas, they should ask someone like Hollywood director James Cameron, who's a techie-nut and would probably love to help.

I'm also pleased to see that, in an article on space.com, they're talking to a female pilot for one of the next team announcements. With the Danica Patrick phenomenon in the IRL right now, soon to be followed perhaps by the Katherine Legge phenomenon in Champcar, they MUST get a female pilot, or they'd have rocks in their heads. There's plenty of female fighter jocks or ex-fighter jocks around if they care to look. One of the biggest money-spinners in sports right now is women competing against men. And with a new, risky business venture like this one, they'll need as many marketing hooks as they can find.