Archive for May, 2008
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eurovision comradeship
The voting procedure of the contest has long been criticised for neighbour voting and the diasporas voting. Bjørn Erichsen, Director of Eurovision TV, responded to these allegations questioning the legitimacy of the voting of this year’s Contest, explaining, “If a viewer likes the song from a neighbouring country, they can vote for it, and if a Polish girl lives in Ireland she can vote for Poland. You cannot vote for your own country, from your own country. But the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and its partners do not - and should not have - any possibility of controlling the nationality, identity or preferences of the individual voter. If somebody were to seek to influence the voters to vote for a specific song, they would have to approach the 105 million audience to convince them. Ultimately, they would have to influence the entire potential 640 million audience in the EBU countries, as nobody knows who will switch on their TV that evening.”
A certain amount of neighbour voting between the Nordic countries, and between former Yugoslavian countries took place at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Statistics however show that did not bring Russia its first ever victory.
“This year, as in other years, Russia got good votes from their neighbours. In the past this was not enough to secure a win. The difference this year was that they received points from a total of 38 countries, thereby securing victory.” Erichsen explains.
The Eurovision TV Director also presented some calculations to underline the solidarity of Russia’s victory. “If we imagine an absurd scenario where only the participating countries from the 27 EU countries could vote, thus excluding most of the direct Russian neighbours, the winner would also have been Russia. If we imagine - even more absurd - that only the pre-enlargement EU old Western countries could vote, the winner would have been Armenia - not a Western country. Voting for your neighbour was not, and has never been the reason a song wins. The statistics prove that you can only win, if almost all countries vote for you.”
Festival Of Fools 2008
Hitler youth @ St John’s
So who is the most likely to need CPU to be administered on the streets of Sydney? And shouldn’t those qualified to carry out CPU on the poor unfortunate have some experience with that body type.
Well i’ve just had a little refresher to ensure my senior first aid cert has me ready for anything, or more accurately ready for a more qualified person to pull rank on me at the scene and take charge.
Mary our trainer was captivating in her delivery however even her delicious accent - she’s from the mother land - couldn’t hold my attention entirely as i felt a growing unease at the presence behind me.
There, lined up against the wall, a small battalion of them, taut torsos, pink skin and Children Of The Corn hair static in the air conditioning.
Not really the best representation of the Aussie battler. More likely that we’d actually have to blow face with someone like Fat Old Fred.
Augusto Boal receives award in Ireland
Listen to Augusto Boal, founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, receive the Crossborder Award for Peace and Democracy in Ireland earlier this year.
Ei Je from Bangladesh
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been providing primary healthcare services to Burmese Rohingya refugees in Teknaf, southeast Bangladesh. It is estimated that over 10,000 of these refugees live in the makeshift Tal camp on a mangrove swamp of no more than 50 metre’s wide lying between the river Naf and a busy highway.
In March i visited this MSF project. You can read about my experiences on the MSF Australia website.