World Cup songs: the good and the mad


Nothing says ‘the soccer World Cup’ like a football song. Well maybe the actual soccer World Cup says it better, but you get the idea.

The tournament proper begins on Friday morning (New Zealand time) and alongside the usual analysis of the best players of now and yesteryear, football songs also come into focus. The official tournament anthem, We Are One, by

World Cup songs: the good, the mad and the forgettable


Nothing says ‘the soccer World Cup’ like a football song. Well maybe the actual soccer World Cup says it better, but you get the idea.

The tournament proper begins on Friday morning (New Zealand time) and alongside the usual analysis of the best players of now and yesteryear, football songs also come into focus. The official tournament anthem, We Are One, by

In news media, ‘terrorist’ a term used cautiously


What do you call a couple who espouse an extremist, anti-government ideology and kill two policemen and a bystander while draping one of their victims in a flag associated with a political movement

After this weekend’s shooting spree perpetrated by just such a couple in Las Vegas, many in the media declined to use one potential label: terrorists.

Jerad and Amanda Miller, the young Nevada couple who fatally shot three people before killing themselves, were enamoured of a right-wing, conspiratorial view of federal authority, according to law enforcement officials.

They killed two police officers, Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo, as the men ate lunch, and covered one of the bodies with a Nazi swastika and the Revolutionary War-era “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, a symbol of the tea party movement. The pair shouted about “revolution” as they moved to a nearby Wal-Mart, where Amanda Miller shot a customer, Joseph Wilcox, who tried to stop them.

That shorthand description would seem to qualify the Millers as terrorists. Although the term’s strict definition has been a subject of debate within national security circles for years, there has been some consensus around Georgetown professor Bruce R. Hoffman’s five-part test for terrorism: an act of violence that was politically motivated, perpetrated to influence a broader audience, involved an organized group, targeted civilians and was carried out by a person outside the government.

Yet few media accounts have described the Millers as terrorists or their actions as terrorism.

The Washington Post avoided both terms in a news story on Monday. The Los Angeles Times wrote that the couple died “shouting messages of anti-government revolution” but made no mention of terrorism. The Associated Press, the most widely distributed news service in the world, hadn’t used either term in multiple stories through Tuesday afternoon.

And that has prompted suggestions of a double standard.

“Without a doubt, if these individuals had been Muslim, it not only would be called ‘terrorism,’ but it would have made national and international headlines for weeks,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based group. “It was an act of terror, but when it’s not associated with Muslims it’s just a day story that comes and goes.”

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Hooper cited a litany of news stories about domestic acts of violence that never gained prominence as acts of terrorism because, he said, Muslims weren’t involved: the attempted storming of an Atlanta-area courthouse by a heavily armed man last week, the arrest of two men accused of setting off pipe bombs in movie theatres in the D.C. area and an Alaska couple associated with an anti-government group who plotted to kill federal judges.

“There’s absolutely a double standard, and it needs to be called out,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, a senior editor of the Islamic Monthly. “Whenever a white person engages in violence they’re considered crazy lunatics, but when a brown Muslim does it, it’s an act of terrorism. Since 9/11, the media is quick to jump on anything an Arab or Muslim does, but it takes a much more deliberative approach when it’s a white person.”

News organizations, including The Post, say they are reluctant to call anyone a terrorist unless officials do so first.

“In general, we shy away from independently labelling people as terrorists and would factually note if someone has been listed or labelled as such by someone else, such as the FBI or another government entity,” AP spokesman Paul Colford said in an email.

He said, however, that there are some “clear” cases in which the word applies: the attacks of September 11, 2001; bombings in Bali, London and Madrid; and the assault on a Nairobi shopping mall last year by the militant group al-Shabab. But in incidents such as the shootings in Las Vegas, the news service relies on the FBI or other agencies for such terminology.

The Reuters news service has a similar policy. Its stylebook advises reporters to use the terms “terrorism” and “terrorist” only when attributing them to a specific source. “Aim for a dispassionate use of language so that individuals, organizations and governments can make their own judgment on the basis of facts,” it says. “Seek to use more specific terms like ‘bomber’ or ‘bombing’ . . . ‘gunman’ or ‘gunmen,’ etc.”

Such labels are important both as a cultural matter and as a matter for law enforcement, said Daniel Byman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution. Alleged terrorists or terrorist groups get the attention of federal agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and are prosecuted under national security laws, he pointed out, whereas ordinary criminal suspects are investigated by state and local authorities and tried under local statutes.

“If it’s an al-Qaida attack, you can bet it will affect the resources and how we respond to it,” Byman said. But “many of the objectives [of right-wing extremist groups] are close enough to legitimate political movements. It would be hard to take them on as a whole without causing a lot of discomfort” among people who don’t have violent aims.

-The Washington Post

Neighbours’ worst historical inconsistencies


Twenty-nine years is a long time in anyone’s language, but in soap opera terms, it’s literally hundreds of lifetimes.

Keeping up with who’s related to who and how on Neighbours, Australia’s longest-running soap, is as important as making sure that Susan Kennedy’s dangly earrings match from one take to the next.

When slip-ups happen – and they do, despite an extensive in-house database, and meticulous archives on fansites, where character biographies can run into the tens of thousands of words – it doesn’t go unnoticed by the legions of the show’s fans, many of whom have been faithfully tuning in since day one.

For Jack Seymour, a 22-year-old British fan from Lincolnshire, historical inconsistencies in Neighbours are common.

He can reel off clangers that have roots stretching back to his own childhood.

”Characters’ ages and birthdays often change a lot,” Seymour says. ”Kate celebrated her 18th birthday in early March, but her 22nd was in late April four years later. In 2007, Susan and Karl were talking about Libby and mentioned that she was 27, however Libby celebrated her 21st in 1998. Holly, Karl and Izzy’s love child arrived in 2013 as an eight-year-old, but she was actually born in 2007, when Susan and Karl remarried in London and Izzy went into labour on a boat on the Thames.

“And when Lauren returned with three teen children in 2013, not only was she told she was highly unlikely to have children in 1993, Mason, her oldest, was supposedly born in 1999. However, in 2013 he was an 18-year-old.”

Producer Jason Herbison got his first job out of high school in the Neighbours writing room, went on to write for Seven’s Home and Away, which is just two years younger than Neighbours, and returned to Neighbours as series producer for Fremantle Media in 2012. He says plot inconsistency is an occupational hazard with the sheer number of episodes produced (240 a year) and the turnover of actors and writers. Generally, he says, fans are forgiving, and there are some inaccuracies that are more acceptable than others.

”We do take dramatic licence,” Herbison explains. ”The term, ‘retcon’ [retroactive continuity], refers to when you bring back past characters or evoke a previous situation but change it a little bit because it now sits better in the current storytelling. The best example of that is when you recast, which happens most commonly with young actors.”

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According to an Australian drama producer who wishes to remain anonymous, the continuity people ”just don’t exist” as they once did.

”The people who started these shows have all either moved on, are out of the business or are dead,” the producer said. ”So the job of watching those details is now usually the responsibility of the story editor or story producer, and to be honest, they can often rely on the actors who have been there longer than them.”

Which works only when there are actors around who have that memory. In shows where they don’t, it can lead to some interesting moments, most notably in American soaps, where the cast and crew can change frequently.

The Young and The Restless’ Cane Ashby has been (at various stages in the series) a long-lost son switched at birth, an orphan who used identity theft to lie his way into the series’ main family, and the son of an Australian criminal hiding out.

On Days of Our Lives, in 1992, when characters John Black and Isabella Toscano married, their son Shawn (aged about four) was the ring-bearer and shortly after the ceremony, Isabella gave birth to their son Brady. Those children were recast in 1999, however, and Brady is now noticeably older than his brother.

Even The Flintstones has been tripped up by continuity, with Wilma given two completely different maiden names – ”Pebble” and ”Slaghoople” – simply because the writers forgot they had already named her.

Herbison can’t recall anything quite as glaring on Neighbours or Home and Away.

”There certainly have been a few moments where I haven’t remembered something or I’ve read something a fan has said and gone, ‘Ooh, I’d forgotten about that!’, but nothing too spectacular,” he says.

Of course the nature of the genre means that plot developments routinely test audiences’ suspension of disbelief. Herbison’s favourite is Harold Bishop’s resurrection in the 1990s, when, after going missing at sea, he turned up a few years later with amnesia, having been taken in by the Tasmanian wing of the Salvation Army.

”That was an incredibly successful storyline,” says Herbison. ”It was one that you can only do once a decade. There’s another very famous character from the past, Dee Bliss, played by Madeleine West, who also disappeared at sea, and every year I get asked, ‘Are we going to bring Dee back from the dead’ And my response is, ‘For one, I don’t know if the actress would, but number two, we’d have to find a different way of doing it than we did with Harold, and we haven’t come up with it yet.”

For Jack Seymour, keeping up with the plot is all part of the fun.

”Although [inconsistencies] suspend reality, at times they manage to pull it off and get away with it. I have to admit I had difficulty believing Brad and Lauren’s backstories to begin with. Doug told us in 2005, when he returned for the 20th-anniversary episodes, that Brad and Beth were still happily married. However, last year, Brad returned [swapping heads as a new actor took over the role] with two teen children by new wife Terese, who he’s supposedly been married to for almost 20 years. However, I still love the show and won’t ever miss an episode.”

– FFX Aus

Kimbra announces album release date


Kimbra has revealed the release date for her upcoming album, The Golden Echo.

The Kiwi singer will drop the album on August 15, featuring her already popular single, 90s Music.

On Tuesday, the singer tweeted her excitement that the song’s video had already received over 200,000 views on YouTube.

“Dang! The clips nearly up to 200k views already! Chur peeps…. Spread that love!” she tweeted.

In the video, Kimbra is seen referencing the fashion and iconography of the 1990s: VHS video tapes are used and she wears neon clothes and platformed trainers that would make the Spice Girls proud.

In the catchy song, she sings about listening to 90s music and mentions bands associated with the decade, including TLC, R Kelly and Mary Blige.

Kimbra got to work with one of her dream collaborators, Rich Costey (Foster The People, Interpol, Muse) who produced the album.

The singer revealed she would be releasing three songs, High Places, 90s Music, and Nothing But You, to anyone who pre orders the album.

The Golden Echo is the singer’s second album. Her 2011 debut, Vows, was certified platinum in Australia and New Zealand.

Kimbra recently had to cancel Australian performances with American R&B singer, Janelle Monae after Monae fell ill.

Bold plans for a capital Broadway


Encasing Wellington’s Opera House in glass is part of a new vision that could help transform one end of Courtenay Place into a mini-Broadway.

The idea, along with red-carpet events and pop-up bars, features in a vision Positively Wellington Venues has outlined to owner Wellington City Council.

The “amazing glass case” around the 100-year-old Opera House could double as a mini-museum for costumes and theatre paraphernalia, as well as creating an underground laneways bar.

Down the road at the St James, PWV wants to create a red-carpet atmosphere with box office windows opening on to the street and a “Cabaret on Courtenay” zone with “quirky lounges and pop-up bars and restaurants”.

The work on the Opera House would be part of strengthening work required to bring it up to a safe standard, chief executive Glenys Coughlan said.

Roger Shand, of architecture firm Shand Shelton, is working on the Opera House idea with PWV and said the aim was to try to increase the use of the building when strengthening work was done.

The glass-case idea was based on a box used inside Shed 6 for strengthening, but putting the structure on the outside instead.

Glass would allow the historic facade of the “grand old lady” to be visible while also creating more space that could be used to display old costumes and sets, and create more function areas.

“We’re giving a new dress to the old dame,” he said.

Both he and Coughlan said it was too early to put a price tag on the concept, but the aim would be to get a cost for the strengthening and make that money go as far as possible.

Council building resilience manager Neville Brown said the last cost estimate for strengthening the Opera House was about $6 million four years ago, but it would be higher now.

Plans for strengthening would be assessed in the coming months, and it was important to get the most out of the money.

“While we’re doing work like that, we should think about the use of the building.”

Coughlan hoped to see the project completed within five years, and said there was also an option to use space underneath the Opera House by creating a bar.

That would help add to the creation of a theatre precinct that would include opening up the front of the St James for red carpet events and creating pop-up bar and restaurant experiences, helping to create an atmosphere similar to overseas theatre districts such as Broadway. “When you look at great theatre districts, it is that combination of great restaurants and bars.”

Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said it was great to see an “ambitious plan”, but it would have to be weighed against other priorities in the venues area, such as a planned hotel and convention centre. “It’s a long way off those decisions, but I applaud them for thinking, literally in this case, outside the box.”

Any funding would be considered as part of the long-term plan next year.

Performance and exhibitions director Helen Glengarry said enhancing the venues would help cement Wellington’s position as a destination for touring acts, with Lunchbox Theatrical Productions – which brought Annie to town and will put on The Sound of Music later this year – now committed to bringing two shows a year for three years.

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– The Dominion Post

Top 10 celebrities who cheated death


Identifying with the problems of the rich and famous is generally confined to sympathising when they get snapped coming out of a takeaway in Sunday pants after a big night out.

But even though celebrities may otherwise seem to walk around in an untouchable bubble, they are mere mortals like the rest of us, and some have the scars to prove it.

Here is our list of famous people who have narrowly escaped a permanent date with the Grim Reaper.

1. What a Playboy
The man who has spent a lot of his life in bed nearly died there as well, but at least he would have gone doing what he loved. The Playboy founder Hugh Hefner revealed in 2009 the closest he had come to death was when he was having sex with four Playmates and “almost swallowed a Ben Wa ball”. He later said his life flashed before his eyes, which, we imagine, would have included the occasional set of bunny ears.

2. The treasonous pretzel
On the topic of choking, then-President of the United States George W Bush had a close encounter of the salty kind while watching an American football match at the White House. Alone with his two dogs and chowing down on a pretzel, Bush apparently bit off more than he could chew, and began choking. He then blacked out and hit his head, and was sent to bed that night after switching his dinner to soup.

3. Stone the flamin’ crows
Former Home and Away star Isla Fisher almost drowned filming the 2013 movie Now You See Me. Fisher was filming a stunt in a box full of water while handcuffed as part of a trick when she got stuck, and was underwater for almost four minutes before a nearby stuntman pulled the quick release safety mechanism, allowing her to escape.
Fisher later recalled the scene, which apparently remained in the final film, saying “everyone thought I was acting fabulously. I was actually drowning. No one realised I was actually struggling.”

4. 9/11 near misses
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane had a ticket to board American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11, 2001. MacFarlane’s agent had told him the the wrong departure time and he missed by a few minutes boarding the plane which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Mark Wahlberg was also due to be on the same flight, but changed his plans at the last minute, stopping in Toronto for a film festival before returning to Los Angeles.
Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe was also in New York on the day of the Word Trade Center attacks. Out for a jog, Thorpe planned to visit the observation deck of the World Trade Center, but returned to his hotel when he realised he had forgotten his camera. Turning on the TV, he saw the north tower on fire after it was hit by the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11.

5. Truly man’s best friend
Drew Barrymore and Tom Green were saved from a house fire in the middle of the night in 2001 when their dog woke them up. The house suffered an estimated $800,000 in damages.

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6. Change of underwear required
Actor Ryan Reynolds almost died in a skydiving accident when he was 17-years-old and his parachute failed. The Van Wilder star pulled the reserve, and later recalled he “got down on the ground, removed my urine-spackled jumpsuit, threw it at the guy, and got in my car and drove extremely slowly home. It was the worst.”

7. Great balls of fire
Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker was one of only two survivors of a plane crash in 2008 that killed another four people. Barker said he opened a door and his hands caught fire, and he fell through a wing when he ran to get out of the plane.
“I immediately soaked up with jet fuel and caught fire. And then I was on fire, running like hell … I’m completely naked, holding my genitals – everything else is on fire – and I’m running, trying to put myself out.”

8. Dr Quinn needed a dose of her own medicine
When actress Jane Seymour was 36, she discovered she was allergic to penicillin when she was given an injection for a severe case of the flu. The allergic reaction nearly killed her, and Seymour, who played Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, said she left her body, and could see doctors working to resuscitate her as her life flashed before her eyes.

9. Nearly went to heaven on a crazy train
Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne says he should have been dead a thousand times, but perhaps had his closest brush with death in a quad bike accident in 2003 when he “saw the light”. The bike landed on Ozzy’s chest, crushing him, and leaving him with a broken collarbone, eight fractured ribs, and a damaged vertebrae. Quick thinking by his bodyguard ensured Ozzy was in a coma for eight days, rather than permanently on the other side. He characterised the accident as a turning point in his life when he was finally forced to “grow up”.

10. Imma let you finish your list, but…
In October 2002, Kanye West was involved in a car accident that almost claimed his life. The impact of the crash broke his jaw in three places, and West had a metal plate implanted in his chin. It wasn’t all bad news for the singer though – he was recording his debut album at the time, and his wired-shut jaw led him to record the hit single Through the Wire.

– Stuff