Agreement may be bogus--claim

The agreement signed by US President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-Un in Singapore on June 12 may be bogus, says an Australian-based Korean language professor.

The startling claim comes from Professor Sam Sung of New South Wales’ Macquarie University who says that, whilst there is no doubt the historic agreement “signed” by the two leaders carries the President’s felt pen signature with its characteristic flourish, Kim Jong-un’s is an entirely different story.

Professor Sung claims the North Korean leader has not signed his name at all. 

Instead, Professor Sung says, Kim Jong-un has left the message, “Get a proper haircut you fat prick!”

Professor Sung’s staggering statement has been disputed in many quarters. Professor Thomas Suckitinsee of Tokyo University says the word prick is not found in the Korean language and Professor Sung’s translation is incorrect. The Institute of International Studies’ Joachim Crock, who is acknowledged as an expert  in North Korean affairs, says the word “fat” is not used by Chairman Kim nor by any in his inner circle.

In reply, Professor Sung admits there is no direct translation of fat prick and it could conceivably  be translated as “huge penis”, although this is not thought to refer to the American President.

There has been no comment on the claim from North Korean officials. However, President Trump tweeted this morning that he thought (Chairman) Kim had a “tremendous” sense of humour and the alleged message was just another example of “the very very good relationship I have with every world leader.”

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, declined to comment on President Trump’s tweet but late this morning issued a press statement saying  that “finally” he (Trudeau) and Chairman Kim had something they could agree on.

#wtffakenews

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As Cecil C. Sackrider Sees It: Come Fly With Me

Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

God’s gift of celebacy has lain upon fertile ground of late. He hath spoke and purged my heart of sinful, lustful thoughts on many occasions, and has done much the same for Bobby-Jo each night after prayer and before my visitation upon her. In that, He has been successful, for Bobby-Jo has been restored to her sweet, innocent self and tells me that, thanks be to God, she no longer harbors lustful thoughts toward me. And that is God’s blessing upon us for I am free to minister to other sisters in Christ and reveal God’s purpose for them.

So cometh the Lord. Hallelujah!

However, God has also placed a burden upon me. “Cecil” he sayeth to me. “You much venture forth a take My message to the greater world. You must take My Word to places where the light is yet to shine. You must travel the world in My Name, leaving no stone unturned in rooting out the sullied and shamed. You must find those whom would commit evil in satan’s name and commit unspeakable acts of lust and root them out.

“That is your mission, “ sayeth God.

“Yes,” I sayeth to the Lord in humility, awash with His grace.

“And for that you need another plane.”

It is God’s word that the Cecil C. Sackrider Ministry needs to add to its two aging Gulfstream G550s a brand new Bombardier Global 5000, rrp $39,900,000. The Global 5000 has a cruising speed of 556mph and a maximum range of 53200 miles enabling His word to be spread further faster.

And when I sayeth to the Lord in all humility and awash with His grace: “Lord is your message not able to be spread in such a profligate manner?” He replies: “Cecil, such is the importance of my Word, such is the importance of the Light, would you have it that my Word and my Light would travel on the back of an ass? “No,” sayeth the Lord, “A Bombardier Global 5000 is the new way of the Lord.”

And so charges the Lord, that in His name and grace we—each of us—should reach out, reach into our pockets and His name and His sight bequeath to the Cecil C. Sackrider  Ministry all you can so that His message, and my Mission to root out all evil, can be taken to the world.

Give now, friends, for the world is waiting.

To make a tax-deductible donation to the Cecil C. Sackrider Ministry Flying Fund send your check or money order to 1069E West 35 Street Montgomery Alabama United States of America, Zip Code 666.  If you do not at once have the funds available, credit card payments will be acceptable All donations over US$1,000,000 puts you into the draw to join Rev Cecil C. Sackrider and Sister Bobby-Jo Sackrider as they use the new Bombardier 5000 to bring God’s Word to the Bahamas in December.

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Dapper Dan has Died

The Dapper Dan of New Journalism has died.

Tom Wolfe passed away this week at the age of 88. He died, the New York Times says, from an “Infection in Manhattan.” That coy term could almost be the title of one of Wolfe’s books.

The sartorial resplendent Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr was the author of such books as The Right Stuff (his most commercially popular), The Bonfire of the Vanities, and my favourite: The Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test.

Along with contemporary writers such as Truman Capote, Gay Talese and Joe Eszterhas, he created the Age of New Journalism.

New Journalism, AKA Gonzo, is the art and craft of reporting “facts” subjectively, by interpretation; injecting the writer, and vicariously the reader, into the story. Wolfe co-created it; it took Capote with In Cold Blood and Hunter S. Thompson with just about everything Thompson wrote to perfect it.

Wolfe’s writing was acerbic but rarely unkind. Unlike Capote, and Thompson for that matter, Wolfe never seemed to have the necessity to be unkind as he chronicled East and West Coast Society in America. He coined phrases for those societies such as “Radical Chic” and the “Me Decade.” America’s astronauts are still collectively known as “The Right Stuff.”

In fact, collectivising and stereotyping were about as tough as Wolfe got when writing about people, and that is no bad stuff.

However, Wolfe's ambitions and commercial success earned him enemies—big enemies. Norman Mailer despised him (nothing new there). So did Kohn Updike and John Irving. On the other hand, right-wing commentator William F. Buckley Jr called Wolfe “probably the most skilled writer in America.”

My view of Tom Wolfe is ambivalent. His writing style is often an inspiration to me, and when circumstances and publishers allow I try to replicate his New Journalism. Fryday often ventures there. However, particularly in his writing for Rolling Stone magazine, Wolfe’s flamboyant style often overtakes and diminishes the substance of his writing; then, his writing becomes like the white and cream suits he was known for—largely opaque.

So, Dapper Dan has died. I don’t feel saddened by that to the same extent I did when Thompson died…or Capote. And the reason I think is that the style he created, New Journalism, lives on—as it had to. If anything, it has been given greater credibility by America’s present president. New Journalism is today’s “Fake News”.

And for that Tom Wolfe has left us a great gift and legacy.
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Sex, with cows

When Fryday has nothing to write about and doesn’t want to revisit Wogistan, it usually reverts to the Hamilton Library’s Book of lists or The University of Waikato.

This week Fryday went to university

The University of Waikato is fertile ground for Fryday. It is the go-to place for ill-considered and retrograde activism and totally useless research. You may recall a Fryday post about the award-winning Waikato University study into “the geographicalism of sexism”. The university has disclosed a more recent and equally compelling thesis on Hamiltonians’ addiction to cars. The best that can be said for that is that cars may be the only addictive thing about Hamilton.

For an update Fryday visited the university website today and using the search box found:

56,817 posts on sexism
333,480 posts on racism

 370,853 posts on sexuality (they like it down there)

 313,143 posts on cows

And remarkably (don’t ask):

  3,482 posts on cows and sexuality.

The University of Waikato is certainly the place to be if you want to produce relevant, compelling research that provides optimal use of the public purse.

Of course The University of Waikato is not alone among universities in its weirdness, or indeed in its love of cows. In researching the latter, Fryday was drawn to the Sub-Continent where cows are just as loved, revered and worshiped as they are in Hamilton.

It was no surprise therefore to find the University of Kota.

Kota takes the cake for weirdness.

Just visiting the home page of its website is to delve into www or, as I describe it, the wonderful world of weird. Be patient with the opening welcoming video—it starts slow, but I can promise you it gets even slower. It celebrates something called the Fifth Convocation. A dictionary definition of convocation is a large gathering of people; up to now I thought it was prisoners going on holiday.

Going deeper into www:Kota one finds a page devoted to anti-ragging rules. What is ragging? Again a dictionary definition: it “now” means an act that violates a student’s dignity. It used to be a woman having her period. I am not sure when the page was posted on the Kota website, but—I suggest—the timing is important, because the intent is to “curb the menace” of ragging and that could, periodically, be very weird indeed.

However, in defence of the University of Kota and all other universities  a search of their sites reveals no posts for cows and sexuality.

Waikato, it appears you have that on your own.

Fryday...on Fire

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know—before this week’s revelations—that there are rumours about Clarke Gaylord-Ardern?

Second question: Do you know what those rumours are?

I am going to hazard a guess that the answer to both those questions is no.

Nor do I. Nor do I care.

Except for this: In drawing attention to these rumours and assigning them to “dirty politics” Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters have been both opportunistic and, worse, incredibly naïve. There is no way in the world that these rumours—whatever they allege—are initiated by political opponents.

How do I know this?

First, I have been around politics for a long time and I know that’s not the way it is done. Sure, things are “known” but they are not spread around. There is such a thing as “glasshouses” which is very effective in prevarication of rumours about a political opponent.

Second, a politician’s family and partner are off limits, not particularly because of laudatory motives, but more openly because there is no political capital in attacking them. In fact, quite the reverse—they can elicit sympathy.

So, is the National Party, as implied by Ardern (Jacinda) and Peters, behind these rumours? No. And are Ardern and Peters in public perception made to look foolish for implying they are? Again, the answer is no. The reason being that generally we are inclined to think the worst of people. Ardern and Peters, as seasoned politicians, know this: they are prepared to fan the fire.

Unfortunately for them, in drawing attention to these rumours they have forgotten the public’s propensity toward another old adage regarding fire: where there is smoke… .

I feel sorry for Gayford. I think he is the innocent victim here, and I sympathise about the rumours. But I also think he should question the judgement of his partner in making political capital out of them.

Letters from Wogistan: Macron

The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Office of the Foreign Secretary

123 Bruce Springsteen Boulevard (third door on right). Telephone: 125.

Presidente Donald J. Trump

Presidente of United States of Americas

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington DC 20500

United States of Americas.

Dear Presidente Donald

Our Presidente for life Yoseph Flagrantie send you fragrant greetings from the Peoples of Democratic Republic of Wogistan.

Presidente will make visit to United States of Americas to discuss global warming issues. Peoples of Wogistan very cold and there is not enough sheeps to go around. Presidente feel sorry for peoples. He thinks of them as family and manys are. Presidente wants to supply thems with America heaters. Present Russian one not worthy. You supply.

Presidente want STATE WELCOMES like you give presidente Macron. Our Presidente more important. He eat Macrons. But no kisses on lips. Presidentes will shake hands, but not hold hands—that not menly thing to do.

You send Airforce One and Two—Presidente not travel with sheeps.

Sincerely

Yoseph xxx

Yoseph Wankerstan

Foreign Secretary The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Proprietor Spartacus Male Gym and Bathhouse.

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On talk and tweets

The radio is on in the background. The station is a sports station. There is only one topic of conversation and that is whether Sam Gaze’s apology for the way he reacted to fellow New Zealander Anton Cooper in yesterday’s mountain bike final was written by him or for him. The difference being, in the minds of the commentators, is that if Sam wrote it himself the apology is sincere; if he did not, then it is not. The commentators believe it was not; they are basing their belief, mainly, on the cadence of the wording. All very academic.

And it is academic in the other sense of that word. In every respect, this matter doesn’t deserve the attention it is getting.

However, it interests me for two reasons. First, as a person who makes his living as a writer, I am interested in any assertion that the written word, when delivered by a third party, cannot truly reflect or represent the person, and that written words, even direct quotes, rarely are the same as they are when spoken.

Really? I make most of my income writing about people and quoting them. And I think in representing them I do it successfully—truly and fairly reflecting them, their thoughts, and their emotions. Any good writer can do it, and quite easily.

So, does it matter that Sam didn’t write his own apology—that he allegedly had it written for him? Perhaps. But it doesn’t necessarily make the apology any less sincere for that. It was just written better. Just leave it, guys; there are more important matters.

And that leads me to my second interest in this matter and the use of language. This is the tweet:

Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and "smart!" You shouldn't be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2018

This Trump tweet and many others like it, usually attacking somebody or something, are very often sent in the very early hours of the morning. And in the use of the language—inflammatory and provocative—the  author would usually be on something or had a few too many. I have done it myself and with the same triggers. But I am not the president and the fact that this man can virtually declare war or provoke another nation into war using Twitter is deeply worrying. That he can also do it sitting alone (apparently) without a sounding board or consultation is also deeply worrying.

The only “consolation” we have is that Trump does not drink. How much worse would this mess be if he did? Then again, the fact that he does this while sober brings up a whole other set of issues.

Trump has softened his stance since. But this latest round of tweets is the most dangerous yet and raises real concerns about his sanity. Those who defend Trump will often point to the fact that he is “honest” in saying what he believes. That, too, is worrying. The only suggestion I could make to them and to Trump is to do what Sam Gaze allegedly did and get someone else to write it for him.

It’s less dangerous that way.
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Good Fryday and bad times

This is not the Fryday I intended to write. Nor is it a Fryday I wanted to write. Perhaps it is not even the Fryday I should write, but you must be the judge of that.

Earlier this week I lost one of the two dogs my wife and I owned. The dog was eight years old and succumbed after a protracted battle with cancer, lasting many months. When she was diagnosed we were told that even with the best treatment, we could at most expect her to have another year with us.

Death is the domain of decisions.

Our first was not to subject her to invasive chemotherapy for the sake of a year. We instead opted to put her on medication that would for a time protect her from the worst excesses of cancer.

For many months the medication did just that and was only recently--the last few days--that her deterioration became evident and inevitable.

It was then that I took a second decision: to take her off the medication and have her die as peacefully as she could at home.

When her last day came, I think she knew it. There were a few things out of character: a slow circuit of the property boundary stopping to watch the sheep on one side and the children playing on the other. There was an attempt to get back to the house, but she never made it more than half-way. My wife and I carried her the rest of the way and put her in her bed next to ours. It was there she died that night.

I have lost dogs before, but it never gets easier. And I don't wish to single out dogs--all pet-owners feel the same range of emotions and have to deal with them and can be excused for dwelling on them.

And nor is it just pets. I spoke to a farmer about this and he said that he feels the same about every working dog he's owned.

Laila led a charmed life. Her world was one of adventure. She was a boxer, named after the most famous female boxer in the world Laila Ali. Our Laila charmed most who met her and made everybody, even those she couldn't charm, feel that they were the most important people in her life.

She loved going to the vets and being poked and prodded--even in those last days when she could barely wag her tail, her whole body shook with pleasure as we entered the vet clinic.

Yes, she had issues. Boxers tend to have a few--ask any owner.  She was never good around smaller dogs. Yes, she stole apples from our tree so frequently that we had to let it go and turn a blind eye.

And, yes, she did adopt an air of "It's all about me". And, of course, it was.  However, as long as she could also make you think it was all about you. That was okay too. You had to love Laila for that.

And we did.

For that...and a whole lot more.

Old friends and the art of Gonzo

Cecil C. Sackrider is taking me to task. So is Whetu.

They claim that Fryday has forgotten them. They accuse me of being Jann Wenner, though Reverend Sackrider thinks Mr Wenner is a pornographer and Whetu thinks he is a hamburger.

Mr Wenner is in fact the recently retired founder and executive editor of Rolling Stone magazine, a magazine that capitalized on brilliant columnists such as Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O’Rourke, and Cameron Crowe, and for a variety of reasons let them go.

My correspondents feel I am doing the same. They consider me to be Jann Wenner: without the toke and the coke.

They are right. I need to have another belt of scotch and give them their space in the sun.

But, not yet.

Let me give this last lingering look at what Fryday conveys.

It conveys shit. At least in conventional journalist quarters.

You see, I finally read (in Rolling Stone) the accessible definition of Gonzo Journalism, a term coined by Hunter S. Thompson to describe his particular, peculiar and proficient form of journalism.

In a word, he described it as subjective.

Subjective means that the story is written from the writer’s point of view—his or her perception and perspective. If they wanted to report the facts, and only the facts, they would be objective.

Many readers would suggest that objective is better. And that is okay. I get that.

But, think about it. Are the facts really that interesting? And are they even facts? I interview someone and quote them. That’s their story. But is that the real story? If they are cutting a ribbon, is that interesting? Are their ceremonial and sanctimonious sentiments more interesting than the stories of the people who made the ribbon or the scissors?

Who wants to know? I do.

So where Gonzo comes in is that the writer injects themselves into the story. And you know what? In doing so, they are representing us—the reader. They are not asking us to agree with them, all they are saying is that if you were there, with them, this is what you may have felt.

There is a story behind a story.

And please do not tell me you think I am wrong in believing that is less interesting as a story.

So, we have editors who say let the subjects tell their own story. Okay. But as Cameron, P.J and in particular Hunter S. told their stories, they are a bloody-sight more interesting than the subjects themselves.

But, I succumb.
Next week, Cecil C. Sackrider has his subjective say. And after that…Whetu, if he is out by then.

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Laying down the law

I worked for an organisation where the most despised department, and one of the few never to be down-sized, Human Resources, decided that the solution to its perception problem was to change its name. It became People and Capability. Setting aside the grammatical and operational contortion that name evokes, the precept that a name change is the panacea for problems is seemingly endemic: Hamilton could become Kirikiriroa but it is still Hamilton, and insisting on calling yourself Richard doesn’t make yourself less of a Dick.

You cannot solve a problem by changing a name; you solve it by changing your culture. Strange thing about culture. Its literal definition is the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively, but in the corporate context it is the prevailing atmosphere, demeanour and attitude of the management and staff—mainly the management. It can be good and it can be bad. And it can change. I worked for one organisation, the Rodney District Council, that made such a change, from the bad to good, through the simple expedient of having a new mayor. I have worked for another council, Far North District Council, which is yet to make such a change.

But the worst corporate culture I ever came across, and one that is rightly coming under fire, is that of Russell McVeagh. It had nothing to do with alleged sexual misconduct, but it did have links to their recruitment process involving university law students. I was working for an advertising agency instructed by Russell McVeagh to create an advertising and promotional campaign to attract university graduates. I attended the campaign presentation in one of the firm’s many meeting rooms. The agency team, five of us, along with seven Russell McVeagh staff, were in that meeting room for 30 minutes waiting for the arrival of a “senior partner” who was to chair the meeting.   And believe me, advertising people and lawyers (however junior) have very little in common and even less to make small talk about. When the senior partner finally arrived with a putter but not an apology, he got right down to business. He said he was late for a round of golf (late for at least the second time that day, I thought) so rather than waste time—ignoring ours, which he had already wasted— his view was the campaign was crap and he was leaving it to his “underlings”, motioning toward his staff in the room, to sort out. He then walked out. Yes, that was the term he used: underlings. Remarkably, the only people in the room who were visibly shocked was the agency team; the young lawyers seemed to take it as the norm…as their lot. Let me make it clear, this guy was not joking; he was acting on and from a position of sheer arrogance. That told me a lot then—confirmed now—of the culture of Russell McVeagh.

Every company, except mine, has good and bad people in it. Mine is the exception only because it is only me and my wife and we are both good people. But all larger companies and organisations have a mix. However, law companies such as Russell McVeagh and now, we hear Chapman Tripp, seem to have a greater intolerance for, and missunderstanding of, basic human decency. At this time the universities seem to be boycotting them; perhaps their clients should consider doing the same; there are law firms in Kirikiriroa who would gladly accept their business.

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A Fryday Fillip

I have learnt from bitter experience that there are two things you should not do when drunk, apart from getting drunk in the first place, and those are: visit Trade Me, and send emails. The first is self-evident and the second was in my case, a lesson learnt when I wrote an email to Hell’s Angels in Oakland California criticising the quality of their website. For months, I dreaded the roar of Harley Davidsons coming up my driveway. Of course, none did (yet), but I was tempting fate.

I am doing so again today by imparting something my wife said to me. During the taxing task of boiling a couple of eggs for my breakfast (I am very particular about my eggs) she stated the view that terrorists seem to have been quiet of late. My first thought was that I failed to see the juxtaposition between terrorism and my eggs; my second thought was that for the sake of Peace—Household Peace, not World Peace—I should not reveal my first thought; and my third thought was that she is right—there has been very little in the way of reported terrorism.

The question I pose is why? The ideological divide remains and so too, I imagine, does the fanaticism. So, what has changed? If anything?

Well, in terms of umbrella groups ISIS has its problems and is now fighting for survival, and does Al-Qaeda even exist anymore? So, that may have something to do with it. But there is nothing new there---when was the last large-scale, military-style attack? Most recent attacks have been of the lone-wolf variety, involving at most four or five perpetrators. However, even they have dried up—if we don’t count the all-too-frequent and tragic school killings in the United States.

There are two approaches we could take to answering this question. The first is that the global intelligence community has got on top of terrorism and is effectively shutting it down. That is the positive view. The converse view is that someone somewhere is planning something big. I can’t subscribe to that, though. I don’t know much about global intelligence, but I do know that after the failure to detect and predict 9/11, every intelligence organisation in the world, including New Zealand’s, lifted its game and it is virtually impossible to keep anything secret these days; if something big is being planned, I think we would know about it. I also think that terrorist groups such as ISIS no longer have the resources to mount anything substantial, at least in a conventional sense. Of course, there remains the spectre of a biological attack, a cyberattack and the ever-present threat of nutcase with his finger on the nuclear button. But we have lived with those for years.

So, are we through the worst of it? At the risk of courting fate, I very much hope so. We may be at last looking at a better world. A world where Jacinda delivers her baby, if not much else; where Clarke Gayford gets propositioned by an over-amorous shark (and the Herald reports it as its lead story) Hamilton keeps doing what it does best—trying, and I am left in peace to eat my eggs.

As Satchmo said, it is a wonderful world.

Unless I hear a Harley.