The Republican establishment raises the white flag

The Republican Party or, more accurately, the top figures within the party (and not the grassroots membership) has been in conniptions over a Mr Donald J. Trump for the past few months. He has been the leading primary candidate across the United States for far longer than is normal for such campaigns. He has demonstrated enormous influence through skilled manipulation of the media which has allowed him to constantly gain attention, and he is able to shake off what would otherwise be enormous gaffes with a practised ease. He has coupled this with a total disdain for the top brass of the party he is running to be the presidential candidate for.

In response to this potent combination, said brass has brought out every weapon they could use while simultaneously trying to avoid annoying their grassroots supporters more than they already have, culminating in an entire issue of the National Review, probably the most significant conservative magazine in American circulation, presenting a series of essays by 22 authors which had the sole aim of being 'AGAINST TRUMP'.

Who on Earth thought this was a good idea?

In placing themselves 'AGAINST TRUMP', the Review fails to state what exactly it is for. From the essays that the issue holds, it seems that the answer to that is 'anything that isn't Trump'. A number of essays actually contradict each other, attacking Trump from different sides of an issue. A magazine that holds that a candidate is unsuitable because of their views on certain issue, and then takes contradictory positions on those same issues, has launched their attack from a position of weakness. It makes them appear as though they only disagree with the candidate because of who he is - which, in this case, seems quite accurate.

It establishes Trump in a position of further strength, the very opposite of what they were attempting to do. He has become the candidate. No other presidential candidate is going to get an issue of an entire magazine dedicated to being against them, are they? Trump's tactic of sucking the oxygen out of other campaigns by becoming the focus of the news every week was actually done for him last week by this issue of the Review.

And then, to add to the establishment's unwise decisions, Fox News has decided to also try to use their influence as the big conservative news network to do what the Review failed to do. At the head of this attack has been Megyn Kelly, who quickly rose to being the network's number one following her tit-for-tat with Trump during the last Fox debate. She even had some of the Review's editors on her show to commemorate that they were all 'AGAINST TRUMP'.

This all in the week leading up to the last debate before the Iowa caucus. It appears this was organised so that they would be able to attack Trump just in time to push him down in Iowa, and slowly wear him out in favour of someone, anyone else. This is further supported by the new information that a questioner at the Iowa debate, invited by the hosts, was to be a prominent YouTuber with a history of attacking Trump.

This was a terrible miscalculation. Trump's biggest supporters are people who feel ignored by the establishment, and now they see the establishment attacking their candidate, who they can see has wide support. How could they expect people to support them instead of Trump? All this did was provide another opportunity for him to suck the oxygen out of any discussion that didn't revolve around him, and he duly took it by boycotting the debate, thus robbing Fox of their much wanted chance to take him down and vast amount of viewers and, therefore, dollars. They seem to have forgotten that they are meant to be a news network in their desperation to take down a man they have no control over, thinking that they could ensnare him. Sure, Trump might be affected by this - conventional wisdom seems to say so - but conventional wisdom has not helped one iota in observing this campaign. 

Instead of going to the debate, Trump will be holding an event to raise money for veterans. He just knows which buttons to push at the right time to take full advantage of whatever opportunity presents itself. This will allow him to present himself as an all-American 'good guy' once again, and if that's what he is, what, we then ponder, must Fox be? (And to top it all off, Kelly had noted American critic of America, Michael Moore, on her programme, which he spent mostly congratulating her about taking the fight to Trump. That Moore should appear on Fox at all would normally send klaxons blaring, but to do so in a totally positive context is truly extraordinary.)

Trump will probably win Iowa, and he'll surely win the Republican nomination. The establishment picked a fight with the wrong guy, and are going to have the blowtorch applied to them over and over until they fall in line. Or until they stay true to themselves and support Michael Bloomberg instead.

Nathan Hauritz and what could have been

This week, Nathan Hauritz retired.

It was not an announcement that many were surprised by, or even took notice of. Most Australian cricket fans will have barely remembered that, for two years, he was our number one spinner. History will probably not remember him fondly, perhaps as little more than a footnote between Shane Warne and Nathan Lyon.

But I will.

To be fair, even I don't remember his Test debut in 2004, a one-off in the 4th Test of a series against India that Australia had already won. Hauritz took five wickets playing as the first spinner, an impressive performance for a young tyro. This came of the back of eight ODIs played over 2002 and 2003 which were more nondescript, and was followed by a return to domestic cricket which was similarly quiet. It took a move from Queensland to New South Wales, the retirement of Warne and Stuart MacGill, and the trying out of Dan Cullen (prior to Warne's retirement), Beau Casson, Jason Krejza, Cameron White and Bryce McGain before he managed to find himself back in the baggy green, but this time, he was there to stay.

Or so it should have been. The reason I will not forget Nathan Hauritz is because I was, and still am, consistently amazed by how poorly he was treated by the media, by the public, by his captain, and - above all - by the selectors.

Hauritz's Test career is punctuated by the three times he wasn't selected. The first was his aforementioned non-selection between 2004 and 2008, mostly justified until MacGill left the scene, after which it is difficult to understand why it took so long for him to return. The second was in the 2009 Ashes, when he was dropped for Stuart Clark for the 4th Test after solid returns in the first three. Australia won by an innings, with Clark taking an impressive 3/18 in the first innings. But it is difficult to imagine Australia wouldn't have done well with three seamers at Headingley, as Peter Siddle took five wickets in the same innings, while Mitchell Johnson took five wickets and Ben Hilfenhaus four in the second innings. In what should've been a warning to the selectors, Clark went for 74 runs off his eleven overs in that innings, taking no wickets. But instead the panel continued their tradition of never changing a winning team, regardless of individual performances. This allowed England an easy, Ashes winning victory at The Oval, as the pitch was a raging turner and Australia had Marcus North as its frontline spinner.

Alas, the selectors did not learn their lesson. The career ending non-selection for Hauritz was the third occurrence, coming a year later in the Ashes squad for the first Test in Brisbane. Hauritz had performed poorly, but not unexpectedly so, against India in India, while the opposition spinners led the wicket taking charts in the two Test series. That this should lead to the humiliation of being dropped for Xavier Doherty and Michael Beer in the same series seems remarkably unfair. After picking Doherty for the first two Tests, he was dropped for Mitchell Johnson, who performed well in Perth, delivering a match-winning spell in the first innings. The selectors, though faced with a different pitch than the one in Perth, left the bowling attack unchanged, leaving Stephen Smith as the frontline spinner as England romped to an Ashes winning victory. Sound familiar?

Alas, the selectors did not learn their lesson. Michael Beer, after a decent season with the ball for Western Australia, got the call up for the fifth Test in Sydney, presumably because they were too proud too admit their mistake in dropping Hauritz. In any case, Beer played his one and only Test and didn't do a great deal in it, while Hauritz continued plugging away at domestic level. The selectors then tried to make up for it by selecting him for the ODI series, only to dislocate his shoulder in the second ODI.

And that was the end of that.

So far, I've only really focussed on the selectors, but the other parties I mentioned earlier deserve some time under our gaze as well. The media and the public worked seemingly in tandem to sap Hauritz's confidence as often as possible. The aftermath of the Warne/MacGill years were harsh for Australian spinner, and Hauritz, a naturally private person whose off-spin was more about variations and bounce than about turn, was especially susceptible to this. He quickly became a player who appeared to be just one game away from being dropped, as the media questioned his ability and the public cried out for someone who fit their ideal of an Australian spinner more closely, seemingly not realising that he was quite literally the best the country had to offer. The selectors, of course, did nothing to help in this when they managed to find such crucial moments in which not to pick him, forcing him to start from scratch again and again.

As for his captain...while Ricky Ponting was a better captain by the end of his time in the role than he was at the start, he never seemed to get the hang of how to use spinners. Being blessed with Warne and MacGill, spinners who knew what they wanted and could back it up with results, turned into a curse as spinners with less confidence, experience and ability rotated through the Australian dressing room, rather like the most daunting job interviews on Earth. Here, Ponting decided to take on the role of deciding when to bowl the spinners and what fields they should bowl to, and his decisions were not conducive to the confidence of his spinners, with a defensive mindset dominating as he tried to hang on to a legacy of dominance that no longer matched his squad.

What would Hauritz have looked like under Michael Clarke? I imagine much like his replacement has managed. His fellow Nathan, of the Lyon variety, has become Australia's highest off-spinning wicket-taker in Tests, despite starting at a similar base to Hauritz, and being of a similar personality and bowling style. But Lyon received the support he needed at the time he needed it, despite a few bumps, and is now reaping the benefits. 

This is not to say Hauritz would've succeeded to the same extent, or in the same way. I suspect he wouldn't have taken quite as many wickets, simply due to the slight differences in their bowling style. But the similarities of their records are hard to ignore, and Hauritz was decent with the blade as well.

Hauritz's career can perhaps be summed up in the story of him selling his cricket gear in a garage sale. Why? Because it was a factually inaccurate and misleading story, perpetuated and used by the public to attack him, emblematic of a lack of support from his team and the result of being wrongfully dropped. Despite its falsehood, it felt at the time like the sign that his Australian career was over. Now we know it is, and can only ponder what could have been.

Things that won't fulfil your life: your own home

Advertising is the art of selling things to people. By their nature, advertisements are going to embellish the truth to some degree or another, in order to make a product so attractive that the viewer will be willing to part with their money in order to buy that product.

Some ads will suggest that their product will make life easier. Others will emphasise the excitement they can add to life. But there are a few ads which will make a much larger claim: that their product will fulfil your life.

One example of this comes from Aussie Living Homes, as can be seen in this ad:

There are two lines of argument running through the ad - audio and visual - that begin with the same question and end with the same answer. The question is 'what is your dream?', and the answer is that owning your own home will fulfil it.

The following dreams are claimed to be fulfilled by owning your own home in the visual arguments:

Happiness forever; to live well; make our own choices; to be independent; enjoy success; embrace life; to be ourselves; to shine; to play; live in the moment.

These are accompanied by images of young, good looking couples having fun and enjoying each others' company, with the appearance of being well off.

Here are the audio dreams:

To be happy in our own home (without renting); lots of holidays; start our future and live somewhere nice (with everything close); to do what we want (with our first home); to be with family and friends; three or four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garden; a place to relax and call my own.

Both audio and video end with the statement 'LIVE THE DREAM', with indication that an Aussie Living Home will achieve these things for you.

It is a good thing ads do not need a logical explanation behind them, because if they did, this ad would run into trouble quite quickly.

It's interesting that they should choose to make the more outlandish claims silently. This seems a clever move, in that it puts the message in the viewers head subconsciously while they are listening to the more reasonable suggestions of believable young people.

Take only a moment to consider some of these claims, and it becomes clear how outrageous they are. Happiness forever? It's a house. No matter how much you spruce it up and spend time on it, it is still just a building. It cannot offer you love of any kind, which is generally what we desire most. Also, like all building, houses are prone to decay, which rather puts the dampers on any sense of forever.

To live well? Why can't I do that in a rental?

To make our own choices? This can be done without owning your own home, and specifically buying an Aussie Living Home may well take choices away from you, as you'll be forced to get a job that pays at a certain level to pay for your mortgage, and have a small number of suburbs to choose from. 

Be independent? This is one I will be prepared to give them.

Enjoy success? Pardon? Buying a home on the cheaper end of the new home spectrum is not success of any kind. Even if you only measure success in monetary terms, this is at the opposite end of the spectrum! 

Embrace life? I'm not actually sure what this means, although it seems to be some kind of indication that those who don't own their own home have a less full life which, again, seems unlikely given owning your own home requires a mortgage to pay off.

Be ourselves? Thereby suggesting that not owning your own home forces you to be someone else. I don't think so.

To shine/play/live in the moment? Superficial nonsense.

To be sure, many ads do this kind of thing - but this ad has been especially annoying, because it's just one big lie created by a thousand small ones.

Gayle the debaucher finally meets his match

Chris Gayle's blatant sexual innuendos and general manner towards Mel McLaughlin was, apparently, a surprise to some people. I do not understand why, as Gayle has, since being dropped as West Indies captain, become the most obvious example of someone who doesn't care about anything but his own pleasure you'll find in the cricketing world. For the past five years he has more or less done whatever he wants with the big money he gets from his many T20 league contracts. Judging from his social media profiles, most of that goes towards all the pleasures this world can afford.

Knowing this, why would anyone be shocked by this happening? Gayle has been doing this for years, so there should be no excuse for turning a blind eye towards it up until now. The real shock is actually this: the Melbourne Renegades thought it was a good idea to bring Gayle into their team.

Gayle has spent a few seasons in Australia, most recently with the Sydney Thunder, but that was three years ago. Gayle's on-field performances since then have dipped, as he tours around the world on the back of his big-hitting reputation. Certainly, he doesn't offer much else that other players couldn't similarly do, without his potential to be lazy and offer nothing significant to the team. This is exacerbated by his off-field behaviour, which Chris Rogers thought was problematic when they shared the Thunder shirt in 2012/13.

You'd think there would at least be some level of communication about this between teams and players. If there wasn't, then that is a problem that needs to be rectified. But if there was, and it was ignored because of Gayle's on-field ability, then that is actually a bigger problem. This is not someone who should be playing in the Big Bash League, because what he gives is far less than what he takes away. Hopefully now he will be considered persona non grata within the league, because there appears to be little chance he will change his ways any time soon.