state i'm in: i can always study tomorrow.
tune: chanel 'my life' (grant nelson vocal remix)
wikipedia states that "a worm is an elongated, fat, soft-bodied invertebrate". these last few days, as the potential indicator of the opinions of swinging voters on their impressions of australia's prime minister and opposition leader during a televised debate, and subsequently in political and media discourse, the worm has been a whole lot more.at various times in the lead-up to the leaders' debate on sunday night, the poor little bugger has been out of favour with some, while others have been embracing the notion to "let us be friends of the worm". others still, in the green camp, have declared that the presence of worms is to be taken as a sure sign of good organic gardening practices.
of those most ill-disposed to the worm, prime minister john howard tops the list. he tried stridently to ensure the worm would feature in no or as few coverages of the debate as possible. alas for mr howard, the nine network reneged on its apparent agreement it had made with the australian press gallery, providers of the feed for the other stations to televise, and broadcasted the debate with the worm present. channel nine denies any agreement was made, and accused the press club, acting under the explicit orders of mr howard and liberal party director brian loughnane, of outright censorship
as the nine network's feed of the debate was subsequently cut twice. notably, the worm was showing minimal levels of approval in response to mr howard's comments, and sometimes maximal levels for opposition leader kevin rudd's throughout most of the debate.what truly baffles me is why mr howard and his party made any fuss whatsoever of the use of the worm in the televised debate in the first place - it has never been a reliable indicator of the outcome of an election. to make a such a commotion only served to increase suspicion of mr howard's reasons for disagreeing with the tool's use. their stance may end up doing them a disservice, by ruffling the feathers of the nine network in the midst of an election campaign, when a network's collective ego runs rather precious on matters of news and current affairs. the PBL-owned and usually slightly pro-government nine network may enact something of a shift in its delivery to a more favourable coverage to the opposition leader than the prime minister, a not insubstantial blow at this time.
the worm did fail entirely to notice one important thing.
amidst all the banter of 'education revolutions', no one sought to point out that the on the backdrop and lectern the words 'leaders debate' lacked an apostrophe. godspeed you education revolution.---
images: richard scarry's lowly worm; others public
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