Saturday Morning for Saturday 11 June 2022

8.10 Neri Zilber: can Israel’s coalition government last?

Israel’s governing coalition is about to mark its first anniversary on June 13, however recent events have raised questions around how much longer it can last.

Earlier this week, a bill that allows a half-million Israeli settlers to live under civilian law in the West Bank failed to pass during a vote by the Knesset. The bill has routinely passed every five years since 1967. Many Knesset members voted against their own fundamental beliefs in an effort to either bring down the coalition, or save it.

The Bennett-Lapid coalition is the most representative in Israeli history, spanning eight-parties from the right, left, centre — and for the first time in Israeli history, an Arab-Israeli political party.

Neri Zilber is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv. He has written for Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Daily Beast and more.

 

8.30 Dr Ian Griffin: uncovering the mysterious STEVE aurora

When Dr Ian Griffin spotted some strange activity in Dunedin’s night sky on St Patrick’s Day in 2015, he knew he had to capture it. The astronomer raced around the region to try and photograph it properly, in the process earning himself a speeding ticket.

It turns out what Dr Griffin captured was the first-ever direct observation of rare auroral activity - the STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) aurora - which may cast new light on the complex magnetic interactions in the near-Earth space environment.

His observations were picked up by a researcher from NASA, and have formed the basis of a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, co-authored by an international team including scientists from Boston University, NASA, and the University of Calgary.

Griffin is director of Otago Museum and an honorary researcher at the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonics and Quantum Technologies

 

9.05 Hazel Phillips: the joys of tramping solo

In 2016, Auckland-based journalist Hazel Phillips found herself disillusioned with life in the big smoke. She packed up her all her belongings, except for a tramping pack, boots, and ski gear and headed south.

Over the next three years, Phillips was strategically homeless. During that time, she tramped her way up and down the country, from Ruapehu to the Hump Ridge — all the while holding down a full-time job. Phillips' travels are chronicled in her new book Solo: Backcountry adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Her previous books include Sell! Tall Tales from the Legends of Advertising and Wild Westie, a biography of Sir Bob Harvey.

 

9.35 Prof Mike Sharples: will AI do all our writing in the future?

Computers might be close to being able to write better than humans, but not without dropping some real clangers. Recently developed AI technology uses ‘deep learning’ — machine learning featuring artificial neural networks — to produce text. The Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) technology is being hailed for writing original prose with human fluency, but not always. 

Emeritus Professor Michael Sharples of The Open University in the UK says transformers like GPT-3 are set to majorly disrupt education.

Sharples has been researching the application of AI to writing for 45 years, with a particular interest in technology’s use in learning. He co-authored the upcoming book Story Machines: How Computers Have Become Creative Writers.

Sharples has developed a story generator powered by GPT-3 you can try online.

 

10.05 Playing Favourites with musician Bret McKenzie

Best known around these parts as one-half of musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie is, in his own words, one of the best comedy songwriters in the biz.

McKenzie has lent his songwriting chops to two Muppets films, earning himself an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2012 for ‘Man or Muppet’. But McKenzie is hanging up his silly hat, at least temporarily, to release a serious debut solo album, Songs Without Jokes.

Inspired by the songwriting of Steely Dan, Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, the record will be released by Sub Pop on 26 August. The release will be followed by an extensive tour across New Zealand, Great Britain, Ireland, and North America.

 

11.05 Tony Brunt: 50 years since founding the Values Party

Formed in 1972 in Wellington, the Values Party claims the title of the world’s first national-level environmentalist party, and was a precursor to the Green Party we know today.

The party’s founder and leader Tony Brunt was, at 25 years old, part of a new generation that was starting to push back against the conservative, conformist monoculture dominating New Zealand at the time.

Alongside the party’s goal of protecting the environment, the party advocated for zero-population and zero-economic growth. Brunt’s vision for a more egalitarian society appealed to many others, with the party building momentum and contesting five elections between 1972 to 1984.

 

11.35 Jackie Van Beek: peek behind the curtains of Nude Tuesday

Set in a fictional country and told in a made-up language, new film Nude Tuesday follows a couple who head to new-age retreat Ẅønđeulä (pronounced Vue-de-la) as a last ditch effort to rekindle their lacklustre marriage. The absurdist comedy is based on an original screenplay by Jackie Van Beek, who also stars as the film’s sexually repressed protagonist, Laura.

Director Armağan Ballantyne (The Strength of Water) worked on the story with Van Beek, and the cast’s improvised gibberish was subtitled after filming by British comedian and writer Julia Davis.

Van Beek’s other films include The Breaker Upperers and The Inland Road. 

Nude Tuesday opens in New Zealand cinemas on 16 June.

 

Books mentioned in this show:

Solo: Backcountry adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand
By Hazel Phillips
Publisher: Massey University Press
ISBN: 9780-9951354-5-1
 

Story Machines: How Computers Have Become Creative Writers
By Rafael Pérez y Pérez and Michael Sharples
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367751975
 

A Gentle Radical: The life of Jeanette Fitzsimons
By Gareth Hughes
Published by Allen & Unwin
ISBN:978-1-98854-783-1

 

Music featured on this show:

The Outdoor Type
By The Lemonheads
Played at 9.05am

Dave's Place
By Bret McKenzie
Played at 10.05am

Tomorrow Night
By The Front Lawn 
Played at 10.20am

Night Train
By James Brown
Played at 10.35am

Bam Bam
By Sister Nancy
Played at 10.50am

Moonlight Feels Right
By Starbuck  
Played at 10.58am

Saturday Sun
By Nick Drake
Played at 11.06am