
Issue No 40		19 November 1999

Review

The Best of the Best

By Paul Howes

Once again Channel Nine has out done itself with it's new Ray Martin program "Simply the Best".

Channel Nine describes its new show as "an exciting program that celebrates the greatest movers and shakers, moments and memories of the past 100 years."

The show involves a "panel of experts" who rate the best TV program of the Century (which is inevitably linked to Channel Nine), the best band or singer of the century (could be Johnny Franham or maybe Cold Chisel), or the best movie.

Simply the Best" is about as exciting as the "The Best of Hey Hey its Saturday" but its only one of many programs, articles, books and forums which focus on rating the events and people of the last century and Millennium as we approach December 31, 1999.

So why do we have this fixation on rating and reviewing everything that ever happened?

The New York Times Magazine is currently reviewing the entire millennium in search of the best of everything. Frank Rich a senior writer for New York Times Magazine claims:

"The impulse behind this listing and cataloguing of the best is all too understandable at our particular fin de siecle. We live in a time when the volume of what we know about our universe is more than we can absorb, and among our millennial anxieties is the desperate wish to sort it out. The Asia that The Times barely acknowledged a hundred years ago, as well as all the other non-Western sites on the planet, have long since been annexed to our field of vision in the intervening decades. So have the moon and the atom. And that's not the half of it."

But does any one really care? Is the millennium over rated? There seems to be this expectation that time will stop at midnight December 31 1999 and at 12.01 am on January 1 2001 the world will be a different place hence the need to review and rate all of the events of the past 1000 years. But as everyone knows nothing will change the world will still be here, life will be the same and at the risk of sounding cynical the only difference will be a few computer systems in Azerbaijan will collapse due them not being Y2K compliant.

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  Issue 40 contents

Interview: No Quick Fix
Online pioneer Marc Belanger explains why the Internet, on its own, will not save the union movement.

Unions: Organising With A Mission
Entries are beginning to trickle in for the Labor Council Organiser of the Year. With just two weeks to deadline, we look at the TWU's nominee.

History: Rhyme and Reason
Poems written by workers provide us with an insight into their experiences and also how they felt about their work and working conditions.

Health: The Food Police
Three times a day you take your life in your hands. How? When you sit down to eat a meal.

Politics: East Timor: Defeat or Victory for the Left?
John Passant's "Requiem for the Left" advances some rather extravagant charges regarding the left and East Timor.

International: Kiwi Unions Rebuild from Ground Up
After fifteen years as a right wing laboratory New Zealand is about to change tack. New NZCTU chief Paul Goulter outlines the challenge ahead.

Satire: Australian Democrats Revealed as Student Hoax
The Chaser has obtained an exclusive background report on the extraordinary story which reveals how and why Cheryl Kernot defected from the Democrats.

Review: The Best of the Best
Once again Channel Nine has out done itself with itï¿½s new Ray Martin program ï¿½Simply the Bestï¿½.

Labour Review: What's New at the Information Centre
View the latest issue of Labour review, our resource for officials and students.

Deface a Face: 25,000 Teachers Canï¿½t Be Wrong!
Angry teachers yesterday voted overwhelmingly for Education minister John Aquilina to take the mantle of this weekï¿½s face to deface.

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» Tragic Death Leads to Lift in Contractor Safety Standards

» Oldfield in the Pub