Jeff Bliss, an American student from Duncanville High in Texas, unloads on his “teacher” for being slack …
This young man, I feel, would make quite the brilliant teacher himself. And his delivery is perfect. A little James Franco, a little Crispin Glover.
What’s not to like?
Four stars, Margaret.
On another subject entirely, this piece from former Liberal Party member, Andrew Elder on Tony Abbott, “the bullshitter”, as Elder calls him, is essential reading …
“Tony Abbott is not his own man. There is no link between what he says and what actually happens. You can calibrate your assessment of him on the basis of what he says, and do so fairly. I don’t care how David Marr or Mia Freedman feels about those descriptions, or about the following as it regards their (former?) profession. To come up with unflattering assessments like those about Abbott you need to free yourself of the mushroom-cultivation techniques that pass for media management. Media management only works if people believe what’s in the media, and when content-providers link their words to what actually happens. It breaks still further when you have a man who will generate “wall-to-wall blah-blah-blah” simply to attract attention. You kill it by refusing to engage.”
Abbott is not just a “bullshitter”, he’s a complete fraud.
5am. I turn on the television. Channel 9’s early news.
A very basic animated graphic shows a few planets in what appears to be a solar system, and there’s a large, peppery black hole in the middle, into which text reading “$12 billion” disappears, and out from which, like an inflating balloon, comes a large question mark.
I slink into a corner of the room and whimper like a whipped dog until I realise I’m down to my last clean pair of socks and should do a load of washing after work tonight.
Embrace the pain.
A little while later there’s a story about Michael Jackson’s doctor, and another one about a US cheerleader ripping another US cheerleader for being fat.
With your hosts Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson.
I’m not sure if this is an adult program for children, or a children’s program for adults, but “your hosts” squirm, shift, smirk and smarm their way through a minute or two of mindless banter like two school students in the front row of a theatre production who think they’re the reason everyone came, and then proceed to ruin everyone else’s entertainment by being insufferably smug, attention-seeking smartarses for the duration.
A headline roars at me, “The average worker may be slugged up to 300 bucks a year!”, and I think, “How much is that?”
With your hosts Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson …
… some orange guy with a voice like a cross ‘tween Mickey Mouse and Harvey Fierstein on helium is shrieking at me about a pop star …
… my brain cells rear up like small grey slugs being poked at with twigs, twisting, gasping, shrieking silently from within; some shudder, shrivel and die, others seek shelter under the cover of subconsciousness, others crawl toward the comforting warmth of memory.
Federal and state budgets are in deep trouble, which is likely to get deeper ahead. The Grattan Institute chief executive John Daley is on the mark in warning that we face ”a decade of deficits” without serious action, both to raise more revenue and to reduce spending.
But the future could be worse than forecast in Daley’s report, Budget pressures on Australian governments. He focused on future growth in key areas of spending. But there is a second, bigger question over future growth in the economy. If the economy goes bust, deficits will be just one of our worries.”
What am I expected to do with this information?
What reaction is it that I am expected to have?
How should I receive it?
What rough fiscal beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Shall I spin ‘round in tight little circles, frantically waving my arms, and sound “Squee! Squee! Squee!”?
Shall I run naked down Coronation Drive, barking like some rabid dog, a soiled piece of tissue trailing from my behind?
Shall I pop a bullet through my head, swallow a bottle of pills, waltz off the edge of a cliff, or rampage through the office, multiple kills, multiple kills!
Shall I consult with a shaman or a seer?
Shall I pray to Jesus; join a cult; shave my head or wear a robe; shall I believe in aliens and spread my buttocks for that welcome alien probe?
Shall I take Spanish lessons; become a Tuvan throat-singer, or audition for “The Voice”?
Shall I vote in next year’s MTV Awards for People’s Most Popular Choice?
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?
Shall I wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach?
Shall I hear the mermaids singing, each to each?
And will they sing to me?
Shall I linger in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake me, and I drown?*
I think I shall ignore it all, this Institute, its fears.
Tonight, I shall eat a pizza, and dare to drink some beers.
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
Andrew “Whistler’s Motherfucker” Bolt feels vindicated today …
OUR media behaved politely after the Boston bombing. None jumped to the correct conclusion: these terrorists were yet again Muslim.
In fact, even after brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were identified and found to be – surprise! – Muslim, some still pretended not to notice or think it relevant.
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Muslim? Really? What an amazing coincidence.
Probably meaningless.
Fate is kind
She brings to those to love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing
So in the more than 6000 words filed by The Age on its live coverage thread by 8.30am on Saturday, the word “Muslim” was used just once: “The brothers are Muslims believed to be of Chechen origin, but there is still no clear motive for the attack.”
Uh huh.
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true.
Senator Carr says he was “astonished” when Thatcher, dubbed the ‘Iron Lady’ during her time in 10 Downing Street, told him that Australia would end up like Fiji if it continued to allow Asian migrants in.
Senator Carr’s Malaysian-born wife Helena was in the room at the time.
“I was astonished,” Senator Carr told Lateline last night.
“Helena, fortunately, was out of ear shot.
“I remember one thing she said as part of that conversation, she said: ‘You will end up like Fiji.’
“She said, ‘I like Sydney but you can’t allow the migrants’ – and in context she meant Asian migration – ‘to take over, otherwise you will end up like Fiji where the Indian migrants have taken over.’
“I was so astonished I don’t think I could think of an appropriate reply. I think we moved on to other subjects pretty quickly.
“The difficulty with giving a comment on Margaret Thatcher’s death to the British tabloids is that, no matter how calmly and measured you speak, the comment must be reported as an “outburst” or an “explosive attack” if your view is not pro-…establishment.
If you reference “the Malvinas”, it will be switched to “the Falklands”, and your “Thatcher” will be softened to a “Maggie.” This is generally how things are structured in a non-democratic society. Thatcher’s name must be protected not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it, and therefore any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics.”
Ms Bishop said [Bob Carr’s] comments showed ”what a coward he is” for raising the allegation at a time when Baroness Thatcher was unable to defend herself. Britain’s first female prime minister died of a stroke on Monday in London.
”Bob Carr is rapidly showing himself to be incapable of performing the role of Foreign Minister with the necessary skill and diplomacy,” Ms Bishop said.
”The fact that he cast these slurs alleging racism and comments about Asian migration while he was on an official visit to China is further evidence of his unsuitability for the job.”
For example – Morris Iemma, former Premier of NSW was a student of the high school I went to during the 1970′s. A couple years before me, I never met the guy, but … well … as above.
The Federal Member for Parramatta, Julie Owens, with Tanya Plibersek, giving the press a more than spirited slapdown over their obsession with polls at the expense of issues …
TONY Abbott has been advised by his staff to cut a controversial budget cut from a key speech to be delivered today, in favour of trying to convince the media to like him.
Under pressure today from the Government to reveal the Coalition’s policy agenda, the Opposition leader was expected today to set out his agenda for the election year.
However, an email exchange within his inner circle, including his wife Margie, obtained by The Daily Telegraph online, has revealed that Mr Abbott appeared more concerned with making friends in the media and convincing them to think he was a “good bloke”.
In an email entitled “First draft for NPC speech”, Mr Abbott asked his “team” to provide feedback on a draft in which he outlines his desire to be liked.
He appeared to dismiss the need for policy content, claiming it contained enough to stay “on message” with the release a campaign booklet last Sunday which contained no new policy.
But then he suggests that the speech contained enough personal stories “that’s personal for the commentariat to say…yes he is a good bloke, and yes he is more fair dinkum..”.
Under current law, faith-based organisations, including schools and hospitals, can refuse to hire those they view as sinners if they consider it ”is necessary to avoid injury to the religious sensitivities of adherents of that religion”.
Ms Gillard has met Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace several times, and he says she assured him ”she has no intention of restricting freedom of religion” when it comes to religious groups’ legal rights to discriminate in hiring and firing.
… prompts this comment from Brian of Glenroy:
“The extremist Muslims will love to exploit this so as to incite things like refusing to sell certain meats etc etc because it offends their religion and ban xmas etc from schools, until, as Julia CREATED, bibles are banned because many conflict with others. As for gay issues having nothing to do with religion, in fact classified as a mental illness in japan. I don’t think gay marriage is even important enough for Govt to be considering when there are more other urgent important things to do. Take a holiday and get married overseas in places that do accept it and stop whinging. Govt WAS NOT CREATED TO TO MARRY GAY PEOPLE furthermore, it contravenes bibles that say gayness is a sin and the constitution that restricts Govt FROM INTERFERING WITH RELIGIONS. Julia needs to start running the country rather than get prisoners released, spend mass time on gay marriage, etc. I think so far she only created a tax on us called carbon tax, trying to think what else she has done in over 2 years hmmm. Any other exec would be sacked for lack of working.” BRIAN, Glenroy, January 16, 2013, 8:39AM
I had begun this post in a very different fashion until I realised (once more) that, just as you cannot argue with a stupid person, there is also a point one passes when making fun of stupid people just seems like a sad and empty exercise in underwhelming and self-congratulatory indulgence.
… it exists in a footsteps-in-the-dark world of Wild-West myth and Cold War fiction, a knee-trembling siege mentality of curtain-peeking fear and shoulder-hitched tension, fingers forever on triggers, a government agent at the door – “We’ll be listening to you” – shadows moving in the night, loyalties fleeting, there are strangers in town, a sweat breaks out, gotta keep your wits about you …
… “Look, Mr. MacReedy, there is a law in this county against shootin’ dogs. But when I see a mad dog, I don’t wait for him to bite me” …
“When I see a former governor say that the president is shuckin’ and jivin’, that’s a racial era slave term. When I see another former governor after the president’s first debate where he didn’t do very well, says that the president was lazy. He didn’t say he was slow, he was tired, he didn’t do well, he said he was lazy. Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans but to those of us who are African-Americans, the second word is shiftless and then there’s a third word that goes along with it.”
Obama The Secret Muslim, terrorist trained in Pakistan, educated in a madrassa, his calling to bring a nation under Communist dictatorship, his message approved by the UN, and brought to you by Delphi™® mind-control techniques – “Now, with new added Delphi™®, you’ll never have to think for yourself ever again! Aren’t you glad you’re with Delphi™®!”
In minds like these lurks a world where the Bond villains are real, a saloon shoot-up is always just a spilt drink away, and secret organisations comprising darkly complected peoples in oddly decorated robes weave elaborate conspiracies specifically designed to rob 311 million people of their 2nd Amendment right to blow holes in tin cans with bazookas and then go home to pull themselves silly in sticky celebration of their mighty powers and trigger-pullin’ prowess.
“There has not once been a tyrannical government demanding armed opposition since we got rid of the British. There was, however, a rather famous occasion when armed radicals used their guns to attempt to destroy the democratically elected government in order to preserve their right to treat their fellow humans as property. The right to keep weapons in order to commit violent sedition has not, since 1865, really been widely regarded as a central American liberty.”
It is an odd state of mind which, in a long-established democracy, finds a perverse sense of moral and intellectual superiority in knowing, just knowing, that the primary goal of their country’s government and that of the current President is to oppress and enslave the entire population because the enslavement of 311 million people is such a joyful and appealingly constructive concept to entertain. Why, if he played his cards just right, he could probably pull it off with the stroke of a pen over a light lunch of tuna and salad and then go celebrate with a few hoops and a cigarette.
“The NRA is gonna bring all its knowledge, all its dedication and all its resources to develop a model national schools shield emergency response program for every single school in America that wants it. From armed security to building design and access control, to information technology, to student and teacher training, this multifaceted program will be developed by the very best experts in the field. Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson will lead the effort as national director of the National Model School Shield Program, with a budget provided by the NRA of whatever scope the task requires. His experience as United States attorney, director of the Drug Enforcement Agency, and undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security will give him the knowledge and expertise to hire the most knowledgeable and credentialed experts that are available in the United States of America to get this program up and running from the first day forward.”
‘Cause all God’s teachers love handguns, handguns, all God’s teachers love Vel-cro vests.
“Will we evaluate teachers not only on their students’ test scores, but on target practice, with merit pay for mastery of semi-automatic weapons? Mourners at the funeral of the next Vicki Soto shouldn’t have to whisper about her aim. Or is the only good teacher the teacher who keeps a Glock in her purse, and knows how to use it; or the one who has a second gun on her so that when some troubled eighth-grader grabs the classroom weapon she can shoot down her own student?”
The earth is 6,000 years old. Man rode the dinosaur. Abortion causes earthquakes. Republicans for Rape. Ronald Reagan saved the world. Obama wants to destroy it. Radical homosexuals want to give your children alcohol and drugs and in-class demonstrations on how to mast**bate or get their wombs scraped. Sandy Hook was a government black-op exercise. Civil unrest is imminent, basic freedoms are threatened, clean your guns before they come and take ‘em and get ready for the big show.
Stupid people.
Like Brian of Glenroy back there at the top, one of a growing number of our very own home-grown halfwits, his every primal fear, his every gnawing anxiety about life on this earth at this particular point in time, spat out in 188 barely literate words that lurch from Muslims fucking with meat to banning Christmas in schools, the evils of gayness, mental illness in Japan, violent prisoners waltzing out of prisons, and the carbon tax.
The common thread between all being the face of pure, unconscionable evil that is Julia Gillard , Red Queen of the Underworld.
Understanding the motives behind Gillard’s ridiculous decision is baffling enough given that this is supposed to be a Labor government, a party that once prided itself on policies of social inclusion.
But understanding the minds of those – like Brian of Glenroy, like the NRA and their more rabidly unhinged adherents, like Republicans for Rape, like Andrew Bolt – whose entire worldview is a shadowy mélange of Chinese whispers, each whisper a threat, of gossip, innuendo, of covert operations in dank warehouses down Portside where strange men in hats and sunglasses come and go in dark sedans, where evil is a real and tangible thing and dances in the hearts and minds of all leaders and all governments all over the world – understanding minds like these cannot be done, nor should it, for if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.
Gerard Henderson submitted another job application to the ABC yesterday, which drew this response from one correspondent …
As Gerard Henderson is calling for a more balanced ABC by employing more ”conservative” hosts and commentators, may I nominate him as the next host of Media Watch? I am sure he will be able to bring to the ABC the same unbiased, reasonable, balanced and rational insights that he provides for the Herald.
I think Henderson would be more bearable at the end of the day rather than the beginning.
“The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, told a conference in Sydney on Monday of his support for people with disabilities (”Disabled woman interrupts PM”, smh.com.au, December 3).
”When it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, I am Dr Yes.” He pledged his ”personal commitment” to do all he reasonably could to support people with disabilities. He said that this year, his annual charity bike ride, Pollie Pedal, was in support of Carers Australia. He observed that his cauliflower ears were the result of the way carers had ”chewed my ear” about disability support.
Mr Abbott needs to be reminded that during the last election campaign while the government had a policy to give all kids with a disability an annual allowance for occupational therapy, physiotherapy and related services, which it has since put into practice, he excused himself from matching these promises because of Labor’s budget deficit. He was more intent, as always, on scoring political points than doing what was right.
Thankfully, he didn’t get in, and my son, who has cerebral palsy, has benefited greatly from the program, to the point where my wife and I feel much more confident about his capacity to be independent when he grows up. All thanks to Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten, who even called me to discuss the policy when I wrote to him before the election, and no thanks to Tony Abbott or anyone in his party, none of whom ever even responded to my various letters and emails.
To see him run around trying to trumpet his credentials in relation to disabilities just makes me angry.” – James Manche, Dulwich Hill
Gerard Henderson needs to have Mark Scott’s email address so he can send his job application for ABC presenter direct to the source and save the rest of us from having to read it every Tuesday in the Herald.
I have just sent this to SMH letters, although it probably won’t make the cut, as I didn’t get it off until after midday. So I’ll put it here (as I can) …
Dear Editor,
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all those in the Canberra press gallery, opinion writers, et al, who keep insisting I should regard what Julia Gillard did or did not do twenty years ago as important to me and the country at large, even though I still don’t quite understand if a crime has been committed and what that was. While I am encouraged that the (mostly) middle-aged white men and women of the gallery have such wild enthusiasms for vague bits of unsubstantiated gossip, I feel I must confess I cannot share these enthusiasms, as I am an adult who lives in the world, a world in which real things happen, some of which are important. Sorry if this is a disappointment to you all, but at least you have a hobby, which is nice.
Media coverage of this sickening incident has been extensive over the last few days, both locally and internationally, condemnation of the behaviour being, (from what I’ve read and heard) unanimous …
“These are the sort of irrational goons police have to deal with on a daily basis. Talk to coppers who investigate and charge the men who attack women and they will say that away from the pack most are pretty weak individuals.
On Tuesday, members of the Special Operations Group arrested Steven James Hunter over the murder of Sarah Cafferkey.
When they surrounded the Hawthorn flat and ordered him to surrender he immediately ran out and lay on the ground.
Andrew Bolt, News Ltd’s Emeritus Professor of North American Political Studies is in a snit …
“BARACK Obama should not have been re-elected President. That he did tells us elections are now decided less by heads than hearts.”
According to Bolt, Mitt Romney lost the election because a “ferocious campaign” portrayed him as “a rapacious venture capitalist from a privileged white rich background”, a couple candidates said some stupid things about rape, and a “secret video” in which he claimed 47% of Americans were bludging arsehats “hurt him.”
The Governor, as we all well know, was raised by poor sharecroppers in a cardboard box in a Michigan cow paddock and his first job was buildin’ a chicken coop out of cow pats and feathers for Ma Kettle an’ her brood down by the creek on account a’ the foxes kept gettin’ in nights.
“No! You shut up!”
“You shut up first!”
But mostly, it was all the fault of the black people and the Latinos who, according to Whistler’s Motherfucker, “are also likely to be the kind of people with their hand out for benefits”.
“Shut up!”
“You shut up!”
So, far as Andrew is concerned, Mitt Romney lost his bid for the White House not through any fault of his own, his team, his campaign, his party, but because the other side didn’t play like wimps, and because niggarz and spics just like stickin’ it to the white man, because that’s all the lazy bastards are good at.
“Shut up!”
“No! You shut up!”
No one could ever accurately accuse Andrew Bolt of being an overly complicated man.
A little boy asked me should he put his vote upon the left, no
A little boy asked me should he put his vote upon the right, no
I say it really doesn’t matter where you put your vote
Someone else will come along and move it
And it’s always been the same
It’s just a complicated game
ABC radio’s Richard Glover was interviewing the NSW Premier, Barry O’Farrell yesterday about James Packer’s proposal for a new C*A*S*I*N*O for Barangaroo, when O’Farrell responded to a question with, “This is not a casino Richard, it’s a high-class VIP gaming facility”, which caused me to boldly go where no man has gone before and come back again in less time than it takes to split an infinitive.
Not long thereafter, a spokesman for the company, or group, that put the proposal together and won approval for it insisted that “there’d been no political lobbying whatsoever” involved in the process, upon which a giant pink bunny from Venus leapt up from behind my desk and chased me into a cubicle in the men’s toilets and proceeded to probe me, savagely, with a feather duster.
I’ve only taken LSD once in my life, but if I’d known it was going to come back and bite me on the arse like this 23 years later, I would’ve paid more attention to all the pamphlets.
George Megalogenis from The Australian (registration required) …
“What Gillard’s speech clarified is that Abbott doesn’t understand his opponent, even if he once got on well with her. He mistook her silence before last week as weakness. She didn’t react to the taunts because she didn’t want to seem shrill. He kept pressing, expecting that she would eventually crack. But she was biding her time, waiting for the opportunity when he over-reached.
There was another look that crossed his face – exhaustion. He seemed to shrink as she approached her finale. Then, with a gesture that could never be scripted, she mocked him as he glanced at his watch. Abbott threw his hands up, the child protesting to the mother that he wasn’t guilty of that too. The theatre was the story; an irony given the self-serving critique that the press gallery has faced on social media. Wasn’t the problem of the 2010 campaign the reverse; that the press gallery ignored the context and focused on the trivia?
Whether the public likes the true Julia from here on depends on whether they see her in their corner on what matters to them. Howard was able to shift the perception that he was mean and tricky by being tough when voters wanted reassurance after the twin 2001 shocks of the Tampa and September 11.
But there is a more serious question for Abbott. The odour of sexism will linger because he has been playing the gender card against Gillard. He drew it from the bottom of the deck, on behalf of the minority of men who may never get used to the idea of a female PM. What he never counted on was Gillard calling his bluff. Now that she has, the idea that Abbott can unify the nation if he wins the next election seems just that little bit harder to imagine.”
Hooray for George. One of the few commentators in mainstream media worth paying attention to.
Paul Sheehan, on the other hand, appears to have written the same column now about four times. Perhaps he’s unwell.
Our Prime Minister had a Howard Beale moment a couple days ago.
Three women in the office here, no admirers of Julia Gillard, were enthusing over the moment yesterday, quite giddy with collective joy at seeing Opposition Leader Tony Abbott reduced from Thunder Budgie to Incy Wincy Hummingbird in the space of twelve excoriating minutes.
Reaction on social media, or at least that media I take part in, was generally one of gobsmacked awe, epic smackdown and fuckyeahs all ‘round, and much of that from women.
So when Paul “trying hard to be a conservative Alan Ramsey #fail” Sheehan threw something up online at the SMH halfway through the day that seemed to come from not just another planet, but from a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man, a land of both shadow and substance, not only of sight and sound but of mind, accusing Gillard of being “the driver of the politics of hate in Australia”, I had a wibbly-wobbly moment and felt a little fuzzy around the edges of my personal reality.
Of 539 comments (to date), the first one could sum up that moment …
“you have GOT to be kidding me” – Roaster, Sydney, October 10, 2012, 2:32PM
And this too, is nice …
“Mr Akerman, Is that you?” – Joel, Sydney, October 10, 20112, 2:38PM
Sheehan asks (and what any of these have to do with what Gillard actually said I’ve no idea ) …
“But then why did she mislead the Australian people before the last election on the carbon tax? Why did she leave her law firm under a cloud? Why did she shaft her own leader? Why did she depose a prime minister who had a mandate from the people? Why has she methodically deployed the politics of personal abuse?”
To the first, this tedious meme about Gillard lying is like listening to a flailing crèche of 3 year olds whine because someone’s taken all their teddy bears away and told them Santa Claus isn’t real. If you want a leader who doesn’t lie, you could always vote for Jesus Christ, but he’s dead, so the chances of pre-selection there are pretty slim. To the second, frankly I don’t give a fuck, and I don’t know anyone who does beyond the jerking circle of pedestal-lounging, aging pseudo-puritans of op-ed performance art who act all surprised when politics reveals itself to be the grubby business it mostly is, and not a pre-school fairy-bread fete of blessed sunbeams spreading inspiration and joy all ‘round (with free loaves and fishes). The third, because he was a fraud and a windbag, and fulla nothin’ but talk. Fourth, see three. Five, there’s that wibbly-wobbly moment comin’ back with a vengeance.
“What is particularly telling in the case of the way the PM’s speech was reported is that – also thanks to the internet and social media – people were able to see the very different reception her speech received overseas. As blogger Mr Denmore noted:
In this case, a passionate and thrilling speech by a prime minister about sexism and the low-level tactics of a political opposition leader beyond cynicism attracted world attention. But our gallery are too clever to see that.
They instead took the bait fed to them by the spin doctors on the other side of politics that there was some moral equivalence between the private text messages sent by the Speaker (when he was still a member of the Opposition, by the way) and the overwhelming climate of personal denigration and misogyny created by the Opposition Leader and the tabloid flying monkeys that cheer him on.
The public can see this, obviously the global media can see it. But a press gallery that spends more time getting “briefed” by spinners and reading each other’s copy completely misses the story. Again.”
This is a comment from ABC702’s Facebook page yesterday …
Lisa Woodward – “She was inspirational. I know a lot of people have been commenting that she did not address the issue of Peter Slipper however, other members of the Labor Party did. Her role was to remind Abbott that he was in no position to lecture her about sexism – which, if you listen to his motion against the speaker is exactly what he did; oh, and of course he was ill-advised to use the phrase “government should die of shame!” What was he thinking??? If you listened to question time you would have heard others speaking to the issue including, surprise surprise, Bob Katter, who was actually articulate in explaining why he would abstain from voting as he was against turning parliament into a “kangaroo court. It was inappropriate to move a motion to dismiss the speaker over a case that is still in court. Simple as that.
Not once did she defend Peter Slipper – she and the rest of the party spoke against the motion without defending the man or his actions.”
This is what the Prime Minister said …
“On the conduct of Mr Slipper, and on the text messages that are in the public domain, I have seen the press reports of those text messages. I am offended by their content. I am offended by their content because I am always offended by sexism. I am offended by their content because I am always offended by statements that are anti-women.
I am offended by those things in the same way that I have been offended by things that the Leader of the Opposition has said, and no doubt will continue to say in the future. Because if this today was an exhibition of his new feminine side, well I don’t think we’ve got much to look forward to in terms of changed conduct.
I am offended by those text messages. But I also believe, in terms of this Parliament making a decision about the speakership, that this Parliament should recognise that there is a court case in progress. That the judge has reserved his decision, that having waited for a number of months for the legal matters surrounding Mr Slipper to come to a conclusion, that this Parliament should see that conclusion.
I believe that is the appropriate path forward, and that people will then have an opportunity to make up their minds with the fullest information available to them.”
… This wasn’t a rowdy debate where everyone was talking over one another. This wasn’t someone feeling so passionately about a subject he just had to break in to be heard. And this was not a case of one or two interruptions. This was interrupting, cutting off, and shouting down Kate Ellis pretty much every time she dared open her mouth, in a manner that couldn’t have been more efficient and systematic if Tanner, Pyne and Akerman had got together beforehand and plotted the course of the evening out on a spreadsheet. This was Akerman preventing Ellis getting her point out simply by repeating the word “shadecloths” four or five times, as if that was a counter-argument that would shoot her down; or later on, breaking in to an answer she was giving on education in order to kindly tell her to go and talk to Margie Abbott. This was Ellis attempting to answer an audience member’s question but being drowned out by Pyne and Tanner starting up a conversation about Downton Abbey as if she wasn’t even there. And this was Pyne in particular (and this is pretty much his lifelong form line) talking over the top of the minister every single time she looked like getting near speaking her piece. It was a horrible display by three men who, according to all reports, claim to be grown adults of fully-functioning intellectual faculties. But in the presence of a federal minister whose views on a range of issues are actually quite important to the country, but who happened to be a woman, they could not find it within themselves to grow the hell up and act like decent human beings. And, what’s more, host Tony Jones seemed quite happy to let them stomp all over the discussion like a pack of St Bernards tracking mud over a carpet …
… Bear in mind, again, this is a minister. Not just a woman who wandered in off the streets, but an accomplished, elected representative, in a position of considerable responsibility with significant influence on our government. Patronised and shut down like a schoolgirl answering back to the principal. It was, to put quite mildly, revolting.
I saw a couple minutes of this behaviour last night whilst flipping channels, and that was all I needed to see.
My father, now 84, spent the last half dozen or so years of his working life moving from employment to unemployment and back again, and then back again, until for the last two or three, it was a welfare cheque every fortnight until he became eligible for the aged pension.
A signwriter and commercial artist who began practising his skills in the 1940’s, he had never been accustomed to unemployment in his life until that time, rising at five or six every morning to be at the factory by seven, grabbing any overtime available, nights, weekends, for the extra cash to throw at the mortgage, put a little money away for the future.
The nature of his work, the industry he was a part of for forty years, began to change in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, became more and more automated, and brushes and paints gave way to pixels, and he found himself, in his late fifties, a man both out of his time and rapidly running out of relevance to the world.
The factories became smaller, the offices became larger, and the traditionalists, the artists, just got older and more expensive to keep, so they were always the first to go.
This was a man who struggled to operate a television remote control – brushes and easels and paints were the tools of his trade, pencils and charcoal, his hands, his eyes – these new machines that were taking his work confounded his senses, made no sense at all.
“It’s not as if I’ve forgotten how to hold a brush.”
Work hard, work harder, reap the benefits of your labours from the ditch you were told to dig, then die in it …
The con.
… and everything will take care of itself.
The bleat of the shill plays on while you’re the pebble in the eggcup shuffle of working life.
The scam a simple-minded mantra they slap into you from the time you can walk.
Until …
Ten years. Twenty. Thirty. Forty.
…. Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they’re done.
They forget you, you forget yourself.
For them, it’s an easy slip into the lazy comic cliché, feet up, television all day, drinking beer, send “A Current Affair” around to do a story, all these louche louts living it large, we’re out here working our arses off, and what do you do?
“We’ve been told not to talk to reporters.”
“Twenty two years from 5.30am to 4.30pm, two jobs, two locations, overtime, on call, no extra pay, now I’m not good enough.”
…. Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they’re done.
Go.
We’ll talk later …
… about “getting people off welfare and back into work”. About “encouraging employers to take on more mature workers”, and “incentives” for doing so …
… about “single mothers”, two words which, when conjoined, appear to conjure an abomination in the minds of many; there’s always something needs be “done” about “single mothers”, but leaving them be is never one of them …
When all is said and done …
We’ll give you a pamphlet, you can call this number, press one, hold please.
Sorry for your loss.
It hurts us too.
Government can no longer afford to be government, you get a ticket and a queue, a slap upside the head, and a “heal thyself”.
We’re cutting our numbers and we’re trimming our fat, all the better to serve you. Tightening the belt and pulling our weight.
“Takin’ up the slack here, Boss!”
Work fourteen, paid for eight, how many years is it now and fourteen nervous breakdowns later you put a bullet through the top of your head when the pills stop working and the kids won’t shut up.
“I still have my work bag in the cupboard. I haven’t emptied it yet, it has all the things in it that I used to take to work. I said that I wouldn’t clear it until five years. I suppose I’ll clear it in the next few weeks or so. I have finally realised that it is over.”
