Wednesday, May 25, 2005
TEST YOUR QUIZ SKILLZ
Attempt the fakey leftoid quote quiz in this week’s Bulletin! Also in The Bullletin: pictures!
CUBAN DISSIDENTS JAILED, BUT AT LEAST THEY’RE HEALTHY AND LITERATE
Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida visited Australia in 2003 to shift some commie hero-worship boilerplate. The Age dutifully provided publicity:
Visiting Australia for the first time, she is promoting a new book, Che Guevara Reader, a collection of her father’s writing. Asked if she tries to be like her father, Aleida replies: “Everyone in Cuba has that commitment - to try to be like Che.”
They sure do. Just like Che, they want to leave Cuba. Now Aleida has returned, with another book, so The Age once again rolls out the red carpet:
A warm, amiable woman, Guevara travels widely, giving lectures that reflect her father’s, and her own, socialist ideals and to advance Cuba’s place in the world. She’s in Australia to promote her latest book - Chavez, Venezuela and the New Latin America.
Can’t wait to not read it. Author of this fawning nonsense is Roslyn Guy, The Age’s education editor. Bear that in mind as you read the following:
Cubans, once ill-educated and poor, are now almost universally literate and have more doctors per capita than almost anywhere on earth. But they are still poor and they live in a one-party state that abhors opposition. Like the US, it jails dissidents ...
Name these jailed US dissidents, Roslyn.
UPDATE/CORRECTION: Roslyn Guy is a former education editor at The Age; she last held the role in 2003.
AGE ASSISTS ANDREW
Andrew Bolt is giving a speech next week on media deceit and distortion. Nice of The Age to help him out:
I’ll just take the crowd through this same astonishing edition ... including Naomi Klein’s claim that our generous tsunami aid was just more wicked imperialism, the error-ridden editorial on the Solon case, the use of a Marxist book reviewer to damn Robert Manne as being too unreliable a Leftist, the genuflection in the travel pages to superior Aboriginal spirituality, the generous profile of a musician who was a communist but now feels the thrill of earth worship, the claim by a Chinese Australian that a random search of her bags at customs proves we’re racist, and much much more, even extending to the real estate pages. I wonder if the new editor, Andrew Jaspan, even realises how absurd and extreme the Age has become under him, or does this reflect his own middle-class English socialism, that has made the Guardian, for instance, an international joke?
PRAYER TIME
Death-dealing terrorist filth politely request:
“Pray for our Sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to recover from an injury he suffered for the sake of God.”
Pray for Zarqawi? What sort of deranged duck-drawing doompuppet would want to pray for the likes of him?
HELPFUL INVESTMENT GUIDE
Gloom over the eurozone economy deepened yesterday as a leading international think-tank sharply cut its growth forecast for the 12-nation bloc and issued a powerful call for urgent cuts in interest rates.
In the latest blow to hopes for European economic revival, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development cut its forecast for eurozone growth this year to just 1.2 per cent — down from its previous 1.9 per cent projection.
The OECD has forecast that Australia’s current account deficit will narrow to under 5 per cent.
It has also predicted that GDP will grow to 3.4 per cent in 2006, due to a pick-up in exports, high levels of business investment and low corporate debt.
(Via Alan R.M. Jones)
THIS MEANS WAR
Spin Starts Here is blocked by Australian Defence Department computers; too violent, apparently. Well, the site is published by a pregnant woman, and we all know how savage they can be. Our armed forces must be protected from them.
Trouble is, according to a note from a Defence Department insider, I’m banned as well. As Spin Starts Here says: “What’s wrong with this country? Since when are big soft nancyboy lefties running our defence force?”
TRAIN-WRECK NEWSPAPER ATTACKS CAR-CRASH CULTURE
Jonathan Miles in the New York Times:
For a certain segment of the population, Nascar’s raid on American culture—its logo festoons everything from cellphones to honey jars to post office walls to panties; race coverage, it can seem, has bumped everything else off television; and, most piercingly, Nascar dads now get to pick our presidents—triggers the kind of fearful trembling the citizens of Gaul felt as the Huns came thundering over the hills. To these people, stock-car racing represents all that’s unsavory about red-state America: fossil-fuel bingeing; lust for violence; racial segregation; run-away Republicanism; anti-intellectualism (how much brain matter is required to go fast and turn left, ad infinitum?); the corn-pone memes of God and guns and guts; crass corporatization; Toby Keith anthems; and, of course, exquisitely bad fashion sense.
Glen Wishard responds: “The New York Times has got some cheese asking how much brain matter it takes to turn left ad infinitum.”
WISH MADE
“I wish you could be swapped for Douglas Woods,” writes happy reader TM. “Fuck off scum.” Swap with Douglas Woods, the celebrated and insanely rich University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee PhD? Yes please! But why would TM wish me such good fortune, then end his note with an obscene outburst?
The answer may be found here. Woods specialises in Tourette’s Syndrome. Reader TM is obviously a disgruntled patient, who believes I’d provide better care.
Then again, there’s a chance he meant Douglas Wood ...
OLD MEDIA SHATTERED
New Scientist claims:
The first human-powered commercial hydrofoil, resembling a bizarre cross between a pogo stick and a jet ski, has gone on sale.
The first, you say? Well, maybe ... if you don’t count the Aqua Skipper!
Via reader Hugo, who notes: “It’s not often that you’ll get a scoop of this magnitude. Rathergate has nothing on this.” In other Big Media research hilarity, the Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Yesterday’s article “Informant out to hurt Corby - lawyer” attributed to Alex Hawke, the national president of the Young Liberal Movement, comments on the Schapelle Corby case that had been posted on a website. Mr Hawke says the comments were a hoax and that police are investigating the matter.
The SMH didn’t check the source of those comments. Remember Simon Jenkins’ claim that the mainstream media spends “millions” finding and checking information? The SMH doesn’t. By the way, scroll down to see the SMH’s ingenious correction technique ...
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
GRAHAM KENNEDY
Graham Kennedy, one of Australia’s finest entertainers, has died at 71.
Monday, May 23, 2005
HUMANE TREATMENT REQUESTED
Yet more Saddam sadness:
A daughter of Iraq’s ex-dictator Saddam Hussein was “outraged” by the published pictures of her jailed father dressed only in underwear, an aide said yesterday.
“She was shocked and outraged because of the pictures,” which appeared in a British newspaper, the aide of Raghad Hussein told AFP.
“She described the pictures as inhumane, and wondered why her father is not being treated as a human being and the father of three daughters,” the source said.
Saddam was also father-in-law to two of his daughters’ husbands. Until he had them both murdered.
UPDATE. Saddam wasn’t always so shy, reports Piers Akerman:
When he was in the box seat, as it were, happily murdering Iraqis, invading Kuwait and prosecuting the lengthy war against Iran, Saddam posed for the camera in his bathers a la Mao swimming the Yangtse.
Macho stuff. Man of Iron. There were no complaints about lack of modesty from the international salon of sorry sisters then. Nor were the handwringers too worried about reports of torture to the point of murder being carried out by Saddam’s jailers in Abu Ghraib.
TINFOIL HOUSE
Designed by Democratic Underground, constructed by DailyKos, rented by Webdiary! It’s the Rove-proof house of tomorrow:
A home in Sacramento’s south Natomas neighborhood is surrounded by sheet metal, and neighbors are calling it an eyesore.
The D’Souza family lives in the home on Timberwood Court, and claims the aluminium pieces are necessary to protect them from unknown neighbors who have been bombarding them with radio waves and making them sick.
”(It’s) a shield to protect against radiation, because microwave radiation is reflected off of aluminium, so it’s a protective measure,” resident Sarah D’Souza said.
The D’Souzas said the bombardment began after the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that the radio waves have caused them health problems ranging from headaches to lupus.
Damn. I thought they’d never block those lupus-rays.
MEDIA WATCH’S SAFE TARGETS
Curious little story on Media Watch last night, about an apparent media myth:
And now for a story that was too good to be false.
It all began on Julia Christensen’s breakfast show, ABC radio, Darwin.
Lots of false stories begin on ABC radio. That’s where Phillip Adams and Alan Ramsey hatched their plastic turkey conspiracy, for example. Anyway, the Darwin story—a fellow claimed he’d been ambushed on a highway by marauding drunks—later received notice outside of the Northern Territory:
The Adelaide Advertiser ran it as well, and with each retelling the story was getting better.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian ran the plastic turkey tale as well, and with each retelling the story did indeed get better. Ramsey decided it was a Christmas turkey; Adams claimed George W. Bush had brought the fake bird with him from the US.
Back in Darwin, police didn’t support the highway-ambush story:
The police account was not the one the media wanted to highlight. It cut the legs off an otherwise colourful, alarming and populist story, and no-one wants that.
They sure don’t. Asked last year why Media Watch hadn’t looked at the colourful, alarming and populist plastic turkey story—later repeated by ABC correspondent Nick Grimm—Media Watch executive producer Peter McEvoy had this to say:
Why don’t you do the work to investigate this turkey yourself, and publish the results in your column?
* Weird, possibly bogus story runs on Darwin radio, in the Northern Territory News, and the Adelaide Advertiser: Media Watch is all over it.
* Weird, totally bogus story runs on Radio National, in the SMH and The Australian, on The World Today, in the Herald Sun, and is finally corrected by the New York Times: Media Watch deliberately ignores it.
Here’s something else Media Watch has ignored. While slamming Arthur Chrenkoff for claiming he wasn’t paid by the Wall Street Journal when he in fact does receive payment, Media Watch neglected to inform viewers that Chrenkoff was merely following a precedent established by ... Media Watch. The program’s first host, Stuart Littlemore, was asked during a Lateline broadcast in 1997 if he presented Media Watch for free; this Gerard Henderson column (from November 19 of that year, no link available) takes up the story:
On Tuesday last week ABC TV’s Lateline program began in an unexceptionable manner. Jennifer Byrne was in the presenter’s chair. The panel comprised media watchers Stuart Littlemore (in Sydney) and Steve Brill (in New York). Sydney Morning Herald journalist Pilita Clark made up the trio.
For a while it seemed that trans-Pacific back-scratching was all the rage as Messrs Littlemore and Brill praised each other’s media analyst skills ...
Then came the crucial exchange. Brill asked Littlemore: “Do you do it for free, or ... ?” Littlemore responded immediately: “Yeah, I do actually.” There followed further queries from both Brill and Byrne which gave Littlemore the opportunity to correct his answer. He didn’t. He still hasn’t.
Senior ABC sources have confirmed that Littlemore does get paid for presenting ABC TV’s Media Watch program. This presents a serious credibility issue. If Littlemore were any other presenter it might not matter all that much. But, as the public face of Media Watch, Littlemore makes judgments on others. Every week. How can he continue to do so, now
it has been revealed that he made a statement on Lateline that was manifestly false?
Littlemore later returned to the ABC as the presenter of Littlemore, for which he was also presumably paid. No credibility problem for him.
OF THE QUESTION THERE IS BUT ONE
Bosler the Magnificent—may the winning energy be upon him—is back:
White to black, desert to forest, somewhere at some time and in some way we ask why.
Of answers there are many. Varied. Of the question there is but one. And we all share it, side by side.
We all ask why. And in this, at the very least, we remain magnificent as one.
I’ve already run this through the Bosler Decoder; turns out he’s talking about Collingwood’s win over the West Coast Eagles! White to black, desert to forest ...
TODDLER DEMOGRAPHIC UNIMPRESSED
A brief review of Schwartz Publishing’s The Monthly: “I asked my 2 1/2 year old what the woman on the cover’s expression was and he said ‘She wants her money back.’”
UPDATE. In comments, Andrew Rutherford provides background to the Peter Craven/Morrie Schwartz split:
Craven wanted, against his own politics, for the Quarterly Essay to embrace conservative contributors. Schwartz disallowed such ideas. Schwartz was uncomfortable with the space Quarterly Essay gave to rebuttal. Craven was lukewarm about the Robert Manne essay which triggered the fallout with Schwartz: even before the kerfuffle over crediting Manne’s student as co-author, the issue was a favour to Schwartz in their to and fro. In compiling the Best Australian Essays, Craven was aware of his biases and strove to overcome them, with original essays by Paul Sheehan, Frank Devine and Christopher Pearson among the fruits.