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GANG ASSEMBLES
Clockwise from left: me, Toby, Norm Geras (visiting Australia for the first time), Sgt. Ivan Butzen (who dropped by the Telegraph’s offices on Friday for an informal, and massively informative, 45-minute Q&A with staff), Time magazine’s Elizabeth Keenan, and Jim Nolan. Takin’ the picture and cookin’ the food: a multi-tasking Wogblogger.
UPDATE. Hugh Mackay whines about conservative rejection of diversity:
Among conservatives, it’s become fashionable to dismiss the entire concept as tired, divisive and dangerous …
True multiculturalism is about far more than ethnicity. It’s about a society being committed to the idea of diversity in all its guises - ethnic, religious, political, social, generational. It’s about building bridges across cultural chasms and being determined to master the art of getting to know each other better.
Well, Hugh, take a look at the image above. Shot by dual Italian-Australian citizen Wogblogger, represented are veteran lefties Norm Geras (born in the former Rhodesia) and Jim Nolan (born in Queensland), who are both Of A Certain Age; 25-year-old Chicagoan Ivan; fortyish hetero right-winger me; Elizabeth, whose life is too diverse to summarise here; and scholarly gay car-freak lawyer Toby. The political, social, and generation range should be obvious. Religious adherances in this small group extends from devout Catholic to athiest. Mackay should talk to Roger L. Simon or Alexandra Wolfe about the left’s fondness for diversity.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall!
By the way, Ivan looks like you roasted him on the barbie.
Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2006 12 09 at 10:02 AM • permalinkAren’t there supposed to be Muppets in the picture, too, Tim? Oh, sorry, that’s a different news story I’m thinking about.
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 12 09 at 10:46 AM • permalinkandycanuck, if Bubba was there, the Wogblogger would likely have blood on her hands.
That wouldn’t be a bad thing, of course. She is multi-tasking capable, so the food and drink would continue to flow.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 12 09 at 11:04 AM • permalink#4 It’s a nigger! It’s a nigger!
Seriously though, goodonya for showing the sergeant a good time.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2006 12 09 at 11:49 AM • permalinkI do not see anywhere near enough evidence of massive alcohol consumption in that photo. What gives?
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2006 12 09 at 04:17 PM • permalinkMr. Bingley, it looks like they’d only just begun (plates still clean, nothing that looks like a main course on the table yet) - give ‘em time.
MuzzieZapper, I am mystified by your joke. That’s the most Caucasian-looking group of people I’ve seen outside of southern Wisconsin.
Posted by Sonetka's Mom on 2006 12 09 at 04:34 PM • permalinkWe’ve all heard of the scourge of girl germs - now behold the effects of Blair germs!
I give Sgt Butzen four days - tops - before he starts wearing bookish glasses and driving unfashionable model vehicles to excessive speeds through the desert.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 12 09 at 07:34 PM • permalinkAmong conservatives it’s become fashionable to see the results of history—experience—as revealing truths.
Multiculturalism is about, first, creating the cultural chasm of otherness by segregating people into grievance-based interest-groups based on a laundry list of attributes about race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual preference, et.al., that are for the most part, distinctions without a difference. By invoking the divisiveness of such fractures amongst a people is to tear apart the social fabric of the common culture.
Martin Luther King, Jr. yearned for the day when he would be judged by the content of his character, and not the color of his skin. His modern day successors care not a bit about individual character, and the humanity we share in common, but in the stereotypes of group distinctions based on birthright, social construct and personal preference.
The metaphor of building bridges is necessary only after creating the chasm of these many faceted distinctions.
Just counting the plates.
Tim, why do you have two in front of you?
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 12 10 at 12:20 AM • permalinkAthiest, eh. I knew I might find a spelling mistake someday, Tim, but never that one. Not after the attention my theographic dyslexia once got from Stoop Davey Dave, aka Huck Foley, (who at the age of 13 won honorable mention in a spelling bee, I understand.) Whatever became of Stoop/Huck anyway? I hope he’s well wherever he is, even if he is an irritable old atheist.
Sonetka’s Mom, it’s a reference to the Michael Richards thread, following in the spirit of andycanuck’s comment. As for it being amusing, well, I found it so, but I was a little drunk at the time.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2006 12 10 at 02:15 AM • permalink#16 Stop Continental Drift!, I think that’s Wogblogger’s plate.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2006 12 10 at 02:16 AM • permalinkThree points about Hugh Mackay.
1) His original claim to be noticed was that he had some unique expertise and insights because he was a “social researcher” (maybe he did, I don’t know), but then he morphed into another wet left oracle at large.
2) Even as an oracle at large he was running out of ideas by the mid nineties. Is there some sort of job creation scheme that arranges the odd gig for mental has beens like MacKay (and Helen Razor) out of charity?
3) Both as “social researcher” and guru, MacKay’s prose is/was irremdialy turgid.Posted by Consuela Potez on 2006 12 10 at 02:52 AM • permalink
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Tim and Toby - separated at birth?