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RAMSEY ATTACKS SELF
Here’s Mark Latham talking tough in 2002:
Look, this idea that politics can be too rough and too personal is a bit rich. I can take you to any sports field any Saturday morning and show you parents getting stuck into it. Having a go at the ref, yelling abuse. It’s part of the Australian way. We’re not a namby-pamby nation that hides our feelings. I think we’re a nation that’s willing to call a spade a spade and, if need be, to pick up the spade and whack someone over the head with it.
And here’s Alan Ramsey, defending gentle Mark against the brutal media:
The mass media is a law unto itself. It thinks that Latham is still fair game. It conditions the sheep in the community to think the same, and there are an awful lot of sheep. Latham just has to be there, at home in Campbelltown being a house husband, to attract the blowflies, especially those from the Murdoch stable. Latham never escaped the box the press put him in after he called John Howard “an arselicker” of George Bush in 2003 ...
He said it in 2002; another senior moment there for Al. In fact, the press gave Latham every opportunity to escape that box, but Latham kept crawling back inside:
REPORTER: Mr Latham, are there any other forms of the Australian vernacular you would like to apply to the PM now that we’re giving you the chance?
MARK LATHAM: No, I think we’ll stick with ‘arselicker’ for the moment.
Still, perhaps Ramsey has a point; maybe the media did make too much of Latham’s “arselicker” comment. One particular mass-media identity mentioned it in column after column after column ...
(Incidentally, another line from Latham’s 2002 interview: “The valuable lesson I’ve learnt is never to disengage.”)
Stephen “Yabba” Harold Gascoigne was an Australian, well known as a heckler at Sydney Cricket Ground cricket and rugby league games in the early part of the 20th century. Yabba was known for his knowledgeable witticisms shouted loudly from “The Hill”, a grassy general admissions area of the SCG.
“The Hill” area was replaced with seating in the early 1990’s. The new stand was then formally named Yabba’s Hill in honour of his colourful comments, several of which have passed into cricketing folklore.
Some of Yabba’s best remembered insults include:
“I wish you were a statue and I were a pigeon.”
Telling a fly-swatting English cricket captain, Douglas Jardine, to “Leave our flies alone. They’re the only friends you’ve got here.”.
“Send ‘im down a piano, see if ‘e can play that!”
“O for a strong arm and a walking stick!” (at bad bowling; leg spinner Arthur Mailey, a regular victim of this one, quotes it several times in his book 10 for 66 and All That)Mailey was something of a wit himself, after the Victoria scored over a thousand against NSW he said “just as I was striking a length” (after about 100 overs) and “my figures would have been better if Ryder hand’t been dropped twice by a man in shirt sleeves in front of the Members Stand”.
Mailey was something of a wit himself, after the Victoria scored over a thousand against NSW he said “just as I was striking a length” (after about 100 overs) and “my figures would have been better if Ryder hand’t been dropped twice by a man in shirt sleeves in front of the Members Stand”.
I just checked Babel Fish—- there’s no “Cricket to Standard English” option.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 11 at 09:30 PM • permalinkIsn’t Latham only of interest to historians, yet?
I think we can analysis his, ummm, leadership, but I don’t want to see photos of him and his sprogs. Surely his kids have enough to put up with.
His comment about parental behaviour at sporting fields was indicative of something deeply wrong with his character. I always loathed Latham’s “I’m so tough” bluster. He never seemed to care about the feelings of the person on the other side of the insult or the punch.
Posted by Major Anya on 2006 02 11 at 10:28 PM • permalinkOh yes, Ramsey is a member of the media, but obviously has the ability to see himself as above or better than certain sections of it. Delusional more like it.
Posted by Major Anya on 2006 02 11 at 10:32 PM • permalink<blockquote>I think were a nation thats willing to call a spade a spade and, if need be, to pick up the spade and whack someone over the head with it.
I gotta admit—though, because I’m a Yank and don’t hafta put up with his political shenanigans—Mark Latham is hilarious.
Tell the truth now: If he wasn’t quite so ... how shall I put this ... stupid, wouldn’t he be a great PM?...
Hoist with his own petard..
Inciters today could have been the Measley Beazley show or the A.W.B. Why won’t you bring down the government show- no matter how much boring time,money,sweat and hissyfittin we invest and it ain’t fair?
Best part as usual was the Bolt,what a ratings booster -who would deign to endure the diatribe if he or Akerman weren’t stuck out on one end as the token conservative/common sense/person who lives in the real world not the rainbow connection.
All left whingers and no right straight talkers makes the ABC a very dull Aunty..shudder.
Best,best part was the Trolloli Virg who forgot that radio audiences also watch t.v. and ringing-ly declaimed about the cartoon issue “If I -were the editor I would have had to have been talked out of running them..”
Bolt quickly intervened pointing out what she had said 3 times on her show..
she “was afraid they would burn her studio down” and that editors and the media were IN FEAR.
She got in a paroxysm of denial,falsettoing “don’t try and run the line that I’m succumbing to fear here.”
He doesn’t have to Virginia.
The Inciters managed to ignore the cartoon/free speech in western countries issue except for the last four minutes when their own cowardly cartoonists raised the issue indirectly and abstractedly.
And Andrew Bolt managed once to break through the carefully constructed wall of denial by ABC.
Host Barry Cassidy/Mark Latham’s driver-carefully quoted the New Zealand press “of course we’re free to “mock muslims”-but why should we..
Bolt pointed out that some of the cartoons are respectful of muslim culture.
Incidentally the Australian ran a story about a Malaysian al quaeda recruit who-after seein the 9/11 massacre-refused to carry out his “mission” against Australia.
So you can be muslim or even a terrorist and have a mind of your own if you have the courage of your convictions.
I’m sure many Asian muslims do not wish to destroy the world as it is, but to live side by side with others. It would be really good if they showed it,not just talked it.Maybethe sheep figure its safer to throw the bleeders to the wolves rather than stand around and get ravaged themselves.
Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 02 11 at 11:16 PM • permalink#6: I’d like to see Latham cop more grief than he’s been getting. The guy is a gutless bully - I’ll finally be happy when some old bloke king hits him and lays him on his backside - just like he did to that old pensioner in his electoral office.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2006 02 11 at 11:50 PM • permalinkmark latham - labor’s gift that keeps on giving to the liberal party. we love him, and hope & pray that he continues to make a goose of himself all the way up to the 2007 election, to remind the voters of the awful result they might have got in 2004 had john howard not rolled over him like a b-double full of bluestone.
invest in latham’s book - give it to all your lefty mates. it’s worth putting royalties in his pocket to see their faces when they’ve digested that irrational, self-indulgent, blame-throwing, self-exculpating heap of shite by someone who could have had his hands on the controls, had aussie voters not been smarter than him.
It occurs to me….if Ramsey has attacked himself, that’s a form of self-abuse. ;-P
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 12 at 12:12 AM • permalinkAgain with the people who think the “call a spade a spade” expression refers to a kind of shovel.
It’s a racist expression about black people, moron. Though the visual of Latham picking one up and swinging him at someone is pretty entertaining.
Or should I just give up on this little bit of English trivia? Like how people say “Okie” as a synonym for “Okay”? Doesn’t anyone read Steinbeck anymore? ...Or should I just be happy that racist terms are slipping from the lexicon?
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 02 12 at 01:09 AM • permalinkI note that Ramsey again perceives us as sheep who are easily led astray by the common scheming muckrakers of the press over this Latham issue.
Of course he is above all of the slander and provides clear insight from above.
Ya gotta laugh.
He is sounding more and more like Dan Rather in his death throes with each passing column.
#8:
Tell the truth now: If he wasn’t quite so ... how shall I put this ... stupid, wouldn’t he be a great PM?
It’s not a just a question of his intelligence. He was very fond of all the strong talk and would (and still does) gladly wade into his opponents or colleagues with as much bile and hatred as he could summon. Yet as soon as he got any flak himself he went to pieces in the most spectacular fashion. He didn’t have the mental or emotional fortitude to lead his party let alone the country.
I saw the “Latham Diaries” discounted to $6 in a local shopping centre bookshop bargain bin.
An omen?
KK (#14) is spot on about Latho. He can hang around shouting abuse at people, swinging his fists and smashing up cameras as long as he feels like it, a constant reminder to all those voters climbing the “ladder of opportunity” of what the ALP wanted to install as Australia’s PM.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 02 12 at 01:59 AM • permalinkThe Federal ALP are quite capable of losing elections with or without Latham. So many of them adopt the Australia Overboard approach to everything. That’s where you go after the government (or anyone else if you think it will rub off on the government) regardless of the damage to Australia.
It’s as if they are trying to win over again just those voters who voted for them last time. They need more honest middle ground winners like Martin Ferguson if they are to get more votes.Huh. Well, that’s why I come here. People are full of smartness.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 2006 02 12 at 02:33 AM • permalinkMarky Mark is an arrogant so-and-so. Any polly that has to resort to labelling the other team an arse-licker needs to stop writing in their pretty-pink diary and get into the game.
Above all else, Latham’s job- and duty to Australia- was to be an opposition leader. He failed miserable.
Pedro,
I saw the “Latham Diaries” discounted to $6 in a local shopping centre bookshop bargain bin.
I’d get it for that price, I reckon.
(O/T: Mohammad the Prophet is in the news again. Heh… I’m wondering if I went too far with this comment… what the hell, I’ll get some kind of warning before I’m banned, right Andrea?)
# 13 I’d like to see Latham cop more grief than he’s been getting. The guy is a gutless bully - I’ll finally be happy when some old bloke king hits him and lays him on his backside - just like he did to that old pensioner in his electoral office.
Deo, you’re wrong about this. Latham took a swing at the old bloke and missed, and the old fella’s response connected and put Latham on his arse.
Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2006 02 12 at 02:37 AM • permalinkI stand corrected . . . . Latham’s king hit did connect, but the old bloke still paid him back with interest.
Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2006 02 12 at 02:40 AM • permalinkI saw the “Latham Diaries” discounted to $6 in a local shopping centre bookshop bargain bin
I’d highly recommend buying it and passing it on to Labor advocates.
I’ve done it twice.
First person has lost his faith in the party.
When I talked him through it (sympathetically of course) he said he felt like he was confessing to the Devil.I’m still waiting to broach the book with a union organizer.
It’s a great evangelizing tool.
#16 G’day Brian,
You just made a fool of yourself - which is pretty funny since you called those that didn’t know the racist origins of the expression “moron”.
Just for your info and in the same vein - “pass the buck” is not racist, “crowbar” is not racist, “niggardly” is not racist and neither are the thousand and one other random expressions that race hustlers suddenly decide, without justification, to guilt out white americans over.
You generally seem to be able to see through race hustler bullshit so I am somewhat surprised that you fell for it.
Re #3, sorry about that, I was warned (too late) that more explanation would be required for some of our friends in distant lands. Actually the US and Canada were playing international cricket before anyone else but it seems that the game never really took off. Still there was a thriving competition in Hollywood for a while.
To explain, a thousand is a massive score in cricket, with 300 being a more usual score in that league (the Sheffield Shield, donated by Lord Sheffield as a peacemaking gesture after that tour was almost aborted on account of an unseemly riot in the crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground).
So when Arthur Mailey said he was just striking a length after the other guys racked up the big score, it was like saying he was just getting warmed up. To be more precise, a bowler in cricket delivers the ball on the bounce (most of the time, apart from the occasional “beamer” when he tries to “stick it in his ear”), like a tennis serve, and it is very important to get the ball landing around the right spot (the right length). Hence the term “just striking a length”.
On his “hundred overs”, the bowler gets to send the ball down six times and then the umpire calls “Over” and someone else has a turn from the other end) and then they change over again. The over is the set of six deliveries.
As for the man in shirtsleeves dropping a catch from the batsman, of course catches by spectators don’t count, and if the ball clears the boundary it is worth six runs, even if a fielder jumps over the fence and catches it.
Ramsey should be happy that Latham didnt ‘out’ Laura Tingle as ‘quality box’.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2006 02 12 at 04:24 AM • permalink#16 You are the idiot Brian.
Calling a spade a spade refers to the confusion some people have between using a spade (a cutting tool) and a shovel (used for lifting).
They look similar, some people use a spade instead of a shovel, but calling a spade a spade is to correctly identify the right implement to use.
Now more generally meaning correctly labelling an item.
You daft git.
—Nora
G
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 02 12 at 05:11 AM • permalinkSome research:
The expression was introduced into English by Protestant reformer John Knox, who translated it from the Latin of Erasmus as: ‘I have learned to call wickedness by its own terms: A fig, a fig, and a spade a spade.’ Erasmus had taken the phrase from Lucian, a Greek writer of the second century and translated it as ‘to call a fig a fig and a boat a boat,’ which is possible because the Greek words for boat and garden spade were very similar.”
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 02 12 at 05:13 AM • permalinkNora,
Nice work.
Seeing as you are an expert in the field, Brian, perhaps you can tell us who said; “Your words should be soft and tender, for tomorrow you may have to eat them”, or something along those lines.
Next time be civil in your posts, that way when you are corrected, you wont have to feel like such an ‘idiot’ or a ‘moron’.
Hmm.
Again with the people who think the “call a spade a spade” expression refers to a kind of shovel.
It’s a racist expression about black people, moron.
Nope. Absolutely wrong. And while I have been around a while, I have not heard the term ‘spade’ ever used in Australia to denote anything but a digging tool. I assume that this is a racist term for black people in the USA: I do not think I have ever heard that usage here in my life.As an aside, I do not understand it, how did ‘spade’ come to be associated with ‘black person’ in the US? A linkage through unskilled labour?
‘He’s the sort of bloke who calls a spade a bloody shovel!’ is the 1870s-1920’s version of ‘Latte sipping, chardonnay gulping metrosexual twit with no brain’. It changed meaning after WWI.
It originally denoted a person so out of touch with the reality of normal people that he cannot tell a spade (used for cutting narrow trenches when laying pipes) from a shovel (used to move mass quantities of loose earth, sand, or cement). The corollary statement was always ‘He calls a spade a spade.’ meaning that he was an ordinary bloke not given to fancy speaking and political-type bullshit.
The post WWI meaning change was subtle, and
‘he calls a spade a shovel’ came to have overtones of cowardice, normally being directed towards someone who did not volunteer for the AIF in WWI (Australia had no conscription in WWI). Where as ‘calling a spade a spade’ came to have overtones of ‘the courage of the common man’. Subtle, but this explained why the usage of the term declined post 1950, as this generation began to die out. It is not yet dead, but is obsolescent in common usage.I hung out with a lot of WWI vets when I was a lad, my grand-dad was 1st AIF, and went to his grave with fragments of German steel in his chest. he also liked a beer down the local RSL after Mass every day: of course, Grandma thought he was walking to the bowling club! That generation had only a few racist names for black people or any other non-Europeans, ‘nig’ which was a contraction of nigger (also occasionally used, but not often), and ‘wog’, which was by far the most common.
During WWII, ‘fuzzy-wuzzy’ became a very common name for Papua-New Guineans, and it was not and has never been a racist term here - quite the opposite. It is a term of very strong endearment and is usually used in the phrase ‘fuzzy-wuzzy angels’. I have never seen a genuine fuzzy-wuzzy angel be allowed to spend a cent in an RSL whenever one has been in-country from PNG, not when there was a PNG vet there, or any Army blokes. The debt we owe is bone-deep.
MarkL
CanberraI usually detest doing this as a blog comment, it is pretty lame, but MarkL’s post (#38) is worthy of every bit of it:
*applause*
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 02 12 at 08:04 AM • permalink#38 it’s not quite dead yet. these days he calls a spade a bloody shovel, means the guy uses unnecessarily strong & vehement language to get his point across, if said censoriously. if said admiringly, it means the chap is impressively candid & direct. it survives, in both senses, among baby boomers & country folk
I believe that “black as the ace of spades” is the source of the American derogatory term. (That I also recall being used in the Monty Python cartoon about the black, bouncing balls getting married and taking over a neighbourhood etc.)
BTW, were any cameras damaged in the attack?
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 02 12 at 11:01 AM • permalinkLatham: “I think we’re a nation that’s willing to call a spade a spade and, if need be, to pick up the spade and whack someone over the head with it.”
And he spends a lot of time in his shed, and there was that creepy effigy in his yard…maybe I watch too many crime shows, but this screams outpsycho serial killer.I understand Brian lost his job with the park service because he wouldn’t call procyon lotor by its proper name. Likewise, we don’t talk about why he was thrown out of Disney’s old Davy Crocket fan club…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 12 at 11:52 AM • permalinkAn old cartoon gag:
Sergeant hands private a shovel, pointy side up, and tells him to start digging a ditch. Private indignantly squeaks: “Sergeant! Do you realize I’m a college graduate!” Sergeant walks over, says: “Oh, I’m sorry!”, and turns the shovel around so the pointy end faces down. “Now get busy!”
No need to jump all over Brian for a miscue. For one thing, he is a regular visitor here and not a drive-by. And second, he is writing a new Mac book, but this time I think he may be struggling a bit to “tone it down” a tad for the ex-Windows crowd.
Cheers
JMHPosted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2006 02 12 at 10:15 PM • permalink#29. Quite right,however the self appointed Thought Police are still agonizing over Coon Cheese.The “activist” leading the charge against this despicable product claims to have been threatened by members of the Toowoomba Chapter of the KKK.This clown,having failed to have the name of the E.S.Nigger Brown Grandstand at a Toowoomba football ground removed,decided to pursue more media exposure by attacking cheese and linking the mythical Toowoomba KKK to it’s defence.
Re #30, thanks Rafe! Cricket is a foreign language to me….
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 12 at 11:44 PM • permalink
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Like the proverbial cream puff, he can give it out but can he take it?
As to the parents on the sideline, there is a grand tradition of robust barracking and some of it was sheer art (Yabba at the SCG) but some of the parents on the sidelines have gone way too far. Don’t get me started ...