fat?

Interesting juxtaposition of stories in The Australian newspaper today. In the first story, Britney Spears is panned for her controversial VMA performance. She’s described as being "out of shape" and "no longer boasting [a] buff body". Right beside it, a story about new rules limiting the use of underage models by fashion designers in response to "controversy about the fashion industry’s use of super-thin waifs to advertise clothes." There's a further photo gallery of Spears's performance thanks to News Ltd. Under one photo, the caption has the male dancer saying “Are you serious? I’m not going to lift you!”










No wonder teens have eating disorders. It’s not just the fashion industry. Look how quickly and gleefully the mainstream media describes the healthy-looking, normal shape of a woman as overweight.
I'm no fan of Spears generally, but gimme a woman over a waif any day.

elsewhere: similar thoughts.

rat's aspiration

After I posted this at Surfdom just now, I switched on Lateline in time to see a neatly-combed and scrubbed John Howard vowing he would stay on and win.
What option does he have--publicly wring his hands in anguish? Say, "But how could this be happening? I have the ear of the Australian people!" Of course he will act concerned, but confident. Alert, but not alarmed. He needs to try to harness the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy, after all--fake it til you make it. Naturally he's also trying to trade off the fact that Australians respect tenacity. That may be so, but I doubt the laundry list of complaints that voters have will just magically evaporate.
And the pressure's on, if Glenn Milne is to be believed (Sunday Telegraph, 9/9/07, not apparently available online). He invokes the spectre of the mysterious 'unaligned ministers' who have apparently given Howard a deadline of mere days to shape up or ship out....

shut up and tug that forelock

Sandra Lee writes about 'cultural cringe', seeing this expressed in the "self-flagellators flooding the talkback radio lines moaning about what they saw as Australia's and Prime Minister Howard's misplaced but slavish devotion to the US and President Bush".
I don't understand this argument. Aren't her 'self-flagellators' actually condemning cultural cringe themselves? Aren't they demonstrating pride in our own culture when they criticise the expectation that we swear unquestioning loyalty to another one?

"The Cringers apparently forgot that the alliance and friendship between Australia and the US did not start with Messrs Howard and Bush, nor will it end there."

Precisely why it should be okay to criticise the 'extraordinarily close relationship' the two men have without being accused of being anti-American in general, let alone anti-Australian. Their enmeshed relationship, closer than those Howard has with other delegates, is surely why the US alliance was so salient to the public. Our policies, thanks to Howard, are very closely tied up with Bush's. To criticise the Bush-Howard alliance is the opposite of cultural cringe, I would have thought. Ironically, it's Lee who is embarrassed and cringing at her bolshie compatriots.

extremist makeover

Impressed with the Chaser's recent APEC stunt, Osama bin Laden unveils his new look:






Breaching Western security should be a breeze now.
(I cut to the Chaser at Surfdom the other day. Oh, and also posted on Condoleezza Rice's Lateline interview while there.)

imre fondles his full wood

Slow news day, obviously, so Imre Saluszinsky decided to gross us all out. Apparently he wants to "eat something sweet and creamy off [APEC media spokesperson Anne Fulwood's] naked body". As Annabel Crabb put it today, Imre's latest column is "a stomach-turningly, police-callingly explicit account of his own haggard sexual yearnings for poor Anne Fulwood".
What was he thinking drinking?

too true to be good

"Mum," he said. "On the news, they’re just making it up."
"What do you mean, little man?" I asked, thinking gee, he's pretty critically literate for a three year old...
"Cos, well, Mummy," he explained, "they’re pretending the streets are on fire."
Gulp.
"Oh, yeah...I think that was part of some kind of show...um..."
Nice reminder of why kids really shouldn't watch the news, even just in the background. If only I could get him to bed earlier...sigh...

"the reasons teenagers give for trying drugs and what you can say"

Unless you're too busy having conniptions, that is. I had a laugh with my folks today over John Howard's "Tough on Drugs!" promotional booklet which we all received in the post lately. I don't know about your family dynamics when you were a teenager, but parental conniptions were a feature of ours. If I'd dared to pipe up with, "I always wanted to try that stuff!" or maybe even "It made me feel really good!" when busted, I'd only have earnt myself a good ohrfeige*. And, surely, had my ass grounded from here to kingdom come.
At least we can look back and laugh, I guess.
Talking to your kids about drugs is all well and good advice and probably worth the price of this attractive booklet. Just don't expect them to tell you the truth. Unless they're stupid.

*Ohrfeige: German. Literally ear-fig, but (from memory) equates to getting your ears boxed.

the unbearable heaviness of beings

Browsing my local online paper for jobs just now, I saw this ad:

FUNERAL ASSISTANT
Irregular casual work in the local area. Current driver's licence essential, with some heavy lifting required.

Insert disturbing mental pictures....Anyway, I guess it rules me out, since I can barely hoist a three year old kid aloft.

party tricks

thinking pink

So, did women really evolve to prefer the color pink because natural selection favored those of our female hunter-gatherer ancestors who could easily pick out ripe fruit? For some, it's now settled beyond doubt:

IT'S official. Blue is the most popular colour and women really do prefer pink, and reddish shades of blue like lilac and purple.
And the preference isn't just a result of social stereotypes, pushing pink on girls and blue on boys. It's innate and occurs across cultures, claim British researchers who studied the colour preferences of 208 young adults: 171 Britons and 37 mainland Chinese.

For others, there are some doubts. First of all, the subjects of the study were aged between 20 and 26, allowing plenty of time for socialisation to have already taken place. This rather obvious flaw means that the scientists are now off to try to replicate the findings in babies instead of adults.
Secondly, the argument of nature over nurture is weakened by another finding in the study:

The participants in the study were Chinese and British. The Chinese students showed a marked preference for red. As red symbolises luck and happiness in China, this indicates that cultural norms are also involved.

To me, that just highlights the powerful role of socialisation and tends to support the conclusion that 'nurture' also strongly factors into the gender color preferences.
There's also a suggestion that it would've been adaptive for females to recognise emotional states associated with pinkness, but given the association of pinkness with the sexual states, it's just as feasible that it was adaptive for men to like pink too...
Also, the claim that this is a genuine cross-cultural study is a bit iffy. We're talking Westernised Chinese here, aren't we; subjected to the same gender color norms and the same aggressive marketing of pink. Show me the study with subjects from a completely different, non-consumer society--say a modern tribe of hunter-gatherers--and I'll buy it.

fifteen minutes of flame

Sorry, Piers Akerman, it wasn't an hour, it was fifteen minutes, according to the owner of the strip joint. At worst, Rudd was "a little rowdy" and "uppity". And Janet Albrechtsen, sorry but you're wrong, too.

Had Tony Abbott taken a detour to the Pink Pussycat one evening, I’m betting that the Labor Party sisterhood would be hissing for his resignation. Likewise if Alexander Downer or John Howard were caught on a pleasant UN tour of duty at Scores, we could expect howls of feminist derision.

Frankly, my dear, I wouldn't give a damn if they did. I have no interest in the sex lives of politicians. The issue would be one of hypocrisy, the gulf between what the conservatives say and what they do, and not of "male exploitation of poor working girls". It wouldn't be a feminist issue but a general political one.
Feminists are 'silent' on this issue (if we are) not because we support Labor policies. I'd suggest we're 'silent' because among consenting adults, we have no problem with a little female nudity, or with women who choose to work as strippers and/or sex workers. Feminists respect women's choices. This is not the Victorian era, and provided there was no exploitation involved, I don't regard this as a feminist issue.
And something I've been wondering about lately. Over the past few years we've been incessantly told by the Right that Howard's long reign means most Australians are conservative. They based this idea on the fact that just over half of the people voted Liberal and extrapolated from this that the minority Left was criticising the Australian people generally whenever it criticised the Howard government. So, now that polls are showing that the majority of people are progressive, can we preach to the Right that to criticise progressives is to criticise the Australian people as a whole?

stripperella

Ah, very funny, SBS. I noticed in the telly guide they were screening a show called Stripperella tonight. (Synopsis: "A man is bitten by a uranium-contaminated beaver and starts chomping everything in sight that is made of wood. Back at the club, Giselle is performing lap dance on an elderly fellow, and when it is over, she discovers that he has had a fatal heart attack".)
Elsewhere, the 7:30 Report totally let me down tonight. There was Kerry O'Brien playing along with the faux-scandal and trying to nail Kevin Rudd on whether he had in fact seen a lapdancer lapdancing or not. Man, who cares? Sorry, this one's in the public disinterest, guys.
Meanwhile, this contentious Jack Marx piece (reproduced at Club Troppo) is just waaaay too much information. I don't want to think of Rudd's "erection creaking to life in his trousers". I don't want to imagine his "anxious loins". I really don't want to imagine him "humping" anything:

"Back at his hotel room, the shadow foreign affairs minister would have laid in the dark, thinking. He would have smelled her, felt her lingering touch still upon him, like that of some phantasmic seductress. Perhaps, if he were lying face down, he’d have begun a gentle humping, his pillow underneath as kapok mistress. Or perhaps, with closed eyes to the heavens, deliverance would have been at hand."

Naughty, sure, but hardly a sackable piece of writing, I wouldn't have thought. This isn't Spain after all. Here, cartoonists can get away with drawing important figures in bed, like Leunig did in Saturday's Herald. Mind you, the woman Leunig drew in bed with John doesn't resemble Janette at all; maybe Glenn Milne should investigate further.
Anyway, surely the most interesting part is the identity of exactly who was gyrating in front of Kev that night? Aha!

noise

Since he has the flu, we treat him to a new Thomas video and spend the afternoon snuggled up watching it. We are introduced to a new character, Sir Topham Hatt’s elderly mother. Later, over dinner, the boy takes a long look at me and says,
"Mum, you look like Dowager Hatt."
And starts laughing, possibly at the look of stunned horror on my face. Thanks, mate! Still, if he's cracking jokes, he must be feeling better...
He also makes me laugh when we see an ad for Australian Idol on the telly. He recognises the logo, if not quite the name:
"Mum, the noise show is back," he says.
Well, it probably won’t be long before he’s auditioning for the noise show himself, anyway. The other day I filmed him strumming his ukelele and ad-libbing a little song. As he 'tuned' his ukelele he told me,
"This song’s about a car, Mum. I like a song about a car."
Then he belted out, in a kind of death metal style of delivery,
ABC Kids with the ca-ar...ABC Kids with the monster...ABC Kids with the tea-towel...ABC Kids with the cow-ouch----and so on, casting his eye about our living room for further lyrical inspiration. He finished by posing, pulling a mean face, growling ROCK STAR!, flinging his poor ukelele down and stomping off stage left. I’m not sure if this means he’s been watching too much ABC Kids or too much Rage; probably both.

fever all through the night

Sorry for lack of posting and reading blogs. There's stuff in the works (in particular a critique of the three anti-blogging pieces published in the broadsheets at the weekend) but my boy has come down with another bug, this time of the sore throat, runny nose, high fever kind. He's a trouper but I'm a bit of a nervous wreck as he's only ever had mild fever before. Anyway, back to the blog as soon as poss.

more red cheeks for the Liberals

Well, that kind of backfired, didn't it? Go looking for evidence that reality TV is rotting people's morals and find out it's actually making them better citizens. D'oh! Maybe Helen Coonan hoped that, after sitting on the report into the evils of reality TV for nearly six months, people might've forgotten all about it. Sadly for her, The Australian has managed to use Freedom of Information laws to reveal:

A previously unreleased Australian Communications and Media Authority report reveals reality TV may make better citizens of the 15- to 24-year-olds who constitute the principal audience.
"Being exposed to people and situations they would not normally encounter in their day-to-day lives had a positive impact on many young viewers," says the report, based on focus group research by ACNielsen.
"It made them aware of, and more tolerant of social diversity and caused them to reflect on their own behaviours and the impact they have on others."
The focus groups - shown clips from Big Brother and its adults-only version, Border Security, Jamie's Kitchen Australia, Cheaters and the Biggest Loser - were inspired by the personal growth of many participants and "found examples of discipline, commitment and hope".

Talk about adding insult to injury. It's not doing kids any harm, and it could actually be doing them some good. Looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on the subject sometime.

i wanted them. i loved them.

Yeah okay, I was a victim of clever advertising.

happy birthday, mr prime minister

breaking broken stories

After all The Australian's bleating about "breaking real stories and adding to society's pool of knowledge" the other day, I was amused to read this line in a news.com.au story last night:

"Max Bowen, manager of the Iron Duke Hotel at the corner of Botany Road and McEvoy Street, told SMH Online that he ran outside after hearing the crash and saw the mother covering her daughter." (my emphasis)

You wouldn't be feeding off a Fairfax story there would you, News Ltd?

naive surrealism

Last night he says,
"Mum, it's sore."
"Hey? What is?" I say. I turn the light back on.
"The door," he says.
"The door is sore?"
"Yes," he says. "It has a sore handle."
"Really?"
"Yes, and if you close it, it might bleed, you see."
"Oh, dear." He is starting to get scared of the dark and wants me to leave his bedroom door open at night. Still, I'm a little disturbed by his dark imagination. I haven't even been reading him The Brothers Grimm.
"Well, we better leave it open then, eh?"
"Yes," he says, relieved.
I close the door when he's sleeping, though, because otherwise the cat likes to try and smother him.

punned it

Matthew tagged me with a 5/5 meme the other day. I'll give it a go.

1. Name your area of expertise/interest:
I thought about offering "procrastination" as my area of expertise, because on my way to the computer to write this post today, I had to first make a lime cheesecake and then repaint my bathroom and then do some cartoons and then have a lie down and feel sorry for myself for having a cold (you know how you get those fits and bursts of energy when you are sick?). And then sure enough it was time to collect my child. And somehow now it's five to midnight. No more time for mucking around!
So I'll say "puns". I love making them and I love reading other people's puns. It's one of the things I love about blogging--especially since there's not much call for punning when writing straight fiction, for example. (Having decided on puns as an area of interest, though not necessarily expertise, a few days ago I immediately found I couldn't make any good ones for my new posts. Stage fright, I think.)
2. How did you become interested in it?
Growing up with a dad who was a sub-editor and spending a childhood listening to he and his colleagues make drunken puns around dinner tables.
3. How did you learn how to do it?
I think it's just always been part of the family tradition, to engage in word play all the time. Then later when I worked in magazines and newspapers for years, I got to write headlines to my heart's content.
4. Who has been your biggest influence?
Tie between Asterix and Groucho Marx.
5. What would you teach people about it?
A triple entendre is even better than a double entendre.

we won't let terrorism change our way of life, no sirree!

(Today's Handy Terror Hint: Don't forget to pack some Valium!)

the search continues

Well, my child is back to rude good health but has offloaded his cold onto me. So (sniffle, cough) I'll just drop in to link to the latest episode The Search for a Scapegoat . Hilarious, Spud. Too true.

'go' Howard

I feel like weighing into the debate provoked last week by The Australian’s editorial sledging online writers. Others in various comments threads have pointed out that the newspaper is likely most irked by competing for-profit online media like Crikey, rather than the thousands of amateur sites like mine. I couldn't resist reacting to some of the claims the paper made in attacking the credibility of online commentary (described as “smug, self assured, delusional swagger”).
The paper doesn't seem to realise that before blogging, people just thought all this. Now anyone has an avenue to criticise anything, including the media itself, which the media doesn't appear to be enjoying. Maybe blogging 'preys' on expensive primary content produced by Big Media. But it also performs a useful function in holding the media to account for what it writes. It's another layer of bullshit detectors.
You get a sense of the stubborn resistance of traditional media to new forms here. Newspapers acting threatened, dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the internet and its democratisation of debate. Then they suffer the indignity of being in competition with their own online presence as well, and possibly even watching their online entity overtake them in revenue. No wonder they're cut.)
But back to The Government Gazette.

“[There has been] silence when Mr Howard's performance has been put under the gun.”

That could be because it’s been done so half-heartedly. Sure, Paul Kelly writes things like (30 September 2006):

"John Howard has backed US policies that have fuelled the global jihadist movement and made Australia less safe. This seems a comprehensive failure and Howard should be called to account by the media, the Opposition and the public....By any measure the war in Iraq is going badly. And prime ministers who support unsuccessful wars that energise the enemy, expand his recruitment lines and give him vast propaganda value are not entitled to claim superior national security credentials...The scale of Howard's blunder will become more and more apparent. Labor should hold Howard to account. Iraq [was] a mistake, a war in which Labor's initial position was correct."

The paper has demanded the public hold John Howard accountable for his mistakes and the public has apparently done so, approving of Rudd as the cleanskin. But the paper didn't take its own advice. To use the vernacular, it did not ‘go’ Howard.

“As a newspaper we don't know who we will support at the federal election.”

When are they going to make up their minds, you have to wonder. When Labor announces it will go to the next election on a platform of AWAs, going nuclear, staying in Iraq indefinitely, etc? Um...

"The Australian is not beholden to any one side of politics..."

Didn't you just say you were Right of John Howard?

"Most of our criticism has been from the Right, chiding the Government for being overly generous with middle class welfare and reform shy..."

Well, unless Labor drastically changes its platform, it’s impossible to see how a proudly conservative paper like The Australian can honestly claim it still hasn’t decided who it supports.





















According to the newspaper,

“Most of the electronic offerings that feed off the work of The Australian to create their own content are a waste of time.”

Who’s eating who? The media has always fed off the public for quotes and vox pops, and now online, for free content via comments boxes and forums. In whose opinion is “most” of the content “a waste of time”? If it’s such a waste of time, why are blogs so popular?

“But the one-eyed anti-Howard cheer squad now masquerading as serious online political commentary, apart from a few notable exceptions, has all but exhausted its claim to be taken seriously.”

Then why are they taking it so seriously? You wonder why these journalistic elites feel the need to stoop to conquer. If bloggers have no credibility, why the sudden urge to demolish it?
I reckon the paper is just embarrassed they’ve backed the wrong horse. Now, maybe because Rupe himself is acting like a swinger, his paper feels the need to rationalise its support for one of the last governing fossils of the late neocon era...
Anyway, it’s not all ‘endless commentary’. Some of us also post nude drawings.

puppetry of the puppet

(By Spud.)

naughty, very naughty!

The protester:

We didn't get a chance to leave peacefully. The police just started pepper-spraying people, hitting them with batons and throwing them to the floor. It was absolutely shameful.

The Education Minister Julie Bishop:

So we did ring the police because they were actually inside the office chanting.

Imagine! They were actually chanting. Dangerous, chanting. Might lead to macrame or something.

best laid plans, etc.

So then my boy came down heavily with the head cold he'd been nurturing since last week. Bad timing given the current flu scare, but since it's only been a mild cold and it's been several days now, and he's still cheerfully running amok, I'm not too worried (that's so unlike me!). Just means we've had a few sleepless nights and I had to keep him home from daycare yesterday, just to be on the safe side. Today we're taking a little busride outta this town for a quick change of scenery. Anyway, blogging will hopefully resume before the stack of clippings and notes beside my computer get too yellow...

what i'm...

I’m going to steal a blogger convention--and by that I mean a common post type, not a whole gathering of bloggers--and do a “What I’m…”.

what I’m watching…
Wallace & Gromit. Fave line from Wallace: “Now then, no sense in prevaricating around the bush”. Especially liked: A Close Shave.
Mr and Mrs Smith. My library had this and I thought, it’s free, how bad can it be? In a word: Tragic. Like stickytaping a copy of New Idea across your telly. There’s an early scene where Brad and Ange are at a party and someone hands Ange a baby, and she is made to look uncomfortable, as if she’s never held one before, and whaddya know, just at that moment Brad’s character looks over from a doorway to see her holding the baby…COO!…. And that’s the point at which he falls in love, of course.

Hollywood Ending. OK, but not my favorite Woody. Some funny lines. Liked this exchange between Woody and his friend,

“You know, part of me really wants this.”
“And the other part?”
“Also wants it, that’s the problem.”

Big Love on SBS-TV. I’m conservative on Big Love. I don’t buy it, that women can be happy sharing a man, making do with one quarter each. More like Big Patriarchy, isn’t it, since women aren’t likely to be allowed to take multiple husbands anytime soon. But I can’t stop watching it. And Margene’s blog is a bit of fun on the side.
Pretty In Pink. Also from the library. As good as it was when I was fourteen, with a classic 80s soundtrack. (Apposite line: “I mean, he’s a yuppie, but he’s soooo nice!”)

what I’m listening to…

Bob Dylan on the radio with Paranoid Blues. Gives me a belly laugh that song.

Nick Cave’s new outfit Grinderman. Especially like the new single (I Don’t Need You To) Set Me Free but can‘t find it on the tubes.

Otis, who is guaranteed to be played on my weekend off once a month. Here's a good one on youtube.

Nirvana, Nevermind. Also gets played very loud once a month. (Apposite line: “I’m so horny, that’s okay my will is good.”)

Beastie Boys, The In Sound From Way Out. My eye fell on the name of track 3, Namaste, which made me think of my friend Jen, who sent me an email with that word as the title the other day. I still haven’t looked up what it means. Peace?

what I’m reading...
Newspapers and blogs.
St Johns’ First Aid for Babies Fast! Recommended. If you read through this while you have PMT you may have a little cry at all the terrible things that can conceivably happen. But having a first aid book with exact photos of procedures is very reassuring.
Sneaky Veggies. Recommended. Yummy recipes, witty style.

ah, shaddup my face

I was too embarrassed to show my face around Surfdom for a few days last week after leaving a stupid self-pitiful comment there. I mean, the post was about another blogger who died, and I managed to try and make it about me. Cringe. I’d been in the last throes of PMT, and feeding into that had been the sudden and inexplicable estrangement of a sibling, making me feel worse than usual. Mostly when I have PMT I am careful not to traipse around the blogosphere leaving petulant whiny comments that probably do nothing but confirm people’s suspicions of my rampant narcissism. And the trouble with my whiny comment was that it’s not even true. I do have nice friendly email chats with other bloggers or readers from time to time, and frankly I’m often the worst offender as far as being unsociable goes. People have sometimes made efforts to involve me in the blogger community and have been rebuffed. What's more I’m a terrible emailer, usually lurching inappropriately from gushy to curt (though I do a nice line in flirty banter that leads nowhere).
So I don’t really know what I was trying to say, except that I was feeling bleak and desolate that day and probably a little melodramatic. (I notice that in almost all the sketches that I drew on Tuesday, I am scowling.)
It’s hard to talk about suffering from PMT when many people think it’s all in the mind. I still have a bone to pick with the female academic (whose name escapes me) who came out last year insisting that women just make it up. In my family they speak in hushed tones of my ‘feral' PMT, which roughly equates to rapid cycling bipolar disorder, tending to buffet me between two extremes: ogre of positive energy and ogre of sad energy. Sure, a hormonal mood disorder is all in the mind. Like other hormonally influenced mental states, say puberty, menopause, postnatal depression. None of which exist and all of which are just female excuses for bad behavior, right? Stupid academic. “Well I don’t get it myself, so it mustn’t exist!”. Man, that really stuck in my craw. Anyway, back on the upswing now so blogging should pick up again (and self-pitiful comments should cease). And I have to crawl back to Surfdom with my tail between my legs anyway, as I have some (ahem) serious posts to put up soon.

friday rat blogging

I might be getting a little obsessed with John, whaddya think? Oh, well. Above are a few lolrats I made. There might be some actual written posts up soon. And some more nudes (not of John, I promise).

monday rat blogging

Jizzle Hizzle's latest clip (by Spud).

coalition of the willies

Well, what an exercise in frustration. I am stuck on Blair. Friends tell me they don't recognise him in this sketch:


















So I tried him again tonight but only ended up with this:













which is not much of an improvement. His eyes look evil, no?
Unfortunately I can't continue my cut'n'paste toons without an adequate sketch of Tony, but now I find that my multifuction printer's ink supply is so low that everything's coming out in different shades of gray, which isn't working for me. Never mind. Will try again next week, or whenever the new toner arrives.

when God's away, the Devil will play

John Howard in that speech last night:

"We should have been more humble. We have our Katrina here and now. That it has unfolded more slowly and absent the hand of God should make us humbler still."

Absent the hand of God? I thought God had His fingers in all pies. If He was absent, where was He? Busy elsewhere in the world causing freakish weather--hurricanes, tsunamis and the like--and the ensuing human misery, as part of His Grand Plan?

comic strip show

of rats and goats

Beautiful, Spud. Thanks to Sean for the link.

who's loathing who?

Why do Miranda Devine and Janet Albrechtsen hate women so much? And why do they loathe Western culture so much, while projecting this loathing onto progressive Western women?
Each of these conservative commentators wrote a piece last week cynically using Hiyaan Hirsi Ali as a tool to attack progressive women, while under the pretext of championing the rights of Muslim women around the world.
Their argument is so convoluted it baffles me.
Continued at Surfdom (where over-long posts can be neatly concealed under a fold...).

(PS. More toons on their way.)

no, i have not disappeared into my navel

And I will be posting again soon, not that I think anyone believes a word I say anymore, as far as promises to blog go. I have not been writing for a few reasons which I'll try and explain soon. I haven't been sketching either, but I have been cartooning myself into a frenzy, and I'll put up a couple soon, despite the danger that they're unintelligible to anyone but myself. (Tried one out on my folks today. First I had to explain it. Then my mum goes, "Ha, ha. So, which one is supposed to be Bush?". But they're being very encouraging, actually.)
On the subject of toons, I was amazed at the Leak/Herge controversy the other day. I would've thought if anything Bill Leak would be helping to market Tintin, by reminding his newspaper's audience of the classic character. Mightn't the publishers even enjoy a sales spike in Australia from this?
I also enjoyed David's post on the Big Donor. It's not the first time BB has achieved a social purpose, as I vaguely recall there was the UK asylum seeker case but I'll have to dig out the clipping as I've forgotten the details.
And Helen had a fantastic post at surfdom. My thoughts on education are that the Howard Government's tendency to view education simply as a commodity only further entrenches disadvantage, since socio-economically disadvantaged kids can only access poor resources. I don't believe public schools should be devalued to the point where they become a place of last resort, yet the only place for anyone who can't afford to pay a premium for decent schooling. (And Helen, the thing about the Superior Mums was funny. Just recently I had a woman who doesn't like me say, "What, your son still wears nappies sometimes and he's three? Well, my daughter was completely toilet-trained by the time she was two!". To which I didn't retort, "And does it not occur to you that every child is different and such comparisons are arbitrary, you silly twit?").
Well, if anyone's still reading me despite the extended and unexplained absences, I really appreciate it and I'll be back soon. In the immortal words of the PM, trust me...

mute point

Sorry for the lack of posting. I feel as if someone has pressed the "mute" button on me lately. I'll have a few more days off and see if there's any improvement in my blogging mood. Otherwise, I dunno. Maybe my blogging days are drawing to an end (literally...)? Meantime thanks again for the encouragement with the sketching project, and for continuing to visit my site.

Just a quick link... Jeremy saved me the trouble of blogging about this subject the other day. Couldn't have said it better.

tossing and turning

Ratty goes batty...


Meanwhile, the Howardhuggers ponder the polls and the causes of rodent fatigue and conclude: either the rat's just a bit long in the tooth, or it's not him it's us (we're apathetic, see), or it's only because Labor has been cleverly advertising on polling weekends.
Dream on.

(Bats by wikipedia; rat with apologies to the dapper rat, where I learnt that rats are pretty damn cute, actually. Funny captions, too.)

ValuesChoices

Is this a trick question? The new citizenship test apparently asks, among other things,

"...what Australian values are based on - with the options being: the Koran, the judeo Christian tradition, Catholicism, or secularism."

My instinctive answer was secularism, but I have a feeling that's not the one they're looking for, eh? I guess I'd be on the boat back to Hamburg.
It's a curly one because even if "Australian" values were originally based in the judeo-Christian paradigm, because of the origin of British settlers, much has changed in the intervening couple of hundred years. Modern Australia should be regarded as being based on secular values so there can be room for the whole spectrum of belief systems, including Christians, Muslims, Catholics and, last and always least, atheists.

struggle street cred

Joe Hockey says the unions, with Labor, have run a successful scare campaign against WorkChoices which has "resonated" with voters. So, he reckons people have listened to and believed the unions. This begs the question--why would people believe the unions if they didn't trust them? I mean, does anyone listen to, and take on board, a message from someone they don't like or trust?

masterclass, my ass

I was surprised to see The Australian declare the Budget a ‘masterclass’ the other day, because on the same front page several of its writers mentioned how Costello had ‘stolen’ and ‘pinched’ the idea from Rudd. It's a weird 'masterclass' that indulges cheating and doing homework the night before it's due, which is what this Howard Government's 'revolution' amounts to. (Saucy Julie Bishop was tightlipped this time, with no cracks of the wit about naughty boys and copycats.)
What is so revolutionary about the Howard Government‘s Budget? Paul Kelly, who endorses the Budget as a “tactical masterstroke”, claims it is revolutionary because the Liberals have finally decided to take education seriously. This “permanent change in Coalition priorities” is apparently evidence of a newly-contrived ability to engage in “long-range thinking”. So, in their eleventh year of rule, they have come to realise that education is important? Good on them. Do they want a medal or a chest to pin it on?
We expected them to lean on the states to enforce compliance and sure enough they are. What's scarier are the more insidious power grabs. The policy is vague on details like, how are they going to decide who's worthy. John Howard has a go at nutting it out, but even he doesn't sound sure:

Mr Howard said the $5 billion would go into a fund to be managed by a group called the Guardians of the Future Fund, chaired by former Commonwealth Bank head David Murray. He said it would invest the money and distribute proceeds on a competitive tender basis, possibly giving priority to universities proposing to match fund money with that from private sources, attracting tax deductibility.
“We will get a group of advisers on university matters, spiced with some financial experts to advise the education minister, who I imagine will discuss it with me and other senior ministers. The Government will make the final decision. “

And I imagine all these groups will be "spiced with" Conservatives. So, who’s electing the board of the Guardians of the Future Fund again? Who are the advisors gonna be ?(Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire, come on down!) Same with the Summer Schools. These sound a bit suss. Says Bishop, “Teachers will be selected by the federal government from a pool nominated by government and non-government schools...the programs would be run by top tertiary educators and would provide up-to-date training based on new research”. Wonder what the criteria are, and who these shadowy educators are again (Ken and Kevin, I'm watching you!).
Can we really expect the Howard Government to make ideologically-unbiased decisions about merit when it so closely controls the flow of funds? And it wants still more control over funds. Simon Marginson noted,

Another item slipped into the budget package indicates that the Government will ask the states to hand over their legislative powers over university finance. If they do not this voluntarily, says the minister, the Federal Government can seize control via its corporations power, which was confirmed last November by the High Court. This would allow the Government to decide entry into the university market and to dictate what public universities do - by shaping academic priorities, for example.

I love how they keep using that line: "Do this, or we'll make you. It's your choice."
Worst of all is the sheer trickery. As Simon Marginson detailed in the Herald yesterday, this Budget is words, words, words signifying nothing. Oh sure it hands over five billion bucks to unis!

HEEF is not a $5 billion investment in education. It is an investment in a capital fund. As the Treasurer, Peter Costello, said on budget night, the capital will not be spent. It remains part of the surplus, making future governments look good. What goes to the universities will be the earnings from the capital, an estimated $304 million a year. That's a 5 per cent increase on the $6 billion the Government spends each year on universities. Along with another $181 million in new funding in the budget, it will make a real difference. But it is no education revolution. All the Government has done is restore the cuts made to annual operating funds it made in the three years after it was first elected in 1996.

Truly, big deal.

Crossposted at Surfdom, where I also added this post today. (Oh, and I forgot to mention, a while ago, this one.)

Superrodent says he will save the planet "oh, maybe later sometime", goes shopping instead

Just one more heckle from the class clown at the back of the Masterclass.

“The Government has also moved to bolster its security credentials with the biggest rise in defence funding since the Vietnam War, with a $2 billion increase to $22 billion in 2007-08.”

Bolster its credentials…or perhaps refill its depleted coffers after rushing off to wage an expensive, neverending war in Iraq, hmm? Biggest rise since Vietnam? I thought it wasn’t polite to mention Vietnam in the context of Iraq?
Two billion for more guns (and a bigger Defence advertising budget, no doubt); a measly $150 million for solar panel rebates.
Pathetic.

flip flap flops

Noticed there are some Conservatives around preaching that Labor should backflip and accept AWAs or else (see Paul Kelly and Janet Albrechtson). But what if it did? Would these commentators accept it as calmly as they accepted Howard’s “mini-rollback” (as an Oz editorial so cutely branded Howard's IR cave-in) the other day?
If we can have “Costello’s own” education revolution, can we have “Rudd’s own individual workplace agreements“? If Labor were to find mass support for AWAs, as the Liberals are wont to claim, could we see Rudd given the space to turn around and say, “OK then, let’s be realistic, Labor wants to be flexible and pragmatic on this too. So perhaps there is a case for extreme ‘flexibility’ at the top end of the labour market; let‘s open it up to discussion whether we should do a Howard and have a mini-cave-in too.”
As if Kelly and Albrechtson and the rest would let them get away with it. But as long as the polls favour Labor, it’s pretty much moot.

damning with heavy praise

Shorter John and Alex on Tony:

"We like him because he made the same mistake in Iraq as we did."

Utterly self-serving and hollow.

joke of the day

I read this quote from the Foreign Minister in The Australian this morning:

"I'm not terribly focused on whether I ever could become leader of the Liberal Party or deputy leader," he says.
"If there was a mass assassination of a whole lot of people, well, I mean, I just don't know.

And for a good hour I completely misunderstood it. I thought he was joking that a mass political assassination might open up some career moves for him. Eventually I realised he meant he faints at the sight of blood, or something.
The story reports that Downer wants to be Treasurer. Gee, terrorists must be praying for a Liberal victory. With Fudgefingers at the helm of Australia's national accounts, there should be ample opportunity to inconspicuously funnell cash to rogue states and terrorists. After all the whole world knows Downer doesn't have time to read office memos. Well, he is writing a novel, so he's a bit distracted at times, as we writers are. But never mind.
Sadly this para didn't make it into the Oz's story:

Barely containing his glee, Downer rubbed his chubby paws together. "A wonderful job! Should be jolly good fun! Oh, goody!"

Elsewhere, it takes one rat to know another...

the slippery slope

Gee, only day three or four, and phony moral outrage at News Ltd already:

BIG BROTHER SWEARING DISGRACE
BIG Brother turned big blooper last night, with contestant Bodie dropping the "c" word during the daily show.

Looks like God has answered one of John Howard's prayers ("...And please God, we need more turkey slaps so we can get this immoral postmodern rubbish off the air and everything. Um..if you're all out of turkey slaps, some foul language would do. Oh, and thanks, God. Thanks a lot.").

mad barker

Whatever gives Mr Barker this idea?

"In one sense the community is indebted to him and he is now entitled to call in the debt," he said.

I think not.

where's Donald Trump when you need him?

Remember all that talk we heard in the 90s about things like the "triple bottom line"? I thought the point was to humanise capitalism, to force the market to behave more ethically and thoughtfully (maybe even rationally) about consequences in terms of families and the environment by conspicuously including them in the balance sheet. But now we're back to dehumanising capitalism by turning workers into commodities, and John Howard's great plan reeks of mean old 80s economic rationalism.
Over the years the PM has liked to trumpet about 'corporate philanthropy' but it has never really come to pass. On the contrary, we now have a situation where big business will only very grudgingly come to the party that John Howard is throwing for them and contribute some small change towards the election campaign. Talk about ungrateful cheapskates, after all he's done for them!
The intrinsic problem with "WorkChoices" is that people know from first-hand experience that there has always been a power differential between bosses and workers, and that Howard's reforms can only widen the gap.
Mr Howard...you're fired.

losing the halo

Right, well Haloscan obviously hates me. They claim to be there, but they're not, are they? Time to give up on them, I think. I'll try Blogger comments instead, so let's see if that works.

update So, evidently I just needed to default new posts to showing comments. Who'd have thought? Sorry, Haloscan. However, apparently I've lost all old comments threads, or at least they won't show (though I think they remain on my account at Haloscan, should they ever be needed). OK, moving on then....

i ♥ Big Brother

Trust Big Brother to lift my spirits after a bit of unwanted melancholy lately. It's always such a great distraction.
Top marks to BB this season. I like the missing prizemoney. I like the trendy ultra-green house made of recycled materials, with a pedal-powered washing machine, and artworks on the walls. I like the way they encouraged preliminary gender bonding (and "bagsing" of potential mates) by grouping the males and females separately at first. I like the fact that the housemates seem to be 'older and wiser'. I like the new peep-thru features of the house, creating fishbowls within the fishbowl.
I especially like the way all the housemates are extremely Nice rather than Naughty. I know this will really annoy John Howard and Helen Coonan as they spend their evenings glued to the screen desperately hunting for signs of moral turpitude. They're completely caught out by Big Brother going highbrow (or maybe multibrow).
Here's this year's bunch:
HAYLEY, 24, lawyer, bold, high-maintenance blonde, single;
TJ, 22, barmaid, Bohemian, doesn't like "plastics", calls herself "real" and "eccentric", seems a bit timid, single;
REBECCA, 24, events manager, Mormon, conservative, non-drinker evidently eager to prove she can party as hard and act as silly as the next alcoholic, single;
KATE, 25, lawyer, voluptuous, possibly bossy, potential 'love-her-or-hate-her' character, single;
EMMA, 24, fitness instructor, "black sheep of family", claims she wants to subvert the dumb blonde archetype, single;
ALEISHA, 20, hairdresser, sweet, innocent, hippy, small-town girl next door, single;
JAMIE, 29, karaoke host, cuddly SNAG, video gamer, wants to win it "for all the nerds out there", single;
BODIE, 24, model, Rod Stewart lookalike, larrkin, cheeky, self-described ADHD "shallow attention seeker", single;
ANDREW, 28, firefighter, reserved, smart, friendly, SNAG, admits to fractured family relationships, single;
JOEL, 24, restaurant manager, Young Liberal, athletic, ladies' man, joker, athletic, possibly a little machismo, single;
THOMAS, 27, real estate agent, traditionally handsome, separated from wife and from recent girlfriend;
TRAVIS, 32, truckdriver, heart-of-gold, ordinary Aussie bloke, married with kid (and I'm tipping Travis to be an early favorite).
There are two more housemates to be voted in and I think producers intend for DEMET(Muslim bellydancer) and ZORAN(romantic stirrer, admitted liar), both late-20s or thirtysomethings, to enter the house. It seems hard to imagine viewers voting in the others, who come across as naive dags, but it may still happen. And would still make for interesting viewing, especially if, as it seems, the current group are relatively well-educated and probably fairly politically savvy.
Oh, and the two 'secret relationships'? Surely gotta involve Thomas, who was introduced as currently trying to decide between going back to his ex-wife or his recently exed-girlfriend. Do you think the wife and girlfriend might be in there? I'll pick Kate as the ex-wife and either Hayley or Emma as the girlfriend.
So, let the games begin....

update OK, I was way off the mark with Thomas, but my radar correctly picked up that Hayley was involved somehow: turns out her husband is Andrew, with ex-boyfriend Billy now also sent in, to complicate the couple's attempt to keep their marriage hidden from the other housemates. I was also wrong about new housemate Susannah; now that we've had a closer look, she appears to be the polished, classy "high society" type, not so much a dag, and clearly a big hit with the blokes. I predict a match with Thomas. The other new housemate, as predicted, is Zoran. The remaining four contestants have been inducted into the White Room, a monochrome place of supposed potential mental torture; the one who remains in the room the longest may then enter the house proper. I wonder if they'll make a reality show inside the reality show, with the real housemates watching a package of the housemates interacting in the White Room for entertainment each night?

time out

Back soon. Hopefully with working comments (it's a bit lonely blogging without them).

knockin' the suburbs

Art critic John McDonald is no fan of Howard Arkley, and wonders why anyone else is.
In previewing the Arkley exhibition running until May 6 in Sydney, Carnivale of Suburbia, McDonald questions the validity of Arkley's popularity. He suggests it is more a factor of marketing hype rather than appreciation of any genuine talent (Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, April 7; not available online).
McDonald takes a dim view of Arkley's legacy, from the headline--"Major hype for a minor talent"--through phrases like "technicolor screaming", "pure surface" and "no pictorial intelligence". The best he can offer is that Arkley's work has "strong graphic appeal". McDonald declares, "his paintings are failed abstractions that hide behind the facade of suburban kitsch".
A major criticism involves the use of color. McDonald describes, with distaste,

"...clashing colours so bilious and aggressively ill-matched that they seem to have been chosen by playing Roulette with a colour wheel"

McDonald compares the works with those of Michael Johnson, of whom he writes, "his colours never seem arbitrary". Maybe Johnson is saying something quite different. However, by writing that Arkley's colours seem "aggressively" put together, McDonald acknowledges that the colour schemes are deliberate, even as they appear arbitrary, since aggression implies motive. McDonald is irritated that there is "no discernable logic in the selection of colours", unable to accept there might be the logic of no logic. Arkley's colours could reflect ideas about randomness, chaos, chance. Perhaps even something about the apparently meaningless, apparently arbitrary nature of reality (until meaning is constructed or imposed). I'm guessing here, of course; I'm no art critic, and I haven't actually read anything Arkley has said of his work. Paradoxically, McDonald later criticises Arkley for being "mannered" and "calculated".
A second criticism is that Arkley doesn't obey expectations about 'good taste'. McDonald mocks Arkley's postmodernity:

"In the gospel according to Arkley, there is no such thing as good taste--all decorative impulses are equally good and valued."

It's as if McDonald would've been happier if Arkley had painted prettier houses, gentrified the works, perhaps painted Mosman. McDonald seems to cringe at Arkley's view of suburbia and the very idea that it might be "celebrated". He blasts Arkley's status as "poet of the common people, finding beauty in all the kitsch". Frankly, to me there is an element of horror in the pictures as well. I think at the very least Arkley was ambivalent about suburbia.
Of Arkley's monochrome work titled "Primitive", McDonald complains:

"There is no volume, no perspective, no light and shade, just a monotonous line that resolves itself into a stream of consciousness panorama."

Isn't this kind of hitting the nail on the head? Isn't that suburbia--that sameness, that white noise, that homogenous hum? Except the hum is a scream. I mean, doesn't the mainstream, in fact, scream as loudly and garishly as punk?

"As a celebration of the suburban aesthetic, it has a double edge."

Well, yeah.
McDonald's chief objection seems to be to Arkley's claim to the "dubious title of artist-laureate of the Austrlaian suburbs". He offers up his favored alternatives, John Brack and Charles Blackman, neither of whom are exactly Arkley's contemporary peers. (I believe Brack was painting suburban scenes in the 50s, wasn't he?).
To me, there is an element of snobbery in McDonald's critique. He writes,

"Sydney viewers can make up their own minds about Arkley. Don't feel intimidated, because it's not a demanding task."

Is it just me, or is this vaguely patronising and elitist? Because Arkley strikes a chord with ordinary people, because the work is popular and accessible, it represents dumbing down?

"Some viewers will have an instant, favourable response to the bright energy in these canvases. Others--and I include myself in their ranks--will find they slip away from one's gaze like the images on a TV screen."

I find this metaphor unconvincing. Firstly, Arkley's images do not slip away so easily at all. If I say "Arkley", you will be likely to easily conjure up his paintings in your mind's eye. And secondly, images on a TV screen are not always fleeting; many televisual images (September 11 is the most obvious modern example) linger potently, long after they have been aired.
I find this to be a telling paragraph:

"At the end of this show, I felt like those Spanish explorers who crossed the ocean and discovered a new continent. 'What was it like?' people asked. 'Aca nada!' [the explorers] replied. 'There's nothing there.'"

Curious choice of metaphor. After all, the explorers were mistaken, weren't they? To be sure, it may not have been what they expected to find. But there was plenty there.

stumbling block

I assume this pun was unintentional:

Commissioner Trevor Bly said in his judgement that he was convinced "the nearby residential developments would be disadvantaged by a 3am closure [of the nightclub] because this does not facilitate the staggering of departures, as would be the case for 24-hour opening".

Yes, these extended hours should definitely facilitate staggering.

across the road

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the following posts of mine up at Surfdom:
Rats in the rat's ranks; and
Dismembered.
So you can go there if you like to hear me crap on about politics. Otherwise, stay here. Or come back. Or something.

sure thing

We didn't gag Hicks: PM.

Altogether now: "Yeah, right."

no comment

Comments are now fixed, or so I'm told by Haloscan. Let's just see about that...Excuse me just a little longer...

update Nup. Nothing, is there? Oh, that's right, you can't talk to me...damn. Anyway, full service will surely resume again soon. Also some new posts on their way to their various destinations (ie. here and at surfdom). Honest!

are you there, God? it's me, John

"Listen, we're still waiting on that holy writ vis a vis climate change, God. How are we travelling on that? A first draft by Tuesday? That'd be awesome, God. Cheers. Talk to you then, mate."

desperate careerwomen?

In response to Carmel Tebbutt's resignation yesterday, News Limited's Anita Quigley argued,

"By her own actions Ms Tebbutt is demonstrating you cannot have a career and motherhood."

Meanwhile, Anne Patty of the Herald asked Tebbutt if her decision could not be construed that way, and Tebbutt rightly said,

"I hope it sends a message to women that you can combine a career and being a mother. But there is nothing wrong with then taking some time out or to shifting down a gear or two while you focus on your family."

This is not a conflict between motherhood and career. This is conflict between work and family. There is a difference.
It has everything to do with the fact that Tebbutt and her husband both have full-on jobs. And when both parents work--especially in such high pressure, time-consuming jobs--inevitably they’ll be concerned about whether it is better to spend more time on family than on work. In other marriages the husband might’ve taken the time off work. This is something to be individually negotiated between parents.
It’s just a shame in Howard’s Australia that there is so much pressure on both parents to work (aka "aspire") in families where children are youngsters, and there isn’t much political encouragement of fathers taking a greater role in the raising of their kids. I mean, look at the Government’s low level of interest in genuinely improving the childcare sector. (This seems to have fallen right off the radar again. Where are we at with that one again?)
Curiously, above this story about Tebbutt in the Herald was an odd photo of Pru Goward the hausfrau stooping over to put a load of washing on. What the...? Can you imagine a similar shot of John Howard hunched over shoving his smalls into the machine? I wonder if he's ever used one before.

information underload

Listening to Beck's "Think I'm in love" on Triplejay yesterday I could've sworn he was sampling himself from an earlier album. Ah, very cheeky. So in amongst the homages and styles there's something faintly reminiscent of...Beck! Maybe the perfect postmodern self-referential navel gaze. A bit like when we bloggers refer to old archived posts of our own (tee hee)...
I must get around to getting his album The Information from last year. Like the sound of it alot.

heart to heart

According to a recent beer ad on the outside back cover of the Weekend Australian Magazine, when women think of a loveheart with nipples...











...men think of a bum with nipples! (That's if they can figure out they need to turn the magazine upside-down first.)












I know, feminists have no sense of humour, etc. But isn't this ad actually offensive to men? Or are men expected to smirk, shrug, and buy the beer?
How about a little poll (since I haven't managed to get comments working again yet):

When women think of love, men think of tits and ass.
	True
	False
pollcode.com free polls

change of seasons

Woke up this morning suspecting the flu was coming on and sure enough, despite maintaining a sense of denial as long as I possibly could, it's now taken hold to the point that I can't make sense of anything at all through the fog. So this site and a number of half-written posts will probably lie fallow for the next few days. Apologies. Guess I should be grateful it's been about eight months since I was last sick in any way; oh, and lucky the little fella's health continues to be able to be described as "rude".

quilted

I think I finally get quilting now; the fractal-like repetition of patterns and colors. I really like the ones this artist, Brenda Gael Smith, makes (via Club Troppo's Missing Link the other day). I guess I had completely the wrong idea about quilting (scroll to Feb 22).

the rose thief

Kids are so good at stopping and smelling them, aren't they? This one was a present from cousin Ben, 2, the other day. Okay, so he didn't exactly steal it; my sister let him pick it from their garden. Lovely, eh?
(I'm a mad recycler--I reckon Cornwell's White Wine Vinegar bottles make pretty good vases. Filled with water, not vinegar, that is...)

speaking of errors of judgment...

PRIME Minister John Howard attended an intimate fundraising lunch with a violent Brisbane pornographer, who was facing charges of torture and grievous bodily harm at the time, in the lead-up to the 2004 federal election.

flog spot

I was a bit taken aback last night to come across the following paragraph while reading my son a Thomas the Tank Engine library book (Bertie's Chase by the Rev. W. Awdry, 1995 reprint of 1954 edition):

The two naughty boys were soon caught by the Police, and their Fathers walloped them soundly.

I'm not into corporal punishment, so I didn't bother to read that bit out. If you're wondering what the boys' crime was, they'd been playing "on the footplate; they tumbled off when James [the train] started. I shouted at them and they ran like rabbits." Gee, what delinquents. Nothing like inflicting a bit of pain to sort them out though, eh?

standing corrected

How embarrassing watching John Howard on the news scratching his head as to why the punters are deserting him. He seems so pathetically clueless.
I reckon Howard made two fatal unforced errors in recent years that will be his undoing. First, for the sake of the party and to avoid inevitable Howard-fatigue, the PM should have quit while he was ahead. His vanity led him to refuse to gracefully hand over the leadership to Peter Costello, which was basically a vote of no-confidence in his sidekick. After all, despite the strength of the economy and Liberal claims that this success is directly attributable to the Treasurer‘s brilliant management over a decade, the PM was indicating he believed Costello still couldn‘t be trusted to run the country. And once Rudd replaced Beazley, the case for Costello is even more obvious. The advantage for Howard personally, of course, is that his "legacy" would’ve been to some extent protected, with Costello having to bear the brunt of any election defeat.
Secondly, despite running on a platform of having so wonderfully managed the economy and prevailing over such good times, Howard introduced risk into the mix with his radical IR reforms. This is the dealbreaker, in my opinion; the thing that results in the public saying to Howard, "Thanks very much for apparently not screwing up the economy too much while you were in charge. But actually, we’d like to try and keep things how they are, so let’s not tinker with something as unpredictable as crazy-brave IR reform at this stage. Sorry, mate, but so long and thanks for all the fish."
And now, post-Burke, the public is surely--understandably--asking itself: why the hell does the PM seem to care more about Brian Burke than global warming or the failed foreign policy experiment in Iraq?

Elsewhere, in the mainstream press: Christopher Pearson reading tea leaves trembling legs (hey, Christopher, maybe he just needed to pee?); George Megalogenis confirming my suspicions that the strength of the economy could prove to be a headache for the Government; and Dennis Shanahan suggesting ‘morality politics’ is a dangerous game for politicians because the truth will out; and that it ultimately leads to voter dissatisfaction with politics. (I think I disagree. Seeing allegations of corruption brought to the surface and defended (or not) will surely give the public more confidence in the remaining body of politicians, even if a few bad apples are rolled away. Even if people get mightily sick of the sledging when it is used as a method of drowning out genuine policy debate, as seen lately, the net result is still greater transparency on both sides, and voters have got to be happy about that.)

Burkewatch:
Oh my god! My son has met Brian Burke! My son must resign! Oh, hang on, sorry...that's just Opa Luis (left, with Harley’s other grandpa Lionel, who sadly passed away last year).

signs you may have been sellingtoo much on eBay lately

While patting the cat:
“I love Fuzzle, Mum.
“That’s nice, dear.”
“I don’t want to sell him.”

pretty fruity

Also, gleefully shouted out yesterday in public:
“Mama Gianna, the big banana!”
Made me blush but laugh.
Ah, first puns. That’s my boy.

surfing the road

As I mentioned the other week, I’ve recently started contributing posts to Tim Dunlop's Road to Surfdom. Tim and Jozef were the first bloggers I ever read, thanks to their links at Margo Kingston’s original Webdiary, and I was immediately inspired to start my own. Tim has been something of a blog mentor over the years and I appreciate him now giving me the opportunity to write for Surfdom.
Since I’m not crossposting, I’ll just put a link up whenever I post there (and comments are working fine at Surfdom...). So far I've posted the following:
* The duffer's ABC
* Pretender to throne caught pretending
* Saving us...money
* Pulpit fiction

friday catblogging:one mean cat on the telly

"So, who looks meanest, me or Mark Vaile?"

muse this

My contribution to blogging for International Women’s Day is related to Helen’s great post at Surfdom.


In today's Essential lifestyle supplement to the Sydney Morning Herald, the cover story was a reverential discussion of fashion designers and their muses ("Creature of couture", Kellie Hush; not available online). Uncritically, the paper notes:

[Calvin Klein's] head was the first to turn for this relatively unknown 18-year-old model [Kate Moss].
"She had this childlike woman-like thing...It’s a kind of sexiness that I think is very exciting."

Yeah, you and Humbert Humbert.
Why the fashion industry--including the fashion media industry--continues to give Klein so much positive mainstream oxygen is the question. Coincidentally, just the other day I stumbled across some particularly creepy advertising of Klein's, featuring in a roll-call of worst ever marketing campaigns. Corporate paedophilia, anyone?

two for one

Ah, hell. I just spent the better part of the evening entering links into a new!improved!blogroll in my new!improved!Blogger template, and now it's generously providing two of each link. What is this, Noah's blogroll? So I now have to go back and manually delete fifty links? Stuff it. I'm going to bed.
Updating my blogroll reminded me of how many fantastic writers and thinkers are out there but unfortunately it also gave me a bit of politics fatigue. In fact I think I'll go berserk if I have to hear or read the name Brian Burke ever again. (Argh! I'm going berserk!*).
By the way, I am also struggling to figure out how to put Haloscan comments back into the new template. If you have any advice, could you please email me?

(*Incidentally this is a favorite line of my son's. He runs around shouting either "I'm going serk!" (berserk) or "I'm out of troll!" (control). Ah god, he warms my cockles.)

update Blogroll fixed. Still working on incorporating comments facility again.

bishop's pawns

Just now over Adele Horin, I choked on my toast.

The big problem is not whether we have too little narrative in history and too much critical analysis, or study too many movies in English and too little Shakespeare. It is not even that students moving states have to adapt to different curriculum demands, although that is tough. The big problem is the educational divide between the haves and have-nots. The Federal Government will not talk about it because its funding policy for private schools has exacerbated the divide. Labor won't talk about it - not after Mark Latham's "hit list" of elite schools went down so badly last time.

Course she's right, I realised. A national curriculum is essentially irrelevant when the achievement gap exists for socioeconomic reasons. So I've fallen right into the trap of engaging with the Liberal Party's strawman on education! Horin puts her finger on the real areas of crisis:

What is needed is a serious commitment to early intervention programs and to free preschool in disadvantaged areas, extra school funding and specialised teachers for low-achieviing students to help them meet state - or national - curriculum standards.

And I'd really like to see Bishop's truthful answer to this statistic from Horin:

Despite the impression the Federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, gives of poor national academic attainment, our students on average are high performers. Comparing results in 27 OECD countries, our 15-year-olds on average ranked second in literacy, sixth in mathematics, and fourth in problem-solving in international tests taken in 2000 and 2003.

Horin's right, it needs to be reframed. It's about the need to compensate for disadvantage.

The Coalition cannot get away with claiming curriculum is a national issue but funding schools to meet the challenge is a state matter. Labor must acknowledge many private schools are overfunded and many public schools are underfunded. It does not mean you need a "hit list". It does mean policies and resources should favour the long tail of underperformers, and start in poor communities from a child's birth.

Still, it's hard not to engage with the Government's ideological attacks on teaching. I feel they are based on absurd arguments that need to be challenged.
So back to my toast...

friday chicken blogging

Two kids wandered by this morning carrying a chicken. They were looking for a home for it, as their mother had refused to let them keep it and, they said, had threatened to take it down to the Mission and throw it to the dogs. So I called my parents. They already have about twenty fowl, but they said they were on their way. I fed Lucky the chicken some grapes, bread crusts and brown rice, but she turned up her beak at fresh coriander leaves. She complained a little between bites. I didn‘t blame her; she‘d had a tough time of it so far.
I hoped the fragrant herbs in her box would help mask the stench of the cat which watched with slitted eyes from a patch of shade beyond the screen door, far too lazy to investigate further.
I can’t help thinking how Lucky has no idea what kind of a wonderful life is in store for her, at the other end of her terrifying, but mercifully brief, journey in the back of Opa's silver van...

hey, minister, leave our kids alone!

Having watched the education debate on the 7:30 Report on Wednesday night, I agree with Anne Patty writing in today's Sydney Morning Herald that what is still very murky is the issue of content.
As you’d expect, both Bishop and Smith quoted supporting statistics and denied each other’s. Viewers were left confused about whether or not Federal funding of unis has in fact decreased, and whether unis are now more reliant on private funding than before. It seems that Labor’s stance on education is 'you have to spend money to make money if you want graduates who are globally competitive'. Whereas the Liberal Party’s credo seems more like, 'use money as a weapon to extract certain ideological outcomes in Oz'.
Most reasonable people can appreciate the arguments for a national curriculum and luckily it has bipartisan support. Who would really deny that to try to improve literacy and numeracy is a good thing? Who would disagree that lifting standards and improving quality are positives? Such vague appeals to common sense can't disguise the fact that the real game is about maintaining oppressive and punitive relations with the States for political and ideological reasons.
Bishop reiterates her threat,

"What I’m going to do is take a proposal to the Education Ministers’ meeting in April and if I cannot get cooperation on a national curriculum, I will tie it to funding."

So do State education ministers just have to give in-principle go ahead to the basic idea of a consistent national curriculum or do they have to sign on the dotted line endorsing the Howard Government’s favored model there and then? Imposing sanctions may well punish recalcitrant State governments but perhaps it's the students who pay the price in the end.
The big meeting takes place next month, well before the comparative data is released next year. Pre-empting the research, Bishop promises the data will show significant qualitative differences between the States. Well, let's wait and see before rushing out and reforming ourselves stupid. Surely it makes more sense to await the results of the national comparative data next year and for everyone to get to take a really good look at it to determine which models and which content works best? Why the rush job?
Inexplicably, the Liberals seem to frown on competition between States, and differences are seen as something that must be artificially ironed out. This is in contrast to Labor's support for consistency for what appear to be more practical reasons (eg. labour force mobility).
The critical question for me is about curriculum content and this Bishop neatly skates over without providing any detail. Kerry O'Brien raised as an example the teaching of Australian history. Here Bishop replied, "It [her curriculum] is much broader than just the narrative". Are we really supposed to believe they are going to allow the teaching of critical thinking to continue? For me, anyway, that's the little red flag right there, the philosophical crux of the question of content. In talking about the narrative, Bishop betrays her Government's denial of postmodern pluralism, and its desire to see the simplistic teaching of a single approved narrative.
As 'proof' of a crisis in education, Bishop claims high schools are failing kids but later she seeks credit for the fact that more kids are attending uni than ever. How can that be, if there is such a decline in literacy and numeracy standards?
Anyway, it will be interesting to get a detailed look at the Government's proposed curriculum models, that's for sure. And until then, it's just politics.