1. If I had to choose between scrabbling around with my fingers, trying to extract the tissue that had dropped flat to the bottom of the box and killing a puppy, there'd be a lot less dog poo in the world.
2. No food could ever taste as good as freshly-cooked chips and gravy smell on a cold winter morning spent doing errands at uni.
3. Katter has exactly what Abbott and Gillard (sorry, Julia) don't: personality and passion. I'm not sure he isn't a dangerous lunatic, but at least he gets excited. I'm fairly convinced that Rudd and Gillard use the same teleprompter
that
only
shows
one
word
at
a
time.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Sensitive, educated, obsmervant
Franzy (to student hired to do envelope stuffing): Okay, so, if you want a coffee or anything, the kitchen is just there.
Student: Thank you.
Franzy: No problem. I'm about to make a pot of coffee, would you like some?
Student: No, thank you.
Franzy: Tea? We have tea too.
Student: No, no thank you.
Franzy: Water? Milk? Anything you like. Please help yourself.
Student: Thank you, I'm fine.
Franzy: Okay - let me know if you need anything.
Fifteen seconds later.
Helpful colleague: Did you know that Ramadan started yesterday?
Franzy: Sure thing.
Helpful colleague: Did you notice that student's hijab?
Franzy: Huh.
Student: Thank you.
Franzy: No problem. I'm about to make a pot of coffee, would you like some?
Student: No, thank you.
Franzy: Tea? We have tea too.
Student: No, no thank you.
Franzy: Water? Milk? Anything you like. Please help yourself.
Student: Thank you, I'm fine.
Franzy: Okay - let me know if you need anything.
Fifteen seconds later.
Helpful colleague: Did you know that Ramadan started yesterday?
Franzy: Sure thing.
Helpful colleague: Did you notice that student's hijab?
Franzy: Huh.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
They could thank me with cash
And while I was ferreting out the links for the previous riveting Re-Hash Of Stuff I Saw In The Main Stream Media (Blog Sin #5!), guess who I found out like totally by accident is getting hauled before the UN on human rights violations?
North Korea?
Libya?
Nope!
It's us!
You'd think the Liberals would be all over that one in this election environment.
(Oops! Wrong link! Yuk yuk yuk!)
North Korea?
Libya?
Nope!
It's us!
You'd think the Liberals would be all over that one in this election environment.
(Oops! Wrong link! Yuk yuk yuk!)
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Hákarl for Pim!
Congratulations, Julia Gillard!
But, more relevantly, congratulations Pim Verbeek, you've timed your exit so as to illicit the least media coverage possible of the Socceroos not making the final 16. Somewhere, in a plane over Africa, Pim is chewing on a rollmop, watching Australian news coverage, steepling his fingers and muttering "Eeexchellent." (This is how one sounds while masticating the vinegary fish of defeat).
But, more relevantly, congratulations Pim Verbeek, you've timed your exit so as to illicit the least media coverage possible of the Socceroos not making the final 16. Somewhere, in a plane over Africa, Pim is chewing on a rollmop, watching Australian news coverage, steepling his fingers and muttering "Eeexchellent." (This is how one sounds while masticating the vinegary fish of defeat).
Monday, March 29, 2010
No one reads this either
Major scandal: At last week's state election, a Labor politician got in trouble because some volunteers were handing out How To Vote cards at polling booths upon which were written something like:
And everyone is up in arms and legs. Can I get this straight, please?
Yes, they didn't have red t-shirts on, like Labor party commies, but light blue ones like Straighty One-Eighty Family First bible-bashers.
Yes, the card did say 'Family First' on it, quite prominently. But who are we protecting here?
People who can't read?
In that case, how could our disenfranchised and duped illiterate brothers and sisters read anything on the card? Let alone the crucial words "Family First"?
So the people who are getting duped by these dodgy How To Votes, can read? Is that right? What's the problem then?
Oh. They don't want to read. Not too much anyway. Just enough to get that time-wasting, three-yearly chore out of the way without feeling like someone's going to force them to hold hands with a homosexual person.
Democracy: in, out, back to three more years of reading the sports section first and recycling everything else (you know, the sections where the people in ties don't have backdrops stippled in sponsors' logos). Let me put it another way: did you know that literally millions of people get killed fighting for dreaming about the possibility of having the opportunity to get handed a How To Vote card?
One that doesn't look like this.
And you're moaning because some prankster handed you a fakey and you didn't read it properly and wasted your vote? If you care enough to complain about voting for the wrong guy and looking stupid, then it follows that you would probably care enough about the whole process to take more of an interest and actually read what's put under your nose to, you know, avoid looking stupid.
But I'm obviously wrong there.
Put Your
FAMILY FIRST
FAMILY FIRST
- Blah
- Blah
- Blah
And everyone is up in arms and legs. Can I get this straight, please?
Yes, they didn't have red t-shirts on, like Labor party commies, but light blue ones like Straighty One-Eighty Family First bible-bashers.
Yes, the card did say 'Family First' on it, quite prominently. But who are we protecting here?
People who can't read?
In that case, how could our disenfranchised and duped illiterate brothers and sisters read anything on the card? Let alone the crucial words "Family First"?
So the people who are getting duped by these dodgy How To Votes, can read? Is that right? What's the problem then?
Oh. They don't want to read. Not too much anyway. Just enough to get that time-wasting, three-yearly chore out of the way without feeling like someone's going to force them to hold hands with a homosexual person.
Democracy: in, out, back to three more years of reading the sports section first and recycling everything else (you know, the sections where the people in ties don't have backdrops stippled in sponsors' logos). Let me put it another way: did you know that literally millions of people get killed fighting for dreaming about the possibility of having the opportunity to get handed a How To Vote card?
One that doesn't look like this.And you're moaning because some prankster handed you a fakey and you didn't read it properly and wasted your vote? If you care enough to complain about voting for the wrong guy and looking stupid, then it follows that you would probably care enough about the whole process to take more of an interest and actually read what's put under your nose to, you know, avoid looking stupid.
But I'm obviously wrong there.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Pardon my pedantry but ...
Shouldn't it technically be DON'TabortSA.com?
I mean, far be it from me to help out some already-beyond-help, right wing, lip-twiddlin', cousin-fiddlin' nut jobs, but if they are against abortion, shouldn't they effectively avoid a party name that directly suggests that they are in favour of RU-486ing the entire state?
I mean, far be it from me to help out some already-beyond-help, right wing, lip-twiddlin', cousin-fiddlin' nut jobs, but if they are against abortion, shouldn't they effectively avoid a party name that directly suggests that they are in favour of RU-486ing the entire state?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Obviously I am seriously mistaken.
I always thought the point of being in politics was to get more people to vote for you, not less.
Let's punch out some polls!
Update: And a little Tony Abbott quote for all the lady voters out there:
"We have a bizarre double standard, a bizarre double standard in this country where someone who kills a pregnant woman's baby is guilty of murder but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice."
I think we have the Liberal Party's 2010 election slogan!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Monday Morning Spook-Out!!
Did you know ... ?
That creationism is being taught in science classes in increasing numbers?
That these same schools are teaching sex education to their students through a program called "No Apologies" that asks their students to sign pledges that promise that they will remain virgins until marriage?
That this isn't one of those Only In America! bits of whimsy that normally gets trotted out by chortling bloggers from the rest of the world to snigger at a superpower, but are actually facts culled from an in-depth story from The Age about Australian religious schools?
That I'm actually shaking a little as I type this?
I've written about religion before and decided that it was largely a good thing for those who used it to find personal happiness. This report found that under the Howard Government there has been an increase in independent schools because of the educational funding models he brought in that were an attempt to get exactly this kind of thing to happen: lots of little religious schools setting themselves up so that education would either be cheap or espousing of the kind of teachings that would make more Australians fall under Johnny's ideal of what makes an Australian Australian.
And now we've actually got classrooms in this secular nation where this kind of thing happens (taken from The Age's in-depth report on faith-based education in Australia):
***
GTH - And Murphy is, of course, the winner, but only slightly because of two reasons: one) he missed the point of connecting the photo to the post and two) he might have actually spotted himself and his own good old Dimage G500 in the picture ...
That creationism is being taught in science classes in increasing numbers?
That these same schools are teaching sex education to their students through a program called "No Apologies" that asks their students to sign pledges that promise that they will remain virgins until marriage?
That this isn't one of those Only In America! bits of whimsy that normally gets trotted out by chortling bloggers from the rest of the world to snigger at a superpower, but are actually facts culled from an in-depth story from The Age about Australian religious schools?
That I'm actually shaking a little as I type this?
I've written about religion before and decided that it was largely a good thing for those who used it to find personal happiness. This report found that under the Howard Government there has been an increase in independent schools because of the educational funding models he brought in that were an attempt to get exactly this kind of thing to happen: lots of little religious schools setting themselves up so that education would either be cheap or espousing of the kind of teachings that would make more Australians fall under Johnny's ideal of what makes an Australian Australian.
And now we've actually got classrooms in this secular nation where this kind of thing happens (taken from The Age's in-depth report on faith-based education in Australia):
IT'S Friday morning and the combined year five-six class at Red Rock Christian College is conducting its Bible study and Christian living class. It's straight to the point: a reading from Peter's second epistle. "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to Hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons ..." a child reads out loud.
"What are the consequences of us making the wrong choices?" asks teacher Victoria Carey.
"Death!" a cheeky boy shouts.
Ms Carey moves on: "And what are some good choices?"
"Watching movies you're allowed to and hanging out with the right people," comes the answer.
"That's right, it's easier to do the right things when you're hanging out with people who are doing the right things," Carey observes.
***
GTH - And Murphy is, of course, the winner, but only slightly because of two reasons: one) he missed the point of connecting the photo to the post and two) he might have actually spotted himself and his own good old Dimage G500 in the picture ...
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Sorry
Taken from the ABC report on The Apology in Adelaide:
"A critic of the formal apology is Port Lincoln mayor Peter Davis.
He says he can't see it making any difference to the real problems facing Aborigines.
"As for instance granting equal citizenship the 1967 referendum, the same euphoria from the same southern (and I'm not being disrespectful) 'do good' sectors resulted in no real physical or mental better wellbeing for Aboriginal people," he said."
This is probably the same guy who doesn't let his children have a party and cake and singing on their birthdays. What good would it do?
I got a little bit emotional this morning watching it on television. Those stories hurt. I suppose I could understand what Nelson was meaning when he had to blah on about war veterans - that an apology for past actions doesn't mean a blanket of shame over everything - but if you don't understand that by now, then a politician's speech isn't going to educate you.
I think the difficulty that Australians who are against it have with the apology is a lack of understanding of what it means to the Stolen Generations and Aborigines in general. I think that in the decade of silence since the Bringing Them Home report was first issued, John Howard has taught Australians to act their political lives on a purely personal level and encouraged the belief that everyone was entirely responsible for their own circumstances. This equated to an attitude that those in need had, in whatever small way, placed themselves there. They were to blame for their situations. He took this attitude right to the end when he took full responsibility for the Liberals' election defeat.
But his ten years of "You Look Out For Yourself" policy had the effect of telling Australians that they were never, ever wrong, as long as they never admitted it. You can have a four-wheel-drive, as long as you don't feel bad about it. You can buy anything you want (education, health, etc) as long as you earn the money to pay for it.
The Stolen Generations and their request for an apology didn't fit into that brand of "self" politics. John Howard had trained the political hearts of Australians to look no further than their own immediate influences and something as complicated as assenting to an apology on their behalf by a democratically elected government in the present made on behalf of previous governments for now-overturned well-meaning-yet-horrifically-catastrophic policies that have effected all aspects of life for a specific group of people is just too far removed from the Howard-era mindset that truly believes that since they didn't physically take the children away then there's nothing that they can offer. Regret. Sure. That must have been tough, but you were only a little kid and plenty of people have had tough lives and have really pulled their finger out in this great land of opportunity and really made something of themselves.
These people can't get it through their skulls that they are not the ones saying sorry. They are not responsible in the way that Howard has taught them they were (or could be). They are also not the ones who have lived with racism and the pain of decimated families. To paraphrase Brendan Nelson in this morning's speech: I challenge any of those detractors to visit the Aboriginal communities where the results of past Australian governmental policy are all around and truthfully say that they wish they had been born there.
Sorry doesn't fix anything on a practical level, it doesn't bring families back together. But, for the people who needed to hear it, hearing it from the government they needed to hear it from, it does make a difference. It makes it a little bit better.
But what now?
"A critic of the formal apology is Port Lincoln mayor Peter Davis.
He says he can't see it making any difference to the real problems facing Aborigines.
"As for instance granting equal citizenship the 1967 referendum, the same euphoria from the same southern (and I'm not being disrespectful) 'do good' sectors resulted in no real physical or mental better wellbeing for Aboriginal people," he said."
This is probably the same guy who doesn't let his children have a party and cake and singing on their birthdays. What good would it do?
I got a little bit emotional this morning watching it on television. Those stories hurt. I suppose I could understand what Nelson was meaning when he had to blah on about war veterans - that an apology for past actions doesn't mean a blanket of shame over everything - but if you don't understand that by now, then a politician's speech isn't going to educate you.
I think the difficulty that Australians who are against it have with the apology is a lack of understanding of what it means to the Stolen Generations and Aborigines in general. I think that in the decade of silence since the Bringing Them Home report was first issued, John Howard has taught Australians to act their political lives on a purely personal level and encouraged the belief that everyone was entirely responsible for their own circumstances. This equated to an attitude that those in need had, in whatever small way, placed themselves there. They were to blame for their situations. He took this attitude right to the end when he took full responsibility for the Liberals' election defeat.
But his ten years of "You Look Out For Yourself" policy had the effect of telling Australians that they were never, ever wrong, as long as they never admitted it. You can have a four-wheel-drive, as long as you don't feel bad about it. You can buy anything you want (education, health, etc) as long as you earn the money to pay for it.
The Stolen Generations and their request for an apology didn't fit into that brand of "self" politics. John Howard had trained the political hearts of Australians to look no further than their own immediate influences and something as complicated as assenting to an apology on their behalf by a democratically elected government in the present made on behalf of previous governments for now-overturned well-meaning-yet-horrifically-catastrophic policies that have effected all aspects of life for a specific group of people is just too far removed from the Howard-era mindset that truly believes that since they didn't physically take the children away then there's nothing that they can offer. Regret. Sure. That must have been tough, but you were only a little kid and plenty of people have had tough lives and have really pulled their finger out in this great land of opportunity and really made something of themselves.
These people can't get it through their skulls that they are not the ones saying sorry. They are not responsible in the way that Howard has taught them they were (or could be). They are also not the ones who have lived with racism and the pain of decimated families. To paraphrase Brendan Nelson in this morning's speech: I challenge any of those detractors to visit the Aboriginal communities where the results of past Australian governmental policy are all around and truthfully say that they wish they had been born there.
Sorry doesn't fix anything on a practical level, it doesn't bring families back together. But, for the people who needed to hear it, hearing it from the government they needed to hear it from, it does make a difference. It makes it a little bit better.
But what now?
***
Update: Further quote from Pt Lincoln mayor in a new variation of ABC story: "
"I mean, to me life is a lottery whether one is Aboriginal or black or white or blue or brindle.
"As far as I'm concerned [it] makes no difference; the past is past, we've got to make our life into the future.
"And I can tell you I personally have no sorrying to do, nor have I on behalf of the Port Lincoln community." (bolding mine)
Sort of proves my point really...
Friday, December 7, 2007
This can't be happening!
Hello, dear readers!
I’ve been having a lot of fun lately not doing RQF reports and (obviously) not blogging. I have been, however, indulging a little too vigorously in my own selfish pass-time of being amazed at the true drongos out there floating around the internet, leaving anonymous comments on Audrey's excellent blog. Which you must all read. If you glance at the bottom of the comments on my last birthday invitation post, you'll see the confusingly hilarious extent to which these debates run.
Aside from that I've also been wrestling with mixed feelings about the election. I realise that I should be happy, ecstatic that K-Rudd got in, that a Labor government probably won't treat its citizens like naughty children. But there's a pause in that sentence, around the word 'probably'. I have lived my entire politically interested life under Howard. My understanding of the words 'government', 'politician' and 'representation' are enmeshed with the words 'disappointment', 'disillusion' and 'resentment'. For me, elected members of parliament are people who look after other people's mortgages at the cost of the next generation's education and health. I never stopped being angry with the federal government for as long as I could understand that what was going on in Canberra effected how I felt about my country and my future. I did stop hoping though. Even on election day when we drove down to Port Elliot to watch it all unfold on a friend's TV, I felt less excited than simply resigned. I had voted. I had done all I could bring myself to do to stop the tide of Australia's trained, ingrained selfishness for yet another election. But if Howard had scraped it in again, I would have nodded and gone back to my studies and my writing and looking out for myself and the one's I care for.
'That's what he's turned Australia into,' I would have said. 'We're not interested in how we look to other countries, we're not interested in art or soul or each other. A few are, but the majority of us just want to work and watch TV. Not even the threat of exploitation could stir us from our conviction that if we all just work hard enough and look out for ourselves and our families, then everything will be great and comfortable forever.'
Now that the unthinkable has happened - a Labor government - I literally don't know what to believe. It is as though the sky were suddenly legislated green. Kyoto, an apology to th
e Stolen Generations, scrapping of Work Choices - they are all happening, but I still don't believe it. There must be a catch in it somewhere. I'm almost almost hard-wired to think like this. I say almost because ... I don't know. Nothing I know tells me that my government will perform in my name as I would like them to. I'm almost waiting for Kevin to support the capital punishment of drug smugglers or privatise the roads or something so that I can stop floating around in this political dream world where the rest of the country isn't taught to distrust higher education.
I am the man on the right:
***
I mentioned earlier that I've been enjoying Audrey's latest blog posts, not just for their lively comments pages, but for the fact that they are reprints of her published work as the latest opinion columnist for the Sunday Mail (Radelaide's local Sunday tabloid). So she has inspired me! Not to write opinion pieces for the local arm of Murdoch's Minions, but to publish on my own blog, things that I've had printed on real paper in real life. I've done this once before, my review of Randa Abdel-Fattah's Does My Head Look Big In This? actually secured me a regular reviewing spot in the young adult book reviewing magazine Viewpoint, printed by Melbourne Uni and also received a few comments about how harsh I was being on a fellow first-time young adult author. Rest assured that I have continued on my quest to "tell it like it is" in the world of young adult novels, publishing the following review in the latest edition (available in your local library ... maybe) on an adventure book aptly named The Cursed.
The Cursed by Michael Panckridge (Black Dog Books, 2007, 9781921167553, $16.95) has one of the most imaginative ideas for an adventure novel on the shelves today. An invisible tribe in the Amazon jungle, a sinister, secret society which has vowed to rid the world of evil and the twelve-year-old schoolboy whose destiny is entwined in both. The concept is intriguing and exciting for readers of all ages. Any author talented enough to dream up these elements and brave enough to combine them in a 300-page adventure novel must surely produce tale of worth telling, indeed, worth reading!
The Cursed, while being a story worth telling, is not a book worth reading. The standard of editing is such that there doesn’t seem to have been any kind of intervention between the author printing out his manuscript and Black Dog Books giving the go-ahead for a print run. Ignoring the punctuation that veers from clumsy to incorrect and the many instances in which words were missing from the text, it is almost as though the author were deliberately trying to break every commonly-accepted rule for readable writing. For example: ‘Show don’t tell’ is a mantra for anyone who has ever come in contact with the supply end of fiction. After a sentence describing one of three hostages telling diverting stories of travel and adventure to his fellow prisoners, Panckridge felt it necessary to add: ‘He was trying to lighten the mood’ (p.219). Apparently the motive for telling diverting stories to one’s fellow captives in a hostage situation was unclear. Clichés are another aspect of writing that should begin disappearing once the author can think of their own descriptors. Panckridge actually has a laser beam slice through metal ‘like a hot knife through butter’ (p.74).
Moving on to characterisation, but staying with clichés, the schoolboy’s mentor and guardian warns the bad guys that they ‘won’t be getting away with this’ on two separate occasions. In the previous issue of Viewpoint I recommend readers watch a Jackie Chan movie instead of reading Jimmy Coates: Revenge. In the case of The Cursed I believe that an old Scooby-Doo cartoon will suffice. It was a surprise at the end when the villain didn’t complain that he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids (which, predictably, is the very reason he does not get away with it).
On the back cover James Moloney himself claims that the arch bad guy, Raymond Brampton, is ‘surely the most sinister villain since Voldemort’. Voldemort is an evil wizard who enslaves, tortures and kills. Raymond Brampton is Richard Branson but without the beard. The only difference is the spelling and pronunciation of their names. Voldemort heads up the Death Eaters, an order of wizard murderers and torturers mainly concerned with ethnic cleansing. Raymond Brampton heads up a multi-national corporation that only makes masks and yet has somehow managed to survive for over a century and turns a higher yearly profit than Westpac Bank.
Lewis Watt, the central character, barely has any character to speak of. He spends more than half the novel reading a very detailed letter from his mother that tells the story of her own run-in with the invisible Amazonians in prose that, were it not italicized, is barely discernable from the regular narrative of the book. This example of telling instead of showing is not just unskillful, it is utterly perplexing. In a book aimed at younger teens about a twelve-year-old boy and an invisible Amazon tribe, why send the boy’s mother to have the adventure? And instead of actually having the adventure with her, he only gets to read her descriptions of it after the fact. The book is 278 pages long, yet Lewis doesn’t leave for the Amazon until page 201. His mother spends more time having jungle adventures than he does. The closest Lewis comes to real action before he is finally chauffeured to Brazil is stealing the school’s four-wheel motorbike to chase the bad guy, using the GPS ‘tracking thingo’ (p.186) he just happens to build himself. This scene itself is a great contender for the silliest moment in the book. Lewis rides the quad bike into a narrow street ‘cobbled and crowded with speed jumps, tyres and ramps’ (p.191). Maybe, maybe ‘speed jumps’ instead of speed ‘humps’ or ‘bumps’ can be put down to bad editing. But I guarantee that there isn’t a city in the world that installs ramps in its narrow streets for no reason.
As amusing as it is to poke fun at the enormous list of authorial bloopers (and there are dozens more examples), it is only hollow laughter. The Cursed is a great and worrying disappointment. Not just for its poor editing, lazy writing, forgettable characters, sloppy dialogue, conflicting information, all-too-convenient technology and even-more-convenient action scenes. I suspect that this low, low standard of book was published in the first place because Michael Panckridge has sold over 100,000 copies of young teen books set in and around sport. He has probably been instrumental in encouraging boys to keep reading during an age where they traditionally stop. But sending out an undercooked second-draft like this is capitalising on Panckridge’s name as a popular author, rather than anything to do with his ability to write adventure fiction. This shows his audience a great disrespect by treating them as young buyers rather than young readers.
***
GTH - To River, as usual, for trying so darn hard! Not a seafood buffet, just the local deli's fare at Cinque Terre.
I’ve been having a lot of fun lately not doing RQF reports and (obviously) not blogging. I have been, however, indulging a little too vigorously in my own selfish pass-time of being amazed at the true drongos out there floating around the internet, leaving anonymous comments on Audrey's excellent blog. Which you must all read. If you glance at the bottom of the comments on my last birthday invitation post, you'll see the confusingly hilarious extent to which these debates run.
Aside from that I've also been wrestling with mixed feelings about the election. I realise that I should be happy, ecstatic that K-Rudd got in, that a Labor government probably won't treat its citizens like naughty children. But there's a pause in that sentence, around the word 'probably'. I have lived my entire politically interested life under Howard. My understanding of the words 'government', 'politician' and 'representation' are enmeshed with the words 'disappointment', 'disillusion' and 'resentment'. For me, elected members of parliament are people who look after other people's mortgages at the cost of the next generation's education and health. I never stopped being angry with the federal government for as long as I could understand that what was going on in Canberra effected how I felt about my country and my future. I did stop hoping though. Even on election day when we drove down to Port Elliot to watch it all unfold on a friend's TV, I felt less excited than simply resigned. I had voted. I had done all I could bring myself to do to stop the tide of Australia's trained, ingrained selfishness for yet another election. But if Howard had scraped it in again, I would have nodded and gone back to my studies and my writing and looking out for myself and the one's I care for.
'That's what he's turned Australia into,' I would have said. 'We're not interested in how we look to other countries, we're not interested in art or soul or each other. A few are, but the majority of us just want to work and watch TV. Not even the threat of exploitation could stir us from our conviction that if we all just work hard enough and look out for ourselves and our families, then everything will be great and comfortable forever.'
Now that the unthinkable has happened - a Labor government - I literally don't know what to believe. It is as though the sky were suddenly legislated green. Kyoto, an apology to th
e Stolen Generations, scrapping of Work Choices - they are all happening, but I still don't believe it. There must be a catch in it somewhere. I'm almost almost hard-wired to think like this. I say almost because ... I don't know. Nothing I know tells me that my government will perform in my name as I would like them to. I'm almost waiting for Kevin to support the capital punishment of drug smugglers or privatise the roads or something so that I can stop floating around in this political dream world where the rest of the country isn't taught to distrust higher education.I am the man on the right:
***
I mentioned earlier that I've been enjoying Audrey's latest blog posts, not just for their lively comments pages, but for the fact that they are reprints of her published work as the latest opinion columnist for the Sunday Mail (Radelaide's local Sunday tabloid). So she has inspired me! Not to write opinion pieces for the local arm of Murdoch's Minions, but to publish on my own blog, things that I've had printed on real paper in real life. I've done this once before, my review of Randa Abdel-Fattah's Does My Head Look Big In This? actually secured me a regular reviewing spot in the young adult book reviewing magazine Viewpoint, printed by Melbourne Uni and also received a few comments about how harsh I was being on a fellow first-time young adult author. Rest assured that I have continued on my quest to "tell it like it is" in the world of young adult novels, publishing the following review in the latest edition (available in your local library ... maybe) on an adventure book aptly named The Cursed.
The Cursed by Michael Panckridge (Black Dog Books, 2007, 9781921167553, $16.95) has one of the most imaginative ideas for an adventure novel on the shelves today. An invisible tribe in the Amazon jungle, a sinister, secret society which has vowed to rid the world of evil and the twelve-year-old schoolboy whose destiny is entwined in both. The concept is intriguing and exciting for readers of all ages. Any author talented enough to dream up these elements and brave enough to combine them in a 300-page adventure novel must surely produce tale of worth telling, indeed, worth reading!
The Cursed, while being a story worth telling, is not a book worth reading. The standard of editing is such that there doesn’t seem to have been any kind of intervention between the author printing out his manuscript and Black Dog Books giving the go-ahead for a print run. Ignoring the punctuation that veers from clumsy to incorrect and the many instances in which words were missing from the text, it is almost as though the author were deliberately trying to break every commonly-accepted rule for readable writing. For example: ‘Show don’t tell’ is a mantra for anyone who has ever come in contact with the supply end of fiction. After a sentence describing one of three hostages telling diverting stories of travel and adventure to his fellow prisoners, Panckridge felt it necessary to add: ‘He was trying to lighten the mood’ (p.219). Apparently the motive for telling diverting stories to one’s fellow captives in a hostage situation was unclear. Clichés are another aspect of writing that should begin disappearing once the author can think of their own descriptors. Panckridge actually has a laser beam slice through metal ‘like a hot knife through butter’ (p.74).
Moving on to characterisation, but staying with clichés, the schoolboy’s mentor and guardian warns the bad guys that they ‘won’t be getting away with this’ on two separate occasions. In the previous issue of Viewpoint I recommend readers watch a Jackie Chan movie instead of reading Jimmy Coates: Revenge. In the case of The Cursed I believe that an old Scooby-Doo cartoon will suffice. It was a surprise at the end when the villain didn’t complain that he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids (which, predictably, is the very reason he does not get away with it).
On the back cover James Moloney himself claims that the arch bad guy, Raymond Brampton, is ‘surely the most sinister villain since Voldemort’. Voldemort is an evil wizard who enslaves, tortures and kills. Raymond Brampton is Richard Branson but without the beard. The only difference is the spelling and pronunciation of their names. Voldemort heads up the Death Eaters, an order of wizard murderers and torturers mainly concerned with ethnic cleansing. Raymond Brampton heads up a multi-national corporation that only makes masks and yet has somehow managed to survive for over a century and turns a higher yearly profit than Westpac Bank.
Lewis Watt, the central character, barely has any character to speak of. He spends more than half the novel reading a very detailed letter from his mother that tells the story of her own run-in with the invisible Amazonians in prose that, were it not italicized, is barely discernable from the regular narrative of the book. This example of telling instead of showing is not just unskillful, it is utterly perplexing. In a book aimed at younger teens about a twelve-year-old boy and an invisible Amazon tribe, why send the boy’s mother to have the adventure? And instead of actually having the adventure with her, he only gets to read her descriptions of it after the fact. The book is 278 pages long, yet Lewis doesn’t leave for the Amazon until page 201. His mother spends more time having jungle adventures than he does. The closest Lewis comes to real action before he is finally chauffeured to Brazil is stealing the school’s four-wheel motorbike to chase the bad guy, using the GPS ‘tracking thingo’ (p.186) he just happens to build himself. This scene itself is a great contender for the silliest moment in the book. Lewis rides the quad bike into a narrow street ‘cobbled and crowded with speed jumps, tyres and ramps’ (p.191). Maybe, maybe ‘speed jumps’ instead of speed ‘humps’ or ‘bumps’ can be put down to bad editing. But I guarantee that there isn’t a city in the world that installs ramps in its narrow streets for no reason.
As amusing as it is to poke fun at the enormous list of authorial bloopers (and there are dozens more examples), it is only hollow laughter. The Cursed is a great and worrying disappointment. Not just for its poor editing, lazy writing, forgettable characters, sloppy dialogue, conflicting information, all-too-convenient technology and even-more-convenient action scenes. I suspect that this low, low standard of book was published in the first place because Michael Panckridge has sold over 100,000 copies of young teen books set in and around sport. He has probably been instrumental in encouraging boys to keep reading during an age where they traditionally stop. But sending out an undercooked second-draft like this is capitalising on Panckridge’s name as a popular author, rather than anything to do with his ability to write adventure fiction. This shows his audience a great disrespect by treating them as young buyers rather than young readers.
***
GTH - To River, as usual, for trying so darn hard! Not a seafood buffet, just the local deli's fare at Cinque Terre.
Monday, October 29, 2007
He should have gone with the magic beans
I just finished watching Four Corners.
No, this is not going to be a blog about how I'm becoming my parents.
Tonight's story was about Australia's fleet of aging fighter planes. In order to keep the ladies interested, I'll keep the technoporn to an absolute minimum:
The F-111 has been Australia's fighter plane for ages. In an age where you replace your computer more regularly than your car, these things have been flying around blowing up shit since the 60s. So, it's time to replace them with something new. Something exciting. As any fan of technology will tell you, "new" and "exciting" almost always equal "spine-gougingly expensive". There are a few planes around to replace the Kingswood Of The Skies, but Four Corners focused on the one we Australians eventually bought to replace it: the Boeing Super Hornet. It interviewed a bunch of pointy-heads who said that it was a piece of shit, and a couple of jarheads who loved it.
I can't tell.
It flies, it shoots. Done deal.
Four Corners made it seem like a bucket of bolts, and that may be true, but it's not my concern. What piqued my interest was the little tale about how we ended up pressing the "Ship Now" button on the Boeing website in the first place, on a whizzer that apparently the US didn't really want, but bought anyway because it felt bad that no one else in the world wanted it (except for eventually Sheriff South-East Asia). Brendan Nielson apparently watched the Boeing promo video, decided it was tops and told the Australian Government to hand over its credit card. The rest of the show was about how shithouse the Super Hornets are and how we should all just stay with the Kingswoods Of The Skies. The bit that caught my attention most, however was how much a carton of Super Hornets cost:
6.6 BILLION DOLLARS! (place little finger on bottom lip). That is with a 'B' as in 'bullshit', by the way. For 24 planes that are only being used to fill a gap until the next bargain comes along from Lockheed-Martin, which should arrive sometime before we all divide into Eloi and Morlocks.
I was dumbfounded, as I'm sure you are (or better be). I'm not about to debate the cost of effective military hardware and arms races and all that frankly macho bullshit. The point is that it's $6.6 Billion that I seem to remember a certain politician taking away from my colleagues and myself during the horrors of V.S.U. $6.6 Billion that he carefully trimmed away from higher education like so much long-pig so that he could spend it on planes that fly and shoot, but, as demonstrated in a simulation on Four Corners, couldn't actually make it to Indonesia and back without needing paddles, inflatable life-raft and a few infants to toss over the side to ensure national attention around election time.
As someone who is about to start work on the dreaded Research Quality Framework, making humanities and social science academics justify the positive life influence of their research (like trying to extrapolate the cost-benefits of telling children stories at bedtime), I want to just send this video along instead of every report with a note that says "I might be studying poetry in an extinct language, but at least I'm not blowing $6.6 Billion on shit that don't work!"
The only catch is that in this economically conservative environment, the cost of paying for those fighter planes is probably less than the cost now needed to re-invigorate Australia's education system to the point where we can actually think our way out of the need for them.
***
I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome to the blogoblag, my personal hero: Jimmy Thins. The Jimmy Thins Style is a publication of taste, hilarity, hand-made flash and chocolate chips. I wanted to link one of his videos here, but he is mix mastering them to a new location, bitches. I will host the next one. I urge you to check it check it one two. Now!
***
GTH
Trent rolled out with the dirtiest joke (I won't reprint - check last post's comments!). Sorry O.o. Sam, crapped out. Jono was geographically closest with his guess at the Cologne Cathedral for the picture, sorry Neil, it was the St Peter's Cathedral in Prague.
No, this is not going to be a blog about how I'm becoming my parents.
Tonight's story was about Australia's fleet of aging fighter planes. In order to keep the ladies interested, I'll keep the technoporn to an absolute minimum:
The F-111 has been Australia's fighter plane for ages. In an age where you replace your computer more regularly than your car, these things have been flying around blowing up shit since the 60s. So, it's time to replace them with something new. Something exciting. As any fan of technology will tell you, "new" and "exciting" almost always equal "spine-gougingly expensive". There are a few planes around to replace the Kingswood Of The Skies, but Four Corners focused on the one we Australians eventually bought to replace it: the Boeing Super Hornet. It interviewed a bunch of pointy-heads who said that it was a piece of shit, and a couple of jarheads who loved it.
I can't tell.
It flies, it shoots. Done deal.
Four Corners made it seem like a bucket of bolts, and that may be true, but it's not my concern. What piqued my interest was the little tale about how we ended up pressing the "Ship Now" button on the Boeing website in the first place, on a whizzer that apparently the US didn't really want, but bought anyway because it felt bad that no one else in the world wanted it (except for eventually Sheriff South-East Asia). Brendan Nielson apparently watched the Boeing promo video, decided it was tops and told the Australian Government to hand over its credit card. The rest of the show was about how shithouse the Super Hornets are and how we should all just stay with the Kingswoods Of The Skies. The bit that caught my attention most, however was how much a carton of Super Hornets cost:
6.6 BILLION DOLLARS! (place little finger on bottom lip). That is with a 'B' as in 'bullshit', by the way. For 24 planes that are only being used to fill a gap until the next bargain comes along from Lockheed-Martin, which should arrive sometime before we all divide into Eloi and Morlocks.
I was dumbfounded, as I'm sure you are (or better be). I'm not about to debate the cost of effective military hardware and arms races and all that frankly macho bullshit. The point is that it's $6.6 Billion that I seem to remember a certain politician taking away from my colleagues and myself during the horrors of V.S.U. $6.6 Billion that he carefully trimmed away from higher education like so much long-pig so that he could spend it on planes that fly and shoot, but, as demonstrated in a simulation on Four Corners, couldn't actually make it to Indonesia and back without needing paddles, inflatable life-raft and a few infants to toss over the side to ensure national attention around election time.
As someone who is about to start work on the dreaded Research Quality Framework, making humanities and social science academics justify the positive life influence of their research (like trying to extrapolate the cost-benefits of telling children stories at bedtime), I want to just send this video along instead of every report with a note that says "I might be studying poetry in an extinct language, but at least I'm not blowing $6.6 Billion on shit that don't work!"
The only catch is that in this economically conservative environment, the cost of paying for those fighter planes is probably less than the cost now needed to re-invigorate Australia's education system to the point where we can actually think our way out of the need for them.
***
I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome to the blogoblag, my personal hero: Jimmy Thins. The Jimmy Thins Style is a publication of taste, hilarity, hand-made flash and chocolate chips. I wanted to link one of his videos here, but he is mix mastering them to a new location, bitches. I will host the next one. I urge you to check it check it one two. Now!
***
GTH
Trent rolled out with the dirtiest joke (I won't reprint - check last post's comments!). Sorry O.o. Sam, crapped out. Jono was geographically closest with his guess at the Cologne Cathedral for the picture, sorry Neil, it was the St Peter's Cathedral in Prague.
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Bloodhound Gang wouldn't have made it past the blue dye
According to anecdotal evidence*, STDs are on the rise. There are a multitude of reasons - most of them to do with the rise of conservatism and the religious right. This has been blogged about before by great writers than I, but there are two easy targets: shithouse sex education in schools and confusing advertising. When I went through school I had no less than two term long periods where we were taught about sex and everything surrounding it.
In primary school the wonderful Ms Safe (her real name, she assured us) told us all about why our dangly bits were doing those things and why it was wrong to point at other kids' dangly bits. We got pictures of nude children that we were allowed to draw on, a full and frank explanation about how babies were made (sex) and exactly where they came from (vaginas). And, if any of us doubted that last point, we were all sat in front of the TV in a corner of the library and shown a video of a baby coming out of a vagina, umbilical cord, placenta, maternal screaming and all.
In high school were moved on to what is known in rap circles as The Nitty-Gritty. We were given a quick refresher about how sex worked, reminded that it caused babies and then introduced to contraception, safe sex STD avoision. At no point were we told that condoms were against god or that we would be safe from STDs within the bonds of holy matrimony (like Mele was). We were even briefly divided up for a frank discussion about menstruation given by a friendly-yet-businesslike lady from a specialist government department. The girls went in first for women's business (I never found out what - maybe they told lightbulb jokes) and then the boys were allowed in to learn all about periods. But not before the Vice-Principal herself interrupted her busy day to line us all up, military parade-style, and inform us that having periods was a natural and beautiful, yet sensitive part of all young women's lives and that any mockery, joking, sly sideways glances or improper smiling during our short lesson on menses would result in immediate suspension. We all nodded maturely and trooped in to watch the lady from the government give a straight-talking description of periods while we watched tampon slowly absorb a glass of clear blue liquid.
The thing I remember thinking at the time was that all that education about STDs was almost unnecessary, given the pre-sex-education sex education our generation had all had at the hands of one TV commercial. Talk to anyone around my age and we will all tell you of a deep-seated fear of AIDS and condomless sex at the hands of The Grim Reaper. We need to re-screen this ad. I guarantee STDs will go down again.
***
In other news: the winner of the inaugural Guess The Header Competition is River for her flashy science talk and the gag about the pizza (which correctly unraveled my cypher, placing the photo of weird fish alongside the blog about weird fish, or anchovies if you prefer). Sorry other OTHER Sam, you were way way way off with the China guess, and yet, so close ... How? This photo was taken in Chinatown in San Fransisco. It was the only place in America where I actually saw fresh fish and vegetables that weren't marketed as an exclusive novelty. If you scroll down, the (as yet) blogless River will be immortalised with her leading score of one on the Writing Guess The Header Competition Glory Board. Who will guess this blog's photo? Who? Clue? Think "Bad Word Play".
*stories Mele tells me about the private school she used to work at.
In primary school the wonderful Ms Safe (her real name, she assured us) told us all about why our dangly bits were doing those things and why it was wrong to point at other kids' dangly bits. We got pictures of nude children that we were allowed to draw on, a full and frank explanation about how babies were made (sex) and exactly where they came from (vaginas). And, if any of us doubted that last point, we were all sat in front of the TV in a corner of the library and shown a video of a baby coming out of a vagina, umbilical cord, placenta, maternal screaming and all.
In high school were moved on to what is known in rap circles as The Nitty-Gritty. We were given a quick refresher about how sex worked, reminded that it caused babies and then introduced to contraception, safe sex STD avoision. At no point were we told that condoms were against god or that we would be safe from STDs within the bonds of holy matrimony (like Mele was). We were even briefly divided up for a frank discussion about menstruation given by a friendly-yet-businesslike lady from a specialist government department. The girls went in first for women's business (I never found out what - maybe they told lightbulb jokes) and then the boys were allowed in to learn all about periods. But not before the Vice-Principal herself interrupted her busy day to line us all up, military parade-style, and inform us that having periods was a natural and beautiful, yet sensitive part of all young women's lives and that any mockery, joking, sly sideways glances or improper smiling during our short lesson on menses would result in immediate suspension. We all nodded maturely and trooped in to watch the lady from the government give a straight-talking description of periods while we watched tampon slowly absorb a glass of clear blue liquid.
The thing I remember thinking at the time was that all that education about STDs was almost unnecessary, given the pre-sex-education sex education our generation had all had at the hands of one TV commercial. Talk to anyone around my age and we will all tell you of a deep-seated fear of AIDS and condomless sex at the hands of The Grim Reaper. We need to re-screen this ad. I guarantee STDs will go down again.
***
In other news: the winner of the inaugural Guess The Header Competition is River for her flashy science talk and the gag about the pizza (which correctly unraveled my cypher, placing the photo of weird fish alongside the blog about weird fish, or anchovies if you prefer). Sorry other OTHER Sam, you were way way way off with the China guess, and yet, so close ... How? This photo was taken in Chinatown in San Fransisco. It was the only place in America where I actually saw fresh fish and vegetables that weren't marketed as an exclusive novelty. If you scroll down, the (as yet) blogless River will be immortalised with her leading score of one on the Writing Guess The Header Competition Glory Board. Who will guess this blog's photo? Who? Clue? Think "Bad Word Play".
*stories Mele tells me about the private school she used to work at.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Racism and shame
Overheard conversation in antique shop on Magill Road today:
Middle-aged Antique Shop Lady #1: The Aboriginals wrap their babies up in newspaper, you know, instead of blankets.
Middle-aged Antique Shop Lady #2: And they wonder why they get them taken away!
I dropped whatever I was looking at. I didn't know what to do. I just walked out.
Middle-aged Antique Shop Lady #2, calling me as I stormed by: Were you looking for anything special?
Me: No.
(Exit stage left)
I was actually reeling as I walked home. I should have bloody said something.
Middle-aged Antique Shop Lady #1: The Aboriginals wrap their babies up in newspaper, you know, instead of blankets.
Middle-aged Antique Shop Lady #2: And they wonder why they get them taken away!
I dropped whatever I was looking at. I didn't know what to do. I just walked out.
Middle-aged Antique Shop Lady #2, calling me as I stormed by: Were you looking for anything special?
Me: No.
(Exit stage left)
I was actually reeling as I walked home. I should have bloody said something.
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An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test
Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
