An Opinion So To Speak

So I am writing about Andy Blume now for some reason. Well, for a particular reason, obviously. But anyway I am.

I don't like Andy Blume. I don't think he's funny. I think he's nasty. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me. But I decided to write about him because I have an opinion and I thought it was right for me to voice it, because I can't make a claim to integrity if I restrict my protests about unfairness to people I like.

Like I said, I don't like him. I hardly think the fruits of his creative desires have been a net improvement for the internet. But...

But the guy's lost his job. That story I linked to says "sacked for offensive web postings", but that's actually, I think it's pretty obvious, untrue. He wasn't sacked for offensive web postings. He was sacked because the Herald Sun ran a campaign against him. With prominent stories, and photos, and editorials calling for his dismissal.

And no matter what I think of Andy Blume and his postings, I just can't see that this is right. I can't see that the comedic web activities of a tram driver, however tasteless, are deserving of the sack, and more particularly I can't see they're deserving of tabloid persecution. It's not right.

And I'm not going on an anti-Herald Sun rant. Everyone knows I'm not a big fan of certain of their columnists, but there are also people working at the paper, and elsewhere in News Ltd, who I know, and like, and respect. I'm not looking to tear the Herald Sun to shreds.

But this is bad behaviour. This is not news. This is not reportage. This is a vendetta. This is someone at a powerful media organisation deciding a powerless individual has got on their bad side and needs to be punished. Not by alerting his employer to inappropriate behaviour. And certainly not by baldly reporting the facts - the facts, as they stand, aren't even close to being worthy of being placed in the pages of a capital city daily newspaper.

The punishment, instead, is that this man must lose his job. Not just lose his job, but be humiliated, become a figure of public hatred, and have the circumstances that led to his sacking placed in the mass media to sit there forever as a warning to future employers that this man is a Public Enemy Of Dubious Character. The punishment, in essence, is to ruin the guy's life. And it's not right.

Think about what Andy Blume did. Some think he's hilarious. Some think he's appalling. But on either extreme, does anyone really think he deserved this? This campaign of revenge and personal destruction? Is this what the media's for?

It shouldn't be. This is not the way the media should be working, this deformed journalism that sees the press's role not to serve public interest, not to seek the truth, not even to inform, educate or entertain, but to pursue and crush anyone who finds themselves on your wrong side with all the power at your disposal, without mercy, and with the most devastating and vicious consequences possible for those unfortunates who find themselves in that position. It is news as weapon. It is the reporter as assassin. It is the media as Inquisition. And it is a debasement of what could be, should be, and can be, I believe, a genuinely noble profession.

I don't like Andy Blume. But I've never disliked anyone enough to want to take away his job. I've never disliked anyone enough to want to destroy his life. It's not right. The Herald Sun is capable of being better than that, and it should be. It must be.

They Breed 'Em Tough At News Ltd

In today's Herald Sun, prominent columnist/ironman Alan Howe has pointed out how Anna Bligh, in her attempts to cheer up Queenslanders, has revealed the dark, rotten heart of her innate racism. Bligh stands exposed for what she is: racist against Victorians. And possibly Tasmanians and maybe West Australians. Not New South Welsh though, who are pussies.

But the machinations of vicious premiers who use tragedies as opportunities to promulgate their grubby vote-pulling bigotry aside, one part of Howe's think-piece struck me as particularly intriguing:

Not long ago a Queensland Liberal leader went by the name of Denver Beanland, such was the dearth of talent in conservative ranks.

The logic seems to go like this:

1. The Liberal Party had a leader called Denver Beanland.
2. People called Denver Beanland are innately untalented.
3. Therefore, the Liberal Party has no talent.

I'm just wondering what process Howe went through in developing this "funny name=incompetence" theory, and if he could share the workings of his mighty brain with his readers.

I mean, I can see the theory's explanatory power clearly enough: "Why are some politicians talented and some not? Because the untalented ones have names that Alan Howe thinks are odd". It all fits like the cogs of a beautiful watch. I just want to learn more about the process, so I can one day aspire to be an intellectual too, like Alan.

A Think Piece

In today's Herald Sun, star columnist/pensioner Alan Howe, having just been informed that World War One is over, turns his attention to Australia's most recent military engagement, declaring that the Director of Military Prosecutions, Lyn McDade, who has charegd three soldiers in Afghanistan with manslaughter, "may well be the most dangerous woman in Australia."

Howe does note that the campaign against Brigadier McDade "is driven mostly by the puerile, angry and uneducated"; but on the other hand, much of the abuse "comes from big hearts". So that's all right then. When it comes to abuse and threats, it's the thought that counts. You see:

Brigadier McDade, 52, has spent her life in the law, which she knows very well. She has been a police prosecutor, deputy Northern Territory coroner and served as an army lawyer for many years.

But she has never been in a firefight with enemy determined to kill her, has never dragged back to camp a zipped-up body bag with a mate's limp, lifeless but still warm remains - and has never knocked on a suburban door to tell the occupants their son has been killed serving their country in some overseas hellhole. Like Afghanistan.

So we can all agree that her legal opinions are, essentially, worthless.

So anyway Howe goes on a bit about how disgraceful it is for Australian soldiers to be charged with anything and about how the Taliban are really, really bad people, so there's no way anyone fighting against them could ever do anything wrong, etc etc.

And then he identifies the crucial point:

So what is manslaughter? Well, the most recent convictions - for which you can be jailed 20 years - involved lowlife dog-catcher Mario Schembri and his slutty accomplice, Bernadette Denny, who killed businessman Herman Rockefeller in January.

They bashed Rockefeller to death. Schembri said he fought "like Muhammad Ali" as his uncountable blows hit Rockefeller "harder than he had hit anyone before".

Then they went to Bunnings and bought a chainsaw, disposable overalls, facemasks and a shovel, dismembered Rockefeller's body, cutting off the arms and legs and burning it all in a 44-gallon drum in a mate's backyard.

That's manslaughter.

Are any of our soldiers in Afghanistan guilty of that?

Well, er...no. Not really. So Howe makes a very good point. NONE of our soldiers in Afghanistan are guilty of that, so Brigadier McDade's logic starts to look a bit ropey, doesn't it now?

On the other hand, should the military justice system be amended so that soldiers cannnot be prosecuted unless they beat to death a millionaire who has disappointed them by failing to bring his wife on an unannounced wife-swapping visit before dismembering him with a new chainsaw from Bunnings, it may just narrow the terms of reference for military courts to a rather extreme extent.

"And when the private threw the grenade into the maternity ward, did he at any time claim to have 'fought like Muhammad Ali' before burning the evidence in a 44-gallon drum?"

"No, your honour"

"Case dismissed!"

So as much as we don't want to see these three soldiers convicted, perhaps we should at least allow for the possibility of prosecuting soldiers for crimes committed in battle, as opposed to prosecuting them only for crimes committed in working-class suburban homes and backyards against millionaires with secret lives?

Hmm?

SERIOUS ADDENDUM TO AVOID DISTRESSING CONFUSIONS:

Incidentally, and so it is clear, these guys might NOT have done anything wrong, and hopefully when they're tried it turns out that they didn't - it sounds as if they may have a pretty good defence. I guess we'll see. But if they were just doing their jobs, so is Brigadier McDade, and despite her lack of combat experience, when it comes to decisions to prosecute I'll take the opinion of a military legal expert over that of an opinion columnist. Although perhaps Alan Howe can sway me by telling me how many firefights he's been in and how many doors he's knocked on, since that seems to be the way we determine whether someone's legal opinions are valid or not.



Alan Howe: Strongman of the Editorial Page

Cold Cockles

There is a type of story that tabloid newspapers sometimes like to run called a "heartwarming story".

Very often, these stories are not "heartwarming", they are actually "infuriating" and make rational people want to "throw" things through "windows".

This is one such story.

The FRONT-PAGE STORY in today's Herald Sun is about mother of two "Michelle", who has been "overwhelmed" with public offers of help after going public with her desperate plight, as she and her children have been forced to sleep in the car.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I say "forced"? What I actually meant was "chose to sleep in the car because she is an idiot".

READ this story.

She was too embarrassed to go to friends, co-workers, or her ex-partner about her situation. Oh, the shame, she cried. Nobody must know! And so she kept her secret, not telling anyone, even giving the children's father a fake address, so embarrassed was she, until finally she decided to...

TELL THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD BY GOING TO A NEWSPAPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes, how embarrassing it would have been to admit to your friends or your ex-partner that you are homeless. Far better to act with discretion and quiet dignity by begging for help in the Herald Goddamn Sun.

"Michelle" says her ex is a good father. Her ex says he would have been perfectly happy to give the children a home. But he didn't know, did he? Oh no, because it would have been just so humiliating to ask him for help. Far better to make your children SLEEP IN A FUCKING CAR than lower yourself by having them stay with their father.

She's also very grateful to Herald Sun readers for their offers of accommodation. The generosity has just blown her away. Not that she's taken any of the offers up, mind. No, she knows you never take the first offer. First rule of homelessness: play it cool. Play the field. Shop around. You don't want to seem desperate.

The father says, "I want to express my extreme distress that my children were so exposed across the media and I am concerned about the repercussions of such exposure."

Oh, you're such a killjoy! Look how happy they look on the front page! See how all our souls have been uplifted by this wonderful story! Isn't it worth it, for your children to be forced by their idiot mother to sleep rough, so the public can enjoy the feelgood story of the year?

Dr Sarah Wise, of Anglicare Victoria, said Michelle's story had put a human face on hardship experienced by many Victorians.

She said it showed that people trying to do their best could still get nowhere.

No it fucking doesn't, Dr Wise. It puts a human face on the fake hardship assumed by many Victorians who deliberately make things harder for themselves than they really are in order to get attention.

And it shows that people who absolutely REFUSE to do their best get on the front page of major daily newspapers.

Seriously, Dr Wise, on what planet is a woman who intentionally chooses to sleep in her car with her children when she doesn't have to "doing her best"? Shove it, Dr Wise.

And shove it, "Michelle". I hope you get a house, and I hope the roof falls in on your stupid publicity-whoring head.

Gays; Football; Etc.

I do not like disagreeing with the smart and stylish Ms Helen Razer. I intensely dislike it; it gives me a migraine and makes me irritable. So it's fortunate that I am rarely forced to do so. But unfortunately one of those rare occasions has now cropped up.

Even more unfortunately, it's on a matter of homosexual issues, on which I am in no way an expert, and not being gay, not particularly well equipped to comment form a position of empathy. But even so.

I disagree with Helen's article which comments on Jason Akermanis's article in the Herald Sun.

The reason I disagree with it is because I really think Helen has misread it. If, as she says, all Akermanis was saying was "it wasn't a good idea for players to "come out" due to the storm of publicity such an act would brew", there'd be no problem.

If Akermanis had simply written that homophobia is a major problem in the AFL, there'd be no problem.

If Akermanis had said that any player who came out as gay would be subject to enormous pressure and vilification, there'd be no problem.

If Akermanis had said that he would advise a gay footballer to keep it secret purely because of the potential damage it would do that player, there'd be no problem.

But he didn't. He said players should stay in the closet, not just for their own sake, but so they didn't damage the "fabric of a club". So they didn't make their teammates uncomfortable in the locker room. Because once he played with a gay guy and nobody wanted to shower with him. Because, in fact, there is too much homoeroticism in football for homosexuality to be acceptable!

And there's the problem. Because if the fabric of a football club is such that it cannot handle homosexuality, the fabric of that club is not worth keeping intact. And if other players are made uncomfortable by the presence of a gay teammate, that's their problem, and they should go away and work on it as much as they need to to take their place in the 21st century as normal, fully-functioning human beings without idiotic hang-ups about gay people.

Now, I get where Helen's coming from. All those voices who pressure closeted gays to come out are misguided; nobody should "have to" come out if they don't want to. Nobody should have to define their sexuality if they don't want to. And if Gary Burns is launching a human rights complaint against Akermanis, then, well, Gary Burns is kind of a tool. And when she says:

Speaking from a personal experience, as many weighing in on this matter have, it's exhausting being defined in the terms of one's sexuality. And this is how one is explicitly defined after the disclosure, "I'm gay" or, worse, "I'm bisexual". Try it as an experiment in your workplace this afternoon. You will be treated as a hyper-sexual peril who cannot be trusted with anything including the stationery supplies. It's exhausting.

I get it, and that sucks. It's terrible.

BUT...it's really pretty easy for those of us who are perfectly able to live whatever lifestyle we want to, to form relationships with who we want to, to take whoever we want to out for dinner, to kiss whoever we want to in public, without worrying about getting vilified, abused, and ostracised by our friends and colleagues, without worrying about our career being crippled, without worrying about witnesses who might run to the paper to splash our name across the front page - in short, for those of us who have no need for a secret life - to tell others they shouldn't make such a big deal about their sexuality.

Straight people get to do all that. In most spheres of life, gay people do too. Those of us making a living commenting on these issues, like me, or Helen, or Gerard Whateley, or Michael Shmith, certainly do: should we be in a relationship with a partner of our choosing, nobody will tell us we have no right to tell anyone about it because it's all too much for our fragile industry to bear.

In football, they don't (apparently this also applies to politics - see David Campbell).

And that's they key. It's not about making a big hullabaloo about sexuality. It's not about being a "career homosexual". It's not about anyone having any kind of "duty" to come out. It's about saying, if people don't want to hide their sexuality, they shouldn't have to. If you don't want to say "I'm gay", or "I'm bisexual" at work, don't. It's idiotic to suppose you should "have to". But if someone asks you about your partner at work, you shouldn't feel that you have to lie about it either.

A footballer should be able to hold his boyfriend's hand on the Brownlow red carpet. A footballer should be able to kiss his boyfriend in public. A footballer should be able to mention his boyfriend in an interview. Or not, if he doesn't want to. But nobody has the moral right to tell him he shouldn't.

The first one who does is going to cop it, pretty harshly. It will take massive courage to do it, and I don't blame anyone who chooses not to go down that path. Nobody should ever be pressured to come out, in any walk of life. But nobody should be pressured not to, either, and THAT is where Akermanis breaks down, and where his supporters make their mistake too, in my opinion.

Because Akermanis may hope for a day when "coming out isn't a big deal", but the fact is, that day will never come unless people actually do it. Nobody will ever let you sit at the front of the bus as long as you stay in the back with your mouth shut.

I hope no gay footballer feels he "has" to come out. Or that he "has" to stay in the closet. But I hope someday soon some DO come out, because that inestimably brave act will be the first step towards ensuring future footballers don't have to be that brave, just to stop hiding.

Smarter than your average jar

The article which WAS here, on the subject of Gary Ablett's Herald Sun think-piece about evolution, peanut butter, and why it's science's fault he supplies massive amounts of drugs to women young enough to be his daughter, has been taken off the blog due to the piece being promoted to the ABC. Enjoy it there.

But while you're here, why not admire the great man's unique grace and athleticism. And, um, brains and stuff.

No, REALLY Hitting the Big Time

There are many kinds of success in this world.

There's financial success. There's career success. There's the success of raising a healthy, loving family.

But all of these are as scraps of pig slops to a strawberry cheesecake when compared to being publicly thanked by Andrew Bolt.

The fact that he later found out who I actually was, and is no longer even slightly positively-dispositioned towards me, does not diminish the honour. Neither does the fact he never really regarded me with any gratitude in the first place. Unfortunately the details are private. I'll tell you at the bar.

Incidentally, Bolt eventually did acknowledge the rather obvious error that in that post he had refused to acknowledge. I mean, he sort of acknowledged it. I mean, "I was wrong" is an acknowledgment, even if the post itself ends up being "I was wrong but still much more right than anyone else".

By the way, "reader TQS", Bolt may have thanked you, but you will never have what he and I have. It is special.

And then, of course, he has his "final last thought" (ooh, promise?) on the subject. Not quite sure what he's doing here. A few different options?

1. Bolt is suggesting that Pope Pius XII would have had his head cut off if he'd spoken out against the Holocaust.

2. Bolt is suggesting that because Dawkins won't speak out against Islamofascists, he is morally equivalent to someone who won't speak out against the Holocaust. He does this by referencing a quote wherein Dawkins speaks out against Islamofascists. He could have picked any quote of many, really. Dawkins slams Islamic extremists all the time.

3. By referring to Richard Dawkins as "the atheist al-Qaeda", Bolt is suggesting that promoting a petition asking for someone not be made a saint is morally equivalent to threatening to cut someone's head off.

You decide. I guess.

Today's homework: In 1000 words or less, compare and contrast the labelling of a Nazi-supporting Pope "Pope Nazi" with the labelling of an atheist scientist "atheist al-Qaeda". Extra points for those students who accurately ascertain the relative levels of barbarism present in each.

Incidentally, a round of applause for Bolt's work ethic: he started blogging at 7:01 am and didn't stop till 12:09 pm. You can't deny he's prolific. And if you did he'd call you a terrorist.

I Have Some Problems With This...

Now, the front page story in the Herald Sun today was the story of how Melbourne City Council grants have been given to two artists whose art consists of building and then dismantling brick walls. OK. That's a pretty crucial news story. Bravo, investigative journalism etc, well done on avoiding sensationalism and triviality.

I'm not here to quarrel with the front page story. I am here to quarrel with this editorial on the same subject:

No art to this waste of cash

This story starts like this:

"A MELBOURNE City Council grant to pay artists to build a brick wall, only to knock it down again, gives new meaning to 'thick as a brick.'"

Now here's the thing, "staff writer"...

No it doesn't. I concede that you're just following a trend here, the trend of finding a commonly used phrase with some oblique connection to a story, and then saying "gives new meaning to" in a sad and almost-touching attempt to be witty. I concede that 95 percent of these usages do not in any way demonstrate a new meaning being given to said phrase.

BUT that is no excuse! Can't you think for three seconds before you write?

I mean, how the hell does that give new meaning to "thick as a brick"? If the artists were dressing up as bricks, perhaps, but they're not, are they? They're just building and dismantling walls. And you see, "thick as a brick" means the same thing as it always did, doesn't it? If you said these artists were "thick as a brick", it wouldn't actually develop some devilishly clever double meaning. Dickhead.

And you probably think, OK, "staff writer" has pulled the wrong rein there, but everyone's allowed one wrong rein-pulling in an article, as long as it is an isolated case.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is the HERALD SUN, where sensationalism walks hand in hand with semi-literacy, and scaremongering rides tall in the saddle occasionally sipping from a canteen full of cool fresh not-as-funny-as-they-think.

Because it ONLY GETS WORSE. Later in the editorial:

"Another brick in the wall, as we are reminded by the Pink Floyd song, is to cost ratepayers $5500."

Now I was stunned by this assertion, and immediately ran to my turntable to give "The Wall" a spin. And here's an interesting fact:

At NO point during the song "Another Brick in the Wall" does Pink Floyd either say, or paraphrase, the sentence, "Another brick in the wall is to cost ratepayers $5500".

Check it out, Herald Sun! The album is readily available! There is, in fact, no reference to ratepayers at all!

In other words, if you were to listen to any of the three parts of the song "Another Brick in the Wall", you would not be reminded in any way of the cost to ratepayers of another brick in the wall. What is more, I doubt that this was ever Roger Waters's intention! It seems, to say the least, far-fetched to suppose that as he sat down to compose his masterpiece, he thought, "Now we need a real epic protest song so that people will never forget how much it cost City of Melbourne ratepayers to hire two women to build and tear down small brick walls. It was $5500, and after this hits the charts, EVERYBODY WILL REMEMBER THAT!"

I do not think this happened.

And to pile outrage upon outrage, it's not even true that another brick in the wall will cost ratepayers $5500. That is the cost of the entire installation - so one brick would be just a fraction of that. GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT HERALD SUN!

And even if you don't, please note that a newspaper editorial is, ideally, a considered commentary on current events. The purpose of editorialising becomes, at the least, blurred, when the editorial morphs into some kind of bizarre comedy routine/1970s prog-rock medley.

THINK about it.

I Bet You're Feeling Pretty Low Right About Now

In today's edition of the Herald Sun, it is revealed that Australians (defined in the Macquarie Dictionary as "people who respond to online Herald Sun polls) do not believe Tiger Woods's expression of contrition.

Tiger is reportedly shattered by this news:



The Herald Sun also reports, in its "What the professionals said" section (in which professional people who are professional at something say things) that breakfast radio co-host Brigitte "Brig" Duclos thinks that "All the sex therapy in the world wouldn't allow me to trust Tiger again."

"Brigitte Duclos doesn't trust me anymore?"



Because how can Tiger pick up the pieces without Brig's trust? How can he try to rebuild his relationship with this complete stranger if she does not trust him anymore. From now on, whenever he is playing golf on the other side of the world, or sitting in his house nowhere near Brigitte Duclos, or going out to a function that has no connection to Brigitte Duclos at all, she will have this gnawing doubt..."what's he up to?" she will think. "Is he doing something that is none of my business? Who can tell with a cad like he's been?"

And that's the real tragedy. From now on, there's only one man for Brig.

Today in Tabloids

(cross-posted at Gather Around Me)

You may have got the impression from earlier postings that Melbourne's Herald Sun was mainly a repository for the ramblings of developmentally delayed readers with too much unsupervised email time available.

This is not true. It is also a repository for the ramblings of developmentally delayed journalists. Take for instance today's front page headline, which screamed "RED ARMY" in huge letters.

The story, with an update noting the army's backdown, is here. It's all about the shocking revelation that the government planned to MAKE OUR BRAVE FIGHTING SOLDIERS WEAR CHINESE MATERIAL!!!!!

And so the headline, RED ARMY. Get it? Because they're communists? So our soldiers would be wearing communist fabric? So our army would be "red"?

GET IT YET?

Felix Sher, whose son Gregory was killed in a rocket attack in Afghanistan last year, said this morning questions had to be asked over what justified the bizarre cost-cutting strategy.

"Bizarre cost-cutting strategy"? The strategy is to cut costs. This is, you know, to save money. Apparently this is bizarre to the Herald Sun? No, Herald Sun - a "bizarre cost-cutting strategy" would be one where you, say, threw a million dollars in cash into the river in order to cut costs - that would be quite bizarre. A cost-cutting strategy that saves you money is not a bizarre one; it's actually quite a sensible one, I would have thought.

"If Greg was alive I don't think he would be happy," Mr Sher said. "To wear a Chinese-made uniform just to save a dollar ... I don't think any Australian soldier would be happy.

"Greg was devoted to his job and to his country but if he was alive he'd definitely be asking why the Defence Department were doing this.''

And maybe the defence department would say, "To save money, cockface - now get back in line".

Because MAYBE, Mr Sher, the idea is to save money on uniforms - which, in a world full of SANE PEOPLE, would be made wherever was most convenient and cost-effective, with a general agreement that it doesn't matter the slightest, tiniest, infinitesimal bit where the fabric got made, for Christ's sake.

Jennifer Ward, whose son Benjamin Ranaudo was killed in Afghanistan last year, said the cost-cutting strategy was going too far.

"It might just be factory work to some people, but that company would be proud to make those uniforms,’’ Mrs Ward told the Herald Sun.

Oh, well if they're PROUD. I mean, you didn't mention they'd be PROUD to make uniforms. By all means, let the necessities of the defence budget take a backseat to company pride - the self-esteem of factory workers is after all the main purpose of the Defence Force, innit?

Australian Defence Association executive director Neil James blasted the decision.

"Do we seriously expect our soldiers to fight a war dressed in a uniform made in China?" he said.

"There's a simple dignity issue."

Yes, how undignified! Good God, our brave diggers might catch Chineseness from their uniforms! How can any soldier feel dignified fighting in a uniform that is exactly the same as any other uniform, knowing the identical uniform was made in China? How could this bunch of sissy, pansy-arse, wussy, limp-wristed nancy-boys handle it, given they're such a bunch of soft, namby-pamby little girls they can't even handle putting on a foreign-made shirt? Pussies.

Oh yeah, and Sophie Mirabella weighed in:

Opposition industry spokeswoman Sophie Mirabella said it was outrageous.

"Our soldiers risk their lives under the flag and in the uniform of this country," she said. "It's dangerous, unpatriotic and tawdry for the Government to save a few dollars and buy the fabric overseas."

But we already knew she was a total fuckstick, so no need to pay much attention there.

Still, they backed down, so it's nice to see the Herald Sun's proud tradition of racist, xenophobic scaremongering continues to get results in the corridors of power.

Bravo Herald Sun.

Taken too soon

Sam the koala is dead. Now, I'm not saying this is a GOOD thing, by any means. What I am saying, to people leaving comments on the HS website, such as Betty Grinter of Preston ("A part of me died today..such a sad ending to a story of hope. I'll miss you Sam"), is:

1. She was a koala. That is, a small forest-dwelling marsupial. She was not, for example, a cheeky young schoolgirl, or a nun.

2. Furthermore, she was not a koala that you, personally, knew. She was not your pet koala, or a koala that had been passed down through the generations, or a koala which contained the trapped soul of your wife.

3. There is in fact no evidence to support the hypothesis that she was an especially brave koala. Unless your definition of courage is "fortunate enough to be stumbled upon by a firefighter with a water bottle".

4. Leaving a "tribute" to Sam on a website is possibly one of the most useless things one could ever dream of doing in their entire lives. Not only can she not read it because she's dead, she couldn't read it when she was alive. She was a koala. Do you think her family's going to log on and draw strength from the community support?

5. Given that she died of chlamydia, the fawning over her by the Herald Sun would seem to represent a dangerous endorsement of promiscuous behaviour, setting a poor example to our own on-the-brink-of-sluttishness youth.

6. She was a frigging koala.

Cheers.

The Blind Leading the Flamboyantly Drug-addled

In a stunning development, Australian television viewers have been forced to process the disturbing revelation that apparently blind people are not naturally suited to ballroom dancing.

After Dancing With The Stars judge and well-known pants-removal enthusiast Todd McKenney cruelly pointed this out, blind Paralympian and adventurer Gerrard Gosens protested, enlisting the Herald Sun in his public campaign to have people with disabilities treated differently to everyone else. A fighting fund has now been set up to provide support for Gosens in his efforts to be judged by lower standards and be rewarded for inferior performance at every opportunity.

McKenney's "tactless attack" (sic) was one of the most flagrant examples of an arrogant celebrity shamelessly telling the obvious truth that has been seen in this country since Paul Keating famously told John Hewson that he looked "a bit like a sad horse".

Fans of the show have reacted angrily to McKenney's outburst, questioning the judgment of a man who, hired for the purpose of assessing the dancing talent of others, has the temerity to tell someone he's a bad dancer for no other reason than the fact he is very very bad at dancing. The fans have complained that Gosens was "humiliated", an outcome that surely nobody could have seen coming when a commercial television network put a blind man on a celebrity dancing show.

"Oops!" cried Channel Seven executives. "The blind man has been humiliated and made into a sort of horribly compelling freak show! How tragically removed from our original intentions this development is! Woe is us!"

In The Punch, Tory Maguire, taking a break from her usual occupation of informing us on how Telstra is improving all our lives, one completely unjustified fee at a time, has written what I thought was a reasonably sensical piece on this burning issue.

So, what have we learnt?

1. Gerard Gosens cannot dance

2. There is no need to publicly point this out just because he chose to enter a nationally broadcast dancing competition

3. Todd McKenney is a complete bastard

4. Tory Maguire is a more palatable read as a defender of brutally honest reality TV judges than as a morally repellent corporate apologist.

5. Dancing With The Stars is a microcosm of society in ways that we cannot even imagine and are unlikely to try.

Why? God, why?

From the Herald Sun:

Tom Cappola ’s devotion to Michael Jackson goes beyond his love of the music the King of Pop is his life.

Cappola, a Jackson impersonator, had front-row tickets to Jackson ’s first London concert on July 13.

He is shattered that he will never see his hero in the flesh.

"My dream came true to personally see him, and then all this has happened," he said.

Oh God, why does everything have to happen to YOU, Tom? What did you do to deserve this?

I'm Mad As Hell And Will Only Take It For A Little While Longer

OK, so The Chaser. Everyone knows about it. They'll be back next week, and hopefully the experience will not turn them tame and insipid in any way, but drive them on to more inspired feats of comedy.

Below is something I wrote in the aftermath of the infamous sketch, because every bit of commentary I saw seemed to miss the point by some distance. Some pieces made some good points - I agree with those sticking up for the Chaser's right to make bad-taste jokes, I agree with those who said it's the show's job to push boundaries and test the limits and so forth - but even those mostly missed the point of what the sketch was actually about. And as for those blasting the show for crossing lines, destroying lives, spitting in faces etc, I found it unbearable. Those who claimed the problem is that the show was no longer funny may or may not be right, but it was irrelevant to the issue at hand - which was the only good point contained in what I thought was one of the most ridiculously wrongheaded articles, by Shaun Carney and I'm not in the slightest bit interested in debating whether something's funny or not). And even now, two weeks later, all commentary continues to miss the point, to my mind.

Everyone must make up their own minds, but I honestly think the media hysteria has blinded people to what the sketch actually was, and I also think I'm at least as well-qualified to comment on it as the political analysts and shock jocks that have dominated the debate. And since the piece below was not wanted by a variety of media outlets, I'm having my say here. If you hate The Chaser and all it stands for and always will, you probably won't get much out of it. If not, do read on:



ON THE CHASER

Making fun of sick children? Disgusting. Outrageous. Disgraceful. Unacceptable. For doing such a revolting thing, those terrible Chaser boys should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. For mocking those poor kids, they should be sacked. Blackballed. The ABC should lose its funding. How could they do such a thing?

The only trouble, of course, is that they did no such thing. They never made fun of sick kids. Not in the slightest. And no reasonable person making up their mind based on the actual sketch – as opposed to having their mind made up for them by squawking tabloid headlines – would come to the conclusion that they had.

Now, I admit I do not know any Chaser members personally – as the 800 pound gorillas of Australian comedy to my pygmy shrew, we move in different circles – and so it is, I concede, possible that they sat down and thought, “Bloody sick kids, let’s take them down a peg or two”. However, I consider it susbtantially more likely they sat down and thought, “You know the Make A Wish Foundation? Wouldn’t it be funny if there was an organisation like that, but one that was really, really bad at its job?” I think this is more likey for the simple reason that that is precisely what they did in the sketch.

Contrary to those who saw it as a vicious attack on sick kids, or on the real Make A Wish Foundation, it wasn’t an attack on anyone. It was actually a conventional piece of sketch comedy based on the classic premise of taking a well-known character, situation or institution, and coming up with an absurd, grotesque or incompetent version. The Make A Realistic Wish Foundation is, in fact, nothing more than The Chaser’s version of Monty Python’s Silly Olympics, Saturday Night Live’s male, talentless synchronised swimmers, or even bumbling Maxwell Smart. The humour lies not in laughing at sick kids, but in the very fact that we know how appalling the “Make A Realistic Wish Foundation” is. The fictitious foundation itself is the butt of the joke – in essence, the point is not to mock the sick kids, but to side with them against the dreadful fools at their bedsides. To suggest that the fact that terrible fictional characters do terrible things to others means the creators are mocking the victims is just silly. The Chaser was no more mocking sick kids than John Cleese mocked Germans by making Basil fawlty a racist, or that Ricky Gervais mocked the disabled when his David Brent showed his utter insensivity to a wheelchair-bound colleague. Comedic characters are often terrible people – this is what makes them comedic. We’re laughing at them, not the innocent folk who have to suffer their obnoxiousness.

Please note, this is not in any way attempt to convince those who didn’t find the sketch funny that it was; comedy is utterly subjective, and to try to claim that one’s own opinion on what’s funny is in any way objective or definitive is ridiculous. That, of course, does not stop people trying, and a hundred comedic experts have sprung up since The Chaser aired to claimed that the “real problem” is that the sketch just wasn’t funny. Patently untrue – people don’t call for sackings and funding cuts just because things aren’t funny. Thousands of hours of unfunny material is broadcast every year without a furore. Commentators like to claim that unfunniness is the problem in order to dodge the quite accurate accusation that they are joining a herd of confected moral outrage and self-righteousness. The fact is, whether it was funny or not is completely irrelevant to the question of whether The Chaser was mocking sick kids. If they were, making every last person on earth bust a gut wouldn’t change the fact, and if they’re not, stony silence from every viewer does not give reason for moral condemnation.

I don’t doubt that some were upset by the sketch. That’s unfortunate, but as any comedian or comedy writer knows, if you want any hope of amusing people, you have to risk giving offence. I’ve seen comedy deal with subjects including racism, Nazism, incest, bestiality, sexual assault, domestic violence, murder, war, disease and famine. Any of these and a hundred other apparently tamer topics could cause distress – there’s practically no subject that has no chance of offending anyone. That’s the nature of comedy, and any comedian worth their salt takes that chance all the time. But the fact that a piece of work can strike a nerve with you doesn’t mean it was targeted at you, and the fact a TV show upset someone – however worthy and genuinely long-suffering that someone is – doesn’t mean that they are right and the makers of the show deserve to be cast into the outer darkness. Especially when, one suspects, much of the outrage and offence being expressed comes less from genuine spontaneous reaction and more from the efforts of media hypocrites desperate to whip up a new moral panic to reinforce their self-assumed position as guardians of the public good. After all, sketch show The Mansion did a similar gag last year. America’s The Onion and Australia’s Shaun Micallef have both in the past given their own spin to “make-a-wish comedy”. No howls of outrage there, because they weren’t The Chaser, the enemy that Murdoch papers and “current affairs” programmes alike are just itching to snipe at. The Chaser could act out verbatim re-enactments of Mother and Son, and the Herald Sun would scream about their tasteless assault on Alzheimer’s sufferers.

So it’s a shame if you were offended, especially if you have suffered the trauma of ill children. But be assured, The Chaser wasn’t having a go at you, or your kids, or anyone. And if you are the sensitive type, perhaps you shouldn’t be watching the show (and nor should children, sick or otherwise). Personally, I’m going to go on watching. Because even if it’s not perfect, I know that it’s comedy. If you don’t understand that, maybe you should go look for the remote.

And here...

From the Herald Sun itself, the very crux of the issue. As the paper says:

"The segment, titled "Making A Realistic Wish Foundation", ended with actor Chris Taylor saying there was no point in making expensive wishes come true as "they're going to die anyway"."

The entire hysterical reaction from papers and parents and moral guardians has been predicated on the assumption that when Chris Taylor said that, he meant it.

In other words, the controversy is based 100% on the outrage of people who don't know the meanings of the words "Fiction", "comedy" or indeed "actor".

Chris Taylor said it. HE WAS PLAYING A PART. IT WAS COMEDY. A CHARACTER IN A COMEDY SKETCH IS NOT A REAL PERSON. CHRIS TAYLOR WAS NOT PUTTING FORTH HIS OWN VIEWS.

In short, everyone stop being so freaking stupid.

Eye-roll

Now, Georgette Fishlock is clearly a very courageous woman who has been through a lot, and deserves much credit, but sadly, suffering does not make one infallible, and the little piece she wrote for the Herald Sun about the Chaser skit seems to me to way, way off-base.

'Their "Making A Realistic Wish Foundation" skit shows they have absolutely no value for children's lives.'

Really, Georgette? It shows that? Seriously? They wrote a sketch featuring an imaginary foundation that acted terribly toward imaginary children, and they therefore "have absolutely no value for children's live"? Please.

"Help from Make A Wish and other charities is more than a free holiday."

Who said it wasn't? The sketch is about the "Making A Realistic Wish Foundation", which does not in fact exist, Georgette. I don't know what relevance the above sentence has to it.

"But The Chaser has made a mockery of that."

What nonsense. You think your son's experience is devalued because of a comedy skit? Again, please. Moreover, The Chaser didn't mock you, or Tyler, or the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They invented a fictional foundation based on the quite common comedic concept of a ridiculous version of a real-life situation.

The joke, in fact, is that the "Make A Realistic Wish Foundation" is TERRIBLE at their jobs. It's quite bizarre that Georgette, and seemingly many, many other people, think that the creators of a comedic skit would actually be trying to promote the message they have put in the mouths of fictional comedy characters. The entire point is that the fictional foundation is dreadful. So how can you criticise the sketch on the grounds that the Chaser crew approve of the foundation's attitude?

'What would these people say about Tyler? "He is blind so he doesn't need to do anything in life?"'

No, they wouldn't. The FICTIONAL "Make A Realistic Wish Foundation" might, because they are terrible people, which is the WHOLE POINT. It's not "laugh at these poor kids", it's "laugh at these appalling people treating these poor kids so badly". The sketch is on the CHILDREN's side. The Chaser boys, if you want to analyse it more than it's worth, are pretty much saying exactly the opposite of what they're being accused of.

"Despite Tyler being brave enough to overcome losing both eyes to beat cancer, his mother GEORGETTE, writing here, has kept news of the Chaser furore a secret because he would find it too distressing."

This is, I have to say, pretty ridiculous. Tyler's a little boy. Does his mother usually fill him in on The Chaser's weekly doings? Is it a huge effort to keep this from him? Is Tyler sitting around wondering why his mum isn't reading the papers aloud to him like she usually does? "Kept it a secret", give me a freaking break.

Is there anything the man can't do?

Andrew Bolt this week writes about the case of "Alex", a 17-year-old girl who wants to be a boy, and who was given permission by Chief Justice Diana Bryant to undergo a double mastectomy to allow her to do so.

Bolt says:

"I have not spoken to Alex. Bryant has. I am not a psychiatrist. Bryant, I presume, has consulted those who are."

And yet, it is a measure of the man's perspicacity, wordly knowledge and polymathic expertise that despite this, he knows the decision is wrong, why it's wrong, and what everyone should have done instead.

Bravo, Andrew, your mighty brain leaves us stuttering in awe

The Definition Of Irony?

It might be Andrew Bolt, a columnist for the HERALD SUN, writing a column complaining about the whipping up of unnecessary panic.

It's like Kyle Sandilands complaining about declining standards in entertainment.

National Security In Jeopardy: Lodge Infiltrated By Authorised Tradesmen

Let us take a hard, unflinching look at the latest scandal to come out of Canberra, as reported by the Herald Sun.

The sequence of events:

1. A group of men came to the Lodge, claiming to be maintenance workers.
2. They showed documentation indicating they had been cleared by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
3. Police checked their documentation and found it to be in order.
4. They spent some time in the Lodge.
5. They went home.

But there is more to the story: the men looked like bikies. Is something afoot, newsies? You bet your bloodstained bollards it is!

Given that these men, who suspiciously showed up with correct documentation and spent mostly unsupervised time in the Prime Minister's residence, were dressed in leather and had tattoos, it can be seen that what has actually occurred is an ATTACK ON THE LODGE BY BIKIE GANGS!

What they were doing in there, who knows? But certainly their tattoos represent a serious threat to security? What if they took showers? What if they washed their underpants in the Lodge's sink? What if a visiting foreign dignitary should stay at the Lodge and discover a copy of Live To Ride under the bed?

Terrifying thoughts, indeed. It's a disturbing thought that bikies might be able to gain access to the Lodge in order to...walk around. And do stuff. Like, maybe they were laying bikie eggs, using the PM's house as an incubator for the coming bikie army. Maybe they were there to sell amphetamines to Kevin Rudd. Maybe the reason Rudd was so cranky on that flight was because he had insufficient amphetamines. That can really stress a man out, I hear.

In any case, it's unacceptable. We need to get to the bottom of this. A Royal Commission into people with tattoos entering the Lodge must be announced immediately, for the sake of all our freedom.

The Monarchy: moving with the times

So Robyn Riley - fearless campaigner for truth, justice and the duty of the mainstream media to publish unsubstantiated nude photos of prominent public figures performing legal and consensual acts in a private place thirty years ago in order that the public know the sort of person that the person they are voting for looks a bit like - this week tackles the monarchy.

Apparently there is a bill under consideration in Britain that would remove the gender bias from royal succession rights.

And as Robyn says, "about time too. It is ridiculous that gender is still relevant".

Yes, indeed, what a ludicrous way of organising one's monarchy. Maybe now, finally, we can bring our undemocratic medieval system of hereditary privilege into the 21st century. It seems absurd that in this day of age, the selection of our head of state should be dependent on their sex. It's about time we took that giant leap forward and selected them based purely and simply on who gets born first to the descendant of whatever family managed to wrest power from another several centuries ago.

After all, it would be terrible if the monarchy were to seem in any way outdated. It must move with the times, lest it be seen as obsolete and pointless and wasteful and generally stupid.

Hate for that to happen.