An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
62 Responses to “Saturday Salon”
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G’day!
Frist for the frist time!
Hey Kim!
Good Saturday.
I was awake all night and spent part of it here.
The Guardian reports of a new doco “The Trap” airing on BBC2.
I took my best mate to the airport today to see her off to do her UN good works in Geneva for six months, and we sat at the airport Cibo looking out the windows at the planes arriving and landing, as we chatted in a subdued fashion about the Indonesian crash. (Hey, she brought it up.)
‘Fear’s a funny thing,’ I said to her, as we watched these air whales sail in on their bellies at mind-boggling speed. ‘You’re scared that if you park in an enclosed car park you’ll get raped and murdered, and I’m scared that if I drive in the Adelaide Hills I’ll get smashed into and atomised by a bikie on crack coming round the blind corner at 150 kph on the wrong side of the road, but both of us will get into one of those things without a second thought.’
What are other people scared of?
‘What are other people scared of?’
Well as we say up in the Rockies (when we have the time), “I ain’t scared of the ski trail… I’m scared of the other skiers.”
But then again, you’re talking to an agoraphobic, so the list of ‘what I’m scared of’ would go on for days, maybe even months. Better to just rent “Dawn of the Dead,” and appreciate a good metaphor when you see one.
Or that great old John Cale tune, “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend.”
Oh, and by the way…
You just used “UN” and “good works” in the same sentence. Hee hee.
You’ve probably all seen this already, but in case you haven’t …
I think it follows on nicely from recent threads on feminism …
http://www.glumbert.com/media/women
And P.S. it also involves mention of (a) the gold standard and (b) kittens, thus making it essential for, respectively, (a) GMB and (b) everyone else.
i hear her voice
just when i thought it lost
just when the sun lowers
our expectations
i thought i was the stranger
wrapped in leather & gray
he came, she raised the bar
times shrink faster than the thought
of
these expectations
me…do buildings hold
rise
to hold such as?
the fold, i dive into the night
Kelvin Thomson has proven himself not only unworthy of being an shadow minister but as representative for Wills.
His incompetence has been demonstrated and he has bought shmae onto his party and most importantly the people he seeks to represent.
If he had the ethics he claimed he would resign immediately from Parliament and allow the people of Wills the chance to elect a judicious representative.
The ALP has a rare chance to set an example, a rare opportunity to demonstrate it has changed. Local ALP members must remove Thomson if he refuse to resign.
Me? I’m scared of everything to some extent.
At the moment, cyclones are a bit of a pressing concern, given that the fella is right under one and just about under another one.
C down,
I think you may be on to something. However, I think big Kel will be back after the election whatever the outcome after doing time in the sin-bin. I think this is about as good as it gets for Rudd after this has come out along with his pending battle with the unions at the national conference. Then policy direction of the ALP will be well and truly in the open and subject to criticism.
Only thing I’m scared of, is being terrorfried.
o come on David – Thomson has cooked his goose – poor bugger has venver done anything else but politics so he will have to become an advisor or hack or start a BA – sort of ALP devolution
Sorry, for that. I was just gonna leave it at terrfied, and then I looked at it for a while and thought ’shit eh, that used to be a good word’ and now look what’s happened to it (in my head).
Kim:
For a weekend chuckle, take a look at Cameron Stewart’s article “The Un-Making Of A Terrorist” in The Weekend Australian Magazine. Oh dear! Oh dear! Is it worth a thread next week or are there more important things to discuss?
Paulus, thanks! Seen it before, but it’s a beauty.
Klevin already has a BA, and a LLB so you can strike that off the list of career directions.
Ah another excellent week ahead watching the ALP self destruct…again..
Once you take away the “gee shucks, I am the only honest guy here” there ain’t much left.
You would think it would be difficult to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory three times in a row but I guess its now considered an art form.
Meanwhile..we are just gunna have to think of another name ..”lying little rodent” leaves us guessing Howard or Rudd with rudd ahead on points.
How intriguing, Constipated Down, that you posted the exact same post over at Tim Dunlop’s blog, as Peter Robertson of Coburg
I wonder how many other blog posts about this have been blessed with your incisive commentary about this issue. It makes me smile, because I had a hunch Tim’s post had been hijacked by party faithful (huge influx of new, outraged commentators that were eerily absent on his post about Campbell’s resignation), and I am yet to see anything to contradict that theory.
I’m scared I’ll fall asleep in my maths lecture one day and never wake up. The lecturer really is that boring. I must of eaten half my body weight in chocolate-coated coffee beans last week.
Wills has a great history of thick-skinned boofheads.
The only thing I have to fear is fear itself – but seriously, being eaten. Really – wakes me up in a cold sweat.
By whom, Tony? Sharks? Cannibals?
All of the above, Kim, plus other unsavoury beasts. Or beasts that found me savoury.
Can’t watch horror movies (well, slashers, anyway) either. Depictions of horrible death, torture etc I cannot come at.
Don’t be going all Freudian on me, now, girl.
Heh! I’ll resist the tempatation!
Tony, with the Feline Friday thread in mind, I was looking yesterday for a suitable quotation from the wonderful short story ‘Tobermory’, which features a talking cat, by H. H. Munro, aka ‘Saki’. The story is in the same volume as three of his other really excellent animal stories: ‘Gabriel-Ernest’, ‘The Interlopers’ and ‘Sredni Vashtar.’
I am telling you this so that, as a person who fears being eaten, you make sure that you do not read any of them, ever.
*Cue theme from Jaws*
It’s all getting terribly messy in the holier than thou political mudfest of the last week or so. Which side will be left with the lowlier halo?
A Commercial TV daily segment.
Announcer: “Today in Politics: The Good Oil from The Nation’s Capitol, Can BERRAH !â€? .
Assorted fanfares and razzamatazz.
Zoom to head and shoulders shot of wryly grinning pundit. His voice worldly-wise,avuncular.
“Good Evening, Folks….
Look, everybody knows that it’s a lay down misere that Kevin will be the last man standing in any high noon showdown on integrity with John Howard. The reality is, at the end of the day, that an election campaign situation is already underway. The gloves are off, and the next nine months are going to be a rollercoaster ride for friend and foe alike. Kevin is a solid all round player, a good little captain who’s got momentum going forward. Kevin certainly knows how to inject himself into the fray and promote a political football right down the centre, does the kid from the Eumundi dairy and banana farm of his youth. His team is blessed with an abundance of talent on the bench.
The fireworks are going to fly all the way to an election night cliff-hanger, and we’ll be placing each and every spark under the crucible’s spotlight in an effort to provide a level playing field for the voting men and women of Australia to decide on come Election Day.
Back to you, Russ…..
It would be like this if Ray Warren broadened his palette to include “political commentary”. On a good day, the guy’s a Houdini, when he “dies”, it’s excruciating.
PC – ooooo! Saki! Sredni Vashtar is one of his best stories, and sure to send a shiver up anyone’s spine. I recommend the Chronicles of Clovis as antidote. But stay away from The Open Window and the Easter Egg.
Kate:
Hang in there. Cyclones can be awful and frightening but they do move on.
I have re-installed Firefox and now LP is restored to its former glory. Woo hoo!
Rob, why are you trying to derail a thread about cyclones and Saki, with more prattle about your browser?! What is your *real* agenda?! Why do you hate Saki?!
Enemy Combatant wrote on 10 March 2007 at 6:39 pm:
“It’s all getting terribly messy in the holier than thou political mudfest of the last week or so. Which side will be left with the lowlier halo?”
I’d like to raise my concern about taking”holier than thou” positions on issues in general, which then leads me to be critical of Lavartus Prodeo’s Election Year statement.
Two weeks ago, Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull spoke with the ABC-TV Insiders program and said when commenting on the Labor Party’s attitude to power generation:
“Some of them, like Mr Garrett, would like to have no coal industry. And as far as nuclear power is concerned, not withstanding it is a key option that has to be available, Labor wants to take it off the table for nothing other than ideological reasons.”
It always amuses me when politicians accuse those on “the other side” of the political debate as being ideological.
Even more amusing was when The Australian newspaper, on the cover of Part 12 of its “2026 A vision for the nation’s future” magazine series ran the tag line: “Send in the clones. With the death of ideology, will all politicians start to look the same?”.
Think about that tag line.
The death of ideology???
Since when did that happen or is going to happen?
What…..when “the other side” is finally defeated?
As a first year undergraduate student, I find it amusing how people meant to be more advanced in intellect than me are so quick to resort to any pretext required to declare that “the other side” is the problem and they are the solution!
Please enlighten me people. As soon as you graduate from Uni and get an awesome paying job in a company with over 100 employees, does critical thinking about an issue really matter that much anymore?
Or is it then much, much easier to use the dogma of accusing “the other side” of being the ideological cheer leaders in a debate?
There seems to be a very fine line between people who use dogma because they are not educated about an issue and people who use dogma despite being educated about an issue.
In my opinion, neither person adds much benefit to debate for the undecided voter to consider, yet both types of people impact on the diffusion of political power regardless. It can therefore be assumed that “mudfest debates” like we’ve seen recently are always temptations, however much they spread the “airheadism” written about by author Shelley Gare.
So it may shock people here that I dare to accuse Lavartus Prodeo of resorting to the same sort of dogma in their “election year statement”.
LP claims to be a “non-partisan left wing site” unaligned with any particular non-Coalition party. offering “critical support to campaigns to defeat the right”, with no interest in running a blog which seeks to be a cheerleading platform. It’s political commentary informed by our political positions, but not slanted to supporting the messages and strategies of any party.
Yet such a mission statement leads to the disputable assumption that partisan voters, “the other type of campaign supporter/critic”, are non-critical cheerleaders.
Let me dispute that assumption by letting you know that at a Socialist meeting held at Melbourne’s Trade Hall last weekend, a “non-partisan” socialist declared the Labor Party to be nothing more than a reserve political force in defense of capitalism.
In other words, the more conservative leaning laborite (such as myself) gets wedged in between the non-partisan claim that lefties ought to be………. non-partisan, unlike those cheerleaders on “the other side”.
Yeah, I know LP is a collective effort, but I can assure you, that’s not because of some mission statement. It’s actually due to independent, “individual” thinking creating a group dynamic!
Mission Statement sceptic Jack Trout, together with Al Ries write in the 1981 Warner Book publication”Positioning – the battle for your mind” (page 201):
“As general semanticists have been saying for decades, words don’t contain meanings. The meanings are not in the words. They are in the people using the words.”
Consider that next time you are (once again) informed that ideology or cheer squads only exist on one side of the political fence.
And please consider those many voices that are “wedged” in between the noisy mudfests of the so-called left vs. right culture wars. Otherwise, you risk misreading the mood of the voting public.
…From Justin (sorry again about the length of this article, but I feel everything I’ve written here is important).
Bloody hell, j_p_z, and I thought I was doing the right thing this time.
“Rob, why are you trying to derail a thread about cyclones and Saki, with more prattle about your browser?!”
Probably his idea of a ‘Unrest-cure’.
j_p_z was being ironic, Rob!
Bear Cave, I think you’ve missed the point. We’re quite happy to be partisan as individuals, but the blog (because it contains people from varying political persuasions) is non-partisan left. We also don’t want to give up on analysis and criticism to form a cheer squad for Rudd, or Brown, or whoever. We see our primary mission as contributing to and hopefully enhancing public debate.
You mean, H.H., that most of the killing will be done on the staircase?
JPZ and Rob, this is Saturday Salon, ‘an open thread, where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.’ Including the vicissitudes of one’s browser, about which the people at a blog can do bugger-all to fix.
So I’d just like to mention casually, apropos of f*ck-all, not aiming it at anyone in particular, and if anyone says different I shall scornfully reply that s/he is paranoid and mad, that passive aggression is notoriously difficult to respond to and very easy to deny.
Yes, I know, Kim. So was I, actually.
As for my agenda — only my cat knows my agenda. She is my agenda.
“passive aggression is notoriously difficult to respond to and very easy to deny.”
In fairness, though, it’s also usually pretty darn funny. But ah, I was just joshin’, in a formalist sort of way. Tell you what, next round’s on me.
Bartender! Another three of those behemoth Sapporos! And a bowl of pretzels, a tank of nitrous, and a George Herriman Sunday page!
Now that I’ve sorted out my browser, I have a question someone can probably help me with..
It’s time I upgraded to broadband. I’ve seen the various plans at Ozemail and Testra for such — but can you just go down to Harvey Norman and buy the modem and the phone point gizmo and do it all yourself? Or is there some weird thing you have to rely on the telco or ISP to do for you?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Rob, you need a modem and a line filter at home. They can be supplied by the ISP or you can buy them cheaper at a computer store. The best place to get info about broadband plans in Australia is Broadband Choice.
And in other news Slobodan Milosovec’s corpse was staked through the heart – just in case…
Saw that!
And to think it took four US presidents to make sure the same thing was done to Richard Nixon.
Could it be that Ratty is heading for the same fate? Today’s Herald/Age poll http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/its-going-to-be-a-ruddslide/2007/03/11/1173548022964.html indicates that, despite premature reports that the honeymoon is over, the love still blooms and we may soon have to obtain a restraining order on the jilted ex-lover who continues to leave abusive phone messages:
But Christine! Sinister forces are hiding behind Rudd! Mr Costello said so! Just wait til that “permeates” through to the polls. And wait, and wait, and wait…
Yes Kim. Dark sinister forces do indeed lurk behind
Bill ClintonHillary ClintonJohn Kerrythe person WHO POUNDS BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET IN HIS EVIL FLIP-FLOPS AND WILL DO OR SAY ANYTHING IN PURSUIT OF HIS AMBITION!Nice work at Ms Ove’s place, btw, Ms K:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/coverington/index.php/theaustralian/comments/busy_happy_and_wealthy/
Kim, I really do think it deserves to be printed in its entirety. It’s well up to her usual standard and gives a deep insight to we privileged few about how those less fortunate than ourselves are coping.
Honestly I don’t know how she manages to compose such penetrating insights and raise a family while at the same time being in desperate need of help from self-centred, uncaring, picanninny maidservants.
Good to see commenters in her thread giving her exactly what she deserves. Her psychology is once again revealing – she thinks she’s underpaid to maintain the lifestyle of the opinionated Eastern Suburbs bimbo that she so richly deserves.
FFS!
Yes, it’s all pretty much “Hello world. I’m Caroline Overington and you’re not. Fuck you.”
She’s really a few sausages short of a barbecue.
True, it’s nice, but overrated. For most, I’d pay about $30 the bottle and give a chunky tip (or pat on the head) to the waiter at the restaurant (or small child at the dinner party) if s/he could get the cork out without breaking it.
GH does the job, but so does a $4.50/doz cleanskin. So does the old Chateau Tanunda, breakfast of champignons.
We’re all pretty happy, and getting happier by the alc/vol. I know I am.
Kim on 11 March 2007 at 4:04 pm wrote:
“Bear Cave, I think you’ve missed the point. We’re quite happy to be partisan as individuals, but the blog (because it contains people from varying political persuasions) is non-partisan left.”
Kim, I approve of LP’s primary purpose, but dispute the assumptions made about partisan opinion.
Some of us need to identify as partisan (namely, laborite) not to be cheer leaders, but to produce ideas I believe may sometimes resonate more effectively than a non-partisan position can, depending on the circumstance.
It should also not be assumed that having a partisan position lends support to the one party on every issue. Just as you can be non-partisan left, you can also be non-left laborite.
Only by understanding the person in question, and the context of the debate, will you understand any semantic difference of position.
Kim also wrote:
“We also don’t want to give up on analysis and criticism to form a cheer squad for Rudd, or Brown, or whoever.”
That’s good, but nobody automatically gives up analysis and criticism just because their view happens to coincide with a partisan view. In particular, I agree with Michelle Grattan’s comment in The Age today that:
“Rudd will need lots of gritty policy out to survive the realism test”.
Beyond the current Mud-against-Rudd campaign, I want to see a Kevin Rudd unashamed of the intellect required to simplify complex ideas and relationships – especially Labor’s positions on Industrial Relations and the U.S. Alliance – positions that shouldn’t necessarily be as far left-wing as some would like.
Despite the Howard Government dogma, Kevin Rudd can in fact “walk both sides of street” without the result being a “simplistic solution”.
It’s also just as likely that some non-partisan views can be quite dogmatic – you get this effect very often at socialist meetings, especially when socialists see their role as revolutionary, while regarding democracy as a high risk to their values and perspectives.
…From Justin
If you thought the undead corpse of Slobodan Milosevic was a scary idea, that’s nothing compared to the horror that is the Gospel Mime!!!!
Petro is going after the citizenship test and hopefully that nasty little man who spends too much time on my radio and television.
I just love “The Cook & The Chef” – it’s by far the best cooking show on the teev currently, and is right up there overall. The chemistry between the two of them is a delight to watch.
Saw that this arvo for the first time – good stuff! Still, Iron Chef is the sentimental fave.
Are Aussies really just white trash ?
There was a much remarked upon cover of Asiaweek magazine ( now defunct ) many years ago where the photo showed 3 young drinkers sitting in fold up chairs, thongs, shorts and singlets under the headline – “The white trash of Asia “.
Now the british TV journalists are passing similar comment and there is a rebuttal from Guy Rundle .
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2946/
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2965/
Enjoy.
That’s what’s called having a holiday at the expense of the taxman. Was wondering where he’d got to. Half his luck.
Kim, of course the Iron Chef is unequalled, because it has no competition in its genre!
But Simon & Maggie so obviously enjoy their food and each others company – there’s such a love of life, genuine interest in what they are each doing, gentle ribbing about each other’s foibles and styles.
In some ways, it’s the antithesis of the ugly Australian mentioned above – it’s what being an Aussie should be.
Plus, Maggie makes the only commercial pate in Australia that’s actually edible, so I’m already in love with her.
I’m liveblogging the Broncos/Cowboys game, with a special focus on explaining what the hell is going on to recent immigrants to League states who don’t understand the game – that’s where I found myself 4 years ago.
There must be some Paulian moment in the 4th year – I’ve been here 3 years and it still leaves me cold.