Nice to see Janet Albrechtsen channelling Senator Joe McCarthy this morning.
But don’t take her word for it. In a triple-whammy format that has become rather tired, The Australian’s editorial also lines up for a swing at Sydney University academic John Buchanan, one of the authors of this week’s study into the effects of WorkChoices.
But because it’s a respectable newspaper of record and not the least bit like Pravda, The Australian also published a ‘real’ news story to set out, you know, teh facts. So you can make up your own mind. And to help you do that, we’ve got Janet Albrechtsen and the editor to tell you what your mind is.
Fair dinkum, we’ve reached the point where if an academic were to release a paper saying “the sky is blue”, The Australian would rubbish the finding because the writer wears glasses.
The whole thing is based on a copy of one of Buchanan’s politics in the pub speeches from 2005, which was “uncovered” by Ms. Albrechtsen. The part of the article I most enjoyed was the mental image of The Ironing Lady rifling through the vomit-filled garbage bins of Surry Hills hotels in the wee hours to find the dirt for this epoch-making speech.
It’s been a vintage year for The Australian’s defence of freedom of speech. After giving space to Hookham & MacLennan’s public attack on PhD student Michael Noonan, they’ve followed up with this hatchet-job on John Buchanan, in which what he said two years ago as a private citizen is presented in a manner that would lead a reasonable person to draw an implication of professional misconduct now.
But I wonder, if The Australian is so suspicious of the motives and methods of lefty academics, why is it prepared to accept so much advertising money from universities for the Higher Education supplement? I mean, that money might have been touched by socialists. They could catch something!
I think it’s high time the higher education sector stopped directing advertising dollars (some of it is public money) to a publication that has worked so hard to undermine the reputation of academics, whether individually or as a group. I mean, we all know The Australian has a fiercely independent journalistic team, so there’s no risk that an advertiser boycott would influence their coverage or change their fearless reporting. We needn’t trouble our conscience that an advertiser boycott would in any way influence public debate, no sir.
But why should we continue lemming-like to enrich the media organ that is doing its level best to devalue the currency that is academics’ stock-in-trade: truth and objectivity?
This should all make for a lively colloquium on Thursday 18 October when The Australian’s Higher Education editor Catherine Armitage will be speechifying before the Faculty. We’ll be civil, of course. Someone has to be.
Incredible, and if this doesn’t demonstrate the symbiosis between the GG and the Govt I don’t know what does.
If there is one thing that has marked the rise of the conservative movement world wide over the past 30 years is it’s attack on academia and science. Philistine is one word, thug is another.
Albrechtsen’s piece rightly points out that “Buchanan’s study will stand or fall on its own merits” and adds that “academics Sinclair Davidson and Alex Robson” kicked off that debateâ€?.
Having just told us that Buchanan’s political leanings “raise questionsâ€? about their independence and neutrality, Albrechtsen omits to tell us that Davidson and Robson are among the most right wing leaning academics in the profession. In both cases it should not matter what their political leanings are: true professionals can divorce themselves from their values. I am sure this is true of both Davidson and Robson as it is of Buchanan and his team and until one has done a full analysis, one should give equal credibility to both. Why does Albrechtsen raise questions of professional integrity in one case but not the other?
You are joking of course.
I’m surprised that the question needs asking. Albrechsten is not an independent commentator, but a conservative barracker. That’s fine as far as it goes, but don’t expect any intellectual rigour or consistency.
Gosh, desperate Howardista resorts to ad hominem insinuations.
What a surprise. Could have knocked me down with a feather. Well I never, and goodness gracious me.
PS. Does Ms Albrechtsen still think that Mr Howard should resign as PM, or is that statement no longer operative?
John Buchanan was speaking at the Sydney left political forum. He was hardly going to cite Sun Tzu or Machiaevelli, now was he, though his military/political strategy analogy came, via Mao, from these two much earlier clever gentlemen beloved of today’s managerial class and the Right.
ASIO/The Right are taping Politics in the Pub now, eh? How Stalinist of them.
Well if Janet wasn’t so ridiculous it would be…funny? But it is much much more problematic isn’t it? What in god’s name is happening to the notion of good governance when that governance is based upon the notion of discrediting knowledge & the knowledge economy when its findings do not agree with the thoughts & wishes of the neo-liberals?
How on earth can we expect a government that attacks & degenerates information, analysis and knowledge which happens to call into question its idelological goals, how can we expect such a government to govern in the best interests of all, in the best interests of the future, to govern according to the broadest needs of its citizens, not simply their narrow economic needs?
I interpret all this as a shot across the bows of anyone contemplating suing Hockey and Costello for defamation. It’s a little taster of what they can expect should they be misguided enough to actually launch an action. Howard’s mob and its MSM cheer squad responding to a perceived threat with bullying and intimidation in other words … situation normal then.
Janet’s piece is odd; on one hand, the research must be considered on its merits, and on the second, we have the Public Right to Ask Questions about the political ideology of the people making it.
Consider for a red hot minute what the last 11 years would look like if we were asking this question of all ‘research’ the Government cited. I think its a fine idea, Janet. Let me just go find out who drafted the Gunns environmental report? WHOA HOLY GOD, maybe we should do this all the time, by and by? Come to think of it, Janet, when you were appointed to the board of the ABC, you had to go through a appointment process, did you not? Wasn’t a paper circulated to the other board members concerning your possible contributions? Who wrote that?
Yep — my first thoughts as well.
It will be interesting to see if Buchanan is defended by his University, or by the ARC. The GG and Albrechtsen are basically impugning all researchers in general (since everyone holds an opinion), the process of peer review, and any University research that is funded in part from the private sector.
What’s new in all this? As I recall, Howard began his attack on academe in his first election acceptance speech, if not before. The silly old fart is just dragging the dead cat of political correctness out of the ba g again, and of course GG goes along with it.
Adele Horin has given the Hockey Memorial Pool scenario a bit of thought/research, Ken. Looks a bit difficult and costly you would have to say. It would be good to have a ‘limited go’, with say, one of the four academics attempting to prove how their livelihood has been “impaired”. All worked out after the election , of course. Like a show trial.
Andrews and Hockey remind me of ‘last try’ grand final players , facing a loss, punching out at everybody, coz it won’t matter once the big game is over , anyway; second rate bonecrushers.
Link to great SMH report by Horin and relevant quote below.
[link]
“The authors have consulted defamation lawyers. Their threat is probably ineffectual. “Jolly” Hockey has nothing personal to lose but an election, and possibly his own seat. But their instinct is understandable in view of how Hockey vilified another academic, Professor David Peetz, of Griffith University, whose findings on Work Choices had also displeased him. Unchecked by legal threat, Hockey continued to assert untruths and distortions about Peetz long after Peetz had set the record straight. Peetz is a tenured academic. Hockey can threaten his reputation but not his livelihood.”
The dynamic duo Davidson and Robson popped up in the Australian recently attempting to rubblish modelling of climate change mitigation by Monash university academics.
Those two certainly are Renaissance Men - experts on climate change one day, workplace relations the next. And Davidson also claims expertise on tax policy.
These two are obviously destined for greatness, since they apparently know everything about everything. Only a terrible cynic would claim that they are the Australian’s pet right wing economists for hire, ready to comment on anything, as long as that commentary has the necessary conservative flavour.
Janet, in her blog article says:
Indeed!
What are we to think of a member of the Board of the ABC who nails her own political colors to the mast?
When I am Prime Minister, I will nationalise Teh Australian and then flog it off to independent local operators with functioning brains, in whose hands it will be required to stay. Vote Me!
It ain’t that sinister — the full transcript is up on the “Politics In The Pub” web site:
[link]
Dunno how this publicly available transcript can be termed as “uncovered by The Australian’s columnist Janet Albrechtsen” per the GG report about “exposing” the academic. I think the GG likes to give the impression of cunning fedora journalamism ferreting out secret transcripts, but the actuality is far more banal.
Like whoever it was on The Insiders not long ago who breathlessly exposed the shock/horror ’secret’ TWU industry fund that had been described in detail in publicly available documents since 2003.
WorkhouseChoices is soooooo on the nose if this gets out I think sales of Mao Tse Tung thought are gonna go thru the freakin’ roof! Do the Maoists still run bookstores?
Fred Argy says:
“In both cases it should not matter what their political leanings are: true professionals can divorce themselves from their values.”
We are no more capable of being divorced from our values than water is capable of being divorced from wetness.
Anyway, thank God hardly anyone bothers to read “The Australian”.
JinM - Only Gould’s in Newtown survives
The Australian newspaper to me is like Hugh Mackay a person of the Left who thinks of himself as a social Scientist,but, everytime I read him ,I cannot find one plausible real fact.I suppose there are no plausible real facts,if social scientists like Hugh Mackay rarely treat them as the reason to reason.So if you are like the Editor, and reality can be distorted by what you may think it to be..it follows that reality isnt what can be predetermined by those who will follow method to assess method and what it may have collated. Try it, finding plausible real facts in Mackay s newspaper writings ,and, if the Editor mentions methods and collating!?
I actually knew John Buchanan in a previous existence. He’s outrageously political. Possibly a Stalinist. Do you know he even called his dog “Nelson” after Nelson Mandela?
Good gracious, I almost had a fainting spell when I was told.
*has sudden attack of vapours*
I think the breed in question may have even been one of those vicious, should-be-banned Silky Terriers.
*collapses on handy nearby couch. Proclaims: “Bring me some salts, quickly?!”*
She’s just another News Ltd. hack. The puppet master jerks the strings & she dances.
The public are suspicious of Work Choices…plenty don’t like it. Get over it Janet!…I mean Rupert.
The phobia of Maoists is such a pile of pigeon droppings…it’s all about paying less taxes, more Corporate Welfare, privatisation of public services in order to buy shares & asset accumulation by way of manipulating the story from West to East.
Tho sometimes I reckon Rupert thinks he’s here to save the World from the nasty commies (I wonder if he dreams of electric red sheep?…i’m sure Woody Allen could point him to a good therapist)…& Janet is just another one of his mouthpieces…like O’Reilly & Hannity you hear the words “activist judges” & “loony Left” erupt from their mouths whenever the trend isn’t heading in their Master’s direction.
It must be confusing for him to see Libertarians like Alex Jones giving his news outlets the middle finger. But when you stomp on enuff toes that’s what yer gonna get. Most people really don’t dig media moguls who act like Daleks…or Big Brother. Some people fear his grab for power & assets as much as they do the new Chinese Totalitarian order…
I wonder if John (Man of Steel aka ‘Deputy Decider’) Howard will ever hand him over his suit?…so oneday we can gaze up at Rupert as he peers out of his NY penthouse & chant…”there he is, our hero, in his never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!”
We brought John Buchanan up here some time ago for a workshop on bridging skills gaps. He is big on establishing a workplace policy environment in which employers and employees first understand each other’s perspectives as a basis for negotiating mutually beneficial outcomes, ie enterprise bargaining, more or less.
It results in higher productivity, it seems.
In a workshop kind of environment he’s no socialist firebrand but neither is he apologetic about what he thinks works.
Had to laugh at the GG’s breathless front page news that Buchanan is “a socialist”. BOO.
Anyone who shoots their mouth off at Politics at the Pub over a few beers better be very careful from now on. The Liberal Dirt Unit is obviously passing their research on to the intellectuals at the GG.
I find it hard to believe that Janet the Dick Swinger spends her time scanning the PATP website for the juicy bits. Surely not. She has much more important work to do, like slagging off at High Court judges and sneering at Kevin Rudd as a “girly-boy”.
Someone really ought to tell poor Janet that she does not have a dick to swing.
Really you lot are just so predictable, an academic report on IR , which has been touted as being an even-handed look at the subject is clearly shown to be the product of a political obsessive from the left, and one who advocates Maoist tactics at that.
Talk about leftist denial, you lot have it in spades!!!
.
Never mind, Iain Hall,
I’m sure you can find minds sympathetic to your view elsewhere.
Myself, I remember that Joe Hockey first sought to misrepresent by omission the sources of research funding.
Suggest you find a copy of the research paper and don’t rely on Ms. Albrechsten’s spin to form an opinion.
Iain Hall,
What exactly is your point about the report - oh, I’m sorry you haven’t read it and you don’t have a point !!
So what to do to support Deputy Dawg? I know an ignorant attack on one of the 4 authors, that’ll show ‘em damn akademiks, who they think they are ?? They fink i give a flying f**k about statistics and facts. Not this little chicken. They’re all Socialists, Stalinists, red mongrel dogs that’ll drag us into the gutter (sorry, just have to wipe the spittle from my lower lip). What we need is less thinkin and none of your backchat - SOCIALISTS !!!
Buchanan has tried to enjoy being seen as independent in order to avoid criticism, and obviously strongly resents it when someone dares to question his motives. When he says of his left views that “using this against me in my professional life is an attack on the freedom of speech”, he is in fact resenting the rights of others to exercise free speech. When you enter the political fray with a hatchet job on the Government, and try to disguise yourself as independent, you deserve to be exposed as the phoney that you are.
And BTW, there’s a BIG difference between being criticised in an open and democratic society and McCarthyism.
At the end of the day, this academic has joined the political fray by deliberately misleading the public in presenting himself as independent. There’s nothing wrong with his radical left leanings being exposed afterwards.
There are three reasons this report is clearly not independent, conrtrary to Buchanan’s claims:
1) study was parly funded by Unions NSW
2) timing coincides strongly with election.
3) Buchanan is a socialist.
By questioning the rights of others to question Buchanan’s integrity and impartiality, you are also calling into question free speech.
shame.
Most erudite and hands-down fascinating comment on GG blog on John Buchanan piece- comments running 75% per cent against Janet A.
The comments (and the Albrechtsen article) claiming that the report is “biased” rest on false premises. If you have a properly designed survey instrument, and ask the right questions, and do all the tests you should do for reliability and validity, then the data are valid regardless of any motivations or personal views the researchers might have. To suggest the contrary is to fundamentally mis-understand the nature of social research.
Good researchers - whatever their personal politics - are normally very curious folk and happy to have unexpected results and have their preconceptions disproved as well as confirmed.
As Andrew Norton (who as most will know is both a Fellow of the right wing thinktank the CIS and a Liberal Party member) notes, much of the data in the report runs contrary to the views normally put forward by unions:
[link]
Conversely, a very large survey of over 8000 respondents came to some conclusions regarding the relatively disadvantaged position of workers on AWAs compared to those on collective agreements. That’s a fact. You may wish to interpret it differently from the authors, but you can’t wish a fact away by claiming “bias”.
John Buchanan’s academic credentials and reputation as far as I am aware are impeccable. His (and other colleagues with a similar longevity in this area) painstaking work around issues of industrial wages and conditions has been drawn on and used by other peer-reviewed researchers, federal and state government policy and NGO workers in IR, and anti-discrimination policy for at least 15 years that I am aware of, though I am told longer.
As most of the commentators on the GG blog response to Janet A’s piece have asked, with no cogent reply from anyone, where is the bias exactly in this research, how is the methodology flawed, or distorted? Of course, it isn’t any of these things.
But desperate times, desperate people: They know no bounds. And are shameless.
Yes, jinmaro, Buchanan is very widely respected because of the quality of his work.
I hope he and his colleagues do sue. I’d gladly donate towards legal costs.
Mark is right.
Claims of intellectual bias/conspiracy/red menace are generally strengthened if you can point to a single flaw in the research.
I certainly wouldn’t support a lawsuit though.
I don’t think the whole “I’m going to sue you because you said something not nice about me” is a culture we should be supporting.
If she said something factually incorrect, maybe.
Jeez Leon, ministers of the crown sued for defamation might have bottomless pockets courtesy of the taxpayer but who’s going to pay your legal costs?
I seriously think it’s time a few writs started being issued … not just about this incident. More and more people seem to think that the anonymity of the intertubes allows them to make whatever wild defamatory statements they feel like, just to give their favourite chip on the shoulder a workout. Blog threads should not become a forum for mindless character assassination.
David, I’m referring the the mooted lawsuit from Buchanan et al against Hockey and Costello. I’m not sure what you think I was talking about.
This sort of thing, aside from being repulsive bullying and the worst sort of political “debate”, would have the potential to adversely affect the ability of Sydney’s Workplace Research Centre to attract further grant funding and consultancies. But more broadly, it’s time someone took a stand against this rabble in the government.
Ah ok Mark. I mistook what you meant. I thought you were saying he should sue JA/GG.
Sorry about that.
You might find that the High Court’s Lange decision would limit his ability to do so. That decision, mentioned favourably in Roach , would probably give Hockey protection from a defamation action by Buchanan, who has after all, in publishing his report, entered into the sphere of political debate, not to mention that if he commences the action before the election is called the Government will give Hockey a binding indemnity thus bringing Ken’s point about bottomless pockets into play. Then, if he loses, you can be sure that they will pursue him for costs, which would be considerable.
You can be sure, Mark, that if Buchanan sues all of the premises you have stated will be exhaustively examined with him while he is in the witness box by some very capable defamation lawyers. I think he would find the experience unpleasant. As Mao observed of revolution, litigation is not a dinner party.
Still the findings of his research should not be controversial. The whole point of the WorkChoices legislation was to reduce low level wages. He has undertaken research which shows that it has. Hockey should be thanking him for producing evidence showing the success of government policy, not criticising him for doing so.
It’s a standard tactic. An peer-reviewed study emerges that casts doubt on the cause. They can’t attack the methodology or conclusions, so attack the messenger.
But knee-jerk character assassination is not the ultimate strategy. The required outcome is to get the media to label the report or the authors as “controversial”. Pointing out that such criticism is irrelevant, or lacking in intellectual rigour, is necessary, but pointless. The GG is spreading FUD.
Once the “controversial” tag is applied, then the study is doomed. It’s a hook to allow people to to summarily dismiss the study, without worrying about the underlying logic.
Either that or the GG is trying to build their own antipodean Ward Churchill. Gotta get someone to Boo! Hiss! at, to call on Kevin Rudd to denounce, etc.
No probs, David.
GregM, yes, I’ve seen some commentary suggesting that the chances of success in an action wouldn’t be great. I do think Buchanan would be fine under cross-examination.
Well indeed. But Hockey engages in all sorts of ludicrous rhetoric rather than defend the policy on the grounds of its effects and its intention.
What about Buchanan’s co-author? She too has been defamed, and has no background in leftist politics.
I’m fascinated by the last sentence of Leon’s blog post on Buchanan - now one of my favourite quotes on Facebook:
How are we supposed to parse that?
I don’t know but it may be part of the weird-assed right appropriation of George Orwell perhaps?
I heard Piers Ackerman on Insiders this morning saying that two other academics had questioned Dr Buchanan’s work, and therefore this made his work “questionable”. One of the other panelists pulled him up on this and Piers pulled his horns in just a little.
You can’t really argue with people on a vendetta. They’ll twist the language whichever way they can to get their grubby results.
I hope Buchanan and co sue. Unfortunately the court case would happen after the election, so at this stage, why should Hockey or Costello care? Indeed they are perverse and petulant enough to try to turn the issue around to eke some electoral advantage from it.
Ah - so Leon identifies with the pigs in Animal Farm. Got it.
That was my supposition!
GregM, Hockey would not be able to use the Lange defence, because it has a number of tests, and his comments fail them.
Also, having seen Hockey’s pathetic attempt to explain himself when Kerry O’Brien queried him on the 7:30 Report, I think Hockey would dread cross-examination in a court. I think Hockey would fold if Buchanan pushed this.
Stupid question but what happens if the Libs lose the election and then Buchanan decides to sue?
Erudite? From someone who claims to have studied Latin to matric level and uses Fabian as a noun! Perhaps he/she also enjoyed Pygmalion by George Bernard Shavian, or Hamlet by William Shakespearean.
It’s probably a Freudian slip from Dee of Darling Downs.
He or she was probably thinking of the social-democratic Fabian Society - for very good reasons too in this context, since this organisation took its name from the aforementioned Quintus Fabius Maximus who studied at the same school militarily as Sun Tzu who was studied by Mao, who was quoted by a social-democrat or socialist John Buchanan in Sydney 2007.
Petty snark about a minor slip of language - assuming it is a slip in language. The zenith of conservative commentary on this topic!
These days Fabian is a proper noun. This Wikipedia entry might prove of interest too, Herr Chancellor Pocket-Battleship. I hope it doesn’t distract you too much from your readings of GB Shavius.
Gummo
Yes, petty snarks about minor slips of language are unedifying, but my justification is that at least my snark was correct! Anyway, I have no dog in this fight and certainly am not aiming to parlay my skepticism about the erudition of Dee of the Darling Downs into some rolling counter-attack (with which caution Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator would concur). Incidentally, the Verrucosus in his name derived from a wart on his lip. Amusing people, those Romans.
Guess he was a warts and all type of man, eh Bismarck. You’d be a great asset at trivia nights.
By questioning the rights of others to question those questioning Buchanan’s integrity and impartiality, you are also calling into question free speech.
shame.
Another interesting aspect of what’s going on here is how Albrechtsen is trying to dig herself out of the hole she created for herself. She and Bolt wrote about a month ago that it’s time Howard retired - not for anything he’s done, because they supported everything he ever said, thought or did. Albrechtsen has turned and the Howards and Abbotts of this world are keeping lists of names. If she backpedals she’s gone, but she’s trying everything else to show she’s toeing the line and will never, ever divert from Teh Official Line on anything ever again, ever, please give me a chance PLEEEZ!!!!!
Makes me laugh, it does. Nothing personal Janet: once a dingo …
You’ve heard the case already have you? That’s very efficient.
These things are rarely so black and white that one could readily conclude that Hockey could not use the Lange defence. On my reading of Lange Hockey would have an arguable case. That’s not to say he would be successful, but it would keep a number of QCs and SCs occupied arguing on the topic as their fees piled up.
In any event it would be heard long after the election is held.
It’s an interesting case but Lange v ABC is not the only precedent:
[link]
In Lange v ABC:
I would suggest in the light of all the case law, that Hockey’s implied constitutional rights are non-existent in his comments re the academics.
I’d say Hockey was reckless, unreasonable, (Theophanous) and he has no personal right (by Lange) to have those comments protected.
The implied right refers logically in the vast majority of actual cases to individuals criticising pollies and being subject to state defamation laws. Here we have a pollie prima facie allegedly defaming individuals– another kettle of fish entirely, notwithstanding his rights as a private citizen.
Trackback.
The editors at “The Australian” and Albrechtson [for whom facts have never stood in the way of her pronouncements] put such store on the background of Buchanan and his fellow researchers in order to attempt to [rather pathetically] undermine conclusions, which anybody knows to be accurate, and based upon a very large sample, that “Work Choices” screws workers. The fact that Buchanan - who was once a workplace delegate [such a nasty thing to do, representing your fellow workers, or to have an opinion at odds with Albrchtson’s Ayn Randian authoritarianism] - was enough to make it a front page issue. Yet when free labour market advocate, Prof. Mark Wooden, criticised the report [underplaying the size of the sample] there was no such concern. Why? Wooden has done a large amount of commissioned work for the Business Council.
When will intellectual honesty become the norm in “The Australian’s” coverage of public policy issues? Perhaps they could look for a model to the ethics that most academics subscribe to in analysing the data revealed by their research, whether surprising or not. We don’t expect that from the likes of Hockey, Costello or Howard, whose methods are Goebbles-like in their iteration of statements that fly in the face of the facts. And “The Australian” provides their ideological affirmations much misguided comfort.
The BCA is a powerful ruthlessly ideological extremist organisation and has been so from the Hawke era when it oversaw the ultimately successful attack on the centralised arbitration system carried out by the Hawke/Keating ALP governments.
SerfChoices is as much the BCA’s creation as anyones, so not surprising one of its hired guns would go for longstanding opponents of its sadistic anti-worker machinations and spin such as the authors of this ACIRRT report.
Too late, Prof Wooden, mate.
Bismarck: “(with which caution Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator would concur).”
Yeah, I too always loved the cognomen “Cunctator.” It makes it sound like he was doing something deliciously naughty (when in fact he was only doing something wise and boring), but of course it’s just a trick of translation into our wonderfully guttural Germanic-derived tongue. (”Tongue!’ say it with me!, “tongue!” Now say Chinese “tong!” which means something else entirely! Don’t you just love planet earth?)
I always feel the same way when reading Burton Watson’s lovely but formally inaccurate translations of Su Tung-p’o and Po Chu-i. (disclosure: Su Tung-P’o is one of my totally favorite poets, in any language! Buy that man a drink!) Well, as they say in Bensonhurst, Whaddaya gonna do.
“If I’d been in Berlin in
1930, would I have seen you,
ambling the streets like
Krazy Kat?
– Oh yes.
…You’d have seen all of us
masquerading. Chipper,
but not so well arranged. Air-
ing old poodles and pre-war
furs in narrow shoes
with rhinestone bows.
Silent, heavily perfumed.
Black around the eyes. You
wouldn’t have known who
was who, though. Those
were intricate days.”
– Frank O’Hara, “The Threepenny Opera”