Few Complaints over Chaser song:
According to a report by News Limited this morning, irate viewers called ABC to complain about the song and talkback radio had also been inundated with comments.
But Taylor said he was not aware of a large number of complaints.
“As of 10 minutes ago, there had only been six official calls to the ABC [about the song], and three were to say congratulations,” he said.
“The song was intending to make a point about people who are flawed in life who are disproportionately hailed as saints in death.
I thought there was also more than a little underlining of just how our defamation laws constrain comment while people we privately think are [insert epithet here] are still living. (This is not to say that defamation suits shouldn’t exist for the defence of reputations, just that they are known to have been overused by certain litigious personalities. There aren’t that many people who want to end up paying for the latest household renovations of those we excoriate.)
For those of you who missed it, the video is after the cut. Fair warning: the lyrics are definitely Not Safe For Some Workplaces.
Brilliant! Boy the wowsers are out in full force on this one. I see even Howard and Rudd have agreed (surprise)and said it was bad taste. The truth hurts.
The Chaser chaps must love it that people will take offence to anything these days (Summer Heights High must be revelling in it as well). Mmmm, it might be the nostalgia talking but were the 1980s a much more fruitful time for satire?
I would say it’s not offensive (haven’t seen it – no TV and can’t watch YouTube at this moment).
How very unlike talkback radio.
He was very rude about Cynthia Lennon.
The rest was great.
The “only say nice things about the dead” meme gives me the screaming willies. I thought Joh Bjelke-Petersen was a corrupt autocrat as a Premier. My assessment of his premiership didn’t change one iota when he died, and Peter Beattie praising him was nauseating even if politically savvy.
Robert Merkel wrote:
Peter may well be possessed by Joh’s ghost Robert – it certainly seemed that way at times during his premiership.
In questionable taste yes, but it was also brilliant! (very reminiscent of Tom Lehrer). I’ve watched it three times now and I’m still laughing. I hope John Howard and Kevin Rudd were also able to enjoy a discreet chortle when the cameras stopped rolling.
Interesting that both Howard and Rudd felt the need to condemn it.
Presumably the song was very offensive to that key demographic, the doctors’ wives.
Thanks for the opportunity to be offended tigs – missed it last night.
I’ve heard of one or two embarrassing funerals where nobody was able to come up with a good word to say about the dear departed. Saddest story of all – from a health worker – that of the mother of a “hard man” who confessed to her – with some shame – that her strongest feeling after he died was one of relief.
And oh, for at least one politician who’s got the guts to come out and say, publicly, that Hansen nailed Packer and Zemanek. (But maybe not John Lennon, although I am prepared to admit that at no time in his career did he produce a key change as seminal as that in the ninth bar of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear us Apart). That link would be totally off-topic if the key-change weren’t the work of another brilliantly dead rocker, Ian Curtis.
Some of the finest segway work I have ever witnessed
BRAVO! (stands up from cubicle and applauds)
That was quite seriously brilliant.
I thought the song was a great comment on the way that dead people are idolised.
The only bit that I didn’t really like was the comment on Princess Di, not because I’m a fan of hers (I’m not, and I fully agree that the hype over her death went way too far), but because they resorted to the misogynist tactics of criticising her sex life and calling her a slut (which they did not do for any of the men, although there would have been ample fodder if they had chosen to do so). Who she had sex with has nothing to do with whether or not she deserved the accolades she received in death (unless she’d been a hypocrite about her sex life or something, which as far as I can tell, she was not– and even if she was, they wouldn’t need to call her a slut to call her out on it).
Other than that though, I got a good laugh.
Gummo, have you heard of the new movie that’s coming up that claims to be a biopic of Ian Curtis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_(2007_film)
I think it starts in this country shortly.
Gold!
Loved it.
Might not agree with every line but they were put together beautifully.
Nearly got sucked into the idea of putting it onto my to see list Darlene, until I caught the word “Manchester” in the plot summary. Today’s a bit of a “Manchester – a great place to come from and then bloody well forget” day.
Thanks for the
hat tipheads up though.(Edited by GT at 7:03 – what a bloody malapropism that was)!
I wasn’t offended and I love bad taste but I don’t think the song was as gorgeous as everyone else seems to think. It was a great idea and nice tune but I think the names they chose were the wrong ones. This made the song sloppy and ineffectual in my book.
Zemanek was absolutely the right name however Lennon,Lady Di, Steve Irwin etc were much loved and their names don’t really fit the idea of the song. It seems to me that (as usual) the Chaser go for the cheap shock rather than following a point through and actually saying something.
There was an excellent piece in the Oz on the weekend criticising the Chaser for being faux satire and lightweight and this song does nothing to revise my agreement with the article.
I’d like to see the Chaser get some real satirists on the writing team. I’d also like to see them have a few women on the show. I’d also like a pony.
“The only bit that I didn’t really like was the comment on Princess Di”
That was one the best parts. Arab semen stains on her dress, indeed.
It’s a pity they couldn’t fit a line or two about Claire Oliver in the song. Maybe next time.
Well, Howard and Rudd were offended!
John Howard was offended?!
Surely not.
Wasn’t St John the slayer of the political correctness beast?
Another rodential Damascus Road trip or another non core commitment?!
Anyone ready to second my nomination of that ditty for an Aria award?
Many thanks for the video, tigtog. The ABC site has mysteriously taken it down and disabled the ability to download the episode.
I’ve read that criticism of The Chaser frequently – mostly from Jim Schembri in the Green Guide. Unfortunately, I can’t lay my hands on my copy of the Penguin Classics edition of Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary because it includes a neat little refutation from an acknowledged master of the craft.
The interesting thing about Schembri on The Chaser is that his “The Chaser is not real satire” pieces all rely on examples of real satire that come from overseas. It suggests that Schembri prefers his satire to be about the manifest failings of other societies. Or if you’re going to satirise Australians, pick targets Jim’s comfortable with.
Since I’ve not read the Oz piece, I won’t comment any further. Oh well one parting shot – this “It’s only a flesh wound” response isn’t adequate as a retort to Hansen’s song. It’s the genuine article – real, wounding, thought-provoking satire.
In sticking up for the dead Howard was protecting his best electoral demographic.
Dunno why Rudd went me-too on this one.
Yer the ABC has some shows like chasers not to be missed by posters that hit this bog, sorry blog.
John Lennon’s nutbag wife could just as easily be Yoko, in fact more like it.
I was listening to Peter Ford doing Showbiz news on 6PR and he was frothing at the mouth cos they badmouthed his beloved Stan Z – heck even Mike Carlton got stuck into him on the day of his funeral.
Also, Ford obviously was too upset to realise that as soon as Andrew mentioned Belinda, the rest of the gang stopped him continuing.
I think Howard was offended cos it mentioned his hero Don Bradman and LIberal Party Supporter and possibly Donor Steve Irwin.
The sound you are hearing now is the joke flying over your head.
It provoked a response from Today Tonight which ran a piece with responses from *Bev Brock, Bradman’s son and Steve price on behalf of Zemanek. All saying the same thing: They wouldnt have the guts to say that while they were alive, or while stan had his head shaved fighting cancer, whatever.
I think a good old fashioned segment of moral outrage on TT is a sign of good satire, which has made its point.
*I would like it if someone could please remove Bev Brock from commercial tv. She seems to have become a fixture who appears as an expert witness on her boring husband’s pecadillos with alarming regularity. But then I would also like it if I could do some Irish dancing with Michael Flatley but thats not going to happen either, i suppose.
Ooo, the truth hurts, oh how people hate it. Brilliant. Certainly a nod to Tom Lehrer. Bloody clever. I’ll certainly second that Meself.
I like it so much I’m stealing it. One for the archives.
With apologies to Brooks: if it’s going to be satire it should be about you falling into an open sewer and dying.
Guts maybe. But you have to admire their consistency in choosing dead people in a song about dead people.
Good to see Mike Carlton on ACA stick up for the Chasers – and of course the omnipresent Mrs Brock was there practising her best hypocrisy by saying the Chaser do it to get free publicity – yet what does SHE do every time she gets on the box. And Peter Ford – spare me you gormless twit.
Reticence about the peccadilloes and hypocrisies of cashed up bastards who’ll lawyer up for a defo action at the least suggestion that they’re not the paragons of whatever it they profess to be paragons of, is simple prudence.
I think that a lot of it was really “too close to the bone” and had me gasping that they were saying it. I applaud them for the courage in pointing out the terrible way that we turn bad people into saints for dying.
The whole point of it was shown by the way the team reacts when Hansen starts to mention Belinda Emmett, here was someone we all think we know to be good and no-one in this world has said a bad thing about – it is really about the sh*ts of this world.
Cringed a couple of times. No offence taken. Stepping over the line comes with their territory. That’s what Court Jesters do.
Plastic Druid and Caroline: picked up on Tom Lehrer too, but got lots of Noel Coward as well.
We’ll see how it stacks up against 24 Hour Party People and Velvet Goldmine.
On a related note, in the aftermath of the Ben Cousins drug arresst, Channel 9 Perth last night released the toxicolgy report of the late Chris Mainwaring, which revealed that he had a cocktail of both legal and illegal drugs and alcohol in his system when he died.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22605859-2761,00.html
Howard Sattler pointed out the hypocrisy on the rest of the media being reluctant to report this, while at the same time covering Cousins down to the last inch.
Several of the talkback callers expressed outrage thnat Chris should “be left to rest in peace” etc etc.
It seems the Chaser have suffered the same thing in the don’t talk about the dead.
Yes. But also by inferring that the piece was cowardice on behalf of the Chaser guys, these defenders of the dead can hide behind the moral outrage it invokes while avoiding the very real insights the satire offered into our own Australian psyche. There is something quite strange in the recent hagiographic exercises undertaken in Australia where some celebrities are concerned. I suspect it results from years of Howard’s valorisation of the iconic aspects of Australian identity (mateship, bushman, sport, war hero, larrakin), that these people hook into. The sanctification of Irwin was particularly revolting. As was Zemanek’s (amazingly transformed by death into a loveable larrakin).
Anyway, some of this satirical commentary has already been offered by Germaine Greer. Her most recent efforts refigure Diana as a devious moron who slept with married men. And my very fav, her contribution to the death of Steve: Revealing how the animal world had its revenge on Irwin for the years of prodding and poking them.
But, what about his Grandad! For a singer with a chin like a Bonds underwear character, one must find out if his Grandad was that bad!? And , of, course, humor is in the ears of the beholder!? It well doesnt have to be stated if it hasnt happened to you yet, parental and grandparental deaths really will leave people with mixed feelings,and life and its observations, may invariable lead to thinking the grandgrumps and parents were ok in hindsight. After all his grandfather wasnt the Chesty Bonds influence in cartoon form after his Phantom suit was removed. But what a coincidence this occurs on the Teev whilst a baby in a suet case is found in a lake!? The coincidence is the living singer isnt drowning in death!? Or was it a grand pa era… go jump into the Lake!? And the death of Diana isnt an outcome of years of testing the world s masculinity ,but serious questions are now being asked, like the 9/11 event as to the durability of previous senses of conclusion!? Hopefully, as a passing philosophy to remind us ,we werent born yesterday. Yesterday, when I was young, the taste of life was like rain upon the tongue………
Well that was jolly good fun. But down the track, at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, it will be as tame as Gordon Chater’s flower arrangement sketch on the Mavis Bramston show. Wowsers will always shove their stupid blue noses into kulcha and that is what makes it fun.
Having said that, in the fullness of time, Lenny Bruce’s item on what Lyndon Johnson did on the plane bringing back John Kennedy’s body back to Washington is still to be topped on taste vis a vis the deceased.
PS. I thought Shaun Micaleff’s Newstopia was a bit off pace last nite. Can do better. A wasted opportunity.
In my not humble opinion the funniest political satire is coming to us in print, from the vitriolic pen of Annabel Crabb.
I got a right bollocking from the sanctimonious pricks for the Kerry Packer hagiography Aussie battler who Made Good dies suddenly and unexpectedly of his ninth heart attack, and they’ll never forgive me for daring to criticise Greg Sheridan tastelessly using an obituary of his grandfather to argue political points on The Australian‘s opinion page.
Hansen’s point is valid: if you’re going to controversially turn someone into a saint after death, it’s more than fair for rational voices to contradict you.
The Chaser sometimes has annoyed me in that some of their “stunts” aren’t really anything satirical and just rely on embarrassing members of the general public. It is lazy television. I prefer it much more when, as in the now infamous songs, they take aim at the foibles of politics, media and society directly.
Yes, Stan Zemanek has family and friends that loved him, but his career was made out of being a vile, ignorant bully. He should be remembered by his public persona and not, after death, have that conveniently ignored. Good on Mike Carlton for not being a hypocrite.
The song was hilarious although a little uncomfortable at times, but satire does need to push limits. The Chaser’s point has been well made in the ensuing bleating of fragile egos on TT and ACA.
Thanks Sir Henry for mentioning Newstopia.
Firstly, it is just great to have Shaun Micallef back with his own show. Secondly, the second episode was an improvement on the first. Still some uneven moments but the show if finding its legs. One improvement needed is a live audience for some atmosphere. I hope SBS let the show evolve as there are plenty of potential.
Of course, the best news comedy show is still The Daily Show.
I’d say the Colbert Report. And when are we going to get those on free to air here?
Shaun Micallef is the funniest man on OZ TV in the last decade.
Much though I love the Chaser boys, this is hardly an original point. Marlon Brando’s Mark Antony hid his smirk behind his hand following the line ‘…the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft’ interred with their bones’.
It will be some time before they can again scale the lofty heights of the APEC ambush, and they miss the more pointed satire of Charles Firth.
‘…the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft’ interred with their bones’.
Isn’t this the precise reverse of what the Chaser song said?
Nice to see the song getting support, but I have a vague memory of many on this site getting all choked up when Irwin died. I hope I’m confusing it with somewhere else…
Of cource i was offended, but that was the point wasn’t it,
Jeremy
the LA times is saying that viacom has put up every minute of the Daily Show on this site
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
i havn’t had a chance to check it out yet.
Dylwah
John Howard on his morning walk, when confronted by the Chaser boys, was not impressed with the song. He told them to “stop picking on the dead”. Devastating comeback that it was, it wasn’t clear if he was referring to himself as he powerwalked past them with that cat ass mouth of disaproval he does so well.
No doubt about it. The man’s a frggin’ genius.
Also great to see The Chaser rediscovering satire. I think that Hanson seems less eager to please than the rest of them, which is a good thing when it comes to the edge that good satire requires.
I think there are plenty who are better than the Chaser, but very few who have managed to get the reactions they have in this political climate. Their undergrad humour is hit and miss, often not very funny. Sometimes it sucks like when they get fragile old men to stand up for them on busses and give over disabled seats. But their politicised satire, when it works, manages to successfully attack conservative reactionary elements of Aus culture in a way that has not happened for a while. For that alone, I think they are very good.
What Beppie said
Don’t forget, if you missed NEWStopia you can still watch it online. Legally, even.
The last thing NEWStopia needs is a laugh track. A laugh track would turn it from a spoof news show into a spoof talk show.
Also, I think it owes a lot more to the underrated Backberner than to the Daily Show or the Colbert Report.
Only one thing worried me about the Chaser song, especially after seeing JWH’s reaction this morning on his power walk. That pollies of all persuasions will continually use it to silence or blunt their satire during an election campaign.
Also, they left out Phar Lap.
The Chaser is being repeated tonight at 11.20 p.m. Let’s hope it’s not censored.
In fact I just read over the sickening saccharine pap that is the Steve Irwin thread (130 comments, 90% of them saying “don’t speak ill of the dead” and “he was a great bloke”); I also did a search for the word “scum” on larvatus prodeo and found only one thread with the word “scum” in the title, about people trying to profit from poor stevie’s memory. Apparently invading Iraq, throwing kiddies overboard, or dangling your kiddy in front of a crocodile doesn’t qualify for a post with “scum” in the title; but trying to rort people after poor Stevie’s death gets you that honour.
So in this case I think the Chaser’s satire was pointed here as much as anywhere else.
From my own experience SG, many people who engaged with this idea of Steve Irwin, Saint of Australia Zoo did so because they had young children who were very very affected by his death. Many of my friends felt moved by his death precisely cause their children had been devastated by the news.
so, they became a little uncritical of the hagiographic nonsense that went on, cause you know, their kids were crying about it.
I don’t necessarily agree with that statement, Casey, but I can see where you’re coming from. I would add that when one tries new things not all of them work. Watched any original Monty Python episodes recently?
No, I havent done that Plastic Druid. When the Chaser gets it right they are pretty spot on. Like that song they did “Stairway to Kevin” – very funny.
A pleasant enough little Leheresque ditty but like most attempts at real satire it only scores a glancing blow on what should be the real target – in this case the feedback loop between media hagiography and an overstimulated, atomised and media-saturated society fed a constant diet of overmanufactured cultural archetypes.
Paul Krassner actually. And what added extra satrical topspin was that he pitched it as a deleted extract from Manchester’s ‘Death of a President’ and that what LBJ was up to was not just simple Texas-style exuburent glee and revenge but served a functional purpose as well – enlarging the entry wound from the Grassy Knoll to make it look like an exit wound from the Book Depository. In satire, as in so much else, the Devil is the logical details.
Rilly SG? I just did too. It bears very little resemblance indeed to the description you came up to support your rather desperate little playground “gotcha!”. All I can say is that as a satirist, you make a great hagiographer.
I think this is partly true but is also further evidence of how culturally adrift we are and value confused. The day we take our spiritual and ethical guidance from children (below the age of reason) is the day we may as well pull the plug as a species.
Beam me up Scotty. Now!
Casey I can understand invoking crying kiddies to defend a little slipshoddiness here and there, but in this case… the first thing that sprang to my mind when I found out poor Stevie had copped it was the obvious comparison between the means of his death and that little incident involving his kiddy and the crocodile. If I were inclined to invoke crying children as a defense of a particular position, I might have written a post along the lines of “good thing his kid wasn’t involved… this time.”
Nabokov, if Diana’s death was the moment we could see that the British have lost their stiff upper lip and become a bunch of whining prats, Stevie’s death was the moment where we could see Australians have started taking themselves waaaaay too seriously. It needed anlysis. Also, he escaped charges for child endangerment on the grounds that he had “everything under control”, but then died doing something much less dangerous with a much less dangerous creature. Not only did the blogosphere fail to draw this point out, in valorising the little oik they completely forgot that he dangled his kiddy in front of that crocodile – while talking about how sad their kids were at his death. Nice one. Not to mention the vicious abuse that Greer received – including in the coments to the thread you linked (how was jo’s comment, eh?). I didn’t notice any LP posters or regular commenters (except maybe Strummer) rushing to her defense, or subsequently even bothering to discuss the phenomenon. There was a lot to be seen and learnt from the vicious response to Greer’s comments, and nothing came of it. Why would a left-wing blog even bother to post a comment on the death of a right-wing animal-molesting child-endangerer, except to comment critically? Especially when they can’t even muster a defense of an old ally who is swamped with filth for retaining a clear view.
So no the gotcha moment is not mine, but the Chaser’s.
“Hands up any one who was offended”
You have one here, Ms Tigtog.
I am still shocked, appalled and disgusted.
John was miles ahead of Paul as a songwriter.
That Hansen heretic has seriously stepped over the line.
SG I agree with you. I read the Steve Irwin thread and agree with all the comments made by Mick Strummer. I am also surprised by how much reasonable critical analysis was ordered and monitored.
Mick Strummer made several compelling points and was admonished and even howled down on more than one occasion. What was interesting was how many people, you included Nabakov, did not hold any personal interest or even particularly liked Steve Irwin but easily participated in the the exercise, labelling Irwin’s demise as the passing of a genuine larrakin, whatever that is, whatever that even means.
You yourself acknowledged that society was busy hooking into an archetype, so Im not sure why you take issue with what SG said, when you correctly analysed the phenomenon.
If you found the sanctification of Irwin a benign exercise, then thats another matter. You seem to engage with Steve’s ‘larrakinism’ as something positive for the nation. You said:
“In Steve\’s case, the archetype was a cheerful larrikin who made it big by scaring yanks with nonchalant downunder aplomb about our dangerous wildlife”
Or alternatively, you approved of Irwin because:
“…just encourages more cute chicks to take up marine biology as a major and so end up on research trips to tropical islands, squeezed and powdered into tight tight wetsuits”
..then Nabakov, your preference for squeezed and powdered women is interesting, but I cant agree with you on Irwin. I dont find these sorts of grievings benign or beneficial – there are downsides to reinforcing narrow images of the typical Australian, embodied by the media construct that was Steve Irwin. On the thread this media construct was taken to be genuine, and any reasonable critical analysis was shut down on the basis that Steve was the real deal and Bindi was grieving.
What is Steve Irwin ? He is male, he is white, he is anti intellectual, he is a conservative, he is of nature (the bush), he is straight. So what gets excluded in this identity construct that everyone was busy idolising in death? Everything Howard and his conservative agenda has sought to absent from public discourse, thats what.
I agree with you SG, but on the basis that these sorts of hagiographic enterprises are attempts to reinforce narrow white, masculine concepts of what it means to be Australian. Howard’s tentacles have reached far and wide over the past 10 years in terms of ordering identity. This loveable larrakin that everyone grieved over, was loaded with all sorts of exclusionary messages of what it means to be Australian. Who is like Steve Irwin anyway? no one. no one is the typical Australian. Because he is not typical. He is mythical. And that myth serves to uphold conservative reactionary interests that Howard and his culture vampires champion.
If this is a derail, sorry, but it goes to the heart of why the MSM went nuts today about Hansen’s song. Its not just these people the song attacked, its the Mythical Australian that lies behind the hagiography that goes on with these people. Dont pick on dead people indeed. Unlike Irwin, this identity is very much alive and if you ask me, needs to be assassinated, quick.
BTW, I loved Germaine’s comments.
joe2, I’ll plump for John as a superior lyricist, mostly. I think Paul has the better tunes
SG,
As the author of the post in question, the people I was calling scum were profiting off other people’s grief and sentimentality. I don’t have to care a jot about any particular dead person to call anyone who is actively bilking grieving people scum. It’s just that most of the time we don’t hear about it, and this time we did because of Irwin’s celebrity status. Scum is fairly mild invective really, so I’m not surprised we don’t use it that often when we can call some politician something sesquipedalian instead.
As for the Chaser, I wish they’d gone with the “manipulative moron” aspect of Diana rather than the typical sexist slagging of calling her a slut, but other than goring that particular ox of mine mildly the song didn’t bother me.
BTW, from the Vale Irwin thread, I really liked this comment of adrian’s:
Priceless moment from the Bolt.
After a round condemnation of the Chaser’s multiple sins, including
Bolt adds this update:
Scaring receptionists doesn’t quite seem to fit the definition.
Hansen’s song on the other hand…
Incidentally as a soi-dissant hobby satirist, I have one or two problems with McFadyen’s “definition”. Truth is definitely a requirement, but that doesn’t exclude absurdism. Most important to me is a solid underlying core of rational thought, to highlight the inevitable absurdity of claiming a sanctity to which you’re not entitled and the sophistries and evasions that claim forces you to employ. All the pieces I’d rate as personal bests have that in them somewhere.
Well that’s enough of me writing tickets on meself for tonight.
Yes, you’re right, it was a hoax published in the Realist in 1967. Lenny had died the previous year. Krassner reckons in Cat Simril interview, which is online, that he did it as a reaction to Jackie Kennedy censoring Manchester’s book. That’s why Krassner’s addendum has Jackie actually springing LBJ doing it.
I thought the song was funny, and I thought he managed to do two things well at once, instead of the usual one: make his macro-point about death and opinions, and give himself a good excuse to insult a whole lot of people he just felt like insulting. Win-win! Plus, he made youse all talk about it, so that counts as a success prima facie.
As to the eternal John vs. Paul debate, I’ve always felt there are two ways of settling the matter:
a) which of them wrote “Rain”? Whoever wrote “Rain” wins. or else,
b) the more philosophical approach: in the 60s, Paul wrote “Martha My Dear” while John wrote “I Am the Walrus.” Okay. But then, in the 70s, Paul wrote the beautiful weird sound collages like “Uncle Albert” and “Band On the Run,” but it was John who wrote “Watching the Wheels” and “Starting Over.”
Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges!, as I believe Robert Armin once said.
(also, while John is commonly considered the funnier of the two, nevertheless it was Paul who wrote the wonderfully funny and caustic “Back in the USSR,” wittier in its way I think than any John compositions that come immediately to mind; also, didn’t Paul write “Lovely Rita”? That’s gotta count for something!)
As to the definition of satire, I believe The Maha-bharata makes it plain: “Ten thousand explanations will not suffice to enlighten a fool. A wise man, on the other hand, can generally make do with only two thousand five hundred.”
Absolutely Gummo.
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room.”
Gummo: “as a soi-dissant…”
Was that a typo or an extremely subtle bilingual* self-deprecation?
[* - tri-lingual, I believe some would argue, if you take my meaning.]
Either way, Mistah Joyce. He proud.
Just a littoral I’m sorry to say, j_p.
we must remember to give Murdoch a 21 armpit fart salute when he decides to privilege us w/ his esteemed company again. the guardian of all things moral & tabloid deserves our respect.
as for talkback radio…i wonder if they have an EXCLUSIVE audience…;)
thank you casey
tigtog, you can claim coincidence if you like, but I don’t believe you. If scum is mild invective, how come it has only ever appeared in one title here? Why did you even feel a need to comment in a left-wing blog on people ripping off the memory of a right-wing idiot?
And why, oh why, did no-one see a need to mention that he died doing something he had previously exposed his child to? Casey is right, the Irwin archetype is exclusionary, and here is a concrete example of that exclusion: had an Aboriginal Queenslander dangled his kiddy in front of a croc for money, he would not have been able to escape criminal charges by claiming he “had everything under control”. Even if he had subsequently survived an encounter with a stingray.
Yet you were concerned with protecting this prat’s memory…
Couldnt agree more, JPZ – the masterpiece, and probably candidate for most influential single song of all time (I reckon the entire 90s “Britpop” phenomena descends from it).
And it was John Lennon who wrote it, of course. But interestingly, McCartney’s (generally righteous and laudable) campaign for equal co-genius status goes a bit revisionist on this song. Admittedly, he plays ace bass on it, but he’s made a point of making wider claims to authorship of it.
I think he senses its true paradigm-defining significance, and wants in!
And… I think I just revealed myself as a diehard Beatlemaniac.
Because when we do invective we tend to use longer and fancier words, because those words go better with latte.
You’re becoming very boring now.
The Australian left in general were unwilling to stick up for Germaine Greer or bring a critical eye to the situation. Was this fear of sticking your neck out, or sentimentalism? What I read here stank of sentimentalism, but maybe it was just a desperate fear of the consequences of being on the wrong side of the shitstorm, cunningly disguised as vapid commentary. In either case, I suppose being questioned about it must seem terribly… boring.
The other thing I am very disappointed about, with regard to the Hansen piece, is that Mother Teresa was not given a re-birth, in death. An opportunity for Archy Pell to be drawn into this extraordinarily important debate about what us scum should be allowed to watch. Unless he can take up this Howie cue and join in anyway….
“Why don’t they stick to decent, dirt-free humour that we can all enjoy?”
That would certainly send the ratings of Chaser skyrocketing.
Rain anybody?
“It’s the first record with backwards music on it.”
SG: you are hijacking the thread to make it all about Steve Irwin, when the thread is meant to be about the Chaser. Stay on topic, please.
If you really want to talk about Irwin, comments are still open on the post I did at Hoyden about his death and Greer’s piece, and probably on all the other blogs I linked to in that roundup. http://viv.id.au/blog/?p=31
What is Steve Irwin ? He is male, he is white, he is anti intellectual, he is a conservative, he is of nature (the bush), he is straight.
Wow, I never thought of it that way. You’re right, Irwin was worse than Hitler.
Sans comment. Kno wot(s) I mean, guvna?
*Whistles cheerily*
No, I am pointing out that the Chaser’s satire applies in some part to this blog. Obviously this requires I focus on the bit of the Chaser song which applies to this blog, the bit about Steve Irwin. I’m not even talking about Steve Irwin, but about the nature of this blog’s response.
But fair’s fair, I’ve made my point and there is no need to belabour it. Hopefully next time a child-abusing dick dies, you’ll remember the Chaser song before you elide his more disgraceful episodes with his alleged “achievements”.
Yobbo, this is extraordinarily brave for a little snot like you – turning up to an argument before your lunatic right-wing mates. Aren’t you a bit scared without them to back you up? How will you ever get around to threatening other people’s pets without them to egg you on?
Yobbo, your sarcasm says it all and I agree with it, and I’m going to address Irwin after all. SG, you’re quite right to point out that Irwin is relevant to the thread, my call of off-topic was wrong.
Irwin didn’t deserve the hyperbolic praise he got after his death, but he doesn’t deserve extreme censure either. I thought the Chaser boys got the level of disrespect just about right:
The man was a walking theme-park, not a saint, but he didn’t pretend to be a saint. His conservation activism came second to the entrepreneurial take on celebrity that he and his wife built up, but he wasn’t a hypocrite that I can see and he wasn’t a monster either.
One doesn’t have to excoriate someone totally in order to reject OTT tributes to them when they die.
On the night of Diana’s funeral I was privy to a particularly tacky piece of impromptu theatre by Sir Peter Ustinov who, in his best booming actor’s voice informed everyone within a mile radius that she was an insignificant person with no knowledge of the arts and he couldn’t care less about her. No kidding, Sir. Like Germaine’s piece, both the timing and the underlying snobbery were distasteful although I otherwise wouldn’t argue with their assessments.
And this gives me an opportunity to trot out my second favourite crackpot theory; which is that the mini republican crisis around Diana’s death gave Tony Blair the clout he needed to get the ball rolling on reforming the House of Lords. So maybe she was not so insignificant after all.
Well I will be first in the queue to dance on the old hag’s grave when she finally carks it. She is a despicable sanctimonious irrelevancy, and deserves every bit of stick that comes her way. There is something weirdly ghoulish about the way that she trolls her ignorant bile-filled filth around the English broadsheets whenever she sees a chance to offend the sensibilities of her erstwhile countrymen and women and make a few bucks to keep her in her alcoholic beverage of preference. It is sad really to see such a mediocrity stoop so low but then I’ve never harboured the illusion that the demented loon had a shred of decency.
Her piece on the Bali bombing was particularly loathsome. A piece that contained not one factually correct statement, save her reference to Australia’s endless beaches, which is true to the extent that Australia is an island continent.
Well, you know you’re going to get some disagreement there, don’t you GregM?
I find Greer bracing, and truly thought-provoking. I don’t always agree with her, and like the Chaser crew she relishes trampling on other’s sensibilities perhaps a little too much. I don’t think that deserves such venom as you’ve dished out.
Aha!
The self-negating expostulation.
I don’t imagine that your grave will ever become a terpsichorean magnet, GregM.
And that’s the truest test of irrelevancy.
Greer’s a lush? Highly unlikely that she’d go to all that trouble to feed an alcohol addiction. And she doesn’t have any problem getting published either. Now, I wonder why? And how many scholarly books has she chalked up now? 15-16? Her latest on Ann Hathaway has been critically acclaimed by all the important literary journals.
If she offends the likes of Anna Winter’s “thoughtful, measured, polite” GregM, then she’s certainly providing a seriously important public service.
Go Germs!
Well that’s why I wrote it, tig-tog. Should liven up this Saturday afternoon.
SNORT!!!
The conclusion I reached when I read her Bali piece was that no-one could have written such trash sober. Though I suppose it being Greer it is quite possible that she was. Still I’d prefer to be charitable to her and think that she wrote it while drunk. At least it would give her an excuse.
I haven’t read a single review of that little opus that says anything other than it is shallow speculative trash.
Ahh, but you’ll be there, I am sure Katz, with hobnail boots substituting for dancing shoes.
“Trash” has been used to describe the work of many literary and academic geniuses. GG is in good company. She’s certainly a reliable scholar (unlike GregM, evidently, on either count) as well as a brave and adventurous one.
Amazing really that it took so long for anyone to research and write about the life and marriage of Shakespeare’s wife, using all the tools and methodology that’ve become so commonplace in historical research, though deployed best by the most brilliant minds. This too has been acknowledged in the mostly favourable reviews of this book.
And reading back up the thread. Casey, spot on and well said.
You flatter yourself GregM. I’d regard that as a waste of good shoe leather.
Greer’s really just a performance artist these days.
btw, I liked the Chaser video. Good satire — and good satire has to cut a bit. Put me in mind of Pete and Dud at their best(-ish).
One of the problems with supporting this type of satire is that obliges you to support all types. For example, how many here joined in the satirical cartoons about Muhammad? From memory the ABC refused to show them.
I imagine that the laugh-o-metre of many here would soon disappear if they satirised dead aborigines for example. How many laughed along with the ADF boys in their hooded white outfits?
No, that wouldn’t be the case at all here, on past form, Doctor’s Wife. Any reference to Aborigines is cue for many here to cry “aggrieved victimhood” without much, if any, contest from other readers or commentators (with a few notable exceptions)
And regulars such as Jo and and GregM can call Germaine Greer vile names, such as hag, demented, perverted, and a loon, and this OTT, sexist language isn’t even challenged by tigtog and other supposed feminists who frequent this site.
ADF boys in hooded white outfits? Well, there’re at least a couple of regulars here who fit that description and who are routinely defended, with simpleminded humour, or other means, by people such as Anna Winter, Liam and Fyodor, and very few say boo.
This is the Left, circa October 2007, Australia. PLanet Earth. Big part of the problem, DW.
Problem solved Doctor’s Wife!
Satire is ridicule directed at persons with the intention of inducing them to improve their behaviour.
Thus, the Chaser song satirised folks who refuse to speak ill of the dead, not the dead themselves.
The Mahommed cartoons were not directed at any living person, and therefore can not be said to be aimed at changing behaviour. Therefore these cartoons aren’t satire.
And who, precisely were the ADF boys satirising in their KKK sheets?
correction – this is the wannabe, postmodern left. People who’ve been thwarted and taught and moulded never to contemplate, or even want, “the impossible” and consequently believe in and want nothing much at alll. Mission accomplished. And they don’t even see it.
People improve their behaviour by speaking ill of the dead?
Next you’ll be telling us that people improve their hygiene by not changing their underwear.
Comic gold!!!
Actually, your sarcasm misinterprets my point and responds with the sort of reactionary rubbish that was directed at the Chaser for their song. What I said is nothing new and has been said for a while now. There have been countless exlorations of the national tropes which inform ideas about what it is to be Australian. Personally, I dont care about Steve Irwin. Im not censuring Irwin the person, but I take issue with the myth we are encouraged to buy into when we uncritically praise him in death. And Im irritated by suggestions that this media creation was genuine and that I should curtail my critical analysis on this basis. Irwin the media creation drew from a myth that is exploited by certain political discourses at work in the nation. But Ive already said that, and so Yobbo, for the record, I am articulating the parameters of a national type that is set up to keep out other identities (what is not white, what is not straight, what is not conservative etc etc). A national type that has no counterpart in reality anyway. And your response? Boring Hitler analogies. How inane.
Thank you Fanny but like SG, I will refrain from further commenting here. If I wanted to be bored out of my skull, I would have flicked on the tv and watched the commercial news and listened to Howard spew his reactionary drivel, rather than read the insipid reproductions of it here on this post.
Waste of time, this commenting blogging thing, these days.
You write that tripe then call Yobbo’s comment inane?
Oh the irony of it.
You’ll find that the Muhammad cartoons were directed at the intolerant component of the world’s 1.4 billion living Muslims as well as the precious lefty types who espouse freedom of speech except where they don’t like it.
Sigh.
No GregM, the burden of the Chaser song was that persons would be improved by being honest.
The capability of recognising a premise is not the same as endorsing that premise.
You should try it some time.
I thought the song was great, but I did a double take on the Princess Diana & arab semen part. Whoops I thought, they will cop it for that. I heard Howard castigating the Chaser crew dressed in rabbit suits on Howard’s walk saying “how dare you pick on Belinda Emmet”. Well John, they didn’t.
Sanctimonious political correctness from both Rudd and Howard. Anyone would thing there is an election on. Meanwhile, Howard slams Rudd for being a boy wonder and Rudd slams Howard for being an old goat. . . and Costello for having no ticker.
Overall I thought the Chaser song was very effective – it has done exactly what they intended it to – and they did push the boundaries considerably.
Perhaps Katz, just perhaps, a lot of people were honestly sad at the death of Steve Irwin and the Chaser song was just ridiculing honestly held feelings.
That would make it a very cheap shot by the Chaser team, wouldn’t it?
Well I heard him castigate the Chaser crew too, Peterc. He didn’t mention Belinda Emmet’s name.
He mentioned the gutlessness of attacking the dead in general. His words were “You blokes are a lot funnier when you pick on somebody who’s alive”.
Are you sure you are not confabulating?
Well GregM, if you think that folks can be sad about someone’s demise only if they falsify their honest opinions about that person, then don’t let me stop you.
And yes, if your rather mono-dimensional view of human motivations were correct, the Chaser song would be a cheap shot.
Tell me, GregM. Do you actually believe that persons can either be sad or honest, but never both, at the same time?
from some random dictionary I found online, satire is:
So the Chaser crew are holding up to ridicule the folly of praising people falsely after their death. Like if Yobbo were to die of a heart attack hauling his fat, bullying carcass around a race course after an asian girl, and we were to write blog obituaries lauding his athletic prowess and commitment to racial equality, just so that we could be part of the crowd. That is folly, worthy of satire.
On the other hand, drawing a picture of the Prophet holds what folly up to ridicule exactly? The folly of believing in a God? The folly of believing in Mohammed? A lot of people would protest such a satire for the obvious reason that they don’t consider believing in Mohammed to be a folly.
Similarly soldiers in white hats. Hmmm, what folly are they ridiculing exactly? Unless they are somehow subjecting the vice of racism to some cunning new critique, I would suggest that they are actually engaging in the vice.
Is understanding the actual definition of satire too much to ask of you GregM? Or are you just happy to choose whatever definition you like when it helps you to drag the Mohammed cartoons into the story?
You quoted from your search of online dictionaries this definition of folly:
You then say:
You’ve left the word vice slip out of your use of the definition, conveniently, I suppose.
The purpose of the cartoons was to hold up to ridicule the vice of threatening to kill people who offend your religious beliefs. They were published to defend freedom of speech, something that you are happy to enjoy but care little to defend.
Nothing in the definition mentions anything about satire’s purpose being to improve peoples’ behaviour, does it?
Well actually I don’t think that. Only you could read what i have written and come to that conclusion.
No.
Actually GregM, I quoted from a search of online dictionaries for the definition of satire.
Given that drawing a picture of Mohammed is considered very rude by people who believe in him, it’s just a little rich to suggest that the process was going to single out the vice you describe, isn’t it? Or does drawing a picture of Mohammed somehow mean you are also clearly satirising the vice that Tamil Tigers, a few Muslims, a few Christians, and a couple of Hindus have in common? Is there some particular power that Mohammed has to unite satire which you would like to share with us GregM? Are you perhaps a Muslim, and believe that Allah is the one true God and Mohammed his satirist?
And if that cartoon contest was so clearly about deriding a particular vice rather than a particular religion, how come all the pictures were of Mohammed? I don’t recall the piss Christ artist entering the competition with a cartoon of jesus with a bomb in his hat, do you?
Oh, and on the topic of things “conveniently” slipping out of minds, I note you weren’t so quick to apply my definition to the soldiers in white hats. Just a few boys having fun, what old bean?
But, GregM, I was positing a hypothetical. That’s the function of the word “if”.
Now, as you have stated that you believe that a person can be both sad and honest, then speaking the truth as one sees it about a dead person does not disqualify the person from being thought of as sad about the demise of that person.
That being the case, (and I agree with that sentiment) then how could an honest statement, no matter how critical of its deceased subject, be seen as a “cheap shot” as you termed it?
Indeed, to the extent that the Chasers were advising people to be honest about the dead, the Chasers were not advising the subjects of their satire to take “cheap shots”
Your argument therefore falls to the ground.
And this is not a hypothetical statement.
No it isn’t. Satire has been used over hundreds of years to mock Christians, so why should it be any different for Muslims.
I can see that you haven’t mastered elementary logic but the application of a general rule in a particular case doesn’t mean that you don’t apply it in other cases. In satirizing the particular vice of a few Muslims you are also satirizing the same vice in any others of different religions who have the same mind-set as they do.
That didn’t conveniently slip out of my mind. It was irrelevant to the point you were making and to which I was responding. The “soldiers in white hats” weren’t attempting satire. They were being racist shits. I condemn them for that. I don’t try to pretend that what they were doing was satire. But nor would I try to defend a pathetic argument, as you have, by dragging their despicable behaviour into an argument about satire.
GregM, unless you think the piss-Christ and its ilk is satire, you have lost the plot. Satirizing people does not mean you have to denigrate them and insult their holy images. It’s perfectly possible to satirise the supposed Muslim tendency to kill people who disagree with their religion without actually insulting their religion. Unless your intent is to make them do what you claim to despise…?
In any case, it’s bullshit to pretend that the cartoon competition’s intent was to satirise this vice. The competition’s intent was to be rude to Muslims under the cover of free speech. As well publish a picture of Jesus being butt-fucked by his Dad on the front page of the Times, and claim you are merely “defending free speech”. It’s not about satire, they knew it and you know it. So stop trying to defend a pathetic argument by dragging their despicable behaviour into it.
Oh and I didn’t drag the soldiers into this argument – Doctor’s Wife did. The same person who mentioned the cartoons first.
Katz, it’s fairly clear that your grasp on the English language is just about as tenuous as your grasp on the law, and for that matter Korean economic policy or, come to think about it, just about anything you post on. The word “if ” in English has a lot more uses than just postulating the hypothetical.
But then if it makes you happy to post nonsense repeatedly who am I to stop you? After all you’ve just provided me with half a weekend of cheap entertainment, and will probably keep that going until I am drawn away by the rugby world cup. I affirm your right to post nonsense.
That’s what freedom of speech is all about, after all. Pity that SG doesn’t understand that.
“On the other hand, drawing a picture of the Prophet holds what folly up to ridicule exactly? The folly of believing in a God? The folly of believing in Mohammed?”
A moment or Ruddian self questioning with answer included.
Yes the folly of believing in God , any god – even spirits or tree fairies , you name it , it is all folly.
Please feel free to satirise all and any god , any other pretentious, overbearing space wasters , old literary types , young pretenders , rich people , poor people politicians , bicycle riders , large car owners, single people, grandpersons , animal skins – it’s all good.
Just don’t start telling anyone else who or what they can attack. I won’t tell you who not to get upset about.
who or what even.
“Fanny Robin”, quote marks generally imply a direct quote, not just words you half-recall and think you remember what they referred to. Just sayin’.
How do you know this? Have you interviewed the editor who commissioned the cartoons in order to ascertain his intent?
Just re-read those two sentences of yours slowly and try to comprehend what you have written.
You say in your first sentence that Piss Christ (which, incidentally, I have never mentioned) is satire, and if I don’t understand that then I have lost the plot.
Piss Christ was an exhibit of a crucifix, a particularly holy image to Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians in a jar of urine. It was nothing more than that. To display such a holy image in urine is, to them, insulting their holy image.
You then say “Satirizing people does not mean you have to denigrate them and insult their holy images.”
Isn’t that precisely what Piss Christ did to those Christian who hold the crucifix to be a holy image?
Are you quite sure that you haven’t lost the plot?
Your secoind sentence then says
murph the surf, you can satirize the folly of believing in God without being directly insulting to the religious principles of a single group of people. This is why the cartoons were wrong. You can, for example, satirize religious belief by insulting your own God rather than someone else’s. You can choose to pile on to the God whose followers have the most power in the world, not the least. You could choose to insult a God whose followers’ nation you haven’t just invaded at the cost of some hundred thousand lives. You can choose to do it without breaking their central rules on graven idols. You can do it in a slightly less calculating and insulting way.
Your suggestion that this was the aim of the competition is in any case wrong. The newspaper specifically claimed that not being able to publish pictures of a single man (whose true image is not known and not important) is a restriction on their right to free speech; that the best solution to this problem is to publish pictures of him with a bomb in his turban; and they did so just after they invaded the country of his followers and put 100,000 of them to the sword. The obvious conclusion to draw there is that they intended to insult Muslims.
Unless you are GregM, in which case the right to insult Muslims is a core part of your being, the 100,000 dead ones don’t count, and arguments of free speech are just convenient rhetoric to hide your real intentions.
Greg M, mabye you saw a different news report? I definately heard Howard attack the rabbits for besmirching Belinda Emmet – and thought it an odd thing for him to say, given that they didn’t. Ah, but the punters don’t ever drill down on the facts do they?
It was on the 7:00 2 news in Melbourne I think, or Lateline. I didn’t tape it, but others would have seen it. So no, I am not confabulating, but Howard is, as usual.
By the way, I think Steve Irwin was a somewhat likeable larrakin who harassed our native fauna (once too often unfortunately for him). But he was sensationalist and I think somewhat uncaring about the hapless creatures he chose to pounce upon and torment.
I thinkThe Chaser were on target with him. Howard and Co painting Irwin a legendary saintly Australian after his death is a load of populist BS, which is exactly the point they were making.
GregM, you can’t read. You can’t claim that insulting pictures of Mohammed are satire and insulting pictures of jesus are not. therefore, unless you think that the piss-christ is also satire, you have lost the plot.
If you think the piss-christ is satire, then you can get a free pass on claiming that the cartoons are also satire.
however,
if you think the piss-christ is simply insulting, you cannot claim a different case for the cartoons
unless
you have lost the plot
or
you think a different standard applies to Christianity than to Islam
or
both.
I’ll keep it simple SG- anyone can insult anyone else or there ideas , attitudes , personal hygiene or their mothers for all I care.
And the offended parties can moan and complain and cry out about being oppressed or insulted or offended.
Both or perhaps all sides should be free to do this.
The Chasers can sing silly and satirical songs and others can draw insulting and inflammatory cartoons . It’s all OK.
Admirable sentiments, murph the surf, but I think they might seem a little less viable if you were crouched in the rubble of your bombed out city reading a report about how the people who killed 100,000 of your countrymen had drawn nasty pictures of your religious icon. You might be feeling a little less magnanimous, and you would probably be right to be a little grumpy.
But in the more relevant here and now of our comfortable western life, they are still a little too one-sided. Muslims don’t get to expose cartoons ridiculing Jesus to the mainstream press. They don’t ridicule our religious idols at all, but even if they did they wouldn’t get the exposure because they don’t have the power. There isn’t a free market of insults here, a level playing field of hate. The big players are all christian.
Well that is what I think of both of them. Piss Christ is insulting and not satire. The Muhammad cartoons are insulting and not satire. And in accordance with my convictions about freedom of speech, while I deplore both of them, their authors should be free to publish them and be subjected to criticism but not to censorship or death threats.
My comments about the Muhammad cartoons as satire were based upon Katz’s silly definition of the word satire, which he made up, as he does most things.
The cartoons were “wrong” – not because of their satirical depictions – but because of the intent of their publisher.
The publisher wanted some content to fire at Islam. The actual cartoons themselves didn’e matter. Each on it’s own would have been acceptably good satire and would have passed largely unremarked.
Their aggregation into a bigoted payload of racist Danish dyspepsia was the problem.
Islam may be satirised. Should be. But racist hijinks ain’t the worth a jot.
You know nothing at all about Islam, do you? I mean absolutely nothing. Zip, Nada, Zilch!
Of course they ridicule our religious idols. They are a monotheistic iconoclastic religion. They abhor idolatry. It is a central premise of their religion.
Idols in any form are blasphemous to them. So they ridicule them. Why should they not?
Have some respect for these people you write about and don’t misrepresent them.
This is Chris Taylor defending the propriety of his song. I’d back him – but it is funny that his defense is the John Howard defense.
GregM, I put in the second part of that sentence – the one that starts with “even if” – because I thought you might be about to point out to me (since you know soooo much about Islam) that Muslims can’t ridicule our idols, on account of sharing all of them. But there you go, running off at the mouth again like an idiot and claiming that “of course” they ridicule our religious idols and suggesting I know nothing about Islam to say otherwise.
GregM, in case you aren’t aware, Muslims revere all the figures of the bible. Jesus is their prophet, as is Abraham. They believe the entire contents of the old testament. They cannot ridicule our religious idols. They believe that we ridicule one of our own religious idols, because we think Jesus (who they love as a prophet) is the son of God (which they do not think is possible). Their entire disagreement with Christianity rests on a small portion of the New Testament.
So when you say “they ridicule our religious idols” because “they are a monotheistic iconoclastic religion” and “they abhor idolatry” you are being an absolute fucking idiot. Were they to do these things they would be committing blasphemy.
Please forgive me if I don’t bow to your superior knowledge of Islam, GregM, but I think you might need to read more sources than the Stormfront website if you want to appear the well-rounded renaissance man you obviously think you are.
wbb – could be satire.
Speaking of Bradman, perhaps his Howardship was upset because of this latest piece of pork.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22622112-5005361,00.html
SG, just go to any Islamic site on the web, and there are many of them, and read about Islam’s attitude to idolatry before you make an utter fool of yourself, again, by calling me an absolute fucking idiot.
And don’t make a complete prat of yourself, any more than you already have, by trying to associate me with Stormfront (which is in clear breach of this site’s comments policy) .
I learned about Muslim beliefs from living in a Muslim country and talking with Muslims. I have fond memories of trying to explain the Christian concept of the Trinity as being monotheistic to a Muslim who was wholly unconvinced by my explanation as, I must admit, I was at the end of our discussion. Muslims hold beliefs that I could possibly share but I respect those who hold them. I don’t, unlike you, pretend to represent beliefs that I have no understanding of.
GregM, there are christians who think the holy trinity is idolatry. Admittedly, they are absolute fucking idiots, but they exist. Putting aside this irrelevant piece of trivia, nothing in your explanation supports the idea that “they ridicule our religious idols”. Unless some bloke you talked to not understanding the holy trinity counts as ridicule? Visiting a Muslim web site (whatever that is) and reading about idolatry does not constitute proof that they ridicule Jesus (one of their prophets) or God (their God). I’ve certainly never seen any such thing in my life, or ever spoken to or met a Muslim – or read of one or even heard of one – who could say anything except praise for Jesus, Abraham, Moses etc.
I suppose if you were a hardcore Catholic you could construe misunderstanding or criticism or denial of the holy trinity as ridicule, but you’d be drawing a long bow. After all, they can’t actually criticise Jesus or God can they? So they can’t ridicule the the trinity by, for example, hmm, let’s see… drawing a picture of Jesus with a bomb in his hat. Since that would be blasphemy for them.
So if you don’t mind, I’ll stand by my original claim.
No there aren’t. To be a Christian you must believe in the Holy Trinity. That has been so since the Council of Nicaea. Anyone who does not believe in the Holy Trinity denies the divinity of Christ. They may call themselves Christians but they are not.
No, it provides evidence that might inform your otherwise information-free mind.
They don’t ridicule Jesus, whom, as you rightly state, they see as a prophet. However they consider that the Christian attribution of divinity to him as blasphemous, and they ridicule that, along with all the paraphenalia, crucifixes etc etc that goes along with it, as idolatrous.
If you want to live in ignorance and make uninformed comments that is entirely your right.
So GregM, when you said “they ridicule our religious idols” what you meant to say was “They don’t ridicule Jesus” i.e. “they don’t ridicule our religious idols”. What you meant to say was “They ridicule an element of our theology, while revering those people we revere.”
I should also mention that the Quran very clearly states what God thinks of this concept of the trinity – it states strongly that it is impossible, ridicules those who believe it (if you want to judge the language harshly) and upholds the reverence of Jesus. i.e. it does not ridicule Jesus. I just went and looked at a few of those terrible mocking Islamic web sites and they do the same thing, very politely denying the trinity while heaping praise upon Jesus and warning those who believe the trinity they will go to hell.
So, as I said. They don’t mock our idols, and they don’t deserve to have their idols mocked in some kind of tit-for-tat of religious bigotry.
Well that’s a start. First you found that they weren’t terrible mocking sites. They are sites set up by very sincere and decent people who just see the world differently than you and I do, and of course they warn that those who believe in the Trinity will go to hell, because that is what they sincerely believe. Keep visiting them and you will become better informed.
Read them long enough and you’ll realise that they mock our idols, especially of Christ as divinity (though not Christ the man), and that they would consider that your comment:
as blasphemous because, to their way of thinking, they don’t have idols.
But then, in your ignorant desire to defend them, it probably won’t bother you at all that you are causing them grave offence by describing them as idolators.
Anything to be seen as a fashionable, open-minded leftie. Don’t let the substance get in the way of the style.
GregM and SG — from what I can understand about the differences between Islam and Christianity, it has seemed to me for a long while that the major problems here reside in a) Islam’s, in essence, refusal to understand what Christianity actually says, and b) Christianity’s (at least in its later ages) refusing to understand itself.
Christianity, for those who haven’t been keeping score up til now (for the record, I am both a Catholic by birth, and a believing Christian) takes an essentially mysterious stand on the nature of Christ. Not “mysterious” in the sense of “who was the murderer?” but mysterious in the sense of “what could the divinity of Jesus possibly mean?”. What it ‘significantly’ means is the matter for another essay entirely, and I would be happy to engage anybody personally on this question; but “what it means” in the first instance, w/r/t the misunderstanding between the two religions, is fairly clear. Christianity is not a polytheistic religion that acknowledges two gods, Yahweh and Jesus. Christianity acknowledges only One God, Who, for reasons of His own, (and which reasons He has in scripture made fairly clear), has chosen to make Himself knowable through the vehicle of Jesus Christ. To all my Muslim friends: this is NOT polytheism, nor is it the acknowledgement of a “helper or partner or friend” of God, which are categories that the Koran denies, and rightly so. Jesus Christ is not an alien “partner” with God, as the Koran seems to imply, and which implies an assumption of (rightly rejected) pagan religious belief; rather, Jesus “Christ” (lit. “the Anointed One”) is a manifestation OF God. Jesus is a (“mysterious,” there’s that word again) way of experiencing God’s will for us, through right belief, through the practice of mercy and justice, through the forgiveness of sins, etc. etc.
The historical fact that the Koran, which claims to be the literal Word of the Almighty, the Creator, the Lord of the Worlds, can be viewed as if in seeming contradiction with any actual historical understanding of Christianity as it exists in this our Creator’s world, is a problem which must be rationalized by Islam, (as it is historically the latest of these religious claims), if and when It is willing to undertake the needed consideration.
To my own admittedly ignorant self (and therefore interested in corrective claims), this is what is apparent: Muslims claim to revere Jesus, yet they reject in essence all the claims which Jesus Himself made; which leads a Christian to wonder: which Jesus or Issa is it, whom Muslims claim to revere? Is it an actual one, or a fictitious one? And if fictitious, whose, and why? Where do the actual Gospels fit in, in such claims? And so forth.
So jpz, it’s basically a cross-denominational paternity suit? With a deadbeat imaginary dad in the sky?
A bloke called O’Hara (No, Frank not John, jpz) once wrote “…the Catholic Church
which is at best an oversolemn introduction to cosmic entertainment…”
As far as I’m concerned, any religious leader, secular Chief Whip or recognised holy text interpreter who doesn’t have a sardonic, robust and worldly sense of humour should be doomed to whatever hell is promised in their product line.
One of the reasons Buddhists don’t get picked on so much is that they do see fucking, shitting, etc as all part of the Divine Comedy – and not as some shameful fall from grace that can manipulated by the self-appointed earthly representives of empirically unproven heavenly powerbrokers. (I mean really, who died and made the Pope the Pope?)
And I must say, I’m really warming to SG despite his/her/it’s inital mischaracterisation of the Irwin thread and an apparent current inabilty to grasp that some people can hold more than one thought in their head at once (eg: Irwin did some good stuff, his hagiography was over the top, a song mentioning him in a less than flattering way provided some amusement).
But despite that SG, I’m very appreciative of the way you’ve been wielding your cane knife here. Things were getting a bit too boring and smug in how the local blogosphere agreed and disagreed with itself.
But now you’re wading in with broad scything strokes here and deft nicks to an artery there. You’re gonna have a go at everyone across the spectrum aren’t you?
Go for it girlfriend. Ahh, if only I was ten years younger.
GregM bails, yet again.
j_p_z, is there any compelling reason why Muslims should accept the Nicene version of Jesus?
Arianism was in the fourth century a powerful nontrinitarian theology.
High on the agenda of the Nicaean Council was the extirpation of Arianism.
The Arian view of Jesus, however, persisted until some time after the origins of Islam, and so did Arian writings.
Arianism shares with Islam many attitudes to Jesus.
If Christians couldn’t agree about Christ, what were non-christians to think about bearded patriarchs exiling each other over something as recondite as trinitarianism?
“But in the more relevant here and now of our comfortable western life, they are still a little too one-sided.”
The idea can’t be one sided- where persons live is not relevant.We are talking about freedom to insult.
” Muslims don’t get to expose cartoons ridiculing Jesus to the mainstream press.”
It is difficult to understand what you are writing about here- do you mean this argument is only relevenat to you in an australian context ? Where an insult must be combined with multinational power?
“They don’t ridicule our religious idols at all, but even if they did they wouldn’t get the exposure because they don’t have the power.”
Who is this “our”? This is pure assertion and any way who cares ? They can ridicule anything they choose to.
” There isn’t a free market of insults here, a level playing field of hate. The big players are all christian.”
So your complaint seems to be about something else – the possible dysymmetry of abuse power. Sorry that is something others can work to correct, I’m happy to allow the freedom first and let the conflict ensue.
“So, as I said. They don’t mock our idols, and they don’t deserve to have their idols mocked in some kind of tit-for-tat of religious bigotry.”
Who is tit for tatting ? Anyone should be free to mock ,ridicule and abuse anyone else. Your argument here reeks of censorship.
SG is expressing disapproval. Disapproval is not censorship, it is commentary.
anyon who thinks “slut” is a sexist slur these days immediately labels themselves as a sexually repressed prig and really should get out more and live a little.
That Diana in her early 20s refused to forego any more orgasms and found herself some hearty rough trade is to her credit and a large part of the reason she became and still is roundly adored. Definitely got her priorities right there.
Rubbish, jinmaro. One can be wholeheartedly in favour of Diana finding extramarital sexual companionship after her divorce and still object to the sexist overtones of “slut”.
You know full well that there is no similiarly derogatory term for a man who does the same, and this argument of yours sits oddly with your decrying slurs against Greer as sexist upthread (the only gendered insult GregM used was “hag”: the rest of his bile was nasty but not sexist).
Was Kerry Packer a “competitive entrepreneur” or a “ruthless tax cheat”? One can describe exactly the same behaviour in either laudatory or derogatory terms, and “slut” is definitely derogatory.
well it might be to you tigtog and people who think like you, it isn’t to many women or men. I would describe it more as a term denoting envy, and as I said, priggish sexual repression. Says a lot more about those who use it, in an intended derogatory manner, than the object of envy and revulsion.
Furthermore, it you don’t see that GregM’s character study of Germaine Greer, very similar to Jo’s on the linked Irwin thread last year, was deeply misogynist or understand where it was coming from and what it was informed by, then you seriously need to fine tune your political antenna.
I find jo’s comment from last year much more troubling in terms of misogynistic judgement than GregM’s, jinmaro, and I’m not sure why I didn’t take issue with it at the time. But I didn’t, so feel free to do your usual purity policing on me.
Tigtog,
SG wrote -”â??So, as I said. They donâ??t mock our idols, and they donâ??t deserve to have their idols mocked in some kind of tit-for-tat of religious bigotry.â??
Is it disapproval or prohibition that is being suggested here ? I’m not sure about whether this statement is factually correct but that is beside the point.
Censorship absolutely stinks and backsliding on this issue is a concern – note my disapproval!
I haven’t seen prohibition being suggested, but I don’t live in SG’s head, so I can’t guarantee it of course.
Not accusing you necessarily of this, murph the surf, but many people seem confused between censorship of certain statements and declining to publish certain statements.
Publishers choosing on their own behalf not to publish something (as some publishers chose not to publish the Danish cartoons), for whatever reason seems good to them, is not censorship. Censorship is about preventing publishing material in someone else’s publication, not about declining to publish material in one’s own publication. Declining to publish is merely exercising one’s freedom to choose how to use one’s own property.
I’ll worry about censorship when I actually see publications being confiscated by the State.
Re: the chaser song.
I just wish my kids didn’t get out of bed and come downstairs at that particular moment.
Re: Irwin’ death. Like comedy, timing is everything. Its OK to react ‘irrationally’ after the shock of a sudden demise. (Elizabeth Kubler-Ross anyone?).
It shouldn’t be forgotten that grief (and in particular public grief) has as much a symbolic functional as literal one, which should not dismissed as part of a complexity of response.
Thus I weep for the actual 2 yo boy in the suitcase but my response to the circumstances of his death is also profoundly affected by what his death consciously and unconsciously symbolizes for me- the inhumanity of people to an innocent, the tragedy of young children faced with the brutal reality of this world too soon, the indignity of a body being deliberately discarded to cold and lonely place…..
As for calling Irwin a child-abuser, at worst the croc incident would be considered ‘neglect’ or ” failure to protect a child from unnecessary risk” inasmuch as it could be applied to any parent who chooses to jay walk on a busy road instead of using a designated crossing.
Show me a jaywalker who charges punters to watch him/her jaywalk.
Tigtog ,I ‘d much prefer a robust approach to this ,not “….and declining to publish certain statements.”
Sure , organisations can choose to edit their content and will have a variety of ways this works. But self censorship and second guessing to avoid offending anyone especially by print and other media is something to guard against.
Where does this stop being an excuse by the way ? Greater and higher levels of transparency are needed throughout public life , our institutions and political life.The use of avoiding offence may lead to collusion and cover up too easily.
“Publish and be damned!” should be the standard to try and achieve.
Perhaps they chose not to publish because it was trite and unfunny? Does publish or perish mean that they were obliged to publish simply because it had gained some notoriety, regardless of its inherent worth?
Pavlov’s Cat had a fabulous post on the Chaser song.
Casey:
Thank you Fanny but like SG, I will refrain from further commenting here.
Please don’t do that, Casey. Your responses are wonderfully articulated and you’re one of the commenters who supplies an essential educated view. You articulate what I’m thinking but you’re able to express it so much better.
Just seconding Helen here Casey: I find your contributions valuable and I hope that you continue to comment here.
And perhaps too they chose not to publish because it was gratuitously offensive and they chose not to perpetuate the offence.
Murph, most of my posts on this thread have been in defence of the right of freedom of speech, (and some of them a vigorous exercise of that right as when I got stuck into Germaine Greer, the exercise of which I took to with great relish, and which, gratifyingly, caused great offence to some people whom I hoped would be offended) but, while I agree with you in principle, tig-tog’s point, with which I agree, is that freedom of speech is a right, not a responsibility. Therefore while we should defend the right of those who chose to publish the Muhammad cartoons to do so, others who chose not to shouldn’t be criticised for that for they may have their own valid reasons for that choice such as that they found the cartoons gratuitously offensive and they would no more want to publish them than they would want to host an exhibition of the Piss Christ thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slut
I generally don’t take offence to what people say about anything. I too believe in freedom of speech. SG is perfectly right too to make the crucial point that the ability to issue insults, and do damage, takes place on an unequal playing field as it’s informed by all sorts of important considerations relating to class, race, gender, etc.
I do like and think it terribly important to reply to baseless sexist and racist language by pointing out the ways in which it is so or at least drawing attention to it and not letting such statements pass in silence. Force of habit I guess. A good one to have I think, for a committed feminist and anti-racist.
And tigtog, accusations of “purity policing” made against Jinmaro (my sister btw) are allied to the old “political correctness” framing of an opponent’s views and designed to kill debate.
Fanny, Tigtog’s “purity policing” was a reference to the fact that Jinmaro, while being a bit to the left of all of us, and good on her for that, routinely abuses others for not being in that position. Also, the “she’s my sister” bit is a bit tragic, isn’t it- surely Jinmaro is big enough to look after herself?
And your sister’s comments are not designed, invariably, with this very purpose in mind? She’s a legend for doing just that. You must be making a joke at her expense with this comment.
Have a look at her comic contribution to darlene’s cat thread trying to kill off a light-hearted discursion into the foibles of cats and cat lovers. Absolutely hilarious.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
You have a point.
I resent jinmaro’s attacks on me and other LP bloggers. Does that mean that jinmaro’s points are thereby always wrong? Hardly, and LP bloggers are certainly not above criticism. However, in my opinion, despite some notable insights, jinmaro is often a jerk in the way she criticises us.
My journey from politically interested to politically activist is still in progress. I don’t always notice certain undertones. I’m generally willing to consider alternate points of view, but like most people I don’t react well to direct attack.
Have I sometimes been as much of a jerk as I’m accusing jinmaro of being? Certainly, and when I have in retrospect realised it I’ve regretted it and attempted to ensure that I don’t repeat it.
I think a little generosity of spirit in both directions could go a long way.
Thanks, Fanny.
It isn’t nice for people to get caught out so frequently, so best give it a rest for the time being. That’s tigtog’s aim after all.
LP bloggers as you call yourself are some sort of generic Church? LOL. You are too precious for words. There are plenty of people commenting on this site whose comments I have endorsed, included Mark B’s many times and vice versa. It depends on the issue. Group loyalty has always been a concept totally alien to me in the sense you exercise it tigtog and stinks of passivity and intellectual death.
My last comment crossed with Helen’s and GregM’s.
And that one crossed with jinmaro’s.
Jinmaro, I often admire your contributions. At other times you irritate the shit out of me.
Neither Feminism nor progressive politics has a single party line, but often you seem to push for one.
I don’t think that’s productive.
That’s not what Darlene and most other commentators actually said by the end of that thread, GregM. In fact the opposite.
But keep up the contentless ad homs both of you, GregM and tigtog, you are both very good at I see and have far more in common with each other politically than with me.
Helen and Tigtog, you are both very kind to say what you did. Being bedridden with flu for a week, I seemed to have lost the ability for levity last night.
However! My sense of humour was shocked back into life after reading through the comments this morning. The truly expert skewering of the hapless GregM by SG and Katz was excellent work! Very funny. Katz you are way too cool. I love your work always.
Jinmaro you are consistent I think, if sometimes brutal in your consistency. I’ve think told you before, but I am deeply challenged by you. And I agree with you so very often. But that whip!, it leaves red marks, and it hurts. People (who are fragile after all, no matter how they choose to present in the blogosphere) dont respond well to that, rather than to anything else you may actually be saying. Just sayin Jinmaro…
Jinmaro, I often admire your contributions. At other times you irritate the shit out of me.
See, Jinmaro, that’s called nuance. You need to try it sometime.
You know, there’s times when I’ve seen a comment of yours and practically cried out “Yes!” Word!!”
But you seem to have a deep, inner need to set yourself up in conflict with others. Why, I do not know. Family members (see above) may have some idea. I’ll exit this debate now as it’s derailing the thread and it is getting too personal. Suffice it to say by constantly harping on the theme of “youse are all shit” don’t be surprised! and shocked! when you have few supporters in a group blog situation.
Why don’t you get your own blog, anyway? You have plenty to say.
The reclaimation of bitch, slut and c*nt (edited merely to avoid the filter not cause i’m precious) are fine for some of us, but it behooves us to remember that many people still find their alternate/previous inference incredibly emotionally charged.
While (some) of my indigenous friends may refer to one another as ‘big hairy gorilla’s or nig**rs i essentially don’t have a right to use these terms of ironic endearment as an outsider.
Inversely, i’m still not too comfortable with the modern reclamation of the term ‘gay’ as meaning pathetic or lame or hopeless, though others may beg to differ.
No, I’ve just reviewed the thread. They didn’t agree with you. What they did was just ignore you, which is what most people do most of the time. Unless they want to get a rise out of you, which isn’t difficult and is always fun.
Nabakov: Well I’m certainly gratified to finally find the poet O’Hara quoted back at me! Perhaps some of my writing presence here is finally rubbing off after all! Let me buy you a drink some time, or even a whole bottle of my kinda-sort-of ancestral single-malt, if the accident will. In my view, O’Hara is easily the most important (and in a sense, the only important) American poet since Stevens, and one in only a very small and sharply-delineated category of same, so I’m pleased that you’re reading him; even though a surprisingly large percentage of his work is, well, just awful, for such a critical writer. If I ever get around to finishing my book on O’Hara, though, I’ll explain why this doesn’t matter so much. I do note, however, that despite his literary importance, he isn’t much of a leading light on the subject of religion. For various reasons, some of which I’m sure can be forgiven.
On the other hand, at the risk of seeming crude [note Paul Simon ref.], I’d like to take this opportunity to invite you to re-consider God, and His role in the world and in your life. (Same goes out to Katz!) Your (both of yours, really) objections to the role of religion in the world are not without reason, which any sane person would readily acknowledge. Nevertheless, true religion is founded in the grace of God, not in ephemeral historical flotsam. It won’t kill you to have another look, with a more open heart. Take a try, see what you discover.
Katz: “j_p_z, is there any compelling reason why Muslims should accept the Nicene version of Jesus?”
I would love to pour on this ignorant comment the hilarious scorn it deserves, but I was just caught being a nice guy only a few sentences ago, so I’ll refrain from the lion’s natural thirst for blood. Politely speaking: Yes indeed, there is a very compelling reason for same. The Koran claims to be the immutable word of God. Therefore if, for any reason whatsoever, (and here let me high-light the relationship between “word of God” and “whatsoever”), the Koran’s version of Christianity could be shown to be factually mistaken (or if, for instance, the Koran’s view of Christianity could be shown to be the view of an individual, religiously unlearned, seventh-century Arab, whose name, just humor me for a moment, oh, happened to start with M.), this would, as it were, open up the ground for a host of legitimate human questions about the validity of Islam. As it were. See your query above.
Just do the math; as the Muslims themselves were incapable of doing, before they invaded Persia and India.
No they don’t; as Helen, Tigtog and Casey have all said, sometimes Jinmaro expresses ideas that we all agree with and does so with great lucidity and eloquence. Sometimes she is needlessly personal, as you have just been. Just occasionally can we lay aside our cudgels and forswear our delight in finding the perfect quelling response for the sake of some blogular peace?
Actually, we call ourselves a collective, a term with a venerable leftist history, and you’re the one who derides us regularly for not being as “leftist” as you would like.
jinmaro, 20 October 2007 at 7:20 pm
jinmaro, 20 October 2007 at 7:47 pm
If LP has a consistency problem, it would seem to be no larger than your own.
su said:
An eloquent appeal, su. Our comments crossed, but I’m willing.
Yes, tigtog, let’s salute the cause of “blogular peace”.
Cheers!
And call upon your totem to stay away from our walnut tree this summer.
Or else.
If you think I am going to stop pointing out your idiocies, and challenging sexism and racism, or silence in the face of them, then think again tigtog and GregM (and anyone else who gets hot under the collar at some painful home truths) for you will prove sadly mistaken.
If anything, I will now be more vigilant in my challenges. That’s how it works with people like me.
I think there are a lot of global truths that can be stated about the state of the soft liberal left and i am not alone in making these and will elaborate further on them when I have the time and inclination. As is my democratic right.
That’s a promise, sweeties.
Why does that question deserve such hilarious scorn? The council of Nicea was a political compromise, nothing more and nothing less. Why should anyone since accept the conclusions of that council as beyond theological criticism?
“I think there are a lot of global truths that can be stated about the state of the soft liberal left and i am not alone in making these and will elaborate further on them when I have the time and inclination.”
Oh hell, Jinmaro thats a bit strong!
Nearly spilt the chardy on the keyboard.
Do you have rooms/platform/ or a blog, where these matters can be discussed, without anyone noticing?
“That’s a promise, sweeties.”
Oh thats just excellent, referred to as sweeties by someone who thinks the word chick is an abomination.
And, Sigh. You didnt twirl your moustache and laugh maniacally at your alter as you both left the stage. What kind of exeunt is that exactly?
btw tigtog, the derogatory term “manipulative moron” that you used to describe Diana is, arguably, sexist and definitely an oxymoron. Under-educated perhaps, which was not her fault, but a result of patriarchy refracted through the British aristocracy at that time. But she was certainly no moron, though this is one of the great sexist slurs made against her, from the first, by her husband and his courtiers and later misogynists everywhere.
Manipulative? Definitely. She was a mistress at it and which was to a large extent why she made such an impact. It took a certain intelligence, native wit, empathy, a lot of things went into the mix, to achieve the degree of manipulation she wielded to such stunning effect.
Can I be personal and nice? I think jinmaro’s one of the sharpest commenters around (and sometimes so sharp as to be cutting, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), even if I do inhabit a different region of the Planet Politick.
“But she was certainly no moron, though this is one of the great sexist slurs made against her, from the first, by her husband and his courtiers and later misogynists everywhere.”
Im wondering, given she said it first, if Germaine Greer is a sexist or a mysoginist then?
Casey I am beginning to warm to you.
But be warned: there are a lot of global truths that can be stated about the state of the soft liberal left and jinmaro is not alone in making these and will she elaborate further on them when she has the time and inclination. As is her democratic right.
That’s a promise, sweetie.
Exuents stage left twirling his moustache and laughing maniacally.
seems I went to sleep and missed all the mutually congratulatory backslapping. Ooops. Which somehow slid off into abuse or something. Very strange.
GregM, if as you say above your plan here has been to defend freedom of speech, how come you are the only person so far in this thread to invoke the comments policy and suggest that I shouldn’t say certain things?
Murph the surf, I feel you have become lost in the details of an excessively winding argument. I originally weighed in on this whole “those cartoons were satire but what about them, eh?” point of view merely to point out that they were not satire, but straight out abuse. I had no position on censorship, which is a real thread-derailer if ever there was one. Being the sort of person who (clearly, from the comments above) believes in unfailingly polite public discourse (except to Yobbo), I would prefer that newspapers and public media refrain from being rude. Therefore I think they should not have published the cartoons, and I think that the Muslim response is to some extent understandable. This does not mean I think some mythical leftist censorship board should have shot the editors or something. My argument with GregM merely concerns whether or not those dirty Musselmen deserved it for Teh Hate; and my argument with you was as to whether or not anyone should necessarily just insult anyone. Perhaps I might have slipped the word “right” in there, but if so that was just plain silly. I think people shouldn’t insult each other, I don’t necessarily think they should be banned from so doing.
This “lets not be rude to each other” injunction is why no-one here has yet managed to write ni**ers, b!ngs, or any of those other nice words. I don’t argue with black people by calling them these words, so why should I argue with Muslims by calling their God a mass-murdering pig?
In reality, the rule is this simple – we observe basic rules of politeness in discourse every day, even with our political enemies. Certain sections of the Western right have decided to suspend those rules for Islam. That is fucked, and the rules are not being suspended because Islam is soooo intolerant. They are being suspended in order to demonise our enemies. You can pretend all you like that is not the reason, and you can pretend all you like that everyone can insult each other with the same power and effectiveness, but pretending don’t make it so.
Thank you Rob. I find it kind of cute that you and I so often agree and are simpatico, though on other major matters (never explored) I gather it would probably be pistols at dawn between you and moi.
What would you wear?
Casey, Greer also has zero interest in or understanding of class which is very important to my world view on many things. That detracts not a whit from my defence of her in the face of GregM’s misogynist, personalised sexual and political loathing.
My whole point is that political positions shift and move. They sometimes align, sometimes not. We’re a complex species and I accept totally the ambivalence and contradiction in everything. I just think it is important to delve into that, explore it, and not paper over it for the sake of not offending people. Hell, tigtog and others give GregM and his ilk free kicks all the time. Fuck that. I think it is cowardice and lack of passion and lack of understanding. Silence is consent. I could never be like that and remain sane.
I make no apologies for the way I think and argue. I abhor groupthink. It is imprisoning. It’s done no favours to the oppressed – ever. And sadly, there is little of its better mutation today for us in the form of social solidarity, effective organisation, genuine collectivity.
I do, though, sense in recent weeks a definite loosening up, a growing political boldness, self-confidence and defiance amongst an increasing number and proportion of commentators on LP, and in the communities in which I live and work. Which I think is very precious. And to be nurtured. I’m scared it will only exist until the elections and then the heavy curtains will be drawn again.
People should have the courage of their convictions but not resort to ad homs as when someone has the affrontery to answer back just as rudely as the original assumptions or statements (perhaps unintentionally) were.
No pretending being undertaken.
I don’t aim to speak on behalf of others.
People should be free to insult who and whatever they like.
Others don’t have any obligation to support ot transmit those other opinions nor can they ask for them to suppressed based on only a projection or suppostion that anyone can be offended. They should just ignore them .
SG I disagree with your interpretations of current events in the last paragraph primarily as I don’t agree that anyone or everyone has to observe basic rules about politeness. If you buy into that sort of relationship that’s fine for you but I’d leave it at that point.
I support freedom of speech but it has its limits. Calling someone a Nazi sympathiser, which is what you did with your Stormfront reference, goes well beyond freedom of speech and goes into the realms of actionable defamation.
I’m going to be very mild here.
It wasn’t a comment. It was a question.
Is there any reason to assume the Koran is any less (or more) infallible as God’s word than the council of Nicaea? As a secularist I come to both of them as representing human intellectual and spiritual struggle ith all the high-mindedness and squalor that can be associated with those quests.
Arianism has an intellectual history: a beginning, a flourishing, a period of persecution and an abiding influence in Christian and non-Christian thought.
Why is it ignorant to suggest that the Koran caught a whiff of contemporary Christian debate?
Frankly, I’m mystified.
And thank you for your words of admonition on this threadlet Tig Tog. My question was not intended to give any more credence to Arianism than it gave to the Nicene Creed, or Islam.
Mine was a question that concerned itself with the modest project of intellectual history, and certainly not with much more important questions concerning life, death, the universe, and everything, over which apparently j_p_z is very keen to claim custodianship.
.
Helen, a gross exaggeration since I usually attack a specific formulation or statement, less frequently backed up with a well-deserved generalisation.
However, your remark inadvertently proves one of my main theses: that many soft liberals (sorry, the terminology is inadequate but no-one has been able to quite nail it or even comprehensively define it) people line up politically on secondary questions, such as wounded ego, group loyalty, irritation, personal revenge, etc and that principle, conviction, ethical steadfastness more often than not come a distinct second.
Why we are in such a pickle, I would, respectfully as always, suggest.
Something like this, jinmaro.
Didn’t we almost agree about The Magic Flute once?
Oh well, Jinmaro, like I said, I like your thought. I dont resile from that even if I am discomforted by the delivery.
On the other hand GregM, your spectacular mediocities do not warrant your self congratulatory crowing at this present moment. Never give up though. A hint: You will know you have said something worthwhile when Katz stops treating you like his personal cat toy!
Jinmaro, I despise Greer for what she writes, not for who she is or what her sex is. If she were a man and wrote the same things then I’d write the same things, with one exception; I wouldn’t use the the word hag, but I’d just replace it with another word, probably of a scatological nature. I do this principally because of her despicable piece about the Bali bombing. If my comments are personalised then that’s because I find anyone who would write such grossly insensitive stuff despicable, and because friends of mine were caught up in the Bali bombing, so it’s a bit personal to me.
You have a very narrow and very sad view of the world.
Still I am very happy that on a thread about giving offence I have risen to its challenge and have done so.
If you believe that I have a bridge to sell to you.
Unless they’re a Muslim, in which case it’s open season on their God, their prophet, their beliefs and their motivations, and anyone who suggests a bit of restraint is opposed to freedom of speech.
Good one GregM, you’ve covered yourself in glory.
But evidently Casey does believe it GregM.
And as you were the one to raise the issue, allow me to confess that it would be false modesty for me to avoid suggesting that Casey isn’t the only person to think so.
Oh Rob. How unexpected.
When virtue and justice
Strew the path of the great ones with glory,
Then the earth will be a heavenly realm
And mortals will be equal to the gods.
—The Magic Flute, Act 1 scene 19.
All the Mozart operas are sublime expressions and gifts of pure joy. As the musicologist and biographer of Mozart, HC Robbins, famously said, Mozart’s music gives us as more hope for our ultimate survival as a speciel than anything else that’s ever existed.
To our amazing good fortune.
You see what happens? You stop all that crowing now Greg M. You are only a small cock and they eat your kind first here at LP.
Done – 200 comments and derails everywhere. Im off to watch the great debate on commerical tellie, to um, oh yeah, listen to some reactionary diatribe spewing from the mouth of the master.
SG, you are slow on the uptake. I defend the right of freedom of speech in its principle. I don’t think that Muslims should be treated any differently than Christians and therefore I apply the freedom of speech principle to the Muhammad cartoons as I apply it to the Piss Christ exhibition. I found both of those things offensive, as I said above, and I wish that the people behind both of them had shown the restraint you call for. But I am consistent. I do not call for restraint for the one and not for the other. It has been part of our culture for centuries to accept the right of people to ridicule religion and while I don’t do so myself I respect that as being one of the rights that goes with freedom in our society and I don’t see any reason to change that just because there is, for us, a new religion on the block.
Katz:
Well there is you. But then you are the person who believes that the British government suppressed the IRA without resort to repressive legislation and that South Korea had a total trade ban on Japan until 1997, amongst your many fact-challenged propositions. This time you have given me another one to treasure; that peoples’ behaviour would be improved if they spoke ill of the dead. You are, for me, the gift that keeps on giving.
GregM is only amusing himself, Casey. His sexual and political hatred is palpable and should and is being calledl admittedly still only by a few reckless, fearless ratbags.
Tomorrow, of course, it is a different kettle of fish for him and for Aboriginal and other ethnic and racial minority men, and particularly, women, like you and me, Casey. He continues to triumph; we continue to bend, suffer, but also, fight back.
Amen.
jinmaro, if we agree about Mozart, what does it matter what we disagree about? But we’ll get clobbered for going OT in a minute.
Rhapsodising about Mozart tends to get more leeway than other OT derails, Rob.
I did say you were cute didn’t I, Rob. Let’s run away together. Hmm. Where to I wonder. Your call.
From whaaay back up the thread.
Jinmaro, if you can find anywhere where I’ve defended racists, I’d like you to show it, please.
Vienna, jin. You’d love it.
Re GregM:
I think the proposition from Katz was not unreasonable. The “speaking ill” is of course not directed at the dead, and there can be no defamation involved. It’s directed at and for the benefit of the people who in many cases go OTT in (to varying degrees requiring measured and varied responses) falsely eulogising the late departed.
Steve Irwin was not such a bad guy, arguably terrorised some animals and was a successful showman, but the political cultural wars dictated that Howard et al would seize on the “Anzac–tough white guy–mateship–blackkfellas and poofters not allowed” narrative, for their own aggrandisement, blowing Irwin up to be some sort of iconic Aussie hero. Taking the piss out of that was justified, even by Greer.
At the other end of the scale was the death of Jerry Falwell, a most obnoxious disgusting individual filled with hate for gays and despising anybody who didn’t conform to his so called “moral majority” bullshit.
It was with great pleasure that I heard Christopher Hitchens, to the horror and mortification of morons on the Hannity show, say:
Well done Katz, we can indeed change people’s behaviour in taking the piss out of the false eulogisers of the dead, by speaking ill of the dead. (Excepting GregM of course.)
which puts us back at the start of the thread after a mere 208 posts and, surely, indicates it is time to sign off…
Yes, we should all go over to the Great Debate LP Chatroom.
Peter, do you have any evidence that Steve Irwin was associated with anything that supports your “blackkfellas and poofters not allowed” comment. I appreciate that your comment is about how some others played his death (a lot of others just dealt with the fact that his death was pretty devastating to their kids to whom he was a bit of a hero) but I didn’t see that part of it being played and I’m not aware of anything that suggests that Irwin was racist or homophobe.
I liked your Hitchens quote. While I generally observe the precept that we should not speak ill of the dead there are exceptions I am happy to make and people like Jerry Falwell is one of them.
Vienna? Well, could I tell a story ’bout that, dear Rob.
My proposition, err, proposal. Blackheath, NSW, next Autumn.
You’re on. Me Papageno, you Papagena.
Thanks, Rob.
I’m more that a little tired of being abused and raped by men and women in real life and now cybernetically too.
But there is too an irrepressible optimistic and joyous streak which is, I guess, present too and which I constantly draw upon. Thanks so much for reminding me I am human.
See you in Blackheath.
A Friend Expected
Over the chain of giant peaks
The great red sun goes down,
And in the stealthy floods of night
The distant valleys drown.
Yon moon that cleaves the gloomy pines
Has freshness in her train;
Low wind, faint stream, and waterfall
Haunt me with their refrain.
The tired woodman seeks his cot
That twinkles up the hill;
And sleep has touched the wanderers
That sang the twilight still.
To-night — ah! beauty of to-night
I need my friend to praise,
So take the lute to lure him on
Through the fragrant. dew-light ways.
Meng Hao-Jan, A.D. 689-740,
Thank you Peter Kemp. I note with some gratification, though with no surprise, that your statement of my case is more accurate than GregM’s, viz:
GregM’s propensity to confabulate is really quite pronounced.
And, distressingly, I note that GregM continues to have difficulty with that troublesome word “if”.
Just for the record, this is what I actually said:
Yours is a very fair paraphrase.
It’s nice to see you’ve increased your vocabulary by picking up a word I used on this thread Katz.
Always glad to help in your education.
Typical of you, though, you don’t know what it means.
Your educative powers are very impressive GregM.
Retrospectively you induced me to use a variant of the word “confabulate” as long ago as May 2006.
If I were to dig deeper I may even find earlier and therefore stronger evidence of your influence.
But a man can endure only so much flattery, so I won’t.
You seem to have missed my point GregM.
I make no such inferences against Steve Irwin period. But, the fact that he fits the Howard whitefella mate Anzac mould and was eulogised by Howard as such (automatic dogwhistle to the anti-”wog” Anglos inter alia) is WHY the piss must be taken.
In some respects, that may be unfair to Irwin’s family, but he was a showoff and exhibitionist idiot with his kid and the croc, for example (what if he’d tripped?), so taking the piss out of Irwin is justified on two levels, one more than the other arguably, but it’s primarily directed at those who attempt to make fake heroes.
(And taking the piss out of the allegedly high and mighty is a national pastime!)
jin:
Tale of Genji, Murusaki Shikibu, c. 1010
jinmaro & Rob… Mazel tov!
“Why should I share you? Why don’t you get rid of someone else for a change?”
– Frank O’Hara, “Meditations in an Emergency”
In my own experience, I think the best quote from “The Magic Flute” is more like, “Dit-dit-dit-dit, dit-dit-dit-dit-dit, dit-dit-diddle-diddla-DIT-DA, dit-dit-dit-Diddle-iddle-IT-da,” etc. etc.
“WALKING TO WORK”
It’s going to be the sunny side
from now
on. Get out, all of you.
This is my traffic over the night,
and how
should I range my pride
each oceanic morning like a cutter
if I
confuse the dark world is round
round who
in my eyes at morning saves
nothing from nobody? I’m becoming
the street.
Who are you in love with?
me?
Straight against the light I cross.
(O’Hara)
j_p_z, speaking of giving offence, and of music, being Spring now in the Antipodes, it’s magpie breeding season. These mighty birds have a propensity to give offence majorly by dive-bombing peaceful cyclists, school-children and early morn perambulators who stray too close to their nests. But, like a lot of public nuisances they have wondrous, over-riding, redeeming features.
Rob:
jinmaro:
Flowers blossoming
in autumn fields -
when I count them on my fingers
they then number seven
The flowers of bush clover,
eulalia, arrowroot,
pink, patrinia,
also, mistflower
and morning faces flower.
Yamanoue Okura (C. 660 – 733)
Katz
Wow. I did not think my innocent post would provoke such tortured rationalisations. I am going to have to go over your bizarre attempts to support censorship of journalists braving death threats from organised terrorist groups and your cheering the trashing of people who have only very recently died. It is an “ethical” mind I have never encountered before. Hopefully, reading it the second time will make your thinking clearer.
jinmaro — that’s a wonderful poem about the magpies! Thanks!
Rob & jinmaro –
This is from the Ashikaga period…
“Get a room,
you two, why
don’t ya?”
and, famously, from the shogunate of Taishigawa Ato…
“Why don’t we d-d-d-do it
In the road?
Why don’t we do it in the
Roooad? Whyyyy don’t
We do it in the ro-oa-ad?
No-one will
Be watching us; why
Don’t we
Do it in the road?”
(trans. Kenneth Rexroth)
Your enthusiasm is encouraging, j_p_z.
I couldn’t decide between these two. What do you think:
Ssu-K`ung T`u, A.D. 834-903
And then this:
The Manyoshu Collection
No. 2831. Anon
686 to 784 AD
You could have stopped there Greenfield.
Casey, re Germaine G and her attack on Diana. I was a little surprised and disappointed at that, but having lived in Britain so long and being a Republican, perhaps she’s just one of that large group not pre-disposed to having any sympathy towards her or even sociological interest in this ongoing story. And apart from Ann Hathaway, I can’t recall GG ever investigating or showing much interest in the minutiae of individual women’s lives. Much more of a big picture writer and thinker.
Ironic, in a way, that rather than a radical feminist, such as Greer, it was a British socialist feminist, Beatrix Campbell, who wrote a very insightful and more than sympathetic political book, after Diana’s death, about her life, marriage, the monarchy, the class system, the public reaction to her in life and death, and What It All Meant. I don’t know that anyone’s added much to Bea Campbell’s excellent exposition. I remember getting a lot out of it – though I’d never liked Campbell’s previous feminist writing at all. However, in this case, I’d very much recommend her very useful work: “Diana, Princess of Wales: How Sexual Politics Shook the Monarchy”.
Wouldn’t surprise me if ‘Doctor’s Wife’ turned out to be ‘John Greenfield’ aka ‘Leftist Queer’. The MO and certain turns of phrase certainly chime. And I wouldn’t think the puerile little prannet could go without some attention here for much longer.
OK, back off topic.
I must say jpz that when you started quoting O’Hara I really thought you meant John who never struck me as much of a poet. Then I dimly remembered some Frank O’Hara bloke and so checked him out recently. Damme, he’s one mighty fine poet isn’t he? Sorta like e.e cummings after half dozen martinis effortless evoking the great lost boozy sexy spiffy arty New York of the 50s. He really liked the churning of people together. Sounds like a helluva guy for a night on the town – from uptown to downtown. And I kinda think that being killed by a beach buggy would give him much amusement.
So since this bloody melee of a thread has now turned into a poetasting circle-jerk, I think these lines by Frank O’Hara are rather apposite.
As Planned
After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called
La Petite and comes from Sweden
for they are words that you know and that
is all you know words not their feelings
or what they mean and you write because
you know them not because you understand them
because you don’t you are stupid and lazy
and will never be great but you do
what you know because what else is there?
Anonymous submission.
Thanks Jinmaro, reading about Diana, and the cultural shifts that came and went with her, is starting to become a hobby of mine, and Ive just looked that up and its in the libary, so I’ll check that one out. I liked Greer’s comments on Irwin (which were fairly reasonable when read in whole), but wasnt too clear what she was on about with Diana and didnt read too deeply into it either.
If you really wanna get your critical juices flowing jinmaro, check out Julie Burchills ‘Diana’.
One of the most venomous and frequently spot-on takedowns of the English ancien regime I’ve ever read. Diana comes out of it quite well though.
Personally I feel about Diana the way The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy felt about Earth. “Mostly Harmless.”
There are many more far worse people on this planet we should be having a go at instead of members of the demimonde.
The Chaser calling Diana a slut was not at all to my liking but I’ll bet heaps that POG (Prince of Greece) alias Phil called her much worse before and after he forced himself to view the 10 tons of flowers outside Buck House and did not vomit thereof.
But agreed, why pick on Diana? Princess Margaret, other inbred members of the Royal family anyone?
As the story goes, Liz is in Australia being introduced to various luminaries and at the end of the line ( Nabs in a former life?):
Peter, according to Tina Brown’s recent memoir of Diana, in the early years of the royal marriage fiasco, Phil the Greek had the hots for Diana big time and if he’d been slighter younger, he and she would definitely have become *cough* an item. Diana with her father-figure fixation wouldn’t have all been averse to such a dangerous liaison as it would, among other things, have been magnificent revenge on husband and his queenly mother – or so Brown evilly opined.
I’m a sportsman. The Royal Family is an easy target. A canned shoot basically. And while I’m a republican, I think QE2 is not a bad old gel and has done her job better that expected.
But really, what have we got to look forward next from ‘Windsor Street’. Chuck 3? At least Will and Harry seem like a couple of likely lads, thanks to their mum.
But whenever I wonder about the future of the Royal Family as seen by the great British public, this is always a refreshing glassing.
Would have made Edward’s abdication for Mrs Simpson a mere indiscretion Jinmaro!
You’re right Nabs, Lizzie is not a bad old stick.
General “Dugout” Doug Macarthur is my next alternative. I think he was light years ahead of Diana in the PR stakes. Booted out of the Phillipines and rolls up here as a fricken hero???
Doctor’s wife, it’s only confusing if 1) you see a request for politeness as censorship and 2) you confuse satire with being an offensive shit. If you are Greenfield then it’s pretty likely you do see it that way and you do experience that confusion, mostly I would imagine because you think your own pig-headed rudeness passes for cutting wit.
I would like to hope that slow reading of the thread might illustrate these differences for you, but if you are Greenfield then I doubt any amount of careful explanation will ever help you to understand the difference between “social graces” and “repression”. Is it your upbringing, I wonder, or the fact that you have sold your soul to Liberstopheles…?