While I’m sure the PM’s press secretary would be thrilled with the New York Post‘s extensive three-column coverage of Rudd’s visit to New York on page 17 (bottom, centre) last Sunday, they may be a little startled at the caption writer’s none-too-subtle moniker:
Was this a flamboyant gesture to balance the gender ledger of Rudd’s New York nightlife - an attempt to settle old Scores perhaps?
No, sadly, the Rainbow Room isn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds, but is of course the stalwart dining institution atop the Rockefeller Centre.
At the weekend it was the scene of the 60th anniversary dinner of the American Australian Association which, the Murdoch-owned paper was quick to remind us, was founded in part by old pa Keith. (The Post is the local Terrorgraph equivalent, also owned by Rupert.)
A rather fascinating confluence of media, history and international politics, if you could look past the shrimp and lamb that graced the dinner tables.
But I much prefer the caption writer’s take on the night - don’t you?
Indeed. But would they serve shrimp and lamb at a New York restaurant? Steakhouses are all the rage, but I don’t think they’ve even heard of roast lamb.
Mohammad H Pedophile!
The standard of his NY strippers has sure declined.
MarkL
Canberra
Hey look Rupert likes Kevvie. Rupert supports Kevvie. Kevvie is PM because he
had dinner with Rupert in Yass and agreed to give him all of Australia’s bandwidthwas elected by the people.>
There were no strippers at all. That was just Sarah on a Sports Illustrated shoot. She was wearing paint and everything.
>
Sorry Rupert. Just a l’il joke. Please don’t have me shot.
“Mohammad H Pedophile!
The standard of his NY strippers has sure declined.”
And the standard of the MarkL comment shows no sign of improving.
Indeed, pretty ugly on various levels. There is a big whiff of very sour grapes emanating from Canberra.
MarkL is just baiting us to see if someone will jump on his gratuitously offensive schtick. Displaying about the same level of maturity as those idiots in Denmark. Free speech = the right to offend for political reasons? My ass.
Who are the AAA? Lobby group or seniors’ get-together a la Rotary? Trace elements of RWDBs in this sector, Captain.
H&R, the AAA are just a fairly standard business forum-y bunch who host breakfasts and dinners on both sides of the Pacific. I think the secret handshake and secretly-running-the-world quotient of the group is minimal to nil.
Na, the secret handshake, secretly running the world mob were the lot JWH thought he was in with - until he lost the election and got a reality check. AAA is, I suspect, and organisation created by Aussies to introduce Americans to the delights of Bundy Rum, VB, Fosters, Toohey’s New, and that poisonous combination of 50-50 Strongbow and Guiness.
Never automatically ascribe to devious and cunning calculation what you can imagine instead an overworked subbie coming up with at the last minute.
And quite frankly I wish someone/anyone was running the world behind the scenes. The whole planet is turning into the new Heathrow T5 terminal writ large. Everything running well behind schedule, important baggage gone missing and frequent and incomprehensible announcements by those claiming to know what’s going on…
My thoughts exactly!
“Rainbow Coalition”: well, I guess they couldn’t go with “Rainbow Connection” b/c not enough kids grow up watching the Muppet Movie anymore, so not enough people would get it. Then again, w/ Rainbow Coalition, I’m not sure how many of the under-30s know or care who Jesse Jackson was, either. In light of Bush’s “New Man of Steel” thingy for Rudd, maybe they could have tried “Rock-Feller Centered”. Nah, who am I kidding, I’m clearly not cut out for the newspaper business.
Waiter! Bring me a custard pie! I feel the need to stick my own face in it, then shave!
Kim: “MarkL is just baiting us to see if someone will jump on his gratuitously offensive schtick.”
Yes, it certainly wasn’t very Xtan of him. Thank Obama we’re all above gratuitously offensive schtick about all religions, including Xtianty and its Xiam Myth. (And yes, I’m sure all you geniuses who employ this betarded usage are fully-accredited Xtan theologians, just innocently plying your trade.)
More historical allusions: were the shrimp and lamb on the Rainbow Room menu a veiled reference to John Howard and Dolly Downer?
Are you saying it’s a case of mutton dressed as lamb dressed as shrimp dressed as Howard dressed as Downer dressed as Kevin Rudd’s Scores performer? Ye Gods!
I think that I like ‘Rainbow Connection’. Keb has more than a whiff of Kermit about him!
“Free speech = the right to offend for political reasons? My ass.”
At the risk of taking this thread OT, would Kim care to elaborate on that comment? In my view, if the right to free speech is taken seriously it must include the right to offend for political reasons. Mark B has regaled us on this site in the past about singing along to triumphalist Red anthems about the bodies of class enemies hanging from lightpoles. I think that sort of speech is pretty vile but I would represent him for free in court if he were to be prosecuted for it.
JPZ, you’re so obsessed with this issue you have completely missed the truly vile aspect of MarkL’s comment, which was the trashing of the Prime Minister’s wife. Because of course, as everyone knows, women are to be judged only on what they look like and whether mindless sexist trolls find them f*ckable, even well into middle age. The fact that the woman is a millionaire in her own right and clearly a happy and clever person may explain some of MarkL’s bile, as envy is a popular motivator in the blogosphere.
This is what she looks like. Imagine what MarkL and his ilk would say if she were genuinely homely.
Not, I’m sure, that she would care. Which may be part of MarkL’s problem.
Perhaps MarkL tumesces only under extreme provocation.
Like this.
http://i7.tinypic.com/6o3f18y.jpg
Bismarck, no I wouldn’t care to elaborate, not on this thread, because it does take the thread OT, which may or may not have been MarkL’s intention, but I don’t want to go there based on an already off topic remark.
Dr. Cat: “JPZ, you’re so obsessed with this issue you have completely missed the truly vile aspect of MarkL’s comment, which was the trashing of the Prime Minister’s wife.”
Hmm. That’s actually sort of interesting: I mean, the different ways that people can read someone’s ‘constructed’ online personality and its ostensible expressions. To me, this seems like one of the more fascinating illustrations of the so-called “intentional fallacy” that I’ve come across. (Not being sarcastic or aggro here, I mean it, really.)
Two points, but in reverse order, as it were: a) In reality (although really there’s no good reason anyone on this site woulda had to assume this), I wasn’t even capable of properly reading MarkL’s original comment as a “trashing of the PM’s wife,” since I couldn’t readily understand the allusions in that part, and also, Mr. Rudd (almost necessarily) just doesn’t show up on my personal radar as strongly as he would for your good selves — still less his esteemed spouse, still less the whole “NY stripper (non-)scandal” that this thing seems to reference. (Not that I give two shits about the fate of Eliot Spitzer, but his missteps in this regard make Mr. Rudd’s seem almost admirable by way of contrast) And b) although I do indeed find ongoing references here to Christianity as “Xanity” and its variants to be both bone-headed and wilfully obnoxious, nevertheless I don’t believe I’ve ever before given readers of this site cause to think that I am “obsessed” with the issue. I believe that would be what you fine folks call “drawing a long bow” (I like the imagery, I wish it were current in American-speak).
But since we’re on the topic: I am willing to bet good money (by which I no longer mean the American dollar!) that I am in a literal minority of people on this site who have actually attended Christian theology classes in which Our Lord Jesus Christ was normatively written about as ‘X’, and who knows what that actually stands for.
People who casually and ignorantly (and often, I think, maliciously) employ this usage in idiotic ways like “Xanity” should understand that they are actually combining two separate alphabets; and if they cannot state clearly why they are doing such an odd thing (and if they can’t even name the two alphabets), then it should be presumed that they are being deliberately insulting, and that they are malicious fucktards with an axe to grind.
Chi Ro.
As far as I see, no one but you started taking about “Xtans” or whatnot, j_p_z.
Tigtog’s recent warning about prosecuting disputes across threads is salutary.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/03/31/creeping-pinkification-the-persistent-feminization-of-unisex-commodities/#comment-452161
Let’s try to avoid all the personal stuff, please.
I told you that MarkL comment was bad news.
Let’s see if we can’t start again tomorrow in more pleasant mode.