An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
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frist lol lol
ha ha, sucked in suckers!
coooeee!
Good old Adders, always half an hour behind.
Here I am staying up late writing again and I still don’t get first. Ah, well, one day.
3/4 of the way through chapter 2 of my book. (Turned the prologue into chapter 1.) e-mailed the publisher today to let them know what I was doing. Haven’t heard back from them yet.
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favourite comments of the week
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abbott the knuckle-dragger dribbling on about Rudds heavy-handed statism in the grech affair. the vampire abetz whining on about labor hypocrisy on ‘whistleblowers’.
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they parade themselves as worthless liars and hypocrits. howard and his sinister cronies would have had a labor grech-analogue flayed alive in public – while pouring contempt, calumny and police repression on any Australian who dared raise a voice against their sick, degraded values
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god save us if these monsters ever get back into government
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Following two posts on MJ thread advocating the excellence and uniqueness of Mozart, Bach, may we please have a musical greats thread? [not urgent, these persons can and have waited centuries]. Like the recent belles lettresists thread.
What about a thread on singers that died too young and the quality of their lives.
My three favourites:
1. Paul Robeson
2. Ahmad Zahir
I discovered thi Afghan singer recently. Beautiful voice, died young under suspicious circumstances, probably at the hands of the Russians.
3. Augus Rumwaropen. Keyboard for West Papuan Black Brothers Band.
Mr Hope ‘n Change at work:
Change! Obama Will Hold Terror Detainees Indefinitely! <- breaking!
Barack Obama’s Greatest Accomplishment (so far)! <- comparison with G.W.
Read and weep! Or laugh.
Ambigulous @6
My idea of nirvana .. liberation … enlightenment is the capacity to appreciate and enjoy all creation and creation’s achievements; to appreciate and enjoy all lands, their peoples and what they offer, including culture and food; to revel in the full gamut of philosophy/ religion, arts, food and so on. All good -> great music is an invaluable gift, and limiting one’s self to one era, one type, one artist is like limiting one’s self to one food, prepared one way – rissoles & gravy or original KFC, for instance.
I admit to not liking post 1838 European Romantic music (Schumann, Brahms etc) and the Hollywood schmaltzy background mood music into which it degenerated; or country and western; or most jazz; or where early C20 “classical” music went after the early Soviet Greats Katachurian,Prokofiev, Shostakovich etc. Nor am I overfond of traditional Asian music. But I also don’t like coconut, capsican, supermarket sausages, barbecues, KFC or Big Macs (unless they are computers).
I didn’t particularly take to Michael Jackson’s music, or Nirvava’s, or Culture Club’s (tho I do enjoy ‘real’ rap); I’m a 50s-60s rocker at heart. I’m not a fan of musicals, tho I enjoyed Hair & early Rice & Lloyd-Weber (before it went mummy & grandma commercial). I love great music from the Middle Ages onwards. Great polyphonic, especially a cappella, more so sung in great Gothic and Renaissance cathedrals, lures this old agnostic into churches; just as great rock in daggy Hammersmith dragged me into eye-wateringly smokey halls, despite the instant migraines pot-smoke give me. Bach and Beethoven lift my spirits, but so do the Beatles & Bombora! Mozart I adore; but I love “Black Sabbath’s” variations on the Dies Ire theme.
Do I want an LP thread on the great Baroque, Rococo and Early Romantics? Not here, not really – tho I’d enjoy posting. “Variations on a theme” like the Dies Ire (DSCH in European musical parlance) from Gregorian to Shostakovich’s string quartets … and Black Sabbath? I’m not even sure of that, although I’d probably post, after I’d wallowed in it again (by which time the thread would have disappeared off the page). Different instrumentation – the decades-old biggest pipe organ in the world v Moog v (for me) Bach’s own interpretations on a Baroque Organ and chamber orchestra … Love the lot, I say!
If I had to pick a thread’s theme, it would probably be what I’ve just typed – the gamut of what music turns one on at any particular time. As one who, much younger, then ever older, wallowed in London’s music scenes, from the thunder of St Paul’s great organ (or the Festival Hall’s, or St Martin’s in the Fields, St Jim’s or St John’s Smith Square’s Baroque organs & the Early Music Consort) to inviting migraine & bad sinus attacks in getting high on secondary-smoke & rock in smokey pubs & halls, I’m sure “great music” is less of THE question than “great appreciation”, “the right music for the mood”, and the perpetual lure of new music, new instruments, new interpretations.
Great music – all great art – sends an electrical current through one’s body, grabs the throat, makes the eyes water in sheer ecstasy, creates a moment so memorable that, ever after, one knows exactly when it was, where it was, what one was wearing … in short, turns on the mind’s total recall of context. I have that memory of Elvis, on radio, on the initial broadcast of Heartbreak Hotel; of Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrach, of first hearing “Norwegian Wood” and “Whiter Shade of Pale”, Men at Work & Yothu Yindi … of fulfilling a childhood dream, standing in the Gods of Vienna’s Operhaus for a Boxing Day rendition of Der Rosenkavalier .. of hearing the a small group of didgeroo players on Portobello Road on a cold London winter’s day after I’d just paid £48 for an unrecognised & near mint c1750 Chelsea figure of an actress …
That’s what defines great music and great musicians!
End of rave!
PS Forgot the mention those electric Wagnerian moments of Star Wars’ overture & the first Vader-in-context leitmotif
I’m surprised at how much sympathy I feel for Jackson really, most celebrity deaths just make me irritated at the media death festival.
I remember when Heath ledger died people at some blog started a ‘which tragic celebrity death next’ discussion. Jackson was picked by a few people and I thought, no way, he’s got too many doctors, and as far as i knew wasn’t famous for heavy drinking/drug use. Oh well.
So, who’s next? Winehouse has to be a favourite, but I’m not sure she’ll have the impact of a real media death festival.
I can’t come to grips with how such a tortured soul produced such sizzling, light-weight, music and dance. Maybe his tap-dancing kept the demons under the waxed floor of his mind.
Why do I say he was a “tortured soul”? Any young black man who wants to turn his physical appearance into that of a middle-aged, mid-western US, white suburban woman has to be deeply disturbed – in ways few of us could comprehend. (And I don’t mean this as an affront to the trans-gender community, even though I’ll readily admit I cannot comprehend what goes on inside their minds, or bodies.)
I think John Lennon said something about (Elvis) that has a parrellel: it’s the courtiers that killed the king.
Maybe the increasing distancing of Michael Jackson from the realities of life holds up for us, in stark relief, how politicians – surrounded and cocooned by all their grovelling, agenda spinning courtiers, become increasingly remote from the “real” world?
I’ve woken up and its showery and I’m out of smokes. Teach me to write all night. Though, one of the advantages of being an older person is you don’t sleep as much. Back to my revolutionary studies after I get a cab to and from the corner shop. Some shopkeeper overpaid me $50 in change on Thursday, but as I’d been to 3 or 4 shops in a row before I realised I didn’t know who to take it back to so I kept it.
Am toying with the idea of posting ch.1 of my book on my blog, but something tells me my probable publisher wouldn’t approve. Might type up something on the madness of George William Maxwell soon though. For starters, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as long. I haven’t done a post for weeks.
Anybody else find the interchange/connection/relationship between blogging and one’s work in other media flummoxing, or something? You know what I mean.
What an excellent question. My answers are (a) no I don’t find it flummoxing and (b) yes I do know what you mean. But I use my blog as a place to play and a repository for whatever I’ve been thinking and pondering and laughing and crying about, rather than as an extension of, or just another venue for, more of the same — the more orthodox forms of ‘public’ writing. I mean yes the blog is public, but there is no cash nexus and no set of cultural expectations (not that I am obliged to meet, at least) from editors and readers of what an ‘essay’ or a ‘book review’ or a ’scholarly article’ or whatever might be. And that means I’m off the chain.
What about Catgate?
The media needs to get to the bottom of allegations that Malcolm Turnbull once harmed a cat.
I believe Anonymous are in the habit of stalking and harassing anyone accused of harming a cat. I’ll leaves the means/ends debate to your conscience. Also, whether you want to risk dipping your toe in the polluted acidic swamp of the internet.
Thanks, PC.
I use my blog for writing little bits of history and reflecting about reading, history, maybe politics etc and to provide links to book reviews I’ve written. So far anyway. Much appreciated.
Not really, Paul @ 13; though I tend to think in academic lengths and argumentative format, so I’m a long-winded poster (Not that any of you would have noticed, eh?). I don’t have trouble switching language, having thankfully grown up in an academic era during which, except for the demands of impersonal & formal style, plain language was mandatory! Besides, as used to be normal, I balanced formal writing with writing for much wider audiences – poetry, short & long fiction, journo-style articles. Again that was expected of academics in the days before productivity point scoring (literally) and work loads that would kill an elephant. Today, my greatest difficulties are down to old age’s arthritis, and TIA’s uncorrectable effects on eyesight & fingers that don’t do what the mind dictates, like getting letters in the right order. So yeah, I luv yer posts; I luv yous all! Dinkum! If I’m quiet/ silent, the brain’s probably cleared and the latest creative writing progressing
But I do want to have my quid’s (2cX100) worth on the lamentable shift from wonderfully crafted “great read” academic books and articles to page after page of pretentious, unintelligible, jargon-riddled gobbledegook.
My early 60s’ undergrad compulsory Eng 1 course has a set text on writing (title & author forgotten) with chapters titles “Cut the cackle and get to the horses”: and “Call a spade a spade” – I think “Stick to the knitting” and “Keep it simple, stupid” were also in there somewhere. Clear, concise, preferably simple words, or else the best you get is “resubmit”! I remember a lecturer (probably Van Vallis or Charles Gordon Cooper) carrying on a treat about great writers’ ability to say the most profound things in the simplest language. Mind you, I matriculated before mandatory Latin for Arts was dropped, and my Senior year set-text was a collection of Cicero’s speeches & letters- great training in good writing!
Someone scientific (prob Prof Harry Messel) had a super spiel along the lines of “If students or readers don’t fully understand the language, how can you expect them to master the concepts and discipline?” Wise words! I have no trouble reading or following the most arcane quantum physics (tho I can’t elaborate, replicate or continue the maths) because, once I’ve mastered symbols and definitions, it’s all so simple to follow. But I’ve stopped reading within most of my own theory areas because of turgid jaw-breaking language, line after line. Do students lose marks, these days, for using words of fewer than three syllables which can be understood by an reasonably intelligent yr 12 student? Why are texts written for management/ admin courses so much more lucid than Social Science texts covering the same ground? Because biz students (mostly post-grads) can’t hack crap? If after a lifetime of study – most of it teaching as well (year 1-to higher degrees)in Liberal Arts, social sciences & management/administration – I find the language impenetrable, it is, and the writer’s wallowing in academic wank#ng.
I hit my first wall between me and understanding in an article (it would have to be on education, wouldn’t it) with an Arts degree + a further 3 years FTE of history post-grad, and the article, in a Class A International Journal, was totally blo#dy incomprehensible! 3+ decades later, it still is! Unfortunately, it was not a single spy, but a scout for big battalions. All too soon, this polysyllabic technical jargon became the norm for the “social science” generations (of what had been Liberal Arts for millennia). Another UQ Prof (?Andy Thompson) used to be fond of setting essays on that Lewis Carroll/1984 concept – we expect words to clarify meaning; but often they’re used to hide meaning. Bring him back, I say!
So I’ve had to make little adjustment from academic to a normal “verbal communication expression” (ie “words”)
The long-windedness is, however, a programmed response!
What about a thread on composers for singers that died too young? I’ll nominate…Mozart! Supporting documents from his mass in C minor (K427): Gloria, Credo.
(I first heard these while watching the Channel 4 TV miniseries “A Very British Coup”, which I’d also recommend. The miniseries is based on the novel of the same name by Chris Mullin.)
DeeCee @ 18,
I tend to avoid books of long-winded academic jargon if I can. I recently had to review a book written like that and it was my first bad review since I’ve began reviewing. It was a load of disconnected post-modernist gobbledygook that really got on my goat.. You can read it in Review of Australian Studies if you like. I’ve found nearly all history writing comprehensible (though I can’t say the same for archaeology.) In my experience even when the books are difficult (like some of the neo-Whig American historians – for me, anyway -) they’re still pretty easy to understand. (I have since written another highly critical review of Nicholson’s Human Smoke, but GLW (my first review for them) haven’t published it yet. Will put it on my blog when it is published.)
I remember that book you mention. Think we had it in first year English at UNE.) (1977)
“Westpac NZ makes new $3m account blunder” says the headline at Yahoo!7News.
If you read the article, about another mistake by the Kiwi branch of the bank of the year and all the comments by readers relating how wise it might be to start a windfall account, you have the chance to press a button on the same page that has an advertisement for…. “A guaranteed cash cow*”. At Westpac, of course!.
Coincidence or clever marketing? You be the judge.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5684418/westpac-nz-makes-new-3m-account-blunder/
I don’t know about the rest of youse, but now I want to step into a time-machine and go back 30 years or so in time, to hang out with DeeCee back in the day. The present would be great as well of course, but I bet 1966 or so would reeeely blow my mind.
Keep on truckin, DeeCee. Good onya! (if I’m allowed to temporarily borrow that phrase.)
“Every day
I get up and pray
To Jah.
And he increases
The number of clocks
By exactly one.
Everybody’s coming home
For lunch these days.
Last night there were skinheads
On my lawn.
Take the skinheads bowling,
Take them bowling.
Take
The skinheads bowling,
Take
Them bowling.”
Most strange. The story and advertisement I linked to @21 have just disappeared without trace. Just like the kiwi couple who are somewhere in China, they think, spending 3 million bucks that Westpac have, so far, not managed to regain.
I just saw ‘Wake in Fright’ which is scarily amazing and still totally relevant. Left E, if you’re out there, this one is really for you.
For Ginja@15, and anyone else curious about Malcolm and The Cat (great name for a jazz ensemble, eh?) …
Get thee to Richard Ackland’s legal site Justinian, wherein all is explained in detail. It’s behind an (extremely expensive) subscription firewall, but Richard will happily give you a 14-day free trial if you just supply him with an email address.
http://www.justinian.com.au
In brief: young Malcolm has romance with girl. It ends badly. Mal writes letter to cat Nessie, asking her to tell her mistress of the love he still has for her. Some might think it a little weird, but I find it a rather moving and sweet letter, actually.
But then tragedy ensues. Nessie dies a little while later in mysterious circumstances. Was it Malcolm in the Study with the Rope? Was he justifiably angry that the little mongrel had failed to pass on his message and effect a reconciliation?
There’s really no evidence one way or the other. And besides, it was just a cat, so who cares?
Just on putting up academic work on the internet, I’d say this is happening more and more, although I think it’s still uncommon. My co-authors and I put up a draft of our book on the internet before it was published, although we did take the draft down once the book had actually been published. If Paul’s probable publisher wouldn’t approve of putting one single chapter from his book on the internet, he or she would probably faint if exposed to the website of one of my favourite sociologists.
DeeCee, longwindedness is fine when you got something to say, as you always do. Jargon-riddled gobbledegook by definition doesn’t.
Can we really have an alternative PM who goes around harming cats? We need a Senate inquiry into Kittygate.
What was the line out of the Sid Vicious version of My Way? “And then I killed a cat…” He, he.
“And besides, it was just a cat, so who cares?
”
Oh hush your mouth.
Don’t you know you should just not say such a controversial thing ’round these parts.
I just read that Turnbull has sued a couple of times over the cat allegations. I take it back Malcolm, I’ll never mention cats again.
DeeCee @9
Thank you/danke schoen. That will take me a week to absorb and ponder. Writing is only long-winded if it could be heavily trimmed without losing meaning, which I think doesn’t apply to your piece. Viva musica!
Cats are grand I love them to bits but like anything extraneous, at certain conjunctures they can be mere bit players in human passion plays and must get dispatched as a minor plot device. Sad but true. I dispatched one once myself in not dissimilar circumstances.
Warning: cat murderer in our midst.
If anyone ever asks me “where were you when Michael Jackson died?” my truthful answer, strangely enough, will be that I was getting pissed in a small Kyoto bar with George W. Bush’s second-cousin.
Oh, T@34, I guess he would be from the Japanese branch of the Bush family. Was his first name Bonsai?
shrub
seedling
’twas “John”
I suppose the pussy stranglers of Australia have a right to representation, but on recent evidence one might expect to find someone speaking for them in the Senate rather than the House.
DeeCee and Paul make good points on language. Avoiding jargon ought to be a priority of any written paper – whether entertainment or educational. And keeping it as simple as possible is just as important.
Like them, I’ve forgotten where I learned these traits. Some was probably in some text or other. I seem to remember somebody citing one of Lincoln’s famous essays (Gettysburg Address?) as an outstanding example in that only about two words were more than two syllables. Elsewhere somebody listed some practical examples: Why endeavour when you can try? Why perspire when you can sweat? Longer words are often just pretentious.
But some I certainly picked up from general reading. Orwell was very strong on simplicity of language, pointing out that clouding it was often aimed at hiding what was really intended, or getting away with saying nothing.
A famous story about Swift is that he read aloud passages of Gulliver’s Travels to his semi-literate servant and questioned him about it to test that it could be understood clearly. Swift does indeed seem to set the benchmark for lucidity.
I don’t know if the publisher would object but I gather from my other contract that they have internet rights – or I do via them. Back then, teh Internet was not that big a thing. In any case I’m not objecting to it. I wouldn’t like to reduce sales by publishing it on the net. And you don’t know if people would rip stuff off either, do you?
btw, I’m up late writing again which is why I’m on-line at this ungodly hour. Downside, I’ll probably sleep through Insiders tomorrow (this) morning. I think this week coulda been fun.
Even more disturbing than the allegations of felineocide is that apparently Turnbull sued twice over it.
If the roles were reversed, the Libs would have private investigators sniffing around to find out more about pussygate.
Ginja this is too important a topic not to have a thread of its own. Turnabout has somehow managed to have this story shrouded in the smoke of a suit for libel about the killing of a mere cat. This is really all about his involvement with the Melbourne underbelly and his assassination attempt on Mick Gatto (aka ‘the Cat’) who was at one time threatening to move in on Turnabout’s Sydney patch. I have it on good authority from Russian friends of mine that Gatto fears Turnabout more than the Russian Mafiosi of Rose Bay which explains Gatto’s frequent absences overseas.
Okay okay Patricia. You have my attention. Turnbull is an underworld figure? He tried to kill Gatto? The cat story is a smokescreen? Code for Mick aka Il Gatto? How do you know Russian mafia? There is Russian Mafia in Rose Bay? How do you know the Russian mafia? Gatto runs overseas regularly cause Turnbull is Sydney’s Padrino?????? Patricia. Two questions a) Who the hell are you really? or b) if you really are Patricia from WA, and not an Underbelly script writer from Series 3, can I please have some of your tablets???? Please????
“a mere cat?”
Better make an anthropomorphism-infected TV series about it.
Casey – no drugs man! I’m clean! Gotta keep my wits about me! Just my Russian contacts in Rose Bay, my Jewish friends in Bondi and my racing mates in Randwick. Do you think with those sort of connections I wouldn’t have more dirt on Turnabout in Sydney than any Courier Mail journo in Brisbane can possibly sniff out on KRudd and the 51 Club? Why do you think I’ve gone underground and become a sandgroper?
Turbull is underworld? What kind of underworld? Aussie Bob underworld? So what racket does he run? Drugs, women, wine, plasticised cats????
Moggygate? Meowgate? Kittengate? I just can’t find the right title.
P.S. I don’t think there’s much danger that Turnbull will sue LP. Like most people who sue the media, he knows only to sue major news outlets – they have deep pockets. Turnbull didn’t become the richest person in Parliament by accident.
“So what racket does he run?”
For one… clear felling trees from South Pacific Islands.
Patricia! There used to be a woman called Margo who once came to this site and excelled in dropping salacious details about the Exlusive Brethren. Like this:
“As far as finding out – took up morning tea to a boardroom. I was told I always had to knock on a door before entering when told! Having a tray full of cups, tea and cake, I balanced tray and opened door with other hand……behold, men in fishnet stocking, and nudity..my..bottles of drink. Leading brothers were there plus women. I actually dropped the tray-splosh. Someone came up from downstairs and helped clean it up. I was terribly shaken. More happened later.”
Now out with it. What is behind Turnbull’s boardroom door? Speak now or be silent forthwith. Comeon don’t be a scaredy gatto.
Casey, I’m no scaredy gatta! I just can’t reveal my sources. My final working years were as a businesswoman in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs and in 2003 I was privy to discussions behind closed doors when the sitting Liberal member didn’t seem to have either enough panache or cash to splash (yes that phrase was coined way back then) to retain pre-selection for the seat of Wentworth. I remember a National Party member was very offended about that for “family” reasons. No wonder there are deep throats in Coalition ranks coughing all over Canberra. Underbelly in Melbourne has nothing on this. And Brisbane’s 51 Club are babes in arms by comparison.
But the Gatto assassination attempt goes beyond politics. Again I cannot name my sources, but “the Cat” was a threat to Turnabout on his home turf well beyond drugs and influence peddling. Though don’t forget it’s a matter of public record that he is very hooked on the ultimate aphrodisiac, power!
And Ginja please keep our feline friends out of this, they don’t deserve to have their names associated with political scandal. I think that Bullatagategate has been suggested and hits the right note.
Wow, Patricia WA. We all knew there was some bad blood in the Peter-K camp, but whoa Nelly. Maybe an LP mod. might want to read over the above?
Maybe 30 years ago, every NSW politician, judge, cop, crook & businessman could be linked through casual connections, ask Nifty..so it wouldn’t surprise me, if we are going back, way back in terms of casual connections, as to the other stuff, yr talking political dy-no-mite with a capital D.
Or am I the only one who is not getting that the above is some satire thang gorne really weird. Big possibility.
Patricia,
sounds more like GatesOfHell from the unsettling morsels you’re dropping here.
Didn’t read the papers/online over the weekend about the 51 Club stuff – not keeping up… at all.
Continue on, Patricia WA.
I previously doubted that I’d say this so soon, but it now appears possible that the Opposition Leadership runway has been cleared for the take-off of Joe Hockey.
As The Australian newspaper reports today:
“According to the Fairfax polling, Mr Costello received 37 per cent support, Mr Hockey 21 per cent, Mr Turnbull 18 per cent and Tony Abbott, who loyally defended the Liberal leader on television yesterday, 10 per cent support.”
Well, not a lot of good Mr. Costello’s 37 per cent support is doing the Liberal Party. Not that any of the Media’s “rear vision” interest in leadership has been of any value at all for the Coaltion’s long-term fortunes. Rather, it exposes the Media as having little collective imagination beyond their search for the ideal leader (which they insisted was Malcolm Turnball, until he actaully got the gig).
The circus of the previous week’s Parliament, while certainly entertaining, was very near a policy-free zone. On the issue of policy, the fact is that Joe Hockey, while far from being considered “ready to lead” by our various collective of media editors, panels and couch potatoes, has been across a range of portfolios since John Howard elevated him to the front and centre of policy debates.
I’m not much of a conservative myself, especially with a Labor family voting background such as mine. Yet I don’t take the typical progressive politics of our time at face value either and consider it quite important that Labor’s next election win, must it be that way, is a hard fought battle.
The Liberals need to put faith in a “long-term leadership prospect” that will have to produce much policy and personality profile output, even at the expense of making short-term media impacts. Then accept that even that only works in alignment with the Government of the day slipping up or growing tired or untrustworthy.
…From Justin
The cat stuff is probably one of those stories that is too good to be true – fun though.
Turnbull doesn’t need all us to dredge up conspiracy theories – he does a pretty good job of shooting himself in the foot without help from anyone.
Nathan Rees brings it.
Re 57 – the young person involved was a gormless doofus . He oozed self-satisfied
ignorance while looking like he was lost on the way to a north shore drinks party.
Stateline ( NSW version ) is probably the best 30 minutes of TV in NSW as it relentlessly gouges away at that hideous mess that emanates from Sussex St .
This incident was weak in comparison to the impact and sleeze unearthed in most of their stories .
Nathan’s rule should not last much longer but at least his response to the interjection was on the money and concerned with people’s livelihoods.
Chris Uhlmann is to replace Michael Brissenden as political editor of the 7.30 report. At least there is some good new for the Liberal Party spin machine in an otherwise disastrous period. It will give Mick a clearer platform, than “news” reports, to cover right wing talking points.