I received another personally addressed letter signed ‘Turnbull’ yesterday. Third in a week. Continue reading ‘Once more with feeling’
Author Archive for suz
It’s Halloween. A decade ago I wouldn’t have known that, but in the past 10 years, not only have I been exposed to daily American culture through the Internet, but Halloween has become an Australian festival (if festival is the right word).
I first glimpsed some children trick or treating in my neighbourhood about six years ago. At the time, I had a toddler who was totally unimplicated in that sort of behaviour, so I could afford to think of it purely in a critical way, as the importation of an American custom — as cultural imperialism. Continue reading ‘Trickery or treat?’
When I first picked up the personally addressed envelope, I thought ‘Oh no, not again, so soon‘. It was only a few days since the last campaign letter. Then I opened it and saw that this one was from Lucy Turnbull, who had written to tell me about “the man I have known for almost 30 years”. I had a strong feeling of deja vu — sure enough, Lucy said that “before the last election I wrote a similar letter to many people living in our area”. She’s done so again because “a lot of new people have since joined the electorate” (aka a redistribution).
The two-page letter is essentially a chronicle of Malcolm’s life story — in her eyes. The key points: Continue reading ‘Lucy’s man’
…or drink no wine at all, especially if you’re a woman with any breast cancer risk factors. That seems to be the gist of the latest health advice in relation to cancer and heart disease.
Meat: The World Cancer Research Fund report, to be released later this week, reviews all available science relating to cancer prevention. The results are no surprise and are pretty unequivocal - consumption of red meat is implicated in development of bowel cancer, which is the most common cancer to affect both men and woman in Australia (and the second most common, after prostate cancer).
Wine: The recommended red wine isn’t going to come cheap for Australians: “Many of the big-brand Aussies, while overly rich in alcohol, are generally poor for polyphenols - though some of their cabernet sauvignon-based wines are better.” Polyphenols are the compounds found in some red wines which might inhibit the development of cancers. So Australians with angina/heart disease or who are serious about reducing their possibility of developing same might be shelling out more for the good French (or Argentinian) stuff.
Another campaigning week, another personally addressed letter from Malcolm Turnbull. This one, I immediately noticed, managed to get the word ‘families’ into the opening line — Dear Ms, While Australia’s economy continues to grow, I know families continue to face pressures. It was beginning to look very much like some Rudd-style empathy for “working families” but then came the next sentence: That’s why John Howard and Peter Costello have together announced a strong plan for tax relief, which will let families keep more of the income they work so hard for. The rest of the letter was about the importance of the strong economy, etc, etc. Then a PS in small type: under “union-controlled Labor” … “families could face an extra 1.4% on interest rates if the reforms that keep our economy strong are reversed”. I don’t know whether to think it’s brazen or stupid to claim that interest rates will go up under Labor in the same week that yet another rate rise on the Howard watch begins to look inevitable. Continue reading ‘Malcolm’s environment 2′
It’s a surprise-a-day campaign here in Wentworth. As everyone knows, this marginal seat is held by Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was elected just three years ago. This hasn’t stopped him from warning us against the “dangerous inexperience” of the “union dominated Labor Party”. That was in the first letter I received from him the other day - the same day I received one from Kevin and George (Newhouse, the local ALP candidate) offering “a better deal for families and seniors”. The ALP letter did offer policies, whereas Malcolm’s offered many underlined sentences, culminating in “Don’t experiment with your vote“.
My attention was diverted from all this by the striking front page this week of the local newspaper, The Wentworth Courier. Continue reading ‘Malcolm’s environment’
A few weeks ago, on September 26, the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais published the transcript of a meeting between then Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and US President George W Bush in Texas on February 22, 2003 — a few weeks before the Coaliton of the Willing invaded Iraq.
The transcript makes clear that Bush had already decided to invade.
Saddam Hussein won’t change and he’ll continue playing games. The time has come to get rid of him. That’s it.
…
There are two weeks left. In two weeks we’ll be militarily ready.
…
My patience has run out. I won’t go beyond mid-March.
Mark Danner has written an essay on what this transcript tells us about George W Bush, to be published in the November New York Review of Books but previewed on Tom Dispatch.
It’s almost inconceivable that Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard and his Foreign Minister Alexander Downer didn’t have similar conversations with Bush. Continue reading ‘Downing Street Memo II’
This is a guest post by Sam Butler of Queer Penguin
For the purposes of this article, let’s optimistically assume the following: Labor wins this year’s federal election; Labor and the Greens and/or Democrats form a Senate majority; and Labor implements its promises within its first term of office.
Fanciful I know, but necessary for the sake of argument, as it was with such assumptions in mind that Labor recently outlined its GLBTI policy in Sydney to a small but passionate assortment of believers and cynics, organised by the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby and featuring Labor candidates for inner-city seats as well as the party’s would-be Attorney General, Senator Joe Ludwig.
As all speakers went to great lengths to make clear, Labor is a better option than the Howard government where ending legislative discrimination against same-sex couples is concerned. Labor is committed not only to amending the 58 laws identified in HREOC’s Same Sex: Same Entitlements report, but also an even more comprehensive audit of additional laws and departmental policies. Sydney MP Tanya Plibersek and Wentworth candidate George Newhouse articulated a thorough understanding of other key issues concerning GLBTI folk, including domestic violence and the rise of assaults on Oxford Street, with corresponding action plans.
So far, so good. It’s at the next step – formal recognition of same-sex couples – where things get tricky. Continue reading ‘Hard Labor’
There’s nothing in Robert McClelland’s speech about the death penalty in Asia that I would disagree with. Surely a country like Australia which has outlawed the death penalty at home cannot in good conscience support it elsewhere - that looks suspiciously like a two-tier system of ethics, which could come very close to racism in some instances.
Yet the speech was being framed as a “blunder” and a “gaffe” in the media yesterday, a blunder which Howard and co. jumped on. Obnoxious as always, Alexander Downer talked about “Labor’s longstanding policy of support for the Bali Bombers”.
Today Downer has moved on to disingenuously supporting McClelland against that disgraceful Kevin. Continue reading ‘Opposing the death penalty = political death?’
SameSame.com.au has announced its list of 25 influential lesbian and gay Australians.
It’s an impressive list and fascinating to read about some of the names I’d never heard of, such as Seven’s Head of Creative Drama and Development, Bevan Lee.
I wish there’d been a higher proportion of women - for starters, Fran Kelly is pretty influential and there’s also NSW MLC Penny Sharpe and poets Dorothy Porter and Jill Jones.
As for Missy Higgins … there’s another thread for that discussion.
Any others who aren’t on that list (and who can be publicly named — please be sensitive)?
‘Not too many black refugees thanks, especially if they’re Muslims and need trauma counselling. We’ve heard stories at the corner shop about their unAustralian ways and how they don’t fit in.’
Kevin Andrews embarrasses us again.
As speculation grows that we’ll be speculating for weeks yet as to when John Howard will call an election, campaigning is already well underway - in the marginal seats, at least.
Here in Wentworth, we received our introductions to candidates for The Greens and the ALP weeks ago and sitting MP Malcolm Turnbull sent out a multi-page newsletter, just in case we didn’t know who he was. And of course there was the Cousins/Gunns brouhaha.
Now the phoney campaign has started in earnest.
Yesterday I swung by Bondi Beach markets and immediately noticed the Kevin07 stall out front - with balloons, placards, leaflets, etc. All the signs of an election stall.
Today came the first true campaigning flyer through the letterbox. I assume it’s from the ALP because it’s in yellow and black, though the words “Labor”, “ALP” and “Newhouse” are conspicuously absent. Continue reading ‘The phoney campaign’
As the election approaches, there’s bound to be another round of discussion about politics and politicians online - the role of You Tube, Facebook, newspaper blogs, online polls, political bloggers, etc.
But as I was squashing a cockroach in my kitchen this morning, I was thinking about the apparent failures of Australian small business in the online environment. Continue reading ‘Doing business online’
Get Up’s made an ad for broadcast during the AFL grand final. I like the way it pokes fun at the Howard government’s ludicrous fridge-magnet approach to climate change.
Along with the Climate Institute’s tv ad featuring Jack Simmons, which is very popular with my eight year old, it’s good to see some non-party organisations (and I don’t mean employers’ groups or even unions) getting smart with advertising.
As the non-election advertising campaign goes on and on, I have a couple of quick comments:
* I have a school-aged child and would therefore be in the prime target group for the Federal Government’s drugs brochure. Yet when mine finally arrived, I found little in it of any interest. I leafed through it and put it into the recycling bin. Afterwards, I was struck by what an enormous waste of money this was - first of all, this went to every Australian household, yet fewer than 50% of Australian households include children. If there was really an interest in targeting parents, this was not the way to go about it. Distributing the brochure through (shock!) the public school system might have been more effective. I’m left to conclude that the main aim of this particular campaign was to spread John Howard’s paternalistic face around and make it look like he and his government are extremely concerned and doing something about (horror!) drugs.
* The ubiquitous ads from the Workplace Info line annoy me in general, but one in particular really gets on my nerves. Continue reading ‘Advertising the Howard Federal Government’
Recent comments
Fine, Ambigulous, dylwah, murph the surf, wizofaus, David Rubie [...]
Adrien, Ambigulous, Adrien, Liam, Mark, Liam [...]
David Rubie, Paul Burns, Brian, David Irving (no relation), kymbos, kymbos [...]
Adrien, Katz, Paul Burns, Kingsley, Mark, Liam [...]
Paul Burns, David Rubie, Mark, Brian, Paul Burns, Baraholka [...]
equaseks, Peter Wood, Mark, Peter Wood, Peterc, Tim Macknay [...]
Adrien, Legal Eagle, Michael Sutcliffe, Mark, Tyro Rex, Adrien [...]
jrbarch, Mindy, Mark, Mark, Leon, Derek [...]
Mindy, Admin!!! HELP!!!, FDB, David Rubie, FDB, David Rubie [...]
Ambigulous, suz, Colin, un ami des beaux arts, adrian, suz [...]
Bilko, Paul Burns, Dave Bath, Bilko, Nabakov, Adrien [...]
RobWindt, Pappinbarra Fox, Ai! Que Dolor!, Patrick B, peter jones, Paul Burns [...]