Steven Smith and Good International Citizenship
Hansard, June 2008 (okay, so it's been made up).
Published on Newmatilda.com on the 10th June 2008
Michael Connors
Steven Smith: Mr Speaker, I am honoured tonight to announce two measures to increase our commitment to international aid, going forward into the future. Occasioned by a future of resource scarcity, and destructive tendencies of over consumption, it is now time to revive, resuscitate and rekindle and er…. er….sorry Mr Speaker I have lost my thesaurus, …ah yes, to renew the idea of good international citizenship among Australian cricket fans, sorry Mr Speaker, among Australian citizens.
Necessarily, some reduction in life choices, product acquisition and budget bonuses will follow, in turn, and will follow Mr Speaker.
The Speaker: The Honourable Member for Perth will return to his seat. The Leader of the Opposition has a point of order?
Brendon Nelson: Mr Speaker, every time Australians go to petrol bowsers, they must understand that petrol is five cents more expensive…
The Speaker: The Honourable Leader of the Opposition will return to his seat, that is not a pint of beer…I mean a Point of Order.
Steven Smith: Thank you Mr Speaker we are very strongly of that view; very strongly, I stress Mr Speaker, of that view that … yes, as I was saying, perhaps it is better for me to read this speech?
While luck of geographical birth has unduly and indiscriminately determined global access to the fundamentals of consumptive life, we recognise and commit to the luck of what might be called our aristocracy of birth, which has afforded us the pleasures of the consumptive life.
Now Mr Speaker, if I may digress, as a government, we are beholden to the taxariate not to foreign alms-seekers and beggars Mr Speaker. I would underline the point there is no sense of shame in our good fortune. I underlined that point, Mr Speaker. And I underline this point, Mr Speaker. It is right to maintain our borders, adjudicate entry, and police the prudent dispensation of taxes against a global torrent of refugee migration, barbaric wars, and structural adjustment riots.
That being said, Mr Speaker, the social contract that we uphold to Australian citizens is made real not merely in the civil peace, stability and peace, and order, and peacefulness that generates growth, but in our commitment to the global aid-tithe. While short of the ideal aid commitment of .7% of GDP, our current .3% of GDP bespeaks the spirit of Australia’s generosity. It reflects the Australian government’s, the Australian nation’s, and the Australian people’s position and view that we are a good mob, at heart. But Mr Speaker, our aristocracy of birth, would be greater still were we to return to the spirit of noblisee oblige. There is greatness in realising and progressing that we can do more. This government has given contemplation to these matters, contemplation Mr Speaker, consideration, thought. And we have concluded that the road to that progressing, Mr Speaker, lies in reprising our reputation as a good international citizen in the world of the needy.
The Speaker: The Member of Wentworth, a point of order?
Malcolm Turnbull: Mr Speaker, I do not understand what the Foreign Minister is saying, his torturous attempt at erudition reminds me no less than some suburban upstart mumbling Latin at Sydney Grammar in the hope they will pass muster over supper. Mr Speaker, the house must stand up for good speech, Mr Speaker, I implore you to maintain house standards.
The Speaker: The Member for Wentworth, will resume his seat. The Minister of Foreign Affairs will continue. Please be clear.
Steven Smith: Mr Speaker marking this commitment tonight, we are pleased to announce the following measures, aimed at redistributing wealth to the wretched of the earth, while maintaining dignity and wellbeing at home.
.
Our first measure, Mr Speaker is an AID-tax on cosmetics The cosmetic revolution has allowed the fountain of youth to enhance the lives of many millions of Australians, male and female, Australians, both those who came here, those who were made here, and those who never got here Mr Speaker, I mean the unborn, Mr Speaker, not the ones those on the opposition benches allowed to sink, Mr Speaker. All are beneficiaries of a prosperous Australia. The Australian government commits to the imposition of a 2% tax on all cosmetic purchases made above $100, allowing richer Australians, who are often too busy to act on their charitable impulse, an opportunity to fulfil their noblisee oblige. As well as cream medication Mr Speaker, this measure includes, Mr Speaker, Botox injections, liposuction for cosmetic purposes, eye and nose jobs, butt-reduction and enlargement, and Mr Speaker penile enlargement.
The Speaker: A point of order? The member for O’Connor has the floor.
Wilson Tuckey: Mr Speaker, I’m not sure about the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he might have a big head, but I don’t know about that other thing, Mr Speaker, but a tax on penile enlargement, Mr Speaker is just not a fair cop. Now that this Ruddy government has placed a tax on so-called luxury cars, where will all the small-dicked men go, Mr Speaker. It’s a feminist plot Mr Speaker. The Deputy Prime Minister may smile, but why is she wearing trousers? The great thing about Australia Mr Speaker is that we can all have big dicks or sports cars…Mr Speaker. Where does it stop, Mr speaker, castration?
The Speaker: Order, Order! The Member for O’Connor will leave the house immediately.
Steven Smith: Thanks You Mr Di..Mr Speaker. Secondly Mr Speaker, we will discontinue the scheme whereby daily accommodation allowances paid to honourable members of house are used to pay rent to a spouse who is purchasing the property so rented [Indistinct shouting can be heard from the opposition benches].
The Speaker: Order! Order! Order in the House, the Member for Wentworth, will return to his seat. I said the Member for Wentworth will return to his gilded seat!
Stephen Smith: Mr Speaker, All savings from this measure, audited, committed, and going forward Mr Speaker, will be used to enable an annual meeting in London of the League of Parliamentarians Concerned with the Construction of Affordable Housing in the Lesser Developed World.
The Speaker: The Minister of Foreign Affairs will resume his seat. Yes, the Leader of the Opposition?
Brendon Nelson. Mr Speaker, a matter that lies gravely on the hearts of Australians right now, in the context of the speech on international AID, is the question of petrol…
The Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. You are out of turn.
Brendon Nelson. Mr Speaker, I would merely like to suggest that the Foreign Minister has ignored a fourth measure that would help the needy of the world. May I, Mr Speaker?
The Speaker: go on, but be warned to speak to the topic! The Leader of the Opposition
Brendan Nelson: Mr Speaker, the needs of the common people around the world are at the heart of tonight’s discussion. I see no better way for the government to make real its commitment and sincerity by speaking to the battlers, those who may well be privileged by birth, Mr Speaker, but who battle no less… I would like to announce that every time someone fills up at the petrol…
The Speaker: Order, Order! Return to your seat!! Return at once!
Brendan Nelson: Mr Speaker you can not stop me from caring for the people of the world, I say it one more time, every time some one fills up at the petrol station, they should know Mr Speaker it will be 5c cheaper under a Nelson government. This is the greatest issue, Mr Speaker that faces us today.
The Speaker: You are given one last warning, return to your seat. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, would you like to resume?
Stephan Smith. Mr Speaker, I believe less is more Mr Speaker, diminishing what you say over time and in brief is better than more, going on indefinitely, without end is better than saying less, I mean more, so I will leave it there Mr Speaker.
Showing posts with label farce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farce. Show all posts
September 9, 2007
A Plagiarist’s Manifesto
Plagiarists of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your alleged originality (and your degree).
Since Socrates, in a Hemlock sip, accepted his punishment for leading astray the frail youth of his times, all that needs to be said has been said. Between truths and untruths there is a gallery of historical figures who have in their way refashioned familiar stories as original. Take any of the great religious figures: the plump laughing Buddha rising to nirvana on account of his balloon belly and the obviously bloated point of the pointlessness of it all ; the Christ of a virgin mother never even having the opportunity to go through the civilising Oedipus complex, the great Prophet of Medina who saw in revamped scripture, old and new, a worthy story for his people; the gods who defy categorisation and who mock the paragraphic order of the west, so truly original that there are multitudinous spirit cults found anywhere in the world where fire, water, earth and air inspire awe and fawning.
Thinking of all of these religious attempts to make sense of our absurd condition we can note that each religion makes of the mystery of life its own puzzle, but few are original in the answers proffered. Religion is plagiarised salvation.
So plagiarists of the world, you have before you a veritable pantheon of would be gods and prophets who have taken from the common stock of knowledge ideas as their own without a quotation mark, let alone a footnote. If gods and prophets plagiarise, why not ordinary mortals? You stand in proud company.
Why then are you marked down and despised? Why are you summoned before austere academic committees that demand explanation of your stolen words?
It is not that you have committed any cardinal sin inherent in the act of plagiarism; it is that you have been discovered. There lies your error, for refashioned thought must always catwalk as this year’s original talk. If summoned, seek forgiveness, look remorseful. And never be caught again. Like a celebrity DJ who makes the original their own you need to jive so that you spin the original as your own.
Student plagiarism, if correctly done, is politely ignored. If they can’t Google the quoted phrase, they won’t find it. There are basically three ways of winning the plagiarism game, each corresponding to a level of aspired level academic achievement. The brilliant plagiarist aspires to a first class mark, the mediocre plagiarist aspires to a second class but can accept lower, the idiotic plagiarist merely aspires to pass, but rarely does.
1. Brilliant Plagiarism
This is the gravest sin, for you have set yourself above your teachers. The brilliant plagiarist is discovered as a consequence of not having convinced the tutor of their right to play at a high intellectual level. When a student writes brilliantly the tutor becomes suspicious. The following question occurs to him or her: Could I, a PhD, have written such a piece as an 18-22 year old?
To avoid being charged with plagiarism because of brilliance (and the resulting envy of the tutor), it is necessary to prepare the tutor to think you are capable of such brilliance. So, how to do this? The answer is to attend a few tutorials, and no more, and look bored, brilliantly bored. Snort with exasperation as other students say the most obvious of things. Purse your lips at the politeness of the tutor who praises as ‘interesting’ the tedious comments of ill-informed students. Make the tutor feel inferior with impossible questions of an epistemological nature. Intimidate. If you succeed in creating an atmosphere of psychological-superiority-complex, when your essay is marked by the said wretched tutor, he or she will masochistically realise that your snorts in class were a consequence of your transcendental wisdom being exposed to the banality of other people’s low intelligence.
Mediocre Plagiarism.
This is the most commonly successful form of plagiarism. You write, or transcribe, an essay of such overwhelming obviousness no one could fault you for absorbing the Zeitgeist of the age. If you are so obvious as to be stating the obvious, then no one will suspect you of plagiarism, just mediocrity. You can succeed in this form of plagiarism by appearing either dull or busy. For good workpersonship, expect a second class mark at least; but if you screw up the mark can be lesser still. The key to mediocre plagiarism lies in appearing overly busy with all sorts of extra-curricula activities that have distracted you from your studies. The tutor will sympathise with your busy work load and mark you up, even if some of the words seem disturbingly familiar and the overall effort is just passable. It is also possible to get a good mark even if you appear incapable of original thought. Be the kind of student who echoes eloquently that which surrounds them. Be the diligent voice of the age. Better still, to avoid any suspicion, find a tutor who believes in the “death of the author”, if they have any self-respect they are not going to charge you with plagiarism, even if various passages sound familiar.
Idiotic Plagiarism
I am afraid that for this kind of plagiarist there is not much hope. They set Shakespeare or Bertrand Russell against their own prose in the same essay. They have no idea of equivalence. The tutor, having been moved by the plagiarised paragraphs then comes across passages of such a faecal quality that plagiarism is suspected. So what to do for the no-hoper who wishes to pass a degree with no effort? The answer lies not in juxtaposition of brilliance and banality, of delicate prose next to egregious waffle. It lies in the earnest production of consistent banality. In other words, dumb down. Turn Yeats into your own prose. Make T. S Eliot sound like the Spice Girls. By dumbing down your stolen phrases you give reason for the marker to admire your ideas, while lamenting your prose as a product of some trauma.
The Queen, please don't come back
Don’t Come Back, Queen
Written on the occassion of Her Majesty's visit during the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
March, 2006.
One of the most unfortunate side effects of the Commonwealth Games, when royal personage was in town, was having to watch TV footage of an ageing and strangely hatted woman wander through small crowds with what appears to be a semi-detached wrist. This woman, who should have been given the axe several years back, was here to appear before her subjects who, it seems, can’t have a good time without a right royal needle up the posterior.
On opening night of the Games or sometime after, I hoped that a collective two-finger salute would greet her majestic big hoax. Instead down to earth Australian commoners paid due respect. She spoke of the commonwealth, I thought of a plundering empire that left a mess in its wake.
Why do we bow before the blue bloods? After all, would they even give you a lift on a hot day? Sometime in 1983, I was hitchhiking from Hobart to Launceston. As I wandered into one small town, there was the bustle and fuss that is normally associated with school sports day.
Kids were lining the streets and ribbons separated them from the road. It soon became clear to me that royalty was on the road, and that I’d have a chance to stick my thumb up at it. I passed the gathering, struggling with the weight of tent, kerosene stove and the dirty laundry of several weeks wear. The police allowed me to continue hitching and as I reached the outskirts of the town the royal convoy passed. I managed that hopeful side-glance of the hitchhiker and caught a glimpse of Charles and Di. They didn’t stop, though there was plenty of space. “Wankers”, I thought to myself. And that is exactly what the contemporary monarchy is.
I will not bore you with republican tales of growing up listening to the Dubliners. You can now experience that at an Irish themed franchise pub. My original antipathy had nothing to do with politics at that time, but simple decency. Monarchy is a euphemism for plunder and pillage, for indecent power and eloquent disguise.
All monarchies have at their origins in venal and power motives that get recast as salvation of nation, empire or race. I was young when I believed that, and I still do. There can be no democracy that has at its heart a belief in birth privilege.
The language, pomposity and stuffed-turkey nose-in-the air disposition of monarchy are supposed to be markers of born virtue. I doubt that there can be a shred of virtue among people who believe themselves superior to others. To be born to title is no-one’s fault, but to hold to that title, to walk red carpet and to speak of ‘subjects’ is blatant blasphemy to any humane creed.
Can I even be bothered rehearsing my political objections? Not really, go back to the pamphleteers of several hundred years ago. They said it all. To update it a little, here is my two fingers worth.
Consider the grand tax heist that only ended last decade. Consider the silliness of bowing to someone who views you as a lowly subject. Consider even more forebodingly the death of the incumbent and the arrival to the throne of a sermonising Charles holding weekly broadcasts on nose fungus and the banality of contemporary life.
Consider the Coronation. Consider an over excited octogenarian Prime Minister John Howard in attendance finally stuffing it in Canterbury as he stumbles and falls while taking a bow. Consider the news broadcasts that follow his cadaver’s return to our fair shores. Consider the fate of poor Australian expatriates in London putting up with Johnny come lately jokes.
Royals and aristocrats do not expect much from commoners, only that we follow their wise advice. They do, however expect vulgarity. So here goes. In private moments the queen passes wind. That momentary pause of waving hand is most likely one such moment. That beneficent gesture of bending to take flowers from a school girl’s hands, another.
The queen goes to the toilet. How she does, and under what conditions, is a state secret more securely kept than any other. Hopefully some rogue republican can reveal the excesses to which the government went to make sure that on the tour the royal toilet was used only by her, and once only.
Headlines I would have liked to have seen during the Royal tour include:
HOWARD PATS QUEEN ON THE BUM
QUEEN PATS HOWARD ON THE BUM
QUEEN GETS DIRTY (PICTURE OF QUEEN PLANTING A SEEDLING)
QUEENS AGAINST MONARCHY CONFRONT QUEEN
NATION GIVES TWO-FINGER SALUTE
And now my own personal message to the Queen: Your voice is snobbery vocalised, your tedious care for the world is tea’n’scone philanthropy mobilised. A wretchedly obsequious milieu will ‘maam’ you, while erstwhile republicans will bow to you. As for me, all I can say Maam, is that you’re one big Haam. Please, please, don’t come back.
Written on the occassion of Her Majesty's visit during the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
March, 2006.
One of the most unfortunate side effects of the Commonwealth Games, when royal personage was in town, was having to watch TV footage of an ageing and strangely hatted woman wander through small crowds with what appears to be a semi-detached wrist. This woman, who should have been given the axe several years back, was here to appear before her subjects who, it seems, can’t have a good time without a right royal needle up the posterior.
On opening night of the Games or sometime after, I hoped that a collective two-finger salute would greet her majestic big hoax. Instead down to earth Australian commoners paid due respect. She spoke of the commonwealth, I thought of a plundering empire that left a mess in its wake.
Why do we bow before the blue bloods? After all, would they even give you a lift on a hot day? Sometime in 1983, I was hitchhiking from Hobart to Launceston. As I wandered into one small town, there was the bustle and fuss that is normally associated with school sports day.
Kids were lining the streets and ribbons separated them from the road. It soon became clear to me that royalty was on the road, and that I’d have a chance to stick my thumb up at it. I passed the gathering, struggling with the weight of tent, kerosene stove and the dirty laundry of several weeks wear. The police allowed me to continue hitching and as I reached the outskirts of the town the royal convoy passed. I managed that hopeful side-glance of the hitchhiker and caught a glimpse of Charles and Di. They didn’t stop, though there was plenty of space. “Wankers”, I thought to myself. And that is exactly what the contemporary monarchy is.
I will not bore you with republican tales of growing up listening to the Dubliners. You can now experience that at an Irish themed franchise pub. My original antipathy had nothing to do with politics at that time, but simple decency. Monarchy is a euphemism for plunder and pillage, for indecent power and eloquent disguise.
All monarchies have at their origins in venal and power motives that get recast as salvation of nation, empire or race. I was young when I believed that, and I still do. There can be no democracy that has at its heart a belief in birth privilege.
The language, pomposity and stuffed-turkey nose-in-the air disposition of monarchy are supposed to be markers of born virtue. I doubt that there can be a shred of virtue among people who believe themselves superior to others. To be born to title is no-one’s fault, but to hold to that title, to walk red carpet and to speak of ‘subjects’ is blatant blasphemy to any humane creed.
Can I even be bothered rehearsing my political objections? Not really, go back to the pamphleteers of several hundred years ago. They said it all. To update it a little, here is my two fingers worth.
Consider the grand tax heist that only ended last decade. Consider the silliness of bowing to someone who views you as a lowly subject. Consider even more forebodingly the death of the incumbent and the arrival to the throne of a sermonising Charles holding weekly broadcasts on nose fungus and the banality of contemporary life.
Consider the Coronation. Consider an over excited octogenarian Prime Minister John Howard in attendance finally stuffing it in Canterbury as he stumbles and falls while taking a bow. Consider the news broadcasts that follow his cadaver’s return to our fair shores. Consider the fate of poor Australian expatriates in London putting up with Johnny come lately jokes.
Royals and aristocrats do not expect much from commoners, only that we follow their wise advice. They do, however expect vulgarity. So here goes. In private moments the queen passes wind. That momentary pause of waving hand is most likely one such moment. That beneficent gesture of bending to take flowers from a school girl’s hands, another.
The queen goes to the toilet. How she does, and under what conditions, is a state secret more securely kept than any other. Hopefully some rogue republican can reveal the excesses to which the government went to make sure that on the tour the royal toilet was used only by her, and once only.
Headlines I would have liked to have seen during the Royal tour include:
HOWARD PATS QUEEN ON THE BUM
QUEEN PATS HOWARD ON THE BUM
QUEEN GETS DIRTY (PICTURE OF QUEEN PLANTING A SEEDLING)
QUEENS AGAINST MONARCHY CONFRONT QUEEN
NATION GIVES TWO-FINGER SALUTE
And now my own personal message to the Queen: Your voice is snobbery vocalised, your tedious care for the world is tea’n’scone philanthropy mobilised. A wretchedly obsequious milieu will ‘maam’ you, while erstwhile republicans will bow to you. As for me, all I can say Maam, is that you’re one big Haam. Please, please, don’t come back.
September 8, 2007
A New Demanding Mark-it: Higher Education
Read about the difficult life of the middle-aged academic:
New Demanding Mark-it
By DR ERUDITIO SEDIF
"So you are unhappy with your mark?
Sit down; you’ve caught me at an odd
moment. Yes, I understand you are working
full time and that you are a HECS paying
customer. I understand that a good mark is
desired, but we don’t off er warranties I am afraid.
You shouldn’t push the HECS thing too much, you
are after all an Arts student — the cheapest there is,
fi nancially speaking. After calculating face-to-face
teaching and expected reading over the semester,
this course costs less per hour than your new ring
tone. By the way, it sounds totally ‘book’. Don’t look
too surprised, I am up on the latest trends. Spell ‘cool’
on your mobile and the predictive speller will give
you ‘book’. See, I am not all nose-hair."
Read More at www.utimes.com.au/issues/u001/16.pdf
Plagiarism Day
"Today is dreaded plagiarism
committee day. The chair is cultural
studies Professor Gerhard, now
gesticulating at the front of the
room, proudly recounting his mastery
of cyber-tools. He’s an eager mid-30s
fox always ready to spruik-up technotherapies
for the digital age of education.
“What use is old technology, I mean like
actually meeting physically, in a square
room? So 20th Century!” the recently
elevated Professor opines, “Students have
taken the lead, and we have to catch
up. Let’s hold our seminars online.”
Sitting to the left is the philosopher Dr
Frostbite who can hardly defrost enough
breath to bother uttering a response.
“Bullshit,” she fi nally says. Then, more loudly,
“No, actually it’s fucking bullshit.” Her
Mancunian accent turns fuck into “fook”,
somehow giving the profanity a poetic lilt."
Read More at
www.utimes.com.au/issues/u002/14.pdf
New Demanding Mark-it
By DR ERUDITIO SEDIF
"So you are unhappy with your mark?
Sit down; you’ve caught me at an odd
moment. Yes, I understand you are working
full time and that you are a HECS paying
customer. I understand that a good mark is
desired, but we don’t off er warranties I am afraid.
You shouldn’t push the HECS thing too much, you
are after all an Arts student — the cheapest there is,
fi nancially speaking. After calculating face-to-face
teaching and expected reading over the semester,
this course costs less per hour than your new ring
tone. By the way, it sounds totally ‘book’. Don’t look
too surprised, I am up on the latest trends. Spell ‘cool’
on your mobile and the predictive speller will give
you ‘book’. See, I am not all nose-hair."
Read More at www.utimes.com.au/issues/u001/16.pdf
Plagiarism Day
"Today is dreaded plagiarism
committee day. The chair is cultural
studies Professor Gerhard, now
gesticulating at the front of the
room, proudly recounting his mastery
of cyber-tools. He’s an eager mid-30s
fox always ready to spruik-up technotherapies
for the digital age of education.
“What use is old technology, I mean like
actually meeting physically, in a square
room? So 20th Century!” the recently
elevated Professor opines, “Students have
taken the lead, and we have to catch
up. Let’s hold our seminars online.”
Sitting to the left is the philosopher Dr
Frostbite who can hardly defrost enough
breath to bother uttering a response.
“Bullshit,” she fi nally says. Then, more loudly,
“No, actually it’s fucking bullshit.” Her
Mancunian accent turns fuck into “fook”,
somehow giving the profanity a poetic lilt."
Read More at
www.utimes.com.au/issues/u002/14.pdf
KEVIN RUDD: SMILE TO WIN THE ELECTION
Cartoon by sharyn ragget at http://www.brilliantthings.com.au/sharyn/
The Next Big Idea
By: Michael Connors
Wednesday 17 January 2007
New Matilda
Labor is in need of something special to overcome John Howard’s habit of always having the Next Big Idea: foreigners, immigrants, aliens, them, Muslims, terrorists…
There is a danger that with Kevin Rudd as its principled new leader, Labor is above stooping so low as to reach up for an abstraction that moves the electorate. But it must do so if it is to win office. Labor needs its own Next Big Idea (NBI).
The idea must be robust, outwit a sound byte, and find its way into everyday practise: otherwise it’ll come across as the hybridised random aggregate of a latte-fuelled focus group, high on new-new-Labor optimism. Best to go for something ordinary, folksy. Something that is not even a word perhaps, but a gesture. The next big idea may not even be an idea, but the conveyor of an idea.
It is true that NBIs tend to be dumb — but only in retrospect. The End of History, Clash of Civilizations, Bankruptcy For Winners, War on Terror, The Third Way… You have to admire how easily the phrase-crazemongers dominate public and academic discourse, despite their banality. Those writing NBIs are writing for an audience whose entire adulthood reading experience is based on reading executive summaries. To work on the NBI is to accept a withering of the mind for the ease of manufactured public deliberation. If it can’t be summarised, don’t write it.
The life-cycle of the common NBI is shorter than that of a Labor opposition leader, and it is just as hollow. Only exceptional NBIs — meaningful ones — last beyond a few years. Ordinary NBIs serve limited purposes. In this case, it’s about winning an election.
What matters is that people put the NBI into the shopping trolley, that presidents and husbands talk about it, and that Tony Blair carries it — for instance Wise Ways Wanting: How to be the Medium of Other People’s Desires — next to the Koran, with a look of such ridiculous sincerity that his deserting ministers read it. The NBI is a club, and the author offers readers the key to its entry by mastery of jargon. If they succeed, they will have ‘squared the circle’ by ‘thinking outside’ the ‘reengineered box’.
For the management guru working up the next NBI the rewards and the markets are endless. There can never be enough NBIs waiting in the wings. The business shelves of bookshops are so full of wisdom one can randomly pull out any book and be struck by its insight. Of course one must be prepared to ditch one’s prejudice that a book must be a logical and systematic exposition of its chosen theme.
I did such an experiment and pulled out a random book. I was motivated by the need to get Kevin Rudd to dumb down a bit, to work at not being so smart. He needs to wipe from his face that barely visible sneer of knowing-it-all that attends his public speaking. Cameras can do close-ups, Mr Rudd. Your sneer, Mr Rudd, may prove to be not so much your Achilles heel, as your Latham’s handshake. Faced with this problem, I think I have found the next NBI. While not its author, I would like to claim some credit in locating an answer to Labor’s woes.
Party faithful, go to any bookshop and you will find a priceless store of conceptual mud awaiting Rudd in JH Carver’s book, Smile with your faith: the beginning is not the end (Cockeyed Press, Ohio, 2001).
Carver’s strength is not precision — he tends to offer ponderous qualifications. However, he does develop a memorable, for five-year-olds, three-fold conceptual schema of such profound dimness that all those who want to make good from bad beginnings will see it as bright lights.
Carver’s NBI is to ‘SMILE WITH YOUR FAITH, NOT YOUR FACE’. (The shrieking font is as per the original.) His book seeks to provide leaders whom take part in prayer circles with the means to move on from the troublesome beginnings that accompany any rise in politics. His triangular route through the guilt of bad beginnings is as follows:
Smile with your faith, not your face. Because you believe in something bigger than the man you see in the mirror every morning. When you smile, imagine God smiling.
Guilt is for losers. No one else is feeling guilty, just pissed off that you won.
The past is not the present. So you were a two-faced liar, but what would Jesus do now?
Readers’ testimonies include those from governors of various American states. One reads:
The rosy optimism that comes from following the three step formula of Smile with your faith will spread good will among those around you. And a smile that is bigger than you is a vote winner. Offer the people something, but first read Carver.
Party faithful, put away your elitist obsession with big thinkers, and purchase Carver with pragmatic pride; consider too, the practical wisdom of smiling with your faith. Kevin Rudd is an intelligent man. He can do nothing other than smile.
History Wars: late 21st Century
History Wars: Onward and Forward
By: Michael Connors
Wednesday 30 August 2006
new Matilda
Education in New Australia is just getting back on its feet. Although there are few resources, no texts, and teachers rely on the memory of demented old Australians, the teaching profession is increasingly confident that New History can be written.
Serving a population of 20,000 children on this small island is a cohort of young post-mutant teachers. They are proving able to instil in the minds of our young a regard for narrative and facts. Still there are many gaps in our knowledge, signified by the question marks that appear throughout the following report.
After the Global Flood (which the Turnbull Government claimed was going to be like a swim in a toddler’s pool) and the Great Nuclear War (which the same Government claimed was the final strike against the Islamo-fashionist terror of Europe), much of the social, political and economic infrastructure of Old Australia was devastated.
The new digital city of Onward (?) — named in honour of the longest sitting Prime Minister in Old Australia’s history — was wiped out. It is said that when the first missile hit, John Onward, retired and approaching his 100th birthday, was re-learning how to count with his favourite Minister, Abbott Costello. Both were beneficiaries of the new stool-stem research of the time.
Grand Court Gerontocrat Kevin Rudd, appointed Governor of Australia by the Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence), has now forgotten how to speak English and through translation from the Mandarin we understand that he merely repeats, ‘No John, that is not a shooting star; that is not a shooting star.’ This will be the title of our Year Zero history book: Not a Shooting Star.
As for the cause of Old Australia’s destruction, no one is sure if New American Empire missiles mistakenly turned on Australia or if the crackpots in Europe decided that if they were going down, then so were we. The Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence) have instructed us to ignore Old Australia and to begin our history from Year Zero and then move quickly to the era of the Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence).
There are those of us who seek at least to remember some moments of Old Australia, as it existed to our North. Unfortunately, there was not a single library or digital database left standing after the Great Flood and War. Any carbon-based text found after the War was used to warm scarred bodies in winter. It is surprising, too, that not a single copy of the mass-produced compulsory high school text Advance Australia survives. Written by G Makawish (?), many of our demented elderly remember it fondly.
We understand that sometime early in the century, the Onward Government, on the advice of learned academics, required schools to teach a linear narrative — and the narrative was ‘onward and forward’ — a happy coincidence of name and policy. Makawish’s history served that purpose. Oral historians have made great efforts to commit to memory key aspects of the book by speaking to the less demented elderly among us.
Some of the fragments that we have established include:
How Australian Aborigines welcomed White Australians and then got drunk and needed a long period of guardianship. An eminent Australian historian by the name of John Hurt (?) reputedly sought a return to 19th century local governors to ensure the wellbeing of the Indigenous peoples. We are not sure of the veracity of this history, but we do know that Indigenous peoples are now key to the survival of de-electrified, non coal-fired New Australia. So we now have John Hurt Day to commemorate the Onward Government’s visionary thinking in maintaining Aboriginal heritage and local knowledge. The Chinese, for reasons we cannot ascertain, chuckle about this.
Old Australians fought in 15 wars against Islamo-fashion terrorists. The first, in the late 19th century led to the liberation of White people from Black Muslims who sought to enslave White pioneers. More recently, the Muslim fashion empire in Europe under Hirohito and Stalhit (?) was defeated by a grand coalition of freedom-loving Old Australians and Americans. It seems a donkey was central to the victory. Despite this, the Islamic worm turned and renewed its hold over Europe, despite calls by respectable Rotary-going members that Christians should breed, and a lot.
In the first decade of the new millennium, Australia petitioned for statehood with the New American Empire. President Clinton (?) — no one remembers if this was a man or a woman — accepted the petition and stationed strategic weapon systems here to defeat Islamo-fashionism in Europe and Iceland.
The Introductory Chapter to Advance Australia is said to have decried the standards of teaching in Old Australia, and called for abidance with the following principles:
Patriotism — love of place and nation
Datism — expression of that love by knowing when the good things happened
Matism — the good times
Onwardism — always thinking of the future, not backwards
We can report that the recent Onward History Summit made progress with rediscovering the pre-History of New Australia and we now feel confident that in so doing we will be in a better position to write our own future.
While the Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence) are firm that we should not return to Old Australian history — it is only on that basis that we can go ‘onward and forward.’
By: Michael Connors
Wednesday 30 August 2006
new Matilda
Education in New Australia is just getting back on its feet. Although there are few resources, no texts, and teachers rely on the memory of demented old Australians, the teaching profession is increasingly confident that New History can be written.
Serving a population of 20,000 children on this small island is a cohort of young post-mutant teachers. They are proving able to instil in the minds of our young a regard for narrative and facts. Still there are many gaps in our knowledge, signified by the question marks that appear throughout the following report.
After the Global Flood (which the Turnbull Government claimed was going to be like a swim in a toddler’s pool) and the Great Nuclear War (which the same Government claimed was the final strike against the Islamo-fashionist terror of Europe), much of the social, political and economic infrastructure of Old Australia was devastated.
The new digital city of Onward (?) — named in honour of the longest sitting Prime Minister in Old Australia’s history — was wiped out. It is said that when the first missile hit, John Onward, retired and approaching his 100th birthday, was re-learning how to count with his favourite Minister, Abbott Costello. Both were beneficiaries of the new stool-stem research of the time.
Grand Court Gerontocrat Kevin Rudd, appointed Governor of Australia by the Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence), has now forgotten how to speak English and through translation from the Mandarin we understand that he merely repeats, ‘No John, that is not a shooting star; that is not a shooting star.’ This will be the title of our Year Zero history book: Not a Shooting Star.
As for the cause of Old Australia’s destruction, no one is sure if New American Empire missiles mistakenly turned on Australia or if the crackpots in Europe decided that if they were going down, then so were we. The Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence) have instructed us to ignore Old Australia and to begin our history from Year Zero and then move quickly to the era of the Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence).
There are those of us who seek at least to remember some moments of Old Australia, as it existed to our North. Unfortunately, there was not a single library or digital database left standing after the Great Flood and War. Any carbon-based text found after the War was used to warm scarred bodies in winter. It is surprising, too, that not a single copy of the mass-produced compulsory high school text Advance Australia survives. Written by G Makawish (?), many of our demented elderly remember it fondly.
We understand that sometime early in the century, the Onward Government, on the advice of learned academics, required schools to teach a linear narrative — and the narrative was ‘onward and forward’ — a happy coincidence of name and policy. Makawish’s history served that purpose. Oral historians have made great efforts to commit to memory key aspects of the book by speaking to the less demented elderly among us.
Some of the fragments that we have established include:
How Australian Aborigines welcomed White Australians and then got drunk and needed a long period of guardianship. An eminent Australian historian by the name of John Hurt (?) reputedly sought a return to 19th century local governors to ensure the wellbeing of the Indigenous peoples. We are not sure of the veracity of this history, but we do know that Indigenous peoples are now key to the survival of de-electrified, non coal-fired New Australia. So we now have John Hurt Day to commemorate the Onward Government’s visionary thinking in maintaining Aboriginal heritage and local knowledge. The Chinese, for reasons we cannot ascertain, chuckle about this.
Old Australians fought in 15 wars against Islamo-fashion terrorists. The first, in the late 19th century led to the liberation of White people from Black Muslims who sought to enslave White pioneers. More recently, the Muslim fashion empire in Europe under Hirohito and Stalhit (?) was defeated by a grand coalition of freedom-loving Old Australians and Americans. It seems a donkey was central to the victory. Despite this, the Islamic worm turned and renewed its hold over Europe, despite calls by respectable Rotary-going members that Christians should breed, and a lot.
In the first decade of the new millennium, Australia petitioned for statehood with the New American Empire. President Clinton (?) — no one remembers if this was a man or a woman — accepted the petition and stationed strategic weapon systems here to defeat Islamo-fashionism in Europe and Iceland.
The Introductory Chapter to Advance Australia is said to have decried the standards of teaching in Old Australia, and called for abidance with the following principles:
Patriotism — love of place and nation
Datism — expression of that love by knowing when the good things happened
Matism — the good times
Onwardism — always thinking of the future, not backwards
We can report that the recent Onward History Summit made progress with rediscovering the pre-History of New Australia and we now feel confident that in so doing we will be in a better position to write our own future.
While the Chinese Rehabilitation Forces (may we be thankful for their presence) are firm that we should not return to Old Australian history — it is only on that basis that we can go ‘onward and forward.’
The Howard Generation?
Cartoon by http://www.fionakatauskas.com/
They get called the ‘Howard generation,’ not yet the Howard Youth. They are supposed to be materialistic, manic 20-somethings who grew up when globalisation was background muzak and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was cultural comment. They didn’t so much discuss postmodernism as live it, ironically under Howard’s modern gaze.
The generation is fictitious, of course. But generational fictions hint at the spirit of the age.
In a recently published book Please Just F* Off It’s Our Turn Now, Ryan Heath, a self-appointed Howard-generational spokesperson with a propensity to bombast and offence, gives us reason to reflect on this spirit, and on Howard’s success in shaping today’s youth.
I don’t know Heath’s age; he might be 16, he might be 34. Let’s say he belongs to the long-20s generation — which ranges from the fake ID-card set to the soon-to-use BOTOX set. Heath writes in New Matilda 77 (link here):
So, about us. We’re global, responsible and live 24/7 lives. We’re pro-capitalist because capitalism supports the opportunity and the lifestyle we are used to. We support social solidarity because we want a market economy without a market society. We are libertarian about personal behaviour because we believe everyone has the right to be happy. That makes us individual, not selfish. As Damian Barr, author of Get It Together: Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis, argues: ‘The self is absolutely at the centre of the iGeneration [a reference to iPods] ... I like me. I just happen to like you too.’
This is nothing less than a testament to Howard’s failure, his missed opportunity to mould a generation in his image. Instead of polite conservatives we have brazen capitalist libertarians who read quarter-life crisis manuals. They go to IKEA more than they go to church, as Heath points out.
Assuming that Heath has identified a real sociological entity, let’s explicate it (if you are under 30 you may delete ‘explicate’ and insert ‘pontificate’).
Being politically correct is now a form of satire. This generation says ‘chick’ and ‘hunk’ with no self-consciousness, and with some lust. Their chat on radio consists of uninhibited sexual innuendo and fart and dildo gags. Instead of the arts, the Howard generation holds up the narcissist’s mirror and watches reality TV.
Howard has not reversed the sexual revolution. In the last decade there has been a generalised liberalisation of sexual attitudes such that holding to 1970s identity politics is as revealing about your age as a Starsky jacket or a foxy scarf: gay has morphed into queer, and young queers and straights (who have yet to redefine themselves) mix in post-metrosexual venues. Such frenetic, consumption-identity driven change is enough to leave the ‘oldies’ out of breath.
Even ‘metrosexual’ is so yesterday. The He-Man and Barbie doll — played ironically of course — are back, intercoursing on/in all sorts of positions. They have sex before marriage, before they know their partner’s real name, and even before they realise they have had sex. Often, after a property investors’ seminar. Howard is not pleased.
That sex has not gone away is a mark of the limits of the Howard Decade.
Ditto, the erosion of good manners. Howard’s generation do not apologise when, with eyes on the mobile phone and fingers texting hieroglyphic expletives about last night’s bunking gymnastics, they bump into elderly folk.
However, despite its libertarian strand, this generation, seeded from Howard’s political loins, does offer some hope for conservatives. Many of today’s youth value the fact that Howard has apparently looked after the economy and the country.
With Mummy and Daddy’s support, they can still enter the property market. And the IR laws are perfect for those who have no plan to be in the same company in six months time and who believe they can rise above the rest. Who, they ask, wants to carry lazy losers through collective agreements? Howard is delighted.
Some have found their way to singing songs on a hilltop. Some travel overseas in pilgrimage to those who died for empire and liberty, instead of rising up and setting up a soldier’s committee that might have turned its guns on the officer-class. They then get drunk. But Howard won’t have a word said against them.
They value Howard’s ability to get away with things so that the greater good of Australia is protected. They’ve watched with amazement at his aplomb: he’s got us in with the US; taken us through the self-serving redemptive process of ‘liberating’ East Timor after abandoning it; he’s created a modern day ritualistic place for national identity in Bali; and he took us to war, and paid-off the enemy too. He is not so much self-centred as a centred-self of control and manipulation — the kind of person MBA students credit with ‘knowledge management.’ They think he is one funky nerd.
This is all to Howard’s credit — the shift from collective notions of good to individual ladders of opportunism, shaded by thin nationalism and religiosity. He has spawned a generation that missed the merry-go-round of the pointless 20s. Instead, they are on the I-can-do roller coaster. Risk is in.
But these value shifts, and the quasi-nationalism of self-centred Aussiedom, are not embedded, nor are they likely to be enduring. They’ve been built upon a more fundamental restructuring of Australia around self-consuming identity, where nation comes a distant second. Howard’s success lies not in furthering his own desire to refurbish Australianness, but in cutting the market loose, and in increasing that circle of self-regarding individuals driven by asset accumulation.
He has done little to foster the conservative social values that fit his vision, unless we are to regard racism, materialism, paranoia, the uttering of falsehoods, and the shrinking of the public sphere as germane to the conservative project. Howard’s Australia is a society of the centred self-centreds — and those who resist. And there are plenty who do the latter.
Howard has not won any culture war, despite the opining of columnists. The culture wars have slipped out of the clutches of the Left and the Right and gone down the road of capitalist gratification. This road sacrifices conservatism at the altar of a narrowly economist vision of the world. Howard’s failure is to have believed that economics, and a few sermons, would lead us back to white picket fences.
For desperate cynics, it would seem that the only way to get the Howard generation to read Australian history, as a form of civics, would be to restage it as reality TV show. They picture the youth of Australia through the caricatures that appear above, and they despair. For the hopeful, Howard’s failure makes the regeneration of progressive social values that much more possible, because there are many more people disillusioned than are enamoured with the marketing-self that neo-liberalism has conjured into being.
About the Author
Michael Connors teaches politics at La Trobe University. He does not believe that there are any meaningful generational categories in Howard's Australia. He uses them for purely heuristic purposes, just as the Government uses terms such as 'truth,' 'Australianness,' and 'achievement.'
New Matilda
They get called the ‘Howard generation,’ not yet the Howard Youth. They are supposed to be materialistic, manic 20-somethings who grew up when globalisation was background muzak and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was cultural comment. They didn’t so much discuss postmodernism as live it, ironically under Howard’s modern gaze.
The generation is fictitious, of course. But generational fictions hint at the spirit of the age.
In a recently published book Please Just F* Off It’s Our Turn Now, Ryan Heath, a self-appointed Howard-generational spokesperson with a propensity to bombast and offence, gives us reason to reflect on this spirit, and on Howard’s success in shaping today’s youth.
I don’t know Heath’s age; he might be 16, he might be 34. Let’s say he belongs to the long-20s generation — which ranges from the fake ID-card set to the soon-to-use BOTOX set. Heath writes in New Matilda 77 (link here):
So, about us. We’re global, responsible and live 24/7 lives. We’re pro-capitalist because capitalism supports the opportunity and the lifestyle we are used to. We support social solidarity because we want a market economy without a market society. We are libertarian about personal behaviour because we believe everyone has the right to be happy. That makes us individual, not selfish. As Damian Barr, author of Get It Together: Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis, argues: ‘The self is absolutely at the centre of the iGeneration [a reference to iPods] ... I like me. I just happen to like you too.’
This is nothing less than a testament to Howard’s failure, his missed opportunity to mould a generation in his image. Instead of polite conservatives we have brazen capitalist libertarians who read quarter-life crisis manuals. They go to IKEA more than they go to church, as Heath points out.
Assuming that Heath has identified a real sociological entity, let’s explicate it (if you are under 30 you may delete ‘explicate’ and insert ‘pontificate’).
Being politically correct is now a form of satire. This generation says ‘chick’ and ‘hunk’ with no self-consciousness, and with some lust. Their chat on radio consists of uninhibited sexual innuendo and fart and dildo gags. Instead of the arts, the Howard generation holds up the narcissist’s mirror and watches reality TV.
Howard has not reversed the sexual revolution. In the last decade there has been a generalised liberalisation of sexual attitudes such that holding to 1970s identity politics is as revealing about your age as a Starsky jacket or a foxy scarf: gay has morphed into queer, and young queers and straights (who have yet to redefine themselves) mix in post-metrosexual venues. Such frenetic, consumption-identity driven change is enough to leave the ‘oldies’ out of breath.
Even ‘metrosexual’ is so yesterday. The He-Man and Barbie doll — played ironically of course — are back, intercoursing on/in all sorts of positions. They have sex before marriage, before they know their partner’s real name, and even before they realise they have had sex. Often, after a property investors’ seminar. Howard is not pleased.
That sex has not gone away is a mark of the limits of the Howard Decade.
Ditto, the erosion of good manners. Howard’s generation do not apologise when, with eyes on the mobile phone and fingers texting hieroglyphic expletives about last night’s bunking gymnastics, they bump into elderly folk.
However, despite its libertarian strand, this generation, seeded from Howard’s political loins, does offer some hope for conservatives. Many of today’s youth value the fact that Howard has apparently looked after the economy and the country.
With Mummy and Daddy’s support, they can still enter the property market. And the IR laws are perfect for those who have no plan to be in the same company in six months time and who believe they can rise above the rest. Who, they ask, wants to carry lazy losers through collective agreements? Howard is delighted.
Some have found their way to singing songs on a hilltop. Some travel overseas in pilgrimage to those who died for empire and liberty, instead of rising up and setting up a soldier’s committee that might have turned its guns on the officer-class. They then get drunk. But Howard won’t have a word said against them.
They value Howard’s ability to get away with things so that the greater good of Australia is protected. They’ve watched with amazement at his aplomb: he’s got us in with the US; taken us through the self-serving redemptive process of ‘liberating’ East Timor after abandoning it; he’s created a modern day ritualistic place for national identity in Bali; and he took us to war, and paid-off the enemy too. He is not so much self-centred as a centred-self of control and manipulation — the kind of person MBA students credit with ‘knowledge management.’ They think he is one funky nerd.
This is all to Howard’s credit — the shift from collective notions of good to individual ladders of opportunism, shaded by thin nationalism and religiosity. He has spawned a generation that missed the merry-go-round of the pointless 20s. Instead, they are on the I-can-do roller coaster. Risk is in.
But these value shifts, and the quasi-nationalism of self-centred Aussiedom, are not embedded, nor are they likely to be enduring. They’ve been built upon a more fundamental restructuring of Australia around self-consuming identity, where nation comes a distant second. Howard’s success lies not in furthering his own desire to refurbish Australianness, but in cutting the market loose, and in increasing that circle of self-regarding individuals driven by asset accumulation.
He has done little to foster the conservative social values that fit his vision, unless we are to regard racism, materialism, paranoia, the uttering of falsehoods, and the shrinking of the public sphere as germane to the conservative project. Howard’s Australia is a society of the centred self-centreds — and those who resist. And there are plenty who do the latter.
Howard has not won any culture war, despite the opining of columnists. The culture wars have slipped out of the clutches of the Left and the Right and gone down the road of capitalist gratification. This road sacrifices conservatism at the altar of a narrowly economist vision of the world. Howard’s failure is to have believed that economics, and a few sermons, would lead us back to white picket fences.
For desperate cynics, it would seem that the only way to get the Howard generation to read Australian history, as a form of civics, would be to restage it as reality TV show. They picture the youth of Australia through the caricatures that appear above, and they despair. For the hopeful, Howard’s failure makes the regeneration of progressive social values that much more possible, because there are many more people disillusioned than are enamoured with the marketing-self that neo-liberalism has conjured into being.
About the Author
Michael Connors teaches politics at La Trobe University. He does not believe that there are any meaningful generational categories in Howard's Australia. He uses them for purely heuristic purposes, just as the Government uses terms such as 'truth,' 'Australianness,' and 'achievement.'
John Howard's pendulum
Howard's New Year's (Core) Resolutions
By: Michael ConnorsWednesday 11 January 2006
New Matilda
It's 11:55 pm on New Year's Eve.
Janette is looking every bit as radiant as a good nuclear power station might, if only we could get one going. In a moment we will embrace. In that embrace will be everything that's passed between us — it's lucky ASIO did the check and cleared her.
Still, in this state of heightened terrorist threat and face transplants, one has to be fearful. I'll not mistake any bomb wiring for a bra strap. I've done the training.
What a year! Terrorism, Latham, Windbag's return, IR, and Costello wetting the bed again. Beazley's such a winner for me - if a soufflé doesn't rise twice, what about a pork pie?
It's Latham I most regret. Nice lad, eager to do well - but no constitution for it.
Staffers have told me about the Costello diaries -it's something we'll need to monitor. Apparently, he's obsessed with me - counts the number of dandruff flakes on my suit collar; catalogues how many times I inadvertently spit on him (he shouldn't stand so close). There is even an entry on eyebrow clippings. He's done a tally and correctly estimates I get it done once a month. I might note that the beauticians use plastic tweezers - on the advice of Security.
Costello will come to nothing. That is my first core resolution. It's the half-grin I don't like. It writes smugness all over his face, as if he's behind all we've done. With Hawke and Keating, the Treasurer had a right to the big chair - but Costello? Well, I've not demanded much, just bring in the tax, quarry the mines, let the invisible hand of the market (our friends at the gentleman's clubs) get on with its business.
Costello had Labor's economic reforms to surf home on - all I had was a big pile of cow turd called 'political correctness.' I moved a self-righteous country that was scared of offending an ant's sensibilities to a State of shock-jockeydom. That's what I call a historic achievement. May a hundred prejudices blossom on the cow turd of the pink-Left!
The clock is ticking, it's close to midnight.
Dubya will back slap me again in public. That is my second core resolution. Not sure how I am going to get this one going. If we could get out of Iraq, I would. But the US will probably want to do a massive offensive before they go, so they can get rid of their excess munitions that will be too costly to return home. Dubya will want us in on it, but the body count might be high.
I've got Amanda working on conditional bridging visas that require compulsory service in war zones. I must admit, there's beauty in the irony of Iraqi refugees fighting Iraqi insurgents on their own home turf - something about crafty accounting I recall from those long-gone days of ledger sheets. There is the slight question of the Convention on Refugees, but hell, Dubya's made it clear where Conventions belong: in Pansy Alley with the lawyers.
The clock is clicking, and Janette moves closer to me.
I will end the culture wars. That is my third core resolution. I've been briefed that some academics who write for obscure journals, and who work in tax-funded (not for long) universities, have been talking about culture wars. They also think I have it in for them, but I don't even know their names - I prefer to court the journos.
Anyway, it's all a bit vague to me. Not sure why arts professors are going on about culture wars, shouldn't that be left to the medicos working on various strains of bacteria? It must be something to do with that horrendous trend towards inter-disciplinarity at universities. Little Nellie Brendan was complaining about it the other day when he was telling me which research grants he'd rejected, despite their getting the green light from the Australian Research Council.
Apparently, some bugger, literally, wanted to look at the constructed meaning (socially and medically) of 'transgendered lesbian relationships.' Funny how I should remember the details so well.
Anyway, back to the culture wars, I'll instruct the Health Department to contract a private company to see what lies behind these raging bacteria - I know that golden staf is taking over the hospitals, so it's getting serious. Whoever is behind this proliferation of colonising bacteria will be dealt with severely. Funny name for it though, 'culture wars' ...
It's midnight, the fireworks begin. Janette embraces me. No wires. 'God you've been a naughty boy this year,' she whispers in my ear. The clock's pendulum is vertical, and all is good in the world.
I am the iron man.
By: Michael ConnorsWednesday 11 January 2006
New Matilda
It's 11:55 pm on New Year's Eve.
Janette is looking every bit as radiant as a good nuclear power station might, if only we could get one going. In a moment we will embrace. In that embrace will be everything that's passed between us — it's lucky ASIO did the check and cleared her.
Still, in this state of heightened terrorist threat and face transplants, one has to be fearful. I'll not mistake any bomb wiring for a bra strap. I've done the training.
What a year! Terrorism, Latham, Windbag's return, IR, and Costello wetting the bed again. Beazley's such a winner for me - if a soufflé doesn't rise twice, what about a pork pie?
It's Latham I most regret. Nice lad, eager to do well - but no constitution for it.
Staffers have told me about the Costello diaries -it's something we'll need to monitor. Apparently, he's obsessed with me - counts the number of dandruff flakes on my suit collar; catalogues how many times I inadvertently spit on him (he shouldn't stand so close). There is even an entry on eyebrow clippings. He's done a tally and correctly estimates I get it done once a month. I might note that the beauticians use plastic tweezers - on the advice of Security.
Costello will come to nothing. That is my first core resolution. It's the half-grin I don't like. It writes smugness all over his face, as if he's behind all we've done. With Hawke and Keating, the Treasurer had a right to the big chair - but Costello? Well, I've not demanded much, just bring in the tax, quarry the mines, let the invisible hand of the market (our friends at the gentleman's clubs) get on with its business.
Costello had Labor's economic reforms to surf home on - all I had was a big pile of cow turd called 'political correctness.' I moved a self-righteous country that was scared of offending an ant's sensibilities to a State of shock-jockeydom. That's what I call a historic achievement. May a hundred prejudices blossom on the cow turd of the pink-Left!
The clock is ticking, it's close to midnight.
Dubya will back slap me again in public. That is my second core resolution. Not sure how I am going to get this one going. If we could get out of Iraq, I would. But the US will probably want to do a massive offensive before they go, so they can get rid of their excess munitions that will be too costly to return home. Dubya will want us in on it, but the body count might be high.
I've got Amanda working on conditional bridging visas that require compulsory service in war zones. I must admit, there's beauty in the irony of Iraqi refugees fighting Iraqi insurgents on their own home turf - something about crafty accounting I recall from those long-gone days of ledger sheets. There is the slight question of the Convention on Refugees, but hell, Dubya's made it clear where Conventions belong: in Pansy Alley with the lawyers.
The clock is clicking, and Janette moves closer to me.
I will end the culture wars. That is my third core resolution. I've been briefed that some academics who write for obscure journals, and who work in tax-funded (not for long) universities, have been talking about culture wars. They also think I have it in for them, but I don't even know their names - I prefer to court the journos.
Anyway, it's all a bit vague to me. Not sure why arts professors are going on about culture wars, shouldn't that be left to the medicos working on various strains of bacteria? It must be something to do with that horrendous trend towards inter-disciplinarity at universities. Little Nellie Brendan was complaining about it the other day when he was telling me which research grants he'd rejected, despite their getting the green light from the Australian Research Council.
Apparently, some bugger, literally, wanted to look at the constructed meaning (socially and medically) of 'transgendered lesbian relationships.' Funny how I should remember the details so well.
Anyway, back to the culture wars, I'll instruct the Health Department to contract a private company to see what lies behind these raging bacteria - I know that golden staf is taking over the hospitals, so it's getting serious. Whoever is behind this proliferation of colonising bacteria will be dealt with severely. Funny name for it though, 'culture wars' ...
It's midnight, the fireworks begin. Janette embraces me. No wires. 'God you've been a naughty boy this year,' she whispers in my ear. The clock's pendulum is vertical, and all is good in the world.
I am the iron man.
The Intellectual Hard On
The intellectual hard-on: it's more common than you think
By: Michael ConnorsWednesday 27 July 2005
New Matilda
Being near power, we all know, is an aphrodisiac. When [prime minister] John Howard parades the streets of Australian cities, there is a sensory shift as hormonal overload affects the assembled masses. The effect is reciprocal. The Prime Minister often tongue-wipes his lips to control saliva output. This is all science, just the birds and bees of life, and should not be hidden from children.
To avoid such stressful scenes in the US, president George W. Bush entered a pact with the silencing-minority of pastors and reformed evil-doers (the born again crowd). He agreed to surround himself with dour, sexless men who sublimate their sexual desire to the greater cause of global conquest. With Wolfowitz, Bolt, Rumsfeld and Cheney behind the Presidency, the devilish hormones of the masses were curbed, and their hormonal power directed to the greater good of world order.
In grateful thanksgiving, the silencing-minority of the Christian Right instructed their assembled brethren to vote for Bush as President. The repression and redirection of desire may explain the permanently quizzical look that defines his Presidency. Metaphorically, his nuts are being squeezed. Freud taught us that repressed desire will lead to all sorts of deviant manifestations. He did not, however, to my knowledge, anticipate a lustful yearning for oil and a desire to remake the world in the image of an American town-hall.
Now, what happens when some vulnerable people get close to power and get turned on, such as columnists in important newspapers who tell us about their matey chats with world leaders? Or academics who attend conferences and, in cliquey circles, name drop: "Oh, well John suggested..."; "Gareth [Evans] was back recently, looking good". Or, when the said academics are desperate for material: "...Alexander [foreign minister] came to the party without his stockings, most disappointing". How does this close association with power affect clear thinking?
We can safely make a few assumptions. Sexual desire (even sublimated) is not known for facilitating careful thought. It has an inverse relationship to one's capacity for careful, impartial and considered thought. If you doubt this, when did you last work out your mortgage plan or ruminate on the meaning of life when you were in the throes of bliss?
The simple answer to what happens when certain people get to rub close to those in power is that they get intellectual hard-ons (what I call the IH syndrome). IH, I suppose, is analogous to Viagra induced erectile function. It appears to be substantial, is mostly linear, but it lacks internal consistency. To the afflicted, an intellectual hard-on provides them with the bravado to say anything that ingratiates them to the object of their affection. The words simply flow. I hope the analogy is clear.
To observers, the intellectual hard-on is actually a form of intellectual impotency. Government press releases become journalistic copy, or the basis of positive appraisal in academic papers. The critical faculties that might attend any endeavour to understand what is going on in the world are held in suspension (suspenders even). Impotency is a private matter, so I will refrain from naming. However, there is sufficient public case data to illustrate IH syndrome pathology in our broadsheets and tabloids. I will leave it for readers to determine who is so afflicted, but below I offer a few examples of the form IH syndrome takes ( I trust in the interests of patient confidentially, that readers will not Google these quotations).
Symptoms of IH Syndrome
A) When confronted with powerful arguments contrary to your worldview, draw ridiculous analogies. For example: "Pilgerist Chomskyism is ideologically fuelling the followers of Osama Bin Lenin, sorry, Laden..."
B) When in the company of the object of affection, the afflicted will pig-swill in the delusion of success. For example: "There is a core of faith in the Bush administration...that the US-led coalition will prevail in Iraq. And I am sitting in the office of Optimism Central, here in the Pentagon where Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, chief intellectual architect of the Iraq invasion and high priest of the neo-conservatives, sits."
C) When everything suggests otherwise, trumpet the veracity of the loved one(s). For example: "On the big things - such as Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction -Bush, Blair and Howard have told us the truth."
D) And when finally the world has been screwed - forget moral codes, international law - all that matters is, 'was it good for you, too?'. For example" "The Iraq invasion is going to be judged on its results. Only specialists will worry about its legitimacy if the outcome is a stable Iraq that represents its citizens' human rights much better than Saddam did."
Admittedly, these are sharp examples. But as the morass that is the occupation of Iraq continues can we expect the end of the honeymoon between news and power? Unfortunately, patients do exhibit endless affection for their objects of power. The prognosis of those afflicted with IH syndrome is not good.
By: Michael ConnorsWednesday 27 July 2005
New Matilda
Being near power, we all know, is an aphrodisiac. When [prime minister] John Howard parades the streets of Australian cities, there is a sensory shift as hormonal overload affects the assembled masses. The effect is reciprocal. The Prime Minister often tongue-wipes his lips to control saliva output. This is all science, just the birds and bees of life, and should not be hidden from children.
To avoid such stressful scenes in the US, president George W. Bush entered a pact with the silencing-minority of pastors and reformed evil-doers (the born again crowd). He agreed to surround himself with dour, sexless men who sublimate their sexual desire to the greater cause of global conquest. With Wolfowitz, Bolt, Rumsfeld and Cheney behind the Presidency, the devilish hormones of the masses were curbed, and their hormonal power directed to the greater good of world order.
In grateful thanksgiving, the silencing-minority of the Christian Right instructed their assembled brethren to vote for Bush as President. The repression and redirection of desire may explain the permanently quizzical look that defines his Presidency. Metaphorically, his nuts are being squeezed. Freud taught us that repressed desire will lead to all sorts of deviant manifestations. He did not, however, to my knowledge, anticipate a lustful yearning for oil and a desire to remake the world in the image of an American town-hall.
Now, what happens when some vulnerable people get close to power and get turned on, such as columnists in important newspapers who tell us about their matey chats with world leaders? Or academics who attend conferences and, in cliquey circles, name drop: "Oh, well John suggested..."; "Gareth [Evans] was back recently, looking good". Or, when the said academics are desperate for material: "...Alexander [foreign minister] came to the party without his stockings, most disappointing". How does this close association with power affect clear thinking?
We can safely make a few assumptions. Sexual desire (even sublimated) is not known for facilitating careful thought. It has an inverse relationship to one's capacity for careful, impartial and considered thought. If you doubt this, when did you last work out your mortgage plan or ruminate on the meaning of life when you were in the throes of bliss?
The simple answer to what happens when certain people get to rub close to those in power is that they get intellectual hard-ons (what I call the IH syndrome). IH, I suppose, is analogous to Viagra induced erectile function. It appears to be substantial, is mostly linear, but it lacks internal consistency. To the afflicted, an intellectual hard-on provides them with the bravado to say anything that ingratiates them to the object of their affection. The words simply flow. I hope the analogy is clear.
To observers, the intellectual hard-on is actually a form of intellectual impotency. Government press releases become journalistic copy, or the basis of positive appraisal in academic papers. The critical faculties that might attend any endeavour to understand what is going on in the world are held in suspension (suspenders even). Impotency is a private matter, so I will refrain from naming. However, there is sufficient public case data to illustrate IH syndrome pathology in our broadsheets and tabloids. I will leave it for readers to determine who is so afflicted, but below I offer a few examples of the form IH syndrome takes ( I trust in the interests of patient confidentially, that readers will not Google these quotations).
Symptoms of IH Syndrome
A) When confronted with powerful arguments contrary to your worldview, draw ridiculous analogies. For example: "Pilgerist Chomskyism is ideologically fuelling the followers of Osama Bin Lenin, sorry, Laden..."
B) When in the company of the object of affection, the afflicted will pig-swill in the delusion of success. For example: "There is a core of faith in the Bush administration...that the US-led coalition will prevail in Iraq. And I am sitting in the office of Optimism Central, here in the Pentagon where Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, chief intellectual architect of the Iraq invasion and high priest of the neo-conservatives, sits."
C) When everything suggests otherwise, trumpet the veracity of the loved one(s). For example: "On the big things - such as Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction -Bush, Blair and Howard have told us the truth."
D) And when finally the world has been screwed - forget moral codes, international law - all that matters is, 'was it good for you, too?'. For example" "The Iraq invasion is going to be judged on its results. Only specialists will worry about its legitimacy if the outcome is a stable Iraq that represents its citizens' human rights much better than Saddam did."
Admittedly, these are sharp examples. But as the morass that is the occupation of Iraq continues can we expect the end of the honeymoon between news and power? Unfortunately, patients do exhibit endless affection for their objects of power. The prognosis of those afflicted with IH syndrome is not good.
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