crazybrave

Pardon me while I get up on my freakin’ high horse and spew forth my justified bile about this fucked up government.

You’ll have to take my word for it, but when I was writing yesterday’s post, I took out a comment about the way that Howard’s wilful blindness to the obvious potential to offend of the conduct of a minority of people at Galipolli because he “didn’t see it” would never translate into a more nuanced approach to say, “welfare cheats”.

I heard that idiot Peter Dutton, the Minister for Workforce Participation ( and I’m eagerly awaiting the Minister for Aromatherapy Massage, btw) on the radio this morning:

ALEXANDRA KIRK: When you say some people, how many people do you think?

PETER DUTTON: It’s hard to quantify. But the…

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Five per cent? Ten per cent?

PETER DUTTON: The anecdotal evidence as I’ve moved around the country talking to job network members who have been involved in the system as far back as the early days of the CES, its… you know, you get estimations of between 10 and 25 per cent, so we’re not talking about insignificant numbers, but it also needs to be kept in perspective as well.

As we are all aware, the Howard government has a particular gift of perspective. The media helps them, of course:

The Government says that as many as 25 per cent of the nation’s long-term unemployed may be “ripping off” the system …

Up to a quarter, hey? We can see what you’re fucking up to.

It’s very hard to eat weet-bix through gritted teeth, so I’m grateful the Prime Minister appears so rarely on AM on Radio National. Sadly, he was on Thursday morning, talking about Galipolli rubbish, amongst other things. Here is part of the transcript, the part where I spat my sliced banana out:

EMMA GRIFFITHS: What about the question of the young people who fell asleep and who were seen lying on graves at Lone Pine? That’s bound to upset some people. Does it upset you?

JOHN HOWARD: Oh look, I understand that, but you’ve got to look at the aggregate behaviour of the overwhelming majority of people. There were 17,000 people there and the great bulk of them were young Australians, and I repeat, from what I saw and encountered they behaved magnificently, they behaved in an exuberant way.

Maybe a few didn’t, I didn’t see that, but I’m not going to have the good name of young Australians overseas reverentially participating in a respectful remembrance, which is what I experienced. I’m not going to have their good name besmirched.

Yep, they were on those graves reverentially. Personally, I’m not offended by it. What offends me is our normally mean spirited Prime Minister yet again running the Bart Simpson defence.*

* It wasn’t me, you didn’t see it, you can’t prove a thing.

Tomorrow and Thursday, and for two days next week, I will not be blogging. Not for the usual reason of laziness, but because we will have no power. Not even a little bit. From 8:45 to 4:45 on each day.

They sent out the notice last week, complete with a FAQ sheet. My favourite question was “Does Actew/AGL realise how inconvenient this is?” Heh. These people obviously never used “Piglet’s Big Movie” as a toddler sedative on a near daily basis.

I shall now randomly segue to a picture of how nice the trees in Commonwealth Park are at the moment:

O took Sage out for a few hours this afternoon to Give Mummy A Little Break. I tried to read the paper, but that’s not the pleasure it used to be for me.

The end of it was a Spectrum article about Jeff Purser and Ranko Marcovic. (Link here, but I wouldn’t worry.) They run Templar films which is the production house which made Fat Pizza. They are really interesting men, with perceptive things to say, but the article (by Diana Plater) is stoopid. For example:

And Purser is the first to admit that Fat Pizza’s characters are stereotypes, and the series and film are about as misogynist and “madonna-whore” as you can get (you love your mother but only have sex with the hot chicks)”.

Really. Anyone who has watched much Fat Pizza at all will know that it’s also common to have sex with fat and/or ugly chicks if they are the only ones who will root ya.

I can’t see the point of handing over money to read that when I get to read stuff like this:

Laura from my new favourite Sorrow at Sill’s Bend has written a beautiful literary detective Jane Austen Story.

David Tiley has an startling and gracious post about the lingering effects of the Queensland Dog Act’s control of the lives of Aboriginal people.

anthony from spiceblog continues his adventures in Japan. After an unfortunate if understandable karaoke-related injury he has popped right back into form.

Rex in the city considers the legacy of the Anzacs. (I issue a snort warning for those who like to drink and compute.)

There has been lots of talk lately about whether blogs are influential, or civil, or the preserve of sad nerds. There has not been enough talk of the enormous quantity of really good writing that appears in blogs. Yay for blogs.

Ampersand Duck and I took our kids to play at the castle in Commonwealth Park today. She used to play there when she was a kid, back in the olden days when someone broke their arm on the sharp rocks every five minutes. It’s all squelchy soft stuff on the ground now, but exciting moments of danger are still there to be had by the devil-may-care toddler.

We sat around and talked about good books, and our ‘lations and blogging, and how we hadn’t had a natter for a while.* It is such a pleasure to sit and have a proper chat with a friend you’ve been missing. We decided to leave when a group of other parents brought out a big bag of guns to distribute amongst their offspring.

Why would you? They’re nasty and pointy. It’s well into the future for Sage, but I would much prefer he picked up a stick and made cool shit up in his head than ponced around with a gun for kicks.

* We also talked about dogs, partners, having yum cha tomorrow and her latest obsession, making the most beautiful sketchbooks you have ever seen:

“I was listening to the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack today with Bumblebee [her 8 year old son - Zoe] and remembered how much I liked the song ‘Mr Tangerine Speedo’, and for some reason thought about this sketchbook while I was listening. I’ve used all-new materials with this: fresh acid-free drawing paper and a gorgeous orange Indian khadi paper for the cover, with a grey-blue button for the tie.

Mr Tangerine Speedo features a celtic weave spine, which gives the book a bit more stability.”

Isn’t she clever? There are many more beautiful pictures at the links above.

I have been accused of being a little harsh about Tony Abbott’s motives and actions in the past. In fact, I think I’ve been rather kind, far kinder than he deserves.

If I was being unkind, I would have unleashed my mother on him. My mum and Dad are visiting for a few days, and tonight – after only one glass of wine – Mum referred to the Medicare “Safety Net” as “Tony Abbott’s other fantasy love child”.

PS – I have taken the drastic step of handing over US $12 dollars to Haloscan to release my old beloved comments from their ransom hideaways. The special bonus is you can all bang on in comments for hours before Haloscan gets cut at you. Or something like that. So fire away.

Last weekend I sat around someone’s loungeroom and drank their beer (thanks!) and crapped on a bit with johnboy from the third best blog in the ACT, RiotACT, and a Mr Jim Boots.

If you have one of those IPod thingies, you see what we talked about and download it here, or you can stream it from the same place. I shouldn’t think it will be released on vinyl.

I haven’t heard it as I have the old-fashioned dial-up, but I can promise you that TJ’s boobs get an outing.

over the next couple of years, and see which of the Coalition’s broken promises Howard announces in an exclusive interview on cable news networks, and which ones some dumb Liberal or National shit has to stand up and cop themself.

Update – from the ABC:

Mr Howard has apologised to Australians for announcing the hikes in the Medicare safety net thresholds, but can not guarantee it will not happen again.

“We don’t have any in mind but I am not going to give an iron-clad guarantee in relation to that,” he said.

Don’t bother. It would be utterly worthless.

Robb Corr, who did such sterling analysis during the campaign of the regressive cock-up that is the Medicare Safety Net, has had a go at his spiffy new digs here.