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Please
read this upside-down - well not literally . . . the
latest entry is at the top of the column and the very
first at the bottom. SORRY SEAN!MEMO TO SEAN HANNITY: Sorry, Sean. You tried your hardest to stop Barack Obama in his tracks. You failed. So now your country is set upon a new course with a man who I believe will prove in time to be a great president. There is hope for America yet! i'VE FINALLY GIVEN UP ON FOX. Since I first acquired pay-TV about seven years ago I have enjoyed many of the programs on Fox News Channel even although I am not a conservative (I consider myself generally left-of-centre). From time to time I have defended Fox against the charge that they are biassed in favour of the Right. But of late, during the election campaign, I've changed my mind. In spire of the statistics they trot out demonstrating their even-handedness I detect a subtle underlying bias in their choice of people to interview or incidents to talk up. I enjoy the chatty morning show, for example, but I feel certain in my mind that behind their smiles the three presenters all want to see John McCain win. I get this same feeling on many of their shows. I was deeply disappointed to see Greta Van Susteren, whose programs I normally enjoy, almost falling over herself to boost Sarah Palin, even running up to Alaska to do so. And it is funny how many incidents in Barack Obama's past life they keep dredging up (mostly of limited importance as it happens) but what about McCain? Hardly a word is uttered about his past other than the business of being a prisoner-of-war which, in some curious manner, is claimed to qualify him for the presidency. Finally, Fox seems to have a gaggle of clerics appearing - Catholic priests like that smarmy Father Morris (with his book The Promise which purports to tell us what GOD thinks - see further about Father Morris on this site: http://www.newshounds.us). and Evangelicals like Franklin Graham. And recently they have even added a one-hour program run by a Baptist pastor, a Republican. They've also been screening a short feature boosting Pope Benedict. Rupert, have you gone religious in your old age? If I were an American my vote would be for Obama and the Democrats. I can only hope for the future of America and the world that the people elect Barack Obama. JOE THE GREEDY PLUMBER? Watching the US election via Pay-TV is a more interesting spectator sport than watching cricket or football (but, then, I loathe all sport). One of the highlights was the now famous episode when Barack Obama encountered Joe the Plumber. Joe complained about Mr Obama's tax plans which would affect him. He would be over the threshold of $5,000 per week in earnings. All I can say is that Joe is a greedy plumber. In all my business days the best I ever earnt (for long hours, too) was $1,000 per week and that only for a short period of time. Had I ever earnt $5,000 per week I'd be happy to pay a bit of extra tax to 'spread the wealth around.' The Republicans machine has seized on Joe like the desperate crowd they are but I doubt they can turn back the tide. Hopefully they won't and the USA will elect Barack Obama. I think if the American people do elect him he will turn out to be another great president. They haven't had too many of them over the years. PS: Joe is not a licensed plumber, they say! FUSS OVER NUDE PHOTOS OF CHILDREN. There has been an ongoing fuss over an exhibition of photographs by Australia's Bill Henson. I have expressed my strong support for Mr Henson and dismay at the criticisms on my Piper Post site and reproduce HERE my comments STARBUCKS WASTING WATER. I was appalled to read a report in The Sydney Morning Herald that Starbucks coffee outlets around the world consume an estimated 23.4 million litres of water every day, water mostly wasted because in every Starbucks drink shop they leave a tap running all the time! How typically American - a people that consume a disproportionate amount of the world's resources with their huge gas-guzzling cars and other forms of profligacy. The water is consumed in what are known as dipper wells over which a tap runs continuously. Starbucks reportedly refuses to abandon this wasteful policy, never mind that in many areas where they operate people are almost starved for water. I would have thought in this modern age Starbucks would use electric dishwashers. ZIMBABWE MESS. Anyone who thought Zimbabwe would now settle down to the business of looking after its starving populace should now realize the folly of their thoughts. The whole idea of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai trusting that thug Robert Mugabe is ludicrous. And now, once again, we have the country desperately seeking aid from other countries. Maybe if we stopped helping the people might rise up and throw out the regime that has reduced this once green and productive land to penury. MALE CHAUVINISTS. Many times I despair at my fellow-males. One has only to watch some of the true crime stories on the Crime channel to see misery so often inflicted on women by males for one reason or another. Possessive, narcissistic, unreasonable, demanding. We have just been told of the suicide back in 2005 in Cowra, NSW of a female ambulance officer, Christine Hodder, allegedly because of constant bullying by male colleagues. Some men who worked with her have denied the claims but evidence produced at a Parliamentary inquiry seems to tell a different story. It certainly would not be surprising if her ill-treatment was real. [14 July 2008] ANTI-COAL PROTESTERS LACK CREDIBILITY. A bunch of protesters have disrupted the shipment of coal from Newcastle (NSW), chaining themselves to fences and sitting down on the railway tracks. All the usual disruptive activities doubtless, at least in many cases, funded by the public in the form of dole money. Those who oppose the use of coal would have some credibility but for the fact that they are the same people who oppose nuclear power generation. While I was pleased to see the Labor forces gain the ascendancy in our last Federal election it was disappointing to note that the Government would continue the policy of opposing nuclear power generation. Australia should have commissioned nuclear generators years ago. We have the scientists with the know-how and we have vast resources of uranium. How ridiculous that other countries, e.g. France, are using our uranium when we don't use it ourselves to provide clean energy. [14 July 2008] DECLINING STANDARDS OF JOURNALISM. I happily confess to being a pedant when it comes to language - and anyone should feel free to email me if you detect mistakes made by me! (That's only fair.) I was most amused by this, from a local newspaper: 'Police are continuing to treat their investigations into the death of a man at Maryborough as suspicious.' Hope they get their suspicions sorted out before they continue with their investigations! [6 July 2008] GUN-HAPPY AMERICANS. The US Supreme Court has ruled essentially in favour of the powerful gun lobby in a case that arose from the desire of the authorities in Washington DC to protect citizens. So now we know where to lay at least some of the blame when more innocent people are gunned down in the next shootout in a school, college or shopping centre. None of our business, of course, but in the age of global communications we cannot avoid witnessing the pain of the victims and their families. Americans need only think of those poor little Amish schoolgirls and what was done to them to pause in any move to increase the number of guns in the community. But from all reports the opposite is happening, with people all over the place rushing to open the floodgates. [30 June 2008] ZIMBABWE'S PAIN. Currently an 'election' is about to take place in that miserable African state called Zimbabwe, a once green and pleasant land known as Southern Rhodesia. Now reduced to penury by Robert Mugabe and his bunch of Neanderthal bullyboys, Zimbabwe is a hopeless case. But we cannot expect much help from the international community. Alas the Security Council is virtually powerless to do other than make empty gestures as one of its members is itself a dictatorship. When did the people of China elect their rulers in a free and fair election? The Chinese are ruled by a government that took power in a revolution and China continues to be ruled by its own bunch of bullyboys. [27 June 2008] ANNOYING NOODLES. Surely one of the stupidest ads of all time must be one running recently on Australian TV. A bunch of little kids sit at tables stuffing their mouths with noodles while some idiot guy tries to talk to them about who-knows-what? The kids certainly don't know what he's on about. [20 June 2008] AMPUTATING FEET IS NOT A NICE THING TO DO. Too many photographers, editors and production people have the unthinking habit of cutting off women's feet! It is not that real-life women are in danger from these people. They are not quite that cruel. But they certainly disfigure women by cutting off part or all of their beautiful bare feet. I once wrote to TV Week magazine and complained about this bad habit. They often publish photos of barefoot female actors and all too often cut off their feet. I was particularly incensed when they published a photo of the very cute Gigi Edgley (Chiana in the Farscape TV series). Clearly she was barefoot but half her feet were missing! Needless to say I received no answer. I suspect the picture editor thinks it is 'artistic' to mangle women's images in this way. Now the latest amputation is of the feet of Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential aspirant John McCain. A nice photo of her stretched on a lounge appeared in Vogue magazine. The announcer on Fox News particularly referred to the fact she was barefoot (which goes to show the lady has real taste) and the photo shown on Fox showed her feet but, blow me, the only reproductions I can find on the Net have her feet cut off! A pox on all such manglers. [24 May 2008] DÉJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN? I have noted of late the use of the phrase 'déja vu all over again.' I've heard it three times recently. Don't people realize that the French term déja vu means an event or experience repeated? The second part of the expression is redundant. Reminds me of the curious way many politicians speak - when they say essentially the same thing in two or three different ways. (19 May 2008) LAND OF THE FREE BUT DON'T HANG YOUR CLOTHES OUT TO DRY! I couldn't believe what I was reading in The Sydney Morning Herald. Apparently in some US states it is a criminal offence to hang your clothes out to dry, with stiff fines for offenders. I had to re-read the report to make sure senile dementia had not set in and I was imagining what I read. But it is true folks. Rather than use the wonderfully free sun and wind to wring out the washing you are compelled to acquire some form of dryer and use up resources consuming electricity. I suppose there is one advantage - they don't have those ugly Hills Hoists defacing the landscape (we always pull them out whenever we move into a new place; the one here has yet to go - can't wait to see it taken away). Recently Senator Richard McCormack sponsored a 'Right to Dry' law for Vermont. He was defeated. 'This place is insane,' he commented. Well, an American said it, not me! (12 May 2008) STUDENT UNIONS. I am way past the university student age. I never went to university but had I done so I would have objected strongly to the compulsory union fees levied on students. The fees were abolished by the previous Australian Government. I rarely agreed with the Conservatives but this is one of their actions I did agree with. User-pay should apply to the 'sporting and cultural activities' supported by the levies. I positively loathe sport so why should I pay for the pleasure of those many - to me strange - people who think it is an interesting activity kicking or hitting a ball around a field? The same, I believe, applies to many other activities in the broader society, e.g. opera, theatre and ballet. If people want sport, let them pay for it. If people want ballet, let them pay for it. (10 May 2008) LEAVE OUR CATS ALONE! I love animals, especially cats. There have always been cats around our family. At one time my daughter and I lived with five of the beasties. No, it wasn't the result of unbridled sex; they were all neutered at an early age. Now we have people trying to have them shut away behind high wire fences (they'll have to be high to stop the moggies who are terrific leapers and climbers). Are they trying to repeat the folly of that awful fence the idiots erected on beautiful Fraser Island? And as for the road, it is true cats are pretty useless with roads but so are dogs and so are children and so are old folk (me excepted, of course!). My cat Giles is of the sensible variety who keeps well away from the road. (04 May 2008) WHAT COMES AFTER EARTH IS ANNIHILATED? What a curious idea. The History Channel's program Life After People - depicting what the earth may be like after all human life disappears. Seems like useless speculation to me. If we are all gone then there is no way we will know what happened after us. We won't be here to see it. So what's the point? (04 May 2008) THE PAY-TV CON JOB. Don't mistake me - I enjoy pay-TV but it is in many respects a major con. Other folk may complain about the repetitions, and I agree with them, but what gets me is the sneaky - and I used that term advisedly - way they move programs from channel to channel, pretending the program is new. It is announced as a 'premier' or labelled with some such gross exaggeration when it has already been screened on another channel (often even the same episodes) and maybe even two other channels (Airport is an example; it has been on three, including the Crime channel. And, by the by, in what sense the program is 'crime' I fail to understand. Although, come to think of it, air fares are criminal.) A while back the SciFi channel was launched with much fanfare and began showing, with a tiny admixture of new shows, all the Star Trek series that had been repeated endlessly on TV1, along with Charmed, Buffy, Angel and various other shows that had been shown ad nauseum already. (02 May 2008) AGE MIGHT WEARY ME BUT I STILL HAVE A COUPLE OF CYLINDERS SPARKING AWAY. I turned 76 in April. The occasion passed with but a phone call or two from the family. We are not much on birthdays in our family. I recall we had a surprise party for my daughter Susan when she turned 9. She was horrified! She didn't want to be the centre of attention. I thought she'd never forgive us - but she did, eventually, as Manuel would say. At 76 I have the usual assortment of infirmities most people accumulate at my age so bear with me if you phone through a book order. My hearing is a little less than perfect. (01 May 2008. Note that I cannot abide the American date form - month first. Illogical. Unfortunately my invoices come with the ninny-American style as my American software can't be changed to do the job in decent fashion.) |