The Dump is:
For posting comments that don’t get up at the Drum, and for having a pleasant, mirthful or enlightening off-topic discussion.
It’s not for personal abuse of other commenters.
Please do that somewhere else if you must.
Play nicely or piss off.
However, why doesn’t a poster add a link for us to read and comment on here, much quicker. Maybe we can do a bit more bagging here, not that I speak for the moderators, yet.
NB: Being tiresome and boring, racist, sexist or just plain creepy is not playing nicely.
———-
The Pig’s Arms exists because a dozen or so years ago our other favourite playpen – the ABC’s Unleashed blogsphere started to go off. Like a sack of prawn heads in the sun. Something had to be done.
Moderation was taking forever. Comments seemed to be rejected randomly – outrageous ones appeared and reasoned ones were pinged. When they released the Drum / Unleashed ….. things actually got worse !
So many pieces from professional writers appear with no obvious merit. And the moderation has become, to put it frankly, appalling.
As a former contributor and a commenter, I was deeply disappointed at the plummeting quality from our pre-eminent media empire. And I resented so many challenging or dare I say, witty or funny posts in which we’ve invested seconds of our precious time – getting the chop.
So here, for all our benefit – is an open slather blog. Copy and paste your best rejected comments here for posterity. Does not matter whether you’re posting on the Guardian, First Dog on the Moon or wherever else.
And sprinkle pointers to the Pig’s Arms amongst your comments. Let’s try to rescue some of the old faithful.
Cheers,
Emm.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
A coward’s Punch
Isn’t it amazing that we take the easy unworkable solution. It might grab the voting public but never the crime. Our incarceration rates amongst males is now a staggering 322 per 100.000 and rising each year. If punishment and retribution were the answers we should all be living with our front doors open sipping Fanta and lovingly stroking our partners, kids and pets.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4517.0~2013~Main%20Features~Prisoner%20characteristics,%20Australia~4
The real difficult question is ;why the binge drinking?
We do not seem to understand that a Government now under investigation by the world body on Human Rights on refugees is hardly setting a good example. At the same time in The Hague we are already in front of the International Court of Justice being investigated for doing some very strange and cruel things to East Timor, including raiding a private house and stealing documents of those trying to get justice. Some could say landing a ‘coward punch.’ on a weak opponent. Historically we are known for cruelty more than for kindness to others. The appalling crimes against the indigenous, the White Australian policy, the continuation of fomenting & nurturing xenophobia by both sides of politics.
Why do we expect our young to lead by example and behave when their leaders don’t?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-22/human-rights-watch-scathing-on-australia27s-treatment-of-asylu/5212038
Indonesia is now putting warships in its waters to defend their territorial waters from Australia.
Inexorably Australia is edging towards getting a reputation of appalling stupidity and cruelty.
Here some more on mandatory sentencing;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-22/one-punch-mandatory-sentences-27a-recipe-for-injustice27/5212462
President of the New South Wales Bar Association Phillip Boulton SC says the measures will not deter offenders from violence.
“There’s no evidence at all that mandatory sentencing ever decreases the amount of crime that’s committed and it has the ability to act unfairly on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups,” he said.
“It isn’t effective, it’s not a deterrent, it just leads to more people being locked up for no good purpose.”
His view is shared by former director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, who says such sentences are a “recipe for injustice”.
“The idea that just increasing penalties for offences is somehow going to deter people from committing them is naive and not supported by research and a lot of work that’s been done in that area,” he said
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“Indonesia is now putting warships in its waters to defend their territorial waters from Australia.”
About time too. They’ve been asleep while the armada has been dangerously steaming through. let’s hope that they get an attack of vigilance and help these poor souls back to sure, before they get too far.
I heard on the grapevine that it’s the best news yet, and welcomed without reservation by Canberra.
One of the few positive things that Indonesia has done, IMHO.
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Shore, of course.
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bubble wrap ! 🙂
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Helmets !! 🙂 🙂 🙂
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More information
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Yes, more info please. If it is something to smile about then tell us.
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Sending young men to prison won’t make you safer
The Drum
By Greg Barns
gerard oosterman:
22 Jan 2014 10:50:15am
Instead of rubber mats, what about all drinkers be supplied by helmets? As they enter they must put down ten dollars in a rack of helmets not unlike shopping trolleys.
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Wake in Fright, great movie.
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It’s a great Australian movie along with Bliss (1985)
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Yeah, I liked Bliss as well. Death in Brunswick was another goodie.
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Both fantastic movies! Actually made you feel something. Bliss (both, book and movie) was inspirational. I remember sitting up and soaking up every word and every frame. Stunning stuff.
I don’t think anything else since has surpassed them. At least I can’t think of one at the moment.
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ato, did you like the Shiralee? (excuse spelling worked last night)
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Absolutely, Hungs. Showed it to my year 9 students a few times. Lovely!
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And this one, Atomou.
Friday night too tired; Saturday night too drunk; “Sunday, too far away”.
Another great Australian movie.
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Yes, Mr Oosterman’s comment made me chuckle, too!
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Some of those I’ve enjoyed the most
They’re a weird mob
Age of Consent
Walkabout
Picnic at hanging Rock
Sunday too far away
The Devil’s playground
The last wave
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Gallipoli
Oscar and Lucinda
Men of flowers
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They’re a Weird Mob, classic. Is it okay to add a simile?
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Bad Boy Bobby and The Boys; I was breathless watching those movies…The NZ’s Once Were Warriors was a bit like too…
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Yes, Bad Boy Bubby, Brunswick, Don’s Party (had to watch this after the last Federal election)!
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Great list ato, They’re a weird mob had me ROFL when I was a kid and part of the family being southern European
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I miss Peter Reith. I used to send this message once every Tuesday to his articles: “Hey Peter, you are a peterhead.” Of course they didn’t post it. Heh, heh, I say what I mean and I mean what I say. Words are precious you know, heh heh..
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This, too, went into dustbin…
Exposed: the treachery of hairy women
By Clementine Ford
Novice:
21 Jan 2014 11:41:06am
“Surely the replies to his article are a pretty good indication ….
I don’t think his ramblings were worthy of a response.”
My reply to Novice:
“Clementine is a female. Ford is a car”
Now what is wrong with that ? 🙂
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old67:
21 Jan 2014 11:15:03am
What is going on ABC are you turning into another WOMAN MAGAZINE these stories belong in NEW IDEA OR WOMANS WEEKLY and so on not a good start to 2014
My reply: ….next we’ll have knitting patterns here 🙂 , did not see the daylight…too mocking perhaps, the smiley did not help…
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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No more humorous comments are allowed at the Drum .. such a pity. In the old days it used to be fun…
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I read the article and thought what a waste of space. An article on another stupid article which wasn’t funny although I think it was meant to be.
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I read a couple paragraphs, and thought same: waste of space…there are so many important issues to discuss and you get this silliness.
I like the genuinely funny articles, like Ben Pobjie writes…in the past we had many good comedy writers on Unleashed…good tor Fridays,a kind of mufti day…
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Just inane ramblings, but I’ll bet she still got paid for it.
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Yes Helvi – maybe they are not getting many submitting stuff. No Peter Reith today – probably a relief but interesting that he is a no show. Can’t defend the indefensible crap going on so not sticking his toe in the water. He’ll be gone for some time. Some good discussion over at IA.
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Yes, talking about things that matter, and so far no nastiness or ad hominems…When
Peter Reith announced that he’ll leave the Drum to write for SMH, no doubt he expected some sad goodbyes…I don’t think anyone said they’ll miss him..
Why would anyone read him on SMH.
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Vivienne, Reith is no longer writing for the drum. He was in today’s SMH were he now writes on a Tuseday. All right wingers today, Reith, Switzer and someone else. We’ll get poorly researched garbage from Sheehan on a Monday and Thursday with Reith writing similar garbage on a Tuesday.
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Yes, of course Fairfax employed him to write garbage, not increase their circulation.
I guess that they must be out of step with you.
It’s amazing that they don’t know what they are doing, and you spotted it straight away. Awesome.
Somebody has got it wrong.
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Obviously I didn’t read his farewell sentence. I do tend to speed read his drivel. I noticed he has popped up in the SMH. As if he needs more money – the SMH paying these Lib shits and sacking real journalists. I’m getting more pissed off with SMH by the week. I want investigative journalism and this latest is not what I want to pay for. Have a sub for it at the local village agency. Might seriously think about cancelling it.
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We don’t buy it anymore, sometimes we still get the Saturday copy, and the skinny Monday one for the TV programs, just an old habit…
I stopped also reading Reith’s articles long ago, I read my favourite Labor commenters (say the likes of Alpo) and went from there…
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I think that you should cancel it Vivienne. There doesn’t seem much point reading any other view than the one that you want to see.
That was my whole point about the way that The PA gas gone. It was balanced at one time, many years ago.
In fact I just reminisced and went back reading some of the stories – even Helvi’s ‘Foreigner’s Woes’….And Astyges valiant efforts. Warrigals too
Not a hint of the viscous attacks on Liberal politicians and writers every other sentence. In the comments of course. Because it’s the comments that attract or detract from the atmosphere and influence the casual observer, whether they be looking in from Iceland, Perth or Nebraska.
I am sure that people read the stories, well, most of them, However it is the blog participation that is important. people have to decide if it is a community worth participating in.
Endless comments about how stupid Peter Reith and Sheehan are, just emphasise the ravine between lucid balanced views and a blinkered, one dimensional view.
Still you have managed to attract hph in the last 4 years. ha ha. What does that tell you?
I write this most politely – in the forlorn hope that some of the comments “(I read the article and thought what a waste of space. An article on another stupid article which wasn’t funny although I think it was meant to be)” .could be about substance, instead of comments insinuating that you are far more intelligent than anyone who doesn’t support The ALP.
Never mind back to work, and up to Brisbane 35 today
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So Julian, do you see your views as balanced?
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Jules, if you read the article I was talking about you would probably agree 100% with me. It was not political – idiocy about all women having moustaches and stuff about pubic hair. It was ridiculous and didn’t warrant a Drum piece on it.
But on politics at the Pub – well Jules, there is a saying about specks and logs and eyes.
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There is one problem with cancelling the subscription. If I just want to pick up a copy on certain days there is no guarantee I can. They only have one, or sometimes, two spare copies. The others (3) are ordered too. So it is not simple.
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And if you don’t get the newspaper Viv what are you going to wipe your bum with? 🙂 Sorry couldn’t resist the simlie.
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Of course Jules, your politely written comment did have to include an insult directed at me. Way to make friends !
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That leaves the Border Mail rag. Also now owned by Fairfax. I might have to resort to Kleenex long rolls.
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Those Kleenex rolls don’t have much of a story, but the plot thickens right at the end.
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Toilet jokes now! I rarely have any short, snappy ones. Sometimes I might have a joke but I forget it when I need it – like now! I do have a small library in my bathroom (which also houses my toilet). Some good stuff there – a lovely short story which concludes with the necromancer Howard pulling strings to no avail.
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おはしがころげても、おかしい年頃
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What do you mean you don’t know what it means? It means this:
O hashi ga korogetemo, okashii toshigoro! Der!
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By Zeus you’re dumb!
It means that kids will laugh even when the chopsticks fall from the table, and onto the floor!
Goodness, ME!
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Atomou, some days I can barely speak Strine, let alone Greek, Chinese, Japanese, et al!
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There’s a cure for that mental depletion, Big One. Someone just posted it on my FB wall: Three teaspoons of honey, two of cinnamon and a shot of ouzo in a cuppa, twice a day, but thrice if possible. The third you don’t have to include the honey, the cinnamon or the tea!
Try it, they reckon you’ll be almost as good as me… I don’t really believe it but, whatsagot to lose? 🙂
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Amazing isn’t it point out something to Vivienne and the cracked record comes tight in on cue. I don’t have much of a problem with Reith, sometimes his argument can be quite reasonable, his opening piece in the Herald though was garbage. Sheehan on the other hand is a lost cause. Rarely accurate with his reporting and is regularly found wanting the next day. Heck we even managed a mea culpa when his opinion piece of 30/12/13 was found mostly inaccurate.
Speaking of opinion pieces Jules is one forthcoming soon or are you too busy sponging off the taxpayer in Brisbane?
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I didn’t mean to insult you Vivvienne. Thanks for your reply.
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Algernon, you would choke on your Borscht, if you knew what I do with the State government….And then do a double backward somersault.
All is not what it seems, my friend.
Of course, I like to separate my private life from the blog, however, it helps the housing commission. That’s all I’ll say. Oh, excepting there is not much in the money around now now thanks to Bligh’s team. So what I am doing is using up time without getting paid.
Such is life.
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Hung One On says:
January 22, 2014 at 11:44 am
So Julian, do you see your views as balanced?
Yes, of course.
My sensibility nullifies your rabidness.
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Jules, I think you’ve given us more than an insight into your private life at the PA over the years.
I do take your point however about what one does work wise. Do I take it that you’re volunteering?
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I won’t go into it. I get paid on results.
I’ll have to say that, as I don’t want you thinking that I am some do gooder running a soup kitchen.
I have mentioned my family and you have mentioned yours, however, I wouldn’t dream of asking their names or what you do, or volunteering my grandchildren names. I nearly did once when we were guessing. Big M, got it right, but I think it’s lost in space now, so I feel that I can mention it.
Let’s face it, people’s names have been called out in here and it SHOULDN’T happen. I’ll not risk it, because someone from Iceland or Norway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfjord)* could be watching.
*That is one weird show.
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I was picking up on your last sentence that’s all. That’s why I asked if you were volunteering.
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Atomou, I haven’t drunk ouzo since my first hangover, when I was a callow youth!
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Is Applaudanum, at the drum, mentally challenged?
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He’s stuck in a rut I reckon.
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I was stuck in a rut once but luckily I knew a bloke with a winch and a four wheel drive
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Vivienne, some people talk for the sake of talking. They can talk for hours and in the end still say nothing. One of my brothers is like that. I used to listen to him, “bla.. bla.. bla..” for hours and after leaving his place driving back home I used to keep thinking in the car, “What the hell was that all about ???” Thank God now he lives on the other side of the planet, in The USA. 🙂
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My reply to you Helvi, went straight into dustbin.
“The Fifties are nothing, Helvi. We are heading into a Dickensian future
Here is a sample:
Head of Commission of Audit, Tony Shepherd, who’s also the president of the Business Council of Australia, faced questions from senators about the National Commission of Audit:
COMMISSION MEMBER: Everything is on the table?
TONY SHEPHERD: Everything is on the table.
COMMISSION MEMBER: So when the Government, so when the Treasurer, at different points, has said that they will not break their election promises, when the Finance Minister has said health and education isn’t on the table, when the Prime Minister has given several different lists of what isn’t on or off the table, as far as you’re concerned they’re all on the table?
TONY SHEPHERD: That is our instructions.
….
AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC: Zzzzzzzzzz…………..”
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Lol, you were brave to mention Norway…it’s OK to go to Italy or France, or India and learn from them about cooking and eating better food, but we mustn’t go to Norway to see how they are governing the country;both the Left and the Right over there are doing it so well, everybody is happy…
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I have it from good authority Herrefolk et all has at last been told to tow the line. (just in case you were wondering)
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This is a bit earlier but you may like this.
Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer
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Sledgehammer. This one is a gem, Hung. One of the best video clips in the history of MTV.
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Its good I reckon both the song and the clip. I have a few of his albums and some of it is excellent.
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This one made me a bit giddy at the time. Still does as it turns out.
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There is one consolation in being a Vampire.
You cannot see yourself in the mirror.
🙂
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…yet they are all clean shaven!
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Because they go for a full Brazilian wax:)
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Of course, Brazil, hair today, gone tomorrow.
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They are bestowed with gifts:
Cloud Walking, Pyrokinesis, Telekinesis:)
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I am telepathic, too.
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I envy them!
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I avoid them. 🙂
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Pyro=fire
Tele=distant
Kinesis=movement
Just thought I’d toss in this little lingualesson to all you linguaminions!
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The Responsibility of Intellectuals
– Noam Chomsky
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19670223.htm
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This is a man, an Intellectual who DOES NOT sit on the fence.
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He took me into his room, which smelt strongly of tobacco, and took out a book from one of the heaps, turned the leaves and looked for the passage.
“This is good too, very good,” he said, “listen to this: ‘A man should be proud of suffering. All suffering is a reminder of our high estate.’ Fine! Eighty years before Nietzsche. But that is not the sentence I meant. Wait a moment, here I have it. This: ‘Most men will not swim before they are able to.’ Is not that witty? Naturally, they won’t swim! They are born for the solid earth, not for the water. And naturally they won’t think. They are made for life, not for thought. Yes, and he who thinks, what’s more, he who makes thought his business, he may go far in it, but he has bartered the solid earth for the water all the same, and one day he will drown.”
….
..
..
.…
Now what we call “bourgeois,” when regarded as an element always to be found in human life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. If we take any one of these coupled opposites, such as piety and profligacy, the analogy is immediately comprehensible. It is open to a man to give himself up wholly to spiritual views, to seeking after God, to the ideal of saintliness. On the other hand, he can equally give himself up entirely to the life of instinct, to the lusts of the flesh, and so direct all his efforts to the attainment of momentary pleasures. The one path leads to the saint, to the martyrdom of the spirit and surrender to God. The other path leads to the profligate, to the martyrdom of the flesh, the surrender to corruption. Now it is between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. He strives neither for the saintly nor its opposite. The absolute is his abhorrence. He may be ready to serve God, but not by giving up the fleshpots. He is ready to be virtuous, but likes to be easy and comfortable in this world as well. In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. A man cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self (rudimentary as his may be). And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility.
It is clear that this weak and anxious being, in whatever numbers he exists, cannot maintain himself, and that qualities such as his can play no other role in the world than that of a herd of sheep among free roving wolves. Yet we see that, though in times when commanding natures are uppermost, the bourgeois goes at once to the wall, he never goes under; indeed at times he even appears to rule the world. How is this possible? Neither the great numbers of the herd, nor virtue, nor common sense, nor organization could avail to save it from destruction. No medicine in the world can keep a pulse beating that from the outset was so weak. Nevertheless the bourgeoisie prospers. Why?
The answer runs: Because of the Steppenwolves. In fact, the vital force of the bourgeoisie resides by no means in the qualities of its normal members, but in those of its extremely numerous “outsiders” who by virtue of the extensiveness and elasticity of its ideals it can embrace. There is always a large number of strong and wild natures who share the life of the fold. Our Steppenwolf, Harry, is a characteristic example. He who is developed far beyond the level possible to the bourgeois, he who knows the bliss of meditation no less than the gloomy joys of hatred and self-hatred, he who despises law, virtue and common sense, is nevertheless captive to the bourgeoisie and cannot escape it. And so all through the mass of the real bourgeoisie are interposed numerous layers of humanity, many thousands of lives and minds, every one of whom, it is true, would have outgrown it and have obeyed the call to unconditioned life, were they not fastened to it by sentiments of their childhood and infected for the most part with its less intense life; and so they are kept lingering, obedient and bound by obligation and service. For with the bourgeoisie the opposite of the formula for the great is true: He who is not against me is with me.
If we now pause to test the soul of the Steppenwolf, we find him distinct from the bourgeois in the higher development of his individuality–for all extreme individuation turns against itself, intent upon its own destruction. We see that he had in him strong impulses both to be a saint and a profligate; and yet he could not, owing to some weakness or inertia, make the plunge into the untrammelled realms of space. The parent constellation of the bourgeoisie binds him with its spell. This is his place in the universe and this his bondage. Most intellectuals and most artists belong to the same type. Only the strongest of them force their way through the atmosphere of the bourgeois earth and attain to the cosmic. The others all resign themselves or make compromises. Despising the bourgeoisie, and yet belonging to it, they add to its strength and glory; for in the last resort they have to share their beliefs in order to live. The lives of these infinitely numerous persons make no claim to the tragic; but they live under an evil star in a quite considerable affliction; and in this hell their talents ripen and bear fruit. The few who break free seek their reward in the unconditioned and go down in splendor. They wear the thorn crown and their number is small. The others, however, who remain in the fold and from whose talents the bourgeoisie reaps much gain, have a third kingdom left open to them, an imaginary and yet a sovereign world, humor. The lone wolves who know no peace, these victims of unceasing pain to whom the urge for tragedy has been denied and who can never break through the starry space, who feel themselves summoned thither and yet cannot survive in its atmosphere–for them is reserved, provided suffering has made their spirits tough and elastic enough, a way of reconcilement and an escape into humor. Humor has always something bourgeois in it, although the true bourgeois is incapable of understanding it. In its imaginary realm the intricate and many-faceted ideal of all Steppenwolves finds its realisation. Here it is possible not only to extol the saint and the profligate in one breath and to make the poles meet, but to include the bourgeois, too, in the same affirmation. Now it is possible to be possessed by God and to affirm the sinner, and vice versa, but it is not possible for either saint or sinner (or for any other of the unconditioned) to affirm as well that lukewarm mean, the bourgeois. Humor alone, that magnificent discovery of those who are cut short in their calling to highest endeavor, those who falling short of tragedy are yet as rich in gifts as in affliction, humor alone (perhaps the most inborn and brilliant achievement of the spirit) attains to the impossible and brings every aspect of human existence within the rays of its prism. To live in the world as though it were not the world, to respect the law and yet to stand above it, to have possessions as though “one possessed nothing,” to renounce as though it were no renunciation, all these favorite and often formulated propositions of an exalted worldly wisdom, it is in the power of humor alone to make efficacious.
…
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hph – it’s just too bloody hot.
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Yes, dear Vivienne, it is too hot here as well…hung knows:)
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We hit 44 yesterday. I’m not actually in Albury which is on the Murray. Albury featured on the NSW national news the other night because it’s hot here.
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Well, let’s hope that you and Hung are happy. Hot & happy. Like minded & as one 😉
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46 today Jules, bloody hot mate. I even put some water out for the feral pigeons, yeah I know going soft in me old age 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Gunna be 45 again here how is everyone else goin?
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According to Weatherzone, it’s only 25 in Newcastle, but, their readings are taken at the beach! It’s probably around 30, where I live. I recently had the black tiles removed from our roof (you know, the sort of tile you would use if you were trying to make the roof space into a solar oven, and had the new colorbond ‘Coolmax’ steel roofing installed in it’s place. Makes a hell of a difference.
I can empathise. We have had a few 46s and 47s here, in the past!
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I’m lucky M, I have an energy efficient home but man you go outside it feels like you have stepped into an oven.
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43 here yesterday. Feels just as hot today.
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At Peter Chen Blog,
Sam says:
14 Jan 2014 3:52:56pm
I think the author should do some research. A spring dropped lamb would be perfect to eat in late january
————
My reply to Sam:
“You brute! Can you be more patient and wait till next summer?
Nothing like a warm fleece to cuddle up with on a cold winter night.”
I wonder if they will allow it ?
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Your oyster one did 🙂
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there was another multi-liner to, you-know-whom, ..it didn’t show up:)
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Funnily enough I have ewes and a ram and their lambs in our paddock. They will be off to the abattoir next week or thereabouts. All bar one was born in the Spring. There will be more lambs in the coming months.
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oooooooo .. Shish Kebabs .. yummm 🙂
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Extract from “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by C.S. Lewis
“When will the spell work?” asked Lucy. “Will the Duffers be visible again at once?”
“Oh yes, they’re visible now. But they’re probably all asleep still; they always take a rest in the middle of the day.”
“And now that they’re visible, are you going to let them off being ugly? Will you make them as they were before?”
“Well, that’s rather a delicate question,” said the Magician. “You see, it’s only they who think they were so nice to look at before. They say they’ve been uglified, but that isn’t what I called it. Many people might say the change was for the better.”
“Are they awfully conceited?”
“They are. Or at least the Chief Duffer is, and he’s taught all the rest to be. They always believe every word he says.”
“We’d noticed that,” said Lucy.
“Yes–we’d get on better without him, in a way. Of course I could turn him into something else, or even put a spell on him which would make them not believe a word he said. But I don’t like to do that. It’s better for them to admire him than to admire nobody.”
“Don’t they admire you?” asked Lucy.
“Oh, not me,” said the Magician. “They wouldn’t admire me.”
====================
…. For now they were jumping in all directions and calling out to one another, “Hey, lads! We’re visible again.”
“Visible we are,” said one in a tasselled red cap who was obviously the Chief Monopod. “And what I say is, when chaps are visible, why, they can see one another.”
“Ah, there it is, there it is, Chief,” cried all the others. “There’s the point. No one’s got a clearer head than you. You couldn’t have made it plainer.”
“She caught the old man napping, that little girl did,” said the Chief Monopod. “We’ve beaten him this time.”
“Just what we were, going to say ourselves,” chimed the chorus. “You’re going stronger than ever today, Chief. Keep it up, keep it up.”
“But do they dare to talk about you like that?” said Lucy. “They seemed to be so afraid of you yesterday. Don’t they know you might be listening?”
“That’s one of the funny things about the Duffers,” said the Magician. “One minute they talk as if I ran everything and overheard everything and was extremely dangerous. The next moment they think they can take me in by tricks that a baby would see through–bless them!”
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42 here at the moment, problem is the hot part of the day is still to come. Go over to the Bum and guess what, Rodney Croome and Ruby Hamad, Jesus wept.
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Bloody hell !
I *hate* hot summer days. I can’t hear Beethoven’s 7th with the air-con on.
Maybe I should switch to Tchaikovsky’s 1812:)
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Actually hph. I’m pretty lucky. My house is small so I run the air con at 25. Saves heaps of money and keeps me cool. Oh and I always preferred Peter T to the deaf bloke till one day me and the missus went and saw the Australian Youth Orchestra cover a couple of his songs, very nice indeed.
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🙂 😉 🙂
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Wow, 2 similes and a wink, that’s special 🙂
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hph, we just had a mini walk with Milo, it’s hotting up here too, luckily it cools down at night time being quite high up…
Good to see you stayed, I thought you might pack your bags and leave us… if the blog heats up too much , I usually take a break.. 🙂
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hph can’t leave H, we have a lot of music to get through first 🙂
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Helvi my dear, personal attacks don’t bother me at all. If I take a break in the future it will be for other reasons. I’m thinking of becoming a professional psychotherapist. I wonder what kind of educational requirements are necessary to take a course in Psychology. I’ll google and find out.
Give Milo a cuddle for me. 🙂
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A psychotherapist? There is so much here. ” enough for an entire conference.” 😉
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Hung, you old devil, do you want Gerard to come bursting thru your front door with a shotgun ?
On the day of your funeral I’ll wear red, eat oysters and carry on .. 🙂
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hph,
1) I love oysters. I am hoping to get to the oysterfest in Cedunna on the October long week end all depends on money.
2) I do wear a lot of red.
3) Give me whiskey and yes I carry on like a lunatic.
Gez would never shoot me as we would be too busy eating fried knackwurst and drinking beer. 🙂
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AHAAA, you are a whiskey-man too !
I like that. So am I. 🙂
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Love me whiskey, Johnny Black when on special
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I bought a new red top while in Melbourne. I love oysters. I drink different beers and wine. I love food. I don’t like Liberals. I think the Nats are just in it for the money – for themselves, not their electorates.
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Oh, and I love a lot of music but especially rock and roll and blues and stuff with a good beat.
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And I love Metallica. Remember, I went to see them in concert at the Rod Laver Arena 3 years ago. They are God apparently – you have to stand up the entire time or see nothing.
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Lucky to see them while they are still alive. Have they aged better than Rolling Stones, Vivienne ?
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I never liked Metallica at first then my sons brought home one of their DVD’s and I really like it.
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Black or Blue .. no mixer and no ice ..
Just plain … yummmm:)
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Me too.
it was my little brother who introduced it to me.
Metallica that is:)
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Not as old as the Stones. I thought they looked fab and the energy was all there – probably even more of it. Daughters were over the moon. (I love the Stones too.)
I have a CD of them playing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and I think that it is bloody marvellous.
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No, definitely not as old as stones, but going thru all those wild times and concerts takes its toll.
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That’s the remarkable thing about some of these men and women. I watch RocKwiz and you get to see quite a few oldies. They did a live gig last year from the Byron Bay Blues Fest and Russell Morris did The Real Thing and I thought it was better than when he first did it in the late 60s. There are fab young ones doing amazing stuff too – so many come out of Melbourne where there are plenty of venues for live performers and I think they are appreciated more. My daughters are often heading down to Melbourne for some gig/show.
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hph, Love Johnny blue but only buy a bottle at Christmas. No mixer, sometimes ice but the only thing I like with scotch is more scotch 🙂
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I once accidentally had an ouzo with a little dash of scotch – on the rocks. It was very pleasant. The cause of the ‘mix’ was hubby who drained a bottle of scotch so the empty could be taken to the tip recycle bin. Out of 24 glasses I managed to pick the one with the scotch in it.
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If you have to use ice than freeze it from a bottle, not from the tap. I read somewhere that a business is selling pure ice thousands of years old extracted from Polar Regions.
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Interesting you should mention ICE specifically. While in Melbourne I realised there was something funny about my drinks – the ice was frozen tap water. My ice at home is rainwater, filtered. Tastes quite different – so much better. I’ve been using rainwater to make ice since 1975 and I had not realised until this weekend that there was such a difference. In the past my visits to Melbourne have not included any iced drinks.
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Vivienne, handling and storage of ice is a bit suspicious at restaurants (I know. I worked in restaurants) Behind a Bar it can be clean.
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A post script to the ice stuff. The alcohol tasted weak. That was the effect of the ice. The gin and tonic and ice tasted bland.
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On the day of your funeral I’ll wear red, eat oysters and carry on .. 🙂
Why are you writing insulting moronic, bilge like that?
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Wore red, ate oysters, and carried on…
🙂
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You are a sick man.
On the day of your mother’s funeral you were still at the drum locking horns with people you don’t know.
you need therapy
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What a witless comment. I was carer for my mother for two years and on the day of her funeral we all wore red, ate oysters, and carried on as she would have wished.
I am a lot like her. Indomitable and able to sniff out phonies.
What did you you do, when your boyfriend died of aids?
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To be fair to Jules if that’s helped him get through the day, well that’s fine by me. I actually see nothing wrong with that. He’d spent much time saying his goodbyes in the days and weeks beforehand.
Sounds like the day was celebrated (possibly not the right word) in a way that she would have approved of.
When my mother died after a battle with cancer, I’d done most of my grieving in the months beforehand. The funeral in many ways was for those friends and relatives who had come to pay their last respects.
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It’s 1030 CST and the Bum is still shut
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12.52 and just noticed – finally, at last – a new one from Mungo on asylum seekers. There ought to be one on Education.
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When you read it Viv it makes me sad that I’m an Aussie.
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No – never sad to be an Aussie.
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Don’t you just love the ring wing bleeding hearts pretending to be concerned about people drowning at sea, pathetic.
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HOO, the right wingers don’t even talk about people, they talk about boats; about turning them back, buying them from fishermen, donating them to Sri Lanka…and of course STOPPING them…
For them it’s the boats that ‘drown’,not people…,
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Why?
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Hoo, yes and there are plenty of them. None of whom gave a rats about deaths at sea under Howard.
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And they say 1200, it could be any number really, all pretty tragic.
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Yes H, they have dehumanised it to help them sleep at night
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Yes HOO. They are just stone-hearted lying bastards who are pretending to be caring for the disadvantaged people.
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hph, That’s Abbott to a T
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Night night all.
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Night Viv
Night H
Night hph
Night Jules
Night Gez
Night Milo
Night Mikey
Night ato
Night Algernon
Night Big M
Night shoe
Night Voice
Night soil
Night night, don’t let the bed bugs bite 🙂
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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I read the article, Atomou.
Here is something for you:
Heather Mac Donald
http://www.nndb.com/people/081/000085823/
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Atomou, She is worried about the education of the next generation Ruling Class & Emperors.
Unfortunately, my English is not good enough to describe what I’ve read between the lines in her article, eloquently.
I wish you were on good terms with Gerard who can explain it to you a hell of a lot better than I can.
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hph, been there and done that.
MacDonald is an appalling creature when it comes to politics and social issues. She is the Right Wing’s epaulette. That much I understand and am abhorred by it.
And, alas, the classics are, not of their own accord, in the crossfires between the Left and Right. Each side shoots at the other, using the classics as ammunition; and that’s the irony, neither of them have managed to figure out. Progressives need the classics to learn how to draw a path for progress. Conservatives use them because they can’t stand the idea that the classics can be claimed by the Left. It’s typical mean politics. Politics for the sake of politics, vacuous politics.
The reason, I suspect my friend send me the reference, is because of the points MacDonald is making about so much good, useful study, study that actually teaches about thinking, delineates the history of thought, has been pulled away and replaced with something of dubious, “self centered” as she calls it curricula. And that’s pretty much as far as I want to go with this essay and this link.
I, and my friend, both agree that this replacement is not wise.
Don’t be too surprised if some common ground is not found even between people with the most acutely separated ideologies. Human nature is not divided on all issues in such absolute acrimony.
On the retention of and the need to study the great figures of Literature, of thought, of history, I am an inexorable conservative. This, however, does not mean that I will reject the literary giants of today.
The other thing that is worrisome in MacDonald’s mind but not so much in mine, is that the English faculty (in its Majors) is now marked by four areas, the names of which sound rather abstract and vague with demarcations made not by “cornerstone” authors but by areas of dubious (self-centered) worth. I am not sure of that, since I don’t have the book list and the syllabus.
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Atomou, I don’t have any problem with somebody who wants to see classical education taught in our schools. Just because Mac Donald wants it and when I hear her says so is not going to make me jump over the fence to her side and agree with her.
If only I had a dollar for every time someone said “I am agreeing with Chris Berg or Kevin on something for the first time”, I could be on a tropical island sipping a pina colada.
I can pull out a lot of quotes and excerpts from Hitler’s speeches which are also true, nice and pleasing. So what ! …Will I agree with Hitler then? The overuse of this banal admission drives me up the wall.
And she is giving us an example to enforce her point : ONE black woman did not want to study “Mozart” !!! ..Shucks !
They are all crooks who are trying to win The Hearts and Minds of the gullible, while hiding their evil intentions.
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I’m not sure where you’re chucking your arrows, hph.
We are all human beings and it would be a very odd, if not very dull thing, if we all agreed on everything, even with our closest, most beloved friends. Of MacDonald, I’ve said this: “MacDonald is an appalling creature when it comes to politics and social issues.”
If MacDonald and I were both licking a cone of vanilla ice cream and she observed that we are both licking a cone of vanilla ice cream would I not have to agree? No, I would not have to “jump over the fence to her side” (whatever that means) but I would, unless I were to be obdurately and stupidly contrary, have to agree with her. This I expressed with these words:
“Don’t be too surprised if some common ground is not found even between people with the most acutely separated ideologies. Human nature is not divided on all issues in such absolute acrimony.”
I agree with her, as you do, in spite your flagellations of her other views, that the study of the Classics are too valuable to replace with the study of vaguely circumscribed, introspective areas; but we, you and I, can’t judge if MacDonald’s view of these other areas is correct because we simply don’t have the syllabuses. We know nothing about them so we can’t judge her on her views on those areas. Full stop.
You do not really have to be, nor, thankfully, can you be, in agreement with anyone on absolutely everything but, I can assure you, if Chris Berg, or Keni D, or MacDonald said that it would be wrong for a country to invade Oz, you’d be, indeed, jumping over the fence to agree with them.
There’s nothing more futile than shooting someone because you disagree with them on some, even many, points. Acrimony does no one any favours. Take each issue on its own merits and consider your views only on that issue. Agree or disagree, condemn or accept, disparage or praise the view, not the man… and, while we’re at it, dismantle the two filing cabinets of your mind that are called Left and Right. Issues, ideas, are either good or bad, not right or left. In fact, many ideas could well have components of both of what the hardliners call by these names.
That’s all I am saying. OK?
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My philosophy in life, Atomou:
No matter how poor and hungry I am, I will never accept an offer for a meal, from a crook, at his RICH table.
So, their ideas can go take a hike!
I hope this is not too abstract for you.
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Hph: a righteously, indignant person, with a huge chip, methinks. And decidedly obtuse, with a huge chip on her shoulder.
C’mon, let it all out. What’s up……………. what happened to you?
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No, not at all abstract. Just surprisingly stupid.
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Why ?
Did you share their meal at the table of crooks, thieves, con artists, swindlers, charlatans, cheaters, criminals, defrauders, frauds, lowlifes, scamps, scoundrels, tricksters, pirates, mercenaries, gun runners, drug runners, slave traders, wall-street traders, assassins, murderers, war criminals, banksters and baby snatchers
…in the past, Atomou ?
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Surprisingly stupid because I didn’t expect it to come out of someone as intelligent as you, hph but now, after your last effort, well!
No I din’t go looking for invitations to dinner from these people but I didn’t think I made any such intimation. Let me take you back to your own words and let’s see what we can see:
“No matter how poor and hungry I am, I will never accept an offer for a meal, from a crook, at his RICH table.”
How so vert righteous of you! What if the hungry person, nay, the starving person was one of your tiny babies? You’d let it die? What if you were on fire and the only person coming with a hose at you was one of those people who you consider as nothing more than – what? Shall we call them scum for now? Would you run away?
hph, I suggest you’d stand there, accept his humane act, thank him and probably serve him as his slave for the rest of your life for saving it! Particulalrly if it was the life of your baby!
I also think, hph, your own sense of humanness, would run with a hose at those people if they and not you were on fire.
And there you’d have the agreement that I was talking about. Perhaps but not necessarily so, the only thing you’d agree on: you are on fire, you need to be hosed down, he has the hose and he should smother that fire. To all that he agrees and thus a human being is saved. Other political, religious, philosophical, astrological, mathematical or poetical views are put aside -completely aside so as to reach this agreement between you, a righteous and him an evil man.
Do you now see how damaging extreme acrimony like yours is? Neither of you is black or white on all things. Ditch that idea and learn to to learn from others.
You’ll live better!
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“Surprisingly stupid because I didn’t expect it to come out of someone as intelligent as you, hph but now, after your last effort, well!”
My friend, I define intelligence as “being a state of sensitivity, awareness and reflectiveness all in one.” Not like that IQ crap business the yanks are very fond of. So take your cue from this…
“No I din’t go looking for invitations to dinner from these people”
Nowhere in my comment I suggested that you did..
“ but I didn’t think I made any such intimation.”
Good for you
“ Let me take you back to your own words and let’s see what we can see:”
Ok let’s see what we can see:
“No matter how poor and hungry I am, I will never accept an offer for a meal, from a crook, at his RICH table.”
How so vert righteous of you!”
That’s my character. I don’t eat ill-gained honey offered in a dirty hand.
“What if the hungry person, nay, the starving person was one of your tiny babies? You’d let it die? “
Wow! Take a step back there brother! Now you are letting your imagination run wild and catapulting yourself out of the Logical Zone. This is exactly the kind of twisted argument in twisted logic those right wing nutters at the drum, such as zing or terry apply in discussions. A hypothetical approach in an attempt to confuse the other side. …Does not work with me. I did study Logic.
But since you asked, here is my answer:
There is a moral question asked in Psychology Books that you may or may not have come across to: Your child is ill and dying and the only way you can save her is to get the medicine from the druggist who was charging $5000, ten times what the drug had cost him to make. But you don’t have the money. You go to everyone you know, to borrow the money, but you can get together only about half of what it cost. You tell the druggist that your child is dying and ask him to sell it cheaper or to let him pay later. But the druggist says no. You get desperate and break into the man’s store to steal the drug for his child.
Simply the question is: “Should you have done that? Why? “
I would have put the barrel of the shotgun to his head and say “ GIVE IT TO ME YOU SCUMSUCKINGSONOFAFACKINGBITCH ! ”
🙂
“What if you were on fire and the only person coming with a hose at you was one of those people who you consider as nothing more than – what? Shall we call them scum for now? Would you run away?”
Yeah I can just picture John D Rockefeller or Dick Cheney running across the road to piss on me if I was on fire.
“hph, I suggest you’d stand there, accept his humane act, thank him and probably serve him as his slave for the rest of your life for saving it! Particulalrly if it was the life of your baby!”
More Hypothetical Bulldust !
“I also think, hph, your own sense of humanness, would run with a hose at those people if they and not you were on fire.”
I would run gladly across the road to piss on Dick Cheney even if he wasn’t on fire.
“And there you’d have the agreement that I was talking about. Perhaps but not necessarily so, the only thing you’d agree on: you are on fire, you need to be hosed down, he has the hose and he should smother that fire.”
Those crooks would run with a bucket of benzine to the fire if there is a cent to be made. Don’t delude yourself.
“To all that he agrees and thus a human being is saved. Other political, religious, philosophical, astrological, mathematical or poetical views are put aside -completely aside so as to reach this agreement between you, a righteous and him an evil man.”
No kidding !
“Do you now see how damaging extreme acrimony like yours is? Neither of you is black or white on all things. Ditch that idea and learn to to learn from others.”
You mean learn from crooks?
“You’ll live better! “
I live with human dignity.
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Wow, hph!
What a delightful stream of intelligence you let loose! I thank you and I bow to it!
Didn’t expect to be so roundly routed – or should that be rooted, lol
Many thanks for taking the time to teach me so much!
xoxoxoxox
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Atomou, I learn from everybody .. from a seven-year-old child to seventy-year-old person. I learn from you, I learn from Gerald.
I read, I see, I hear, I observe, I learn. …We all do.
The most important thing I learned so far is this : I cannot change this World.
But this fucking World can not change me either.
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Ah! That explains it then, hph. You have a wide range of sources of learning. You are most blessed.
Unfortunately, I only have one. I only press my head up into my… peripherals and receive what flows from there, if you know what I mean.
As you were!
By the way, have taken a look at my blog yet?
Please look it up and leave one of your wise comments there.
Looking forward to it.
Ta
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Well that was fantastic. hph knocked out Ato. Felt like Mario Milano and Killer Kowalski back in the 60s in the ring, wrestling. Love them both!
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More like a battle between wisdom and blind obstinacy. 1-0.
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To write or express anything, you let go of pre-conceived ideas. Put words in a certain order, honestly and without fear. I am afraid that present education puts too much emphasis on rules and form and not enough on creativity & freedom of expression. All that stuff on sport and competing, being a ‘winner’ and all that.
As for Kevin Donnelly, I suppose he would like to re-introduce the raising of the flag and checking the length of skirts or socks, glorifying the Gallipoli disaster, Vietnam, Iraq etc.
Look at Abbott, a Rhodes scholar! Yet, unable to feel or express the plight of refugees. Never a word of empathy or a flicker of pity. ( did anyone read the story in Sat.S M Herald of a refugee waiting in Indonesia for years.)
All ABBOTT sees are boats&votes and more boats&votes and wages a war in which the victims of the wars are now his prisoners.
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What he sees are 1200 corpses as a result of The ALP’s failures.
Some might call it murder.
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What did they do Julian, strafe the boats to make them sink!. Keep on scraping you might get there you pathetic little man.
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Why don’t you stick to the point intead of being your usual repulsive insulting self.
The whole of Australia knows that Kevin Rudd, invited the boats, immedieatly he tokk over. he’s admitted it
It’s set in concrete and not denied.
What’s with the insul;You really are a creepy…Or should I say, just showing your true colours.
THEY DIED TRYING TO GET HERE. Are you too thick to understand that???
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http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/dont-hold-your-breath-for-asylum-seeker-solution-kevin-rudd-20130704-2pd3r.html
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From above:
It’s not for personal abuse of other commenters.
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What point Julian, speaking in riddles again Julian, burping your neo-nazi rhetoric again Julian. On and on and on….
If you chose to write garbage like your second and third line fine, the redneck filth and bogans love that sort of talk.
And again you repeat claptrap in your fourth line, no argument just claiming its an insult. On and on and on…
But you’re right they died trying to get here. I’d fly them here instead, always said that. Coolangatta airport might do the trick, All those blonde haired blue eyes might just realise that they are human,
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And the line about the 1200 corpses and murder where’s that in the article Julian? Where was that admitted?
Some lessons in comprehension might help you.
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By your perverted standards John Howard murdered 400-500 of them. Well done.
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You can’t stop being spiteful can you Algernon? You’re like a silly schoolgirl.
The 1200 drownings are a known statistic.
it wasn’t in the article. Think laterally.
And stop insulting me, or I will really tell you what Ithink.
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I take offence at the 1200 and the murder, Julian. I suspect many here find those comments of yours repugnant. I am fully aware at what you are trying to say and the implied smear that goes with it.
And you call me here spiteful, repulsive, insulting, silly. Seriously Julian, if you think I’m insulting you then have a long hard look in the mirror.
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Actually Algernon, if you go back over the years, you will find that – in the main – when you don’t like my point of view, you attack me personally. You also – and I told you this not long ago – refer to “many in here”.
There aren’t many!! Wake up.
There’s just a handful of you masturbating yourself about how clever you are for being anti Liberal.
You’re as predictable as phases of the moon. And not particularly bright.
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The fact is Julian, that most sites have a core group and others who visit but don’t post.. The Pigs Arms are no different. The fact though is that there were 77000 visitors from 153 countries here last year that suggests that there is a bigger audience that you are prepared to give credit to.
I’m sorry you think that I attack you personally, I’ll admit that I do when riled and by insults. But your not too bad yourself more often than not you’ll open with the ad hominem. The thing is you can’t see the insults you dish out or the passive aggressive tone to much of your writings.
I seriously wonder where you take things here and what your intent is. Others have expressed the same concern. To date I haven’t.
Also I’m not anti Liberal, I’m anti conservative. That would be a more correct way to describe the modern Liberal party. It’s party’s founder would be turning in his grave for what its become. I have a broad group of friends from all political persuasions. I also have a few high level within the Liberal party friends.
And if you think I’m and others aren’t particularly bright, well bully for you. I turn the other cheek rather than question yours.
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It is clear that Carisbrooke will continue with his obsession about murder of boat people by the ALP. It has now been at least 3 years that the same record has been going around and around.Can you (Carrisbrooke) let go of the personal attacks and if at all possible swing over to something else.
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How is it personal.
I hold all ALP voters responsible.
You are just the nearest…And you make sweeping statemnts about LNP ect.
How can you dismiss the deaths so lightly?
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“I seriously wonder where you take things here and what your intent is.”
I pop back in because there are some rare moments – getting rarer – when there is a certain lucidity that flows from dialogue, with the literate likes of atomou, Mike and Voice. Lehan (when she’s in a dry mood) sometimes, previous Madeleine and Warrigal and Big M, can be excruciatingly funny. In fact he rarely comes barging in posting tenuous links to nebulous allusions.(He’s upfront about his beliefs, but lives and let lives.)
I’ve long given up on you, Helvi and Gerard. it’s just a constant stream of silly nonsense, that shouldn’t be in Mike’s blog. it should be somewhere else.
Don’t forget that helvi and gerard hounded atomou – “and still hound Voice”: claiming that she and sea mendez are the same writer. Gerad claiming that he could tell from the syntax and phraseology. It’s too stupid for words, but they got a result. it was very divisive and started a rot.
All because gerard’s views are not appreciated by ‘everybody’. the pseuds that have a go at him in The Drum, are not me and only one is Voice. he thinks that they all Voice. Helvi is embarrassed about our government. is she even an Australian citizen?
When you get nastiness like that, I feel it a civic duty to defend respond.
It’s my liberal/conservative ethos.
I keep hoping that it might change ………….Maybe Mike could open a section for politics and personal insults. I would be absent, of course.
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“I seriously wonder where you take things here and what your intent is.” I think you know exactly what is being asked here yet you don’t what to answer it, You haven’t in the past so I wont press the issue.
As for “posting tenuous links to nebulous allusions” you forget that I’m of the same age as those I often talk about and was involved in student politics at the time. So much of what I’ve seen I witnessed first hand. Then again life didn’t exist prior to 1988 here did it.
I’m not going to bang on about the torrent of abuse that you regularly post here, there’s not point you can’t see it.
You talk about others opening up sections or even posts. Part of being here is to post the occasional piece for comment, For whatever reason you don’t! Why? I’ve just gone back and read them all, they’re all quite good. Of all the regulars who commentate here you’re the only one that does.
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“As for “posting tenuous links to nebulous allusions” you ”
Actually, that wasn’t aimed at you it was Gerard, who just posts – say – an ABC link to a story about The kamps, that this government has inherited and then writes about Morrison – who was doing something else when Kevin opened them.
Morrison, may be a plonker( of the highest order), however, he was NOT the architect of either the arrivals, or the Kamps. That was Kevin Rudd.
Anyway, I have one more point to make with Helvi, then I will have a look at atomou’s article.
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“To write or express anything, you let go of pre-conceived ideas.”
Do you? How extraordinary. How then do you express pre-conceived ideas?
“Put words honestly”
So, that would exclude cherry-picking facts out of context and hiding key facts that nullify the resulting false impression?
“present education puts too much emphasis on rules and form and not enough on creativity & freedom of expression”
Really? What present education? By whom? Where? How much time do they spend of rules and form and how much time do they spend on creativity and freedom of expression?
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Thanks to Gerard. I’m putting words honestly 🙂
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You are right, Gerard. Thanks:)
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I think you are doing pretty well hph. Can I have sauce with that. 😉
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…it’s coming up soon:)
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🙂 🙂
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Hmm, not bad.
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There is only one God. God of Money : “Come my children, follow me.”
🙂
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ABC News: Education reviewer Kevin Donnelly makes case for more religion to be taught in public schools
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-11/curriculum-critic-wants-more-religion-to-be-taught-in-schools/5195410
91 Comments so far !
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…and you’re surprised, hph??
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…on a Saturday afternoon ! Yes, Big M:)
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Let the pulpiteers pulpitise in their churches and let the teachers of facts teach in their class rooms!
To those who know ancient Greek mythology, Christianity is nothing more than ancient Greek mythology for dummies!
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Amen. ..as one who studied long and (forced) hard for 7 years.
The only religion that I can understand, is that when we were savages, we worshiped the sun and the elements – as things that we didn’t understand.
The later crafty controls, were confected to gain hegemony over others.
It works a bleeding treat. Whether it’s Voodoo, Christianity, Hindu, Buddism, Kim Jongilism or Islam.
Some people just have to be led.
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Cazo, your last sentence is true for some but not for all.
My mummy will not be led by anyone: mortal or god but she has this -I might call- glitz in her mind: she believes in god. Doesn’t have a clue of what that god is or what she, he or it does wherever he is, but she believes there is one. Long passed away daddy -and I- had many a discussion with her about his, hers and its’ non existence but she still lights a special house candle she has, in front of a kitschy icon.
Hordes of people simply believe that there’s something somewhere that wants them to be good. One lot has the notion of good as something quite abstract, the other, the dangerous lot, has a very specific view of what their god wants and they aim -they struggle, they jihad- to put it in practice.
But there are those who simply believe. Quietly and unobtrusively. And we can argue that they, too are a danger because they feed, they, by simply believing, nourish the nasty religious institutions but then what on earth do we do about their freedom to believe anything they want, including that bananas can cure idiocy?
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Jesus Christ for sure. Who needs an education when you have religion.
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I like them amish people 🙂
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Me too. Then after a while I realised it was Amish not Hashish 🙂
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I like ’em too, but couldn’t eat a whole one.
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hph and Hung One On, sorry to be off the topic here (Donnelly), but most times it takes a bloody long time to get to The Muse, sometimes it does not open at all…
It’s a pity because you have some good music there….
Can’t you put it up on the Dot, or anywhere but Muse….do others have problems or just me… or is the site just over-loaded?
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The reason it was put on the muse H was it clogged up the dot.
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Forgive my ignorance but what is *the Dot*, Algernon?
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The “dot” is the blog to the right of The Dump. It started off as a blog by Gerard called boeuf tartre avec un oeuf which for some reason started reducing its heading until one dau it just became a full stop or “.” . It has affectionately been called The Dot ever since.
If you hover your mouse over the dot it’s still called http/…boeuf tartre avec un oeuf.
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Holly, Molly ! .. It is so small, I didn’t see it before !!!
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I hover the arrow over the dot and nothing shows up, That’s why !!
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Algy is right your Aitchedness, be patient, think of Gez in his pjays and socks, that thought should be enough to distract any one 🙂
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I have no problem with religious study s being part of the curriculum, provided they are comparative studies of religion. If they are not then its a complete waste of time. Now as regards Donnelly we wont get that, this is someone that wants to shove Catholicism down everybody’s throats as well as sprinkling the values of the Catholic education system, which is what he is employed to do.
I can only be thankful that my kids will be out of the system by the time this is implemented.
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Religion is fine. Religionism is not.
Religion is nothing more than superstition and if it’s taught as that, or, even better, as a part of the whole history of human progress and regress, then it’ll be great. But the hours a student sits down in a classroom are limited and time tablers will have to find the times for these classes by cutting down the times of other, far more valuable classes.
I’d say, leave religion for dedicated religious schools at a tertiary level, rather than during the Primary and High School years.
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I think its only the case in two states; NSW, where Scripture has been allowed to be taught for up to an hour a week since 1880 and enshrined by Sir Henry Parkes, for those who wish to partake, The reality is its 25 minutes. That is for all religions.
For those who choose not to partake then they are meant to be taught something meaningful, teachers, illegally I might add choose not to do this.
At my daughters High school they tried to run a course in comparative religion. Two in my daughters year put their hands up to do the course, She (who I might add is not Christian nor religious) and one other. So the take up particularly is state schools in NSW is virtually non existant. In high schools I think you’ll find Scripture is much the same.
What Donnelly is trying to introduce is contrary to anything Parkes introduce. I do not agree to the force feeding of religion to anyone especially in the way Donnelly from any of his previous writings.
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Algernon, Religion is available as a NSW HSC subject, and has been for many decades (easy HSC marks, in my opinion!), and is taught in many government schools. I don’t know why we need to alter this.
I was pleased to see that the state government is planning to mandate mathematics as part of the HSC (as it was when us oldies went to school!).
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Religion, Algie is divided into at least two loosely labelled parts: History (another word for this particular History is Theology) and Dogma. History is great no matter what of. Learning the History of spoons and forks is interesting, it’s fun and it might well be also useful. Similarly with the history of religion.
Dogma, however, (bereft of its History) is anti-humanist and anti-rationalist. Goethe wrote his Dr Faustus and had that good doctor sell his soul to the Devil, just so he could escape the pitch of the darkness of dogmatic oppression. (The paradoxical question of how can one make a pact with someone he doesn’t believe exist, is temporarily ignored so as to concentrate on the “higher” question Goethe puts to us: what is the value of knowledge?)
So while Theology can be and should be taught, Dogma cannot be because it is construed in the minds of individuals. This is the more prominent problem with Islam, though to believe that Christianity or other religions are not plagued by it, is delusional. It is problematic with Islam because, in many countries it impedes on the duties of the judicial system, ie, when sharia law is imposed.
However, dogma in other religions may also similarly impede not only on the judicial system but also on the political and elsewhere; and when you have individualistic interpretation of justice, then you no longer have an objective, rational view of what justice is but a highly personal and dictatorial one.
The Orthodox Jews in Israel and elsewhere, like the Imams in their madrassas, do nothing else but dance around the meaning of words, trying to give them divine and all sorts of abstract attributes where none exist. That’s all they do all day long!
Theology -as religious history only- is fine. Dogma is a dread on the mind and body of our species.
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There’s a powerful article written in the Wall Str. journal by Heather Mac Donald, about which I was made aware by one of my correspondents. MacDonald investigates the new Humanities curriculum at the University of California at Los Angeles, about which she is appalled.
It is a disconcerting eye opener of where education -and therefore humanity- is going.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304858104579264321265378790
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Big, I’m aware that religious studies is an HSC subject and has been probably since 1967 and agree that it would be easy marks, All the religious schools teach it. I’m not sure how many government schools it would be taught in though, I don’t know of any in the area that I know or those of my work colleagues. I agree that we don’t need to alter this. However, I always have a chuckle when those I know, who send the kids to religious schools then complain about the teaching of it and then have to go to chapel every day. did it not occur to them when enrolling them into such schools! Or did they just gloss over that in the prospectus.
Ato, you’ll get no argument from me on dogma, Donnelly is fairly solid on the Catholic dogma from his previous writings and I suspect he’ll confuse that Religion.
I see in NSW they’re looking at the TAFE system “to make it more relevant”. What after they stripped funding for 100’s or courses over the last two year. Bit like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted for mine.
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Do I have to pay a-dollar to read that article?
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Bugger! I didn’t think they’d lock it already!
Here it is, hph and whoever else wants to take a look:
The Humanities Have Forgotten Their Humanity
When Shakespeare lost out to ‘rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class’ at UCLA, something vital was harmed.
Heather Mac Donald
Jan. 3, 2014 6:43 p.m. ET
In 2011, the University of California at Los Angeles wrecked its English major. Such a development may seem insignificant, compared with, say, the federal takeover of health care. It is not. What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift that bears on our relationship to the past—and to civilization itself.
Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton —the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements. It replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing.
In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare, but the department was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.”
Enlarge Image
Powell Library and Royce Hall, UCLA campus Getty Images
Such defenestrations have happened elsewhere, and long before 2011. But the UCLA coup was particularly significant because the school’s English department was one of the last champions of the historically informed study of great literature, uncorrupted by an ideological overlay. Precisely for that reason, it was the most popular English major in the country, enrolling a whopping 1,400 undergraduates.
The UCLA coup represents the characteristic academic traits of our time: narcissism, an obsession with victimhood, and a relentless determination to reduce the stunning complexity of the past to the shallow categories of identity and class politics. Sitting atop an entire civilization of aesthetic wonders, the contemporary academic wants only to study oppression, preferably his or her own, defined reductively according to gonads and melanin.
Course catalogs today babble monotonously of group identity. UCLA’s undergraduates can take courses in Women of Color in the U.S.; Women and Gender in the Caribbean; Chicana Feminism; Studies in Queer Literatures and Cultures; and Feminist and Queer Theory.
Not so long ago, colleges still reflected the humanist tradition, which was founded not on narcissism but on the all-consuming desire to engage with the genius and radical difference of the past. The 14th-century Florentine poet Francesco Petrarch triggered the explosion of knowledge known today as Renaissance humanism with his discovery of Livy’s monumental history of Rome and the letters of Cicero, the Roman statesman whose orations, with their crystalline Latin style, would inspire such philosophers of republicanism as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
But Petrarch wanted to converse with the ancients as well as read them. So he penned heartfelt letters in Latin to Virgil, Seneca, Horace and Homer, among others, informing them of the fate of their writings and of Rome itself. After rebuking Cicero for the vindictiveness revealed in his letters, Petrarch repented and wrote him again: “I fear that my last letter has offended you. . . . But I feel I know you as intimately as if I had always lived with you.”
In 1416, the Florentine clerk Poggio Bracciolini discovered the most important Roman treatise on rhetoric moldering in a monastery library outside Constance, a find of such value that a companion exclaimed: “Oh wondrous treasure, oh unexpected joy!”
Bracciolini thought of himself as rescuing a still-living being. The treatise’s author, Quintilian, would have “perished shortly if we hadn’t brought him aid . . .” Bracciolini wrote to a friend in Verona. “There is not the slightest doubt that that man, so brilliant, genteel, tasteful, refined, and pleasant, could not longer have endured the squalor of that place and the cruelty of those jailors.”
This burning drive to recover a lost culture propelled the Renaissance humanists into remote castles and monasteries to search for long-forgotten manuscripts. The knowledge that many ancient texts were forever lost filled these scholars with despair. Nevertheless, they exulted in their growing repossession of classical learning.
In François Rabelais’s exuberant stories from the 1530s, the giant Gargantua sends off his son to study in Paris, joyfully conjuring up the languages—Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldean and Arabic—that he expects his son to master, as well as the vast range of history, law, natural history and philosophy.
This constant, sophisticated dialogue between past and present would become a defining feature of Western civilization, prompting the evolution of such radical ideas as constitutional government and giving birth to arts and architecture of polyphonic complexity. And it became the primary mission of the universities to transmit knowledge of the past, as well as—eventually—to serve as seedbeds for new knowledge.
Compare the humanists’ hunger for learning with the resentment of a Columbia University undergraduate, who had been required by the school’s core curriculum to study Mozart. She happens to be black, but her views are widely shared, to borrow a phrase, “across gender, sexuality, race and class.”
“Why did I have to listen in music humanities to this Mozart?” she groused in a discussion of the curriculum reported by David Denby in “Great Books,” his 1997 account of re-enrolling in Columbia’s core curriculum. “My problem with the core is that it upholds the premises of white supremacy and racism. It’s a racist core. Who is this Mozart, this Haydn, these superior white men? There are no women, no people of color.” These are not the idiosyncratic thoughts of one disgruntled student; they represent the dominant ideology in the humanities today.
W.E.B. Du Bois would have been stunned to learn how narrow is the contemporary multiculturalist’s self-definition and sphere of interest. Du Bois, living during America’s darkest period of hate, nevertheless heartbreakingly affirmed in 1903 his intellectual and spiritual affinity with all of Western civilization: “I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas. . . . I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension.”
It is no wonder, then, that we have been hearing of late that the humanities are in crisis. A recent Harvard report from a committee co-chaired by the school’s premier postcolonial studies theorist, Homi Bhabha, lamented that 57% of incoming Harvard students who initially declare interest in a humanities major eventually change concentrations. Why may that be? Imagine an intending lit major who is assigned something by Professor Bhabha: “If the problematic ‘closure’ of textuality questions the totalization of national culture. . . .” How soon before that student concludes that a psychology major is more up his alley?
No, the only true justification for the humanities is that they provide the thing that Faust sold his soul for: knowledge. It is knowledge of a particular kind, concerning what men have done and created over the ages.
The American Founders drew on an astonishingly wide range of historical sources and an appropriately jaundiced view of human nature to craft the world’s most stable and free republic. They invoked lessons learned from the Greek city-states, the Carolingian Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire in the Constitution’s defense. And they assumed that the new nation’s citizens would themselves be versed in history and political philosophy.
But humanistic learning is also an end in itself. It is simply better to have escaped one’s narrow, petty self and entered minds far more subtle and vast than one’s own than never to have done so. The Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino said that a man lives as many millennia as are embraced by his knowledge of history. One could add: A man lives as many different lives as are embraced by his encounters with literature, music and all the humanities and arts. These forms of expression allow us to see and feel things that we would otherwise never experience—society on a 19th-century Russian feudal estate, for example, or the perfect crystalline brooks and mossy shades of pastoral poetry, or the exquisite languor of a Chopin nocturne.
Ultimately, humanistic study is the loving duty we owe those artists and thinkers whose works so transform us. It keeps them alive, as well as us, as Petrarch and Poggio Bracciolini understood. And as politics grow ever more unmoored from reality, humanist wisdom provides us with some consolation: There is no greater lesson from the past than the intractability of human folly.
Ms. Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. This article is adapted from the Winter 2014 issue of City Journal and based on the author’s Wriston Lecture for the Manhattan Institute.
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That’s strange! If you go to the WSJournal through google by searching for a sentence from the article, it’ll get you to the full article which has the exact same address as the one I placed below, though if you click on that one, you get to a page that asks you to log in!?!
Weird?
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Thanks for that.
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Thanks Atomou.
There was an article, recently at The Conversation, that academics should embrace twitter, and rap music to get their ‘message’ across. Sounds like the old pearls/swine analogy if that’s the only way to engage the young!
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Well spotted about that google link, atomou. Without pretending to have taken the time to understand it, here it is (fingers crossed) for those who prefer to read a formatted version.
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2FSB10001424052702304858104579264321265378790&ei=ulrSUtMW4-eIB-n8gPgP&usg=AFQjCNG9jA8i0e9ICxtAxPv2b1RkEtmnkg&bvm=bv.59026428,d.dGI
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And now at war with UN, as well as with China, East Timor, UNHCR, Indonesia…Who next?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-11/un-investigating-reports-australia-sent-asylum-seeker-boats-bac/5195328
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“”So far what we are picking up is media reports.” from the article.
That’s the trouble with rushing in, before researching.
One looks foolish, and unless one is a moderator, the foolish comment stands there like a beacon of one’s uninformedness.
Staggering really. But what can you one one do. Just look from the sidelines and be glad that it wasn’t oneself.
It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck.
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“”So far what we are picking up is media reports.” from the article.
The UNHCR, which is investigating the incident, can’t get any details from Morrison, or his office, thus the reliance on media reports.
Yes, it is like watching a slow motion train wreck.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537886/BBCs-six-year-cover-secret-green-propaganda-training-executives.html
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2867/green_agenda_in_meltdown
Don’t belive everything that you read in national organs, Big.
And don’t stare.
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Would that be the story about the woman who went to hospital because of a three hour orgasm perchance.
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I try to stay away from national organs, especially in the context of dilated sphincters.
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It’s all discernible in the entrails, according to Voodoo.
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In France they talk about our boofhead PM:
http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2013/09/08/sexiste-beauf-voici-tony-abbott-nouveau-premier-ministre-australien-245519
MOINE FOU
08/09/2013 à 17h48
“Sexiste et beauf : voici Tony Abbott, nouveau premier ministre australien”
And so do they elsewhere and everywhere
https://uknowispeaksense.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a-man-who-would-sell-his-daughters/
“A man who would sell his daughters…”
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Well I wonder what those to my right will make of this.
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They will blame the French, or the previous government, of course!
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Its all a conspiracy of course Big M, oh and because they’re French it doesn’t matter.
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So, those multinational corporations are going to come to my home and tell me to bend over !
And if I refuse, I shall be obliged to pay compensation to them ?
Hahahaaaaa….
For once, I’d like them to try it.
I will have shish kebab for breakfast.
🙂
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Of course, in a boarding school, you have to bend over. 🙂
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You mean for some jolly good old rogering?
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I posted some comments today at 1030 hrs SA time then I realised that the Drum goes to sleep for most of the day, disappointing.
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