New Year, Same Old Shtick

A LADY golfer, obviously much distressed, walked into the pro shop and cried, “I’ve been stung by a bee.”

“Where?” responded the pro.

“Between the first hole and the second,” she replied.

“Well then,” said the pro, “your stance is too wide.”

A dreadful bit of sexism to start the year, admittedly, but needed this morning to match dreadful bits of silliness in The Age, where the New Year resolution of all who produce Melbourne’s for-the-moment daily embarrassment must surely be to sustain the inanity until the bitter end. It is all over those broadsheet pages today, smug and thick as the writers under whose bylines it appears. There is Damien Murphy, for example, turning the blind eye to fact and history in his appraisal of the year 1984, which appears on the newspaper’s website apropos of nothing the casual reader can discern. Perhaps it makes more sense in the context of the printed page, but regardless of medium, this line would be foul in any display:

Ronald Reagan won a second term to complete his defeat of the so-called ''evil empire'' of the USSR.

So called?

Moral equivalence has long been the mother’s milk of the rudderless left, but is Murphy really of the opinion that 80 years of murder, mass starvation, oppression, corruption and debasement of human dignity are no more than examples of bad press? Apparently so.

Flick, flick, flick … the morning’s offerings continue apace, the Fairfax chapter of the Bitter Women’s League doing itself proud. Here’s Jacqueline Maley, for instance, providing a burlesque case study in attribution:

Tony Abbott has been a terrible Opposition Leader, if you believe the government.

A wrecker. A thug. A misogynist and would-be destroyer of Whyalla. He frightens pensioners and horrifies infants. He exercises too much and doesn't read enough. No one can prove he doesn't kick puppies.

There is no denying Abbott's personal brand is what you might politely style ''robust''. But this narrative rather ignores the polls. Yes, Abbott's personal approval ratings are disastrous (voter disapproval of Abbott sits at 63 per cent, according to the last Nielsen poll of 2012), but the attitude of most Coalition MPs is a resounding ''So what?''

See, it is the “if you believe the government” that lets Maley off the hook. They are not her opinions, perish the thought! After cataloguing Abbott’s many deficiencies of character, she opines that he is merely “robust” in his executiuon of an Opposition leader's duties. Like Comrade Colleague Murphy, the sketch artist’s invitations to echo fashionable views with fashionable friends at fashionable dinner parties are in no danger of being withdrawn.

Daniel Flitton might not be so lucky. No doubt his heart is in the right place – somewhere between Northcote and Fitzroy, most likely – but in expressing the view that gender barriers should be rolled up like the covers and Australia’s First Eleven opened to participation by female players he has gone a gender bridge too far. No doubt he thinks the idea of absolute equality will meet with approval, but that only demonstrates how difficult it can be to stay on top of the latest memes.

A couple of years ago, he would have been just fine in suggesting that the nation has an adequate supply of block-shoulder bowlerettes and winsome willow wielders. But not now, not when the parameters of inclusion have been redrawn along lines that look very much like separatism. Ever hear of the Stella Prize? It is a new literary award reserved for the women who have not been featuring with sufficient prominence in the Miles Franklin short lists, at least by the reckoning of the HarpieCollins set. The fact that the statistics have been cherry-picked to make the case for a Shiela Prize need not enter into it.

  

Dan had better revise his opinions and quick, especially with regard to Fairfax’s very own and looming gender issue. By his reckoning, women have a right to compete on equal footing (albeit with legs somewhat closer than that bee-buzzed lady golfer who began this post), competence, rather than chromosomes, being his only yardstick.

So expect him, after due reflection, to be waiting with a posey at the front entrance of Media House, eager and bright-eyed to welcome Gina Rinehart as his new boss. If we are to go by reports that she is about to take charge, how could he object to a woman who has competed with, and beaten, the blokes?  

Found Guilty of Being Male

A NOTE ARRIVED last night from a reader, let us call him Mr Spring Street, who took exception to this little blog’s eroded faith in Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu’s intent or capacity to achieve, well, anything worthwhile. It seems that politics is a team sport and, even if your side’s captain has no idea to which end his squad should be kicking, those in the grandstand to the right of the oval have an obligation to shut up, wave the team colours and barrack for him anyway. A nice note, by no means abusive, it was in its way quite flattering. It is nice to know that one’s thoughts are taken seriously enough to be read, even if that consideration is but an overture to their summary rejection.

Then again, perhaps the correspondent had a point – for such was the thought which figured in the nightly examination of conscience as a weary Bunyip drifted off to sleep. Perhaps, to quote a recent example, Baillieu cannot be held entirely accountable for failing to respond with leadership and the bold stroke to the chaos that strangled Melbourne’s roads when the Burnley and Domain tunnels were shut down, just in time for yesterday's morning traffic peak.

But that’s the thing about One Term Ted, lovely bloke and consummate gentleman that he is. One makes half a decision not to harp on his deficiencies and the very next morning there it is, another example of what he isn’t doing! This morning it is an opinion column in The Walking Dead by a dancer called Jerril Rechter, now CEO of Victoria Health, who has made the recent and shocking murder of Jill Meagher her excuse to lament the low nature of all men, not the rather more narrow demographic of Labor-appointed judges and magistrates who turn loose career criminals and then shield their culpability behind the sub judice laws. Late-night TV viewers, who cop more than their share of tax-deductible public service announcements, will be familiar with Rechter’s schtick, which is of a kind. Those who retire early will get the drift from the clip below:

See, if the Great Bunyip hangs a pair of testicles (or even one) on the muscle-bound amalgam of idiocy and thuggery that is your senior feminist’s conception of a typical male, that carrier of the XY curse is a latent rapist by biology’s definition. Just water the seed of violence with a little beer and an angry pistil will spring forth to rear and twitch in the direction of any and every woman observed to be walking unaccompanied on a darkened street. Years ago, when feminism was first in flower, the Parkville Asylum and surrounding suburbs were plastered periodically with signs that captured the mindset in five short words, “All Men Are Potential Rapists”. The message is a little more polished these days, but the sentiment, bolstered by some very dubious statistics, remains unchanged.  Here is Rechter’s gist:

Sunday's peace march in Brunswick went beyond a community's outpouring of grief; it was also a show of solidarity for a woman's right to feel safe, no matter where she is. It was heartening to see so many men take part.

The march was also a reflection of how more and more men now understand that they are instrumental in preventing violence against women.

They can stand up for equality, they can refuse to turn a blind eye to a mate's disrespectful behaviour, sexist joke, or thinly veiled threat hidden behind a distasteful remark at the pub, work, or on the footy field. It has to stop. These are the conditions that breed violence and harm women.

Get the picture? Poor Jill Meagher is dead because Bill asks Bob if he has heard the one about the lesbian who jumped from the Eureka Tower and landed on a parking meter. Rechter is banging the same gong the left always whacks when a specific outrage generates headlines: Don’t look at the actual incident, never that. Instead, direct the debate and public focus to the general theme. There are more grants to be garnered by this means and, best of all, the broadest of broad-brush approaches precludes any standard by which the campaign’s success might be judged. In this instance, making blanket generalisations about all men, not just rapists paroled in defiance of decency and common sense, is both meme and gravy train.

It would be nice to think Baillieu appreciates this tactic and that he has some notion of how many Labor holdovers, like Ms Rechter, he has retained in his state’s public service, where they continue to operate as if the 2010 election never happened. They are biding their time, cashing their cheques and waiting for the day when the rightful, righteous party takes charge once again at the top end of Bourke Street.

Meanwhile, Victoria's judicial system remains an arrogant, slow, self-absorbed, crony-infested, immensely expensive citadel of incompetence populated by jurists who regard social engineering, not the public’s protection, as their primary brief.

The Billabong’s overnight correspondent opined that Victoria is not Queensland, and how a southern-state version of Campbell Newman would be rejected by the electorate. Be that as it may, we might as well have a Labor government in the Garden State if the existing one is capable of nothing more than operating revenue cameras and covering the mortgages of its embedded enemies.

UPDATE: Those who bristle at the ad featured in the video above might appreciate this:

Don't dare laugh or Rechter will be seeking to have you charged as an accomplice in Jill Meagher's murder.