Stenography Subsidy Needed

THE big question: Will Fairfax go belly-up before Bob Brown’s media inquiry can pump an infusion of public funds into a poorly run company’s depleted coffers?

With the stock now at 75 cents and falling, it is going to be touch and go.

The Ascent Of Manne

BUNDOORA BOB’s “essay” on the evil that is Rupert Murdoch runs about $20 at any inner-city newsagent, a sum that will buy a packet of Camels if you can find a shop still selling them. Yes, the dhurries will kill you, but it just may be that Robert Manne has crafted with his Quarterly Essay an antidote of sorts to the weed’s longer-term ravages. If given to hospice residents, just a few pages will extend any few and fleeting final minutes into a seeming eternity. The heart will beat more slowly, sound distort and those not trapped between his pages will strike the reader as moving with the speed of deep sea divers. In Bunyip theology, hell is most often described as finding yourself locked up for evermore in the sole company of a truculent teenage male. Manne adds a mother-in-law’s scolding to that tight little room of torments. On second thoughts, it may not be such a good idea to hand Manne’s little effort to the terminally ill. They need no foretaste of purgatory.

Still, one has to admire La Trobe University’s most determined self-promoter. On and on and on he goes, the tedium of the author’s spites and score-settlings interrupted only by the reader’s need to wade every few pages into swamps of ambiguous pronouns. It is fortunate that the most tangled sentences can be skipped in their entirety, as the essay is not a chain of evidence but a long and screeching wire that unspools from a reel of endless grievance.

And, one suspects, from the depths of a second-rater’s jealousy. Of Imre Salusinszky – a writer who has mastered the use of pronouns – Bundoora’s leading Professor of Posture and Alignment offers this tossed-off description: “…the Australian’s resident right-wing intellectual smart-aleck” (page 22). A few pages on, it is Keith Windschuttle whose influence “would probably have been restricted to the ageing conservatives of the Quadrant circle” , without the benefits of The Australian’s patronage.. Yet Windschuttle is “not a fool;” and his Fabrication of Aboriginal History “landed some powerful blows”, although Manne rather tellingly declines to describe them. It is easy to understand the reluctance. Any admission that Windschuttle had nailed Manne’s mates for making up primary-source references out of whole cloth might have led to backstage recriminations at the next writers’ festival wank-a-thon. (“Just whose side are you on, Bobby, you snivelling little shit?”) Thus it is that hypocrite who presumes to lecture The Australian for its bias deep-sixes all reference to the black-armbanders’ fraudulent citations, misquotations and spirited misinterpretations. As his repeated references to the “historians of the left” make clear, Manne has no more respect for truth than does our for-the-moment PM. For both it is a relative thing, to be invoked only when it moves the ball a little closer to the home team’s goal line.

And so it goes, for another 20,000-or-so bitchy words, all of them highly selective in their outrage. He tries to mug Janet Albrechtsen for plagiarism and misquoting, but makes no mention of fellow hand-wringer Phillip Adams, who has borrowed an entire career. On global warming, he genuflects before authority, asserting that the fabled 97% of settled scientists must be left in peace, as no layman can possibly boast the expertise to question their findings. On matters of domestic politics, this little Manne fires his outrage by quoting The Australian’s celebrated editorial urging that the Greens be “destroyed at the ballot box.” That the democratic smiting of a party infested with aspiring central planners and totalitarian apologists might be a valid prescription appalls him. How deeply shocking that Comrade Cobber Bob Brown be subjected to scrutiny! As Manne notes with smug approval, that sort of thing does not happen in the Fairfax press or at the ABC, where such “political extremism” is simply not tolerated. His yardstick for fair, straight-arrow journalism is – wait for it – none other than David Marr!When Marr questions Manne at Glebe Books later this month, expect to see a little pile of very soggy biscuits between them by the conversation's conclusion.

As a literary exercise, Manne’s offering is inept. As a manifesto, ludicrous. As a call to action, however ….. well, wasn’t that an inquiry into the Murdoch media that Stephen Conroy announced only yesterday?

And therein, perhaps, resides the danger. With the inquisitors gathering, the temptation in the editor’s office at The Australian will surely to be to respond in kind. If so, it will be the wrong response. Argue with a fool, as the old wisdom maintains, and onlookers will have problems determining which combatant is the dill.

The correct response to Manne is not refutation but ridicule. Strutting and preening on the public stage, he has long been an absurd figure. So play the Manne and not the ball, Mr Mitchell, for to do the latter can only dignify the sophistry of his grievances. If The Australian has an ounce of sense it will deny him that respect. To do otherwise will allow a further selection of quotations to be twisted and shouted Streicher-like at witnesses dragged before the coming media inquisition, where you can bet Manne will be networking with all the other apparatchiks cheering from the sidelines.

A NOTE: While Manne adds a thin list of references to give his Quarterly Essay the patina of scholarship, not once does he cite the actual stories from which, throughout his narrative, he draws and quotes the apparently damning clause or phrase.

If anyone has a spare moment – anyone not heading to the golf course this afternoon, that is --  it might be worth hunting up the original stories in The Australian’s online archive. If the lifted quotes are accurate, it will come as quite a surprise.

 

The CSIRO Goes Po-Mo

TIM BLAIR, a keen observer of stupidity, formulated his eponymous law on the inevitable conjunction of human idiocies some time ago, noting how, for example, leftards are wont to make common cause with the same Islamic nut jobs who would, if given their druthers, hang them from cranes in the public square for being gay, troublesome, uncovered or fond of BBQ’d pork. We see many other examples of fools acting in concert, but it just may that Six Million Dollar Man Andrew Jaspan has officiated at the marriage of the two most virulent strains of idiocy wafting about Australia’s institutes of higher learning: climate change and literary deconstruction.

To those who labour not in the groves of academe, those fields of inquiry may seem so remote as to defy belief they might ever be joined. But joined they have been by Dr Aysha Fleming, who tells today’s visitors to the little fellow’s Conversation.edu that, along with polar bears, vintners are amongst global warming’s most pitiable victims. “Grape growers are already suffering emotional stress because of climate change,” writes Fleming, who adds that the pressure  “can turn into more serious mental illnesses requiring treatment, or thoughts of suicide, if the problems are not addressed and the situation continues over a long time.”

Fleming has the decency to mention an oversupply, ferocious competition and those chill winds buffeting the global economy. But as there are no career prospects to be mined from real-world factors, it is climate change on which her familiarity with literary theory is brought to bear.

Just to give you an idea how Fleming goes about the task of ascertaining why catastropharian preachers “create resistance in farming communities”, here is the chore she set herself, as described in her disertation’s abstract:

This research is cross-disciplinary in its application of poststructural theory in an agricultural context, and in its use of discourse analysis techniques to examine farmers’ capacities to act and their resistance to change. The discourse analysis is informed by poststructural theory with a focus on language, individual capacities for action and possibilities for change. The study uses constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2006) and a genealogical discourse analysis (Carabine 2001) to construct four dominant discourses which inform farmers’ perspectives of climatechange. Farmers are located across the range of these discourses. The discourses are the Discourse of Money, an issue of business viability; the Discourse of The Earth, an environmental concern; The Discourse of Human Responsibility, a call for social action; and the Discourse of Questioning, a problem of trust and information. The features and competing concerns of each discourse contribute to resistance to act on climate change by limiting farmers’ possibilities for action. Practitioners working on agricultural policy and extension programs involving climate change can improve their methods of communication by varying their approaches based on the knowledge of how different discourses shape farmers’ responses.

Fleming has scored a lovely little full-time gig at the CSIRO. Guess that makes her a bona fide climate scientist. 

Mummy, That Bandicoot Is Very Naughty

WHILE hunting about for a picture or video to illustrate the passing mention of Myer’s window in the post below, the search turned up a couple of gems which rather put pay to the notion that children – the more worldly ones, anyway – will not find the Christmas display of interest. The window puppets are automatons and it seems they sometimes misbehave, as the background tittering in the first video confirms.

And it is not only mechanical bandicoots that prefer a diet of roots. Koalas are just as keen.

 Just as well the kangaroo averted its gaze.

 

From Williams Creek To Ted's Swamp

BENEATH Elizabeth Street in Melbourne there is a paved-over, almost forgotten creek that caused problems for builders and property owners almost from the day John Batman decided the undulating plain on the north side of the Yarra was a fine spot for his village. Within a very few years, the stream -- known then as Williams Creek -- was irreparably fouled by those who set up house along its banks, and the population explosion that followed the discovery of gold made the situation a good deal worse. By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, as cathedrals and flash hotels sprouted on the high ground, the stream had backed up to form a vast and reeking lagoon of poo that covered much of what is now the Bourke Street Mall. If you take the kiddies to see the Myer Christmas windows this year, do tell them about the pissed diggers who fell off the duckboards and perished en route from Young & Jackson’s to the tent city that began behind St Francis church on Lonsdale Street. Children being children, they will find a greater delight in mental images of grownups drowning in doo-doo than anything on display behind the glass.

Times have certainly changed. Elizabeth Street floods these days only during the worst storms, and neither typhoid nor cholera figure prominently in public health statistics. But hidden currents? Well, they still work mischief in Melbourne, and the best place to observe their toxic influence is Spring Street – a very hazardous locale, as the Phage’s front-page scoop this morning makes  clear. “Lib MP in Sir Ken Leak”, the headline says, announcing a story that goes on to report how parliamentary secretary for police, Member for Benambra Bill Tilley, slipped an email from Sir Ken Jones, once widely tipped to become the state’s next police commissioner, to a friendly reporter at the Sunday Herald Sun. This was a big deal at the time, not least because ex-Commissioner Simon “Call Me Christine II” Overland believed Sir Ken did the leaking and sooled the Office of Police Integrity’s buggers onto his rival’s private phone. And just for good measure, the OPI also bugged various other coalition politicians, including cabinet members, as well as their wives, children and sundry political bit players. It will be remembered as the Baillieu government’s first scandal, and as this morning’s headline makes clear, for the Opposition it is the gift that will keep on giving.

What the headline does not mention is the anguish gnawing at those who wish Big Ted well. After more than a decade of spin, sordid deals and profligate spending under the former Bracks/Brumby regime, Victoria could use a bit of good government. Trouble is, members of this one appear bent on putting their energies into various internal feuds and petty jealousies, the Tilley leak being the latest and most public symptom.

The Police Association, for example, was a muted but muscular supporter of a change in government, and given its sympathies there should have been few obstacles to the successful and rapid conclusion of a new labor contract. Instead, Victorians are now hearing radio ads describing the policeman’s unhappy lot and lambasting the government for not honouring members’ selfless service with an adequate raise.

One also hears whispers of restiveness on the government benches, where the perception is that Baillieu favourites – which is to say those not linked to Michael Kroger -- are rewarded with staff and budgets while others struggle to cope with their portfolio’s workloads. Again and again, the name of Baillieu’s chief of staff, Michael Kapel, comes up, the common charge being that he has assumed the role of grand vizier, limiting government members’ access to the premier and approving or scuttling staff appointments on the basis of who is, and who is not, a pal of Big Ted and his mentor, former federal member for Kooyong Petro Georgio.

This is, of course, the meat and potatoes of all politics, be it in State Parliament or your local footy club.  But it is also an indulgence a government with a tiny, one-seat majority can ill afford. Suppose, for example, a local member is obliged to resign. The byelection goes the wrong way and -- whack! -- Labor’s incompetents are back in power. The polls demonstrating the Baillieu team’s popularity are actually compounding this danger, providing a sense of false security.

Getting the police on side should be a piece of cake for a law-and-order government, yet it has not happened. Winkling out Labor's holdover allies from the upper reaches of the public service, where the evidence suggests they are working strenuously to white ant Baillieu, needs to be another priority. Yet what do we see? Palace politics borne on leaks, internecine agendas, quiet gripes and, just beneath the surface, treacherous fissures that could swallow the coalition whole.

In the 19^th century, Melbourne’s city fathers instituted a series of sweeping public-health reforms – the introduction of nightmen being the most useful -- to regulate the growing city’s growing volume of effluent. And they made it a priority to cover Elizabeth Street's creek and clean out that noisome Bourke Street swamp. If this government is not to throw itself out of office like so much night soil, perhaps it should look to history and clean up its act. Then it can begin to restore the fortunes of all Victorians, not just those members of the government who do not like Michael Kroger.   

Back At The Billabong

AROUND Wednesday last week it seemed a good idea, at least initially, to head back to the Billabong. The fishing had been better than good, the weather not so bad and all the gear needed for the trip had actually been packed, so the Bunyipmobile was turned to the west and the journey home begun. That lasted until, oh, somewhere south of a hamlet called W Tree, which is infested with Buddhists from Fitzroy, sundry greasy-sweatered types and a postman with a hernia from delivering sheafs of Centrelink cheques, illustrated guides to amorous activities involving knot holes and fund-raising letters from the Victorian National Parks Association. The town does have a mobile tower, however, and it was just down the road from the organic soy chai shop that accumulated messages began to pour in. The very first of these was a voicer from Doctor Yowie, who has not had the good sense to get a divorce but had nevertheless managed to temporarily offload his little woman on her sister in Noosa. Would the Professor fancy a few more days of fishing, and perhaps a little bush golf? If so, he could be at Dargo or thereabouts later in the day.

Well, why not? Other than a little blogging there were no obligations that could not be set aside, postponed or simply ignored. An invitation to attend yesterday’s Carlton-Essendon game had been accepted, but it was no great sacrifice to let the would-be host know that he should find another companion.

And there was another factor that tipped the scales against a return to Melbourne, the tenth anniversary of Septemeber 11. A decade after a massacre, the event’s transition from bloody outrage to a nuanced and contextualised exercise in relativism would be completed in the opinion pages of the Fairfax press and on the ABC. A few years ago, when tensions with the former Mrs Bunyip were at their height, several doctors had prescribed various medicines to lower an ailing Bunyip’s blood pressure, which has been a stable 130/80 for the last two years. Why risk exposure to whatever Wally Aly had to say, for the ABC’s favourite tame Muslim was a dead cert to be holding forth on 9/11, when it could only set the temples’ to pounding all over again? So, for reasons of both physical and mental health, it was off to Dargo, where Doctor Yowie arrived with fishing gear, golf clubs, half a dozen bottles of white and red and several splendid thick-cut rib eye steaks from his wonderful Williamstown butcher (whose apple and pork sausages are a treat).

Things panned out exactly as expected. More trout paid with their lives. The wine disappeared, the steaks were gobbled and the snags cooked for brekkie. And on top of that, three fine rounds of golf at Lakes Entrance, Paynesville and Bairnsdale.

Oh, and Wally also matched expectations, filling a double page spread in the Sunday Age with incomprehensible waffle about the “real” meaning of 9/11.

Anyway, it will be back to more-or-less regular blogging until the next expedition in a few weeks’ time.

Blame It On The Trout

ONE of the great advantages to being unwanted is the absolute freedom to do as one pleases. Sun is up, sky blue, temperature balmy – well, why not spend the next couple days trying to break 90? Like those non-appearing posts of the past few days, it didn’t happen, but a best round of 94 was a valiant attempt and unlikely to be bettered today, given the gusting winds that are making the washing on the line dance all over the place (mostly into the mulberry tree). Still, it is worth a shot. There will not be much golf for the next few days (or posting), as an even more pleasurable pursuit has, as of midnight, once again become lawful.

And that is the other reason for this blog’s recent inactivity. Somehow, between Queen’s Birthday and now, unused fishing tackle, flies, and camping gear contrived to get themselves in an awful mess. How this happens is a mystery, but happen it does, and the only remedy is to restore and replenish the equipment. It took the best part of a day just to sort out camp ovens, billies and sleeping bags. A second day was spent fondling rods in Melbourne’s better angling-supply emporiums and, after much deliberation, selecting a flash new reel.

All this is by way of saying that while there may be a few posts over the remainder of the weekend, there will be none after that until Wednesday.

Apologies, but some dates are too sacred not to be celebrated, and the start of the trout season is one of them.