Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Rip Van Bunyip

YAWN, stretch, scratch the few odd things .... a fellow nods off for a little nap and, golly gosh, there is no telling what will be there when consciousness begins to knit again the sleeve of care. Take Blogger, for example, which has introduced a new back-end format that, upon brief inspection, seems more complicated than needs be. The first little cross of the new day.

And Fairfax, what of Fairfax? It was there, wobbly and canted but still standing when the Professor pulled up the doona in late April and curled into a comfy foetal ball. Now it seems Mrs Rinehart is about to take charge and aren't those luvvies just so miffed about it! Little Andrew Jaspan has come down from the tower -- a high chair to anyone else -- and is casting bolts all about the place. If only Fairfax had heeded the Mancunian Candidate's wisdom, all would be copasetic, or so he says. This, mind you, from the editor who took his Earth Hour riding instructions directly from a PR outfit and was deemed so lacking in gravitas his own staff expressed a lack of confidence in his leadership.

See, Mrs Rinehart already is spreading the balm of amity. All the luvvies are bonza mates again and fuming in chorus about the threat to democracy posed by the icky sort of person seldom invited to Yarraville dinner parties, where the smart hostess knows better than to strike for a rough balance between the sexes. With marriage equality on everyone's lips just lately, an all-male mixed gathering must no longer be seen as an oxymoron.

But please, no gloating (well not much, anyway) about Fairfax. Rather, make the effort to understand the Other, as they say. There they were, all on the last leg of the long march. The universities had fallen and the schools producing a fresh generation of children warned off from critical thinking. In Spring Street we still have a premier who has made no effort to root out the political operatives who pose as public servants and continue to shape policy according to their green-left will. And in the media, well paradise was just a teeny push away. Finko and Ricketty laid the groundwork and all the smarties were poised for the final assault on Rupert and his hate media.

And just then, like Lochinvar out of the West, Mrs Rinehart arrives with $84 million and not the slightest desire to make the guest list for David Marr's next soggy-biscuit soiree.

They've lost it, seen it slip from mung-beaned fingers, and it must be terribly galling.

So don't laugh too loud, as the sound of mirth will only tip them off. The ABC and SBS are next, with a little help from PM Abbott, and it would be better to knock down the gates before the inhabitants know we are coming.


63 comments:

  1. So thrilled you are back here.
    And now I shall read your latest.

    Hugs and kisses.

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  2. Bless you professor for returning to us.
    Dr.Beau.Gan

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  3. Oh Bunyip - welcome back!

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  4. I have been keeping a lookout for your return.

    A very sincere welome back. You have been missed.

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  5. Welcome back, Sir Bunyip.

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  6. Welcome back! Brilliant as always.

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  7. Welcome back, Prof! It's been to long. I did wonder if the denouement de Maison Fairfax would lure you out of your slumber. That or Julia's economics classes for the Europeans down Mexico way.

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  8. This is rich coming from Jaspan, who led a totally dysfunctional regime at The Age, just like at the Observer. He was fired from both papers.
    In recent days, Jaspan, Beecher, Kohler, Guthrie and Gawenda - all ex-Fairfax editors - have lined up and blamed everybody but themselves.
    Content never gets a mention!

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  9. Great to have you back online, Prof! Interesting times!!

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  10. Welcome back! Just in time to watch Fairfax spin around after someone pushed the button on the cistern.....

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  11. Welcome back Bunyip.
    Have missed you

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  12. But what about the balance, professor, the baalaaaance?

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  13. David Marr is beside himself - calling for Gina to honour the "Charter" or whatever doco they reckon is the heart of fairfax

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  14. The laughable lamentations about the "charter of independence" have filled the airwaves today.
    Translation: allow us to continue to be a staff collective calling the shots and running our agenda free of the imposition of common sense. As if!

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  15. Nice to see you back old boy.

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  16. I'm prepared to wager that Abbott and his crew will not do anything about the ABC, SBS and the rest of the carpetbaggers. It's not a matter of cutting funding but abolishing or privatising. Like Howard he won't have the will to do it.
    I'm prepared to bet $50, I know it's not much but It's what I can afford and a bet I'd like to lose. The period of the wager would be over the life of the first Abbott Government.

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  17. Geez, I thought you'd passed on. I've had to start reading New Matilda... now then, great to have you back!

    Bill Thompson
    Southbank (just 15 minutes from Yarraville)

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  18. Welcome back into the sunshine me old cobber !
    I cheerfully pay my subs to The Australian to show my appreciation of a reliable media outlet - I would love to have the same arangement with the ABC. If you setup a Pay Pal I'll shout you a bottle of red to celebrate.

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  19. Welcome back Professor! We have all missed you so, and trust that whatever circumstances prevailed upon you to cease your comments, are well and truly at rest.
    Once again, there is a good reason to switch on the 'puter in the morning

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  20. Good to have you back Bunyip.

    And just in time to dance on Pure Poison's grave:

    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2012/06/05/moving-on/

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  21. Yes, it has all been foretold by us the proletariat for we ( and Bolt, Blair and the Bunyip - funny how the sensible ones names all start with a B )are the holders of the cup of common sense.
    Still, it saddens one a bit when the yew bolt strikes so unerringly swift, but only briefly.
    I see the clowns are still playing around with the format - it's the content stupid!!
    Bazza the impaler.

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  22. Welcome back

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  23. It is good to see that you are back

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  24. I am so glad the Bunyip has returned. What a time to revel in the luvvie despair !
    Haven't they reaped what they have sown with respect to the nasty personal vitriol they have thrown at Gina. Maybe Barry Humphries will up her bid and save the day.
    Don't go away again Bunyip-you can say what we can only feel.

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  25. Fantastic that you're back Prof. Bunyip! We were hoping that the Fairfax demise would awaken a little bunyip from his winter hibernation.

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  26. Good to see you back on the keyboard. Trust all is well.

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  27. Bliss! The Bunyip has returned.

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  28. If only that nice Hugo Chavez had answered their begging letters...

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  29. Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.June 19, 2012 at 9:46 PM

    Someone "casting bolts" Professor? Good gracious me, the connotations, the connotations. In this climate, you'll give them the vapours with just the word, even if these bolts were being amicably thrown as a friendly advance warning to the troops from the august heights of The Conversation.

    Glad you are back. Otherwise I would still have absolutely no idea about copasetic. I am, of course, fully researched up on it now. As, no doubt, are many of your loyal readers.

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  30. Good to see you back, Prof.

    I think it's going to be a long time before we see the end of the ABC and SBS as Luvvie think-tanks - I suspect we will first have to witness the absolute disaster which is a government-run Age and SMH. And as galling as it will be to see the money go down the drain, it will be sweetness to watch the failure.

    Remember, the more money they spend on that, the less they can spend on their actual campaign for re-election. (As if - they know they're going down, and it will show in the number of Labor politicians who campaign under their own names with their party affiliation erased from their promotional material - a thing which a PM Abbott, given control of both Houses, should take specific care to make illegal).

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  31. Aah, soggy biscuit! The game all Fairfax journalists can play...

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  32. Prof
    It's about bloody time you awoke, we need you now more than ever.

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  33. Soggy biscuit soiree??

    Lucky I wasn't drinking anything, keyboard saved.

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  34. 10 out of 10 for getting the term "soggy biscuit" into a post. Hat of to you Prof.

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  35. Welcome back Prof.
    I wondered how long you could maintain radio silence whilst the gutters of Spencer St were awash with salty tears (1).
    Tony’s first fiscal squeeze on Aunty could be achieved quite simply. Just re-run the Australia Network tender (properly this time), which Aunty would undoubtedly lose.
    I have no doubt Aunty has been trotting out re-runs of Skippy, Bellbird and Adventure Island on AN at bugger-all cost and trousering the cash to cross-subsidise “quality journalism”.
    It would be relatively easy to draft the Statement of Requirement in the new tender to head off this little scam. And Aunty could not whinge and plead for compo after losing the tender …. to do so would be to admit that they had been skimming the AN largesse.
    In other words, if they had been spending the full AN revenue on providing the service they have lost precisely nothing if it goes away.

    The Irish Lion

    (1) Organic Maldon Sea Salt of course.

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  36. Galling in Mung Beans has been a problem for years!
    http://journals.fcla.edu/nemamedi/article/view/63302/60970

    Great to see you back! But stop scratching the few odd things!

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  37. Welcome back Professor!

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  38. All these lefties "fuming in chorus" about an end to democracy? Oh, spare me. These same leftists were beside themselves with joy when the News of the World closed down. For a year they have been drooling at the prospect of the entire Murdoch empire going bust. And the ABC thought they were covering the funeral of News Corp. So they hoped. Yeah, so much for this concern for "democracy" from the Left.

    Pedro of Adelaide

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  39. Welcome back, I've missed your gall. Been popping in every so often to see if anyone was home.

    Fairfaux and libour, givem curry.

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  40. See the new clauses in “The Fairfax Media Charter of Editorial Independence”.

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  41. Welcome back. Jaspan's chutzpah (and Gawenda's too) is hilarious.

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  42. Expect an even further lurch to the left by the Anti Bloody Conservative media conglomerate.
    To fulfill what they perceive as their Gaia- given duty to present media balance, they will consider themselves duty bound to suffer the slings and bolts of the marauding
    mining magnate media moguls.This they will do with shameless conviction without regard for the opinions of those from whose nipples they suck.
    And as the sun sets on the smoking ruins of the kingdom of the Liars from Lalor and Lilley, the scribes from the ABC will be busy writing their own obituaries because a sell off of its profitable bits will help Joe's budget and the unprofitable bits will be confined to the trash can of history.

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  43. We can only hope abbot has the balls to knock off a few millions from the luvvies budget.

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  44. The days have been immeasurably longer without your cutting contributions to the political debate. So glad you're back to oversee the death throes of the Fairfax luvvies until Gina, like Lochinvar, 'She is won'!

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  45. It's almost enough to make a bloke stop working on his Jeep Cherokee-
    http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/96-jeep-cherokee-need-opinions-1149721/
    but one must soldier on with the right assistants.

    observa

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  46. A perfect time to wake from your slumber. But you knew that, didn't you?
    Regards
    Sandi

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  47. I looked at "Gurgle Gurgle 'Round the Plughole" so many times that I thought you had flushed yourself. Glad you are back.

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  48. I'm miffed indeed to see that I am the third person, not the first, to alight on the soggy biscuit meme. Well spotted those who preceded me! JakartaJaap

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  49. So very good to see you up and about, Professor - and in such fine form straight off the bat.

    When you arose and sniffed the demise of the Fairfax luvvies on the wind, did you ask a young passerby "What's to-day, my fne fellow?"

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  50. Professor I want to declare my undying love and concern. I have been visiting every day since 26 April, sometimes three or four times a day.

    Alas yesterday evening I got caught up with various pressing activities, reading Beecher's Crikey article blaming Roger Corbet, a nasty piece celebrating the strangling of freedom of speech, and of course, swearing at the tele whenever the Drona from Altona rasped her tonsils across the screen during various news breaks.

    Then went to bed early with a wog which has laid me low for some days now. And now frabjous day!!!! You're back, You're back, black dog begone.

    I had been on my bony knees praying for your return and with Fauxfax circuling the plughole I hoped your return would be nigh.

    Your contribution is masterful as usual, long may you stay. A Bunyip must be ravenous after that little nap, anything you need sent over?

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  51. You're back. What a happy day. What a happy, happy day.

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  52. And just in case you're not feeling loved, welcome back.

    They are still running the same line at Fairfax: the "content" is fine, let's sort out the platform. The wishful thinking is actually quite pathetic. The content, we learn, will not be the news, because Fairfax realise that they can never make people pay for ordinary news when it is available free from so many outlets. No, the "content" is their fearless analysis and comment, which they assert people will pay for.

    What's sad, and a little wistful even when you think of all the unemployment and shattered dreams - is that they will be competing in that same market, assuming it really exists on an economic scale, with the ABC - whose content is free! It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that the ABC will be the direct competitor and mortal enemy of the scaled-down, e-Fairfax commentary-and-analysis websites, nor that no-one is likely to pay for it when they can get the same tosh for nothing over at abc.net.au.

    And then, sadly, there is the content itself - who would pay for it anyway, even without the ABC?

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  53. Good to have you back with us ,Professor

    I am amazed that anyone with sense could think that taking away the power of decision making for one's business from the fount of the funds and giving it to the workers who care only about their own biases would lead to anything other than failure!

    But that's Failfax it seems!
    Go Gina, or at least do so till the stocks rise enough so you'll get your money back if you feel like it!

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  54. Hooray!! You're back. We missed you.

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  55. My depression lifted this morning when I saw that the Bunyip was blogging once again.

    Welcome back but, please, don't do that again.

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  56. Dunno what they're whingeing about. They get their great goddess Gaia to run the papers. Well nearly - Gina's not that much different is it? Especially when you mangle speech like Gillard. And while we are on missions why not rename the G as the Hyperbole?

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  57. Avast there Bunyip.

    Aye you has nailed the true chart to mainmast in no uncertain manner with yar marley spike.

    Rinehardt is not the tempest asundering their mastheads various and weaving wreckage in their cloth and rigging. It is their own incompetence in navigating this brave new ocean that allows her to hijack legitimately their claim to line ownership and fleets master.

    Yer nailed it, the scurvy and pox has been the demise of truth by nicety and immoral blackmail masquerading as compassion thru out society at large but really just power seeking for power sake and the odd extra sweety in the sweetie bag.

    Fishermen follow the fish, especially in this brave new age, only lonely bunyips on forsake high mountain streams use lure hoping to catch one not a hold full meals.

    They are still wrong and it seems they always will be, so the cut must be deep and broad thru those crews of jackanapes and charlatans masquerading as truth purveyers and orcales. That pompous windbag Gittins was even manning the decks last night to repel boarders.

    The bastards threw the compass and sextant overboard and wondered why they got lost.

    Fair wind matey.

    Cap Jack.

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  58. Amusing to see some bloggers attempt to ape your writing style,and fail miserably.
    The word 'pretentious' comes to mind.
    Glad youre back Prof,missed you heaps.

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  59. Um, dont know if anybody mentioned, but its nice to see you back in the saddle.

    how do you choose a profile?

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  60. The Master Blaster is back. Long live your unmitigated gall. Bunyip for Fairfax Editor-in-Chief!

    Now, re your article, why? Why did it happen like this:

    "Finko and Ricketty laid the groundwork and all the smarties were poised for the final assault on Rupert and his hate media.

    And just then, like Lochinvar out of the West, Mrs Rinehart arrives with $84 million and not the slightest desire to make the guest list for David Marr's next soggy-biscuit soiree."

    There is a reason why Lochinvar often does arrive, in the nick of time, to save David from taking the biscuit.

    It’s not exactly “love of freedom”, as the Yanks would put it. It is more the power of freedom, the strength of each person’s desire to make his own way, and have his own way. That’s how Rinehart made her billions, and what gave her the desire to smash down Fairfax’ gates. In a free society, you only get that power by serving the needs of others. Who knows, perhaps she might even find a way to make Fairfax serve the needs of news consumers? She has to find the staff of course. Professor?

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