And I wrote this headline, was pleased it got in: It’s a jump to the Left, then a step to the Right.
And Backbenchers feign shock over PM’s F-word. My caption: Fair shake of the sauce bottle … Rudd hopes this latest outburst will be consigned to the “forgettery”.
The thing about the protesters in Ryde worrying about pedophile Dennis Ferguson is that they’re completely right to be worried. Or any pedophile.
How do I know this? Because years ago, I worked for the Perth CIB for three months (temporary job) and spent all day microfiching criminal records. Zillions of pages. The thing was, we were given the major responsibility of selecting what to record and what to throw out – though the “throw out” bins were examined and thoroughly checked to make sure we didn’t do anything wrong.
So we’d have to quickly read through the records – some had hundreds of pages – and pick out the key pages and put them on a photocopier-type machine that microfiched them. I can tell you, the ones that had done sex offences did them all through their lives. An offence at 18; still doing it at 90. Long breaks between offences, maybe cause they got married or didn’t get caught for a while. But if I found a major sex offence in old age, there were usually ones earlier in about 98 per cent of cases.
That’s anecdotal from the thousands of pages I copied. If someone wants to do a study, I bet they’d get the same results.
The SMH recently published about elderly people still having a sex drive, it doesn’t wane for everyone: “About 40 per cent of men aged 75 to 79 who replied to the survey said they were sexually active, and almost 30 per cent of men aged 80 to 84 had had sex in the past 12 months.”
Also, last year, I was at a community event where I wasn’t allowed on the same huge bus as children because I “didn’t have sex offender clearance”. I’d just wanted to get a bus ride to the next venue. And I couldn’t interact with the children playing in a park or at lunchtime – there were hundreds of people there. A 14-yr-old girl had been forced to come along to the event because “she was young enough to not need to get a clearance” and they’d desperately needed extra people to help look after the children.
It staggers me that people who don’t have a criminal record and are not recorded on any sex offender’s list are not allowed anywhere near children – to help out where there’s a shortage of child minders. I’d have to walk around with a permanent and up-to-date ”clearance” to ever volunteer to help out.
It’s easier to cry during that doco on the pets being inbred or Scooby being rescued from the cave than for the angry faced poor featured on foreign affairs programs. It’s difficult to feel appropriate empathy when they’re eyeing up the TV crew like they want to machete them. It’s not doing their cause any favours.
I remember donating to the tsunami appeal, and then reports got back that Aceh didn’t want our filthy money cause they’re radical Muslims. Bad PR. They need Max Markson.
This week’s Foreign Correspondent filled its usual quota of gruesomeness but Eric Campbell (reporter) seemed very disappointed at being unable to show workers slaving away in a treeless coltan mine. It seems the problem had been mostly cleared up before Campbell got there, though he managed to find a blackmarket seller. The tone was very heavy-handed. Like this: coltan is used by us selfish Westerners for our hedonistic PlayStations and mobile phones. Sorry – but I didn’t see that on the label when I bought it.
And reporters showing off that they know French cheeses me off – it’s so Jana Wendt. Why? Cause I think there should always be a local interpreter shown onscreen just in case there are local idioms and coloquiallisms. Native tonguesters aren’t going to speak in Language Laboratory French.
I preferred Campbell’s reports, with a touch of wry humour, on The Investigators (1987), with Helen Wellings.
I haven’t posted about politics for ages – am keeping up with it but just nothing happening of any note. Peter Garrett on Lateline last night looked like his heart wasn’t in the job anymore – they should move him off. I’m not convinced the flatbacked turtle is safe or the blind gudgeon. If he can’t convince me of that, there’s no point in him doing that job.
Q&A went off tonite – the Muslim cartoon. Tony Abbott. Ooh.
I don’t give a toss about Kristina taking Nathan’s job. I think Rees should stay on.
I liked the comment about Malcolm Turnbull – “the only way we could get rid of him was to make him leader.” Can’t remember where I read that.
SMH transport campaign – I think Andrew West is brilliant cause he writes well about topics I like. I have his books – Bob Carr and Inside the Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteful. The latter was lying around the SMH kitchen on the “freebie” table so I nabbed it years ago. It’s great.
Am reading the transport campaign and am disappointed the inner west has been sidelined in favour of the north-west and south-west. It takes me an hour to travel 3km to work in Pyrmont by public transport, which is criminal. Yet if I drive, it only takes 10-15mins, but I have to pay parking at $3.30/hr or $20 for the day at Star City as “punishment” for driving my car.
I don’t see how it’s worthwhile for me to spend an extra 1.5hrs commuting – that’s crap.
And don’t tell me to ride a bike – I did that and got rosacea from the sun (despite covering up and slathering on SPF 30). So I have to stay out of the sun now to stop that from getting worse. Have sold bike.
Am pleased the SMH will have more tabloid sections for “commuters”. Ties in nicely with the transport campaign.
Join the campaign here. Send submissions/ideas to submissions@transportpublicinquiry.com.au by 6pm on October 8, 2009.
Was sold out. Line-up arguing the media cannot be trusted was Jonathan Holmes (Media Watch), Prof Catharine Lumby (academic, teaches the NRL how to behave towards women), and Stephen Mayne (crikey and shareholder activist).
The media can be trusted: John B Fairfax (FFX Media board), Mark Scott (ABC MD) and Julian Burnside QC (human rights barrister).
Team B won with a huge swing from 18 per cent of the pre-polled audience to about 45 per cent after the debate.
Burnside: “Being attacked by Andrew Bolt and Gerard Henderson is like being mauled by dead sheep – it doesn’t hurt, but you need a shower afterwards.”
Holmes: “You can find a website that’ll tell you the truth you want.”
Fairfax: “I made a mistake once. [anecdote about mixing up blokes names and getting sued. Was suspended for two weeks from newsroom.] Later on: “Oh, I made a second mistake. I was doing the shipping column and I sent a ship out a day before it was supposed to go.”
Lumby: (sending herself up] “I’m a promiscuous post-modernist so I agree with them [the other team] now.”
Mayne: described how he is enduring several 10-yr bans from various media outlets because of “petty vendettas”. Burnside thought Mayne’s worst crime though was trying to bombard us with too many facts and statistics without painting a bigger picture.
[I went to the last iQ debate on public vs private education. Brilliant. Much more audience debate, it was fiery.]
Cotton Ward 