Dear Mr and Ms Cassidy,

I’m writing to you with regards to your son Barrie. We here at Norbridge High School are increasingly worried about his lack of progress this year. As you are aware, he has had some discipline issues stretching back a few years now, issues that, at our last meeting, we agreed were primarily caused by some of the other children he was spending time with. In particular we felt that, while Barrie knew that many of these students were doing undesirable things, things he wouldn’t have done in the past himself, he was finding it hard to resist peer pressure, especially among such a strong minded bunch of kids. I feel it pertinent to inform you then that the leader of this group, Andrew, was recently expelled from the school, and while in the past we know that Barrie was sneaking out of school to hang out with Andrew when he was suspended, we are hoping, now Andrew will be in class at his new school during the day, that that will no longer be an issue.

The senior staff here at Norbridge High all feel that this should mark a clear opportunity for Barrie to refocus his studies and commitments to what is important at school. In particular for Barrie, we feel that he’s become confused as the point of attending school. Given how much time he likes to spend talking and hanging out with his friends, it would appear he thinks that is the sole reason for attending school, hence his frequent truancy to spend time with his friend Andrew. We feel it’s important to remind Barrie that, while it’s fun to spend time with friends both in class and on the playground, the primary point of school is to learn the knowledge and skills that are needed for life.

To give you some perspective, I draw your attention to some of the extracurricular programs we are running this year. This year the drama company is producing a play written last year by one of the graduating drama students called “Hungry Beast.” It’s a little experimental, including all kinds of video and music elements not traditionally found in plays studied in class, but from what we’ve seen it looks quite clever and entertaining. Similarly, for a number of years now, a boy called Tony has been running a lunch time debating club. We’re quite impressed with his efforts to get students to attend who we wouldn’t have picked as being interested in such a thing, even if the room gets rather rowdy and loud at times.

We like to encourage all students to strongly consider participating in these kinds of activities because, while it’s not currently mandatory for earning a school leaving certificate, these programs do add to the general life and vitality of the school environment, which then leads to better overall performance by the student body across the board. Additionally, we find students that include extracurricular options tend to, individually, be higher achievers in general.

Of course, if Barrie decided that he’s rather just focus on the classroom subjects he has selected that would be quite acceptable. There’s nothing wrong with allowing a student to focus on the necessities and really excel at them. Our primary concern at this stage is that Barrie regains his focus on what is important and is better able to judge if the kinds of friends he’s hanging out with, or if the activities and games he plays in his free time, are really in his best interests.

I look forward to hearing from you again.

Sincerely,
Bill Sullivan
Deputy Principal
Norbridge High School

This is what she said …

“I always thought Australia would pass this equal rights law long before America would,” she said.

“I’m a little bit disappointed with the new Prime Minister. I’m hoping that Australia will be a leader on this.”

Now as attacks go, I’m sure you’ll agree it makes the Polish Blitzkrieg look a little like cracker night circa 1963, yes?

So I don’t know about you folks, but me?

I’m packin’ some dry goods and headin’ for mah shelter in the woods. 

But what do you think?

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Nominations in comments.

He has been a mainstay is Australia’s current affairs journalism and will surely be missed by Australian Wonks across the country.

But the real question raised by this afternoon’s announcement is who will replace Kerry O’Brien as host of the 7:30 Report next year?

Tony Jones is surely the front runner, but there is a lot of early support for Leigh Sales. Some have even suggested that seeing as Mark Latham is a journalist now…

But no, I have found my guy. Australia, it’s time:

Because politicians need pwning too

Clearly Holmes is the only candidate that can deliver and step up to fill Red Kerry’s chair.

Julia Gillard. Advisers now just out of frame.

Gillard’s advisers, after much focus group testing, found that the electorate thought she was too “safe”. The electorate thought that Julia was too stage managed during the campaign and they felt they didn’t really know the “real Julia”.

Feeling the threat of a Newspoll that showed Australia dangerously close to “Prime Minister, Tony Abbott”, Julia Gillard’s minders aranged an appearance on the Nine Network’s Today Show. She performed well and stayed on message. Gillard delivered her message well, telling the voters that she would get dirty and engage with the issues on her terms. “You’re avoiding gaffes and all the rest of it….we’ve been running that traditional style of campaign. I’m going to throw that rule book out and really get out there”, Gillard said.

And the media gobbled it up.

“Let Gillard be Gillard”, said the political geeks on Twitter, with their allusions to fictional West Wing President Jed Bartlett and has Chief of Staff’s “Let Bartlett be Bartlett” note.

The media stayed perfectly on message. The Australian, The Age, The Herald Sun, The ABC all lead with similar stories. Gillard would be throwing out the script, running a real campaign the old fashioned way, taking risks, making mistakes.

But in this age of stage-managed campaigns, even taking a risk seems so… dull. Doesn’t it?

I immediately sent a text to Nick Xzennophone, asking him if he’d ever been on the telly before. He answered yes, so I asked if he’d ever been on the ABC before. He answered yes, so I asked him if he’d ever been on the Q&A before. He answered no, so I told him that I was going on Q&A and he wasn’t. I signed off, “Regards Steve”, even though I don’t really have any regards for him. Xzennophone can be such a media whore sometimes so it’s nice to get one up on him now and again.

Within an hour I was packed and ready for my flight to Sydney. In the car on the way to the airport Susan explained to me again and again how the television gets sucked up into the camera and then goes flying along a cable to a big metal tower that throws the pictures through the air to television sets across the land, but no matter how hard I tried to visualise and understand this magic I simply couldn’t. I guess I’m a simple kind of guy who’s happy just accepting it as one of those mysteries of God that are all around us. Life’s easier that way.

The ABC woman said that a car would be waiting at Sydney Airport for me but I couldn’t for the life of me find the driver. After thirty minutes of standing there, twiddling my thumbs like an idiot, I called the ABC woman to find out what the heck was going on. She told me that she would call the driver and get back to me. A few minutes later a guy who’d been standing near me holding a sign the whole time answered his phone, looked around, and walked over to me. The silly idiot had written half of his sign wrong which is why I didn’t know he was looking for me. My first name isn’t “Sen.”.

Arriving at the studios I was taken to a dressing room which looked just like in the movies. There were light bulbs around the mirror and comfy chairs and everything. I changed into my TV outfit and headed over to the makeup department. The girls there were lovely although they said my Diamonte shirt would probably make the television cameras flare so it would be best if I changed into a plain business shirt. I immediately sent a text to Susan asking her to post my rhinestone shirt to Sydney by registered post.

Before I knew it I was lead into the studio and seated between Julie Bishop and some guy called Richard Dorkins. I’m not shy to admit that I’m absolutely terrified of Julie Bishop. She reminds me of that story that I think was in the Bible about the woman who turns you to stone if you make eye contact with her, and I make sure to keep my eyes cast safely downwards whenever I’m near her. Problem is, she kept brushing up against my leg because the chairs were so close together – lucky I had blanky on my lap.

The Dorkins fellow was a bit strange. A lot of people seemed almost in awe of him but his hair is very scruffy and his clothing looked like it came from Vinnies. He smelled nice, though, and at least his scruffy hair was obviously clean; I had to resist the urge to run my hand through it. When Tony Jones was talking to me before the show he said something about a possible clash between me and Dorkins about religion or something, but how can I have a religious clash with somebody who doesn’t believe in religion? Curious.

Before I knew it the opening credits were rolling and Tony was introducing the panellists. As I saw the camera panning along the desk towards me I started to freeze up and my veins ran cold. “Not now, Steve,” I told myself, “the whole world is watching.” So I grabbed blanky with one hand, Julie’s hand with my other hand, and flashed a beaming smile up the camera, along the cables, and out of the big metal tower. I knew then that this show was going to be a piece of cake.

But then I was asked if I was a creationist or an evolutionerist. I’ve spent the past five years rehearsing my answer to this one because it’s something that my detractors want to use to attempt to delegitimise and discredit me. I’d even rehearsed my answer in the car with Susan earlier that day; Susan repeatedly asked me the question and I practised saying “NO!” in my best confident and semi-shouty voice. But with the eyes of Australia watching, and with Julie Bishop staring a giant hole right through the side of my head, my mind went blank and I heard myself tell the world I was a creationist. “Think fast, Steve,” I told myself, and so in a stroke of genius I mentioned that Kevin Rudd was a creationist too. Crisis successfully avoided. Steve Fielding: 1, ABC: 0.

For the rest of the show I performed brilliantly, articulately answering everything that was thrown my way and managing even to tie the idiot Dorkins up in knots of perfect logic. Hours of practise in front of the mirror paid off brilliantly with my hand gestures adding to my appearance of calm and studied confidence, and successfully distracting people’s attention from what I was saying. Even Julie Bishop was mesmerised by my hands which saved a few audience members from being turned to stone.

And in what can only be described as a miracle, I was saved from answering the final curly question by the show’s producers who cut me off due to the show running extremely over time. In that studio there was an atheist and a Pentecostal, and it’s clear whose side God was on that night.

Shaking Tony Jones’ hand as I prepared to leave the studio I told him that I was available most Monday nights as long as he called Susan a few days in advance so she could buy one less pork chop, and I really looked forward to being a regular guest on the show. I gave him my business card but Tony said he was out of his own cards, but not to worry anyway because he’d call me.

On the way out to my car I was asked by a producer if I’d mind sharing a ride with Julie Bishop. I walked to my hotel at the airport.

Until next time.

The doctors were unfamiliar with Sarah’s condition, but further investigation showed she had measles. The delayed diagnosis wasn’t due to any shortcomings in the National Health Service, but because a vaccine had all but wiped out the disease and none of the doctors, including experienced pediatricians, had actually seen it before. Luckily Sarah had that vaccination, as part of the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) injection, and while she showed the symptoms she never suffered the full effects, which could be deadly.

So why did my daughter get measles in a first-world city, two decades after a vaccination had all but eradicated it? The BBC’s policy of giving all issues and views equal measure regardless of their credibility had something to with it.

In the late 1990s a report was published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, which claimed that the combination of the three drugs in the MMR vaccine (to lessen the amount of injections for babies) was linked to children with autism. The report by Andrew Wakefield was released just months before Sarah caught the measles but, as we witnessed, its impact on scaring parents out of vaccinating their children and bringing a dormant disease back to life was immediate. Wakefield was later proven to be a dodgy bastard and The Lancet retracted the article in 2007.

What does this have to do with the BBC? Because it’s charter meant it had to give crackpots like Wakefield and his believers equal time to sprout their bullshit against scientists and doctors who, backed with years of research could demonstrate that there was absolutely no link between MMR and autism. Scare campaigns work brilliantly when children are involved, so as long as the issue was discussed parents had to agonise over whether or not to vaccinate their children at all, often with with tragic consequences.

Which makes the above a rather long, but fair analogy in the context of the ridiculous speech by ABC Chairman Maurice Newman, who said ABC journalists needed to give more time to climate change sceptics.

Newman, a self-confessed climate-change agnostic, claimed there is a “groupthink” among ABC journalists on the side of climate change believers, which had led to the sceptic point of view being pushed away and not given an equal airing by the public broadcaster.

Putting this appalling insult to the ABC’s editorial integrity aside, Newman’s call to give climate deniers a say regardless of their credentials and evidence is alarming. I’m all for giving opposing views equal measure, but it’s credibility that needs to be quantified rather than time. A 15-minute interview with a highly renowned climate scientist pointing to evidence of global warming on Catalyst should be taken to task, but not by Andrew Bolt on Insiders.

 The reason why the view supporting climate change gets more of a run on the ABC is because there are relatively few climate change denialists whose views are based on hard data that’s widely supported within the scientific community. This doesn’t seem to matter to Newman, who wants stories about the impact of climate change to be offset by zealous viewpoints by the likes of Bolt and Lord Monkton, who base their arguments on selected facts and figures. The only reason they get any credibility at all is because, as shown during the MMR debacle, people will believe what they want to believe as long as there’s at least one fool to justify it.

This is all very well coming from the public broadcaster with $800 mil coming in from Treasury. I have no problem with the ABC fulfilling its charter. What bugs me is the ABC running around doing things (with public money) where there is no imperative to do it.

I hate to say it but as Kim Williams repeated in Crikey;  “… in the digital age we need to be careful to ensure that public broadcasters like the ABC don’t merely replicate what the private sector is now doing or inadvertently crowd out market-driven creativity and innovation.”

And what is this replication that shits me? The inane, pop-culture of the malnourished, sub-70 IQ celebrity kind. Essentially why is the ABC wasting time and resources on infantile dross like this: http://blogs.abc.net.au/articulate/.

Or (and this is far worse) this: http://blogs.abc.net.au/theshallowend/.

I read the ABC Charter all the time and still can’t locate the section where it says it is required to fill the gap not taken up by commercial interests to inform and report every hot celebs current crisis or full colour documentation of the current fashion disaster unfolding at some drug-infested awards night or event opening.

Surely the funds being sent in the direction of the Vacuous Celebrities Awareness Department of the ABC would be far better administered by employing a few more journalists or funding some of the core services that are the reason for the ABCs existence?

In more recent times and with the advent of the twitter machine, this misconception has only grown. Many observing the twitter hashtag on a Thursday evening (AEST) see #qanda become a “trending topic” and start to get giddy, thinking “Our ABC has really made it on the world stage now”. Unfortunately this popularity spike occurs all too frequently and I hate to spoil things but it’s actually our communist Asian neighbours mistyping their lovable bamboo eating mascot.

As you may not know, ABC star employee contracts frequently stipulate that as soon as the first Christmas decorations appear in shops, programs must begin to wind up or cease to broadcast for the year. Not much happens in November and almost nothing in December, so the view is that little should keep the ABC luminaries away from Paris in winter or the sanctity of Pearl Beach. In keeping with this, Q&A has already packed up for the year and it is a good time to reflect on what could have been.

The worst part of Q&A is how unbearably predictable it all is. Watching the self-righteousness of David Marr with that smug grin and all knowing whine or Sophie Mirabella. Well, two words are enough to describe her.

In fact the only participant that I honestly enjoyed watching was Janet Albrechtsen. Seriously. She knows what she thinks and she just says it. No façade, no sensitivity or groupthink (if you can excuse the irony there). Sure, the underlying sado-masochistic, power suit/corporate lawyer look is pretty stale but as a form of political entertainment, I think she is a star.

I rarely read her column in the Oz because it is predictable and equivalent to unpacking seventeen gaffa taped boxes to find little inside, but on TV she is great. She is so great that I think she should have her own ABC program. Before the wowsers start wailing about ABC Board members being ‘impartial’ – what about Quentin Dempster, he somehow manages to walk the impartial tight rope? I’m sure Janet can too.  Instead of the conservatives constantly complaining about Left wing bias or the lack of conservatives on the ABC, why shouldn’t Janet have the chance to have a chat with those forgotten people ignored by our Leftist media!

The other thing that has become apparent is the complete lack of engaging female conservatives. Besides Ms Mirabella, Helen Coonan, Julie Bishop or Bettina ‘Blackshirt’ Arndt, there isn’t a lot of media talent. Poor old Miranda Devine belts out columns but she hasn’t got it for TV. Mind you, she’d be great to play Scrabble with, “Hey MD, can I borrow an UM?”

As an interim measure, I suggest Mark Scott punts Tony Jones into a new show where he can truly blossom, reading his own poetry. I think Q&A in 2010, hosted by Janet Albrechtsen would be compulsory television.