arleeshar's blog

Limned

2010-02-01T01:39:09-08:00

cross posted at Terrible Fabulous

This is what passes for political debate in Australia; I’m actually okay with that. Engaging with Tony Abbott’s policies would just give them air. So long as I don’t have to take his statements on sex and climate change seriously, I’m happy to join the rest of Australia in marvelling at the outline of his penis. Here now are some of the key political debate points pertaining to this important issue, as raised by the commenters to this article:

1. These comments clearly authored by a Liberal staffer:

Benny of Sydney Posted at 10:40 AM Today

Good on the bloke for being fit enough to wear them. Obviously he doesn’t over indulge on meals provided at the tax payer expense, unlike some larger politicians.

Sirro of Sydney Posted at 12:50 PM Today

Give the bloke a break … he is out doing some exercise on the w/e. A large part of the population wear this type of swimming costume when they go to the beach. Are the media all turning into Ruddite wowsers who frown on anything not intelligensia driven? At least Abbott is an Aussie who generally reflects the values of the majority of Australians.

2.These comments, clearly authored by one or more Labor staffers:

sean of sydney Posted at 10:39 AM Today

Im not gay but what an awesome body for his age! lets see him up against Krudd side to side

Dave of Sydney Posted at 1:57 PM Today

I’m seriously concerned that the PM is developing body image issues.

3. These viable points made by the sexually frustrated wives of plutocrats:

Maya of Kirribilli Posted at 12:59 PM Today

You have to admit, he’s hot! Mr Abbott, you have my vote!

Lyn Posted at 1:08 PM Today

This is very good media for Abbot. It makes us women see Krudd as a girl with nothing manly about him at all. He can’t even choose his shirt and tie each morning.

4. This comment, which seems to adopt Abbott’s own paradigm in confusing hardline Catholic misogyny with common decency:

Kathryn of brisbane Posted at 11:17 AM Today

he can get around wearing that but females shouldn’t have sex before marriage? TYPICAL!!!!

5. This point, fairly made, that sports do not require abrogation of public decency laws:

InSearchOfTheTruth of Sydney Posted at 11:58 AM Today

He makes me ill. Totally inappropriate, I have also done the swim and worn appropriate clothing reflecting my age and consideration of others in my immediate surrounds.

6. This, a plea for more funding for public education in remote Australia:

John of Darwin of Darwin Posted at 12:18 PM Today

Why doesnt the Media beat up on Mr Rudd for what he promised and hasnt done instead of Mr Abbots swim wear or is it the Media is not allowed to, The Media seem very quite on the Rudd Goverment.

7. And this, which is pretty much my favourite, just because I can totally see Abbott staging Putin shots, striding around with a bare chest killing and skinning kangaroos or something:

Auds of Perth Posted at 3:06 PM Today

What about the fat whales in bikinis that walk the path ways now that is gross he at least looks fit and healthy. Putin,Sarkozy,Obama,they look like strong leaders of today and so would Abbot. The wafflers Brown,Rudd look like porky’s and not leaders.They worried give them stick Abbot.

Julie Bishop #3

2009-12-02T13:06:28-08:00

Thankyou Annabel Crabb for this article, which contains a fantastic description of Bishop frantically hunting down her supposedly secret ballot paper to prove that she didn’t vote for the man she’s now standing behind, and also this:

“People are calling her The Cockroach,” one MP told ABC Online.

“She’d survive anything.”

Mr Abbott defended his new deputy during their joint press conference on Tuesday, declaring “She’s a loyal girl!” and patting her.

Dark times

2009-12-01T00:57:04-08:00

I am so concerned by this Tony Abbott thing. I mean, who are they kidding? This is the institutionalisation of the right in Australia. Sophie Mirabella, who has always been my nemesis (and she knows it; I sent her an email once late at night telling her so), is now in a position of raised influence and must be stopped. Minchin the Foul is kingmaker. This is absurd. Surely there will be either a split or an assassination. We enter dark times.

Bishop, I note, is still entrenched as deputy, serving her leader, whoever that may be. Perhaps I was wrong; this may prove to be a very smart move on her part, enabling her to step forward as the consensus candidate at some point in the future when the Liberal party has so terribly damaged its relationship with the female half of the Australian population through the excesses of Abbott and co. that the only possible way of maintaining some kind of electoral significance is to propel Julie Bishop into the spotlight, I was going to say blinking like a possum but as she is renowned for her blue steel gaze, I would imagine she would probably instead try to stare down said spotlight.

The spotlight would win. That is all.

Liberal Stoush: Bishop Fail

2009-11-29T17:15:35-08:00

I like the Liberal rumble that’s going on at the moment; I enjoy the thought of Malcolm Turnbull privately comparing himself to Alexander the Great as he tackles the Gordian Knot (“familiar as his garter”).

A generally problematic aspect of the Liberal leadership issue, however, is Julie Bishop. Where is she in all this? I mean, supposedly she’s the deputy leader of the Opposition, which believe it or not could be quite a powerful position. Not so powerful as if Bishop had actually stood up and taken the shadow treasury portfolio as was her right, but certainly, on paper, the deputy should be regarded as a natural contender for succession in such a situation as the Opposition currently finds itself. And so I ask, where is she?

It always seemed clear that Bishop’s inclusion in the Opposition lineup was sadly a token gesture, designed to mirror the Labor situation and spin spin spin to counter the clear fact that the Liberal party is a dinosaur of the patriarchy. But I have some sympathy with opinion that regardless of how you get somewhere, what you do when you get there is the important thing. I mean, ideally one would get to the deputy leadership of a major political party on merit alone, but this has never ever been the case in tweedy Liberal land – witness the career trajectory of Alexander Downer - and when you’re contending with a patriarchal right-wing structure operating mostly through cronyism, you surely take your token appointment as part of that structure and run with it as best you can.

Sadly it seems clear that the Liberals have promoted somebody who is apparently unable to take advantage of the current chaos to announce a leadership bid or at least to make some undergroundy rumbling noises of interest in pursuing the leadership in the future. I mean, if Bishop didn’t have leadership ambitions, surely she wouldn’t have accepted a leadership role in the first place? And given this, now is the time to do something with that ambition, surely?

This is mildly unfair to Bishop, of course; given how awful the Liberal party really is, it may be impossible for any woman to ever be the leader. But that’s no reason not to try. The fact that she’s not indicated any wish to do anything but use her potentially key position to be a kind of helpmeet to the prating GPS-inbred leader of the day, melding effortlessly into the patriarchal narrative, makes me wonder what on earth she’s doing in politics and why on earth she accepted the position in the first place.

Naturally, given the circumstance of Bishop’s election to the role of deputy, there’s this inherent comparison with Julia Gillard, who, despite the apparent solidity of the Rudd leadership, is constantly being touted as the next Prime Minister. This is a shocking commentary on the Liberal party as an institution that is a) poison to women of talent and b) more willing to promote a person of apparently little talent to what should be a key leadership role than to make a genuine effort to actually recruit women of talent to its ranks.

Abbott to the back bench.

2009-11-26T04:45:11-08:00

True Blue

2009-11-25T15:02:52-08:00

I love this story: outnumbered 17 to 1 by camels whose sole goal is breaking into the pipes to slurp their crapwater, the townsfolk shelter quiver in their fibro demountables, their children cheering every time a long-lashed eye peers menacingly through the window.

I say, this is a job for the NSW Shooters Party – a timely deal with the NT Government would see that pesky railways sell-off legislation passed without resort to more bastardisation of the planning system, with the confusingly named Robert Brown now able to revel in camel gore to his heart’s content. I’m less enamoured by the public health implications of a pile of 6000 camel corpses gently rotting in the desert sun for several months; however, as with all things in Australia,this guy has the solution:

“The way I see it, there is a billion dollars in camel meat wandering around the central desert,” says Harvey Douglas, who owns a mobile abattoir.

I wonder what a mobile abattoir looks like? I’m thinking it’s an open-tray ute with two men in blue singlets and a bar-fridge hooked up to the cigarette lighter. I’m thinking there might be some scale issues with harvesting One Billion Dollars’ worth of camel meat using such a set-up, but what do I know? I’m not an economist.

"Do not be deceived by my peaceful face. I have a heart of stone."

2009-11-23T02:29:55-08:00

Interview with an interesting woman.

It’s nothing new, but I observe that the reason certain segments of the western media are fascinated by the idea of a female suicide bomber is because there is this feeling that blowing oneself up in furtherance of a cause is an ultra-rational activity, overcoming the ‘natural’ or feminine human inclination to self-preservation, and thus according to the law of oppositions and what have you is a hyper-masculine act. Conversely this is twinned with the feeling that young men, the celebrated pinnacle of rude and unbridled animalistic masculinity, are dangerous because of their ‘irrational’ hot-headedness; that suicide bombing is overwhelmingly a young man’s response to the hopelessness of injustice. Suicide bombers, in our western imaginary, are young and fiery (men) and really scared but determined to revenge/avenge/kill/maim etc, overcoming their fear in furtherance of their cause.

Naturally a young female suicide bomber is a problem to be investigated and probed, because young women are suppose to be, you know, the curb on young men’s violence and misdirected sexual energy and a symbol of the home and hearth or something, and not supposed to be encouraging or participating in this hyper-rational irrationality. Hence this article and others like it.

Journalists are lazy. In times of national crisis when the cultural values or vital life of the patria itself are threatened, one heavily-subscribed-to western narrative is the rise of a particular matriarchal archetype, the female warrior who spurs on male warriors to resistance and victory against the invaders; think Boadiccea, or Malalai Joya, or Pauline Hanson. When western journalists investigate the female suicide bomber, there is a tendancy to frame these women through this narrative because otherwise it’s too puzzling. I can’t be bothered to examine whether this cultural lens is positive or negative or even what those terms might mean in the context of writing about people blowing themselves up in a war. I will say, that this stuff gives me the heebie jeebies, because if my nation were the invaded rather than the aggressor in this situation, I could certainly see myself going down this path.

At last

2009-01-22T01:57:39-08:00

My two favourite parts of this video are at 00:50, when he says to her, “I practised”, and she grins like an idiot.

And then again at about 02.05, when he’s trying to convince her to do a dip or some other kind of fancy dance move at the climax of the song, and she’s just like, NO WAY, and we’re all kind of happy because despite being the most powerful man in the world it’s fairly clear that despite the extra practising he cannot dance and would probably have dropped her.

The Obamas are the hott secks and I can’t believe it took me so long to figure this out. I think I was still bitter about Hillary.

Summer of '69

2008-11-21T00:42:39-08:00

American Life Magazine’s vast photo archives, spanning 150 years in the life of the US, are now searchable by google even though the magazine is no more. Very interesting, particularly the series on poverty during the Great Depression. It’s also full of hidden gems like this:

OMG fugly mandals and hideously unflattering pants on a young Hillary Rodham. What a square.

I’d seen a cropped version of this image before, but never the full-length horror. And no, it’s not just the time period; rather, a reminder that these are the people who run our lives - the people who spend their youth in fuglypants with an earnest expression, pursuing noble goals, only to emerge from their chrysalis of foul twenty-five years later, pristine style icons, with the aid of a herd of professional stylists. Here’s what the cool kids were doing in 1969. Warning: none of these people are famous, but they look like they’re having a freakin’ good time.

Do Not Get Married II

2008-11-16T22:34:04-08:00

I just can’t see how these people are in fact alive.

The more I learn about how weddings are apparently conducted in this country, the more fearful I become of my own approaching nuptials. They all seem very happy however, so that’s something.

:::

Dean Mighell

2008-11-12T18:03:57-08:00

You thought you’d seen it all? Well, think again. Someone’s out to get Dean Mighell and he seems to have delivered a dual hit of allegedly squandering his members’ money on both business class airfares and, potentially, transgender prostitutes. It’s all very British.

Combined with last year’s expulsion from The Party, this may well be his death knell in public life. But then, Australia’s a small and talentless place in some ways; our best and brightest often leave to work overseas before they reach a level of seniority and arrogance that produces sexcapades and Trevor Flugge, so Mighell’s years of experience will probably continue to be at a premium until he retires.

MORE than $27,000 was splurged on accommodation.

AT least $10,000 was spent on meals, drinks, valet service, the internet, in-house movies, the mini-bar and other items.

A PHONE call from Mr Mighell’s hotel room was made to a transsexual escort named Suzana.

Touted as a “shemale”, Suzana says on a website: “I am a sexy and very convincing ‘TV girl’ escort. I work in central London from a nice, quiet and clean flat.”

Just in case you’re as inquisitive as I am, here is Suzana’s site [nsfw] and I wish her the best and hope that her custom increases through the level of traffic it is undoubtedly now experiencing from gleeful members of the Australian political scene.

Daily Graphic Horror, GetUp style

2008-11-10T21:47:43-08:00

Below is the graphic currently appearing on the GetUp website. I mean, I just flicked through to see what they were up to and got the shock of my life. When you click on said graphic from the front page, it links to GetUp’s climate action campaign - but there’s nothing on the front page to suggest that by clicking, you won’t be accessing badly photoshopped activist pron. I’m actually suprised that I clicked on it at all, because there is no way that I want to inadvertently load up pron starring women in ubiquitous Bonds t-shirts with disproportionately massive heads, poorly-dressed Nathan Rees impersonators, and a large crowd including what appears to be the triplets or possibly quadruplets in identical hats, all set at a wind fam with phallic turbines gently rotating in the background. Especially not when I’m at work.

If you can’t clean up your homepage, what makes you think you can clean up the world? That is all.

McCain's Aunt on McCain, voting, and democrats

2008-11-04T15:01:06-08:00

‘Let these bastards get in,’ she says, ‘I don’t give a damn anymore. If these people want to buy votes and get their people in office, let them suffer for it in the way of high taxes.’

‘I sat in line more than an hour today and I’m nearly 100. We should have one day of voting and if these people are too weak to vote, too bad.’

She’s 96 and the twin of McCain’s mother. She’s also my new hero. Tell it like it is, Rowena! She goes on to say that McCain will likely die in office.

Via The Daily Beast

Poogee Bay Hotel

2008-11-02T20:38:22-08:00

Somebody has gone to alot of trouble with this site. Could it be that they are connected to “rival hotel owners”? Are they willing to be DNA tested to prove it?

Yes we carve

2008-11-02T00:34:34-07:00

Possibly the only thing that could make me want to move to the US.