A massively underwhelming experience

Last Thursday I started Bill McKibben’s new book Eaarth [1]. Its main premise is that due to global warming/climate change, the world we once knew has gone forever, and we have to adapt to our new world whilst tyring, however vainly, to minimise future global warming. It’s sobering stuff. Especially as yesterday there was a general election in Australia for the House of Representatives and half the Senate. And the approach of the two main parties to global warming and climate change is abysmal at best. Indeed Liberal leader Tony Abbott’s a climate change sceptic if not denier [2]. So no choice there. The Greens are better on that issue, but their Middle East policy’s awful [3]. As the Liberals are better on the Middle East than Labor, my House of Reps vote was down the ticket [4]. On my Senate ballot paper I put The Climate Sceptics last, Family First and the Shooters and Fishers down there somewhere, and a general scramble above that. Maybe mine’s a wasted vote. But no-one – I repeat, no-one – is giving global warming/climate change anything remotely like the undisputed top policy billing it deserves. In short, voting in this election was massively underwhelming. But be this as it may, not for a moment did I forget that in the global context, it’s a privilege to be able to vote. And that to a fair degree our parliamentarians are accountable to us voters.

Malcolm Fraser - shouldn't be seen or heard

In the 1950s when I was a nipper, my parents told me that ‘children should be seen and not heard’. Over fifty years later that’s anachronistic. But I think an adaption of that saying, i.e. ‘previous prime ministers should not be seen or heard’, still applies. Two years ago I wrote of it here. In that post I wrote: ‘…Malcolm Fraser, that Hamas praiser, bleeding-heartedly yabbering on about why Australia’s Middle East policy should be even-handed’. But Fraser (pictured), whose 80th birthday’s next month, and who exited parliament in 1983 (yes, 27 years ago) still yabbers on. Last week he publicly called for expulsion of Israeli diplomats from Australia because Israel forged Australian passports. The Australian Federal Police’s still investigating the matter. But Fraser, ever omniscient, said the diplomats should be ejected before the AFP reports. Why? Because in his venerable view, only a nation state could have produced such high quality forgeries. What horse shit. And what a contrast to the view of current Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott who said: ‘We can never forget that Israel is a country under existential threat in a way Australians find difficult to understand’. The late mother of one of Sweetheart Vivienne’s friends had a saying: ‘If you weren’t there, you don’t know’. This applies to you, Mr Fraser. If you’re listening – which I doubt. And, adjunctively, shame on the media for giving this pathetic has been (or never was) coverage.

farmdoc's blog post number 594

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…

1. the Iraqi journalist who last December threw his shoes at President Bush, became the target when an exiled Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at him [1]. He deserves it. He’s a heel for disrespecting President Bush’s office.

2. Chelsea Clinton – Bill and Hillary’s daughter – became engaged to her long time boyfriend, 31-year-old investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, who is Jewish [2]. When the young couple have children, will Hill and Bill be Buba and Zayda?

3. television stations were clamouring to sign up Matthew Johns who few months ago was sacked by Channel Nine for being involved in a Cronulla Sharks group-sex scandal in 2002 [3]. This tells us not how talented our Matthew is, but how sick and warped our society is.

4. I read that Nicole Kidman has lent her voice to Australia's bid for the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cups, by narrating promotional film spruiking Australia’s credentials to host one of these sporting extravaganzas [4]. That we’ve resorted to a celebrity voice with no sports let alone soccer credentials, means our bid is weak, and all things considered it should rightfully be doomed to failure.

5. the election of Tony Abbott as federal opposition leader means the opposition won’t support the Rudd government’s emission trading scheme legislation [5]. I agree that Rudd’s scheme is pathetic (cuts not deep enough, big polluters rewarded, citizens slugged). But Abbott, representing Big Business, may not propose anything better. Or anything at all.

6. Tiger Woods duffed his approach when driving home [6]. I’ve no sympathy for him. It counts for nought that he’s the best golfer ever and the world’s wealthiest sportsman. Because the measure of the man is that he hasn’t respected his wife and children.

7. the EU has proposed East Jerusalem becomes the capital of a future Palestinian state [7]. This comes at the end of 20 years of joy after the Berlin Wall came down. The EU should mind its own business – which Jerusalem is most definitely not.

8. free water bubblers are being reintroduced in central London [8]. You’re a man ahead of your time, PJ. [9]

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.