Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Defensiveness in, defensiveness out ...

(Above: damned Jesuits and Fiona Katauskas, found at Eureka Street).


First a little good news.

The Bolter and his wretched report barely cracked the 100k mark last Sunday - 105k for his first outing and 99k for the repeat. By way of contrast, Insiders did 167k, 94k and 51k for its various Sunday outings. (here)

Remember in the good old days when the Bolter was keen to boast how he was doing over the public broadcaster?

Amazingly even The Observer Effect managed 109k. There's clear evidence Ten would be better off running Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom or the Octonauts (both 250k for five city metros on multichannel ABC2)

The Bolter is now what the pond likes the think of as charity publishing - you keep a show on at a loss because someone on the board thinks the basket case is really a deserving charity case.

Maintain the rage! Bring back Video Hits!

Meanwhile, Media Watch was once again singularly entertaining, reporting on how the Daily Terror cheerfully picked up a story about aliens in the ether, and celebrating Alan "the parrot" Jones squawking in error about climate science under the apt, self-referential header Rubbish in, Rubbish Out.

The pond hadn't thought of the Lord of Monckton in ages, and how pleasing to learn he's still keeping company with the parrot and Bob Carter, all of them squawking away like a flock of Major Mitchells ... lah de dah, la la la ...

So many loons, so little time, which is why the pond appreciates it when a reader points out another member of the pond, in this case Jamie Briggs getting indignant, and proving once again - if confirmation was needed - that the Adelaide Hills are in a class of eccentricity all their own - as you can  check by reading Uniting Church backing for Inverbrackie detention centre angers Federal Government.

Never mind that it's a nonsense - Briggs talks about saving $40 million while the federal government is busy pissing billions against the gulag wall - it's the spirit of denialism that's alive and well in the hills.

The pond was so moved by Monsieur Briggs - it's surely just a coincidence that his name is a play on the word "brig", which perhaps is better than a play on keelhaul - that we headed off to his website, only to find a kind of time machine preserved in aspic:



Shadow parliamentary secretary for supporting families?

Yep, that's the header this 1st day of October, more than a few days after the 7th September election.

Things move slowly in Mt Barker, that's a fact, and clearly Monsieur Briggs' website moves at the same speed. Now there's a man who only needs copper for his connectivity. You can join him in the social media stone age here ...

But enough already, because today is a day for righteousness, boasting, preening and celebration.

Usually the pond is Uriah Heep-like in its modesty and forbearance, but we just have to mention that last Tuesday we were shattered that Gerard "prattling Polonius" Henderson had failed to address the matter of the Pellists and David Marr.

We predicted the smell of sardines would be irresistible to Polonius, and what do you know, knock the pond down with a feather, sure enough today the fiercely independent Fairfaxians have published yet another bulletin from the Sydney Institute defending the Pellists.

Never mind that it's late to arrive, as dated as a Jamie Briggs blog. It's what you can expect of Hendo's copper-wired mind, and happily the pond is looking forward tonight to the bottle of red it won.

But what a narrow squeak, saved only by a belated, narrow-minded squeak.

Oh dear, decisions, decisions, what to do, what to buy? Prattling Polonius, or a limited edition John Olsen print?

Well if you've saved your Fairfax hits, you can click for free on All smoke and no smoking gun: Cardinal Pell was quick to act on abuse claims.

Indeed, indeed, to be sure, to be sure, yes, yes, yes, the entire Catholic church was astonishingly reactive, active and procactive in the matter of all its scandals, and swept nothing under the carpet, and Cardinal Pell is a wonderful man, an astonishing human bean, and ...

Once again, it seems that the deviants and the perverts at the ABC are responsible, in their vile soft way, for people refusing to accept this modest truth:

Following the publication of his Quarterly Essay last week, titled The Prince: Faith, Abuse and George Pell, Marr received numerous - and overwhelmingly soft - interviews on the ABC. On September 23 he told Philip Clark on Radio National Breakfast that ''these two old followers of Bob Santamaria, now a cardinal and a prime minister'' are part of a political movement which ''is running the country in 2013''. 
Earlier in the interview, responding to Clark's claim that Pell is ''the prince or spiritual adviser to the leader of our country Tony Abbott'', Marr commented: ''It's a dream. It's a Medieval dream.'' Not really. It's a journalistic beat-up.

Indeed, indeed, to be sure, to be sure. Which is why you won't find any mention of Tony Abbott disremembering a visit with George Pell, as celebrated by The Chaser lads - how Hendo hates the lads and still available on YouTube here.

Nor will you find Hendo quoting Tony Abbott on the matter of Bob Santamaria:

My first contact with what turned out to be the Santamaria movement was a school friend’s invitation, back in 1976, to attend a weekend course on the issues we might face at university. It was never entirely clear who had issued it or who was organising the conference but it was an impressive speakers’ list and some instinct whispered that this was not an opportunity to be missed. I arranged to tag along and have been under the Santamaria spell ever since. 
At times, I recoiled a little from the single-minded intensity of the activists I met. Still, some of them became more than friends. We came to share a brotherhood born of holding the same values, debating the same issues, confronting the same challenges, and suffering the same defeats. For Santamaria and those influenced by him, it wasn’t enough to have a point of view: it had to pass the highest ethical and intellectual tests. 
It wasn’t enough to have a sound philosophical position: it had to be applied to real life. “What is to be done?” was the one Marxist-Leninist interrogatory he took rigorously to heart. The result, at least for those close to him, was a life of constant intellectual and political struggle against the conventional wisdom of the day that almost inevitably seemed to fall short of his bracing ideals. There are people from that conference, and all the others like it, in positions of intellectual leadership right around our country. It is a tribute to his influence and authority that, even now, it would be invidious to name them. Some are notional political opponents between whom there’s the bond of trust that comes from sharing an intellectual trench on a hostile battlefield. 
In the famous Melbourne University debate about the Spanish Civil War, he declared: “when the bullets of the atheists struck the statue of Christ outside the cathedral in Madrid, for some that was just steel striking brass. But for me, those bullets were piecing the heart of Christ the King”. He could engender a thrill in the heart that was part patriotism, part Christian idealism and part “fighting the good fight”. I was lucky to know BA Santamaria for the last 22 years of his life, to have attended diligently to his writing and speaking over that time and to have been the beneficiary of the occasional private lunch and long phone call. I am honoured to have been asked to help launch these memoirs as there are many whom he knew better and loved more. Perfectionist that he was, I’m fairly sure that I would have been a disappointment to him. Still, hardly a day passes without recalling his example and its challenge to do more, better. (sadly Abbott's launch of BA Santamaria's collection of letters has fallen out of sight on Abbott's website but you can find it in google cache here)

Hardly a day passes, from the horse's mouth so to speak, back on 30th January 2007.

When confronted with inconvenient truths it's important to be economical with the truth.

Now Abbott has been consistent and open in acknowledging Santamaria as an inspiration - calling him "a philosophical star by which you could always steer" and "the greatest living Australian" - presumably becoming one of the great dead Australians on his death. (The Whirling Dervish)

So why does Polonius indulge in this bit of historical revisionism, which verges on Monckton-ish denialism?

Santamaria's influence was exaggerated by his supporters and opponents alike. Abbott is not the Catholic that the secularist Marr believes him to be. Nor is Pell. As the Cardinal said last week: ''Marr has no idea what motivates a believing Christian.''

Who knows, but the last few pars by Polonius are rippers of bile and barely repressed, seething hatred:


Andrew West in the Religion and Ethics Report was one of the few ABC journalists to challenge Marr's thesis. West suggested to Marr that his criticism of the Catholic Church's handling of sexual abuse stems from a small l-liberal point of view and a rejection of mainstream Catholicism.

No, no, say it ain't so, please tell the pond that David Marr doesn't think the Catholic church is a load of superstitious, but still dangerous, and deadly to gays, old rope ...

West has a point. In The Prince, Marr concentrates on Pell's celibacy. Marr told West that ''it was the celibate Church that gave paedophiles safe haven''. This does not explain why paedophilia is widespread outside the Catholic Church. What's missing from The Prince is that the overwhelming majority of sexual child abuse cases in the Catholic Church have involved attacks by men on young boys.

And you know what that means. It's nothing to do with the Catholic church warping sexuality, it's all to do with warped homosexuals ...

So it goes, and so, courtesy of Polonius, we continue to get ample evidence that the church and its apologists simply don't get it.

Poor old Pope Francis. He tried to tart up the church with a few nice words about gays, women, contraception, and its cruel obsession with rules, but at the heart of the beast remain the Pellists and their apologists, of the Polonius kind, and it's easy to see that the spirit of B. A. Santamaria lives on in the land and politics and in the church, with the latest reminder the treatment doled out to a gay and women-friendly Melbourne priest - Church dumps rebel priest.

There are many other aspects to Polonius's apologetic excuses for the Pellists - the clerical crimes date to long ago; Pell was a victim of "mocking questions" from a bipartisan collection of Victorian MPs, as if that trial was somehow remotely comparable to the abuse of children by people placed in a position of trust and power over them; and talk of how Pell did more than most, as if doing little or nothing was somehow enough; and so on and on, in the way apologists seek to work to diminish the victims and bless the oppressors for the fine work they've done ...

No doubt Marr will strike back, but what's the point.

You may as well try to explain the finer points of climate science to the parrot ... because all you'll ever get is garbage in, garbage out, defensiveness in, defensiveness out ...

(Below: more Martin Rowson here)





12 comments:

  1. As you point out,the real truism is that the church holds that trust and power over these children and drums the faith / fear factor into these impressionable minds day in and day out and then as you point out, after that breach of trust is abused, the likes of Henderson et al, fervently defend the criminals and quite plainly heap another criminal abuse upon the victims. Disgusting beyond belief. Henderson really is a piece of shit.
    Regards the denialists,Rowsons cartoon says it perfectly.Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. No comments section on the SMH so I sent this to the 'Institute':

    Henderson's missive in the SMH today lacked an ability to comment, something I'm sure the cowardly director insisted upon. For he must have know that his risible defense of the Catholic Church's inaction on child abuse would be sufficiently offensive as to warrant a torrent of condemnation. What I found particularly disgusting was this line from the failed Catholic ministerial adviser:

    "the overwhelming majority of sexual child abuse cases in the Catholic Church have involved attacks by men on young boys."

    The aging pseudo-intellectual attempts to smear the male homosexual community by linking them to the perpetrators of this vile abuse who found safe haven in his church. This graceless and cowardly man, if that is the right word, should be banished from the pages of any publication of significance in this country. He peddles nothing but hatred and fear.

    Pathetic.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Never mind Bob's letters, DP, even though they hold a few gems. No, the one with the blueprint is 'Running the show'. Look up the 5th of the Six Pillars, "the great Catholic country of the Pacific". Explains a lot about immigration policy.
    'The Prince' is walking off the shelves. Another useful QE is Flannery's 'After the future', the correspondence section with replies from Brandis, Uhlmann & other initiates in reply to Marr's 'Abbott'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great stuff Trevor.

      STORY WITHIN THE STORY
      "..A married woman may work miracles, but if she does not do her duty to her husband and her children she is--as St Paul, says-- worse than an infidel." (p 219)

      Delete
    2. Brandis Uhlmann
      http://books.google.com.au/books/about/After_the_Future.html?id=HjKNo7wgy88C&redir_esc=y
      http://books.google.com.au/books?id=HjKNo7wgy88C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

      Delete
    3. Excellent link Trevor. It seems the pond is turning into a war of the links - what a pity you need to know html to do it properly - but yours is the link of the day ...

      Delete
  4. I note that many Vietnamese immigrants are rabid RCs too. They had a weeping Mary miracle statue show here at a local "Vietnamese roman catholic church" some years ago, oh man, the crowds, nice earner for them until it was hosed down. With the cabinet of sausages pivoting away from Geneva to point at Jakarta will the rear admiral Abbot and major general Morrison be bringing in lots more RCs from Indonesia, India, Phillipines, etc? Albanese and Shorten shall both agree.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shorten? OK, he bills himself as having "attended the Jesuit School Xavier College" but I don't know what that makes him. On last night's QandA he answered a question from the audience at about the 53min mark. He made three points.
      1. The man, as an employer, would benefit from Labor's drive to invest in education & scientific enquiry at all levels, so turning out smarter employees.
      2. Then Shorten jumped across to the elderly and their needs for better health care. (Maybe he could tell that the questioner had grandparents.)
      3. Labor will strive to give small businesses a fairer go, against big business.
      That's my paraphrase, but it shaped up like a 'Head, Heart, Hands' appeal. Whether he has a swag of formulaic responses, or whether he 'read' the young man who asked the question, it was pretty impressive. Someone else may be able to tell if there's any "Jesuit" in that.

      Delete
  5. http://web.archive.org/web/20120326145830/http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/5637/LAUNCH-OF-BA-SANTAMARIA-COLLECTION-OF-LETTERS-YOUR-MOST-OBEDIENT-SERVANT-SELECTED-LETTERS-1938-19.aspx

    ReplyDelete
  6. "the Cardinal Pell issue"; the senate; Dr Ayers, BOM, and Plimer...

    http://web.archive.org/web/20110927155041/http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S13568.pdf

    Hansard extract:

    ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS LEGISLATION
    COMMITTEE
    ESTIMATES
    (Additional Estimates)
    MONDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2011...

    page pdf-142 (EC138):

    "..Dr Ayers—Thirdly, I think at some stage it would be appropriate for me to respond to the
    letter from Cardinal Pell, which was incorporated in Hansard in the last estimates committee
    meeting when we were not present.
    CHAIR—Thanks, Dr Ayers. On behalf of this committee, I would indicate our
    appreciation of the work that you and your staff have done. We are happy to place that on
    record as well. It has been a terrible time and a terribly important time for the bureau, and we
    appreciate the work that has been done. I ask you to convey that to your staff from the
    committee.
    Dr Ayers—Thank you, Chair. I will pass that on to the staff in my weekly message.
    Senator IAN MACDONALD—Before going to questions, I would like to respond briefly
    to the Cardinal Pell issue..."

    Dr Ayers' six pages of reply to Pell from page pdf-147 (EC 143) to pdf-153 (EC149):

    "...CHAIR—Dr Ayers, we are all waiting with great anticipation to hear your statement in
    relation to Cardinal Pell. Would you like to make that statement now?
    Dr Ayers—The issue from my point of view and why I sought leave to respond is that the
    cardinal has, in terms of the letter we incorporated in Hansard, made a number of
    propositions about aspects of climate science that I feel should not remain unanswered on the
    public record in this place. I would have been happy to have responded directly to the cardinal
    but he has not approached me and I am not aware that he has spoken with any others in the
    climate science community. I thought it was important to respond.
    The difficulty with the assertions made in the cardinal’s letter is that they are based not
    upon contention in the climate science field but on a book written by Professor Plimer entitled
    Heaven and Earth—Global Warming: The Missing Science. The contents of the book are
    simply not scientific. I am concerned that the cardinal has been misled by the contents of this
    book and I do not think it should stand on the public record for that reason...

    ..CHAIR—Before we move on, I take it then, Dr Ayers, that you do not agree with the
    second paragraph of the letter from the Cardinal to Senator Macdonald that says:

    I am not surprised that the Bureau has acknowledged the veracity of most of the factual statements
    set out in my article, but I am pleased that it has done so.

    You do not agree with that, obviously.

    Dr Ayers—No."


    Macdonald repeatedly tried on prevention of Dr Ayers addressing the committee and placing his remarks in response to Pell on Hansard.

    Has Pell the historian moved to muzzle the BOM now, and to remove the senate committee hansard reference that I myself accessed in the week after the election (16/09/13?) as linked from here: "Heavenly belief in science fiction" http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44454.html after having read in turn https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105872921145440122239 then http://alankerlin.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-genesis-of-new-science-based.html

    Notice on 3rd pdf page:

    "INTERNET
    Hansard transcripts of public hearings are made available on the internet
    when authorised by the committee..."

    The available archived earlier versions have different pagination: http://web.archive.org/web/20110815000000*/http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S13568.pdf

    The hansard committee extract is currently available via http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_Estimates/ecctte/estimates/add1011/index as
    http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/Estimates/Live/commttee/S13568.ashx

    ReplyDelete
  7. http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1ni1cw/volume_of_data_downloaded_in_australia_grew_at_an/

    Volume of Data Downloaded in Australia Grew at an average of 66% A Year Over the Last 5 Years (abs.gov.au)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1nhnkg/abbott_still_doesnt_understand_the_internet/
      http://www.moslempress.com/windows-updates-8-1-release-date-coming-october-brings-start-menu-back/
      RT going stale on you? Well then: http://www.moslempress.com/putins-crisis-management-syria/

      Delete

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