Mightier than the ultimate sword
That title will make sense shortly, I swear.
With a small amount of sadness, it's time to announce that this blog has run out of steam, and indeed out of moderately warm water. So, very soon, this particular highway of life will close.
My failure to post anything apart from one knock knock joke in the past month is as good an illustration as any of the reasons for this decision.
I am still working on finishing one final post, since it seems wrong to depart without:
1. One last potshot at Richard Dawkins;
2. Some attempt to explain why this blog is named after a moderately successful Canadian rock song from the mid-90s;
3 Whatever else seems important at the time.
That post is still days or possibly weeks from completion. For now, I just want to say that anyone who sets up or joins a facebook group dedicated to hating some guy who may or may not have started a fire needs to get a life.
Also, at this time of national tragedy, it is time for all Australian to join together in telling Germaine Greer to, just once in her life, shut the hell up. Her idiotic comments have been a rare sour note in what has otherwise been a magnificent response to a terrible, terrible disaster. Greer needs to finally figure out that her obsession with using tragedy to push whatever agenda she feels like pushing this week and making ill informed, borderline meaningless statements at the worst possible time just makes her look like an attention seeking dumbass.
Thanks for reading, it's been fun. My final, and significantly less shirty, post will appear some time soon.
With a small amount of sadness, it's time to announce that this blog has run out of steam, and indeed out of moderately warm water. So, very soon, this particular highway of life will close.
My failure to post anything apart from one knock knock joke in the past month is as good an illustration as any of the reasons for this decision.
I am still working on finishing one final post, since it seems wrong to depart without:
1. One last potshot at Richard Dawkins;
2. Some attempt to explain why this blog is named after a moderately successful Canadian rock song from the mid-90s;
3 Whatever else seems important at the time.
That post is still days or possibly weeks from completion. For now, I just want to say that anyone who sets up or joins a facebook group dedicated to hating some guy who may or may not have started a fire needs to get a life.
Also, at this time of national tragedy, it is time for all Australian to join together in telling Germaine Greer to, just once in her life, shut the hell up. Her idiotic comments have been a rare sour note in what has otherwise been a magnificent response to a terrible, terrible disaster. Greer needs to finally figure out that her obsession with using tragedy to push whatever agenda she feels like pushing this week and making ill informed, borderline meaningless statements at the worst possible time just makes her look like an attention seeking dumbass.
Thanks for reading, it's been fun. My final, and significantly less shirty, post will appear some time soon.
posted by I'm not Craig at 10:10 PM
11 Comments:
It has been fun. INC, thank you.
So sad to to see you go. Thanks for the laughs.
Well I knew it was coming. (Because I got an email!) So while I feel spesh and all that, I am also sad.
Boo.
Hoo.
I'll come back to say something about the shot at Germaine. For once, I think she was quite restrained, or have I missed something?
Just can't formulate a proper comment right now, have to move towards cooking dinner.
Harpo
I'm glad it's been fun for you too. I had a blast. Great to see that you are still reading this thing, if not for much longer.
I will continue to check your blog for updates every week or two.
For that is what I do.
Jo
I'm not really going, just writing a hell of a lot less and none of it right here. WDTAOK will be updated soon,* I swear.
* time is relative, apparently.
Melbs
Thanks for your very understanding email-in reply, I'm glad mine made you feel spesh.
Now, I should explain the Greer thing.
First, a brief history of Ms Greer's less inspiring moments.
After the Bali Bombings in 2002, she wrote an opinion piece which basically said Australia could no longer think of itself as everyone’s mate.
I’m not sure how anyone looking at Australian foreign policy at the time could imagine that such a comment was relevant at all. In particular, it’s not entirely consistent with leading a military intervention in East Timor or helping to invade Afghanistan. Clearly, Ms Greer had nothing useful to say but said it anyway.
Then we come to Steve Irwin. “The animal world has finally taken its revenge” is one of the dumbest thoughts ever expressed. Does this woman think that sea creatures have meetings? In the same article (and you can find it at http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-animal-world-got-its-revenge/2006/09/05/1157222132684.html) Ms Greer hinted that Steve may have considered feeding his own son to a crocodile. She rounded it out by telling us that animals need space and lecturing on the problem of habitat loss. Since Steve Irwin had done rather more than just about anyone in this country to protect and preserve the habitat of endangered creatures, it’s hard to understand why the animal kingdom would even want "its revenge."
The article appeared on 6 September 2006, two days after he died and three days before the family held a private funeral.
There is a time to criticise someone’s career, and it’s not when his wife, his 8 year old daughter and his 2 year old son are still overwhelmed by shock and grief.
These are a couple of reasons why Ms Greer’s response to the bushfires made me want to scream.
Specifically, she said "It's useless running around looking for arsonists. The arsonists are us. They are our Government and our administrators. We have been stupid."
She went on to talk about controlled burning and aboriginal practices and whatever else she thought was relevant.
The thing is, it’s actually a very good idea to run around looking for arsonists, because if these people are in prison, they are not out and about causing inconceivable amounts of destruction and death.
But this is far from my main concern.
While people were coming to terms with the loss of their loved ones, their homes, possibly their whole town, Germaine opened her mouth and decided to push an agenda despite having no relevant expertise whatsoever.
As you wrote on your blog four days earlier “just watch the letters in the paper for the voices that start about any number of issues, using this awful happening as proof that certain things are being neglected. i don't know, it might be climate change, it might be bushfire prevention and readiness. it might even be that white man shouldn't have colonised this wild, savage place."
As far as I am concerned, anyone who uses a tragedy to push an agenda before we even know how many people are dead should be punched in the face. Germaine is not the only one to do this, and she’s far from being the worst,* but she’s a recidivist in this area.
The common themes in Germaine Greer’s comments at times of tragedy are that she is regularly ill informed, she always has an agenda to push, she has no respect for the dead or those left behind to live with their losses, and she always finds a way to blame the victims. Ms Greer is not stupid so it’s hard not to conclude that she must be arrogant and callous in the extreme.
Germaine really needs to learn that there is a time to speak and there is a time to shut up and let people start to rebuild their shattered lives in peace. Then she needs to figure out which is which.
All things considered, I thought that calling her an attention seeking dumbass was reasonably moderate and entirely justified.
*America’s Westboro “Baptist” Church said the fire was god’s judgment on Australia because some of us are gay, to which I can only say those hate mongering stupid bastards can fuck off right now.
I'll miss your blog...
I'm back and I don't know whether Germaine deserves such a walloping from you. When I said I thought she was restrained, I guess I meant compared to other comments she has come out with over the years. What she actually said was nowhere near as full-on as the Irwin thing for example. So in my mind it was restrained, for Germaine.
re Bali, how could you NOT make a connection between Aus foreign policy and what happened at that time, if you were looking, and if you were inclined that way? She wasn't the only one who did.
Re Steve Irwin, I think you are taking that whole thing too seriously. I never thought she meant that literally, I read her comment as heavily ironic, and again, maybe the wrong time, but of course journalists want a TIMELY response, and if they can get some controversy going, you know where they'll go first.
Re the fires, I see that as a comment on how perhaps other things can and should be done (which the royal commission will address, hopefully!) and that it's a simplistic, witch-hunty thing to do to go after arsonists. If the countryside were not so combustible (and reasons for this seem many) then arsonists would have less to work with. Sure, they need to be found and stopped, but some of the ugliness that surrounded the suspected arsonist on Facebook and the like was execrable.
You keep talking about Greer's agenda. What is it, in your eyes? And you can't say that you don't know or suspect, otherwise you can't rightfully be making this suggestion.
people go to her to ask her opinion and because of who she is, it gets plastered everywhere. And she is so opinionated, that it's bound to displease many, especially the more conservative types.
I think she possibly is arrogant, as much as a very smart person usually is, and finds it hard to tolerate the other, substandard brains that she has to live among. But I'm not sure that she's callous; who can say? Who knows her enough to make this judgement? Maybe she's not arrogant. She certainly didn't seem arrogant when I saw her talk last year. Quite the opposite in fact.
In times of crisis, people seek meaning. I'm not sure how a religious person like you would find comfort in your faith, and a God who could allow this to happen. Without getting back into the whole religious/God thing, I do wonder. But people generally seek meaning, and they are also angry and seek scapegoats. And whipping boys. And people to blame. It's only natural. People who stick their heads out of the trenches and behave in ways other than to what some people expect the norm to be are immediately suspect, and condemned as such. She has always been a threat, always suspect, always confronting and never comfortable.
Sorry for the long comment, haven't bothered to proof read. But I do confess to nursing a small hope that engaging with you in this way will keep you with us a little longer.
Yes, I am smirking right now.
Femikneesm
You’ll still see my comments over at your place from time to time. And thanks for being the only person to ever “follow’ this blog.
Melbster
Aha, so it’s the ranting that you will miss the most.
I thought so.
Okay, lets tackle this one stage at a time
Bali
Of course there was a link between Australian foreign policy and the bombings. The point is it had nothing to do with trying to be everyone’s mate and much more, I suspect, to do with East Timor and Afghanistan, these being things that might tend to piss off the average Indonesian extremist. I’m just saying that Greers analysis was patronising and several miles from useful
Steve Irwin
The only irony in that article was at the beginning, where Greer describes Steve Irwin as the world-famous wildlife warrior who died a hero, doing the thing he loved. She then proceeds to damn him and everyone who ever met him. She even trashes him for something that she suggests that she can just imagine him yelling.
By the end of the article, Greer has abandoned irony and she is clearly entirely serious, sad though that may be.
If I’m wrong, and the whole thing was an exercise in fun loving irony, then let me just suggest that suggesting that a father considered feeding his son to a crocodile ain’t funny, and witty japes to this effect before Steve was even in the ground would still earn the tag of ‘callous’ from me.
There is a difference between ‘timely’ and ‘quick’ and journalists need to figure that out. So does Germaine Greer.
The fires
Not as egregious as the Irwin thing, but still. I know there are many causes of the fires and a royal commission will hopefully come up with some useful suggestions. Hopefully, people who know a lot about bushfires will give their considered opinions in a timely manner. People who are not experts on this topic, like me, and Germaine Greer, should stick to expressions of heartfelt sympathy/sending money and clothes and stuff.
As for Ms Greer’s agenda, I’m not suggesting that there’s just one. I’m suggesting that there’s always one. With the fires, it’s that she is I favour of brush clearing and controlled burning. With Steve Irwin, it was habitat preservation (or, on that occasion, possibly just attention seeking, it’s hard to tell). On Bali, my argument looks a little shaky because I’m not entirely sure what her agenda was, or if she had one. That’s possibly because by the end of the article, I wasn’t sure what her point was, or if she had one.
The irony is that I usually agree with whatever point Germaine is making, I just wish she’d find a way of making it that doesn’t make me want to change my opinion just to distance myself from her latest comments.
Is Germaine really callous? Surely not all the time. Since I don’t know her personally, I can only comment on what she says in public. And her recent efforts don’t impress me much.
As for what we religious types do at a time of crisis, faith is not all that comforting at times like this. I know all the theoretical answers about free will and stuff but really, couldn’t God send some small and carefully targeted showers of rain to the areas where fires were just about to start? Until I figure this out (which may never happen) I will get on with praying for the victims and their families and sending money, just like everyone else.
Must we discuss Germaine Greer to stay in touch with each other? Should we not sit in a park and eat some cheese instead? It seems like a better plan.
Of course, dear INC. Let's leave Germaine alone, it's just that if you feel more engaged in your blog, or that you still have things to say, you might [sniff] stick around [pout].
I'm not being very respectful of your decision, am I? Sorry.
Cheese it shall be then.
I feel half sad and half happy when I come here and don't see the Final Post.
I'm so confused!
Happy Weekend Dear INC.
Do'h! I have enjoyed your blog super amounts, we are not dis-similar in ages, but your maturity and humour are leagues above my own. When I grow up I want to not be Craig. Thanks heaps!
I'll miss you, INC. I hope you continue to have a wonderfully happy life with your family.
xx
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