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AUSTRALIA FRIGHTENS MODO
Julia Baird in the Sydney Morning Herald:
The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd described Australia to me as an “apocalyptic Bushworld”.
She may have meant that as an insult.
Dear MoDo is clearly in a brain meltdown!
Posted by mamapajamas on 2005 07 23 at 03:19 AM • permalinkAn “apocalyptic Bushworld”, eh? Sounds like fun! Is Howard selling tickets, or is it by invite only?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 07 23 at 03:22 AM • permalinkFriend of mine just hit the nail I think. She’s been watching Mad Max.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 07 23 at 03:36 AM • permalinkAG: Odd, I was thinking “Thunderdome” myself. ;)
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 07 23 at 03:38 AM • permalinkMaureen: Mad Max is not, I repeat, not a documentary.
Posted by Aaron - Freewill on 2005 07 23 at 03:55 AM • permalinkHanyu: It’s self-taught by very eager people like MoDo.
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 07 23 at 04:18 AM • permalinkIt has been a long week of man-love in Washington.(not that there’s anything wrong with that at the SMH or ABC)
Then our bespectacled Prime Minister ..(something wrong with spectacles, Julia? Do try to find something worth using as denigration)
After recently returning from almost six months in the US, I can offer only a motley but curious collection of insights ...(got that right, except for the word insights)
Aaron-Freewill: Maureen: Mad Max is not, I repeat, not a documentary.
Well how do you know? Isn’t it set in 2007 ?
( And didn’t MoDo get sacked, btw? )
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2005 07 23 at 04:26 AM • permalinkIf she stepped off of Manhattan for one second her botox would curdle.
goldsmith, I thought her botox curdled a long time ago…...
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 07 23 at 04:28 AM • permalinkGee, that Baird article sucked arses.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 07 23 at 05:25 AM • permalinkMeanwhile over in la la land at sbs for “special people”,they are unafraid to tackle the HARD multicultie news stories.
...see “Practising Bob Sledding Indoors"or perhaps the “Yet ANOTHER film which has been shown internationally looks like being banned HERE.(About the aftermath of child abuse). Well there’ll be plenty of exciting action in that for Pommetanz and her cohorts to linger over.O/T .Did anyone else in Aust watch the netball on ABC today? It was between the Sydney Swifts and the Perth Orioles ~ fantastic! (rolls eyes).
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 07 23 at 06:13 AM • permalinkTalk about journalism lite… Erratic, poorly written, and fractured. What an article!
She displays bitter dislike of Howard (not HER sort or thinker, how gauche the little man is), then it seems to dawn on her that this damned plebe just happens to have made Australia in to something close to a Great Power.
I’d fail her if this was a high school essay. Probably explains why she is a journalist, and I am not.
MarkL
CanberraThe bitchy comment about spectacles is straight out of Left 101.
John Howard has suffered hearing problems since childhood. Loser-liberals, afraid, wouldn’t touch that in a million years, but they think they can step neatly around it by making idiotic slights about Mr Howard’s sight. (And his height - ‘Little Johnny’.)
‘Little Johnny’ - bespectacled - is currently looming large in the world.
His shadow is casting thousands of liberals into a very dark shade.
“The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd”.... “Kate Jennings, an Australian writer who has lived in New York for many years”.... “College students …in a bar in Harvard Square, near Boston”....
Not what I would consider a representative sample for purposes of drawing conclusions about a nation, but then I’m probably just feeling slighted, belonging as I do to the less significant population segment. You know – that other 97% of U.S. citizens who live in the remaining 99+% of the country.
Julia’s insulting piece was just rubbish. Asking MoDo about any country, let alone Australia, is a pointless exercise. How she (Julia) got into Harvard I will never know. Do Americans really think our politicians are Steve Irwin types?
A man who will never go to Harvard, Alan Ramsey, was even worse today. Still padding his article with slabs of quotes from others. No doubt Alan will be glad for the cut and paste function on his keyboard. Lazy man.
The running theme is a mean-spirited image of Johnny as a schoolboy in short pants given the opportunity to sit down with the men (eg Murdoch, Bush). That kind of imagery was probably more relevant when Hawke was PM, who really was a nobody on the world stage.
Here in the UK Howard is very well respected, & gets good press. He is seen as a leader of a very successful, stable, mid-ranking country that comes near the top of every league table. Politicians here are often quoted about things done better in Australia, and how they are looking at the Australian model for this or that.
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 2005 07 23 at 08:34 AM • permalink“If you knew the disparaging comments I’ve heard from my old bosses about Australia, you’d be less prone to imitate or admire them. It goes something like this: not enough people, no scale to the markets; too far away; good tennis players, golfers and swimmers; end of discussion.”
Boy, these are real put downs! But maybe since your old bosses are in the media, they were discussing Australia as a MEDIA MARKET, you friggin idiot.
You’re gonna have to try a little harder if you want to drive a wedge between Australia and the US.
Posted by Buzz Crutcher on 2005 07 23 at 08:41 AM • permalink“You are a long way away,” was the most common response when Americans found out where I was from. But we’re just hardened to air travel. These comments came from people who find a six-hour flight to Los Angeles an ordeal
What the hell is she talking about? Americans fly everywhere. Before 9/11, domestic flights were like busses. America is full of people who will cross the country for a good taco. debo hit the nail on the head, Baird seems to think America is NYC, Boston and LA. The trouble is, she only talks to people who think the same way.
I think its great, the left gave us the term “Right Wing Death Beast” and now we get “apocalyptic Bushworld” for Australia!
Bless them, I wonder what they will come up with for the UK and USA? - it will be hard to top being an apocalyptic Bushworlder!
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2005 07 23 at 08:56 AM • permalinkWell, personally I find a one-hour flight an ordeal, but that’s because I don’t like to fly. But I’ll drive anywhere. If it were possible to drive to Australia I’d drive there.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 07 23 at 10:38 AM • permalinkI think all the Aussies in New York should gather around the NYT offices, chanting “Rule! Three-Oh-Three!”
MoDo provides one public service, as a chilling example. It is difficult to explain the bizarre, inverted insularity of Manhattanites to, well, real people. It is not just that they want nothing to do with the real world unless the real world is carefully sanctioned by the self-appointed uptowan arbiters of taste and acceptability, it is that the rest of the unapproved world is not really real. Trust me, MoDo cannot write with authority about Brooklyn, or even anything nort of the 125th Street, much less Ohio or Australia.
I’ve encountered the same sort of attitude in the self-appointed elites of London and Paris, and usually with as little cause. But it is particularly grating in Manhattanites because of their charming combination of arrogance and inferiority complex. At heart, they know they aren’t real sophisticates like their yurpeen betters, and it gripes them horribly.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 23 at 10:49 AM • permalinkDowd isn’t as bad as her columns. She has a self-deprecating sense of humor and everything. This is thrown to the winds when she writes. Must get Bush rises, Pulitzer stuff.
Her family is to the right of Attila the Hun, counting her ``Flatten Falluja’’ sister.
see eg. the interview http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/imuscut.dowd05.ram
To be fair, blowing newspapers, thunder and car horns also frighten MoDo… the stampede can be frightening…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 23 at 12:50 PM • permalinkDave S. and Andrea,
First we have to get the whole country drunk. After that, it’s a cinch to build a bridge. (If that link doesn’t work, google for australia drunk satirewire)
Well, I read Baird’s piece right through. Wasted time, a standard, all over the place, piece of journalist fluff. Could have been written (and has been) by any country’s reporters about any other country - including his own. The shame is that they’d all have been printed. Ignorant snot has an international flavor.
#8
Does the job just attract a certain type of person?No, but it tends to retain them (I know from personal experience).
#43
Philip Adams education.
does he have any academic qualifications?
IF not how did he gain access of the Australian media?Journalists of Adams’ age didn’t need qualifications to get their start. And today all you need to do is buy a degree.
—Nick
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 07 23 at 07:22 PM • permalinkAussies and Yanks and Poms—- we can make fun of ourselves and each other, because we know what we’re really like. The MoDos of the world, however, are like those perpetually adolescent isolates who want to be part of The Crowd, but can never be, because they never understand the inside jokes, the dress, the talk, the look, and the walk.
Somebody ought to make a movie.
Y’all should’a fetched up short at Hawaii. Woulda really lowered the real estate prices there. And of course, Tom Selleck would have an easy commute to make Magnum Downunder…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 23 at 08:44 PM • permalinkAlso from the article, “Others see us as America Lite.” Durn, all along I was thinking that the USA was “Australia Lite.”
Posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher on 2005 07 23 at 11:45 PM • permalinkIt’s really quite simple, Razor. In the reality-based world—despite being inanimate, non-sentient, completely non-magical objects—guns are the foul creations of the devil and merely touching one will cause one’s immortal soul to be dragged screaming to the fiery depths of the abyss! They’re just looking out for us, you see.
That or because the notion that someone, somewhere, might be able to protect himself without relying on the state strikes terror into leftista hearts. Could be that, too.
#36 Here’s what Dowd can do when she’s not obsessing on Bush http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/weekinreview/24dowd.html?ei=5090&en=6242969469862e90&ex=1279857600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print (cut’n'paste link). You don’t see that from Margo, as far as I know.
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Apocalyptic? What planet is she on?