Thursday, August 13, 2009

Hell hath no fury like the Catholic Church

Really. Why would you even bother trying to join, or remain with, a dysfunctional pack of clowns like this?: “Sex abuse victim told to 'go to hell'.” By an Archbishop, no less.
Though he's not alone in his total lack of sympathy, and moral standing, by any means.

To quote Jerry Seinfeld (in relation to the New York Yankees, but apt, nonetheless): "That's a hell of an organization they're running up there."


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Reduce, reuse, burn sh*t

Some people, like one-time nemesis of this blog Steve Fielding, say that accepting climate change as a fact, and acting on it, will result in a loss of jobs and economic growth. Those people are closed-minded, short-sighted dinosaurs with no imagination, and also they're ugly.
Fact is, the dinosaurs are vastly outnumbered (not counting birds, which are apparently dinosaurs), the rest of the world IS going to accept climate change as fact, and this is going to be an enormous OPPORTUNITY for jobs and growth.
For example, I just read this in the New York Times: China’s Incinerators Loom as a Global Hazard. Apparently, "As China runs out of landfill space, it is racing to build incinerators, a growing source of toxic emissions"...and fun, if you're a five-year old living in Melbourne suburbs in the seventies. Although I don't recall burning mercury and dioxin.
But let's not get into "who burnt what first".
The point is, it seems to me that there's a market in China for coming up with ways to deal with their waste - y'know, stuff like recycling, reusing, and composting it. Rather than setting fire to it.
Whoever gets on that first is gonna GET PAID.
Odds are, it won't be Steve Fielding.
And speaking of odds: Go Saints.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Twi-lite

According to this article:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon is pretty sure who would win in a fight between his hunky vamp Angel (David Boreanaz) and Twilight hero Edward Cullen.
"Angel would kick the s**t out of him. He's Angelus," Whedon told MTV. "[Edward] just gets shiny in the sun. Boreanaz would have him down in a heartbeat."

Totally.
UNLESS that Edward guy was able to bore Angel to death before Angel got close enough to thump him in his stupid face.
I know I may upset 12-year old girls everywhere with this comment, but my God*, that movie was a snorefest! Here's an example from the script:
Moderately attractive so-called-vampire looks longingly at moderately attractive human girl.
Moderately attractive human girl looks longingly at moderately attractive supposed-vampire.
(Repeat)

Which reminds me, I've seen a lot of crappy films I could rant about. Must get on that.
Oh yeah - and here's a cool song about vampires from a band that's SO last century.


*Disclosure – I do not own a God.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

If this particular Friend is in need, stay the hell away

You, my loyal sometimes-reader, know that I like to write flippantly, about matters of little to no consequence.
However, I need to get serious, just for a moment. Then I can take us to Nothing Land once more.
I watched a documentary last night called "A Loving Friend" by film-maker Kerry Negara.
It was hard yakka, not because of the quality of the film but because of the subject matter. This is a blurb about it from the Melbourne International Film Festival's website (which is also showing the film this year) - I managed to copy the text in between cyber-attacks by disturbingly patriotic Chinese:
"In his posthumously published diaries, Australian artist Donald Friend made shocking admissions of sexual liaisons with children across Asia and the Torres Strait, though many among the arts elite of Australia continue to deny any wrongdoing on Friend’s part.
"Filmmaker Kerry Negara confronts this culture of evasion and the creation of the “nice, culturally acceptable pedophile”. Her documentary encompasses the viewpoints of academics in Canberra through to unprecedented interviews with Friend’s houseboys on the island ‘paradise’ of Bali."
Yeah. A real laugh-fest.
Now, obviousy, Friend was a complete sicko.

But it's his friends and peers in the arts community, the so-called "elites", who are really vile in this documentary.

People like James Murdoch, a fellow artistic wanker-type in Bali, who said the young Bali boys "gave" themselves to Friend - basically saying: as long as no money changed hands it was OK (conveniently ignoring the fact that children are incapable of making such decisions rationally - that's why they need to be protected, not exploited).

And Chris Carlise, a former diplomat, who said the boys appeared to grow up fine and get married, and so they weren't "damaged goods". So, y'know, fuggedaboutit.

And Margaret Olley, a...um...Stupid Old Cow, who said the boys were lucky because Friend gave them opportunities that other, unassaulted, Bali boys did not get.

I'll refer to the members of this "elite" as Wannabe Pedophiles (or "Paedophiles", let's not get paedantic.
Though "Pedophiles" had more hits with a Google search, says he expecting the Federal Police any minute now).
First things first.

I don't care how good an artist Friend was*, Friend was a selfish, narcissistic predator, who didn't really care about the children under his "care" - he just wanted to have sex with them.
And I don't care if he looked after the boys financially. Wannabe Pedophiles like Margaret Olley who make this argument are basically saying "If you're nice to the children you're putting your dick in, you're all right!"

And I don't give a flying fuck with a consenting adult about how charming and genial he was. As Bernadette McMenamin from
Childwise, a charity which tries to fight child abuse, said: "Monsters don't get close to children, nice guys do."
You were all sucked in by a sociopath, Wannabes.
And others who make semantic arguments about the definition of a pedophile, contortioning themselves to avoid the fact that that's exactly what Friend was, here's a cold hard fact for you.

In Victoria,
section 45 of the Crimes Act 1958 states: "A person who takes part in an act of sexual penetration with a child under the age of 16 is guilty of an indictable offence" (other Australian States are very similar).
One of the fuckheads in the film tried to argue that a pedophile was someone who had sex with children under the age of 10 or so, and pretended to be mortified that there would be people like that, very different to our good Donald.
And those who try to argue that it's culturally acceptable to have sex with children in Asia, it's a crime there, too, douchebags.

But, of course, Australians are racist. Especially Australian Wannabe Pedophile Douchebag Arty-Farty Cocknockers.

I'll put some hypotheticals to these Wannabe Pedophiles.

What if a truck driver was living in Bali having sex with children? Would you equally leap to his defence? Or what if Donald Friend had a house full of young girls that he regularly had sex with? WHITE GIRLS! Horrified yet?

And another thing - it's not like the evidence is equivocal about Friend's activities: this is all actually based on Friend's own words in his now-published diaries. So what we know is based on the BEST possible version of events assuming Friend didn't embellish his diaries! Imagine if what he did was even worse, but he chose not to write about it, or exaggerated things to put himself in a good light.
In relation to the publication of the diaries by the National Library, in accordance with Friend's wishes, I found this great article about Friend, and the National Library's complicity in glossing over Friend's wrong-ness: National Library gives arts community a bad name
My only gripe with the film was that Kerry was a little too hands-off, though good documentary filmmakers generally are. But I would have liked to see some Michael Moore-style in-your-face blunt accusations and unwanted opinionating (y'know, like in this blog). The subjects in this documentary
, like those mentioned above, seemed to get a bit of a free ride. That said, I'd love to see their faces if they ever watch this doco.
Speaking of which, it's still on at the MIFF, and I recommend it, even if it is harrowing viewing, it tells an important story.

* I'm gonna come out and say it: He was a shit artist and his painting of bananas looked crap. But, don't worry about my opinion, Wannabes. To quote James Murdoch about Friend's child-fucking, "It's not a big deal".

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Discriminating discriminators

Victoria's anti-discrimination laws are currently being reviewed, and a suggestion has been made to remove the exemption allowing religious bodies to discriminate.
First, this is a bit of what our former Treasurer and Exclusive Brethren apologist had to say about this very reasonable proposition:
"The Christian churches want to continue current practice. But a host of community organisations wants to change it. The Federation of Community Legal Services told the parliamentary review that the law should change, claiming: "To allow religious organisations a broad exemption for conscience encourages prejudice..."
"Just think about the moral vanity of that statement. According to these lawyers, a religious conscience leads to prejudice. How did the church arouse public conscience over slavery? How did Florence become a haven for the arts and letters? How did civilisation develop in the past couple of millennia without the Community Legal Services to guide it?"
My response in letter format:

"It was ironic that, in the same edition of the newspaper that Peter Costello used as his vehicle to promote intolerance for people who don’t subscribe to the exact same religious viewpoint, another article reported that yet another child has died for religious reasons: “Dead girl's mother: sickness caused by sin
"Peter, do you really think we should let decisions on what is or is not right to be dictated by people like this?
"The fact is, our society has progressed despite religious doctrine, not because of it. Religious authorities, comfortable with the status quo, are always resistant to change. But thankfully, our secular society has been able to make leaps and bounds in terms of democracy, precisely because it has not stayed in the dark ages of superstition and entropy.
"Made-up religious reasons should no more be a basis for discrimination than made-up racial reasons."

Although my letter didn't get published (possibly because I never sent it), many other reasonable people replied and were published on my behalf (though no-one made the clever link to the crazy lady article), such as this one from Janine Truter de La Basin:
"PETER Costello seems without irony when he talks of the benefits that religious conscience has brought to society, and fails to mention the oppression of women, the biblical endorsement of slavery, the Crusades, the jihads, the Inquisition and, more recently, the sexual and physical abuse of thousands of children in church homes and parishes, and terrorist attacks around the world.
"If religious institutions truly uphold human rights, they will have nothing to fear from this review. But for those who want to sack a pregnant female teacher because she is unmarried, on the grounds of religious conscience, legal standards for human rights are clearly timely and necessary."

I know, I know: "Religion, blah, blah, TV, blah, Lance Armstrong, blah." That's the Rant O'Clock Way.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

"A Massive Dickhead"

Woo-hoo!
Kyle Sandlilands has left both buildings! I actually don't watch or listen to anything that he does, but every time I read anything about him, he seems singularly unpleasant.
It's a shame that it has taken this latest unsavoury saga (involving the interrogation of a 14 year old girl about her sexual history until she revealed she had been raped when she was 12), for network executives at Channel 10 and Austereo to get rid of him.
And, unfortunately, it seems that he, and many others including their so-called "listeners", don't understand that this latest issue isn't about the revelation of the rape - it's the fact that they were interrogating a 14-year old girl about her sexual history live on the radio. If the rape revelation had not occurred, Sandlilands would probably still be sitting pretty, calculating his next vile premise to get morons to keep tuning in to listen to him and his much more attractive, probably nicer, possibly vacuous sidekick (though, to her credit, it appears that she has tried unsuccessfully in the past to stop inappropriate stuff going to air).
Nonetheless, it appears to have sparked a dialogue about this type of "entertainment", and this this dude has some good ideas about protecting children in the future: Freedom of speech has limits when it's about exploiting children
The other benefit of this episode is that it reminded me of Dave Hughes' bit o' gold at the 2007 Logies, when he "said he was shocked Anthony Callea was gay, just as he was that Guy Sebastian had curly hair, Shannon Noll was a bogan and Sandilands was a "massive dickhead"".
I can't find the video of this online, but I did find this bit from Rove a little later, after Sandlilands said he wanted to punch Hughesy in the throat:



Apparently, their feud has continued, with a Twitter War erupting earlier this year, which Hughes again easily won.
I've been writing about this for far too long, so I'll wrap it up with this extra bit of gold from Jess McGuire from a few years ago: I Admit It, I Was Wrong.
Looks like other people have hated him a lot longer than I.
And I respect them for that.