Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Naked Vicars show

QANDA High priests: Bob Carr and Germaine Greer 14th August

When is a visit to ABCchurch good for the soul? When you, despite all the fun of lampooning some other person or idea , go away thinking; "I need something more substantial ". I am sure I wasn't alone after qanda last thursday. Pontification, while funny to watch,..is dangerous pedantry.

ABC's splashing around in a sea of predjudice and self justification based on animal behavior maybe nothing new to the spectre of thursday night TV , but its no adventure beyond child's play and the birdbath. Lets hope the ABC build on it .
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Everyone gets to tell us what they think . With all that attention to shallow noisy and distracting stuff , you gotta go away wanting , thinking.... there has to be ...something more.
When the preacher throws the baby out with the bathwater - and nobody notices (inc Arts man)--you are clearly in church .Clue SBS has got the lead on the ABC...5 billion stories and growing .

Preachy and predictable By ditching the narrative,the chameleon showed how out of synch she is with real truth telling tensions.

Hypocritical The fanatical Greer rails against the dangers of idealism, but labours to defend the silly simplistic and failed idealism of complete self determination; Tell us... donna quixote - Is government interference in our/ their lives a sin or something?
With her, we are never quite sure which part of the revolutionary cycle she's travelling on - the ideal or the real? She said realism comes first, but where does that leave us? I thought linearity was essential to the survival of secularism ? Maybe marcus 's mirror too would work a bit better if he stood back from the revolving doors and the windpower deniers.

If only Germaine could be both a consistent realist and idealist; we could agree that nothings perfect ( reality therapy ) without going overboard with rage about everything;
Its right to be concerned at the power of the wind, but denying us our use of it is dumb. Waving her arms in the air is not as effective as using the air rationally.Her faith is not very practical because she targets the medium and forgets the message !

How doctrinally devious dead and simplistic can religion get? Was quite a good meeting as far as such meetings go.


What's also hard to work out is: Why does a man with a growing respect for narrative ( history) , and the intellect and experience of a Bob Carr and not recognise the worn out clothing of an old reactionary like Germaine : and why haven't The Age found anyone better to idolize .in their quest for someone with ideas ( bit of an "idealistic" anomaly there --- don't you think? ). The problem ---Stuck as Keating said " with no overarching narrative ???? " ...that's what we old orthodoxy ones think .

Greg thankfully put the big picture. Yes ....... ideas and ideals are dangerous , but beware : one day you may have to live with your own .
So after all that hot air I went to the narrative business ..
Give me an Esther , a Ruth, a Hannah or an Elizabeth , even a Jane (A) over a Germaine G anyday .
Clearly some patterns for liberated women have yet to be seen by those who are too blind to see. copyright EA

Friday, August 01, 2008

Worst debate in ABC history

But it was good for a laugh! While qanda is a great idea, Tony Jones needs to take his own rhetoric seriously if he really wants to make QANDA a vehicle for conviction ; to make it more than entertainment, a good laugh at the compliant choir, and great free publicity for aspiring prime ministers .
Turnbull did well because Flannery was all over the place as a scientist. Surely you can find a scientist who doesn't use use the word " pretty" to describe his convictions , can't stick to the scientific points on sensitive population predjudices , and who , when desperate, causes us to fall to the floor laughing by suggesting we watch a film written by a politician -esp one who won't (MLy) be paying a carbon tax......Convince whom, eh ?

To convince the public you need to be convincing - stand back ; have mostly scientists on the panel and let them go . Directing traffic to your old mates and away from the person responsible, was irresponsible . Where has Tony been intellectually all these years . Why would we be inspired to act by simply listening to poly talk ?
Instead of some highly paid scientist from Wongs treasury of green paper verse we have - , you guessed it, my old mate " the aUSSIE of the year" mr flannery -- the token scientist .

Qanda has been good initiative of the ABC, but its clear Tony Jones won't be able to look back on his repeat reintroduction of " the gag" to TV , without thinking of his compliance in wannabe incontrol at its worst.!