What next for the Iron Man: rescuing blind kittens from a tsunami?

What next for the Iron Man: rescuing blind kittens from a tsunami?
BELLA COUNIHAN

With the amount of fuss on the weekend given to Tony Abbott's Iron Man efforts, you'd think he'd held back a tsunami from drowning a group of blind kittens. The run, swim and cycle caught our imaginations like the front page of a glossy women's magazine; too fat? Too thin? Is Tony exercising too much? Too little policy work? It no doubt added to Abbott's appeal across a spectrum of voters.
But in the same week as the Iron Man competition, Tony also went on Melbourne gay radio station Joy in a seeming attempt to specifically appeal to voters in the gay community.
In Sydney, The Daily Telegraph's Malcolm Farr suggested that his Iron Man attire, a tight pink lycra worn for charity, might help him pick up some gay votes. Despite this being ridiculous - as if the only thing the gay community are looking for is a leader with tight abs - it does bring to mind the issue of Abbott's juggling act, and who he is really appealing to in of all his Iron Man and gay radio efforts?
Can he appeal to both the socially conservative Aussie hetero Iron Man wanna be, at the same time as appealing to gay Australia in the same week?
He has certainly been trying.
With the Iron Man competition, which took up the entire content of five separate interviews on Monday - including three interviews with radio station Triple M, an interview with Alan Jones and ABC Radio's Madonna King - he is building up his cred with the every day guy. Appealing to them on the level of physical exercise and taking part in a great bit of Australiana. The Triple M presenter's welcome to Tony Abbott summed it up - "Tony Abbott . . . you are an absolute legend."
But the Leader of the Opposition has also been getting out there into the gay community much more than he has before. He met earlier last week with gay rights activist Corey Irlam and the Australian Coalition for Equality, and said during his interview with Doug Pollard on Joy that he intended to "maintain a dialogue" with and "address concerns" of the gay community.
He also said in the same interview that he would be attending a gay and lesbian group's function in his own electorate.
But does this seem weird to anyone else?
Why is he trying now? No one would blame him for leaving it in the too hard basket, especially after he had only recently commented in two separate interviews that he found homosexuality "confronting" and that it challenged the "natural order of things". Going on a radio station which caters for Melbourne's gay community in the first place seems an odd choice.
Even stranger was the interview itself where he was clearly pitching to the audience, downplaying his previous comments, constantly referring to his many gay friends and even addressing the long denied federal anti-discrimination laws on sexual orientation, opposed by the Liberal government during the Howard years.
Suddenly he was giving in principle support for the idea. It was hard not to think Abbott was changing his tune to suit who he was talking to. As The Sunday Age's Josh Gordon put it, Abbott might have "a moral weather vane".
He has after all done this before. For example when he called the argument around climate change science "absolute crap" when talking to a bunch of climate unbelievers in a rural town, at home he was not nearly as forthright.
Suiting his message to his audience seems to be a trend and a criticism he and others have often levelled at Rudd.
However it is hard to think of Rudd doing such a no holds bar interview under the same circumstances despite the fact that they both have fairly similar public and private views on gay issues.
Abbott has probably not watched his words nearly as closely as Rudd who has largely kept publicly schtoom about homosexuality, apart from Rove's infamous question about who the PM would "turn for".
Maybe in trying to appeal to everybody you end up a walking contradiction, appealing to nobody.
Maybe that's why the iron man thing was so important for Abbott, that it could appeal to a wide set of voters across seemingly insurmountable political and social differences. Abbott is probably crossing his fingers, hoping the response to his policies in the future will be more like what he received from the Iron Man competition and less like the tough questions on Joy.
Bella Counihan writes for The Goanna.

Maybe at this election we should just toss a coin?

BELLA COUNIHAN March 25, 2010 - 12:17PM

Betting can certainly get many of us into trouble, especially when you're willing to bet on anything. A famous case was an American punter in the late '90s, Brian Zembic, who bet he could get breast implants and keep them for a whole year. Some poor sucker took the committed gambler on, only to end up $100,000 out of pocket. Indeed Zembic became so comfortable with the breasts that he kept them longer than necessary, even becoming somewhat famous for being the man with the $100,000 breasts. Politics is all about the punt, the gamble, the odds, the numbers. But maybe if we focus so much on which horse crosses the finishing line first, politics could look as silly as a man sporting a pair of C-cups.
Recently, Centrebet reported a $2500 bet on Julia Gillard becoming PM before the next election, pushing the odds in Julia's favour from $5.25 to $3.75. The bet focused attention on Julia and her Labor colleagues, prompting backbencher Darren Cheeseman to foolishly say that Gillard was "naturally in line" for Labor leadership, once again feeding leadership rumours.
Sensibly enough, the deputy PM quashed the speculation, arguing that the original punter behind the $2500 bet probably should have spent his money elsewhere. Not because it might trivialise the political process to put money on the leadership of the country, but instead that it was an ill-considered bet unlikely to see any return. Gillard didn't argue that it was trivialising, I suppose because punters on the track, watching to see who wins, is an inherent part of the game of politics.
To see this in action you have only to look back to the recent Rudd v Abbott debate, the first of three election debates; this one held on the issue of health and hospital reform. The principle question after the debate was not ''did the debate actually cover the issues?'' Or ''was there an exchange or a refuting of ideas?'' No, it was all about who won the debate, who got across the best message most consistently and most convincingly. We seem to miss the point that the winner of a debate is not the same as the candidate with the best policy, the focus is always on the race. After all why would there be "worms" and "polliegraphs" to measure the audience's reaction, if not to establish a "winner". Not that they are so accurate in such a subjective game. Abbott indeed declared that the worm has "never liked a Liberal leader". But that's probably what the "loser" of a debate would say, right?
I suppose the reason we want to be bet on politics is because it is, after all, a game of chance. You need to have all your moons aligned at the right time to get ahead and even then you can get thrown out of the race. Take the most recent federal leadership contest in the Liberal party. At the time, just before Abbott was decided leader on the December 1, Centrebet released their odds just 24 hours before the spill in favour of Joe Hockey at $1.28. Joe Hockey was tipped at the time to get through despite his close alignment to Malcolm Turnbull, who the betting agency saw as a dead duck in the water at $3.00. But who was coming in third in this three-legged race? Tony Abbott all the way out from left field at $3.10. Hockey may well have been the odds on favourite but I suppose in Canberra when you roll the dice don't be shocked when it shows 7. The random nature and unpredictability of political outcomes means the betting agencies have quite a job calculating the variables and figuring the odds, although they will always be influenced by where the punters' money is going. Political betting in many ways is like any other gambling pursuit. There's information out there to get the edge. I mean, what is polling if not a means of helping us judge who is more likely to "win" at the biggest race of all, the federal election. Who are political pundits if not simply the ones that claim they have a gambling "system" to predict outcomes? There is, and probably always will be, a focus on the winners and losers in politics, and therefore a focus on figuring out the odds of each outcome. It's a fascination that is hard to get away from, so maybe we should just go with it. Maybe next election we should just toss a coin and make the whole process a lot easier.
Bella Counihan writes for The Goanna.

Short story about Steve Fielding the earth worm and Richard Hawkins the Hawke

Earlier on ABC's Q and A program...

RICHARD DAWKINS: Do you believe the world is less than 10,000 years old?

STEVE FIELDING: Look...

RICHARD DAWKINS: No, do you believe that?

STEVE FIELDING: Look, I think that there are a lot of questions in this area and I think people will come to their own conclusions. I don't want to force people into one way or the other.

RICHARD DAWKINS: You're not being asked to force. You're not being asked to force.

JULIE BISHOP: It's either a new earth creationist or an old earth creationist, so which is it, Steve?

RICHARD DAWKINS: So, you're a young earth creationist, who believes the world is less than 10,000 years old. You're a parliamentarian in Australia, who believes the world you live in is less than 10,000 years old?

Suddenly everything stopped, Steve Fielding's mind went blank. He drifted off and though he kept talking on Q and A, his mind was busy imagining a little story about an earth worm...


One lazy summer's afternoon a little earth worm sat in his favorite patch of dirt in a field. Steve the earth worm was doing his usual routine of rolling around in the cool dirt and munching on microbes when suddenly a large shadow fell across his little patch. "Oh no" cried the little earth worm, "whatever could this be?"

A flapping was to be heard with a large booming voice that shortly followed. "Little Earth worm" it blasted, "I'm going to eat you all up!". The voice belonged to one Richard Hawkins - a hawk who very much liked devouring little earth worms like Steve. He liked plucking them out of their preferred patch of ground and gobbling them up just like that.

"No" cried Steve wriggling around, "don't eat me up Mr Hawkins. I'm too young to be eaten! I haven't even had a chance to learn anything about the world around me beyond my little patch of dirt!" Richard Hawkins glanced down for a moment at the little earth worm with pity in his eyes.

"This poor little thing knows nothing about soaring around the big world, learning about all its wonders like I have. He will never know about how he came to be and why, but how do I know that he really knows nothing about the world around him? I better ask him some questions to make sure."

"Alright" said the hawk, "if you answer these questions I'll let you go and I will go an eat another little earth worm". Steve reluctantly nodded, after all what else was he to do?

"How old do you think this earth is that you squirm around in all day?" The worm looked perplexed, he often couldn't remember one day to the next. He was not even sure how long he'd been squirming around himself. So he decided to think logically - he could remember today, yesterday and he could just about remember the day before, so he raised his little wormy head and told the hawk - "Three, the earth is exactly three days old."

The hawk shook his head in disbelief, "you think this earth is only three days old little earth worm??" he said flapping his wings about bewildered. "Yes, it must be three because that's all I can remember" replied Steve, still a little shaky under the shadow of Mr Hawkins.

"Okay I have another question for you" said Richard, "who made this earth you're wriggling around in?"

This was an even trickier question for Steve so he had to work his little wormy brain extra hard. He thought he remembered once seeing a big creature even bigger than Mr Hawkins planting seeds in the field and making things grow. "If something was that big and was creating new plants in the fields" pondered the little earth worm, "then maybe that's who made the earth as well".

Steven explained his reasoning to the hawk who was getting depressed hearing his little earth worm theories. He thought "how could someone simply live in their own little patch of earth not curious of what lay beyond it? How could there be someone who really knew nothing of the world?" It was almost enough to make a hawk lose his appetite. But he didn't and he devoured Steve. He'd had enough of his silliness and even thought to himself as the worm was wriggling down into his tummy "there goes one less dim little earth worm to deal with."

Steve all of a sudden woke from his day dream just as Tony Jones asked him a question...

STEVE FIELDING: What was the question? Sorry, Tony, I missed it. I was thinking about...

Is Rudd's rudeness the tip of the iceberg? BELLA COUNIHAN March 18, 2010 - 6:14AM

BELLA COUNIHAN

March 18, 2010 - 6:14AM

When Kevin Rudd and Kristina Keneally met to discuss states' cooperation on health and Rudd looked at his notes, slammed his fist down on the table and said "Yup well, let's get on with some health reform", maybe he thought he presented himself as someone "getting on with the job". But later in TV land, it played out very differently - Rudd was seen as giving the "cold shoulder", a "snub" to Keneally or just plain "rude". Behind the stage managed curtains there's going to be as much rudeness as you like but a moment of it in the public eye counts for a thousand behind that curtain. Rudeness in politics is probably the least of our worries but rightly or wrongly, we feel with Rudd and Keneally that it is something of significance; the tip of the iceberg bobbing to the surface.

Everyone is rude, at least sometimes. We all have our moments of frustration and outburst; everybody is human. But there are some who worry that rudeness is on the rise, an epidemic of sorts. Rudd's outburst (well, as close as the Ruddbot can get to an outburst publicly) was tame compared to many others that come to mind, particularly in the world of media and politics. "You lie" shouted across congress by congressman Joe Wilson was clearly not a moment in civility. Neither was Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly yelling at production crew. Rudd didn't get up on a music awards stage like a Mr West and interrupt the acceptance speech of a small blonde country singer or swear at a tennis linesman repeatedly Serena Williams style. In fact, Kevin Rude would be an unjust title (although it is a catchy one). He didn't curse, or snarl, or yell, at least not yet in front of cameras.

But despite its relative tameness, it was also another little peek behind that curtain, sending the media's heart a flutter. There was after all no footage of Rudd's other well known rude moment when he blasted an air hostess for not having the right kind of in flight meal. We heard about it, but there's nothing like an image to permeate and taint our perception of someone. Tony Abbott, of course, has a few such moments on record and certainly more than Rudd. The most memorable of which was when Abbott and Roxon were caught on tape confronting each other in a pre-election debate, where Abbott famously turned up late:

Roxon: "You can’t even get here on time."

Abbott: "It certainly wasn’t intentional”

Roxon: "You can control these things mate. I’m sure had you wanted to you could."

Abbott: "That’s bullshit. You’re being deliberately unpleasant. I suppose you can’t help yourself, can you."

Roxon: "I can’t help myself and you’ve well and truly earnt it today."

I suppose both Roxon and Abbott were less than civil but Tony got left with the bad smell. Even worse because on the same day he was late to this debate and swore at Roxon, he also accused asbestos victim and campaigner Bernie Banton of not being "pure of heart in all things".

But Abbott's constant controversy throughout his career is to be expected, that's just Tony. But Rudd has the straight laced character that means that he can't get away with this kind of public outburst nearly as often. I mean we're not actually worried about the rudeness itself. With Keneally for example, we're not worried that she had hurt feelings although she maintains that she has no hard feelings from the incident. But from one small incident of coldness, voters glean something more.

The infamous Latham handshake with Howard back during the 2004 election campaign, voters understood Latham's over-charged aggression. From Rudd's cold shoulder to Keneally, we get a sense that he thinks a bit too highly of himself and his plan to even pretend to listen to others in front of the camera; an impatient right-to-rule attitude. And if it's one thing Australians cannot abide its when people think they are better than others with delusions of grandeur.

Rudd is no Kanye but it seems the more we peek behind the curtain the less we like.

Abbott's Parental Leave Recipe: How to make a policy without a policy

Bella Counihan March 11, 2010 - 2:59PM
Tony Abbott sat down one morning at the kit-chen bench and thought "I need to cook up a new idea to bug the hell out of the Rudd govern-ment... but I'll need to write a recipe first." He took a pen and began to write...
Take one speech to a slightly bitter crowd of women who don't like you. Then quickly add sweeteners, these could include pretending to understand about an issue close to their hearts like oh, say paid parental leave for example. If the crowd does not mix properly with your line, pepper in small amounts of "I thought of it first in my book Battlelines".
If the crowd is still bitter to taste, stir with an explanation of your apparent contradictions, pouring in lines like "female family and friends changed your mind on the issue" and cliches like "it's not fickle to change. It's more likely to be wisdom than weakness". This should be stirred in until blended nicely, or at least until some in the crowd look less lumpy.
Like a recipe for wheat-free bread, a recipe for policy without policy will need a substitute for the main ingredient. In the former's case, rice flour or rye can be added. When making policy without a policy, however, try merely noting an example of what a better policy could be.
See for example; "A better proposal, that avoids the need for state cooperation, would be to fund paid parental leave through a levy on the company tax paid by larger businesses. For instance, a 1.7 per cent levy on the taxable income over $5 million a year of the 3200 companies that pay more than this would raise $2.7 billion. Rolling in the Baby Bonus, this would be enough to fund 26 weeks of paid parental leave at an annual income up to $150,000 for every woman who is in the workforce prior to having a baby."
Be sure to add phrases like "for instance" and "a better proposal would be" so that no one confuses this with actual policy. If needed add a doorstop to taste. The doorstop should not reveal anything more about the "policy", merely let that one paragraph in the speech rise in the media until it sets.
Whatever your understanding of traditional policy recipes, do not add an additional media release which details the policy and its implementation if you were to be elected. This would be burning instead of baking the issue and the whole recipe will be ruined. Finally, if pressed squeeze out more of the policy dough in an interview on Lateline. But resist overworking the dough and going into fussy details like when you would start the scheme.
Place contents in a historical vacuum, taking care to ignore your statements when Workplace Relations Minister that a compulsory paid maternity leave scheme would be over the Howard Government's "dead body".
Add garnish of "not explaining to the business community what you're doing" herbs and spices. This should only be done if you're in a rush or can't be bothered, but can be a nice touch to the recipe. Prepare business community reaction by entirely ignoring it. Baste in "ad hoc" sauce and glaze with lack of consultation with your own shadow cabinet, just to give it that "done on the run" flavour.
Make sure to add some fudge to any questions that may arise on the issue of a conservative party taxing companies to pay for social policy or that promise you made earlier about not having any new taxes. This will be key to a successful mix of irony in your dish.
Finally, let the media atmosphere cool. Make sure that in the community, especially amongst female voters aged 20-40, the impression is made that this is real policy. Maybe run a few ads with Fabio swishing his hair about, saying "I can't believe it's not real policy! The policy you love without the detail."
The Opposition Leader put down the pen, happy with the recipe he'd laid out. But Abbott was still worried. He knew the bake off against his fellow chef Kevin Rudd was coming up. Tony wanted his own culinary creation to blow Rudd's alternative parental leave dish out of the water. He worried particularly that Rudd's dish might be more palatable seeing as it contained actual policy and had even been sautéed with consensus. But he hoped that if he followed his recipe just right, he might be able to win the bake off and finally be seen as the best chef in the kitchen.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/abbotts-parental-leave-recipe-how-to-make-a-policy-without-a-policy-20100311-q0vj.html

What a headline "Otter Tries to Eat Man"

Nuff said: http://tiny.cc/ogT1L

Obsession with cricket can obscure common sense

BELLA COUNIHAN

I just need to state the facts before I proceed. I don't watch cricket. I don't even really like the sport. But that doesn't mean you can't spot a load of crap when you see it. Unless you've been under a rock, you would know Australia's vice captain Michael Clarke has recently left a game in New Zealand to be with his partner Lara Bingle after a nude photo of her was spread around by some other sporty thick head. Peter Roebuck, a Fairfax sports writer, contends this is tantamount to treason and that Clarke should choose between his career and his woman before the very fabric of cricket itself disintegrates.
"Personal reasons" to leave the game of all games, especially something as inconsequential as your partner in crisis, is just not on. The only excuse good enough for Roebuck would be if Clarke's whole family had died, and even then it should only be at most a couple of days away. Attending a birth he says is allowable because this is the "modern way".
Clarke's case is not extreme enough according to Roebuck's own criteria. He has judged the relationship from afar and said that this is not a crisis because, c'mon she can deal with it. Send your Dad or your brother or someone, right? Us manly Australian men, we can deal with this feelings and relationships business without interrupting the sanctity of cricket. Cricket, after all, must come first.
In the tone of this argument there seems a lot of Yoko-like blame placed at the feet of Bingle herself. We can tell Roebuck is not a fan and believes Clarke to simply be a doe-eyed boy too much in love to think clearly. She is not one of the admired cricket wives who, according to Roebuck, should be the stay-at-home types, not asking too much of their husbands and keeping the family together. Admirable cricket wives in the past "understood their role, did not make any extra demands. They were the counterpoint that ambition required. Accordingly, their partners were able to focus on their cricket."
The fact that Lara's misfortunes have been just that and not of her own doing seem irrelevant to Roebuck, saying that though she "has been grievously wronged", there is also "nothing in her life, though, suggests that she has ever emerged from the chrysalis of youthful beauty."
The scary thing is the people seem to be agreeing with this line of argument. When asked in a poll of 2,145 readers on The Age website, the majority sided with Roebuck, with 67 per cent at last look saying Clarke should leave Bingle for his cricket career. Instead of intrusively judging their private lives against our own benchmarks, you think we might be trying to support players, even admiring a man's willingness to sacrifice something important for his loved ones. But no, we can judge and Clarke is in the wrong on this one. Roebuck even implies that this move makes Clarke even less likely to be a role model than all the other cricketers who just lay about playing on their i-Pods.
Obsession as Roebuck points out early in his article can be a dangerous thing. Obsession with cricket it seems can obscure even common sense.