White people demand Quadrant on Australia Day

For many years people have wondered what Australia Day is all about. Now the journal Quadrant has sorted this out for us. Australia Day is about things that the Left hates, which are:

Australia Day, Anzac Day, people who live in the suburbs, people who live in the country, farmers, fishermen, dams, Quadrant, Australian history, the flag, the constitution, Andrew Bolt’s readers, The Australian, Liberal voters, National Party voters, Family First voters, One Nation supporters, the RSL, McDonald’s, McMansions, plasma TVs, Australian Idol, big business, small business, monolingualists, Christians, our last prime minister, liberal democracy, capitalism, lamingtons, Australians, the national coat of arms, the Samuel Griffith Society, soldiers, conservatives, musicals not about Australian Left politicians, commercial television, non-indigenous trees, dog owners, cats, non-Left talk back radio hosts, timber workers, plastic bags, Howard’s battlers, climate change sceptics, white people, commercial radio, America (pre-Obama), sovereignty (ours), realistic paintings (especially by Albert Namatjira), the Big Banana and other Big Things, cultural dissidents, men, sprinklers, green lawns, cars (other peoples), wood fires, rednecks, Sir John Kerr.

Erm, cats??? Sir John Kerr? The Samuel Griffith Society (says what's that, sotto voce)? White people? Cultural dissidents? Australian Idol? Is this what the Right thinks that the Left thinks about?

In a possibly unrelated incident, there were riots in the Manly Corso on Australia Day as white people demanded that the local newsagent stock more copies of Quadrant.

"We're sick of having to read Dissent or The Monthly", said group spokesman Ned "Spanner" Kelly. "We urgently need to know about the formation of an Australian intelligentsia during the adversarial culture of the 1960s", he said, before pulling at the turban of a Sikh taxi driver.

A scuffle subsequently ensued with the owners of the 24-hour kebab shop, as they refused to take the Euro-trash techno off their CD player and put on "Cold Chisel's Last Stand".

Answering your own question

Big opportunity for media scholars from Geraldine Ferraro, in The Boston Globe. In Australia, you would package this in the form of an ARC Linkage. Problem is that I think the 'industry partner' has determined the answer before asking for the research.

Healing the wounds of Democrats' sexism

By Geraldine A. Ferraro May 30, 2008

LAST YEAR at the beginning of the presidential primary season, Democrats were giddy with excitement. Not only did we have an embarrassment of riches in our candidates but we had two historic candidacies to enjoy. Once and for all our country would show that racism and sexism were not part of our 21st-century DNA.

Here we are at the end of the primary season, and the effects of racism and sexism on the campaign have resulted in a split within the Democratic Party that will not be easy to heal before election day. Perhaps it's because neither the Barack Obama campaign nor the media seem to understand what is at the heart of the anger on the part of women who feel that Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly because she is a woman or what is fueling the concern of Reagan Democrats for whom sexism isn't an issue, but reverse racism is.

The reaction to the questions being raised has been not to listen to the message and try to find out how to deal with the problem, but rather to denigrate the messenger. Sore loser, petty, silly, vengeful are words that have dominated the headlines. But scolding and name calling don't resolve disputes. The truth is that tens of thousands of women have watched how Clinton has been treated and are not happy. We feel that if society can allow sexism to impact a woman's candidacy to deny her the presidency, it sends a direct signal that sexism is OK in all of society.

In response, a group of women - from corporate executives to academics to members of the media - have requested that the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University and others conduct a study, which we will pay for if necessary, to determine three things.

First, whether either the Clinton or Obama campaign engaged in sexism and racism; second, whether the media treated Clinton fairly or unfairly; and third whether certain members of the media crossed an ethical line when they changed the definition of journalist from reporter and commentator to strategist and promoter of a candidate. And if they did to suggest ethical guidelines which the industry might adopt.