Barnaby - the Biassed Bigot - Joyce and his adventures in democracy

Declaration of interest and/or bias:
Miss Eagle is a born and bred Queenslander.  She lived under the whole Bjelke-Petersen corrupt police state dictatorship and its aftermath.   Needless to say she has little time for the National Party  (now, in Queensland, the Liberal National Party).  Occasionally there are worthwhile people with worthwhile ideas and Miss Eagle pays attention to them.   The person below is not one of them.

~~~~~~~~~

Networkers, did you watch Q & A last Monday night which was titled the Gillard Coup.  If not please watch it here.   For the transcript, please go here.  This Q & A was chaired by Virginia Trioli (best I have seen her both visually and in her facilitation capacity).  Panellists were Bill Shorten, Janet Albrechtsen (usually can't stand her but she was brilliant, beautiful and performed well), Magda Szubanski (do political satirists gain insights that the rest of us don't), Harold Mitchell (top value), Christine Wallace (intelligent and informed contributions), and Barnaby Joyce (who was his usual self with the added spice of bigotry and bias).  Bios of the panellists are here.

Below is from the transcript.  The words display how Barnaby's bias and bigotry and willingness to politicise every breath other people take turned him into a singular creep sniping about people with disabilities.  Lower than a snake's belly, you might think?

BILL SHORTEN: I think you’re going to find Prime Minister Gillard will be very good in terms of getting into issues in depth. She is a consensus builder, but I’ll pick an example of an issue which is not a sound bite issue, but the media never cover. That’s the issue of people with disabilities in Australia. Currently we’ve increased the pension for disabled people. We are giving more money to the states. But try and get the media - and to be fair there’s notable exceptions. But no one even - most people don’t even write into this forum about disability, yet there’s two million Australians who are full-time carers or have a severe or profound disability. We’re currently debating with the productivity commission creating a national disability insurance scheme. It would be good if not just the government, and we’re doing out bit, but if the community at large would help all those carers and all those people with disabilities and stand up for a national disability insurance scheme. It’s not as sexy issue but it’s at least as important as anything else we’ve spoken about tonight.

BARNABY JOYCE: And that is a perfect - and that is a perfect example given to you tonight by Bill Shorten of how you change the question around and give a line.

MAGDA SZUBANSKI: Not for people who are looking after disabled people (indistinct)...

BARNABY JOYCE: Yeah, I know, but the question was not about disabled people. But how did disabled people come into that answer?

BILL SHORTEN: Because we never get to talk about them Barnaby and if you guys talked more about disabilities on the opposition as we should in government and more people in the media spoke about it then maybe people with disabilities wouldn’t get such a dud deal. That’s all I speak about. I’ve given 200 speeches in parliament...

BARNABY JOYCE: Yeah, you moved the agenda to there for a pacific(sic) purpose and that is typical politics.

CHRISTINE WALLACE: Listen, that’s really rough to accuse him of being cynical and spinning on disability. That’s pretty rough.

I would like to see Barnaby the Biassed Bigot kept off Q & A for the duration.  Free speech you say?  Good communicator you say?  

I refer you back to my disclosure at the beginning of this post.  

You see, dear Networkers, many of us can still remember how the representatives of the media built up Joh Bjelke Petersen.  They laughed at his jokes and his incomprehensible way of speaking.  He had a wily press secretary well known in Queensland so that helped.  And thereby hangs a tale for another day.  The media - particularly in the form of Chris Masters and Quentin Dempster - might have destroyed Bjelke Petersen and his National Party henchpersons but they had first given him and them a lot of oxygen and a lot of space and so built him and them up into what he/they became.  

I would hate to see the same thing repeated with Barnaby Joyce.  If it did, it would not be merely the Queensland media who would do it but the capital city denizens.

Related reading and viewing: 

Don't you worry about that! - The Joh Bjelke-Petersen Memoirs

Joh - The Life and Political Adventures of Joh Bjelke-Petersen

Police State

The Fitzgerald Inquiry

Moonlight reflections by Chris Masters

Redheads are not fair game #2 : almost everything you wanted to know about redheads

From Redheads.com

Calling all Redheads out there - and those who love them!

Have updated my previous blog with new information.

Please check it out here.

 Joel and Aaron from Ranga explain the establishment of their website in this way:

The Red And Nearly Ginger Association exists to represent the interests of Ginger primates everywhere. Special interest groups exist for people with all sorts of differences; Political, Religious, Ideological, Gender Orientation and/or Sexual Preference and Medical, to name but a few. This site's purpose is to further the cause of all individuals whose MC1R receptor is set in it's default position, therefore producing pheomelanin rather than eumelanin. We do this by providing research information, forums, and community events all designed to allow our Ginger brethren to be proud of their genetic heritage. Rangas everywhere - unite and be proud! Now it never occurred to me - Miss Eagle is sharp sometimes and dull as dishwater at others - to link my hair to some specific, findable, nameable, recessive, carefully placed gene.  But if you, dear Networkers, wish to know all about this and other things your mother forgot to tell you about redheads please go here.  And if you are a glutton for punishment, please go here.   Now, Miss Eagle is the daughter of a red-headed father with a red-headed aunt on either side of the family tree.  She married a red-head and produced, allegedly, three red-headed children: allegedly, because while most people refer to my third child as a redhead, I regard him as a sort of coppery brown.  No not auburn.  Brown.   This means that just taking into account husband/father, me, one daughter and two sons we have a wide range of red hair.  My colour is auburn - and for more than you ever wanted to know about auburn hair, please go here One factor that is not exactly made clear in all the learned journals is the instability of red hair.  I have often been envious of dark haired people when they age with that lovely and elegant pepper and salt hair.  But what happens to redheads? Lighter redheads just tend to fade, perhaps to a sort of non-descript blonde-cum-gray.  Those of us with auburn hair like me and my mother's sister find that our hair gets brown and dark and then when gray creeps in - again a quite non-descript colour.  And when you are used to having your hair coloured in an interesting way and people admiring it or asking is it natural or out of a bottle, this can be a bit of a shock to one's self image. As my beautiful (she was very beautiful and elegant and glamorous) Aunt Doreen remarked - So many people have asked if my hair colour is natural and I have honestly replied yes, that now it is changing with age and the red can't be seen, I have to get it from a bottle to keep faith with my public!. So I echo Auntry Dor.  Although I would be happy to live with my white hair and save myself the money and the hassle.  I dye.  Now for years and years, I dyed an auburn-brown colour in the main.  And then, two years ago, an amazing life-changing thing happened.  I managed to grab the wrong colour off the supermarket shelf.  It was bright, bright, traffic-light red hair.  I was shocked - at first.  But have grown to love it.  And I have some interesting observations because of it. Years ago I read an article by Joanne Woodward which described how post-menopausal women are treated/ignored.  Let me tell you, this post-menopausal woman is not ignored.  She is no longer invisible.  I get chatted up by men in trains, shops, restaurants.  Now, needless to say, all of these men are not men I wish to be chatted up by.  But there you are.  If you are a post-menopausal woman, gather up your courage and daring and make a colourful hair statement.  It's fun, adds to the spice of life, and you ensure you stand out in a crowd. I have never posted my very own picture on this blog before - but, dear Networkers, I want you to see how red the hair is.   So here' tis:

PS:  I am of Irish heritage, and my children - through their father - have some Welsh heritage.  I am assuming that my Celtic grandmothers of the long, long ago were raped and pillaged by those Vikings from Scandinavia.

NGO ROUND TABLE FORUM ON PALESTINE & ISRAEL - MELBOURNE - 13 JULY 2010

Overview

Act for Peace invites you to hear from two prominent Palestinian Christians currently working and advocating for the rights of Palestinian communities in the occupied

territories. Rifat Kassis and Constantine Dabbagh are in Australia to help raise awareness of the plight of the Palestinian people and outline recommendations for peace and justice-based solutions to the confl ict in Palestine and Israel.

Our Guest Speakers

Rifat Kassis is a prominent human rights activist, author and Coordinator and Spokesperson of Kairos Palestine. He has previously held senior positions with the World Council of Churches, the YMCA/YWCA as well as the Ecumenical Accompaniers Program in Palestine and Israel – EAPPI.

Constantine Dabbagh is the Executive Secretary of the Near East Council of Churches Committee for Refugee Work in Gaza, the implementing partner of Act for Peace. He oversees the provision of health care, education and community services to over 80,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

For further information and to RSVP, please contact 

Ben Fraser, International Programs Coordinator, 

on 03 9650 6811 or email him at: bfraser@ncca.org.au

Please RSVP (essential) by: Monday, 5 July 2010

Miss Eagle receives Guernica magazine regularly - and I have lifted the material below from the latest, 27 June 2010. How could I not. Apologies Guernica and forgiveness please.  Three cheers for David Gessner.  See related and further reading at end of post.

~~~~~~~~~~~

David Gessner: A House That We Built: A Nursery Rhyme for the Gulf

June 27, 2010

By David Gessner

This is the oil that spills from the pipe and gushes into the Gulf

This is the marsh that breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf. 

This is the oyster, now besmeared, that lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe and gushes into the Gulf. 

This is the man, all forlorn, who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

These are the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf. 

This is the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

This is the fat cat, to the manor born,
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

This is the Prez, of power shorn, who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

This is the Gulf, round Florida’s horn, which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

These are the storms, that have always torn,
Straight through the Gulf, round Florida’s horn,
Which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

This is the warming, whose coming we mourn,
That now fuels the storms, that have always torn
Straight through the Gulf, round Florida’s horn,
Which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

This is the blowhard blowing his horn,
Who doesn’t believe in the warming we mourn
That now fuels the storms, that have always torn
Straight through the Gulf, round Florida’s horn,
Which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

These are the rules that prick like a thorn
Into the blowhard blowing his horn
Who doesn’t believe in the warming we mourn
That now fuels the storms, that have always torn
Straight through the Gulf, round Florida’s horn,
Which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

These are the Ecos, of doom who warn,
Who want more rules that prick like a thorn
Into the blowhard blowing his horn
Who doesn’t believe in the warming we mourn
That now fuels the storms, that have always torn
Straight through the Gulf, round Florida’s horn,
Which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

And this is the car to which we have sworn,
To love and protect and to not fuel with corn
(Even the Ecos, of doom who warn,)
Who want more rules that prick like a thorn
Into the blowhard blowing his horn
Who doesn’t believe in the warming we mourn
That now fuels the storms, that have always torn
Straight through the Gulf, round Florida’s horn,
Which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

And this is the thing that leaves us all lorn
That we put in the cars to which we have sworn
To love and protect and to not fuel with corn
(Even the Ecos, of doom who warn,)
Who want more rules that prick like a thorn
Into the blowhard blowing his horn
Who doesn’t believe in the warming we mourn
That now fuels the storms, that have always torn
Straight through the Gulf, round Florida’s horn,
Which hosts the Prez, of power shorn
Who scolds the fat cat, to the manor born
Who enrages the public, all full of scorn,
Who follow the writers who roll in each morn
To tell the story of the man, all forlorn,
Who harvests the oyster, now besmeared
That lives near the marsh
That breathes with the sea, and protects the land,
That now fills with oil,
That spills from the pipe
And gushes into the Gulf.

Copyright 2010 Beacon Broadside
___________________________

This entry originally appeared at Beacon Broadside.

David Gessner is the author of several books, including Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond and is currently the editor of Ecotone, a literary journal. Gessner also teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The following nursery rhyme can be found on Gessner’s website with Bill Roorbach, titled Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour.

To read more blog entries from others at GUERNICA click HERE .

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Related reading:

Sick of Nature

Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond

Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder

The Prophet of Dry Hill: Lessons From a Life in Nature

A Wild, Rank Place: One Year on Cape Cod

Under the Devil's Thumb

Further reading:

David Gessner

An interview with David Gessner

Exiles
Ecotone
Bill and Dave's Cocktail Hour