ABC Television in Australia is going to replace the venerable Lissajous curve logo, you know the worm-like thing that goes dah, dah, da – with this;
Eeek and egads! That is bloody horrible, and boring.
Now forgive me if I swear, but how fucking plain is that? How dated will that be come December, and how flat will it appear as it burns a hole in your plasma screen?
Somewhere, some talentless design agency has just pocketed the bettter part of a lot of money on something that will bore the living bejesus out of viewers.
But then again, maybe the ABC is introducing a dumbed down logo to go with its increasingly dumb-downed content.
Dah, dah, da!
Filed under: ABC, Australia, Dr Mohamed Haneef, Four Corners, Kevin Andrews, Media, Mohamed Haneef, Politics, Terrorism
ABC television in Australia will tonight broadcast an interview with terror suspect Dr Haneef. Tune in at 8.30 tonight and see who is the biggest liar; the Liberal Immigration Minisister, or the Doctor.
New South Wales police have arrested Chas Liccardello and Julian Morrow from The Chaser television programme for running a fake motorcade through the streets of Sydney and into the heavily fortified green zone.
Pathetic.
Obviously, their sharp wits were considered to be a security threat to John W., and his equally moronic brother-in-war-crimes, George W. Jnr.
Once Australia was free and had a sense of humour. Now we are living a neo-fascist state and are just overly sensitive.
Filed under: ABC, ALP, Australia, Big Brother, Gretel Killeen, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Liberal, Media, Politics
I have just made a pitch to Chanel Ten for their 2007 federal election telecast. My idea; and yes I admit it is rather radical, is to dispense with voting at polling booths and to have the election conducted entirely by phone poll and SMS voting. After all modern politics is about popularity, not ideas.
I think this radical overhaul of the electoral system will work because politcs is much like the Big Brother House insofar as politicians are thrown in together and must work with people they may not normally associate with, or even hate.
On election night I propose we dispense with Red Kerry on the ABC and get the very capable host of Big Brother, Gretel Killeen to do the count. After padding it out needlessly for a couple of hours, and interviewing both John Howard and Kevin Rudd about their time in the house and what they would have done differently, Gretel can then evict someone.
It’s time to go……….John!
And there we have it; democracy, pop culture and increased participation in the electoral process all rolled into one.
Actually John, just fuck off now.
Filed under: ABC, Culture War, Janet Albrechtsen, John Howard, Keith Windshuttle, Media, Politics
I had an epiphany one day last year, and yes while I might be a slow learner I realised that Australia was in the midst of its own full-scale culture war. I would have been a warrior for the left, but I didn’t know I had to fight.
In 1994, as a citizen of the ACT and panel member of the ACT’s Cultural Council I was invited to the launch of Paul Keating’s Creative Nation. And while the policy had some flaws, it attempted to assert a role for government in promoting a vibrant arts culture. Fast foward in slo-mo to John Howard’s Conservative Nation of 1950’s values and social mores, and it is not hard to see how the Culture War has been lost.
In 1992 Paul Keating said, “the Commonwealth’s responsibility to maintain and develop Australian culture means, among many other things, that on a national level;
- innovation and ideas are perpetually encouraged;
- self-expression and creativity are encouraged;
- our heritage is preserved as more develops; and all Australians have a chance to participate and receive – that we invigorate the national life and return its product to the people.”
Since then, what? Well in the eleven years of Howard Government enlightenment, the arts in this nation have gone backwards. Not creatively, rather as a supported and encouraged entity to reflect the Australia of 2007, the arts have been relegated to those of cultural curios and blockbusting blockbusters.
Our national broadcaster, the grand old ABC has had the conservatives breathing down its neck, looking for bias and excuses to defund. They have appointed a commissioner for independent thought, err director of editorial policies to ensure that the Howard Government is reflected in all the glory of a better light. To do this the conservatives stacked the board with flinty and intellectually bereft numb-nuts named Janet Albrechtsen and Keith Windshuttle.
Albrechtsen writes a vile, nutty column for The Australian while Windshuttle is to historians as Joh Bjelkie-Peterson was to democracy in Queensland. Shallow and hollow cultural warriors whose appointments to the ABC board serve no purpose other than to promote the conservative ideology of Howard Government. Neither had experience in broadcasting and both had significant form in criticising the ABC for bias. Yes Keith, the ABC does believe in the stolen generation, as do many right thinking Australians.
In the end though, the culture war was not won by attacking bias, rather it was the Howard Governemnt’s Ministry of Fear that saw the great leap backwards.
Australian culture might not be dead, but it certainly is in hospital.
