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From Roseanne to Hanson, a real week of idiocy

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Without getting in to the ghastly post-surgery details, I have been sitting and watching the world from behind closed doors with my new bladder, somewhat more impressively known as a neo-bladder.

It’s a tremendous bit of kit, a bag fashioned from a bit of my small intestine, stitched up like a baseball by the surgeons to stop any leaking. It’s just six weeks old and the only problem is the neo-bladder doesn’t really know it’s a bladder and that means I need to be within a handpass of a brasco at all times or to put it kindly in stand up comedy speak, the front three rows will get wet.

It does provide a unique if occasionally dislocated view of the world.

All the unexpected interruptions notwithstanding, I think I have seen enough of this week to discern that it has had more than its fair share of idiocy.

As evidence, I offer the following:

Pauline Hanson’s claims that NSW PHON senator Brian Burston betrayed her by not betraying the agreement he and she had made with the Mathias Cormann over corporate tax cuts. This led to a smorgasbord of betrayal and from a distance it was difficult to know who betrayed whom first.

Reaching deep into her handbag for the victim card, Pauline turned on the water works on Sky News last night and now Burston is no longer welcome in the PHON tent despite him saying he still wants to be a member of the party.

In 2016, PHON had four senators. Now they can hold party room meetings in the back seat of a Kia Cerato. The good news for the freshly appointed PHON whip, Peter Georgiou, is that his job has just got a whole lot easier. He can discharge his responsibilities with a functioning walkie talkie.

Yesterday also saw a fight for supremacy between Environment Minister, Greg Hunt and Opposition leader, Bill Shorten over who can be ruder to women. Shorten had the runs on the board after abusing a woman in a shop over the availability of a hot pie back in 2012. Hunt’s expletive-laced spray directed at the Mayor of Katherine, 71-year-old Fay Miller was allowed to pass quietly through to the keeper for almost six months until the Herald-Sun ran the story on its front page yesterday. Hunt apologised both privately and publicly to Miller shortly thereafter, saying to do both was the “right thing to do.”

There’s nothing like a politician’s apology, with nothing being the operative word.

One must wonder about the US media and whether they’ll ever come to terms with Donald Trump. Yesterday Trump had a brief meeting with another former star of reality TV, Kim Kardashian. The New York Post ran a most amusing front page, but other media organisations regarded this meeting of minds and substantial backsides as a sign of the End Times, an impending planet destroying Armageddon on its way.

Had they forgotten about Richard Nixon and Elvis, Ronald Reagan and Michael Jackson, George W Bush and Bono, Barack Obama and just about anyone even vaguely famous who wandered by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Celebs have been visiting the White House since way back, when Abe Lincoln said: “I need a night at the theatre like a hole in the head.” But when Trump plays host, albeit with a low rent celeb, media orgs various lose their minds. This was barely a story and yet there it was, getting a run not just in the US but across all television news services in Australia and I watched every single one.

Who cares? They do apparently. Whether the audience does or not is another matter.

The biggest idiot of the week by far was Roseanne Barr. No contest.

When the Roseanne story first broke, my first thought was, “Wow, Twitter gets another one” but that is missing the point. Also missing the point was the congratulations extended to the US network, ABC, but I believe the plans they executed so swiftly had been in place for months.

Roseanne had to go. In fact, she should have gone long before, after various unhinged Twitter attacks on Chelsea Clinton and George Soros. But that’s not to say ABC was not complicit in Barr’s behaviour at least to a point.

There are a few things the media has largely ignored in this story. Firstly, Roseannerevamped contained just nine episodes when the norm for a sitcom in the US is 22. This tells me there was some scepticism about the show and that a plan B was in effect if it didn’t work or if Barr misbehaved. She was known to be a serious problem way back when Roseanne had its first incarnation and I believe the US network gave her just enough rope in the second.

ABC took the program on because they wanted a little of the blue collar pro-Trump action. It paid off to the tune of 18.7 million viewers on average across the nine episodes (the ratings did drop off in the latter episodes in the truncated series but only off almost record highs from the early episodes).

We often see journalists trudging around western Pennsylvania or in the backwoods of Wisconsin trying to understand the appeal of President Trump to working class Americans. Whether ABC understood it or not they decided they wanted to play to that crowd but they did so having five bob each way. Barr and her show were on double secret probation from the outset.

The US network regarded Barr as a loose cannon but one that could be disposed of quickly. Certainly, a second series had been commissioned but significantly the advertising had not been sold. It would have become almost impossible to do so after Barr’s racist tweet and the social media backlash.

A little digging of the kind I did earlier this week shows just how problematic Barr could be to any network and especially one owned by Disney Corp.

This excerpt from Barr’s blog was published well before she commenced her long walk to Trumpism. It is indicative of the risk ABC took. In relation to Roseanne’s many quasi-political rants, it is not exceptional. It is the kind of tirade she was well known for. It is virulently anti-Semitic, utterly without substance, relying on bizarre conspiracy theories and almost laughably wrong.

“Many of the Palestinian people are Jewish and became Christian after Israel stole their land and homes. They were dark skinned, and so driven out of their homes by a Cheney-ized Judeo-Christian Bushite America. The Jewish American socialists are sending a flotilla from America to break the blockade of the anti-Semitic Zionists in Gaza! Zionists are German. Weird hybrid. In order to defeat Euro-socialism, Hitler leveraged the rich Jewish industrialists against the working-class Jews. The Russian accounts say that the last trains to Auschwitz were first class, as that is all the leverage left to the Jewish oligarchs within the ‘Reich’, (other than the Jews like Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler at the top).”

I believe the ABC did not act swiftly as was reported but rather put in place some risk management procedures it had already developed should the star of the show go off the reservation as she very clearly did.

There are always risks for celebs using social media to push political barrows and when that turns into ugly racist rants, as it did with Barr’s tweet the new Hollywood or indeed Burbank post Weinstein is not about to protect the star or go to ground as it might have in the old days.

Now, I’d love to stay and chat but I really must go.

This article as originally published in The Australian on 1 June, 2018

317 Comments

  • Gryzly says:

    Footy tips

  • Huger Unson says:

    Personal appearance is soooo important, Jack, I’m sure you’ll agree.
    If you have a spare minute, pop onto Amazon’s Men’s Grooming section.
    It’s no wonder the economy is booming, so much disposable income to pass around.

  • Razor says:

    Paying $14000.00 to shoot these magnificent animals. Why?

    Maybe the hunters could have a ‘real life’ safari by being dropped naked at night in the middle of the Serengeti with a whole rump zippy tied to their backs.

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/south-africa-biggame-breeder-fined-for-faking-lion-hunts/news-story/054a5c03d23da4a7d9de0df099e54978

    • Bella says:

      I can’t get your link Razor but I’m totally on board with your suggested punishment. Hunting is nothing more than a violent form of recreation that most of those cowards do not need for subsistence.
      If your link refers to the disgusting canned lion hunting business then round up those sub-humans & fire a couple of bullets at the groin area. None of those losers ever have functioning genitalia anyways.

    • JackSprat says:

      I have no problem if they do it naked, one on one with a 1 meter spear. They could get training from the Masai.
      Anything else is not on.

    • Dwight says:

      I have to say, even I was surprised at the USydney student newspaper having a cover photo of a suicide bomber. These children need adult supervision.

  • Perentie says:

    Rugby League isn’t much of a game. State of Origin is about as good as it gets, but that’s more the rivalry than the spectacle. I turned it it off at half time last night because, despite looking forward to the game, I was bored.

    • BASSMAN says:

      Well OK tell us the things that excite U

    • JackSprat says:

      Have to agree.
      I rarely watch and watched not a lot.
      But there are a number of aspects that are truly riveting.
      The anticipation as to who will win the scrum is palpable,
      Predicting when the ball will be kicked after tackles – about 99.9999% after the fifth.
      Then there is the attempt to maim the opposition after a tackle – saw one large QLDer work wonders on a muscle above the knee – any normal person would not have walked for a week.
      Then there was the QLDer who grabbed the guy by the neck and throat and held on.
      Each to his own though.
      What excites me at my age – absolute brilliance in any sport and you can see that in the highlights.

  • Bella says:

    How’s this for cruel & deceitful?
    Millionaire Turncoat is cutting the Newstart Allowance by $8.80 a fortnight by removing their energy supplement. The majority of these poor sods rarely ever make ends meet for rent or utilities nor do most of them even have one decent meal a day yet this obscene bunch of crooks in government right now are low enough to make life worse, all while gifting subsidies to billionaires like Gina Rinehart, raising their own obscene salaries & propping up proven bank cartels.

    WTF is wrong with people that they’d vote for inflicting so much hurt & fear on folks already below the poverty line vs wealth for the minority?

    Roll on the revolution I say. Didn’t they use guillotines to get equality in the French Revolution?

  • smoke says:

    stop press
    #poojogger is trending

  • Bella says:

    So it appears Abbott has not ruled out a comeback as PM……🙃
    Beam me up Scotty….🚀
    http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2018/06/tony-abbott-id-fix-power-prices-and-immigration-levels-if-returned-to-pm-role.html

    • Trivalve says:

      Saw that. Lead story for a while in the Aus. To quote Dismayed – No surprises.

    • Henry Blofeld says:

      No Bella, please say it’s not true, not Abbott again. Cheers

    • Perentie says:

      Who is Michael Smith? Why the hell do people bother reporting what Abbott would do if he was PM again? They may as well report on my chances of winning the 10,000m at the Olympics, or discuss what occasional furniture is the rest of the time. A complete waste of time and effort.

      • Gryzly says:

        Chances Schmances, he WINS. Some people know it as TrackTown S.A. But tonight, P.E. Rentie called it Upset City, P.E. Rentie stunned the world to win the men’s 10,000 meters on day 1 of the 2018 S.A Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

        Before tonight, Rentie, a senior from somewhere near the Barossa, had never finished higher than 14th in an S.A final. He did not even qualify for this meet last year, finishing 22nd at the qualifiers. He entered tonight’s race as the 19th seed, with a 29:13.72 pb. But none of that mattered as Rentie demolished his PB, running down the field in the home straight to end his running career as a champion, clocking a stellar 56.95 final lap to win in 28:34.53 to his sister’s 28:34.99.

    • BASSMAN says:

      I would welcome Tones back….the Looters would be transported to perpetual electoral oblivion.
      Surely the Looters aren’t that dumb. Then maybe they ARE that dumb they let Stan off by calling the elections on Labor council day . Lord Downer’s daughter a long way behind in Mayo. She should get John Schumann to belt out a few chunes!

  • BASSMAN says:

    STATE of ‘ORRIBLE:- A hollow victory larst nite considering the Toads had 4
    of the best playerz in the world knot in their team. That sed the Qlders were lucky to score even the 2
    tries they did! One from a forward pass from our side. The other off a lucky intercept that if missed would possibly have resulted in yet ANOTHER try for us.
    Tedesco was unstoppable from dummy half.-just too farst Jimmy had a good game as well.
    I am glad Inglis got beaten. He was born in NSW. The only tyme both captains have been NSWelshmen

    • Tracy says:

      Oh stop moaning!

    • Razor says:

      A couple of crucial calls went against us but NSW were better on the night regardless. Qld’s attack was very one dimensional.

      As for Inglis he loves Qld for a very personal reason which relates to a fantastic aboriginal family and some things which occurred when he first came here. A member of that said family is a great mate of mine so that’s how I know. Needless to say it’s not for sharing here.

      • BASSMAN says:

        As U know I am a hardened South Sydney fan so I am one of Inglis’s biggest fans and he DID play well on the nite. I can still remember him owning up to a try that was NOT a try that would have won us the series when Ricky Stuart was coach. Inglis is NSW stop it! It is cheating. It is supposed to be state of ORIGIN and he was born in NSW. The Aboriginal stuff should have nothing to do with it.
        When The Toads get beaten in the 1st game they come back bigger, faster and stronger. You sed we wood wyn the 1st game. I think they let us so as they can do what they did to us last year-LOL
        Qld had some baaaaaaaddddd refereeing decisions. As biased as I am I don’t like that Bald.

      • Trivalve says:

        I don’t doubt that he loves Qld Razor (and Mal too as I understand it) but that doesn’t change the *fact* that he is a NSW player and never should have been seen in a maroon jersey. You don’t just get to play for whatever side you like.

        • BASSMAN says:

          Er maybe U haven’t noticed Bald. The right wingers (as much as I dig Razor who is a cut above most of them) don’t like facts. If they did they would never vote Looter again if you look at the FACTS on debt, unemployment, consumer confidence, wages growth etc.

    • Bella says:

      One of your tries was from Maloney’s forward pass to Addo-Carr but I do agree that Tedesco played his heart out.
      As long as Inglis has played Origin he’s been Maroon & frankly mate, without Thurston, Smith, Cronk or Slater last night, GI stepped up his game like the champion he’s always been. 🏈🏈

    • Trivalve says:

      Bassy, retirements don’t justify claims of hollow victories, else I’ll state that the Queensland record run is hollow because Peter Sterling and Johnny Raper weren’t playing. Slater was out, that’s it.

  • Huger Unson says:

    What’s going on with those water bottles, Jack?
    https://twitter.com/jules_su/status/1004475500721401856
    Some kind of secret code, I guess. Deep.

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