A song a year: 1983, Bop Girl

I really only started taking a particular interest in music in 1983. Before that I was aware of songs on the radio, but I wasn't personally involved with any songs or bands. In 1982 for example I knew of "Ebony and Ivory", or "Physical" and "Up Where We Belong", but I wasn't living my days by the Top 8 at 8 on the local AM radio station, and I certainly didn't have any posters on my wall.

But in 1983, perhaps because I was in my final year of primary school, music started to take hold. Rather than just knowing of a few songs in the charts, I knew all the songs. And it was a great time to become involved with music - bands such as Culture Club singing "Karma Chameleon", Kenny Loggins getting "Footloose", Deneise Williams singing "Let's Hear it for the Boy", and Stevie Wonder reaching the high point of his career with "I Just Called to Say I Love You".

Ok, maybe it wasn't such a great year, but who cares? When you're young every song that you think is the best is axiomatically also the best song ever. It took me a couple years to realise the correlation between Number 1 song and quality was pretty low, but it probably wasn't until I was in my very late teens that I stopped paying full attention to the charts.

In the great music-lovers' novel, High Fidelity, the main character rearranges his LP collection autobiographically. Which, when you think about it, is the only way to think of music.

Music matters because of when you heard it, and the memories it invokes. Music that is very good but which has no connection to your biography will never be considered great. It's why The Beach Boys Pet Sounds is listed in the greatest all time albums, but Brian Wilson's Smile album which was made around the same time and is just as technically brilliant, but which was only released in 2003, will never be a truly great album - ditto Bob Dylan's Live From Albert Hall - perhaps one of the best live albums ever, but which will never hold the affection that his albums released in the 1960s have.

Now, the usual case is that a song will invoke a time or place, and thus throughout a year numerous songs will invoke numerous memories, which makes it pretty hard to limit one song to encapsulate one year. But what the heck I shall try. And bear in mind these songs encapsulate the year for me, not the year for everyone.

Why does "Bop Girl" remind me of 1983? I have to admit there were a few runners up for the title - among them Taco "Puttin on the Ritz", which sticks in my mind because my sister had a gotten the great compilation tape "1983 Summer Breaks" for Christmas, of which that was one of the songs, and it was the one that stuck in my head the most. Also close to being my song of 1983 was the fantastically bizarre number from New Zealand band Monte Video & The Cassettes, "Shoop Shoop Diddy Wop".

But as great as those songs were (geez what a year for music!), it is Pat Wilson's "Bop Girl" that takes me back to 1983. My Year 7 teacher that year had it stuck into her head that the class should do dancing for PE instead of, geee I don't know, PE! And thus instead of playing soccer or basketball or learning how to play volleyball, she choreographed some moves for the class to learn to perform. Some were horrible folk dances, but two were for modern songs. The entire class had to learn to do dance steps to The Nolans' "Gotta Pull Myself Together", and a select few girls (a favoured six, I recall) got to dance to "Bop Girl".

It was essentially a preamble into music for me. I was at the crossroads of liking music because I liked it, and liking it because my friends liked it. I can also remember watching Countdown around at a friend's house and "Bop Girl" was the Number 1 song that week. I think it was the first time I had watched the Countdown Top 10 and known all the songs and even been able to guess the Number 1. From there I never looked back.

Like a lot of songs in the early 1980s, "Bop Girl" is incredibly stupid. It makes no sense; it's beat is inane, and the video not even remotely connected with the lyrics. The video is now of note only for the fact it features a very young Nicole Kidman (no doubt coming off her win in the Dolly Covergirl competition). She was 15 and in the video she sits around smoking and looking very stuck up. It may be her best role. (Ok that is harsh. She was damn good in BMX Bandits).

But, be that as it may, the song has its hooks into me, and should I ever need to invoke the feelings of what life was like for me in Year 7, I need only hear the opening few bars, and I am right back in class, sitting down watching the girls perform some bizarre robotic type dance to this classic 80s One Hit Wonder song.



Of interest for those who were teenagers during the 80s is this absolutely fantastic blog, called The 80's Tapes which features all the compilation tapes of the era (and lots of other great stuff). It was a time when a compilation tape couldn't be called Video Hits 27, or Hit Machine 22. Nope, it had to be "1982 Up in Lights", or "1981 Over the Top".

If you ever had a mono tape player and you got a tape for Christmas that featured such classic songs as Billy Field's "You weren't in love with me", or Kajagoogoo singing "Too Shy", then check out the site and spend a hour or so looking at the covers of those tapes and shaking your head as the song lists come flooding back.

Oh and bugger it, here's "Shoop Shoop Diddy Wop", because it so perfectly captures early 1980s weird.

Sport is not a fairy tale

Yesterday, after finishing his third round in the Australian Masters Golf tournament in the lead, Robert Allenby told how his mother was dying of cancer. An emotional Allenby said:

"Mum is the best mum in the world and I really want to win for her". He told how the family had decided last Monday "to take her off any more treatment''.

Allenby, at Number 29 in the world, was the highest ranked player in the tournament, was the favourite, and, as a local from Melbourne, the fairy tale was all set - his mother was in attendance following him around in a golf cart, the crowd was on his side, and in the second round he had made an amazing albatross. All that was left was for the script writers to do their work, and the tears of joy could flow.

Alas, sport is not written by playwrights who know what the audience wants to see. Greg Norman doesn't win the US Masters, Ron Clarke doesn't win a Gold Medal at the Olympics, Pat Rafter doesn't win Wimbledon, and Robert Allenby doesn't win the Australian Masters for his Mum.

He was doing ok - holding the lead or one behind - when he approached the Par 3 15th. In the first two rounds he had pared the hole, in the third round he had made a birdie. As he stood on the tee he knew he needed to make at least one birdie over the last 5 holes. Marcus Fraser had finished his round on 12 under, and Rod Pampling a hole ahead was on 11 under (equal with Allenby). Pars from here on wouldn't be enough. But the wind was picking up, and Allenby, an emotional, fire-tempered player even when things are going well, had struggled to get anything going all day. He had made solid approach shots, but just couldn't buy a putt.

And so with the wind picking up, he hits his 6 iron tee shot into the front, green-side bunker. He catches his second shot fat - the ball just makes it out of the bunker but dribbles into the adjacent sand trap. His tournament is over. He knows the best he can do now is bogey, which will put him 2 shots behind with too few birdie-friendly holes to play.

He leaves his third shot in the bunker. This is sport being utterly indifferent to romance. His fourth shot flies past the hole, and leaves him with about a 20m putt for double bogey.

At this point, it is not hard to envisage that beneath his trademark sunglasses the tears are beginning to well. It is over.

And then he makes the putt. The camera watches his face as the ball falls into the cup - his expression is a mixture of frustration and despair - only now, when it is too late, does he make a putt. Only now, when it won't matter if makes every putt from here to the 18th, does he find the cup. He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes: frustration mixed with despair mixed with sport.

And yet, sport doesn't care about this pain. He still has three holes to play. He can't walk off as though in some nice, tragically written film and let the screen fade to black. No, he must play out the round. He has to spend the next 30 minutes walking the fairways knowing he won't win this one for his mum.

After hitting his tee shot at the 16th, he goes to his mum sitting in her golf cart and they hug - her tears obvious; his hidden, as ever, behind his sunglasses. His face attempts to keep the expression of the inscrutable, professional golfer, but it is obvious it is that of a heartbroken son who wanted to give his mum one last present to say thanks for everything.

But sport is not scripted; any fairytale victory requires the same amount of hard work and skill and luck and luck and skill and hard work that any victory requires. And that is as it should be. Allenby would not let another player win just because it would be a nice story, so neither would he expect others to gift him a victory. Professional golf, like all professional sport, is played for keeps - it is a person's livelihood. For many in the field, a win in this tournament would be their career highlight; for almost all, it is a dream that will never be realised.

Allenby has won the tournament twice; it is not a tragedy he didn't win this week. It is a tragedy his mother is dying of cancer - and Allenby who is a patron for Challenge Cancer Support Network would know that tragedy on the sporting field is nothing to tragedy in life; but that wouldn't make the loss any easier to bear.

That Allenby failed to realise his perfect ending does not diminish sport - in fact it highlights why we who love sport and who hold it so dear will continue to love it, continue to watch it, and continue to play it.

Sport is not scripted, and thus when the fantastic occurs we know it is not through CGI, or because there were 22 takes before the perfect moment occurred. Sport is the ultimate reality show - done without editing, done without faked challenges. It is non-fiction, and yet incredibly at times it seemingly merges with fiction, and dreams do come true.

It's why we keep coming back to it. Those who love sport also know that while maybe the story we want to come true doesn't always do so, with every victory there is a tale, and with every tournament, or match, or game, another waits to be told.

Oscar is always wrong (except when it's right) Part II

And now (by request) for the second installment of me rectifying the mistakes of the Academy Awards.

2002

Best Picture: Chicago
Nominees: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Pianist
Should have won: The Pianist

Here's a trivia question for you: How many films have won the Oscar for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor, and have not also won Best Picture?

One - The Pianist.

In a poor year for film, The Pianist did everything that mattered better than any other film, and yet the Academy in its wisdom decided to give the Best Picture to a musical that isn't even a great musical. Chicago was always more of a Golden Globes winner than an Oscar worthy one. I mean geez, Richard Geer as the lead?? But with the weight of the Mirimax publicity machine behind it, it won 6 Oscars.

Time however, has not been kind to Chicago. On imdb its score is only 7.3/10, which doesn't even put it in the Top 50 all-time musicals on that site. In 2006, Premiere magazine listed it in its Top 10 Worst Best Pictures, and it also made the London newspaper, The Independent's, list of Top 10 Worst Oscar Winners.

The Pianist, on the other hand, is considered one of the best ever films done by its director (Roman Polanski), and has probably rendered pointless any future attempts to do a film about the Holocaust.

Its story follows the true life tale of Polish-Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who, through luck, help and perseverance, makes it through WWII without ending up in a concentration camp, but who nonetheless is witness to the most obscene horrors imaginable.

Much was made at the time of Polanski's own experiences during WWII, and perhaps that enabled him to make the perfect non-documentary Holocaust film.

As with all such films, it's hard going - not one you pick for a Friday night when you want to kick back; but it is just so brilliantly done. Adrien Brody as Szpilman is amazing, (and unfortunately he hasn't gone on to do anything anywhere close to the quality of this), but the real star is Polanski. His camera doesn't flinch, even when we wish it would.

The comparison between this and Schindler's List will no doubt always be made, but for mine this is the better film. Spielberg just couldn't hold back his sentimentality, and to be honest, I think shooting the film in black and white is a crock - it makes you think, oh well it happened way back then, wouldn't happen now - Polanksi by contrast shoots it in colour and there's no ignoring the blood; there's no pretending this is something from the olden days.

I have to admit it's been a fair while since I saw The Pianist, whereas I watch Schindler's List (or at least the first 2/3rds) quite often. The Pianist is just too hard; too brutal. There is little to save you - you can't think, oh well the war brought the best out of Schindler, and he saved all these Jews, how wonderful. In The Pianist there are only meagre scraps of hope to hold on to, and they do not last - even the German officer who in the end protects Szpilmann ends up dying in a Soviet gulag after the war.

It's horrible to watch, but by God it's a great piece of film making, and it would have been a great selection as Best Picture.

Below is the scene when Szpilmann is discovered by the German officer:


One caveat to this selection is that I have not seen City of God, which many critics insist was the best film that year. Should I see it, I may come back and update this.
***
Best Actress: Nicole Kidman (The Hours)
Should have won: Anyone else.

My God what a terrible selection; but then the Best Actress category has put up a stack of shockers over the past decade - Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry - but geez, Kidman has to be one of the worst actresses to ever win this award. And even worse was that in this film the were three "lead" performances by women - Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep - and Kidman's performance was a far distant third in quality. Moore was amazing (easily the only thing worth seeing in the turgid film), but she was only nominated for Best Supporting Actress - lost to Catherine Zeta-Jone for Chicago (yeah it was a year for crap choices). And as Moore missed out to Kidman in the Best Actress category for her performance in Far From Heaven, I'll give it to her, even though I haven't seen that film!

It's hard to believe that Cate Blanchette, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, Kate Winslet, Judi Dench, Joan Allen, Julianne Moore and Kate Winslet don't have a Best Actress Award, but Kidman does (and Hilary Swank has 2!).

The best thing you can say about Kidman's performance in the role is that at least it was done when her forehead still moved.

There's an "I" in Minister

Back at the end of October, I wrote about the German doctor in Victoria who was being denied premant residency because his 11 year old son has Down Syndrome.

I said at the time:
I am sure this decision will be overturned – either on appeal or by the Minister. It’s such an obviously wrong decision.

And thankfully it has been. Not on appeal - that was rejected, but by the Minister, who in a fit of very speedy work, overturned the appeal in less than a day. Good work Chris Evans.

When you listen to the interview with Dr Moeller you can hear the stress in his voice, and the relief that it is over. So, yes it's great that the right decision was made, but here's hoping Minister Evans gets the Department doing a review of the process, so that he doesn't always have to step in and make the common sense decision.

Obviously there need to be rules to guide officials - but one would hope common sense is given a go as well.

On the QT: "Faux outrage Day"

Before Question Time today, Kevin Rudd made a Ministerial Statement on the Global Financial Crisis. He spoke for 22 minutes, but all that really mattered was the 30 odd seconds it took him to say the following:

"If Australian economic growth slows further because of a further deepening of the global crisis then it follows that Australian Government revenues will reduce further. Under those circumstances it would be responsible to draw further from the surplus and if necessary to use a temporary deficit to begin investing in our future infrastructure needs, including hospitals, schools, TAFEs, universities, ports, roads, urban rail and high speed broadband. Such action would support growth would support families and jobs and would be undertaken in the national interest."

The key phrase was "temporary deficit". When he uttered that line, the Opposition howled as though Rudd had said he intends to legislate against small puppies and kittens. It was actually a fake howl, because, as Malcolm Turnbull pointed out in his reply, the Government had given the opposition a copy of the speech 45 minutes before hand, so they knew it was coming.

Now I have to say the Government has handled the whole "deficit" prospect rather poorly. It's been obvious for a while that there is a strong likelihood that next year the budget may go into deficit. But instead of admitting as much, the Government has been dancing around saying everything except the word "deficit". It enabled journalists to start talking like it meant something, and using dopey phrases like "the D word". It also allowed Turnbull to go around laying the foundations that running a deficit is a bad thing, and proof of economic irresponsibility.

It is of course no such thing.

I don't give a damn whether the budget is in deficit or not, so long as being in deficit means Australia avoids going into a recession, and so long as being in deficit is not creating high inflation.
Now 10 months ago, running a deficit would have fuelled massive inflation. In fact, if in May Swan had put down a deficit budget he would have been the dumbest economic hick of all time.

When growth is strong, the Government doesn't need to step in and help increase demand. What it should do is spend the money on non-growth areas such as hospitals, education, roads etc and, most importantly (in an economic sense), long term infrastructure. But when demand disappears, the Government needs to step into the breech. Provided not all of this is just throwing money away (I don't think we need anymore increases in first home buyer grants...), there is nothing wrong with a deficit. Nothing. Zip. Zilch, Nada. (Heck even the 'great' Peter Costello ran a deficit in 2001-02 (he just didn't tell anyone about it until afterwards).

Saying we must stay in surplus is like telling someone they have to keep living in a house with a hole in their roof rather than extend their mortgage and repair the hole. If keeping a surplus means a recession and high unemployment, ask yourself if you still want it.

But don't tell the Liberal Party this; for every question today was focused on how the PM "has signalled he is driving the Australian budget into deficit". Oh geez! Run for the hills Ma Baker, the deficit's coming!!!

Joe Hockey, for one declared that today was "Deficit Day", which perhaps did not come out sounding as catchy a phrase as it sounded when he was practising it in his office beforehand... His confected indignation perhaps was due to the fact that Turnbull's wonderful tactic against the Government was now out of date. The deficit possibility had been acknowledged, now the debate was down to whether or not that was good or bad. And the Liberals are locked in to saying it's bad.

The big problem for the Libs is that virtually no one outside of the Liberal Party room thinks going into a deficit is bad. Let's take a vox pop of financial people around the traps:

Solomon Lew said on Tuesday "massive" government spending programs were needed to prevent a jump in unemployment. "The government will not survive if it doesn't go into deficit," Mr Lew told journalists. "There is no doubt they will not be able to manage the economy without going into deficit ... the government is kidding themselves if they let this go too long," he said.

Access Economics' Chris Richardson observes that it's not economists who draw the line between surpluses and deficits — "it's politicians". Richardson believes this is "a taboo we've got to break fast. The Government shouldn't be afraid of a deficit — we need one."

Ross Gittens: All economists believe that whether deficits or surpluses are good or bad depends on whether they're appropriate to the economy's circumstances at the time.
It's appropriate (and desirable) for budgets to fall into deficit when the economy is entering or leaving recession (or a serious downturn), whereas it's appropriate and desirable for the budget to move into surplus when the economy recovers from recession in the expansion phase of the business cycle.

Luckily for Rudd, despite having been too wimpy on suggesting the deficit might happen, he has been saved by Turnbull's need to always go over the top. His desire to make the deficit the big issue, rather than employment or growth means now he has to argue that the Government should stay in surplus. It gives Rudd the chance to say Turnbull is for caring about dumb economic numbers, and against real numbers - growth and employment.

Turnbull says that he won't give the Government "a leave pass to go into deficit", and that a deficit would be a sign of "lazy economic management".

Well given he thinks it fair enough to say former ALP governments are addicted to deficits, I say let's judge Rudd's economic management against that of the brilliant Howard and Costello. That should be fair - though probably a bit of a hard ask for such lightweights as Rudd and Swan. But oh well, let's ask Chris Richardson what he thinks of Howard's and Costello's budgets:

"We pissed the good years up against the wall in the usual ill-disciplined blowout of tax cuts and big spending during the boom.''

Ouch, ok, what about their economic policies:

With the days in which China was handing the federal government enough money to pay for any crappy piece of policy now receding fast..."

Hmmm. "pissing up against the wall"... "crappy piece of policy"... Maybe Turnbull would do best to forget referring to the past, he doesn't want to make it too easy for Rudd and Swan.

Newspoll: ALP 55- LNP 45

Today I dopely forgot to tape Question Time, so no 'On the QT' today.

Today another Newspoll came out, and as it was on the 12 month anniversary of last year's election, it is a good one for seeing how the Rudd Government is going.

The result? It's as popular now, if not more so, than it was when it won the election last year. Then the Two Party Preferred result was ALP 52.7% -LNP 47.3%, now it's 55-45. Is this a blip? Nope let's look at the ALP's two party preferred result this year:
58, 57, 63, 59, 59, 61, 57, 57, 57, 59, 55, 55, 57, 57, 56, 56, 55, 55, 54, 55, 55. (average of 57%).
Not much movement there (well apart from the unreal 63% - which no one believed).

How about wonder man, Malcolm Turnbull? How is he tracking? Well, when he came on board the ALP's 2PP was 56. It's now 55. I don't think we can say that is a significant inroad.

What about on the preferred PM stakes? I had a lot of friends who this year were saying "wait till Turnbull becomes leader, then Rudd will be in for a fight".

Well the latest Preferred PM is Rudd 63%-Turnbull 21%. Ouch.

Let's look at Rudd's Preferred PM rating this year:
61, 68, 70, 73, 70, 73, 71, 72, 70, 66, 68, 64, 65, 66, 68, 65, 62, 54, 54, 59, 62, 63. (average of 65%)

So Turnbull took over when Rudd was beating Nelson 62-16 (22 uncommitted). Now it's 63-21 (16 uncommitted). Hardly a ringing endorsement of Turnbull.

Now of course this has nothing to do with policies, and you can say Turnbull is taking the fight up to Rudd in a way that Nelson never did etc etc. But to be honest, leaders live and die by their preferred PM rating. Nelson got killed in the media because he was so far behind Rudd; Turnbull by contrast is being given a pretty cruisey ride in my opinion - plenty of ,"he's the man for the job", "he is starting to make inroads", "Rudd is clearly worried" blather.

So praise be to George Megolagenis for saying it like it is:

The Coalition's primary vote has been below 40 per cent throughout the first year of the Rudd Government.

This is the worst sequence on record for the Coalition, which even in the dog days of Opposition in the 1980s consistently polled in the mid-40s.

Last weekend, Mr Rudd stretched his lead over Malcolm Turnbull as preferred prime minister by two points, from 40 per cent to 42 per cent. This gap is in the same ballpark as the advantage Mr Rudd enjoyed over the previous Opposition leader, Brendan Nelson.

Back in one of my first posts, I wrote of another 55-45 Newspoll:

Nelson is still in the teens when it comes to preferred PM, and I don’t think any poll will matter until the opposition leader is within 15% of Rudd on preferred PM. If Rudd stays above 50%, and Nelson or Turnbull or whoever can’t get above 35%, then the election will be a rout.

My opinion hasn't changed.

Regardless of commentary, the public seem content with Rudd and co at the moment. Sure this might change, but all beliefs that Turnbull would be Rudd's undoing have been shown to be incorrect. If the ALP's and Rudd's popularity goes down, it won't be because of Turnbull, but because of Rudd.

Toxic blogs and tastless jokes

Last Friday Crikey released the results of its poll to name Obama's new puppy. Among the choices were such ones as "Karl Barx", "A Poodle called Kevin", and my favourite "Joe the Dog". One of the choices however made me feel sick. It was "A mongrel called Trig". Trig, as you may recall is the name of Sarah Palin's youngest son, who has Down Syndrome.

Now making fun of any politician's kid is pretty low, (unless like Chelsea Clinton, they've decided to enter the political fray themselves), but to infer that a person with DS was a mongrel is about as low as you can get, and as the Dad of a girl with DS, I was pretty angry.

Now I am not a subscriber to Crikey, but I am a frequent commenter on PollBludger, which is a Crikey Blog. So in a fit of indignation, I posted on PollBludger that I would boycott the blog for a while as I didn't feel like contributing to Crikey's hit count. It was a pretty dumb response, somewhat akin to boycotting The Australian because I found one of the opinion columns offensive. But still, I thought I'd register my protest and so I also fired off an angry email to the editor, Jonathon Green.

I was quite comforted to see that a number of bloggers on PollBludger from all ends of the political spectrum (bearing in mind most are lefties) expressed agreement with my condemnation of the Trig "joke", and many stated they too were writing emails to Green.

Interestingly, Andrew Bolt had been alerted to the puppy contest and saw it as ripe for his ripping into the left (and Crikey in particular). Now I agree with his point on the very poor taste of the contest, but after reading some of the comments left on his blog, I wondered just how much he really cared about the issue.

Here was a comment made by one of his readers:

Trig Palin should have been aborted. Down Syndrome victims are not human. Human Beings must be perfect, not genetically challenged in any way.
If you don’t know that then, crikey, what have been reading lately?

Now I read that trying to find some humour in it, for surely the writer couldn't be serious (one would hope). But to be honest I couldn't even see what point the writer was trying to make - was it that crikey readers think that, or that crikey don't think that? It made no sense; so I decided to leave the following comment:

I will assume that [the writer] here is trying to make an attempt at being funny, or perhaps using “satire”, but I have to say it’s not funny, not good satire, and not worth getting past the moderator.
This made me feel more sick than Green’s disgusting joke.

My point was that here was a blog full of righteous indignation about someone inferring a person with DS is a mongrel, and yet the line "Down Syndrome victims are not human" got through without even a cursory "I trust you're joking" from Bolt (or his "moderator").

Then again caring about feelings is not a strong point over at Bolt's blog, nor is moderation. In his blog on the puppy contest, Bolt unaccountably linked it to Maxine McKew's comment after the election where she said:

Well I think Paul Keating got it right, you know, this election has wiped away the toxicity. People are smiling, a sort of sense of, we can get on and do things.
And I think we all want to get on and do things in a certain way, in a civil way, in a sensible way, and get rid of perhaps I think that brutishness that has characterised our politics probably since 2001.

So suddenly the poor joke was an example of the entire left being hypocritical, and the McKew herself is the prime hypocrite (and as he then linked, she is also absent from her post because some people interviewed by The Daily Telegraph had not come across her in her seat of Bennelong).

So then the issue of treatment of people with DS by "the left" (in truth one blog, which I'm sorry to say does not speak for all lefties - though perhaps I missed the memo on that, and everything written in Crikey does now represent the beliefs of everyone who didn't vote Liberal at the last election...) morphed into a commentary on Maxine McKew, which contained such unmoderated, uncommented, and (I guess in Bolt's view) non-toxic comments as:

Maxine the smirk McKew. The most hated woman in politics is certainly nowhere to be seen or found for some reason. Anyone know why ? Will the Liberal Party be fielding a candidate for Benelong at the next election ?

or:
McWho’s smile doesn’t look very convincing; appears the champagne socialista was uncomfortable being snapped amongst the great unwashed of the electorate whilst strolling down sh*t street ...

or
I do not know a lot about “Crikey” but I do know this. Leading up to the 2010 election myself and many others will do everything we can(including spending our own money) to remove Ms McKew from Bennelong and thats a promise written in blood.

Gee talk about spreading the love...

But, such comments are not surprising given Bolt, the day after his indignant blog about the puppy contest, wrote this:

Maxine McKew, who has never had a child herself, spooks me a bit:

"As Professor Frank Oberklaid and Professor Fiona Stanley keep saying, babies come out of the womb ready to learn.
Our job as policymakers is to ensure young children have access to a calm, stimulating environment run by professionals..."

McKew, parliamentary secretary for early childhood education and child care, goes on to praise a school for three-year-olds. Don’t these little tackers just want - and deserve - their mums? Let’s not treat them too soon as government clients.

Excuse me?? Why is it important that McKew has not had children? How is that not offensive? I didn't realise you needed to be a parent before you could be a Minister of anything to do with children. I guess next he'll be having a go at Nicola Roxen for not being a doctor (she doesn't have kids either); or Kate Ellis for not being a professional sportsperson (actually no kids there either... or knowledge of sports trivia - which apparently Bolt thinks is imperative as the Sports Minister).

But look McKew really is at fault, how dare she have a career, and not shack up with some bloke at a young age and have a few kids? Why would she wait until she was 38 before falling in love with a guy. How dare she not put her career on hold at that point. I mean Lateline, 7:30 Report? Who needs them?

Oh well, at least Bolt ain't being toxic. Never mind that in his rant about her being anti-mother, he ignores what McKew wrote in the article that "spooked him":

The Wendouree West community has suffered for decades from a high level of disadvantage, intergenerational unemployment and children who have been disengaged from just about every level of education.

But a wondrous thing has happened. Through a dramatic change to the physical environment, Wendouree West has made a gigantic leap and created a school that functions for the entire community, and at all hours.

Mothers are enrolled in TAFE courses, their young children are on a different part of the site, either in playgroups or in pre-school, and primary school children are working away in beautifully designed learning hubs.

The change in the aesthetics and design has had a remarkable effect on behaviour. Parents now want to be involved with the school and, best of all, for the very young, pre-school participation has risen from a dismal low to more than 90 per cent.

Mothers learning new skills, with their children nearby. How horrible! But then I guess these mums shouldn't be going to TAFE, they should be home with the kids while the men do all the working and thinking for them...

But enough of Bolt. A few mates have told me I need to stop reading his blogs, as they only serve to make me annoyed. They're right. After all the reason I was annoyed in the first place was Crikey's utter insensitivity.

And so today I found this on Crikey, by the Jonathon Green :

There are moments as an editor - I’ve had a few - when you realise you’ve made a bad, bad call. This happens as often through the things you miss, or stumble over, or fail to give appropriate attention to, as it does thanks to the things you do resolutely, but wrongly, on purpose.

Crikey - and me personally - has copped a lot of blogosphere heat for running a poll to name the Obama puppy that included the candidate A Mongrel Called Trig. It was a reader suggestion, and it somehow made our shortlist, and then hopped onto the polling page. From there it was just a hop skip and a jump to the outraged comment strings of Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair and others.
There’s not a lot of love in those rooms.

We deserve our lumps here. There was no redeeming - or even comic - feature to what is just a dumb slur on an innocent child. The galling part of course, is giving ammunition to the billious rabble of the blogging far right. But what can you say when you’re so obviously in the wrong. Other than “I was wrong.” Which I was.

As I say, cop your lumps, learn your lesson and move on.

And with that I am back on PollBludger. We all make mistakes. What matters is how we act after making them. My concern was the Crikey folk were being purposefully vindictive - that they thought linking DS and mongrels was funny, but now I don't think they were - they were just being stupidly ignorant.

I believe Green's apology is sincere; and it is good to see. Some other blogs could benefit from doing the same thing occasionally. But then Bolt wrote a book called "Still Not Sorry", so I doubt we'll be seeing one from him.