Can Tiger change his stripes?

A few days ago Tiger Woods won a golf game by being the best at whacking hard little white balls into a hole. His first professional win in five years, as I understand it. It was a HUGE DEAL game in the big PGA Tour series, with the winner’s loot coming in at a staggering UDS $1.62 million; which is really just maintenance money on his USD$54 million private jet. 
 

If there was one thing Tiger probably wishes he could do with the enormous mountainous alps of golfing cash he’s earned over the years, it’s deleting his internet history. I don’t know much about The Golfing, but I do recall the sensationalised history of Tiger Woods, and The Internets is only too keen to remind me.

As we can recall from our previous experiences with Tiger, he is a tiger. Arguably the most recognised of the world's large animal species, he has widespread popular appeal. He spends his days stalking his prey and charming the tigresses. It's a jungle out there.

 

It's hard to believe that it's been nearly nine years since the world discovered that the golf world’s golden boy  - the human Tiger - had an off-duty hobby that took up nearly as much time as his golfing commitments. 

That being his wild infidelity scandal involving a gazillion affairs, and the fallout in 2009, when the media drooled as one mistress after another crawled out of seedy Las Vegas and New York City stripclubs to tell their sordid Tiger tale.

 

Back in the day, he really took his most bankable sponsor’s logo to heart – Just Do It.  While the media tore him apart, much of the public merely marveled at Tiger's clearly superior time management juggling so many tigresses.  He really put wedding planners to shame with his organisational skills.

Amid all the scandal and the global media's insatiable appetite for celebrity sleaze, one thing confused the hell out of me. Apparently Tiger first met his wife Elin when she was the on-tour babysitter for Swedish golfer, Jesper Parnevik, and his wife.  At what point would Parnevik's wife have agreed to having a gorgeous, Swedish ex-model come along to look after their children on tour with her husband? 

For the past few years, apart from a few trips in and out of court houses, Tiger has done a great job - or at least his management company have - at staying off the radar to refocus and concentrate on the sport that enabled him to score with so many trashy tigresses young women in the first place. 

While Woods was once widely acknowledged as the best adulterer golfer in the world, he is currently ranked 13^th, up from the 55^th a few years ago, which is roughly the same number of women he had going in 2009 before he was caught with his hand in the skanky jar. 

Which begs the question; should we expect a return of strippers / cocktail waitresses / nightclub door tigresses now Tiger’s clawed his way back out of the jungle?

 

The Tart Adventures of Harry & Julian

Oh, Prince Harry.  I imagine one's grandmother is not terribly amused at one's tawdry shenanigans in the skank capital of the entire solar system with a bunch of trashy American hookers or their classy equivalent.  

Seriously, who knew there were so many cheap and tacky trashbags in the world, prepared to whip their clothes off for the international media due to their incessant need for attention?  Oh wait, we did know that.  These women are everywhere, in many shapes and sizes of Kardashian.

I imagine the latest bunch of promiscuous ladettes are employed in professions involving poles and the ensuing dancing around of or else they wouldn't be too comfortable parading themselves so overwhelmingly underdressed in a global public forum in what appears to be a bit of a honey trap. 

And I think we all know what Harry's Scotland Yard detail were doing during the naked hotel room polo match romp or whatever it was.  I imagine the attention to detail was there, but it probably wasn't focused on handing out fines for unladylike behaviour under The Police Act 1827.  I imagine what those boys want right now is an Invisibility Cloak.

In other media tart-related news, embattled Wikileaker Julian 'Sausaage' Assange is still stuck in the middle of a war-torn nation state that is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention.  Or else he's still glamprisoned in posh war-torn Knightsbridge in Ecuadorian Britain on his blow-up camp bed.  I keep getting those two confused.

Assange's Wikileaks reminds me of the wind-up jewellery box I had as a kid, which opens to the sound of ballerina music - with a magnetised ballerina flippin' around like a drunken lout on the mirrored centre stage.

Although when you pry open the Wiki box, you get a garbled lecture from Assange on blah, blah, blah, I'm going to humiliate the United States of Crazy by exposing their secrets, blah, blah, blah.  But much to the chagrin of the wannabe Bond, the United States weren't humiliated; they were just plainly and understandably rightly pissed off.

I agree that Assange should be able to release anything he wants on his Wikileaks files, but I also think he needs to accept that there are consequences to those actions.  He hasn't got his head around that yet.  Probably never will.

Of course nation states have secrets.  There's nothing wrong with government secrets when you are dealing with sociopathic middle eastern nations.  We wouldn't have the freedoms we do if governments didn't have secrets.  Oh the irony of it all, Julian.  Secrets are how countries negotiate their way through the brutal and bloody minefield that is global politics.
 
Like a game of poker, you keep your game face on, your cards close to your chest and you hedge your bets, hoping the guy on your left who is winning is from the West and not the Middle East.  But you never, ever show your hand, Julian.  It goes a little something like that.

And then along comes the progressive leftwinger windbag who decides to open the damn pandora's jewellery box in the name of open governance.  No such thing as open governance in global political affairs; people couldn't handle the truth anyway, my 'pinion. 

The news, as it happens. Sometimes.

I decided a long time ago that the least irritating method of attaining my ‘news’ is to avoid all of the mainstream media's interpretations of what’s going on in the world.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t actually get any news updates, it just means that I find out what’s news - and the details of any significant events - by reading news blogs online, particularly the comments section, where people argue with each other about this and that, which enables the reader to get an overall picture of what is actually occurring, and are able to come to their own conclusions, without the typical news censoring and agenda setting.

The mainstream media tell you want they want you to know, in line with their particular ideology (ie. George Bush sucks, let’s only print bad things about him. Or, more likely, Barack Obama is left wing, like our news outlet, and therefore we simply must find a way to give viewers the impression that he is the messiah, even though he is hopelessly incompetent).  I'm pretty sure news bosses sit around and say to each other, 'we want this guy to stay in power, what sort of web of lies would work in this segment/column?'

Like it or hate it, this is how most media outlets operate, as much as they bang on about how they report the news as it happens, without bias. Without bias, my arse.  I write of my disdain for the mainstream news stations because I am currently watching Channel Ten’s evening bulletin. Seriously.

Whenever I watch a commercial new bulletin I always feel like I'm the third wheel on a date between the two anchors that will probably result in them going back to her house for coffee after the weather, which always follows an inspiring and brave story of a blind Indian orphan with a tumour or something.

Please stop flirting incessantly when you're reporting on suicide bombers in Afghanistan. I know it happens all the time in those deranged countries, but your batting eyelids and sideways smirks when the cameras are rolling are a little tacky and fairly annoying.  We all know that you're not real journalists, but have some self-respect.

The commercial news stations’ format and choice of stories entertains me a fair bit. I love how the ‘breaking news’ always conveniently occurs just after the main stories of the day or just before the program wraps up. Who knew that motorway-congesting car crashes, bogan-fuelled armed robberies, natural disasters and murders occurred in such a timely fashion, to fit in perfectly snug with the tight news schedule.

Just watched the segment on the slightly delusional British woman who claims women hate her because she is Angelina Jolie-esque beautiful. The gist of the entirely uninteresting and unnewsworthy story is that this woman lamented – on a British national morning show – that her outrageous beauty is why women hate her, and now everyone does actually hate her, which she believes proves her point.

As it turns out, she has not only not been hit with the pretty stick, but I believe the scorn women have expressed in her direction en masse is possibly due to the fact that she is a tad on the arrogant side, in the way that Hitler was a tad on the ruthless side.  While I don’t care about any of it, and I do love watching a good catfight between catty, fighty women as much as you do, it does bother me a bit that the media continue to exploit people with psychological disorders for a good story.

Grounded tigers, axed newspapers, rocket ships for sale

Please put up your hand if you have any actual certified training to fly an aeroplane. Games arcades do not count as credible training programs. Neither does any previous experience working for Tiger Airways.

Poor Tiger was clipped over the wings last week by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the body that oversees all things that fly in a civil fashion in Australian skies (except birds obviously), when CASA demanded DEMANDED! that Tiger ground all their planes.

CASA were a little miffed when they discovered that Tiger pilots do not really know how to fly planes properly. Which is actually kind of funny. Honestly, how can any airline possibly live up to CASAs safety standards?  That Flight Centre pilot is probably shaking in his boots because I don't think he even has a cardboard licence.

I wonder if the pilot of that French airliner that spun the other midget plane at JFK airport in New York earlier this year has ever worked for Tiger. Actually, it is just so typical of the French to barge through oncoming traffic and smack right into another plane that just happens to be sitting in their way. Didn’t even stop to exchange insurance information, which the pilot would have probably just pulled out of a ham and cheese baguette in lieu of a cereal packet.

Speaking of people who cannot do their jobs in a manner that is not, you know, legal in the eyes of the law...

The staff left standing at the News of the World who were not involved in the phone hacks of the world scandal are complaining that their employer's key headline-chasing workplace guideline, that being tampering and sticking one's nose into the personal phone records of people in the news, has made them lose all credibility.

Well, I’m not sure they BEGAN with any credibility; such was their choice to work for a newspaper that contains page three girls, and thinks important breaking news is covering the sex romps of English footballers. Perhaps these journalists (italicised for the purposes of sarcasm) could have fixed their credibility issue by working for a CREDIBLE newspaper.  Actually, probably not.  Maybe if they left the media industry altogether things would perk up for them.

Speaking of things being grounded and axed, NASAs Atlantis shuttle took off this week for the U.S. space program's final flight, after the Obama Messiah thought it a good idea to wrap-up one of the few good things to have come out of the United States.

All those young kids (who aren’t stoned) who stare at the night sky for hours, with dreams of being an astronaut, will just have to get a boring government job like the rest of us. Alternatively, they could get a gig at Tiger Airways.

Watching the take-off yesterday, it occurred to me that I didn’t know how space shuttles come back down to earth.  Well I imagined they didn't just hit the brakes at that speed because they’d likely burn up into oblivion on re-entry. So I ventured out into the great outer space of Wikipedia to suss it out:

The vehicle re-enters the atmosphere by firing the Orbital maneuvering system engines, while flying upside down, backside first, in the opposite direction to orbital motion for approximately three minutes, which reduces the shuttle's velocity by about 200 mph (322 km/h)... the shuttle then flips over, by pushing its nose down (which is actually "up" relative to the Earth, because it is flying upside down).

The vehicle then performs a series of four steep S-shaped banking turns, each lasting several minutes... in this way it dissipates speed sideways rather than upwards. This occurs during the 'hottest' phase of re-entry, when the heat-shield glows red and the G-forces are at their highest. By the end of the last turn, the transition to aircraft is almost complete. The vehicle levels its wings, lowers its nose into a shallow dive and begins its approach to the landing site.

That is friggin’ mad!  But I bet they can't parallel park.

Osama's WAGS

Terrorists are a colossal pain in the arse to interrogate; what with their incessant whinging about the lack of internet access in Guantanamo which means they can't chat to their terror networks on Skype or update AnnihilateTheWest.com, and their outrage at the new rule that prohibits them from spending their days carving out a labyrinth of underground tunnels and escape routes with spades and shovels.  Did it not raise any eyebrows when local demand encouraged Bunnings to build a home improvement outlet in Gitmo?

The human rights lawyers, unemployed hippies, smug, self-righteous students and leftwing journalists who huddle around terrorists in their time of guilt need have a tendency to muddy the waters of public opinion, so it is often the case that these mass murderers are perceived by the public as simply innocent bystanders who were caught in the wrong desert at the wrong time. 

Sure, these guys were caught brandishing AK-47s in a terrorist training camp, but I think we have all found ourselves in that sticky situation from time to time.  Just ask David 'Traitor' Hicks.  Oh, that's right, now that he has a book out, he refuses to answer pertinent questions like, "are you ever going to give a satisfactory explanation for your presence in a terrorist training camp?"  Maybe Hicks is a camel.  Has anyone thought to ask him if he's a camel?  Because that would be a satisfactory explanation. 

And now with the Democrats in power in the United States, the officials at Gitmo are not allowed to use any of the techniques that enable them to get terrorists to spill the beans; like asking them questions that may hurt their feelings, may catch them out in a lie, or do anything that they would usually do when, you know, they are interrogating a dangerous terrorist who possesses information imperative to international security and/or the future stability of the west. But that’s okay, don’t push him; I guess he’ll just talk when he’s ready..

Without the use of interrogation techniques, it may as well be a job interview with an explosives company. The leftwing seem to think terrorists will open up to express their feelings of hatred and their plans for the next jihad on the west if they are simply offered a cup of hot cocoa and a milk arrowroot. They have zero concept of how these terror networks operate. And the terrorists know all too well that the western media are sympathetic to human rights, so they milk it for all its worth through their nutty support network in the west (see: human rights lawyers and the Fairfax media).

But just when you thought terrorists were difficult interviewees, spare a thought for the U.S. Government officials who have just questioned three terrorist WAGS; otherwise known as the Wives and More Wives of Osama bin Laden. These women were reportedly equally as charming and amicable in their demeanour as their dead husband was in his heyday. I can just imagine how the conversation went.

Government: “What do you know about bin Laden's future terrorist plots?”
Wife 1: “How dare you ask me any questions! You are all racist! I have human rights, you filthy American white boys! I hate you! Where's my human rights lawyer?!?!”, amid a whole bunch of shrieking and ranting. 

They were apparently hostile, which some sections of the media find surprising for some reason.  I wonder if they co-signed the letter Osama wrote expressing his desire to see President Obama assassinated.  If anyone in the world could be found guilty by association it should be this odious trio.  I guess they will get their comeuppance when they are forced to appear in a new television pilot; The Terrorist Wants a Wife.  Or maybe The Terrorist Blew up his Wife.  My feeling is they will want a six figure sum to do a series of The Real Housewives of Afghanistan.    

And now al Qaeda has gone all al Qaeda on the Middle East. Again. Not that they ever stopped. They've just seemed to have ramped up the suicide bombings.  If they want to blow each other up just let them go.  It saves America doing it.  I'm so tired of hearing about their civil war and general irrational crankypantsness.

Current affairs ADHD

What do you get when you cross Westminster Abbey, Bieber's six flying eggs and a bunch of Navy SEALs? Current affairs ADHD, that’s what. In the past week, the media have had me hooked on their inane sensationalistic news cycle; that being the royal wedding brouhaha, Justin Bieber's right royal egging, and the death of a loathed serial killer.

First there was P-Willy and Kate. Enough said. But also Harry, and Chelsea, and Kate's mum and dad, and the yellow Q, and Fergie's two wicked witches, and Bea's head decoration, and Pippa's bum, and Tara's nose, and Q's snub of Camilla, and the homeless-looking bishop, and Beck's OBE, and Posh's hair, shoes, garbage bag dress, baby bump, lack of baby bump, forehead hat, face, nose, mouth, eye makeup, pouting, smiling, frowning, pouting, etc etc, and the various media-created afflictions and bad wedding attire decisions of other random aristocrats and lowly-ranked celebrities I've never heard of.  Thank heavens the Navy SEALs struck bin Laden when they did or we'd still be putting up with the media's angst over the madhatter's man-made disasters.  

Bin Laden's days of hooning around the streets of Pakistan on the back of an ox and lapping it up in the glamourous mountains and cavernous rabbit warrens of the renowned tourist mecca of Afghanistan came to a dramatic end on the weekend when he was killed by a bunch of Navy SEALs.  It's always best for this type of military operation to remain covert, if for no other reason that whenever civilians (see: the media) get involved they always RUIN EVERYTHING.  Remember when the international media compromised Prince Harry's security in Afghanistan?  Dumb as dog shit.

Plus, the U.S. TV stations would have tried to get in on the action - 20 everyday Americans compete for the chance to blow out the brains of a terrorist...  Yes, that's a little uncalled for - but so was Bali, New York, London and about 500 other attacks he scripted.  True to form, bin Laden's last moments in his quasi-luxurious, cowdung loveshack involved grabbing one of his wives to shield him from the inevitable bullet in the head. Oh well, he's dead now. 

Trust the Pakistanis to be housing mass serial killers.  No surprises there.  Pakistan has been the heart of modern terrorism ever since bin Laden rolled into town.  But there's no time to rest, there are plenty more exploding fruitloops in bin Laden's neck of the woods.  So get to it America.  And it would be tops if you could please put the next one on YouTube.   

What's to say about the itty bitty Biebernator?  He performed his bouncy little routine in Australia the other night and someone egged him.  The next night he brought the "hero" bully-fighter (whose attack on his tormenter last month went viral) onto the stage to yell out a few words of youthful inspirational - that being his famous (apparently) tagline NEVER SAY NEVER! - to the terrifiyingly enthusiastic Bieber teenyboppers.  I would have preferred the Biebs to moonwalk out to the stage and tell the audience about his money, fame and bright future, and how they would never ever come close to such good fortune.  NEVER EVER EVER!!!!

The Wills and Kate show

I certainly hope you've stocked up on your tacky quasi-royal embossed mugs, plates, toilet seat covers, tea towels, retarded cardboard cutout faces, vomit bags, thimbles and condoms.  

Who doesn't need it.

Wills is finally marrying his Kate in a couple of days in front of an audience of 850 billion people or some such.  I don't care terribly for weddings, but I appreciate the entertainment of the royals, which is a satisfactory explanation for my excitement over the nuptials.

Their big day happens to be on a Friday, which has been made into a public holiday, no doubt in a futile attempt to keep those pesky commoners out of the way of the royal carriages.  It's so messy and inconvenient when the bourgeois are trampled by all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men.  

And I'm sure the various Commonwealth leaders and other distinguished guests (i.e. not the Beckhams) can get their 2ICs to fill in for a few hours while they take their leave. Alternatively, someone could ask the Middle East to stop blowing up our soldiers until the weekend.  

The wedding brouhaha is still all very top secret. The last thing the Royals need is the Fleet Street journalists (italicised for the purpose of sarcasm) picking apart every wedding detail and creating pie graphs and flow charts to show how much money is being wasted on security and cream puffs, and which hapless Govvie estate should benefit instead. 

I suppose it’s a bit presumptuous to say these journalists can understand statistics. It’s kind of a moot point anyway, because accuracy is not generally a priority for the tabloids.

Prince Charles tried to ban kitsch merchandise this time around, which is understandable considering the evidence from his own nuptials can still be found in most households throughout the Commonwealth. It doesn’t matter what the event is; mug commemoration is tacky. Charles knows this and wanted more for his boy.

Unfortunately for 'the Firm', trashy merchandisers had templates of the couple ready to go in their factories in China in preparation of a royal proposal.  Although, William is rather more aesthetically pleasing than his father was on his wedding day, and Kate is fortunate that she is not getting married in the eighties, a point she will appreciate in years to come when she is asked to autograph her face on millions of platters around the nation.    

It’s anyone’s guess what Kate is going to wear. Hopefully it’ll be classic, elegant and bear no resemblance whatsoever to any of Vivienne Westwood’s creations. And I hope she doesn’t fancy any Aussie designers or we’ll never hear the end of it here. 

The pressure on Team Kate’s hairdresser and make-up upperer will be immense, so I'm sure there will be professional counsellors on standby for any emergencies, armed with words of wisdom, extra-strength hair spray and handfuls of kohl pencils.

The quaintly named Bucklebury in Berkshire, Kate’s hometown, has already been invaded by curious tourists and international media. Apparently the Americans have a particular fascination with Wills and Kate. The local folk in towns that breed celebrities never to cease to amaze me with their nonchalance and downright annoyance that people dare come to their village to snoop, never mind the fact their pesky visitors will likely invest back into the community. 

Bleed the tourists dry, you fools! They are Americans; they don’t understand currency that isn’t American.

The Buckleburites should be excited that anyone has taken an interest in their pokey little village, which is actually quite beautiful, but won’t be for long. Although some locals aren't fussed about all the fuss.

Local pig farmer, Julian Taylor, says “it won’t bother me; the tourists aren’t going to come to see the pig farm”.

Mr Taylor makes a valid point, but I disagree. The American media have descended on Pommieland, and as soon as the find where the hell Bucklebury is on the English A-Z, they’ll be all over the pig farm like a fat kid on a cupcake.

Hire-a-Dolphin

From my vantage point, which I would loosely describe as east of my television set, it was a beautiful Wednesday morning in April on the New South Wales Central Coast.  The decommissioned frigate, the ex-HMAS Adelaide, was waiting patiently just off Avoca Beach.  She was due to be scuttled at 10.30am after a 12-year campaign by local supporters to have this warship meet its final resting place in this beautiful part of the world.  The 11th hour push by environmental activists to stop the scuttling had failed, after the judge in the court case denied their (insanity) plea.  

HMAS Adelaide in her heyday -
fighting global terrorism


With moments to go, red smoke plumed into the air and the five-minute warning siren bleated from a small boat.  But five minutes passed, and we got nothing.  No promised pyrotechnics (which I've never seen the point of during the day); absolutely nothing happened.  The news stations scampered to find something to talk about and the Adelaide waited; listing widely but gently in the wind.

It turned out that a huge pod of playful dolphins had ventured into the exclusion zone, no doubt curious over the activity and masses of people and boats in their playpen.  The scuttling had been scuttled.  I can relate; if I had a buck for every time my best-laid plans have been scuttled by a bunch of nosy dolphins.

At least 50 of these little sea monkeys held up the process for a good hour and a half, having a great old time leaping about in the water and just generally being cute.  It is always entertaining listening to TV anchors trying desperately to find something to talk about when all they are showing the viewing audience is an ocean bubbling with white froth and the occasional dolphin doing a triple pike backflip.  If only those ocean-faring creatures knew the chaos they were creating, and how happy they were making the greenies.  Perhaps it was Bob Brown and his cronies dressed in sleek, grey inflatable pvc suits.

You'd think the greenies would be happy about the scuttling. The HMAS Adelaide will create an artificial reef, a human-made underwater structure that is generally built to control erosion from the shore and to promote marine life in a sea floor that otherwise doesn't have anything very exciting going on.  It's ironic that an attraction named after the city of Adelaide is being used for the purpose of tourism.    

Also ironic is that warships like the Adelaide are part of the reason insufferable greenies are able to whinge endlessly to the media.  If we didn't ship troops off to wars on these frigates back in the day, and still to this day, we'd likely be a communist country by now.  And I would love to see Bob Brown and his deluded cohorts try and whinge about the government under a communist regime.

While waiting for the main event, Sky News passed the time talking to a woman who seemed to be from Avoca Tourism, who waxed lyrical about the area and how cool it is having hundreds of dolphins just off shore, as if it happened everyday.  And if I didn't know any better, I would say that the dolphins were an 11th hour PR stunt by the Avoca Tourism Board.  It felt like a PR stunt, but I have no idea how that would have been carried out.  Perhaps there is an illegal Hire-a-Dolphin company operating on the Central Coast.

Sky News also spoke to two insane, unreasonable green activists, who answered every questions from a journalist with "it's leaking lead paint! OMG! We're all gonna die!!", which it's not, and we're not, but I suppose you need to come up with something - anything - when you've got nothing relevant to say. 

Aside from the whinging of the activists - who tried to steal the Adelaide's thunder - I thought it was so sad that, instead of talking about the rich history of the frigate and the Royal Australian Navy, Sky News gave all the airtime to tourism folk and nutty environmentalists.  I would have liked to hear the views of someone who had served on the ship perhaps. 

Some ADF officers spent years on the frigate, serving their country, fighting wars in our name.  And on the day that we should be talking about its history, all the media is concerned about is its environmental impact (which is negligible) and how much money will be invested in the area through the ship's new role as a tourist attraction.

The HMAS Adelaide fought in wars for Australia.  It took just 60 seconds for her to sink to the floor of the ocean.  No great movement in the water, just a very fast and smooth ride to start her new life.

Media should name names

The Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) says that it is 'more than just a university'.  Oh, ain't that the truth.  That's ADFA as in the Defence military kindergarten, not the Australian Dried Fruits Association.  But I'm sure they'd understand if you got the two confused.

The Australian Defence Forces (ADF) are really good at defending us; which is useful, because my only expectation of them is to ensure we don’t turn into a country that is anyway different to how it is now. I want them to fight wars in foreign lands, rather than wait until the enemy rocks up here. I want them to stop the bad people among the legitimate refugees from traipsing illegally onto our shores from god knows where, and I want them to kick the arse of any terrorist who plans to obliterate us from the inside. And as far as defending all things Australian, I think they are doing a tops job.

I am very comfortable and confident that the ADF know how to handle any shituation that involves war, intelligence, national security, machine guns, bad people and other defence type matters. That said, I have no confidence whatsoever that they can handle incidents involving women.

The latest Defence scandal involves an 18-year-old student at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA).  The girl, known as Kate, went to the media after the Defence head honchos allegedly ignored her complaint that she had unknowlingly been filmed with a webcam while having sex with another student, while another six male students watched in another room.  Yes, Kate broke the rules by fraternising with the opposite sex, which is banned at the academy.  But that's not the key issue.

How naïve of the Defence heads to believe that dismissing this complaint would be the end of the matter.  What the hell is wrong with these men?  They need to stick to playing with their guns and tanks and not involve themselves in negotiations with any members of the opposite sex, ever.  Because it always seems to turn out badly.  And now a former naval officer has come out, claiming she was raped in her sleep by a fellow officer, and I hope many more people come forward, as difficult as that may be for them.  The ADF has had this coming for a very long time. 

And then we have the media.  Whenever something controversial is going on, particularly when it involves a government department, you can bet your bottom dollar that a journalist will be censored by their news organisation if they upset the applecart. In this case, the requirement is to not upset the highest echelons of the Defence Department, in fear of losing key contacts, and thus the journalist will end up covering trade fairs and dog shows, rather than getting any big scoops from key sources inside the government.

So the while the media whinge endlessly about their impartiality, and how it’s their sole purpose to expose the truth and keep the public informed, in reality, it’s a lot muddier than that. The media and government exist in a complex symbiotic relationship. It’s a two-way mechanism – needing each other, but also needing to keep the other at arm's length. You think it’s just as simple as writing a story and exposing the truth? Get real. We only get a sanitised version of the truth; a version that generally won’t result in any of the top brass going out to pasture on a controversial note.

But doesn’t the public have a right to know who's raping women in the armed forces? Sure we do, but we aren’t going to get the whole truth. The media always claim they protect the identities of bad people because of defamation laws, but I want to know why, even after court proceedings, the media does not, or is not allowed to, name names? Isn’t this hypocritical, given they claim their role is to inform the public?

And I think it would be pretty easy to identify who put it on Skype.  Surely the public is entitled to demand that the media expose the truth.  Expose the jackass who raped (it might be under ACT law) Kate, the others who watched on Skype, and the top brass, and/or government members who decided to cover it up.

Protect the source (Kate), but expose the predators. I don't want the identity of these men protected. I want their faces on the front of all national newspapers, so they can deal with the fallout. Surely the Defence Department would think again about their leniency in cracking down on rapists if there was even the possibility that the faces of these dropkicks would go viral.

Any excuse that is rolled out in defence of protecting their identity is based on an outcome I'd be happy to see - like they won't get work anywhere (cry me a river), or they'll be rejected by women (sounds like a community service to me), or the top brass have had a honourable career (they did, until now).  I don't care what happens to these people, I just want them exposed for who they are.  I really, really would like to see them exposed for who they are.

And let's be clear; the media do not give a stuff about protecting identities of people like Kate; all they care about is ratings and circulation figures, and you only get these through big stories, which you only get by retaining the rapport with the higher echelons in government departments and other business and industry leaders. They sure as shit do not care about protecting society, specifically ADFA women, from men who rape.

These ADFA guys are a small bunch of really rotten eggs among the good eggs in the defence forces. I think we should ship the rotten ones off to the hot spots right now - no training, no guns, no armour, no chance in hell of getting out of there. Perhaps the Defence Department needs a female Pal Sec to act as Defence Women's Relations Liaison, or something to that effect. We could get an outrageously annoying feminist in the role and watch the boys squirm.  Germaine 'name and shame rapists' Greer comes immediately to mind for some reason.  No-one can emasculate quite like Germaine.

McBogans

Ah, Today Tonight. What would we do without you? We’d probably get along just fine, and be a far less litigious society, and have far less cashed-up bogans, and no-one would notice you were gone.   Anyway, TT ran a story tonight on parents who take their children on family shopping adventures. What? So why is that TT-worthy? 

Well, aside from the fact that TT is completely ridiculous at the best of times, this story was about a type of shopping adventure that you engage in without any exchange of cash taking place. No, no credit cards either. Don’t need credit cards. It’s more of a five-fingered discount type of family outing. For arguments sake, let’s call it bogan shopping. Because bogans think shopping the traditional, old-fashioned way of trading cash for goods kinda McSucks.

But who can blame the bogans.  When the parole officer told Tracee-Lee that she should spend more quality time with her offspring, Chardonaay-Jaiymee, she probably meant do something that wasn't illegal.  But how can Tracee-Lee have possibly be expected to know that?  Those parole officers really need to be more SPECIFIC. “Quality time with your family” for convicted criminals means taking your offspring with you when you steal a three-pack of skivvies from Best and Less / hold up an IGA.

And then the journalist (that's italicised for the purpose of sarcasm), spoke to the security manager of one electronics outlet. Surely, if they have footage of a bogan lady walking out with a blue ray DVD player and surround sound system they should have caught her. How do these people get the guts to walk out with a pile of hot goods anyway? That’s confidence.

And what were the security personnel doing when the stock was walking out the door in the hands of bogan trash? Probably eating one of McDonald’s new Pounder burgers.  Rather than securing things, they were probably stuffing their faces with 50,000 calories of fluorescent cheese and a curious meat-looking product on a sesame seed bun-looking product.  Maximum taste, minimum wage. Sheesh, it's like putting Hamburglar in charge of the security department.

I really hate segways on commercial television. Why do they have to announce that they have just made a fabulous segway into the next story? It was stupid even before they decided to point it out.  Anywho, speaking of McDonalds...

TT also reported that McDonalds are denying they have a burger called the Pounder, even though they do in fact have a new burger called the Pounder.  Instead of dealing with the fallout of having a burger on your menu with a calorie count that would feed a third world country, and further bloat the waistlines of people who seem incapable of driving anywhere expect fast food outlets, the McDonald’s PR simply denied its existence.

Despite the fact the TT man (I can’t bring myself to call him a journalist again) had just gone into McDonalds and bought a Pounder.  Genius damage control. I like it. I stand behind it. Bill Clinton also famously got away with it with the skanky McIntern using this little tactic.  Well, got away with it in the sense that most lefties still think the sun shines out of his McArse.

Apple - the technology and the fruit

How much is that apple in the window? We all know that there is muchos overpricing of technology and fruit in the retail sector.  Australian fruitgrowers are battling floodwaters, but what’s Gerry Harvey from Harvey Norman's excuse?

Harvey, head of the Harvey Norman retail chain, has been blithering over the past few days (years) about the indecency of Australian shoppers who are choosing to desert his overpriced retail outlets in droves to shop online for products that are often a third of his asking price.

The Canberra Times reports that Gerry Harvey has made a sanctimonious emotional plea in an attempt to hoodwink the public – as usual – into thinking that he’s just a retailer trying to make a living. Harvey is upset that 17-year-old’s are calling him most unflattering names. Yes, the teenage mutant's are angry, but many of them don’t have the emotional maturity to get their message across in a way that doesn’t sound crude.

My question is this: why the hell is the head of a billion dollar mega-empire spending his time reading comments about himself on Facebook and Twitter? Well, he’s probably not, and he doesn’t really give two hoots.

Nobody is coming into Harvey’s chain anymore because the consumer has realised that it’s just plain uneconomical to do so. He seems to be constantly baffled by the news that the majority of Australians think he’s being ripping them off for years. That this is news to Harvey demonstrates how out of touch he is with the retail sector and consumer demands.

The game is up Gerry. Whether you like it or not, consumers have oodles of choice now, and we choose to abandon your outlets, for the most part, and browse the global online supermarket; a bandwagon that you should have jumped on years ago. Wonder if he still thinks online selling is a waste of time.

Rather than come out and apologise for his embarrassing outbursts, Harvey chose to make the situation about himself, to garner public sympathy, and to distract us from the fact that he’s going to continue to trade as per usual, which is years behind the retail trend.

Public service broadcasting - its relevance

There is agreement in the literature of the role Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) should play in society and that it should be judged on the way it manages that role. Both the ABC and the BBC, arguably the most influential public broadcaster in the world, take measures in programming to justify their existence. Some commentators see this as a justification for PSB, there is also criticism PSB lacks consumer sovereignty, is no more relevant to society than commercial broadcasting, and its programming is prone to bias and interference by the government.

While government intervention into PSB can be seen as an economic success, one commentator highlights the need for governments to take care to avoid PSB failures, and there is call for PSB to adapt to the new technological era of endless choice for the consumer to avoid becoming irrelevant.  PSB includes television and radio that receive funding direct from the government, from a specific tax (eg. a television licence fee) or from public donations.

There is mostly agreement in the literature I read of the role that public service broadcasting should play. According to Burns (2008: 868), a public service broadcaster should be universally available, have universal appeal, have provisions for minorities, should educate the public, should remain distant from vested interests and have freedom from the programme maker.

Jacka (2006: 344) discusses the vision of the BBC’s founder, Lord John Reith, to see public broadcasting as a new way of forming public opinion; a ‘public service’ that would act as a “moral and educative force”. The Reithian ideals can be summarised as the access to fine culture for all and the key role it should play in informing the public, reaffirming that high quality content continues to be a defence for the existence of PSB.

According to Oesterlen (2008: 34) public service broadcasters assert their value and cultural credentials by broadcasting high culture to prove they are still culturally relevant and beneficial to the taxpayer. Oesterlen (2008) discusses BBC's global broadcast of the Shakespeare play King Lear as an attempt to assert power in determining cultural content in the new competitive media landscape of the twenty-first century.

The ABC Charter (ABC Online) maintains the ABC is valuable to society. Its core functions include keeping the public informed through programs that contribute to a sense of national identity, that educate and entertain and that reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community. Also, to transmit internationally to encourage an awareness of Australia and enable expatriate or travelling Australians to be aware of what's going on at home. The Charter also says the ABC has an awareness of the multicultural nature of the Australian community, and has an understanding of its responsibility to provide a balance of popular programs with those of special interest.

But what about what happens to the taxpayer’s dollars? According to Doyle (2002: 61), PSB is valuable to society from an economic perspective. The author discusses this value in terms of its ‘public good’ characteristics; which are its non-excludability, meaning the consumption of the good by a viewer does not reduce its availability for anyone else, and its non-exhaustibility, meaning no-one is excluded from accessing the good.

But Doyle (2002: 64) also explores public broadcasting as a market failure, due to the fact the price and quantity of the goods are not determined by supply and demand, so there is no mechanism for direct revenue from the consumer. This is relevant because PSB is funded by the public. The author (2002: 66) discusses the idea that governments produce PSB because it is thought the market does not supply the values that are need to maintain a civil society, and the people are not capable of judging what is in their own best interests. Cooper (2007: 2) says governments know that television is engrained in modern life, and will seek to control what may be broadcast, as a form of social control.

But according to Williams (1996: 103), public service broadcasters are “running smack” into television’s basic law, which is “give people more choice, they use it”. Williams (1996) also found that the public don’t really want to be educated by television. In a study, the author looked at the most popular television programs in 1995, even before the internet had really caught on, and found consumers want popular, commercial television, not specialised PSB. The top programs from the ABC didn’t even rate in the top 100.

Other literature says commercial television is just as relevant as PSB in terms of keeping the public informed on important issues. Krajina (2007: 198) thinks popular commercial television is as useful as PSB, and should not be condemned as “mere profit-motivated irrational pleasures”; because consumers are involved in “rational deliberation” as active citizens. The author (2007: 199) looked at the power of “democratic entertainment”, through an assessment of a game/talk show “The Pyramid”, which involved informed discussions on important national issues with an audience, celebrities and politicians.

There is agreement in the literature that consumer sovereignty is important to viewers; they like to engage and have some say in a medium they are paying for. According to some commentators, PSB consumers do not get to dictate what is produced, so there is a lack of consumer sovereignty. Doyle (2002) argues that in a normal market, public service broadcasters would need to meet the preferences of their consumers if they wished to remain in business.

Others argue consumer sovereignty is a myth that is perpetuated by the media to defend its programming (Pauwels & Bauwens, 2007, 149). Pauwels & Bauwens (2007) argue TV viewers have a choice of programmes, but it is merely a reflection of the consumers’ personal socio-economic conditions and relations, and a choice only from what is on offer, which is not to say it is what they really want.

To this end, the extent consumers come into contact with different forms of cultural expression can be limited. The authors also explore the “interiorisation of consumer sovereignty” (2007: 58), the idea that viewers blame themselves when they can’t choose a program they like, and in doing so, they actively contribute to their own powerlessness, by actively reproducing the myth of consumer sovereignty.

According to Ferguson (2007: 182), the democratic ideals of access and participation are critically important in defending the existence of PSB in today's environment of endless programme choice and mediums. Particularly so in an era where governments are cutting back on PSB funding and commercial and pay television broadcasting are rapidly expanding.

Richards (2005) discusses this as a “gentle, gradual, evolving, historic act of liberation” for consumers. That is, the liberty to determine what they watch and what they listen to, on their own schedule.

So, what of the future for PSB, particularly in Australia? Curran (1981: 324) discusses the growing disparity in revenue between the commercial broadcasters and PSB which means outlets like the ABC will continue to be vulnerable to political pressure, as long as it relies on government funding. And Dempster (2000: 56) points to the ongoing accusations of bias against the ABC generated from both sides of politics.

One commentator gave a description of the failure of the PSB model in New Zealand, as an example for governments to avoid. Cocker (2008: 40) gives an insight into the several eras of bad policies from New Zealand governments, including the early restrictive regulation of television and an unwillingness to give public service broadcasters political independence or adequate funding. According to Cocker (2008: 42), the New Zealand model has never met public expectations and needs and has not measured up to the ideals of a public service broadcaster in a democracy.

The literature was reviewed in relation to the role, value and future of PSB. There is agreement among commentators that PSB should be judged on how it manages its role. One commentator highlights how public service broadcasters take measures to justify their existence, and there exists criticism over its lack of consumer sovereignty, whether it is any more relevant for society than commercial broadcasting, and the issue of bias and interference by the government. One commentator argues PSB can be viewed as an economic success, another warns of a PSB failure. Further, there is commentary regarding the future relevance of public service broadcasters in the new technological era of endless choice and mediums for consumers.


REFERENCE LIST

ABC Online (2008) ABC Charter 1983, About the ABC. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/ABCcharter.htm Accessed 9 April 2009.

Burns (2008) Public Service Broadcasting meets the Internet at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 22, 6, pp. 867-881.

Cocker, A. (2008) Broadcasting in New Zealand: A story of public policy failure. Australia Journal of Communication, 35, 2, pp. 39-55.

Cooper, C. (2007) Television on the Internet: Regulating News Ways of Viewing. Information & Communications Technology Law, 16, 1, pp. 1-16.

Curran, J. (1981) The Impact of Advertising on the British Mass Media. Media, Culture & Society, 3, 1, pp. 43-69.

Dempster, Q. (2000) Death Struggle. Allen & Unwin: Crows Nest, NSW.

Doyle, G. (2002) Understanding Media Economics, First Edition, Sage: University of Glasgow.

Ferguson (2007) Locking out the Mother Corp: Nationalism and Popular Imaginings of Public Service Broadcasting in the Print News Media, Canadian Journal of Communication, 32, 2, pp. 181-200.

Jacka, E. (Edited by Cunningham, S. & Turner, G.) (1997) The Media and Communications in Australia. Allen & Unwin: Sydney.

Krajina, Z. (2007) Democratic Potentials of Media Entertainment: Reading ‘The Pyramid’. Political Thought: Croatian Political Science Review, 16, 5, pp. 179-202.

Oesterlen, E. (2008) Lend me your 84 million ears: Exploring a special radio event – Shakespeare’s King Lear on BBC World Radio Service. The Radio Journal, 6, 1, pp. 33-44.

Pauwels, C. & Bauwens, J. (2007) ‘Power to the People’? The myth of television consumer sovereignty revisited. International Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 3, 2, pp. 149-165.

Richards, E. (2005) OFCOM Annual Lecture: Trends in Television, Radio and Telecoms, 20 July. Available online at: www.ofcom.org.uk/media/speeches/2005/07/

Williams, R. (1996) Normal Service won’t be resumed. Allen & Unwin: St Leonard’s , NSW.