The Harsh Couch - 2015.06.23 Choose a Side

#1

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history. - Orwell

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://theharshcouch.com/thc/2015-06-23/
#2

I think Dr Gob takes the contrarian chair for today’s show. His position on jail rape in the face of the populist, demagogic view was principled and considered.

#3

The fruits of cross-searching “Orwell” against “rape”:

Eric Blair may have been a little rapey:

From these she made the shocking discovery that, in 1921, Eric had tried to rape Jacintha. Previously the young couple had kissed, but now, during a late summer walk, he had wanted more. At only five feet to his six feet and four inches, Jacintha had shouted, screamed and kicked before running home with a torn skirt and bruised hip. It was “this” rather than any gradual parting of the ways that explains why Jacintha broke off all contact with her childhood friend, never to learn that he had transformed himself into George Orwell.

Venables believes that the attempted “rape”, which, in truth, sounds more like a botched seduction, may also explain the sad, desperate things that happened next. She reveals for the first time that, in 1927, Jacintha gave birth to a daughter as a result of an affair gone wrong, and was obliged to let her childless aunt adopt the baby. When Eric returned that year on leave from Burma, he interpreted Jacintha’s absence from the Buddicom family home as evidence that she was still angry with him (in fact, she was spending six painful months in seclusion). Any chance of picking up where they had left off, perhaps even marrying, had now gone for good. From that point, both of them seemed to give up any hope of forming a nurturing relationship. Eric turned to Burmese prostitutes and Jacintha to a 30-year affair with a Labour peer.

But he’s not charitable to other rapey people - from Dickens, Dali and Others:

In an age like our own, when the artist is an altogether exceptional person, he must be allowed a certain amount of irresponsibility, just as a pregnant woman is. Still, no one would say that a pregnant woman should be allowed to commit murder, nor would anyone make such a claim for the artist, however gifted. If Shakespeare returned to the earth to-morrow, and if it were found that his favourite recreation was raping little girls in railway carriages, we should not tell him to go ahead with it on the ground that he might write another King Lear. And, after all, the worst crimes are not always the punishable ones. By encouraging necrophilic reveries one probably does quite as much harm as by, say, picking pockets at the races. One ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other. The first thing that we demand of a wall is that it shall stand up. If it stands up, it is a good wall, and the question of what purpose it serves is separable from that. And yet even the best wall in the world deserves to be pulled down if it surrounds a concentration camp. In the same way it should be possible to say, “This is a good book or a good picture, and it ought to be burned by the public hangman.” Unless one can say that, at least in imagination, one is shirking the implications of the fact that an artist is also a citizen and a human being

#4

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We are done for.

#5

I wouldn’t call it an “own goal” by the ABC, so much as what you should expect will happen when you kick the ball into a pit of shit and ordure that is Australian media and political discourse.

#6

I’ve booked in 30 minutes with one of my grad bankers tomorrow to debate the topic “why a white guy going into a black church and shooting people because they are black is not terrorism”. I’m on the negative. The American minds boggles me.

#7

I’m watching “Killing Season” and my main takeaway is Jenny Macklin comes across like the sort of mum who runs the school tuckshop.

Also, Kevin’s messaging comes across as too pre-rehearsed, too calculating, too narcissistic psychopathic. Gilliard seems more human and more believable.

#8

I watched the first episode last night. Will try to fit in the other two tonight.

I’m going to reserve judgement on Gillard for a bit … but I do agree that Rudd comes across as a narcissistic psychopath … particularly when he’s directly contradicting stories from others.

That said, the GFC response stuff was much better than I’d expect for an LNP government (or indeed any other Australian govt).

My favourite line so far (in view of our own PMs of Oz series) was the reference to Manning Clark’s line on Deakin … “a man with a woman’s heart.” … further confirmation of the greatness of Deakin.

#9

But t when you see Jenny Macklin, you feel like ordering a sausage roll with sauce, right?

#10

Tholf, with regard to your earlier comments on George Orwell, there’s another look at his relationship with Jacintha in this piece (with reference to the same source materials):

A more charitable reading of the memoir?

#11

Re Jenny Macklin … oh yes … and one chocolate milk please.

#12

If you’re discussing LGBT marriage in the States tomorrow, this is something I posted on another site:

I’m a former lawyer and not a fan of judicial activism. I plan to read the decisions as this issue interests me.

But even if this does smack of judicial activism, if I felt like stridently declaring my problem with it, I’d have to think to myself “why am I objecting so much to this piece of judicial activism, but not so much to all the other examples?”

(Personal disclaimer: cool with gay marriage, opposed to gay divorce. You need to leave something on the table for people to campaign for)

#13

Kiasu hits Abbott’s Singapore BBQ.

‘50 BBQs’ was billed as an open, public event where Singaporeans would be treated to an Aussie-style BBQ where 10,000 beef and lamb steaks would be served at 23 sites across the island.

But on the morning of the event a post on the Australian High Commission’s Facebook page announced that entry at some of the BBQs would require a ticket distributed by the People’s Association.
…
The page was bombarded with angry comments from Singaporeans who felt cheated by the ticketing system implemented at the eleventh hour.

Abbott needed a Jenny Macklin to handle this tuckshop queue. Julie Bishop doesn’t have the same air of playground authority.