Love your sublimation: Hugh Hefner and Playboy Empowerment

As made headlines around the world, Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy, died this week at the age of 91. Remembered for his publishing empire, some are also remembering the dude for empowering women and being a feminist - even one of the first feminists, a pioneer of the women's movement. The truth was much... grosser.

Gag me.

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Ross Geller: Nice Guy

I've seen each episode of Friends a minimum of 53 times. But it's been ruined for me. Someone posted on Twitter that Ross, Ross Geller, is the worst person in the world. Ever since, whenever I watch Friends, I notice that Ross is the worst person in the world.

He is though. Yeah, the sexual politics of Friends are, inevitably, dated, but Ross is a turd in any era. He's a terrible, terrible boyfriend. He's jealous, possessive, entitled, thinks he has a right to Rachel*, whilst also being stalky and awful to every other woman he dates (and what he did to Emily was unforgivable). He's a marginally involved father barely bothered about his kids. And yet he's portrayed as a hopeless, daffy romantic.

He is every guy on the internet who thinks he's a Nice Guy.

Let's compare Ross with Joey. Joey seems like a dick at first glance, and is by no means perfect. but he's willing, over and over, to sacrifice his own happiness for others. When committed vegetarian Phoebe is pregnant and craving meat, he gives up meat so she can indulge her craving guilt free. But more to the point, when Rachel is pregnant, with another man's child, he's willing to turn his life upside down for her comfort and happiness - by giving her and her child a place to live, not by showing up at her office to sabotage her job cause he feels neglected.

And through all this, Joey was willing to step aside for Ross at any moment.

But instead, Friends ended with Ross ruining Rachel's opportunity of a lifetime by dragging her off the plane when she'd been on her way to work as a fashion executive in Paris, having worked her way from being a waitress to the career of her dreams as a fashion executive. But oh no, Ross fucking comes first doesn't he. Rachel was stuck back in a job she was done with. But this was the big romantic ending.

What would would actually happen, is that Ross would scare women away. She'd get fed up when he showed up at the office complaining he was neglected when she was working late. Or take out a restraining order after he followed them to Florida when she went on vacation with her friends.

So in real life. Rachel finds love with Joey, or Amelie the adorable book store assistant she meets in Paris, or decides she's just happy on her own.

Ross, meanwhile, is furious he, the nice guy, lost "his" woman, especially to a Chad like Joey.

Anyway he joins a men's rights group, decides he deserves custody of Emma even though he doesn't know her eye colour, favourite foods or middle name (shit Joey does know from being involved with her the whole life), launches a custody case, loses, and writes angry blog posts about the cancer that is feminism.

He harasses 22 year olds on Tinder, has AVOs taken out against him, Ben by now getting his own career and life going says he's ashamed of his father, loses his hair, attacks Monica and Chandler's college age kids for being liberal snowflakes who can't think for themselves and is told he's never welcome in that house again, spends tens of thousands of dollars on sex workers, loses his job and finally winds up another tragic statistic of the opioid epidemic.

Emma and Ben attends his funeral even though Ben vows never to be like that loser and Emma, deeply confused and suffering an eating disorder, hasn't seen him in twelve years. She suspects she might be trans.

But to the end, Ross would be convinced it was all unfair. He deserved a good life and a good woman because he was a nice guy. It works for the nice guys on TV.

* They were, however, on a break. That incident is kind of beside the point here to be honest.

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How Dare the Marriage equality Campaign Intrude on People's Lives

The campaign for marriage equality took things up a notch by sending hundreds of thousands of text messages encouraging people to vote Yes:

It was a moment's irritation and possibly not the best use of resources, but not really more of a big deal than that.

At least it shouldn't have been a bigger deal. A bunch of people were outraged over the supposed breach of privacy:

[N]ot everyone – regardless of their view on same-sex marriage – was happy to receive an SMS, with some expressing concern about how their phone numbers were obtained.

I have never contacted, donated or been involved with either side of this campaign," Michael, who asked that his surname not be used, told Fairfax Media on Saturday.

 "How did they get my unlisted mobile number? Why is my privacy being breached in the hope that I'll respond to a survey in a particular way ... What's the point of lobbying for extending some rights by ignoring others that are already legislated?" 

The Yes campaign claimed the numbers were randomly generated, but even if they did purchase access to phone numbers, consider this. Your phone number isn't legally yours. It's legally belongs to the phone company, and they can do with it as they wish (this was a surprise to me after carting my number around for over a decade to every telco in Australia, but it is in fact true). And who ends up with your "unlisted" number, anyway? Unless you've never, ever, joined a loyalty program, had a credit card, entered a competition, put your business card in the draw to win a free lunch at the end of the month, joined a website that uses phone numbers for verification, ordered food online,  joined a gym...unless you've never, ever done any of these things...or if you have, you've carefully checked all the terms and conditions to make sure your info won't be sold or forwarded to marketing companies (have you? I haven't)...then someone has got your phone number for marketing and research.

But some people were even angrier than all that. Some were driven to fury and death threats - you can find them at the usual Facebook groups I won't link to. But other people - a few - claimed they had been going to vote yes, but the ten seconds of irritation at the invasion of privacy moved them to decide to vote no.

So. People were angry the randomly generated string of binaries they think of as their phone number was used to send a text message of moments' duration. So angry, that they decided to join one of the millions of people who want to affect the entire lives of other people, people they have never met, by deciding they cannot get legally married in Australia. All because of a survey no one asked for or wanted, requesting that Australian voters intrude on the privacy of every same sex attracted person by deciding if they have equal rights to every one else.

All because of a text message, huh. You must be furious, to think its worth intruding on so many other people's lives.

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Australia's stupid, pointless salute to traditional marriage

John Howard ruined my wedding.

Well, no, he didn't actually ruin it. But the former Prime Minister of Australia, three years after he was ousted from office, made a spiteful little interjection at my wedding, and the weddings of hundreds of thousands of other couples, just to rub it in that he's really, really into the traditional marriage of a man and a woman. 

Allow me to explain. In 2004, when the first governments around the world were beginning to allow for same sex couples to marry, John Howard, then Prime Minister of Australia and the moral custodian of all that's conservative and true, wanted to make damn sure that couldn't happen here. So he changed our marriage laws, which had previously relied on the English common law definition of marriage, and expressly spelled it out: marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Same sex marriages performed overseas were meanwhile expressly forbidden from being recognised as legal marriages in Australia.

But the fun wasn't done there! The change to the law meant that from 2004 onwards, at every civil wedding in Australia, the celebrant is legally required to say the words: Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

If those words are not said during the ceremony, the marriage is not valid. It's like a little up yours from John Howard at every non-religious wedding in Australia. For if the marriage is performed by a minister of religion, they are not required to say the man and woman bit. Religious people can be trusted to understand how important marriage is to John Howard, apparently, whilst the rest of us heathens cannot.

And I was forced to stand squirming and embarrassed as those words were read out at my wedding, as the law required. I mean honestly, I don't mind people having a traditional view of marriage, but do they have to rub our noses in it?

When Australia legalises marriage equality, and we will, one of the minor benefits will be to remove this pointless little intrusion from a political era we all need to put behind us.

And my marriage wasn't for life anyway; we separated after five years, so my family's pain goes to show just how stupid and pointless the whole thing is. (Howard's law or marriage itself? That's for another day).

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Attack of the 50ft clones: Tony Abbott in Newtown

Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister, noted conservative thinker, and scion of the Northern Beaches ventured into Newtown last night:

Invigorating Q&A session with the Newtown Young Liberals on the merits of Western Civilisation last night. pic.twitter.com/f5WlRun6Rp

— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) September 19, 2017

I mean sure, Newtown is the kind of place where a middle aged man with spiked yellow hair, wearing a three piece pink tartan suit and knee high buckled boots can ride down the street on a scooter pulled by his terrier at 11am and not raise any eyebrows, but the place is becoming rapidly gentrified. There must be some conservatives there, and they band together. That's fine. It's a diverse world.

Wait a minute. Let's take a look at that gathering again:

That's not a political party, that's a cult up to stage four of the indoctrination process (I bet the guy who dared take off his jacket was taken outside and beaten later on). Nowhere else in Australia looks like that anymore. Where did they all come form, these identical, clean cut, straight white guys (who are such believers in equality no one gave the woman in attendance a seat)?

Maybe this is rebellion against their lefty inner west families and friends, and they've decided if you're going to go conservative, you may as well go the full con. Or maybe there really are all these establishment types in Newtown, and they're just taking ideological sustenance here before they go off to run the country.

Except even Australia's big corporations are more on board with equality now - the only place you see Abbott's sorts of views dictated as all that is pure and true and good is in the pages of the Murdoch owned papers. The latter of course would claim the former only trump their support for marriage equality because of gay lobby groups, who are so all-powerful they control giant corporations whilst being simultaneously unable to change Australia's marriage laws until, maybe, now.

Tony Abbott is an embarrassing distraction, an old dog that keeps breaking wind at the national dinner party but whom Malcolm Turnbull lacks the mercy to have put down*. But these young Liberal types need watching.

* By which I mean Abbott should be told to leave politics. I am not advocating death for Mr Abbott or anyone else.

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Yes!

The no campaign have employed skywriters over Sydney today.

I think this guy is better worth attention.

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Facebook is not the Real World (there's Rainbows out there)

Gah, the SSM plebiscite - or more specifically the debate over the plebiscite - is depressing and exhausting. It can be hard, when you look at the relentless string of comments on an article on say a major media outlet's Facebook page, saying that the whole Yes campaign on same sex marriage is a Marxist plot to brainwash children; that children brought up by same sex parents grow up depressed, obese and plagued by intractable ring around the collar; free speech is at risk; and, before the moderators can step in, if they do, vile slurs about same sex attracted people themselves.

And it can be tempting to see this as how people are thinking; to wander through the shops or catch a bus and wonder if your fellow citizens are harbouring such thoughts.

But they don't. Comments on Facebook do not represent the real world. In fact, the represent the loudest, angriest sliver of the people disconnected from the real world. In my totally unscientific research on this, there were local government elections here in NSW a couple of weeks ago. And in the City of Newcastle, the Liberal party were all but wiped out; Labor romped in, increasing their share of the vote, with the Greens putting in a decent performance as well. Most Novocastrians calmly elected their new, centre-left council and went on with their day.

But to look at the Facebook pages of two of the largest media organisations in Newcastle, you wouldn't know it. The comments on ABC Newcastle and The Newcastle Herald were furious. Almost every comment lamented the result as just awful, a coup, their fellow citizens must be idiots, the turnout must have been low, this can't be right...an overwhelming response then, from people commenting on Facebook, completely at odds with the reality.

And it's the same (I believe and hope) with marriage equality.

The people posting homophobic garbage on Facebook are a noisy, scared and horrid minority. They can be ignored. They should be ignored. I'm not saying their lies should be let stand; I like many people post rebuttals, the truth, when I see the worst "vote no" nonsense (including links to peer reviewed literature, or as one particularly egregious bigot referred to it, "leftist mumbo jumbo").

But we won't win them over. What we need to do is talk to the good and decent people around us, and above all - make sure people post their surveys. Get them in the mail. If they don't return them the day they fill them in, chances are they won't return them at all. Life takes over and things get lost. Get your paper back in the post box!

And if you are struggling, that's okay. This is a really shitty time in so many ways. Here are links to some support services. 

And now this:

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5 Childrens' Issues That Need Strong Voices - and that Aren't Voting No

So the expensive, unnecessary, non binding national plebiscite on marriage equality is underway. Other nations just legalise marriage equality, but not us; we have to have a national postal vote, with the accompanying noisy and worrying campaign, and for what? Politicians are still going to have a vote on it in Parliament once the ballots are in - the same vote they could be having right now.

Instead, the nation "get to have their say", except after a bitter and hurtful campaign the votes will just get put in a drawer or something, and politicians can still ignore the will of their electorate and vote however they like.

Talk to opponents of marriage equality though, and want you to know they're in no way bigoted or homophobic. They like gay people! They're just really worried about the kids. (Apart from that being able to marry won't affect the ability of gay couples to have children, and they're not depriving children of a mum and dad, unless they go around stealing babies from straight couples.)

But since these sorts are so worried about the well being of children, here are five children's issues that could really use some of the time, money and loud voices being put into the "no" campaign:


1. Education funding

Apart from parental care, there's nothing more important for a child's start in life than the quality of the education they receive. And when parents are unable, for whatever reason, to provide the resources a kid needs - quality education becomes even more critical for those kids.

That's why it is so vital that public schools - especially those in lower socio-economic areas - are provided with quality resources and staffed with devoted, talented teachers who are supported to maintain morale and commitment.

And why we need to take a long hard look at funding elite private schools so they can build orchestra pits whilst kids in public schools swelter in demountable classrooms for years on end with outdated books and technology.

Gonski 2.0 legislation passed earlier this year, and it's a good start, but more needs to be done; more voices need to speak up for public school students.


2. Child protection services

For a society that claims that children's welfare is the main concern, that the gross underfunding and overwork of child protection agencies is almost never spoken of, never an election issue, makes liars of us all. I'm not condemning the SSM "no" campaigners here, we're all a little damned. If I sound judgemental here, so be it. Child abuse is a sad and ugly reality in our society, which is why I didn't lead off with this at number one, so as not to have people clicking out of here to get to The Onion.

But we need more. More funding, more staff, more people making noise over this, holding governments and agencies to account. NSW Minister for Community Services Pru Goward has said it is only in a perfect world where we could investigate every report of child abuse; but in this world, where reports of serious abuse cannot be investigated due to lack of resources whilst sworn police officers ride on the transport network to catch fare evaders, we could do a lot better.


3. Minister for Children

We don't have one. We should. Victoria has a Minister for Families and Children, but apart from that not only do we not have a federal minister for children, I couldn't even see if there is a federal minister with responsibility for children and their welfare (and considering we have an assisting minister for the centenary of ANZAC and another assisting minister for Digital Transformation, I'm sure they could squeeze a children's portfolio in there somewhere). If we're going to be advocating for children's welfare, we really need to put someone in charge of it.

4. Conviction & Sentencing for Child Abusers

Any judge will tell you the public don't really understand the factors that go into sentencing, and that sentencing in the court of public opinion is wildly misguided.

But without digging up a litany of depressing examples, I can't be the only uninformed pleb who is dismayed and angry that convictions for assault - especially non sexual assault - of children are exceedingly rare and sentences for people who actually kill children woefully disproportionate to the crime.

5. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Australia ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child - CRC - in 1990, recognising the human rights of children, especially in light of their vulnerability to abuse and exploitation.

But we're failing to protect the rights of all children - particularly Aboriginal children, children with disabilities and children in immigration detention.

How badly are we failing? Well, in 2012, the UN issued a list of concerns where Australia isn't living up to its commitment to protect its children. And it got almost no attention.

I've only been able to skim the surface of these very complex issues. I don't have answers. But if people are talking about voting no because of some perceived risk to children, maybe we should be talking about this stuff as well.

But if any or all of this is too hard, you're too busy - I understand, and I thank you for reading this far. May I just respectfully ask you to protect the rights of children in same sex families, and the children afraid of being attacked for their sexuality, and vote yes.

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The big lumps fuelling Liddell

I told you how the National party at their national conference on the weekend were determined that no one should think them in favour of renewable energy, with all the fear and suspicion of Lyle Shelton worrying people will think he's gay.

Not to be outdone, their Coalition government partners are working to show the universe what a great future there is in coal by trying to extend the working life of the ageing and increasingly obsolete coal fired Liddell power station in the upper Hunter Valley, long after its owner, AGL, was set to close the thing. 

Liddell has been working well below capacity for many years as it reaches the end of its working life and coal becomes an increasingly expensive and outmoded form of power generation. 

It's also permanently killed Lake Liddell, in a major blow
for local tourism. Coal, so good for humanity.

Any forward thinking government would be looking at cheaper, more efficient forms of energy generation, but the Libs are determined that AGL must be kept open if not sold as a going concern, with the head of AGL summoned to the PM's office for a dressing down. 

Like a creepy ex, they just won't let go of coal long after it's over; I half expect energy minister Josh Frydenberg to set up a piano outside Liddell, vowing to keep playing until it promises to stay open forever (preferably letting him do a tour with a photo op in a hard hat).  

Yes, Australia is running low on energy generation, with blackouts predicted this summer. But it's not because of "greenies" preventing coal fired power stations. It's because coal is dead, obsolete technology, but instead of admitting that to themselves and the nation and looking at renewable energy, the government are in massive denial, clinging to the pant leg of fossil fuels and secretly hoping deep down they get voted out of office before all this really gets to be a problem - and it will be a big problem if this goes on. 

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Bigger swings than anyone imagined in local government elections

Over the weekend, we had local government elections here in NSW, confusingly in some councils but not in others. I didn't get to vote - I was on the Central Coast when the City of Sydney had their poll and now I'm in Sydney, there was a Central Coast election I didn't get to have a go in (upgrade the ruddy roads up there, whoever you are that wins!). 

And it was bad news for the Liberal party:

As expected, the Liberal party suffered big swings to Labor and to an extent, the Greens. 

As counting continued on Sunday across 46 council districts, including 22 Sydney councils, early results showed voters had punished the Liberal party across the board, but surprisingly including deep into its Sydney heartland.

 "In the councils between Newcastle and Shellharbour the average swing to Labor currently stands at about 5.5 per cent," said psephologist Ben Raue.

And speaking of Newcastle, not a single Liberal was elected to the city council (although there is quite a tradition there of Liberals pretending to be "indpendants", especially after the ICAC scandals a few years ago). Someone who was elected is Carol Duncan, who is now a Labor councillor, and whom I warmly congratulate even if I do wish she stood for the Greens instead.

But for me, the most surprising result of Saturday's election was my father admitting he had, for the first time, voted Labor himself. This John Howard-revering man says he's coming around more to the left, helped along I hope by chats with me, correcting the Daily Telegraph and 2GB. In this case there was also anger at extensions of motorway tolls and development laws, but it's a good start. I mean, this is huge. I'll keep at it - who knows how left we can go.

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Devine and Bolt bravely fight The Real Fascists

When the far right declare anti-bigots The Real Fascists, they sound like OJ vowing to find The Real Killer. 

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What planet do the Nationals live on? Not an inhabitable one

I should be beyond surprise by now, but apparently not. With "once in 500 years" hurricanes sprouting every few days in the Atlantic with climate change a likely factor, and Australia faces upcoming power shortages due to our failure to invest in modern power generation, at the National Party conference today, they wanted to make sure everybody knows they're all about coal.

From ABC News:

The National Party has used its federal conference in Canberra to call on the Federal Government to eliminate subsidies for renewable energy. 

 The plan involves freezing subsidies at their current levels for 12 months, then phasing them out entirely over five years. 

 Former Nationals senator Ron Boswell spoke passionately in favour of the motion before it passed. "Please don't reject this, because the message that it sends out is the National Party is pro-renewable energy, and it isn't," he told members.

Cheers of "hear, hear!" for coal itself were also given by the assembled party members.

Donald Trump steals the attention with his WTF moments, but we have plenty here don't you worry about that.

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