Missing Link Friday – Australia Day etc

Katie’s Australia Day – Brazilian style! Food blogger Katie Quinn Davies’ Australia Day recipes.

Australia Day from afar: "One of the most surprising things for me to experience out of Australia was people saying–even in the American South!–Australia’s really racist, isn’t it?" Queen Emily, Hoyden About Town.

Drunks draped in flags: "the path that took us here is a complex one. Music festivals, drinking binges, the crystallisation of fears and resentments, the navel gazing over Identity, all that is part of the road, as well as politicians." Kim, Larvatus Prodeo.

The view from Menzies House: Tim Andrews celebrates Australia Day with a whinge about lefties and "self-appointed intellectual elites".

Be as Australian as you want to be: "Let us be frank: anti-racist prejudice is the worst kind of prejudice at all. It denies freedom of expression; it denies freedom of conscience; and most heinous of all, it denies courage." Ben Pobjie.

John Passant reports on the tent embassy protest: "Soon about 200 of the demonstrators moved from the Tent Embassy commemoration to the café to tell Abbott what they thought of him …" En Passant.

Steve Kates on the protests: "I must tell you my disgust is unbounded. We tend not to jail such people, but that is in the way of more fool us than anything." Catallaxy.

Missing the story: The press gallery "shine the light almost exclusively on the confected battle between tweedle dee and tweedle dum – the figureheads at the top of decaying political parties that everyone outside the inbred Canberra vortex can see are just shells of organisations pretending to believe in something beyond power itself." Mr Denmore, The Failed Estate.

Michael loves Heather: "She’s a saint. A princess. A fairy queen. A beautiful, kind, intelligent. imaginative, brave young woman with a wicked sense of humour and a shipload of empathy." Michael Stuchbery gets married.

One year on: "How do you grieve for someone who hurt you profoundly, repeatedly, and tore your family apart? Who was also deeply intelligent, cursed with mental illness, incredibly funny, and when he could be, loving?" Imogen, raw/roar.

What’s So Special about America’s 1%? "If we’re all embedded in a fundamentally unjust, exploitative global economic structure, it’s hard to see why the American 1% should be especially salient." Will Wilkinson, The Moral Sciences Club.

Social justice … Tea Party style: "A common trope for conservative policy intellectuals is that they want to ‘means test’ the welfare state – reduce its availability for those with high wealth and income and focus it on those with the least wealth and income. But the Tea Party base wants the opposite – they are opposed to a welfare state for the poor, young people, undocumented workers and other groups they think are undeserving." Mike Konczal, Rortybomb.

Dogs against Romney: Why is everyone talking about Mitt Romney’s dog?

Blog readers survey: Peter Chen is conducting a survey of blog readers. You can find the survey here: Australian Blog Readers Study (via Andrew Norton).

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paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

“Self appointed intellectual elites”.
faarrkkkkk!!
Who does he mean?
Sheehan, Salusinsky, Albrechtsen..
…………………………
Romney is alleged to have roof-racked his dog, for a long journey between a couple of his many mansions.
Abbott remains the best argument yet, for why a sociopath should not be elected to high office in a Democracy.

Pedro
Pedro
13 years ago

“Abbott remains the best argument yet, for why a sociopath should not be elected to high office in a Democracy.”

Really Paul? dick

Yobbo
13 years ago

Ah yes, the yearly celebration of how horrible we all are over at Larvatus Prodeo.

Bill Posters
Bill Posters
13 years ago

> Ah yes, the yearly celebration of how horrible we all are over at Larvatus Prodeo.

Ah yes, the yearly whinge about the yearly celebration of how horrible we all are over at any unimaginative comment box culture warrior near you.

murph the surf.
murph the surf.
13 years ago

at 3 and 4 – it is a little like relying on any media to determine the importance of any particular issue- very variable and prone to distortion.
At LP it is rare to detect any positive feeling for Australia on any issue but they are at least earnest in their efforts to understand complex issues.
Comparing this to En Passant is useful- my impression is that John Passant lives among the extreme finge dwellers of political life and he seems confounded that anyone doesn’t agree with his stance.
The activists from the Tent Embassy can only make a claim to represent one school of thought among indigenous Australians, they certainly can’t convincingly argue they refelct the views that are in the majority.
Bob Carr’s website had a well argued stance on the mess of the rumble at the restaurant – his blog reads like an argument that I susupect the majority of Australians would understand and agree with.
Of course extremists disagree but as they are so few the presence they command on the internet blog sites blows their relevance completely out of scale.
As another commentor noted some weeks ago you have to wonder when it was that success as an economy( and a society ?) became a liability.

Bill Posters
Bill Posters
13 years ago

“Bob Carr’s website had a well argued stance”

You lost me there.

Yobbo
13 years ago

It’s not hard to lose you Bill.

Nicholas Gruen
Admin
13 years ago

I kept wondering if Passant’s post was a hoax or a joke. Apparently not. People – even people who’ve seen a bit – still talk like that.

paul walter
paul walter
13 years ago

What’s the grumble with Passant (yes, I know it’s a troll, Nicholas!!).
Very useful real world history related summary particularly when held up against the race-based tabloid Orwellian whitewash hysterics of the Australian and the other tabloid press and media.

Cute Pets
12 years ago

“One of the most surprising things for me to experience out of Australia was people saying–even in the American South!–Australia’s really racist, isn’t it?”

WTF?

paul walter
paul walter
12 years ago

We have our moments, both ways. But I don’t think we are as “nice” as we like to think we are, quite a lot of the time.