I acknowledge from the outset that I am no fan of The West Australian newspaper. This rag has peddled blatant pro-conservative propaganda in the guise of an “Editorial” for as long as I can remember. Not to mention their “feature writers” like the big-headed, self-righteous arch-conservative foghorn, Paul Murray (although, one upside of having Murray around is this crack-up of a thread from local blog The Worst Of Perth).
Indeed, the anti-ALP bias of The West Australian was so extreme in the lead-up to the recent WA state election that in a post-victory interview, outgoing Lib Matt Birney was moved to chastise the West journos for carrying on a personal vendetta against ALP ministers who had raised their ire during the Carpenter reign. Birney is not known for handing the ALP any bouquets. Hats off to him for speaking up. It is some measure of the extremity of The West’s bias that he – a political beneficiary of their propaganda – should feel moved to speak out publicly as he did. Continue reading Shame, thewest.com.au – Shame!→
Last month, The West Australian’s West Weekend Magazine food critic, Rob Broadfield (whom I lauded in a previous post), wrote a business-buster of a critique of the Little Cloud restaurant in Peppermint Grove. His review was so withering, I could have felt sorry for the chef were it not for three factors.
The first was this remark of Broadfield’s that so filled me with mirth that I had no room left for other emotions:
On 60 Minutes last night, we had some dippy professor, Louise Newman, asserting in relation to the Henson photographs that it is irrelevant whether the artist was intentionally eroticising his images or not, but that “if one paedophile views those images as sexually arousing and that encourages them in their behaviour, then we have a serious problem.”
This twit is head of Child Psychiatry at Newcastle University. Which doesn’t say much for the standards of academe in Newcastle, or, perhaps, for the affirmative action policy that – surely! – put the good prof in her seat. Continue reading Sixty Minutes’ “Little Women” – A Comedy in Three Acts→