Isolation, Silence & Dysfunctional Fandom.

It's been a week since my surgery.

A long, slow, grinding week, characterized by constant pain, an inability to eat anything more substantial than liquids or pureès, an inability to form anything more than a few words that register above a whisper. I've spent long hours looking at the walls, wrestling with the most basic of decisions - (should I pick up that empty toilet roll tube off the floor so that the dog doesn't chew it - or no?)

I took a photo of the visible part of my throat last night. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see it and I when I did see it I was sure that I didn't - and I wish I hadn't.

It is raw. It is mutilated. It is green! There is so much putrid slough in there that mere sight of it makes me want to gag. If only I could gag.

In short - I am thoroughly sick of myself.

I'll understand if you choose to vague out now because I know my misery can be interpreted as self indulgent. But I will say that blogging about this experience has gone some way in helping me cope with the situation.

And I will say that on Thursday, I had a slight bump in energy and motivation - enough that I took my dog Sam for a walk to the park and let him off to run around for a bit. Adelaide's parklands near my house are a wonderful open space, safe from traffic and just perfect for burning off some canine energy. Sam was, of course, as pleased as punch. The walk ruined me but I was glad I did it.

I also did some writing on Thursday. Not much - around two thousand words; but they are new words I've committed to a project I've tentatively called Walhalla - one that I've been trying to get going for a little while now. Again, my concentration collapsed after a few hours but, for a time their, it was really nice to just write something - to have some creativity flowing through me. I have only the vaguest idea of where this material will fit into an eventual story. That doesn't matter to me though. These things can be worked out later.

As I predicted, the pointy end of necessary human interaction is beginning to make itself felt and it is not encouraging. Of the few trips I've made to my local grocer this week, I've found them to be understanding without having to divulge the circumstances of my situation. Other places have regarded me with confusion, a latent suspicion and unabashed antipathy. One lady at the chemist the other day when I was trying to mouth the word tramadol, came right out and said, rather incredulously, "You can talk you know!"

A predictable ignorance.

The minute you hope for understanding, human nature comes in and shits all over it.

So I'm avoiding going out unless it's absolutely necessary. Soon, sadly, it is going to be necessary. I'm dreading that.

I think I'm done with pop culture. Looking through my social network feed this week, I've seen a number of spot fires raging around controversies within the Marvel and Star Wars universes and they are just so hack. Something about Captain America being a Nazi now and, shock horror, the forthcoming Rogue One film has to undergo some reshoots - like that never happens.

The pretentiousness of these hyper fans is really difficult to cope with and I feel as though there is an expectation on the part of some of them to engage in a war to justify some sort of defense of an ideology. It's fucking fiction! It's not key to human survival. Their consistent argument is that "my fandom is bigger than your fandom so your opinion has no validity!" I've encountered this personally in just the past week. It is confronting.

It's indicative to me that fandom is essentially broken and that maybe it is time to abandon certain franchises - *cough* Marvel *cough* that have already been twisted up in so many knots, the ability to ret conn them is virtually useless.

Further, I find that fans in my own beloved franchise have hitched themselves to it in sych a way that they have begun identifying themselves as "Star Wars" celebrities. That, because they flaunt their fandom as though it's some kind of penis symbol, they have assumed the right to be intertwined with the universe - almost as if they were in the fucking films themselves. It is annoying. Infuriating even.

I am trying to pay attention to the Federal Election campaign here currently because I like to think of myself as a responsible civic citizen and I want to take my vote seriously. But, I can't make sense of any of the arguments being put forward by the participating political parties. It's becoming lost in confusion and slogans. The only things the nation seems to have been talking about is the economy, superannuation, tax and jobs. Nothing about the arts. Nothing about social justice issues. Nothing about climate. We are a nation obsessed with money and the problems we face as a nation going forward require more than just money to address them.

But then I'm lost again.

Anyway, I have gone off on a major tangent. But it is illustrative of where my mind is at right now. I am unable to focus on anything for more than a short period of time before I am quickly distracted - then disinterested.

And I sit and look out the window.

There's a toilet roll tube on the top of the fence paling.

DFA.

Men Are Dickheads. Stop It!!

Men are dickheads.

It seems to be the case that my sex are increasingly displaying behaviour in public that has me dropping my head and shaking it in complete and utter bewilderment.

There have been three occasions within the past week here in Australia in which men have behaved like complete dickheads.

Last week, it emerged that a Minister of the Crown in our Federal Government, made inappropriate advances towards a female staffer from a Government department, known as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, whilst on a tax payer funded delegation in Hong Kong. The details of the "inappropriate advances" have, so far, not been made explicit, however they were deemed serious enough for the Minister, Jamie Briggs, to have to tender his resignation as Minister for Cities.

In the fallout from this, our national broadsheet newspaper, the Rupert Murdoch owned Australian, released portions of text communication that occurred between the female staffer and her superiors over the incident but they also published a pixelated photograph of the staffer posing with the former Minister's Chief of Staff (taken prior to the incident of inappropriate advances). It has since emerged that the photograph had been distributed to his parliamentary colleagues, revealing the identity of the female staffer, by none other the Jamie Briggs himself.

Let's be clear here - a Federal Minister has behaved in a manner that has caused a female staffer to make a formal complaint and then he has distributed a photographic image of that staffer. This is conduct that is not only illegal, it is immoral.

This whole train wreck continues however. On Monday, January 4th here in Australia, journalist Samantha Maiden (of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited stable) penned an excoriating opinion piece in which she similarly chastised the behaviour of the Minister and the ramifications of that behaviour. Subsequent to that opinion piece, another Federal Minister, this time the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton composed a text message, referring to Samantha Maiden as a "mad fucking witch. The intended recipient of this text message was his colleague, slain Minister Jamie Briggs.

Peter Dutton sent the text message to Samantha Maiden herself.

It has often been said that our current government and many of its male Members of Parliament have a problem with women particularly and sexism/mysoginy more generally. I have highlighted two examples of our Parliamentary leaders, our legislators - Men!! - who have made themselves look like complete dickheads and, by extension make men look like collective dickheads.

I have problems with authority - particularly unearned authority. Messers Briggs and Dutton are two cases in point. Both men should be sacked and bundled out of Parliament immediately.

But this is not the end of my frustration.

Last night, (January 4 here in Australia), during our limited overs cricket competition, known here as the Big Bash League, former West Indian Test Captain Chris Gayle, who is currently playing for the Melbourne Renegades, was interviewed following his innings by Channel 10 journalist Mel McLaughlin. In the exchange that followed, Gayle said, on air, that he wanted to be interviewed by McLaughlin "just to see your eyes for the first time." 

In what quickly became cringe worthy television, Gayle continued his sleazy flirtation with McLaughlin by adding, "Hopefully we can win this game and we can have a drink after". 

A clearly uncomfortable McLaughlin tried to steer the interview back to cricket but (dickhead) Chris Gayle misinterpreted her unease by saying, "Don't blush baby".

Yep. He said that.

Predictably, the internet has erupted this morning in reaction to this exchange and it has been on a sort of rolling boil since (dickhead) Briggs and (dickhead) Dutton made prize idiots of themselves in the past week.

Men - particularly men of influence - treat women appallingly. Men everywhere treat women appallingly and I am completely bloody sick of it. Most men are dickheads and if we men that are left don't call out this dickhead behaviour then we are dickheads too.

There is a really nasty undercurrent of behaviour perpetrated by men in Australia that has been allowed to fester for far too long. And it has to stop. We have to stop it.

Stop. Being. Dickheads.

DFA.

The Politics Of A Circus

(I apologize in advance for this article...but...well...build a bridge).

I'm going to take risk here and step outside of my comfort zone to talk about politics.

I know, I know - you're probably rolling your eyes and preparing to close off your browser window and look, I can't blame you. But if you'll just stick with me for a couple of paragraphs at least, I'll try to give you some insight into what is going on down here in Australia right now.

Quite frankly, it's an Alice in Wonderland styled tea party.

The contest for the Australian Federal Election 2010, essentially, is being fought by two sides. There is a third party and a couple of minor players but essentially what the Australian populace has got to choose between is two parties who both sit on the center right.

Let me try and illustrate this for you.

The Australian Labor Party is led by the incumbent Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Already I can hear you say - hang on! Wasn't there a man in there?? Well, the answer is yes - there was. Kevin Rudd was the Prime Minister up until June 24th this year. However, in an act that has been roundly described as being akin to political lunacy - several machine men within the ALP panicked over some poll results that showed they were taking a beating and decided that they must move against him. In a coup that had outwardly, had the look of being beaten with a wet newspaper, Julia Gillard was installed as the Prime Minister and Kevin Rudd was dumped.

Newly installed Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard.

This was a man who won the 2007 Federal Election in a stunning land slide against the Conservative Liberal/National Coalition - lead by old war horse John Winston Howard. There is no denying that, in the lead up to this fairy floss coup, the ALP was in a fair bit of trouble poll wise. However in all of this confected nail biting one thing stood out plainly in the polling - Kevin Rudd was still polling strongly as preferred Prime Minister over the conservative candidate/opposition leader, Tony Abbott. Since June 24th and more recently since the announcement of the Federal Election campaign, the ALP has lurched from one embarrassing media gaffe to another in a breathless effort to try and raise the profile of it's newly installed leader, Julia Gillard. It has been difficult to do so, especially since Gillard has been viewed as the woman who knifed a perfectly adequate leader in the back.

Dumped Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd.

The Liberal/National Coalition were utterly decimated in the aftermath of the 2007 Federal Election. Their own Prime Minister, John Howard - a man considered unbeatable up until the early months of 2007 - lost his own seat and there was a massive swing against the Conservative Government. The carnage was palpable. Since that time, the Coalition has gone through three leaders, two of whom polled poorly right from the time they were elevated. Currently they are being lead by an avowed Catholic (and former aspirant to the priesthood) Tony Abbott - a man who wears his conservative heart on his sleeve and who has been roundly viewed as one of the most ruthless operators in Australian politics. Since the 2010 Federal Election campaign was announced the Abbott lead Coalition has gone on the attack, criticizing the incumbent ALP government for knifing their leader in the back, for wasting bucket loads of tax payers money, for being incapable of stopping the (refugee) boats and for imposing great big new taxes on the populace.

Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott.

The Greens - well they are the "third force" and as their name implies they are a party of the Left. Lead by perhaps, the only honest sounding politician in Australia right now, Bob Brown - the Greens platform is...well...green. They have been given a kick or two for preferencing the ALP in this election (we have a preferential voting system in Australia - Compulsory! - but preferential), but they have preferenced the ALP in most elections in years gone by.

The only other party of any note in this upcoming election is perhaps the Family First Party, a party that has been bankrolled by cashed up evangelical churches here in Australia and outwardly portrays itself as being the party for "families" - nuclear, white bread, middle class families. They caused a minor shit storm this year when it was revealed just recently that they were negotiating a preference deal with the Australian Sex Party!!

(WHOOO - HOOOO!!).

So there you have it. A very brief overview of the Australian Political landscape in my country - from my point of view. Now, you may ask - why would I devote a post to talking about mind numbing, potentially divisive politics. Well, we have an election coming up on August 21st and at this point in the game some two weeks out from polling day...

I have no friggin' idea who to vote for.

The ALP, in my opinion have behaved atrociously since the dumping of Kevin Rudd as PM just a few short weeks ago. There was never any need to dump him, no matter how bad the whispers against him were. Sure, he was a rather bookish fellow, renowned as a micro-managing control freak but his team steered Australia through the worst crisis to hit global financial markets since the Great Depression and Australia's economy is doing relatively well. Most knowledgeable commentators out there believe that the Federal Budget will return to surplus inside three years or so and the ALP's strategy will have strong legitimacy into the future. What has happened however, is that a group of faceless, factional warlords in Sydney have experienced the mother of all brain farts and moved against him, replacing him with a woman who has made no secret of her ambition in the past. It is now becoming increasingly clear, however that Julia Gillard is manifestly inadequate as a Prime Minister. She rushed forth, claiming victory in negotiating a way out of a potentially disastrous spat with the mining industry here in Australia over a Resource Super Profits Tax that the Government wanted to impose on the big miners - never mind that it was revealed that former PM Kevin Rudd had pretty much sorted it all out at the eleventh hour before he was knifed in the back by his own people. Julia Gillard was also summarily trotted (one assumes by the same dickheads who installed her) into a studio of a major Australian womens magazine to doll herself up for a windswept and lippy photo shoot (which actually made her look dumb rather than dynamic). And, since the announcement of the campaign, she has made an art form out of saying a lot but saying nothing all at the same time. So much so that just a week ago, Julia Gillard fronted the media to declare that she was "throwing out the campaign rule book and from now on she would give Australia the real Julia".

Double U Tee Eff!?!?!??

The Abbott led Coalition are just an appalling parody of a wannabe neo-conservative mickey mouse club. I make no secret of the fact the traditionally, I have despised this side of politics and everything they stand for. However since I reached my...thirties...my cynicism has caught up with me and dammit - I can actually find myself agreeing with certain aspects of conservative politics. I mean - shite - I find myself classing myself as a small L liberal at times rather than an old fashioned working class Labor/Union man. But Tony Abbott is fucking scary. Where does one start??

An avowed Catholic who is bitterly opposed to abortion for any reason whatsoever, anti-gay marriage, anti-refugees (If I hear "Stop the Boats" one more time I will reach through the television screen and rip his tongue out), let's all lick big business' arse as much as we can and screw everybody else, WORK CHOICES, chums in the H.R. Nicholls Society, "I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say, but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark.Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared, scripted remarks." That is a dead-set quote from the horses' mouth!!!

I mean - this was a man who launched his conservative party's formal election campaign in Queensland this past weekend and spent his entire speech ripping the shit out of the ALP - if there was any presentation of Coalition Policy for the next term of whatever Government, I didn't hear it. This is not to excuse the ALP mind you. I haven't been able to interpret anything remotely comprehensible from them either. But I'm just sayin'

We have witnessed a procession of former leaders, party hacks parading as personalities and a multitude of other dickheads from both sides of the political divide popping their heads up and having their two cents worth like media tarts desperately grabbing for that one last 15 minutes of fame and the Australian Media - which is overly represented by Rupert Murdoch's News Limited stable - has worked themselves into a lather over the personalities of Australian Politics. The debate about Australia's future has gotten severely lost in all of it. The media is as culpable as all sides of politics in it's neglect of comprehensive and detailed coverage in favor of headline grabbing shit storms that have absolutely no relevance at all to the task that all Australian citizens - by law - must acquit themselves to in a few short weeks.

A Selection of former political identities who really should learn the meaning of the word FORMER!

Many people who would traditionally vote on either side Labor or Liberal/National quite conscientiously are indicating that this time they will instead vote Australian Greens as a form of protest against the major parties. The Greens are considered the lesser of three evils. Many Australians have no idea who they will vote for at this late stage and are still making up their minds. They live with some flicker of hope that something, anything will happen in the next couple of weeks that will have them sway towards their party of choice, or either of the majors.


This election has been quite literally, the weirdest election campaign in living memory. A kind of Australian Idol styled personality contest where neither of the personalities on offer have remotely any appeal. From where I stand - both majors are utterly desolate when it comes to any sort of policy. Oh sure they have announced some...thing! But I haven't been able to grasp much of it at all...and I know I'm not stupid.


Like...neither party has offered up anything, ANYTHING to address the health and social problems of  indigenous Australians. I have heard nothing. And, just as my own home State Government here in South Australia is gearing up to slash something like $450million dollars from health in this state alone, the ALP is talking about some half arsed Federal take over of health across the nation while the Liberal/National's are off in fairy land. I think the best thing they have come up with is hospital boards...whatever the f*** that is???

All the grand gestures that Kevin Rudd tried to put forward about addressing climate change and the environment came to nothing basically because he got rolled by the same miserable hatchet men that tapped him on the shoulder sometime around June 24th. As for the Coalition...well...Tony Abbott has been quoted as saying that "climate change is crap" so any chance of the Coalition doing anything remotely responsible to address the environmental challenges we face as a nation are about as strong as...oh, I dunno, the Pope entering "Dancing With The Stars"...

The economy...

Well the economy is beyond me. I'm flat out trying to balance my own home budget much less try to grapple with a purported $1trillion dollar national economy. I mean, am I supposed to understand it???


At this point I am seriously considering not voting at all. Given that it's a compulsory voting system and I risk being fined for not voting - my inaction would be a significant one...But none of these idiots deserve my vote. None of them deserve to be in government - OR opposition. They have prostituted the Australian Parliamentary Process that is based in part on the Westminster System of Democracy and have turned it into a slutty side show. I actually turn the television off now whenever the news comes on or Julia or Tony pop up and I grimace and yelp like a frightened child. I no longer give any credence to anything the journalists say because they seem more intent to bang on about what some politician's latest gaff was rather than present the arguments presented by both sides so that I can carefully consider what is on offer. Journalism in Australia is lazy, intellectually bankrupt and asinine.

A Toad...and Federal Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop (She's the one on the left).

That democracy has degenerated into the sort of B-grade reality television spectacle shown on late night TV makes me feel actually a little desolate. Not so much because they have abandoned me and my future...

...It's because they have abandoned my children and their's...

DFA.

Righteousness - the Right lost it.

(The following is an article I wrote in late 2008 in an effort to sound really impressive...)

I love how the right wing commetariat, all around the world, just can't seem to cope with the fact that their neo-conservative demagogues are no longer in power in Washington. In the vacuum that has been created for them these cheer leaders for the now defunct PNAC posse (a.k.a. The Bush Administration) have desperately sought to recast the new order in their own desired image.

Let me give you an example.

Here in Australia, we have a number of columnists who have attended the Bill O'Reilly School of Conservative Charm and Deportment in recent times. One of whom is Greg Sheridan. Now Sheridan, who writes for Uncle Rupert's News Limited (Australian) stable, is a canny journo - one whose articles I read regularly for a single notion that my grandfather once taught me - 'know your enemy'. I don't believe Sheridan is my enemy per se - I mean the guy wouldn't know me from a bar of soap. But on an ideological level...yes I guess I would indeed consider him my opponent.

 

 

The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan - A man I respect even though I rarely agree with his opinion.

This week President-elect Barrack Obama announced key appointments to his team that will form the new Administration come January 2009. While just about everyone else in the mainstream and online press were throwing in their own two cents about the Clinton appointment and its significance, I have to say I was less interested in Hilary as I was in the appointment - or reappointment - of  Robert Gates as the Secretary of Defense.

Recognizing - belatedly - the disaster that Donald Rumsfeld had increasingly become, George W. Bush in 2006 made, perhaps, the only wise decision he has probably ever made and cut this village idiot loose. Robert Gates was appointed with little fanfare, though much of Washington seemed relieved with the news that a man was appointed who was, quite literally, a world away from the inarticulate rantings of his predecessor.

 

Robert Gates - The U.S. Secretary of Defense. I have never had a beer with this man.

Robert Gates brought much needed pragmatism to Defense and surprised many with his forthright and infinitely more considered approach to the twin debacles of Afghanistan and Iraq. A nation thoroughly sick and tired of the war saw, for the first time in a long time, hope in a steady, more pragmatic pair of hands in those of Robert Gates.

Gates stamped his own brand on the position of Sec-Def and he wasn't afraid to 'butt uglies' with the Bush Administration over their handling of the war effort either. In 2007 Gates curled the toe nails of many in the Bush White House when he began giving a series of speeches highlighting the limits of military power in conflicts where no military victory is possible.

This week, in the New York Times, David E. Sanger observed that Robert Gates made popular the statistic, quoted by Barrack Obama, that the United States has more members of military marching bands than Foreign Service officers. Sanger elaborated that Gates 'also denounced 'the gutting of America's ability to engage, assist and communicate with other parts of the world''

That Gates seems to favor diplomacy over 'shock and awe campaigns' is significant if for nothing else that it signals the potential for a seismic shift in the relationship between the defense and state departments in the United States.

These are themes that have come to characterize Robert Gates. He is an evolved thinker rather than a testosterone (read Viagra) fueled cowboy with a hard-on who sees lives as chess pieces on a board. One suspects that he has looked deep into his own conscience to realize that the wars both in Iraq and in Afghanistan are failing. That is why Obama wanted him to continue in the job. Obama sees within Robert Gates a man who is above the kind of political partisanship that is an art form of the conservative side in America. He is a thinker, he identifies problems - even those that might be his own and works to solve them.

Now back to Greg Sheridan.

In the Australian this week, Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan had published an article which can only be described as dripping with embittered sarcasm. 'How to control a pack of alpha dogs', it crowed from the sidelines, and continued with by-line that, 'US president-elect Barrack Obama is going to be a terrific disappointment to his left wing supporters, certainly if his national security team is anything to go by'

Sheridan proceeds to give the reader a rundown of the key appointments - through Clinton as secretary of state, General James Jones as national security adviser, Susan Rice as US ambassador to the UN and of course Robert Gates as secretary of defense.

As though he were attempting to re-cast this new national security team as simply more of the same, Sheridan deludes himself into thinking thata) these appointments are the as far to the right as leftist appointments get - therefore he tries to see some sort of legitimacy in them and b) that Obama is going to have a difficult time keeping this - quote 'testosterone charged, super A-list, alpha dog cabinet' in check.

He singles out Robert Gates in particular, painting the incumbent Sec-Def as a Rumsfeld-ish war horse who spearheaded the US troop surge and wants continue in the Iraqi quagmire indefinitely which is just plain wrong. 'Gates has...opposed a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq, wants more troops in Afghanistan and sensibly wants to modernize the US nuclear arsenal' Sheridan writes. Robert Gates has made his position on both Iraq and Afghanistan quite clear - the strategy is not working. Both Obama and Gates are in synergy with one another on that score. There will be a troop withdrawal from Iraq within the first term of the Obama Administration and a refocusing of effort on the real and perhaps only legitimate campaign - Afghanistan.

Gates has made no secret of his opinion regarding where America has gone wrong with respect to both the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts, laying blame at blame at the feet of both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Gates has even been quoted as saying that 'it is almost like we forgot everything we learned in Vietnam'.

I've observed amongst many of those on the right of the commetariat - a curious phenomenon; a kind of inability to function beyond the blinkered prism of left and right. It has been particularly exaggerated in the past year and a half where we have seen the throwing out of office, down here in Australia, one of the most conservative regimes on the planet. And also in America back on November 4th where Obama prevailed to see off the most incompetent Administrations in living memory.

 

 

Obama's National Security Team. I have never had a beer with any of these people either.

Right wing commentators have experienced a kind of psychological amputation, where the phantom sensation of having the neo-cons still in power won't leave them. In their inability to rationalize, they project a right wing persona on those ideological opponents, perpetuating a kind of ideological schizophrenia - where these people must be (of the) Right...they've just simply gotta be!

The fact is what has emerged from these appointments, this past week, is that the US will enter 2009 with one of the most centrally balanced national security teams ever assembled. Putting Hilary to one side for a moment (oh how I do wish she had never resurfaced!), the infamous divisions between defense and state look like they will finally be assigned to the dust bin as Obama has put together a team that, potentially, will see an unprecedented level of cooperation between these two most prominent of instrumentalities.

Gates, a former Director of the CIA, himself has become renowned for making the case for increased funding to other departments rather than his own. David E. Sanger, in his New York Times article, observed that Gates acknowledged during the 2007 Landon Lecture at Kansas State University, that 'for many in the Pentagon it was 'blasphemy' for 'a sitting secretary of defense to travel halfway across the country to make a pitch to increase the budget of other agencies.' Sanger writes 'He noted that when Adm. Mike Mullen was chief of naval operations, 'he once said he'd hand a part of his budget to the State Department 'in a heartbeat' assuming it was spent in the right place.'

I fail to see where the charged testosterone is here - the alpha dog mentality. I fail to see it because it does not exist.

It is exactly this kind of gesture from these kinds of people that president-elect Barrack Obama has recognized as being the essential ingredients for a successful administration. For too long the world has endured PNAC influenced, extreme-right focused collective - where it was trendy to have vicious pissing competitions between departments (read defense and state). This collective has steered the United States through a maelstrom of chaos.

A centrist administration, populated by individuals who may be a little to the left or a little to the right will work infinitely more effectively than the Kentucky fried lunacy that has preceded it. These new members of the Obama national security team are aligned more closely to one another on various points of view that will allow for greatly enhanced co-operation and an ability to work through points of difference towards successful outcomes. The more visible example of this - Hilary and Obama - is proof positive of what can happen despite coming from diametrically opposed positions.

The right wing commetariat, whose membership includes the likes of Greg Sheridan, Jan Albrechtson and Piers Akerman down here in Australia, Bill O'Reilly, Brian Maloney and Dennis Prager in America will become irrelevant so long as they continue to trot out their delusions about the right/left divide and attempt to wedge their audience with erroneous character studies that include hormones, personality typologies and canines.

I mean, really...Hilary is not that much of a dog...

Dean from Australia is the CEO of the independent think tank Banister's Mind and can be heard sprouting garbage on Red Bar Radio .com (www.redbarradio.com)