18 May 2010

Wanna hear a nigger joke?

You know when you call someone up on racism and they lecture you for not having a sense of humour and call you a boring, pc-gone-mad wowser who just needs to get a life and learn to laugh?

This morning, Facebook has assured me that I'm not the only person who this happens to, as many of my friends are linking to this story about five good Aussie blokes in the Northern Territory who shared a couple of tinnies as mates, went for a drive (the driver was a good citizen and wasn't drunk) and kicked an Aborginal man to death for a giggle. The Chief Justice delivering the "justice" ensured they received the smallest sentence possible and wrote them character references.

Anyone slapping their thigh and shaking their head at these funny antics? Perhaps we need a telly program called Funniest Home Boong Bashing Videos or a kick-ass (oops I didn't mean that) TV justice programs where the audience get to vote if the defendants are guilty or should win a gift basket?

The other popular link today was to last night's episode of Media Watch.


I'll embed the video as soon as I figure out how - in the meantime, here's the link to the segment and here's the transcript.

I don't listen to 3AW, so I have to be grateful to those who do to let us know what some people think is bonza stuff to say. Neil Mitchell wants Catherine Deveny damned, but that's pretty mild compared to refusing to speak to a Muslim woman and ranting with the logic and intelligence of a dried dog turd.

The man whose rants were so embraced by the 3AW talk back crowd is very well known in theatre circles and respected for his public stance against homophobia. He doesn't like me because I wrote a fairly mild review about one of his shows. I didn't mention John Michael Howson's name in the review, so that googling for him wouldn't bring up public criticism  of a man who had worked so long and hard in our industry. I didn't hear the community radio interview where he responded to my review, but it was reported that he declared those type of reviewers "pretentious assholes".

Hey, I'm proud to be a pretentious asshole if it means I don't have anything to do with people like him.