a McEnroe moment

you cannot be serious!

rudd got hammered and went to a dodgy venue on the public dollar. four years ago.

it's been suggested that rg may be tempted to mount the nearest lectern and start spewing hell-fire if these actions were the work of a liberal; this has indeed been food for thought. here's rg's conclusion: rg could not give a toss. it doesn't matter; it's not relevant. much like alexander downer in fishnets, or tony abbott and the threat of an illegitimate child.

of all the politicians that make rg cringe, downer and abbott are constantly jostling for rank with costello and howard. but what alexander did, or dressed as, in his youth, or what indiscretions tony had as a young university student don't interest rg. why? because like most adult australians, rg has had a life as well and made colossal errors of judgment, as well as garden-variety balls-ups. anyone who says they haven't is either a liar or someone who hasn't grown as a person.

bob brown put it best: "four years ago kevin rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club. four years ago john howard, sober, took australia into the iraq war. i think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm." that's the voice of perspective.

so do people care about rudd's escapades? rg doubts it. rudd was a knob simply by walking into the venue; he's admitted he did it and that he was in fact a knob. what more can he do? if it had been howard or costello that did the same, you'd be scraping rg off the floor and waiting for the crazed laughter to end, but the same outcome would prevail - who cares? perhaps this indifference is caused by an absolute unwillingness to entertain the visual of rudd, howard or costello in a strip joint full-stop. shudder at the thought; wash rg's eyes out.

more enraging was kerry o'brien's treatment of rudd on the 730 report tonight:

KERRY O'BRIEN: But can you remember seeing lap dancers performing?

KEVIN RUDD: Look, what I can recall in terms of the actual venue itself was that not much more than you would see in the last 20 years in a certain of the pubs in Australia, I've got to say.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But that's what I would like to clarify. Because you don't see lap dancing in most pubs in Australia. Can you recall seeing lap dancers performing while you were there?

again: who, other than kerry, cares, or is as obsessed about lap-dance antics? does o'brien really think the public want the gory details of what was shown, by whom and when? is this anything other than gutter journalism? rg is devastated more by kerry's treatment of the topic than the foolish act itself; nothing but shades of a current affair.

rg has recently banged on about respect, and the personal and political repercussions of it. rg suspects the australian public will have more acceptance for a person who admits their flaws than someone who tries to deny or hide them. respect. everybody loves a winner, but everybody loves a fallen and flawed winner who dusts themselves off even more. rg guesses we'll find out how much forgiveness and love there is for captain perfect come election time...

felt violated lately?

if not, just jump on facebook, that ought to take care of it. rg's rage for this latest trend-of-all-trends has reached critical mass for the following reasons:

1) unlike its sister networking tool myspace, facebook doesn't have a random search function; the 'user' or curious net wanderer needs to register. so if, like rg, emails have popped into your inbox with 'joe blogs added you as a friend on facebook' and, being the curious person you are you decide to see what all this means, you need to provide (a) your name, and (b) your email address. there is no option for checking out joe blogs' profile, or the site in general, without providing this information.

this is the part where rg gets livid.

2) by virtue of logging on, your profile is created and you will find in a short period of time friends requesting confirmation from you so you can join their hub, or whatever the tech-savvy term is. rg views this as nothing more than glorified spamming. not being an uber tech whiz, rg has been troubled by the how of all this: how do people know that i'm suddenly a member? then it dawns on me...

(and rg is completely open to anyone who is in fact an uber tech whiz to explain the process or set rg straight on any confusion apparent from this post)

3) in effect, it's a virus philosophy. how could it be anything else? a user's email address must be the key. if rg logs on, facebook checks other members and anyone with rg's email address in their contact list automatically 'invites' rg to be a friend in their network. how else could it work? this would explain how (real, human) friends of rg's registered with facebook have invited rg to be a contact, but didn't actually or consciously do the inviting; it occurred through some other mysterious, automatic means.

4) privacy, or utter lack thereof. facebook certainly has an option to limit/expand who can view your user profile, but the bitch of this is you can only do it once you've registered. surely this means that the email address you register with has already been bouncing here, there and everywhere 'inviting' people in your contacts to be your 'friend' before you limit access to your profile. rg's head is about to explode.

5) deleting your account. not possible, from what rg can gather. facebook enables you to deactivate, but not delete entirely. rg wonders if this results in remaining a 'registered' user, but a 'sleeper', if you will. is rg's account information still considered accessible by facebook?

truth be told, rg does feel violated, cheated, conned and exposed. i have the right to surrender my anonymity if i choose; i absolutely object to this right being denied by something as insidious as farcebook.

loose lips sink ships

our nation's treasurer is emerging more and more as a man with the temperament of a toddler - semi-decent public manners, but privately lots of foot-stomping and 'not me' type denials. costello has shot himself in the aforementioned foot-stomping foot by denying comments published in a recent bulletin article highlighting his raw desire to turf howard from top dog position.

here's the problem: it's not simply a case of he said/she said any more. it's easier to deny, deny, deny when you feel you've got credibility and integrity on your side (no accounting for personal perception), but when you're dealing with a 3:1 collaboration ratio against you, it's best to dust off your honesty hat and see if it still fits.

rg suspects the blogosphere will explode today and tips the words "he can't win; i can" will feature at the top of media monitors' most-uttered hit-list. but in rg's view, the fact that costello again has been outed as an impotent "not fair" whinger isn't the problem; it's how he's (mis)managing the fallout that is.

just own it, peter, you'll feel better. how about this: "i foolishly took advice from party spinners and denied mentioning to three of australia's senior political journalists that i had intended to stage a coup to bump john from his perch. i also foolishly took advice from the same spinners a short time ago and denied the weight behind comments made in john's biography alluding to the same intention. i have since realised that spinners don't live in the real world; voters do, and they see through empty words. truth be told, john has always said he'd stay as long as it's in the party's interest; bottom line is, it no longer is. so strongly do i feel that i'm the right man for the job and that john has had his fair run that i announce my challenge for leadership now. should i fail, so be it; at least all this shit-fighting and battle-of-conscience stuff will be over with and i can score a tidy corporate job somewhere."

respect is a complex thing; you've got to give it to get it, and you've got to have it in yourself to give it in the first place. last week costello quoted dickens in parliament; perhaps he should look at shakespeare - to thine own self be true.

triple r

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smokin' poll

it's a case of another nanosecond, another poll as pundits, punters and every other politically exhausted australian drag their feet towards official election time. whenever that might be. if a poll surfaces querying the public's attitude towards polls, rg will not be surprised.

what do we learn from todays age/neilson findings (oz politics' killer graphs here)? according to michelle grattan, labor's vote has dropped "significantly" yet they're still hogging a "commanding" lead. rg loves poll-speak and challenges any pollster to publish findings without using these two words. bottom line is, there doesn't appear to be too much news. it's pointless making a political mountain out of slight poll movement; polls, like life and people's interest levels, ebb, flow and adjust. headlines like this and this banging on about 'hope' for the pm are, in rg's view, just shy of sensationalist. if there is one thing someone knee-deep in the political game will always tell you in a soundbite, it's that there is always hope. to suggest it's all over before the election has even been called is ridiculous.

there is one substantial point rg takes from today's breakdown: generally, the public aren't overly concerned with howard's or rudd's age, the likelihood of the pm satisfying a full term if re-elected, or status of interest rates under either candidate. why is this heartening? rg suggests it indicates, if only on an embryonic level, that voters aren't getting blindsided by surface mud-slinging. perhaps they realise that the reserve bank has more control over interest rates than the pm, and there's more important issues to be concerned with than who has more crow's feet and is more inclined to stumble when minus zimmer frame.

rg feels the up-and-up of recent polls is over and we're now looking at a more realistic, considered public opinion. this is where the game gets interesting, and we get to see how people are actually thinking, not just reacting. hopefully extreme love him/hate him attitudes are mellowing so when actual policy detail gets trotted out it's received and considered rather than dismissed by virtue of the party presenting it. as a weary parental politico mumbled recently, "if there is one thing someone knee-deep in the political game will always tell you in a soundbite, it's that there is always hope." hear, hear.