Election time! Which means every media hound in the country is straining at the leash like a corgi in heat. Here at the Tribune, we’ve decided that there’s very little point in us regurgitating the wisdom of the many far more knowledgeable folk up to their elbows in entrails, so we’re going to take a slightly different look at the election.

Firstly we’re going to cover the local (Melbourne Ports) candidates, find out who they are and write about their take on local issues as well as federal issues. As always, we’ll focus on facts, truth and smartarse remarks.

I’m a right-wing, red-wine-guzzling carnivore. I have even been known, after guzzling a few red wines, to rant about how vegetarianism is an eating disorder. So writing about the evils of meat farming is odd territory for me. But the world is an odd place and even I am compelled to admit, at times, that maybe there is more to learn about the things I feel strongly about.

Then I tried to find a dress to wear to my brother-in-law’s wedding and was reminded that ever since I decided that I would like to have clothes that fit properly and look OKish, shopping has become less fun than trying to wear a bikini made out of cats.

I’m a rampant media consumer, way too much of the time I should spend being productive I am instead wandering around the internet reading about stuff. Politics and religion and sex are all staples, but if you can write really well or have something really interesting to say (or enough of one to make the lack of the other irrelevant) I will read your shit.

Bloggers tend to have one particular topic they write about, politics, sport, parenting, religion, feminism, maleism (is that a word? Do we need a word for that? Ok, let’s save that for another post), body image, fashion, food, crafts, and on and on ad infinitum. They write intelligently and articulately on all these subjects, without sensationalism or prurience. By comparison they can, and do, make the mainstream media look foolish.

Winter can also bring with it a wave of depression, which in an odd way can be quite similar to flu. It can be quite mild, just needing some chicken soup and a bit of TLC, or it can be serious, debilitating and, in some cases, life threatening.

This is a short history of the buttock, the bottom, the derriere, the butt, the caboose, the blurter or the stinkhole.

Interesting aside: there are far more euphemisms for genitals than there are for buttocks, and very few of the ones that exist for buttocks are considered particularly offensive, I wonder why that is, because if you think about it, bottoms are, or can be, far more offensive than genitals. Butt (ha ha) I digress, again, on with the article:

I’ve seen various WTF tweets about this kid, but never got interested enough to find out who he was, then, this morning, I was at the gym watching the soft porn music video show and trying not to think about how unfit I am.

Most of the time I don’t pay too much attention to the wingnuts, but there does seem to have been a preponderance of earthquakes hitting the media lately so I though I’d find out whether there really has been an increase in the last few years.

These old English pudding recipes come from a time before anyone had heard about size 0 or cholesterol problems, so you can pretty much hear your arteries hardening as you eat it, but we’ve all got to die of something, and this pudding is just about worth it.

Most of the time I don’t pay too much attention to the wingnuts, but there does seem to have been a preponderance of earthquakes hitting the media lately so I though I’d find out whether there really has been an increase in the last few years.

I’ve seen various WTF tweets about this kid, but never got interested enough to find out who he was, then, this morning, I was at the gym watching the soft porn music video show and trying not to think about how unfit I am.

I can quite see why Tony Abbott would be delighted at the idea of more women staying home to look after babies, but it baffles me that so many women are marching in lockstep with him.

Paid maternity leave is not a step forward for women, it’s a step backwards. And its most dangerous problem is that it is presented as the solution to the complex problems of balancing working, raising children and ensuring that women are not disadvantaged in their career or financial circumstances after they have a baby.

Paid maternity leave doesn’t address any of these issues in any meaningful or effective way.

It’s a short-term fix for well-paid married women who have a full time job, want to have a baby and want to stay home for six months to look after it; but it doesn’t address any of the issues that affect everyone outside that small group.

Tony Abbott came out in favour of paid maternity leave!

I get that he’s chasing the vagina vote, and we should expect all kinds of ridiculousness from politicians in an election year, but could he seriously think that this ill-conceived (yuk yuk) plan is really going to work?

Even us poor women understand that a government needs to be able to sensibly manage an economy. Abbott, apparantly, can’t manage a sensible walk in the bush.

Tony Abbott came out in favour of paid maternity leave!

I get that he’s chasing the vagina vote, and we should expect all kinds of ridiculousness from politicians in an election year, but could he seriously think that this ill-conceived (yuk yuk) plan is really going to work?

Even us poor women understand that a government needs to be able to sensibly manage an economy. Abbott apparantly can’t manage a sensible walk in the bush.

So, everyone familiar with the Tribune will notice that we are now printing in colour. Doesn’t it look lovely? Notice the colour artwork people, appreciate it, maybe even sniff it a little bit, all that colour is made of blood, tears and cussing.

Tony Abbott is a tool of the highest order, but I find myself in a position of actually defending the little prick, and I hate it.

I remember the dim dark distant past when reading The Age would get me angry for the right reasons. Back then I got angry about the events the talented journalists at The Age were reporting; now I just get enraged by the news they are attempting to manufacture. Someone should explain to them that there is a difference between media and journalism. Smarmy twats.

Thank God for Mia Freedman and her blog. If it wasn’t for her I would never have heard about My New Pink Button, which is a wonderful new product for women whose lady bits are just not quite that perfect shade of pink.

Tony Abbott is a tool of the highest order, but I find myself in a position of actual defending the little prick, and I hate it.

A disaster? Maybe, but not one without an amusing side. Tony Abbot as PM would indeed be disastrous, but Tony Abbot as the leader of the opposition could prove to be quite a boon for the nation, if not for the government.

..so of course I don’t have anything else to think about.

Thank God for Mia Freedman and her blog. If it wasn’t for her I would never have heard about My New Pink Button, which is a wonderful new product for women whose lady bits are just not quite that perfect shade of pink.

The Religion Report is a weekly half hour radio program that presents interviews, reports and investigations into various activities and schools of thought from all faiths across the world.

The ABC has decided that this is no longer relevant or useful, in much the same way that they decided several years back to axe the Environment Report because it was no longer relevant or useful.

The Religion Report is one of the most well researched, well balanced and well presented programs on Radio National and I cannot think of a time where it is more important that we understand different religions and how their teachings are affecting the world we live in.

As a research tool, a means of expanding understanding of all faiths and spiritual beliefs and a fascinating way to pass the drive to work, the Religion Report is unique, and ‘our ABC’ should know this without being told.

Dictionary.com defines alcoholism as “a chronic disorder characterized by dependence on alcohol, repeated excessive use of alcoholic beverages, the development of withdrawal symptoms on reducing or ceasing intake, morbidity that may include cirrhosis of the liver, and decreased ability to function socially and vocationally”.

3:49: Lie back down and worry slightly about subconscious self. Listen to roaring noise of husband snoring.

4:03: Nudge husband gently. Listen to husband grunt and resume stentorian snoring.

4:10: Kick husband viciously on shins. Rub throbbing foot, listen to husband grunt and resume stentorian snoring.

As published in Crikey:

 I like Nick Xenophon, I like him a lot. He’s like the anti-Steve: an independent senator able to keep his head above water as he swims through the senatorial swill.

His attack on the tax free status church of Scientology last night was laudable, and long overdue, but did not go nearly far enough.Scientologists really are fish in a barrel though: they owe their beginnings to a not-terribly-good science fiction writer, they believe in aliens and they have couch-jumping Tom Cruise as their mascot. You’re not going to provoke a riot by poking them with pointy sticks; but if you are going to question the right of Scientologists to run a tax free organisation, how can you not ask the same question about the Catholics, the Jews, the Pentecostals and the Muslims?

As published in Crikey:

I like Nick Xenophon, I like him a lot. He’s like the anti-Steve: an independent senator able to keep his head above water as he swims through the senatorial swill.

His attack on the tax free status church of Scientology last night was laudable, and long overdue, but did not go nearly far enough.

The asylum seeker debate seems to have been taken over by the hysterical right screeching about thousands of terrorists flooding to our shores with the fixed intention of strapping on a suicide vest and blowing up our kindergartens; and the equally hysterical left demanding that the entire 15 million benighted inhabitants of UN refugee camps should be immediately flown to Australia and given a free plasma screen TV and a laptop.

In all the shrieking, some of the basic facts seem to have been lost, so, with not a great deal of research and nothing in the way of expertise, I would like to debunk a few of the more erroneous claims:

When I was in London in the early nineties the temp agency I was working for accidently sent me to a job at the top end of Merrill Lynch, the last bastion of upper class debs and old Etonians. It was interesting enough, in an anthropological way, and while they were all very nice to me they did tend to regard me as some kind of bizarre zoo exhibit. Colonial? Unilingual? Only 4 cousins? Staying in London on the weekends? Merciful heavens!

You may have seen Brendan Nelson’s farewell to his electorate  last week. So did Crikey and they decided to have the Crikey Army say their own special good bye to Brendan.

This was my entry, which didn’t win (poo!) but did get a special mention. The winning entry is here but it’s not as good as mine.

She wrote about excited she was when she was told that Matt Preston had named a cravat after her and the subsequent devastation she felt when she discovered that said cravat was called the Myf because it was “short and slightly wide”.

Well, a few weeks ago Phoebe the Whippet was hit by a car. We opened our front door and she ran on to the road before anyone had time to stop her. The driver that hit her saw her run out, but was going too fast to stop in time.

Well, a few weeks ago Phoebe the Whippet was hit by a car. We opened our front door and she ran on to the road before anyone had time to stop her. The driver that hit her saw her run out, but was going too fast to stop in time.

Most of my friends did the usual flee the country thing in their early 20s. Some were scattered around the world in various exotic locations, but the rest of us joined the Aussie horde in Earls Court, and staunchly did our bit to confirm the long suffering Londoners view of Australians as a bunch of loud, uncouth, but difficult to offend drunkards.

Who's to Blame? Politicians or The Press Gallery?

So, Question Time this week has, depending on your point of view, either been rollickingly funny Canberran WWF, or a farcical shemozzle of childish political point scoring.

Last week I was surprised and horrified to discover that roughly half the people I know haven’t even heard of Crikey, and that a fair proportion of people who do know it hadn’t looked it for months. These are informed, interested and shouty people who love a good debate and rarely accept anything at face value. They’re getting their information from the ABC, The Age or The Australian at best, and commercial TV stations or the Herald Sun at worst.

The statement was nearly 2000 words long, but the phrase seemed to capture the most media attention was: “the tremendous suffering (experienced by indigenous people) at the hands of historical forces and entrenched racism”.

Blogs and comments on news sites went OFF, with everything from desperate pleas for help and understanding, to vicious flaming and racially based abuse (from both sides of the debate).

The simplest search through the internet shows that indigenous populations all over the world are severely disadvantaged; it’s appallingly, tragically, heartbreakingly sad. No-one should sit back and be ignorant or apathetic about this issue.

Poverty, disease, abuse, suicide, alcoholism, mental illness, disintegration of family groups, destruction of cultural values and disproportionally high mortality rates are universal themes for every group of people whose native lands were colonised during European expansion.

Almost every country involved has tried some forms of reconciliation, aid, treaty, intervention, some-other-name-for-the-same-thing to change the circumstances of their indigenous populations. Some have had minor successes, but no-one has really made any significant inroads to these problems. And every time another scheme fails, someone is there to point a finger and talk bitterly about racism.

Racism is blamed as both the cause indigenous people’s suffering, and the reason it cannot be alleviated.