Monday, September 08, 2008

This week's news round-up

Featuring Sarah Palin, Richard Littlejohn, Robinho and the same old Tories. by Johnny Taronja
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Shoot the moose

Don't you just dig Sarah Palin's bravery? It must take some fine mettle to take on with an automatic rifle those notoriously aggressive moose. Or to be a gun-toting abstinence-preaching mother with dead animals hung on a wall. That certainly tipped the balance for the Telegraph, as it argued, last Wednesday, that McCain's running mate "personifies many of the anxieties, hopes and ambitions of millions of people, not just in America". Brown and Darling take the queue. How's that for quail shooting?
*****
Arousing a little johnson

That would probably inspire the Daily Mail's Richard Goldfish-Memory Littlejohn, judging by how aroused by "pistol-packin" Palin he looked on Friday. Check this one: "Who is Putin most likely to be wary of - Barack 'we must negotiate with dictators' Obama, or Looby Loo packing heat?" (Oh yeah cos Al Quaeda was so wary of G.W. Bush and his cocky henchmen they actually attacked the US on home soil- ed.)
*****
Private matters?

More seriously, America has stopped debating issues such as the economic slump, inflation, rising unemployment and the tricky playgrounds Afghanistan and Iraq. The world's future seems now centred around one Bristol Palin and the pregnant-at-17-in-spite-of-abstinence controversy. Like Joan Smith points out in the Independent on Sunday, whereas it's certainly depressing that the press are poking their nose into such a private matter, it's also true that Palin was quite happy to parade her children, including the pregnant Bristol, at the Republican convention in Minneapolis. The moment the 17-year-old was exposed to the world's attention she became fair game. You can't eat your cake and have it too.

*****
Out of the way, Abramovich

More quazillions to be lavished on b-list players in the Premier League. Enter the new billionaire Abu-Dhabi owners of Manchester City and the £32.5 capture of Brazilian mercenary "Who-are-ya" Robinho. The event was saluted by The Sun with a special column written by Noel Gallagher while touring Canada with Oasis: My 40 yrs of loyalty repaid at long last, containing the shocking revelation: "I am available for any after-show party [the new owner] wants me to play at - if he's throwing that kind of money around".
*****
The same old Tory

How to turn an argument on its head. This week's report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission revealed that, far from rising, the number of females in top jobs is dropping fast. You may put it down to deep-rooted prejudice, persistent patriarchy or the difficulty of juggling family and work responsibilities. But no, for the Daily Mail and its columnist Jan Moir, the blame is on the "oh-so-generous new provisions for maternity leave [which] have served to alienate employers, not encourage them". Two hundred years ago they said that abolishing slavery would get our streets flooded with unemployed tramps. Ten years ago, that the minimum wage would cripple British business. Now, it's the improved maternity leave regulations that slash women's job opportunities. It's the same old (s)Tory.

1 comment:

claude said...

I remember how twisted William Hague and his party sounded back in '99 when the minimum wage
was being introduced. They argued that legally enforcing an even barely minimum wage was against the interest
of the low-paid! Straight from the school of turning logic on its head. It's like saying that rescuing
a man from being beaten to fuck is against his own interest or else he could run into someone who
could pound his head even worse.