The question is : What is the Question?

         

For our sins, bLOGOS/HA HA has long listened to Question Time in the Australian Parliament.

Yesterday, a moment of rare reward when Madam Speaker (as she requires to be addressed) Bronwyn Bishop turned to us with this theatrical aside:

"There is no shame in having some vociferous exchanges."
       

Oh, that is so very LOGOS/HA HA
       
In context, here's how Hansard heard it :

Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, on a point of order—

Mr TURNBULL: That is very relevant.

The SPEAKER: The minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business? You have had one point of relevancy.

Mr Burke: The question had—

The SPEAKER: What is it? Another point of order?

Mr Burke: The minister is defying your ruling to be directly relevant.

The SPEAKER: No, he is not. There is no point of order. The Minister for Communications.

Mr TURNBULL: Transparency is the order of the day and I embrace that wholeheartedly. Senator Wong went on television on Sunday and, reacting to the report about this investment advice—

Mr Dreyfus: It's got nothing to do with the question.

Mr TURNBULL: It's got nothing to do with your interests, has it? You can't stand the truth, can you? But here it is—

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr TURNBULL: Senator Wong said the negative $31 billion figure was 'selective advice'. She did not deny that was given to the government, so we know that was given to the government. The way to put it into context—

The SPEAKER: The minister will return—

Mr TURNBULL: is for all those documents to be released—

The SPEAKER: Minister!

Mr TURNBULL: and you can do it.

An opposition member interjecting—

The SPEAKER: There is no shame in having some vociferous exchanges.

Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, could the minister please table the document he was referring to.

The SPEAKER: Does the minister have a document which is not confidential?

Mr TURNBULL: Madam Speaker, it gets worse and worse: he thinks he is in Hogwarts! He thinks I had a document under—

The SPEAKER: The minister will resume his seat! The Manager of Opposition Business.

Mr Burke: If it is of assistance, the minister was referring to his incoming government brief in his answer and it should be tabled.

Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker—

The SPEAKER: I think we don't need a point of order. There was no point of order. We will return to questions.

    

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20 NOVEMBER 2013

Addendum : When is a Question not an Acceptable Question?

We missed yesterday's Question Time, but when we tuned in today the circus had not missed a single meta-beat :

Mr PYNE: It was an excellent answer and I actually could not hear some of it because of the extraordinary level of noise coming from some of these people like the member for Adelaide, who is doing it now in fact.
 
The SPEAKER: I thank the Leader of the House, but I did observe that though there was an attempt at cacophony to intimidate the minister, it failed. She was not intimidated and was quite able to continue to answer her question.
 
ASYLUM SEEKERS
 
Mr MARLES (Corio) (14:21): My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. In light of the minister's previous answer—and, indeed, his answers over the last week—why does the minister even bother turning up to question time? 

Mr PYNE: Madam Speaker, on a point of order: there is some latitude given to opposition questioning, particularly new oppositions who are getting used to it, but that is not a question to the minister—it is not about responsibilities. It is simply a smear and it should be ruled out of order.
 
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, on the point of order: it is completely in order. It is telling that the Leader of the House could not refer to Practice or refer to a standing order. This goes to the very basis of whether or not a minister has arrived here to answer questions, and the opposition has every right to question why on earth he is here.
 
The SPEAKER: I intend to deal with the issue. Under standing order 100(d), questions must not contain arguments, inferences, imputation, insults, irony or hypothetical matter. I think the question fails on at least four issues. If the minister has a question and would like to rephrase it so it has some substance and is within the standing orders I would give him that opportunity.
 
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker?
 
The SPEAKER: I give the call to the Manager of Opposition Business, if he has something of substance to say.
 
Mr Burke: The concern from the opposition was the question. If that is your ruling, it will be no different to the other answers we did not get any way.
 
The SPEAKER: I find that comment of the Manager of Opposition Business offensive and he will withdraw.
 
Mr Burke: I withdraw, but it was not directed to you at all—
 
The SPEAKER: Well, I took it that way.
 
Mr Burke: it was directed to the minister.
 
The SPEAKER: I took it that way.
 
Mr Burke: No, it was absolutely directed to the minister.
 
The SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. I offered the member for Corio the opportunity to rephrase his question, should he wish. If he does not wish, I call the member for Dawson.
  

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20 NOVEMBER 2013

Black Hole Ruled Not Unparliamentary
      

Mr Dreyfus: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I call on the minister to withdraw the phrase he has just used. It is clearly disorderly, clearly offensive and should form no part of the deliberations of this parliament, let alone an answer in question time from a minister. 
 
Honourable members interjecting—
 
The SPEAKER: We will have silence. If the reference was to the term 'Bowen black hole', it is not unparliamentary. Indeed, there has been a long history in this place—prior to your entering it—of members who have been treasurers being utilised in that term. I call the minister.
 
Mr Dreyfus: Madam Speaker, if I could be further heard on this point: I again suggest that this is offensive and offends in particular against the principle that members should be referred to by their electorates or their titles.
 
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I call the minister.
 
Mr Andrews: I will tell you who this is offensive to: it is offensive to the Australian people who are now struggling with the debt that you left them. That is the reality. 
 
Opposition members interjecting—
 
The SPEAKER: There is too much noise on my left! 
  

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20 NOVEMBER 2013
Here's LOGOS in your eye!

Mr PYNE (Sturt—Minister for Education) (14:36): Many in the Labor Party refuse to remove the log in their own eye with respect to this matter.  

    
          

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Announcement : The Saturday Paper

          

       

bLOGOS/HA HA congratulates Morry Schwartz

Good morning,
 
Later today I will be officially announcing my plans to launch a weekly newspaper. I wanted to share this news with you in advance of the general public.
 
Called The Saturday Paper, this publication will make up for a lack of quality and diversity in Australian journalism. It is a project of which I am extremely proud.
 
I have been wanting to launch a paper like this since I started in publishing 40 years ago. Like its sister publications, the Monthly and Quarterly Essay, it will produce definitive accounts of the country’s most important news. It will be investigative, provocative and – I hope – compulsory.
 
We will have more information for you shortly. In the meantime, I am happy to be telling you first and I hope you will come with us on this ride. We will start taking subscribers next year.

Best,

Morry Schwartz
Publisher
The Monthly
Quarterly Essay
The Saturday Paper
            
        
         

LOGOS/HA HA : The Voice of the People

      
     

LOGOS : the Speaking into Being of the Universe

HA HA : imperfect Speech


The following is from yesterday's Hansard : 
House of Representatives _ 13 November 2013
The first day of normal business for the new Abbott/Coalition Government.

Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Abbott.
Bill read a first time.

Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
The SPEAKER: I call the Prime Minister.

Second Reading
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (10:19): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Australian people have already voted upon this bill, and now the parliament gets its chance.

The SPEAKER: I recognise the Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order...

 (discussion re. point of order)

In the meantime, I call the Prime Minister.

Mr ABBOTT: The Australian people have already voted upon this bill.
Now, the parliament gets its chance.
The 2013 election was a referendum on the carbon tax.
The people have spoken.
Now, it is up to this parliament to show that it has listened.
The Australian people have pronounced their judgment against the carbon tax: they want it gone.
This bill delivers. It delivers on the coalition's commitment to the Australian people to scrap this toxic tax.
It is also a cornerstone of the government's plan for a stronger economy built on lower taxes, less regulation and stronger businesses.
Repealing the carbon tax should be the first economic reform of this parliament—and it will be followed by further economic reforms: bills to repeal the mining tax, to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to deal with Labor's debt legacy.
The first impact of this bill will be on households, whose overall costs will fall $550 a year on average.
Thanks to this bill, household electricity bills—

An incident having occurred in the gallery—

The SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Prime Minister to take his seat for one moment. There is obviously an orchestrated demonstration within the public gallery today. I warn those persons in the gallery that, if they persist with this course of action, I will have no option but to clear that gallery. I would apologise to anyone who has come in good faith and is sitting in that gallery if that has to occur. So I simply say to those people who wish to behave in a disorderly manner to desist or I will have to ask that the gallery be cleared. I call the Prime Minister.

    

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the eleventh of the eleventh of the eleventh

          
Yesterday 

on the track 

] he observed (
this dry branch 
        

- poeter, 'Remembranch Day'

     

Today is Remembrance Day

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

- Laurence Binyon, the 'Ode of Remembrance', from 

  his 1914 poem 'For the Fallen.

        

      

Listen, I will tell the best of visions,
what came to me in the middle of the night,
when voice-bearers dwelled in rest.
It seemed to me that I saw a more wonderful tree
lifted in the air, wound round with light,
the brightest of beams. That beacon was entirely
cased in gold; beautiful gems stood
at the corners of the earth, likewise there were five
upon the cross-beam. All those fair through creation 

gazed on the angel of the Lord there. 

There was certainly no gallows of the wicked; 

but the holy spirits beheld it there,
men over the earth and all this glorious creation.
          
 
          
Wondrous was the victory-tree, and I stained with sins,
wounded with guilts. I saw the tree of glory,
honoured with garments, shining with joys,  
covered with gold; gems had  
covered magnificently the tree of the forest.
Nevertheless, I was able to perceive through that gold
the ancient hostility of wretches, so that it first began
to bleed on the right side. I was all drenched with sorrows.
I was frightened by the beautiful vision; 
I saw that urgent beacon change its covering and colours: sometimes it was soaked with wetness,  
stained with the coursing of blood; sometimes adorned with treasure.
     


Yet as I lay there a long while
I beheld sorrowful the tree of the Saviour,  
until I heard it utter a sound;
it began to speak words, the best of wood:
"That was very long ago, I remember it still,
that I was cut down from the edge of the wood,  
ripped up by my roots. They seized me there, strong enemies,
made me a spectacle for themselves there, commanded me to  raise up their criminals.
Men carried me there on their shoulders, until they set me on a hill,
enemies enough fastened me there. I saw then the Saviour of mankind
hasten with great zeal, as if he wanted to climb up on me.
        
- These are the opening lines of Elaine Treharne's translation of The Dream of the Rood. To read the full translation click here.

    

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Cup Day

      
We recently (here) showed some illustrations by the "Father of the American Cartoon", Thomas Nast.

Australia has a rich vein of cartoonists. Of these bLOGOS/HA HA holds Bruce Petty in highest regard : for his grand inclusive view and the consequent representation of inter-connectedness; for his ability to show the big picture in the small (see below); for his wit and good humour; and always for the scribbly immediacy of his line.

Today is Melbourne Cup day. A public holiday in the State of Victoria for "the race that stops a nation". A nation with a newly elected Government whose first order of the new Parliament will be to 'Axe the (carbon) Tax'; a government sceptical about Climate Change and (therfore) for the first time in 82 years with no Minister for Science.

Tony Abbott is demanding Labor “repent” for its support for a carbon tax (backing an efficient market to reduce greenhouse emissions is apparently, in the new prime minister’s estimation, a sin).

Lenore Taylor, The Guardian, 16 Oct 2013
Labor unlikely to 'repent' on carbon tax

And much more in "The Sermon on the Mount"...

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funambuLOGOS/HA HAism

Yesterday's post transcribed an event at Sydney Airport, 14 August 1974. 

Words criss-cross a chasm between two parties. 

Lou Reed_______LOGOS/HA HA_________Sydney Press

A week before that, New York, 7 August 1974. 

A man on a wire walks to and fro between the World Trade Towers.

South Tower________Philippe Petit________North Tower

      

       

Today at Bonzaview, for Theatre of the Actors of Regard :

The funambuLOGOS/HA HAist 
transVerses 
the Dualismus.

L_________Self__________X__________Other_________S

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Diogenes still looking...

     

A few days ago we caught up with Diogenes still looking for an honest man.

We followed him from Washington and a meeting there with the US Press Gang ...

          

 click image to enlarge                                 collection: bLOGOS/HA HA

             
... to Sydney, to observe a gathering of Rupert Murdoch and his attendants.

This was not Diogenes first visit to Oz. 

He was here in July 1974 when the Sydney Press pissed-off Sinatra with an article about his mafia connections and another on the women in his life, this latter headlined : 'Sinatra's molls'.

Diogenes was in the stalls of the Theatre of the Actors of Regard at Festival Hall, Melbourne a few days later when Sinatra hit back.

The verbal bombshell heard around the world was about to drop.
         

Referring to Australia's journalists, he said: "They keep chasing after us. We have to run all day long. They're parasites who take everything and give nothing. And as for the broads who work for the press, they're the hookers of the press. I might offer them a buck and a half I'm not sure."
    

Next morning the Australian Journalists' Association demanded that Sinatra apologise for his remarks and Hawke quickly became involved.
       

By noon it was announced on Melbourne radio that airport workers would refuse to refuel Sinatra's private jet. And it kept on snowballing.

Sun-Herald, The seige of Sinatra, 22 April 2002 

And was still here a few weeks later when Lou Reed arrived. 

Again, the self-regarding press turned out to impress this latest blow-in with their erudition and virtue. Diogenes with his light stood with the fans at the back of the room.

Transcript of interview
Sydney Airport, 14 August 1974

Press : You said a little while ago that you sing mainly about drugs. Is that right?

Lou Reed : Sometimes

Press : Why do you do this?

Lou Reed : Cos I think the Government's plotting against me.

Press : Why do you say that?

(laughter)

Press : You like singing about drugs : is this because you like taking drugs yourself?

Lou Reed : No, cos I can't carry when I go through customs, I  figure somebody in the audience...

Press :Were you searched by Customs Men for drugs?

Lou Reed : Oh, no, because I don't take them?

Press : No drugs at all?

Lou Reed : uh uh

Press : and yet you sing about them...

Lou Reed: I'm high on life

Press : You want people to take drugs themselves : is this perhaps why you sing about drugs

Lou Reed : Oh yeah. I want them to take drugs

Press : Why is this?

Lou Reed : Cos it's better than Monopoly.

Press : Why do you think your music is so popular, Lou? 
Lou Reed : I didn't know it was popular.

Press : You've got two sell-outs in Sydney before you've even come here, so it is popular apparently.

Lou Reed : I didn't know that.

Press : Lou, do you think it's a decadent society we're living in?

Lou Reed : No.

Press : Would you describe yourself as a decadent person?

Lou Reed : No.

Press : How would you describe yourself?

Lou Reed : Average.

Press : It's said in your release that we were given this morning that you like lying to the Press. Why is this? and are you doing it now?

Lou Reed : I didn't say that; the release did.
Press : is it true?
Lou Reed : No
Press : Is your anti-social behavior just part of your show business gimmick?
Lou Reed : Anti-social behavior? What's that?
Press : You seem very withdrawn.
Lou Reed : Introverted, you mean?
Press : Lou, you're a man of few words. Why is this?
Lou Reed : I don't have anything to say.
Press : Do you like meeting people, talking to people?
Lou Reed : Some.

Press : Do you like talking to us?

Lou Reed : I don't know you.
Press : Do you like press interviews in general?
Lou Reed : No.
Press : You shun publicity?
Lou Reed : No.
Press : Do you tend to keep to yourself?
Lou Reed : No.
Press : Why are you attending this one, Lou.
Lou Reed : They told me to come in here.
Press : It's just part of show business, is it?
Lou Reed : I'm not in show business.
Press : Not in the entertainment game?
Lou Reed : The entertainment game? No.
Press : Do you do everything people tell you to?
Lou Reed : Sometimes.
Press : What message is it that you're trying tpo get across?
Lou Reed : I don't have one.
Press : Most singers do. They usually sing about something and have some kind of way of getting through to the people.
Lou Reed : Like who?
Press : Well, most singers.
Lou Reed : Like who?
Press : Well, I ...
Press : Would it be right to call your music 'Gutter Rock'?
Lou Reed : Gutter Rock? oh yeah.
Press : It's been called Underground Rock and Roll...
Press : Andy Warhol, Lou. Are you still friends with him?
Lou Reed : Oh yeah.
Press : Has he been very important in your life? Did he make a big difference to you?
Lou Reed : Oh, he's everything. Still is.

Press : Lou , you sing a lot about transvestites and sado-masochism: how would you describe yourself
IN THE LIGHT OF THESE SONGS?

Lou Reed : What does that have to do with me?

Press : Well, could I put it bluntly, and pardon the question : Are you a transvestite or a homosexual?

Lou Reed : Sometimes.

Press : Which one?

Lou Reed : I don't know. What's the difference?
Press : Why do you like describing yourself... as this; why do you think you fit into this type of person?
Lou Reed : It's something to do.
Press : Is life so boring forv you then?
Lou Reed : No.

Press : What do you like most in life?Lou Reed : Everything.

Press : Is there any things you like better than others?

Lou Reed : No

Press : Where do you spend your money?

Lou Reed : On drugs.

Press : For other People?

Lou Reed : Right.

Press : It's been said that in your early days you were quite a wild performer. Is it true, for instance, that you attacked your fans in England and were arrested for obscenity on stage?

Lou Reed : No.

Press : This is again false publicity?

Lou Reed : (nods)

Press : Well, who writes these things about you if they're not true?

Lou Reed : Journalists.

(laughter)

Press : And is this perhaps why you don't like journalists?

Lou Reed : Oh, I love journalists.


VALE LOU REED

2 March 1942 - 27 October 2013


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Diogenes still looking...

     

Those children of Australia who were suckled at the breast of Pap Murdoch will en masse this evening unnaturally bother the old diggers and retiree drover types of their die-verse neighborhoods.

Today is Halloween, we are told.

And even as the elders tut-tut such foreign culture imports and call for stiffer Sovereign Borders, they too are readying their clobber, cobber, with clip-on black ties and displays of gold mined for their own hallowed eve celebration of the dead. 

News Corpse execute-ive chairman Rupert Murdoch will, as the sun sets, reward them with a trick-or-treat maLOGOS/HA HA at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney.

We are delighted to announce that our tenth anniversary Lowy Lecture will be delivered by Rupert Murdoch, AC. One of the ambitions of the Lowy Institute is to amplify Australian voices on the world stage, and no Australian businessman has had more success on that world stage than Rupert Murdoch.

Mr Murdoch is Executive Chairman of News Corp, the largest news and information services provider in the English speaking world and Chairman and CEO of 21st Century Fox, the world's premier portfolio of cable, broadcast, film, pay TV and satellite assets.

Since taking control of News in 1954, when the company’s key asset was the number-two daily newspaper in Adelaide, Mr Murdoch oversaw its expansion into one of the world’s biggest media companies, before its separation in July 2013.

The lecture will be black tie and will delivered at a dinner at Sydney Town Hall, 483 George Street, Sydney on Thursday, 31 October 2013 at 7.00 pm.

Lowy Institute for International Policy

We're not going. We'll be having a few media f(r)iends around for drinks and attempted sobriety. For reasons that Groucho Marx would understand, we don't call ourselves the The Diogenes Club - nonetheless, our toast this evening will be, as usual: "To Diogenes".

This relates to an old framed page that hangs in the bLOGOS/HA HA office. Be the light you seek, that sort of thing, a reminder. Page 308, taken from a U.S. journal, Harper's Weekly, 15 April 1876. 

The page carries an illustration by the "Father of the American Cartoon", Thomas Nast. 

But before we get to our own print by Nast, here's another by him (Harper's Weekly, 6 June 1874, p.480 ) in which, tongue in cheek, he asks the pardon of certain Republicans who feel themselves wounded by his sketches. 

      

 

As can be seen by the Republican Platform spelled out behind the Speaker's Chair, this could just as well be about the Supply-blocking antics of the Republicans in the US Senate earlier this month. The caption on the illustration:

“PEEVISH SCHOOL-BOYS, WORTHLESS OF SUCH HONOR.” “Apollos, pardon my great Profaneness; oh, pardon me, that I descend so low!”

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Our page by Nast depicts Diogenes in rags, still with his staff and lantern, now come to Washington, and STILL LOOKING for an honest man. 

          

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Vain and self-(ap)pointing, the press barons gather to receive him, each in the delusion he will see in them the virtue he seeks. Their mastheads suggest otherwise: The New York Hoax, The Washington Hatchet; the Daily Rumour, The Chicago Daily Pernicious Gossip Times, The Daily Canard, The New York Tribulation - The (Mis)Leading Paper in America, The Daily Slander, The Daily Busy Body, The Innuendo...

The caption on the illustration: 
DIOGENES STILL LOOKING. - "WE ARE THE GENTLEMAN YOU ARE IN SEARCH OF."

Update, below : 
Diogenes at the Lowy Institute, still looking ...
         
      

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