Former ANZ chief Mike Smith finds no ‘anti-business’ bias at ABC

And Elizabeth Farrelly finds herself washed away in metaphorical rivers of times past.

Pronounced innocent, at last. Fairfax Media, July 22:

The ABC has been cleared of systemic “anti-business” bias in a major review of its coverage, with former ANZ boss Mike Smith confessing he has rethought his negative perceptions of the broadcaster.

The fundamental dignity of theft. ABC News online, July 21:

Talkback callers to 720 ABC Perth revealed the practice of not paying full price for every item or outright stealing when doing their own (supermarket) checkout was widespread ... Caller Frank said he regularly entered items falsely as a protest against self-service checkouts. “If they are going to make me self-serve and reduce the employment for our youth, I will help myself to almonds and mushrooms at potato prices and make sure I hit their bottom line,” Frank said.

Rivers of blah. Architect Elizabeth Farrelly plumbs the geography of discord — or something. The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday:

Andrew Bolt’s prediction of a right-wing anti-Islam “backlash” in which “innocent Muslims will be hurt” was chillingly reminiscent of Enoch Powell’s 1968 “rivers of blood” speech, and verged similarly on glee.

No glee from Bolt. His Herald Sun blog, Saturday:

Elizabeth Farrelly defames me with this grotesque and dangerously inflammatory claim, suggesting I actually would love to see innocent Muslims hurt by vigilantes ... This is grotesquely untrue — dangerous to both Muslims and to me.

More highlights from the built environment. Yale University’s new dean of architecture profiled in The Wall Street Journal, July 14:

When she scans the current architectural landscape for a structure to admire, Deborah Berke tends to end up in the weeds. “I mostly love built things that aren’t buildings — like an industrial shed in the New Jersey Meadowlands, or a dry dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that dates to the Civil War,” said the architect ...

Great moments in design. Andrew Masterton in The Age, Saturday, on the perils of adding a handle to a hipster cafe’s recycled jam jar:

This, surely, dilutes the Platonic ­concept of jar. And then there is the thread moulded into the rim: the ­sloping ridges combined to mate ­securely with a lid that doesn’t exist. This violates the idea that form should follow function, ­confounding the Bauhaus principle that unnecessary additions are ­anathema.

A mushy metaphor or deranged tastebuds? And does it work with sushi? Labor MP Graham Perrett in The Huffington Post, July 22:

At Eid Down Under recently, I had some halal lamb and cevapi and they tasted exactly like Australia.

Streetwise fashion. When was the last time you spotted a nun on the run? Perrett, again:

I know that the vast majority of Australians are accepting, sensible ­people. Most people would not bat an eyelid if a person wearing a burka or niqab passed them in the street any more than if a Catholic nun walked by.

Shorten sweet, after all. Sean Kelly in The Monthly, July 22:

(In May) a brief storm of criticism swept down on Bill Shorten for describing Donald Trump as “barking mad”. I criticised him, too, writing on the day that such words “were inappropriate from someone in Shorten’s position” ... (But now) I’m not sure I was right.