Let Saigons be bygones: Long Tan leaves bitter taste
Plus: Olympic outrages, ABC bias, and a Donald Trump statue that could use a trigger warning.
Plus: Olympic outrages, ABC bias, and a Donald Trump statue that could use a trigger warning.
Keith Payne, last surviving Victoria Cross recipient from the Vietnam war, on Long Tan commemorations, The Australian, yesterday:
PO’d (pissed off) — that’s how I feel. I think that would go for everybody returning back to (the nearby town of) Vung Tau without having been in to make their own service.
Malcolm Turnbull, Fairfax Media radio, yesterday:
We respect the right of the Vietnamese government to determine what ceremonies and observances are held in their country, but to change the rules literally the day before was very unreasonable.
The ABC pays tribute to anti-Vietnam war protesters, 7.30, Thursday:
A world away from the jungles of Vietnam, a generation of newly politicalised youth were taking to the streets of Australia’s capital cities to protest against an increasingly unpopular war … Half a century later, filmmaker Larry Zetlin was still fascinated by this radical chapter in Australian history.
Not happy, Kitty. Sky News’s Paul Murray on the Australian chef de mission’s banning of swimmer Emma McKeon from the closing ceremony, Facebook, yesterday:
Maybe if Kitty Chiller spent less time on this crap we might have reached her target of 16 GOLD not the 7 we ended up with.
Junkee.com’s Osman Faruqi with a follow-up, Twitter, yesterday:
How come Australia calls it “Chef de Mission” but other countries call it “Chief de Mission”? Does ours cook food or something?
Triggered! Matthew Lesh reports Monash University will be the first here to enforce “trigger warnings”, Spectator Australia, yesterday:
Trigger warnings form a key part of the growing anti-intellectual culture in our classrooms. They encourage further disengagement and academic self-censorship. Students often advocate for trigger warnings merely for content they find disagreeable …
Maybe this newspaper needs a trigger warning. The ABC’s Jonathan Green, Twitter, yesterday:
[T]hing is, a lot of us would like to put more faith in @australian, but it needs to segregate reporting from opinion.
Thankfully the ABC always plays a straight bat. The Australian reporting on ABC’s controversial Q&A Twitter feed, August 25, 2015:
In yet another embarrassing and offensive incident for the show, a tweet from the handle @AbbottLovesAnal was broadcast on last night’s episode.
The Australian, February 17, 2015:
ABC journalist and multiple Walkley Award-winner Sarah Ferguson breached her own broadcaster’s bias guidelines when she grilled Joe Hockey on budget night last year …
Julia Gillard is giving advice to potential US president Hillary Clinton, The Australian, yesterday:
Julia Gillard has outlined what Hillary Clinton can expect as America’s first female president, criticising Australia’s culture for expecting women to accept sexist attacks as normal.
Happily, there’s no body-shaming sexism on the Left. The Guardian reports, yesterday:
A nude statue of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump without testicles was taken down on Thursday after causing quite the stir in New York’s Union Square. The anarchist group INDECLINE erected the statue, titled The Emperor Has No Balls, overnight Thursday.