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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Educating the Young 'Adult'.


The Jesuits claimed that 7 years was long enough to build solid Foundations. Modern educators prove that just three is enough - to build an outdoor brick shyzenhaus on top.  That's efficiency for you.

Times have changed when it comes to developing intellectual strengths and capacities in young people. Here in the Tavern we start'em young with the finest Milk of Human Kindness.

But in our Universities things are going downhill fast. A breed of academics raised on liquid shyte now take our older young and agitprop them into an oblivion as deep as any LSD party could achieve.

Melbourne University- Built by Englishmen, now populated by Goblins.


A fine Gentleman, Keith, was in the P&B telling us of the woes and the differences.

I took a liberal arts degree a long time ago but still remember it very well. At the University of Sydney in 1966 my course in history made me read Gibbon, Macaulay, Carlyle, Maitland and Tocqueville. In English literature our reading list came from Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, Wordsworth, Hopkins, Austen, Dickens, Yeats and Beckett. In philosophy it was Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Armstrong and Smart, plus two demanding sub-courses in scientific method and logic—and all of this was just first year. It was the most exciting and exhausting year I had ever spent.

Your host recalls his 'first year' too. It was as if a bright light had been switched on.  Everyday brought not just demanding work but astonishment.
Not only was I required to read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire—which I still think the greatest work of prose ever written—but had lecturers telling me what to look for and what not to miss. I could hardly believe my luck.
In those days, professors and heads of departments were not consumed by administration but made a point of giving lectures to first-year classes. David Armstrong did this in philosophy and Sam Goldberg did it in English. In history, we had a visiting professor from Oxford no less, the great John McManners. You couldn’t find an experience like this anywhere but in the university. We were enormously privileged.
Today, liberal arts students are not so lucky. At the University of Sydney most finish their courses largely ignorant of the great canon of Western literature that once formed the bedrock of academic degrees. 
Instead, they are indoctrinated in left-wing, anti-Western theory from the gurus of cultural studies, critical theory, radical feminism, neo-Marxism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, hermeneutics, literary theory or whatever else happens to be the latest intellectual fashion.

The university’s current Deputy Vice-Chancellor and long-time Dean of Arts and Professor of History, Stephen Garton, built his career by emulating the studies of madness and sexuality written by French post-structuralist, anti-humanist and gay theorist Michel Foucault 
At the University of Melbourne things are much the same. The former Dean of Arts and long-standing head of the school of history, Stuart Macintyre, is a Marxist who wrote the authorised history of the Communist Party of Australia. The following passage from his Concise History of Australia (third edition, page 149), gives a good idea of the kind of anti-Australian, neo-feminist theoretical guff that now passes for scholarship in liberal arts education.

On Federation, Macintyre writes:
 The Australian nation was shaped by the fear of invasion and concern for the purity of the race. These anxieties converged on the female body as nationalist men returned obsessively to the safety of their women from alien molestation, while doctrines of racial purity, no matter how scientific, rested ultimately on feminine chastity. Women participated in this preoccupation with their own materialist concept of citizenship, which took emancipation from masculine tyranny as a necessary condition of their vital contribution to the nation-state. A woman’s personal and bodily integrity thus served as a further condition of her admission to civic status.

For this plodding yet impenetrable prose, Macintyre is praised to the skies by other history professors. Alan Atkinson of the University of New England says on the cover blurb: “It’s a splendid piece of work and it belongs to a noble tradition … It conveys throughout a joy in writing history—a joy especially in struggling with the soul of the country.”
Only a damned fool or an evil menace could say that.  Only a fool would praise it.

But enough of my cynical comments, Read ALL of what Keith had to say:

It is well worth five minutes. Keith is far better than most in exposing cant.

So many of our Universities are populated by professors who shirk real intellectual work. They have 'gained' their positions through 'new boy and new girl' networks intent on 'engineering' our society and taking as much from the taxpayers' pockets as they can.

OK, a few more sips from Keith's cup:

How could what was, indeed, a once noble tradition sink so low? In the 1970s and 1980s, the Left captured most of the liberal arts faculties of the public universities and have been running them down ever since. In some cases they succeeded by ruthless politicking. At Melbourne, Macintyre and his colleagues drove from office the former Dean of Arts and Australia’s greatest historian, Geoffrey Blainey, by a sustained campaign involving student protests, denunciation in the media and sending him to Coventry.  
Elsewhere, the most successful tactic was to capture faculty appointment committees. This way, the Left could gain control of whole departments by appointing a majority of people exactly like themselves or, at the very least, by vetoing appointment of anyone likely to actively oppose them.  
Once their numbers reached a critical mass, the Left consolidated their power by promoting their own members to faculty deans and funding newly concocted fields such as gender studies, media studies, genocide studies and Sydney’s anti-Semitic Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. They could even topple their old governing bodies.  

It is not just history professors and literature theory critics. It is not unknown for professors of Psychology to have never done a degree in psychology in their life but instead specialised in pottery, teaching and womyn in succession. But hey, a Feminist, female or male gets 'helped' along and up, and up, and up. They join a long line of fast-moving charlatans intent on, and successful in, ruining young minds. The female ones lift their skirts for - and often of - their 'superiors just as well as any Hollywood starlet and for a lot less:- a citation in a third-rate Journal examining Derrida and a Conference Poster.

A POX on them. But no, be a kindly Tavern-Keeper, I remind myself. I wish them a long, long life so that as they age and their oversold and under-developed faculties decay they can reap the 'benefits' of the efforts of the people whose minds they shape. And maybe have the time to repent and make restitution for their intellectual carnage.
The underhand campaign by the Labor-stacked Senate of the University of Sydney to depose Leonie Kramer as Chancellor, discussed in Greg Haines’s review of Kramer’s memoirs in this edition, was not isolated but only the most public of these machinations.
I will keep pressing the point with almost every drink that gets served in the Tavern's various bars that there is a 'Source' of good sustenance and relief, if only people would seek it. Ask for it.

The Fundamental Questions do not change.

What then is to be done? I don’t believe there is any hope in the foreseeable future of changing this situation. The Left dominance of the liberal arts is not confined to Australia and indeed is probably worse in the United States, where the same tactic of staff capture has long prevailed. In the globalised higher education industry, it is not possible to take on the world.
 
I agree with Peter Coleman’s review of Luciano Boschiero’s book that, within Australia, the best hope lies with small Christian colleges offering their own degree programs. This is partly because, thanks to John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement, the Christian tradition contains the best articulation of the true ideals of a university, as they have been held from the medieval to the modern era. Any college with these ideals in its mission statement will not be easily diverted from them, provided it remains small enough for the founders to monitor the content of the curriculum and the performance of the teaching staff. But the bigger they get, the more they will be tempted to diversify their courses to attract greater student numbers.


I drink to the continued good health of Keith and his small group at the Quadrant. Drink with him. Send him a small subscription.








That time of the Month



We here in the Tavern have to do a lot of mopping up. Spillages, you know. Hey, it happens in the best of pubs and it is one of the 'Key Performance Accountabilities' of a good barman.

Chaps behind the bar don't usually make a song and dance about it, nor use it as a rationale for parachuting or riding horses on the lawns. They just get on with the job at hand, quietly and with as little fuss as possible.

The Bouncer deals with the causes, sometimes.

But one chap recently questioned that other sort of spillage that some of our customers 'do' every full moon. (I know of at least one regular here who will like what happened next.)

The gentleman went on Facebook, that medium which keeps so many good folk from imbibing the Good Stuff. Writing to a well known ladies' product company he said:

Hi, as a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years . As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things. I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding , rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn’t I get to enjoy this time of joy and ‘blue water’ and wings !! Dam my penis!!  
Then I got a girlfriend, was so happy and couldn’t wait for this joyous adventurous time of the month to happen …..you lied !! There was no joy , no extreme sports , no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no.  
Instead I had to fight against every male urge I had to resist screaming wooaaahhhhh bodddyyyyyyfooorrrmmm bodyformed for youuuuuuu as my lady changed from the loving , gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin. Thanks for setting me up for a fall bodyform , you crafty bugger.

The lady who oversees the company in question responded to Richard on another medium.



Lovely to see a lady with a sense of humour. They are as rare as adults.

A fine ladies' drink for that gal.



(And thanks to Marx  at http://antimisandry.com/fun-humor/bodyform-rebuttal-52137.html#post330112   )






Saturday, June 29, 2013

Equality



If it ain't free (for heroes and saints) in the Tavern, everyone else pays the same.

After all, women have been complaining forever that men are treated better than they so here we make no distinction. Mind you, not many women drink pints of Ale. Not many men drink ladies' favourites either. But the cost is the same.

But wait.... what's this?

Osteoporosis drug subsidised for women not men,
who pay more than 50 times the price.

OSTEOPOROSIS doesn't discriminate between sexes,
but a drug used to treat it is being subsidised for women only.  
 
Pensioner Robert Hadley "cannot believe" he has to pay $300 a dose for a treatment for thinning bones that costs women just $5.90. 
The seemingly sexist subsidy for the osteoporosis drug Prolia has been confirmed by the Health Department. 
"Prolia is not currently available on the PBS for the treatment of male patients with osteoporosis," a departmental spokeswoman said. 
She said the reason was that the drug company which makes it has asked only that it be subsidised for women. 

Mr Hadley says after fracturing a wrist ten years ago he was using another osteoporosis treatment that was subsidised for men but it "made me crook". 
Three years ago his doctor switched him over to Prolia injections. 
"It's $309 every six months, that's a lot of money on a pension," the 74-year-old told News Limited. 
"I'm up against the system."

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/osteoporosis-drug-subsidised-for-women-not-men-who-pay-more-than-50-times-the-price/story-fneuzlbd-1226671604608

With the pay-gap, men pay the majority of tax which subsidises the women.

No wonder women live on average 7 years longer than men.


Just read one bit again.... a departmental spokeswoman said the reason was that the drug company which makes it has asked only that it be subsidised for women.

Now what do you think the 'Departmental Spokeswoman' would have said to the drug company that dared to ask it's product only be subsidised for men? 

Do you think perhaps an enormous fuss would have been made? Demands that the Company get in line with Equality, perhaps?

More complaining about women not being treated equally?

Questions asked in Parliament. Shouting ? Sreetching? Wailing and showing of breasts ?


I wonder if our FEMINIST Governor General, Quentin Bryce will take up the case. She used to be the Discrimination Commissioner.

HAH !


Don't hold your breath. Have a drink of something cool.

Dark Clouds over the Soul



From deep in the cellars come rumblings from time to time. There a Great Gift lays protected. So protected that the folks in the bars and rooms above barely acknowledge its existence. And it has seen plenty in its time.

"Keep your eye on the Maracas"



Its the sort of exhortation you would expect in say, the Music room.

It is not simply a Religious Icon but a reminder of a possibility, and of the future of individual souls. It is as old as Christianity itself which has always had forces ranged against it. Even a thinking person rarely gives much time and thought as to just why a Creed that asks only that one Loves God and one's fellow Man should be so opposed. But opposed it is.

The maracas have spun out of the hand and are whacking us in the maracas.


 We are supposed to be looking Up and Out and In, not just at our loins.

Christianity has been undermined from inside too. Its Institutionalised manifestations have fractured over half a millennium. The original 'One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic' Church is riven with the sex-obsessed, though these days they count amongst their number not just the rigidly pious and chaste but the most vile of predatory creatures ever to crawl from the Pit.

The Church that Christ built found early resistance from Evil in Roman form until it converted that society, only to have a multitude of ego-maniacs in the middle ages think they could do better.  The gates of Hell may well not prevail against the Church but in the meantime, being as that Church was established by Christ Himself, it is Evil's Prime Target and it is raging against it.  Evil's infiltration led many a monk astray . 'Protest' begat a multitude of 'alternatives'.

To these multitudes of 'Protestants', counting amongst their congregations many fine people,  a new book turns and brings us up to date.  The thesis is that protestant-ism has diluted the chastity message, taking the holiness from marriage and procreation, and led inexorably to a flood of evil.

Carlson’s narrative (In the Godly Seed) covers American Protestants since they were the ones to break with the Christian consensus on sex and marriage. In fact, the story goes all the way back to the early Christian church, but only briefly. Carlson establishes that the church fathers, particularly Augustine, believed and taught that the purpose of marriage was procreation. This view prevailed through the medieval era and down to the Protestant Reformation, when leading Protestants such as Martin Luther and John Calvin reaffirmed what the Western church had always taught about marriage and sex, minus the part about marriage as a sacrament.


From small cuts here and there for personal aggrandizement and gain, to a blood-letting in due course. The 'reduction' of Christianity has progressed largely through the efforts of those who purport to profess it. First in Europe and then in America.

And the door was opened to not simply individual men's 'interpretation' but downright surgical precision butchery. Just as the Evil force, always understood to be a semi-masculine Prince of Lies, so in more modern times has Evil transmorgrified into the Princess of Lies.

Feminism has had a marked impact, especially in the protestant churches. The many good people within them are led astray. Women in particular but so many men also.

Born in 1879 in Corning, New York, (Margaret) Sanger scored early victories and gained publicity during the 1920s in skirmishes with Roman Catholics on contraception and birth control.  
But she also solicited support from Protestant ministers through such organizations as the American Eugenics Society 
This body in 1925 formed a Committee on Cooperation with Clergymen, a group that included such high-profile ministers or church leaders as the Baptist Harry Emerson Fosdick (arguably the most popular preacher in the United States), Charles Clayton Morrison (editor of The Christian Century), and S. Parkes Cadman (president of the FCC). At a time when a growing number of Americans feared that society would soon be overwhelmed by immigrants and defective persons,
the appeal of eugenics was decisive
in justifying the mainline Protestant break with almost two millennia of Christian teaching on contraception and birth control.

Calumnies abound. Everyone and his 'new religious' dog in the 15C and 16C revelled in being 'anti-Catholic' conveniently forgetting just who started it. Started the Catholic Church, that is.  Finding fault became a 'public service' as well as saving one's neck on the executioner's block. Service to Kings who wanted their own worship and power. It bred a sort of competitive anti-Catholicism.

Repeat calumnies enough and they become 'conventional wisdom'.  Disdain Catholics enough and soon even good people do it and accept the myths and lies. The immense longevity of the 'Reformation' agitprop is astonishing and bodes ill for the even more concerted efforts of Marxism in this past century. Even today Catholics in England are forbidden to hold specific offices of State.
Protestantism is predominantly responsible for carrying this agitprop forward.
Men and freedom will continue to be reviled in our lifetime and it will get worse.

But the Catholic Church is the last great bastion   defending the value of Life
and the Sanctity of the Family.

A sheer hatred of life itself has developed in the hearts of anti-Catholics. Especially the most vulnerable of lives.

Carlson’s story does not stop there but extends to the more recent sexual revolution and includes a fascinating chapter on the evangelical Protestants who rallied around their best-known preacher, Billy Graham, another Baptist. The predecessors of evangelicals, the fundamentalists, had generally followed in Comstock’s path and opposed birth control, contraception, and challenges to traditional motherhood. But by the late 1950s, fears about a global population explosion laced with residues of the old anti-Catholicism led evangelical leaders to abandon Comstock. A father of five,
 
Graham personally voiced opposition to Humanae Vitae and said,  
“I believe in planned parenthood.”
 
And at a 1968 consultation sponsored by the magazine he helped to found, Christianity Today, evangelical leaders endorsed an astonishing set of “affirmations” in favor of population control, contraception, and even abortion.  
As Carlson claimed, evangelical Protestants had “out-libertined” liberal Protestants.

Now we have abortion, the deliberate murder of babies, human beings, having Governmental approval and encouragement. Billy Graham's favoured exterminators have murdered over 50 Million American babies since its landmark win in Roe vs Wade.

But has the pendulum of  the fickle religious started on its back-swing? 

 While the Catholic Church is busy with the diabolical Virus of Paedophiles and Homosexuals/sodomites/buggers in its ranks and even in the Vatican corridors, some revision is happening with the Protestants.

Just as surprising has been the evangelical about-face on Catholicism, a development that Carlson does not pursue. Because of fears of being swamped by Roman Catholics in earlier times, many Protestants embraced the benefits of birth control. However, Protestants had few vehicles for reducing birthrates among Roman Catholics aside from making contraceptives available. But in a climate where Rome still forbade contraception, all Protestants wound up doing was making contraceptives available to their own, which in turn sent Protestant birthrates plummeting.
But after seeing the enormities of legalized abortion, Protestants have taken a second look at Roman Catholics and now, through initiatives such as Evangelicals and Catholics Together, cooperate fully with Rome as an ally.
Protestants and Roman Catholics may still not see eye-to-eye upon important theological matters, but Carlson’s book is an effective reminder that sex, marriage, and demographics are more important for Protestant-Catholic relations in the United States than sacraments, relics, or doctrines such as justification by faith alone.

And here the rumblings from the Cellar grow even more grim.



The Sacraments are a Gift. They are vehicles of Grace. The essence of God whereby we are drawn to Him. Like the Grail itself is the essence of God made man and the route to a man's understanding of his own essential Manly self.  To simply dismiss them again takes us right back to the original Protestants.

Catholics have no business in 'co-operating' with Protestants in 'ecumenism'. Too many 'isms'. They need to be rescuing them from egocentric heresies and converting them by good example. The example has always been there regardless of some of its 'adherents' sullying the Sacred. Fortunately Life has its own way of providing example.

Is Protestantism in its many forms really an alternative? What a prospect. !



Love the Sinner but not the Sin.

The Tavern succours with its fine bevvies.







Trust Kev?


Updated
There are people for whom the welcome mat is placed at the door of the Tavern. Good folk and the occasional ex-bad folk who have made-good their previous errors and made recompense.

But for Kevin Rudd, the mat is NOT put down. He should be.

There are some who need to be taken by their word.

Thanks go to Bill Leak of the Weekend Australian Newspaper.
Hits the nail on the head.


This Tavern-Keeper is of the humble opinion that Krudd is a damned fool.

Not only a fool but a vicious, nasty fool who will drag anything into the dirt with a smile on his face almost the equal of the sardonic grin our faux-esteemed Feminazi Governor General.

Kevin the Fool kicked off his power-trip with an own goal, suggesting that the wicked Mr Abbott will start a war with Indonesia.

"Mr Rudd's comments yesterday sparked a political furore, with the Opposition Leader declaring: "From someone who claims to be a foreign policy expert it was appallingly ill-judged. Regrettably it is of a piece with Rudd's consistent treatment of the relationship with Indonesia through a domestic political prism. 
"He is trying to enlist Indonesia in our domestic politics and that is dead wrong - the relationship is far too important." 
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said Mr Rudd's comments were "a massive overreach, it is a shocking diplomatic gaffe, and he should retract it before he does any more damage". 


Unfortunately this is only the first of his many efforts at damage-creating to come. Kevin's knife, pulled from his back, will be thrust not just into Ju-liar Gillard's but into the back of every Australian before he is through.

And there will be many damned fools who will vote for him.

(Update. 2 July 13)

Mr Cook from Mercator.net came in a few days after the dust had settled, been kicked up again and settled again, and kicked up some more, and made a few comments:

Australian politics is in turmoil. A Federal election is scheduled for September 14 and the governing Labor Party has been faced with annihilation. Last Wednesday, panicky parliamentarians dumped their leader, Julia Gillard, and reinstated the man she shoved from office three years ago, Kevin Rudd. The pay-off has been a quick bounce in the polls and it looks as if Labor may be able to save some of the furniture, even it loses the house. 
Mr Rudd is a man of Superior Intelligence who speaks fluent Mandarin and Bureaucratese as well as quite passable English. However, his pronouncements, however emphatic, don’t necessarily convey his intentions. In particular, it is a bit surprising to see him in the Lodge again after declaring his firm, unshakable, sincere and eternal resolve never, ever, ever to challenge Ms Gillard for the leadership.   
Thanks to The Australian’s Cut and Paste column, we have a record of his views on this topic. 
February 27, 2012: “To Julia I would say this ... You will have my absolute support in your efforts to bring us to victory. I will not under any circumstances mount a challenge against your leadership. I go one step further. If anyone turns on Julia in the 18 months ahead ... Julia - you will find me in your corner against them.” 
March 21, 2013: “When I say to my parliamentary colleagues and to the people at large across Australia that I would not challenge for the Labor leadership
I believe in honouring my word.  
Others treat such commitments lightly. I do not.” 
March 22, 2013: “I believe in honouring my word. Furthermore, had I done the reverse and simply gone out there and challenged, each and every one of you here today, as journalists, here in Brisbane and around the country, would quite rightly have attacked me for a loss of credibility for having walked back on my word.” 

June 26, 2013: “In 2007 the Australian people elected me to be their Prime Minister. That is a task that I resume today with    humility
with honour and with an important sense of energy and purpose.” 
It’s rare to find such a simon-pure loss of credibility. This is one for the record books.


Fetch the Bouncer.





Greenies



One came in at lunchtime. "A glass of tap water, please".  I tried to tell him that tap water wasn't quite nature's own but he had his own agenda.

Before long he was telling everyone that our lawn was unnatural; mowing it was destroying the wild flowers. He longed for the 'old days'.

I showed him:



He bought a cup of hot cocoa.



Friday, June 28, 2013

Mr Brown on Men & Votes



Neil Brown was in the other night, just before the fiasco that saw off Julia Gillard. He saw it coming. Well, as clearly as others did, which was not quite clearly enough. But he had a lot to say about the Polls which showed men leaving her party in droves.

Men are the 'dismissed' gender in Oz. Barely a newspaper is printed without some calumny about men appearing. The TV is full of denigration of men. It is hardly surprising that this feminist-led drive to marginalise men should be continued by the arch-feminist harridan Gillard and her 'womyn's club' of an Office.

But Neil had to speak up and put some of his thoughts in the Spectator.


I suspected this (Men leaving) was going to happen because many men are now thoroughly sick and tired of being marginalised and denigrated simply for being men and are looking for an opportunity to protest. They have found one in the opinion polls.  
Men have been alienated by being told continually that so many of the problems of modern society are caused by them and by the fact that they are men.  
At the same time, they have been told that virtually any manly conduct is unacceptable, that all men are sexist and that, no matter what they say or do, it will probably run up against some human rights law and get them into trouble. 
Moreover, they see a society that is increasingly alien to them, one where stopping a resources project is more important than jobs, the wonders of same-sex marriage are more worthy than fathers in a traditional family and preserving a wilderness is more noble than building and constructing.  
In addition to that, I suspect that most men see quotas, affirmative action and the promotion of absurd schemes like the ALP’s Emily’s List for parliamentary candidates as an insult to them and an even greater insult to women.  
Now, on top of that, they find their Prime Minister, in her increasingly strident and caustic manner, stirring up division by claiming that without her,- 
the country will fall into the hands of that most despised of species, men. 
And the men who are about to take over will be the worst type, namely those wearing blue ties, a consequence so horrific it has not been seen since blue-tinged Pandorans of Avatar stalked the solar system. Then they hear the PM trying to link abortion to the influence of men, should she lose office. 
So, men get the blame.  
The results have been known for some time: when men and boys see themselves as the victims of discrimination and the objects of blame, they will naturally lose their self-esteem.  
Thus, we have seen, for instance, a decline in the school results of boys, a difficulty in recruiting male teachers in government schools, a drifting away from traditional apprenticeships for boys and the almost complete disappearance of gentlemanly behaviour among young men.  
So far, and probably until the attacks on them fomented by the Prime Minister, men have kept their counsel and sought to assert their masculinity in their own way in activities like the rise of extreme and contact sports. But recent events seem to have been a bridge too far and men are reacting with their vote. 
Is it any wonder, then, that men, or enough of them to make a statistical difference, have reacted adversely to Gillard’s demonization of them, her preoccupation with phony claims of misogyny and her recruitment of an exclusively female support group? Determined to make a protest, they have moved their vote to a more congenial refuge, the opposition and, in particular, its leader.
Nor has the Coalition become this congenial refuge by accident: men undoubtedly see Tony Abbott as a rugged individual who speaks his mind, makes mistakes like all men and is in touch with traditional views on manhood. Gillard watches sport; Abbott plays it.

I would like to think that Neil is right, but I have good reason to think that matters will NOT improve for men just because Abbott and the Liberals gain power.

They had power for 12 years and all throughout that period the feminists grew and honed their shrill skills. The Family Court became more vicious. The education of boys deteriorated. Families slid faster and faster down the gurgler. Single-mother families exploded. The Universities entrenched leftism and sent their brainwashed acolytes throughout the public service and media.

It did not happen only since Ju-lia took over. 

If things are to improve for men, and society as a whole, a whole lot of winding-back has to be done. Men need to be valued again. Feminism needs to be cut off from the Taxpayer's teat. The Office for the Status of Womyn needs to be thrown into the street. Families with two parents, one of each sex, need positive encouragement.

Men need to send a strong message to Abbott.

FIX IT OR WE VOTE-STRIKE.

 

The 'Party' system mitigates against 'gender' voting as far a men are concerned. The recent mass-desertion from Julia's mob may be changed a little by Rudd, but most men see him as slimey anyway. Men have never voted for 'a man' in Oz the way women voted for Julia just because she has similar genitals.

It is time they did.

The men may take to the drink though, and I do not mean the Good stuff we serve here.





Tavern Regulars (1)



Your host has quite a few regulars in the P&B and the Restaurant, the US room and the NZ room, in fact in all the various hospitable areas, and is a welcomed regular in some other pubs and places of interest where people are welcomed to 'sound off.'

I can often be found, when not behind a bar here or tidying up in the cellar, with friends, chewing the good fat. I would like you to get to know them. So here is one to start off with that I would like you to welcome.

James is a 'Man of the Pin'. He finds balloons all over. Well, there are so many in this gigantic fairground of a world, full as it is of clowns. Some clowns are sinister, if not downright evil and James is good at spotting them a mile off. And sticking his pin on their balloons.

 


English, Northumbrian, Australian, half Russian, in love with France and Sicily, with respect and affection for friends in the States, Canada and South Africa, now back in the UK.
 
Background often in education but also a former storeman, DJ, builder, screenprinter, gardener, shop assistant, thespian, stage manager, military and various other ventures.
 
Love sailing, rugby, cricket, a wide range of music, walks in the forest, the snow and rain, good company, a single malt [neat], Drambuie, a nice red or real ale with a decent steak, vodka with dried fish and gherkins.
 
Main addictions – sailing, wimmin and dark chocolate, in no particular order.
 
 
James has a keen eye, as I said. It is worthwhile reading some of his views. That will save me having to give him the floor in this Tavern when he is very good at holding it in his own.
 
 
Our mutual friend Moggsy says he should write the Concise English Weasel Newspeak Dictionary. He is a sound translator.
 
 
 

Catch up with his latest analysis here:
I am sure it will not the last word. But I am sure he would like to hear yours.
 
You might also like to listen to another chap: one he speaks of. One who is similarly inclined to speak his mind with no-weasel words.
 
 
 
 
Now, those three magic words:  what'll you have?

 
 


Construction and Destruction



Some buildings take a while to construct with enormous effort and some last a very long time.  We often gasp at the sheer magnificence of some large-scale public works and wonder at the societies that constructed them. Societies take a lot of constructing too.

Firm foundations are needed. They can be toppled if the foundations are weakened or suffer from the deprivations and insults of nature - or man. The Colosseum in Rome is a magnificent structure built for a dissolute society's 'Games' in which people were sacrificed to animals.


Rome fell.

Not all great architecture are consistent with beauty or celebration of a worthy society. 

This one above was built for the Olympic Games in London recently. Who knows how long it will last. It is called the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture

But sacrifices are already being made there.

Recently it became 'licenced' as a venue to conduct 'marriages'.  The Lord Mayor of London, Boris Johnson was hauled into its maw the other day.

Boris Johnson has sparked outrage after making a crude joke about same-sex marriage at a gay rights event. 
The London Mayor was giving a speech at a £250-a-head gala dinner ahead of the capital's Pride festival this weekend when he made the gaffe, which led to some guests walking out. 
In reference to the same-sex marriage bill which is expected to be signed into law later this year, he said: "I'm delighted that as of this autumn any young man will be able to take his chum up the Arcelor... and marry him."


Boris, old chum, there is a long dram of our finest on the bar for you.


The Glass Ceiling



Wooden beams in my Tavern. They hold the roof up well and I do not complain. But the Oz ex-PM Ju-liar Gillard was forever complaining of glass ceilings. And 'Pay Gaps'.

And it was not because she could see the stars or the wind was blowing through her walls.

The 'Womyn's' complaint. Or one or two of them. One of many, many faux-victimhoods.  It is soooo hard to be a woman in a man's world., claim the feminists. You know, that man's world full of men who go out to sea in rough weather to put the Scampi on Gillard's menu (no, not 'that' menu). The men who climb high towers to fix the roof; descend into mines; plough fields; do all the hard, dirty, dangerous work. That man's world.

Yes women find it so hard that they avoid the hard jobs like the plague and just demand the danger money.

And the top jobs.

But the glass ceiling stops them getting the top jobs, so they demand quotas.

But hold on. The topist job in the country is occupied by a woman. Betty Windsor. The Queen.

Then there is her Rep here, Quentin Bryce. The Governor General. Another woman.

And up to yesterday the Prime Minister job. Ju-liar Gillard. A woman.

I think. Well, she said she was, but she is well known for being unable to tell the truth.

So where is this glass ceiling?

Gillard has been ousted and will have more to time complain now. She loses her PM's pay packet. But all is not lost. For the rest of her life, while men search the rough seas for her fish supper, she will have to get by on her pension. Let's take a look at the penury she faces.

$200,000 a year
The Lodge and Kirribilli House and the VIP jet will soon be memories for Ms Gillard and her partner, Tim Mathieson, but superannuation rules for long-term MPs are generous. They state that a maximum pension is calculated at 75 per cent of the salary payable to the highest office a politician has held. Ms Gillard's highest office - that of Prime Minister - paid a salary during the past year of $494,430.

That implies an annual pension of a cool $371,572.50. However, legislation to prevent windfall superannuation gains following massive pay rises for politicians last year modifies the payout to about $200,000 a year, indexed.

Ms Gillard will also be entitled to an office, staff, a car and a lifetime Gold Pass entitling her to free air travel, a perk denied lesser MPs who were required to trade away the Gold Pass entitlement for last year's big pay rises.
 


Oh the poor thing. The Feminists are right. It is hell being a woman. She is only 50 so she is going to have to live on that paltry sum for another 35 years.

Well, my good heart hopes she has a long, healthy life. But.... (Kevin, put that club down !!)

Not to worry though. Those men leaving harbour tonight to head out to sea will keep on earning to pay the taxes to pay her pension.

They only have to cough up $7,000,000. Before indexing.

(No worries. She'll be right. The miner chaps will cough up too. And the roofers.)

Many of them vote labour.

Average labour-voter's wage? or Julia's $494Kpa?

Must be the fish. That's it. Those male bastards must get free fish !!! Misogynists.

I hope there are no storms for them tonight.


Pass her a drink.





Thursday, June 27, 2013

Finding Terrorists under the Bed



We are told that all sorts of reduction in our Rights are essential if we are to catch terrorists. 'The terrorist' is a small change to Hitler's dictum that it only takes saying 'in the best interests of the children', but that excuse is already in use in the Family Court.

But just who are the terrorists?

Here's a short test.



Have a stiff drink and say thanks to James.

http://nourishingobscurity.com/2013/06/27/which-one-is-the-terrorist/

But seriously, that above is fiction. A story on film. Made up. A Parody. To make you think

But if it is REAL terrorists that are busy destroying society right in your face, try these. Not an 'agent' in sight. This is Fact.

Does this make you think?


 
 
 



These women need some of the really strong stuff.

Harp and Carp, come along with Kev.


After the fiascos of yesterday and the rising from almost oblivion by Kevenge Rudd, we were treated to an all-day-athon by the ABC focused upon their main sponsor and supplier of staff, The Federal Labour Party.

But we were given some relief late in the day by some wandering minstrels. So the Music room crowded with folk thirsty for some quality. And did we get it in buckets.

Lessons aplently too for people like Ju-liar and the unintelligible Rudd, whose convoluted gibberish is going to be assailing us in Oz for the next few months. His cant is something to behold. NOT

So he and Julia can harp and carp over the hills helped on their way by some steely-eyed  people, who warn the glib of what happens when they go off with the faeries. Oh, and some advice about work skills that need keeping up. Julia will no doubt go back to lying whoops, lawyering, weaving her fantasies and taking people for a ride, and having her way with them besides.

Even Mark Latham dropped in for the music. The ructions in the Labour Party were music to his ears.

FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham has likened Kevin Rudd to a rat and a "snake in the pit" for ousting Julia Gillard from The Lodge. 
 
Mr Latham, who lost the ALP leadership in 2005, described Mr Rudd's win over Ms Gillard in Wednesday's leadership ballot as the victory of a saboteur. 
He said  
the message Mr Rudd was sending to Australia's youth was  
"to stab people in the back". 
"It's to be a rat and a snake in the pit - that's the message that Kevin Rudd sends," Mr Latham told Fairfax radio. 
He said Labor has "lost all sense of any moral perspective on how to conduct themselves". 
"It's to leak to Laurie Oakes without having the guts to put your name to your words, it's to destabilise, it's to go behind people's backs." 
Mr Latham said he doubted Mr Rudd had changed since being toppled as prime minister in 2010.

"Does it look like he's changed? All those lies about his intentions, all those lies about not wanting to challenge again," Mr Latham said. 
"The saboteur of 2010 is now the leader of the 2013 election campaign."
 

But before we burst into song, you might ask just how it is that such clearly nasty, thick, lying people ever get into parliament. And always on the Labour side. Well, people vote for them. The 'working class' people some say. Here is one though that doesn't vote labour even though looks like your typical bogan. One of Julia's crowd. The problem though is he doesn't vote against them either. Julia's and Kevin's real crowd are the lefty uni educated lawyers.

Introducing the Fat Aussie Baaarstard. Close your ears when the language gets too ripe !



FAB is welcome in the Tavern as long as he dresses properly !

Now, Sing along. To the music, that is. The words are below. Well, the original words in full although adapted and shortened a little for the songs. These are from old English & Scottish poems. The 'changes' that were rife at the time were reflected in song.

Oh, and more songs below the words, too. !!

 
STEELEYE SPAN
 
Maddy Prior (vocals)
Rick Kemp (bass, vocals, guitar)

Peter Knight (organ, mandolin, octave
violin, violin, electric violin, vocals, piano)

Bob Johnson (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vocals)

Liam Genockey (drums, cymbals)

 

The Weaver And The Factory Maid :

When I was a tailor I carried my bodkin and shears
When I was a weaver I carried my roods and my gear
My temples also, my small clothes and reed in my hand
And wherever I go, here's the jolly bold weaver again

I'm a hand weaver to my trade
I fell in love with a factory maid
And if I could but her favour win
I'd stand beside her and weave by steam

My father to me scornful said
How could you fancy a factory maid
When you could have girls fine and gay
Dressed like unto the Queen of May

As for your fine girls I don't care
If I could but enjoy my dear
I'd stand in the factory all the day
And she and I'd keep our shuttles in play

I went to my love's bedroom door
Where often times I had been before
But I could not speak nor yet get in
The pleasant bed that my love laid in

How can you say it's a pleasant bed
Where nowt lies there but a factory maid?
A factory lass although she be
Blest in the man that enjoys she

O pleasant thoughts come to my mind
As I turn doen the sheets so fine
And I seen her two breasts standing so
Like two white hills all covered with snow

The loom goes click and the loom goes clack
The shuttle flies forward and then flies back
The weaver's so bent that he's like to crack
Such a wearisome trade is the weaver's

The yarn is made into cloth at last
The ends of west they are made quite fast
The weaver's labour are now all past
Such a wearisome trade is the weaver's

Where are the girls I will tell you plain
The girls have gone to weave by steam
And if you'd find them you must rise at dawn
And trudge to the mill in the early morn

When I was a tailor I carried my bodkin and shears
When I was a weaver I carried my roods and my gear
My temples also, my small clothes and reed in my hand
And wherever I go, here's the jolly bold weaver again

When I was a tailor I carried my bodkin and shears
When I was a weaver I carried my roods and my gear
My temples also, my small clothes and reed in my hand
And wherever I go, here's the jolly bold weaver again

I'm a hand weaver to my trade
I fell in love with a factory maid
And if I could but her favour win
I'd stand beside her and weave by steam

My father to me scornful said
How could you fancy a factory maid
When you could have girls fine and gay
Dressed like unto the Queen of May

As for your fine girls I don't care
If I could but enjoy my dear
I'd stand in the factory all the day
And she and I'd keep our shuttles in play

I went to my love's bedroom door
Where often times I had been before
But I could not speak nor yet get in
The pleasant bed that my love laid in

How can you say it's a pleasant bed
Where nowt lies there but a factory maid?
A factory lass although she be
Blest in the man that enjoys she

O pleasant thoughts come to my mind
As I turn doen the sheets so fine
And I seen her two breasts standing so
Like two white hills all covered with snow

The loom goes click and the loom goes clack
The shuttle flies forward and then flies back
The weaver's so bent that he's like to crack
Such a wearisome trade is the weaver's

The yarn is made into cloth at last
The ends of west they are made quite fast
The weaver's labour are now all past
Such a wearisome trade is the weaver's

Where are the girls I will tell you plain
The girls have gone to weave by steam
And if you'd find them you must rise at dawn
And trudge to the mill in the early morn

When I was a tailor I carried my bodkin and shears
When I was a weaver I carried my roods and my gear
My temples also, my small clothes and reed in my hand
And wherever I go, here's the jolly bold weaver again

 

Thomas the Rhymer
  

 

TRUE Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
  A ferlie he spied wi' his e'e;
And there he saw a ladye bright
  Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.
 
Her skirt was o' the grass-green silk,
  Her mantle o' the velvet fyne;
At ilka tett o' her horse's mane,
  Hung fifty siller bells and nine.
 
True Thomas he pu'd aff his cap,
  And louted low down on his knee
'Hail to thee Mary, Queen of Heaven!
  For thy peer on earth could never be.'
 
'O no, O no, Thomas' she said,
  'That name does not belang to me;
I'm but the Queen o' fair Elfland,
  That am hither come to visit thee.
 
'Harp and carp, Thomas,' she said;
  'Harp and carp along wi' me;
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
  Sure of your bodie I will be.'
 
'Betide me weal; betide me woe,
  That weird shall never daunten me.'
Syne he has kiss'd her rosy lips,
  All underneath the Eildon Tree.
 
'Now ye maun go wi' me,' she said,
  'True Thomas, ye maun go wi' me;
And ye maun serve me seven years,
  Thro' weal or woe as may chance to be.'
 
She 's mounted on her milk-white steed,
  She 's ta'en true Thomas up behind;
And aye, whene'er her bridle rang,
  The steed gaed swifter than the wind.
 
O they rade on, and farther on,
  The steed gaed swifter than the wind;
Until they reach'd a desert wide,
  And living land was left behind.
 
'Light down, light down now, true Thomas,
  And lean your head upon my knee;
Abide ye there a little space,
  And I will show you ferlies three.
 
'O see ye not yon narrow road,
  So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
  Though after it but few inquires.
 
'And see ye not yon braid, braid road,
  That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
  Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
 
'And see ye not yon bonny road
  That winds about the fernie brae?
That is the Road to fair Elfland,
  Where thou and I this night maun gae.
 
'But, Thomas, ye sall haud your tongue,
  Whatever ye may hear or see;
For speak ye word in Elfyn-land,
  Ye'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie.'
 
O they rade on, and farther on,
  And they waded rivers abune the knee;
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
  But they heard the roaring of the sea.
 
It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,
  They waded thro' red blude to the knee;
For a' the blude that 's shed on the earth
  Rins through the springs o' that countrie.
 
Syne they came to a garden green,
  And she pu'd an apple frae a tree:
'Take this for thy wages, true Thomas;
  It will give thee the tongue that can never lee.'
 
'My tongue is my ain,' true Thomas he said;
  'A gudely gift ye wad gie to me!
I neither dought to buy or sell
  At fair or tryst where I might be.
 
'I dought neither speak to prince or peer,
  Nor ask of grace from fair ladye!'—
'Now haud thy peace, Thomas,' she said,
  'For as I say, so must it be.'
 
He has gotten a coat of the even cloth,
  And a pair o' shoon of the velvet green;
And till seven years were gane and past,
  True Thomas on earth was never seen.
 
 
It is good to see Maddy is still going strong. She still has a busy schedule of gigs. For a while some wondered where she was.  In Thomas' Castle under the Hill, was my guess.
 
 
 
I will drink to the memories of a much younger 'flower'child' Maddy who made old-English songs her speciality. Her voice is still sharp as a knife.
 
 
Here she is many years ago, singing even then about the Labour Party. They think they are Kings and Queens.
 
 

 
 
 
The rank and file though.....and the Oz public?
 

 

Chorus
Seven hundred elves from out the wood
 Foul and grim they were
 Down to the farmer's house they went
 His meat and drink to share


There was a farmer in the west and there he chose his ground
He thought to spend the winter there and brought his hawk and hound
 He brought with him both hound and cock alone he begged to stay
 And all the deer that roamed the wood had cause to rue the day


He felled the oak, he felled the birch, the beech nor poplar spared
 And much was grieved the sullen elves at what the stranger dared
 He hewed him baulks and he hewed him beams with eager toil and haste
 Then up and spake the woodland elves: “Who's come our wood to waste?”


Chorus

Up and spake the biggest elf and grimly rolled his eyes:
“We'll march upon the farmer's house and hold on him assize
 He's knocking down both wood and bower, he shows us great disdain
 We'll make him rue the day he was born and taste of shame and pain.”


Chorus

All the elves from out the wood began to dance and spring
 And marched towards the farmer's house their lengthy tails to swing
 The farmer from his window looked and quickly crossed his breast
“Oh woe is me,” the farmer cried, “The elves will be my guests.”


In every nook he made a cross and all about the room
 And off flew many a frightened elf back to his forest gloom
 Some flew to the east, some flew to the west, some flew to the north away
 And some flew down the deep ravine and there forever stay


Chorus
 
Free Ale, with a sprinkle of gunpowder. A serving wench will pass amongst you with a hot poker.