I must have been in the dunny when they called

A headline from the (London) Daily Telegraph:

Bringing back knighthoods will create more republicans, Australians say ahead of Prince George visit

"Australians say"? Which Australians? Nobody asked me.

But read the first three paragraphs:

When Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, decided to reintroduce knighthoods and damehoods after a hiatus of 28 years, the country’s republicans should surely have been up in arms.
The tradition of honours being bestowed by the Queen had, after all, been abolished in 1986 after Australians rejected it as an antiquated link to the Mother Country.
But the Australian Republican Movement has welcomed the move, believing it will be so unpopular that it will turn ever greater numbers of people against the monarchy.

So it is the opinion of the ARM – the organisation that completely failed to achieve its aims back in 1999 and has completely failed since then ever to get any traction – it is their opinion that the restoration of Knighthoods will drive Australians into the arms of republicans. It is not actually the opinion of Australians as such, just the opinion of those opposed to the monarchy, that is: those who have failed so dismally in achieving their aims.

It is unfair to blame reporters for headlines. It is unusual for any heading they pick to be used on publication. But the author of this article is Gordon Rayner "Chief Reporter" who has form in writing stupid articles.

At least it was the right kind of Blair

The journalist Tim Blair used to work for one of Australia's oldest magazines, The Bulletin. It was founded in 1888 pushing republicanism against (British) Imperialism and "Australia for the White Man" (one of its straplines). In 2004 the Bulletin sent journalists to cover the trial of Schapelle Corby in Indonesia.

The Corby family were remarkably friendly and helpful to our people, giving the Bulletin more time and greater access than they gave reporters from most other outlets. As a result, despite the swarm of journalists in Bali – some waving cash – our weekly was able to grab a couple of fine exclusives.

Do read on to find out why.

The stitch up

One of the great pleasures of the Australian Constitution is its observation of the proprieties. For example the Prime Minister is not mentioned. This might seem odd but the constitution is drafted in such a way as to give rise to the Westminster system. It does not explicitly state all the rules – with the scope for endless quibbles based on infelicitous wording to which that would give rise – instead, the unwritten rules are simply imported into our system.

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The Trojan PM

Troy Bramston, who used to be the speech writer for Australia's answer to Grover Cleveland, Kevin Rudd, is impressed by the Presidential Library of George Bush II (oh, alright, President George W. Bush) and thinks we should have similar things here.

I for one would be very interested to go to the Vice Regal Library of Michael Jeffery. 

Maybe Kevin Rudd should call his three immediate predecessors Julia Gillard, John Howard and Paul Keating and ask them to partner with a university and offer them a start-up grant and ongoing funding to serve as an important educational tool and stimulate civic interest in government, politics and history.

I see. He means President as Head of Government (our PM) instead of President as Head of State (our G-G). First you have to ask, what's wrong with Hawke, Fraser and Whitlam? I mean, I know the answer, but why not include them? We already give these people generous pensions, offices and free travel. This is starting to look like money for menaces. "Cough up or I'll come back and pass another carbon tax, borrow money from a dodgy Iraqi businessman etc."

As a matter of fact U. S. Presidential libraries appear to be a waste of money and highly partisan. (See also: State of the Union  speeches, take that! The West Wing).

 

The Pope and the PM: Compare and contrast

On 30th January 2013 Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia, announced that the next general election for the Commonwealth Parliament will be on September 14th.

That's a wait of 227 days.

On February 11th Pope Benedict XVI announced that he was renouncing the Papacy with effect from 8pm on 28th February (6am on 1st March in Sydney).

According to John Paul II's Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis n.37, there has to be a period of 15 days from "the moment when the Apostolic See is lawfully vacant" before the Conclave can begin. The Cardinals can wait a maximum of twenty days. Given the advance warning it seems unlikely that the conclave will begin any later than 15th March. The mean length of all conclaves from St Pius X onwards is 3.1 recurring (you may want to check my arithmetic). Modal length is 3. Median is 3.5.

There should be a new Pope before 20th March 2013, Wednesday of the 5th Week of Lent. 178 days later Australia should get a new Prime Minister.

Philippa Martyr discusses the chances of the next Pope being a black lesbian. She also predicts every idiot and his dog (usually the less idiotic of the two) giving his opinion. She is pleased by this.
The good thing about it all is that the world - for whose salvation the Catholic Church exists - sees the Church as genuinely everyone's property, and something about which everyone can and should have an opinion. It was actually always meant to be that way - out in the open, big enough for anyone who wanted to join, and plenty of room for all comers.
Just after the Conclave of 2005 began I heard a reliable report that BBC news announced the extra omnes as "we will soon have a new Pope". The Reformation seemed to be over.

Brendan O'Neill – former editor of Living Marxism (which I heard him coyly refer to as "LM" when he was in Australia recently) and an agnostic – is honestly disappointed.
The news that the Pope has resigned sends out a powerful and probably unwitting message – that the Papacy is just a job, like being a bank manager or librarian. It is apparently something you can jack in when you feel past it or whacked out. I think the reason people have felt instinctively startled today by the phrase "Pope resigns" is because most of us, even non-Catholics, probably even the fashionable Pope-bashing set, feel that being Pope is not just a job but a calling, or at least a vocation; something one feels summoned to do and more importantly to be.

Three metaphors for the price of one

On 4th December 2012 the SMH published A new monarch for Australia? from the AAP. The article discusses the expectations of the child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Although the only way to abolish the Australian constitutional monarchy short of armed revolution is by referendum, and although the Australian people have never voted Yes to a proposal to which they have already voted No, and although the Australian people voted No to a republic in the referendum of 1999, still for some reason our local monarchy-abolishers are supposed to be relevant.
But Australian republicanism might affect the extent of the new baby's ultimate dominion. Republican fever has gone off the boil since the defeat of the 1999 referendum, but is expected to resurface after the end of Elizabeth II's reign.
We have the metaphor of republicanism as a disease causing fever (couldn't agree more), which is now like a cooking pan taken away from the heat while simultaneously a submerged creature of the sea (a Kraken perhaps?). Doug Conway is "AAP Senior Correspondent".

Not having ears to hear

In a fit of false piety (it's been known before) I decided not to post on the story of the brawl between two retired priests in Perth.

However lay canon lawyer, Edward Peters, discusses the canonical aspects of the case, which seem quite interesting.

Excuse me? Whaddya mean, you don’t like my goofy classroom hypotheticals? Would it be more believable for you if we said these two clerics were, say, tough old Aussies? Anyway, who says this is a made-up case? Just for that, I’m gonna call on you first, young man.

As Christmas approaches…

Every Christmas or Easter there is some new book either debunking or calling into question some central aspect of the birth or death of Our Lord. For this Christmas, the Pope has a cunning plan.

He has written the book himself.
The assertion that the Christian calendar is based on a false premise is not new – many historians believe that Christ was born sometime between 7BC and 2BC. But the fact that doubts over one of the keystones of Christian tradition have been raised by the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is striking.
Naturally the whole thing is going to be completely misapprehended by the media, as in this article. You will of course recall that section in the Catechism on "the keystones of Christian tradition". No? Then why is Nick Squires dragging in that phrase? The fact is the precise date of the Birth of Christ does not matter and never has. He is just trying to beat up a story.

Only if you don't know the first thing about the Pope would you find his remarks particularly striking. I bet John Paul II mentioned it.

I seem to remember Nick Squires writing some stupid things about Australia when he was the DT's correspondent here. Yesthat'sright. This is hilarious (it contains a prediction).

Fairfax exclusive: China moves its capital! Australia moves its Parliament!

Australian print media is carved up between Fairfax Media and News Ltd. Some of Australia's oldest newspapers are owned by Fairfax, The Sydney Boring Herald was founded in 1831 The Arrggh in 1854. Local lefties regard Fairfax Media as basically good (like "our" ABC) and News Ltd as utterly evil. Anyway that's enough background for the non Australians.

The Sydney Boring Herald reports:
A JETSTAR pilot and crew were held hostage for more than six hours by a mob of angry passengers after their flight was diverted from Beijing to Shanghai because of bad weather.
Sounds exciting.
The Chinese police were called in and passengers and Jetstar officials contacted the Australian embassy in Shanghai for help.
The Australian embassy to China is in Beijing. Shanghai has a Consulate-General.

Closer to home, Corporal Daniel Keighran of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in an action in Afghanistan.

The Canberra Times (the feel of a local paper in a national capital, Canberra being a company town) reports:
Corporal Daniel Keighran has received Australia's highest military honour. Governor-General Quentin Bryce presented Corporal Keighran, 29, with the Victoria Cross medal at a ceremony at Government House in Canberra.
So far so good, but alas for the video at the top of the article by Tessa Van der Riet. At about 35 seconds:
Two years on and Corporal Keighran has been awarded the country's highest military honour in a grand service at Parliament House in Canberra.
For starters it is a ceremony not a service and anyone who has ever been inside Parliament House would not confuse it with the Governor General's residence at Yarralumla.