Bagging the PM

Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, won, if that is the word for such a knife-edge result, the first election ever contested by a female leader of a major political party. This was another milestone moment to please the hearts of the socially progressive (statistics show that female Premiers elected by the party room between elections have not been so lucky come polling day.)

Despite winning the election the Prime Minister has clearly still not won the right to rid herself of The Australian newspaper’s regressive, taunting scrutiny. Glenda Korporaal’s post election-result article ‘Julia enjoys the high life free of old bags’ is dedicated to the fact that the Prime Minister is rarely seen with a handbag. The writer, and the newspaper she works for, clearly considers this to be an issue worthy of mention and discussion.

The articles states that most woman carry handbags and infers that the PM considers herself to be apart, perhaps better, than the average Australian woman because she does not tote a bag. “There is an air of royalty about her that assumes someone else is following along answering the phone, parking the car, taking notes and paying for whatever needs to be paid for.” I do not recall seeing any of this country’s male Prime Minister’s carrying a briefcase, satchel or manbag. I do not recall bewildered articles in newspapers commenting on this fact and the existence of assistants employed to ‘assist’ them when they had held the office of most important public servant in the country.

The ‘journalist’ also uses the piece to snidely reference Julia Gillard’s childless state “it is certain our first female Prime Minister has never had to go through the tote-bag-as-mobile-nursery routine that is the lot of mothers of young children.”

What has raising a child got to do with carrying a handbag, and what does carrying a handbag, or not, got to do with running a country?

And more importantly what does writing articles like this have to do with journalism?

When cricketers do not protect their middle stump...

From the ABC website...

Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has been ruled out of the Twenty20 World Cup after being diagnosed with genital warts, the Pakistan Cricket Board says.

A statement on the board's website said: "The Medical Board has reported that Shoaib Akhtar was suffering from Genital Viral Warts and Electrofulgration was done on May 12, 2009.

"They further stated that his wound though healing needs further care and treatment for another minimum 10 days for the purpose of healing and to achieve skin cover."

Too much info Pakistan Cricket Board!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/21/2577649.htm

Totally Forked

Retired Rugby league player Matthew Johns has been the focus of the media this week due to the revelation that he, and fellow teammates, had group sex with a woman in 2002. Ignoring the morals debate and the very loose interpretation of the phrase 'group sex' I found a comment by Sports psychologist Noel Blundell in The Australian unintentionally amusing. Blundell, talking about the method of educating the players, says

"There's no single-pronged attack - there has to be a multi-pronged attack"

And here I was thinking multi-pronging was what got the Rugby players into trouble in the first place...

Crouching Woman Hidden Lodger

A Man discovered a woman secretly living in a cupboard in his apartment.

Apparently, "A Japanese man who was mystified when food kept disappearing from his kitchen, set up a hidden camera and found an unknown woman living secretly in his closet. The 57-year-old unemployed man of Fukuoka in southern Japan called police on Wednesday when the camera sent pictures to his mobile phone of an intruder in his home while he was out. Officers rushed to the house and found a 58-year-old unemployed woman hiding in an unused closet, where she had secreted a mattress and plastic drink bottles, the Asahi said. Police suspect she may have been there for several months, the paper said. "I didn't have anywhere to live," the woman told police".

As an aside... Why does the article feel the need to give the occupation of the people involved? (more specifically, in this case, the lack of occupation) The fact the Hidden Lodger is unemployed is of some relevance I admit, but the occupation of the seemingly tech-savvy unwitting landlord-cum-detective seems irrelevant. That being said, MI5 or the Kempeitai should recruit him. Or maybe not. As Confucius didn't say, "Man who not know woman living in his cupboard not know much at all."

Confucius did however say, "Never give a sword to a man who can't dance." It is completely irrelevant to this post but I think it's important to remember.