Read Online The Best Australian Humorous Writing by Andrew O'Keefe - Free Book Online
Authors: Andrew O'Keefe
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on his morning-after walk. Even when it was all over for him, he couldnât break the habit of a lifetime.
FRANK DEVINE
All is not lost when you can see success in anything
The British journalist and author William Shawcross once described me in a book as a âcheerful right-wingerâ. Though welcoming the portrayal, it left me with a Zen puzzle: was I cheerful because I was a right-winger or a right-winger because I was cheerful?
The fact that I am cheerful following the election of a Labor government favours the second option, I think.
It goes without saying that we right-wingers require no government support to stay aloft. We are cultural knights rather than political infantry. The lavish skewerings and tramplings of political correctness we enjoyed during the Howard years have left us pretty jaunty.
Our spirits are further elevated by Kevin Rudd moving so close to us culturally, in order to win an election, that there is some talk of clearing a place for him at the Round Table.
In
The Daily Telegraph
in Sydney, our brother Tim Blair caused a small frisson by pointing to the pleasure that awaits us from being able to blame everything on Rudd.
However, there is no prospect of our festering with Rudd-hatred in the way that the sauvignon blanc sippers (chardonnay has become a bit déclassé) of the Left pumped themselves up and made themselves miserable by hating John Howard for a dozen years.
Self-evidently, the less we have to blame Rudd for, the more agreeable our lives will be. However, weâll probably get a kick from watching some natural enemies suffer in the grip of
scheissenbedauern
, a German word that means distress at seeing things turn out well.
Radical Greens have panicked at the prospect of their dreams of post-Howard life going wavery. On the day he was appointed Environment and Arts Minister, they called for the dismissal of the quasi-Quisling Peter Garrett.
Not only had he been ideologically quiescent during the campaign but he had climate change and water supply taken away from him and placed with a new ministry briefed for serious action.
As well, the second arm of Garrettâs portfolio might be interpreted as a cruel hint from the Prime Minister that defending frog habitats, overgrown eucalypt forests and weeds from attack by dams, desalination plants, farmers, mines, airports and highways is less a noble cause than a tributary of showbusiness.
While unproductive, Ruddâs signing of the Kyoto agreement will cause a severe depletion of the Greensâ whingeing resources and devastate their self-righteous posturing.
We havenât heard from the neo-Rousseauians yet but their pain will be a treat to observe when they wake up to the extent of their disarmament by Ruddâs apologising to Aborigines for past injustices.
We of the cheerful class are most pleased by the unhurried way the Prime Minister is approaching the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, in planned consultation with the US. This is, indeed, a matter calling for prudence. Itâs one thing to remove fighting men from a losing campaign, another to have them scurry away from an onerously won prospect of success.
Many people may wonder where the war in Iraq has gone, since there has been hardly any media coverage or pundit commentary over the past two or three months. Perhaps coincidentally, thisperiod has seen a significant turnaround of the conflict in favour of our side.
Industrious prowling through cyberspace delivers reliable accounts of the reinforced American military (and their 550 Australian comrades) routing al-Qaâida in Mesopotamia and damaging and frustrating home-grown militias sufficiently to turn local populations against them. Violence has been notably reduced in Baghdad. Iraqis who fled their country are starting to return, a reported 46,000 in October alone.
The New York Times
, the most ferocious of anti-Bush, antiwar campaigners, has largely let the war slide from its front
FRANK DEVINE
All is not lost when you can see success in anything
The British journalist and author William Shawcross once described me in a book as a âcheerful right-wingerâ. Though welcoming the portrayal, it left me with a Zen puzzle: was I cheerful because I was a right-winger or a right-winger because I was cheerful?
The fact that I am cheerful following the election of a Labor government favours the second option, I think.
It goes without saying that we right-wingers require no government support to stay aloft. We are cultural knights rather than political infantry. The lavish skewerings and tramplings of political correctness we enjoyed during the Howard years have left us pretty jaunty.
Our spirits are further elevated by Kevin Rudd moving so close to us culturally, in order to win an election, that there is some talk of clearing a place for him at the Round Table.
In
The Daily Telegraph
in Sydney, our brother Tim Blair caused a small frisson by pointing to the pleasure that awaits us from being able to blame everything on Rudd.
However, there is no prospect of our festering with Rudd-hatred in the way that the sauvignon blanc sippers (chardonnay has become a bit déclassé) of the Left pumped themselves up and made themselves miserable by hating John Howard for a dozen years.
Self-evidently, the less we have to blame Rudd for, the more agreeable our lives will be. However, weâll probably get a kick from watching some natural enemies suffer in the grip of
scheissenbedauern
, a German word that means distress at seeing things turn out well.
Radical Greens have panicked at the prospect of their dreams of post-Howard life going wavery. On the day he was appointed Environment and Arts Minister, they called for the dismissal of the quasi-Quisling Peter Garrett.
Not only had he been ideologically quiescent during the campaign but he had climate change and water supply taken away from him and placed with a new ministry briefed for serious action.
As well, the second arm of Garrettâs portfolio might be interpreted as a cruel hint from the Prime Minister that defending frog habitats, overgrown eucalypt forests and weeds from attack by dams, desalination plants, farmers, mines, airports and highways is less a noble cause than a tributary of showbusiness.
While unproductive, Ruddâs signing of the Kyoto agreement will cause a severe depletion of the Greensâ whingeing resources and devastate their self-righteous posturing.
We havenât heard from the neo-Rousseauians yet but their pain will be a treat to observe when they wake up to the extent of their disarmament by Ruddâs apologising to Aborigines for past injustices.
We of the cheerful class are most pleased by the unhurried way the Prime Minister is approaching the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, in planned consultation with the US. This is, indeed, a matter calling for prudence. Itâs one thing to remove fighting men from a losing campaign, another to have them scurry away from an onerously won prospect of success.
Many people may wonder where the war in Iraq has gone, since there has been hardly any media coverage or pundit commentary over the past two or three months. Perhaps coincidentally, thisperiod has seen a significant turnaround of the conflict in favour of our side.
Industrious prowling through cyberspace delivers reliable accounts of the reinforced American military (and their 550 Australian comrades) routing al-Qaâida in Mesopotamia and damaging and frustrating home-grown militias sufficiently to turn local populations against them. Violence has been notably reduced in Baghdad. Iraqis who fled their country are starting to return, a reported 46,000 in October alone.
The New York Times
, the most ferocious of anti-Bush, antiwar campaigners, has largely let the war slide from its front
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