Conflict of interest We’re clearly not the only ones with concerns about Perth mayoral candidate and conflict of interest magnet Basil Zempilas. As Zempilas’ 6PR breakfast show ended yesterday, and presumably going for a bit of fun banter, he adopted a tone of (possibly faux, it’s hard to say) outrage that fellow presenter Gareth Parker wasn’t supporting his candidacy. It doesn’t go great.
Parker, a former political reporter for The West Australian, offered Zempilas an out — “Do you want me to explain it again, or do you want to move on?” — an out which isn’t taken, making what follows all the more satisfying.
Pointing out first that as a professional journalist he doesn’t “support” any politicians, he proceeded to note Zempilas’ “significant conflict of interest that [he’s] going to find very difficult to manage”, and lamenting the position this puts Zempilas’ colleagues in.
It goes on like this for a while, with Zempilas just bewildered at the accusation, despite having just publicly asked a colleague on his radio show to endorse his candidacy for mayor. It’s a niche term perhaps, but we suggest an attempt at breakfast radio banter that goes horribly awry should hitherto be known as “getting Parker’d”.
Corporate compassion After a rash of corporations went grasping for Black Lives Matter dollars (despite companies’ less than stellar records in the area of race relations) Domino’s has identified another group in need of corporate compassion: women called Karen. “It’s a tough time to be a Karen,” Domino’s Facebook promotion argues. “We’re all in this together, but a vocal minority who believe rules and laws don’t apply to them have given the name Karen a bad rap this year.”
They conclude that a “good Karen” may receive some pizza if they fill out an attached form explaining why they deserve it.
A free pizza … maybe? Just for handing over your contact details and a photo ID to a major corporation? How can the hashtag-not-all-Karens of the world resist?
Along similar lines, those among us who argued that the ABC has been cowed by years of cuts and conservative attacks might just be feeling a bit foolish this morning: today it bravely grasped the red hot issue of anti-Karen prejudice.
Ready, aim, shoot yourself in the foot After a thought bubble on Sky from pro-coal advocate and Labor right powerbroker Joel Fitzgibbon about Greens “infiltrating” the ALP through the Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN), fellow frontbencher Tanya Plibersek (who’s part of the NSW left faction) posted a rebuttal on Facebook, arguing “Labor has always understood that supporting jobs and the environment aren’t mutually exclusive. We can and should do both.”
Yesterday we were confused by Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s bizarre attempts to equate debt and deficit with poor management in times of crisis. We are pleased to report that the ALP is getting back to what it does best: fighting one another instead of the Coalition.
Trump watch Among the demonstrable lies told by the administration of US President Donald Trump, the claim that he’d be too busy working to play golf may rank fairly low. Still it is a sign of something that this man of the people is likely to spend nearly as many days on the green in his first term as Obama did in both of his terms combined (266 for Trump so far to Obama’s 306).
It’s even more shocking in a country gripped by a raging pandemic and near-constant protests. The Trump Golf Count website shows this has not slowed him one iota since the outbreak, with 28 visits to golf clubs since the beginning of the year.
Anyone else click on the ABC link about “Karens”, see the photo of the “I’m waiting to see the manager” haircut, and think “children overboard”?
I can’t imagine, even in this new era of apparently unironic Aussiedom, that most people could not tell the difference between someone whose name is Karen and someone who acts like a Karen. Nor do I think it’s a tut-tuttingly terrible problem for a name to go out of fashion for a few years or decades. Ageist, sexist, racist? There are male equivalents and youthful equivalents, but they’re not called Karen; and I don’t see why it’s racist to identify an archetype based on existing power structures. No-one assumes that it’s not a Karen without the dreadful asymmetric bobcut: it’s the behaviour that’s in question.
My husband was teasing me about whether I should feel offended about it all, I responded that we Karens should just ignore it and wait for the goldfish-like memory of modern society to consign the meme to the same dustbin as planking and Rick-rolling.
He replied “What’s Rick-rolling?”
Point made.