Willie E Gary – Superhero

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Folloing our article earlier in the week at:  Planking – The Nanny State Lewis Dowell lies down for us again.

Plank Wars

By Lewis Dowell

The war on planking, not to be confused with the war on drugs or war on terror (although it would seem the media have already made that mistake), escalated this week with employers and schools taking strict disciplinary measures against the act.

Woolworths, Australia’s biggest employer, sacked 8 employees across three states last week for performing the act and posting photos online. 6 girls who attend school in Queensland have been suspended and 22 students who attend Walford Anglican School for Girls here in SA were sent home, all for performing the internet phenomenon known as planking.

Walford principal Mrs Trebilcock said that “we have shared our concerns with the school community about how a seemingly innocent prank can escalate through the web and become dangerous… our parents and teachers are in agreement that the girls need to be educated about the risks involved.”

McDonald’s has told staff that planking was inappropriate in the workplace and the NSW police have said that planking won’t be tolerated. 3 people were arrested for planking on a moving car as well as the driver just last week. Although it has already sacked 8 people, Woolworths has stated that they are still investigating several other planking incidents.

A Facebook page titled “Australia: the only country where lying down can be illegal” was initiated last week for people to post their grievances.

It would seem that the war on planking was in full swing.

As ridiculous as planking is, the media have given it such notoriety amongst police, educational institutions and work organisations, that they don’t have a choice but to take strict measures for fear of coming across the media blowtorch, where it always pays to be seen as strict and conservative, over logical and rational. Be it some planking pranks may have been inappropriate and dangerous, and deserved scrutiny by superiors, whether or not the act is sackable is another question. Australia’s leading workplace law firm, Slater and Gordon has since said that if the acts were not obviously and directly harmful to the working environment, and termination was based on the act of planking alone, some sacked employees may have ground for unfair dismissal.

Also entering the war was Sam Newman whose radio planking stunt (that took place on a 40-storey high balcony) landed him on last Thursdays A Current Affair (ACA). The way ACA approached the topic was as if he had demonstrated how to inject heroin on Youtube, saying that “it doesn’t bother Sam that everyone from the Prime Minister down thinks this sort of behaviour is not only dangerous, but also sets an extremely bad example for millions of young Australians”.

Later that night Sam’s colleagues on the Footy Show, Gary Lyon and James Brayshaw, jumped on the bandwagon and grilled Sam for his exploits claiming he was being stupid and irresponsible. Sam replied, “Of course it was irresponsible, that was the point! You don’t have to be told you’re irresponsible to know that you’re irresponsible!”.

But the issue isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. We all know just how much the media love a good “Gen Y is doing something stupid again” story and so they will cover it until the planking fad dies. Meanwhile as more and more planers plank, the media are licking their lips as they continue to ram another pointless buzzword and fear campaign down the throats of baby boomers and their parents, for the benefit of their own ratings and readership, all under the disguise of being socially responsible.

And yes I myself have wondered why people are still persisting with the fad, as surely if you’re like me you are getting bored with the constant coverage of something so petty. But really why should they stop? In cases like these it can be easy to think that it is the perpetrators who are being petty and tedious, refusing to stop participating in what seems to be a ridiculous and meaningless act. But are they being petty for continuing to plank, or are we being petty for insisting people stop lying down in public? I think it’s time we all take a step back, and let the people plank.

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Silly

By The Silver Bullet

So Taylor Walker had a drink! Wow! The sanctimonious Gerard Healey and self righteous Tony Shaw described Walker as being ‘silly’ with the potential to ‘affect the whole fabric of the club’. Well high priests, that wasn’t obvious 24 hours later when the Crows led by 31 points close to half time in their clash with Collingwood at the Docklands, albeit the evidence was a little stronger an hour later after Adelaide’s memorable capitulation.

If Taylor Walker, who let us not forget is a mere 20 years old, from Broken Hill and still developing physically, was thinking of going to Greater Western Sydney where he would be paid more, played more and enjoy near total anonymity, then this weekend’s media attack would have done a lot to confirm just where he would see his future lying.

You have to give Geelong full marks for bouncing back after last year’s snafus. Can they be the same powerhouse without Ablett, G? You bet, certainly as long as Joel Selwood, bettered perhaps only by Dane Swan as the best mid fielder in the competition, stays sound.

And vale, Geelong legend, Bob Davis. If nothing else, Davis, along with fellow buffoons Jack Dyer, Doug Elliott and Lou Richards, showed what humour can exist from our national game and put to shame the likes of Sam Newman and what poses as humour on school yard programs like After The Bounce (ahh yuk, what a mess that is in the name of entertainment.) Bring those VFL Teams recipes back I say!

With the Crows (‘the most exciting squad in the history of the club’ – big talk from Neil Craig that will haunt him till Michelangelo Rucci at The Advertiser does finally drive him out of town) failing miserably after leading by four goals early in the last quarter and Eade blowing fuses in vain again at his Bulldogs, one has to wonder whether the finals race is not already down to nine sides – the current eight plus Richmond. And given Richmond’s history, it has always had a mortgage on the ninth spot in its few better years, perhaps it is already settled.

Not that you would know from the Adelaide Sunday Mail this morning (see above) which under the banner of ‘Pure Footy’ produced pure jibberish in its Premiership table. The SM claims to be a ‘good read guaranteed’ it just can’t be relied on for accuracy – still that is not news.

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They're Standing Behind Their Man, They're Just No Longer Interested

By The Silver Bullett

Seven rounds in (or six for some and who knows exactly nowadays when rounds start and end) and the pressure is starting to mount on more than a few coaches and administrations.

As predicted pre-season, the School girl and related incidents were symptomatic of a St Kilda club that has lost its mojo (the footballing one at least.) With just 1½ wins from six rounds and its two best players in Nick the Dick and angry Brendan Goddard hopelessly out of touch and their next best, Lenny Hayes, out for the year, things look bleak.

Now they face charges of being ‘un-Australian’. I mean how low can you go – what’s un-Australian about bumping a guy when he is injured after their off season hi-jinx?

The history in the next year of sides that get to two (or their case three) grand finals and can’t bring home the bacon is not good and the Saints look like being another entry added to its annals.

Not so predicted is the slump of the Western Bulldogs. With Rodney Eade being somewhat from the rant and rave school, history is also against a comeback for the Dogs. When players tire of that bullsh*t, there is no turning back and the only way forward is a fresh start. David Smorgan needs to talk to his number one ticket holder, the PM, about how to unexpectedly end the pain now. If Richmond wins on the weekend, the dogs fans will be after blood.

Speaking of fresh starts, the Lions might as well concede now that the Voss experiment has been a complete disaster with the rebuilding club he inherited gutted by the pursuit of one big punting, big drinking dick head. If this wasn’t Voss’ decision, preference or choice, then stay the course, but if it was then, with his contract up at season’s end, you might as well get rid of him now and start again.

What delicious irony that the mercenaries stuck it up their old team.

In Adelaide, while the cricket and football elite voted to gorge themselves on half a billion dollars of other taxpayers’ money, the harsh reality is whether Port is going to survive long enough to ever play on a redeveloped Adelaide Oval. Other than their Showdown home game, their three home attendances to date have varied by a mere 1,927 people – from 21,287 to 23,214 – a set of numbers you would have to admit are of stunning consistency.

While always fielding the developing squad excuse, Port needs to face the reality that their team , talent wise – is the weakest in the AFL. With a major sponsor, My ATM, now on the financial ropes, one wonders how Port will manage to sustain itself for the three years necessary to the time those rivers of gold associated with an average projected attendance of 50% greater than these current (oh yeah, for sure) rolls up.

The Crows face not much better prospects, though their financial position is steadier. That mauling by Melbourne, no stranger itself to being (and still being) a thoroughbred or twoshort of a stable when it comes to talent, must have sent shivers down the spines of SANFL and Crows administrators. With Crows CEO, Stephen Trigg, acknowledging that football as a business in Adelaide is in decline, again the thought of two and half more years of this before those projected rivers of gold arrive on the banks of the Torrens must be sending the number of mogadon prescriptions soaring in the city of churches.

The art of goal umpiring has always been one of the great fascinations of our national game (and oh how we miss the good guy in the white lab coats.) The cock up in the Pineapple Bash has always been coming since the goal umpires started relying on their judgment of the line of the ball before dashing to the side to watch action on the goal line. A swirling wind will one day have the ball clearing the post the other side altogether and still twin calicos will be signalled. It is remarkable how many games this season are coming down to very bad decisions – St Kilda v Richmond in Rd 2 kicked things off. You have to think video refs are necessary, at least for behinds called goals.

Finally, I was fascinated by the events surrounding Nick the dicks’ dazed state against Adelaide last week. Having hit the ground hard, he was removed but not substituted and despite the game being in the balance and Nick himself remonstrating about coming back on, he sat out the last quarter on the bench.

Now this concussion rule is wholly designed to stop concussed players doing more damage to themselves either in that game or the next by playing when they shouldn’t be, whether the damage becomes obvious then or some years later. Full marks to the St Kilda doctors for not putting him back on but no marks if by not declaring him concussed their thoughts were only about his availability the week after. Ask any doctor about a concussion incurred in a parklands match and they will always recommend taking the next week off.

Yeah, footy is big business and these guys are big boys, but with the scent of litigation already hanging in their air for past medical mistakes, the AFL needs to make sure its message is actually being heard and acted upon. Still, their cant on respect for the fairer sex hasn’t got far.

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The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational Martyrs (BOOM) responded with a statement saying the move was unacceptable to its members and called for a strike vote.  General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad.  We don't ask for much in return, but to be treated like this is like a kick in the teeth".

Speaking from his shed in Tipton in the West Midlands, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama Al Laden explained, "I sympathize  with our workers' concerns, but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands.  They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day Jihad  in a competitive marketplace.  Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife.  It's a straight choice between reducing expenditures or laying people off.  I don't like cutting benefits, but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up."   He further added that " the timing could not be worse given the opportunities created by the recent demise of that great leader and martyr, Osama bin Laden."

Spokespersons for the union in the North East of England, Ireland, Scotland and the entire Australian continent stated that the change would not hurt their membership as there are few virgins left in their areas anyway.  According to some industry sources, the recent drop in the number of suicide bombings has been attributed to the emergence of Scottish singing star Susan Boyle.  Many Muslim jihadists now know what a virgin looks like and have reconsidered their benefit  packages.

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Now Separated At Games - Keeping the Port from the Pate

By The Silver Bullet

So we have had a month of the real stuff and pretty much everything we need to know for the next four months is already set in concrete – one of those Donald Rumsfeld’s known knowns – so go away to Europe this winter and don’t worry abot whether you are going to miss anything. The dies are cast.

After the coach wouldn’t talk to the captain and then the coach started talking to Essendon, Geelong are bouncing back and look the only likely challenger to Malthouse’s machine. Collingwood are a strong club getting stronger (and it grieves me to write this) thanks to an AFL determined to put ratings and crowds ahead of everything else. So, that’s the Grand Final right there.

The Suns aren’t going backwards, so they say, after they outscored Melbourne for a quarter and Karmichael Hunt racked up three kicks this week, a 50% improvement on last week. Yep, in a 90+ point drubbing, in front of less than half of their round 1 crowd, the Suns are telling us that’s progress. And as suspected, the highly paid surfer dudes now adorning Cavill Ave (Ablett, Brown, Bock, Fraser et al) are doing what every other highly paid surfer dude has ever done up those parts, spent a few extra days here and there in Melbourne and take a few extra weeks off for jolting somebody. Brisbane Bears all over again – you beauty.

The Saints are going backwards – that pre-season camp frolicking in Christchurch was very clear evidence that the discipline required to be great was gone and expect Nick the Dick to go the blub again by mid season. St Kilda School Girl, you need a new team to come visit your school and then hang out with – the Saints haven’t got what it needs to twang their wires for the cameras any more.

Those champion Adelaide teams just keep getting better. After an extraordinary week of media coverage (20 pages on Friday in The Advertiser alone), that will rank close behind only the impending spectacle that will fawn over Will and Kate in two weeks time, just 33,000 went to Showdown 30. So after four weeks, just one crowd has been bigger than the current Adelaide Oval configurations that the geniuses like The Advertiser’s Michelangelo Rucci say need to be increased to 50,000 at a cost of $535m – go figure. (Stay at AAMI I say and Crows and Power, get your s**t together.)

Speaking of the Showdown, a low point in Australian sport was reached when the SANFL put in feral free zones so precious Crows fans with heir thermoses and rugs did not have to sit next to smelly bogans from the Port. Can you believe it? After 100+ years of VFL and SANFL crowds sitting side by side, even if sometimes uneasily, with the occasional spray and request for two more drinks to each other, we are now have to protect delicate Crows supporters – no wonder Craigy’s Princesses  are playing more and more like their fans every week.

Always thought home teams got a better run with the umpires? Well now research in the US has confirmed it. According to a report in The Economist, ‘what the evidence does show .. is that referees favour home teams in judgment calls, particularly those that happen at a crucial stage in a game.’ For this the researchers blame the fact that ‘referees, like the rest of us, tend subconsciously to rely on crowdsourcing, picking up on the mood of the crowd when making their decisions. Take away the crowd and the home bias shrinks.’ (See The Full Article Here)

So anyone who has watched some Collingwood games with Joffa and friends screaming forever and thought they got a good run of it or watched Crows games and wondered why they get the raw end every time their supporters reach for the pate under the rug, now you know.

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Hamish What's-His-Name - Host of the worst show set in recent living history

Sometimes there are things that go on in the football world that are so horrible that even couch potatoes need to get their big bums moving in order to record their protest. I am not talking here about the substitution rule (ho-hum) or that Israel Folau is a $2m dud, but rather the Post Game show on Channel 7 on Friday nights. I mean, for starters, what is with that set?

Take a close look. Old photos of a MCG crowd presented as views through cheap make believe wooden window sills and fake 70’s stone work stickers stuck on the gyprock walls – some even have a darker side portrayed to give the impression the slate has some sort of shadow falling on it! Give me a break!

Then, you have a series of $40 trophies perched behind the ‘personalities’, with the grey one next to Tom Harley more suited to the national diving champion than for any footballing feat and behind Hamish Whats-His-Name is a framed photo of all the club captains, signed irregularly in gold pen – it’s a shocker.

You notice this stuff when you tune out from listening to the new personalities crapping on yet again from their cue cards about winning the contested possessions in the midfield while looking like someone is pointing a gun at them until you focus back on their grey tartan ties. I mean what the hell are they all about?

The show I would like to see is to have Fev dragged in each week from the casino, vomiting, the St Kilda School girl licking the ear of Rick Nixon (in his underwear) as he talks about winning the contested possessions in his mid field and Hamish WHN hosting with an even bigger image signed image of Nick and Zac having their bit of nude hi-jinx over his right shoulder before Jason Akermanis arrives to completely trash the set, finishing off by ramming the diving trophy up Hamish’s back side, if he is not already sitting on one which is a strong chance given the look on his face and that hair do.

Now Kerry Stokes, that’s a show that would guarantee to keep the punters up late at night watching, that justifies the cheesy cheap set and will give you the football rights until the day the earth really does warm up. So Kezza, get to it!

In the triumphal relationship between hopes and realities, two moments over this weekend are of interest. First, Guy McKenna with hope triumphing over reality saying the Suns in their 71 point loss showed ‘we are not going backwards’ which is isn’t saying much after a bye and then last week’s 119 point pants down performance at the Gabba – well I suppose he is right; $2.5m man, Karmichael Hunt had 2 kicks this week!

In the reverse, Eddie Everywhere’s claim to the MCG crowd ‘welcome to Collingwood’ on Friday night was the reality trumping hope that this was a balanced and fair competition (where such ruses as the draft system are rolled out to show how all sides about treated equally.) Pretty hard to sustain that belief when the AFL Commission gives its CEO bonuses for maximising crowds and television ratings, no matter the cost to lesser clubs, an approach that will forever just make the few big Melbourne clubs, and primarily Collingwood amongst those, ever stronger and more powerful.

Finally, Port. The SA State Government is about to spend $535m destroying perhaps the most beautiful cricket ground in the world to save this lot. Judging by their performances so far this season, $535m may well not be enough.

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(On September 17, 1994, Alabama’s Heather Whitestone was selected as Miss America 1995.)
Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,”
–Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss  USA  contest.
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“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”
–Mariah Carey
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“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life,”
– Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign
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“I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,”
–Winston Bennett,  University  of  Kentucky  basketball forward.
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“Outside of the killings,  Washington  has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,”
–Mayor Marion Barry,  Washington  ,  DC  . ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I’m just the one to do it,”
–A congressional candidate in  Texas  ..
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“Half this game is ninety percent mental.”
–Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark
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“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it..”
–Al Gore, Vice President
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“I love  California. I practically grew up in  Phoenix.”
– Dan Quayle
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“We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”
–Lee Iacocca
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“The word “genius” isn’t applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
–Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst.
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“We don’t necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.”
– Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor.
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“Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.”
–Department of Social Services, Greenville , South Carolina
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“Traditionally, most of Australia’s imports come from overseas.”
–Keppel Enderbery
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“If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there’ll be a record.”

– Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman
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I just did!

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