Make a Difference

Tag: bolt

Am I Black Enough For You?

That is the title of Anita Heiss’s new book.

Anita was one of the people who sued Andrew Bolt.

The answer to Anita’s question is “No-one cares. Call yourself what you like.”

But if you claim tax payer money on the basis of your race, then expect the tax payers to take an interest. In other words, your race only makes a difference to anyone else when you demand it should make a difference. And if you do demand that it make a difference, you have no right to complain when people ask why.

For example, $90,000 of tax payer money so you could go to Paris and write a very dull book about how you went to court to stop someone discussing the question that is the title of your book. I can understand you might want to write this. I don’t understand why I should be forced to pay for it.

Here are Anita’s comments about the burdens she faces as a writer. No, not just a writer, an aboriginal writer, since that, she says, is the whole point:

It’s not easy being a writer. If you do in fact take the research seriously, there is much to consider… here are just five of the hardships of researching in Paris:

1. WEIGHT GAIN: I had to eat an embarrassing amount of bread and cheese, macaroons, croissants and chocolate – so I could actually write about it! This meant I had to put on weight for my job.

2. SORE FEET: Paris is a city for walking. Strolling down the Champs-Elysees eyeing all the designers stores and cafes is hard on the feet, trust me, I know, I did it quite a bit!

3. FLIRTING WITH STRANGERS: Now, let me preface this by saying, I was in character! Anita Heiss would never flirt with strangers, but for the purpose of ‘research’ I did what needed to be done for my craft. If you are serious about your writing, you will too!

All at the tax payers’ expense. Can I be black too?

One of the things that makes this especially interesting is that having invited discussion on the issue of her race, Anita, her publishers and the Australian ABC have gone to great lengths to shut down any discussion. Comments have been disappeared from all those sites. Well, people answered the question the wrong way, you see.

You can still find reader comments at this Random House page (I am sure this is an oversight, and these will soon be removed), and at the Amazon page for Anita’s book.

And $18.60 for a kindle book she has already been given $90,000 to write? Sheesh!

Update. As expected Random House has pulled all comments from the page linked to above. According to the Random House website, their imprints comprise of (sic) Ballantine Books, Bantam Dell, Delacorte Press, Del Rey/Spectra, The Dial Press, ESPN Books, The Modern Library, One World, Presidio Press, Random House, Spiegel & Grau, and Villard.

Since Random House is not interested in freedom of speech, I suggest exercising the freedom you do have, and choosing not to buy their books.

Amazon is still accepting comments and reviews. Go Amazon!

Wart Girl Bumped

On Monday March 7th Tim Blair alerted his readers to the work of blogger Alene Composta.

Andrew Bolt picked up the story the following day.

Alene’s writings were a mixture of demented rantings about current political debates, meditations on her state of mental health, and personal attacks on people who disagreed with her.

So naturally she was immediately invited by the ABC’s Unleashed editor Jonathon Green to write a guest post for ABC online. After less than a day, that post was removed from the ABC website. It is still viewable through Google’s cache.

Alene’s article is a wildly paranoid take on Sean Nicholl’s story in the Sydney Morning Herald about a single New South Wales Liberal (conservative) Party member’s description of the coming NSW election day as ‘moose day.’

Right from the start there was speculation on Tim Blair’s blog that Alene Composta was a hoax.

Yesterday Gavin Atkins noted that a commenter on Tim’s blog had found that Alene Composta’s publicity photo actually came from another blog with very few posts. The subject of the blog is Wartrol, a purported treatment for genital warts. It belongs to someone called Marian Roldans.

There really is a treatment called Wartrol. War troll? It sounds like Crikey and the ABC already. Also, it’s homeopathic so it doesn’t have any active ingredients, or do anything useful. Another similarity.

At very least, Alene Composta’s photo is a fake. Or Marian’s is. Or both. I suspect the latter.

Alene Composta is one of the best thought-out and most amusing hoaxes for a long time.

Alene is a Dutch name, incidentally, related to ‘alleen’ – ‘alone.’ It could also be Celtic, in which case it means a revealing light.

Roldans? Well, there is a basque story called Roldan’s Bugle-horn, which tells of a terrifying adventure and a horn which when blown causes rocks to break and mountains to catch fire.

And Composta? How did the ABC fall for that? She might as well have been called Ophelia Bullshit.

So, a Dutch name, manure, bugle-horns and genital warts? More than fairly played by Tim and Andrew, and well done!

Update:

JF Beck points out that Alene Composta is an anagram of ‘moose placenta.’

This just gets better and better.

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