Club Politique by Che Tibby

In what is perhaps a sign of the times, a Liberal backbencher in the Australian Federal Parliament has drawn fire for describing a series of ‘dissidents’ in her own party as ‘political terrorists’. Ignoring the obvious contradiction in terms, participating in politics is what terrorists usually avoid (or are barred from doing, hence the attention getting behaviour), trying to even broadly equate a little democratic agitation for change with those pesky Al-Qaeda’s is insane.

As I’ve no doubt said time, and time, and time again, one of the characteristics of the current age will in all likelihood be this type of stereotyping of opposing political views as siding with the forces of evil, in much the same way as they used to talk about ‘the commies’. But it’s even more alarming when the label is applied not to the Parliamentary Opposition Party, or to marginalised interest groups, but to members of the Government itself.

As Tim over at The Road to Surfdom points out, it’s a sad day when being at odds with the Caucus is effectively seen as a ‘bad thing’. And, as The Australian reports, it is enough to ensure that preselection in your seat is offered to someone else.

To make a very long story short, Petro Georgiou has been a backbencher for a very long time, which means that you can interpret his willingness to put forward a couple of private members bills in two ways. Either, he’s sick of never getting access to any Cabinet portfolio’s, and decided to kick up a fuss, or, he realises that he has nothing to lose in doing so, and might as well do some decent conscience politicking before he gives up and retires.

The media coverage of his actions over the last few months suggests that it is the latter. After all, there really isn’t much room for ‘small-l liberals’ in the Howard Government. But problematically for Howard, Georgiou has decided to get a little traction on the issue of mandatory detention of refugees, a noble endeavour, considering that maintaining an aggressive and some would say excessively hard line on this issue has kept the Coalition in power since 1999 (and won the election in 2001).

So, while Howard has tried over the past few weeks to engineer some kind of consensus over the issue, things just keep getting worse in the immigration portfolio, with a report recently published condemning the operation and culture of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.

And in my opinion this is a good sign. As it stands, the current policy allows persons to be detained almost indefinitely, for women and children to be held in what are in effect low-rent prisons (for the crime of wanting to live in Australia), for a number of Australian citizens to be forcibly detained if they are deemed ‘illegal aliens’ by poorly informed Departmental officials with excessive powers, for babies to be born in these prisons and not know freedom for the entire span of their young lives (a recent case had a three year-old seeing her first days outside a detention centre), and the list of abuses goes on.

In a nutshell and from the relative safety of New Zealand? The system is a really, really big mess. Unfortunately, the only person willing to stand up to Howard et al is now being condemned as a ‘terrorist’, even if the accuser is taking a lot of flak for the comment, and the Federal Labor Party is dithering on whether to throw their weight behind the proposal. Although one of the above links has Beazley asking for debate over the Bill to at least be allowed, comments from a few weeks back had him stating that he was behind mandatory detention.

I think the lesson to be learned from all this bile is that immigration isn’t really one of those footballs that should be kicked around for short-term political gain. What extremists in this area all too often refuse to accept is that the people they’re demonising, incarcerating, berating or laying open to actual physical abuse are often just ordinary people trying to make a better life.

Sure, I’m being a little to airy-fairy on portraying immigrants, but there is no way in hell you’d want your own country to become anything like what Australia has turned into. And that is to sort of place where speaking up for the rights of a very small number of people, in the countries leading democratic forum, leads to vilification.

Before I start I’d like to bring your attention to this article, which seems to only have been picked up by the Sydney Morning Herald, and not The Age or The Australian, in which Howard decides that debt relief for the most Heavily Indebted Poor Countries is most probably a good idea after all. And of course, this is the same man who decided that he had ‘reservations’ about debt relief for Indonesia after the Boxing Day Tsunami.

And speaking of bandwagons, I’m going to have to step on over to Hard News and mention the Jackson case. But, you’ll be glad to know this is actually a post about comfort food, so if you aren’t interested in hearing any more, just skip on down to the underlined bit.

Although my new occupation doesn’t allow me to make large comment on all the fun stuff I liked to complain about in the political sphere, some readers might remember me venting my spleen about a particular predisposition among conservatives towards characterising single-parent families as somehow ‘bad’.

I’ll not repeat that anger here, but I will reiterate that what really characterises being child of a social-welfare family is that you’re all too often the target of the kinds of people who prefer to prey on the vulnerable. And frankly, that’s what I see in the Jackson case.

To be honest, I haven’t followed the details very closely, although if there are more important things in the world than putting a paedophile away, I don’t know what they are. Mind you, the behaviour of those munters in Whitby is inexcusable, so no cries for a lynching coming from me. However, whether he was guilty of actually molesting boys or not, Jackson’s behaviour is as Russell points out, seriously disturbing.

Naturally the phrase ‘disturbing behaviour from Michael Jackson’ is usually a tautology, but I have some very real concerns about this one.

Take into account that Jackson appears to be a fifteen year old mentally, or younger at heart, and most probably just plain enjoyed doing all those ‘naughty’ things most normal people were actually doing at that age, and which he missed out on. But, stripping away all of the ‘bizarre’, or just plain stupid actions, you’re still left with a picture of an adult using what would in any other case be a very clear cut pattern for grooming.

I now this because I had a near run-in with one of these characters in my own youth, and as fate would have it, emerged unscathed. As it was, the realisation only came two or three years back, but the experience remains one of those near-train wrecks that lead a bloke to be ever the more cautious about people like Jackson. Thing is, it’s all there, the grown-up who likes hanging about with kids, the toys, the predatory behaviour posing as altruism.

And I reckon, even if he didn’t actually have ‘sexual relations with that boy’, you’ve got to wonder whether it wasn’t only because he didn’t realise that’s what he was doing?

Two words for those young people who were excluded from Jackson’s bed.

Near miss.

Anyhow, with the winter settling in around us, there’s only one thing that should be on the menu, yup, you guessed it, chicken. Chicken is one of those things I avoiding cooking for years because I was sure I’d stuff it up. As it turns out of course, it’s very very easy. This recipe is actually a customisation from a particular orange cookbook every Kiwi seems to be given when they leave home, and it works a treat.

Roast Chicken
You’ll need:
A chicken…
One smallish orange, or lemon.
One small onion.
Lettuce, tomatoes and Mayonnaise.
A loaf of buttered fresh bread.
Salt.
Olive Oil.
One bamboo skewer.

First of all, crank the oven up to 180 degrees, or thereabouts. Then check its weight on the wrapping, and clean the chicken. Don’t go buying a frozen chicken, they’re often tougher, and not as tasty, but if you do, sweet as. To clean it, just wash the outside of the bird, then rinse out the cavity down the back end. If there’s a little bag with bits of dead animal in there, throw then away (you’d be surprised how many people leave that in there).

Next, take your orange, and pressing down on it lightly, roll it on the bench. Not too hard or it will burst, the idea is to break up some of the segments in there. Then, using a sharp knife, make heaps of little holes through the skin, and stuff the entire thing into the cavity of the chook. It should fit in there no worries. If your orange is too big, you should have gotten a smaller one. Don’t cut it in half to make it fit.

Then, put the onion in there. If that doesn’t fit on account of the orange, cut the onion in half and squeeze it in. Then, using a bamboo skewer, kind of pin the flaps of skin over the cavity so that they keep the orange and onion in there. No skewer? No worries. Just make sure the onion isn’t half hanging out.

After that, coat the entire outside of the chicken in olive oil. This means tipping a bit on it, and rubbing it all over the bird. Think like a Swedish masseuse. Get a good layer of oil, but don’t go nuts. Then, put a liberal amount of salt on the skin, and rub that in as well, but not too hard.

What the oil and salt will do is crisp up the skin, and make it tastier. Like Homer says, “mmmm… skin….”

Then, put the chicken on a tray, and bung the lot in the oven. If you’ve got a little wire rack to go under the bird, even better, but if not, no worries. Make sure the bird is wings and legs DOWN. Some think that wings/legs up is best, but I like to make sure all the juices from the chicken fat, and the orange, seep into the breast to moisten it.

Ok, you leave the chicken in there for 25 minutes per 500g, and another 20 minutes. That means, if your chicken is 1kg, its 70 minutes (25+25+20=65 70). If it’s 1.25kg, 82 minutes (25+25+12.5+20=77 82.5). Remember, the weight was on the wrapping.

Then, watch some TV, and keep an eye on the time.

You can tell if the chicken is cooked by the skin, OR, by poking a sharp knife into the legs near the ‘knee’. If the right time has gone, and the juice that runs out of the cut is clear, you’re good to go. Also, the wings look dry and crispy at the skinny bits.

What you DON’T do is poke the little reservoir of liquid that’s built up under the skin around the breast. That liquid is keeping the entire bird moist, so leave it be. When it comes time to take the chicken out of the oven, THEN break the skin and drain the liquid into the pan. Experienced cooks can then add this to the eventual carcass to make great chicken stock (best in Laksa’s).

Next, move the chicken onto a chopping board, or a plate, and let it rest for a minute or two, while you get the remainder ready.

You might notice that there’s no roast veges and no gravy. Why? Because once the chicken cools enough, you break the chicken down by tearing it up with your fingers, and eating it in sandwiches, with the lettuce, mayonnaise and fresh tomatoes.

There is nothing, in my humble opinion, better than roast chicken sandwiches.

PS. If your chicken isn’t cooked enough? Microwave it.

PPS. And, the cooking times have been revised, using actual math, and not my own, made-up, BArts version.

An interesting little development in the world of retail seems to be a strange division in the way we are what we wear. On account of the Queens Birthday weekend being so damned cold here in the Windy City I spent a great deal of it indoors watching DVDs with the flatmates and sifting on the couch. But, needed to get outdoors for even the shortest time resulted in myself and a couple of mates making our way to a mall to buy new work gear.

Naturally, when you go on a shopping expedition with the guys you aren’t likely to end up carrying home bags and bags of stuff, as most of the trip is likely to end up being spent looking at stereos, cars, big feck-off TVs, video games, and/or ‘the ladies’. And seeing as both guys would usually have ‘the missus’ buying things for them, there wasn’t much looking at ‘the ladies’ going on.

None at all. Really.

And apparently, every road trip anywhere with me always involves a demand to ‘go get some chicken’. Personally I think is highly reasonable, but the guys are becoming concerned that I have a developing addiction. I think the first step is admitting that beady-eyed, beardy bastard gets me every time.

Anyhow, what this got me thinking about is the way in which you can really peg someone based the way they buy. I know it’s an old cliché, but way out in the Hutt you can spot the locals pretty easily based on what variety of track-suit or other sweat-shirting they choose to garb themselves in. And that makes me wonder, do people always dress like they do because of fiscal constraints, because they like to wear hoodies like all the others at the mall, or because shopping at one particular kind of place is where they feel most comfortable?

As I mentioned the other week, I have bought a couple of business shirts at Farmers because they have a particular shirt-tie combination that (usually) fits well, even if the colours are a little ‘so last year’ (apparently). Luckily, a quick consult with the resident experts who surround me at work determined that I’m not looking weird. To be honest, I’d rather be buying shirts from some swanky place that made them to measure, so I don’t have to worry about the arms being too short and the necks too loose, but hey, fiscal constraints and all.

Does this mean that I’m a snob?

Thing is, I know that a lot of the merchandise at the places I go and get the stuff I need is crappy (which doesn’t qualify as ‘shopping’, I’m not wandering around browsing). And, if I could afford to go and get better stuff I would.

Maybe an example serves. In food, which is a weakness of mine from way back, I won’t buy rubbish. But, only in some cases. Tinned tomatoes? Whatever’s cheapest. Salt? Who gives a toss. But meat/fish/cheese? Depends. If I’m looking at fixing myself a cheap feed to fill a gap, then it’s a mix of budget/wants. If it’s a meal for other people, then bring on the decent stuff.

Which is to my mind all very ordinary really, and something that everyone does. I don’t buy crap beer when mates are coming over. Unless they’re also dickheads.

Mind you, I also don’t buy really expensive beer to impress, because that would make me the dickhead.

It’s a weird little balancing act really. I buy barn-laid eggs because they’re just better tasting that cage ones. If I could buy real, golden-yolk farm eggs I would. But when it all comes down to it, they’re just eggs.

So what does all this have to do with the Lower Hutt mall?

Well, despite all the fuss made about ‘choice’ and ‘the consumer society’, most people really just seem to buy whatever the hell is placed in front of them, and malls are a great example of that. More often than not, the real choice is whether it’s worth the effort to find a place that doesn’t sell the same old stuff any other mall does. When you boil it all down, what’s the difference then between a five malls that offer exactly the same range of items, or more importantly the same range of ideas, and the old socialist utopia that mass-produces a limited number of goods to choose from?

I reckon the only difference is the way in which you can be more discerning when you have an increased income. Boutiques and other speciality stores, such as delicatessens, really cater to that part of society who have the time and money to choose to not shop at a department store.

And yes, I know that many people with money will spend a proportion of it in the same places that poor people do. I’ve known more than a few rich who buy cheap t-shirts and undies and save the money for the items they deem ‘important’, but the way in which their priorities differ from ‘the man in the street’ is interesting in and of itself.

Maybe, just maybe I thought, the ability to make reasonable, informed choices is something that is increasingly distinguishing our society?

If there’s one thing flatting is bound to accentuate it is the potential for battles to escalate out of control and become all-encompassing wars. The perennial up-down conversation regarding ‘the seat’ being a pertinent example.

To me, anything is preferable to that conversation, it being the one you can never, ever win. Despite being told how things should pan out up-down wise, many blokes will simply refuse to do the right thing by their female residents and leave that exclamation mark where they want. And like the shocked ‘Oh!’ that it is, the seat will return the look it has received in a perpetual affirmation of the laziness of my blokey co-residents.

But then I sometimes think the battle isn’t so much a conflict as a realisation that there isn’t any realisation going on among the guys. Habits are habits after all, and habits form for reasons beyond my ability to explain in a humble blog. More interesting though is resistance to changing these habits, especially when the honourable leader for the flat is in fact a woman.

I can’t help but think that were the leader currently a man, then an appropriate Men’s Caucus would form, and the issue of the seat of exclamation would be resolved, but because of the tendency of blokes to characterise any assertion of power by a woman to be the direct result of a particular rhythmic change, then change is resisted.

That or they may be former flatmates who consider the problem to be ‘too many chicks getting uppity’.

The truth is that our flat, like other flats I’ve seen in operation world-wide, tends to have a little ruling clique, the group of people who have the reigns on the flat account, issue rules and regulations to other flat members, and who like to hold on to their power with a grip approximating that of a fat man on a bacon sandwich.

Consequently, when you get flatmates like our man Pita, who used to have his hands on the flat account a few years back, making lots of wild accusations about the people we’re interviewing as prospective housemates, the flat heads have a number of ways to jump. They can either chuck Pita out of the flat altogether, which would be my preference, he annoys the be-jesus out of me, or they can keep him nice and close in a particularly Machiavellian way.

The thing about Pita is that he’s a particular kind of dickhead. First of all, he’s definitely the kind of bloke to thinks that dropping the exclamation is an infringement on his masculinity, as opposed to admitting that he doesn’t give a stuff either way, and is just forgetful. Second of all, his screaming and yelling about the flat demographic is probably just a last ditch effort to draw attention to himself, as he’s getting waaay to old to continue seducing the girls in the ground floor rooms based on his no-longer-so-boyish good looks.

Fortunately, our flat heads are also wise heads, and realise that Pita isn’t really threatening the flat stability to any great extent. The only one really getting worried is Dan, who’s had his eye on the big room upstairs for months now, and sees it slipping away if the girls take on Pita’s suggestions and add both him and the new flatmates to their clique (room allocation is decided in Committee). But, Dan is secretly American in outlook, so we tend to ignore his self-righteous, Bible-thumping ways.

Good old Pita. I’m sure if him and Dan ever got their act together and took control over the house committee it would be cause for me to move my entire house-load of stuff back to Melbourne. This expat only came home because the political climate where I was living got too much for my conscience. If it means I now have to actively resist a cabal of flat-nazi’s then I’m packing up and moving to another place. Again.

In the meantime though, it will be interesting to see how the flat heads get into action to shut Pita the hell up and minimise his impact on flat too-ings and fro-ings. Despite Dan’s exclamations of ‘gosh darn it to billy-o’ every time he needs to be heard, Pita is the one who’s rocking the boat at the present. I mean, I’d like a bit of diversity on the flat menu. God knows eating pasta every evening is getting old really, really quickly.

And lastly, all that this type of the rocking the boat does is make our flat a less attractive place to live. Prospective housemates see the tussle between Dan and the girls and think, ‘no big deal’, but if Dan and Pita get together? Besides the potential for some very strange, in all likelihood leather-clad, parties to be thrown, no fun for anyone who doesn’t like listening to Shania Twain and eating meat and three veg.

PS. In what for me is the final word on the seat up/down debate, a reader sent me this link. Apparently, leaving the seat up results in the water becoming aerosol... And your toothbrush is in that room.

God I miss farting. One of the uneasy transitions I’ve had to make in moving into this new office environment is not being able to let one go if the coffee was a bit too strong.

Sure, maybe if there was a bit of space between me and the person sitting behind me I might be able to get away with it, but when she’s a genteel blonde a bloke wants to be a little more delicate. To be honest, when I look directly at her I have trouble even mustering conversation, so letting rip with the ‘whaaarp’ would not be the smoothest manoeuvre.

Maybe I would be consoled if I was able manage a good nose-pick to distract myself, but the bloke sitting across the partition is hardly likely to want to experience to sight of me up to the cuticles in an industrial dig. At least back in the kitchen dropping one was a requirement, a right of passage even, if you’ll excuse the pun. Here though? Here people just aren’t the fart-joke types.

But then I think that maybe white-collar people have grown up at least a little, whereas kitchen types are more or less still primary schoolers. But with very sharp knives. And I am soooo glad I don’t cut or burn myself anymore in the workplace that having to suspend a breath of not-so-fresh air is a small price to pay. Plus, I get to reinvent myself as a ‘wit’, and not the dirtiest story-teller in the group.

Mind you, if I can’t speak to people on account of being a little stunned, then becoming known as a wit will not eventuate. Maybe an occasional whaarp would be an ice-breaker. Who knows.

The next great transition has been beer o’clock, that fine white-collar tradition of systematically destroying one’s liver on a Friday afternoon. Last Friday was a ripper, involving a four o’clock start, a midnight berating of some poor bloke who happened to work for Trevor Mallard (that’ll teach him for claiming to be indigenous), and a hangover so blistering I couldn’t muster legs till about 2 in the afternoon.

We shall not be repeating the performance. Apologies to the Mallard staffer. But not to Mallard.

Otherwise, there’s been this massive diversification in my flatting situation. Originally one of the flatmates wanted to get some barmy army types in the spare room, but I was forced to veto that decision. I have it on good authority that the English lads are probably a bunch of thieves. It’ll be ‘there’s only three of us’, and then there will be about fifteen drunk blokes all called James or Colin taking up couch space, complaining about the weather, and trying to sneak out with the silverwear when they loose to the ABs.

Instead, we’re going to get in a few extra flatmates around the place to add a bit of colour. I’m guessing that talking about them to you should stand in lieu of being able to make substantive or direct comment about the political to-ings and fro-ings of das Capital. After all, aren’t we all just a cross-section of the political world?

Sure, the flatmates will likely soon hate me for airing their dirty laundry to the world, but I’m hoping that the beer budget will soon be dramatically expanded to accommodate the lack of payrises expected to be contributing to the flat shopping account.

Plus it will make a welcome change to complaining about how damn crazy those Australians are. What is with these people? It’s almost as if the white trash annexed Bali and expect their influence to grow exponentially with the amount of faux-silver jewellery they buy.

Anyhow, I’ll let you know when the new characters move in. They’re likely to be a strange bunch, you might even be forgiven for thinking you’re reading about the cast of the Simpsons, but don’t worry, it will all make sense in the end.