Well said. I was reading my grand daughter "where is the green sheep" last night. The book relies on comparisons. Opposite "here is the thin sheep" we find "here is the wide sheep". Wide? What happened to fat?

Sells the opposite to thin is thick.

To the post I read this a defense of Spurr's comments not a cry out for privacy. Unless the author can articulate when private information is actionable or should be made public, which he has not tried to do.

Fantastic article. This is the first defence of Barry Spurr that I have come across. I fail to see how the leaking of these emails is any different to going through his private correspondence or recording his phone conversations. Its an outrageous imposition on his privacy and completely irrelevant to any public position he might hold. We all have views at odds with what the moral police might wish us to have. I suspect that if you could look into the thoughts of almost anybody in their sixties the vast majority would hold opinions very similar to Mr Spurr. Most of them only express these thoughts in private conversations as did Mr Spurr. To expose these for public ridicule is an absolute disgrace.

Spurr's emails were apparently to several recipients, Peter Slipper's offensive texts were to one individual thus by definition more private. O'Neill's Spectator and the rest of the right wing press had no compunction in claiming Slipper's transgression was worthy of exposure and that it made him unfit for the position of Speaker.

By the same standards Spurr's comments surely make him unfit to be used as an adviser or how appropriate the level of indigenous references in our curriculum might be.

What I find surprising about this is why Barry Spurr who is obviously a well informed learned expert on poetry and the English language even chose (or chooses) to experiment in "playfully stretching" the use of the English language in such a crass essentially unimaginative even unpoetic way.

seeing Bill Shorten promoting a perverted lifestyle while hiding behind the cloak of 'tolerance' reveals how sick our society is. For decades now the regressives have argued that one's personal life and views should not determine their public performance. Their hyprocrisy is again exposed by grubby self righteous hackers. Imagine if Gillards private life was hacked and exposed. Would not the left go ballistic. No one likes their dirty washing hung out for all to see however the hacking of woman willing to prostitute themselves being hacked is no worse than what happened to Spurr.