I can't stand day time TV, the idiot talking heads that infest the air, interspersed with repeats of the worst soaps & situation comedies are really too much for me. However my lady, back from grandchild minding duties had it on today.

Just back from a food foraging mission after the lockdown, I caught some of the PMs press conference when I sat down with a coffee. I don't watch these things, preferring to read the transcripts, so this was the first question & answer session I have seen in years.

Yes most of the questions were the usual gormless stuff our media is now famous for, but it was those asking that gained my attention. They are all kids. I did not see a real adult in the entire bunch. There was not one of them old enough to be dry behind the ears, or long enough out of university to have outgrown the brain washing subjected to there.

Little wonder we are fed such puerile stuff on the 6/7 o'clock news, when it is propagated by this bunch of children. Where are the mature news hounds, have they been driven out by these twittering hoards of kids? I realise those who came up through the practical copy boy system have now gone, but I had no idea it had got this bad.

So should I keep watching so I know just how bad the MSN has become, or is it better for my sanity to not know?

Hasbeen,

I also don't usually watch daytime TV.
However today I did happen to see the
National Press Club appearance of Anthony Albanese.

I was surprised the way he looked and spoke.
It appears that someone has taken over to advise
him how to be more "effective."

His words were more measured. His appearance more
"presentable." His hand gestures more controlled.
He looked the part of a leader. Now to come up
with policies that will actually work.

I guess there's still time prior to the next election.

Maybe a few more politicians could do with a make-over?

I guess there's still time prior to the next election.
Foxy,
You could polish Albo till the end of time & he'd still be Labor, no makeover can do anything about Labor ever being a good Government !

Hasbeen,

Our generation has to accept that the Australia we knew has gone, and be thankful that we don't have to put up with it for much longer. I certainly would not want another lifetime in it, but what happens from here on will be normal to the young ones whom you rightly disparage. Their world, their problem.

Hey Hasbeen,

"So should I keep watching so I know just how bad the MSN has become, or is it better for my sanity to not know?"

I recommend to only watch a little now and then, as a gauge to remind yourself how bad things are and to keep one's feet on the ground.
- Beyond that, stay away from it, it certainly is better for one's overall sanity.

"Little wonder we are fed such puerile stuff on the 6/7 o'clock news, when it is propagated by this bunch of children."

Yes, that's a fairly accurate observation.

Well hasbeen, I can assist you with your anxieties.

As the old saying goes, history is bound to repeat itself. And there is a precedent to your observations concerning the children in positions too complex for their understanding.

Here it is in short. In France and Germany in the year 1212, there was a minor Crusade organised by children.
About fifteen thousand children eventually disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again.
Most ended in slave markets in Africa and Egypt. Two boat loads were known to have drowned in Mediterranean on their voyage to Jerusalem.

And a remnant from Germany were sold into brothels and slavery in Genoa.

Should we wish?

Dan

Should we wish?
diver dan,
Only with the drugged to the eyeballs morons ! And, don't be too impatient, it's already well underway !
I feel sorry for the new kids though having to live with such parents.

I am far more positive about the young of today. The old glue pots on the forum have had their day, and can cry into their portage as much as they like. The truth is we old folks were not such a roaring success during our tenure of the mud heap. With wars and famine, injustice and discrimination we didn't do all that well looking after things ourselves. All I can say is, suck it in fellas, hopefully the young will learn from our mistakes and they will be a more caring and sharing people than we ever were.

As for what to do in the twilight years, for me besides the necessary forays into the community for this and that reason, pick up supplies, see friends, community activities, exercise etc etc. Home time is for reading (love reading new books from the library), gardening, general "to-do" jobs around the house, cooking (I love to cook), watching TV, the ABC is my preferred option, but do watch a little bit of the commercial channels. I can't wait for the time when boarders are open once again and travel is back on the agenda, friends and family in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra are a must, internationally we miss our boy in Fiji, and our Fijian "family", a trip to see the whanau in Aotearoa, there is still much traveling still to do for us.

Dear Paul,

We've recently heard about the deaths of several
close friends and the reality is beginning to
sink in on how fragile life really is when
friends start leaving us at such a quick rate.
We need to grab life with both hands and make
the most of the time we have left

Unfortunately Paul, these kids are too young to have witnessed the disasters of socialism & Communism. All reference to the millions who were killed in the regular purges, starved on Collective farming ideological catastrophes on in cities when the food ran out, or died trying to escape over the Berlin wall has been wiped from history by ratbag socialists, thus they have no idea of the real world.

It is a real pity that my grand kids are going to have to relive the worst of the 20Th century because they are denied an understanding of where socialism & communism inevitable lead. These fool kids, "reporters" who think they are so smart with their heads filled with rubbish by lefty universities will unfortunately not see it coming, until it is too late to stop it.

When Trump built a wall, it was to try to keep gate crashers out. When the communists built one it was to try to keep their citizens in. Says it all really.

Hasbeen,

Before you continue to blame the so called "kids"
how about you take a good look at what really
happened and who was responsible for the
"cold war" in the past. Roosevelt and Churchill
contributed greatly to Stalin's power at the Yalta
Conference and gave him many concessions and
control.

Also what are the Confucius Institutes doing on our
university campuses? They're part of Communist China.
And who allows them to be here?

Blaming our kids for everything is simply not fair.

who was responsible for the "cold war"
Foxy,
Socialists !

individual,

The West contributed by making concessions to Stalin.

cont'd,...

And the Cold War began when this uneasy alliance
between the US and Great Britain and the Soviet
Union started to fall apart.

Hassy,

I recall some time back on the Forum you were advocating for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Pakistan, on the grounds of; "get them before they get us". With its 200 million people, the destruction of millions of innocent men, women and children would be assured. The difference between the likes of you and a Stalin or Hitler is, unlike the former two, you didn't get the chance of carry out your fantasy, or you're just an old bloke full of piss and wind.

Was Truman a Socialist when he nuked hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese.

So it is OK by Paul that socialists did kill a few hundred million, & still are in some parts, because I advocate taking the first strike prerogative if necessary against a prospective enemy.

Good one Paul.

Hassy,

Socialists killed no one, those directed by greedy warmongering Capitalists and tyrants killed millions. I think you are way off the mark by trying to blame "socialist" for the destruction that has taken place in the world. In fact to be a good Socialist you need to be a pacifists, otherwise the interests of Socialism cannot be served. Your call for the destruction of millions of innocent men, women and children would be you serving the interests of Capitalism, like a Truman and others before and after. Your period of participation in the military was only to serve the interests of Capitalism, was it not? Men like Stalin and Hitler were serving destructive ideologies, they certainly were not Socialists. Buddha, Jesus Christ, and a few other leaders in history were Socialists, in the modern day the likes of Mahatma Gandhi could be described as leader who was Socialist, and to say they were also pacifists, who destroyed no one would be true as well.

On appalling TV, CCN viewers have dropped by 68% since Trump has dropped out of the limelight. Only the haters watch CNN, and when there is noone to hate, CNN is irrelevant.

The West contributed by making concessions to Stalin.
Foxy,
Yes, just like your parents & did to the occupation of Australia !

individual,

please explain.

Wow! I don't know what how historically ignorant one needs to be to think that the Cold War was caused by or even 'contributed' to by the Yalta agreement, but the word 'monumental' seems appropriate.

Yalta didn't cause the Cold War. Yalta didn't exacerbate the Cold War. Yalta simply meant more enslaved nations were in the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War than otherwise possible.

It seems those pushing this rubbish think that Churchill/Roosevelt should have started WW3 even though they'd yet to finish WW2.

Still, if you need an excuse to blame the west for the imperialism of the Soviets, any port in a storm will do.

Here's a link that might explain a few things:

http://www.history.com/news/yalta-conference-big-three-wwii-cold-war

cont'd ...

As stated earlier - the Cold War began when the
uneasy alliance between the US and Great Britain
and the Soviet Union started to fall apart.

The 'gormless' watchers/listeners/online readers of the 'gormless' ABC will be aware of the foray out in the wilds of the Dandenongs to report on how the brave residents using battery backup provided by their solar power when the mains power went of because of wind storms, but found that diesel generators had to be used to back up the backup batteries.

Well Foxy, your history.com link doesn't explain what you think it explains. It most certainly doesn't say, as you seem to think it does, that Yalta 'contributed' to the Cold War. Indeed in this regards it says "The Yalta Conference had helped to end World War II. But it now began to shape the ensuing Cold War."

NB: it shaped the cold war - didn't contributed to the cold war. It wasn't 'responsible' for the cold war as you claimed. The cold war was going to happen, Yalta just decided where the borders between the combatants would be.

Here's another link that adds to the history:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/yalta-conference-foreshadows-the-cold-war

There's plenty more on the web.

If you put in the question on the web:

How did the Yalta Conference lead to the Cold War?

The explanation given is the following:

"As the Soviet Union expanded borders further west and
more nations were integrated into Stalin's communist
government the Iron Curtain separated the East from the
West."

"In the end what came from Yalta sparked the military,
economic, scientific, political, and ideological start
of the Cold War."

Again Foxy, there's nothing you've linked which supports your original claim that what you mistakenly call concessions given at Yalta was 'responsible' for the cold war. You've found nothing to support that assertion and you won't because its not even close to true.

Even the claim that there were concessions completely misunderstands the situation on the ground at the time of Yalta. There were no concessions, just recognition of reality.

I get that you are now in that mode where you post increasingly irrelevant links to try to avoid admitting what is obvious. And I do you the courtesy of assuming that you have the intellect to understand that in your anxiety to blame the cold war on the west, you over-egged the pudding. So I'll vex you no longer on your error.

History may have lessons.
The history of Yalta surely does.

"Yalta didn't exacerbate the Cold War. Yalta simply meant more enslaved nations were in the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War than otherwise possible."

I am reeling from the stupidity of that statement.

The Cold War finished when when the wall came down in Germany and other 'satellite nations' ousted their communist parties from power, many with elections.

To say that more 'enslave nations' being enveloped within the USSR didn't 'exacerbate' the Cold War is just inane.

please explain.
Foxy,
Our being here is a direct result/connection on the political decisions you criticise !
Not ideal I admit but but no point in being hypocritical !

Well as usual SR had the option of replying with a well-thought out, fact laden examination of the issue (Foxy's Cold War nonsense) or just asserting that he doesn't want the truth to be true.

As usual he adopted the latter course.

If Paul thinks Russian communism and the NAZI Reich was not socialist
then I am a pumpkin.
Paul, look up the derivation of NAZI. I won't tell you as you would
not believe me.
So, the communists are not socialists. Hmmm many communists will be
turning in their millions of graves when they hear they were not
starved to death by Stalin the socialist, but by Stalin the communist.
Also of course, what about Mao was he a communist or a socialist ?

Hasbeen, I have taken to listening to ABC 576 of a morning with
Fran Kelly, The Global Warming station. Makes interesting listening.
They have been diverted recently by the covius, but it is interesting
to listen to the latest exposure of the mathematical misunderstanding
of our electrical system.
I suspect their editorial staff are made up of the children to which
you referred earlier. We all know where Australia stands in the world
maths education standards.
Still on RN no one has asked the obvious question; when the batteries,
which will be our saviors, are due to be recharged, where will they
get that large amount of power ? Oh, from the grid of course. Duhh !

ttbn: So CNN viewers have dropped 68% since Trump dropped out of the limelight. Because only the haters watch CNN and when there is no-one to hate, CNN is irrelevant?

Trump is said to have had 80 million followers on Twitter, not to mention Facebook. When he was blocked from Twitter, he started a blog. The only figure I can find for that is 200,000 followers. The blog is now closed - because the low number was a bit embarrassing (loser?)?

So, on your logic, this must mean that only the haters followed Trump on Twitter, and he had about 79,800,000 haters and only about 200,000 real followers?

(What about all those who voted for Trump? Presumably they would have voted for whoever was the Republican candidate. And they walked away from Trump after he lost and couldn't be bothered to sign up to his blog.)

Hasbeen, re the media are all kids, not an adult among them.

I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but they are not getting younger, you are getting older.

Remember when you first realised how young policemen were getting? Then you noticed that doctors were looking far to young to have done all the necessary training. Then you realised the local mayor was younger than you. Then you were older than the prime minister? Where had all the adults gone?

Yes, by your standards the 'children' in the media today are gormless, especially if they don't stick to your views. But, I wonder, when you were a young man, what did the oldies of the day think of you - too young? Wet behind the ears? In the absence of social media (like the Forum) how would you have known?

Well said Cossomby, like the bloke who is a 100, he doesn't have a lot of old friends, now does he. Hassy is guilty of what many suffer from, looking at the past, their world, through rose coloured glasses, remembering and exaggerating the good, and forgetting all about the bad. For Hassy when he was a child, it was a picnic, a boys own adventure. In Hassy's memory no one really got shot, it was play acting, those who played dead simply got up in the afternoon and went off and sang songs around the campfire like all good children done in those days.

"re the media are all kids, not an adult among them."

Ben Rhodes, one time adviser to the Obamessiah, talking about how they created an echo chamber in order to trick the US public into acceding to the disastrous deal with Iran....

"Rhodes does not think much of the journalists the war room was using to spread its narrative: “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns,” Rhodes was quoted as telling him. “They literally know nothing.”

“They literally know nothing.”
mhaze,
That's in America, I shudder to think what it's really like here if the ABC/SBS are supposed to be creme of Journalism !