What Liberals really think
When politicians make their first speech, we hear about their history and their aspirations. When they leave parliament, we hear the truth.
Former leader John Hewson is particularly scathing about the current crop of Liberals who he described as “a directionless rabble”.
“The party is now characterised by disunity and disloyalty, by tribalism, not by principle or policy but by personal interests – not even party interests and certainly not the national interest.
Despite what they claim, few who stand as Liberals come with a genuine policy agenda or commitment. Their end game is simply to be a politician, or a minister, or even prime minister. Not necessarily to achieve anything in particular – just to be there, and to enjoy the trappings of the position.
While aggregate growth and employment numbers are a constant boast of the government, voters are increasingly concerned about the distribution of those jobs and growth, about income security as well as job security, having to live with increases in their costs of living while wages are stagnant – having to fund their daily lives by running down their savings and/or increasing their debts.
Therefore, it is a massive insult to voters when Liberals, individually and collectively, are more concerned about themselves, their careers and what they can suck out of the political system for their personal benefit.”
Julia Banks echoed these sentiments in a speech announcing her resignation from the party.
“Led by members of the reactionary right wing, the coup was aided by many MPs trading their vote for a leadership change in exchange for their individual promotion, pre-selection endorsements or silence. Their actions were undeniably for themselves, for their position in the party, their power, their personal ambition, not for the Australian people who we represent, not for what people voted for in the 2016 election, not for stability and disregarding that teamwork and unity delivers success.
The aftermath of those dark days in August then acutely laid bare the major parties obstructionist and combative actions and internal games – all for political point scoring rather than for timely, practical, sensible decisions on matters which Australians care about.
The Liberal Party has changed. Largely due to the actions of the reactionary and regressive right wing who talk about and talk to themselves, rather than listening to the people.”
Ex-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has spoken of the impossibility of getting any sensible policy on climate change through his party room.
“The truth is … the Liberal Party and the Coalition is not capable of dealing with climate change.
It is just a fact I regret to say. It is like a third rail. We have at the present time in the Coalition, a group of, a constituency, that is the best way to describe it, who believe we should get out of (the Paris Agreement), that climate change is a fraud, the more you have the better, and are literally on another planet.
They are not prepared to play ball with everybody else.”
Mr Turnbull said the anti-climate change group in the Coalition and his own party took the attitude that “if you don’t do what we want, we will blow the show up, and that is essentially what you’ve seen — and so the problem is that everybody loses”.
His Deputy, Julie Bishop, echoed the frustration and its implications for energy policy.
“Our party is divided on the issue of climate change and whether – or how – we respond.”
“I don’t see a solution to the current impasse, but investors need regulatory certainty given the large and long-term investment needed for building energy generating capacity,” she told business leaders.
“The closest we have come to achieving bipartisan consensus with Labor, sufficient to get an energy policy through Parliament, was the National Energy Guarantee – no longer Coalition policy.”
Tony Abbott’s former Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin, boasted about their cynical duplicity regarding carbon pricing.
“Along comes a carbon tax. It wasn’t a carbon tax, as you know. It was many other things in nomenclature terms but we made it a carbon tax. We made it a fight about the hip pocket and not about the environment. That was brutal retail politics and it took Abbott about six months to cut through and when he cut through, Gillard was gone.”
Departing Liberals all agree that the party has a women problem with Turnbull comparing it to “the corporate world in the 1980s, maybe a bit earlier. It’s far, far too blokey.”
Any pretence that preselection and promotion are made on merit was blown away with the intercession of Scott Morrison to save Craig Kelly from his own local preselectors and with the promotion of Peter Dutton to the most powerful position in the country.
I note the Australian Federal Police Association have said the AFP must split from Dutton’s ministry in order to regain its “organisational integrity and its ability to carry out investigations without government influence.”
Former Attorney-General, George Brandis, used his final speech to warn about the dangers of Dutton’s power grab and his colleagues’ contempt for the judiciary.
“Increasingly, in recent years, powerful elements of right-wing politics have abandoned both liberalism’s concern for the rights of the individual and conservatism’s respect for institutions, in favour of a belligerent, intolerant populism which shows no respect for either the rights of individual citizens or the traditional institutions which protect them,” Senator Brandis said.
“I have not disguised my concern of attacks upon the institutions of the law: the courts and those who practice in them. To attack those institutions is to attack the rule of law itself,” Senator Brandis said.
“It is for the Attorney-General always to defend the rule of law, sometimes from political colleagues who fail to understand it or are impatient of the limitations it may impose upon executive power.”
Former Treasurer Joe Hockey also dished up some truth as he was leaving.
“Negative gearing should be skewed towards new housing so that there is an incentive to add to the housing stock rather than an incentive to speculate on existing property,” he said. “We should be wiser and more consistent on tax concessions to help pay for that, in particular tax concessions on superannuation should be carefully pared back.”
This is exactly what Labor is proposing to do and what the current Liberals totally reject.
Hockey also praised Labor for bringing in the national broadband network admitting it was a “very significant commitment” – one which has been bastardised from the second the Libs took over. We can’t undermine Rupert’s monopoly now can we.
From their own mouths, those who were, until recently, in the top positions in the Liberals, have told us that their colleagues are liars, incompetent, self-serving rorters who couldn’t care less about the best interests of the country or its people, and who have scant regard for the institutions that uphold our society.
If the Liberal Party is to survive as any form of credible alternative government, this rabble must be removed.
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43 comments
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Perkin Wattleneck -
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Ill fares the land -
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Diannaart -
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Kronomex -
OldWomBat -
Diannaart -
Jack Cade -
helvityni -
Frank Smith -
whatever -
Frank Smith -
Max Gross -
Florence Howarth -
Aortic -
Kronomex -
Jack Cade -
Alcibiades -
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Kronomex -
Jack Cade -
Alcibiades -
Wam -
andy56 -
Kaye Lee -
Matters Not -
Lambert Simpleton -
Lawrence Winder -
Diannaart -
Kronomex -
Jack Cade -
Miriam English -
Jack Cade -
Miriam English -
Kronomex -
Miriam English -
Kronomex -
Rossleigh -
Miriam English -
Kronomex
Return to home pageWhen he was leader of the Opposition, I rejoiced at Keating’s rubbishing of Hewson Now he seems the distillation of decency and reason.
Looking back at Keating’s jibes at Hewson in parliament, I was amazed to note that Hewson laughed as much as anybody at Keating’s insults, seeming to be genuinely amused. It makes me wonder at the depths to which our parliament has sunk. Humourless louts, guttersnipes and bullies, making snide remarks at women and just abusing opponents in the most base way. Using parliament to accumulate wealth and transferring the people’s funds into the pockets of their mates. And rewarding rejected colleagues with lucrative sinecures as soon as they have been jettisoned from parliament. This government in particular has ignored every standard that we are entitled to expect our representatives to meet. Even the dreadful Howard – their icon – at least had a bottom line, low as it was.
“If the Liberal Party is to survive as any form of credible alternative government, this rabble must be removed.”
I think that it has gone too far, the far right of the liberal and national parties now have far too much power and the only way that that power will be dissipated is by the demise of both parties in their current form.
The liberal party is losing followers at an alarming rate (alarming for the party but not for the people of Australia) and the sooner it is assigned to the dustbin of history the better.
While the ALP is less restricted by the factions in its parliamentary wing they to have been losing followers and need to take a close look at who they govern for and stop kow towing to corporate donors and start listening to and governing in the interests of the people or they will find that they no longer have a voting base.
Whilst it is gratifying that upon leaving the political arena these MPs see the wood for the trees, I still find it galling that they were happy to play the game when they were in the forest. How can they desert their own policies and principles so easily to fit in with the “directionless rabble” ? Turnbull was the most shameless – his thoughts on a range of topics were simply cast aside as he achieved his ambition to be the boss, nothing mattered to him any more it seemed.
How they sleep t night is beyond me.
What many just don’t realise and might never realise is that the consolidation of the AFP into one “sauper-department”, under the control of, it must be said, a prize idiot, is another step towards authoritarianism. This rabble of a government has been quietly implementing an agenda under which it is able to direct AFP investigations – of course that would usually be covert rather than overt, but there are many ways to exert influence. One way is to set up a climate of fear in the department, so that any individual who dares to question Dutton’s directives will find themselves under attack. The viciousness and willingness of the LNP to target anyone who dares question its mindless and power-crazed agenda is on full display with the attack on the whistleblower who ratted out the government on the bugging of the East Timorese cabinet – surely as disgraceful as any act authorised by any government, but in this case, authorised by the born-to-rule numpty Sir Downer (whose simpering daughter is imbued with the same mindless expectation that she will be loved by her electorate solely because she is a Downer). Now, Labor doesn’t come to the table with clean hands, which is why it has been more or less silent on this specific issue (and why it didn’t make any real noise about the corrupted Andrew Robb taking a consultancy with Chinese interests to whom he granted a 99-year port lease in Darwin), but this and other acts of the LNP shows the paradox of its agenda.
It says that it wants small government, but what it actually does is create a large government solely focused on maintaining control over those who it chooses to target – typically that will be anyone who is seen as an opponent of the rich and powerful or someone the rich and powerful wish to subjugate – one example being those at the lowest end of the spectrum. It is a form of fascism, which I know is a strong word as the LNP maintains a veil of democracy, but it is the hidden part of the iceberg beneath the waterlime that is the real problem for Australia.
By keeping the public message on immigration and terrorists, dole bludgers, greedy workers who have the termerity to ask a fair wage or even job security, unions and Bill Shorten, they divert attention away from what they are actually doing – aided and abetted by the rich and powerful who control this country’s media outlets.
The current Liberal way is fundamentally regressive; almost primitive in its simian behaviour.
Their ‘thinking’ does not seem to venture into behaviours more complex than gaining personal benefit, either directly or through the medium of tribal collaboration.
That there is a whole world of activity beyond their immediate ‘bubble’ of ignorance is not recognised: If seen, it is ignored and/or derided as falsehood.
I am genuinely concerned for the mental health of those who will vote for these at the upcoming election, but more for the others who will have to doubt their own worthiness as humans when they consider the motivations of others in their species who are so crude in their development as to encourage such retrograde behaviours.
The ideology of climate denial by the LNP is not new. From Howard onwards the lean has been towards fossil fuel corporate demands to the point the LNP is now horizontal. Turnbull knew this before he grasped the slippery pole of prime ministership, how much of a stand he might’ve made is debatable. But I have to think he could’ve done better.
Now we have the result of deliberate ignorance, a party which is far less than the sum of its parts, a useless festering pustule poisoning everything.
We know how to treat pus.
Also, if Labor is to learn anything; trying to appease infinitely greedy corporates is a zero sum game. Better to stand for something worthwhile, long term and for the benefit of Australia.
Labor have been backed into a corner by this Gov and its vested interests, So cannot take a progressive stand. As they will be howled down., by a compliant media. So now Labor are playing the giving them enough rope and they will hang themselves line. Hoping this time the trapdoor opens.
Looking at the photo at the top of the article all I can say, image by image,
“Duh…er…”
“————”
“I look really thoughtful.”
“I’m really good at pouting.”
“Foooddd…”
“My head hurts.”
“I can make my forehead wrinkle.”
“Grunt…coal…grunt.”
Liberal and think, two words that are mutually exclusive and therefore oxymoronic.
Now it’s back to reading the sequel to The Mouse That Roared, The Mouse on the Moon by Leonard Wibberley.
You give them far too much credit to say they think. They are driven by a set of pre-programmed responses, based on an ideology that is incapable of learning, and which has its roots firmly entrenched in the 1800’s.
What Liberals really think about women:
https://www.wel.org.au/budget_lock_out_of_womens_groups
Way to win an election Morrison … not.
OldWomBat
I don’t really think that they actually think ANYTHING. They are paid representatives of corporates – not even necessarily Australian corporates. This government, above any there has been in Australia but is now the norm in the USA, has been bought and sold, in its entirety.
Perkin Wattleneck, I wholeheartedly second your post…
Kronomex, those eight photos made me vxxxt ……
(you mentioned having seen the movie Stan and Ollie….I saw it yesterday, it was rather sad….
Both, the Bohemian Rhapsody and the Green Book made me smile and feel good about the world…)
“What Liberals Really Think”. A very timely and pertinent headline Kaye Lee. After shouting divisiveness from the hilltops on all sorts of issues for years, Scummo expects us to believe him and his colleagues when he pronounces:
“As prime minister, I want to continue to bring Australians together, not set them against one another.”
Hypocrisy of the first order!
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/18/scott-morrison-attacks-mindless-tribalismhttps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/18/scott-morrison-attacks-mindless-tribalism-after-christchurch-massacre-after-christchurch-massacre
At Eternity’s Gate is a great new movie.The final years of painter Vincent van Gogh, played by Willem Dafoe.
Sorry, this link works.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/18/scott-morrison-attacks-mindless-tribalism-after-christchurch-massacre
And now you can draw a straight line from all that grubby opportunistic fear-mongering and hateful rhetoric to the Christchurch bloodbath. https://pazzoredento.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/the-bitch-is-again-in-heat/
I feel many enter politics because they don’t have the ability to work anywhere else for the salary one can get being a MP. Too many enter far too young. Abbott, maybe Pyne come to mind as being good examples. Took years for Costello to get a job outside politics. I seem to recall it was Rudd that came to his rescue.
Perkin Wattleneck is right, there used to be humanity combined with some clever humour in the Whitlam/ Hawke/ Keating eras. It didn’t mean there wasn’t vigorous and enthusiastic debate, but there was a sense as Menzies said, The opposition can’t be wrong about everything. Today’s constant belligerent bellicose LNP rantings It’s the Labor Party, It’s Bill Shorten. Is as pointless as it is effective. I rarely agree with Maggie Thatcher but when she opined ” once they attack you personally, they have run out of policies.” I have to agree.
The most annoying things about At Eternity’s Gate was the film was done with the now past its use by date of shaky handheld camera work and the music, which literally made me drop off several times. Dafoe did a great job of the role so that kept me watching it. You do need some patience, and persistence, to get the most out of this movie so personally I would have to rate if 6/10 sunflowers.
Must resist from laughing…resist…resist –
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-warns-hate-blame-and-contempt-are-the-staples-of-tribalism-following-christchurch-attack-20190318-p51561.html
BWAHAHAHAHA…
His mob are the biggest tribe going.
Florence Howarth
You are mainly right. Those members who have never had a real job – like Pyne, worked for Senator Vanload and then straight into parliament, have no idea of what the real world is like. They move into a world of people mainly like them, and don’t have a clue about real life.
At the last state election in SA, the ALP endorsed a RW heavy in a seat that had been held by, and worked assiduously by, a non-aligned female former teacher.
They Dis-endorsed the teacher, who ran as an Independent.
I live on the boundary of her electorate but outside it, and when I went to vote I took a Labor card from the volunteer that I knew actually lived in the adjacent electorate. He told me that he had already voted’ ‘But I didn’t vote Labor, I voted for the former member.’ ‘Why aren’t you over there handing out cards in her electorate?’
‘She didn’t need me – flooded with ALP members doing it.’
That’s why Wentworth didn’t surprise me – Labor had already had its nose bloodied in a safe Labor seat by a representative who worked for the people and continues to do so. She will hold the rock-solid safe Labor seat as long as she wants.
As an Independent.
Bloody stupid hierarchy didn’t do their homework, and took the voters for granted.
Far too many are indoctrinated student politicians, who then become political staffers, where they learn the principles of venality & submissiveness & obsequiousness to their Donors/patrons, and develop their ‘intellect’, of the low rat cunning kind. They must demonstrably prove these fine qualities over time, if they are ever to be offered a shot at pre-selection.
What personal worldly lived experience, employment or learnings(sic) do they have outside of their small partisan political bubble ?
They are a riven rabble of Vampyres, supported by a staff of minions who lust for ‘conversion’, by one of their ‘masters’.
What do they really think ?
Fraser Annings maiden speech – the ‘Final Solution’ (Youtube 1m 16s )
McKenzie, Canavan, Martin, Bernardi, O’Sullivan, Leyonhjelm, Stoker, McGrath, Duniam, Paterson, Scullion, Georgiou, Cormann, Fierravanti-Wells, Williams, Smith, Bushby, Storer, Hinch, Rushton, Griff, Patrick, shook hands/or kissed this right wing extremist hate monger.
Hanson, with some knowledge of what she speaks(herself), called her parties defectors speech, “Straight out of Goebbels playbook.”
Note it’s a mild convention, not an obligation to do so. The above heard the speech and made a conscious choice.
No Labor/Greens senators did so.
Max Cross, will check your link later on….
whatever,
At Eternity’s Gate was my choice yesterday, hubby won and we saw his pick Stan and Ollie; will see Eternity next….
Sorry Kaye, for straying away from our ugly politics…
Why would anyone be surprised that the mad monk has backflipped, he is trying to retain his seat at the next election after all.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tony-abbott-backs-away-from-infamous-islamophobia-hasn-t-killed-anyone-remark-20190318-p5156u.html
“He also argued there must be a dramatic increase in policing of the internet, and an end to all anonymous activity online.”
Gosh, I wonder if politicians would be exempt from this piece of fascist shit?
Abbott has never had to justify his candidacy before. He is and has always been an awful person. He will almost certainly be replaced by a true blue Liberal who will make the right noises but do nothing about it.
Odds, Warringah (NSW)
Tony Abbott 1.75 (no change)
Kelli Stegall 1.90 (tightened from 2.00)
Craig Laundy (Reid (NSW)) informed Morrison in January(?) he would not be seeking re-election. Morrison told him to stay ‘mum’ whilst he sought to parachute someone in.
Laundy has not fundraised(sic) for nor have Lib volunteers trod the streets for 12 months. The electorate has $18,000 in campaign funds.
The notional margin is ~4.7%. No aspiring Lib can be found to take on the task.
His upcoming retirement at this election along with so many others was conveniently announced publicly at the height of NZ massacre coverage last friday.
Thinks that make you go … hm ?
I would like to agree with your assessment, Kaye, but the pollies seem to espouse self centred rubbish, albeit with honesty, in the beginning, then dishonest bleating, silly ‘I could live on the dole’ remarks in the middle and finishing with self gratifying honesty in the end.
Good one Dianaart,
Better to be true to party ideals and for good of the nation that was the philosophy of the labor of my youth that kept the marching on the spot boys like Menzies and Howard in power. Did not Howard and Rudd have Turnbull and Wong put a climate package together? Was it the one the loonies destroyed??
Climate change is natural and no scientist will say nay to that, so to lie by telling the truth is a long term ploy for the men who wield the power. The extent of man’s involvement in the process, and Australia’s ability to mitigate, is in question.
KISS – global warming is real, renewables are real and will power the development of billions of people that coal cannot reach.
Labor may have won a double dissolution in 2009 when the loonies supported the rabbott but climate change is yes or no and minds are made so it is not worth a vote now (hopefully when the young vote in 2022 the times will be different but too late)
for the liberals to survive in their current form, i had a few suggestions but then reality set in. With their current setup, they are terminal. All labor has to do is not go troppo and the liberals are in for the proverbial 40 days and 40 nights.
This is both good and bad. Good that we can purge the IPA/Randian ideology. Make them generate GOOD POLICIES.
Bad in so much as they will be a rump for a long long time. We need a strong opposition, not one that has contracted rabies like Abbott, but one that has clear policies which are good for everyone. Somebody worth voting for as opposed to somebody you resent.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Two months out from an election, the Liberals are rewriting history.
I never said that. If I did, I didn’t mean it.
Whether it is coal, or Islam, or immigration, or crime, or women, or climate change, or asylum seekers, or so many other things…the Liberal party is asking us to forget what they have said and pretend what they say now is what they really think.
As Yasmin Abdul Majeed once tweeted, leading to a witch hunt that forced her to move from her own country, Lest We Forget. To the Liberal Party, I say I Don’t Forget.
After tonight’s episode of The Drum, Fanning et al will hope that Labor wins the next election (a safe bet and not that she would give a rat’s arse) but it will still be interesting to see what budget allocation the ABC will receive.
Then again to assemble a fair and balanced panel on such a topic would require a number of large scale miracles.
Didn’t mind the panel tonight, although it was, unsurprisingly, a bit emotional occasionally..
Far worse was QA.
Now, who has mentioned Le Jongleur Roskam is this catastrophe?
Lawrence
Apart from little Timmy Wilson (who had to put in his 2 cents being a politician an’ all), haven’t heard a peep from from the IPA … not that I’ve been looking …
I’m still waiting for Scummo to troop out “Ebony and Ivory” as the new anthem for the LNP with all the crap that he’s been going on about over the last week. For instance –
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/18/scott-morrison-attacks-mindless-tribalism-after-christchurch-massacre
This from the man who heads (for the moment at least) one of the nastiest tribes in the country.
I place absolutley no credibility on this load of crap from Scummo. If things got bad enough he would go creeping off to Hanson to help prop him up.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/19/scott-morrison-rules-out-one-nation-preference-deal-after-christchurch-attack
Bernard Keane, in Crikey.com absolutely savaged Scummo today, pointing out that he was part of the Howard government that decided there were votes to be had if they demonised Islam, branded and Muslim refugees as terrorists and people who throw their children overboard.
As someone pointed out on this site, Tarrant had been subjected to their propaganda for 18 of his 28 years.
Good piece, Kaye. I’ve sent people from facebook-land to read it.
Kronomex, did you know there are many more parts of the “Grand Fenwick” series?
I have all 5 and am happy to pass them on to you if you enjoy reading them in electronic form (I have come to prefer it over paper). You’re welcome to contact me at mim (at) miriam-english (dot) org
Miriam English.
How could you bear to forgo books for electronic devices? I love the smell of books，the feel of books, the turning of the page of books. I have tried e-books but they are sterile to me.
Over the last year or two I have re-visited old favourites from my childhood – Treasure Island and such. One or two stories haven’t aged well, but I think my children were robbed of the pleasure of such stories, like Kidnapped and the like. I did turn my children on to The Wind In The Willows, which I always loved. But my love for Kenneth Grahame’s classic was tempered when I read, as an adult, a book called Wild Wood, by Jsn Needle. It’s TWITW from the perspective of the other creatures that we were led to despise and fear – the weasels, etc. and paints Ratty, Mole and Badger as arselickers fawning over the feckless and stupid Toad. A bit like Wentworthians hanging on the every word of the man who stashed generally Ill-gotten gains away from the clutches of the PAYE lumpen-proletariat.
Jack Cade, I have about 2,000 paper books. The last time I moved house three quarters of the truck I hired was taken up with dead tree books. I now own about 50,000 fiction ebooks and many more non-fiction ebooks and can carry the lot around in my pocket! Originally I preferred paper books because I was used to them, but used ebooks as they were more convenient and I’m a constant reader. Over time I came to actually prefer ebooks over paper ones. One of my very favorite books is John Wyndham’s “Trouble With Lichen”, and I’ve reread every several years the same paperback I’ve had over the past half century. Recently I wanted to reread it again and felt too impatient with my old paperback version, so went online and bought the ebook… much easier to read.
Interestingly I’ve always had a lot of comicbooks — a greatly underestimated artform — and have always preferred the paper format, reasoning that it’s easier to see the page properly on paper, but lately I’ve noticed here a change surreptitiously occurring too. I have long kept electronic backups of my favorite comicbooks, but have found myself now preferring to reread my old favorites in electronic format. A few days ago I reread “Freak Angels” — Warren Ellis’ excellent continuation several years after the events in John Wyndham’s story “The Midwich Cuckoos” — and was much happier reading my electronic versions instead of my expensive paper volumes.
Jack, many of your old favorites (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Wind in the Willows, and many, many more) are available as free downloads from the Project Gutenberg website. It is a cooperatively run non-profit project trying to put the world’s books online for everybody to freely access. It’s a little hampered by USA’s insanely excessive copyright laws, so Gutenberg Australia has many books that can’t be found in the USA virtual bookshelves. And there are other sources for ebooks too.
The one drawback of ebooks is the propensity for publishers to encumber them with locks. I’m happy to buy ebooks, but am very wary of locked ones. I’ve been stung before when I’ve bought locked ebooks and have subsequently been locked out of them. Nowadays the first thing I do when I buy a locked ebook is to remove the locks, though I much prefer to buy unlocked ebooks. I expect one day soon I’ll buy an ebook that I can’t remove the locks from. That will be the last locked ebook I buy. All ebooks from Project Gutenberg have no locks.
Incidentally, if you decide to try ebooks do NOT buy a Kindle machine. They let Amazon control what you read and they can decide on a whim to delete your collection remotely. Use an ordinary phone or tablet computer instead, with a free ebook or comicbook reader.
Miriam,
I have had a problem with light ever since I copped a dose of viral meningitis in 1985. Light over a certain brightness can leave me with a headache and blurred vision so I tend to not read e-books. Mostly I just enjoy the feel and look and smell (depending on the age) of a book when I read.
You should keep an eye for one of the classic underground comics called The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton. Also Eric Powell’s The Goon is highly recommended with both titles read in the collected editions.
My library was sadly, very sadly, culled when I moved to another state and now I’m down to roughly 1,000 books.
Apologies to Kaye for the derailment.
Kronomex, you can set the brightness of the screen to any level desired. I tend to turn mine down quite a lot, as I don’t like it very bright — saves on battery life too. Alternatively you can get a machine with so-called “electronic paper” display, which doesn’t have an illuminated screen at all. It requires external lighting to be able to read it, just like ordinary paper. The great advantage of that is that it’s easy to read in sunlight. The more common LCD displays are right buggers to read in sunlight.
Yes, I loved Gilbert Shelton’s “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” back in the day, and often had a good laugh at the antics of Fat Freddy’s cat. I still have some — though many were lent and never returned. I don’t think I’ve seen “The Goon”. I should seek it out. I always enjoyed the work of Mobeius (Jean Giraud), who I first came to read in the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine. Many issues of that have been digitised and are now available for free download from the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/heavy-metal-magazine
By having an (irrelevant) attachment to the smell and feel of dead-tree books you exclude yourself from much old and new culture. If you allow yourself, you’ll find that you’ll end up preferring the electronic form and you’ll wonder why you ever let yourself be so misled by confusing the messenger with the message.
Miriam,
I somehow get the feeling that Kaye Lee won’t be too disapponted that we seem to have gone off track a bit. 🙂
Two authors (the friend I live with would strangle me if I didn’t suggest two of her favourite authors) –
Anne Bishop.
Nalini Singh.
I’m going to recommend Vernor Vinge particularly his two Realtime/Bobble books, The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime and his Zones of Thought trilogy: A Fire Upon the Deep, The Deepness in the Sky, and The Children of the Sky.
I have all (currently) 292 issues of Heavy Metal Magazine in digital copies.
Now I’m off to continue reading The Mouse on the Moon.
Punctuation is important. I think that the title of this has been badly punctuated.
It should read: “What! the Liberals really think?”
Rossleigh, that is beautiful! 😀
Kronomex, thank your friend for her recommendations, though I’m more a hard science fiction gal. I never really warmed to fantasy. I do enjoy romance though, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for some of Nalini Singh’s works.
Yes, I’ve enjoyed some of Vernor Vinge’s books and short stories too. I think I’ll soon be rereading some of the brilliant stories of James Tiptree Jr (pen name of Alice Sheldon). The “problem” with having so many amazing books is that I’m spoiled for choice in what to read next. 🙂
Enjoy The Mouse on the Moon. 🙂
If you like, like me, hard SF then you should read Peter Hamilton’s “Night’s Dawn Trilogy” (about 3,600 pages all up and anything but boring). They have to be one of the best combinations of SF and Horror done to date. Then there is Neal Asher’s “Spatterjay” and loosely connected “Polity” books.
Alice Sheldon wrote some marvellous stories and I’ve always enjoyed the only two novels she wrote.
(Thinks: Should I make a political comment? Unthinks). After scrolling back to the top of the article and seeing that photo I feel ill, think I’ll go and read for awhile instead.