The Dullsvillain

I want to know exactly how shops closing at 6 o’clock be considered a good thing in this place. So why not go straight to the mouthpiece of the anti late shopping movement, IGA chairman John Cummmings.

He starts with an interesting claim that 96% of stores already can open but don’t.

Is this true? If so, I have never heard Dullsville so perfectly summed up in one statistic! Anyway, on this base, he believes that extend the trading hours will only mean Coles and Woolworths to open longer hours.

And how about the “why not?”

The argument that extended shopping will be forcing small, local-owned business to close is an argument I thought to have a strong effect on the public. I think many people could sympathize this – despite the public’s clearly demonstrate preference for chain stores (maybe something about the importance of signs?)

Anyway, I was fully expected that at least a real-world reason will be the base of the IGA argument.

But no, Mr Cummings does not make this claim – turns out he’s just “philosophically” against late shopping! And yet, as you can see in the interview below, he has no idea about the philosophy behind the regulation that he philosophically agree with. From now on, there is a word, for the philosophy Mr Cummings could not think of:

Behold! Philosophy of Dullsvillianism…

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Penbo: "The Punch's" heavy hitter

David Penberthy, the editor of The Punch get quite agitated about the Melbourne Film Festival insanity.

The quick background: Melbourne Film Festival decide to include a film about a woman accused by Chinese government of being a terrorist. In return, the Chinese government demand they cancel the film, and some Chinese directors withdraw from the festival.

I will say my opinion about all this at the end, but first I want to “sling mud” at the fear-monger David Penberthy, because the last thing Australia needs is over-exaggeration of China’s badness, because the Chinese government itself does good enough job of that.

“Penbo” began with the normal tabloid attack on the cosmopolitan types often associate negatively with the sipping of the milky coffee (for what reason, I never understand – something about milk not being cool?).

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Many times, the AFL football just find big boring. But never, never when the fountain of knowledge in flowing from the mouth of GLEN JAKOVICH!

The Sultan of Subiaco, the Sheik of Spearwood, [ed: formerly King of Klaremont] “Jako” surely is the worst commentator person in all of Australia. He speaks English worse than “this Chinaman”.

And here I present the evidence from Sunday Eagles game on Channel 7 TV. Actually I only switch on the recorder in the second half. Yet still, so many great bits i can’t even include them all. Jako is very Dullsville-special. So think a guy in Victoria sits in a room beeping out all these comments from the Victoria broadcast. So I put this in the “Perth Media Shame” category already, as definitely no-one outside Dullsville would tolerate this low standards of “Special Comments”. But maybe Jako Attako could become a new category, every weeks?

Let us try the “highlights reel” first, then maybe analyze, one by one.

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Media Watch has nail the baby murder Facebook shame…
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2624625.htm

…6 days after the Dullsvillain!
http://dullsvillain.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/even-twin-baby-death-must-be-sexy/

Or, as Dick point out: “An angle they seem to have completely missed is that the use of the pics is potentially a breach of copyright. Would have thought that was a bigger deal than it being a breach of ABC’s fairly arbitrary internal policies.”

However, breach of the ABC’s arbitrary internal policies seems to be become Media Watch staple these days. Fishy? Maybe the hand of Janet Albreccccccchhhhhhtsen?

Just now, I saw the nice ABC newslady, Miss Karina, tell the whole of W.A. that “Police are refusing to confirm reports that the twins were dead in the bath”.

Meanwhile, ABC website still has the total contradiction:

They say the children’s father arrived home from work yesterday to find his seven-month-old twins and their mother unconscious in the lounge room.

Other news are talking about the mother “was believed to have been suffering post natal depression”,  So the mother murder the kids is obviously we draw the conclusion.

WA Today even has no shame in try to make twin baby murder sound sexy – the headline “Twin baby deaths: drugs found in home.”

I really hate the way media always take the gory family tragic story like this as the “hot” story. This kind of story does not matter to anyone, except the people suffering the direct affect – and surely most the time these people will prefer the media not a.) tell millions of people about their tragedy and b.) buzzing around trying to get the scoop picture of the crying father, or the scoop quote from the devastated family.

Not advocating the censorship. Yes, should be reporting this story. But should be a tiny footnote-story, and no need for the “breaking news” update and all this speculation. If it’s about promoting awareness of post-natal depression, then should talk about that when post-natal depression get established as cause.

But of course it’s not. It’s about getting the readers, and therefore the advert money.

In China, under the strict media restrictions, this kind of story indeed will also attract the big attention. Can maybe understand more when Chinese media cannot report many big issues that are significant.

When I been the reporter I got send to the scene of the murder on several times.

Always think to myself, why are we here? Why are we needing to know all the detail of what happen? Sure the police need to know, in order to solve the case. But why even take the picture of the house? What does it matter what the house look like – or is it the service to the real estate investor, warning that the house will maybe get sold with the ghosts?

Every time, all the media harrassing the policeman for the secret tip-off. The scoop. Policemen’s fault too, for giving the tip-off away. But okay, so you are the first reporter to broadcast that “someone said” the kids die from dunking in the bath…what kind of scoop is that?

Until now I never even talked about Perthnow. They got the great scoop: got the name of the tragic father. Onya Perthnow. I would label you are THE WORST, but today that is WA Today: first, the headline I mentioned already, and also release unconfirmed names – what need to publish unconfirmed “WA-Today-understands” information in this situation? And then, underneath the headline, they get the best picture of the twin dead babies. Took from where? Facebook.

As part of the mission to understand why Dullsville is Dull in these ways, and also because I finally realize that Chinese Times has nothing worth translating because it all come from the Perthnow anyway (un-atributed of course, always), so I decided to crack open the Dullsvault instead.

Actually, in 1984, readers have no Perthnow of course – only hardcopy Sunday Times of course. So, come with me on the journey to discover when they open the newspaper on FEbruary 19, 1984, what do they find?

Good start, uproar in London about the two sexual “deviants”, who they say are “jumping the queue” because they are actually considered a couple!

Get real man, this is the 80s! heterosexual is first-class citizen, homosexual second, okay? But we can see even in 1984, still have this gay-marriage debate….since then how much progress has been occurred? Maybe none, but in this case, if some lesbian feel like being oppressed by this newspaper story, only need to look to the advert just to the right-hand side to find someone to fight for them the article:

Clearly, “THE REBEL TRADER”, Mr Gerald, he would fight for the lesbian rights if you buy his product.

Anyone recognize this hero-cop below, maybe have the Royal Showbag named after him? Showbag contains the most high technology of police propaganda – balloons and metal badges:

But since then, we can see the real-life hero has been dumped, dishonored: Read the rest of this entry »

Since the last update, Chinese Times actually at last mention of 1989 6/4 Massacre…only in the print edition, first thing, and actually this was just the popular article already publish in many places online, “The American Elements of the 6/4 Incident“. (This article talks about how the 1989 protesters studied America Revolution too much, instead should have studied Britain, the incremental change, and so the protest would not happen. This argument is okay, but no reason to fail to commemorate the deaths of many hundreds of civilian people.)

Probably they don’t add that article to the website because some Angry online Chinese from elsewhere will point out they stole the article.

BUT stealing articles from Perthnow is apparently no problem… just yesterday I did the translation of this story below, afterwards then went to look if Perthnow, or WA Today or the West runs the story, found WA Today and Perthnow did indeed. But as I am reading the Perthnow report, I start to feel like “deja vu”, give me an idea. Let’s just look at the Chinese Times “This paper” reporting, compare to the Perthnow reporting:

Well, I can understand them not wanting to add Narelle Towie’s name. They don’t want people to know they not only copy the news, they copy from UNRELIABLE sources!

Of course, also revealed my low translation level – kind of like translate with Google. Actually I like the Google translate (English-Chinese-English) of the lead par much better:

Swan Valley a popular restaurant has been fined after officials announced that the kitchen is unsanitary and vermin-infested property.

I think the only advantage my translation has is “rampage”. This word should always be used

But seriously, “This newspaper’s reporting” at the top, is simply the FAKE statement. The source is Perthnow none other than Narelle Towie. Chinese Times must admit this!

In 2005, after 34 years of stolid service, WA Salvage cast aside its human face, the great, very beloved Luigi, even can be described as “iconic”. In fact, according to the award certificate in the frame on his dining room wall, this Great Man name Claudio Versaico has played “longest standing character presenter in WA’s TV history”.

Less than one year later, the company FAIL! Coincidence?

Even though this, I think this is a story about the “Good Old Days” of advertising industry. Mr Claudio was obviously very loyal, and the company even was loyal back to him, give him the full time job for many years – just doing the adverts!

But the “Bad New Days” eventually arrive, inevitable maybe in this industry. After 34 years, Wesfarmers/Bunnings basically ruin his advertising career because they wouldn’t let him take his Luigi, one and only character, with him, to further campaigns. He got the job offers afterwards, but he wasn’t allowed.

I think he WAS the Luigi, so he should be allowed. But, in a Dullsvillain ‘exclusive’ (can just call me Joe HongSpadge now!), he has now ruled out a comeback.

Since Mr Claudio, 72, has retired, now singing in the amateur opera (see also 1987 Sunday Times story about his professional opera – at the end of story), but has also been the PATRON of PROSH, where everyone followed him around for one day, help to raise thousands of dollars for the charity sick people.

Is very kind for Mr Claudio approve of the interview, because, he said he was recently been screwed over by a local TV crue, he thinks maybe from A Current Affair (but equal as likely Today Tonight), he said they just occupy his house for 3 hours, never telling him it was in order to feature him in a segment on “The Most Annoying Ads”, in which he spoke for about 30 seconds. A big shame that Dick and Uncle Mac miss that. He said in the same show they also targeted ‘Farmer Jacks’ guy – another GOOD ad, speaking relatively…another BAD media!

So Mr CLaudio Versaico kindly agreed to the interview (and photo shoot) with the Dullsvillain, and displays the community attitude towards “selling the soul”.

Oh yeah and here’s the making of a WA Salvage ad.

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Zhu Hongbing: How did you get the part?

Claudio/Luigi: I joined the opera company in 1968, mainly in the chorus and small parts. We were rehearsing an opera down at Guildford Road for the opera company, and they got in touch with the office to find out if we got any people that prefereably of Italian origin, Marketforce is looking for a new face to do the advertising for WA Salvage. So I went to do an audition with them, this was in May 1972.

I just had to read a proposed advertising, and they liked the way I spoke and that was it . . . I did the advertising for WA Salvage for 34 and a half years.

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Zhu Hongbing translates choice pieces of journalism from the Australian Chinese Times, Perth’s “leading” Chinese newspaper. This time all about what is not there to translate.

As everyone knows China is the restricted media country, so cannot blame the Mainland Chinese media not reporting the events of June 4th, 1989.

And of course, Australia is the “free to be very shit” media country, but still don’t have to be shit. Have no rules to say the media must be shit, so I think we should criticize.

Probably everyone saw some Western reporters on Thursday, 4th of June, still talking about “Tiananmen Square Massacre”. Firstly, this is actually false name (click the link and see the film by the native-Chinese-speaker to tell all about it, needs maybe 3 hours long, but so honest, even handed, very special), because not one reliable witness has come forward verify anyone died at Tiananmen Square. Amazingly some Western journalists were even there, of which none saw anyone die in Tiananmen Square. They did see was thousands of the hard-core of students protesters were remaining in the Square until dawn, with big lines of army staring them, whereupon, they made a vote, decided to leave the square before the army force them. They left peacefully.

Massacre did not happen in Tiananmen Square, even if WA media wish that it did. Maybe they think this is “poetic license” because much more exciting to talk about Chinaman getting run over by the tank in Tiananmen Square, or maybe they just too stupid and lazy to find out – i think “stupid and lazy” describes the WA media better than “poetic”, so much more likely because of that.

But surely there was the massacre, no doubt – even in Chinese some people will often call this the “Great 6/4 Massacre” – and  hundreds, possible thousands (no-one knows), of People were shot by their own Liberation Army on the army’s path towards the square, leaving a tail of destruction.

So, what does leading Chinese newspaper in Western Australia do with all the freedom to reporting freely, even the freedom to be totally shit and to use shoddy “poetic license”? How will they use all the freedom? How will they commemorate the 20th year anniversary of the patriotic martyrs who rise up against government corruption in 1989 and enjoy the support of the population? Let’s look at the sample of some stories of 6/4/2009:

- People’s Republic of China 60 years anniversary celebration programs being collected

- Congratulations to 457-visa holders obtain permanent residency

- Andrew Forrest lost BRW Rich 200 honour

- Italian community celebrate national day

- China Club chorus group now recruiting chorus singers

- Sound Centre to hold 3-year anniversary of opening with big celebration activities

I guess this means that Chinese Times editors believes the reader community has forgot already the 1989 6/4 massacre, maybe the influence from many young Mainland Chinese coming into Perth who really have forgot or really just never heard about it.

But just 2 weeks ago, you publish the article about 457-visa applications, include the line:

Others are currently applying, hope they will soon get permanent resident status.

So please tell, WHY do you hope they will soon get permanent resident status? What reason to “hope” for this Australia residency??

Or do you simply scared the Chinese government gonna revoke the publishing license from across the big sea?

Either way, you FAIL, Chinese Times, fail our readers, fail the people killed, fail to “have the balls”. FAIL.

不会忘记六四

Zhu Hong Bing translates choice pieces of journalism from the Australian Chinese Times

Poliice arrest “cross-dressing” robber

Perth police arrested a man, this man suspected of wearing blue clothes and a pink fake hair to rob a northern suburbs gas station.

When they raided a house, police arrested this man.

Police say this man broke into a food shop located in the northern suburbs, use gun menace the staff, and robbed all the cash.

He recently received the trial in Joondalup Court.

[Australian Chinese Times]

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I have comment to say about this. WHY does Australian Chinese Times publish this maybe 14 days late! See here, ABC report the story on May 7. No wonder the ACS does not put the date!!!

Not only this, but the ACS says he “recently” receive the trial – but they don’t even find out if he got free or not. Only have one Chinese newpaper, I want to say the Chinese speaking community deserve better than this!!! But if I say that, people maybe think I think the Chinese community deserve better than all-wide local community…..”only one paper” is my locals friends always complain to me.

This is such a shit, shit, short story, i should do another. This one I find very funny.

Bread Shop Boss Fined Money

A Geraldton City bread shop boss, because he did not ensure the delivery driver have sufficient rest, been fined 15,000 Australian Dollars.

This “Sun City Bakeries” company provide bread to the Karratha area’s shops.

Because WorkSafe enacted investigation and discovered, one driver of this company was driving the car to exceed 17 hours, he had not undergone the required rest.

Judge Stephen Salad (?) found, this company violates occupational health and safely laws, because it did not ensure the driver respected the rules.

He also pointed out the company does not have tired-management scheme.

The company was also forced to pay 10,000 Australian dollars in fees.

[Australian Chinese Times]