Thursday 27 March 2008

Has King lost his marbles?

CairnsBlog contributing writer Syd Walker thinks we should read Gavin King's feature on Saturday with great caution. Lock up your kids.


Gavin King, currently Chief-of-Staff of the Cairns Post, is like an annoying boy who exhibits crass behaviour as a badge of pride. King reminds me of the kind of maladjusted youth who, shown an unusual flower, spits at it to demonstrate his manliness.

Taking him on is probably unwise and I have avoided it until now. But enough is enough. King pushed beyond my limit last Saturday.

In his hit-piece on Val Schier’s first week, King made some reasonable points. But he doesn’t know when to quit while ahead - and mixed fair comment with ignorant nonsense.

In the process, he revealed, yet again, more about his own prejudices than the subject matter.

Take this: "In these environmentally enlightened times, our pockets of rainforest will never be bulldozed..."

Is that so, Gavin? I haven't done a region-wide survey, but why don’t you visit the Kuranda area and take a look for yourself? You are mistaken. You exaggerate the ‘Enlightenment’ and are apparently oblivious to what’s happening, nearby.

King continues: “...but Val’s crowd still bang on about ‘sustainable development’ and ‘innovative tropical style?. What on earth does that mean? Unit blocks of mini-Queenslanders on stilts? Energy efficient light bulbs? No air-con??

That is like saying that because you don’t understand Algebra, it must be ‘crap’.

It’s true that sustainable development is a concept that at present seems more like a quest than a destination. It’s true there are perilously few practical examples beyond the small-scale. It’s true there’s ongoing debate about the most appropriate definition of sustainable development and the best ways to operationalise the concept.

But does that mean it’s OK to sneer at anyone who uses the term? Apparently so, if you have a leadership position at the Cairns Post.

Val Schier, and her new Council, may not have a magic bullet that will deliver sustainability in region, in our times. But at least Mayor Schier is interested in the idea and engaged in the process of trying to understand and deliver it. That’s significant progress for Cairns.

As for ‘innovative tropical design’, I cannot understand why any normal person would find the idea objectionable.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

You only need a rudimentary understanding of psychology to work our where Gavin King is coming from. He models himself on Andrew Bolt (aka The Village Idiot). He writes similarly dim-witted columns in Melbourne’s Sun-Herald (another Murdoch tabloid light on intellect). King, like Bolt craves notoriety, and both only appeal to a red-neck minority. Better role models for King would be Michelle Gratton, or even Janet Albrechtsen but, as any who has read his columns will know; he lacks the intellect.

Anonymous said...

Great.

Two self-absorbed juveniles arguing with each other, neither armed with any intellect at all.

One with the power of a high-circulation newspaper. The other speaking to the infinitesimally small number of voters who were too stupid to actually educate themselves about their division candidates.

Yawn. Another day logging on here a waste of good bandwidth.

Anonymous said...

Cairns Post is a Murdoch rag. It has no redeeming features whatsoever, like all Murdoch operations.

Anonymous said...

Onya Syd. Get out there and "operationalise the concept".

Anonymous said...

OK - I give in. What is "innovative tropical style"?

A search on google has only three results for "innovative tropical style". Two from this campaign, and one from Eastbourne in England, a doyen of tropical living.

At least if I look up algebra, i get some decent links that tell me what it is.

I await with baited breath the guidelines that til now have been hidden, and will any minute be released to show us what we have all been so ignorant of.

I also await with anticipation as to who the "judge" of what "innovative tropical style" is. One persons innovation is anothers slum

Anonymous said...

Who's Gavin King? Who really cares?

Anonymous said...

Gavin King compared 2007 with his own limp dicked miserable mattress performance. This was the year which saw Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" galvanise the world into doing something about global warming. This was the year which saw the USA tip into severe recession sending out its shock waves into Australia, hitting Aussies superannuation schemes and even reaching up into Cairns with corporate losses such as forcing the sale of the "Mantra". This was the year which saw China and Russia cosy up together like lovers in bed and the beginnings of yet another "Cold War" as a resurgent Russia rises again. This was the year, the USA President vetoed a bill preventing the use of torture by his own agencies.
And this awful, dickwit, this window licking fool who parades as a "journalist" had the gall to say the year was a non-event.
Fingers crossed he looses ALL of his superannuation.

Anonymous said...

Gavin King, when describing a recent incident of poor restaurant service wondered how the waitress would look with his fork stuck in her eye. Presumably this was his attempt at humour, though reading some of his other rantings, I can't be sure. King is seriously weird, there is nothing for him beyond The Cairns Post.

Anonymous said...

Re Anonymous' comment "What is "innovative tropical style?".
Here's a tip; forget Google, get out the dictionary (remember them?) and look up the individual words. Then using a fair portion of your nous, try hard to imagine what they might mean when applied to building styles which reflect Cairns and tropical living.
You may be surprised how easily it comes to you.

Arthur Festerbestertester said...

It's not poor little Great Pretender's fault. It's the the editor who lets this puerile rubbish into his paper. It is clear we are witnessing yet another moronic plunge into Eyeball Sucking Leech-land.

Anonymous said...

King is Chief-of-Staff at "The Cairns Post" which Syd pointed out.
As I understand it, King can write whatever he likes without having an Editor cut it to pieces.

Arthur Festerbestertester said...

Editors take legal responsibility for what appears in their newspaper. Most also take moral and ethical responsibility

Anonymous said...

Lets be real here, the Cairns Post is crap, whether King writes for it or not.

He hasnt written a decent piece ever, and yes the fork comment was beyond the pale!

Come on, when was the last time you all read a decent article? Kim Morris excepted, as his articles should be mandatory reading for all!!!

Anonymous said...

I'd have to say the Finance and Business Section of "The Cairns Post" is pretty good, especially since that Chinese looking bird took over as Editor. It covers a pretty broad spectrum of investment and economics.

Anonymous said...

Yes anonymous, the Business section has indeed improved, but not to a national level.

We only hear about whats happening in our own backyard most of the time, and we are but a tiny part of Australia, and the world.

Maybe the Post could put out a daily business paper ?