I could not do better than Bruce petty who in 1969 gave us these views about TV. One is about the Yanks and the other one being the new religion of TV.

It's so accurate, it makes me cry:

These two cartoons were published in Overland, 1969. The magazine has been in existence since 1954 and today's first article is about racism:

• By Jacinda Woodhead
• 6.May.16
• 0 Comments

But Australia has a long history of ugly racism – against Indigenous Australians, against Chinese, Afghans, Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese, Sudanese – it’s something the political class has fed and bred for many decades. Richard Marles may claim that ‘offshore processing has been the single most important policy that any Australian government has made’, but Labor was very proud of the White Australia policy as well.

These days, we embrace diversity... Good on you for your support here, Waleed, as long as diversity remains secular. If people want to believe, that's okay by me as long as their religious beliefs do not interfere with secularity. Political systems can only be secular.

A while back, I though Waleed "did not get it"... Now it seems he has a better understanding of what's what. A long way to go, though then he deserved brickbats and now he needs encouragement. He seems to still have a slanted opinion which stems from his beliefs, rather than analysis. See: 

Australians are being urged to "eat more cheese" to help dairy farmers survive drastic milk price cuts that some fear could send them broke.

In what he has called the "greatest call to arms I have ever made", prominent TV host Waleed Aly has made an impassioned plea for shoppers to stump up a few cents more for Australian-made brand-name cheese and milk to help save farmers from financial ruin.

"Dairy farmers are begging us to eat more locally produced cheese," he said on Tuesday night's The Project.

"And the good news is, thanks to data released last week by the bureau of statistics, nine out of 10 enough aren't eating enough dairy produce to meet the dietary guidelines ... so chow down."

"Farmers have told us that the best way to lend them a hand is to pay an extra few cents for Australian-produced, brand name milk. It really will help our farmers stay afloat."

The value of a so-called dairy fighting fund announced by supermarket giant Coles has been questioned by the chairman of Tasmania's peak dairy council.

• Coles announces new home brand will put 20 cents per litre into dairy farmers fighting fund
• Dairy council says it's 'only a small amount'
• Producers trying to "offload cows" to reduce costs

Coles has announced plans to establish a new home-brand milk with 20 cents per litre from its sale reinvested into the dairy sector.

The move came in the wake of recent farm-gate price cuts to farmers from dairy companies Murray Goulburn and Fonterra.

Lion Dairy and Drinks has also cut prices to some suppliers in Tasmania.

Third-generation dairy farmer Andrew Lester and Tasmanian Dairy Council chairman said it was not clear how the fund would be distributed.

"We're not really aware how that fighting fund's going to be used, how much access they're going to have to it and what it will go into," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-17/farmers-question-supermarkets-fighting-fund-for-dairy-producers/7422026

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And is there something wrong with Gus, who buys butter from Ireland because it comes from "certified" cows that eat GRASS (no grains), butter from New Zealand because it's ORGANIC (certified) and Dairy Farmers products (Japanese NSW) because it's made like old-fashioned "cultured" butter, plus GOAT cheese and yogurt because... they are made by local farmers who sell directly to IGA...

Prominent media personality and academic Waleed Aly has been accused of failing to stand up for artists or arts funding in a provocative essay attacking Australia Council.

In When the Goal Posts Move, academic and writer Ben Eltham says that Aly, a board member of Australia Council, has stayed silent on the dramatic budget cuts inflicted by the federal government on its arts funding agency.

Eltham argues in the essay published by Currency House  that "Aly's public record on Australia Council funding is plain enough: there is none".

"The Gold Logie winner could have been the arts sector's most eloquent spokesperson: after all, he has his own television show," he says. "But at the time of writing, he had so far declined to publicly defend the agency."

He is also critical of respected performer and director Robyn Archer, the deputy chairwoman of Australia Council, "whose statements about the funding cuts have been equivocal, to say the least".

In response, Aly says it is not his job to publicly defend the agency. 

"I've not been given a public-facing role and it's not for me to usurp the chairman or the CEO's function just because I happen to work in the media," he says. 

Aly also says he is not free to comment on the federal government's handling of the arts portfolio while he sits on the Australia Council board.

"We have an advisory role - and there has certainly been plenty of advice given," he says. "We can also outline the impact policy will have on the Council - which, we do regularly, and which was evidenced in, for example, the collapse of six-year funding. Beyond that, we have to do the best we can with the resources we're assigned.

Eltham says the independence of Australia Council is in "smoking ruins".

"A different membership might have acted differently in response to the unprecedented attack; it's difficult to imagine Donald Horne, when he was chair, staying silent if this had happened on his watch," Eltham says. "But nothing has come to pass. In response to the wholesale assault on the organisation's statutory independence, the Australia Council rolled over."

Australia Council spokeswoman Kate Clark offered a lengthy defence of the agency: "As a Commonwealth agency we are required to work with the policy of the government."

She said Australia Council had continued to advocate on behalf of the arts over the past 12 months: "That advocacy take many forms, particularly as a Commonwealth agency, and it is a one dimensional view that sees the media as the only avenue for that critical work," she said.

Eltham's essay traces the development of arts policy in Australia and what he calls the "excellence raid" in 2015.

Former arts minister George Brandis​ diverted $105 million from the Australia Council in the 2015 budget to a new fund, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, administered by his office.

Senator Brandis' successor, Arts Minister Mitch Fifield, later restored $32 million to the Australia Council.

Brandis' removal as arts minister may have been due to the backroom lobbying of Australia Council chairman Rupert Myer.

"Some attribute the removal of Brandis as arts minister to Myer's superb connections amongst Australia's ruling elite," Eltham says.

Eltham also takes aim at the board members of the 28 major performing arts institutions – many Liberal Party donors – such as the Sydney Theatre Company, Opera Australia and Australian Ballet.

"Given that they had been quarantined from the funding cuts, they arguably had nothing to lose," he says.

Eltham says artistic leaders such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra's director Richard Tognetti​ and Opera Australia's Lyndon Terracini are public figures whose advocacy would attract attention.

"But in the climate of fear (or was it indifference?) that Brandis' funding raid induced, the major performing arts companies largely stayed silent," he says.

New Sydney Festival director Wesley Enoch​ was among the few leaders who spoke out, Eltham says. "In contrast, Opera Australia callously welcomed the changes, and other artistic directors said nothing."

Eltham says Australia Council's future is precarious

"In the run-up to the 2016 election, the Australia Council now finds itself in a dangerous place," he says. "There is little love on the Coalition backbench for the organisation, and the election of a second-term Turnbull government could well signal the beginning of the end for the agency."

A spokeswoman for Senator Fifield said: "The government is not proposing any changes to the Australia Council."

Eltham likens the attacks on the Australia Council to what he labels as assaults on areas like climate science and the universities: "The target is those remnant sections of Australian society that still support or endorse non-market values."

He says there is an increasingly inhospitable intellectual climate for the public support of culture.

Eltham also echoes earlier complaints about the increasing presence of businesspeople on arts boards at the expense of artists.

"For instance, no-one seems to think it a problem that the chairman of the Sydney Theatre Company is Ian Narev​, the CEO of a major bank," he says. "What does a banker know about theatre?

"In a neo-liberal world, business know-how is transferable to any cultural endeavour. But would an actor ever be appointed chair of the Commonwealth Bank?"

He says it is improbable that an artist or festival director would be asked by government to lead an inquiry into the banking sector.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/australia-council-waleed-aly-accused-of-failing-to-stand-up-for-arts-funding-20160727-gqekrm.html

see also:

I stand with the arts...

Digital media is so focused on chasing viral and shareable content that it risks losing the trust of the audience and the ability to reflect and explain, the broadcaster and academic Waleed Aly has warned.

“What I see is a news cycle that’s only getting quicker, and whose attention span is only getting shorter,” Aly said in his Andrew Olle media lecture on Friday night. “That’s been a growing trend in broadcast media anyway, but the growing integration with online platforms clearly isn’t helping changing this.”

The co-host of Channel Ten’s The Project, who frequently produces content which goes viral, warned that the more the media chose popularity over substance the more it damaged its authority with the public.

“And maybe the greatest threat is the prospect that we might forget why we do what we do,” he said. “Not our careers, but our vocation.”

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/14/waleed-aly-chasing-viral-c...

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