Election 2010: Boring, boring, boring...

Agamedes finds that his own ranting is out-classed by people with a vested interest in politicking.

Do you need new -- lateral -- thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com. Need solutions? No worries. Now.

This is not a good time for Ranting, Raging and Raving. Or, rather, it is a good time -- but everyone else is doing it. So what's the point?!

Yes, it's election time. The newspaper is half full of election "news" -- vote-catching lies presented to a media pack who are hungry enough to swallow anything. (Hmmm... Interesting analogy: Reporters swallow anything then publish the digested results... No wonder the published election "news" is so on the nose.)

The paper is half full of politicians' lies. The rest of the paper is full of opinions and responses. Talk about Ranting, Raging and Raving!

Anyway... amongst all that rubbish there is not much room for yet another carefully reasoned opinion running counter to the unthinking masses... I'll save myself the effort of writing...

Here's a thought: Go to any of Paul Murray's opinion articles. For example, "Julia's great carbon switcheroo" in The West today (31 July). Murray writes well. Since the election was announced he has written even more acerbically than usual. (Nice word, acerbically. I just double-checked my understanding and corrected my spelling. Yes, it means, "sourly; bitterly, or, In a sarcastic or cynical manner", according to Wiktionary.)

Anyway, read any Paul Murray article, for your fill of ranting, raging and raving. In a well-researched, fact-based manner. Murray's conclusions and opinions may be wrong but his research is solid. He gives enough information to allow debate... and he can be interestingly acerbic.

But is it funny?

For more reading, try Gary Adshead's At Large articles in The West. Adshead did quite well in an earlier stint as Inside Cover. Far more interesting -- less up himself and less interested in name dropping than the present incumbent. Adshead has also written some good investigative articles. With At Large, he attempts to inject humour into politics.

And fails miserably.

I mean, just look at today's article, "Forget polls, cover girl Julia's talk of the town". Adshead does his best. But it's like... well...

Many years ago I set myself a target: Name any topic and I will tell you a joke on that topic. I was doing quite well, with a large repertoire of jokes and the ability to quickly adapt an old joke to fit a new target.

Then I thought, "Salt & pepper shakers." I was inspired by a short story, where the salt & pepper shakers were central to the plot. "I will do," I told myself, "A joke on salt & pepper shakers."

Years later and I have almost given up.

"A salt shaker & a pepper grinder walk into a bar..." No. (Hmmm... Has potential, though.)

"Why was the salt a shaker? Because the pepper... ummm. Oh."

The current election campaign is like salt & pepper shakers: Try as hard as you like, it is just not funny.

But I thought of it first!

I really would like to rant and rage about today's news. But it's all politics. And politics is just done to death. Still, there is one small point that I would like to make:

Years ago I was a public service manager. Before that, I had been in private enterprise. I found that public servants were every bit as good at their jobs as private employees. There were, however, differences.

In the public service -- as a manager -- I had to avoid thinking aloud. "I wonder," I said, "If we could do this task this different way..." I expected some discussion. There was none.

A week later, I found that the task was being done this different way. "But you said to do it this different way," I was told. I was a manager, my every word was an absolute command.

Not that that has anything to do with this article...

As a manager, I had to attend many, many committee meetings.

"Why not," I thought, carefully, to myself, "Why not send a level 1 clerk to attend these meetings?" Very few decisions were ever made. The meetings were to document, via minutes, that discussions had been held. Occasionally, ready-made decisions were brought to the meetings in order to be officially documented.

I could save myself a lot of time, I thought, if I sent a level one clerk to these meetings. If anything interesting really happened, the level 1 clerk would simply say, I have to check with my boss, and avoid making a commitment. Why not?

Now I see that prime ministers have stolen my idea.

Now-ex-PM Rudd sent underlings to security meetings. Now-PM-then-deputy-PM Gillard sent underlings "to attend highly sensitive security meetings on her behalf" (PM hit by new leak allegation, The West, 31 Jul 10).

So what?!

"Highly sensitive"?! If it were really highly sensitive -- why would you invite a politician? Politicians, apparently, leak like sieves.

"Meetings"?! Are they meetings -- where decisions are to be made? Or are they simply briefings, where a disinterested and uninformed PM is told of decisions that have already been made. Read the minutes!

So the PM and the ex-PM stole my idea. Good luck to them.

And I think I'd trust "a former bodyguard and junior staff member" more than any PM.

Lie detector online

I recently heard that a website provides an online lie detector. It may have even called it a "political bullshit detector". Sorry for the vague reference... I was not really listening.

But I can tell you how it works:

A political lie detector is simple. Get a motion detector. Point it at a politician's lips. If the motion detector detects motion -- light up the big lights: "Political lie detected."

Politics, eh.

Sorry to have bored you for so long.

Independent thinking & independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com