Tag Archives: The Australian newspaper

The Australian censors me again

Today’s Australian has an extensive – I mean extensive – report of the Australian women’s cricket team’s successes, most particularly their defeat of England in the Women’s World Cup 50-overs final. It was not enough to praise them for their success in their category of play. No, once again the sports writer had to go into a delirium of admiration for the women, ending up comparing one batswoman’s performance with Adam Gilchrist, a true star of the men’s game. The report began thus.

Adam Gilchrist has paid tribute to Alyssa Healy as one of cricket’s greatest ever big-stage performers, after she eclipsed his own World Cup heroics in Christchurch.

Gilchrist is being admiringly humble. If he had ever batted against the bowling of the English women’s team, he would have been 500+ not out. It is total nonsense to compare women’s and men’s performances. It would be the same as comparing a boys’ under-16 team with the men’s team. Irritated, I dashed off the following in the comments section under the report.

‘The commentary on the women’s cricket is part of the ideological pretence forced on the general public. Many below the level of the media’s guardian are not fooled.’

It was an entirely appropriate comment, given the body of claims the public must pretend to believe in order to escape social annihilation, claims that would have had you laughed out of countenance a mere twenty years ago. The Australian did not pass it.

Are the Australian’s editors gutless, or do they really believe in the nonsense?

The hype about women’s cricket

‘Move over, boys: this is a real Ashes contest’

That was the headline over an article in this morning’s Australian by ‘Chief Sports Writer’ Jessica Halloran. I wrote the following in the comments section:

The hype about women’s sport is generally in fantasyland, but women’s cricket is right at the peak of the fantasy. The naming of a woman as cricketer of the year and the comparisons with giants of cricket like Don Bradman, Keith Miller and Alan Davidson are delusional. We all know that Australia’s top women’s cricket team would be going to beat a good under-16 schoolboy team. Let the women play their brand of cricket without the hype and the ridiculous fantasy.’

The Australian did not print my comment. Indeed, it has ignored most of my comments on other articles. The reason, as here, is that my comments usually focus on articles and issues that reflect the debilitating leftist/woke narrative rather than reality. Unfortunately, Australia’s only national newspaper, though pretending to cater for the (real) conservative reader, has not the courage to stray too far from the woke narrative, especially the feminist narrative.

One suspects Jessica Halloran has her position as ‘Chief Sports Writer’ because the Australian has succumbed to the feminist demand for a quota system. That often means appointing women to positions for which they have little understanding and no qualifications. Nothing could be more destructive for women of real ability.

No self-respecting sports writer would place the Australian women’s cricket team in the same category as the men’s team, let alone sullying the meaning of the ‘Ashes’ with all its history.

There were many comments criticising the article on the same grounds, but none as direct and blunt as mine, which is a measure of the pusillanimity of the Australian’s editors.

Australia has reached the position in 2022 where it asks its citizens to accept ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that are irrational and unreal. I will not do it.