Tuesday, 12 March 2002
Australian Head-of-State embroiled in scandal. From a New York Times story by Bill Keller, called Let Us Prey:
One prominent church member tells me that the cardinal, Bernard F. Law, has privately likened his disgrace to Senator Edward M. Kennedy's misadventure at Chappaquiddick, indicating that he expects to tough it out. Others speculate that the Vatican will give the cardinal six months and then kick him upstairs to run something like the Office of Indulgences, for which he seems uniquely qualified.
Whether or not Cardinal Law keeps his job, though, is the wrong question. Surely if he had a shred of respect for his anguished clergy and parishioners he would have stepped down by now. The more interesting question is why he and the bishops who knowingly shuffled sexual predators from parish to parish should not face criminal indictment for abetting the grotesque offenses against the children of their parishes. It will take something like that to break the Catholic Church's long, sad cycle of sexual abuse, public scandal, promised reform, resurgent complacency, followed, always, by another horrific disclosure.
Most Australians reading the last two paragraphs will have mentally substituted:
- the Governor-General, Dr Peter Hollingworth for Cardinal Law;
- the Liberal government for the Vatican; and
- the Anglican Church for the Catholic Church.
Dr Hollingworth, finds himself in a similar predicament to that of Cardinal Law: clinging to office despite continuing suggestions that he ignored allegations of child sexual abuse during his 11-year tenure as Anglican archbishop of Brisbane. The diocese has already been ordered to pay $834,800 (US$435,402) in damages to a woman who, while a student in an Anglican girls' school, was abused by her house master (he committed suicide on the day the case opened in court). A hearing will begin next month into a damages claim by a second former student who alleges she was abused by the same teacher.
Both the Anglican and Catholic churches in Australia have been dogged by the "long, sad cycle of sexual abuse, public scandal, promised reform, and resurgent complacency" that Bill Keller describes. Next on the agenda: more horrific disclosures, though it's unlikely -- given the Governor-General's public profile -- that they will be covered up like last time. It's doubtful that Dr Hollingworth will tough it out. Justice will be seen to have been done. And we shall all sleep soundly, secure in the knowledge that the enemy lies without, guarded from any possible threat from within.
11:15:37 AM 
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Tim Tams just another second-rate Aussie ripoff! Australians hate to admit that their iconic foodstuff Vegemite, first introduced in 1926, was a local imitation of Marmite, which had been on sale in Britain since 1902. Now irrefutable evidence has emerged that the national biscuit, the Arnott's Tim Tam, is nothing but a cheap knockoff of another British original, the Penguin. The Sydney Morning Herald's Paul Sheehan investigated:
This was not some mere biscuit story. It required research. An agent was commissioned to buy several packets of Penguins (original, mint and orange). A second agent was deployed to bring them back to Australia and secrete them through Customs. The Penguins were then taste-tested against the Tim Tam classic by a three-person group.
The result? While the texture of the two products was different - the springy bite of the Tim Tam is its magic weapon - there could be no doubt the two were closely related. Very closely. The dimensions and taste of the Tim Tam and the Penguin differed only by degrees.
The Tim Tam was named after a horse that Ross Arnott saw win the 1958 Kentucky Derby (in 2:05, ridden by Ismael Valenzuela, trained by Jimmy Jones). Sheehan discovered that "Penguin biscuits were first made in Glasgow in 1932," whereas Tim Tams were launched in 1963. His verdict? "The Tim Tam is a Penguin, modified and improved, yes, but not modified and improved enough to be an original."
According to Arnott's: "There are seven delicious varieties of Tim Tams: Original, Chewy Caramel, Mocha, Double Coat and Classic Dark Chocolate, Special Edition Tim Tam Hazelnut and new limited edition White Chocolate, available for six months only." They might have to find a new name for the first variety. There's nothing original about the Tim Tam.
9:49:50 AM comments ()
© Copyright 2002 Jonathon Delacour
