Personal behaviour vs employment

[K]

Leunig comes out swinging (oops, I posted this before seeing David posted it above):

Aiming to stir the possum, I got engulfed in free-floating hate

https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lif ... 535rf.html

"Just as we are disturbed to hear tales that certain migratory birds are mysteriously losing their ability to navigate due to human environmental damage, so too might we feel concern if growing numbers of human mothers seem to be losing or devaluing this primary maternal preoccupation in favour of the banal hypnotic charms of a phone screen. Nature would seem to be in trouble when this starts to happen.

To make a conscientious cartoon based upon all of this concern and then be so hated, insulted, slandered in the public domain for this - as I was - is indeed a dismal fate for the lone cartoonist. It speaks volumes about the current condition of civil society and tolerance. This is bigotry. The malice has been astounding and so extreme that it has plunged me into a deep contemplation about the nature of angry hatred. Indeed, I am coming to the view that there is an emerging new form of hatred in society which might be more of a mental illness than a passing emotion. Perhaps I would call it “free-floating, obsessive compulsive hatred”.
...

I have noticed that people can react to a cartoon as if it is a piece of legislation, an essay, a legal document or a scientific paper - but obviously it is none of these things. A cartoon is a simple allegory, a fable or a parable. It is better understood poetically than literally. And it is also a Rorschach test, often revealing something about the character of the beholder in their expressed interpretations."

[K]

Mary Leunig attacks her brother:

Leunig's sister says he likes 'feminist baiting'

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-25/ ... n/11638932

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/ ... n/11638638 [audio]

[David]

Love how there's nearly always a sister or brother wheeled out in these culture war stories, as if family differences of opinion are somehow a proxy for debate over issues.

Ms Leunig said she created the original cartoon after she had "a falling out" with her brother.

Stop the press!

[K]

They began fighting and Mary stopped talking to certain members of her family, including her parents.

"We became estranged and it was pretty terrible and there was nothing that could be done about it," she says. "We still stayed there, and even though my parents lived just down the hill, there was no talking."

After her parents died she used art to help her express her feeling.

"You just get so used to not communicating with that person that it becomes permanent," she says.

Mary has had an off and on relationship with Michael. In an unfortunate turn of events, she's had less contact with her children, who are now in their 40s, in recent years. Arguments led both sides to stop talking.

"I thought OK, that's alright. But then I did a few drawings involving my kids and they really disliked me for it."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-27/ ... el/7880200

[stui magpie]

Leunig offers a response here, in case anyone’s interested. I think he has a couple of good points, but is really doubling-down on the mystical mother/child stuff. I think it’s a good cautionary tale about the political problem of technophobia, and how it can so easily slide into ignorant, judgemental puritanism.

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-a ... 535rf.html

Yeah, I read that article a few days back. I found the mystical mother child bit as cringeworthy as the people calling him misogynist over the cartoon. Some of the responses were so vitriolic I reckon he struck a nerve.

The Tech addiction is becoming a problem, you see people all the time walking while staring at their phone, not watching where they're going, FFS I've seen people pushing strollers with the toddler engrossed in a screen device

[roar]

Vitriol and hysteria over Leunig were (are) ridiculous. It's a cartoon that pointed out society's problem with tech/social media addiction, and it was spot on, IMO.

[Bucks5]

Watch young mums at cafes and the shops. They get visibly huffy and annoyed at their babies/children for taking their attention away from their phones.

[Wokko]

Like Bill Leak, people don't like having a mirror held up to their own ugliness.

[stui magpie]

Like Bill Leak, people don't like having a mirror held up to their own ugliness.

Good cartoonists should be able to hold up that mirror and also provide pointed comment, satire and just plain humour.

Problem is in these current days where people take offence over the wind changing, is that holding up the mirror gets an adverse reaction from people who can't accept what they see.

[David]

[stui magpie]

You should follow Titania McGrath on twitter

[David]

I had a look and ... The Soretoothsayer, is that you?!

[K]

[David]

Back to the main topic of this thread, here's a weird one!

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... ssal-claim

A Melbourne man who was sacked by his father from a family business because he was late to dinner has won an unfair dismissal claim at the Fair Work Commission.

The son had been working at his father’s car repair shop for two years, when the two had a “heated exchange” at a Sunday family dinner on 10 March this year.

After he arrived late, the man’s parents “became angry and there was an argument”, according to court documents first reported by the Australian. The son was “told to leave and never come back, either to his parents’ house or to the [family] business”.

On Friday, commissioner Sarah McKinnon found that there was “no evidence” the son’s performance at work was unsatisfactory. She found he had been dismissed unfairly and ordered the father’s business to pay him $10,115.

Sounds like the correct decision to me. Though perhaps also a reminder of why you probably shouldn't be able to employ your own children.

[think positive]

Back to the main topic of this thread, here's a weird one!

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... ssal-claim

A Melbourne man who was sacked by his father from a family business because he was late to dinner has won an unfair dismissal claim at the Fair Work Commission.

The son had been working at his father’s car repair shop for two years, when the two had a “heated exchange” at a Sunday family dinner on 10 March this year.

After he arrived late, the man’s parents “became angry and there was an argument”, according to court documents first reported by the Australian. The son was “told to leave and never come back, either to his parents’ house or to the [family] business”.

On Friday, commissioner Sarah McKinnon found that there was “no evidence” the son’s performance at work was unsatisfactory. She found he had been dismissed unfairly and ordered the father’s business to pay him $10,115.

Sounds like the correct decision to me. Though perhaps also a reminder of why you probably shouldn't be able to employ your own children.

really?

hes just got an advance on his inheritance! thats if hes still in the Will!