There is something both wonderful and terrible about the Jelena Dokic juggernaut. The wonderful is Jelena’s return to form in the sport she loves, while enjoying the throaty support of her adopted nation. The terrible is us. You know it, I know it. The hypocrisy on display is so widespread it’s approaching some sort of national conspiracy. Would Jelena’s return have been treated with such rapture if she had been knocked out of the first round?
I suspect a failed comeback would have received disdain from some quarters, along with claims that the fading promise of her youth would never be enough to redeem her floundering career. As it is Jelena pulled herself out of a career and personal hole utterly by herself (with the assistance of those closest to her), and despite our non-existent concern about her well-being. Her victories aren’t ours, and they certainly aren’t Australia’s, they are Jelena’s alone. We are just lucky enough to get to watch.
In other news …
- Ivan Milat… there’s a horrifying, terrifying blast from the past. He’s removed a pinkie finger and attempted to mail it to the high court. Perhaps he plans on escaping from jail a piece at a time. No need to remove his sanity or sense of the rational, clearly that was the first to go.
- Facebook is the bane of my existence, but it still manages to provide a marvellous service. Perhaps it should branch into the news business, with the revelation that Chelsy Davy announced the end of her relationship with Prince Harry by changing her status to ‘Relationship: Not in One’. Who needs to put out press releases these days?
- He’s alive! Olivia Newton-John’s ex, that it. Patrick McDermott made headlines a few years ago when he vanished into thin air from a fishing charter. Olivia moved on (to the Great Wall of China, and then a bizarre double marriage) and so did we. Patrick, as it now turns out, was busy travelling along the Mexican and South American coastline in an effort to avoid paying his debts. There’s been a spate of these recently, and I must say I find the premise old fashioned and thrilling. The notion of a well-established member of the community choosing to disappear is oddly identifiable, yet increasingly impossible in the modern world. Especially when US investigators keep tracking them down to charge them with fraud.
- The BBC and Sky News in the UK have refused to broadcast an emergency appeal by a group of well known charities on behalf of the growing humanity crisis in Gaza. These aren’t Nigerian scam charities, they include Oxfam, Save the Children and the Red Cross. The BBC says it will damage their balanced, objective coverage. If the fact that people are dying and they need help isn’t quite factual enough, I don’t know what is. To my unending relief, journalists from the organisation are reportedly disgusted and are set to vote on a resolution to condemn the move. I find it impossible to even remotely understand where either of these news outlets are coming from.
- Headline of the day: ’14-year-old fools police by pretending to be a cop’. What gave him away in the end I wonder? Did his voice start to break, or did he have to get home for bedtime? He actually managed to spend five hours in a squad car alongside a police officer on traffic patrol. Somehow he managed to procure a complete Chicago police uniform minus the oh-so vital badge and gun.
Image of Jelena Dokic by Vedia on Flickr
Ok for some reason I assumed Liv had written this “In the News” and started reading it in her voice, only to realise that the tone was much more “bitey” than usual. A quick double check of the author confined my suspicions. You literary tricksters won’t fool me with your tricky tricksiness!
Satie and I are like the literary equivalents of Sweet Valley High twins … we fool people with our likeness