July 01, 2004

COALITION OF THE FILMING

Helen's War - Portrait of an Idiot screens tonight on SBS. The SMH’s Greg Hassall describes the documentary, about A-list basketcase Helen Caldicott, as fabulous. So everybody watch. You may as well; your taxes have already paid for it. Canadians helped out, too:

Produced in association with SBS Independent and CBC Newsworld. Produced with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian cable industry. Produced with the financial participation of The Government of Canada, Canadian Film or Video, Production Tax Credit Program And with the assistance of The Government of Ontario, The Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit. Developed in association with Film Australia and the Australian Film Commission. Developed and produced with the assistance from The New South Wales Film and Television Office.

Posted by Tim Blair at July 1, 2004 06:14 PM
Comments

I'd rather watch paint dry.

Posted by: ilibcc at July 1, 2004 at 06:43 PM

It's kind of pathetic that they want to adopt that mantle of "dissedent." As if she were some 'prisoner without name' in a 'cell without a number.' How did the filmmaker contact her? Did she go underground or follow Caldicott into exile?

Some guy I knew - he was more flaky than leftoid - once showed me a weird anti-globo propaganda video with an Aussie woman shrieking about a "Yank" satellite that could've poisoned the whole atmosphere. He told me she was a physicist, although she certainly didn't sound like one.

I finally found out who this woman was a few years later and I realized that she was a physician and not a physicist. But I think "Moonbat" is the term that describes her best.

Posted by: John in Tokyo at July 1, 2004 at 06:45 PM

From my TV Guide:

"Helen Caldicott embarks on an explosive crusade across post-September 11 America."

War-monger.

Posted by: CurrencyLad at July 1, 2004 at 08:24 PM

An "explosive crusade"? What, did she have Palestinian travel planners or something?

Posted by: PW at July 1, 2004 at 10:17 PM

Speaking of SBS, they found the other "journo" they had misplaced in afghanistan.

Posted by: Todd at July 1, 2004 at 10:21 PM

There is a thin line between sanity & insanity .
Helen Caldicott and her supporters have dived over this line.
I have never seen such a mad, bitter & twisted
woman.

Posted by: John P. at July 1, 2004 at 10:24 PM

Never heard of her. She must be very inconsequential, despite having assistance from The New South Wales Film and Television Office.

Posted by: Mike at July 1, 2004 at 10:29 PM

It was hilarious- even her niece (another bloody Brionowski, for fuck's sake; what are they, the nutbar left's version of Daddos?) started to bag her for being "strident" and "shrill", which made her even more strident and shrill. She left out "harpy" and "harridan", but they were taken as read, as was "out of her tiny mind". I wish I'd taped it.

Posted by: Habib at July 1, 2004 at 11:20 PM

I'm still waiting for the nuclear war that Secular Saint Helen guaranteed was inevitable if Ronald Reagan was re-elected.

The idea that Caldicott is a "dissident" is a vile insult to Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn, and all the others who suffered under Caldicott's beloved Soviet government. Moral equivalence my ass.

Posted by: Amused at July 1, 2004 at 11:45 PM

Watched it in amazement as she stressed the Psyco-sexual Language of the Bush Junta and how they are really just little boys who are sick individuals who cannot understand the suffering that war causes, what it looks like to see a child kileld by a bomb (as opposed to an unborn infant sliced from a mothers womb and then cut up, thank you Saddam!) they are apparently clinically evil. I really really couldnt stand her carping on about wanting to dismantle every nuclear power plant in the world (HEY, lets just burn some more coal!) and then saying that the millitarization of space was well underway, I guess that she is angry Cassini has reached Saturn with all that Plutonium Oxide powering its RTG's.

Anyway, undue airtime and shameless plug for another moonbat who is as we speak going to the US to dance on Ronnie Reagans grave.

Posted by: JBB at July 2, 2004 at 12:54 AM

Some guy I knew - he was more flaky than leftoid - once showed me a weird anti-globo propaganda video with an Aussie woman shrieking about a "Yank" satellite that could've poisoned the whole atmosphere. He told me she was a physicist, although she certainly didn't sound like one.

I think it could be referring to a nuclear-powered satellite (one that wasn't going to be orbiting earth but going forth into the black yonder, to use a "Red Dwarf" phrase)

"Helen Caldicott embarks on an explosive crusade across post-September 11 America."

War-monger.

Culturally insensitive at that!

Posted by: Andjam at July 2, 2004 at 01:15 AM

Gimme some Nuclear Fission until we can have some serious Nuclear Fusion - Aw Yeah.... Baby.

The thing about these anti-nuclear campaigners is that whenever you mention nuclear weapons they correct you and tell you it's pronounced "NuKUlar, its pronounced NuKUlar..... NuKUlar", I suppose those satelites must be the same ones that control the minds of everyone that disagrees with her, and that would explain the tinfoil hat.

/I personally think that we should reserve the ability to transform the entire middle east (-Israel of Course) into the worlds largest glass punchbowl.

Posted by: JBB at July 2, 2004 at 01:50 AM

That -Israel is a minus Israel, just in case you didn't notice.

Posted by: JBB at July 2, 2004 at 01:51 AM

...a "Yank" satellite that could've poisoned the whole atmosphere.

That was probably Cassini, which has a tiny plutonium power generator, solar cells being less useful at the distance of Saturn. If I recall correctly, its trajectory required it to do a quick swing around the Earth before heading out to Saturn. If it had instead crashed into the Earth, and if its RTG casing had broken open and if the plutonium had escaped, then it might have caused problems for any people in its immediate vicinity. And, on that basis, there was some hysteria about it, including protests at the launch, if I remember.

But "poison the whole atmosphere" is just crazy talk.

Posted by: Angie Schultz at July 2, 2004 at 02:02 AM

I lurv you Tim. I hoped you would comment on this. Needless to say i watched this vacillating between paroxysms of laughter and sheer frustration. It is plain to me and even her own family that she has "issues". I am all for the democratic process and ALL voices should be heard but this chick is just flat out WOMBA (nuts). Poor woman, even her niece was cringing! ohmygod it was terrible.

She still thinks we face nuclear annihilation! How the fuck does she think we won the cold war? By banning our own nukes and growing organic vegies in the empty silos? Damn! I am at a loss!

The chick is ill and I actually feel sorry for her. I have no all out "answers" but I know that no one got anywhere by being a big fucking WUS and not truly understanding the TRUE nature of humankind. Talk quietly and carry a big stick!

Posted by: Dog at July 2, 2004 at 02:30 AM

Hell! I remember the big fuss about the Cassini probe. Leftoid idiots were telling us it would burn up in our atmosphere and be the end of us all. Now it delivers to humankind important knowledge about our universe. Leftoids are just a scared waste of space (pun intended).

Posted by: Dog at July 2, 2004 at 02:45 AM

I personally think that we should reserve the ability to transform the entire middle east (-Israel of Course) into the worlds largest glass punchbowl.

I am positive about the ME. These people are just like us. (ie motivated by the need for love, sex family and money) The Islamofacists just ruin it for the rest. God bless the Iraqi people and may they drink a long draught of peace, happiness and prosperity. Let us never lose sight of the fact that our Arab brothers and sisters' don't have to be "western" to be a valid society. Omar Khayam and Babylon came from those parts.

Only the left think the Arabs cannot join the peaceful brother/sisterhood of man.

Posted by: Dog at July 2, 2004 at 03:03 AM

I recall reading about Caldicott during the 80s - to describe her as a dissident is laughable. She fit right into the mainstream, center-left Democrat, anti-nuclear, moral equivelence crowd. She made frequent TV appearences, trivializing the nuclear arms issue with her "penis envy" theory as the source of the problem. Perhaps the only thing that distinguished her from someone like, say, Jimmy Carter was that she wasn't very smart.

By the way, at her age the explosivness is probably just gas.

Posted by: Daniel at July 2, 2004 at 03:35 AM

I loved it when she said that after the Berlin Wall came down, nuclear weapons should have been dismantled "because they weren't needed anymore." Mmm...so they were needed before that.

And the melodramatic concern for the civilian victims of the war in Iraq - no comment on the Kurds as victims of WMD.

And the email to the Pope! Hee hee. He's got the mother of all spam blockers I'm guessing.

And the constant reference to the US as a police state, as she travels around the country holding public meetings, appearing on television and just generally panhandling.

Michael Moore, Phil Donahue, Ted Kennedy, Martin Sheen - it's a bloody miracle how they stay out of jail in Bush's evil dictatorship.

And the Midnight Oil background music. Well, say no more. Right, Pine Gap Pete?

Still, she's a retiree keepin' busy and you can't knock that.

Posted by: CurrencyLad at July 2, 2004 at 03:54 AM

I never said to nuke but if worst came to worse and the Iranians launched big time, I would like the ability to respond in kind, or deter an attack - whatever floats your boat.

Posted by: JBB at July 2, 2004 at 04:11 AM

The Broinowskis and the Caldecotts: now there's a Christmas dinner you don't want to miss. I'm still waiting for the Y2K-triggered detonation of Russia's ageing nuclear arsenal that Helen categorically guaranteed would occur. Can I come out from under my schooldesk now?

Posted by: cuckoo at July 2, 2004 at 10:23 AM

Could not watch all of it, it was just so embarrassingly bad. She came across as a total loon, of course, with absolutely no grip on reaility at all. 'She does not inhabit this planet' seemed to be a central theme - but we have all known that for years. She and Joe Vialls are the same ilk. God help the gene pool if they breed.... I went away with the impression that she is an intellectually challenged old ex-CND harpy trying to relive her glory days as one of the KGB's "useful idiots" from the early 1970s.

The completely peurile nature of the show was revealed by the gasping comments about her being a "dissident".

Yeah, right. Easy to call yourself that in a free, democratic nation while you pose, preen and vent your unsustainable and completely illogical thoughts. But she is not fit to be Andrei Sakharov's shoelace.

The show was unwatchable, it was about the most unspeakable of fools, whose ideas are unintelligeible, peurile nonsense.

Other than that, I suppose it was OK!
:)

MarkL
Canberra

Posted by: MarkL at July 2, 2004 at 11:09 AM

I'd rather watch paint dry.

I'd rather drink it.

Fortunately I missed this tripe. I was instead being entertained by a two-year old's attention binge. Very similar behaviour to the doctor's, but far more seemly in a toddler.

Gee, it must be time for Helen to get a grant to make a home movie about her twit niece now.

Posted by: Craig Mc at July 2, 2004 at 11:11 AM

Maybe something good will come of that documentary by making the directing niece realize just how nuts the people she's been fellow-travelling with really are...or maybe she was just worried about The Cause being made to look bad when she admonished her aunt to be less shrill, who knows.

Posted by: PW at July 2, 2004 at 11:35 AM

Quite seriously, the concentration on the fact that the woman is clearly nuts obscures the real issue - how a national broadcaster rationalises their decision to run this tripe in prime time on the day after Iraq is returned to self-rule and Saddam is brought to - Iraqi - justice.

Posted by: ilibcc at July 2, 2004 at 11:37 AM

The Broiniwskis are the Left's answer to the Osbournes.

The Footy Show was a much better watch.

Posted by: freddyboy at July 2, 2004 at 02:31 PM