Janet Albrechtsen, Bob Ellis, and the quest for the hive mind continues...

(Above: ceaseless the search for silly illustrations be ...)

It being Wednesday, let's pause for a moment to ponder interesting journalism, and the work by Sarah Stillman for The New Yorker, The Invisible Army, where the subtitle - For foreign workers on U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, war can be hell - conjures up the flavour of the piece.

Never mind that Stillman turned up on Phillip Adams the other day (The Pentagon's Invisible Army), she managed to hold her own against the preening and the interruptions, and never mind that Adams suggested a subscription to The New Yorker, if only because a broken clock can score just as well.

But that's it, that's the quality raisins, and of course now it's time to plunge into the Murdochian gruel, where it seems hacking a dead teenager's voicemail is par for the course (Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail was hacked by News of the World). Was it only the other day that the solemn Gerard Henderson celebrated "serious" tabloid reporting in the matter of Lord Monckton? (here)

Would it come as any surprise that Monckton is a birther who loves a waggish joke?

"America!" said Monckton at the start of his speech. "Land of opportunity! You can be born in Kenya and end up as president of the United States!" (here).

Oh well played, and so clever and witty too.

I know, I know, it's Dame Slap day, and the pond is having avoidance issues, but you know what they say about Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch - not the briar patch, whatever you do, not the briar patch. Trouble is, sometimes it's true (and let's not go into the ideological business of Uncle Remus and the tar baby).

Oh sweet absent lord, not the Janet Albrechtsen briar patch, but there it is, as large and as bold as brass, and this time it's a heart felt, deeply felt plea for the plight of company directors in Hounding honest directors will only benefit corporate cowboys.

Albrechtsen is deeply upset by the recent Federal Court decision in relation to Centro, as were any other number of players (Centro ruling a 'burden on directors': Gonski, behind the Crikey paywall). The problematic outcome? Why directors must actually do some work, along with collaring the glory and the fees:

Crucially, Justice Middleton held that directors cannot simply rely on their advisers alone when approving company accounts - they must read the financial statements and form their own opinion, noting that ‘such a reading and understanding would require the director to consider whether the financial statements were consistent with his or her own knowledge of the company’s financial position’. (more here from McCullough Robertson in pdf form).

Shockingly, the learned judge dared to propose that directors should have financial literacy and a questioning mind, and proper diligence, and so the big end of town promptly fell into a swoon, and Albrechtsen along with them.

Out of this ordinary tale of a wretched debt-stricken company (Centro sell-off returns 10 cents a share), Albrechtsen manages to wring a tale of doom and gloom worthy of Dickens and Chancery Lane, and the end of decent corporate governance in the western world, culminating with this bizarre piece of logic:

While no one has sympathy for a board filled with middle-aged, white males, there will be plenty of sympathy when members of the protected species -- women -- start to question the increasingly unrealistic burdens on directors.

Uh huh. And of course these precious petals are easily fooled:

Don't shoot the messenger but some have suggested career paths such as accounting, law, management consultancy and so on, though highly skilled, are more prone to produce directors who can be more easily snowed by management.

But if you follow Albrechtsen's logic, all will be well in the blue chip world, because they'll avoid such easily fooled, woolly-headed wombat women:

Blue chip companies will continue to attract the talented directors. Increased burdens will simply further concentrate the ranks of the directors' club, keeping all the good directors on a merry-go-round of blue chip boards.

Now don't shoot the messenger, but happily this will exclude the likes of the easily fooled Albrechtsen from turning up on boards (well she is a woman, isn't she, and so, it almost goes without saying, easily snowed?). I guess that means the ABC's safe in the future ...

But who will want to join a mid-cap or small-cap company, let alone a company in trouble? Companies that most need bright, tough directors will miss out. Think about that next time you smile at the downfall of an honest director.

Actually I can't remember anyone smiling, especially Centro shareholders, and anyhoo, it doesn't seem to have caused total pain for a couple of current serving directors (Centro directors to remain), as the company continues to struggle with the repayment of substantial debt.

The notion that companies dealing in billions, and with a propensity for debt as a way of doing business, should be run by directors looking for stimulating, part-time work is one of the more fanciful in Albrechtsen's outer limits speculations. Let them take up knitting instead, or find stimulating part-time work for the minimum wage in a Centro mall ...

Alternatively, let them take up a course in corporate governance before knitting a nice sweater while doing stimulating, part-time work ticking off the company's financial statements at their board meeting (before gorging on tea, scones and jam after the hard yards have been done).

Meanwhile, speaking of the dangers of feminism and women in general, let's briefly pause to celebrate the thoughts of the unkempt, untidy, cluttered, incoherent Bob Ellis, scribbling The Strauss-Kahn moment: has feminism gone too far?

As well as attracting almost 350 comments, this bizarre indication of the bizarre spider-like web that passes for Ellis thinking attracted opposing pieces from as diverse souls as Tory Shepherd (The Strauss-Kahn moment: Has Bob Ellis gone too far?), which scored some 375 comments full of the retrograde bile we've come to associate with retrograde punch-drunk Punchers of the tabloid kind, and John Birmingham, with Man up, Bob, and stop shifting blame, which scored some 83 comments as Birmingham berated Ellis's stirring defence of left-wing dicks.

It's admirable to see people still taking Ellis seriously enough to write about him, especially as in the past Ellis has written and directed a film which was loosely (well, not too loosely) based on Ellis's own life, and which includes a splendid defence of stalking.

The hapless victim of Ellis's attention in the real world version was Penny Nelson, but while Ellis felt free to invent The Nostradamus Kid without reference to Nelson, he took to vetting Nelson's manuscript version of the same events.

If you can bear to read it, there's more about Ellis and this snidery in the Sunday transcript The inimitable Bob Ellis.

Naturally Mike Rann puts in a good word for Ellis, but the piece is largely about Ellis's capacity for putting down a fine flow of words while getting the facts wrong, as captured in this anecdote in the matter of John Pilger v Ellis over the 1971 Bangladesh War:

REPORTER: Former Nation Review editor Richard Walsh remembers the clash well.

RICHARD WALSH, CHAIRMAN ACP INTERNATIONAL: Pilger alleged that Bob didn't go to war at all, that he imagined the war out of the famous Room 399 at the Grand Hotel at Dacca.

PILGER'S RESPONSE TO ELLIS: Both articles are almost total fantasy and fiction using manufactured quotations. I do not understand why Ellis bothered with "Boys Own Annual" bullshit. Perhaps like Billy Liar, he became utterly consumed by his fantasies."

WALSH: Bob in his insouciant way, said he had a choice between writing fine words and seeing the war. And he chose to write beautifully.

These days, as you can judge by Ellis's piece for The Drum, he doesn't even manage to write terribly beautifully, as the confused cacophony of illogical rhetoric flowing from his fountain pen demonstrates ...

Still, out of all of it, while dealing with Ellis, Birmingham makes reference to the Boltbrechtson Hivemind, and that surely is a handy concept for the future ...

Boltderson anyone? How about Boltbleagh? Boltdevine? Boltpiers? Boltbob? It could become a new party game, featuring prizes for the person who can cobble together the best nuts to make the best boltian portmanteau word ...

(Below: we've run it before, but we like it so well, we've run it again. So it goes, in much the same way as Ellis 'borrowed' Kurt Vonnegut's refrain from Slaughterhouse-Five).