Greg has discovered that, if you write a highly political article in a public newspaper as an obituary, you get a free pass. No-one can really respond to any charged political "arguments" you make, because they're about your late father.
For example, Sheridan opens with the following charming anecdote about his dad:
WHAT can you say of a man so determined to wage war on the Zeitgeist that he would do the following? When a Greenpeace activist knocked on his front door seeking funds, he replied that he couldn't spare them any time as he was busy cooking a whale on his woodchip barbecue.
Ha, ha. Well, there are a few fairly obvious things one could say of such a man, but not just after he's died.
To be honest, I'm not sure why Greg's late father, John Sheridan, qualified for such a lengthy obituary in the national newspaper (particularly one bestowing on him the title of "best of a generation"). He wasn't a war hero (never fought). He didn't invent anything. He didn't devote his life to charity. He wasn't well known. He was, by his son's account, a conservative accountant whose most notable public trait appears to have been his hatred of "communists", prompting him to spend a lot of time joining unions just to stack them.
It was also an intensely active life politically, at least in Pa's early manhood. He was an early member of B.A. Santamaria's anti-communist movement. I once discovered a number of his union membership cards from the period when he was working as a clerk, before he became an accountant. I don't know that he ever joined a union that covered his actual work and in later life he held a low opinion of Australian unions. But he did join a number of unions for political purposes, to rid them of communist control. It was rough and willing work, an extension really of his membership of the church, and though a naturally gentle man, he found himself involved in several physical confrontations.
Lovely.
The "best of a generation", Greg? Really? You don't think that's a fairly bold claim for the national newspaper to make?
UPDATE: Timmeh Blair rightly excoriates me for my hateful response in this post. Calling Sheridan "tasteless" for using his dad's death as an excuse for a political rant? I SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF MYSELF. Then his commenters show me up for the spite-filled villain I am with their dignified discussion of the issue.
UPDATE 30/7/2007: This post has been picked by some irony-challenged morons some six months down the track as, get this, a "vicious ugly spray at Greg's deceased parent". Hey, don't be mean! That's really the best they can do.
