Tuesday, August 01, 2017

In which the pond farewells the Mooch but is saved by the Caterists ...


Devastating news. Not the Mooch. Take anyone, but don't take the Mooch. Colbert and the pond distraught and in tears, and so the pond hied off to Twitter to take a last look at the Mooch's feed before it vanishes forever ...

We did but see him passing by ...

There is a Mooch sweet of word and twitter kind
Was never tweet so pleas'd pond mind
We did but see the Mooch passing by
And yet we'll love the Mooch till we die
His gesture, motion and his wiles
His wit, his voice, the pond's heart beguiles
Beguiles its heart, we know not why
And yet we love the Mooch till we die (or some such thing, here).

What a loss to humanity and comedy ... but on the upside, at least the pond will never have to get into an argument about that damned song again ...


But don't despair in this vale of tears ...


Tweet and blog like no one is reading, and all will be well, and luckily the reptiles of Oz have valiantly stepped into the breach ...


From the Mooch to the world's greatest climate scientist and the status-obsessed Caterist?

Well, it's a fall, no doubt about it, but the pond knew its duty, and immediately went in search of the Caterist, and discovered some grand images illustrating sinkholes of stupidity ...



The pond has no idea who's been fiddling with the google logarithms, but anyone who thought it was a grand idea to illustrate sinkholes of stupidity with a photo of the Caterist must stop it, stop it now! Think of the defamatory implications for sinkholes going about their daily business of sinking ...

The Caterist is just your fair average reptile sinkhole, and it's a category error to assign stupidity to a deep and empty blankness ...


Now around this point, the pond should probably pause to note the chip on the Caterist shoulder.

Those without short term memory loss will recall that the Caterist started off this day's piece moaning about second rate university education, but the Caterist routinely gets agitated about book learnin' and toffy Profs and all that stuff.

Indeed this is a favourite Caterist ploy ...

Please allow the pond to recall a previous Caterist piece, when the redoubtable Pom down under slagged off Nick Champion, in this way ...


14th ranked university? Communications degree? Now there's a risk of irony in this sort of idle chatter, as noted here ...


Oh dear ...

But everyone knows that the Caterists have considerable chutzpah ... it takes incredible, remarkable chutzpah to keep scoring government cash in the paw, while berating others for doing the same ...



But where it gets interesting for the Freudian is this constant talk of status and university degrees ...

The Caterist wiki advises us that the brave, stout-hearted lad scored a degree in sociology from the University of Exeter before embarking on a short-lived, but clearly scarifying career as a laundry van driver.

The University of Exeter?


Depending on your ranking and how you use it - Greg Hunt the art and science here - the dear sweet lad did a Champion and attended a lowly ranked university to get degree in sociology, so he could eventually land down under and score an abundance of taxpayers' cash in the paw, even while monkeys in cages were cracking jokes about his degree ...


Well in the usual pond way, all this was only intended to enliven the read, and it's on with the next Caterist gobbet ...


Now the pond will leave it to others to judge how much the Caterists contribute to the knowledge economy, and the extent to which scribbling a column for the lizards of Oz might be judged a bullshit job, spreading a thickish layer of bullshit around the land ...

Rather than providing an argument or a countervailing point of view - the pond's own universities never having ranked highly - the pond would rather leave the discussion with a poem ...

"We’ll all be rooned," said Caterist 
In practical intelligent accent most forlorn 
Outside the Surry Hills bunker ere digital edition began 
One frosty Tuesday morn. 
The reptile congregation stood about, 
Coat-collars to the reptile ears, 
And talked of universities and knowledge industries and drought 
As it had done for years. 
"It’s lookin’ crook," the Caterist did croak; 
"Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad 
For never since the banks went broke 
Has practical intelligence been so bad." 
"It’s sinkhole stupid all right," the Caterist did squeal, 
With which 14th rank astute university remark 
He squatted down upon his heel 
And chewed a piece of practical intelligence bark. 
And so around the reptile chorus ran 
"It’s keepin’ sinkhole stupid, no doubt." 
"We’ll all be rooned," said Caterist, 
"Before the year is out. (with apologies to the original, here).

And speaking of rural metaphors, the Pope's encyclical this day featured chooks, and if there's one thing to give a Tamworthian pleasure, it's the sight of chooks singing like a Mooch ... with more Pope here ...





10 comments:

  1. Hi Dorothy,

    If you were wondering how much Cater contributed to the knowledge economy, it's worth reading this article from The Grauniad published just a few days ago.

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/29/pro-israel-advocates-in-australia-targeted-three-journalists-new-book-claims

    Hoping to learn much about Israel and the Palestinians? Then don't expect much enlightenment from Nick 'I've got an ology' Cater.

    DiddyWrote

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, a good article DW. Might have to grab a copy of the book.
      I've just purchased a copy of The Show...on the Santamaria movement which I am looking forward to reading.

      The perpetual background hum of political machinery and all that...and much of it more relevant today than ever. Cheers.

      https://www.readings.com.au/products/23913883/the-show-another-side-of-santamarias-movement

      Delete
    2. Apart from his penchant for censorship ("free speech" ?) I don't think The Caterer is actually capable of contributing anything much, DW. He is lazy and unobservant. In the above he says for one thing that the number of domestic university enrollments has increased by 25% from 770,000 in 2008 to over a million today.

      But the Australian population has increased by 19.76% (from 20.544 to 24.6-05 million) so it's not unreasonable to ask how much of the increased Uni enrollment is just a consequence of ongoing population increase. But Cater hasn't asked this. Further, migrant intake has gone from 120,000 in 2004/5 to a peak of 190,000 in 2012 and back to 182,165 in 2015/6. This migrant intake is mostly 'skilled migrant' category which is largely 'nuclear family' and singles who would be expected to add significantly to university enrollment over time. Another question Cater didn't bother investigating.

      So, although there is almost certainly an increased percentage of domestuc enrollments due to a higher percentage going to Uni, Cater has in no way shown that this a major factor. Which I presume is what he was trying to show.

      Not only that, but also he states that in 1996 a "mere" 16% of 25-34yo Australians "could boast of univerity qualifications" but today that has increased to 37%. Wau !!

      But, how does this jell with the process of 'universityisation' of tertiary education ? eg college degrees (RMIT, Swinburne, CCAE etc) and 'technical qualifications' (eg TAFE) have all become 'degrees'. That was probably a very stupid thing to do, but again the lazy, unobservant Cater doesn't even mention it as a likely explanation for such an increase in "university qualifications".

      It's not clear whether Cater's objection is to tertiary education as a whole, or whether he just has a thing about 'univerities' (especially better quality universities than the one he managed to get in to).

      In short, a totally typical example of Cater's ability to 'contribute to the knowledge economy'.

      Delete
    3. Sheesh, there you go again DW and GB, introducing data, statistics, references and rational arguments to the pond. It goes entirely against the spirit of the pond and the reptiles who infest it ... it's worse than unAustralian, it's, it's unCaterist ...

      Delete
    4. Very sorry about that, DP, but Goosebumps Cater just seems to bring out the worst in me.

      Delete
  2. “confusing models with reality is a symptom of a society that has become intellectually top heavy, in which abstract solutions are applied to practical problems” If you saw Cater's comment out of context you would probably think it referred to neoliberalism. Cater is a practising member of that particular church - do you think he ever wakes up & thinks "shit that's me!".

    As an aside, I took GB's advice & looked up delusional before applying it to Maurice -"characterised by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder" - so there you have it, google searches for sinkhole of stupidity & delusional RWFW should return images of our opinion authors.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You do realise that my advice is worth every cent that you paid for it.

      Delete
  3. "We did but see him passing by ..."

    Oh no, DP, not Good Sir Robert Gordon Menzies' favourite verse about his favourite Royal (she who would later reward him the Cinque Ports for his passionate loyalty to Her Realm)

    " the pond will never have to get into an argument about that damned song again ..."

    Don't you bet on it, DP, the Scary-Mush will rise again like Lazarus ... or maybe like
    Pontius Pilate's doorman (who was possibly a shoemaker), he won't ever leave.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In a moment of boredom, I checked the Caterist's wiki this morning. I confess to experiencing a fleeting pang of pathos for the poor, lonely blow-hard. In amongst the supposed endorsements of his lucky cultural opus was a reference to Boris Johnson, who was interviewed by Jon Faine in 2013. Listen to the interview if you have the patience to put up with Boris' stuttering, self-serving meanderings, otherwise fast forward to 24 minutes in. Boris reckons he was on a long flight from Darwin and picked up a book by "a man called Cater... does he ring a bell with you? You're looking... yrldldldldldy..." Jon, drily: "He's a Murdoch newspaper editor from the Australian newspaper." Johnson: "Oh right, but therefore a thoroughly good egg!" What follows is a reasonable summing up of the singular Caterist line that there is the over-educated inner-city elite and the rest, blah blah. Then BJ says, "It was an...interesting take on things. I wasn't sure that I agreed with it, by the way." That's it? Yep. For Cater, that's fulsome praise, enough for him to assume a pseudonym and enter it into his own wiki, with footnote. Jeebus, and I thought I was a sad loser.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Well my curiosity naturally got the better of me JU..... and the only thing I could find any pleasure in, apart from your comment, was from Bob Ellis.

      "The former Labor speechwriter Bob Ellis called for the book to be pulped, calling it as "a loathsome shallow Murdochist piece of Pommy filth."[2]

      Dorothy, this intelligence bark? It appears to be dangerous stuff, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Nick has been passing it around.
      He should cease this as it must be really, really dangerous if it was taken with any Kool-Aid. Cheers, Concerned.

      Delete

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