It was a cruel juxtaposition, but a good one, because anyone moronic enough to think that donning the MAGA cap was a good move was probably moronic enough to head down to the beach in search of a dose of the virus …
Did Dame Slap do that? Did Dame Slap join the revellers?
Or was she up in her eerie shouting out advice to her readers, urging them on while doing her best to stay out of harm's way?
Immediately the pond felt in urgent need of a vaccine, because Dame Slap was recycling the Donald with that blather about the cure being worse than the disease, as if death was better than living … strange how Xians suddenly want to stay alive in the end times … Jerry Falwell's flock aside …
Could be another New Orleans mardi gras in the making there … while the Donald has presided over a country plunging into crisis and chaos, and which has become the world leader in infections …
There's more here and it's outside the paywall, and probably easier to read at The New Yorker, but the pond just wanted to move on to the next bit, before returning to Dame Slap, because it tags that bullshit about the cure being worse than the disease … which began emanating from the Donald, and now has been picked up by the mindless morons at News Corp, including Dame Slap …
And now back to Dame Slap's follies …
Say that again about the Donald? Hope? You must remember that song …
beside a chicken shack
so I left for the city
and I didn't look back
Now I'm living in hope
Living in hope
Yes, I'm living in hope
Living in hope
Walkin 'round the city
feeling all alone
nobody told me
the streets are paved with stone
But I'm living in hope
Yes, I'm living in hope
I'm living in hope
I'm living in hope
What a fuckwit she is, how determinedly moronic, what an infinite capacity for stupidity she sees in the Donald's offer of hope, and packed churches by Easter … and so the pond had to retreat to The New Yorker for one last gobbet ...
Enough already, back to Dame Slap, peddling the same uncertainties being peddled by a Vietnam war draft dodger with a phoney foot problem …
Ah, there we have it. "I had passed on the Minister's assurances to try to allay the concerns …"
And now I'm passing on the Donald's hopes that the churches will be packed by Easter, because I still have a job scribbling bullshit for the lizard Oz ...
Actually the virus doesn't give a flying fuck about what Dame Slap is thinking, or unthinking, and when you're dead, you're dead for a long, long time …but anyone who dons the MAGA cap is by definition a moron, and anyone who associates the Donald with intellectual curiosity and ferment is beyond the valley of the morons ...
But never mind, if you want to die, feel free to join Dame Slap and the Donald on the beach or in the church pew …you might end up sharing bench space with Christopher Hitchens in atheist heaven … or some such thing …
For its druthers and its kicks, the pond would rather spend time with the infallible Pope …
And so to the second reptile of the day, and did the pond have a choice?
No, it simply wasn't possible to go with the bromancer, so far up Scotty from marketing's bum that it seemed a new and vibrant bromance had been born, with the onion muncher just a dim, irrelevant memory, a faded love, a rose that had lost its colour … up against that sheep so vividly conjured by the infallible Pope and so besotting for the bromancer … (it's not just New Zealanders that fall in love with sheep, you know).
Besides, who could resist an epic pointscorer, a spiteful vicious verbal bully, madly deploring pointscorers showing their true colours?
Sadly, you have to abandon any sense of irony when you visit the reptiles, especially when it's the dog botherer, who has been using this crisis to advance his misguided and erroneous agenda, not least in assorted attacks on the ABC … all in the service of a master, who knows the wisdom of having a rural retreat …
Oh yes, we're all preppers now in search of a bug out … and so to bugging out with the dog botherer …
Oh fucketty fuck, the pond didn't realise that it was going to be a contest as to who might be the most uxorious in their love for SloMo …
Sure, the dog botherer had opened strongly with talk of the usual petulance, partisanship and ego-driven posturing, without delivering much, but wait, his usual display of petulance, partisanship and ego-driven posturing is sure to follow ...
And there you have it. What better example of the dog botherer's usual petulance, partisanship and ego-driven posturing than to fling in a sally at "climate alarmist points" … because really, remember that tale of the scorpion and the frog, so how could the dog botherer resist fomenting unrest and division, not least by dusting off the moths and dragging up Brexit and reminding the pond of Boris …
Oh it's a three ring circus alright, but the dog botherer is keen to appreciate the work of the clowns ...
No, no, no, households are reading Dame Slap, and looking forward to being in church pews by Easter, if not on St Kilda beach by yesterday …
Gallows humour? No, the gallows humour comes with the dog botherer's idea of methodically going through the process of dealing with Centrelink …
He really doesn't have a clue, does he, living as he does in Chairman Rupert's ivory tower of complacency and self-sufficiency ...
The pond isn't exactly sure what the dog botherer has been taking, but the pond wonders if it might be so bold as to head out to Myers in search of that kool aid …
Oh wait, that's a tad tricky at the moment …
Instead the pond must settle for an immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here …
"Journalists whose job it is to clearly communicate news and information have been more intent on critiquing the government’s communications, second-guessing expert advice, nitpicking complex responses, overlooking personal responsibility and raising fears."
ReplyDeleteThe projection within this comment is epic, only the botherer is capable of such amazing blindness to ones own faults.
Yes, the projection is strong in that one. It adjusts for all his other weaknesses.
Delete‘It is intellectual curiosity that matters most.’ From Dame Slap? Yes, I checked the author - Janet, a.k.a Dame Slap, although writing simply as ‘Columnist’. Not ‘Executive columnist.’ or perhaps 'Adjunct Editorial Columnist’ - is she trying for the simple life? But to put that sentence up early in her column does not fit with her pedagogy for the dicta of the IPA.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise - it looks like same old same old across the line up, doesn’t it? Kick anyone not cheering unreservedly for the Great General (even those who are trying to keep up, but are supporting what he said yesterday, having not adjusted to his adjusted statement of today.)
And - the ABC. Oh perfidious ABC which, fortunately, none of the reptile readers watch, except when they are changing channels and just happen to see some or other instance of blatant betrayal. In a proper war, such treason would have the perpetrators interned before sundown.
But being still inclined to optimism, I had expected that the other Dame - Groan - would have gone back to her notes from when she was active in economic research, for an article showing, who knows?, ‘intellectual curiosity.’
I refer to when she was one of the group doing generally excellent work on labour economics across two universities in South Australia. Much of it would be highly relevant to initiatives to bring our society through this challenge, with minimal damage on the other side. I say ‘society’ rather than ‘economy’ because there is still much sound research coming from those institutions about the function of work in our society, and, yes - it follows that employers might use that information to improve the bottom line for their enterprises.
The Dame was even included in the list of authors of some of the published papers, so we might assume that she retains some personal regard for what she did then.
Even within the theme of ‘not letting the cure be worse than the disease’, such a memoir from the Dame might have been a useful contribution to discussion. Perhaps it is taking more than the usual amount of time to compile, and polish, so missed deadlines for this weekend. I shall try to remain optimistic, but will remain ‘Other’ Anon. rather than ‘Optimistic’ Anon.
Other Anonymous
Yes, "Janet" is indeed an "intellectual curiosity", OA. But I am intrigued by her juxtaposition of "the essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks but in how it thinks" with "It is intellectual curiosity that matters most ..."
DeleteFrankly, I've always found that the most important aspect of "the independent mind" is that it does think. And by that I mean that it gathers and formulates questions, then gathers ideas and evidence about them, and then systematically formulates, and tests and validates, conclusions and answers.
So I look at Kahneman's ideas, and I find that his "fast thinking" really isn't thinking at all, it's basically preconditioned reaction, which, if it is to be fast, is all it can be. But then I look at his "slow thinking" and wonder if it is really much better.
I'm used to the Kuhnian paradigm where human progress and knowledge is a long slow cooperative process:
1. Firstly address a perceived problem or knowledge lack - and it takes some time and effort to define them
2. Evolve a 'paradigm' - that is a pattern of solution to the problem.
3. Articulate the paradigm - explore, expand, refine, validate.
4. Come to an awareness of the limitations, or even outright failures, of the paradigm
5. Go back to step 1.
Steps 1 through 4 can take a cast of thousands over hundreds or years. Or sometimes, at least the important parts, can take a moment of inspiration and the back of an envelope.
I don't think either Janet or Hitchens were ever party to any of that. Dame Groan ? Well, maybe some of it in her younger years, but no longer, I think. Reptiles only ever engage in "fast thinking", and not particularly effectively at that.
I think the Dame's most valuable thought, for her own benefit, was to become an apostate from her labour researching days. That made her a popular choice for the Howard administrations to appoint to, e.g. productivity commission. During that time comments from the productivity commission on labour relations steadily hardened, approaching the 'anyone with a job should be damn thankful that they have one, although they should be working twice as hard in the national interest'. An attitude readily recognisable in Limited News 'analysis' of employment.
DeleteOther Anonymous
And does Honest Johnny's effect on the PC constitute a clear instance of 'politicising the Public Service' ?
DeleteI note that the Public Service Board was killed by Hawke-Keating in 1987 and I've always thought that with it, in many ways, went the independence of the Federal PubServe. But then, I guess that was a process started by Gough when he inherited a very conservative PubServe way back in 1972.
So what, I wonder, turned Dame Groan's head so readily ?
GB - as I understood it, the Dame was a minor player in those groups of labour researchers. That is, she was not the one advancing hypotheses, or seeking new directions. Much of their findings were seen as very 'left', regardless of the solid statistical justifications.
DeleteI surmise that then, when she saw that the message from the research leaders was not readily saleable to business groups, she moved (drifted?) into the 'workers should be damn thankful for whatever the benevolent entrepreneur bestows'mindset.
With the Howard/Costello administration, that identified her as their kind of person (and female, but of the safe kind) that they were happy to appoint to the Commissions on Productivity, Fair Pay and, (although not as remunerative as the others) - ABC. Those appointments, in turn, filled out a c.v. for a Contributing Economics Editor for Limited News.
Other Anonymous
Sounds like just another example of 'wingnut welfare' to me. To be added to Dame Slap, Moorice and Henry.
DeleteBut then I suppose there are also cases of 'Left-wing welfare' too, it's just that the Lefties don't control corporations and don't have members such as Gina and Roopie.
Is the cure worse than the disease?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/3/27/21193879/coronavirus-covid-19-social-distancing-economy-recession-depression
Thanks Mercurial - Klein is good value. Sadly the time I have left from keeping up with other links too often does not extend to his articles. I am grateful to people who bring my attention to the particularly good ones.
DeleteOther Anonymous
Thanks for that, Mercurial. An article on why we can't go back to normal for years is https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/ - basically, the virus will begin infecting a lot of people as soon as we go back to normal, so we will have to isolate again.
DeleteAnd what can be said about the Doggy Bov on this fine day ? After all, GuyM has picked out the key point: Doggy Bov's totally unrecognised and unacknowledged dedication to 'attribution and projection', so what else can be said ?
DeleteWell I did notice with some mild amusement that whilst DB praised Dan Andrews and Annastacia Palaszczuk, there was a distinctly noticeable absence of mention of Gladys Berejiklian. Now, can this have actually been intentional, or is DB's mind just beginning to noticeably fade.
And I thought he just might have mentioned that Boris Johnson has been diagnosed as suffering from COVID-19. Now wouldn't that be a shame if he actually expired from it.
But then, the Doggy Bov comes out with this: "Their employers must wear some of the blame for not demanding better."
Spot on, DB, and when are you going to insist that your employers demand better than you can supply ?
Just one last point; Doggy Bov expounds that: "... our national character continues to evolve, but at its heart is the same spirit that has helped us through wars, bushfires, floods, droughts and recessions in the past."
None of which, even wars, were as destructive as COVID-19 could be, and none threatened essentially the whole population, and none were as unamenable to hard, occasionally heroic, resistance. So let us see, after we get over filling out homes with toilet rolls, paper towels and tissues (and Carman's Maple Nut Porridge swelp me), whether we can hold out and overcome the virus.
Perhaps we can, by dying in droves until both we and the virus evolve. It reminds me a little of myxamatosis: there were two varieties, and one was so virulent that it killed over 98% of rabbits. But it did so very quickly; so quickly that the mozzies didn't have time to bite the rabbits and spread the disease before the rabbits died. So after a relatively short time, that variety of myxo virtually died out and left the much less fatal version to proliferate - and that is why we still have rabbits in Australia. Well, until calicivirus anyway.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteThe Trump Whisperer, Steve Hilton, argued that “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF” by using the analogy that the austerity policies in the UK following the GFC led to an estimated 130,000 extra deaths.
Strangely Hilton failed to mention that he was director of strategy at the time for Prime Minister David Cameron who was responsible for imposing that fatal austerity.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/27/trump-narcissism-american-blood-coronavirus
In other news, we may have been very fortunate that the COVID-19 outbreak had not reached Australia during the height of the bushfire crisis as it appears that smog may help the virus’s spread.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/03/taking-cars-off-the-road-may-slow-coronavirus-spread-study/
I also have a prediction that we will be seeing less and less of a lot of “celebrities” online in the coming weeks/months. Not only will getting a hair cut prove next to impossible neither will they be able to get their Botox shots and their scheduled nip and tuck at the plastic surgeons will be have to be postponed indefinitely.
It will be doubtful that the celebs will keep posting to instagram if their snaps start to resemble ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’.
So that’s a plus.
DiddyWrote
Oh pish tush, DW, when you have money, you can get anything you want - even discreet home visits from beauty folks. Haircuts and hairdos ? Easy peasy. Nip and tuck ? Well who's going to question a "sanitised" visit to a medico ?
DeleteHi GB,
DeleteBut there’s the rub. There may always be somebody willing to risk life and limb for cold hard cash but can the celebs be sure that they aren’t infectious.
DW
Indeed, but then celebrities, or at least most of them, are quite convinced that they are invincible, if not actually immortal. So even if the corona bites, it won't wound.
DeleteStrange that no one is talking about the effect of the virus on the armed forces. Hasn't it occurred to the Bromancer that you can't maintain social distancing in a submarine?
ReplyDeleteYep...we will be back by Easter! Heard it on Off The Record this Morning. Cheers.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/JLCauvin/status/1242515702688485376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1242515702688485376&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nj.com%2Fentertainment%2F2020%2F03%2Fnj-comedians-riff-on-trumps-coronavirus-response-goes-viral.html