Sunday, June 14, 2020

in which the pond covers the lizard Oz higher education beat for a late Sunday special … with a little Ramsay flavouring ...


Meanwhile, The Insiders continues to be dead to the pond. Never mind the faux pas of forgetting to have an indigenous journalist on hand for a discussion of indigenous matters. How about bringing on Simon Benson to discuss them? What next? A member of Scottie from marketing's press team, though come to think of it Simon makes that a redundant notion.

The pond can understand the bromancer, just, for his somewhat unique* (*ABC licensed) ability as an entertainer, but Benson is as dull as an oak tree, and the most servile of the reptiles.

But that wasn't what inspired the pond to scribble a late breaking Sunday post, safe in the knowledge that few would read it.

Something wasn't right with the force … something was wrong in the universe and in Western Civilisation, and the pond knew with deep regret that the pond had paid far too little attention to the Angelic one in recent times …

Yet those headlines, both in the same weekend edition, lured the pond on. How to reconcile universities regretting Ramsay Centre largesse, with a Ramsay Centre funding row?

The pond knew the solution … a cut and paste of the two pieces, beginning first with university regrets ...


Yes, yes, that's all good and right and proper, and no doubt the universities are filled with regret, but what was that about largesse, and how does it fit with long-term funding being under a cloud?

Could we have a gobbet of the future cloud of anxiety?


The largesse means no guaranteed future funding, and a course shrouded by long-term insecurity?

The pond realises that it's the business of the reptiles to produce confusion and chaos in the pond's mind, but surely this was taking it too far?

Could we have another gobbet of the universities deeply saturated in guilt at not embracing insecure funding and long-term insecurity?


Dear sweet long absent lord, this is supposed to be the Ramsay who championed Western Civilisation? A new set of choppers? No doubt with soothing unguent …

But what of the future funding crisis? Ah maybe it was just a beat-up by the Angelic one? Perhaps the future is safe for academic dentures?


Now the pond realises it is risking everything by including the sight of the Angelica one and her CV in a way that it might be sighted twice by readers, without even needing stereoscopic glasses, but the pond must provide a final gobbet that completes the Angelic one rabbiting on about how universities should regret the largesse that might not be largesse ...


Yes, it's all as clear as mud … and no doubt indicative reviews will be indicative, but the pond can sense that at some point it'll all be palmed off onto taxpayers in the usual cunning way of banking the profits or the credit or the glory or the legacy, and socialising the future losses …

And now as this is a bonus university late Sunday reptile special, how better to end it than to have some stray, unwary reader bored to tears when they stumble across nattering "Ned" ...


Fair warning, the piece is as dull as that opening photo, showing Sydney Uni with its fenced off grass, which always mystifies the pond when it goes for a stroll through the uni grounds. If grass is such a burden, and students sitting on it a constant source of irritation, why not just dig it up and lay down some concrete? And if concrete is too expensive, why not some tar? Well the uni has been very good at building little boxes, and even bigger hideous boxes ...

Oh and another warning, the pond usually tries to break up "Ned" with some cartoons, but this time it's a straight read … the challenge for readers is to see how long they last, before they strategically go adrift ...


He's quoting Dan Tehan? That overstepping the mark goose?


Sorry, the pond promised no interruptions, and at the very first chance provided a link so that bored readers might head off elsewhere … please, do go on "Ned", with your natter and your goose Tehan ...


Oh dear, and look top of the page, talk about irony …


Not our doing? But wait, what's that, it looks like a cult master outing ...


It was, it was, and a classic of its kind, wasted on silly Brendan O'Neill … when "Ned" could have used that example of Western Civilisation o'er thrown …

But the pond has already done silly hysterical reptile ranters for the day - and could write Brendan's guff in its sleep. 

Piss off pontificating Pom, what a waste of the cult master, and how rude for you to interrupt "Ned", and even worse consign the cult master to this ghetto …please, do go on "Ned", the pond won't interrupt again, as the scorpion Oz said to the uni frog ...


Say what? We're back with the goose Tehan? Oh "Ned", why do you make it so hard with your natter, how could the pond resist?


Sorry the pond is determined not to interrupt, please, do go on "Ned" ...


Funding's a problem? Shouldn't they just have taken the Ramsay Centre money? And think of all the intellectual benefits …not to mention an ongoing feeling of insecurity …


Oh sheesh, the pond has done it again. Please, do go on "Ned", with the pond's heartfelt apologies ...


Oh dear, not dinkum clean Oz coal, not that, not when Australia could be civilising the barbarians with the glories of Western Civilisation ...


Clearly the pond's apologies are as useless as "Ned" having his usual nervous breakdown, and even worse, the pond feels the need to provide a link to First Dog, but do go on … even if it's the last, almost uninterrupted gobbet ...


No crisis about free speech? Thank the long absent lord, "Ned" remembered that universities in fact were filthy, vile havens of Mao worship and deviant perverted leftism …

Really is there any point saving them? Can't we just follow the US in making available mail order degrees?

And now with "Ned" having sorted out higher education, and perhaps Xi and pretty much everything else, the pond simply had to find space for the howl of pain, the existential shriek of misery which makes Ginsberg look like an amateur …


If anybody wanted definitive proof that we don't need prats of the Brendan O'Neill kind coming down to sort out the colonies with a gale of blustery hysteria, surely the lizard Oz editorialist is definitive proof.

The reptiles took it so seriously that it rambled on at great length and even had a couple of snaps ...


Why it's as if they'd given the gig to the bromancer generating a litany of despair …and no an obligatory bit of navel-gazing and anal introspection via a reference to nattering "Ned" doesn't fool the pond. This is surely beyond "Ned", surely only the bromancer could have done it. All that's missing is a Ginsbergian howl, "this is nuts" ...


And so to the second piccie, and what an unfortunate choice on which to hang the hat of existential despair. Perhaps Triumph of the Will, or Riefenstahl doing the Olympics might have been used, or Basil doing over the Germans, or Mo McCackie in McCackie mansion or any number of other cultural references from other times with other values, now worth studying for what they reveal.

But Chris Lilley? He was on the nose when he appeared, and he wasn't funny, and even the cardigan wearers slowly realised it, and dropped him … and it was left to Netflix to rescue him fro the disaster known as Jonah from Tonga …until Netflix too belated realised he might be on the nose …


But do go on, dear reptiles, howling at the moon, make him your breaking point ...


The pond loves how the lizard Oz editorialist somehow manages to sound like a ranting senior in his senile dotage, irritated by young pups and baby merchants … but it probably goes with the rag's demographic, what with most young things never looking past their phone's screen, and probably sublimely unaware and uncaring of the way you could once pick up the tree killer edition from airports for free …

Well even Ginsberg had to end Howl, and this is the last gobbet of the reptile howl ...


The pond thinks it a tragedy it had to throw away this rant in an obscure part of the full to overflowing intertubes …

Has there ever been any better example of reptile comedy writing? The few who made it to the end will find their own special treats, but for the pond, it was that line from the Catholic Boys' Daily:

"Our enduring values are from the Enlightenment, where science, technology and reason prevailed."

Except, it goes without saying, climate science, decent broadband technology, and an unreasoning love of Xians talking to imaginary friends, and the arcane rituals of the Catholic church, most especially Pellism and pedophilia ...

Oh and then there's donning the MAGA cap and cheering on the Donald. And with the US in such good shape, surely Murdoch Corp could see many other ways to celebrate those enduring values, the ones they found in the Enlightenment, where science, technology and reason prevailed.

Is there a better example of these enduring values anywhere to be found outside the Donald? 




1 comment:

  1. Wau, DP, that was some epic collection of wingnut ranting all in one pond episode. It did kind of put SloMo's "no slavery in Australia" into perspective though: "no faults in Western Civilisation ! We just done good for the last 3000 or so years. Never repressed anybody or suppressed anyone or anything !"

    But what really amused is the way that the reptiles still want to make Peter Ridd into some kind of "freedom martyr" when he's really just a nasty, aggressive nutcase. But then, so are the reptiles, I guess - and especially the Doggy Bov who I agree is far and away the most likely reptile behind that delightful "editorial".

    But I confess to some confusion over this assertion from the Angelic Shanana talking about the "free money" from Ramsay: "Not only would this [ie "largesse of the Ramsay Centre"] have cushioned universities by helping to prop up their humanities funding, it might have given them money to spare for other research."

    So, the Ramsay Centre was just going to spray money all over the university ? Then I encountered this from Nullius Ned: "universities charge international students 80 per cent more than their teaching costs".

    Oh, so the Ramsay Centre wasn't going to just finance some by and by old book reading, it really was gong to bribe its way onto university campuses on the same basis as foreign students. Well, I guess that's good to know.

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