Sunday, July 12, 2020

In which the pond embarks on a Sunday meditation with Polonius ...

 

They don't really get cancelled - they're narcissists full of self-regard speaking out about 'Orwellian' attacks, and drawing attention to themselves, and the reptiles assiduously track them down, and on a daily basis, make sure that they still have their moment in the sun, like a Confederate flag practising freedom of speech.

But what do you know? Only a few days after the reptiles celebrated the dubious Dow, he was cancelled ...


Dearie me, and the pond wasted valuable space in the hope that he might get fucked …and there he was, cancelled, accompanied by the usual bit of window-dressing for cancelled pride. So much cancelling, so little time ...

But some things never get cancelled, like prattling Polonius, always on about the ABC.


Could we have some truth in labelling. Surely it should be called "Paranoid obsessive compulsive ABC  Media Watch Dog"?

Never mind, the pond had held back prattling Polonius for a meditative Sunday, and as usual, Polonius delivered the goods …


The Royals? For a minute there, the pond thought it had stumbled on the Royals-obsessed Daily Beast, which regularly uses them as click-bait fodder. 

But that note "Donald Trump's position is to focus on the positive" reassured the pond it had landed in the world of Polonial delusion and high comedy. A reference to Xianity in the opening line would be the hundreds and thousands on the icing on the cake ...


Dear sweet long absent lord, it's Sunday, but suddenly the pond was back yesterday, just a world away, with the bromancer rabbiting on in the same way about the wonders and glories of the Donald and the malaise afflicting the western world …

And now, like a rampant time machine out of control, the pond was back with Polonius, and discovering the dear old thing was a jingoistic militarist, with a deep love of military parades and flyovers …

Substitute which ever figure you like watching Foxtel's Fox News (remember, always plug the Chairman's products) …

Watching Adolf/Benito/Kim/Vlad the impaler's event live on state propaganda television, it was difficult not to be impressed by the occasion, with the songs, music, military parade and flyovers …

Oh it was a grand affair, and the pond did so love the uniforms, and the film that covered the event ...

  

And not content with his proto-fascist leanings, Polonius then went on to quote Orwell, just as the pond had done the day before … not this one exactly

“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.”

And not given the makeover that the pond had helpfully suggested…

“Donaldism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.”

But yes, Orwell would turn up in the next gobbet, just below the Donald, because the reptiles love their ironies cranked up to eleven.

And so, like the bromancer, Polonius prattled in praise of the Donald, apparently not realising how the country was deeply, comprehensively fucked, and getting all the more so on a daily basis, thanks to the Donald's attitude to science and virus …


Every time the pond reads the reptiles it wonders how they all manage to get to drink the same kool aid. 

Do they ship it from 'leet Surry Hills to the Sydney Institute's leet HQ bunker in the heart of the CBD? How else to explain Polonius sounding just like the bromancer, though admittedly he lacks a little of the ranting steroid-fueled power?


Damn it, did the pond score, or what? Talk of the fall and Adam and Eve and Polonius taking on the tone of an Elmer Gantry and at the same time, with a cleansing of Holy Water, wiping clean the British Empire of all its sins, so it might spend only a short time in purgatory, otherwise known as the Commonwealth, and the Donald praised, and with only a few minor flaws, and …

… yes, despite the bromancer's best efforts, Polonius hands down wins the Lowe cartoon of the week award …


And so to a dubious pleasure the pond had promised never to do again ...


Promises, promises, but you see the pond had been trolled, baited, and perhaps switched, punked and puked by the splash …


Come on, who could resist? Mr Potato Head on the scrap heap, into the graveyard, with the peelings?

The mutton Dutton thrown into a  stale stew, the old bèn dàn (Dumb Egg), potato brother, and super spud bro on the way out?

Why that's like waving one of those old-fashioned Aldi lollies, the cone with the sherbet and the marshmallow, in front of the pond's nose, and fragrant reminders of the Dungowan general store flooding back into memory.

Yes, the pond knew it was just another click bait victim, but what the hell, toujours gai Archie, click away ...


Oh no, not pure Angus 'beef' Taylor, but was that talk about the mutton Dutton? Where did that go? The reptiles knew the pond was getting impatient, so they flung in a cult master offering which the pond valued so highly it made it a standalone ...


By golly, there's hours contemplating that, and what treasured memories and comparisons it brings back …


But enough of the fun and the memories, what about Mr Potato Head?


Oh to dream the impossible dream … but what of the cartoonists? Well at least we'll have the memories …

   

 

And to suggest that the wretched mutton Dutton be replaced by the singularly incompetent, inept and foolish Robert is a whimsy that almost justified the oscillating fan trolling the pond ...


Well it's all idle speculation and jolly good fun, and then the pond decided it must end with a bonus, Dame Slap in serious mood ...


One thing you have to say about the reptiles, they never give up, and they love defending the indefensible ...


Now this will be familiar to readers of Dame Slap, and devotees of the IPA mentality. The wringing of paws, and the yearning for older, better days, when it was a jungle, and the fittest survived, and the rest provided a feast of road kill, but the entire point is to build a case where the indefensible can be defended ...


See how Dame Slap built her case, see how she carefully put inverted commas around "believed", in much the same way that duplicitous lawyers double deal with the English language …

Quotation marks can also highlight that a word is being used somehow peculiarly – a writer may wish to indicate irony, inaccuracy, or scepticism, for example; used this way, they’re called scare quotes. In the line: At the party I met a teacher, a journalist, and an ‘artist’, the scare quotes around artist act as a distancing device, probably signalling doubt about the person’s credentials as an artist. The effect is similar to the Irish phrase mar dhea.

The Oxford Manual of Style says scare quotes may serve ‘to hold up a word for inspection, as if by tongs, providing a cordon sanitaire between the word and the writer’s finer sensibilities’. It’s a technique that quickly wears thin, so style guides sometimes caution against its excessive use. And there’s a related problem: non-standard emphasis. (here).

But Dame Slap loves the smell of excess and napalm in the morning.

She also loves a smear,  a way that Dame Slap can hint she doesn't believe the women without having the guts to come out and say it directly, but that's the way the sisterhood goes down in the lizard Oz … "scare" being the "modus operandi" of the "IPA" "mob" ...


Unfair rules and mob rule? Again smears, hints and innuendoes … and it wasn't so long ago that the pond published a piece by our Gracie which tackled this sort of claptrap. It might be tedious to repeat it in full, but here's a last gobbet, as a reminder that what's being taught in Dame Slap's school above the faraway tree is a dodgy curriculum…


Well yes, there are procedures and processes in place, and in larger institutions, HR folk who don't know about them, or who think Dame Slap has sensible things to say, will soon end up mired in scandal.

So what was the real reason for Dame Slap attempting to defend the indefensible? 

Well the man in question was one of the IPA pillars, a union basher of renown, and a member of the club, and so worth preserving, even if given to flatulence


So what better way to celebrate and wrap things up than with a flurry of Wilcox?

 

 


12 comments:

  1. Ricky Gervais: "Cancel culture kills risky comedy."
    Steven Pinker: "I had to speak out over Orwellian cancel culture."

    Billy Bragg: "Without accountability, liberty can mutate into the most dangerous of all freedoms – impunity."

    And who wouldn't cheer for Gervais and Pinker acquiring some accountability and losing some impunity ? Do either of them really think they've benefitted humankind in any desirable way ?

    But I see that Gary Larson has unretired and is doing cartoons again (via computer graphics apparently). If he's anywhere near as good as I used to think he was, maybe I can forget that I ever thought that Scott Adams was funny.

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    1. Perhaps we could re-purpose the Godwin's Law swear jar to cover "Orwellian".

      I haven't read any of Pinker's work so feel free to shoot me down, but a lot of criticism suggests he indulges in a bit of doublethink regarding the actions of his favourite superpower.

      Apparently, the numerous US overseas military actions since the end of the cold war aren't really wars at all.

      No problem with the Americans in Vietnam either, it seems the death and misery all resulted from the fanaticism of the communist regime. I suppose if you stand in the way of all that American ordinance you have to expect that.

      Most of the anxiety about cancel culture or deplatforming seems to come from folk who are frightened of their own irrelevance. Are they really being silenced or does no one want to listen anymore?

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    2. Well the author of 'The Language Instinct' (the only Pinker "work" I've read anything much of) is certainly a "magic word" man: he says 'Orwellian' and that word, ipso facto, proves his case. Yes, his reasoning really is that incredibly profound - "doublethink" ? - well, check the list of his published works and you might find it hard to even credit him with an occasional singlethink.

      I'm with you, Bef: we should declare a 'cancel culture' against the totally facile (mis)use of 'Orwellian'.

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  2. Here we go with Polonius: "the notion that we are born imperfect and will die imperfect." But, butt, doesn't that mean that we are perfectly imperfect ? Or does Polonius think that we somehow acquire perfection after birth, only to loose it again on our deathbeds ? Oh, 'tis a polonial puzzle.

    Trump (according to Polonius): "to boldly proclaim this eternal truth, that we are all made equal by God." Ah, but then the darkies weren't made by God, they were made by Ham who was righteously accursed because he "saw the nakedness of his father" and was eternally damned for it.

    Anyway, back to the Polonial squeal: "British writer George Orwell [or Eric Blair if you prefer truthfulness] once opined that he had seen many children who wanted to play with toy soldiers, but never one who wished to play with a toy pacifist."

    Wau, isn't that just incredible ? Now personally, I have seen many children - round about half of the race - who wanted to play with dolls - mostly girly dolls - and some of those children even had a penis. But I've never seen children who, of their own accord, wanted to play with dolls of war criminals. Do you think that might be because not many dolls of war criminals are ever offered for purchase ?

    But dolls were made - in profusion - of MLK Jr and he's a kind of pacifist, isn't he.

    But then we get to the nub of it: "Consequently all of their visages, one day, could fall victim to this or that mob proclaiming this or that ideology - unless a latter day Trump seeks to defend the historical recognition of successful men and women [women ? who ? when ? where ?] who went before us."

    Oh, so illumination dawns: Trump doesn't want his own, personal, largest monumental statue ever in the world, pulled down. He wants it to still be there when the red giant sun consumes the Earth.

    But let me just run something up the flagpole to see who farts: instead of a statue to just one, often very flawed, individual, how about we instead raise monuments to worthwhile deeds ? That way, we can acknowledge all of the people who materially or significantly contributed to a worthwhile achievement. Yes ?

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  3. Third time lucky ? C'mon folks, just because it's lockdown in Victoria doesn't mean you can catch 'rona' from a loonpond post.

    Now considering the Katrina Grace Kelly who "live[s] on acreage on the outskirts" [of Melbourne], she is clearly more acceptable to speak about #MeToo matters than Dame Slap. It was MAGA Slappy, after all, who praised good old 'grab 'em by the pussy' Trumpskin. And that didn't require an 'assumption of innocence until proven guilty' trial to resolve either: that was just normal 'great man rights of self gratification', wasn't it.

    All things considered, Katrina Grace is way too reasonable to last as a reptile.

    But Slappy ? Oh she's just perfect for the part. Consider: "In the #MeToo era, and our rush to find a sensible system to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace, it is worth considering whether we are tossing aside old principles without putting something better in place."

    Now that really is IPA gratuitous nonsense, isn't it. For one thing, "we" - whoever she means by "we" - equally can't either leave the workplace without any "system to deal with sexual harassment" at all, nor can many, if any, workplaces afford an internal system that is the equivalent of a full criminal trial for each and any misdemeanor that might get reported.

    So where does that leave us ? With an inhouse, civil level of proceedings, I suspect. What do you think ?

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  4. BTW, CA, the R&R version of Tom's Diner.

    https://youtu.be/FLP6QluMlrg

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    1. Oh heck, you might as well have these, too:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of7r1Jho1HE

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAhHGYrzj2M

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  5. Thanks for links GB......particularly Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Graceland has a special place in our home as it was released at the same time our second daughter as born and we spent many a time dancing with the elder three year old in the lounge room to a taped version. Daughter one has long commandeered the tape for her memory chest.
    Of late my routine of early morning Ponding has been somewhat disrupted, plus I find myself easily led astray.

    Thanks to Befuddled:).... I ended up reading/ scanning 350 pages(again) on the American realm of propaganda and the use of Nazis rhetoric against every perceived geo- political enemy since 1946 through the study of post war American literature and film, starting with Chaplin’s The Great Dictator and progressing forward to 2010 while delving into the use of some of the great literature and film of American culture. Godwin’s Law and Orwellian was the start.
    A very long but interesting read. Even Trumps buddy Roy Cohen gets a guernsey.
    If you have the time or inclination.

    https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1223&context=open_access_dissertations
    CA.

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    1. Strewth, nearly 40 pages of "Introduction" ! That's just about a whole book to some people. But since "evil" - like its contraries and opposites, good and holiness, are entirely fabrications of the human imagination, I guess there might be some things of interest in the other 310 (or so) pages). So yes, thanks for the link :-)

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    2. And since you're obviously a sentimental old so-and-so, here's some more:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIw0JL-O6mo

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y45yHd9Lg_k

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNxO9MpQ2vA

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcCp7488puc

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    3. Thanks for those. Big fan of the Dixie Chicks(filed under D) and young Grace is amazing. An intriguing voice and a big future no doubt. YouTube and Wikipedia are a blessing for the curious. I was actually reading your links from today on Hildegard of Bingen and Christine de Pezan.
      Hildegard’s universal man illumination certainly predates Da Vinci’s pentagram by a few centuries.
      I always throw a few dolllars to Wiki each year as it is an amazing resource.

      I am becoming more of a sentimentalist in my latter years, although a natural human trait no doubt.
      Sorry about the size of the dissertation.....it covers all the relevant people,events,literature and film. I read the first chapter and a most of the second, then scanned/read the rest and read last half of final chapter. No wonder my days and nights fly out the window sometimes.
      CA.

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    4. Yair, any serious attempt to be exhaustive is always exhausting, I find. I reckon I'll kind of have a desultory wander through it and probably give up half-way. So it goes. Glad you got something from Hildegard and Christine and I agree about Wikipedia - not infallible, but always a good starting place.

      The (now only) Chicks are great. The first link for Grace Vanderwaal was her first public appearance (at age 12). She herself writes almost all of her stuff. Clearly was a combination - existing chorus together with her verses.

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