In which, with much regret, the pond follows the bromancer, nattering "Ned" and the dog botherer down a rabbit hole of their own making ...

 

 

 

 

 

The pond never makes the news; it merely installs a mirror in the reptile cage and sees what's reflected, as they go about their business. And frankly, has there ever been a bigger fuss, a greater hullabaloo than the current one, as the reptiles race about frantically seeking to blame all and sundry, without ever pausing once to look in the mirror?

Why is this so noticeable this time? Well, with a few minor exceptions, all the coverage is by white men of a certain patriarchal right wing age ...

 

 

 

It left the pond with a terrible dilemma. In the usual way, there would have been some attempt at diversity by the reptiles, but Meghan is not the pond's idea of diversity.

Just look at the shrieking headline in the tree killer edition ...

 

 

 Yes, it's all about the agenda, and never you mind the humanity.

The pond knew what it had to do, if ever so reluctantly. It would save Polonius's prattle for a Sunday meditation, because the pond knew it would all be the fault of the ABC, and perhaps throw in a Bjorn as a reminder of just how feeble the lizard Oz is when it comes to climate science...

And today, the pond would take a deep breath and step into the world of ancient white warriors of a certain age, and see what they had to say. 

Yes, many readers would fall by the wayside, but here's the thing. If none of it matters, if it's all uncorroborated and possibly a conspiracy, why are there so many reptiles falling over themselves in their rush to have a say and to judge the matter? Why are they acting like a kangaroo court?

First up the pond turned to the bromancer, because there's nothing like a conservative Catholic pronouncing on women ...

 

 

How to begin?

Well it always helps to look through the prism of left and right, to ignore any talk of shared humanity, and to understand that bloody useless women are just a bunch of trendy, trending lefties ... and if that doesn't explain everything, then the bromancer is here to explain how silly you are not to have noticed, and to remind you that progressive women, of the uppity, godless, unbelieving kind, are ruining everything ...

 

Oh for fuck's sake, the language of chivalry? Gender gaps? Let's lump women into one herd? Oh sure somewhere in there, the bromancer offers a disclaimer that one size doesn't fit all, but then he does his very best to shoehorn everybody into the one leftist size ...

In the end, what's the point of this sort of analysis, except to provoke irritation, and then a desire to argue the opposite, such that if the bromancer assured the pond something or somebody was progressive the pond would take it as a sure sign they were reactionary loons ... and yet on and on he rambles, in a way designed to provoke ...

Can it get any worse? Of course it can, it's the bromancer, and there's this question about believing, or worse, not believing, in an imaginary friend ...

 

 

What to say? There in a nutshell is why women can't be priests in the Catholic church, and the Catholic church still believes its male priests should be celibate ... because what's the alternative?  You might end up hitched to ambitious hussies who refuse to settle down and act like proper mothers ...

As usual, the bromancer thinks the problem is with women ... though slowly it begins to dawn on him that maybe he and his mob are the problem, and he and they don't have a solution ... 

 

And now to the real point of these proceedings. The bromancer will slip in his sixpence worth about Christian Porter ...

 

What a relief. You see, in politics, it's an old game. You can, for example, be Ted Cruz, one year outraged that a cartoonist drags your daughters into the game, and the next seeing your daughters as a convenient excuse ...

 

 

And SloMo plays the same game ...

 

 

 

You don't win playing that game of deflection, because it's too obvious a ploy, suitable only for scumbags of the Cruz kind ... but at least the pond could have a few visuals before moving on to the final gobbet, and perhaps a final question, which won't be answered. 

Just why did Porter choose to tackle the issue just after Tame's speech? There were many other moments he could have chosen, but he settled for skulking about and then he came in just behind Tame in a tone deaf way, as if it was all just about the politics ...

 

What a mealy mouthed pile of gobbledegook ... with even the attempt to eat a little humble pie at the end more nauseating than the usual Catholic conservative nonsense that runs through the piece like that proverbial worm in the rose ...

But it gets worse, because next in the aged white patriarchal Oz male stakes comes nattering "Ned" ... and every pond reader knows, with a deep sigh and a shudder, what that means ...

 

 

 

 

Fortunately after that unfortunate montage of images, the opening gobbet is relatively small ...

 

 

 

Rape is a weaponised instrument in politics? Or maybe, just maybe, women aren't that wildly enthusiastic about being raped? And maybe the culture in Canberra is more than a little off? But do go on ...

 

And there in a nutshell is the reptile dilemma. Scotty from marketing is sticking by his man, and the reptiles must stick by Scotty, and the only alternative is a woeful tirade of nonsense by the likes of the bromancer explaining how it's all the fault of women turning progressive ... sorry, sorry, we're with "Ned", and so it's time for some whataboutism, specifically whatabout Comrade Bill ...

 

What's more indicative of the situation than the weight of progressive politics? The way every reptile has been invited to rally around the flag. Clearly there's an issue here, and it's not easily resolved by reptiles of the ancient "Ned" kind, what with uppity young things parading about and getting agitated ...

Even judging by his usual standards, "Ned" is in a dire state of pious hand-wringing, verging on full-blown paranoia ... and so, yet again, the reptiles must see everything through the prism of politics ...

 

Now in what follows in "Ned's" final gobbet it might be easy to overlook recent news, easily googled ...

 

Now have at the victim, "Ned", and offer some pop psychology in the process ...

Was there a slight wilting in that final par, after all that from "Ned"? Never mind, about this time in the marathon, the pond felt like it needed a shot from the infallible Pope ...

 

 

But wait, there's more, because the final panel in this triptych of ancient white male keyboard warriors had to be the dog botherer ...

Indeed, indeed. It's all the ABC's fault. The ABC drew up the document, not the dead woman's friends, and the ABC circulated it, not her friends, and the ABC invented the whole issue so that it might embark on a crusade ... and by the way, the ABC is full of uppity, difficult women ...

Really, there's not much need to read the dog botherer after that expert summary by the pond, but luckily his piece was full of click bait, so the pond can lump a few gobbets together ...

Um, actually, wasn't it friends of the victim who wanted to draw attention to a matter that they thought had greatly distressed the woman, and had led to her suicide? Or as "Ned" quaintly put it, "passed away", though the pond rarely thinks of suicide as "passing away..." ... and so to yet another bout of Comrade Bill whataboutism ...

 

 

 

The good news is that this parading and shaming of the victim has only two gobbets to go ... and so to it all being the fault of the ABC ...

 

He didn't see it reported? He's as ignorant as he's deranged? But enough already, we have at last reached the final gobbet ...

 

What to take away from all this? The ferocity and extent of the reptile reaction indicates that the dentist has hit an exposed nerve, and much shrieking has followed ... and if it's not the fault of the ABC, then surely it's the fault of social media ... and yet for all that the reptiles are scribbling about a woman who took her own life, the real dilemma for them is the one posed by David Rowe, with more Rowe here ... and that's not as easily solved as the simplistic, simple-minded blaming and shaming the reptiles routinely indulge in, without once taking a look at the mirror the pond installed in their cage ...