In which the pond tries to cut back on its reptile intake in preparation for the holyday season, but still ends up with a dose of bigotry and a doddery old relic talking to another ...

 

Of late the pond has, out of dire boredom, tended to hare off to read other herpetology experts, as with the Matt Lewis outing, Sorry, New York Post. You Can’t Memory Hole Your Own Trump Propaganda (Yahoo News so there's no paywall issue).

... here’s what bothers me: The New York Post is doing all of this without any self-awareness, any “my bad” acknowledgements, or any reckoning with its change of mind or past complicity. There’s no acknowledgement that Never Trumpers were right all along about Orange Julius. Instead, the Post seems to be memory-holing the last seven years.

Keep in mind, The Post endorsed Trump in the 2016 New York Republican primary, writing that he was “A plain-talking entrepreneur with outer-borough, common-sense sensibilities…who reflects the best of ‘New York values’—and offers the best hope for all Americans who rightly feel betrayed by the political class.”

One impeachment (and lots of craziness) later, the Post endorsed Trump again in 2020, writing: “The media are enormously fixated on Trump’s tweets and extemporaneous remarks, never learning the lesson that most of the time, he is just riffing. In endorsing him, we’re choosing to focus on President Trump’s actions and accomplishments. He has kept his promises.”

Then, just before the election, the Post published an opinion column saying Trump “will be an invincible hero, who not only survived every dirty trick the Democrats threw at him, but the Chinese virus as well.”

And so on ... but above all the pond enjoyed the notion of further ruining the English language by making "memory hole" an active verb ...because for once the ruining was in a good cause, and the pond realised one of its chief irritation with the local brand of reptiles was the way they managed to memory hole their many hypocrisies and stupidities ...

The pond has also decided, as the holiday season approaches, to cut back on its intake of reptile stew to a sensible dietary level, and so will only be dealing with two reptiles this day ...

First up is a classic example of pure, undiluted bigotry, harking back to the old days, when deploying the memory hole strategy would have been better ...

Really? A barking mad fundamentalist Catholic blathering about the "gradual imposition of a radical agenda on the whole of society", as barking mad fundamentalists in the United States - the Catholic church at the forefront - aim to take women's rights back to the nineteenth century. Really?

Inevitably this sort of bigotry will take in the small and vulnerable TG community. 

Really? A bigot complaining about copping the odd salvo while declaring that the trans agenda has inserted itself into the centre of right think and so society as we know it has declined. Really?

The pond realises that the ABS data in this area is flawed, but it's safe to say that the number of bigoted fundamentalist Catholics still trying to pass judgment on others is vastly greater than the number of TG people, and poses a much greater threat to the world ... as anyone wanting a safe abortion in the United States, for whatever reason - rape, incest, medical issues - will appreciate ... really ...

"Frightening seriousness"? Really ...

And so to one of the reasons the pond decided to cut back on its reptile diet. This day the dog botherer spent most of his column slagging off Norman Swan, who made a goose of himself and then apologised.

Swan can look after himself, and the pond isn't going to spend any time defending his mis-steps, but as the theme this day is how to memory hole, the pond doesn't expect the bromancer to memory hole his climate science denialism - it festers on like the bigotry in Shanners - but of late the reptiles have taken to memory holing the recent pandemic, still lurking in the wings, ready for unsuspecting victims ...

Just a few dog botherer excerpts will capture the memory holing ...

Meanwhile, the pond trots off to the RPA regularly at the moment, to be confronted by an extremely sensible mask mandate. 

9 News noted this - and it feels astonishing to the pond that it should go there, but really ... please note the date, and the stripe of the state government ...

Meanwhile, memory holing the pandemic is what the dog botherer, Killer and the rest of the reptile pack are all about ...

Really? Perhaps the dog botherer could take a mask-free cruise? 

Oh wait ... P&O Cruises Australia, Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line reintroduce masks for passengers onboard...

That story's also dated the 18th November, while back at the first story there was the link the pond pre-empted, and this tweet ... (how long before it's all gone?)

Climate science denialism, pandemic denialism, mask phobia, it's all too much for the pond ... and that's why the pond decided to cut back on its reptile diet ... though strangely avoiding the dog botherer led to a surfeit of dog botherer ...

Even worse the pond wishes it could cut back on the daily assaults on the notion of an indigenous voice ...

See how it lurked in the comments section ...

There you go, our Gracie maintaining the rage on IR reform, and and right next to her, Price given priceless space to blather, and then up above in the reptile triptych of terror, these two conflicting panels ...

Don't pull back on the voice? But that tedious old fart, pompous portentous nattering "Ned" is off consulting that ancient relic, little Johnny ... and the entire point is to turn the notion of an indigenous voice into a cudgel, because right at the moment the reptiles have got bugger all else to offer ...

Here's another memory hole in the offing ...you have to forget this wretched politician was turfed out of his own seat, while the country had had a gutful of his entire government and turfed it out ...

Now by the magical musings of a fellow pompous old fart, he's become a hallowed and esteemed oracle ... full of infinite  understanding, or at least a  yearning for picket fences ...

Who gives a fuck what the old fart thinks or sees? No wonder the lizard Oz demographic skews wildly old and doddery ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, the venerable Meade was on the case with The Australian’s editor Chris Dore lost his job after attending News Corp event in California...

Inter alia ...

Christopher Dore lost his job as editor-in-chief of the Australian after attending a Wall Street Journal event in Laguna Beach, California, last month, where Rupert Murdoch’s top executives were present.

During his 31 years at News Corp, Dore edited four mastheads for Murdoch and was the most powerful editorial executive in his Australian business.

He was close to the co-chairman of News Corp, Lachlan Murdoch, who was made general manager of Queensland Newspapers in the 1990s and then was publisher of the Australian.

As well as being editor-in-chief of the Australian for four years, Dore edited the Daily Telegraph, the Courier Mail and the Sunday Times in Perth and was deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph.

But when he announced his resignation on Wednesday, citing “personal health issues”, there were no accolades from the Murdochs or the company’s top brass.

Sources said there was a meeting of the News Corp Australia editorial board, which Dore chairs, on Wednesday afternoon and an email went out to staff soon after saying Dore was leaving the company. Even the editorial executives at Holt Street were blindsided by the news.

Three weeks earlier Dore joined News Corp’s global chief, Robert Thomson, and executives from Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal at the WSJ Tech Live conference in California, held at Laguna Beach between 24 and 26 October.

Speakers included the model and skin care entrepreneur Hailey Rhode Bieber and the now-embattled crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried.

Guardian Australia has confirmed Dore attended the event and was witnessed chatting with top executives at one of a number of cocktail parties held at the event.

Sources said after witnessing Dore’s behaviour, News Corp management told him to take an extended break.

He never returned to the company...

Gone with the wind, but let's not memory hole the rich irony involved ...

...In March Dore was asked by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas to be the first in a series of editors to speak about his craft.

In his lecture he said the media industry was being tarnished by activist journalists who had “an irrational and tireless obsession with tearing down News Corporation journalism”.

He said some journalists were so “vain self-obsessed, craving, indulgent, needy” that they were “undermining their profession” and they should stick to reporting and not give their opinion.

“Too many journalists are inserting themselves into their stories or, worse still, into other reporters’ stories,” Dore said. “Some reporters are chasing the cheap, wild and ready-made approval of the in-crowd instead of chasing the more elusive yarn.”

The more elusive yarn is one old doddery fart speaking to another?

So it seems ...even as Dore disappears into the digital ether ... and so on with the chase ...

Poor old dog botherer. The one time he attempted to take up a cause, he found himself tagged by his very own reptiles as part of an elite push ...

Here he was on 8th November, trying to fit a square Mundine peg into a round hole ...

And here he was in the lizard Oz on the 4th November, trying to fit little Johnny into his frame ...

Talk about attempting to push something up a reptile heap ... why, in the next gobbet, nattering "Ned" began by thinking the dog botherer might even be in the under-40s or the Labor party or social media ...

Josh? Josh who?

Yes, it's enough of the voice and on to climate science bashing, and that's why the pond sometimes yearns for a memory hole or at least a redemptive cartoon ...

Now back to the usual from a man so respected his electorate kicked him out ... (memory hole that one if you will) ...

And never mind the planet, though lately Kudelka has been on something of a roll ...

At last report, they were still at it, and so were "Ned" and little Johnny ...

Ah, there we are, back in the memory hole again ...

And what do you know, after attempting to cut back on the diet, the pond seems to have ended up with even more useless detritus and a desire to return to 2007 ... and never mind that was the year that little Johnny became only the second PM to lose his seat in an election since Stanley Bruce in 1929 ... or so his wiki says ... is there a memory hole in the house?

Ah, still with Warren Mundine ...

“If the people of Australia want to go down this path, then I’m really happy to sign up to make it work,” Mundine said.

“It has to work, we can’t have any more failures, I’m committed to that, but I see better ways of doing things.”

Yep, time for another memory hole ...

And so to the immortal Rowe this day, and another thing worth keeping out of the memory hole ...