Bronwyn Bishop, loose CAPS sink SHIPS, and now WHO'S SICK?

TODAY IN KEEPING WITH NEW STANDARDS OF NETIQUETTE WE HAVE BANNED THE USE OF CAPITALS.

we urge all decent citizens online to read the important core rules of net etiquette as enunciated here, and suddenly discovered by the punch, australia's speediest, most up to date conversation, in why we're banning reader comments in silly capitals. sorry guys, i know you had a few of those words in capitals in the header, but rulez is rulez, and new rulez must be obeyed.

oh heck, let's go out in a blaze of glory, by quoting don marquis and his tragic tale of archys life of mehitabel, typed by a cockroach in 1933 as he recorded the life of a cat who was once cleopatra in a former life. toujours gai, toujours gai, what the hell.

I THOUGHT THAT SOME HISTORIC DAY
SHIFT KEYS WOULD LOCK IN SUCH A WAY
THAT MY POETIC FEET WOULD FALL
UPON EACH CLICKING CAPITAL
AND NOW FROM KEY TO KEY I CLIMB
TO WRITE MY GRATITUDE IN RHYME
YOU LITTLE KNOW WITH WHAT DELIGHT
THROUGHOUT THE LONG AND LONELY NIGHT
I'VE KICKED AND BUTTED (FOOT AND BEAN)
AGAINST THE KEYS OF YOUR MACHINE
TO TELL THE MOVING TALE OF ALL
THAT TO A COCKROACH MAY BEFALL
INDEED IF I COULD NOT HAVE HAD
SUCH OCCUPATION I'D BE MAD
AH FOR A SOUL LIKE MINE TO DWELL
WITHIN A COCKROACH THAT IS HELL
TO SCURRY FROM THE PLAYFUL CAT
TO DODGE THE INSECT EATING RAT
THE HUNGRY SPIDER TO EVADE
THE MOUSE THAT %)?) ) " " " $$$ ((gee boss
what a jolt that cat mehitabel made
a jump for me
it kicked me right into the
mechanism where she
couldn't reach me it
was nearly the death of little
archy that kick spurned me right
out of parnassus back into
the vers libre slums i lay
in behind the wires for an hour after
she left before i dared to get
out and finish i hate
cats say boss please lock the shift
key tight some night
i would like to tell the story of
my life all in capital
letters

no, you can't you wretched cockroach, or at least not on the punch. (And more about archy and mehitabel here).

Meanwhile - oh that feels so good, and so rebellious and fractious, a capital to start a sentence - while caps are banned, The Punch feels free to supply us with Bronwyn Bishop, scribbling Sunday morning slugfest for free.

Second thoughts, she sounds just like one of Chairman Rupert's minions, after a decent dose of the kool aid. Does lower case save you from indelicacy? Not if you're Bronnie.

Brooding about Sunday morning television on a Tuesday, Bronnie is horrified by the sight of Ross Garnaut on Meet the Press, who talked of risk management in relation to climate, when we all know the real issue facing the modern woman is hair management. Then things got even more dire:

Next we had the spectacle of David Marr – who writes for Fairfax beating up on Piers Akerman who writes for News Limited because Marr did not like the way ‘the Australian’ reports the news.

How’s this for a quote from a reporter from a competing newspaper (Marr from the Sydney Morning Herald) “Here is a newspaper (the Australian) that’s been around now for 30 something years. It’s still not making money. The reason I think is because of its other role, which is this heavy lifting that it does on ideological issues and heavy lifting that it does on the commercial issues of News Limited. And I think we readers of ‘the Australian’, read it with a grain of salt, a grain of salt all the time. The climate change debate was a very good example of that.”

That’s a bit rich coming from David Marr on the publicly funded ABC.

Well it might be rich, it might even be a beef bourguignon, a positive stew of ideas, but is it it correct? Would you like a grain of salt while reading The Australian? Think. Again. Or would you like to swallow a whole salt lick when reading Piers Akerman, who is so one eyed he makes Manly and Collingwood supporters seem like reasonable, rational people?

Personally I wouldn't use The Australian as substitute paper in the outside dunnie - yes we still have a dunnie abutting the shit carter's lane out the back - while the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, home to Akker Dakker, proved useless as lining for the cockie's cage. No wonder the poor bird flew the coop, unable to tell the difference between its activities and the rich stew of tabloid nonsense to be found below the shellgrit.

Never mind, Bronnie seems agile enough to work out that there might be a little self-interest at work in the matter of the free to air licence rebate but sssh, don't mention that it's a bribe, in case Laurie Oakes keeps on getting stroppy about it:

There did seem to be some paranoia in the air about free to air T.V versus pay T.V versus the publicly funded ABC with Minister Conroy being totally unable to justify the $250 million gift to free T.V, nor the anticipated change to the anti siphoning regulations to assist pay T.V nor the favourable funding to the ABC to allow it to run all day news to compete with Foxtel.

It was a hell of a morning!

Indeed, and that's one hell of a policy statement. We look forward to a Liberal government demanding any licence fee rebate go to ensuring Australian content is available in a multi-channeling world, that major events aren't siphoned off to pay TV, and that Chairman Rupert is finally allowed to takeover the ABC, so that it can be ethnically cleansed. Now that the Labor party has helped Kerry Stokes turn a network into a mining heavy equipment business, surely anything is possible. (Lid finally lifted on Kerry's goldmine: WesTrac).

But back to Bronnie, and oh dear, she must not have watched that much Sunday television, because she's forced to go back to the future, to Chairman Rudd's performance on Q&A, and scores it, surprisingly, amazingly, Kids won – PM lost.

The Australian was kind enough to contrast Mr Rudd’s answers to those astute young people with researched answers. The roll out of computers to schools was one such comparison.

Roll on the day that Bronnie takes on the kids, and The Australian kindly provides researched answers after the event to the drivel she would no doubt spout, like a gargoyle in a tropical cyclone.

But back to Bronnie and back to her going back to the future:

But back to Sunday morning T.V and the Insiders.

In that section where each panellist is asked for a final observation, this was Mr Marr’s.

“I’m very worried that people may now begin praying to Mary McKillop for cures, because apart from any doubts about whether or not saints exist, university– controlled tests in the USA say that medical outcomes are slightly worse for those who pray for cures.”

Now who’s sick?

Que? Or as we would say in a caps world WTF?

Well we're not worried about people who begin praying to Mary Mackillop for cures, because anybody who believes in saints is clearly delusional. (hear all about it on that deviant ABC program PM in Catholic sainthood questioned by some Christians).

And we're not even inclined to make a joke about university-controlled tests, because we just love university-controlled tests. That's how I know teeth can soak up ink like a piece of blotting paper or a stick of chalk, unless hardened by university-controlled products.

But I do worry about Bronnie. What on earth does she mean? Now who's sick?

Does she believe in miracles and saints? It surely sounds like it. In which case all we can say is NOW WHO'S SICK?

Oh god, and now we're sure to be banished to the outer layers of limbo, or hell or purgatory, or wherever sinners who use capitals are sent.

damn you, you upstart cockroach, it's all your fault. from now on a constant stream of abuse, in lower case, is heading your way ...

(below: more archy, and more krazy kat herriman archy and his other works here).