Sunday, September 29, 2013

Sucking it up this Sunday ...


(Above: why don't you join the dots? It's too puzzling for the pond).


It doesn't take much to get the pond going.

An inadvertent use of inverted commas, as seen in a sentence appearing incidentally in a report that John Symond was replacing Kim Williams as head of the Sydney Opera House Trust, was more than enough.

It purported to be "journalism", but was in fact common, vulgar gossip:

Mr Symond is likely to bring his business and society connections to the role. In April, he hosted a fund-raiser for The Australian Ballet at his home attended by Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch, deputy chair of The Australian Ballet. The evening was co-hosted by his girlfriend, Amber McDonald, former wife of Patrick Keating, son of former prime minister Paul Keating.
The couple's romance made headlines in January, with their first outing at Mr Symond's son's "marriage" to his long-term partner ...

"Marriage"?

The report was prepared by two "journalists", going by the names of John Saxby and Daisy Dumas, for a "newspaper" run by the Fairfaxians, which had been brought into the house by a couple of untrained "house guests".

If you Google the offending text, you don't get anything, just a sanitised "report" by "journalist" John Saxby with the header John Symond replaces Kim Williams as Sydney Opera House Trust chairman, and similar stories in a similar vein.

Now you might think this is a minor, trivial matter, but the pond felt the need to roll up the newspaper and beat the house guests soundly around the head with it.

They spent three actual dollars - price rising this week - on a tree killer, and the sole reward was to inflame the pond and sent it into a frenzy?

You can imagine what sort of treatment might have been doled out to the two "journalists" had they been "in reach" ...

Of course in the scheme of things, it's not the same as the dictator Putin bunging on his prejudicial legislation in Russia, or the vile IOC pandering to him in much the same way as they pandered to Adolf Hitler, but then you tend to expect fascist organisations bent on Leni Riefenstahl style celebrations to pander to other fascists, crypto or blatant.

And it's certainly not up there with the common gossip that the Herald used as its tabloid front page tease today:


Oh forget the news that Bondi is going to go - it's too crowded with bogans anyway - and besides, the pond promised not to mention climate change, as a way of conforming to the Dear Leader's dearest wishes, and in keeping with the Bolter's scientific explanation that he's not an actual denialist, he's just a denialist who reports the facts, gleaned from years of assiduous collection of raw data and astonishing personal analysis.

No, it's the story George and Barnaby's excellent adventure which caught the eye, available online under the header Ministers claimed costs for wedding trip.


The pond was titillated, because - should you click on the story and use up precious Fairfax hits - it features Barnaby Joyce and George Brandis, and only a few days ago Miriam Cosic was celebrating Brandis in An adult is back in charge of the arts.

Shouldn't that have been "an adult"?

Now the pond had resolved never to speak of Tamworth again, at least while Barners remains its "member". To think, the town once had Tony Windsor as its rep, about whom you could say adult without any need for inverted commas.

The pond has unilaterally stripped the town of its "centre of the world" status, because, let's face it, if you have Barners as your "member", you're actually hicksville central.

Anyhoo, it seems the "adult" in the arts room, and the "drongo" in hicksville managed to run up a bill of $3,000 attending a shock jock "wedding" - yes, the news surrounds "weddings" this day - and it turns out that attending "weddings" is official business and primarily a professional engagement and very little to do with social engagements.

The pond thinks the same way whenever heading off to work in a stretch limo to a luxury hotel with a glass of champers "in the paw".

At least the "journalist" involved in reporting the "exclusive", one James Robertson, had a sense of humour:

Mr Joyce claimed a flight to Moree the next day and about $500 worth of charges for the use of a Commonwealth car on the day of the wedding. He said he could not recall whether he had other meetings that day but defended the use of public resources to attend the wedding. 

Ah, the good old "can't recall" routine. But do go on:

''There were, no doubt, lots of people there involved in politics,'' he said. ''It was one of these things where you're noted more by your absence than by your participation.'' 
In the last Parliament, Senator Brandis made the case for prosecutions of Mr Thomson and Peter Slipper. 

Yep, that'd be the "adult" in Miriam Cosic's reptile room.

Of course none of this matches in seriousness the ongoing fallout arising from the vile and wretched almost daily, certainly incessant, and usually hysterical rhetoric deployed by the then opposition, now government regarding refugees, boat people, sovereign borders and all the rest of the nonsense, using misery to claim the "preciousss" and come to power.

Even the lazy reptiles at the lizard Oz felt the need to leave this story at the top of the digital page overnight:


It's been frequently noted that Scott "talker in tongues" Morrison failed upwards, on Peter Principle law, to get to his current position - read So Who the Bloody Hell Are You? on the Tourism Australia matter - and now he's in a public position to routinely confirm it, and good old tabloid Gemma Jones now has a new straw dog to beat up, as you can read in Coalition breaks silence on sunk boat after Tony Abbott Abbott flees reporters after asylum seekers drown on way to Australia.

The header says it all, though it doesn't quite capture the way news of arrivals is sneaking out on Twitter.

Of course we're all used to the sight of Tony Abbott doing a bunk:



The main point is that the rogues and cheats and liars went missing when it came to the crunch, and the footy proved an insufficient distraction, as can be read in Death toll rises after asylum boat sinks.

Long ago, Abbott and Co. had the chance to introduce a gentler polity and a set of sensible bipartisan policies in relation to what is a humanitarian issue involving real people in real misery, international treaty obligations, a fundamental relationship with a northern neighbour, and basic Christian principles of the kind routinely trotted out with nauseating regularity by former chairman Rudd, current Dear Leader, and clap happy Morrison.

Instead they've inherited a whirlwind they helped create, and there's no easy way to silence the storm.

It went that way for Macbeth too, and thus far, in his short tortured reign, Abbott shows every sign that Great Birnam wood might well come to Dunsinane Hill, as he heads off to Indonesia this week ...

It couldn't happen to someone more deserving ...

Finally, since contemplating all this can send the pond into a depression, it's been a long while since the pond dropped in on the Pope for a little more Popish knavery, and you can too by heading off here. 

This one manages to join climate change, the 1950s mind set, Captain Bligh, and stupid three word slogans, with a dash of Long John parrot conjuring up the spirit of Alan Jones.

By golly this Pope would introduce a little levity into the Vatican, even more than the shiver that went around the conservative dead wood with the recent words of the other Pope.

Meanwhile, the pond has started on its own three word chant. If you voted for the parrot, remember to:

Suck it up.
Stop the boats.
Suck it up
Respect my authoritah.
Suck it up.


And just for fun, the thought of Pyne being in the bag is irresistible:



7 comments:

  1. Père Abbott's sotto voce "eff off" to journalist is, of course, totally OK and not worthy of note. Abbott has received advance absolution for all his future peccadilloes. What would have been raw material for a slew of lampoons if Rudd had dropped the bomb, is not worth a passing comment. Let no more be heard about it. At least, no more than will be said about child labour in the tobacco industry.

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://web.archive.org/web/20100530214117/http://groupsects.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/uniting-church-leader-attacks-shire-lives-scott-morrison/

    Signs and mutterings beyond shire live last week

    https://twitter.com/JustJen64/status/382303101157244928/photo/1 ( http://www.reddit.com/r/australia )

    this week

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=636931266337510&set=a.120959381268037.12242.115067218523920&type=1&relevant_count=1
    ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tony-Abbott-Worst-PM-in-Australian-History/151576228341304 https://www.google.com.au/#q=gosford+anglican+church+sign http://anggos.com.au/ )

    back near the "Morrison" shire
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sex-toys-canned-woolies-bites-the-bullet-and-dumps-vibrators-20130928-2ul6i.html

    and closer:
    "I also subscribe to the words of the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh: “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet”." From a "maiden" speech, and here http://www.womensagenda.com.au/career-agenda/inspiring-women/senator-michaelia-cash/20120725151 (Watch yourself "there" Major General Morrison! Loose lips sink ships..)

    ReplyDelete
  3. middle class welfare sign
    https://sphotos-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/p480x480/1005481_620127501351220_1474506508_n.jpg

    but hurting people
    http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/files/2013/07/wpid-Photo-Jul-5-2013-810-AM.jpg

    with your money the usual
    http://25.media.tumblr.com/39e6b110a53174bb40d6da86b38d4dd2/tumblr_mn4ixcYRU71qapkmyo1_500.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  4. Relax a moment people - and watch Turandot on ABC1, while we can enjoy such gems.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And the adult - or is it ‘and the dolt’ - who is in charge of the arts has paid back $1683.06. He continues to claim the entitlements “were incurred in the course of attendance at a function primarily for work-related purposes".

    Excuse me while I vomit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Is that returned with compound interest from 2011? And a penalty? Say, equal at least to ATO extortionate rates exceeding those of credit cards. Any chance the a*#%hole general will do the justice of linking fines to an individuals income level like demerit point penalties to driver's licences or crime gaol time to lifespan? Didn't think so.

      Delete
  6. can't wait to see toned abbs bolting for the door as brandis and barners line up to register their first tainted vote.

    ReplyDelete

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