The simplicity of hagiographic fawning, and yet another serve of wet lettuce ...

Beautiful, stunning, and elegant in its simplicity isn't it? 

The pond has always found a stray billion or two handy for simplicity, but the Twitter format simply doesn't reveal the real impact of the koan. 

Please allow the pond to expand the gnomic insight:

Simplicity

So much easier

And both more beautiful

And stronger

Leads closer

To Fairness For All

Now there's a poet who shows he doesn't have a single clue, and yet in showing that, reveals an enormous amount of insight. 

Let me tell you about the rich. They are different from you and me. (and more here on Fitzgerald and Hemingway)

Much disputation erupted in the Academy associated with the pond - many felt that "Simplicity" should have been replaced with "Senility", arguing that the original text had surely been corrupted, but the pond insists this is how it should read. No doubt supporters of the Earl of Oxford will continue to take a different view ...

As for the American crisis, the gnomic master had equally wonderful insights:

All win? Opening route to millions of jobs?

This from the man who in creating Fox News helped create political anarchy in the United States, and those damned Yankees still keep on trying to blame Australia, but he's an American citizen old chums.

You let him in, you gave him the green card, and the social security number, so just suck it up ...

And what do you know? It turns out he's just a hapless, senile old Frankenstein who wound up his Faux Noise monster, and let it,  and the Tea Party and all the rest of it loose, and now all he can do is tweet hapless twitter ...

Meanwhile, in Murdoch la la land on the other side of the planet, the work of the hagiographers going about their lickspittle fawning continues.

Please allow the pond to note in passing the excellent work of the current fawner-in-chief:

No link, just a screen cap, because there's strong medical evidence that too much fawning consumed in a single day can lead to constipation.

"Struck just the right note" is as far as it's safe to proceed, according to a gaggle of the pond's scientific advisors.

Oh indeed, let's not have any idle talk about turning back the boats, or towing back the boats, or buying back the boats, or paying Aussie spies to winkle out deviant Indonesian villagers and fisher folk ...

And whatever you do, please don't mention the Fairfaxians picking up on a story that enjoyed a brief life in Indonesia:

Lock him up, for the love of the long absent lord and Her firm position on thugs and law-breakers, and throw away the key ...

Lordy lordy, was it only a year or so ago that a fearsome completely fierce Abbott  was rumbling in the jungle with headers like We can turn back boats if we want, says Tony Abbott.

That piece is trapped behind the lizard Oz's wall of doom lite, so please allow the pond to quote from the fiery sermon:

Tony Abbott has hit back at Australia's nearest neighbour, saying Australia has every right to return asylum-boats back to Indonesia. 
Amid growing tensions between Jakarta and Australia's alternative government, the Opposition Leader said he would “absolutely” pursue the controversial tow-back policy in government.

"Absolutely" should here be strictly understood - courtesy of its dictionary definition - to mean "possibly", or "not terribly likely", or perhaps "absolutely, at least until I flew up to Indonesia a lion and then flew back a lamb".

There's more in that March 16th 2012 piece - in the light of the recent talks - which is either ironic or most amusing, or both if you like, as Abbott went about the business of blustering and grand-standing, and creating fear and paranoia while repeating his mantra of simple three word slogans:

“Let's not forget these are Indonesian flagged, Indonesian crewed, Indonesian home-ported vessels that are coming from Indonesia,” Mr Abbott told the Nine Network. “Of course they can go back to Indonesia. They've done it before, they can do it again.” 
The Coalition is set for a showdown with Jakarta after the opposition vowed to press ahead with its controversial plan to tow back asylum boats, despite Indonesia's Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa describing the policy as "impossible". 
 Yesterday, Dr Natalegawa dealt a hammer blow to a key plank of the Coalition's border protection policies - boat tow-backs - saying the plan was an exercise in burden-shifting and would be unacceptable to Indonesia.

Showdown? Yep, that's how you describe the lion laying down with the lamb ...

Now you can see what Sheridan meant by "hitting the right note".

You need the same dictionary which contained that definition of "absolutely".

The right note:  lie down and roll over, swallow your previous words, and your previous policies and your blustering, bullying ways, kowtow, cave in, pander, prostrate, knuckle under, fawn, say uncle,  toe the mark, and so on and so forth ...

But will anyone care?

Not the hagiographers in Murdoch land, busy basking in the reflected glow from their hero in action. Sure he said the impossible and claimed the impossible while in Opposition, but to tell lies to get power ... why it's admirable in its simplicity ...

But it does remind the pond of a recurring gripe out here in social media nihilist anarchist land.

The mainstream media (yes, there's a temptation to erupt into SM babble about the LSM) routinely castigates the dark side of the intertubes for their wildcat ways ...

Paul Sheehan, for example, loves to berate the dark side of the web.

And it's true, if you head off to neo-Nazi sites like Stormfront, or other rabid parts of the web, you get exactly what you expect ... racist madness, or a looniness which would turn the pond into a tsunami.

But really, the ratbags are able to take their lessons from their alleged betters, whether it's Derryn Hinch once again breaching a court order (here), and using as an excuse others in the MSM also were alleged to have done it ...

Or aspirational parrots like Ray Hadley repeating an untruth from the tabloid gutter Daily Terror ...

And what does he cop for his trouble?

A severe spanking with a wet lettuce by ACMA.

Because that's yesterday's news and Swannie is now a feather duster - well at least a plucked chook - and it's all too late and whatever damage was done is now long gone.

The ACMA is in discussions with 2GB about remedial measures. (here at Radio Today).

"Remedial measures"?

It's the beginning of October 2013, the broadcast in which Hadley dishonestly accused Swan of dishonesty took place on 25th June 2012, and now we're settling down to discuss "remedial measures"?

WTF? The children have long ago consumed their fruit snacks and bottles of water thanks to the Parliament House hospitality program, and have moved on, while Hadley - who has attracted attention in the past for his bullying of his staff - continues on his merry parrot ways.

This is why the shock jocks and the Murdoch press routinely sail as close to the wind or past the wind as much as they like, because they can  just throw the wet lettuce in a salad, and then eat the steak instead ...

Never mind, but next time you hear someone talk about the wild excesses and dangers of anarchist social media, point them in the direction of the self-regulated Murdochians and assorted parrots of a right-wing ratbag persuasion ... and then make them eat a wet lettuce salad without benefit of any dressing down.

But speaking of Hadley, as thick as the neck of your average 'brick with eyes' thugby league footballer - soon coming to a Senate near you - it's grand final week in Sydney, and the pond has been challenged to make a stand.

And so we cheerfully recycle this image which did the Facebook rounds a week ago: