It's always good to start a meditative weekend with a movie joke, thanks to the apocalyptic Pope here.
And speaking of movies, the pond can confirm that, after much reluctance and hesitation, it finally sat down to watch Knight of Cups. Now let us never speak of Terrence with the two 'r's' Malick, or bad acid trips, or existential LA ennui again ... though if you wonder what the pond was feeling during the Aleister Crowley nodding, mystical, self-indulgent, mumbo jumbo Tarot trip, read the Graudian review here and multiply it by ten ...
But to be fair the pond found it an excellent talking movie - spotting the beachside Santa Monica restaurant the pond used to dine at, enjoying memories of Vegas and the sky-covered ceilings, remembering wind farms visited, and so on and so forth
But enough of the travelogue movies because there's serious business afoot which requires the pond to ignore many favourites ...
Trust the dog botherer, who wet his pants at the sight of a cartoon, to take the bed wetters to task, and how splendid of Brendan O'Neill to denounce the entire British empire ... (yes the pond has just caught up with the Simon Schama episode dealing with the British slave trade).
Oh wait, sorry, perhaps that's just the deceitful, tricky, uppity blacks making out like blacks, because as everyone knows, everyone wants to be Aboriginal in Australia because of their many, many advantages ... like dying earlier than the rest of the mob ... and now they want to entrench those sorts of rampant privileges! Pesky, difficult blacks ...
But soft, no the news this morning is a denial ...
Indeed, indeed, and look, you can see the story positioned discreetly and decorously below the reptiles leading the charge to punish those sneaky, tricky, pesky, difficult blacks ...
And naturally the pond's favourite Catholic was on the case ...
Ah the old lynch mob mentality. Oh that wretched old-fashioned anti-Catholic sectarianism that the pond once endured on a daily basis ...
Where could it be? Who might have an EXCLUSIVE on it? Let us do it in alphabetical order ...
Police probe Pell! That's got to hurt ...
Now there might be more EXCLUSIVES - the pond didn't look at all the BAPH states - but it was also all over the digital editions ...
Why did this bring a smile to the pond's lips, despite the grim nature of the topic?
Well, it came when reading prattling Polonius, determined to find motes in the eyes only of the ABC, the Fairfaxians and the rest of Polonius's usual suspects ...
It made for an epic, but a little dated, read, because Polonius was still back in the days of Tim Minchin's song ...
Naturally Polonius began with a history lesson, and it has to be said that if the pond had been around on the time, it would have been on the side of Mannix ... but how rich is it to mix up opposition to conscription with child sex abuse?
Only a prattling Polonius could manage that marvellous feat ... with an eliding "It's much the same today ..."
Actually it isn't, but what a fairly unique gherkin with a rather unique angle (thanks ABC style guide for the phrasing):
Indeed, indeed, and now it's time for the parade of shame, no doubt starting with malicious militant atheists - curse them, damn them one and all to a lifetime in burning hellfire - and their useful tools, the mindless puppets who parade their wares at the ABC and Fairfax, and who knows, maybe even the Nine and Ten networks ...
Indeed, indeed, and can someone please explain why Paul Bongiorno's name hasn't been featured in the front pages of all those Murdochian tabloids this very day?
Talk about a prime example of rampant militant atheist lynch-mob old-fashioned anti-Catholic sectarianism ...
Oh dear, to think that all the Murdochian tabloids must now be conscripted into the Pell Haters band so wittily put together by Polonius. Perhaps they could make up the choir?
Oh sheesh, Rowe ruled that out in the pond yesterday ...
Never mind, in these matters, the pond is always a Joe Friday sort of person. Just the facts, ma'am, Pellists and Murdochian tabloids, just the facts, if you please ...
But what a pretty kettle of fish for Polonius, and not just on a Friday.
Why the pond now expects a detailed proscription of the carnal sins and thought crimes of the Murdochian tabloids, to be published in blazing glory on the front page of the lizard Oz ...
Or perhaps we should just settle for a Chairman Rupert joke and another cartoon ...
I is willing, or even Im willing, if you must ...
But what if I running a militant atheist lynch-mob old-fashioned anti-Catholic sectarian conspiracy?
Waiter, the pond will have that pedant's delight cartoon now, if you please ...
News.com.au can be bad for your health. Firefox just reported this when I attempted to open a News story.
ReplyDeleteYour connection is not secure
The owner of www.news.com.au has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.
Now DP, I do much admire The Prattler's knowledge of history - both breadth and accuracy - but I am a little confused by his thesis today. My memory - admittedly a little vague because at the time I hadn't been born yet - was that Archbish Mannix wasn't condemned so much for his Catholicism, as for his Irishness - ie he opposed conscription because it would be used to compel Irish Australians to fight for the old enemy, Britain.
ReplyDeleteI'd be quite happy to be corrected because I really don't want to go to my final resting place (whenever that may happen) believing that Mannix had pursued Irish nationalism rather than a passionate Catholic pursuit of the defense of the 6th commandment - not that breaking the 6th had ever worried the Church before (and it was Luther, I believe, who explained that civil and religious authorities were actually excused from obeying commandments, so the RCs should vigorously oppose that idea).
An even more fundamental (and obvious) difference between the 'lynch-mobs' pursuing Mannix and Pell is that critics of Mannix were non-Catholics. Pell's original and principal critics, whose stories have been taken up by the media, were people who sent their children to Catholic schools, people who as children attended such schools, or people who were members of Catholic parishes overseen by abusive clerics. Can such Catholics really be accused of anti-Catholic bigotry?
DeleteWell Anony, apropos Mannix and 'lynch mobs' it's worth recalling that when Billy Hughes called the 2nd conscription referendum, the most activist opposition came from Mannix and that nonetheless, conscription was rejected by an even bigger margin than it had been the first time.
DeleteNow that's real mob madness, eh.
The abject futility of attempting to portray putrid Pell as a victim is a task only Gollumm and the Bolter are stupid enough take on. I suppose there might be a handful of very conservative Catholics, in say Warringah, who see sectarians everywhere, just like Gollumm, but the majority of Catholics despise Pell for what he has done to their Church, to their faith. If Henderson & Bolt think they lead a vanguard of Catholics willing to put down their lives for Pell, they are more stupid than I thought, but no less despicable. Jaysus, why are conservative commentators so constantly on the wrong side of history?
ReplyDeleteWell somebody's got to always go down the wrong road, AntiB, so the rest of us know where not to go.
DeleteOh, look! Saturday Paper is running fiction as a "true story" I could have written. See Sex work and empowerment and remind me to not renew the subscription. Disappointing, but we are now in the Turnbull era, after all.
ReplyDeleteMal's method is spelt out by CSIRO cutbacks - get a flash dude in tooled boots to run the lies & fantasy. He's got plenty of attack dogs in the kennels to do his dirty work. The next one off the leash needs to do better than ScoMo chasing it tail, though.
"Senior Qantas, ANZ, Telstra and Australia Post executives have been drafted to the Australian Public Service to advise high-level bureaucrats on making public-sector management more “businesslike”, as the Coalition prepares to unveil a radical modernisation plan....Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, who also has responsibility for the public service, and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann are expected to make public the results of Ms McPhee’s review in the coming weeks. “The review presents the public service with an exciting opportunity to remain at the pinnacle of service delivery,” Senator Cash said."
DeleteThanks. Just ducking under the paywall for a sec ....
DeleteDenying any ideological warfare, Mr Lloyd admits the bargaining policy that underpins the agreements introduced under Tony Abbott is part of a bigger picture, but stresses that the reform agenda is practical.
Yep, nothing that an Enabling Act wouldn't fix.
"…about a century since Australia experienced a lynch-mob mentality…" writes the utter bore that goes by the name Henderson. That is, unless you count the lynch mob of which he was part, the 'ditch the witch, drown her at sea in a chaff bag' mob that maniacally pursued 'Juliar' Gillard. But then, why would you? WHy remove the plank in your own eye when you can endlessly remark on the mote in your adversary's? And make a living out of it.
ReplyDeleteThat Pope cartoon is about the best ever.