(Above: and more most excellent papery japery here).
Now that the heat has finally broken in Sydney - just a parochial bit of the wider story 'True shocker': February spike in global temperatures stuns scientists (with forced video) - and the pond has finally recovered from what felt like a deep south - deep north if you will - Tennessee Williams' fever, it's taken a momentous, earth-shattering event to distract the pond from its favourite subject matter.
After all, there in the Graudian is a lengthy piece, Record-breaking temperatures 'have robbed the Arctic of its winter' wherein there's a tale about Canadians having to import snow to get a dogsledding race started ...
Please, no more jokes about coals to Newcastle.
And then there was Lateline, at last doing something useful last night by exposing the shambolic, malfunctioning, maladroit, maladministered, maladapted, maladjusted, malapportioned, malfactored, malaligned, malevolent, malicious, malignant, malingering, maltreated, malnourished, malversed malady known as Malware's copper NBN ...
It's all there in Fibre to the node may be a thing of the past for the NBN, which really should have been have been titled FTN should be a thing of the past, but won't be because of Malware's sinful, stupid, obdurate, stubborn pride ...
Okay, ABC pond reader, the pond forgives Aunty for that recent unforgivable Media Watch, but just remember that a whistleblower at Aunty got spiked for pointing out that the Emperor Malware's clothes had more of a copper than a modern fibre sheen ...no, the pond hasn't forgotten False Balance: ABC coverage of the NBN since September 2013 ...
But none of this matters today - as the heat-relieving rain gently patters and gurgles down the drain and saturates the corroding copper in the ground - because the pond would like to do an epic cut up and paste of the Burroughs' kind, featuring two fierce warriors, Miranda the Devine, and Dame Slap ...
Now the point of the exercise isn't to defend PwC.
The day the pond starts defending PwC or KPMG or any of the rest of those offensively branded ponces is the day hell will start importing coal - talk to the hand and the native Canadians - but rather it's to marvel at the perfect symmetry of the two raging hellions as they tear up the page ...
For the pond $160 million pissed against the wall, while delaying and obfuscating and setting it up so that ripe abuse of the gay community will gain government sponsorship, is more than enough of a waste of money. But it's loose change for fundamentalist Catholics and the warrior hellions ...
Now the exercise will defeat all but the most hardened warriors.
The pond understands, and expects many to ask if they might be excused, and step out of the tent for a little while.
The pond will also understand if they don't return. Why train yourself to endure the heat in the kitchen like a Spartan child in the snow, when the pond itself wilted in the recent Sydney heat. There's only so much to ask of humanity ...
But ask we must ...
Now that's an excellent start, and what's more the Terrorists have paid heed to the pond's suggestion that a huge snap of Miranda the Devine at the start of her columns deterred many a faint-hearted reader wanting to avoid hagiographical, narcissist excess ...
Instead we cop this illustration in the Devine's piece ...
Excellent stuff, though perhaps the slow-moving, slow-thinking Terrorists didn't catch up with the news Greens voted against own gay marriage bill ...
Every Green, every vote, every time, except today, when the surf's up ...
But we are only in the foothills, and on we must trudge ...
Epic stuff, and yet, in those last two gobbets, there's something of an imbalance, what with Dame Slap scoring most of the space ...
Please, allow the pond to redress the balance ... because it's about the only balance and measured thinking you'll find ...
And there you have it ...
That's what happens when bigots dare to dream, and the dream is eerily shared ... as if they're starlings, wifi wired to wheel in the sky in unison ...
Maybe, just maybe, with the power of bigotry, religious fundamentalism and the Murdochians, victory might yet be snatched from the gay agenda working hand in glove with the UN world government climate conspiracy ...
And if they lose, they can be blamed ... "if it's not, they should never have pushed so hard ..."
Dare to dream, my pretties, live in hope my lovelies ... and remember, there's no time like the present to wheel in a Communist playwright ...
"What's next? If a majority of Australians decided at the plebiscite not to support same-sex marriage, will we hear from the commentariat elite that it's easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk?"
(And more here).
But enough of the flunkies working for the multinational Chairman, who loved Australia so much he left it for the corporate dime ...
As we've been speaking of Malware and bad politicians and as we mentioned Scott, and the weak have left the tent long ago, here's a Rowe for those who made it to the top of the mountain, and as always more Rowe here ...
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteA murmuration of Murdochians constantly wheeling to the right.
DW
You'd get the impression from the anti-marriage equality brigade that Australia is a pioneer taking great risks with its society to allow SSM.
ReplyDeleteFor fucks sake, a quick Greg Hunt of the subject brings up countries like:
The Netherlands (2000)
Belgium (2003)
Canada (2005)
Spain (2005)
South Africa (2006)
Norway (2009)
Sweden (2009)
Argentina (2010)
For all the risks Miranda, Janet and Lyle Shelton are worried about (kids without parents, fundamental change to the institution, lessening hetro couples marriages), can't we just do some case studies on countries which have had it for 10-15 years?
We don't do case studies. We are Australia, and we'll work it out ourselves thanks.
DeleteExhibit A - MYKI. Could have done a case study, and employed world's best functioning transport system. No, no, no.
several study tours and massive kickbacks later - the world's most impossible to understand, operate and implement transport system ever - at 5 times the cost of the successful Oyster system.
Study the world to see what works?
Nah mate, this is Australia. We'll be right, just leave it with us.
You are so sadly right, VC, so very sadly right. And that's only one of many.
DeleteBut Anony, you forgot that all-time bastion of conservative Catholicism, Ireland. In 2015, after a referendum of the Irish people no less. And that was after yet another massive exodus (starting a little bit after the GFC) of Ireland's best and brightest.
However, I have to say that I noticed a really major change in Ireland about 20 years ago. It was a joke told on Irish radio which was rebroadcast by the BBC and thence the ABC, and it was this one:
What is the difference between Bill Clinton and the Pope ?
Bill Clinton kisses women and walks upon the ground.
Oh VC, you've gone and done it, you dared to mention MYKI! And Oyster, or for that matter, New York and Tokyo ...
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card
Please, oh please, the pond is provoked enough during the day without this level of idle, outrageously true provocation ...
I can see the assorted partners of PwC all around the globe now, urgently convening a Skype conference, fretfully huddled around copies of the The Oz and The Daily Terror (Aus edition) biting their nails and whispering darkly of "rolling heads" and "client exodus".
ReplyDeleteSurely such scalding and finger wagging from journalistic colossi as Albrechtsen and Devine will have the heavy hitting corporate elite pondering whether or not to trust their businesses with PwC.
Or they might casually dismiss Albrechtsen and Devine as hectoring, screeching banshees who really don't have a clue about what it is they are actually criticising.
Devine may not have noticed, but people do actually work on weekends and don't spend their Saturdays as a soccer mum.
Doesn't Devine herself scribble for the weekend edition?
"...casually dismiss Albrechtsen and Devine as hectoring, screeching banshees ..."
DeleteI reckon those who matter (even though they can't count) will just see that PwC can be relied upon to produce whatever result they're commissioned to produce.
But I reckon they might be hoping that PwC could be just a little less bleedin' bloody obvious and maybe a degree or two more subtle. It's a bit too blatant when even Dame Slap and The Devine can pick up on it.
Egad - first poor old Eric Blair, now Brecht! Who will the Rightards attempt to co-opt next - Marx himself?
ReplyDeleteMind you, I could certainly see Dame Slap playing the title role in the News Corp Christmas panto production of "Mother Courage".
Sam Clemens and Charlie Dodgson are perennial favourites, but maybe they'll surprise us and choose Donatien Francois instead.
DeleteBut the Dame or the Devine as Justine ? OMG.
:)³
DeleteBut of something we can be very certain: it won't be Aphra Behn or Christine de Pizan.
DeleteThe bansshees clearly don't travel much or they'd clue to the fact that about 3 billion people up here to that north of the land of oz have for millennia believed that marriage is between a man and certainly 4 women. Maybe that's what they think we should aspire to!
ReplyDeleteWhile Dorothy's version of the Brecht quote about banks is commonly seen, I'm not sure its original Brecht. As far as I know, it derives from the Threepenny Opera, and in its original form emphasises criminality over mere facility.
ReplyDeleteIn the last scene of the play MacHeath (aka Mack the Knife) is about to hang for his crimes, really because more influential criminals sold him down the river, and through his lament Brecht speaks directly to the audience (using a splendid array of rhetorical techniques). Mac remarks that the harm he causes with a crowbar is trivial compared to that of the entrepreneurs, backed by the banks, and says:
"Was ist ein Dietrich gegen eine Aktie? Was ist ein Einbruch in eine Bank gegen die Gründung einer Bank? Was ist die Ermordung eines Mannes gegen die Anstellung eines Mannes?"
"What is a lockpick against a share? What is a break-in in a bank against the founding of a bank? What is the murder of a man against the hiring of a man?"
Perhaps Brecht used the version Dorothy quoted somewhere else, but if so, I'm not sure where.
"Bankraub ist eine Unternehmung von Dilettanten. Wahre Profis gründen eine Bank."
"Bank robbery is a business for amateurs. True professionals found a bank".
oopsie - the last two lines there weren't meant to survive the edit process, but are another variation attributed to Brecht for which I couldn't find a source.
DeleteAll true Frank D, the pond just went to a cheap internet quote source, in the firm belief, as President Lincoln once said, that everything you read on the intertubes is true. The variant offered was there to be quoted, but it wasn't as good a zinger, and between historical accuracy and zingers, the pond will always do a Billista ...
Delete