Day 60 of MUC and day 13 of MOC, and thanks to the Oz editorialist, the pond finally embraces cheap sarcasm and gutter irony ...

Ah, sweet Friday lunch break, and a chance for some quality time with the reptiles channeling the IPA yet again ...

It goes without saying that the pond deplores the prohibition on sarcasm.

The pond is all in favour of sarcasm.

The pond heartily endorses sarcasm and Oscar Wilde's observation that it's the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence.

That's if the pond could actually find evidence that Oscar Wilde made the observation.

There's alway some pedant on some corner of the full to overflowing intertubes wanting to cast doubts on a universal truth ... or at least a Wildean attribution ...

But the pond did enjoy the quote that the pedant attributed to Mark Twain ...

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a writer of editorials for The Australian. But I repeat myself.”

Fancy Mark Twain saying that, but then Honest Able Lincoln did warn that not everything was true on the internets.

And then there was this, supposedly said by Oscar Wilde ...

“I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying. I must be writing an editorial for The Australian.” 

Perhaps it was Oscar's ghost that said it.

But the pond digresses, and we should move on to the IPA channeling ...

Frankly those opening two pars were a revelation to the pond. Who knew that virginal Queen Elizabeth was a prevailing Leftist orthodox, and was so intent on censorship of a Leftist kind that she forced Bill to subvert her regime using his inimitable irony and sarcasm.

Of course the pond was aware that Athens was deeply socialist and it was therefore inevitable that Socrates would use clever satirical and ironical devices to expose the citizens' rampant leftism.

It might be taking things a bit far - in a satirical sense, and as a sarcastic, ironic thrust - to drink poison, but perhaps that's the sort of sarcasm the reptile editorialist had in mind.

As usual, there's some damned philosopher in some far flung corner of the intertubes urging a deeper consideration of the matter ...

When we laugh at an ironic remark, or a sarcastic cartoon, it is left to each of us to pause and reflect on whether laughter was the appropriate response to the situation, given all we know of the individuals and cultures involved. It’s a call that requires us to summon our inner Socrates, and that makes us a better person every time we do it. (and more here).

What, we can't just laugh at the chinks and the wogs and head off to the gentleman's club for lunch without someone noticing and perhaps even taking the gate with the fence?

Well, the pond has no intention of summoning an inner Socrates or a dose of hemlock for that matter, and would instead rather marvel at the way the angry old men at the reptilian Oz still shout at clouds and brood about postcolonial insights ... or should one say revisionism, as where's a Friday lunch time without an "-ism"?

The pond gathered together a gaggle of maps of former empires ... and isn't it grand to see how these empires match up with the troubled hotspots that litter the world to this very day? 

Naturally we start with good old Britain in 1927 and in Palestine in 1920 ... by golly they did a good job with that ...

But let's not forget the French, the Dutch, the Spanish and a summary of assorted empires ...

The pond felt a swelling of pride, and a profound regret.

So many grand empires, now lost in time, and idle students wasting their time on discussing postcolonial matters and the Opium Wars and the excellent work of the United States in the Philippines and so on and so forth, when they might better spend their time sending each other up shitless and mocking and denigrating each other, and perhaps tackling rams in the field, and making the reptiles proud of them ...

And then, with the rams tackled, and women and gays satirised with sarcastic and ironic flourishes, why the manly men could sit around a campfire together and recite an heroic poem or two ...

Take up the Oz reptiles’ burden-- 

Send forth the best ye breed-- 

Go bind your sons to exile 

To serve your captives' need; 

To wait in heavy harness, 

On fluttered folk and wild-- 

Your new-caught, sullen peoples, 

Half-devil and half-child. 

Take up the IPA burden-- 

In patience to abide, 

To veil the threat of terror 

And check the show of pride; 

By open speech and simple, 

An hundred times made plain 

To seek another's profit, 

And work another's gain. 

 Take up the Murdochian burden-- 

The savage wars of peace-- 

Fill full the mouth of Famine 

And bid the sickness cease; 

And when your goal is nearest 

The end for others sought, 

Watch sloth and heathen Folly 

Bring all your hopes to nought. 

Take up the reptilian burden-- 

No tawdry rule of kings, 

But toil of serf and sweeper-- 

The tale of common things. 

The ports ye shall not enter, 

The roads ye shall not tread, 

Go mark them with your living, 

And mark them with your dead. 

Take up the angry white Australian’s burden-- 

And reap his old reward: 

The blame of those ye better, 

The hate of those ye guard-- 

The cry of hosts ye humour 

(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- 

"Why brought he us from bondage, 

Our loved Egyptian night?" 

Take up the News Corps’ burden-- 

Ye dare not stoop to less-- 

Nor call too loud on Freedom 

To cloke your weariness; 

By all ye cry or whisper, 

By all ye leave or do, 

The silent, sullen peoples 

Shall weigh your gods and you. 

Take up the Oz editorialist's burden-- 

Have done with sarcastic days-- 

The lightly proferred laurel, 

The easy, ungrudged praise. 

Comes now, to search your manhood 

Through all the thankless years 

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, 

The judgment of your peers!

Was the pond bemused that Western civilisation had finally come to rest in the form of the Murdoch empire, Faux noise, and the rest of the machinery of bigotry and bile?

A little, but then, that's the whole point of the wonderfully witty, sarcastic, post-modern, post-ironic editorialist ...

And now back to the future for more sarcasm and irony, and the rest here with forced video ...

But, but, but, billygoat, he was only doing what his Murdochian masters wanted ...