In which the pond indulges in Craven constitutional thoughts and yearns for western civilisation of the GOP kind ...

The reptiles are preoccupied with civilisational, structural and monarchical matters this morning, and Greg Craven has the honour of getting things underway with his astute insights into colonial thinking...

What's that? What's the pond missed? 

The feminisation of AFL football? 

Why that's shocking, that's appalling, that's affronting. The very ground under the pond's feet has trembled and moved a little ... perhaps as much as a yard ...

Thank the long absent lord no one will let them play rugger bugger, or men with no necks thugby, or cricket, or golf or that funny game where no one scores but they dribble a lot, or basketball or ...

Women feminising AFL footy? Can the decline and the fall of the west be far behind?

Oh such are the jocular jolly japes of the witty Catholic University wag ... and so it's on to the heart of the matter ...

Indeed, thank heavens no woman was involved in the process, and no woman would arise from the mating of Cosgrove and Eales.

The very last thought we need for a symbolic president trailing dignity and constitutional propriety is a woman. They're off ruining their dignity playing footy ... oh you foolish shrews ...

As for the fatuous mindless stupidity of the rest of it, not to worry, that's just the Craven at work ...

The pond recalls that one of the compromise models proposed was that candidates for the job might be pre-vetted by parliament and nominated by joint approval of government and opposition - say a field of five - and these gelded horses might then be put to the popular vote.

That way they could be suitably knackered and yet a facade of symbolic direct election voting could be preserved.

It is of course not the business of the Craven to come up with any sensible solution to such issues.

Instead the Craven is intent on fear-mongering and wagging the finger and mocking the average punter with the sort of patrician disdain and sneering that the reptile commentariat routinely bemoans and decries... by flourishing the Trump Halloween doll ... in February!

And there you go, another contribution from the taxpayer funded Catholic University ... the pond can imagine the Craven cackling deliriously over that joke about a Daryl Trump ...

So where's the outrage from the reptiles about this goose mocking the Daryls of the world? As if Greg isn't some kind of under-arm bowling name?

Actually the danger is this.

Cackling geese of the Craven school don't help matters at all. Waving the scary Trump doll is no different from all the African and South American dictators that were waved around back when the debate meant something and monarchist Howard was stuffing republicans back in the box. 

Worried by Trump? Why then apparently we should be scared shitless by the looming prospect of a Kim Il-sung clone controlling the land down under. Or perhaps even the love child of Adolf Hitler ...

Stupid people of the Craven kind now find the day of Charles approaching ever more quickly and futtock around wondering what to do about it, and then muddy the waters and fuck over the debate with cheap shots at constitutional ignoramuses (never no mind women playing footy).

And the reptiles wonder why populism gains a foothold, when fatuous fops of the sneering condescending Craven kind infest their pages ...

Time for a break and a Rowe cartoon ... and more Rowe here ...

Now there's a couple of unnerving peas in a pod, but it's time to move on to the pond's bonus, in which the reptiles contemplate the joys of western civilisation, thanks to the lizards of Oz channelling the reptiles of the WSJ ...

Now first the pond must acknowledge that this festering re-heated stew of stale thoughts wasn't just six hours ago ...

It first ran at the WSJ on 20th February ...

In these Trumpian times that makes it wildly out of date, but as Mr Stephens is aspiring to universal deep thinking about the state of western civilisation, the pond thought that the musty air of stale prunes and the stench of re-heated sludge shouldn't be counted against the piece or the insights on offer ...

It says something about Stephens and his deep despair that he should think that the Russians continue to drink from a deep well of civilisational self-belief, as opposed to an endless supply of vodka and Tsarist conditioning to accept a Putin dictatorship ...

So what's the cause of the despair? Why it's the same bogeyman that the Craven used to herd the Daryl plebs away from the bizarre notion that they should get to vote in a democracy ...

Actually, if the pond might be so bold, the GOP put forward a Republican candidate for President, and Republicans voted for said candidate, and the candidate was supported by large slabs of the Republican establishment, and the Murdochian media, not least Fox News and its Trumpian acolytes of the Hannity and Orally kind ..

Credit where credit is due for the first post-rational deconstructionist President. But this is hardly surprising - reality has been negotiable at Fox and in Murdoch la la land long before Roger Aisles sent it right to the bottom ...

Of course imperviousness to guilt and a seeking to involve everyone else in the way that they've helped fuck up the United States is an important aspect of current reptile work:

It thought about itself?

It thought about the first world war, the second world war, the Holocaust, Vietnam and other colonial follies?

American fundamentalists in the twentieth century treated with reverence concepts of reason, as opposed to rapturous notions of revelation that suggested we'd be off the planet by the next Sunday?

It believed in the excellence of its music and literature and wasn't puzzled at the way Wagner-loving, Beethoven-swooning Nazis managed to slaughter millions in unimaginably cruel ways?

It celebrated the superiority of its imperial delusions and colonial political ideals?

It wasn't ashamed of the prosperity of the railway and oil barons and celebrated McCarthyism as the best way to root out evil, pinko perverts and anyone else wanting a fair shake of the celery stick?

If you want children to learn anything about anything, perhaps the best starting point is far away from the delusional starry-eyed idealism of a Stephens and his nonsensical tosh about "western civilisation", just one moaning and keening and wailing from the many Murdochian reptiles seeking to absolve themselves of blame in the matter of the Trumpist phenomenon. Go tell that to the Tea Party ... don't bother the pond.

Yes, somewhere tucked into that morass, that sludge of half-baked thinking and mooning over western civilisation, is the notion that all we need to do is start teaching the values of civilisation, whatever they might be, and all will be well ... and a Trump or a Le Pen might be avoided ...

Tell that to the Germans and the Italians in the 1920s and 1930s ...

In his singular folly, Stephens manages to eradicate almost anything that might be understood by contemplating the histories of assorted countries, vaguely and foolishly assembled under the one roof by a notion, "western civilisation", that is as vague as it is meaningless...

This is what the pond was taught was western civilisation ...

If that's western civilisation, it can fuck off back to Britain ... in much the same way that the United States once told the British and George III what they could do with their western civilisation ... and hopefully someday Australia will manage to do the same for Charles III and the Cravens of the world ...

Next thing you know, with all this jibber jabber about play up and play the game, women will be feminising AFL footy!

Happily the Pope's wisdom comes into play here as he provides a cartoon celebrating shared western values. and more papal wisdom here ...