In which the pond takes in Johnsie bashing the Islamics and the Devine doing over Dorothy ...

With the smell of the dead rat under the floorboards growing stronger by the hour, the pond yearns for the lost days of Easter, when a bunny could be a bunny ... and there were tales told to please the bunnies ...

... but that was then, and this is now, and that WaPo story is easy to find, and perforce the pond must turn to its ritual reptile watching, and guess who was head of the scored the top fickle digital finger this day in the opinion section?

It was Johnsie's turn to do over the Islamics. Every reptile must play their part, and do their thing, and Johnsie heroically stepped up to the plate this day.

Of course it immediately reminded the pond that it's not the job of Australians, sane people, or anyone outside the Murdochian bubble to liberalise Johnsie and the rest of the reptiles ...

The pond wouldn't give that job to Hercules or Sisyphus.

The rock's too heavy and there's too much shit in the stables ... but if you read "reptile" or "News Corp" or similar, where "Islam" turns up, the entire read is transformed ...

Here's a pointer. See where it reads in paranoid fashion about the event set up to "mask the true level of male control in Islam"? How much better when you read it as masking "the true level of male control in the Catholic Boys' Daily ...."

This is fun for all the family ...

Look, the pond has conducted its own study, and has concluded that a full ninety nine per cent of reptiles conduct their daily life and write their columns "strictly in accordance with reptile lore" ...

And aren't there some other great lines in there ...like "Liberalism ... needs liberals to survive and prosper."

That helps explain why News Corp and possibly Australia is deeply fucked ...or liberalism at least, because in reptile la la land there's not a liberal to be seen surviving and prospering ...

Johnsie purporting to be a liberal, or give a flying fuck for the breed? Only on Dame Slap's planet ...

The trouble is, Johnsie distracted the pond from other pressing matters, not least the way this day is a Devine day ...

The Devine was busy showing her liberal capacity to bash TG folk, in a manner your average fundamentalist Islamic of the Daesh kind would undoubtedly admire.

It's the form of liberalism that passes amongst the reptiles of Catholic fundamentalist persuasion ... because whenever anybody talks about liberalism, naturally fundamentalist Catholicism is judged to be fully liberal ...

Yep, let's not have any of that live and that live, more why don't you just sign up to mindless conformity, or crawl away under a rock and die ...

The pond doesn't have time to go into the full Devine ... the stench of the rat makes time at the keyboard amongst the rats is too hard ... but this gobbet set the pond to musing ...

For starters, anyone who wants to be a Dorothy immediately beguiles and charms the pond, though it should warn that clicking heels never gets the pond anywhere, just more reptiles harassing it in the wilderness ...

But it does remind the pond of the story of a very dear TG friend, who very early in life decided she was a girl fitted out in the body of a boy.

This led to an endless ruckus in the uncomprehending deeply Catholic family (and it should be added that it happened long before Safe Schools was a thing).

Many bouts of electric shock therapy, many stints in psych wards, many battles with shrinks, much seemingly endless bullying in Catholic and then state schools, any number of attempts to revert and deny ... with sedatives and mind fucks ... and yet the feeling stayed strong.

Gender reassignment surgery followed, and in the context of that upbringing, a relatively normal, useful and contributing life.

But still there's the hate and the bigotry and the prejudice and the sniggering, and the sort of potential that erupted on the streets of Newtown for one TG person, with a slap on the wrist for the offenders ...

More at the Star Observer here.

Every word of the Devine is like those punches thrown.

The family came around for the pond's friend, and accepted, and made adjustments,  but it's surprising how many men and women feel threatened, especially women of the Germaine Greer school of feminism.

There's no need to go on about it, but when you read the rest of the Devine, it's possible to understand why bullying gays, TGs and the different continues in the streets and in schools. Read this, and see a fundamentalist Catholic bigot at work ...

The pond marvels on a daily basis at the way that the fundamentalist Catholic, fundamentalist reptile and fundamentalist Daesh mindset goes together ...

And it's also a marvel the way that the paedophilia within the Catholic church might be banished in a trice ...

But this meditation came at the expense of a last Johnsie gobbet ... and the pond must pay heed to all the bigots in all forms. It's not just TG folk that need a good sorting out, it's those damned Islamics ... why the wretches might even be closet greenies ...

Is that fully barking reptile mad, or what?

The pond simply can’t help but add its own research findings to the discussion: 

 In Australia, the Atheist Helper website responded to the pond’s requests as follows: “With respect to fundamentalist reptiles, the problem we almost invariably find is that they have left News Corp, and no longer believe in the church of Chairman Rupert - apparently there’s a new wave of sackings and retrenchments coming up - but are unable to tell their family and friends for fear of ostracism and retribution.” 

There’s also the problem of pretending to keep a job out of shame and loss of self-esteem, of the kind endured by Tom Wilkinson in The Full Monty. In Europe, Fake Jobs Can Have Real Benefits, the New York Times assured the world back in 2015,  and so remarkably, it seems there’s something to having a fake job in reptile la la land. 

Even so, the struggle within the reptile community, between the one per cent of liberals and ninety nine per cent of authoritarians, between leavers who get the sack and joiners who will work for the smell of an oily rag, influenced by source-country politics from the Chairman's good old USA, and local politicians trawling for advantage, is a plague. What Australians must decide is, why is this our struggle? 

Frankly the pond has no answer. The Catholic Boys’ Daily will go on demonising faiths other than its own, howling down any liberals in its midst, berating the Fairfaxians, the Graudian, the ABC, the Ten network, and any meek and mild Islamic who dares to pop a head up above the parapet, or come to think of it, dear sweet heel-clicking Dorothy ... or any TG folk who dare to be different. 

The pond long ago concluded the only meaningful insight came from that story of the frog and the scorpion … 

It’s in their nature, and they will keep scribbling until their business plan collapses the same way that Sarris dissolves into a puff of smoke at the end of Galaxy Quest.

Oh dear, how did that movie get into the story?

Well the pond just wanted to get in something that brought a smile to the face ... a few thespians just doing their thing, and embracing the diversity and the inner squid of the known galaxy, villains aside ...

Okay the pond understands others will want to go out the way they came in ...