In which the pond visits the Terror to celebrate TGIF ...

To wrap up the week, the meme blog is offering a special discount on men wearing frocks.

It happened this way ... the pond has been in the habit of late of checking out the Terror's Friday offerings, with the chance of catching a Sharri on parade ...

And so it came to pass, with a bonus Jacqui, though the only reason to pay attention to Lambie is to be up on the jokes on Micallef, and with that season over, the self-satisifed one can be safely disregarded ...

But just as the pond was about to do the promenade with Sharri, talk of marriage confusion caught the eye.

Could this be a man in a frock offering an opinion?

It was, it was. Those who pay attention will remember that at the start of the week, Major Mitchell was terrified that SSM might led to boys wearing dresses, yet here was a man in a frock explaining why SSM wasn't on, while leading off with a mighty fine Sydney frock ...

Now there's much talk of respectful discourse and rational dialogue and all the rest of it, but this surely shouldn't get in the way of a decent frock or three ...

The pond understands that it isn't supposed to mock Xians, or men inclined to wearing frocks, or folks who've given up marriage and sex, and got themselves hitched to god instead, even if She's a pretty fierce boss, and even when they blather on about the importance of marriage ...and even when they've been deeply confused, as Time, quoting itself, reminded the pond here ...

Jesus himself was not married; biblical scholars assume that most of his disciples were, since the Judaism of the time frowned upon bachelorhood. There is good reason to believe that the majority of priests and bishops during the first four centuries of Christianity were married; so were many Popes, the last of whom was Adrian II in the 9th century. 
One reason that celibacy eventually became the rule for clerics was early Christianity's puritanical view of sex, even within marriage, as an evil except for procreation. "I feel that nothing more turns the masculine mind from the heights," wrote St. Augustine, the dominant voice of Christian theology until the Middle Ages, "than female blandishment and that contact of bodies without which a wife may not be had." At the same time as this austere view took root, the church saw the growth of monastic communities for men and women in which chastity, along with poverty and obedience, was regarded as a virtue essential to those who would give their lives to God. 
At the urging of Popes and councils, monastic austerity was gradually forced upon the clergy as a whole. Pope Benedict VIII in 1018 formally forbade priestly marriages; the prohibition was solemnly extended by the First Lateran Council of 1123. The rule, however, was not easy to enforce. Until the Reformation, parish priests frequently scandalized the faithful by taking wives, or at least keeping mistresses and concubines, as did Popes and cardinals. After Protestantism rejected celibacy for the ministry as unnatural and unnecessary, the Council of Trent declared it an "objectively superior state of life" and imposed excommunication on priests or nuns who violated the canon laws prohibiting marriage.

So much for the joys of marriage of any kind ... so naturally the pond paid attention to the frock wearer's explanation of its virtues, while leading a chaste bachelor lifestyle himself ...

Not as much of a battering as the notion that priests might be human and get married and indulge in sex like any normal human bean ... but thank the long absent lord that She kept the idea of frock-wearing going, even as it induced a fainting fit in Major Mitchell ...

And a fainting fit not just in the Major, it seems, though of course the pond intends all this as a reasonable, rational contribution to the discussion ...

Oh indeed, indeed, and apart from consigning poofters to eternal hellfire and damnation, the pond is also keen to keep respecting everyone, and to insist on the rights of frock wearers everywhere ...

Not bad for a light summer number, but there was even more from the chaste one intent on leading a bachelor lifestyle, or some sort of weird marriage to the Holy Ghost ...

What to say to all that, except to celebrate frock wearing and brides of Christ ... though it seems this form of dress terrifies conservatives and gets them agitated about women covering up their bodies ...

What an elaborate detour that was - it shows the real dangers of frock wearing, because it has to be said that the pond loves to wear a frock - and the fuss almost stopped the pond from paying attention to Sharri, and as usual, she had very important things to say ...

Almost, because the sweet thing was on a power surge, and seemed to have picked up on the pond's question about electricity retailers, and so attention had to be paid ...

Indeed, indeed, and the pond recalls making a remark about how privatising sewerage services might result in the competitive retailing of shit, though for reasons not immediate obvious, the Terrorists preferred to go with a snow metaphor ...

That sketch of the eskimo immediately began to make the pond think it had missed out on its usual Friday treat for the elderly gentleman reader ... but could it, in these respectful and rational times, show off another frock wearer?

Why not, where's the harm, especially when Sharri gives AGL and Andy Vesey a serve ...

Indeed, indeed, though the pond did wonder about a Murdoch scribbler having a go at a Yank. 

After all, News Corp is run by and for the strict benefit of an absentee Yankee landlord ... with Bill Bryson getting Down Under off to a flying start by praising Australians and Australia ...

"...They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Rupert Murdoch no longer lives there. Life doesn't get much better than this ..."

Sadly for Bill he didn't seem to realise that the minions of Chairman Rupert still live here, and do their best to rabbit on in a Sharri way ... and of all the bizarre things to do, they frequently end up in the company of the onion muncher, the man who did more than most to produce the current level of bullshit about energy ...

The onion muncher carrying on about the pain in our pocket? Really? 

And there was the pond thinking that Sharri was a top student, with gleaming bulbs for a brain ...

Yes, we're back with the onion muncher and renewable energy and tucked away in it all, the usual climate science denialism, and all the rest of it ...

The onion muncher as an expert? The pond had a sudden desire to head back down memory lane ... to remember the onion muncher and assorted braying fools of the ACCC kind in the glory days when everyone was going to save $550 a year...

Dear sweet absent lord, what about this letter then, that ran through the deep north and began this way?

Actually the pond's version runs "there's lies, damn lies, onion munchers and Sharris and then there's Chairman Rupert ..."

Sorry Bill, perhaps we could take in a TV show together some time ...