Sacked by Mark Latham? Now that's a sign of genuine distinction and rare quality ... and why it seems Mr Spencer can recognise that once again Tamworth is at the centre, the very heart, of the known universe ...
Will Tamworthians live up to the responsibility? Probably not, in the pond's personal experience, there's very few reasons to attend the school reunion ... talk about a bunch of galahs in the wheatfield of life...
But there's no time for brooding, because today the pond would like to talk about the personal sacrifices that it makes each day while attempting to cram in as much reptile watching as possible.
Today CNN went wild with news of the first charges filed as a result of the Mueller investigation - well it was Friday night their time, but the United States is always in the dark.
Sure nobody knew who, or what, or why, or what it all meant, but heck what fun for an endless dose of long-winded speculation passing as analysis ...
It left absolutely no room to soak up a decent dose of transphobia from Dame Slap ...
Sure nobody knew who, or what, or why, or what it all meant, but heck what fun for an endless dose of long-winded speculation passing as analysis ...
It left absolutely no room to soak up a decent dose of transphobia from Dame Slap ...
The Dame is always amongst the first cabs off the rank when it comes to phobias and bigotries and hate fests, and with the polls hinting at the way gay bashing might be going, it looks like transphobia might be the new thing, which will cause the ponds TG friends some distress. But they are used to it, with the persecution relentless and fierce ...
It also meant that there wasn't enough time for that long-winded gasbag and epic bore, nattering "Ned" Kelly, shrieking yet again in his Chicken Little way about the sky crashing down ...
Chaos? Try the USA for chaos ...
But in all the excitement, there's one thing, one man, the pond will never give up, even if it means squeezing him in late on a Saturday ...
Dammit, the pond knows it's as perverse and as weird as ordering a lemon squash in the front bar of the Central Hotel - women should think they're lucky to be allowed inside, and if they're extra nice they might have the Donald and Mark Halperin join Barners and the cockies as drinking buddies - but the pond will never give up on its addiction to prattling Polonius ...
There's something ineluctable and eternal about his charms ...
Phew, straight away, the pond knew it was in need of a Marie Antoinette joke, or perhaps a cake trickle down joke, or a 'they've never had it so good, the uppity bludgers' joke, but settled for another Barners joke instead ...
And then it was on to the main game ...
There's something very Dr Johnson about Polonius talking about Marx, a bit like that dog that managed to walk on its hind legs ...
But enough of the sight of Sydney Institute folk preaching, the pond will only make one note, though many will find the urge to provide many more corrections and insights ...
It's that matter of the proletariat also being called the lumpenproletariat ...
Why, if that was the case, would anyone bother with two words, when one would do?
Why, if that was the case, would anyone bother with two words, when one would do?
Actually Marx distinguished between the two, because he thought the lumpenproletariat might be unlikely ever to achieve class consciousness and therefore be lost to revolutionary struggle and socially useful production, and might not be helpful in bringing about a classless society.
Only a pedant without the first clue would lump the lumpenproletariat in with the revolutionary proletariat ... but the pond can understand why Polonius might be sensitive on this matter, because there's every sign that Marx would have fancied him as a member of the lumpens ...
See what Marx wrote about them in 1852 ...
See what Marx wrote about them in 1852 ...
By golly he was a visionary, and so we must return to the final gobbet of that shrewd old mountebank ...
And that line ... that arcane, impossible, extremely silly line, is why the pond loves Polonius prattling so ...
Here, roll it around on the tongue ...
And then there is social media, which gives an insight into the lives of the rich and famous that was not known to earlier generations ...
Poor Scott Fitzgerald, beavering away scribbling about The Great Gatsby, but really the first clue we have about the lives of the rich and the famous apparently only came with social media...
What a waste 1920s Hollywood and the Jazz Age were ... not to mention the great age of the Robber Barons ...
Strange that the poor would bung on a riot and be beaten down with pickaxes when they really didn't have the first clue that the rich and the famous led slightly different lives ...
Strange that the poor would bung on a riot and be beaten down with pickaxes when they really didn't have the first clue that the rich and the famous led slightly different lives ...
And then came that other line "Generally, in the West, the poor are not getting poorer..."
Good old trickle down, and generally in the west, it turns out that the poor are not getting as rich as the rich are getting richer ...
Professor Piketty said Australia had a tradition of being an egalitarian country with a small income gap between the wealthy and the poor compared to other countries. However, widening income inequality, as measured by the income share of the top 10 per cent of earners, hit the highest level in 2013 since 1951, at 30 per cent...
Armed with data and dozens of PowerPoint slides, Professor Picketty said meritocracy was a "fairytale" perpetuated by the beneficiaries of the capitalist system.
"There is a western illusion about modern inequality as opposed to ancient inequality. Meritocracy is largely a myth invented by the winners of the system," he said, noting forces such as racial discrimination and access to finance and resources such as oil helped to create and sustain inequality... (may be paywall affected)
And if that sort of comedy can't convince people of the joys of following Polonius, you'd better to head to Tamworth, where the streets will soon be paved with gold ...
And now there's also just time for a Rowe cartoon celebrating equal treatment for everyone ...with more equal treatment Rowe here ...
And now there's also just time for a Rowe cartoon celebrating equal treatment for everyone ...with more equal treatment Rowe here ...
"One of the great contributions of Menzies to Australia's economic development was that he did not implement nationalisation of industry or cradle-to-grave welfare."
ReplyDeleteNow that's a visionary statesman, according to Polonius - a bloke doing fuck-all.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteGerard gives the game away when he resorts to quoting ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’ that he has absolutely no idea what Marx wrote in Das Capital.
For starters it wasn’t a “massive book”, Marx would never publish.
He was always pursuing some other detail or theory. Poor Engels who had to fund and proofread everything, whilst supplying actual real data about how business actually worked, (Engels led a strange double life running a Manchester Cotton business).
The result was Marx before his death published a small book on how economies worked. Much to the disappointment of his Communist supporters. The later post-humous publications were put together from the copious notes and papers that Marx had left behind.
Marx made a very good critique of the strengths and weakness of the capitalist system. So convinced were Marx and Engels that this system would collapse they delayed publication for a couple of years because of a stock market wobble.
Meanwhile Marx played the Stock Market. ..Badly
The Marx critique of Capitalism is still very fresh if read in the straight forward way it is presented.
Marx himself was a snob and was a immensely proud of his marriage to a German Aristocrat, he saw the communist vision not for him but for a future generation.
Henderson however has evidently never read any Marx but instead feels free to give free release to his prejudices.
Pathetic
DiddyWrote
Yes, that Oxford Companion reference was a dead giveaway DW and the pond is pleased you mentioned it.
DeleteThere doesn't seem to be any reason why Polonius should want to expose himself like this, except for a shameless desire to be seen in public as philosophically naked ... a kind of latter-day budgie smuggler wearer of the political theorist kind.
Too much watching of the ABC, not enough time with primary sources!
"Poor Scott Fitzgerald, beavering away scribbling about The Great Gatsby..."
ReplyDeleteNot to mention P G Wodehouse scribbling about the great Jeeves - and that's where I got my early understanding of the lives of the rich and famous ... and also of the merits of meritocracy.
:)
DeleteIndeed, it was the same for the pond who also found out much about the fabulous twits from PGW (though the class warfare conducted by Toad of Toad Hall was also a seminal insight).
It possibly helps explain why the pond still enjoys the lizards of Oz in all their indolent scrounging in the Chairman's lounge, like Charles Ryder heading off to Brideshead ...
I see you put the Sydney Institute next to the organ grinder in that list. He certainly seems like the dancing monkey - although he has always been reticent about revealing who turns the crank.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how anyone outside the herpetarium will take the message that "all is well, no need for any further change". It seems like the conservatives want to take credit for social welfare measures they fought every inch of the way. A seriously distorted view of history.