In which the pond tries to differ with respect, but then comes across Bella and does a little unlearning ...

It irritates the heck out of the pond, no doubt about it ...

Oh okay, the pond was going to say, in a Tamworth way, that it irritated the shit out of the pond, but apparently we should differ with respect ...

But the pond doesn't have any respect for the reptiles. It has amused contempt, a love of ridicule, a desire to puncture alleged experts whose main qualification in any subject is a capacity to abuse words ... especially when blathering about climate science or broadband ...

Or an endless capacity to dig up an endless series of stories about the wicked deeds of the "yes" campaign ...

Poor Rosalind Croucher, what's she doing in this sordid company?

Is it equivalent to a missionary heading out to South America to preach Xianity, civility, and politeness in discourse, while the conquistadors loot, ravage and pillage the new lands?

Oh dear, so it's this ...

Well that movie ended up in a right old mess ...

The pond already knows what the reptiles do to its kind, given half a chance. It's a bit like a python contemplating a harmless euthanised mouse ...

If it's all going to end in tears, the pond wants this sort of show ...

If it's good enough for Rex Tillerson to call out an abject moron, then apologise to the moron in an abject, pathetic, moronic way, then who is the pond to rule that out as a fitting approach to respectful discourse...

You see Rosalind, there are pressing questions to be asked and answered ...

Speaking of morons, there was an intriguing little splash at the bottom of the page across the way from sensational Sharri, already mentioned in despatches this day on the pond ...

Of course the pond was intrigued.

Who would write a splash saying "Sydney University wants students to unlearn civilisation"?

Is it possible to "learn civilisation", let alone unlearn it?

The pond could sense rambling, endless pages on what might constitute "civilisation", and just knew it had to know more ...

Ah, there's a clue, right there ...

It's Bella, lately something of a Terrorist favourite. But first the pond had to get past a Terror trick.

You see they advertised that they had a clip featuring Woodward and Bernstein at the top of the page...

As if the reptiles really cared about defending the media from Trump, when the chairman and Fox had been instrumental in getting the Donald in to a position of power where any moron would know that the moron was vastly under-qualified for the role ...though he does throw a mean paper towel ...

But the trick had worked, the bait and switch had lured the pond in, the ad had been watched, along with the short 1'20" grab - defend the media at Twitter length - and it was on with Bella discovering that it wasn't the Donald, it was Sydney University that posed a dire threat to the world ...

Now because the pond does caps and the hot links get lost, it should note that the first link leads to a righteous Terrorist editorial on sharia law courses at the University of Sydney ...

...The Daily Telegraph reveals that two courses at Sydney University’s law school call for elements of sharia law to be recognised in Australia’s mainstream legal system, including allowances for polygamy and lowering the age of consent. One of the courses, Muslim Minorities And The Law, is taught by Salim Farrar and Dr Ghena Krayem and uses a book written by the pair which claims “sharia and common law are not inherently incompatible”. The book also slams the Australian legal system for refusing to recognise the religious significance of paying a woman a fee to marry her, which would seem to undermine just slightly the claim that common law and sharia can coexist.

The second link leads to another Terror story about Sharia, and the third leads to another Terror story, this one about border protection ...

In short, Bella is acting as click bait for Terror stories.

Now the pond isn't in the business of defending sharia law, in much the same way that it isn't in business with Saudi Arabia money, unlike the chairman ... but it might have been more to the point if Bella had provided a link to the University of Sydney's "unlearn" site, as can be found here ...

Now it's true that when the pond has wandered through the University of late, as it sometimes does, the signs on the buildings have produced a wry smile at all the unlearning blather on view ...

But this is just a marketing gimmick, and banal copy, with a banal punchline ...

Who can argue with that?

Though the pond does look forward to next year's marketing gimmick, where the line might run "we reimagined the way we taught so that you could reimagine the world ... now reimagine the reimagining so that we might imagine that we teach so that you can imagine the world ..."

Or some such thing. When the rubber actually hits the reimagining road, the pedal hits the metal, we cop (1) online learning (2) study abroad, student exchange, a global perspective (3) collaborative spaces (4) creating more opportunities for young entrepreneurs and (5) pairing research with beer, which astonishingly claims that academics and students like to get out into pubs. It was never that way in the pond's day! (points expanded here).

As marketing gimmicks go, it's fatuous, but no sillier than say ...

It's just what happens when you get a slick willy doing a bit of PR, in pars - pardon the language Rosalind - designed for the Tweeting generation of morons, inspired by a seventy year old moron ...

It goes without saying that "unlearning" in this context is just meaningless PR speak - more here including the curriculum link - but out of this sow's ear, the paranoid Bella weaves a masterly example of ludditism ...

This is what happens when PR get too clever, and morons - pardon the expression Rosalind - get left behind, stewing in their festering paranoid civilisational juices ...

Truly - pardon the expression Rosalind, but while you can step out of Tamworth, Tamworth stays inside - that's a remarkably fuckwitted set of logical leaps, from the placid world of Sydney University to the French revolution (what, no illustration of the guillotine?), and the death camps of the Khmer Rouge ...

What, no visuals of the Holocaust as an example of where "unlearning" is taking us?

You see, Rosalind, neither Bella nor the reptiles have the first clue about civilised genteel discourse. Godwin's Law means nothing to them.

Stick up a snap of skulls and bones in Cambodia and you've won the argument.

Really Rosalind, the pond must reserve the right to call moronic morons a bunch of morons ...

Speaking of the Nazis, the reptiles felt the need to throw in a recent poll about the Donald, which reached this resounding conclusion, before finishing off with Bella ...

That's a remarkably - pardon the expression Rosalind - stupid, moronic set of conclusions, not just by Bella and not least because the previous slides on the Donald had come up with these figures ...

QED?

Well it was a match for Bella's thinking. There's the MAGA Donald as large as life just above her last gobbet, and she's rabbiting on about Sydney Uni being regressive?

Naturally the pond decided to do a little more research on Bella ...

Say what? She started in Monash? Ah that explains the redbrick bitterness ...

And now she scribbles for the Speccie and she's one of these western civilisation Judeo-Christian clowns that now litter the right wing landscape ...and has scored herself the bizarre title of Director, Foundations of Western Civilisation Program at the IPA?

Well at least it's different to the position of Director, Climate Science Denialism, and Director, The Right to Flog Coffin Sticks to Suckers, and Director, Coal is the Foundation of Western Civilisation Program ...

We know where all that blather about the Judeo-Christian tradition and western civilisation leads, and luckily there's a fresh Rowe to show us the light, with more Rowe here ...