In which the pond takes a Halloween tour of the culture wars ...

Lordy, long absent lordy, did the reptiles have a lolly-dispensing, bumper book, Halloween special on hand this day, with Dame Slap out and about, maintaining the reptile crusade and her version of the culture wars …

The pond had barely time to note dissent in the ranks, what with nattering "Ned" taking the time out to explain how comprehensively stupid the bromancer sounded, and the bromancer taking another chance to be stupid in the onion muncher way he's so fond of …

 

With the reptiles still riven and torn apart by Malware, why bother to pay attention?

Smithers, please double the amount of koolaid in the water cooler so that some sense of seemly unity might be restored to the scribblers …

Sadly, the pond couldn't tarry or dally, because Dame Slap called, and it just so happened, by an ironical twist of fate that the reptiles love, that right next to Dame Slap's piece they positioned a singular example of western civilisational values - poofter bashing, hate, fear and loathing - alongside Dame Slap's blather …

Note well that the talk there is of headmasters, because women ….?

Strictly complimentary, old chappie, old sod … here no mistresses, no head mistresses here, perhaps just bed mistresses instead ...

Now before the pond begins, it should issue a disclaimer.

Ever since Dame Slap donned a MAGA cap and slipped out on to the streets of New York, to celebrate the arrival of a nationalist (white, except for that orange colouring and weird hair) as president of the United States, the pond has felt a remarkable contempt for Dame Slap and her values … 

Now let's see them in action yet again …

Right from the get go, it's a nonsense of course …that bizarre notion that Dame Slap has the remotest interest in ideas or is open to changing her own. Rigidity is the sort of thing you expect of stainless steel, and Dame Slap …

But as she spoke of a religious cult, what about a dose of angry Anglicans?

Nota bene that talk of "values".

Steady on you say, why did the pond resort to Latin? Well actually just to show that the pond could sound as fucking stupid as Dame Slap tossing "alma mater" into the discussion …

But back to "values". Perhaps the pond could decode. Apart from complimentary women, the values we're talking about here are the right to keep on poofter bashing, and in a bigoted way, maintain the right to consign the buggers to eternity of hellfire in the next life, and to continuing unemployment, no matter their qualifications or skills, in the present life …

It certainly gives a novel twist to Dame Slap's blather about western civilisational values, but sadly it's time for another dose of her own patented form of intellectual inquiry …

Of course Dame Slap did her own bit to celebrate the Donald, and found herself in pleasant company … of the Klan kind …

Now for anyone interested, the reptile culture wars recently spread to the NY Times, courtesy of David Brophy here …

...The myth of an embattled “Western civilization” has also been featured in a recent series of alarming interventions into the politics of race and immigration in Australia. In August, Senator Fraser Anning referred to his harsh policy ideas as the “final solution to the immigration problem,” arguing that we must not “concede the field to enemies of Western civilization.” Earlier this month, the governing Liberal-National coalition endorsed Senator Pauline Hanson’s motion echoing the alt-right slogan “It’s O.K. to be white,” and deploring “attacks on Western civilization.” 
Efforts to re-center the university curriculum on more celebratory notions of “Western civilization” feed off, and in turn give scholarly legitimacy to, interventions such as these. The Ramsay Center’s rhetoric may sound more sophisticated than the outright Western chauvinism emanating from the Australian Senate, but the kinship they share is obvious. 
The Ramsay initiative mirrors a wider global trend in which politicians and activists shape nationalist sentiment into pride in artificial and ahistoric notions of civilization. Amid growing geopolitical rivalries, and widely expressed hostility toward free trade, kindred spirits on the global right now seek to divide the world into cultural camps, threatening the critical spirit and international exchange that is so vital to scholarly work...

Uh huh. Of course in all of this, Dame Slap, the Donald, and David Dukes are reliable guides …

Whatever the fuck that means …

And naturally that brings the pond back to the angry Anglicans …

How dare they suggest that gay teachers are human with human rights! Where will all this talk of values end?

Well luckily it will end for Dame Slap - for just a moment, but for this day at least - with this last gobbet ...

Hmm, perhaps Dame Slap hasn't spent enough time with her soul mate David Dukes, worshipping at the feet of the Donald …and now a final word from Brophy, though there's more at the link ...

In some cases in Australia, universities have shown themselves vigilant to the dangers inherent in this climate of cultural nationalism. When Beijing’s Confucius Institute came knocking at the University of Sydney, my colleagues rightly insisted that they have no role in teaching Chinese language and culture to our undergraduates. 
The Ramsay Center’s first suitor, The Australian National University, balked when it realized the constraints the center wished to place on its autonomy and the intellectual freedom of its faculty. Yet with much of the same proposal still intact, including a periodic review of funding and Ramsay participation in hiring decisions, administrators at the University of Sydney have been unable to resist the lure of the center’s millions and — to the considerable disquiet of staff, including me — are plunging into negotiations. More preliminary moves are afoot at the University of Queensland.

But of course the deeply nationalist reptiles of Oz won't be ending their crusade anytime soon. Nor will the angry Anglicans …

And so taxpayers will go on funding fundamentalist schools, whether Islamic, Jewish, Christian or Scientological, with those schools intent on preserving the right to be bigoted and discriminatory … while shamelessly, unapologetically functioning on the taxpayer dime …

Well around this time, with a frothing of the lips and steam coming out of the ears, the pond would usually settle for a cartoon - say one exuding papal infallibility and wisdom, perhaps one echoing the nattering "Ned" v. bromancer feud  - and have done with it …

But with the pond's humour restored - there's more restorative papal humour here - the pond felt the need to provide that special Halloween bonus …

Now all the pond will say at the get go is that John Anderson never struck the pond as the sharpest knife in the drawer, with a hint that he might be short of a sandwich for a picnic, or perhaps a snag at a BBQ, or sometimes with a prime merino set loose in the back paddock …

But this is such a monumentally silly and paranoid piece that the pond simply couldn't resist diving back a few days into the reptile archives to retrieve it and expose it to the light ...

The question that arose here wasn't of the kind that might ask Anderson about the role of complimentary women in the Anglican church, or other nonsense about Xianity and women. 

Instead the pond became fixated on that photo. Who thought it was a good idea to run a snap of Anderson in that pose?

It made him look ineffably silly … a cross between a preacher and an exhibit in a waxworks museum ... but then the pond realised that perhaps it was a subtle editorial dig, a sly wink, at the paranoid nonsense embedded in the words ...

Oh dear, poor old Anderson. He got caught in a loop there, didn't he? We must support timeless Australian values, but with continuous immigration, we must now not support timeless Australian values, unless they happen to be the timeless shared values of bigotry and discrimination …

Yes, if your fundamentalist Islamic, less secular than your average Australian turns up, why we must apparently embrace those religious values, no matter how bizarre or silly they might be … and whatever we do, we must go on funding any passing creationist or religious loonery in the education system ...

Actually the pond would settle for live and let live, and with that, the ability to earn a living using the skills you've developed, without regard to sex, ethnicity or sexuality, especially in institutions funded by Australian taxpayers, but bigoted Christians (and Islamics and a bunch of others) really do yearn to retain the right to discriminate …and Ando is all the way with them ...

Actually allowing John Anderson to pop out of his closet at regular intervals to blather about cherished social harmony is a guaranteed way to put the entire country at risk of disharmony.

The pond resisted the urge to resort to secular language of a rustic Tamworthian kind … instead, around this point, the pond would usually turn to a relieving Rowe, with more Rowe here …

But the pond has one last duty.

You see the reptiles also published that letter from the angry Anglicans …

More importantly along with that came a list of taxpayer funded bigots keen to maintain their right to discriminate ...

Shame on them, shame on them all ...