In which the pond meditates this Sunday with nattering "Ned" and the dog botherer ...

  

Prey tell, Crikey, you corrected that splash, but why didn't you correct the header at the top of the good prof's piece?

You knew it would bring out the Sunday pedant in the pond, but still you persisted? Did you just want to put the pond in a good mood, knowing it would pray on the mind?

It goes without saying that the pond is full of howlers, but the pond receives no reward when hunting its pray …

And speaking of pray, the pond warned that unwary passers-by might be exposed to a wail of anguish, so no complaints if nattering "Ned" turns up for a Sunday meditation …

Our "Ned" was briefly at the top of the digital opinion section, mental commentariat torture division, and what a ripper it was, endless beyond measure, like Voyager 1 crossing into interstellar space ...

Well that's enough of the preliminaries, it's on with the wailing, and the sackcloth and ashes and the gnashing of teeth …

Oh goody gumdrops, it's worth suffering the agonising just to hear of malaise - hopefully deep-seated, if we're doing full-throated clichés - and a deep divide …

What pow’r could make the deep divide? 
 Make onion muncher backward roll his tide? 
 Why did ye leap, ye little Malware hills? 
 And whence the fright that ScoMo feels? (deep apologies).

Okay, the pond will do anything for a distraction from the endless litany of woe ...

What, no mention of Malware and the onion muncher's enduring legacy, the mighty NBN, and fair dinkum coal?

But at least that gives the pond a chance to link to Katharine Murphy's Instead of 'fair dinkum' power, how about some 'fair dinkum' action?

The pond is always happy to offer stray readers a chance to escape nattering "Ned's" fair dinkum tedious whining and moaning … as the hapless, but valiant Murdochians feel overwhelmed by the forces arrayed against them ...

The pond has no idea why the Murdochians and Fox News and their reptile cousins down under are viewed as loons …

Oh that's a sign the pond is weakening and the need for distraction ramping up … it must have something to do with cultural power and solar panels ...

By this point, the pond was feeling a little light-headed, positively giddy, the voice cracking as if it the contents of a helium balloon had been inhaled, and yet there was still a gobbet of wild-eyed ancient mariner despair to go ...

Phew, it's done, and all those who feel a sense of triumph, as if having reached Everest and looked down and the world below, will appreciate a final couple of links in relation to our "Ned's" nattering …

How about?  Australian cultural institutions struggle to survive as War Memorial gets half-billion dollar upgrade … Institutions such as the National Gallery and National Archives have been told to find $75m in savings…

What about?  The $498m about to be blown in the Australian War Memorial could be spent better …

Oh and how about this in The Northern Star back when the idea was first floated? It began with this little thought …"The best way to honour the veterans of 1918 is to look after the veterans of 2018"... and later this followed ...

Well yes, the pond has an interest in this, because its grandmother lived on a war pension and found the pickings pretty slim.

And in the pond's observation, exhibits and grand buildings don't do that much good for war-induced trauma …

The pond suspects it knows where the psychology of display comes from, and how those with bone spurs love a good parade …

And now, because the pond get never get enough joy out of inflicting torture on passing innocents, there's more … and while it's not a set of steak knives, it is the dog botherer … and how good a double feature is that … a bloated, tedious epic hooked up with a quota quickie ...

Does the silly dog botherer, and sometime minor war criminal, realise that he's part of the media, and therefore, according to him, part of the problem?

Well logic's never been high on the dog botherer's list of necessary things. The pond isn't saying he's as dumb as Ross Cameron talking about Chinese people, but please, be fair, he's up or down there ...

Oh no, prey tell, did the dog botherer just confuse race, ethnicity and nationality? Did he just suggest that American culture is a monolithic race-based thing? Does he think the people of Ireland and the USA constitute single, separate races? Does he have the first clue about race or culture?

The pond is already feeling deeply apologetic, and feels the need to reference a recent story in The New Yorker, about polychromy, whiteness, Greek and Roman culture, the delusions of white supremacists and blatherers about Western Civilisation …

Luckily it's currently outside the paywall here …

In an essay for the online magazine Aeon, Tim Whitmarsh, a professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge, writes that the Greeks “would have been staggered” by the suggestion that they were “white.” Not only do our modern notions of race clash with the thinking of the ancient past; so do our terms for colors, as is clear to anyone who has tried to conceive what a “wine-dark sea” actually looked like. In the Odyssey, Whitmarsh points out, the goddess Athena is said to have restored Odysseus to godlike good looks in this way: “He became black-skinned again and the hairs became blue around his chin.” On the Web site Pharos, which was founded, last year, in part to counter white-supremacist interpretations of the ancient world, a recent essay notes, “Although there is a persistent, racist preference for lighter skin over darker skin in the contemporary world, the ancient Greeks considered darker skin” for men to be “more beautiful and a sign of physical and moral superiority.”

There's a lot more, but really the pond only went there because it's already bored batshit by the endless stupidity of the dog botherer, and felt the need to provide a distraction for suffering souls …

It'll probably come in handy the next time some reptile blathers about Western Civilisation and the purity of ancient classical ideas, with a hint of Persil-marble whiteness.

But for now it's back to Hades and the dog botherer's hellish cries and his litany of woe …and yes, of course, he mentions his climate science denialism …

He always does, it's what bears with little brain and even less science do ...

Luckily that bit of the rant gives the pond a chance to link to a story in the Graudian about biodiversity … here …

How many more chances can the pond offer anyone who feels like they're stuck in a lift with a moron? 

You see, and the pond can only apologise so often, the Donald is now going to enter the discussion ...

Great, at last an excuse for the pond to run a few cartoons …

By golly that was fun, and the pond didn't have to think about the dog botherer, and after this last gobbet it might keep on with some more of that good oil ...

The pond has nothing to add.

The minor war criminal  does his best to be an adept fear-mongerer, though the pond is inclined to think of him more as a rather small flea on the rather large bum of the Donald, inhaling the bile, the bitterness and the love of panic …

But at least that provides a cue for a few more cartoons to suit the dog botherer-induced mood …