An e-mail from Surry Hills, or perhaps Gambia:
“Dear Sir, Today at 9.22 I heard my first didric cuckoo and EXCLUSIVE report of world's highest tax under Labor from where I sit at home. Is this a record? There has been no coastal rain since June 3 but one hears that the weather in Melbourne is uncommonly unseasonal.”
“Dear Sir, Today at 9.22 I heard my first didric cuckoo and EXCLUSIVE report of world's highest tax under Labor from where I sit at home. Is this a record? There has been no coastal rain since June 3 but one hears that the weather in Melbourne is uncommonly unseasonal.”
Say what?
It is a myth that this newspaper prints letters on the first cuckoo of spring and EXCLUSIVE reports of the world's highest tax under Labor, and one that upsets the people who edit The Times' letters, as dicussed in this space a few weeks ago. A study of their pages reveals no obsession with the family Cuculidae, but the legend remains intact. Hence the cheery e-mail from Clive Barlow, African ornithologist and occasional correspondent on recondite birding matters. It was a communication that took me straight back to Africa, and that time at the beginning of the rains when cuckoos start…
Or some such thing. The cuckoos have started early in the Surry Hills government gazette this year …
The next best thing of course in the lizard Oz in terms of EXCLUSIVES is the work of brave crusaders and the ongoing suffering of Xians …
The next best thing of course in the lizard Oz in terms of EXCLUSIVES is the work of brave crusaders and the ongoing suffering of Xians …
For some strange reason, the work of the bromancer was downgraded from EXCLUSIVE in another entry in the government gazette …
An ambassador for religious freedom? No doubt it will be matched by an ambassadorship for atheists …
Of course none of this hysteria stopped the reptiles from running a story about an Xian being persecuted ...
Of course none of this hysteria stopped the reptiles from running a story about an Xian being persecuted ...
Silly Xian … he should have known that offshore processing isn't the first step to a Holocaust, it's the first step to a gulag, in the proud tradition of Stalinists, Maoists and lately Xi …
And with all that over - the pond must leave aside lizard Oz handwringing over quotas for Liberal women, simply because of the oxymoronic nature of the words - it's time to turn to prattling Polonius … though sadly he didn't make it to the top of the opinion section, because right at the top was an Xian CELEBRATION …
From government gazette to Catholic Boys' Daily in a flash.
Sadly Dyson's eulogy is more suited to a Sunday meditation, but how the pond wept to read Polonius mourning the dead art of nuanced debate …
Why Polonius himself is an expert in the subtle art of debate, the clever parry and thrust that might draw a little blood on the cheek. See him at work in his last media study showing the lively art of debate at play …
What a rapier wit, how expertly lunged and photoshopped …
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks! I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be something scanter of your maiden presence.
And so to the Polonial text for the day, its maiden presence a thing of startling beauty …far removed from the shrill voice of photoshopped mockery ...
Polonius is too polite to say it, but damn it, the pond will.
The Liberal party has been rooned, absolutely rooned, since all these uppity women have started wandering around the corridors of power, swooning and sighing, as if politics was some sort of Victorian romance novel and Heathcliff was just around the corner, or even worse, some mistook Malware for the lad when he was really just a sook and a blubber fish cry baby, all wet around the gills, a disgusting sight, and impossible to fillet without a little blood and a splatter of scales …
The Liberal party has been rooned, absolutely rooned, since all these uppity women have started wandering around the corridors of power, swooning and sighing, as if politics was some sort of Victorian romance novel and Heathcliff was just around the corner, or even worse, some mistook Malware for the lad when he was really just a sook and a blubber fish cry baby, all wet around the gills, a disgusting sight, and impossible to fillet without a little blood and a splatter of scales …
Look how they agitate the hapless reptiles … as women come and go, talking of Michelangelo and quotas …
Is it any wonder that Polonius's noble brow is furrowed, that he feels deep distress, that he feels - the pond hastily adds, in a manly way - harassed and bullied ...
Indeed, indeed, here no bullies, no bullies here … and here no quotas, no quotas here, and come to think of it, here bloody few women pollies, but where's the harm in that?
And now, while it involves a spoiler, the pond would like to draw attention to a classic Polonial strategy, long ago immortalised as the 'but, billy goat, butt' line of argument …
It goes something like this …
It's true that women are under-represented in the ranks of the parliamentary Liberal Party. But, billy goat, Butt, Liberals are conscious of this and are working on solutions.
One sure solution is to mock any woman who displays an independent spirit, and instead praise unctuous time servers and compliant, acquiescent, amenable, tractable, complaisant, accommodating, adaptable quislings and lickspittle fellow travellers, who are certain to be admired and quite possibly promoted …
Now, with apologies for that spoiler, it's time to read on and get an undiluted blast of Polonius channeling Anne … because everything is for the best in Liberal world, and nepotism and referentialism of a belly button kind will out, and what's wrong with that in a world where fluff-gathering is king?
And so, the pond humbly submits, Polonius, with his deep insights, summarises in a nutshell exactly why the Liberal party and the angry old men shouting at clouds in the lizard Oz have a problem with women …
It isn't just climate science denialism that runs deep … all kinds of denialism are welcomed and celebrated …and it seems if women are to get ahead, they must first learn the subtle uses denialism can be put to in nuanced debates … because if boasting about Enid Lyons is seen as being part of the solution, why then surely Polonius is part of the problem …
Yes, even then, Catholics knew about the fine arts of tokenism and dissembling and honorary window-dressing, and still Polonius knows how to do a little jig of hypocrisy ...
And so to a cartoon celebrating the start of the year ...
Polonius: "...the Liberal Party had a female cabinet minister (Enid Lyons in 1949)..."
ReplyDeleteAnd here's what Dame Enid Lyons herself had to say about that: "Although it was a significant honour she was disappointed, having hoped for a portfolio. She later complained that it was 'a toothless position', doubting that Menzies wanted her in cabinet at all: 'they only wanted me to pour the tea'."
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lyons-dame-enid-muriel-14392
Yep, that's the way to honour the mother of 12 fine Australian children.
But Polonius can't stop there, he continues: "...there have been more Coalition women cabinet ministers than Labor women cabinet ministers in the last seven decades."
And that's why, Polonius you total drongo, Labor instituted quotas; to attempt to address its failure to adequately include women. Can you bear it - if there's a failure you take some action to correct it ? Radical thought, eh.
Besides, you old media puppy, tell us all about the first Coalition female Prime Minister. And tell us all about the first Coalition state government of Victoria which has male-female parity in its cabinet.
Then again, GB, Lyons, first female Cabinet Minister, was also well-known for her homophobic views, clearly enunciated by Erica:
ReplyDelete“As Dame Enid Lyons (the first woman elected to the House of Representatives and the first female Cabinet Minister) said, ‘The foundations of a nation’s greatness is in the homes of its families. So, destroy the family – destroy the nation. Conversely, protect the family – protect the nation. That is our cause.'”
We all know what she meant by 'protect the family', don't we?
https://www.cdp.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/August-FWN-1-12.pdf
Well, not carrying a torch for Dame Enid, Merc, I much prefer Dame Dorothy. But Enid was who she was (born in the 19th century) and I have never heard any stories about her hanging around at public toilets in order to beat up any homos she found there.
DeleteIn short, probably a more civilised person than Erica, even though she could have done an alternate version of Cheaper By The Dozen (the original was written by the gentleman who coined the term 'therblig' though it's generally considered that his wife Lillian was just a tad smarter than he was).
After the demise of Malware, the Liberals have done their best to lessen the Onion Muncher's public utterances. But on the subject of Women in the Liberal Party, he was attributed (possibly falsely) with the best response to how the Liberals viewed women.
ReplyDeleteIn the excitement of his first few weeks as PM, somebody among the Press Gallery (not generally noted for much curiosity) had noticed that Julie Bishop was the only female member of Cabinet (While the Onion Muncher had generously afforded his own time to being Minister for Women and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs). He was asked if he saw this as a problem.
"Not really," was his alleged response. "As Foreign Minister, she'll be away overseas for most meetings."