There are many distractions in the lizard Oz today - the Folau matter bubbles on merrily in reptile minds, and the diligent reptiles are working hard in the coal mine to keep the dream of SloMo and the onion muncher alive - but Dame Slap knows how to work a rampant reptile cliché. How could the pond walk past the zillionth use of "virtue-signalling"?
Actually the result was a tad disappointing, the usual litany of outrage, the cries and howls against the world designed to whip up whatever base the Dame has - lord knows what baseless base would base their world view on her and become her bigoted base - but once distracted, the pond always persists with its chosen distraction …
There we go, mindlessly moronic metaphors of the kind that only the IRA could love, even when deeply mired in debt. "Modern firing squads", "cultural assassins", "trigger happy" …it's the language of an hysteric, and deeply ironic, given that Dame Slap is fond of the odd verbal bullet herself, and if not capable of actual killing, surely designed to maim and hurt …
But there you go, that's what happens. Keep the company of reptiles long enough, and soon you'll be using the same kind of metaphors, tearing at the flesh, talking of killing and erasing, and replete with the sort of paranoia that sees Dame Slap pose as a victim … parading as a dissenting voice, when actually she's just one of a rabid pack of Murdochians who routinely howl at the moon and any dissenting voice …
But enough of the polite preliminaries, it's on with the flesh-eating and the eye-gouging … and the pretence that somehow this is to do with liberals and liberalism, as if donning the MAGA cap and walking out into the streets of New York showed off a wild-eyed love of liberals …
Thanks junior, how are the footsies going with Vlad? Remember, Dame Slap loves yer dad ...
Actually Scruton - what is it with the English and their names? - was clearly talking about "each Chinese person".
The pond became aware of this by his talk of "each Chinese person", which in common ordinary English doesn't mean "each Chinese communist regime" but actually means "each Chinese person." An unfortunate selection of words perhaps, but then the inscrutable Scruton is inclined to a little weirdness …
You have to kill animals to show them love and respect?
Sheesh, if only the pond hadn't decided to ban 'Orwellian' for the week … and soon enough now we will get the Dame Slap litany, spreading ever wider, like blood in the trigger-happy firing squad water ...
Indeed, indeed, which reptile wouldn't be proud to be an Islamophobe? Which reptile wouldn't be proud to be a Folau-loving homophobe? Which reptile would refuse to serve in the great war?
Oh okay, you have to go to Rowe to get a link to that tweet, which is here, but the pond had to find some distraction from the litany. Whenever Dame Slap gets into her Peterson groove, an immense weariness always overtakes the pond ...
What's so richly, deeply funny in all this? Well, whenever Dame Slap blathers about Soviet tyranny, the pond can never forget the way that Dame Slap was right behind the Donald, and of course the Donald is deeply in bed with Vlad the impaler …
Strangely, whenever it comes to a Dame Slap litany, the Donald and his assorted crimes as grifter, con artist, snake oil salesman, wannabe autocrat, monarch and authoritarian are never mentioned … instead there's just the usual hypocritical, endless blather about diversity ...
Lock her up, lock her up, lock her up … four legs good, Dame Slap bad, oh just go wear a MAGA cap and slip out into the night and wonder where the new totalitarianism came from …
And now the pond must farewell casual readers about the reptiles … because this next exercise is a testing marathon, and only hardened professionals should enter.
The pond always disclaims any liability for anyone who experiences mental or physical breakdown … and what follows is a marathon that will test the strongest professional reptile reader… even the way it was made top of the reptile page this morning should be a sufficient warning …
Now from the get go, the very idea of it is offensive, what with the talk of a "second coming", which in the old days, suggesting as it does that Anderson is a messiah, would have been viewed as a form of heresy, because whatever he is, Anderson is no Christ, not even a naughty boy, and there should be no talk of any kind of coming, first, second, third … not even if his sex life hovered into view …
But no, the reptiles insisted on an even bigger splash at the top of the story, just to make sure that the second coming heresy was there in full view, as bold as brass …
And so to the bromancer slog, and the pond should warn that there's around a dozen gobbets. This is not for the faint hearted, this is horrendous stuff. The lactic acid will build up, the eye muscles will scream, the leg muscles will cramp, and the wheat will walk away, while only the Anderson chaff lovers will remain … and perforce the pond will limit its comments, because there's only so much any koala can bear ...
This is what is known in the reptile trade as a colour piece … and so the pond must forsake a colourful rant about Malware, the NBN, the onion muncher's instruction to destroy modern broadband,, and the reptile war to destroy the NBN in all its manifestations in orderto save the unworthy and unwanted Foxtel and its Sky spawn…because we have a colourful snap to help with the colour ...
Again the pond could feel the Peterson nausea swelling up, but this talk of Anderson being a super hit on the full to overflowing intertubes had got the pond intrigued. Could this be a case of Anderson deep in delusion, imagining that somehow his trading off, and fellow travelling with Peterson had made him the star, as opposed to a fawning, forelock tugging altar boy, helping enhance the glow surrounding his master?
The next snap gave the pond no comfort. It seemed like one of those phoney posed affairs that litter the intertubes, as if Peterson was listening admirably to the second Jesus talk of his coming, when likely enough he was talking of the wonders of the real Messiah, Peterson himself ...
Now the pond doesn't mean to piss on Anderson's parade, but in another life, the pond runs an anonymous YouTube site where the idea of a decent set of views is around the half million mark …but then views are not really meaningful, when as everyone knows, it's the stickability. You might start off with any number of hits, but what you want is the ones that hang around to the bitter end, and here you might be lucky to have a 25% retention rate, with 10% a more likely result.
And if we're talking of podcasts, what about a comparison, an unfair one perhaps, with something like say This American Life?
As of March 2012, a typical podcast episode was downloaded 750,000 times … (Greg Hunters go here)
And that was in 2012. Later figures suggest 2.5 million download each episode as a podcast.
Hmm, 4,000? Lordy, lordy this is going to need a lot of bromancer pumping up.
Look, it's tough out there, and the pond is pleased that Anderson found fleeting fame by fellow-travelling with Peterson, but let's not get too excited …
The question remains, why are the reptiles and the bromancer doing this?
Ah fucketty fuck, it's just more blather about Western Civilisation and Human Values, and all the rest of it, and soon enough we'll no doubt learn that Anderson is an evangelical Xian, like those bloody Evangelical Union types who used to make life miserable for anyone wanting to roam about on campus in peace ...
It's impossible to convey the oozing condescension in that last par any better than the bromancer himself does … what do you know, there are human beans in the bush, and they talk and they might even sound curious and urbane and be … gasp… sophisticated?
And apparently they also avoid Foxtel and Sky, which says something about them, but not much for the reptile business model ...
Now we all have personal tragedies in our lives, but why must these tragedies be turned to the use of evangelising Christianity? It's the same device used by evangelising Islamics, Hindus, and even Scientologists, though for all their mumbo jumbo and the hint of science in their names, there's no way that they can stop a ship-load of measles being quarantined.
The pond could go on about how its grandfather came back from machine-gunning the Somme mud, and the way his experiences and subsequent alcoholism helped turn the pond towards atheism, but what's the point?
Pass … the pond will pass … the pond will not pass go, nor collect Xian propaganda, it will just pass … and oh, if only the pond could also pass on tales of wicked progressive postmodernism and redemption and a sudden miraculous ability to regain a belief in imaginary friends ...
You know, the pond rarely thinks of being an atheist. You can believe in yourself and lead a quite ordinary life doing ordinary things without believing in imaginary friends. The pond discovered this quite early when it realised that it didn't need a belief in Santa Claus, the easter bunny, or the tooth fairy to get by (though the addiction to pressies, chocolates and a little cash in the paw still lingers) …
More to the point how long is this guff going to go on?
At this point, the pond began to feel nausea. What had started out as a simple test, a marathon, had become something much worse, a measure of the ability to withstand pain and mental torture … all the more remarkable in that apparently no one has ever said an unkind word about Anderson and his delusions ...
Conservatives, with their passionate search for facts?
Yes, he's one of those "I'm not a climate change denialist … but, billy goat, butt …" searchers for facts in the lizard Oz ...
Say what?
But why should he care? He probably thinks the long absent lord is going to return by Xmas, the righteous will be swept up in a rapture, and all will be saved and redeemed, except post-modernists who will be sent to hell, where they must spend eight hours a day in a gallery looking at modern art … or perhaps finishing that unread book …
Meanwhile, and at last, there's only a final gobbet to go …
If the pond never reads another reptile celebration of evangelical Xianity, it will be too soon … especially as all that rapture stood in the way of the pond finally getting to the infallible Pope, with more papal fun here …
And it wouldn't be a Saturday without a Rowe …
Sorry, context please, with more context here …
Oh the crab that is last shall be first, and the first crab will be last, so it is written, and so it shall be …
Huff puff pant groan ... oh I'm getting way too old for these ultra-marathons, DP. I think I'll have to settle for a whiz-by Dame or two in future.
ReplyDeleteBut I reckon the Lizard Oz will surely need to get a new "foreign editor" now that the Bromancer has transmogrified to being its religion contributor.
I reckon there are only two kinds of people in this world--loathers and self-loathers.
ReplyDeleteYou'll be fine, GB, just get out the Akubra and the Wellies.
Kind of you to say so, Anony, though I don't reckon I'll actually be able to dig the Wellies and the Akubra out from under a liferime's pile of discards. Do they still sell 'em ?
DeleteBut as just a faint echo of the 'books never finished' thread, I can heartily recommend my current reading: 'The Undercover Economist' by Tim Harford. Guaranteed to make anybody into a "loather" if not, indeed, a "self-loather".
" … or perhaps finishing that unread book … "
ReplyDeleteInteresting, indeed, though I'd have thought that maybe 'Recherche Du Temps Perdu' and even 'Das Kapital' and more-so maybe 'Mein Kampf' would have been high (low ?) on the list - or are they just the most never opened rather than just never finished.
But I have to admit, I did really mean to open Kahneman's 'Thinking Fast and Slow' and I swear that I will one of these days. Truly. And maybe even 'Heuristics and Biases' ed. Gilovich, Griffin and Kahneman.
However, I did read Ian Stewart's and Jack Cohen's 'Figments of Reality' from end to end. Twice !
It is appropriate that the "Foreign Affairs Editor" aka The Bromancer write about his latest man crush, because the Sons of the Squatocracy like Anderson certainly do inhabit a different country to us mere mortals. The sense of entitlement, the belief that naturally knowing what is best for the riff-raff they spend a lifetime avoiding and their born to rule supreme self-confidence is certainly foreign to us.
ReplyDeleteThe Bromancer might kid himself Anderson likes him, what folly, to Anderson he is a mere scribbler, someone to use, but befriend, perish the though, he has standards to maintain.
My worst hour of suffering this week was watching this straight laced, born to rule, entitled prick, pontificating about what was in my best interests on the ABC's Campaign Trail TV program.
His Lordship, opined from on high, how with everything going on, now is not the time to change Government. I yelled at the screen, "when would you ever say it is the time you areshole?.
I wonder why Patricia Karvelas did not ask the same question.
Underneath His Lordship's born to rule persona there is the shady and crooked operator who sold his shares in the Australian Wheat bord, using inside knowledge, just before the breaking of trade sanctions by the wheat board, aided and abetted by him and Alexander Downer, became public news and the shares became worthless.
The "born to rule" have their rights and entitlements, soth, and it's not within our purview to deny them. And I can't quite see that any of the Bromancer's bromances ever returned his devotions - not even The Muncher.
DeleteAs to Ms Karvelas and the missing question: have you ruled out stupidity ?
Some LOL moments
ReplyDeleteScruton a polymath!
Peterson a cultural iconoclast!
John Anderson complaining about Narcissism when the something resembling a human being who suffers from an extreme narcissistic personality disorder now resides in the White House.
Doubly ironic when some/many/most of the talking heads featured on his website support the Golden Golem of Greatness. A case in point being the obsequious christian true believer Eric Metaxas
Exit old Scruton, a wrinkled retainer.
ReplyDeleteThey really, really don't get it, do they. Then again, if you compare Scruton to, say, the Oreo or Dame Groan, maybe he is really a standout.
DeleteIn the lans of the idiot, the one-thought imbecile is king.
After years of subbing on the chaotic sports desk at the Catholic Boys' Daily, I switched to the relative tranquillity of all-round duties. My first opportunity of dealing with Sheridan's copy was a tough one, a front-page "analysis" that read like a fourth-former's essay unworthy of a pass mark. Cleaned it up as best I could and moved on to the next task in the shit-shovelling sweatshop.
ReplyDeleteThe chief sub later asked if I had made significant changes to the copy. "Of course," I said, "it's a load of crap."
"No, we don't do that," she said. "Just the absolute necessities."
The deplorable depths to which the News Corp rags have plunged was summed up this week in The Guardian by Tony Koch, who worked at the Courier-Mail and then The Australian for 30 years:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/for-30-years-i-worked-for-news-corp-papers-now-all-i-see-is-shameful-bias
Probably the most blatant example of bias and low-grade coverage is the employment of most of the columnists who appear weekly. Their observations are, in the main, predictable, weak, unresearched and juvenile.
I understand how circulation numbers have plummeted when readers are expected to digest the undergraduate efforts of most of these opinion writers. Really, they are appalling.
Has there been a more shameful article than the appalling story concerning Bill Shorten’s mother’s work and published in the Courier-Mail and the Daily Telegraph? That effort will forever be the rotting albatross hanging around the neck of its author.
I have never been a member of a political party, but this time I was so disgusted with what News Corp was shoving down the neck of my fellow Australians that I volunteered in my local electorate of Dickson to assist the Labor candidate.
I did it because the candidate is Ali France who was a cadet at the Courier-Mail when I was there 25 years ago, and her ability and honesty are well-known. She does not deserve to be discriminated against by any media bent on ensuring she does not get a fair go.
And that has certainly happened.
(Any right-minded person in Dickson would support Ali France over despicable Dutton).
Intriguingly though, Koch worked with his good mate Major Mitchell for many of those years, and also said this:
"No editor I worked for would have put up with the biased anti-Labor rubbish that, shamefully, the papers now produce on a daily basis."
Say what?
And just think Jj, that when Labor storms to victory next Saturday after having been publicly humanised by Anna Caldwell, then they'll be able to put up a really big headline: "It was the Tele wot done it".
DeleteVery selfishly horrified that you are going Dorothy, as I have enjoyed your column for years. Better journalism and analysis, with humour, than MSM. Best wishes to you with your endeavours and health, Curmudgeon of High Dudgeon
ReplyDelete