How good is a week's supply of Rowe just hanging around featuring the ghosts of times past?
With the ghosts in making of the time's present always to hand here …
With the ghosts in making of the time's present always to hand here …
Meanwhile, say what you will about Adolf Hitler. At least he voluntarily enlisted in the first world war, was wounded and was decorated for bravery with a Second Class Iron Cross in 1914, upped to a first Class in 1918. (Greg Hunters go here).
But enough of breaking Godwin’s Law and enjoying the never-ending spectacle of exceptional exceptionalist US comedy … again the immortal Rowe said it all …
Gulags? Concentration camps? That's been in the news of late …
Yes, there's The Atlantic, and there's Gizmodo, and dang it all, gosh darn it, there's the lizard Oz. Who could that be?
But before going there, the pond, now being weekly, would just like to mention the Weekly Beast at the Graudian here ... and all the talk of the continuing downsizing and blood-letting at the lizard Oz.
Dear sweet long absent lord, good old Chip gone to L’Age - as they drag Penbo in from the cold to report on the crow eaters …is this how it ends, for the heart of the nation, not with a bang but a cawing Penbo whimper?
And the Graudian getting cheekier by the day with their tiresome Pommie publicity stunts …
What's left but tired triumphalism? Is there going to be three years of existential ennui as the reptiles try to work out what to rage against? Who would want to spend time with Dame Slap in triumphalist mode?
Dream on, dream on, with talk of a surplus long gone, services to be cut, and an economy slowing, and please, no talk of climate science.
And the ghosts and the ghouls still there. The pond saw them in a Rowe dream: "I'm ambitious for you Scotty?!"
And the ghosts and the ghouls still there. The pond saw them in a Rowe dream: "I'm ambitious for you Scotty?!"
Well faced with such excruciating dilemmas, as always, the pond turned to prattling Polonius for some sage advice …him being such an exemplar of someone in touch with the youthful zeitgeist, possibly still yearning for classic drum and bass, or even Bruce Springsteen, and the lies, errors, misdemeanours and such like that the Donald, the reptiles, and even Polonius, are wont to tell us ...
Hang on a mo, hang on a jiff, hang on a whiff, was ut Polonius himself getting into the concentration camp act, forced to move outside the comfort zone of the ABC, and find comfort in the BBC, and in the process berate poor Tom?
Why it was indeed …
Why it was indeed …
What the fuck?
… when talking to foreigners all of us have a responsibility to be as factual as possible and to avoid hyperbole …
When talking to foreigners? Alert, stranger danger, outsiders in the dorm, pesky furriner alert ...
Well whatever one thinks about the use of the term 'concentration camp' - the pond prefers 'gulag' and might even accept 'ghetto', settling some refugees doesn't offset the treatment of other refugees, locked in eternal island prisons, and used as crucified examples, as a reminder and a warning to others …
It's an old routine, but a good one, and the Donald has been keen to adopt it … but sssh, beware of pesky, tricky furriners …
Strangely, it seems to have escaped Polonius's eagle eye that no one willingly entered the likes of Nauru and Manus Island, nor did they understand that they'd be trapped there forever as a warning to others …
Why for a moment there, the pond almost thought that Polonius had scribbled that sundry governments had understood that there was no point punishing people-smugglers, when there was a better solution to hand. Punish the people who used their services ...
But that would mean Tom was right.
Ahh, here you go, Polonius gestures hypnotically in the style of Mandrake …
Why for a moment there, the pond almost thought that Polonius had scribbled that sundry governments had understood that there was no point punishing people-smugglers, when there was a better solution to hand. Punish the people who used their services ...
But that would mean Tom was right.
Ahh, here you go, Polonius gestures hypnotically in the style of Mandrake …
Nauru is fixed, Manus Island is but a dream, there are no refugees in gulags, everything is for the best, these are not the concentration camps you have been looking for … but hang on a tic, hang on a mo …
Silly old Mandrake. The tyre is fixed, why even the tire is fixed.
Nauru is fixed, Manus Island is but a dream, there are no refugees in gulags, everything is for the best, these are not the concentration camps you have been looking for … trust Polonius …
Yes, you are free to go back to wherever you've come from, and if that means back into the arms of some mad fundamentalist, sorry, that's Polonius's idea of freedom.
Besides, we're all right Jack, and everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and how could Tom have entirely missed a key point in Polonius's and the reptiles life?
You see, some of these pesky, difficult furriners who turn up here seem determined to make life difficult for the reptiles and for poor old Polonius …
Why only yesterday Polonius was railing against one of them …and scoring top of the page just to emphasise his demonic presence ...
What was it about? Three fifths of fuck all, actually, though Polonius has promised to take a look at The Minefield next week, such is his irritation. Wasn't it enough to see Tom Gleeson win, and Aly forced to smile wanly, as he and all the others were told to lighten the fuck up?
But hang on a mo, hang on a tic, we have the last piece of Polonial triumphalism to celebrate …
Yes, the voters have certified it, the voters have approved it, Manus and Nauru are but idle dreams, spectres raised by vexatious traitors, unwisely speaking of their saucy doubts and fears to furriners …
What a generous, giving, country we are, except for that damned smug Waleed Aly … how he tortures the reptiles so … who let him in?
You're free to leave any time you like … this is no Hotel California …welcome to Nauru or Manus Island, plenty of room here, any time of year, such lovely places, they're living it up with their island life ...
And now while the pond can't provide a link to the paywalled Pope, the pond has been hungering for a papal feast for weeks, and what do you know, there's a flaw in the wall, about as large as the wall the Donald is building, so the pond just had to run with it …
Ah the good old days … a feast of Polonius, and a chance to run the infallible Pope and the immortal Rowe back to back …how could the ghastly Graudian threaten the pond's few remaining weekend pleasures?
"Alert, stranger danger, outsiders in the dorm"
ReplyDeleteAh yes, my favourite word of the year so far (refudiate is so passed on now): misoxeny.
Polonius: "He [Keneally] went on to accuse Australian governments of lying but did not specifically identify the (alleged) lies to which he was referring".
ReplyDeleteWell, Pollyonius, that's because he was in a time-limited interview so he couldn't take several hours to list all the lies.
But wait, hang on a moment ...
Yes, Little Honest Johhny did rule (which as PM he was legally entitled to do) that if you really, truly believe what you're saying, then it isn't a lie. No sirree. It may be 'untruthful', but it just isn't a lie. Budget surplus, anybody ?
So then, it all comes down to the simple fact that polticians, and especially those of the Right, can instantly believe anything they want to. And so they can never, ever, lie. Not even once.
And then Polonius reminds us that: "During Rudd's first time as prime minister and in the early years of his successor, Julia Gillard, about 50,000 unlawful arrivals came to Australian shores ..."
I wonder which shores that was - Christmas Island's perhaps. But then you see some 50,000 to 60,000 "unlawful arrivals" have come to Australia's inlamd airports via commercial airlines. Now that's really what I call "protecting Australia's borders". You'll be stopped if you attemp to actually cross a border but it's ok if you just fly over one.
But does anybody know what happened to all those 50,000 ? I can't recall that we ever had that many in Manus or Nauru. Did we manage to send them all home again ? Except for the few who got to America and the couple who were "repatriated" to Cambodia, of course.
Wow, Polonious has now extended his 24/7 Public Broadcasting monitoring service to include The BBC.
ReplyDeleteYes, he took delivery of a brand-new crystal set shortwave radio purchased from the back of a Mandrake comic for $1.99, and how it has paid off, exposing left wing ABC type traitors telling fibs overseas.
Tom Keneally, literary giant and intellectual, Polonius a winging wowser of a pedantic grub.
Polonious monitors all "alleged" lies, no matter the public broadcaster.
Delete"If, as Keneally states, the Australian government is an institutional liar and committed to maintaining concentration camps to punish people, then it is reasonable to come to the view that a majority of Australians will prevail against such deceit and injustice."
ReplyDeleteSince when have facts ever been determined by popular vote? You don't need to explain "argumentum ad populum" to see how shaky that argument is. Putting aside how divided opinion actually is, it really doesn't prove a thing if a majority hold a view. History is full of examples of beliefs that have sometimes proved to be disastrously wrong. Why would that be different today?
I wonder how Polonius felt about Whitlam's big mandate? Islamist countries with popular support for sharia law?
The difference, of course, is that they are deluded foreigners not in the perfect state of knowledge found in Australia.
Dorothy wrote:
ReplyDelete"Meanwhile,say what you will about Adolf Hitler. At least he voluntarily enlisted in the first world war, was wounded and was decorated for bravery with a Second Class Iron Cross in 1914"
Captain Bonespurs's grandpappy Friedrich Trump was EXILED from Germany for draft dodging. Yet as Dorothy noted this illegal immigrant paper hanger from Austria was willing to serve his adopted country while Freddy stayed safe and sassy in America. From Freddy onward not one Trump has served in the armed forces. If Freddy bet in 1900 that over the next 120 years his spawn would somehow evade the draft through all the wars America was involved in, the average punter would have gladly given him 1,000 to 1 odds, it is almost literally impossible to achieve that sort of finkdom. Ah well, the families of the men who served in their place and possibly got killed will no doubt feel better that the Trumps were ever safe.
Much more your bailiwick than mine, JM, but I recall quite a bit of successful draft dodging back in the days of Vietnam - both Left and Right (Canada here we come !). Apparently about 2.2 million Americans were drafted from 1964 to 1973 out of an eligible "pool" of about 27 million.
DeleteTrump did manage deferment 4 times for college, and then just one last time for his bone spurs, but that sort of situation was common for "young men of influential families" at the time.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trump-avoided-the-military-draft-which-was-common-at-the-time-vietnam-war-2018-12?r=US&IR=T
Lovely picture of the young, athletic Donald in there.