The news continued to be grum this day, as a Kiwi might say - oh no, not Prince Chuck - and the reptiles decided, in their tree killer edition to celebrate solidarity, just as NSW and Victoria were deciding they'd had enough of slow march SloMo …
But of all the mixed messaging, could there have been any better (or worse) if you like than that offered by the bromancer yesterday?
Perhaps the bromancer thought he might escape the pond's gimlet eye, but it was such a pathetic, wretched piece of self-pitying racist moaning that the pond simply had to clear space on the deck this day ...
From Anglo-Saxon (what happened to the Celts?) to Anglomorph, has there ever been a better mishmash of stereotypes and cliches?
Meanwhile, in another country …
The best of British pluck, which naturally leads to Boris Johnson and his donkeys stumble on, led by lions they try to lead ...
But back to the bromancer, wailing and moaning in a piteous way …
Actually time spent does matter, because time spent with the bromancer is a truly sparse and barren experience … imagine being stuck with him week in, week out, as the pond often finds itself ...
After all that, cabin fever had indeed set in with the pond.
Too much time with the bromancer already … and yet what do you know, who was head of the commentary section this day, with an even more bizarre exercise in stereotypical white man thinking? You guessed it …
The pond had to immediately throw away poor old Barners' desperate attempt to stay relevant, and other contributors had to be shoved aside, as the bromancer once again fell to eccentric musing, and demanded that attention be paid … such that the pond felt the need to get it over and done with in three big gobbets ...
Indeed, indeed, and no doubt it's the deeply Confucian nature of German society that explains this …
Or is it the Nazis? It's why the won the war, except they lost it, except they're now winning the war … make some sense out of that if you will … but remember, only a bromancer rant laden with cultural nonsense worthy of a subject of Queen Victoria will be allowed entry ...
Just remember, you pick a stereotype, and you scribble nonsense how you will, and yes, the reptiles bizarrely might find some space for it (assuming there's no room at the Spectator inn)...
Oh fuck, not film and TV shows. Thank the long absent lord comics are a little too old these days and have re-birthed into terrible films, but can anyone imagine a finer assembly of meaningless thought bubbles?
Perhaps reaching a peak form of weirdness with the bromancer managing to contradict himself in just two sentences "I am not arguing here that Confucianism is better than the Judaeo-Christian civic tradition. Nor am I arguing the reverse."
Just what the fuck is he arguing, and why did he bother? Wouldn't it have been simpler just to have scribbled "I am wanking here in public … and I am just as capable of wanking in reverse!"
And so to the final gobbet ...
"I am inexactly …?!"
Words cannot describe how inexactly, how inanely, how stupidly, the bromancer has responded to the current crisis … up there on a par with that reptile hero providing Borowitz with easy fodder …
As for the bromancer's cultural analysis? Curiously, not a mention of Fox News, the Donald, the malignant role of Chairman Rupert and his minions, Dame Slap donning her MAGA cap, and the assorted bizarre US responses to the current crisis, right down to this …
(here in full)
The Donald, Jerry, Xians and the bromancer? Now there's a bunch of bananas.
For a guide to that magical thinking, the pond had to turn to the infallible Pope …
Bugger it, is the bromancer going to ruin everything for the pond this day?
Sure there's no room at the inn, or even a humble holiday flat in London for Barners, but the pond must make space for the savvy Savva, if only because she has been blessed with an illustration by the cult master Lobbecke … and the pond realises there are certain specialist pond readers - well at least one, you know who you are - who are expert in decoding the hidden messages in the cult master's drawings …
Just who is Gladys banning? Why the sign? What does that look mean? Is it a look to the heavens? Is it a morph to Anglomorph culture?
Who knows, but the savvy Savva doesn't bother with airy fairy notions of cultures - as if the bromancer fancied himself as some kind of latter-day Will Durant (now there's a sub specie totius name that will boggle all but the most esoteric readers of ancient follies). No, the savvy Savva is more a down to tin tacks type …or should that be brass tacks?
There are so many alternative, often inaccurate sources of news?
Damn right, and if the pond wants even weirder, inaccurate sources of commentary, the pond looks no further than the bromancer …
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, let us give unto Chairman Rupert cabal television and sundry newspapers scattered across lands, that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called the News Corp Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them, the bromancer and Hannity and Tucker and many others, abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Okay, okay, the pond is still shell-shocked by the bromancer, and finds it hard to let go, which is terribly unfair to the savvy Savva, especially as she's about to let fly on our very own local pitiful Babeler … one Stuart Robert, apparently a BFF ...
And on that ominous note, on that sword of savvy Savva Damocles hanging over Scotty from marketing's head, the pond can wrap up proceedings with the usual relevant immortal Rowe, with more immortality available here in these troubled times…
The pond does love it so when Rowe references a favourite artist, and the pond has long loved Hopper ...
But it's not just Nighthawks …
Look at the social distancing in these … just right for our troubled times ...
And look at the light in this …though the chance of seeing the brushstrokes at the DMA are pretty slim at the moment, and the pond has to settle for the print above its bed ...
The Bromancer, tighter than a fish's arsehole.
ReplyDeleteI rather had him as a demodex mite, Joe; they have no anus at all and they store it all up internally until it bursts out after death.
DeleteAnd before that, they crawl all over your face taking in their sustenance and reproducing (I wonder if we could teach them to eat coronaviruses ?)
"In the postmodern world, the villains are always us, our governments and our institutions"
ReplyDeleteIf my "us" the Bromancer means News Ltd reptiles, he's pretty well got the trifecta correct. Well done old chap.
And in his early moan, he notes that the Anglomorph countries all seem to have trouble pivoting to doing the right thing. They wouldn't be the three countries that have Murdoch media monopolies would they? Oh yes, they are. One could "inexactly" comment on that coincidence were one so inclined.
I wonder what Maggie "there is no such thing as society" Thatcher would be making of all this coronavirus caper? People treating each other with respect, pulling together for the greater good, shutting down the economy because of the health risk to mainly old people, this whole 'cooperation' thing?
ReplyDeleteActually Merc, I think you'll find that the health risk is very much to existing medical conditions - mostly those affecting the lung system - rather than age. It's just that more oldies already have 'conditions' than do youngies, but as the deaths of some 30yos shows, it's not an absolute rule.
DeleteI'm kinda hoping my mild chronic bronchitis isn't enough to do me in if I catch COVID-19.
Ah - DP - again we thank you for reading the Bromancer, to save us the angst that it might induce in us. I note that you do the Bromancer a courtesy that he himself did not extend to the ABC in his comment on ‘Stateless’ - that of actually watching the series before you dismiss it. Of course, that will not matter to those of his readers who are attuned to his kind of reasoning. No doubt they, in turn, will refer to it in their own comments to other Limited News sites, usually after the preamble ‘I gave up watching the ABC years ago, after they . . . . ‘ Although, funny how often that is then followed by a ‘but the other evening, while flicking across channels, I just happened to catch a few minutes of . . . (whichever ABC item is being pilloried by Polonius, or Kenny, or whoever’s turn it is with the electronic cat’o’9 tails).
ReplyDeleteBut the real gratitude comes from your including our two outstanding cartoonists, then using the Rowe to segue into other works of Edward Hopper. So nourishing to the psyche at any time, but so appropriate now, and pointing up the contrast between the Limited News’ attempts at engaging the reader’s psyche, and how those with talent have always done it.
Other Anonymous
Er yes, the Hopper representation was so sensational :)
ReplyDeleteand, on the question of courtesies - over at ‘Catallaxy’ (it’s a rainy day here, so more indoors than usual) one of the group who reference each other on that site, ‘Spectator’ and ‘Quadrant’, had also referred to this contribution from the Bromancer as - ‘Coronavirus: The West’s civil disobedience - it’s a trend to die for.’
ReplyDeleteSo far, nothing unusual in that. Most of the opinions from Limited News are well received, and re-circulated among this group, to general approval.
These comments came from the Adjunct Associate Professor Kates, of RMIT’s School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, but - horror - his words begin with ‘This kind of analysis really is a disgrace’. The rest of it is, if anything, even less complimentary than your analysis, DP.
His conclusion was that he was so upset by the article, that he was taking out a subscription to ‘The Age’. That left those who take ‘Catallaxy’ seriously, dialling up dictionaries seeking a more extreme term for ‘heresy’ to fling at the hapless Adjunct Associate.
But - for an Adjunct Associate etc. he is careless with his attributions. He had studied this work in such detail that he had attributed it to - Paul Kelly. We trust he is more punctilious in his academic publications.
At least one of his readers did notice that error, and reminded him that the column was from Greg Sheridan, not Paul Kelly. That reader? None other than Judith Sloan. Her correction was brief - I am sure a blog like this, even one apparently managed out of RMIT, does not pay her nearly as well as Limited News does.
What a merry little band they are.
Other Anonymous
The Bromancer: "The big Anglo-Saxon countries - the US, Britain, Australia - ..."
ReplyDeleteWell that's a revelation then. We knew EnZed was only a small Anglo-Saxon country, but Canada ? Canada is not an Anglo-Saxon country ? Must be all those Froggies and Scotties, I guess; they obviously don't leave any room for Anglos. At least according to this:
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1937/9/1/decline-of-the-anglo-saxon-canadian
and that's back in 1935.
But then, according to the following, it's complicated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Canadians#Ethnic_composition
So, on with the Bromancer's gaslighting: "Partisan rancour so toxic that Congress cannot even pass a stimulus package, is truly shocking."
Well at the risk of repeating myself, not to mention millions of others, the reptiles are too incoherent to actually gaslight. Consider (1) it wasn't 'Congress' (ie both houses), just Moscow Mitch's bunch of Senate thieves who stopped the sign off, because (2) they wanted a $500 million slush fund for Trump to hand out to himself and his mates without any controls, and (3) wait for it ... as soon as Mitch's band of thieves agreed to some controls, the stimulus package was signed off very quick smart.
That's our Bro, a true supporter of IOIYAR (It's Ok If You're A Republican).
But now what's this ? A doubling up on Bromancers ? Two for the price of one ? And then waddayano, he starts off with: "For 50 years popular culture in Australia and the West has mocked authority, glorified rebellion, sanctified the individual's quest for ever deeper self-realisation and told us that Western governments are dishonest, corrupt, wicked and primarily act as agents of racism, colonialism, sexism, economic exploitation and environmental despoilation."
Wau. He got that one right on the button. And there's not a single reptile who doesn't wholeheartedly believe every single word of it ... but only if there's a Left-wing government, of course.
But then, as you say DP: "no doubt it's the deeply Confucian nature of German society that explains this …"
The very low German death rate, that is. But then, what explains this:
"To date, state and territory health authorities have reported 2,676 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, including 11 deaths "
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704
Now Germany has 206 deaths from 37,323 cases, or 0.55%. Australia has 11 from 2676 or 0.41%. So what exactly is it that explains Australia's low rate ?
Oh, and what explains the very long running Hong Kong rebellion in such a law-abiding Kung Fu Tzu (aka Kong Fuzi) state ? Why, exposure to the rebellious West, of course.
But then, the Bromancer goes on: "The Analects of Confucius stress proper relations, family fidelity, respect for elders, respect for authority, personal morality and acting with some decorum."
Well I dunno, back in my school days we used to have to recite, right after we'd warbled 'God Save The Queen', the Patriotic Declaration: "I love God and my country. I honour the flag, I will serve the Queen, and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the law."
Not quite the full Confucius, but all the rest - the morality, the decorum etc were kinda taken for unvoiced givens. Do you reckon the Bromancer knows anything at all about what he claims to be his own nation ?
Now I'd better take a break lest I go over 4096 chars yet again.
Jeez - you covered just about everything.
DeleteThe Bromancer gets me because his world view is just so weird it makes it difficult to interrogate any argument he makes. His view of society, like his understanding of religion, is naive, even a little childish.
His default assumption seems to be that society was happier and more secure 50 years ago. People were obedient and respectful.
Funny, that's not my recollection. I recall a lot of class divisions, more crime and a lot of resentment, not to mention a free trip to Vietnam if you were unlucky.
Maybe my memory is letting me down and maybe Sheridan has watched too many episodes of The Waltons.
Most of the things he moans about are markers of a more mature society. History shows you shouldn't uncritically believe governments and institutions are acting in your best interests. Yes, they are frequently dishonest, corrupt and racist if you allow them to be.
These long rambles are just a plea for relevance that will not be answered.
Oh - take care
You nailed it with "difficult to interrogate any argument". That's because it never makes any sense to any rational thinking person. Modus opperandi is write shit that seems to be intellectual but is actually complete drivel/bullshit. The trick seems to be to throw in some real factual evidence & then surround with the afore mentioned.
DeleteThink you got it right, Bef, and also UM. As to the government funded Vietnam vacation, I had the very good fortune to be too young for the old "Nasho" (ie the 3 months compulsory 'national service') and too old for the Vietnam lottery - by a couple or so years in each case.
DeleteBut I didn't quite get to cover it all (and I haven't got to Savvy at all yet), so here's my final gobbet:
The Bromancer really goes off the path with: "I haven't seen the ABC TV series Stateless but I'll bet you a hot Chico roll it portrays the Australian state as the agent of unique wickedness. What else would it do ?"
Yair, spot on OA. Well now, let us look up some info on Stateless:
"You're not going to go into a network and sell a show on really fascinating tales of black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals."
Hmmm, yeah, I can see the Bromancer's point: anything about black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals just couldn't do otherwise than ignore the wonderful humanity and charity displayed by every state and federal government since federation to people such as those.
But then: "In 2005 it emerged that Ms Rau, a German citizen and Australian resident, had been unlawfully detained for 10 months." Oh gosh, she must have done some awfully wrong things then, to be detained unlawfully for 10 months (not a real long time is it).
Hold on: "Her detention triggered a major review of the immigration department's systems." What ? A "major review" ? Part of a serious attempt by a government department to attain perfection ? No wonder the Bromancer is aroused against such a happening.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-28/iview-stateless-detention-cate-blanchett-yvonne-strahovski/12005918
However, the Bromancer knows what's what when he claims: "the deep academic conviction that all Western civilisation is inherently based on evil - racism, sexism, economic exploitation, colonialism - without any positive affirmation of the magnificent achievements of our own tradition."
Our own very many different traditions over several thousand years actually. The Bromancer doesn't get a very simple point known as the Pareto Rule: 20% of the effort brings 80% of the results and then the remaining 80% of effort, if you are lucky, brings the remaining 20% of results.
Euro-Christian-Greek-Roman civilisation has achieved the easy 80%: some democracy, some half-way decent laws, some social security, some reasonable education and a heap of science, maths, music and art. Now comes the hard 20%: true decency, honesty, and respect for each other - all of us - at a personal, social and governmental level. Wanna guess just how long that will take us ?
Hi DP,
ReplyDeleteThere’s really nothing to add to your own rhetorical musings on Lobbecke’s graphic. One could surmise that Gladys’s signpost is banning black children and that she has just learned her facelift has been cancelled due to the virus crisis. But that would taking a verboten literal reading of a Lobbecke wouldn’t it? Given Savva’s flyweight commentary this five-minute flick of the iPad is all that was needed.
Aw, c'mon Kez, that was actually a pretty good piece of work by the Savvy Sav - well for a basic reptile anyway. Not exactly heavyweight, I grant you, but not exactly mainstream reptile either.
DeleteMaybe Savvy's stint on Insiders is slowly seeping into her brain (and at least she still appears to have one unlike some others we could all name).
And thanks for the rundown on Hopper, DP. I'm not personally much into painting, but I am familiar with Nighthawks in basically the way you presented it. A strange, disconnected vision, I've always thought.
Sorry Kez, there's urgent work needed today as the cult master unveils a new and cryptic sign, and you too GB, there's never any rest at the pond, as the entrails keep demanding fresh readings ...
DeleteA viral contagion unprecedented
ReplyDeleteRendered the US unPresidented
On Easter Sunday
They wheeled him away
As by then his brain had fermented