The pond is well over the reptile war on China, and so it seems are the reptiles.
Just as Xi made his move on Hong Kong, the bromancer simply ran up the white flag, announcing before he even started that that there is little Australia can do about anything to do with China …
So why does the pond bother? Why not just sink into the vast morass of existential reptile despair?
Well it's always nice to see the the bromancer perform his famous version of that song, Fuck Hong Kong, what about me, it isn't fair, we're just a little corner store with some iron ore to flog and coal, oh please, not clean dinkum pure Oz coal, we have so much to share ...
What's that about Hong Kong? No, a second verse please, what about us, it isn't fair, the bromancer's had enough, he wants his share, can't you see, he wants to deal in iron ore and dinkum clean pure Oz coal, but Xi, you just take more than you give ...
And thar she blows, still with no mention of Hong Kong, up goes the white flag, and the pond's existential sense of the futility of reptile scribblings, or even reading their output, goes up the flag pole with it, as the pond discovers a hard truth "There is nothing we can do to solve the China problem", and so there is absolutely no point to the reptile war on China.
It's meaningless impotent gibberish, of the kind reserved for kids in the playground, thinking about the school bully, wandering away saying to oneself "I'll get you back someday…"
A bit like poor old Kayla (a nice Elsie Fisher) in Eighth Grade having to wait until the end to race down the school hall to shout at the mean girl …
So what to do? Well in sublime reptile impotence and teen unhappiness, there's only one thing left. Attack Labor, it's all their fault ...
Yes, yes, yes, Xi rampant, and it's all the fault of Labor, why didn't the reptiles think of this before? It's their natural turf. The Liberal party has done nothing to prostrate itself before Xi and China, it's all the fault of the Labor party and comrade Dan ...
There you do, problem solved. Don't mention Hong Kong, or impotence, or perhaps the reptile need for a goodly dose of Viagra, at least when it comes to Xi … do they only sell the drug in a form that provides a giant, intimidating erection when confronted by the sight of Labor comrades?
Knowing that the war had already been lost, the pond looked at other reptile offerings askance. No, the pond simply couldn't do Dame Slap carrying on about comrade, correction, chairman Dan, and it would take some solid prep before the pond could bug out with "Ned", as he natters away at his usual interminable length ...
The pond couldn't help what followed.
It cast the runes, it inspected the entrails, and the cult master pointed the way on the Ouija board of reptile offerings ...
Talk about a rabbit 'roo in the glare of the Xi headlights. The pond rarely indulges in the oscillating fan, and yet the cult master had spoken, and so it must be … though for once, it might be better spending time on the meaning of the cult master than on diving into the deep end of the pool of academic despair ...
Sheesh, that's depressing, but thanks to the oscillating fan's US cousins, things have been going swimmingly …
Was it wrong for the pond to break early and go the cartoon solution to this reptile-induced crisis?
Surely not, because the oscillating fan was just shifting into full ancient mariner Times Thunderer mode ...
Oh dear, how the pond yearned to wander back to past Thunderers …
But no, we're stuck in the present, with Ayn Rand, Atlas and the oscillating fan …
By golly, it must be bleak in the university sector, what with all those Chinese students disappearing, but sssh, don't you worry about Hong Kong ...
Hang on a mo, half a nervous tic. We have pollies who can misplace a lazy $60 billion. A trifling accounting error. Why the pond is accustomed to misplacing the odd billion, and misplacing $60 billion while boasting about $130 billion every day of the week is just the sort of thing that makes the pond feel confident ...
Surely we're in safe hands!? Surely everything is going to be alright? Can't we just give a little to academics shouting at clouds, and have a little presiding by expert money counters, and perhaps Angus "sublime pork belly rorting beef" Taylor, and then the glass will be half full again.
No such luck, because for the final outing of the day, again the cult master trapped the pond with his steely vision ...
Oh no, not two cult masters in one day, which is way worse than that brave little tailor killing seven flies with one blow, and even worse, it led to nattering "Ned", which meant endless portentous verbiage, enough to drive the few stray pond readers left at this point off the cliff of despair, or perhaps, coyote style, into the fake tunnel painted on the side of the cliff...
Hang on, hang on … before we get down to "Ned" endlessly parroting the thoughts of Alan Dupont, what's this talk of an "alarmingly erratic Trump"?
Has "Ned" completely forgotten that Trump is a creature of the Murdochians, that "Ned" himself is kissing cousin to Fox News, and that all that's alarmingly erratic has a source … the Chairman himself? Does it take a Rowe to remind "Ned"? With many other reminders here …
Can we just remember who's at fault here, as it might be the only way to endure "Ned's" endless natter, and his relentless regurgitation of Dupont, sounding as baldly uninspiring as the re-treaded rubber on the pond's FX tyres back in Tamworth days ...
The outlook is grim? Surely not, surely there are ways to get the Donald re-elected, with the help of Fox News and the chairman …
Not to worry, in his best Chicken Little, worry wart, hand wringing, anxiety attack style, it's on with global anarchy and the war on China, and for that we need former chairman Rudd … because fucking the Labor party and Julia Gillard was just the start of the end of everything ...
And there you have it, two loons nattering away together, and managing to produce an epic proposition, "his core position is correct."
As if the Donald ever had a core position, as if he doesn't change like any snake oil selling con artist huckster and hustler, blowing bullshit and effrontery in every direction, according to the prevailing wind …
Just what is his core position? What was this on April Fool's Day?
Yes, it was really good in April, and really bad in May, and maybe really good if there's a good result in November, thanks to a little expert help from abroad …
So it's time for the pond to move on from 15 times the Donald has praised China to The many times Trump has praised China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic ...
Or should that be 15 ways the Donald has said quack like a duck, and they'll love it in Murdoch la la land?
By now, the pond is well past weary with "Ned" and Dupont, even if "Ned" occasionally turns to the former chairman for a little variation, because there's still endless gobbets to go.
Will Hong Kong get a mention? Don't hold your breath because remember, right at the start of proceedings, the bromancer hung out the white flag ...
How many times must the pond say it? Trump's folly is chairman Rupert's folly is Fox News' folly is News Corp's folly is nattering "Ned's" folly is the folly of all the reptiles gathered together to fight the chairman's fight for the Donald … just own it, just pay up for the in-store breakages, due to sending a bull into the China shop ...
And what precise instrument have the reptiles deployed against the United States, the pandemic and the world? Yep …
Blather away about Trump has much as you like … the pond remembers, and so does Rowe …
Why repeat it? Why go back to that delicious well again?
Because "Ned" and his little rubberised mate are tone deaf, and need constant reminding of what the Chairman has given unto the world, and still relentlessly supports, because it's not just Xi who wants the Donald back, so does the Chairman, so that he and the GOP can keep on making out like bandits ...
Mike Pence sounding like Churchill? What fucking planet is the pond on, what alternative reality has the pandemic produced in fevered reptile brains? The lap dog has suddenly gone full Churchill? In your garbage, shit-collecting dreams …
As for the right decisions? What, like boycott all things Murdochian?
Sorry, Hong Kongers, nary a a mention, but then that was always going to be the way it went down.
You see, we really don't give a flying fuck about your predicament, the reptiles are just little boys in the corner store yowling away ... the bromancer has put up the white flag, the oscillating fan is lost without adoring students from abroad, "Ned" thinks Pence is Churchill in drag, and so the pond has decided its best option is to go on a treasure hunt, like all the other pirates in world-looting mode ...
no comment
ReplyDeleteTwo contributions from the Cult Master, so - no pressure Kez - but I await the interpretations. However, while I was looking over them - a cell at the back of my brain lit up with this -
ReplyDeletehttps://www.originalfilmart.com/products/lolita-1962
I suppose that might say more about your humble mous than about the Cult Contribution, but - did anyone else have a similar recollection?
On things graphic - thank you DP for the Gustave Doré works, which brought fond memories of very young mous working through the books at the grandparents' house.
Other Anonymous
Not until you brought it up, OA. Lovely poster though and there's definitely a certain similarity with the CM's work.
DeleteBut theposter asks an interesting question: "How did they ever make a movie of Lolita ?". A question that would be paramount now, but I can't recall it being much asked back in 1962. Which maybe says something about how a movie based heavily on "underage sex" was less noteworthy back then than now.
And the movie didn't do Sue Lyon's life and career any particular good.
This gem from van Onselen - dripping with formal qualifications and appointments in politics and government, and, we read, journalism - 'premiers have regularly defied the Prime Minister during this crisis.' And I took special care to reproduce the lower case for those pissant premiers, but upper for the Prime Minister.
ReplyDeleteIs he watching too much Fox and Trump? Might it be time for General Hurley to remind the Professor of Politics who is Commander-in-Chief around here?
Other Anonymous
"The pond is well over the reptile war on China, and so it seems are the reptiles."
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Well we shall see, DP, we shall see. But when the Bromancer comes in with: "Most often the true cause [Beijing "tests or punishes"] is that the nation in question ... has taken some policy actions in its own interest that Beijing doesn't like."
Yeah, but then back in 1949, the Chinese took an action that lots of other nations, especially the USA, absolutely detested: it became a "communist" nation. And lots of nations reacted very unfavourably and effectively 'excommunicated' China. Does that count too ?
But then the Bromancer makes an important confession: "So here is a hard truth. There is nothing we can do to solve the China problem." Now does that actually mean that the reptiles really won't just keep on raving about it until the sun goes nova ? No, of course not: to slightly adapt an other anonymous: "they forget nothing and they learn nothing."
And that is wondrously exemplified by PVO: "Debt will eventually balloon, such that it consumes a growing portion of gross domestic product, reducing the government's capacity to spend on everything from health and welfare to education." No matter how many times you rub their noses in their own excrement they truly do learn nothing.
So, then we get to Nullius Ned. Well actually not, we really just get to a lot of Alan Dupont with a small relish of KRudd. And truly, the less said about all of that lot, the better.
Dorothy wrote:
ReplyDelete"before we get down to "Ned" endlessly parroting the thoughts of Alan Dupont, what's this talk of an "alarmingly erratic Trump"?
Has "Ned" completely forgotten that Trump is a creature of the Murdochians,
Hmm, so the Murdochian pandemic was hatched not in a Wuhan lab but is pure dinki di,true blue fair dinkum Aussie grown. Whatever dark forces initially spawned this virus that eventually put Game Show Donnie in the White House, thrive on vegemite and spell harbor with a "u".
Perhaps the same fertile ground that produced Our Dorothy, this exotic Tamsworth she speaks
of, will one day provide the political vaccine that will wipe out this plague.
I was excited recently to catch a glimpse of Tamsworth in the Paul Hogan movie "Charlie & Boots"(one of the 3 Hogan flicks out of 20 that wasn't crud)but that may be more a reflection of my being cooped up for weeks on end as my girl didn't share my delight at finally seeing
this burg that DP has waxed poetic about.
I kid you not, I almost jumped out of my chair when Hogan drove into Tamsworth, me yelling "it's Dorothy's hometown, that's her joint!"
I gotta get out more.
Now, now JM; sure Roopie Murdoch started in the land of Aus, but he had to go to America and meet up with Roger Ailes before he could reach his full potential and infest all of the Five Eyes.
DeleteAnd definitely, Donnie Trump is his crowning achievement.
But 20 Hogan movies ? Never.
GrueBleen,
ReplyDeleteI was stirring the possum by placing the blame on societal forces in your country
for the rise of Donnie Dimwit. I did it because sometimes the posters here go over the top
in their outrage at Trump and paint most Americans as gun licking, bible beating moral midgets
taken in by a half bright con man. It both distresses and shames me that that is too often the case with many of my neighbors.
But the fact remains that if Murdoch hadn't extended his tentacles into America,
Donnie would still be a game show host, dodging indictments by the state of NY for his various shady enterprises and his connections to the Russian mob thru Jared's convicted Daddy.
The Russian mob connection is such a obvious goldmine for the Russians and the Israelis to exploit - basically Intel 101 - that had Trump held any other position in the White House but President, he could not have passed the security checks even if he was the janitor.
Feh, no more of that it's making me ill.
However many movies Hogan made, most were pretty mad. There is a terrific in joke after the credits at the end of "Charlie and Boots". Hogan and his son are driving over Sydney Harbour Bridge, marveling at it's size, when Paul observes "How would you like to paint the bastard?"
Hogan did exactly that when he worked on the bridge. I understand he more than once saved people from jumping, once at great peril to himself, and garnered much media notice with his humour when interviewed. This film is free to all on Tubi, the scene where Hogan explains why Christians cross themselves is so damn funny it's listed separately on YouTube.
Much of what you say is true, JM, and Roopie had already served an apprenticeship here, but if he hadn't been able to go to America and scale up his ambitions ... well, everything is bigger in Texas, don't they say ?
DeleteBut it would have been amusing, in a deadly sort of way, if Roopie had been restricted to Australia and only had the likes of Tones Yabbott, Malfeasance Turnballs and Scotty from Horizon Marketing to work with. Oh and the local Channel 10 to work on and not able to make much of a Faux Noise out of that. But the two things Americans should be crucifying Trump and especially Moscow Mitch for are (i) packing the American judicial system with lifelong wingnut arseholes and (ii) persistently pursuing voter repression and vote limiting. But they hardly ever get a mention.
The way Americans are painted, even here ? Well, Trump has had a pretty rock-solid base of 44% of the American adult population which have tended to be just a bit gung-ho and there doesn't seem to be much interchange between Trump's 44% and the other 56% of basically reasonable human beings.
Yep, Hogan did indeed paint the SHB, and he did, especially when paired with Strop, have a fine touch of Aussie humour but apart from one classic scene in Crocodile Dundee, I can't recall it showing up all that much in his movies. But then, I am yet to find the drive to view 'Charlie and Boots'. You've almost persuaded me though.