In which the pond is forced to shed skin and abandon old reptiles ...

This was the day something in the pond snapped.

Just look at the pathetic, miserable line-up that greeted the pond early in the morning. 

There was Dame Slap still rabbiting on about a lavish lawyers' picnic, part of her general retreat above the faraway tree to indulge in a bout of navel-gazing. 

The oscillating fan decided to blame the Victorian health system for detecting community transmissions, because apparently the community had nothing to do with it, and in the process managed to make the lizard Oz editorialist sound sensible, and take it from the pond, that's no small achievement. 

Meanwhile, reformed Swiss bank accounts thug Gra Gra did a commentary on thugs that was post-modern self-reflexively post-ironic. 

And the artwork!

No doubt the cult master was around somewhere, but the pond couldn't be stuffed looking …just as the pond really didn't care about hoppy polls, though the pond did pause to wonder if at last we'd be hopping away from shipping iron ore and coal to the dragon (ah, even the good old days of stereotypes has been abandoned by the reptiles for a bloody panda).

What was left? Well the pond had to start looking at the actual news, as if that was any interest … with the meretricious Merritt already having sorted out the Heydon matter yesterday ...

But wait, that story about Dan 'the uni man' Tehan had some passing interest. To the pond's uncertain knowledge, not one reptile has given a passing toss about the Ramsay Centre and the fate of Western Civilisation in all the recent fuss about the humanities.

For years, the pond had to suffer endless diatribes about its singular importance, and yet news from the Ramsay Centre provided very slim pickings …

The pond tried to click on a story from Luke Slattery in the lizard Oz, from the golden age of reptile Ramsay centre caring, reproduced on site, but when the pond went in search of the original reptile flavour, scored this result from the link …

Indeed, especially a busted link to Luke and the reptiles.

Would Dan "the uni man" story provide at least a hint of the fate of Western Civilisation and dead white males, as celebrated by Luke so long ago?

By LUKE SLATTERY
12:00AM AUGUST 10, 2019
“Three cheers for white men!” American medieval scholar Rachel Fulton Brown proclaimed in the 2015 blog post that effectively remade her.
Until that moment this spry, white-haired University of Chicago academic was known chiefly as the author of a 750-page scholarly doorstopper titled From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200.
With her incendiary blog, designed to counter with a few salient historical facts the ritualistic enmity towards “dead white Anglo-Saxon males” among tenured radicals, Brown catapulted herself into the culture wars. Her post urged readers to “Hug a white man today!” She has never looked back.

All that reminded the pond of was the lyrics of Don Henley's The Boys of Summer, with empty reptile lakes, empty reptile streets, nobody on the road, nobody on the beach, and a little voice inside the pond saying "Don't look back, you can never look back". But what happens if you look at Dan "the  uni man". Do you turn to Latinate stone?:

The pond at first had a little hope. After all, the opening snap of Dan "the uni man" Tehan made him look vaguely sociopathic … so how would his plan affect the Ramsay Centre and Western Civilisation?

Not a word about Western Civilisation, or hugging a dead white male! Just a promise to avoid unis recruiting more humanities students. Poor Luke and all the other reptiles who cared so much must be rolling in their graves, what with Dame Slap above the faraway tree crooning to herself about lawyers ...

Well at least lawyer Malware shares lawyer Dame Slap's antipathy towards lawyers, but what of the Ramsay Centre? 

Will some reptile sometime soon explain how they feel about the fate of Western Civilisation, and cry out in print, oh the humanities, oh the  humanities of it all?

But once the pond had abandoned the usual local reptiles, why stop there? 

Back in the day, Dame Slap had slipped on the MAGA cap and proudly strutted out into the streets of New York to share the joy, but where was she now? Navel gazing about lawyers, and yet the pond was badly in need of a Donald fix. Luckily the reptiles did an import, as they seem to be doing in huge numbers of late, with this coming in from The Times …

Ah, the snap for the ages … but where's Dame Slap, to comfort him, and to reassure him, and to remind him that she was right behind him all the way?

A cleaned-out gambler, a jailed businessman on bail? 

Strange, almost every US commentator has preferred the idea of the Donald as failed salesman William "Willy" Loman in Death of a Salesman, aged, unstable, insecure and self-delusional, planting some carrot seeds out in the garden by torchlight …

Willy: Tell me – is there a seed store in the neighborhood?
 Stanley: Seeds? You mean like to plant?
 Willy: Yes. Carrots, peas...
 Stanley: Well, there's hardware stores on Sixth Avenue, but it may be too late now.
 Willy: Oh, I'd better hurry. I've got to get some seeds. I've got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing's planted. I don't have a thing in the ground.

Sorry, a dead white writer, and even worse, one who brings Marilyn, the Kennedy clan and the Mafia on to the scene …

Of course others preferred Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross, and that tribe of happy snake oil sales folks …

Dave Moss : What's your name?
Blake : Fuck you! That's my name! You know why, mister? You drove a Hyundai to get here. I drove an eighty-thousand dollar BMW. THAT'S my name. And your name is you're wanting. You can't play in the man's game, you can't close them - go home and tell your wife your troubles. Because only one thing counts in this life: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. You hear me, you fucking faggots? A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing. ALWAYS BE CLOSING. A-I-D-A. Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. Attention - Do I have your attention? Interest - Are you interested? I know you are, 'cause it's fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks. Decision - Have you made your decision for Christ? And Action. A-I-D-A. Get out there - you got the prospects coming in. You think they came in to get out of the rain? A guy don't walk on the lot lest he wants to buy. They're sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it?

Sorry, the pond drifted a little, no doubt Hugo is ready to come up with his own cultural reference ...

Excuse the pond? David Sedaris? 

The New Yorker? 

Be still, beating heart. How did these strange names end up in the lizard Oz? And did Hugh, via Sedaris, just call the Donald a shit sandwich?

Oh Dame Slap, crooning to yourself about lawyers in these troubled times, when the Ramsay Centre is in peril, and the lizard Oz runs crude, cruel lines from The New Yorker. Where are you, in this hour of need?

You were there once for him, but now so long ago …

Yes, not a single snigger, and yet now, see how they mock your hero, see how they snigger and snipe …

And now the lizard Oz imports bloody Poms to mock the Donald … and indirectly you, yes you, Dame Slap, by talking of support unmoored from reality ...

There are limits to how far you can get by putting on a MAGA cap and blaming China? 

And meanwhile, the guns fall silent, Western Civilisation is priced out of existence, lawyer Dame Slap is in her attic muttering about her loathing of lawyers (somebody make sure there's no sharp instruments handy for the off-chance of some self-mutilation) and the lizard Oz boldly publishing a mocking Pom, deriding her hero as a glassy turd …

Is it not possible to see why the pond fell into a mood of abject despair? 

    Rico Bandello: We started off together, didn't we? Well, we gotta keep going along together. Who else have I got to give a hang about? I need ya, reptile. I got the biggest chance of my life. The Big Boy, the chairman, just handed me the whole North Side, but it's too much for one man to handle alone. I need somebody, somebody to work in with me, a guy like you. Somebody I can trust.

    Reptile: It can't be me, Rico. I've quit.

    Rico Bandello: You didn't quit. Nobody ever quit me. You're still in my gang. Do you get that? (grabbing his lapel) I don't care how many fancy skirts you got hangin' on to you. That Dame Slap, that Janet of yours, can go hang. It's her that's made a softie out of you.

    Reptile: You lay off Dame Slap...

    Rico Bandello: I ain't layin' off of her. I'm after her. And all the rest of Western Civilisation, and that Ramsay centre. One of us is gonna lose and it ain't gonna be me. There's ways of stoppin' that dame.

   Reptile: You're crazy! Leave her out of this.

    Rico Bandello: Aw, she's through. She's out of the way, that's what she is, all she does is go up into her attic and scribble about the legal system, and who cares, she's a waste of space.

    Reptile: You're lying. You wouldn't dare.

    Rico Bandello: [brandishing his hand] I wouldn't, wouldn't I? I'll show ya. I could shoot Dame Slap on Fifth Avenue, and they'd still vote for me.

    Reptile: I love her. We're in love with one another. She hates lawyers. Even though she's a lawyer. Doesn't that mean nothin' to ya?

    Rico Bandello: Nothin'. Less than nothin'. Love! Soft stuff! When she's got you, you ain't no good for anything. We ain't out of this yet. Now we don't want no softies spilling things.

    Reptile: I ain't gonna spill anything if that's what you're scared of.

    Rico Bandello: You go back to that dame and it's suicide. Suicide for both of ya.

Reptile: Ah heck Rico, I don't care about the dame, and I don't care about Western Civilisation or the Ramsay centre. Just give me a gat, and let's get back to the old days and the old ways ...

Not even Rowe's promise of an epic joust with China, as seen here, could lift the pond's spirits … and speaking of bandits on the slide, mother of mercy, is this the end of the lizard Oz, the Donald and Western Civilisation? A Bruce Lee film?

Oh it's not Bruce Lee, it's a Peter Navarro production? Golly it must be a ripper of a show …