The pond feels of late that it's been overdoing the reptiles, and should drink and sup in moderation, but then along comes a headline from a well-off, not to put too fine a point on it, signed up 'leet prof, railing at cowardly elites, and chanting the kool-aid of appeasement, with supplementary blather about cancel culture …
It's a perfect storm of a headline, and the pond could feel its shaking paw reaching out for the bottle yet again. Just another hit, just one more beer with a chaser shot. Sure, it's got an awesomely useless cartoon from a lesser reptile illustrator - here no cult master, no cult master here - but all the pond needed was a reference to Orwellian, and the pond's drowsy smile would reveal that surely going to be another lost day of joy getting on the reptile piss ...
A pity really that after that splendid Orwellian opening, the rest should turn into a third rate reptile litany of the extremely predictable kind, but that's probably what the pond should have expected to emanate from the deep north.
At least the spluttering prof, who shows all the signs of being a member of the academic 'leet, managed to keep the rant short … which is just as well, because he seems to have become confused about his own idea that you might be able to disagree, and you might be able to respectfully make a point by way of a symbolic gesture - say, take a knee - without doing anything other than draw attention to what you're thinking or feeling in relation to certain issues …
But the 'leet prof isn't really interested in an exchange of an ideas, he just wants to rant, and who is the pond to stay in his ranting way?
And that's how a stupid man plays a stupid game. Of late Churchill hasn't been attacked on the grounds that he was a fascist, he's been attacked on the grounds that he was a racist. And he was a racist. And the British Empire was built on racism, and incidentally did much to encourage the slave trade …and you'd think that a prof would put that into context instead of using a cheap rhetorical switcheroo ...
If that's what they do by way of 'leet profs in Queensland, no wonder tertiary education is in a pickle …
Meanwhile, the pond after its initial rush of sweet amber into the system, had to cool down a little …and speak of a few ironies …
With the greatest respect to Ms Wright, at this very moment a Star Chamber trial of the most secret and furtive kind is unfolding in Canberra … as noted on Media Watch last night … and yet nothing about that from James Allan, even as it makes blather about other privacy matters seem quaint and irrelevant … and all to protect Lord Downer and his minions, caught out in a despicable act of spying on a poor country for commercial gain …
As for Dame Groan, the pond just mentions that the pond won't be mentioning her, because she's duller than usual, and while there might be other errors damned if the pond could find a six squillion one …
Instead the pond felt like a dose of bouffant hagiography as a chaser …
Indeed, indeed, what to say than to admire the hagiographer's art, and that feeling of inspirational confidence …
And luckily the bouffant one kept it short, because there's only so many gongs you can hand out in a single column …
For those who came in late, the pond is a devotee of Carl Barks, square eggs (as ripped off by Yahoo Serious) and observer from the world office of News Corp, the bouffant one, come to commend Scottie from marketing for his great ability …short final gobbet though it is, there not being that much that the expert hagiographer can summon up in these troubled times, except promises of future glories and perhaps a chest bedecked with medals ...
A real strategy?
And so to the bonus offering, which began when the pond, noticing the ritual humiliation of Carol Overington, reduced to doing Strewth! for a crust, which saw her leading off with this …
It's all good fun?
It's actually incredibly childish, and it reminded the pond of its own childish games and childish joys, and the secret lair where it hid the casing of a World War One hand grenade, a souvenir from the Somme, and read tales of triumph and secret clubs, surrounded by nerds of the Erica kind, who scuttled off to hide in the basement the moment a bully appeared on the horizon …
Sadly, it didn't involve modern Wolverines of the Hugh kind … it involved the destruction of savages, in a way designed to gladden James Allan's colonial heart ...
But all that made the pond wonder how the war on China was really going, and happily there
s good news from the front, because it's going splendidly ….
Dirigiste? Partisan du dirigisme? Un pays dirigiste?
The pond knew it had stumbled on the good oil. Those devious, deviant Chinese wouldn't have the first clue what he was talking about …
The pond also realised there was also a chance to run a few cartoons celebrating Western inspirations in the war with China, guaranteed signs of imminent victory …
The pond suspects that Bolton, a dud in and out of office, will continue to be a dud, but still, it seems we've aligned ourselves with the forces of good, and if we just hold up a blessed golden "T", the war with China will be ours for the taking …
Indeed, indeed. China has been seriously weakened by the virus, while the United States has gone from strength to strength …
And the Donald has shown an astonishing ability to use his formidable tools to advance assorted matters, international and domestic …
And with the war on China going so well, only a short final gobbet was needed ...
And so another day with the reptiles were done. The 'leets soundly smacked by the 'leets, Scottie from marketing blessed with a strategy, and China done down … by the leader of the Cognoscenti Group …
Eek, a thought leader offering timely actionable advice?
Where's James Allan when he's really needed?
The naming of 'leet think tanks gets funnier and funnier, and yet the pond hankers for the good old days, when the Illuminati, or the Rosicrucians strode the earth …
Sorry, once the pond gets its in lizard cups, it always gets nostalgic for the days when it could drink …
How about a few fun current moments instead of brooding about lost hours reading comic books, with a couple of fair and balanced cartoons, and more Rowe here?
From National Geographic: "The wolverine is a powerful animal that resembles a small bear but is actually the largest member of the weasel family."
ReplyDelete‘the cowardice of liberal democracies’ elites’ - as you suggest, Dorothy, who is more likely to be one of the ‘leet’ than a Garrick Professor. And where better placed than in, or on, a cosily tenured chair, to do something about those failings that the education system, in which the Garrick Professor includes the universities, are not ‘putting into context.’
ReplyDeleteIn this column the Garrick Professor refers to his extensive travels. A few months ago we did trace his career in law, almost all of which appears to have been spent in one or another university. Broken up with a lot of those pleasant ‘sabbatical’ breaks that come with the tenure. His bio. with Conor Court publishing includes ‘sabbaticals at the Cornell Law School, at the Dalhousie Law School in Canada as the Bertha Wilson Visiting Professor in Human Rights, and at the University of San Diego School of Law.’ His contributions to ‘Quadrant’ often include little observations on the travel he is able to include in his research breaks, or attending conferences - but, of course, all in the name of ‘research’.
Unfortunately those breaks probably reduce the time the Garrick Professor can spend in improving overall standards at the university that currently employs him. With his remarks in this column about cowardice and timidity, we can be sure it is not for any lack of bravery on his part. The task will just have to be taken up by some other, lesser, university ‘leet’.
Chadwick
Do not the 'leets suffer, Sir Chad of Wick, as they send the peasants in to battle? Is it not painful to endure the tedium of a tenured chair when the foot soldiers are in the trenches valiantly duking it out?
DeleteAnd can the pond now go off and eat its breakfast cereal, what with the wonderful overload of irony you just injected into the pond's eyeball?
an injection of irony direct to the eyeball - really calls for a Lobbecke, such is the symbolism.
DeleteAlas - being Garrick Professor does not imbue the incumbent with any of the talents of the actor Garrick. The professor seems not to have inspired peasants within his school to go to battle for any of his claimed principles.
Of course, given the filters that still apply to make sure that offspring of 'the right people' make up the great majority of students in law faculties (it is well known in our capital cities which private schools will give your offspring the best opportunity of getting into Law I at the sandstone uni. for example) - it is hardly surprising that these particular peasants are unlikely to, er - revolt.
Yes, yes, it does bring to mind the lines from the 'Goon Show'
'The peasants are revolting!'
'Yes, aren't they!'
Chadwick.
Ah but "nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself". [A H Weiler]
ReplyDeleteBut really, Chad, can you blame him ? Didn't the Holy Scriptures (especially the Horizon version) tell him unequivocally that God's on his side and that he will have a willing army ready to crucify anybody who speaks against him and his cherished beliefs ?
'Cancel culture' has been the way of the Right-wingnuts throughout all of documented human history, and most likely for the nearly 200,000 years before then. After all, blasphemy is still "an offence" in NSW, Vic, Tas and SA, though not federally (Criminal Code Act 1995). All of which would be intimately familiar to such a 'leet law "professor", wouldn't it.
So I guess when some of our 'leets get around to executing cancel culture on some of the existing legal cancel culture that their kind have instituted throughout history, maybe we'll get round to listening to them.
Chad having completely demolished Jimmy Allan, what else do we have ?
ReplyDeleteOh my, my, my, we have the beautiful Bouffant ! You haven't done him for a while, DP. Though you did do his prolific breeder partner yesterday. Anyway, on with Le Coq au Bouffe, and what have we ? Why that God's favourite marketer, ScottyfromHorizon, is simply impregnable yet again.
There he was, crying out that he'd been deserted again, and his invisible friend heard him and had mercy. And how did he achieve this ? By tempting Adem into the unholy ways of using government resources to commit branch stacking. And oh my, aren't the Australian people going to hold that against Labor for, well, at least a generation or two.
Labor will have to recruit a ten-star general or three to work its way out of that one. By which time we'll have had 50 years of reptile endorsed, wingnut administered prosperity. Why there simply won't be a poor person anywhere in Australia ... except for them recalcitrant darkies, of course. If there's any left by then and they haven't all been taken by the wingnut cancel culture, of course.
Then for a finale, we have the wingnut version of the non-rise of the Chinese Empire. China, says our Cognoscenti, is losing out all over. The whole world - except Europe - is rising up to repel Chinese aggression. But, butt "All this could have been avoided if China had been true to it's "peaceful rise" rhetoric of win-win outcomes."
And who knows, if the British had ever had a win-win rhetoric to be true to, maybe they wouldn't have lost their empire quite so rapidly and so unrecoverably. "Unfortunately, winning for [insert name of winning state here] is all too often a loss for the interests, freedoms and independence of other countries. That's not a price we should pay."
Then what price should we pay ? Maybe he means "that's a price we don't want to pay but [insert name of choice] is going to impose it on us."
Ooops. A little bit of LNP finagling.
DeleteMichael McCormack and wife billed taxpayers for Melbourne Cup flights
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/16/michael-mccormack-and-wife-billed-taxpayers-for-melbourne-cup-flights
But it's all right, we right-thinking Aussies won't hold that agaist the LNP, will we.
Not even if we add this one to the list:
Cabinet ministers charge taxpayers for trip involving Liberal party fundraiser
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/15/cabinet-ministers-charge-taxpayers-for-trip-involving-party-fundraiser
It's just as well we're such a polly loving lot, isn't it.
The column from the Garrick Professor has popped up on F...book, accompanied by 559 comments. A quick scan showed that long tail to be almost totally fanmail, praising the GP for 'taking a stand' and so on. My irony meter got no reading to indicate that any of the comments understood that the GP was in fact nicely ensconced in a chair at an Australian university (and so a 'leet', as we have noted) yet seems to have done no more than urge undefined others to go into battle.
ReplyDeleteGrueBleen's quote from Abraham Weiler covers it succinctly.
I don't know if the Flagship is putting items into F...book in an attempt to nurture interest in its content, or if this is some devious tactical move against the nefarious Zuckerberg. Nor do I care greatly.
Chadwick
Kinda like if F...book won't pay for their "news" then the reptiles will turn it into a fanzine to promote their wonderful offerings ?
DeleteAgain a )³ peak saturation irony moment ...
Delete