Unfinished business …
The pond apologises for Sunday beginning the way Saturday finished, but the reptiles are in deep grieving, and so the sobbing and the wailing and the sackcloth and ashes might go on for some time …
Being of solid German peasant stock, one of the pond's grandmothers got into the black the moment her husband died, and stayed in black until her death …and what an inspiration that is for the reptiles.
The pond has no idea when the reptiles will stop wearing black, but it can't be anytime soon …
So please allow the grieving to continue, and if you like, toss a handful of geraniums on to the casket as a gesture of solitary (well, as the pond's canny mother knew, you could strike geraniums from cuttings, and avoid paying for flowers) ...
Ah yes, it's the full grieving, and naturally "truth" isn't truth, but "truth" … yet there was a time when the reptiles loved the "truth and "facts" …
Only 5,000? Those were the days. And who else but the reptiles could talk of trolls taking to social media and shouting insults without the slightest hint of irony, self-awareness or the Donald?
But all that was just the opener, the entrée, because prattling Polonius was also out and about, shedding tears, moaning and wailing, and bringing out the heavy philosophical hitters ...
Only Polonius could begin a piece in this inimitable way ...
Ah good old Frank, surely only Polonius could hark back to Frank and the good anti-commie fight, and did you know Vietnam was an example of falling dominoes, and Polonius still refuses to admit it might have been a folly, and perhaps if only he and his buddies had signed up, we might now have a US-loving dictator running the country …
Please don't be distracted by the risible comparison of Frank and Ridd.
Please pay attention to the cunning way that Polonius has with words, and his talk of the "scientific orthodoxy preached" by like minds … because as every reptile reader knows, climate science is a religion full of zealots, who spout fake science like a herd of demented preachers, utterly unlike the open-minded Catholic church …
And if you think the pond is kidding, just read on ...
Yes, Cardinal Newman, upholder of intellectual freedom, except sssh, please don't mention his lifelong infatuation with another man. There's freedom, and then there's too much freedom …
“From the first he loved me with an intensity of love, which was unaccountable. At Rome 28 years ago he was always so working for and relieving me of all trouble, that being young and Saxon-looking, the Romans called him my Angel Guardian.”
Perhaps most significantly, the two requested to be buried in the same grave together. Their chosen epitaph for their tombstone: “Out of shadows and phantasms into Truth.” When St. John died, Newman grieved:
“I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s or a wife’s, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or anyone’s sorrow greater, than mine.” (here)
Oh how they've had to dance around that one year upon year, even resorting to the ploy that if there was no fucking, there was no deep gay love of man for man …
But where were we? Oh that's right, intellectual freedom, except when it comes to the freedom to confront the facts of life …
Meanwhile, speaking of extreme religious sects unable to cope with reality or climate science ...
And there you have it, right at the end, "JCU v Ridd turns primarily on industrial law" and all the rest is just blather about intellectual freedom and climate denialism and IPA stooges and reptile Gina's mob flakes …
What a pity that Gina's mob and the reptiles and such like have tried to confuse and conflate and come unstuck like a lot of country legal bumpkins talking about the climate science denialist vibe ...
Surely it's time for the pond to move on, but don't expect the reptiles to do the same … the pond expects at least a year's grieving and carry-on, perhaps a decade, or more, and even as the poles melt and the glaciers retreat, still they'll clutch their denialism to their heart …
And so to the next item on the reptile agenda, and here the pond had to draw a line in the sand, and say enough already with the hagiography ...
See how "Ned's" headline really meant "Josh Frydenberg is planning", while Shanners was doing his best to sound like little Bo Peep following her sheep …
"Ned's" contribution was a truly mind-numbing interminable effort, possibly his meisterwerk in producing existential ennui, tedium, boredom and despair … which is why the pond pulled the plug, and finally banned "Ned."
The pond apologises, but it had to be done, for the pond's sanity, if not for the stray reader trying to find light at the end of a foggy reptile tunnel.
Instead of an endless stream of "Ned" guff, the pond thought it might be more fun instead just to rely on an infallible Pope ...
Next up, because the pond still remembers the glory days of the Sunday meditation, the Angelic one hovered into view ...
Now the pond is no lover of Erdogan, but the Angelic one seems to have forgotten a few things in her rush to rage ...
But what made Erdogan think he could get away with it?
Here, but hardly news, more a running joke ...
Does the Angelic one have any thought as to what her Fox kissing cousins might have done? Probably not ...
What's all this talk about UNESCO and the ECHR and the EU and such like? Hasn't the Angelic one heard about the new world order, ushered in by her kissing cousins at Fox and Friends and the GOP?
Well as they say in the middle east, go tell all that to the Kurds …
And so with great reluctance to a final entry, and here the pond was spoiled for choice as to who might mount the best argument for the ongoing killing of old farts to save the economy, and Killer Creighton's preferred lifestyle …
In the end, the pond decided to go with the dog botherer, out of sentiment, and for the sublime comedy of the dog botherer attempting to wring some irony out of his use of "sustainable" ...
The photo gave the game away - comrade Dan would get his usual reptile scolding - but could anyone else but the dog botherer start off by referencing the insidious United Nations, which is of course code for the great conspiracy Dame Slap uncovered to use climate science to introduce world government by last Xmas?
Here the pond must do a detour, only a partial one, to note that the oscillating fan was also blowing in the wind this weekend, and had been graced by an inferior substitute to the cult master ...
The pond loves to see the reptiles fight - it has the same vicarious thrill as what the pond understood drew men to the old Oxford hotel to see the jelly wrestling, before it went all hipster …
Here the pond picks up the fan at the end of his screed, and the pond acknowledges it wouldn't much matter where you began or ended with the fan, but still, how else to see him and the dog botherer bung on a do ...
Well enough of that sort of derelict talk.
It's time to head back to the sustainable dog botherer, producing what is in the end a deeply sustainable and meaningful rumination on how many old farts we can bump off, before people start to notice, so that the economy might be saved to keep the likes of Killer Creighton, the dog botherer and other reptiles in the style to which they're accustomed …
Could we have a WS and then an ECU of the battle plan?
Now back to the dog botherer in deep distress ...
Yes, we can learn to live with the disease, except of course when you die, and then you might wonder a little, but as the dog botherer is keen to kill the planet, why not expect a little human wastage along the way? We should all expect a little shrinkage, and not just out the back of the store … and for great shrinking of the kind the United States has managed, why not some wise words from that wondrous loon Heather MacDonald?
Looking good. Thank the long absent lord they didn't follow experts averse to the risk. What a splendid killing field ...
Um, actually we have a flu vaccine which is quite effective, and the older you get the more strains you find ladled into your super-dooper shot, and handed out for free too if you're old enough, and cheap enough if you're still young …
Of course the trouble with having a vaccine is that there are so many loopy, loony, anti-vaxxers out there …
Inspirational, and no mixed messaging at all ...
But the dog botherer is certainly right about those comfortable fat cat public servants and fiendish public broadcasters, with their cunning ploys…
Why the government is doing everything it can, despite the stiff opposition emanating from those baleful sources ...
And so to an important question ...
Is the pond comfortable with the rationale that more should get infected, perhaps including but not limited to Killer Creighton and the dog botherer?
Of course it is. The pond is incredibly relaxed about them catching a dose and even dying, because it's for the good of the country and the economy, and way more sustainable than lockdowns, and did we ever stop to give it a second thought if they didn't get a flu shot and died from the flu? Of course not …
The pond's only concern is that it seems at the moment that News Corp talks the talk, but not too many of its employees are willing to walk the talk, and put themselves in harm's way.
It's up to the dog botherer to show the way, to go out bold and bravely, to mingle in style, to show how it's done, to revive the economy single-handedly and not sit in the comfort of a studio, and if he should happen to catch a dose, why what an excellent chance to show it's no more harmful than a case of the sniffles, or as easy to handle as a little cold ...
Indeed, indeed, but strangely the pond isn't inclined to join the dog botherer in dying for the economy. Strangely the pond isn't into the notion of dying at all.
Strangely the pond doesn't for a moment imagine that it's in this together with the dog botherer. The pond senses that the dog botherer really doesn't much mind what happens to the pond … and vice versa, and yet if the pond manages to stay alive, it will consider the situation quite sustainable …
And if News Corp happens to die, how much more sustainable will it be? Plenty sustainable ...
But since the dog botherer mentioned shutting down protests, has he given enough serious thought to going full fascist?
There are many splendid examples abroad, as celebrated the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here for a Sunday meditation ...
DP - given that the Dame has so set the bias for the other contributors to the Flagship, on the matter of 'Ridd', surely she qualifies for a better title than 'columnist'?
ReplyDeleteJust about everyone else is an editor of some degree. Now each edition shows little evidence of editing, as we used to understand it, so we guess that 'editor' is a courtesy title to denote the eminence of the contributor.
Perhaps she could be 'Editor, Juridical Jobbery?
and - thank you for not putting up the Ned offering. I think we can all imagine its likely content. To do that would take a fraction of the time we might have wasted in reading it.
Chadwick
Aww c'mon Chad it's Sunday; surely we have to show some charity to the terminally afflicted ?
DeleteBut as to Dame Slap and an editorship, wouldn't even the reptiles be a little wary of claiming the Chairthingy of the IPA as an editor ? Not that either would have any problem with some kind of ethical 'conflict of interest' between them; no, that doesn't exist in their universe, more a conflict of treasury: who was actually going to pay her as an employee (and thereby pay for her superannuation).
Of course, GB - ultimately it is all about terms of employment. How could I have missed that, after the multiple dissections of what the judges wrote in the Ridd appeal?
DeleteUncharitable Chadwick.
A fine start to a Sunday with The Editorialist proclaiming to the vanishingly few who might listen that: "the full Federal Court is bad news for informed public debate about science and is unlikely to undo the reputational damage that James Cook University has inflicted upon itself ..."
ReplyDeleteWell, I dunno, I just don't see much "public debate about science" in the regular media and none whatsoever in the reptile press. The Flagship [tm Chadwick] doesn't even seem to actually have a scientist anywhere as 'contributor' or whatever. To maul a Goon show: "What do you know about science ?" "Why, nothing really." "Good, you'll be able to bullshit freely about everything then."
But I simply can't understand why the reptiles would be so persistent and so passionate about wronging the right that was done to Ridd.
Then another scintillating Sunday sermon from Polonius wherein we are apprised of the fundamental reptile stratagem: "It's out with philosophers John Stuart Mill, John Locke and Isaiah Berlin and it's in with "the internet, social media, and trolling."
So now, don't ever say that the reptiles haven't learnt a lot from Don the Trump: they have his regime down to a "T". But sense and sensibility have passed Polonius by, and so shall I.
Leaping over the Shanana's sad paean about how those evil conquering Turkic Islamists have mistreated the greatest domed building in Roman history (just a teensy bit of cultural appropriation by Erdogan, wouldn't you say ?) we come to the Doggy Boverer.
Sayeth the Doggy Bov: "As always, it is for politicians to carefully weigh up costs and benefits."
Hmm. Now strangely, I thought it might actually be up to citizens to do such things, surely putting everything into the hands of politicians is just a form of autocracy - specifically, the Edmund Burke form. But then, I suppose a Prime Ministerial dictatorship is what the reptiles go for, and what we have.
But fortunately, the outcome of that idealistic form of government is that in this pandemic crisis: "we have ample surge capacity." Yes, of course we do, just like the USA, Brazil, Mexico, India, Russian and, most of all, Sweden. All's well that ends well, eh ?