Confronted by the current state of affairs, we all need distractions … though the pond has begun to wonder whether being trolled by reptiles, the hole in the bucket man, and the demon seed reptilian ruler of the United States counts as a distraction.
By chance last night, the pond's logarithms presented the MSO doing a Bloch piece and that old Rimsky-Korsakov warhorse Scheherazade in a live streaming event.
The pond started with the Bloch - a fine tone in the cello - but stayed on - a fine tone in the violin and the wind and brass delivered on the surge at the end …
On the upside, there was no coughing; on the downside, the dynamic range was a little too extreme for the pond's not shabby sound system, but even more problematic, it seems few Victorians paid attention to what was being offered for free, when once they might have paid a motza to preen and parade in the hall before the show …
Well it's still here, and the playing was fine, and so all is not lost in Victoria, and if you're tired of reading the reptiles rant about Ridd, why not head off there for your distraction?
The pond sometimes wonders why the reptiles get so hysterical about things. One court decision heralds the abandoning of the point of universities?
Wasn't the Ramsay Centre going to reaffirm the triumph, the supremacy of white western male thinking, and so save universities, and incidentally the known, and possibly unknown, universe?
And now it's all been undone by a single court decision involving an admittedly recalcitrant employee, and yet our Henry is forced to start off by acknowledging that the Riddster, in an inexplicable decision, chose not to challenge the university's finding he had repeatedly breached its code of conduct …
Did the sky fall in when Sydney University sacked Tim Anderson? Were the reptiles outraged at the lack of freedom to mingle swastika and Israeli flag? Would the pond be in trouble for mentioning apartheid and gulags and territorial theft?
Well it's a long way back from all that, and being Henry, it will be an exceptionally tedious road, though filled with grand rhetorical flourishes and ancient references to show off his splendid learning ...
As usual, the pond began to wonder whether it had made the right choice. So far as the pond knows, our hole in the bucket man isn't a lawyer, yet here was the very archetype of a legal eagle busily lawyering away. He's not much of an academic or an economist either, but on the other hand, things could be worse …
The pond's main complain is that our hole in the bucket man had to this point failed to work in a decently arcane reference to the ancient Greeks, and instead, in the next gobbet had to turn it into a horror show with a geek munching on chicken heads … aka the Bolter …a sure sign that even the reptiles knew that our Henry was a dullard making for exceptionally dull reading
Well a screen cap would stop that Bolter horror movie Sky News nonsense dead in its tracks ...
Ah that's more like the hole in the bucket man, digging up Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics …
What an excuse for the pond to link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the matter of Aristotle …
Now there's a classy distraction.
That's about as far away from dinkum coal-loving climate science denialism as might be managed in these troubled times, and yet still the pond felt seriously the need for distraction …
But remember, when searching for distraction, and confronted by the sight of peasants forced to eat cake (or nothing at all) and die, it could be worse …
Hmm, should the pond have led with the immortal Rowe so early?
That means suggesting people toddle off to see more of him here … a guaranteed, sure fire pleasant distraction, but will there be anyone left to endure our hole in the bucket man rabbiting on?
What gets the pond is that there is no sensible Kafkaesque way to shut up our Henry or any of the other reptiles or indeed the Donald peddling nonsense about demon seed and reptilian overlords … but it could be worse …
But that's now, and our Henry is struck somewhere in 1915 ...
Should an appeal proceed? Say what? Why the saucy doubts and fears producing that ambivalent "Should"?
What, the reptiles aren't stumping up the cash? Where's our Henry's GoFundMe campaign? Let's get it on, let's keep the tedious fuss going.
The Morrison government ought to intervene firmly and effectively?
So much for small government staying out of our libertarian lives …
So much for Ronnie Raygun announcing that government was the problem, not the solution …
Now the government should become the arbiter of academic independence? How will that work? Should SloMo start to insist universities pay more attention to teaching and speaking in tongues, and studying the impending arrival of the rapture?
By another irony, the pond woke up this morning to the sounds of RN and Just-in-Time or Just-in-case economy?, and suddenly realised that there was no way to order up some just in time reptile commentary …the reptiles would be blathering on about the Ridd matter for years, possibly decades, possibly until 3015 …meanwhile failing to understand that all their neoliberal blather about regulation and leanness has led directly to the current inability of industry and society at large to cope with the current viral mess.
What else? Well the reptile commentary section was a dismal display of dullness and mediocrity. so the pond decided to revert to a just in time lizard Oz editorial …
Yes, it's as dull as ditchwater, or the as tepid and brown as the trickle previously known as the Darling … but it did offer the chance for the pond to provide another distraction, in the form of prime Angus "Beefhead" Taylor …
Okay maybe music or Aristotle isn't your thing, but surely there'll be some amused by the full story in the Graudian here … given that the reptiles managed a headline talking about murky water, and yet failed to mention prime Angus being full-blown murky …
What a murk he is, but don't expect the murk to float to the surface in the next and thankfully last gobbet for the day ...
Nope, no Angus prime beef mucking away in that gobbet … but thank the long absent lord, the pond isn't the only one to realise that the solution to anything that ails ya and ya murky water is right at hand.
Who needs music, philosophy, or climate science when coal is standing by, ready to fix the current crisis, and then in due course, the world …
What a strange day: the reptiles are suddenly all in favour of government intervention ! But only because they reckon it's the quickest, cheapest route to getting their own way with things that "the people" might just oppose them on. But Holely Henry gives us this one: "...the Morrison government ought to intervene firmly and effectively on intellectual freedom's behalf".
ReplyDelete"intervene firmly and effectively" ? The "Morrison government" ? That'd be a first, wouldn't it.
But what I really enjoyed was this one: "Ridd chose not to challenge the university's finding that he had repeatedly breached its code of conduct" which apparently all three of the appeal judges described as "inexplicable". Well how's this for an explication: Ridd didn't challenge the university's finding because the finding was true and a challenge would have shown up just how much of an r-soul Ridd was (and is).
But surely, sufficient not just unto the day, but unto a lifetime on that one.
Onwards to The Editorialist who wants government, in the personage of the ACCC, to fix up the fact that unregulated capitalism - in its broadest 'robber baron possession" sense - has fvcked up the Murray-Darling basin water world. More "intervene firmly and effectively" required here too.
Let's see: "But the $1.5bn water market in the Murray-Darling Basin has failed to deliver on its promise. As we reported last year, water was being hoarded, prices in some area jumped fivefold and growers were put in a perilous position."
Yeah, that's the way that free capitalism works, isn't it ? By the open market competition of rampant self-interest ? So what's to fix ?
It's all a bit bipolar isn't it? If you didn't know better you might think it's a case of rules for you and privileges for me.
DeletePerhaps intellectual freedom could be extended to everyone, then the reptiles could rail against this:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/07/high-court-rules-public-servants-can-be-sacked-for-political-social-media-posts
Or this:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/cricket-australia-sacks-worker-over-series-of-tweets-about-abortion-20180729-p4zuar.html
Come to think of it, who carried on at such length about unfair dismissal laws?
"the public sector gag was "reasonably necessary and adequately balanced" given the legitimate purpose of ensuring an apolitical public service."
DeleteBoyo, they really love their little fantasies, don't they. Besides, what happened to the rights of whistleblowers ?
Apart from which, it's such an obvious elementary error to confuse an "apolitical public service" with an "apolitical public servant". If such a thing were to be achieved, they'd have to disenfranchise all public servants because, being apolitical, they'd have no reason to vote for any political party.
The Tasmanian women's case is quire appalling, especially the bit about having "insulted the Tasmanian government". Little by little, day by day, our rights and freedoms are bled away. I mean, just imagine the effrontery of a citizen of a democracy expressing a personal opinion that is contrary to "the government".
Oh - I'm just leaving this example of Beefhead's partner in crime blundering into social media again (I believe it's called Ratioing). No wonder they hate it.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/mattjcan/status/1288279993340948481
Not surprisingly Henry doesn't give a link to the 1915 declaration by the American Association of University Professors, because it has been amended significantly https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure. It is not clear that it supports Henry's case.
ReplyDeleteInteresting link, thanks Joe. So much discussion over the aeons about "when freedom becomes license", basically because of the long standing 'cancel culture' waged by centuries of so-called "conservatives" against all who speak out contrary to orthodoxy.
DeleteIf you accept that he breached the code of conduct, bearing in mind that he chose not to dispute this, it seems to endorse the JCU position, "they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution".
Delete