In which the pond celebrates the bromancer, "Ned" and the Killer ...

So today Dan the Tehan man will rock into parliament and destroy the reptile Ramsay Centre humanities dream ...but where are the indignant reptiles, moaning, and whining and complaining, after a lifetime of restless agitation about an arts degree featuring "western civilisation", now to be priced out of existence and made meaningless?

The pond had to go back to Salvatore Babones in Quadrant conducting a mass for the humanities dead ...

Debates over the relevance of the humanities are always thoroughly political. Opponents of the humanities denounce their uselessness and decry their radicalism, while humanities scholars themselves respond with outlandish claims that they teach the very skills employers want most. Both positions are valid, up to a point. Neither position fully acknowledges the historical role of the humanities in providing a humane foundation for further learning and future life.
In a true liberal arts approach to education, the humanities would be embedded in all degrees: if we believe that all educated citizens should have a basic grasp of history, ethics, culture, and the like, then all students should study the humanities, at least a little. Unfortunately, few academics actually embrace this model. Scientists don’t want to ‘waste’ their students’ time on peripheral subjects, while humanities scholars don’t want to be relegated to ‘service’ teaching for degrees that are perceived as being (and probably are) more useful for future employment.
That impasse is now a moot point. Aside from a few limited experiments (like those sponsored by the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation), humanities education will disappear in Australia in the coming decade. Consumers respond to price signals, and the humanities can’t survive a doubling of fees. Unlike law and business, the humanities can’t compensate for lower demand by slightly loosening admissions standards in order to keep enrolments constant. They’re already scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) ranks.

And so on. Back then, Babones couldn't bring himself to the proper conclusion, still clinging to the forlorn hope that the Ramsay Centre might remain a beacon, but if the lights have gone out in Australia, what makes him think one wretched, meaningless, redundant flickering candle will illuminate the gloom?

So much wasted reptile ink, so many trees lost, so much of the pond's time wasted, so many useless fool reptiles, but you won't hear so much as a peep out of them now ...

Instead as promised, the pond is proud to announce the bromancer's coverage of GOP, and naturally in a token way, because the US is allegedly not racist, there'll be a token couple of blacks deployed in the illustrations ...

Powerful messages to convey? The pond must hasten to add that there are alternative realities, and so there's much better coverage out there ...

By golly, there's a traditional, powerful message the Republicans have conveyed ...

Apparently holy marriage is a man, a woman and a pool boy ... and a good perv to go with it.

What a hoot it was, but the biggest hoot of all was the one that made a frightened Colbert duck beneath his desk, and ask if it was safe to come out ...

Sorry, the pond got distracted. We should get back to the bromancer and those photos of the token blacks ...if only so the pleasure of watching Michael Steele put them to the sword might be enjoyed all the more keenly ...

Yes, indeed, indeed, there's no racism, and the pond understands there also wasn't a civil war and civil rights movements, and recent agitation about cop killings, and so on and so forth, but could we pause to contemplate the platform?

Yes, the pond has got some spare cartoons, and what better way to wend a way through the bromancer than with a cartoon to hand?

Yes, race is invisible in the United States, except for the way the country divides on race, blacks get shot, black voters are pursued, except when they're stopped from voting, and whiteness is an important factor in appealing to some voters, and so on and so forth ... but what about cleaning the swamp?

Sadly the bromancer kept it short, wisely perhaps, because it's an easy way of lying and avoiding parroting too much Trumpism. The pond rates his effort as reasonably Trumpian, though he could do a little more to trumpet his worship of the Donald ...

Sadly, though perhaps wisely, that was the bromancer done this first day, but the coming days will provide more and the pond will be there, fixated on his work, especially as it will provide more padding for a few more cartoons  ...

And so to other reptile business of the day, and the obsession with comrade Dan continued unabated, as this commentary cap suggested ...

Dame Slap was out and about too, slobbering and drooling at the mouth at the thought of a class action against comrade Dan, but the pond always prefers senility, and who better to provide that than nattering "Ned"?

It's a familiar theme - the feds fuck up, so blame the states - and yet each time the pond urges the reptiles to tear off their masks, get out into the street, show the way and do some useful work, the pond notices a remarkable reluctance ... the reptiles seem much more comfortable bunkered at home or in Surry Hills, scribbling away furiously about what others should do ...

Say what? Joh is now contemptible? But the corrupt old fraud was the apple of reptile eyes when he roved Queensland back in the day. What a jolly old rogue he was, with a twinkle in the eye as he took his brown paper bags full of the readies ...

But at least there at the end "Ned" seemed to be promising that it's an illusion prioritising the public interest in not dying. As always, the pond extends an invitation to all reptiles, and "Ned" in particular to show that it's in the public interest for them to die ... no illusions, please, just prioritise the business of dying ...

Go on, get out and party ...

Sheesh, how could anyone expect the pond to make it through "Ned" without a cartoon?

Indeed, indeed, and it's true that death at the moment is pretty good at operating across borders as well, but what the pond loves most is the fearlessness of the reptiles ... and their loss of interest in state rights, which once upon a time was all the go, especially if Joh wanted to do his own thing and precipitate a constitutional crisis, or carry on in other ways ...

Say what? SloMo lacks the guts to get into bed with Clive Palmer? He won't even do a Tony Jones, and become part of Clive's comedy routine?

Meanwhile, people keep dying, especially in aged care facilities which are a federal responsibility, so all this talk of the wickedness of states is a necessary and righteous distraction ...

And on that note, there's an ancient infallible Pope that's still relevant ...

And speaking of borders, the pond would like to note, with some pride, that a book it ordered from the United States some six months ago, finally arrived yesterday ...

 

By golly, that first one is a Ramirez, a cartoonist usually to the far right of Genghis Khan ... the pond mustn't be the only unhappy possum as it waits for its backlog of New Yorkers and NYRBs ...

And now because the pond is just a mere moth drawn to the reptile flame, a burst of Killer Creighton to finish things off ...

The pond does this not because it has the remotest interest in what Killer has to say ...but because one of the pond's feral readers will be standing by, ready to strip bark off what he's scribbled, to get to the witchetty grubs below ...

As for the pond, when talking of nonsense jobs, is it possible to imagine a more nonsensical job than campaigning for months for Ramsay Centre degrees, only to fall mute, silent, indifferent and indolent when Dan the Tehan man decides to price them out of existence?

Indeed, indeed ... what we need is a recovery in the style of the United States ...

Come to think of it, what do the reptiles pay Killer Creighton? Exactly what purpose does he serve, except to generate a sense of ennui, desperation and futility in the pond?

After all, he's a dedicated scribbler of bullshit, and is there any more pointless work than scribbling bullshit? Still, there's probably nothing that can be done about it, the pointless scribbling, the pointless reading or the pointless Ramsay Centre, the pyramid of delusion the reptile ants struggled to build ...

Well it's probably better than musing on when to duck ...

And now it's back to poor constrained private sector and the need to remove all regulations so everybody can get screwed and the Ubers of the world might flourish .... but luckily for the pond, this is the final gobbet of the Killer in sociopathic union-bashing slash their pay and entitlements action ...

Will there come a time when someone at the lizard Oz realises that the Killer is a complete waste of space? Will there then come a "change"? Perhaps the whole rotting edifice of the lizard Oz business plan might also collapse? Is the pond dreaming? Is it gripped by delusion?

Who knows? But what a pleasure it is to muse on the possibility of "change" ...

You see, the pond can remember a time when being gay meant living in a closet, and being black still means being treated as a second class citizen, and talk of diversity was meaningless because all diversity meant was an ability to impersonate the reptile overlords, in the way you had to survive in Invasion of the Body Snatchers ...

Any deviation from the norm was a thought crime, and this criminality was a boon because it meant that scribblers of the Killer kind could go on their merry way, fucking whatever was in sight in the Jerry Falwell Jr land of fuck or be fucked ... perhaps hoping and dreaming against hope that some day Australia might turn into Chairman Rupert's United Ssshhhstates ... and what a triumph that would be for the Killers of the world ...