In which the pond tolerates the hole in the bucket man's talk of Cicero, but then sniffs out an unsettling dose of reptile heresy ...

 

 

 

What a dismal line-up this day ...  and oh how sorely tempted was the pond to head off to the Speccie mob, but they wanted an email address for access, and the pond would rather tear out its eyes than have its box swamped with appeals to subscribe ...

No, the pond had to make do with what was on offer, ignore crazed Islamics, and even forego the Begging Morgan, doing his IPA stooge thing, explaining why accountability was a bad thing ...

Instead the pond turned, as it usually does on a Friday, to the reliable Henry, because ... Cicero was a regular pub drinker and always applied the pub test, though whether it was a front bar or a public bar remains a matter of some controversy. 

Who knew Cicero was in to the barley when he kept banging on about wine, with lines like age souring the bad and improving the good?

Not more banging on about Holgate? Yep, even though Henry gets the point about SloMo's faux indignation ... it's not the watches, which was an attempt at style, it was the form and the lack of dinkum style ... cash in the paw, it's the Australian way, a goodly cash bonus straight into the paw, like a government grant to the Caterists, and no one would have noticed and no one would have cared ...

Yes, yes, but enough of all that, bring on Cicero ...

Actually, if the pond might be so bold, when it came to Caesar, and later Antony, Cicero proved to be singularly inept and useless, and what about Confucius? He was peddling the same sort of stuff a lot earlier ...

The ruler's main function in the Confucian state was to educate and transform the people. This was ideally accomplished not by legal regulation and coercion, but by personal rule, moral example, and mediation in disputes by the emperor and his officials. Confucian political theory emphasized conflict resolution through mediation, rather than through the application of abstract rules to establish right and wrong in order to achieve social harmony.
The belief that the state was the moral guardian of the people was reflected in a number of institutions. Most important among these was the merit bureaucracy, or civil service, in which all officials were to be selected for their moral qualities, qualities that would enable them not only to govern, but to set a moral example that would transform the people. Because Confucianism was a moral system, the Confucian classics had to be mastered by prospective officials. Official position and examination degree, not wealth or business acumen, were universally recognized marks of status. (here).

And worse still, if this wiki is to be believed, those bloody exams were exported all over the place ...

The Chinese examination system also influenced neighboring countries. It existed in Japan (though briefly), Korea, Ryūkyū, as well as Vietnam. The Chinese examination system was introduced to the Western world in the reports of European missionaries and diplomats, and encouraged France, Germany, and the British East India Company to use a similar method to select prospective employees. Following the initial success in that company, the British government adopted a similar testing system for screening civil servants in 1855. Modeled after these previous adaptations, the United States established its own testing program for certain government jobs after 1883.

Yes, what we have here is a failure to properly understand Confucianism ... or even, as in Henry's case, a complete indifference to it, while enslaved by burgeoning Roman imperialism ...

 

No one said it better? Leaving Confucius aside for a moment, maybe Cicero should have settled for cash in the paw ...

As reported by Seneca the Elder, according to the historian Aufidius Bassus, Cicero's last words are said to have been "There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly." He bowed to his captors, leaning his head out of the litter in a gladiatorial gesture to ease the task. By baring his neck and throat to the soldiers, he was indicating that he would not resist. According to Plutarch, Herennius first slew him, then cut off his head. On Antony's instructions his hands, which had penned the Philippics against Antony, were cut off as well; these were nailed along with his head on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum according to the tradition of Marius and Sulla, both of whom had displayed the heads of their enemies in the Forum. Cicero was the only victim of the proscriptions who was displayed in that manner. According to Cassius Dio (in a story often mistakenly attributed to Plutarch), Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero's power of speech. (wiki for the footnotes).

By golly, they played it hard, those Romans, and it puts dear old hole in the bucket's pious blather about shared understandings and values in some sort of context. 

If only the singularly useless ASIC had learned from Antony about how to treat corrupt behaviour in business and corporations, we might have had a few decent beheadings ... or even a federal body designed to investigate corrupt dealings, not some chimerical ghost hanging in the Liberal ether since 2018 ...

Never mind, the pond is just teasing old Henry ... here, have an infallible Pope as part of the teasing ...

 

 

 

 

And now the pond must switch hats and turn Inquisitor and heretic hunter, and lordy lordy, what heresy there was abroad today in the lizard Oz ... it's short, but was it pungent or what ...

What planet has this Gluyas chappie come from? Clearly it's not Planet Reptile ...

Clearly it has escaped this reptile scribbler that climate change is a hoax, and certainly not a mainstream business issue, and will remain, for as long as there is breath in the reptiles, the province of wild-eyed student radicals and activist groups ...

On and on he rambled about a warming rock, apparently unaware that reptiles love to sit on a hot rock, and cheer on their favourite, the climate denialist Donald ...

The pond felt berefit and lost. Where was the dog botherer when most needed? Jetting off to the States for no particular reason? Where was the bromancer? Where was Dame Slap? Where was the lizard editorialist? Where was any reptile confronted by this sort of insouciant hideous heresy?

It went without saying that the Speccie mob was still on the case ...

 

Yes, the pond worked out how to navigate past that wicked demand for an email, and get its usual dose of climate science denialism...

But the bloodied wattle of Lawson wasn't what the pond really wanted. As the result draws near, the pond felt the need for some Donald worship, as he embodies everything grand in the planet-frying luddite and denialist way.

True, there didn't seem to be a Flinty on hand - perhaps he was still shocked, surprised and exhausted at turning up in the lizard Oz - but there was a Moorice and Jimbo Allan, both assigned the Donald worshipping duties this week ...

First just the opening par of Jimbo Allan's splendid effort ...

 

You see, reptiles, there's Jimbo, pointing out how deluded you all are, and still stuck in the moronic sandpit of thinking TDS remains a witty put down ...

But Moorice was the main feature, and reptiles, consider your position and your deep shame carefully.

 How long since you've truly celebrated Moorice's deep and abiding love of coal and climate science denialism, not to mention his Donald worship?

 

Indeed, indeed, it's so unfair, how the Donald suffers, how he appreciates your tears Moorice, but do go on ...

Yes, whatever his flaws and the Electoral College, and what a fulfillment, possibly for the last time ...

Sorry to interrupt, Moorice, do go on ...

 

The pond felt bathed in righteousness. 

At last genuine loonacy for a Friday, instead of that heretical reptile offering from that Gluyas chappie... though to be fair, the pond should at least offer up the final dose of heresy knowing that the pond's readership has strong minds, and won't be swayed from the path of reptile superstition, faith in the gods, loyalty to the Donald, and a fervent hope that speaking in tongues will bring on the rapture before the planet fries ...

 

Say what? Outrageous!

Stranded assets? Climate pivots, even if in "pivot' form?

The climate challenge, transition plans, this is real, renewables are the future, it's coming very fast?

The pond felt strangely soiled, used, abused, and then tossed away like a rag doll ...

Be warned reptiles, you can't suddenly pretend to be sane and get let out of the Surry Hills loony bin. Such a lovely place and plenty of room, once stocked with a lot of pretty, pretty loons ... 

The pond can tolerate a bit of blather about Cicero, but when it comes to the crunch, you need to snatch back Moorice and Flinty and the like, and treasure them, because they are what you were, and they are what you will stay, and they are what you will become ...

Luckily the immortal Rowe was on hand to celebrate Moorice and the Speccie mob and their love of populist demagogues, their tendency to Napoleonic fascism, and their joy in climate science denialism, and as usual, there's always more Rowe here ...