In which the pond prefers to sing a song of Hillsong rather than dally with the reptiles ...

 

 

The pond admits it was momentarily shaken ... one payment for all? 

Had SloMo at last settled on the concept of  a universal basic income? After all, they even published a story about UBI at APH, so perhaps its time had at last come?

Of course the pond realised it was living in a state of delusion, but that's what reading the reptiles will do to you ...

But at the same time this day, the pond felt its gorge rise, felt unable to go on ... just look at this trio and their predictable mantras ...

 

 

The pond supposes that it's good to see the reptiles maintain their work as the Pravda of the South, publishing the government line ... and never mind that the paywall prevents many of Josh's constituents from reading his fine words. 

And there was the reformed, recovering feminist discovering one of the many conspiracies that trouble the reptiles, though the pond would have been more interested if she'd delved into the perplexing matter of whether we should go with the blue or the grey aliens ...

And of course the Caterist was also on hand, bashing comrade Dan, in a way that only a think tank head can, when he's been given a hearty grant from the coalition government to ensure he has some decent cash in the paw, some comrade Dan bashing fuel in the tank as it were ...

But why bother delving into all this when the pond could write the stories in a dream, or a nightmare? 

And even before the pond looked elsewhere, it knew exactly what the Major would be up to. All that fine feathered bird does is bash the ABC, or rivals at Nine, or sometimes the Graduian, and sure enough, look at this coupling ...

Oh fuck, there it was at the start ... policing politically correct thoughts about climate. 

What a predictable, boring, dullard, luddite old fart he is ... and dumb too ... a man with a certain skill, knowing how to suck up to the Chairman, but with not much else than rat cunning in play ...

And then the pond began to wonder. Why always with the tedious reptiles? Why not look out at the world, and celebrate with joy stories such as Carl Lentz and the Trouble at Hillsong? It was by Alex French and Dan Adler, and could be found at Vanity Fair here ... and luckily it was outside the paywall.

The opening was a cracker ...

In mid-November 2020, a crisis manager from the public relations firm Sunshine Sachs took on a new client: Carl Lentz, former head of Hillsong Church’s four locations in the American Northeast. Hillsong is an Australia-based megachurch that averages more than 150,000 weekly congregants at satellites in 30 countries. It is also a multimedia conglomerate that produces documentaries, books, and chart-topping musical acts. After joining Hillsong as head pastor of the New York outpost in 2010, Lentz quickly became the church’s most recognizable face. Liberally tattooed, elaborately coiffed, and often dressed like a teenage hypebeast, Lentz, 42, achieved mild mainstream fame based on his proximity and access to the millennial celebrities in his flock: Justin and Hailey Bieber, Vanessa Hudgens, Kevin Durant, Selena Gomez. Tens of thousands of urban evangelical professionals followed Lentz for his soaring sermons at weekly services that resembled rock concerts.
But in late 2020, Lentz needed a new path. On November 4, Hillsong’s global senior pastor and founder, Brian Houston, publicly fired Lentz and his wife of 17 years, Laura, pointing to “leadership issues and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of moral failures.” On Instagram the next day, Carl Lentz paired a photo of his family decked out in formal attire at the Biebers’ wedding with a confession:
When you lead out of an empty place, you make choices that have real and painful consequences. I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that…
On November 9, Ranin Karim, a 34-year-old jewelry designer and actor with a septum piercing and her own sleeves of tattoos, described a monthslong tequila-drenched love affair with Lentz in interviews with The Sun, the New York Post,and others. She said Lentz introduced himself as a sports agent in Williamsburg’s Domino Park and called her his “Middle Eastern unicorn woman.” Laura Lentz discovered the affair after a Hillsong staffer saw Lentz’s messages on his office computer. With the tabloids feasting on his humiliation, Lentz’s new P.R. advisers believed his return began with three months out of public view, followed by a news cycle dominating mea maxima culpa—perhaps, as suggested for a time, in this magazine...

A unicorn woman?!

And as well as the basic plotting, there was also some good back story ...

....In 1989, Brian Houston made a trip to the United States, where he met with pastors preaching the so-called prosperity gospel. The doctrine, popularized by American televangelists, holds that Jesus wanted health and wealth for his followers. He returned wearing “the loudest shirts we had ever seen,” Bullock, who left Hillsong in 1995, has said.
The prosperity doctrine is partly a financial proposition: If you donate to Hillsong, God will give you that money back. It’s a spiritual investment and a literal one. Hillsong, like many of its peers, recommends its congregants tithe 10 percent of their earnings. A former Hillsong College student and lifelong megachurch goer recalls the kinds of statements she’d hear at Hillsong services. “ ‘If you step out in faith and make that first step with a donation, you will be rewarded and it will come back to you,’” she says. “That’s not biblical. That’s essentially a pyramid scheme.” Although, she adds, “with pyramid schemes at least you get employment out of it.” More recently, Houston has rejected the prosperity-gospel label. “I do believe God blesses people but I also believe in purpose,” he said in a 2018 interview. “When God blesses a business person it’s for God’s own purposes.” (A Hillsong spokesperson said financial integrity is a value of the church, that it regularly audits its financial records and expenses, and that “no staff member has unrestricted access to church funds.”)

And there was local interest too ...

...The church has made Brian Houston wealthy and well-connected. In 2010 filings he claimed that he earned $300,000 a year. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in a 2015 investigation of the church’s finances that that figure was likely incomplete, and Houston hasn’t disclosed his salary since. In 2010, the Sunday Telegraph found records of the Houstons’ multimillion-dollar beachfront properties, and that a million-dollar tax-free church expense account supported the couple and three others.
Scott Morrison, prime minister of Australia, has described Houston as a mentor and suffered a minor scandal in 2019 after the White House denied his attempt to bring Houston to a state dinner. (Later that year, Houston attended a prayer meeting for Donald Trump at the White House.) In the months after the Lentz affair broke, the church came under new media scrutiny. In December the board of Hillsong Church Australia wrote an email to congregants dismissing the stories, some of which included allegations of exploitation and discrimination, primarily as gossip.

SloMo's mentor! And yet, even though he has QAnon friends hunting for stories of child molestation and child cannibalism, somehow SloMo never seemed to have cared about the ultimate back story ...

...The message denied only one scandal specifically. In 1999 Frank Houston, who died in 2004, confessed that he committed child sex abuse. He was ultimately accused of abusing nine young boys at his ministries. A royal commission in Australia found in 2015 that Brian Houston failed to notify authorities about the allegations upon learning of them. The case has continued to plague Hillsong. Houston and Hillsong have falsely claimed that Frank Houston, who retired with a pension, didn’t preach after his son learned of the abuse.
…“From the moment Pastor Brian discovered this shocking news, around 20 years ago,” the email said, “he has always been very open and clear about the circumstances around this, and our church has stood with him and his family.”
After the blowup over the attempted White House invitation brought Morrison’s ties with Houston into the spotlight, the Australian member of Parliament David Shoebridge argued that Houston failed his father’s victims and pointed to “a strong basis” for prosecution. Shoebridge recalled on the Parliament floor what Brian Houston had once told an alleged victim, who had agreed to a $10,000 payment not to speak out.
“What’s happening with the payment I was promised?” Brett Sengstock, who was allegedly abused between ages 7 and 12, asked the younger Houston. “I agreed to forgive your father.”
“Yes, okay, I’ll get the money to you,” Houston responded. “There’s no problem. You know, it’s your fault all of this happened. You tempted my father.”
Brian Houston has denied he said the abuse had been Sengstock’s fault.

And there was also a third act, as all good story-telling must have ...

…In the second week of January, paparazzi spotted Carl and Laura, linked at the arm in the Redondo Beach Target parking lot. Gossip blogs noted the shots were the first time Lentz had been spotted in public since entering rehab. The presence of Laura’s wedding ring also registered as significant. Days later, a Lentz insider told The Sun that Carl wants to use all the attention he’s received to boost his post-scandal career, maybe land a faith-based Netflix reality series. “His name is bigger than ever and he knows that,” the friend said. According to the same report, however, many of Lentz’s powerful celebrity allies had turned their backs. Producers and studio execs wouldn’t take his calls.
In the wake of Lentz’s departure, Hillsong has experienced unprecedented turnover of staffers, including several notable pastors who worked closely with him in New York City. On January 3, Reed Bogard and his wife, Jess, the pastors who got Hillsong NYC off the ground a decade ago before moving on to lead the church in Dallas, announced their departure in a video message. The Bogards said their 15 years with Hillsong had taken a toll. “We just really feel that it’s time to transition off of our staff and take some time to remain healthy, get healthy, and to really see what the next season holds for us,” Reed said. Soon after, Hillsong’s Connecticut head pastor, Blaze Robertson, and his wife, Desi, materialized as the new executive pastors of Harvest Time Church in Greenwich, in an announcement that made no mention of Hillsong.
After firing Lentz, Brian Houston announced an independent investigation into the inner workings of Hillsong East Coast. “We need a solid foundation for a fresh start and new beginning,” he said. Hillsong congregants and insiders expressed skepticism about its integrity. (“In my opinion they’re just looking for dirt on Carl,” says one.)

A fresh start and a new beginning? Rotten to the core, just throw away the apple, or perhaps the worm in the rose ...

There's much more. The pond has selected only a few fun bits, and thinks the story would have been good for a Sunday meditation, but this was Monday, and even though the pond has little time for Bob Geldof, it was already humming along to I don't like Mondays ...

Still, the pond supposed it should do its duty, and pay attention to at least one reptile ...

 

 

 

 

Whenever the Major writes about dropping the ball, the pond feels strangely compelled to wander back in time and remember when the Major juggled balls, and medals and such like, as at Crikey here ...

 

 

 

Did the Major ever publicly apologise, and humbly admit his errors? The pond can't recall the Major doing so ...

 

And then the pond remembered that the Major was the founding inspiration for a certain course in journalism, explained by a pond reader only a few days ago ...

“I met her not long after her election and she only wanted to talk about one thing - could I come to Myanmar to help train its journalists, or could I get someone else to do it.”

Introducing the Greg Sheridan School of Journalism Online Course on “How to Write like a Murdochian Reptile”

1. Before even attempting to write an opinion piece ask yourself WWRW - What Would Rupert Want. Your career depends on putting out copy that corresponds with The Proprietor’s wishes and goals. He’s evidently hired you because you have shown yourself to harbour ring wing nut job tendencies - DON”T DISAPPOINT!
2. Gravitate TO and Ingratiate yourself WITH any Reactionary, Rightwing Politicians you can find, Domestic and International if possible. Interview them at length by agreeing completely with whatever vicious Neo-Liberal policy they are selling that day. For extra flavour it helps to accept fellowships at Right Wing Think Tanks so that you can become fully immersed in “The Culture’. Remember you don’t have to be an independent member of the Press.
3. Always, Always reference and agree with your fellow reptiles both at home and abroad. It helps with the Hive-Mind and gives the casual reader the impression that there is a large body of consensus on the subject. Also it means you don’t have to write as much as you use their quotes as filler.
4. When dealing with situations where the Opposition may have due to unfortunate circumstance got a better argument both morally and intellectually never avoid the option to attack the person personally. Always play the man or woman or whatever rather than the actual ball. Straw man arguments are a perfect way to start.
5. Facts - Schmacts! Don’t get bogged down in detail or even reality - remember you are writing reality not following it. Also putting in yiddish terms like Oi Vey is quite normal even from an Australian Catholic.
6. Speaking of religion it’s quite normal to intersperse some strange religious peculiarities that you might harbour in a piece that was supposedly about Foreign Policy. Be True to Yourself or at least to your Sky-God.
7. Always like a soldier. Act like you are still a 9 year old who is still pushing around toy tanks and making Air-Fix models of fighter jets because that gives you an insight into modern Military and Foreign policy. Remember a Man in Uniform is always a welcoming sight (especially in Myanmar).
Continues at length or as long as the editor requires to fill space.

 

Does the pond have any shame filching this from a correspondent, one DW, here?

Of course not, the pond is doing an extended avoidance dance, and what a good way that was to avoid dallying with the Major, but alas and alack, we must get on with it, if only to discover that the Major persists in staying off in Craig Kelly la la land  ...

 

Much more worrying? Can anything be more worrying than the way that the reptiles keep on scribbling disinformation, innuendoes, half truths, and outright bullshit of the "policing politically correct thoughts about climate" kind?

How is it possible to respond to that sort of meaningless verbiage and undiluted crap? With a cartoon?

 I'm not a doctor, but I write like a doctor for the lizard Oz, when I'm not being an expert climate scientist, with many field trips and peer-reviewed studies under my Manning Clark belt.

But as often happens with the Major, dumping on climate science and celebrating folk cures is only a prelude to dumping in rivals, and the much hated, feared and loathed Media Watch ...

 

Remember this comes from the Major, a man who has routinely hidden findings in his day, scribbling for a rag which still routinely ducks reports on its behaviour ... and even now, keeps on insisting that hydroxy is a bloody good thing, and climate science is a nonsense, a forum for the political police ...

Every so often the stench of hypocrisy becomes too much for the pond, but it must press on with the dung hill ...

 

 

 

Of course the pond knows nothing of the matter, and it's only response when the Major raises matters of fact or opinion is to wonder whether it's another Order of Lenin saga?

 

 

 

What's interesting in this context is that the Major was never held to real account for his defamation of Manning Clark. Sure, he was given a severe belting with a warm lettuce leaf, but he keeps on with his smug innuendoes and sly love of ratbags of the lesser Kelly kind, while at the same time, mounting a righteous hypocrisy when it comes to others ...
 

 

 

Um, actually Ms Yan went down, and did her time, and what do you know, back on 14th April 2019, Kirsty Needham wrote a sympathetic profile (outside the paywall if you haven't used up your free access), verging on a sob story about Sheri Chan, titled Woman accused of being Chinese influence agent tells her story for the first time ...

As the Major seems so concerned about errors and omissions, why didn't he mention this? Why didn't he head off to The Mandarin for this 9th September 2020 yarn, Ex spy charged over possession of secret documents?

Former spy and diplomat Roger Uren has been convicted of breaching national secrecy laws and has been ordered to pay a fine of $7000.
The ex assistant director of the then Office of National Assessments faced the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday, where he was delivered a sentence five years after hundreds of secret documents were found at his Canberra home.
In 2019 Uren was laid with 30 charges of unauthorised dealing with records, in breach of the Intelligence Services Act and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act. He pleaded guilty to three of the charges last month.
Uren had taken the documents before he left the intelligence agency in 2001, during which time his actions were not illegal. Possessing the documents became an offence in 2014, under changes to national security legislation.
While Uren avoided jail, Magistrate Glenn Theakston convicted him on all three charges and issued him with a $7000 fine, to be paid within 28 days...

Truth to tell, it's a murky world, and it's actually all a spin-off from the reptiles' ongoing, never-ending war on China, with the reformed, recovering feminist showing the Major the correct path with her war on WHO and China this day ...

...Since being charged, Uren has been socially rejected by some of his former colleagues and has been diagnosed with depression, the court heard.
A number of character references were provided by former colleagues, politicians, and political staffers, including former spy David Wright-Neville, former ambassador to China Dr Geoff Raby, author Thomas Kenneally, former government minister Neil Brown, and ex political staffer Greg Rudd — brother of Kevin Rudd.
The documents were found during raids on Uren’s Canberra home in 2015 and 2016. The raids were part of a probe into Chinese Communist Party links to the Australian political system.
Uren’s wife, Sheri Yan, was previously jailed in the United States for bribing former United Nations General Assembly president John Ashe. Yan currently lives in China. The court heard that Uren has only been able to travel to China once since being charged.
Uren worked as a media executive in Hong Kong up until he was charged. During his time as a diplomat, he served in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Washington DC, and was named as a potential ambassador to China. He worked as a spy from 1993 to 2001.
The Office of National Assessments was previously Australia’s peak intelligence assessment agency. It was established in 1977, after the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security commissioned by then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and chaired by Justice Robert Marsden Hope. The agency has since transformed into the Office of National Intelligence.

The Major probably prefers his defamation to be simple, and just involve a long lost medal ... and his science to be the sort beloved by Fox News, which is the best the pond pond can do for a segue, ans it turn to Rowe for yet another celebration, with more celebratory Rowe here ...