In which the pond offers a herpetarium of delights for its returning Sunday meditation ...

 

 

 

 

Talk about a return to the snake pit .. but after the break, it had to be done. 

The pond admits to not looking at the reptiles for a nanosecond during its time away, finding its pleasures elsewhere. For example, the pond isn't officially a clinical psychologist, but does it require a licence to pronounce the United States now certifiably crazy, with so many conspiracy theories rife there's not enough asylums to handle the overflow?

Barking mad might be a more honest and technical assessment ... as anybody who followed the results of a recent survey would be forced to agree ...

There was a lot more at WaPo and other outlets, but it reminded the pond that the Murdochians have inspired a new level of lunacy, up there with Millenarianism, by being far right crazy and forcing others to even higher levels of sustained far right loonacy to try to snatch away their business plan...

 

 

But enough time with the pond's distractions these past few days, it's time to re-enter the reptile house of horrors and the pond has bunged on a triple bunger do to celebrate this Sunday.

Why then, some might ask, if it's a letter-box exploding bunger, does the pond begin with dull, pedantic Polonius, always an attendant lord, a squib, a tepid fizzer? 

Well, the pond is very traditional and conservative, and as it has done in the past,  so it must do in the present ...

 

 

Before beginning, the pond would like to make clear a few of its own thoughts on the matter. 

The flip side to the BBC being a devious, conniving, lying, cheating body is that the blonde in the photo above was a stereotypical bimbo, out of her depth, uncomfortable with living with a tampon in a threesome and only too willing to spill the beans. She didn't have to give the interview, but she did, because in the end, what better way to sort out your emotional life than to spew it out over the world's television screens. Narcissist doesn't even begin to get there.

As for "Nifty" Wran, he didn't get the nickname "Nifty" for being a straight down the line member of the Labour party ...

But now, stand back for republican Polonius's right royal indignation to explode ... 

 

 

Indeed, indeed, if only there was someone with due and proper humility to hold them to account. Sadly, no one seems to pay much attention to Polonius's tirades, what with the archive having reached 542 episodes (though it only seems to begin in November 2010 with issue 78, railing at Q and A,  and celebrating Moorice Newman). Is it the tone of superior self-righteousness the pedantic one exudes, a kind of moral vanity and obsessive compulsive behaviour, that makes reading him so hard?

 

Well see above for all that. The pond has found there's one effective rule about the media. Avoid them like the plague. When the pond was in the media, it was astonished how people would sell their souls for a mess of pottage and the chance of fifteen minutes fame. If you're mug enough to go on the BBC, pray that an Indian scammer doesn't come calling, or next thing you know you'll be shipping a fortune off to keep the tampon matter under wraps.

But shortly Polonius is about to do a segue, so the pond thought it might slip in this piece from 2007 in the Sydney Morning Herald, Polonius's old stomping ground ...

 

 

Yes, the ABC could be accused of doing a rehash or a beat-up or a whatever of a story that's been doing the rounds for many years ... but naturally that's not Polonius's complaint ...

 

 

Funny there was no fuss when the story first broke, as above ... another sample ...

 

 

 Oh it's always been a corrupt town, this dirty old town, right back to the Rum Rebellion, and not much has changed in a couple of centuries.

Never mind, in the end, who knows the truth of the matter. What we do know is that it's another example of Polonius's quite anal obsessive compulsive fear and loathing of public broadcasters ... because when it comes to conspiracy theories that's the sort of business that should be left to Sky and Fox News ...

 

And as we chalk up another notch in some 542 notches of whining and moaning, it's time to turn to the next offering, and luckily the pond was blessed by a lengthy dog botherer rant which made it to the top of the digital page, ma, top of the reptile world...

It was a tough choice. There was Dame Slap doing her best to make a muddle of consent, and Dame Slap herself had been mentioned in despatches at the Graudian ...

 

And so on ... no need to go into details, it's there at the link, and instead the pond will turn to the dog botherer as promised ...

The pond is reminded of a Colbert sketch in which various experts asked to consider the matter, provide credible evidence, explain what had happened, and they'd kept on saying "we don't know", and truth to tell, the pond doesn't have a clue, and if the dog botherer's epidemiological skills are down there with his climate science skills, chances are he doesn't have a clue either ...

But hopefully he will at least start off by pointing out that the latest outbreak in Victoria came from incompetent hotel quarantine in Adelaide, while noting singular incompetence elsewhere in the matter of government v. virus, as Kudelka did here ...

 

No? Why didn't the pond guess?

Ah, so he doesn't know, but surely soon Sharri will turn up, and in the meantime, the pond can note that it missed some prime ribbing Rowe during the break, with more ribbing on hand here ...

 

Now back to the doggie boy lathering up that conspiracy ... (though if you can get behind the New Yorker paywall, you might find its story about UFOs here more fun).

And there's the trouble in a nutshell. All the doggie boy can do is talk of coincidences and speculation, because we don't know, and he isn't in a position to know, and who knows what, or even if Who is on first and What is on second ... but as predicted, here comes Sharri ...

Yes, but we don't know, do we, just as we don't really know about UFOs. The pond keeps an open mind, and when someone credible comes up with a credible explanation, the pond will go along with it. But the dog botherer is as credible as his climate science ...

 

The pond just had to slip in an infallible Pope, because there's nothing more tedious than sitting at the bottom of the rabbit hole with a reptile who doesn't know anything, but feels free to broadcast his lack of knowledge ...

 

Yes, the pond will have a slip of bleach with hydroxy chaser to go with that, but speaking of the ABC and all that, the pond was greatly shocked and saddened to read in the Graudian of a recent bit of dog botherer business ...

 

 

Oh fucketty fuck, more columns that go on endlessly like this one? Where would the pond be without the Weekly Beast to keep track of reptiles darting about in the bush.

Now back to Sharri ... triumphant, though strangely without any discernible evidence to back the emphatic certainty ...

Yes, yes, but as Colbert might ask, what do we know? Perhaps a succinct last couple of pars to make it all clear?

Say what? The likes of BoJo and the Donald showing a concern for the lives of others? As usual, Marina Hyde was in form dealing with the BoJo form of the cult ... but the pond now must move on to the biggest challenge in the herpetarium ...

 

Yes at one point "Ned" too was at the top of the digital Oz page, ma, top of the reptile world, ma, and so demanded attention.

Few are up to the "Ned" challenge, but this is an omnibus return for a Sunday, and so Everest "Ned" must be a feature, not a bug ...

 

The pond realises that putting that snap up twice just emphasises the weird fundamentalist religious types that "Ned" keeps company with, but it had to be done ... 

Better yet, what makes the result extra special is the sauce-laden hysteria that "Ned" serves up in this meal. Just that header about the West's moral decay is a theme song that has been played for centuries.

After two world wars, and sundry minor ones since then, and the odd holocaust, suddenly we're agitated about state-sanctioned death? But aren't we about to embark on world war three with China, where people can kill and be killed as they celebrate the joys and wonders of state-sanctioned death ...

Sheehs, it's the end times, the rapture not far way, they shoot horses, don't they?

“It's peculiar to me,' she said, 'that everybody pays so much attention to living and so little to dying. Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me - who want to die but haven't got the guts -”

“Isn’t there something I can talk about that won’t remind you that you wish you were dead?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said.” 

 

Here the pond must confess to having had a dog in this game. Thanks to smoking (well played IPA and big tobacco), the pond's father's lungs were shot. 

In the end, he couldn't walk up a few steps to get into the house, he couldn't walk from bed to lounge chair. His life was a misery, and he was in constant pain. His heart was in good shape, but he didn't have a life, and when he ended up in palliative care, life was even more miserable and pitiful. 

And yet his heart was strong. A kindly doctor suggested a way out for my mother ... just gently increase the dosage, until he slipped off to wherever we slip off, even if only the ground, with a sense of peace and relief. 

The pond made it back to Tamworth just in time to hold his hand and get a grip back, to show he was alive, and knowing what was happening, and then a few emotional words (father too far gone to speak), and then they - we - let him go ... and the pond has remained grateful ever after for the care and concern that doctor showed, and the saving from terminal pain my father might have endured for another few weeks in palliative care, before even his heart and will gave up on the game ...

Technically, it might be construed as a murder. Practically, it was common sense, and deeply human, and a profound kindness. Thank the long absent lord "Ned" and his like weren't in that corridor that day ...

 

God's role in human affairs? God doesn't make for easy deaths when it comes to IPA/big tobacco organised deaths, or a lot of other deaths ... and if the pond falls to dementia, then it hopes someone's on hand to take the pond out. Hang on a tick, the pond's morbid fascination with the reptiles is surely a form of dementia ... perhaps we could hold off just a wee while? There's a chance the pond could get even more demented before going ...

 

Oh just fuck off. Remember that raven-like figure in the illustration at the start of the story? Walk a mile in someone else's shoes before mouthing off as the core question of human nature. Human nature is diverse, human behaviour even more so, and death its accompanying chorus ...

The ancient historian Plutarch claimed these “ill-born” Spartan babies were tossed into a chasm at the foot of Mount Taygetus, but most historians now dismiss this as a myth. If a Spartan baby was judged to be unfit for its future duty as a soldier, it was most likely abandoned on a nearby hillside. Left alone, the child would either die of exposure or be rescued and adopted by strangers. (here)

After the home schooling stage, the boys joined the "Agoge". The Agoge was the educational system that the Spartan boys were enrolled. The boy never lived with his birth parents again. This started when a state sponsored official or "paidonomos" assigned the child to a group of 60 other boys called an "ilea". The "ilea" was run by another Spartan youth, an "eiren" of around 20 who helps them develop into warriors (Harley, 1934). The boys eat at the older Spartan's home and at night the "eiren" quizzes them or teaches and has them sing songs of war and history. During the day the children play ball games, ride and swim and study dancing and wrestling. The boys slept on beds of reeds as to further strengthen them and desensitize them to pain and were regularly whipped. If they cried out during these whippings they were punished again till they could suffer in silence the whipping (Harley, 1934). This lasted until the age of 16.
At the age of 16 the boys begin further training for war in something called the Krypteia, translates as "secret thing". The Krypteia was basically a war waged against the "Helots" or slaves of Sparta (Forest, 1968). The boys would hide in the woods during the day and come out at night and kill any Helots they found. This was done as a way to teach the boys survivability, stealth and adaptability in the wild. It also desensitized the boys to killing and helped keep the overwhelming slave population in check (Forest, 1968). (here)

Ah yes, the killing fields ... killing and death ... and yet "Ned" is no pacifist, in fact in the matter of China, the reptiles are quite Spartan, while refusing to offer a little kindness to those in life-ending agony.

And so to the Catholics, who've never shied from the killing fields, nor shied from hiding their fiddling with children ... but lordy lordy, do they love their Jesuitical arguments ...

 

It's true. Right now the pond had the strange sense that after reading another "Ned" column, it might blow its brains out ...

Luckily the moment passed and the pond could get back to real politik with Rowe, where human life is cheap in dictatorships such as Russia and China ...

 

 

And so to the last "Ned" gobbet ...

 

Yet again with more reptile blather about the social media, and yet it be said that anyone working for News Corp debases our culture and our moral order. The consequences may appear in the short-term or the longer-term, but they will come ...

And that's not even the best of the conspiracies cultivated in the United States, and embraced by some fifth of the country, with the GOP taking up pole position.

Is there an end game resulting from all this wilful reptile misbehaviour? Well thanks to climate science, we won't be talking about people wanting to end their own lives on their own terms, we'll be talking about those who helped kill a planet and those living on it ...