Be still, beating heart. Some thought he was just a naughty boy, but soon the messiah will return, and bloggers around the world will be satiated again with an orgy of content, and the poet's vision shall be fulfilled ...
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Thank you men and womyn and that concludes the cultural part of the morning, and so to the usual Thursday ritual of the savvy Savva copiously dumping on SloMo ...
The pond doesn't mind whatever reason. Whatever reason will do. Arrogance, strategic short-sightedness, a bear with half a brain, hollow ring, empty man crying out to imaginary friend in strange tongue, whatever, please, do go on ...
Oh dear, not the 'hold my hose' line ...but what a sweetie to mention SloMo and leadership in the same paragraph ... now please, wrap it up in a final gobbet, perhaps with a mention of hapless ministers and gormless stupidity...
Oh dear, it was too good to last. The mutton Dutton as the standard bearer? The mutton Dutton as the alternative to the emperor with no clothes?
Dear sweet long absent lord, quick, a jab from the infallible Pope ...
And so to a survey of the rest of the reptile offerings early this morning ...
What could the pond do? Note that the reptiles couldn't rustle up a snap of Patrick Dodson? Turn to the lizard Oz editorialist having yet another go at the hapless Victorians? Turn worry wart with Tom? Blather about storks down the rabbit hole with Alice?
Nope, it had to be Dame Groan, even though the pond had not the slightest interest in what the Groaner was going to groan about ...
Before beginning, the pond would like to note the truly abysmal depths to which the reptiles have descended in their illustrations. Oh long gone are the days of the cult master ...
Second, what is this poor investment whereof Dame Groan groans? Could it be, gasp, that she has spurned the private super sector and loaded her nest egg into, gasp, an industry super fund? She couldn't be such a commie pinko socialist prevert, could she?
Once it seemed to be sure that Dame Groan had indeed tucked all her eggs into an industry super fund, the pond lost all interest. She might have protested that the email was spam, and the pond would have understood and even sympathised, having been on an anti-spam crusade of late, what with an unsubscribe here and an unsubscribe there ...
The pond even wondered if it might have made a mistake by groaning along with the Groaner, but a quick check of other reptile offerings was reassuring ...
Nope, just poor old Xian Porter determined to say in the news, and yet more speculation about Covid origins, though it's true that the talk of white girl racism might have provided a few laughs ...
Reassured, the pond returned to the groaning, which offers a little less pleasure than the shining, though there were still acres of groaning blood cascading down the hallway ...
Far be it for the pond to offer financial advice to Dame Groan, but has she thought of withdrawing her nest egg from vile industry funds, and heading off to a private fund, of the kind the pond was forcibly enrolled in by an employer, only to emerge with zero gain? No? Never mind, just a final gobbet of whining and groaning to go ...
Indeed, indeed, and if only Dame Slap had announced that she had transferred all her funds forthwith to Vanguard, the pond would have been mightily impressed. Not just a groaner, but a doer, with the doing announced in the pages of the lizard Oz for all to behold ...
But apparently not, since whining and getting a decent return is everything the pond would expect of a canny groaner ...
And with that market-based solution done, the pond turned to a cartoon solution, thanks to the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here ...
"... that concludes the cultural part of the morning"
ReplyDeleteAnd a very fine piece of culture it is too, DP, along with P B Shelley's description of Roopie. Though indeed, the best are always lacking "conviction", it's those who fondly believe they are the best who are full of passionate intensity. The very best have never bent over to pick up a sceptre.
"... has she [The Groan] thought of withdrawing her nest egg from vile industry funds, and heading off to a private fund..."
ReplyDeleteOh, but surely you wouldn't do that even to the Groan, DP:
"Industry super funds often have lower fees than retail funds and high long-term investment returns. Switching to one could mean you retire with tens of thousands of dollars more in your super."
https://www.finder.com.au/super-funds/industry-super-funds
Groanie hates industry super funds, GB. But only for others; she's happy to maximise her own modest nest egg, the rest of us can be fleeced by Groanie's mates in retail super funds.
DeleteSuch was certainly my experience back about 15 years ago, Merc, though I was more fleeced by the Fed Gov than the super fund. It was back in those good old days of triple taxation: taxed on the money you earned (1), taxed again on the money paid into the fund (2) and then taxed on any money you took out of the fund (3).
DeleteNet result, when I did get paid out, despite any earnings the fund had made and contributed, I actually got less than the total of what I'd put in.
Them were the days.
Don't you just love it when the likes of the Groany preach about those awful non-conservative businesses such as "industry funds". She raves on: "The most contentious part of the legislation relates to the scope for the Treasurer to prohibit certain spending decisions made by trustees ... (disclosure of spending on promotion, marketing and sponsorships, for instance)"
ReplyDeleteBut not one single mention of prohibiting the payment of 'bonuses' to employees or of contributions to political parties or for massive advertising campaigns in certain media 'giants'. So presumably that will all be ok - Swiss watches all round.
Quite an observation by the Savva: "As if solidarity trounces stupidity." Well, hasn't it always - apart perhaps from back when it was Morrison's solo effort that was enough to stop Shorten winning that last few seats that would have made him Prime Minister - in a minority government, to be sure, but still PM. I wonder if he would have done anywhere near as well as the minority Labor government of Julia Gillard - they don't seem to be counting so much now, but I think her government probably still holds the record for number of acts of legislation passed per sitting day.
ReplyDeleteThen there's this: "Morrison should have foreseen this moment and prepared accordingly. For whatever reason, either arrogance or strategic short-sightedness, he didn't."
Oh dear, have you ruled out stupidity ? Or really, completely misunderstood the nature of a "man from marketing" ? That when the magic words have been said, that's all that's necessary and it's all done and dusted ? So: "Anybody with half a brain knew this thing would not disappear, that it would mutate and wreak more havoc." Well it seems there's an awful lot of reptiles lacking at least half a brain, isn't there.
Then: "In fact, within the government, the view was it will be with us until 2024." But no hint from the Savva as to who "in government" produced that gem of wisdom. Could it have been Dutton ? Is that why Savva Sav thinks Dutton is the emerging 'universal man' who will fix things, and see in another decade of Liberal government ?