The pond wanted to do a late breaking Friday extra edition, just to note something weird going down ... or more to the point, not going down ... in the lizard Oz reptile world ...
Elsewhere, there has been extensive coverage of the astonishing heatwave that has blanketed Canada and certain parts of the United States, as celebrated by the infallible Pope in his cartoon above, but in the world of the lizard Oz, there has been ... crickets ...
Look at this early Friday line up ...
Whatever you do, don't mention the climate or the weather or whatever ... and yet this story caught the pond eye ...
Good old climate-denialist coal-loving, Gina worshipping Barners, and the pond was reminded that it had caught a glimpse of an Inverell cockie on the ABC the other night who understood only too well that the National party was the party of big mining and climate-science denialism, while he, with some connection to the land, was well aware of what was going down ...
The pond felt an immediate affinity ... why he was almost Tamworth ... and so this story had a certain poignancy and piquancy ...
Climate policy? Climate change?
For fuck's sake, soon Gippsland will be a tropical paradise, and there'll be no need for the pond's rellies to head north to the uninhabitable areas of Queensland for a break.
Well of course they can't comment. Barners is a Gina man, Barners is a coal lover, and that's the one it's going to stay ... and how soon can we start talking about the next five year plan to invest government money in a coal-fired power station?
Look at the demonic glint he gets in his eye when he's going about doing IPA Gina work ...
Sad really, but there you have it, the rorters rewarded and the climate science denialists back in charge, and the planet fucked, and so life balances itself ...
And now since just doing Barners is a little lightweight, the pond offers up this distraction, and it truly is distracting ...
The pond can't begin to count the number of stretches in this accounting, but the author has a book to flog, so all must be forgiven, and we must carry on with the stretching exercises ... because the pond is really only offering up this exercise regime for the pleasure of stray readers ...
The pond will concede that while things might break down a little when it comes to the matter of a well-regulated militia being paid for by an American oligarch to patrol the border, the American constitution did provide a handy guide on how to view black people ...
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
... though when you come to think about it, we really had no need of American inspiration, because we're still making sure that the Uluru statement should be consigned to the scrap heap of history. But do go on, time's pressing and there's a book to flog ...
Actually, if the pond might be so bold, it is literally and practically not one of our founding documents, but the pond wishes you well in selling your book ... and will leave it to any readers who care to give you a hard time ...
Now can we just get back to the real Barners business at hand?
Good on you Jim. A reader sent it to the pond, without saying where it came from, and the pond means no harm by reproducing it, it's just a way of saying it struck a chord, or put in the boot in the right way, or went a biff to the chin in a way that a boofhead like Barners would understand ...
DP - deep gratitude for the extra Pope.
ReplyDeleteI read the promo. by James Philips. Might I suggest, humbly, that a recent book of much wider perspective is ‘The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen’ by Linda Colley. It rather puts American exceptionalism, particularly about its supposedly unique Constitution, in context with the rest of the world. Linda Colley is held in high regard as an historian, and writes well. It is readily available in print form in Australia.
And she'd never get "promoted" by the reptile press :-)
DeleteBut after all this time, I'm still wondering why we write, and read, books about 'history' - we never know about it in detail or accurately (even recent history), the book authors always at least distort it, and we never learn anything from it.
GB - Prof. Colley’s volume covered the 18th and 19th century explorations, military campaigns and revolutions. Her proposition is that the leaders of such activities sought to mark out new nation/states, and enhance their status with a constitution. With mechanical printing well established, books on constitutions, and actual outline constitutions, were readily available, and most adventurers carried several kinds with them.
DeleteAn element of the history of that time that I had not been aware of.
While they all differed in some detail - usually in the structure of the elected parliament - these draft ‘constitutions’ had much in common each with the other. Just about all included a militia. Usually able males were required to serve in the militia to maintain their entitlement to vote.
Without labouring the point - Prof. Colley (currently holding a chair at Princeton) shows that the US Constitution is very similar to several others that were circulating at the time, which the ‘Founding Fathers’ quickly adapted - and then had to seek a series of amendments to fine tune it to the hopefully uniting states.
She found little to celebrate in any way in the Australian constitution.
I always reckoned that the self-liberating 'US of A' had simply copied the British state organisation, merely substituting an "elected President" for a hereditary monarch. Whereas we could simply implement the British setup.
DeleteHmm. I wonder what has to be in a written "constitution" for it to be celebratable. There's been quite a few 'amendments' to the US Constitution so perhaps the US citizens also found their Constitution not entirely 'celebratable' either.
I do know they've only very, very recently caught up with the idea of 'preferential voting' (which the NYers call 'ranked-choice voting). I wonder how long before they realise it only truly works if the voting is also compulsory.
And also a nearly hereditary House of Oligarchs - also elected by first past the post voting - instead of the mostly hereditary House of Lords.
DeleteAnd that's the way that Paradise is built.
Anyway, just a couple of diversions:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8tTwXv4glY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTcvvO6B3Io