Only a moron would take the rambling delusions of narcissist Newman seriously, and for a nanosecond the pond was about to crank into gear when it realised that this was Thursday, and that it had banned morons in favour of loons ...
What a baleful glare, but it helps explain why she'd give the nod to the Campbell soup man ...
Still, the ongoing, perhaps eternal, for the moment never-ending, ban on petulant Peta left the pond in a potential Thursday pickle ... but luckily the reptiles heard the pond's pitiful cries of woe, its lamentations, its donning of sackcloth and ashes, and lo, they sent unto the pond a messiah ...
Even better, the reptiles honoured dashing Donners with perhaps the most pitiful and wretched stock image yet to be yanked from some cheap-arsed version of Shutterstock ...
But the sight of that teacher did evoke the fundamentalist Catholic creed, still locked into the pond's mind from the days when it had to mindlessly recite the Catechism each day, and if the pond got a word wrong, perhaps could hope for a clip over the ears from a woman in penguin garb ...
Sixpence! And with the imprimatur of noble Daniel Mannix himself - quick, kiss his ring - and perhaps best of all, the whole blessed thing served up at Trove here ...
The pond could still remember the old version and it also knew the new version off by heart.
Who ruined the world? Gramsci! How did Gramsci ruin the world? Radical Marxist thinking rampant in Australian schools! Is there but one devil? Yes, but his neo-Marxist forms are many ...
Please join dashing Donners in the recital, and for those anxious for further inspiration, remember the pond's educational offering of Mr Polly yesterday ...
Radical! Gramsci! Neo-Marxist! And yet how the pond hungered for the old ways ...
Ah, blessed chief mysteries, and the munching of human flesh and the drinking of human blood on a Sunday. Now back to radical! Gramsci! Neo-Marxist! Radical!!
Indeed, indeed, the very last thing we need is children parroting meaningless nonsense ... and yet, and yet, what a fine educational model it is, and practised by the very best ...
Eating of the forbidden fruit. And yet here was the pond eating of the Donners, and learning that there was delightful wickedness in the world, and temptations and distractions, and ways to leave the path of true nonsense...
Only at the end of the recitation did the pond realise - too late! - that it had actually failed to engage with Donners, and alas and alack, there was only a small gobbet to go ... Gramsci, neo-Marxist, radical!
Oh heck, have another serve before the pond moves on ...
Ah good old guardian angels, and someone at the lizard Oz was acting as a guardian angel for the pond with yet another offering ...
A splendid opening gambit, and truth to tell, the pond shed a tear of joy at the reptiles' snap of the Hunter Valley. Why soon the whole world might be made to look like that, and what an improvement that would be on banal images of rustic folk and jibber jabber poems about daffodils and the like ...
But then the reptiles made a strategic mistake. The graphics department is now so reduced and desperate that they flung together logos, thereby promoting the enemy.
The pond had to admit it was the reptiles wot done it, but downplayed it as best it could ...
Why on earth hadn't they done the right thing, and shown some decent news?
Say what? Adani boasting about its solar stuff? That can't be right, it's dinkum, clean, virginal Oz coal to the world, oi, oi, oi, and if the planet has to be fucked, why then, fuck the planet the pond says ...
Oh indeed, indeed, and let us not forget the need to make a profit while fucking the planet, because the planet deserves a good coal fucking, it really does ... and who are the banks to stand in the way?!
Indeed, indeed, and why ignore the way we might turn the whole of Australia into a giant pit!
Such a splendid vision, such a reptile dreaming, the pond couldn't get enough of it ...
Around this point the pond felt in urgent need of an infallible Pope offering a little comedy relief ...
Too cruel, infallible Pope. Fair, but ever so cruel ...
And so to the bonus, and the pond couldn't but help notice the first reptile rumblings about gold standard Gladys at the top of the digital Oz page ...
Oh there's a switch, there's a change in the ether, and as it always does in times of trouble, the pond turned to the lizard Oz editorialist for help ...
SloMo saves the day, as he always does in reptile la la land ... why it's better than having a guardian angel at your beck and call. Please go on, lizard Oz editorialist, give the pond the clap happy, laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, rapture inducing SloMo godspell ...
Oh yes the unworldy safetyism of health academics! How much better to get the advice of the likes of Killer Creighton and the dog botherer, hoping that lockdowns might fail, and masks not be worn, and if a few oldies cark it, what the fuck, toujours gai Archie, toujours gai ...
And so the pond realised it had managed to quite enjoy its Thursday without a petulant Peta. Oh the pleasures of sinning...
And so to wrap up with the Rowe of the day, and the pond realises it promised it would never mention the Olympics, but truth to tell, Rowe has made the pond realise that there are some events even the pond should note, and his staging of said events is great fun, with more splendid events to hand here ...
"Only a moron would take the rambling delusions of narcissist Newman seriously..." Have you ever, even informally, assessed the "intelligence level" of reptiles and LNP politicos, DP ? Remember the hierarchical categories and their IQ range: 0-25, idiot; 26-50, imbecile; 51-70 moron (71-90 or thereabouts is just "below average"). So really, calling the Peta a moron is actually complimenting her.
ReplyDeleteThe pond is mortified, devastated and caught out, and truth to tell, imbecilic has a superior air to it as well ... though perhaps idiotic has a Tamworth ring to it, and is close to the truth. The pond will examine its complimentary words more carefully in the future, much like angry Sydney Anglicans look closely to see if they've scored a complimentary woman.
DeleteDishing-up Donners: "It was a revolution, Black Paper 1975: The Fight for Education argued, that wreaked "havoc with little or no opposition", when more formal approaches to teaching English - including grammar, spelling, syntax, clear thinking and writing a succinct and properly structured essay - disappeared."
ReplyDeleteOk, so any kids educated in Australia - and I presume it is the whole of Australia, not just one or two states - educated after about 1970 - which is basically everybody aged about 55 or under - was appallingly under-educated in English (does that apply to all the migrant kids as well ?).
So how come that back in 2003 - ie about 35 years after "the revolution" - Australian kids still scored, as Donners himself breathlessly informed us, "In 2003 Australian students were ranked 10th in maths, 4th in reading and 6th in science." So this "revolution" happened throughout the world, and kids everywhere (except maybe China) were badly educated and essentially illiterate so Aussie kids still ranked 4th internationally. Wau !
Donners: "the best way to master English is to read the works... that have stood the test of time". For example, Karl Marx's Capital, a "Wordsworth Classics of World Literature", never out of print since it was published.
ReplyDeleteThe pond notes that Penguin also published it in three volumes in their Penguin Classics label with this outrageous encomium:
DeleteA landmark work in the understanding of capitalism, bourgeois society and the economics of class conflict, Karl Marx's Capital is translated by Ben Fowkes with an introduction by Ernest Mandel in Penguin Classics.
One of the most notorious works of modern times, as well as one of the most influential, Capital is an incisive critique of private property and the social relations it generates. Living in exile in England, where this work was largely written, Marx drew on a wide-ranging knowledge of its society to support his analysis and generate fresh insights. Arguing that capitalism would create an ever-increasing division in wealth and welfare, he predicted its abolition and replacement by a system with common ownership of the means of production. Capital rapidly acquired readership among the leaders of social democratic parties, particularly in Russia and Germany, and ultimately throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx's friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the Working Class'.
A bible!? Is there no end to this heresy? The pond immediately resorted to reciting its Catholic catechism ...
Or if you'd prefer the short and sweet version - as recommended by Chris Dillow of Stumbling and Mumbling blog - as http://digamo.free.fr/benfika.pdf (a mere 106 pages).
DeleteGB - thank you for that link. I was amused to read the first sentence of the preface - ‘Marx’s Capital was originally written in the early 1970s and was very much a product of its time.’
DeleteHappens to all of us, and that has not dissuaded me from copying it down to read properly.
It's all because of our failure to teach kids to read with phonics, Chad. If it's whole words, then how much difference is there between 1870 and 1970 ? Maybe as much as the difference between mā 媽(mother), má 麻(hemp), mǎ 馬(horse) and mà 罵(scold).
Deletehttps://www.thoughtco.com/four-tones-of-mandarin-2279480
Well, Joe, now all we need is Donners' list of all those "works... that have stood the test of time" together with an estimate of how long, at average human reading speed, to read them all just once and without spending any time trying to understand them - just like old Henry Ergas does.
DeleteOr maybe we should just ask the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. Which reminds me that we haven't actually heard much about or from the Ramsay Centre for a while. Maybe because of this:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/29/ramsay-foundation-may-cut-ties-with-centre-for-western-civilisation
Seems we are about to lose a convenient guide to the fringe ratbags here in Oz. Comment at the top of this day’s ‘Catallaxy’ says that Sinclair Davidson has other interests, and the blog is now a burden - so, in a few days, it will cease.
ReplyDeleteHe has suggested that the real nutjobs might try to keep a successor going. We shall see. The Kates ego could drive him to set up a new site - but it is not clear that he has the ability to maintain a site to more than his own satisfaction.
This comes just a few days since you recognised it by name, Dorothy. Does such recognition put the mockers on these kinds of sites?
But its real function has not been so much Davidson’s attempts to raise discussion on his own interests, it has been the commentators, who spend much time looking at those sites in the USA with words like ‘Patriot’, and ‘Amendment’ or ‘Freedom’ in their titles, but initiation or recycling of mind-boggling conspiracy theories in their content - all carefully filleted out and represented for an Australian readership.
Oh, and the Henry self-promotes his Friday tutorials from the Flagship - and waits for a willing acolyte, who is not blocked by the paywall, to cut and paste the actual content.
A quick scan, every couple of days, allowed one to get a feel for this week’s directions for ratbaggery in the land of the free, home of the brave - but taking no more than 5 minutes, tops.
There is no convenient alternative. Sure - the Foxy friends are available on ‘YouTube’, but it takes way too long to find out what they are actually ‘on’ about - and you can feel IQ points being drained as you watch any of them - let alone the shining lights of the new Republicans who appear for interviews.
Here in Girtby some of that is generated by ‘Sky’ (Sharri - how is that exclusive new research coming along?), too much of Fox is recycled regardless, and it is just Rupert, but with a much slower rate of transfer of, er, information. Well, slower for those of us who can read whole words - it might actually be faster for those who have not advanced from phonics when they learned (?) to read, and tend to move their lips as they make out text.
Some of us will miss ‘Catallaxy’ - but not for reasons that would comfort Davidson as he departs.
And the Terror has dropped the parrot! They're falling like flies ...
DeleteTalk about reading "whole words" Chad, consider the poor Chinese: Chinese is language of graphemes, not phonemes, so Chinese can't learn to read via "phonics" - they have to learn to read via "characters" which are whole words.
DeleteWhat a terrible fate: they can't learn to read via the world's best ever method. No wonder they only just come first in the PISA reading tests.
Though they do have a kinda 'phonemic' script to get them started - pinyin - but apparently that cuts out very quickly and it's straight on to "characters".
So, for comparison:
According to this national syllabus, students should be able to read and write the following number of characters:
Grade 1-2: Read 1600, write 800;
Grade 3-4: Read 2500, write 1600;
Grade 5-6: Read 3000, write 2500;
Grade 7-9: Read/write 3500.
https://www.quora.com/How-is-a-native-Chinese-child-taught-to-read-Chinese
Now the pond understands why it never got past ni hao ...你好!
DeleteThat's further than I ever got, DP.
DeleteAnd I see that the Daily Terror ended Jones's column because he "no longer resonates with the readers". Oh, how very sic transit is an old farts gloria mundi.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/29/alan-jones-column-ended-daily-telegraph-covid-anti-lockdown-commentary
Not really much can be said about the simple minded contributions of 'The Adani Man' (who obviously just has no idea about what happened to all those GMH, Ford and Toyota employees and industries when the LNP killed Australian motor manufacturing) or 'The Editorialist' but this from Donners really stood out:
ReplyDelete"Associated with critical literacy us the emergence of a rainbow alliance of cultural-left theories including deconstructionism, postmodernism and radical feminism, gender, queer and postcolonial theories. Again the impact has been to shift the focus of the classroom from teaching standard English and the more formal aspects of the subject to radicalising students and empowering their voices and personal agency."
Wau ! That's a real QAnon believer's rant if ever I saw one: it's all over bar the shouting, isn't it. In very short order Australia will be a deconstructed, postmodern, feminist, LGBTQ+ paradise which has repudiated its colonial past and now thinks that Abos might even be human.
But I sure wish somebody had empowered my voice and agency back in my long departed schooldays.
Come to think about it, though, a couple of things could be said about 'Adani Man's' post:
Delete1. every time it's the same old excuse: if we don't commit a crime/sell coal somebody else will. I'm sure the Mafia love that justification.
2. the AEMO reckon we might have a ready-made replacement for coal exports, we can become a "hydrogen superpower":
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/30/australias-energy-market-operator-plans-for-net-zero-by-2050-as-morrison-stalls