Right from the get go, the pond would like to remind any stray reader that unexpectedly lands on this corner of the full to overflowing intertubes, that the pond is deeply conservative.
Oh yes, there once was a time when the pond astonished, dismayed and riled the good burghers of Tamworth by sitting down during a playing of God Save the Queen at the Capitol picture theatreuh, and thought the Vietnam war a folly, but eventually the pond settled down, gained property and such like, and learned that it was useful, in a community, to act in a communal way, especially in times of trouble ...
Then you wouldn't have to launch into diatribes of this kind ...
First a little mood setting thanks to C&L...
Last week, I reported that Wisconsin State Senator Andre Jacque (R-Branch Covidian), an anti-masker and anti-vaxxer, admitted to testing positive for COVID 19, shortly after testifying, while unmasked, in a crowded room about why he thought the state needed to ban mask mandates and vaccine requirements. Making things only worse, he only notified a handful of people and Republican leadership willfully failed to notify everyone in the room that they might have been exposed to the virus.
At the time, he was elusive on whether he had been admitted to the hospital and claimed to be "asymptomatic and experiencing only fatigue." ...
This past Saturday, there was an even stronger indication that all was not as it seemed when Jacque's brother, Pierre Jacque, laid into Sortwell with one helluva tirade (NSFW) ...
Well yes, that pretty much sums it up, a deeply conservative point of view, expressed with some passion and a few choice words, and the pond just wanted to keep its Herman Cain competition alive ... and so to our Henry defending the indefensible ...
Actually the pond is pretty sure that other religious groups have been identified, and the media would probably have a field day if a bunch of Satanists, pagans, witches, atheists or secularists got together, and acted with inordinate stupidity and without regard to community, and held a party which might, with a little luck and skill, turn into a super-spreader event...
And so on and so on, in the name of Jaysus ...
Strangely our Henry doesn't seem to have cared that the Christ Embassy church, with address, was named, but got agitated about a bunch of selfish and stupid people carrying on like loons in Melbourne ...
The pond has no idea why he should feel a kindred spirit with such loons, but it seems he felt some kind of weird solidarity...
Actually, while thinking about the age of identity politics, religion and all that jazz, might the pond humbly offer a healing prayer for community and consensus and religious convictions?
...between me, you and all of our assorted “followers” I am praying that you shut the hell up and fuck off. Go get the vaccine. Or at least be honest and let your flock know that the “choice” they are making is between effective scientifically backed preventative medicine, or choking on a vent while their friends and colleagues hide their condition and some insufferable penis looking fuckstick uses their name to beg for prayers and MAGA points.
I believe in freedom of choice, and so I hope that you and the rest of your death cult get exactly what you apparently want so badly. If that’s the choice you’re making, I hope that you can enjoy every moment of gasping for breath while your chief of staff issues a statement that you are ‘tired but in good spirits’. I hope you get the full satisfaction of seeing your family weep on FaceTime while you stubbornly and needlessly die for a delusional 4chan ideology. If that’s your choice, I want that for you. Thoughts and prayers, you fucking piece of shit.
Oh indeed, indeed, and now the pond turns to listen respectfully to our Henry's history lesson ... which certainly beats his frequent forays into philosophy and theology ...
Hatred's all-consuming abyss? Oh you mean endless tiresome bullshit about identity politics, saturated with fear and loathing for the "other" and minorities?
Well the pond has done its duty for the day, and feeling very distressed by the events in Kabul, went looking for a little light reptile relief ...
Things were in good shape below the fold - the lizard Oz editorialist loving on that coal-loving, coal-subsidising report, which reminded the pond of this snippet in Crikey ... (might be paywall affected, the pond can't tell thanks to auto log-in) ...
Never mind, how pleasing it was to see simplistic Simon still assiduously knob and turd polishing, and giving the bouffant one a competitive time, though the pond found it hard to pick between simplistic Simon's "SloMo at his best when marketing, where the hell has he been?" and Shanners' "SloMo offers a coal future, beefy Angus Taylor and a fucked planet, and that's all you need to know when voting ..."
Both seemed very strong, both sounded like winners to the pond ...
So naturally the pond looked elsewhere and came up with Luke from Tasmania ...
Now the pond knows where Luke from Tasmania is coming from ...
Fancy "progressives", so-called and whatever that means, in charge of things.
Everyone knows things were in much more splendid shape when the orange one was in charge, and as for men controlling women's bodies, it's a tough choice between Islamic fundamentalists, southern Baptists, the Catholic church and angry Sydney Anglicans ...
Yes, forget all that mad Monkish talk of liberal democracies and freedumb and such like, who'd want a "progressive" in charge when you can have a man able to heal by laying on hands, and conjuring up the rapture by speaking to his imaginary friend in tongues ...
No doubt Luke of Tasmania will be keen to head of to Afghanistan to reassure the Taliban that he has no time for post-modernist claptrap, and much prefers a ban on music, art, and all those other tedious, self-indulgent, narcissist forms of expression ...
And so to Luke of Tasmania's opening gambit, which broadly speaking, might be called the first step in a fool's mate ...
Fairly fuckwitted, one would have thought, and deeply in the grip of transphobia, one would have thought, but no, not for Luke of Tasmania, trotting out all the old shibboleths ...
The facts are? Whenever someone starts to talk of facts or culture, the pond reaches for its Luger.
The pond won't bother with the usual talk of hermaphroditism in slugs, fish, plants, etc. Of late it has become fashionable to talk of intersex and perhaps if one-time progressive Luke from Tasmania had the remotest in interest in others, he might talk with a TG person about transgender dysphoria ...
Rough surf on the coast,
I wish I could have spent the whole day alone
Rough surf on the coast,
I wish I could have spent the whole day alone
Rough surf on the coast,
I wish I could have spent the whole day alone with you
With you, with you
You've got no cunt in your strut
You've got no hips to shake
And you know it's obvious
But we can't choose how we're made
You want them to notice
The ragged ends of your summer dress
You want them to see you
Like they see every other girl
They just see a faggot
They hold their breath not to catch the sick
Rough surf on the coast,
I wish I could have spent the whole day alone
Rough surf on the coast,
I wish I could have spent the whole day alone
Rough surf on the coast,
I wish I could have spent the whole day alone with you
With you, with you
Has one-time "progressive" Luke from Tasmania ever thought about taking a walk on the wild androgynous side?
No? No matter, on we go ...
The pond hates to break it to Luke of Tasmania, but academics and such like have long been fair game ...
Malcolm Bradbury made a living out of it with books such as Eating People is Wrong and The History Man ...
It reached some sort of early peak for the pond when Thomas Keneally satirically evoked a UNE lecturer in one of his books, though perhaps 'sent him up shitless' might be a fairer description, and the lecturer was delighted to have scored a mention ...
Oh Armidale, Armidale, Tamworth with the cathedrals and a uni and TAS ...
And what do you know, what with that walk down memory lane, the pond plumb forgot that our Luke from Tasmania is rabbiting on about free speech principles in a rag where only recently the ability to flock together and squawk in unison, like cackling geese or baahing sheep, or a murmuration of reptiles was demonstrated in astonishing ways, including a deep love of coal and a fear and loathing of the ABC for pointing out the mote in reptile eyes ...
Never mind, the pond needed a little reptile whimsy today, and praise be unto Luke of Tasmania because he delivered the goods ...
Drive away Luke, and enjoy your life in Jonestown with the reptiles ... drink heartily of the kool-aid. You have this day delivered a clichéd catalogue of grievances and a patented reptile posture of perennial victimhood and sense of persecution at the thought that a few people in the world might have a different take on things ...
Sadly the pond can't join you ... it's off having a play with the infallible Pope ....
"...a time when the pond astonished, dismayed and riled the good burghers of Tamworth by sitting down during a playing of God Save the Queen at the Capitol picture theatreuh"
ReplyDeleteYou too, DP ? My "act" was back in the early 1960s in a Melbourne CBD theatre (long lost to "knockdown rebuild" passion). All I can remember of the session was the introductory 'news reel' style item (in full colour) which started with this pronouncement: "One of the important questions that must be answered in this nuclear age is: what is the effect of an atomic bomb on a tropical rain forest" which then went on to show the Australian military building a tallish tower out in some cleared area of rainforest, putting 5000 tons (or some such unlikely amount) of explosive dynamite on the top of the tower and filming it being exploded.
The army guy who climbed up the tower to prime the detonator was awarded a medal for bravery. He probably deserved it.
Is Simon Benson starting to develop a certain Morrisonesque 'smirk'? It would fit perfectly with his lapdog lickspittle acolyte crony status.
ReplyDeleteAnd Luke from Tasmania declares his progressive stance by loosening the tie around his neck just a little.
DeleteYou too,GB. Its one of the enduring memories of 60s. At the movies, standing for the national anthem, an image of the queen near a horse, probably on it, reviewing a forest of busbys... and then one day not standing.... I was a rebel by gum.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there'd be a few of us could lay claim to that small rebellion. I only did it the once though, I wasn't much of a movie goer by that time.
DeleteAnd I simply have no recall at all of what the main feature was - I think it was a fairly popular comedy of some description.
ReplyDelete"Premiers - Time to Lead Us out of Restrictions"
So good to see an encouraging banner at last - calloo! callay! oh frabjous day, the vaccines have arrived! 8 months late, but never mind, they are here, and we're opening the gat.....what?
They're not here you say?
There still aren't even close to sufficient vaccines to open up??
But, but, Simon Benson says....
I am wondering if our treasurer is still claiming living away while staying at the prime minister residents.
ReplyDeleteSurely you realise that rules were never meant to apply to the 'in-group' like politicians or retail billionaires, only to the 'out-group' like jobkeeper recipients.
DeleteBoy, you sure can pick 'em, DP. From "Luke of Tasmania": "...the claim that the right to change one's gender - the last word in self-determination - is somehow self-evident; as inalienable as a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
ReplyDeleteActually, of course, it is an inalienable part of any "right to life" that a carnivorous species might like to claim exists. As to a "right to liberty", well I think we might just be beginning to comprehend that without concomitant responsibility, there is no "right" to liberty, only to what you can claim by force of arms. And "the pursuit of happiness" ? If Lukey can't understand that for some people - of both male and female "birth sex" - the pursuit of gender change is completely inseparable from "the pursuit of happiness", then he'll just continue to be the nothingburger that he has clearly been all his life.
Don't these sad sacks realise that if men want to enter 'women's spaces' they already can ? Just dress in a womanly way and pursue your happiness. After all 'Some Like It Hot' isn't the only cross-dressing, gender-swap movie ever made. And of course it goes both ways:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dressing_in_film_and_television
So when you become uptight about "'women's only spaces' - toilets, changing rooms, fitting rooms, schools, quotas, dating apps and the like - are being invaded by transgender women (aka men)." then I have to ask why those up front enough to declare their "gender change" are the ones to be dumped on.
Thus, when we get to the bit about "More than 2720 university staff and students [of Mixed birth sex, I presume] demanded that the university take prompt action to remove what they termed a "transphobic" website." then that simple, democratic act of putting up the free preference of many, somehow becomes an attempt to "bully the university".
But why, oh why, can't these wingnuts understand that "birth sex" and "gender" are two completely different things, and that whatever "science" says about your gametes, it's not them that determine your psyche. In short, when will reptiles and wingnuts even begin to understand the sense of responsibility that needs must go with every joint and single act of any "right to liberty" ?