The pond woke early this day, but was immediately reassured that all was quiet on the pond.
Sure the pond might have got agitated about dazzling Dazza's claim that Wagga was the centre of the known universe, but as everyone else knows that Tamworth holds that place, no need to worry or get overly excited.
The tree killer edition was also placid ...
The reptiles were still taking cash in the claw from Clive, and keeping up the war in China, and that looming shot of dazzling Dazza looked a little ominous, until the pond realised that Jesusween was just around the corner and it was in the spirit of the season ...
The pond began to think it might have to whip up some kind of faux controversy. You know, is this the only Leunig cartoon worth mentioning?
The pond was amazed to discover that there was a whole swag of Leunig cartoons online.
So little the pond knew, so little the pond cared, so quickly that alleged controversy fizzled out ... and so the pond turned to below the fold ...
The joy of being part of a big family? Only a doddering tyke wanting to keep the family Ponzi scheme in business could scribble that.
Next thing the reptiles would have the pond watching Doris Day in With Six You Get Eggroll, one of the most hideous movies ever made ... guaranteed to make viewers yearn for the good old days with Rock Hudson ...poor hapless Brian Keith ...
Sure there was ancient Troy having a go at gold standard Gladys, and the lesser Ruddster out and about railing at career politics, but the pond wondered if there was anything that might accompany a standard serving of our Henry ... and not just the bonus of a serve of eggroll ...
The pond decided it was time for a good news story about the soil.
After all, as every devotee of Kenneth Williams' Arthur Fallowfield knows, the answer lies in the soil, a concept not beyond anyone's ken ...
Speaking of that Halloween style spooking, back to the EXCLUSIVE ...
Phew, talk about trouble in paradise. The reptiles are going to worry themselves sick about this weird obsession with climate science ... and even worse there wasn't much more to the good news story, except for a bit more shameless plugging ...
Meanwhile, the reptiles were still lathering themselves into a tizz with their EXCLUSIVE ... with bonus padding by way of click bait videos ...
PM in much weaker position?
Oh surely not, surely his stand-up stylings have never been stronger, and are celebrated throughout the land ... though Barners is providing stiff competition with his "go grab a rifle" routine ...
Perhaps a Rowe to celebrate Scotty from marketing's strong position, with more celebratory Rowe here ...
Ah, the old flip flopper being farewelled by the gun-toting smokestack ... talk about a strong position, with bonus sporran ...and so Freudian castration anxieties under control for male readers, the pond can proceed to the final EXCLUSIVE gobbet with equanimity ... though it's abundantly full of general reptile anxiety about pesky, difficult climate science ...
Is that a great line or what? The substantive modelling work had been completed, but still needed to be translated into a comprehensible form.
It entirely justified the pond's decision, because it seems that the answer to comprehensible modelling lies in the soil.
Meanwhile, the pond had an even deeper anxiety, and it wasn't just comprehensible modelling, when after all, everyone knows it was done by way of a fingernail dipped in tar.
An even bigger question is, where's Lloydie of the Amazon? He hasn't been seen in the lizard Oz since the 15th October, and yet here's our marketing man heading off to Glasgow without a single word of Lloydie advice! No eggroll here, here no eggroll ... just comprehensible EXCLUSIVES.
And so inevitably to the treat of the day, our Henry ...
Hang on, hang on, how did Margaret Preston get involved with our Henry?
Oh wait, the pond groks it, the reptiles were just showing their firm commitment to copyright, and had headed off to Viscopy, aka Copyright Agency, as all Preston lovers do ...
The reptiles must have momentarily and absent-mindedly left off any acknowledgement, or could it be that our Henry is going to rail against the whole outrageous edifice of copyright, notoriously extended by the devious doings of the House of Mouse?
Sorry to disappoint. It's just the usual serve at difficult, uppity, pesky blacks, getting agitated about being ripped off, when everyone knows it's our colonial duty to keep on with the rip-off ...
Indeed, indeed. The pond is with our Henry of course. The pond routinely infringes, and enthusiastically supports the rights of factories in China and anywhere else to pour out ersatz, fake, imitations of Aboriginal art and artefacts ...
2021 high quality products!
Come on Dale, fair dinkum go, the pond is looking forward to a whole slew of 'made in China' Henry columns for the lizard Oz ... after all, his pompous, pontificating style shouldn't be hard to imitate, and we can saturate the world with blowhard blather (and who knows, the pond itself might tempt a Chinese manufacturer to pour out imitation columns featuring imitation Henrys) ...
Meanwhile, we must content ourselves with the authentic words of the hole in the bucket man ...
Indeed, indeed, there's nothing like the distilled pleasure to be obtained from ripping-off, a splendid and noble western tradition, and now if the pond might preempt a little further blather from our Henry ...
The work generated a large amount of controversy based on assertions that it was blasphemous. Serrano himself said of the controversy: "I had no idea Piss Christ would get the attention it did, since I meant neither blasphemy nor offense by it. I've been a Catholic all my life, so I am a follower of Christ." (wiki here).
Sssh, don't tell the hole in the bucket man ... full of righteous fury, though it might be, if the pond is on the money, righteous bullshit ...
Well that was a complete waste of space, and with eggroll you get Doris Day and excruciating oeufs ... the pond had a nightmare vision of our Henry with leather elbow patches, rolling around in his leather chair, snorting an ancient drop of port out of his nostrils at that one ...
Suffice to say, when our Henry gets to blather about authenticity and art, you might as well turn to a plastic cup for a deep and meaningful conversation ...
Luckily there was a more interesting discussion of authenticity doing the rounds, to do with the right to vote, a first step to introducing voluntary voting, and then, in due course, going the full American hog, with all the vast amounts of money and pork barreling spent on getting out the vote ...
How better to celebrate that step forward than with an authentically infallible Pope?
Greg Brown: "The plan also involves giving farmers credits worth about $25 for each tonne of carbon stored on their property through the planting of trees on unproductive land and using special soil that stores the element."
ReplyDeleteFinally - some meat on the plan! So What's this 'special soil'? One of those things that hasn't been "invented" yet?
No, Merc, soil absorption of CO2 is a natural thing depending on how the soil is treated:
DeleteWhat can I do on farm to earn a carbon credit?
https://carbonfarmersofaustralia.com.au/carbon-farming/available-methods/
No, no, he did say "special" so it probably contains the Pixie Dust that is an essential ingredient of most LNP technology. How else would CCS work?
Deletehttps://www.eenews.net/articles/the-kemper-project-just-collapsed-what-it-signifies-for-ccs/
or nuclear get delivered on time
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/georgia-power-adjusts-schedule-for-vogtle-units-3--4-301406219.html
If you follow this sort of stuff you quickly discover that the dust is derived from some sort of public subsidy or underwriting, which is kind of ironic since it was the main concern about renewables right up to the point where it wasn't.
Gotta go with the existing technology, Bef. Nuclear (fission) is a well established tried and true technology, so that'll always work though it may take an uneconomically long time about it. But CCS ? Well, that's a bit like nuclear fusion isn't it; always "jam tomorrow".
DeleteAnd talking about farmers, here's a way to reduce bovine methane:
ReplyDeleteFrom beaches to burps: native Australian seaweed key to reducing methane emissions from cows
https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/from-beaches-to-burps-native-australian-seaweed-key-to-reducing-methane-emissions-from-cows
The Henry - late to the party, and scrambling (couldn’t resist) to catch up.
ReplyDeleteThe more significant document would be the ‘Report on the impact of inauthentic art and craft in the style of First Nations peoples.’ - which came out 3 years ago. That report set out an understanding of ‘authenticity’, that most people could readily agree with. It noted that difficulties arose when trying to apply Australian Consumer Law or to involve ACCC in recognising entitlements of indigenous artists. Amusingly, it suggested the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet should be involved in co-ordinating action. Scotty from Marketing had been PM for 4 months then - no doubt he had opportunity to assert ‘Look Mate - I don’t hold a brush’ to duck out of that one.
No surprise that the Henry does not appear in the list of persons who made submissions or otherwise gave evidence to hearings of the committee. After all - what is the real significance of 40 000 years of art - probably the longest record by one culture? Much of the early stuff is on rocks, so not easily prised off and sold - therefore effectively worthless. Well, depends a bit on what kind of rock - at Juukan the actual rock can be blasted into smaller pieces and shipped off to China for - oh - $120 a tonne, as at least one multi-national miner has found, going forward.
There were a couple of parliamentary investigations before this one - each making simple recommendations, none of which would have called out martyrs to die in the streets for religious freedom - but nothing of substance came from government. It was all left to blackfellas to find their own legal crusaders, to steadily win a better deal for the artists.
So the Henry - given a gong in 2016 amongst other things ‘ as a supporter of emerging artists.’ has shown few signs of being troubled by any of this in the past. Oh - toss in the obscure reference to one artist from one area apparently using symbols more often associated with another part of the country (many symbols were actually widespread - just differently emphasised in different regions) - but that is the Henry method.
As DP has written - ‘a complete waste of space’.
Just a note Chadders, because after your excellent rant, the pond went looking and found that report in pdf form here ...
DeleteThe link gives it another name, but it's labelled as as Report on the impact of inauthentic art and craft in the style of First Nations peoples, tabled December 2018
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Indigenous_Affairs/The_growing_presence_of_inauthentic_Aboriginal_and_Torres_Strait_Islander_style_art_and_craft/Report
That's the one - and agreeably well-written for that kind of document. Not that it triggered a lot of action.
DeleteC'mon now Chad, our Henry is a man of many parts:
ReplyDeleteHenry Ergas: man of many parts
https://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/03/02/henry-ergas-man-of-many-parts/
Nicholas Gruen had this to say:
"A conversation with Henry is usually both exhilarating and depressing. Exhilarating because you find out lots of things – often at a quite fundamental level, that you were unaware of in the literature. Depressing because you go away with about five or six books to read, one or two of them pretty compulsory, all of which Henry’s read and (what’s more) remembered closely."
And then there's the fabulous Ergas Collection. And also Henry's famous blog, Green Whiskers, where you can collect all of Henry's wondrous contributions as downloadable pdfs:
http://www.greenwhiskers.com.au/
All of that, and nonetheless Henry has accomplished nothing ?