Today's reading, at the end of this piece ...
....Even Satanovsky dismissed the simplistic thinking behind Simonyan’s narrative, telling her: “If the stakes are that we’ll stop existing, we can’t limit ourselves by thinking they’ve read what the president said and believed it—no, Margarita, they don’t believe it.” He argued that his idea of killing thousands of U.S. troops to avoid destroying all of America was much more doable. Not one pundit in the studio argued against Satanovsky’s macabre proposal. Drobnitsky had only one exception: “In our country, we embraced one American we wouldn’t want to kill: that would be Tucker Carlson.”
Well done Tuckyo Rose, well done Chairman Rupert ... making the world safer on a daily basis.
And so to the pond's dilemma this day, given that blowing up the world is not a preferred option, except to Chairman Rupert and Vlad the sociopath.
What to do for a Sunday meditation without prattling Polonius to lash at the ABC, and draw blood, at least in his weird sadistic fantasies, though the pond could never tell the difference between blood and a pile of fluff shoved with some force into sundry straw dogs?
The pond decided to do something it had never done before ...
It had been a proud pond boast never to have read a post by panhandling Rita Panahi, having dismissed her as an eccentricity only Melburnians might be able to understand, like aerial ping pong or why crossing the Yarra was a mortal sin...
There was plenty to chose from ...
The panhandler had been a bit slack over the Xmas break, but what took the pond's breath away was the discovery that it wasn't the ABC that was the enemy, nor even The Graudian, nor even Nine in telly or tree killer form ...
It was the dastardly Ten network, which the pond confesses to having watched as much as it's read the panhandler ...
Once again the tabloid format was littered with snaps, so the pond had to return to the old days, do it tough, and use words without pictures ... and what a terrifying tale of hideous woke attitudes unfolded under Channel 10’s woke Australia Day stance insult to Indigenous people ...
Given that the war on Xmas had been a bit of a dud this year, the pond was pleased to see that the war on Australia Day might still have a little life, and the old dog could be given another beating ... especially as the allegedly American-born scribbler seemed to know what would be an insult to indigenous people, being down with them ...
Yes, it's a chunk, but that's the way it was in the old days, a chunk of tar and that was your breakfast and maybe your lunch too if you were lucky ...
Australia Day remains a day of celebration for many, so why must woke media activists focus on demonising January 26?
Sky News host Rita Panahi says the assault against Australia Day by a “clown council” is an “assault against Australian values”. Merri-bek Council voted to abolish Australia Day celebrations and citizenship ceremonies. “It is a determined effort to degrade and demoralise our country,” she said. “It's a toxic narrative our children are exposed to from preschool all the way to university. “Australia Day is just a focal point for this self-loathing agenda.”Every year the war against Australia Day — waged by activists, the media and increasingly the corporate sector — intensifies, and yet the majority of Australians remain supportive of the national day remaining on January 26.
And, as the loud minority continue to agitate for a date change, they ignore and distract from far more consequential issues afflicting indigenous communities.
Just this week we saw these two headlines on Sky News Australia’s website: “NT man who raped 12-year-old girl — causing her to become pregnant — eligible for parole less than four months after he is convicted of the offence” and “NT teenager who raped seven-year-old girl while on parole for arson to be released less than two months after being convicted”.The headlines are bad enough but the details are even more grim.
It’s hard not to feel thoroughly depressed after reading about the devastating cycle of abuse and the lenient sentencing such horrific crimes can attract. Let’s be honest, if the victims were blonde, blue-eyed children in Sydney or Melbourne these cases would lead every news service for days. And, there’d be widespread outrage about the manifestly inadequate sentences handed to the offenders.
We know the rates of abuse and neglect for indigenous children is markedly higher than non-Indigenous kids, and we know that indigenous women are 3000 per cent more likely to be hospitalised due to domestic violence.
Yes, 3000 per cent — more than 30 times — that is not a misprint but a shameful fact ignored by media, celebrity and corporate activists who every year push their divisive anti-Australia Day rhetoric, supposedly for the benefit of Aboriginal people.
They prefer to focus on Australia Day, the anthem, the flag — anything but the consequential issues that could save lives.
You won’t hear the head honchos at Channel 10 bringing attention to what really matters; they’d rather focus on demonising Australia Day.
The low rating free-to-air network – home of programs like The Project, The Real Love Boat and other quality fare like “10 News First Breakfast” which earlier this year set a record for the worst-rated program in Australian TV history with just 44 viewers in Sydney— is effectively banning Australia Day.
Ten’s chief content officer Beverley McGarvey panned Australia Day in an internal note to programming and editorial staff last week; in fact she finds the national holiday so objectionable she refuses to call it by its name, referring to it simply as “January 26”.
In the note, co-signed by the network’s chief commercial officer Jarrod Villani, the Ten boss wrote: “We aim to create a safe place to work where cultural differences are appreciated, understood and respected ... For our First Nations people, we as an organisation acknowledge that January 26 is not a day of celebration.”
Really? This woman seeks to speak for all indigenous Australians, even those who proudly celebrate Australia Day and do not buy the activist narrative. How patronising and utterly vapid; no wonder the network makes one poor decision after another.
The email continues: “Whether you choose to work on January 26 or take the public holiday, we ask that you reflect and respect the different perspectives and viewpoints of all Australians.”
How about Ten bosses reflect on holding a fringe position that is at odds with the overwhelming majority of Australians. In reporting the Ten news, the activist media were quick to quote a mickey-mouse poll taken in the City of Melbourne that showed 59.8 per cent favoured a date change, but that poll is a clear outlier.
Most polls show a majority back the national holiday and want it to remain on January 26, including one published by Deakin University this year and polls by Roy Morgan, CoreData and others commissioned by news organisations.
The Roy Morgan poll this year found two in three wanted Australia Day to remain on January 26.
But Ten has decided to stand with the fringe-dwelling self-loathers, not the mainstream, which included Premier Dan Andrews, who cautioned local council against their anti-Australia Day positions.
“I think we can respectfully acknowledge our past, but also come together and celebrate what modern Australia is all about,” he said.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price had these sage words of advice for the corporate elite who seek to speak for the indigenous community.
“I’m sick to death of all these privileged individuals who have decided they know what’s best for us and who assume that as a group ... indigenous Australians all think the same and see ourselves as victims,” she said.
“It’s really denigrating, it removes our agency and it suggests of course that they know what’s best for us and our needs. It’s disgusting; I’m done with it.”
One would take Ten’s corporate virtue signalling more seriously if it devoted some energy to adequately cover the devastating stories of child sexual abuse and domestic violence in remote communities.
But as Senator Price said this week, the media-activist class prefer to “push the woke agenda” rather than cover the substantial issues facing indigenous communities.
The pond isn't sure it will be coming back any time soon, but at least it had offered Murdochian content which some might have missed because on a good day this is the screen you might encounter ...
Oh yes they're keen to track you ... chairman Rupert and chairman Xi are much alike ...
Still, duty done, the pond could play the field and was astonished and delighted to discover that the Caterist had a second life, moonlighting for the Speccie mob .
Sure it was a matter the pond had dismissed out of hand earlier in the week, but these are desperate days as technicians frantically work to restore access to the lizard Oz ...
What was sickening? Not the bitchiness, the pond always associates the reptiles with spite and bitchiness and the desire to gross out, malign, hate and humiliate. It's the school bully syndrome. If management bullies you, make sure you bully the world as best you can.
No, the problem came with that opening "As I was pondering a second long black this morning ..."
Talk about a Freudian slip ... that's dangerously close to becoming a member of the cafè latte 'leet.
Okay, she's not a milksop, but she's a coffee junkie, and next thing she'll be injecting the stuff into her eyeball, and off with the pixies or the hipsters, on a jagged coffee high ...
Luckily the pond had a cartoon to set it straight ...
And so the pond could return to the war on China with a sigh of relief, knowing that the Caterist's service in the Army reserve each weekend will keep the country safe ...
ADH TV? What's that? They have a TV for attention deficit?
That sounds right for the pond, but when the pond went looking, it found a tawdry channel with the parrot, the moonlighting Caterist - with some faux beer hall putsch "Battleground" as the title for his contribution - what's wrong with "My Struggle"? - and some gherkin going by the name of Fred Pawle, a lesser reptile ...
So much the pond didn't know, and stepping outside the sheltered world of the lizard Oz was an eye opener, but they couldn't take away the pond's cartoons ...
And so to the final gobbet ...
Got something to add? How far and thin can the federal government cash in the paw man spread himself? Does he realise his main value is as an interstitial for cartoons?
And so to a bonus.
Feeling bold and frisky, the pond thought of giving Miranda the Devine a go - another ghost from the past - but at the time the pond was doing this her last post was a blather about Hunter Biden. Maybe another time, maybe even tomorrow ...
The pond also thought of giving Ross Douthat a go.
The pond's partner had threatened a divorce if that were to happen, but the pond had been intrigued by this splendid introduction by Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark ... in part ...
Sadly at that point Last disappeared behind the paywall and the pond couldn't be bothered with ancient history and digging up the match throwing version of the douchehat, and this week he was scribbling a truly painful piece about "Fleishman Is in Trouble", a show the pond hasn't seen and cares even less about ...
So the marriage was saved, at least until next time, and David Brooks seems to have mellows a little, so he'll have to keep as well ...
Instead, to keep up the appropriate amount of Murdochian content, it was time to revert to the WSJ, and a reminder that the newspaper was as far right as Attila the Hun, or perhaps even farther right with Benji and the boys ...
Ah, that's got to be be worth a cartoon, because the pond wouldn't want to get complicated by a complication more complicated than a media narrative, told by a media narrative that explains the complications, suggesting that they might not be more complicated than a media narrative ...
Refreshed, the pond was up for the media narrative of complications too complicated for media narratives, explaining how being barking mad like Benji and the boys was a good thing ... if only the protestors taking to the streets had the wit and wisdom of the WSJ, and understood the need to move to the extreme far right to save the proverbial bacon ...
Indeed, indeed, and the United States shows the way forward in keeping grifters, con artists and snake oil salesmen in government. It's the only way forward ...
Then the pond tried its hand at another WSJ offering, and it was a bridge too far because the pond struck out ...
Really? It sounds like a splendidly wacky and zany idea, the sort we can expect from the loons who now crack the whip over the hapless speaker in name only...
There are so many things to cherish in the American dreaming, and surely that was one of them ... up there with the war on gas stoves ...
To say the pond was disappointed is something of an understatement ... and things didn't get any better as the pond added the final gobbet for the sake of completeness ...
Really? When has caring about the voters ever mattered in Murdoch la la land?
It seems we can still teach the Yanks a thing or two, with Kudelka showing the way that the mutton Dutton handles matters, because, let's face it, who needs a heart?
And so to a first ... well not so much a first as a long trek back in time to when the pond used to run the occasional video from YouTube ...
This one features a James O'Brien rant about the media, though that's not really the correct word for the Daily Mail, more a rant about a slime bucket, and a suitable Sunday distraction ... with the pond delighted to learn that in his later years Henry VIII one was fully woke, though perhaps still with a few yards to go in relation to women's rights ...
Whoa, what to say; just that "there is more madness in the wingnut world than is dreamt of in any philosophy". And I thought the Aussie reptiles were way out gone.
ReplyDeleteBut thanks for all that, DP, it is just way too easy to forget who we "share" this world with. Though I do have a query about the James O'Brien exposition: "Henry VIII's waist went from 32 inches to 52 inches": now who measured that and recorded it for history ? Yeah, Henry probably had a tailor, but still ...
Hi GB, if this at the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine is anything to go by, O'Brien's researchers did their work ... it's worth a full read, and reminded the pond of how little it remembered of all those years studying English history ...
Deletehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2789029/
...Henry remained relatively healthy throughout the following decade (1527–1536), despite tumultuous religious and political upheaval. The absence of a male heir and the presence of Anne Boleyn, a pretty young consort to the Queen, prompted his break with the Catholic Church in Rome, a divorce from Catherine of Aragon and the dissolution of the monasteries. Henry, the self-appointed head of both the Church and the State was released from any constraints upon his behaviour. Life at court remained one of spectacular excess. A bon-viveur renowned for his appetite, Henry's weight gradually increased despite his early athleticism. In 1526 Henry drew up the Ordinances of Eltham ( Figure 2), a detailed set of instructions as to what he should be served with each day, clearly documenting a massive appetite for meat, pastries and wine. His expanding girth is easily pictured by comparison between his personal suits of armour. Henry was tall at over six feet, and in his 20s weighed about 15 stone with a 32″ waist and 39″ chest but by his 50s his waist had increased to 52″ and, by the time of his death in 1547 at the age of 56 years, he is thought to have weighed about 28 stone ( Figure 3).
By the age of 44 years, Henry was already significantly obese, reportedly requiring a hoist in order to mount his horse, but in good enough health to continue with his favourite sporting pursuits. However, in January 1536, while jousting at Greenwich, the King was unseated from his horse, crashing to the ground with the fully-armoured horse landing on top of him. He remained unconscious (‘without speech’) for two hours, a head injury that would certainly have warranted a CT scan to exclude intracranial haemorrhage by the criteria of today. His legs were crushed in the fall and he may have sustained fractures to one or more of his long bones. There was such concern over the potential severity of his injuries that the Queen (Anne Boleyn) is said to have miscarried a male child shortly after hearing of the accident. Several authors attribute a further acute deterioration in Henry's subsequent mood and behaviour to the head injuries sustained in this fall.1,9 He suffered from headaches, and although the wounds Henry sustained to his legs initially healed, ulceration reappeared shortly afterwards, being particularly unpleasant and difficult to manage during 1536–1538. The year of 1536 has been described as an ‘annus horribilis’ for the King:9 his injuries, the loss of his potential heir, the death of his illegitimate son (the Duke of Richmond) and accusations of Anne's adultery made him increasingly unpredictable, irascible and cruel, and prompted him to brutally rid himself of another wife.
By now his ulcers appear to have been bilateral, purulent and seeping, and Henry himself wrote to the Duke of Norfolk, excusing himself from travelling and confessing: ‘to be frank with you, which you must keep to yourself, a humour has fallen into our legs and our physicians advise us not to go far in the heat of the day’. Transient superficial healing of the fistulous communications between abscess cavities and skin inevitably led to episodes of sepsis and bouts of fever: ‘and for ten to twelve days the humours which had no outlet were like to have stifled him, so that he was sometime without speaking, black in the face and in great danger’ (Castillon to Montmorency from the English Court). Henry's physicians attempted to keep these fistulae open to allow drainage of the ‘humours’, often lancing the ulcers with red-hot pokers; a therapy unlikely to have improved the King's ill-temper...
And this as the bonus, showing while woke, i.e. badly disabled, he still managed to be anti-woke ...
Delete...Courtiers and ambassadors alike were aware of the King's problems. Witnesses called at the 1537 trial of the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montagu (who were accused of treason and plotting to replace Henry with a Yorkist monarch) alleged that the traitors had disrespectfully discussed Henry's health saying of the King: ‘he has a sorre legge that no pore man would be glad off, and that he should not lyve long for all his auctoryte next God’ and ‘he will die suddenly, his legge will kill him, and then we shall have jolly stirring’. After such treacherous sentiments both men were, unsurprisingly, beheaded. Execution for treason (by hanging, eviscerating, beheading, burning at the stake or boiling alive) had become increasingly commonplace in the latter part of Henry's reign. This king was responsible for more deaths than any monarch before or since. In a brutal age, Henry was known and feared for his cruelty. Indeed, in 1558, a French physician commenting upon the fate meted out to those who had aroused the King's wrath wrote: ‘in this country you will not meet with any great nobles whose relations have not had their heads cut off …’.
Strewth; more information about those times and about Henry than I was aware of. Though at least I knew he was a large chap for the times, and he grew larger over the years. But honestly, 52 inches isn't really all that big for a 6ft+ chap, is it ?
DeleteDidn't know that Ms Boleyn had supposedly miscarried a male 'heir' though.
Dorothy - while we applaud your spirit of adventure, and it is quite an adventure to delve into the supposed detail of anything that Ms Panahi says or writes (I have suggested the postnominals S.O.W. for her - for her inclination to go to the solution of any issue that fits H L Mencken's adage of being Simple, Obvious and Wrong) we are truly grateful for the cartoons. Those cartoons significantly assist in resetting my perspective on the world, and help me to take more enjoyment from life than misery.
ReplyDeleteOh, and clips of James O'Brien help with that too.
It's a fully sick world for the pond at the moment Chadders, with the pond alternating between nausea at the wide world of right wing loons and nausea at the prospect of a return to the world of the right wing loonish local reptiles, should the access app ever be fixed ...rest assured that in the interim the cartoons are the only glimmer of sanity, and the pond might throw in a few more clips thrown up by the pond's YouTube logarithms as a way of lightening the load ...
DeleteGo for it DP. The world will eventually end anyway, so eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow the reptiles return.
DeleteAh yes, Rita the Panhandler. Back before 'The Pandemic' myself and partner used to start the day with a beverage in a suitable cafe (soy latte for me, tea for her) and back in those days, cafes used to provide copies of the daily papers for us patrons to read. So, back in those days it was running a large comic section - including a rerun of Calvin and Hobbes - was the famed Herald Sun. Thus I'd start with the comics and end up with the loon reptiles section; so I got some Panhandler from time to time. Along with Bolt and sundry others.
ReplyDeleteAnd what terrible reads they were, but particularly Meter-maid Rita. So when she says "This woman seeks to speak for all indigenous Australians" I could only ask myself how an American born Iranian could seek to talk for all of us non-indigenous Australians.
But I don't expect an answer anytime soon. Oh, hang on: "at odds with the overwhelming majority of Australians". There we go, she really thinks she's at one with "the overwhelming majority of Australians". But then, don't all the reptiles think that ?
It's always a contest between arrogance, hubris and delusion, and she seems to have more than her fair share of all of them, mixed in with the usual ambition, distraction, uglification and derision ... not to mention the reeling and the writhing ...
DeletePerhaps a little disclosure for the day? According to 6PR Perth, Caroline di Russo is Acting President of the Liberal Party in Western Australia. So - it seems there still IS a Liberal Party over there, but Ms di Russo seems shy about telling those who watch her on low-rating TV of her elevation to that position, and of her stated ambition to really really reform that party. I guess she will need to start with a membership drive.
ReplyDeleteADH TV. Yes, a title that was not run past any kind of PR advisor, but, then, the Chairman of the company is Maurice Newman. Presumably Maurice was selected because of his outstanding term as Chair of the Board of the ABC, where he . . . oh, something will come to me. He must have done something, because he was appointed to the Board by J Winston Howard, and remained there for 12 years. Oh - I knew it would come - during Maurice’s time in the chair, the Board selected Rupert Murdoch to deliver the Boyer Lectures.
TMI, Chadders, what you know about unsavoury reptiles is almost indecent, especially Russo of the rustling west. Acting on your impeccable advice, the pond checked and she had the cheek to tweet this ..
DeleteFor clarification/disclosure:
- I’m a commentator not a journalist/reporter
- therefore, I’m not obliged to report independently and impartially
- I’m a member of the WA Liberal Party
- I have a penchant for drinking espresso in bed
- I have a wilful disdain for pastels.
But she's not just a member of the Liberal party, per your note:
Caroline Di Russo has replaced Richard Wilson as the acting president of the Western Australia Liberal Party.
Ms Di Russo told 6PR Mornings host Liam Bartlett, she aims to help reform the party as much as possible.
“While I’m in the acting position I’m just going to steady the ship and progress it as much as I can,” said Ms Di Russo.
There's no sense of shame anymore. That should be declared at some place in all her appearances on Sky News, but nah, shame just ain't a thing in the reptile code of dishonour ...
Bitchful Thinking...
DeleteDimbo Di Russo was making a fuss
Over 'Cinda resigning her post
She was sitting in bed
Going right off her head
When she choked on her coffee and toast
Yair, not omniscient, just a close imitation.
DeleteWondrous beyond belief how a total nonentity such as Di Russo thinks that anybody - other than the usual clutch of barking mad wingnuts - is the least bit interested in her non-independent and very partial 'commentary'.
Neatly summarised, Kez.
Cheers GB.
Delete