The pond makes no apology for holding over this infallible Pope and starting the day with a super cartoon, because it's eventually going to turn into a super day with super "Ned", and there needed to be a super start to the proceedings ...
The pond is doing its best to ignore the reptiles on the matter of super and the voice, but frankly the tremendous work by prattling Polonius can only go so far ...
There will at some point come a bleat about not a single conservative voice being present, and the pond will realise that once again some wretch has refused to invite Polonius to the feast as chief conservative voice of a generation ... will they never learn? Will the ABC never do the right thing and give him his own show? Will literary festivals always forsake the chance to advertise a gig featuring "prattling Polonius in full prattle, and some others" ...?
Will they never understand that Polonius is the only real contestant in any real contests of real ideas, albeit in an alternative reality?
More than a decade? Such modestly. The pond seems to recall Polonius blathering on for what feels like at least a half century about the ABC and there not being one conservative on the list ...
What a gigantic pedantic bore he was and still is, and always will be, and even his corrections have the nitpicking tone of a bore incapable of admitting an error ...
The pond has been running this for years, and yet as an evocation of the Polonial modus operandi, it never gets old ...
So here's how the tiresome pedant deals with the problem of not having spotted Mandy in the line-up ...
As Polonius now gets his information from the full to overflowing intertubes, and as he invited the pond and others to do a web search, the pond did one, and came across this, relating to another event ...
The war of words began a few days before the Georgetown event, when Jonathan Greenblatt, the liberal head of the ADL, shared a dossier accusing El-Kurd of antisemitism based on a selection of his tweets and past writing. Most of the accusations were based on social media posts from El-Kurd loudly chastising Israel and Zionism.
One item from the ADL dossier, however, has become the centerpiece of the campaign against the writer: a line from a poem he wrote that is now being alleged to echo a medieval antisemitic trope known as the “blood libel,” an accusation originated in medieval Europe that Jews consumed the blood of non-Jews for ritual purposes.
The passage in question came from El-Kurd’s book of poetry published last year, “Rifqa.” In one of the poems, El-Kurd, who denies the charges of antisemitism, wrote, “They harvest organs of the martyred, feed their warriors our own.”
The line includes one of the few footnotes in the volume of poetry, directing the reader to a decade-old news story in which the Israeli government admitted to harvesting organs from bodies of Palestinians, as well as some Israelis, without their families’ consent in the 1990s.
El-Kurd denied that the line from the poem had anything to do with the “blood libel” trope, saying in an interview that until very recently he had not been familiar with it. “When I wrote this poem, I was like 14 or 15 years old,” El-Kurd said. “I literally only understood what blood libel was like two months ago. I’d never in my life even heard of this concept.”
The allegation of antisemitism against El-Kurd based on the poem is the only one that has gained traction. That his accusers are relying on a relatively obscure accusation — a distant echo of an antisemitic trope from the European Middle Ages — as the main ammunition against El-Kurd is raising questions among advocates for Palestinian rights about the responsibilities of Israel’s critics to have an almost-scholarly grasp of antisemitism and its history.
“I’m far more familiar with the history of antisemitism and the history of prejudice against Jewish people than I am about the history of prejudices against many, many other peoples because that is what is necessary to engage on this subject in the United States,” said Yousef Munayyer, a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington. “At the same time, people who make arguments in favor of Israeli policies never seem to be subjected to the same minefield related to sensitivities over Palestinian history and suffering. That clear double standard is one the ADL seems dedicated to reinforcing.”
There is one delusion at work... that any festival stacked with types approved by Polonius would produce genuine insight or genuine debate, as opposed to the standard DLP clusterfuck that has been going down for well over half a century ...
Speaking of gigantic bores, the pond must now turn to nattering "Ned", and in this case, it's not a matter of a pleasure delayed, as tedium that can no longer be avoided, but on the bright side, it's Sunday, and the bed and a sleep-in remain a viable alternative ... and there's that cartoon-led recovery to offer as many distractions as the pond can muster ...
The pond could just as easily have led with simplistic "no conflict of interest here" Simon turning to the man who lost his seat as well as government as a way of celebrating the reptile war on super moves ...
Yeah nah ... and the pond has already had its fill of simpleton Sharri, thanks to the venerable Meade's News Corp rolls out the Sharri publicity caravan, which was way more than the pond needed to know. Nausea and upchuck is never far away as a dangerous side effect for intrepid reptile readers.
Never mind, with "Ned" doing his own super moves, what an excuse for a cartoon-led recovery.
No need to pay attention to "Ned's" fear mongering about super, just as the pond did its best to ignore his fear mongering about the voice.
Sure it's going to mean time with "Ned" is going to stretch, but then time with "Ned" has always been a stretch, with the pond's favourite metaphor of climbing Everest much used and abused, as was the image of Sisyphus pushing "Ned's" never ending shit up a never ending hill ...
At least the pond will have better illustrations, because Jimbo's the feature in the next gobbet ...
Is it because they've become exhausted mining the notion of the "woke"?
Okay, okay, the pond will have to take this slowly.
There are only so many cartoons to hand, and jokes about the NY Times as the mainstream muddler might get in the way of the joke known as muddler "Ned" ...
Meanwhile, on another planet ...
Oh heck, the pond still has some left-over woke cartoons. Perhaps just a short burst of "Ned" as an interstitial?
Hang on, hang on, the pond was going to ignore "Ned's" super advice, and carry on about being fully woke ...
The one of the mutton Dutton that follows reminds the pond that in every snap he looks like he's just swallowed a blow fly and is doing his best to pretend it never happened ...
A quick tech joke ...
And then it's back to a penultimate serve of "Ned" ...
The portentous, pompous old windbag these days doesn't even bother to hide the way he's now in full campaign mode.
As for the threats dressed as insights? Just more idle windbaggery and humbug...
The reptiles have already labeled Albo as the PM of broken promises ... that was his destiny the day he took office ... and that's the way it is this weekend, and every weekend to follow in the lizard Oz ...
Meanwhile, on another planet ...
Are cartoons about a war criminal better than reading "Ned"?
Well they all fit into the bigger picture, what with "Ned" being kissing cousin to Faux Noise, and all the lies they tell ... such that even a few rabid ratbags have had enough ...
Lick spittle, treasonous, supine lackeys fellow travelling with Super villains, or villains being villain-ish about super, it's all much of a muchness, and so to the final gobbet of "Ned", doing what a "Ned" must do, while the pond did what it had to do just to get through the portentous, pompous serve of verbal sludge ...
And so to a final flurry of cartoons, and lo, Marge has become a genre unto herself ... the salvation of cartoonists throughout the United States, and a fitting note on which to end this Sunday meditation ...
What a splendid spray from Polonius today! The last few weeks he’s appeared to simply been going through the motions - but this time it’s personal. What’s clear from this Ginsbergian howl of pain and outrage is that the man has never been invited to participate in a writers’ festival, and it hurts.
ReplyDeleteI notice that the article is free of any suggestions for acceptably politically conservative writers Hendo would like to see in attendance. Given that he considers a former Howard Government Minister to be some sort of dangerous Pinko, his nominations would be interesting. Alternatively Polonius is presumably a believer in freedom of choice, so what’s to stop the Sydney Institute running its own writers’ festival?
Don't you just love his favourite phrases: "conservative free zone", "dishing out taxpayer's money", "in a left-of-centre way".
DeleteAnd when he says "particularly in the area of nonfiction" does he have any conception that that is because there is no conservative non-fiction ? Like the rag that publishes his rants, it's all fiction of the very boringly preachy kind.
So, the "delusional" Adler is credited with saying: "If we only come together to agree with each other we might as well forget having public conversations." Ok, so how in this webinal age do we have anything but "public conversations" ? It's not like the days of yore in which a bunch of people had to get together physically in order to have a "conversation" at all.
ReplyDeleteBut then Polonius goes on: "Here's hoping the intellectual debacle on the Torrens River this year leads to an end to the (boring) leftist stack that is the contemporary literary festival." "intellectual debacle"? Why, did Mandy Vanstone say something intellectually contentious about food and cooking ?
Otherwise, we had a very public "disagreement" between some of the intended attendees - leading to some withdrawals - which would not have been avoided, or even just improved, by having been picked up by a "conservative", and especially not by any "conservatives" that might have the approval of Polonius.
Off topic yet relevant.
ReplyDeleteDP, how about a guest rant with PJK when next featuring the bromancer? He still has the tougue.
Pearls & Irritations today:
"Murdoch media problems
By Noel Turnbull
Fauxnews "Roy Morgan Research Most Trusted and Distrusted Brands research – it is the fifth most distrusted brand"
..
"There are probably many reasons for the rating but the main ones are probably its unrelenting attacks on anything vaguely progressive; its rabid commentators; and, it is attempts to re-frame any debate so as to favour the LNP, attack the ALP and wage war on the woke."
And while at P&I, just for the record re a rabid commentator(s)
On February 22, 2023 DP said re the bromancer "It sounded like little England might have trouble saving itself, let alone NATO, let alone its great friend far away, but the pond knows that when the bromancer gets into rhetorical stride, no country is safe from the splendid strategic thinking of our reptile Reichsmarschall ... so the pond kept on watching this space ..."
So was one Paul Keating:
"The “little Americans” that populate Australia" By Paul Keating
"Greg Sheridan, in his opinion piece of Tuesday 21 February, provides yet another display of his spiteful, vacuous journalism – his erroneous claims that I am not the progenitor of the APEC Leaders’ Meeting, and that my views on Australian strategic policy are eccentric and at odds with the US alliance."
PJ Keating reply to Greg Sheridan – The Australian, 21 February 2023
...
"Sheridan’s continuing and fallacious journalism opens another vital angle in our national debate."
...
"People skewered by their own ambivalence.
"Greg Sheridan is one such person. Sheridan’s commitment to the United States is so uncritical and unalterable he should give consideration to registering himself under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act.
"But Sheridan’s problem is part of a wider problem. The national foreign policy debate in Australia, is now heavily populated by an army of ‘little Americans’ who cannot see past the United States and its interests. That is, the interests of another country.
"These people populate our security agencies, the likes of ASPI, the military services and important sections of the media."
...
(Both above articles at:)
https://johnmenadue.com/
Anonymous - thank you for the link/reminder to 'Pearls and Irritations'. It is one of the sites that I try to get to, but - there is an estate out there that needs my attention also. I was interested to see that Paul Keating chose not to use Robin Boyd's term 'Austerican'. I have no doubt Keating was aware of Boyd's work, given the range of his (Keating's) interests. Boyd had coined it, after his own prolonged trip to the USA to familiarise himself with the work of great American architects, largely to describe Australians whose thoughts on housing were derived from American 'house and home' magazines, with no understanding of the environment that housing should fit into, but, in time, it extended to unthinking admiration of almost anything from across the pacific waters. The Australian Dictionary of Biography notes "Boyd chastised Australians for their mindless emulation of America, in 1957 coining the term 'Austerica': the belief that 'everything desirable, exciting, luxurious and enviable in the 20th century is American",
DeleteThanks for the Boyd ref. We, aussies are very slow learners.
DeleteP&I needs to be required reading for yrs 11&12 imo.
The Director of the Sydney Institute always provides amusing reading, having been to Xavier College and Melbourne Uni and done a PhD and yet not even aware of the irony of regularly denigrating the intelligensia. He even wrote a book entitled “Gerard Henderson Scribbles On”, the title epitomising his obsession with his own importance and the nature of his writing (if we are to go on what he writes in The Australian).
ReplyDeleteMost amusing was the DSI’s claim that one would only find conservatives on platforms at the literary festivals in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne “if they got lost looking to go somewhere else.” Well if the conservatives don’t want to be at the literary festivals, then it’s hard to see what the DSI’s gripe is.
Perhaps members of the Coalition – either past or present – as well as other conservatives have nothing worth contributing to the festival. After all, the current Coalition is devoid of policy. As the DSI points out, Vanstone, as a member of what Abbott called his centre-right government, but only has cooking to offer. Perhaps it all just comes down to the possibility that centre-right Coalition MPs and conservatives cannot be described as in any way scholars, literary writers, teachers, journalists or academics.
Yep, absolutely spot on there, Anon: are there any readable and even marginally intelligent and informed "conservatives" in Australia. If so, where do they live ?
DeleteIf in reality Polonious was accidentally taken seriously, he'd always undermine himself with a snide bracket like (boring) straight from primary school.
DeleteHe is such a unique unequivocally dull & repetitive thing, but he's our thing it would seem. Why not leave "boring behind", and reach for the bulging sack of "fascinating" conservative speakers like.....Pyne? How about Downer? Polonious is right - we've been blessed with a host of energised, socially curious thinkers on the right. And - it would appear they have cancelled themselves. They have been prevented from sharing their riches with us by, at a wide guess, the ABC et al.
But, and there is a but, given the fact Polonius has been chewing this bone for a century, do you suppose he will reveal who these fabulously engaging right wing commentators are? I am as fascinated as we all are here.
Make it happen Polonious! Liberate the great - damn the boring!!
All here may become amnesia for the next generation.
ReplyDeleteThe Importance of Trove, and the National Archives
Posted by Lisa Hill
As Australian readers may know, there is an impending funding crisis for Trove:
The National Library is threatening to pull the plug on Trove, its free online service that provides public access to collections from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives. (Read more about it at The Conversation.)
Regular readers know that I am not into whathas been described as Anzackery.
https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/01/09/the-importance-of-trove-and-the-national-archives/
Oh yeah, Neddy: "This issue [the super fund] sees a fundamenta split between Labor and the Coalition." Oh no, how can this be; they are so closely united about everything else.
ReplyDeleteThen we have this: "Morrison's proposal in the final week of the campaign was to allow home buyers to access $50,000 each from their super accounts to buy a home..." Now does that mean that a husband and wife pair with each being employed and each having a separate super account could take out $50,000 each and thus have $100,000 cash for a home ? "...with Morrison calling it a 'game changer for thousands of Australian families' - particularly younger voters battling to get into the market." Ok, so young and battling to get into the market, but nonetheless having $50,000 (each) already stashed in their super account that they can draw out to buy a home ?
I took one for the team and actually read some of Henderson's Media Watchdog. You won't be surprised to learn that none of News Corp's publications got criticised.
ReplyDeleteBy definition, Joe, perfection is non-critisisable.
DeleteICYMI: 'Simply put, then, there is no such thing as the "Judeo-Christian tradition." It is a modern invention. There always has been a Jewish tradition and a Christian tradition ― or, more accurately, varieties of Jewish and Christian traditions. The term "Judeo-Christian tradition" continues the suppression of Jewishness by hiding the essential differences between Judaism and Christianity, one of which is that each denies the validity of the other. As Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits puts it, "Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism."' https://www.abc.net.au/religion/is-there-really-a-judeo-christian-tradition/10810554
ReplyDeleteAnd both reject "god", whatever the hell that is.
DeleteNot just a modern invention, but one fabricated by the American Christian Right purely for political purposes. It’s a “tradition” dating back no more than 4 or 5 decades that has bigger-all to do with Christianity, Judaism, or any version of god - with the possible exception of Mammon.
DeleteHold on, folks: the entire Old Testament including the foundational Pentateuch/Torah is wholly 'Judeo tradition' since it was all written before God sent his third part down to planet Earth and called that part of himself Christ (which is, in fact, a Greek name derived from Khristos and neither Judeo, nor "Christian").
DeleteSo surely it's impossible to follow a 'Christian tradition' without equally following the preceding 'Judeo tradition', yes ?