In which the pond can't believe what ancient relic climbed out of the lizard Oz slime pit ...

 

WTF? What ancient relic has crawled out of the Canberra dung heap and turned up at the top of the lizard Oz woodheap, apparently on some pathetic attempt at a rehabilitation tour?

Some might think the pond is referring to Linda Reynolds and it's true she's featured in an EXCLUSIVE shouting about her irrelevance, and her endless suffering, but sainted aunts and sacred Masonic goats, look at the loon above her, and look at what's festering in the tree killer edition ...

What madness is this? Where was the liar from the Shire when it mattered? Turn the page back to 2021...

Labor pushes Morrison government to clarify whether it views Xinjiang human rights abuses as genocide.

The Australian government welcomed sanctions announced by the UK, the EU, the US and Canada last month – but did not follow suit, partly because of the lack of Magnitsky-style laws that would allow swift targeted sanctions for human rights abuses.

Wong said Magnitsky-style sanctions laws would “not only put Australia on the same page as our key allies, but send a strong signal to perpetrators of abuses around the world.”
She said the Morrison government’s slowness to introduce such laws, as recommended by a parliamentary committee late last year, “sends a regrettable message that we are not committed [and] that we don’t take it seriously”.

Well yes, the liar from the Shire was full of bluster and bullying, and preening and parading, but did sweet fuck all when it mattered, and now this is the hill he and the reptiles have chosen for his comeback tour? Hie thee back to the shire, and chant a few Hillsongs ...

After that splutter of irrelevance, is it any wonder that the pond immediately turned to the hole in the bucket man, so that he might bore the pond rigid?

Couldn't the pond just do a cartoon? The immortal Rowe has been on fire of late, and there was another in the series to celebrate ...

You were saying?

Say what? The hole in the bucket man had the floor? Sorry, hole in the bucket man, you were saying, in a way designed to bore the pond rigid, so rigid even Dame Groan enthusiasts might find it a tough slog ... 

Yes, it's time for our Henry to embark on a desiccated coconut history lesson, of the kind that brought fear to the pond's mind, as it remembered enduring a year of Economics History...the name Samuelson probably means nothing to vulgar youff these days, but the pond remembers "get out your Samuelson" with the same dread it once reserved for "get out your Bembrick" ...

Surely it's already all there in the detail. The pond proposes that it's now commonly agreed that it's always in the detail ...

But still our Henry droned on and on, enormously pleased by the sound of his voice, or at least the sight of his scribbles ...

The only time the pond perked up came when our Henry issued one of his famous billy goat buttisms ...

It came in the form of "none of that implies", which made the whole assignment moot, though none of the pond's carry on should be taken to imply that it thinks the hole in the bucket man a right royal doofus and pedantic bore, and what's worse, a signal failure for not mentioning the massive spending in ancient Athens in 406BC, nor the great economic crisis in Rome in 33CE ...

Sheesh, would it have troubled our Henry to get out his Suetonius, and mention Tiberius in the swimming pool with the boys? As one of the more splendid examples of the foundations of Western Civilisation?

And another thing ...why can't the reptiles get a cartoonist to match the infallible Pope?

As usual, the devil was in the detail ...

No matter, there's just one tedious gobbet to go ...

Missed the point? How the pond yearned for the return of Lloydie of the Amazon, last seen way back in January ...

Could it be that there were more mentions of extreme weather events, because there were more extreme weather events? 

Who knows, if only Lloydie had been around to explain that cyclone to disbelieving New Zealanders, all would have been well ...

But it wasn't to be, he's probably off saving the Amazon yet again, and the pond marks the reptiles down because of it, and even worse these were the substitute fielders this day ...

What a tedious line-up, and there was the meretricious Merritt getting agitated about the AFR, when even Media Watch noted the weird way the reptiles had behaved regarding their own legal action ...

Missing from their chat was any mention that the statement of claim against News Corp’s Samantha Maiden makes exactly the same charges of “seeking to exploit the false allegations” for “personal and professional gain”.

And of being “recklessly indifferent to the truth or falsity” of the claims.

So why does News Corp make it all about Lisa? Because she drives clicks, she’s married to Peter FitzSimons, whom they also love to bait, and of course she is not employed by News Corp.

The pond had no choice but to ignore the bile of the lizard Oz editorialist, and the rag's ongoing regard for the imputations of the rich, and instead donned a scarf so as not to offend the Catholics attending mass, and then turned to cackling Claire for the bonus.

It's impossible to conjure up the extraordinary reluctance with which the pond tackled this onerous task, what with the cackling all about vulgar youff ...

The pond wondered who was the target demographic for this sort of outing, and that wretched reptile illustrative graphic at the top of it? If ever there was a snap to encourage a decline in mental health, or at least a decline in the lizard Oz graphics department, that was it.

As for the suffering of vulgar youff, the pond remembered a recent outburst by Christopher Warren in Crikey (paywall) that sounded quite a different note ...

...Young, educated and diverse communities gather in cities, as close as they can. At last year’s election in the inner-city Green-voting seats of Melbourne and Brisbane, about two-thirds of the voting population were under 50. (Nationally, it was about half.)

Under-50s also grew up as Australian culture was reshaped by the Indigenous experience through contemporary music, visual arts and literature to television and film production. They’ve absorbed a different telling of our national history: the violence of frontier wars; the lie of terra nullius; the Stolen Generations; the discomfort of Australia Day.

It’s not just age. Plenty of over-50 Australians have embraced the new Australia (perhaps some of them Crikey readers). And there are pockets of under-50s who reach for the comfort of the old. But through education, migration and urbanisation, new Australia has reached the critical mass that turns its cultural dominance into political majorities.

News media should welcome the change. But they’re wedged. The simplicity of the journalistic style, the old assumptions about what makes news and how the world works, was designed for that older, more monocultural Australia. 

Australia’s media was badly burnt around the turn of the century when the culture of the new challenged too soon and was crushed by the politics of the old — from the republic referendum to the Tampa crisis. It convinced journalists that the old-new balance was set, unchallengeable. They recognised the same pattern in the climate wars a decade later and the take-down of Bill Shorten’s tax reforms in 2019.

Now the media risk missing the moment the Voice referendum offers for politics to follow culture into the new Australia. Sometimes their scepticism about the odds of success reads as cynicism about the Voice campaign itself.

The Liberals and Nationals, too, are wedged between the old Voice-dubious Australian votes they have and the new Voice-enthusiast votes they need. They know that electorates with younger voting majorities lean toward progressive policies and parties. That’s why Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is trying to muddle through with vague hand-waving about “details”.

That vagueness faces an early test with new Australia. Of Victoria’s 39 electorates, 23 have an under-50 majority. The Liberals and Nationals hold just three. One of those? Alan Tudge’s recently vacated seat of Aston.

At least that sounded the right note, an old, familiar note...

You walk into the room

With your pencil in your hand

You see somebody naked

And you, you say, "Who is that young thing?"

The one that knows how the gizmos work

You try so hard

But you don't understand

Just what you will say

When you get home

Because something is happening here

But ya' don't know what it is

Do you, Ms Claire?

Why the constant talking down, decrying, hand-wringing, and demeaning of vulgar youff? Well it's what aged folk do ... 

Back in the day she listened to grunge? The pond can remember all that would have provoked. Talk of the dreadful impact of music, and perhaps movies, and possibly television, and even comic books.

Dire things would have been written, baleful prophecies made ...

I'm worse at what I do best

And for this gift I feel blessed

Our little group has always been

And always will until the end

Hello, hello, hello, how low

Hello, hello, hello, how low

Hello, hello, hello, how low

Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out, it's less dangerous

Here we are now, entertain us

I feel stupid and contagious

Here we are now, entertain us

A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido

Yeah, hey

Second thoughts, she's ended up a columnist at the lizard Oz, so those prophecies were probably on the money, and a wasted youth has led to a wasted life, and thankfully to a final, mercifully brief gobbet ....

The irony of course is that the pond read cackling Claire on a screen, and it's true, the pond's growth has been badly stunted, and there'll likely be an autumn, and who knows if a spring will follow ...

Enough of this drivel. Enough of Henry, enough of cackling Claire, enough of the liar from the Shire being treated as an elder statesman, when he's just an elder loon ...

The pond has said it already, but will say it again, bring back Lloydie of the Amazon, there are too many record weather events doing the rounds, and we need him to reassure us that all is well ... there are dissidents out and about, mockers and neigh sayers, and their neighing needs to be given a short, sharp check by Lloydie's reins ...

And the pond was pleased to be reminded of that lengthy xkcd cartoon, which the pond will pick up with the Tang dynasty, if only because the pond has a splendid fake Tang dynasty vase on the mantelpiece ...

And they wonder why vulgar youff has the odd anxiety attack ...