The pond had to think long and hard as to whether to keep prattling Polonius at the top of the Sunday meditation, but the notion that it might lead to a cartoon recovery gave the aged pedant and self-proclaimed seer a break, and so it was back to the future ... because if you focus on the details, you can ignore what actually went down, and end up sounding insufferably smug and righteous ... and pedantic to the nth degree ...
Those deeper truths about discrimination? Ever wonder why Aboriginal people felt persecuted and treated like animals, what with the poisoned flour and the massacres and ...
Well it wouldn't do for Polonius to go there ...
The White Australia policy grew out of an earlier Social Darwinism that put Aboriginal people so low in the evolutionary chain that even our humanity was questioned. Opinions such as the following were commonplace and newspaper editors, it would seem, happily published them:
Brutish, faithless, vicious, the animal being given fullest loose only approached by his next of kin the monkey…the Australian black may have a soul but, if he has, then the horse and dog infinitely superior in every way to the black human, cannot be denied possession of that vital spark of heavenly flame. (14)
European anthropologists, too, wondered if Australian Aborigines were the missing link between the monkeys and humans. Aboriginal people are still recovering the remains of their ancestors whose graves were desecrated and whose remains were sent to universities in Europe for study.
(14) John Harris, One Blood: 200 Years of Aboriginal Encounter with Christianity (Sutherland: Albatross, 2nd edn 1994), p. 30 (taken with a tweak from a pdf here).
Yep, when it comes to talk of animals, it seems horses and dogs are all the go, unless you favour monkeys.
If you take a look back at Australia's deeply racist past (not to mention present) and its treatment of Aboriginal people, things could get ugly, and that's why it's best to retreat to a couple of familiar comforting ploys, so that the racism and the bigotry might carry on ...
How much easier it is to blather about myths and berate the ABC in the traditional Polonius style ...
Oh and always remember to ask more important questions ...
And then in Polonial and Ron style you can end up with a history full of corrected pages ...
And so to Gemma, gabbing on this weekend ...
Now back to Gemma having some kind of breakdown, and apparently never having read the lizard Oz, and the output of her fellow reptiles these past few months when it comes to a calm, considered response to the voice, aka the end of parliamentary democracy in Australia...
It is no exaggeration?
Come on Gemma, knock the pond's socks off with some mealy mouthed, weasel worded both siderism ... but whatever you do, don't mention Dame Slap is one of your reptile kissing cousins ...
And so, having played her part in the pond's cartoon-led recovery, a final word from Gemma ...
Oh indeed, indeed, and where better than in the Chairman's rag, what with Gemma at one with kissing cousins working for the Chairman and determined to bring back serious debate and ensure victory for Vlad the Terrible ...
And so to a bonus, and here the pond had a difficult choice, what with both the dog botherer and Killer Creighton freaking out about Jimbo this weekend.
The pond needed some interstitials if it was going to keep on with its cartoon-led recovery, and the pond also had faith that the dog botherer would soon grow weary of a tirade about Jimbonomics, and would turn to join the bromancer in doing some climate science denialsm, and so it came to pass, and so the pond had to pass on Killer doing Jimbonomics (maybe another Killer time in the killing fields will present itself in due course, but for the moment, hasta la vista Killer)...
And what do you know, the dog botherer in the next gobbet turned to vaccines and to the plight of sweet, dinkum, innocent, virginal Oz coal (not to mention, being inclined to the gaseous, his love of gas) ... because the dog botherer can't help himself and is always up for a listicle of rage, hate, fear and loathing, not to mention raiding his larder for his weekly supplement of FUD ...
Of course, of course, how could the pond have failed to predict how once again the mere mention of Heraclitus would induce a deep rage in the guardians of Western Civilisation. First the hole in the bucket man and now the dog botherer ... and in the case of the dog botherer producing a turn of phrase that's wickedly witty, or so the the pond thought in primary school, though it did send the pond off to look at the correct phrase ...
"Our men have put old [Abraham] Lincoln up shit creek."
In Lincoln's day, as now, 'shit creek' wasn't a real place, just a figurative way of describing somewhere unpleasant; somewhere one wouldn't want to be.
The 'without a paddle' ending is just an intensifier, added by later wags for additional effect. This dates from the middle of the 20th century. The American novelist John Dos Passos used the phrase in Adventures of a Young Man, 1939:
They left the store ready to cry from worry. It was dark; they had a hard time finding their way through the woods to the place where they'd left the canoe. The mosquitos ate the hides off them. 'Well, we're up shit creek without any paddle'.
Say what you will, you can always learn something new by being bored shitless, and even if up the creek without a paddle, use your paws to explore the full to overflowing intertubes ...
And that's surely as good a reason as any for a few more cartoons, so the pond's cartoon-led recovery can finish on a strong note ...
That’s a fairly short offering this week from Polonius, but it’s still impressive in that he managed to stretch a one or two sentence pedantic point out to multiple paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteYou could certainly tell that he was suffering withdrawal pains after last week’s inexplicable lack of ABC-bashing by the way he got stuck into the organisation from Para 2 and never let up. Best chuckle came from his criticism of ABC-hosted debates as dull and one-sided. If I were one of the participants I’d wear that criticism as a badge of honour, or at least a commemorative t-shirt.
You may enjoy reading this from Galbraith Jr, Chad:
ReplyDeleteJames Galbraith: The Quasi-Inflation of 2021-2022 – A Case of Bad Analysis and Worse Response
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/02/james-galbraith-the-quasi-inflation-of-2021-2022-a-case-of-bad-analysis-and-worse-response.html
A long and informative exposition.
GB - now that I have had time to read James Galbraith, I can thank you for that link. There is a good analytical brain at work there. OK - he doesn't quite have the talent with words that John Kenneth had, but very few other economists have either. (Ronald Coase came close at times). Anyway, pleased to have this for further reference, and a reminder that there is good work still going out - perhaps I need to put more discipline in my day's reading.
DeleteMy memory of John Kenneth mainly centres on 'The Age of Uncertainty' on tv back in 1977. A very imposing gentleman both physically and mentally.
DeleteBit disappointed in Polonius.I was expecting a Pell deification column.
ReplyDeleteYes, FF, as above per Anon, it's clear that Polonius is off his game. He's sounding like a third rate priest forced to rush through the mass because he's got five parishes to serve. The sermons and the incantations and the fussy pedantic routines are all there, but they lack the spark. They have the glazed, glassy look of a dead fish eye staring into the void ...
DeleteOnce upon a time, he would have known the dangers of labelling ABC debates as being one-sided and dull, what with him being one-eyed and tedious beyond belief, and having ruined many an Insider being same, but these days he's oblivious. Just a tetchy, grumpy, nit picky, repetitive wailer, a one trick ABC bashing pony, and the pond suspects the reptiles keep him on out of force of habit, and not knowing anyone under 35 ...
I dunno, I thought that was Polonius totally in form: picayune pecks at those he deems perfidious, especially if they are in any way connected to that whorehouse of total evil, the ABC.
DeleteBut I did like his bit about "Aboriginal people in Australia have never been covered by a flora and fauna act..." when he's gone to such trouble to assure us that the Referendum of 1967 was the very first time that Aboriginals could be counted in the census as "people" (or some reptile approximation thereto).
So, does that mean they weren't counted at all and didn't even make it to the level of 'flora and fauna' before then ?
Good one, GB, they were of course vulgus nullius, or if you will populus nullius, or perhaps in Polonius's world, stripped of feminists, homines nullius, though he still seems off his game to the pond, it being so easy to establish he's a complete and comprehensive dickhead, though perhaps it's always been that way ...
DeleteOh, Dorothy, Dorothy, the things you still do for us. The parable of the wheat and the tares seems appropriate (Matthew 13:24-30). The King James version does have some good narratives, largely ignored by the organization religion of our time.
ReplyDeleteHappily, the cartoons more than compensate for the dross, and what dross was on offer for this day!
Polonius - gives us a wry smile still at the mental image of his running multiple TV and radio recording units so he does not miss a single questionable sentence from the ABC. For this column, he was also able to invoke his current son-in-law, Nyunggai. We will say ‘current’, because Nyunggai has quite a tally-sheet of weddings and other relationships, as befits a devout Catholic contributing to the most devout Catholic - Rupert’s - prints.
Ms Ton-yee-nee. Again, as part of her steady campaign to eschew those dreadful ‘identity politics’ she spends much of her column giving us yet more detail to show the unique characteristics of her identity - the identity that justifies her steady railing against what so many of we ‘others’ seem to be succumbing to.
Dog-boverer - general spray against gummint intervention, without acknowledging that our entire system is a spider web of such intervention, and further without even hinting at alternatives.
Yes, there is the nod to ‘unwavering fundamentals about fiscal responsibility, market forces and the limited but crucial role of government.’ But it is barely a nod, where even ‘Ned’ was prepared to offer suggestions that ‘the market’ offered some virtue. My comments yesterday on why ‘Ned’ could not carry through with his analysis apply doubly to the Boverer, if only because his deliberate spread of disinformation covers a wider range of issues.
For light relief, our Boverer offered us what Heraclitus might say if he were writing in our time. Perhaps Henry will explore that concept with his ancient sources - there is much scope for invention there, although it might be smart not to go into how rivers flow with water, and our burden of human frailties; that could upset the Cater (if he reads any other contributor, or watches any other face on Sky than his own.)
Oh yeah, the "limited but crucial role of government" indeed. The entire reptile tribe simply has no idea how much of Australia was designed, made and operated by public servants acting under government direction. But as you would be aware more than most, Chad, apart from some farming and the beginnings of industrial revolution manufacturing (eg industrial refrigeration which was invented in Australia and used to allow us to sell beef and lamb in bulk overseas even back in the days of the combo sailing-steam ships) just about every major part of Australia was built and operated by public servants. All of it.
DeleteAnd I'm still angry with the Labs for starting the process of selling off our Commonwealth Bank. The only reason I vote for 'em is that the Libs, and especially the Country members (yes we remember) did a lot more of that kind of senseless destruction.
And gather the tares you did Chadders, and the pond always liked that one ...
DeleteAnother parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
In the old days, the pond could always rely on the Weekend Oz to start a good fire ...
Oh - going into detail of anything emanating from the Boverer suggests that one is even more OCD than Polonius, and has more time available, because just about everything the Boverer puts up is some or other kind of myth. But when he invites us to ‘consider how the origins of the pandemic likely stemmed from a government intervention through the Wuhan Institute of Virology’, he is doing the standard reptile support for other reptile, Sharri, but demonstrating a personal inability to process simple logic.
ReplyDeleteCan you really persuade yourself that those cunning Orientals had a master plan to design a super virus that would be so rampant, and so debilitating, that it would tilt world economic power to the Celestial Empire - to do that without having highly effective vaccines (you design the vaccine while you design the virus - there are examples from known biological control programs) instilled into your own population, to maximise your advantage from the pandemic?
Every week, the statistics coming out of China show that they did not establish such a strategic response in advance of release of the virus, so - remind me again, Sharri, how that particular conspiracy was supposed to work?
Might it have been directed initially at Taiwan? Well, Taiwan’s death count is a little worse than Australia’s per capita, but about a quarter of the rate for Florida (USA), with a similar total population. Over to you, Sharri, now that you are again a ‘presenter’ with Sky.
Well, I could imagine that the Chinese are as stupid and incompetent as us in constructing their plots - we are of the same species after all - so I can't automatically put it past the slanty-eyes to have kicked off a pandemic without having a vaccine, or even better, a cure, ready to go. Especially as they could simply shut down and lock down virtually the entire population - as indeed they did. Even including the PLA ?
DeleteBut no, somehow I think not, it just invokes the first rule: whatever the reptiles spout is a lie; I can't say I've ever caught 'em producing anything even accidentally true.
GB - as we accumulate more information on what we might call the geneology of covid, the Sharri - have to call it a hypothesis for convenience, although it barely qualifies for that title - anyway, the Sharri imaginings are less and less plausible anyway. I prefer the simpler logic of 'well if the Chinese did cook it up as part of a masterly plot - their current experience shows that they were monumentally bad at it.'
DeleteBut China has produced a high proportion of the world's top virologists, including Jian Zhou and his wife, Xiao-Yi Sun, who did almost incomprehensible work in collaboration with Ian Frazer to develop the HPV vaccine at U of Q. You know, the one that Opus Dei, and Barnaby Joyce, claimed triggered promiscuity amongst young Catholic women.
Without having 'done my own research' it seems that not only virologists, but also China has produced a high proportion of the world's top viruses too. How long has China had 'wet markets' for ?
DeleteImagine the wrath of Polonius if an ABC presenter did not mention he was the father-in-law of someone the presenter was praising as being correct on an issue he/she was pushing.
ReplyDeleteBoggles ...the Biggles in him would be in a righteous rage at the ABC Huns ...
DeleteSee, DP, it's all totally precedented ! Just a mere 4 million years ago, the Antarctic ice sheet melted and pretty soon it will do it again:
ReplyDeleteClue to rising sea levels lies in DNA of 4m-year-old octopus, scientists say
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/05/clue-to-rising-sea-levels-lies-in-dna-of-4m-year-old-octopus-scientists-say
Wau:
ReplyDeletehttps://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2023/01/trolleyman.jpg