It was last night that the pond noted that a fresh reptile game was afoot ...
The pond has no idea if the reptiles have any idea of the use of inverted commas, but that talk of 'false' claims was a ripper, and it was there again this morning ...
This time Madden had been downgraded, and the reptiles had sent in the heavyweight Dame Slap for a full serve of bigotry and hate, accompanied by the minor league, lightweight lickspittle fellow travelling Switzer ... (the pond preferred to go with the reptiles' institutional snaps to accompany the reptile carry-on).
The pond can't remember - perhaps too many to count - how many times the pond has red carded Dame Slap on the Lehrmann matter and the matter of the voice, but sees no reason to suddenly give her rampant bigotry a chance to shine ...
But still ... there was this introduction to the fuss in Crikey yesterday, headed News Corp is trying to find out who did this to Stan Grant ... (paywall) ... and if the irony in that header wasn't enough, there was this concluding bit of irony ...
Good on ya, lizard Oz, at last the pond understand the use of inverted commas.
And that talk of borderline casual racists led the pond to this ...
Naturally there were more than a few punters who noted that "borderline casual racists" was completely wrong ...
Thank you Prof Fried Chook, and if the pond can't follow up with the swishing Switzer and the braying Slap - delicate stomach, chance of upchuck, wot wot - what says the lizard Oz editorialist?
Out of the mouth of babes. The pond can still remember the short shrift that the pond was given when it pleaded with the teacher, "
but miss, they did it too." (It was before the pond had fully mastered the
"but billy goat butt" defence).
But, billy goat incredibly defensive, unrepentant, unapologetic reptiles, there's an infallible Pope for you ...
Now back to the incredibly defensive lizard Oz editorialist, and never mind that the rag doubled down by sending out Dame Slap to give everyone in sight a slapping (accompanied by her very own truly pathetic fellow travelling Sancho Panza) ...
What a contemptible bunch they are ... as they move from the "but miss they did it too defence" to the defiant "yeah, we did it, and fuck it, we're gunna keep on doing it, yah yah, smelly socks to you, so there."
What else?
More of the comrade Dan bashing that had featured at the top of the page, but look, who'd have thought there was still legs in that persecuted church yarn ...
At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of a man who looked like he might be wearing a frock, and alarmed this might disturb anyone from the Taliban or Florida or Texas, the pond downsized it ..
... and that way the pond could proceed to the next gobbet, only to be brought up short by a religious dispute ...
They had an actual Muslim on staff, such was the rampant diversity? But aren't they all going to hell, the filthy vile heretics, as bad as a bunch of apostates?
Brown offered a final par beginning "it's easy to laugh at this", and indeed the pond felt the urge to laugh, but on heading back to the moaning archbishop, the pond was confronted by a hellish sight, a huge snap of a deviant ...
Fixed, though the next gobbet featured another hellish sight, a grinning persecutor ...
The ranting paranoid persecuted tyke protecting his turf would have none of it ... he was intent on explaining how the Catholic church had used the Inquisition and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum to allow anyone who believed anything into heaven ...
Who is safe? How could the pond resist slipping in that Marathon Man quote?
Christian Szell : Is it safe?... Is it safe?
Babe : You're talking to me?
Christian Szell : Is it safe?
Babe : Is what safe?
Christian Szell : Is it safe?
Babe : I don't know what you mean. I can't tell you something's safe or not, unless I know specifically what you're talking about.
Christian Szell : Is it safe?
Babe : Tell me what the "it" refers to.
Christian Szell : Is it safe?
Babe : Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it.
Christian Szell : Is it safe?
Babe : No. It's not safe, it's... very dangerous, be careful.
And speaking of not being safe, as the woman said to the doctor on approaching Calvary for a life-saving abortion, the pond couldn't help but note that nattering "Ned" was out and about.
It was a relief, because the pond had wondered if the old dotard might have become a trifle agitated at the death of Tony Eggleton, but he was chomping at the bit and raring to give renewables a proper dinkum reptile bashing...
Yes indeed, climate change isn't a science, it's just a matter for domestic political dispute, with the lizard Oz leading the denialist way down under (with due and proper credit to the valiant troops at Sky after dark).
As for trusting the bloody Americans, the pond was beguiled by this story ...
It was so weird the pond did a follow-up, heading off to a Michigan bridge
here to read ...
Michigan’s culture war over library books has moved to a book about actual war, as a west Michigan district has removed “Jarhead” from its high school library.
In what the author of the memoir calls an unprecedented action, the Board of Education for Hudsonville Public Schools in Ottawa County this week voted 4-3 to remove the book that chronicles a Marine’s experience in the Gulf War.
Some parents told the board the book is too violent and disrespects the military. The book also includes references to drugs, profanity and graphic descriptions of sex.
“It's a book about war,” author Anthony Swofford told Bridge Michigan this week. “And war is not pretty, war is not neat. War is a morally dubious landscape for any young person sent out with a weapon in his or her country's name.”
A parent first complained about the book in November, District Public Relations Manager Stephanie Fast told Bridge in an email. The board overruled an academic committee that reviewed the book and unanimously recommended it remain on the shelves.
The fight at the district is the latest in a series of divisions in a traditionally conservative county.
“This community has already been divided for a while,” Hudsonville parent Genna Brong told Bridge Wednesday.
She said her ex-husband previously served in the Army and her brother is a current member of the Michigan National Guard. Students deserve to read about their experiences, Brong said.
“We are allowing recruiters into schools where kids can sign on the dotted line, but they can’t read about actual service members’ and soldiers’ experiences?,” she said at the meeting.
At the meeting, Board President Barb Hooper read a passage where the author describes his lack of “courage” to kill himself.
“This is troubling. A student who is struggling mentally and maybe considering suicide, in my opinion, probably should not be reading that comment that suicide is a courageous act.”
She also objected to its use of vulgarities. Another speaker called the book “extremely violent, vulgar, pornographic diatribe.”
Parents across the state and country have waged pressure on schools to remove books from their libraries they contend is inappropriate. Many involve frank descriptions of sex or LGBTQ issues.
Swofford said he believes Hudsonville is the first district nationwide to target his book, which was adapted into a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal. The book received high praise, winning the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for memoirs in 2004.
“Jarhead” does not appear on a list of banned books from the 2021-2022 school year compiled by PEN America, a nonprofit that tracks book bans, or a separate list compiled by The EveryLibrary Institute and EveryLibrary.
The Hudsonville board overruled a unanimous recommendation by a seven-person committee composed of two teachers, three parents, one building administrator and one curriculum department member. The superintendent of curriculum and instruction was a facilitator who didn’t vote and the librarian was a consultant who didn’t vote, Fast said.
The book is not a part of any school curriculum, Fast said, and she is unaware of any classroom libraries that include the book.
Brong said giving board members more say on these books rather than relying on expertise from teachers and administrators with what is age-appropriate is “very scary.”
“This is the start of something that could be detrimental for our district.”
The decision comes a few weeks after Cheboygan Area Schools in northern Michigan removed “All American Boys” from a high school classroom and removed it from required reading in English. The Cheboygan Daily Tribune reported the decision was made after a parent who is married to a police officer said the book made her and her son uncomfortable because it references police brutality and underage drinking.
The pond got a sense of what they might think of climate science in Michigan, and wondered where the Taliban might stand ...
What's that? Ned was still at it?
What a tiresome old loon he is ... and even that snap of a rare earth plant couldn't settle him down ...
The pond couldn't keep up. One minute the sky was falling, in the usual Chicken Little "Ned" way, and the next there's a breakthrough moment? It didn't take long for "Ned" to realise his mistake, and return to the carping, and the doubting Thomas, perhaps wondering if there was a cock in the vicinity ready to crow for him thrice ...
At this point the reptiles flung in a distractingly large snap, and the pond had to downsize it ...
Fixed ... and that created enough room for a Wilcox ...
Then it was off to "Ned" for a final gobbet ...
How long will the smooth sailing last? Haven't we already had the rhetorical question gambit? Must the pond wonder afresh at its use? Will the gambit never end? Is it safe?
Hmm. "yah yah, smelly socks to you, so there" Today's Mr Ed: "...the ABC should review the way it encourages some of its star journalists to walk the impossible line between news, analysis and opinion..." It's certainly an impossible line for the reptiles which is why they never bother with news or analysis and just give never-ending opinion, day after day.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't get this bit, apparently due to Little-More: "Thus we get defamatory stupidities on Twitter that cause huge reputational (and financial) damage to the ABC." What does he mean by that "and financial" ? It that just a reference to the ABC being sued ? If so, how often is the ABC actually successfully sued ?
We need to go to another cultural tradition to find a word for the opening sentence from Christopher Prowse. Well, for a fairly polite word - ‘chutzpah’.
ReplyDeleteTo write ‘For over two centuries religions have been central to public life in Australia.’ also says so much about the attitudes instilled into Roman Catholics from early age. It seems that, in writing that, nothing occurred to Christopher about religion in Australia for the preceding - can we say 50 000 years of - human occupation?
It follows that no reference to ‘sacred sites’ that recognise physical events that precede the accounts of his particular faith by 8 millennia, has really registered with Christopher. If that is the state of his mind, then he is abysmally ignorant. The alternative, and kinder explanation, of course, is that he automatically spouts, and types, simple dogma, which saves him having to think about the many activities of those who lived here for those many millennia, and which absolutely fit definitions of ‘religion’. Amusingly, indigenous beliefs often parallel the doctrine that Christopher is required to state to maintain his position of, er - authority - starting with creation stories as their source of the authority for customs and rites that continue to this day.
Oh c'mon, Chad: Mr Prowse is just like the vast majority of 'homo sapiens sapiens' - there are vast impenetrable walls in his consciousness that enables him to believe many different and mutually contradictory things all at the same time.
DeleteSo there's a great big wall around "Catholic matters" that enables him to believe that God did create the universe and the human race maybe about 6,000 years ago (you do remember the Omphalos Theory, don't you ?) and also that a whole bunch of dark skinned people have been here for maybe 60,000 years. Even if we don't actually know whether they were dark-skinned when they got here, but they probably were.
Now to the likes of you and me that's an absurd piece of self-contradictory nonsense, but to Christopher it's, well, two things that he doesn't ever have to be conscious of at the same time. In case you hadn't noticed, the very great majority of the human race is like that - we in the ICT profession (well I was until 14 years ago) call that 'time sharing'.
But I still would really like to know what h-s-s was doing for the approximately 130,000 years before we started spreading out over the planet, and then what we were doing for the next 50,000 or so years before we came up with writing (look up the Egyptian history of Imhotep and the Scribes).
After all, Jericho started up about 9000 BCE and even Catal Huyuk was around from about 7500 BCE, But no part of the Trinity was talking to us back then - either verbally or by stone tablets (which means some at least could read), so, did everybody until about 6000 years ago automatically get into heaven because sin and its consequences hadn't been explained to us yet ?
C. Prowse: "We are seeing an experiment playing out in real time with real impact for the lives of real people." Unlike the Holy wars and the Crusades (what is Richard I famous for ?). And sundry other Church activities - who remembers the Spanish Inquisition or Bloody Mary of the English crown ? - throughout history. Nup, no impact on the lives of real people from any of that.
ReplyDeleteOh but here we go: "Religions generally, and the Catholic Church in particular, have worked throughout the centuries for the common good in order to bring about human flourishing." Oh yeah, right: the human race was just this bedraggled bunch struggling to 'flourish' until the Catholic Church came into existence about 1700 years ago (ie about 300 or so years after the second of the Trinity deigned to speak to us). So there was no flourishing Roman Empire before the Catholic Church, was there. And that's why it's estimated that only about 95 or so billion of us had existed since we came down out of the trees (metaphorically) until then.
But hey, the Catholic Church reached back about 188,000 years and 'flourished' us. They just never bothered to tell anybody about it because God knows everything anyway. So, on with Chris: "I find myself wondering if I understand the purpose of government in Australia any longer." Don't worry about it Chris, you never did understand the purpose of government anywhere at any time.
Now here we have Noodles Neddles: "Really ? What do the Republican Party in the US and the Coalition in Australia think of this innovation [climate as the Au-USA 'third pillar'] ? Given that climate change is a semi-permanent arena of domestic political dispute in both the US and Australia, deciding that climate change is "essential" to the alliance guarantees a fracture in strategic bipartisanship in both nations."
ReplyDeleteSo, pardon my French: quel genre de question est-ce ? What bipartisanship exists in either Australia or the USA about 'climate change' now ?
But never mind, just wait until the day of the Great Antarctica Migration and it will probably become clear to the remainders of "both sides" (there is always only two sides, isn't there ?). But then they'll find the Chinese are already there in total ownership and possession.
Oh my:
ReplyDelete"Once dismissed as a fringe theory, the idea that corporate thirst for profits drives up inflation, aka "greedflation," is now being taken more seriously by economists, policymakers and the business press."
Once a fringe theory, "greedflation" gets its due
https://www.axios.com/2023/05/18/once-a-fringe-theory-greedflation-gets-its-due
That can't be true, can it ? Those wondrously wonderful 'free market' entrepreneurs raising their prices way above their costs ? No, no that would be frighteningly immoral. Phil Lowe would never allow it, and so he certainly won't ever take any actions to stop and/or prevent it: 2-3 per cent is sacred neoliberalism.
How amazing:
ReplyDelete"Our findings suggest early humans went through a period of extensive adaptation, lasting up to 30,000 years, before the big diaspora between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. This period of adaptation was followed by rapid dispersal across Eurasia and as far as Australia."
Ancient humans may have paused in Arabia for 30,000 years on their way out of Africa
https://theconversation.com/ancient-humans-may-have-paused-in-arabia-for-30-000-years-on-their-way-out-of-africa-206200
And what was the Catholic Church doing while all of this was going on ?
Interesting one - thank you GB.
DeleteYeah, 30,000 years is a long time, but given that the expansion from the Kenyan Rift Valley to the Arabian peninsula likely started quite slowly, and that processes such as 'species modification by stochastic genetic variation' can take quite a while, then it's not unbelievable, I guess.
DeleteAnd we had to acclimatise to cooler climes somehow before the Great Homo Sapiens Sapiens Diaspora of around 60,000 years ago.
Greetings from the Cote d'Azur, two weeks without the term "gobbet" surfacing in any way, shape or form. I won't say it's been easy - homeways tomorrow, there seems to be a bit going on.
ReplyDeleteLove that the reptiles have coined "the Stan Grant affair" to describe the bonfire they've mostly lit, and then curated. But wait a mo, what if it's not them - how about the numbers are assessed, just in case we are being unfair (narrator's voice - of course we're not)
https://www.theage.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/did-news-corp-target-the-abc-and-stan-grant-the-answer-s-in-the-numbers-20230524-p5daxm.html
Ah, welcome home then, and may the gobbets multiply and grow in your world.
Delete