A big day at the lizard Oz, with Passionate. Principled. Purposeful. offerings from the dog botherer, the bromancer and nattering "Ned" ...

 

Some day the pond hopes to be able open with a line like this, as in Maaeve McGregor's piece for Crikey, As the country tries to un-Morrison itself, Morrison tries to Morrison the world... (sorry, likely paywall)

In the last week or so, Scott Morrison has delivered a concentrated dose of contrived polarisation, outrage, hypocrisy and self-serving warmongering that surpasses his usual penchant for small-t Trumpian excess. 

Perhaps it should have been big T, but never mind, instead the pond will open by quoting, as pond correspondents are wont to do, the venerable Meade in the Graudian ...

Everyone from the prime minister down had an opinion about the ABC’s decision to make political editor Andrew Probyn redundant but one take stands out. “Was Andrew Probyn let go from the ABC for being male and white?” asked Nick Cater in the Australian (without a single piece of evidence suggesting this was the case).
Probyn “faces an uphill task” getting another job, Cater says, because he is a member of an oppressed class that doesn’t tick any diversity boxes promoted by “radical ideology”.
“Discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, gender or sexuality is officially sanctioned at the ABC, as it is in every organisation that falls for the poisonous doctrine of social equity,” he said, again without any evidence.
Perhaps the former editor of the Weekend Australian is unaware News Corp has its own “poisonous doctrine” in the form of a diversity, equity and inclusion plan: “We believe that diversity, equity and inclusion help us generate better ideas, and that our business is stronger for integrating diversity into our content and operations.”

But wait, it gets even better. In a company peddling the remarkable crap of Passionate. Principled. Purposeful., this home of climate science denialism has a sustainability page ...

The pond isn't going to bother quoting it - just sighting the corny graphics is more than enough - but what better way to segue into one of the chief reptile climate science denialists, doing what the reptiles always do when down on luck, bash the ABC ...

But why the dog botherer? Well these days the digital edition of the lizard Oz is verging on the unreadable, as yet again the Lehrmann matter consumed the top of the page ...

If the ABC's in a digital world of pain, double that pain for the reptiles, which is why the dog botherer's screeching and squawking is at best mildly amusing, but more inclined to the tiresome and the tedious and the endlessly repetitious ...

See those opening lines about the Caterist above, and as for the matter of broadcasting, the pond is old enough to treasure memories of AM radio, but every so often while out and about finds itself with head down, contemplating a small screen in a way it once swore it would never do, thereby joining the band of vulgar youffs roaming the streets, completely oblivious to the world, heads down and always willing to step into traffic in the expectation that the cars will part like the Red Sea ...

It helps explain the hysteria infecting the dog botherer. Irrelevance can do that to you ...

The pond might not be joining the ranks of the vulgar youff - blogging is as quaint and so noughties  that it's as irrelevant as a dog botherer screech - but the words of that Dylan song began to echo in the pond's ear. 

You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand

You see somebody naked and you say, "Who is that man?"

You try so hard but you don't understand

Just what you will say when you get home

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. Dog Botherer?

Funny how an ancient song still manages to catch the vibe ...

Yep, whenever the pond turns to the lizard Oz, it's bombarded by the stale, predictable posturing of the likes of the dog botherer, peppered with anti-pretty much everything bile. It tends to make the dog botherer both funny and dreary ... especially dreary when he tries to blather about "mainstream plurality" without the first clue as to what he's blathering about ... 

Is the lizard Oz designed to pander to "mainstream plurality"? Then we're plural plucked, and plucked hard, and so the final gobbet comes, as it always does, as something of a relief ...

How the reptiles would dearly love to get the ABC out of the digital space, operating as they do under the fanciful notion that it's up for grabs, and they might be able to grab it. 

But Chairman Rupert has never understood digital, from MySpace days on, and erecting vast paywalls will be as futile a strategy as it once was when the Han built a wall to see off the nomads, only to see the ravaging Mongols turn up ... not that the pond is comparing vulgar youff to Mongols, but you wouldn't want to be a Ming lover in these digital days ...

And so to a little rich comedy, as the pond's favourite reptile - can't the pond have a reptile pet? - tries to tackle the American scene ...

Recognising that the bromancer needed some visual help, what's left of the graphics department in the lizard Oz rustled up a couple of snaps of the bleeding obvious, inevitably downsized and juxtaposed for added spice by the pond ...

What's amusing is the way that the bromancer is forced to deal with the mango elephant in the room, and the tawdry history of News Corp and Faux Noise in relation to the said elephant ...

Ah, the good old Hunter standby, and yet, right at the minute, the cartoonists seem to have a new topic of conversation ...

Sadly the pond can't seize the bromancer's blather as an excuse for a cartoon fest, and must press on ...

Thar he blows, simply unable to renounce the mango Mussolini, and naturally the graphics department backed him up ...

Never mind that he's a carnival barker, a snake oil seller, a con artist and a narcissistic crook, it's the American way ...

Sorry, sorry, the inclination to turn to cartoons is strong ...

Who knows? Well Bill Barr's justice department didn't seem to know, but soft, the pond is enjoying this romp, with the billy goat butts strong in this one ...

Well it's a dream, not exactly a dream for the house of mouse, but some kind of weird bromancer dreaming ...

Um, is it funny that the bromancer failed to mention Ron DeSanctus's academic record, as a graduate from the 'leet Yale University as well as Harvard Law School, and a cynic who thinks the way to power is by going the "woke" routine, having done a Kari Lake and ridden on the coattails of the mango Mussolini, replete with all the standard bigotries, victimhoods, persecution complexes and angertainments?

Never mind, it's all just for fun ... and one big final gobbet should do it...

The pond can but hope that every so often the bromancer tries to cope with US politics ... there's nothing like a little peace and calm and thoughtful reflection ...

And so to the pond's weekend burden, the climbing of the Everest known as nattering "Ned". It's an exceptionally difficult and painful climb this weekend, but the pond must accept the challenge no matter what, no matter even if "Ned" is indulging in stale crackers about the Voice ...

Ah, Australia Day, or as the pond knows it, Invasion day ... guaranteed to set "Ned" off ...

Heard it all before?

Of course ... the art of being a reptile is to inanely repeat the same things over and over again ... and the pond did think of going with some leftover bromancer cartoons ...

But that's cheating. Perhaps a serving of "Ned" in smaller, more digestible chunks?

Truth to tell, "Ned" can never be made digestible, especially when he gets to regurgitating others, such as the Price is right ... or Lidia ...

At this point what's left of the reptile graphics department ran a very large snap of a figure designed to instil fear in the lizard Oz readership ...

There, not so terrifying after all ... on with the regurgitation, accompanied by more sounds of Chicken Little flapping ...

At this point what's left of the reptile graphics department ran a very large snap of a figure designed to instil fear in the pond. No, not just fear, more like blind, abject terror ...

Phew, that's a relief, there's a lot to be said in praise of downsizing, and by this point, it has probably become clear that the pond doesn't intend to engage or argue the point with "Ned", because what's the point of that?

The pond has been down this road what feels like countless times and it's a matter of ticking off the gobbets, with this the penultimate one, the stage where strength must be summoned for a final assault on the peak ...

... says Captain Potato, who turned his back on an apology, and has kept his plodding back turned ever since.

But the good news is that the pond has at last made it to the peak, only to find the view disappointing, and inclined to the dismal ...

A reptile calling for restraint? A cry for restraint from a man who can never shut up, as pompous and portentous a blowhard as can be found in the land?

And so the climb might have been hard, but there's always comedy at the end ... in much the same way that the immortal Rowe has found the Russian invasion a tad amusing ... while after yesterday's almighty fuss, the reptiles have somehow managed to carry on regardless ...