In which the pond really signs off for the year, with hope of wars abating in the New Year ...

 

Sorry, the pond just couldn't leave it there ... 

The pond wishes all its readers, especially those who comment - you know who you are, you know you're now the only reason the pond bothers - happy holydays, and all the best for the New Year, because it's likely going to be a bad one ... and if you will, merry Xmas and so on and so forth ...

But the pond simply couldn't stand the thought that "Ned" and Polonius would be the last pond entry for the year.

What if some innocent happened by and thought that was all there was to the pond?

So the pond thought it might end on a little more of an upmarket note, explaining why the pond has spent the past year being fascinated by what's been happening in a failed empire, that lost little England, enlivened by the cracking Crace and good Hydeings, and a failing empire, the current disunited States ...

To set the tone, there's a story by Kafka which explains why those outside the empires, or at a remote distance from the centre, are never sure what's going on ...

You can find a translation by Ian Johnston at Kafka online... a little way in ...

...Our land is so huge, that no fairy tale can adequately deal with its size. Heaven hardly covers it all. And Peking is only a point, the imperial palace only a tiny dot. It’s true that, by contrast, throughout all the different levels of the world the emperor, as emperor, is great. But the living emperor, a man like us, lies on a peaceful bed, just as we do. It is, no doubt, of ample proportions, but it could be merely narrow and short. Like us, he sometime stretches out his limbs and, if he is very tired, yawns with his delicately delineated mouth. But how are we to know about that thousands of miles to the south, where we almost border on the Tibetan highlands? Besides, any report which came, even if it reached us, would get there much too late and would be long out of date. Around the emperor the glittering and yet mysterious court throngs—malice and enmity clothed as servants and friends, the counterbalance to the imperial power, with their poisoned arrows always trying to shoot the emperor down from his side of the balance scales. The empire is immortal, but the individual emperor falls and collapses. Even entire dynasties finally sink down and breathe their one last death rattle. The people will never know anything about these struggles and sufferings. Like those who have come too late, like strangers to the city, they stand at the end of the thickly populated side alleyways, quietly living off the provisions they have brought with them, while far off in the market place right in the middle foreground the execution of their master is taking place.
There is a legend which expresses this relationship well.
The Emperor—so they say—has sent a message, directly from his death bed, to you alone, his pathetic subject, a tiny shadow which has taken refuge at the furthest distance from the imperial sun. He ordered the herald to kneel down beside his bed and whispered the message into his ear. He thought it was so important that he had the herald repeat it back to him. He confirmed the accuracy of the verbal message by nodding his head. And in front of the entire crowd of those who’ve come to witness his death—all the obstructing walls have been broken down and all the great ones of his empire are standing in a circle on the broad and high soaring flights of stairs—in front of all of them he dispatched his herald. The messenger started off at once, a powerful, tireless man. Sticking one arm out and then another, he makes his way through the crowd. If he runs into resistance, he points to his breast where there is a sign of the sun. So he moves forward easily, unlike anyone else. But the crowd is so huge; its dwelling places are infinite. If there were an open field, how he would fly along, and soon you would hear the marvelous pounding of his fist on your door. But instead of that, how futile are all his efforts. He is still forcing his way through the private rooms of the innermost palace. He will never he win his way through. And if he did manage that, nothing would have been achieved. He would have to fight his way down the steps, and, if he managed to do that, nothing would have been achieved. He would have to stride through the courtyards, and after the courtyards the second palace encircling the first, and, then again, stairs and courtyards, and then, once again, a palace, and so on for thousands of years. And if he finally did burst through the outermost door—but that can never, never happen—the royal capital city, the centre of the world, is still there in front of him, piled high and full of sediment. No one pushes his way through here, certainly not with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window and dream of that message when evening comes.
That’s exactly how our people look at the emperor, hopelessly and full of hope. They don’t know which emperor is on the throne, and there are even doubts about the name of the dynasty. In the schools they learn a great deal about things like the succession, but the common uncertainty in this respect is so great that even the best pupils are drawn into it. In our villages emperors long since dead are set on the throne, and one of them who still lives on only in songs had one of his announcements issued a little while ago, which the priest read out from the altar. Battles from our most ancient history are now fought for the first time, and with a glowing face your neighbour charges into your house with the report. The imperial wives, over indulged on silk cushions, alienated from noble customs by shrewd courtiers, swollen with thirst for power, driven by greed, excessive in their lust, are always committing their evil acts over again.
The further back they are in time, the more terrible all their colours glow, and with a loud cry of grief our village eventually gets to learn how an empress thousands of years ago drank her husband’s blood in lengthy gulps.
That, then, is how the people deal with the rulers from the past, but they mix up the present rulers with the dead ones. If once, once in a person’s lifetime an imperial official travelling around the province comes into our village, sets out some demands or other in the name of the rulers, checks the tax lists, attends a school class, interrogates the priest about our comings and goings, and then, before climbing into his sedan chair, summarizes everything in a long sermon to the assembled local population, at that point a smile crosses every face, one man looks furtively at another and bends over his children, so as not to let the official see him. How, people think, can he speak of a dead man as if he were alive. This emperor already died a long time ago, the dynasty has been extinguished, the official is having fun with us. But we’ll act as if we didn’t notice, so that we don’t hurt his feelings. However, in all seriousness we’ll obey only our present ruler, for anything else would be a sin. And behind the official’s sedan chair as it hurries away there arises from the already decomposed urn someone or other arbitrarily endorsed as ruler of the village...

And so on, and that's the reason that the pond, though far away, is fascinated by the US, and by some of its more dismal failures ... with Ron DeSanctus surely the loser of the year ...

It might seem funny, but he's done real harm, and keeps on doing real harm ...

But at least there's the cartoons ...

And yet where's the joy, given one possible alternative?

It's a deeply weird country, getting weirder by the minute. 

Of course it's always been weird, think Joseph R. McCarthy, think Prohibition, think the roaring twenties, think the railway barons, think the Great Depression, think Father Coughlin, think Charles Lindbergh and the Nazis, and so on and on ... and in recent times, think the dirty Digger and what he's done to the country ...

Yet strangely this year the war on Xmas was in a lull ...

The pond cites as evidence a story in WaPo ... (paywall) ... now long in the tooth but saved by the pond ...

There have been plenty of other wars...

The war on books has seen some tremendous advances thanks to that total loser and dropkick setting it running...

On and on went that war ...

You could find one of the war's stories at the Orlando Sentinel ...

And here's a little more detail, because it's always in the detail ...

But the war on Xmas? Not so much, and Philip Bump had graphs that would have delighted an ABC finance report ...

However the war on sex hit new heights ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, he's truly, deeply weird ...

When it comes to parenting, Louisana's Mike Johnson is all about abstinence.

The House speaker once took his daughter Hannah to a purity ball, according to a 2015 news segment from the German television outlet n-tv. The segment was featured in a report from ABC News on Wednesday.

Purity balls are formal dance events attended by fathers and their daughters. The ceremony is popular among conservative Christians. During the event, daughters often make pledges to abstain from sex until marriage.

In the video, Johnson's daughter was seen making the pledge to him, where she said she was committing "to a lifetime of purity, including sexual purity."

Johnson's parenting style and relationship with his children have been the subject of speculation since he was elected speaker.

Last month, a social media user unearthed old footage of Johnson hawking an app that would alert him and his son if either of them looked at pornography.

"I'm proud to tell you my son's got a clean slate," Johnson said in the video.

But if you believe Bump and his astonishing graphs that would leave an ABC finance report orgasmic with pleasure, there's been no war on Xmas bump ...

Meanwhile, Uncle Elon's war on the planet's sanity has continued apace ... though it has given the pond the chance to mock Tesla drivers ... (it seems the chance to mock truck drivers in Australia and Europe might be limited for some considerable time, so the pond will be left to mock gigantic Fords and Nissans blocking the streets in Newtown) ...

How soon before Uncle Elon heads to Mars for good, or perhaps builds a Zucker bunker?

But at least the war on Xmas has taken a breather, if you can believe Bump's graphics, designed to make an ABC finance report salivate at the mouth in an unseemly way ...

Meanwhile, there are always some gnats willing to disrupt, disturb or act like prize loons ... with this story borrowed from Mediaite ...

Home to the MMA and rocket science...

They come in all shapes and sizes. Rudy has been the obvious choice all year, but there have been others ...

But at least the war on Xmas has been muted ...

And that leaves us with the reason that 2024 is going to be really tough, not just for the States, but the world at large ...

There's a really weird logic at work here, as outlined by Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark...

Donald Trump must be allowed every possible legal maneuver in his quest to subvert American democracy. But the law must never apply to Trump, because doing so might make him stronger.

Have you ever noticed how, whenever Trump does something terrible, there is always an argument that holding him accountable can only help him?

You can’t impeach him in 2020, because it’ll just make him stronger.

You can’t impeach him in 2021, because you’ll turn him into a martyr.

You can’t raid Mar-a-Lago to take back classified documents, because you’ll rile up his base.

You can’t prosecute him for crimes X, Y, and Z, because it’ll make Republican voters love him more.

There is a strange, self-limiting, helplessness to that thinking: A wicked man does immoral and illegal things—and society’s reaction is to say that we must indulge his depredations, because if we tried to hold him accountable then he would become even worse.

Is there any other aspect of life in which Americans take that view?

That’s not how parents deal with children.

It’s not how regulatory agencies deal with corporations.

And it’s not how the justice system deals with criminals.

The only analogue I can come up with is foreign policy: There have been times when American foreign policy has sought to give foreign dictators what they want in order to prevent them from making more trouble.

I want to close by noting yet another asymmetry in American life.

Here is a partial list of things we are often told must be done in order to prevent Americans from choosing to elect a manifestly unfit, aspiring authoritarian:

National Democrats should stop talking about certain issues that matter to them.

Congressional Democrats should have crossed the aisle and saved Kevin McCarthy.

Local Democrats should stop governing in ways which their liberal communities prefer so as to avoid offending Republicans in other states.

The Manhattan district attorney should not have brought an indictment against Donald Trump.

Privately-held corporations should conduct themselves so as to be pleasing to white, working-class voters and should abstain from marketing themselves in ways that might appeal to disfavored groups.

Joe Biden should pass even more bipartisan legislation.

Joe Biden should not have tried to forgive federal student loans.

Joe Biden should replace his vice president, even though she has conducted herself honorably.

The Colorado Supreme Court should have allowed Donald Trump to be on the state’s presidential ballot.

It is (we are told) because of actions like these that tens of millions of Americans will vote to make Donald Trump president 11 months from now.

Note what is not on that list: Anything that is imperative for Republican elected officials or Republican voters to do in order to cause the electorate to reject Trump.

It is simply assumed that those people lack agency. That they are automata who can only be expected to do one thing: that they will make their decisions about the future of the United States purely in reaction to inputs from their betters.

They simply have to vote for Trump because the girl at Starbucks has a nose ring and a name tag with pronouns. Or because Disney put a gay kid in Strange World. Or because the Colorado Supreme Court issued a ruling they neither liked nor read.

This is a profoundly paternalistic, bigoted view of Republicans.

But also, maybe it’s true?

Yes, the pond is a long way from Beijing and Washington, and lives in a Kafka story, but there is just one degree of separation, because the owner of Faux Noise also owns the lizard Oz and Sky News, and they deliver wreckage and ruin to the United States and Australia, and they never report on stories which therefore never make it into the pond ...

For stories such as this, you have to look elsewhere, especially if you can't get past the paywall and have to look at summaries ...

All this is by way of assuring stray readers that while the pond is stuck in the labyrinth of mirrors in the hive mind and bubble known as the lizard Oz, the pond is aware that there's a real world out there, and there's more to life than Polonius and nattering "Ned" ...

There are wars going down all over the place, but so many of the wars emanate from the Chairman Emeritus and his lickspittle lackeys that the pond will continue in the New Year to hoe its own specialised branch of reptile bog swamp ...

And the pond hasn't even mentioned climate science ... 

Speaking of Marina Hyde, as the pond sometimes does, this was a recent closer ...

...speaking of landmarks, the whole Earps/Spoty controversy this week reminded me of Taylor Swift’s mega-interview with Time magazine this month, having been named its Person of the Year. In this chat, after a year of undisputed global domination, Swift served an ice-cold dish of revenge to Kanye West, who had famously grabbed the mic off her 19-year-old self during an awards acceptance speech, and declared she shouldn’t have won. Fourteen years later, in an article in which Time described Swift as “the master storyteller of the modern era”, she finally spoke of the extremely long and unpleasant saga that followed – but from a position of total triumph.

A useful time to be reminded that there will always be some Kanye who wants to literally or metaphorically grab the mic off you in your big moment, and tell you that, actually, you are shit and undeserving. Women shouldn’t have to get past that – but every day, plenty are showing that you can. It’s the sad men and their dwindling audiences who can’t, but they will end up self-limited and part of yesterday. As Taylor put it so very quotably in her Time interview victory lap: “Trash takes itself out every single time.”

Put it another way: speaking of sad men and their dwindling audiences, this reptile trash takes itself out every single time, but the pond is here to help the garbage workers, routinely overloaded with trash ...

And so to close with a humanising Xmas joke from Wilcox, hoping against hope that next year will take a turn for the better, and not a turn to the batter's bat ...