In which the pond settles for the early morning delights of a Polonial prattle, the Angelic One doing patriarchy, and a bonus offering of the pasty Hastie...

 

The pond's problems continue apace ... what to do with a surfeit of deserving reptiles? Just ignore some, leave them under their rock, and walk on by?

In the case of a deeply weird Dame Slap outing, and a deeply tedious "Ned" regurgitation of the thoughts of others, the temptation was strong.

The pond settled on a compromise. 

That pair would be banished to a late Sunday arvo posting, a rare enough event, thereby clearing space for a more traditional Sunday morning meditation ...

Naturally that meant Polonius could maintain pole position with his prattle, even if it were a tedious bit of Tingling (for the real Tingle, punters and pond dwellers must await the deeply weird Dame Slap outing).

Of course the Tingling brought together Polonius's pet peeves in an ABC moment ...

Standard Polonial stuff, to which a galah might say ...

Naturally the reptiles had their own visual distractions ...

Before proceeding further, the pond should add that of course the pond read Margaret Simons' In publicising Laura Tingle’s ‘counselling’, the ABC risks giving the bullies a victory, No matter what the national broadcaster does, News Corp and the Australian will keep gnawing at it ...

There are a few things we can assume the ABC board and executive know only too well.

First, News Corporation, and the Australian newspaper in particular, will always attack the ABC. The reasons are a mixture of ideology and commerce. The ABC is a competitor for audience, and more trusted than any News Corporation publication, as repeated studies confirm.

As for ideology, News Corporation has made no secret of its belief that public broadcasting should be commercialised or sold off.

Secondly, anyone who attacks or criticises News Corporation will in turn be attacked by them, and with the kind of relentlessness and distortion that reminds one of a stalker – an obsessive, attention-seeking love-hate.

Anyone who doesn’t understand these things is ignorant of the verities of the Australian media scene, and therefore should either wise up or not be on the board or the executive. But as I say, I am sure they know.

It follows that the ABC should not be too quick to react to the latest outburst of nuttiness.

And yet Laura Tingle, one of the most senior and respected political journalists in the country, was on Wednesday the subject of a public statement from her boss, ABC news director Justin Stevens, saying she had been “counselled” (a quintessentially passive aggressive ABC word) over comments she made during a panel discussion at the Sydney writers’ festival. This followed days of fevered headlines in the Australian.

It could be read as hanging her out to dry.

Tingle issued a simultaneous statement both defending herself at length over the few phrases that had drawn the ire of the Australian, drawing attention to the things that were not being reported meanwhile (ahem, the budget) and also admitting regret that the nature of the discussion had meant her comments were not substantiated and contextualised in the way they would have been if she had been writing for the ABC.

Tingle, of course, would hardly be surprised by the pile-on by the Australian.

She has both skewered and predicted the phenomenon.

Three weeks ago, she gave the John Button oration in Melbourne, on the topic of “off course” public discourse.

It was a lengthy, layered and intellectually nuanced speech. I cannot do it justice here. But given the topic, it was inevitable that she talked about News Corporation. Her words are worth quoting at some length.

"Let’s leave aside the daily investment of resources invested in News Corp journalists in search of stories with which to troll the ABC … It’s a little mystifying how a company that has had to pay out an estimated $2 billion – so far – in legal settlements for illegally hacking peoples phones, and other invasions of privacy, has set itself up as an arbiter of journalistic standards. While big media corporations seem to have felt no great responsibility to account for what they have done, the ABC’s public funding gives it an obligation to do so, as best it can ... The News Corp campaigns against public broadcasters like the ABC, or for that matter whatever public figure/idea they are pursuing, is relentless and all embracing."

I was at that speech. Afterwards, members of the audience speculated on how long it would be before the Australian made Tingle pay for her remarks.

And, three weeks later, here we are.

And so, here we are, and the pond will leave the rest of the Simons' read to return to Polonius ...

The pond was astonished, surprised, disappointed, neigh appalled, that Polonius had failed to mention that the ABC is a conservative-free zone.

The dollar the pond gets each time Polonius produces that line is essential to the pond's retirement savings, though admittedly it's amazing how a dollar a time can turn into squillions by dint of incessant Polonial repetition.

Oh wait, the pond can relax, all that needed to be done was to read on ...

What was that again?

There are a few things we can assume the ABC board and executive know only too well.

First, News Corporation, and the Australian newspaper in particular, will always attack the ABC. The reasons are a mixture of ideology and commerce. The ABC is a competitor for audience, and more trusted than any News Corporation publication, as repeated studies confirm.

As for ideology, News Corporation has made no secret of its belief that public broadcasting should be commercialised or sold off.

Secondly, anyone who attacks or criticises News Corporation will in turn be attacked by them, and with the kind of relentlessness and distortion that reminds one of a stalker – an obsessive, attention-seeking love-hate.

In the case of Polonius,  it verges on the psychotic ... a fatal attraction ...

Another advantage of hiving off the deeply weird Dame Slap and the regurgitating "Ned" to a late arvo slot?

There was room for a quiet achiever, that brave little Canberra mum, the Angelic one. 

Now there might be some who deny it, but everyone loves the Angelic one and the way she sorts out the world's problems with a few stern words, and if necessary, a firm hand ... and this weekend she sorted out addiction issues ... and right from the get go, the reptiles turned up a stunning snap to help her ...

The pond wasn't actually reading the Angelic one on a smart phone,  in the pond's opinion most phones are dumb, but was delighted by that stock photo, and the way it turned up all over the place ...

Even better was the way the models turned up in that last snap. 

When you do these photo shoots, you want to get every bit of value you can out of having the models turn up... so suddenly the deeply alienated mum was blissfully connected and sharing her connection with her spawn, no longer bored or alienated ...

You see? Give the mum a phone and decent boosted wifi signal and suddenly you can be at one with your kids ...

Okay, okay, that's the real reason the pond booted deeply weird Dame Slap and regurgitating "Ned" to a late arvo slot ... how else to find the space to wander off into the strange world of lizard Oz stock photos, so much cheaper than a graphics department ...

Meanwhile, the Angelic one was still rabbiting on ...

Indeed, indeed, harden the fuck up parents, join a Catholic church of your choice ...

And at that moment the reptiles ran another deeply weird stock photo ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, that perfidious image suggests that children and adult might be sharing a moment by gazing at a screen.

What would that do to the lizard Oz print model?

Relax, the Angelic one has the matter in hand ... patriarchy rulez ...

Barking mad of course, with that blather about authority, discipline, hierarchy and a Taliban-style love of the patriarchy familiar turf ... 

The question of 'nationalizing' a people is first and foremost one of establishing healthy social conditions which will furnish the grounds that are necessary for the education of the individual. For only when family upbringing and school education have inculcated in the individual a knowledge of the cultural and economic and, above all, the political greatness of his own country--then, and then only, will it be possible for him to feel proud of being a citizen of such a country. I can fight only for something that I love. I can love only what I respect. And in order to respect a thing I must at least have some knowledge of it.

Dammit, let us put an end to these bloody liberal nirvanas, and rejoin the church where no one has a say ... it's the only way forward (and what's wrong with a leather strap if judiciously applied?)

And so to the bonus, and here again there's a reason that the pond bumped the truly weird Dame Slap and nattering "Ned" off to a late arvo slot...

Usually the pond wouldn't run a politician scribbling for the reptiles but the pastie Hastie is an exception to the rule ...

With the greatest respect to Bloom and Shakspere there's not much to be learned about war from Henry V, or at least war which moved beyond archers and knights on horses, though there's possibly something to learn about jingoism, nationalism, and the canny way that Shakspere managed to stay out of harm's way in Elizabethan times ...

And with the greatest respect, there's not much to learn from Larry except how to to ham with extraordinary skill ...

The pond still gives the same weighty emphasis on how to say Uhhhkkkkrannnne the way that Larry did in The World at War ...

Speaking of the war in Ukraine, how goes it? 'Time is our life': Volodymyr Zelenskiy on balancing urgency with diplomacy in the war against Russia ...

Oh dear, just as well the hasty pastie completely ignored an actual war going down right at this moment against a genuine psychopath ...

But mention of girding of loins stimulated the Hastie pastie into a fervour, sounding a cry of battle ...

Is there a whiff of conscription in the wind?

Shush, it would be unfair to mention the astonishing triumph of the war in Afghanistan, and the salvation of Afghani women from a monstrous Taliban, getting worse by the day.

Instead to the real reason that the pond enjoys the hastie pastie ... and it's very Angelic one ...

The most profound influence in my life has been my family. Family is central to a healthy society, and we must protect and cultivate that institution. Family gives people support when they falter and allows those who falter to recover themselves. I have grown up in a stable and loving environment, given to me by my parents, Peter and Sue. My father, from my earliest days, has taught me the importance of seeking the truth and living consistently with my convictions; to establish my principles and adhere to them. (First speech)

It's been yonks since the pond celebrated creationism ...

If you head off to Creation Ministries you can still find ... The greatest hoax ...

And the truth about horses, which is just as well because the pond can only offer a sample ...

And so on to a final gobbet of the hastie pastie preparing for war, and no doubt we shall smite and smote our enemies the way we smoted the Taliban mightily, and saved Afghan women from a patriarchal fate (what's that, the Angelic one and the Taliban are at one when it comes to the patriarchy?)

Now please, in the final gobbet, pay heed to talk of objective values, you know, the resurrection, transubstantiation, burning bushes, water into wine, the curing of lepers, miracles in general, and the rapture, heaven, hell, purgatory, perhaps even limbo, and such like, though depending on your orientation, you could spend hours mounting a subtle yet pervasive attack on objective values, what with no one seeming to have a clue what that might mean to feuding Xians ...

Revive the best elements of classical learning? What a pity that the learned hastie pastie made no mention of names beyond Shakspere and Bloom, and yet surely he should have nominated a few,  so we could all diss Darwin and be creationists together ...

We will lose the fight in the mind before the first shot is even fired? Surely not, surely creationism is the answer, and we will use it to give the Taliban another sound thrashing, just like the last one ...

And so with regret the pond must advise that cartoons have been held over to the late arvo edition, on the basis that it's impossible to read a "Ned" offering without a generous supply of 'toons ...

All the pond can offer as a substitute is a quandary.

If a thing becomes a much loved meme that spreads around the world ...

... should the pond contribute to the plague, the infestation?

Oh sheesh, it was just too delicious, and besides the reptiles have been ignoring the UK election in much the same way they ignored the trial of the century (thus far) ... and so attention must be paid ...