It being Friday, there will be Cicero and a Groaning ...

 

Ain't the Streisand effect a bloody marvel? 

There it was, back again in the Graudian: How Gina Rinehart and her backers pressured the NGA to remove her portrait.

You could also find it in the Nine papers as Inside the campaign to take down Gina Rinehart’s portraits (soft paywall).

Naturally Golding in the Nine papers found it irresistible.

So how could the pond resist? The entire point of the Streisand effect is that everyone must keep talking about it.

This was some of the Graudian version, quoting the Nine rags because that's what you do:

...Namatjira’s portrait of Australia’s richest woman was one of many works unveiled at the Canberra gallery as part of the Archibald prize-winning artist’s first major survey exhibition, Australia in Colour. It hung alongside images of Queen Elizabeth II, football player Adam Goodes, Ned Kelly, and a self-portrait of the artist himself.
The exhibition ended on 21 July, but attracted global attention in mid-May after reports Rinehart had lobbied the gallery to remove her image.
Nine newspapers reported Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers and the Swimming Queensland CEO, Kevin Hasemann, had also campaigned for its removal.
Rinehart, an avid swimming fan, had contributed millions in support to some of Australia’s elite swim stars.
Mitzevich told a Senate estimates hearing in May that visitors to the NGA had grown 24% since the story broke.
The story was covered in the New York Post, CNN, Daily Mirror, the BBC, South China Morning Post and US talkshow The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Mitzevich told estimates the gallery had received 125 articles of correspondence about Rinehart’s portrait; 47 were negative and eight requested the painting be removed from the exhibition.

Yes, indeed, the pond did catch it on Colbert ... (warning, News Corp link)

Here, have another cartoon to celebrate:

Oh, that's a harsh comparison to a scene the pond still finds hard to watch ...

Now to return to the doings of the reptiles at the lizard Oz, with only one thought uppermost in the pond's mind. 

Was it going to be a Thucydides day, or perhaps even a double Thucydides?

Nah, it was a Lachy day, and all the old geezers and codgers were there to kiss the ring of the new Don ... including but not limited to snaps of ...

 

That reminded the pond of the restraint shown by Michael Bradley in his coverage of the Succession saga, noted yesterday by the pond in its late arvo post...

Not once did Bradley mention the madness and hubris and shattered pride of King Lear in his Crikey piece ... Rupert’s legal argument finally drops the facade that News was ever a news business at all, 'In the end, Rupert Murdoch is just another king, on a lonely throne, ruling an empire of cards, scheming, ever scheming, to keep doing so even from the grave.' (paywall)

Inter alia ...

...In proceedings in a Nevada probate court (which deals with estate disputes), Rupert is seeking to change the terms of the trust deed, removing the current four-way power split to replace it with a structure under which Lachlan will have unchallengeable control.

He is relying on a loophole in the original deed, which says that changes can be made if they are done “in good faith” and “with the sole purpose of benefiting all of” the beneficiaries.

Prudence, Elisabeth and James have combined forces (answering another question) and are opposing Rupert’s application. The first round went to him, in that the probate commissioner has ruled that his case isn’t hopeless. It will now go to a full trial, to determine the two key issues: is Rupert acting in good faith, and is the change he wants for the benefit of all six children?

One might argue that the first question has already been answered; the public record of Rupert’s conduct, since before we were all born, speaks for itself. I don’t know if one can introduce tendency evidence (evidence that shows a person has a propensity for acting in a particular way) in a Nevada probate court, but I’d be backing a very large truck up to the court’s door with the literal tonnes of proof that Rupert’s sole conception of any form of faith is his faith that what Rupert wants, Rupert gets.

His argument on the second question provides a fascinating insight into how his brain works: according to court documents, as reported by the NYT, Rupert is arguing “that he is trying to protect James, Elisabeth and Prudence by ensuring that they won’t be able to moderate Fox’s politics or disrupt its operations with constant fights over leadership”. Apparently, their “lack of consensus … would impact the strategic direction at both companies including a potential reorientation of editorial policy”. That is, they don’t know what’s best for them; but Rupert does.

Gotta stop you there, old mate. Here we were all these years thinking you were just an old-school newspaper guy, ferociously protective of the traditions of independent journalism, never dictating to your editors, apolitical, letting the stories go wherever the facts took them, respecting your readers’ desire for the unvarnished truth.

Turns out you have — in your own words — been running a political operation all along, where “strategic direction” means “in line with my beliefs”. Shock, horreur.

What is utterly fascinating about this situation, apart from the spectacle of a family whose sole shared values are power and money, playing out their tragedy to whatever grubby ending the court’s verdict decides, is Rupert’s willingness to finally drop the façade that News was ever a news business at all.

It turns out that there is something more important to Rupert than maintaining that big lie, even after it was graphically exposed by the revelations in the Dominion defamation case. He will sacrifice News’ claim to integrity, even at risk of its commercial viability, on the altar of something far more dear to him: control.

In the end, Rupert Murdoch is just another king, on a lonely throne, ruling an empire of cards, scheming, ever scheming, to keep doing so even from the grave. This litigation — against his own children — confirms the worst anyone ever said of him.

Such restraint. In the end, a mention of a king on a lonely throne and the lear in "clearly" was as close as Bradley got, though almost any verse would have done, especially given the Learian overtones nakedly on parade in Succession ...

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?

I am mightily abused; I should e’en die with pity

To see another thus. I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands. Let’s see.

I feel this pinprick. Would I were assured

Of my condition!

Or

Pray do not mock:

I am a very foolish fond old man,

Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less,

And to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you and know this man,

Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is, and all the skill I have

Remembers not these garments; nor I know not

Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,

For, as I am a man, I think this lad

To be my child, far right power hungry Lachy ...

Or

Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not.

If you have poison for me, I will drink it.

I know you do not love me, for your siblings

Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.

You have some cause; they have not.

Or

You won't see any of that in the lizard Oz hive mind, busy celebrating the new king ...

Never mind, time to totter off to ancient times with our Henry, though given that the Google bot puts the old dodderer at 71, he might be expected to be a tad sensitive about the age thingie ...

What learning and what sublime lack of relevance have we here, almost Learian in its intensity. 

Given the topic, the prospect of a Thucydides reference dropped a little, but the pond has every hope ancient Rome will add a touch of glamour to the proceedings. In the meantime, the reptiles offered sundry former Prezzies as visual distractions, including a saluting Ronnie Raygun, possibly already in militaristic dementia...

Now, because the present is possibly too painful for the old codger to contemplate, the hole in the bucket man's history lesson for the day begins in earnest ...

Thar he blows, and even though it's just a reference to Cicero, still in the context of the mango Mussolini's cavortings, the pond considers it more than passingly delusional. 

With the pond having once read Cicero (in Penguin translation), the pond will allow the rhetorical flourish ...

And then it was on with more irrelevancy ...

The "inflexibility" of the American constitution? No wonder our Henry used scare quotes, what with assorted Supreme Courts showing remarkable flexibility of interpretation, not least that of the current deeply corrupt bunch of judicial activists, at work to promote the very best causes, in aid of ancient references ...

Truth to tell, the "inflexible" US constitution might flex enough to allow anything, including the staging of a coup, or the stealing of state secrets. It's not Jason Bourne that does that sort of thing...

Then it was on to the final, all too brief, gobbet ...

All that, and he's Just Asking Questions? 

Waiter, bring the pond some of the finest diet Mountain Dew, and we'll all jawbone a few more JAQs ...

And so to Dame Groan as a bonus, though it's more of a relief, because the pond hasn't the slightest interest in a bout of union bashing from the old biddie, but is ever so pleased to see her back at her post. 

She too is of an age in the reptile columnist gerontocracy - the Google bot puts her at 69 - and the pond was incredibly anxious about her failure to appear on the Tuesday in her regular slot.

What joy to see the old biddie back and firing on her usual one cylinder, and with a few astonishing reveals ...

The reptiles interrupted the rant with a copious array of illustrations... with a furtive looking comrade Dan the new Jack Lang ...

The reptiles can never get enough of a scowling comrade Dan, he could last for another decade as an object of ire, perhaps even longer ... but back to the reveals ...

That's the real reason? The pond headed off to Dr Matthew Mitchell railing at the link back in 2014, with the fuss even earning its own wiki ...and you could read L'Age back in April 2015, Victorian government settles East West Link claim for $339m.

The pond regards it as a form of low Victorian comedy, down there with the alleged rail line to the airport, which will be completed long after the pond has gone. 

But how can Emerald City pundits laugh and mock? After all the Parramatta Road light rail proposal (SMH) has been disinterred yet again, with splendid snaps ...

Outrageous ... the pond is thinking of writing to council demanding that the concrete slab currently in place here ...

... be kept as a heritage item.

You don't see majestic concrete slabs covering a block every day of the week.

That said, to blame all these follies on just a union? 

Surely that's pushing the envelope just a little, even for Dame Groan doing a splendid groaning.

Still, there were even bigger reveals ...

They're all men?

Who knew that Dame Groan was a raging feminist? Next thing you know she might develop a soft spot for climate change and renewables and turn activist...

Best not to push the window too far, but as regular readers will know, as well as endless rants about renewables, Dame Groan can be relied on to groan on endlessly about pesky, difficult, uppity furriners ruining everything.

Whaddayahno? We should put 'em to work building endless motorways ...

Who knew Dame Slap was pro-woman and pro-migrant?

With this new spirit, is it too much to imagine that Dame Groan might soon clear the renewables bar?

Nah, it's surely a bridge too far ... especially as there was just a gobbet to go, and the Dame reverted to her usual grumpiness ...

The pond must take its pleasures where it finds them, and that rich Groaning in favour of women and migrants are gems to be plucked from the diatribe ...

What next? If not renewables, perhaps ...

Meanwhile, the genocide goes on, and the infallible Pope was to hand ...

Not being sporty, the pond didn't have an excuse to link to the immortal Rowe, though it did enjoy the merde in the water...

As always, it's in the detail and surely C’est de la merde ce truc...