Right, guilty as charged, the pond has been using the pretence of herpetological studies and the reptiles at the lizard Oz as an excuse to indulge wider interests in a wider world.
There'll be none of that sort of avoidance this morning, no Tootling off the tracks, the pond will get right down to it at the get go ...
Hang hang, does that mean the pond has to pander to the jerking Jennings, doing his best to help Captain Spud's current campaign of racism, bigotry and hysteria by blathering about visas and security risks?
So the pond can't mention Golding's assessment of today's risk?
Or Wilcox helping out with a schooner (no, the pond won't explain that term to Victorians)?
Does that mean the pond has to ignore developments in Ukraine?
This is what the dour old both siderist rag managed to put at the top of its digital edition ...
And WaPo did the same ...
Oh there's plenty of links and plenty of viewing, pretty much anywhere outside the top of the lizard Oz's digital edition.
The pond's supposed to ignore all those stories, like the reptiles, and thus have no excuse to do a segue to the immortal Rowe of the day?
Bugger that, it's always fun when Rowe gets into one of his anal moods, couldn't happen to a nicer sociopath ...
And meanwhile, what news of the planet?
Just because Lloydie of the Amazon has gone MIA and neither Hyde or hare of him has been seen since the 18th July, suddenly the pond is supposed to assume all is well, and not to worry?
But the Graudian has been running exceptionally hot of late, sending alarmist vibes down the pond's spine.
‘We should have better answers by now’: climate scientists baffled by unexpected pace of heating
Last month marked the world’s hottest July on record, US scientists say
Revealed: Shell oil non-profit donated to anti-climate groups behind Project 2025
Fallout from Woodside’s birthday bash shows Australia is far from united in climate fight
Even the dour old gray lady tried witha graphics-laden How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points? Earth’s warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse.
Those are all genuine, certified links, which unlike being trapped in the reptile hive mind and never being able to leave, will take you off to more interesting places ...
Then there was the latest record in the Gaza genocide ...
And so on and so forth, and just because the reptiles aren't interested in records, whether in heat or the killing fields, suddenly the pond is supposed to give all that away just so it can read the hole in the bucket man still bleating on about Officeworks, and with nary a mention of Thucydides?
Golly, herpetology studies are bleak, nobody warned the pond there'd be days like these when it began the trudge long, long ago, a misty time whited out by long lost memories of the Duffster..
Sheesh, alright, alright, but you have to be deeply, bloody perverse ...
Oh sheesh, 40k plus dead and he's worried about grandma and grammar?
This is going to be tough, and of course the pond isn't helped by the way that the reptiles stick in video clips as a form of distraction...
Oh alright, alright, the hole in the bucket man is still at it ...
Well-defined processes? Like watching Faux Noise?
Really? Hannah Arendt, complete with huge snap, not on offer to Adam Smith, though surely the reptiles could have found one for free in the archives ...
That set the pond off again.
Zaretsky ended his piece this way ...
Sorry, the pond just has to mention this yarn at WaPo by Marianne LeVine and Clara Ence Morse...Why Trump keeps talking about fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, (paywall) Trump is the “crypt keeper for the 1980s,” a Trump biographer said. Trump has mentioned Lecter while making baseless claims about immigrants.
It's simply too silly, and yet it's an exemplary example of how to poison discourse and provides inspiration for the work of Captain Spud ...
Hannibal Lecter is a cannibalistic serial killer, a lover of fava beans and a nice chianti, fictional — and now, a regular feature in Donald Trump’s speeches.
As the Republican presidential nominee riffed on immigration and the border at an Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta, he declared: “They hate when I use Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The late, great Hannibal Lecter,” an apparent reference to the media.
During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last month, he asked: “Has anyone seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner. That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums.”
In Wildwood, N.J., on May 11, he told the crowd: “The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man. … Remember the last scene?” Trump went on to say: “We have people that are being released into our country that we don’t want in our country.”
Trump’s references to Lecter are at once consistent and nonsensical. He typically mentions the fictional serial killer in the context of immigration, claiming without evidence that migrants are coming in from insane asylums and mental institutions and often using dehumanizing language.
Around 1 percent of those arrested at the southern border have criminal convictions, federal data shows. There is little evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crime than U.S. citizens do. Many migrants who cross the U.S. border seek political asylum here, but that term has nothing to do with mental illness. Trump has also spoken about Lecter before reading “The Snake,” a poem that he has used to convey an anti-immigrant message at his rallies and public events for years.
Yet the references to Lecter reveal something else about Trump: the era in which he rose to fame and his previous time as a celebrity. A Trump rally is a sort of time capsule, a frozen-in-amber moment from an earlier era — the 1980s — when Trump ruled the New York City clubs and tabloids and first graced the cover of Time magazine.
His self-curated rally playlists include hits like “Y.M.C.A.” (1978) and “Gloria” (1982). The fit of his suits and the length of his ties scream 1980s. He still has a penchant for gilded interior design. Trump Tower was completed in 1983.
Trump is the “crypt keeper for the 1980s,” which was “the high point of his life until he became president,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer who has criticized the former president.
“Every time he opens the door, people spill out from the 1980s, whether it’s Roger Stone or Rudy Giuliani, fashion from the ’80s spills out, whether it’s his monochrome tie or suits that invariably are made in two or three different colors … his office decor is still in the 1980s,” he said. “None of his tastes have been updated in decades.”
Trump’s Hannibal Lecter obsession fits perfectly in this mold. Thomas Harris’s novel “The Silence of the Lambs,” which the film is based on, hit bookstore shelves around the same time as Trump’s 1987 book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal.” (The New York Times had the two books side by side on its paperback bestseller list in mid-1989.) The movie, which starred Jodie Foster as FBI cadet Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, came out in 1991 and won the Academy Award for best picture.
Indeed, indeed, the pond really should have waited to feature that Luckovich when most relevant ...
A decade later, Trump attended the 2001 New York premiere of “Hannibal,” the sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs.” He arrived at the premiere with future wife Melania Trump, then Melania Knauss, according to a USA Today story. The story noted that the movie studio at the time was concerned about how women would react to the gore. Melania said she had “no problems” and didn’t close her eyes. Trump replied: “I did.”
Trump began working “The Silence of the Lambs” into speeches in March 2023. He mentioned the movie in an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference then, according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches this cycle. Lecter himself did not make an appearance until an October rally in Waterloo, Iowa. In 70 speeches tracked by The Post between his campaign kickoff in November 2022 and Aug. 12, Trump has mentioned Lecter or the film “The Silence of the Lambs” in 20 of them. (Trump appeared to recognize the references to Lecter may be outdated, musing at a rally in Sioux City that “young people” hadn’t heard of him.)
The Lecter mentions are a way for Trump to continue “upping the ante” from his previous descriptions of migrants, said Gwenda Blair, another Trump biographer. It’s “not just criminals, rapists, which Trump has already used starting in 2015 … but let’s get cannibal in the mix.”
Trump “is somebody who understands images and branding, and Hannibal Lecter is a well-established brand of absolutely indescribable horror,” Blair added.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is running for Senate, thinks there’s a simple explanation. “It was a great movie,” Banks said. “Widely recognized as one of the best movies of all time. And I think he enjoys that liberals get bent out of shape about it.”
Several people close to the Trump campaign said they did not know the backstory for Trump’s fixation on Lecter and had never asked. His speeches also seem to have perplexed Hopkins, the Welsh actor who won an Oscar for playing Lecter. In an interview with Deadline, Hopkins observed: “Hannibal, that’s a long time ago, that movie. God, that was over 30 years ago. I’m shocked and appalled what you’ve told me about Trump.”
In interviews at Trump’s rally in Atlanta, voters offered different interpretations.
“First time I heard it, I was like, ‘What?’ But after I heard it a couple of times, it was like, ‘Oh, I get the connection now,’” said Jim Scandle, 72. “He’s trying to make the point that a lot of these people that are coming illegally in this country are from mental institutions, just like Hannibal Lecter. And so you know, it has nothing to do with Hannibal Lecter except the fact that he was in a mental institution.”
Bert Sandler, 66, laughed when asked about “The Silence of the Lambs.” (Sandler hasn’t seen the movie in “probably” six years but exclaimed, “With fava beans!” as he reflected on Trump’s comments.)
He had a more philosophical interpretation.
“I think he’s just speaking about where the world is today,” Sandler said. “I think that’s where we are, the divisiveness. I think he’s just trying to portray a character that’s pretty divisive and needed a lot of help, and I think America needs a lot of help.”
Debbie Courtney offered a shorter take: “I just think evil.” She added: “I don’t think he’s talking about somebody eating somebody for dinner.”
The Trump campaign did not offer further clarification about the former president’s penchant for mentioning Lecter or volunteer his personal positions on fava beans and chianti. Instead, Steven Cheung replied in a statement: “President Trump is an inspiring and gifted storyteller and referencing pop culture is one of many reasons why he can successfully connect with the audience and voters. Whereas, [Vice President Kamala Harris] is as relatable as a worn-out couch.”
Heck, that was some kind of detour, and at the end Cheung went the couch, perhaps a tad off given JD's deep and abiding love of couches, and never mind if they're a tad worn by use ...
Okay, okay, enough already with the couch jokes, time to get serious, the pond can sense it, and the pontificating pomposity of the old curmudgeon cries out for attention ...
There was Robert Zaretsky invoking Arendt some months ago (sorry paywall) ...
...Arendt, who was rightly preoccupied over the place of Palestinians in postwar Zionist thought, would hasten to add there are other and equally grim reminders. Most important, she would likely support the detailed charges brought by the ICC prosecutor, based on evidence that arguably goes beyond a reasonable doubt, that while Israel has the right to defend itself, it failed in its duty to comply with international law. This comprehends not just its disproportionate level of killing and destruction—which would include this week's missle strike on a refugee camp in Rafah—and the deliberate use of starvation of the civilian population.
Ironically, Israeli and Palestinian critics have found common ground in deriding these charges because they reflect a moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel's actions.
But Arendt would reply that the most vital of common grounds instead lies in the "paradoxical plurality of unique beings." Just as Hamas ended the lives of 1,200 unique beings on October 7, Israel has ended the lives of tens of thousands of unique beings, many of them civilians, in the months that have followed. The absolute equivalency of all these unique lives, Arendt would insist, is the only equivalency that matters.
That reminded the pond of the fuss surrounding Martha Gessen. They got into trouble with the Germans, reported in the Graudian in Samantha Hill's Hannah Arendt would not qualify for the Hannah Arendt prize in Germany today
..The Foundation, which is affiliated with the German Green party, founded the prize not to honor Arendt but to “honor individuals who identify critical and unseen aspects of current political events and who are not afraid to enter the public realm by representing their opinion in controversial political discussions”, withdrew its support, causing the city of Bremen to withdraw its support, leading to an initial cancellation of the event altogether. The Foundation said Gessen’s comparison was “unacceptable”, but has since backtracked and has now said that they stand behind the award.
Here is the offending passage from Gessen’s New Yorker article, In the Shadow of the Holocaust:
“But as in the Jewish ghettoes of Occupied Europe, there are no prison guards –Gaza is policed not by the occupiers but by a local force. Presumably, the more fitting term ‘ghetto’ would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”
The irony is almost too thick to cut.
Hannah Arendt would not qualify for the Hannah Arendt prize. She would be cancelled in Germany today for her political position on Israel and opinions about contemporary Zionism, which she remained critical of from 1942 until her death in 1975. As a Jewish German woman who was forced to flee Germany in 1933, after being arrested and detained by the Gestapo, Arendt’s writing on Germany would be more controversial than Gessen’s own. The comparison from Gessen’s essay, which caused such uproar, closely echoes a passage from Arendt’s correspondence written from Jerusalem in 1955 to her husband Heinrich Blücher, which is far more damning:
“The galut-and-ghetto mentality is in full bloom. And the idiocy is right in front of everyone’s eyes: Here in Jerusalem I can barely go for a walk, because I might turn the wrong corner and find myself ‘abroad’, ie, in Arab territory. Essentially it’s the same everywhere. On top of that, they treat the Arabs, those still here, in a way that in itself would be enough to rally the whole world against Israel.”
Gessen’s comparison was more light-footed than Arendt’s, whose reflection appears eerily prescient, but their rhetorical tact wasn’t enough to stop the censors at the gate in Germany who police what one can and cannot say about Israel, cowing the Foundation into compliance.
Gessen's December 2023 piece, In the Shadow of the Holocaust, can be found at The New Yorker, though maybe paywalled, the pond can't tell because it automatically drops in ...
They still make points that remain bleakly relevant... and yes, Arendt did feature ...
...In 1948, Hannah Arendt wrote an open letter that began, “Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the ‘Freedom Party’ (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.” Just three years after the Holocaust, Arendt was comparing a Jewish Israeli party to the Nazi Party, an act that today would be a clear violation of the I.H.R.A.’s definition of antisemitism. Arendt based her comparison on an attack carried out in part by the Irgun, a paramilitary predecessor of the Freedom Party, on the Arab village of Deir Yassin, which had not been involved in the war and was not a military objective. The attackers “killed most of its inhabitants—240 men, women, and children—and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem.”
The occasion for Arendt’s letter was a planned visit to the United States by the party’s leader, Menachem Begin. Albert Einstein, another German Jew who fled the Nazis, added his signature. Thirty years later, Begin became Prime Minister of Israel. Another half century later, in Berlin, the philosopher Susan Neiman, who leads a research institute named for Einstein, spoke at the opening of a conference called “Hijacking Memory: The Holocaust and the New Right.” She suggested that she might face repercussions for challenging the ways in which Germany now wields its memory culture. Neiman is an Israeli citizen and a scholar of memory and morals. One of her books is called “Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil.” In the past couple of years, Neiman said, memory culture had “gone haywire.”
Germany’s anti-B.D.S. resolution, for example, has had a distinct chilling effect on the country’s cultural sphere. The city of Aachen took back a ten-thousand-euro prize it had awarded to the Lebanese-American artist Walid Raad; the city of Dortmund and the jury for the fifteen-thousand-euro Nelly Sachs Prize similarly rescinded the honor that they had bestowed on the British-Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie. The Cameroonian political philosopher Achille Mbembe had his invitation to a major festival questioned after the federal antisemitism commissioner accused him of supporting B.D.S. and “relativizing the Holocaust.” (Mbembe has said that he is not connected with the boycott movement; the festival itself was cancelled because of COVID.)
The director of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, Peter Schäfer, resigned in 2019 after being accused of supporting B.D.S.—he did not, in fact, support the boycott movement, but the museum had posted a link, on Twitter, to a newspaper article that included criticism of the resolution. The office of Benjamin Netanyahu had also asked Merkel to cut the museum’s funding because, in the Israeli Prime Minister’s opinion, its exhibition on Jerusalem paid too much attention to the city’s Muslims. (Germany’s B.D.S. resolution may be unique in its impact but not in its content: a majority of U.S. states now have laws on the books that equate the boycott with antisemitism and withhold state funding from people and institutions that support it.)
After the “We Need to Talk” symposium was cancelled, Breitz and Rothberg regrouped and came up with a proposal for a symposium called “We Still Need to Talk.” The list of speakers was squeaky clean. A government entity vetted everyone and agreed to fund the gathering. It was scheduled for early December. Then Hamas attacked Israel. “We knew that after that every German politician would see it as extremely risky to be connected with an event that had Palestinian speakers or the word ‘apartheid,’” Breitz said.
On October 17th, Breitz learned that funding had been pulled. Meanwhile, all over Germany, police were cracking down on demonstrations that call for a ceasefire in Gaza or manifest support for Palestinians. Instead of a symposium, Breitz and several others organized a protest. They called it “We Still Still Still Still Need to Talk.” About an hour into the gathering, police quietly cut through the crowd to confiscate a cardboard poster that read “From the River to the Sea, We Demand Equality.” The person who had brought the poster was a Jewish Israeli woman.
The “Fulfilling Historical Responsibility” proposal has since languished in committee. Still, the performative battle against antisemitism kept ramping up. In November, the planning of Documenta, one of the art world’s most important shows, was thrown into disarray after the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung dug up a petition that a member of the artistic organizing committee, Ranjit Hoskote, had signed in 2019. The petition, written to protest a planned event on Zionism and Hindutva in Hoskote’s home town of Mumbai, denounced Zionism as “a racist ideology calling for a settler-colonial, apartheid state where non-Jews have unequal rights, and in practice, has been premised on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on it under the heading “Antisemitism.” Hoskote resigned and the rest of the committee followed suit. A week later, Breitz read in a newspaper that a museum in Saarland had cancelled an exhibit of hers, which had been planned for 2024, “in view of the media coverage about the artist in connection with her controversial statements in the context of Hamas’ war of aggression against the state of Israel.”
And so on and on, and how refreshing to read a writer who can actually write in a way that isn't ponderous, pompous and pedantic, and with actual insights and actual skin in the game.
But then they're up against the humbug on offer from the hole in the bucket man, so it's hardly a fair fight.
Never mind, dooty is dooty, and here's his final gobbet, the banality of scribbling weevils ...
Rehabilitating and insisting upon the exercise of legitimate authority would be an excellent place to start?
"Mein Führer, I can walk!” screams Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers), the ex-Nazi nuclear scientist, rising from his wheelchair to salute old authoritarian Henry. (The 50th anniversary was in 2014? How old the pond feels some days).
Meanwhile, on another planet, and without a peep from our Henry ...
Yes, the pond realises it's run that once before, but sometimes things are worth doing twice, especially as it helps explain why the pond is gloating along with the infallible Pope.
While deploying his whistles, Captain Spud's team turned out to be remarkably incompetent ... (and doesn't he look weirder in the 'toons by the day, why that horse almost matches the meme)...
Yes, the pond is still wired, but confesses it came from Colbert ... but those horses are a good match ...
That's the way it's gonna be, little darlin'
We'll be riding on the horses, yeah, yeah
Way up in the sky, little darlin'
And if you fall I'll pick you up, pick you up ...
"...a schooner (no, the pond won't explain that term to Victorians)" Don't you worry 'bout that, DP, in these degenerate days we Vics know all about 425ml 'schooners' (compared to 570ml pints).
ReplyDeleteBut I do wonder whether the 140ml 'pony' (just for the ladies in the 'saloon bar') ever made it north of the mexican-proof fence.
Based on my youthful memories of working in one NSW pub (and drinking in a hell of a lot more…) GB, the 5oz beer glass was pretty much unknown in that State. The smallest regular serve was a 7oz - I think it was usually called just that, “a Seven”. In some establishments ordering that size if you were a bloke could earn you a few funny looks and questions regarding your manhood…..
DeleteThat sorta confirms what I thought, Anony, the 'pony' never made it north. In Melbourne, back when I first started drinking in pubs (when I was 16 and in 'Leaving' as it was called back then) the 7oz was the most common size and just basically called 'a glass' and it wasn't until some years later that first the 'pot' (10oz) and later larger sizes became the norm.
Delete"Earth’s warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse." Yair, I reckon that, if they could, the dinosaurs would seriously object to the irreversible changes that saw them extincted. Isn't it amazing that there was, once upon a time, dinosaurs that occupied Antarctica - back in the Cretaceous period (long ago in the pre-Christ times).
ReplyDeleteJust hope we don't do a Venus this time. Not that it will make any difference to me.
"...long lost memories of the Duffster." Oh yes, the long ago inaugural days of the Michael Duffy Files. I can even very vaguely remember reading some of the Pond's missives directed at Mr Duffy. Can't remember what they were about - memory fades increasingly rapidly with increasing age - but I do remember their existence.
ReplyDeleteIs it worth doing a Duffy Remembrance repost once in a very long while, DP ?
https://loonpond.blogspot.com/2009/08/peter-costello-michael-duffy-paul.html
DeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDelete“What Smith ignored, however, was that the interests of “the butcher, the brewer, or the baker” in promoting civility between people “without any mutual love or affection”…”
Mmm bakers. Bakers like these maybe;
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-10/american-gay-wedding-cake-case-australia/9849460
I can’t remember Henry pontificating at length about promoting tolerance for same sex marriage.
Yeah, nor can I, DW; must have been something very special about that case such that Henry thought the baker's action justified. What could that possibly be ?
DeleteThe thing is, though, that Henry - along with many others - never makes any attempt to grasp the difference between a fully justified horror at the murderous acts of some Israelis and 'antisemitism' in general. But then, why would he, Thucydides never mentioned such things, did he ?
"segue to the immortal Rowe of the day?".
ReplyDeleteAfter dodging becoming a man, Putin gets his initiation- to the Ukraine Tribe...
"There was one that I couldn’t do, which was hitting the giant wasp nest with the Xavante warriors in Brazil. I came down to the initiation day and I’d been tested out and stung by some smaller wasps and I just couldn’t hack it. The initiation was to climb up into the tree canopy and smash the wasp nest down from the tree and as you’re climbing down you get stung hundreds of times. If they sting you on your nose you can drop ten to twenty metres and it can be really dangerous. So I pulled out of it, I reevaluated and thought, ‘no, I really want to have kids.’
https://manofmany.com/entertainment/boy-man-exclusive-interview-filmaker-tim-noonan
This h'mble etc. has been bemused over the obsessive fixation shown by Sky 'presenters' - mostt notably the Fading Ingenue, Rita Panicky, over the Olympic break(dance) entrant. It was too tedious to track all her references to it each day, but any friends she might have should be worried that she returned to it so often, each time with yet another random 'expert' to join her in hounding the breaker.
ReplyDeleteI did also wonder, if there is any adult supervision at Sky, why that adult did not order better balance between the breaker, and Gina Rinehart's amazing performance in winning about a dozen gold medals all by herself. No doubt Gina has been expecting fulsome praise from Murdoch, if only for her remarkable sportsmanship in allowing the high-jumpers to share those minor medals. That was all the more remarkable, given that those girls had to jump in their Rossis.
If I wasn't quite so acclimatised to Panicky's perfidious peurilism, I'd be just a wee touch bemused too. But those reptiles really do like to try their very hardest to annihilate their woke enemies, don't they.
DeleteRita Panicky?
Deletehttps://assets.americancinematheque.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/08163439/Baby-Jane-HERO.jpg
by the way, Chad, did you ever catch up with this one:
Deletehttps://youtu.be/4ByU1va1Iuo?list=RDEMsTxuEhuS1X4r3KbYWbrfPw
Delightful thanks Anony.
DeleteOr this one, which I've only just come across thanks to youtube's unprompted proposing:
Deletehttps://youtu.be/J5tiSxA0ri0?list=RDEMsTxuEhuS1X4r3KbYWbrfPw
Now I'll have to go and see if I can find Part 1.
Anonymous - my thanks also, with GB. There is a sense of prediction about that, for Rita.
DeleteAnd 'The Mists of Time' - great stuff, even for the middle of the day.
DeleteIs there some Inverse Law of Reptile Obsession which states that the more minor an issue or incident is in the overall scheme of things, the more coverage it receives in Murdoch Media? How many items have been generated by the OfficeWorks incident (none of which have provided any evidence of it being more than a single regrettable occurrence), with Henry’s pompous pontificating about the Good Old Days when the slightest hint of poor service or customer offence would see instant dismissal of the relevant employee, probably followed by summary execution? As noted by another correspondent, the Olympic Breaking Scandal (tm Murdoch Media) is another example of obsessing over the most trivial of matters.
ReplyDeleteBTW, while not seeking to excuse the actions of the OfficeWorks employee in question, I do wonder about the working experience of Henry, et all, in the retail sector. Somehow the Hole in the Bucket Man doesn’t strike me as having worked at a takeaway joint or as a checkout chick in his yoof, and experiencing the sort of shit that frequently comes the way of such junior workers.
Whereas personally I do wonder why so much more offence seems to be taken over the (refusal) action of the Officeworks employee than is taken over the appalling genocide committed by some Jewish Israelis.
DeleteSomething about “the speck in your neighbor's eye”.
DeleteDoncha know, folks, that them Palestinians is all Hamas-luvvin’ terrists? Captain Spud says so, and that’s good enough for the Reptiles!
DeleteFrom the WaPo article: "...claiming without evidence that migrants are coming in from insane asylums...". Now that is just the sort of piss weak 'reportage' that helps to normalise Trump: "claiming without evidence", indeed. No, it isn't just some petty peccadillo that rolls without thought off his tongue, he's either displaying his usual depravity - actually lying through his teeth - and/or displaying his usual insanity. Either of which alone, never mind together, is more than sufficient to disqualify him as a tolerable candidate for president.
ReplyDeleteBut when Steven Cheung reckons re Trump that his "...referencing pop culture is one of many reasons why he can successfully connect with the audience and voters" the normalisation of Trump's insanity is complete. And so, sadly, is the normalisation of the insanity of his dedicated followers.
After all this time and such overwhelming evidence the so-called quality media in the USA is still reluctant to call Trump an unmitigated liar. Hence the use of such polite euphemisms as “without evidence”. I blame a combination of the dreaded both-siderism and the ludicrous reverence so much of the American establishment has for the office of President; there may well be other factors, such as these general pissweak nature.
DeleteToday’s Graudian “Weekly Beast” column refers to Killer Creighton as the Oz’s “outgoing Washington correspondent”. Sounds like good news, except that his replacement will likely be even worse. In a just world Killer would have been given the boot, but given his impeccable alt right conspiracist credentials he’s more likely to gone further up the Reptile ladder.
ReplyDeleteI assume that feeble collage heading Our Henry’s piece is from the remnants Oz graphics department - or perhaps that’s now part of intern duties ? Were the OfficeWorks signage and a Star of David included as the image was otherwise too subtle?
ReplyDeleteDP "Then there was the latest record in the Gaza genocide ..."
ReplyDeleteI'll take Omer Bartov's considered proof of Israel committing genocide:
"... it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions."
"He is the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, where he has taught since 2000.[1] Bartov is a historian of the Holocaust and is considered one of the world's leading authorities on genocide.[2][3]The Forward calls him "one of the foremost scholars of Jewish life in Galicia."[4]" (Wikipedia) ...
OB; "Since 1989, I have been teaching in the United States. I have written profusely on war, genocide, nazism, antisemitism and the Holocaust, seeking to understand the links between the industrial killing of soldiers in the first world war and the extermination of civilian populations by Hitler’s regime.
...
"But another part of my apprehension had to do with the fact that my view of what was happening in Gaza had shifted. On 10 November 2023, I wrote in the New York Times: “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is now taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening. […] We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time.”
"I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions. It was not just that this attack against the last concentration of Gazans – most of them displaced already several times by the IDF, which now once again pushed them to a so-called safe zone – demonstrated a total disregard of any humanitarian standards. It also clearly indicated that the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words, the rhetoric spouted by Israeli leaders since 7 October was now being translated into reality – namely, as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention puts it, that Israel was acting “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, the Palestinian population in Gaza, “as such, by killing, causing serious harm, or inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction”.
...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov