In which the bromancer celebrates the Donald as a role model for Khan ...

It being Sunday, the pond had a little spare time on its hands, and so turned for enlightenment to the reptiles of Oz. 

If ever the pond wants a skewed understanding of the world, how better to do it than by absorbing the thoughts of the bromancer?

Yes, you read it … and delivered with a straight face. There are "a lot of reasons to think Khan will turn out to be much less than Trump" … because the Donald has turned out so terribly well …

Oh dear the pond must resist the temptation to insert Donald cartoons … the bromancer is being ever so serious ...

Oh sheesh, there bromancer went again, with talk of how the Donald delivers on his promises and delivers on his rhetoric … how could the pond resist?

Okay, the pond must stop and must attend to the bromancer, who is being deeply serious and studious ...

Failed states? The military?

Okay, this is the last bromancer gobbet, full of essential distilled essence of goodness bromancer insights ...

Indeed, indeed, what a tragedy that he won't be able to do for Pakistan what the Donald is doing for the United States …

But enough of US horror movies, the oscillating fan had a locally produced little horror flick coming out soon ...

Of course the oscillating fan was scribbling this before the reptiles shot themselves in the foot yesterday, and Comrade Bill is now preening around celebrating his wins … but that doesn't mean the grim news for Malware has also dated …

Hmm, how to get Malware out of his horse-trading jail on this one? As usual, the oscillating fan has helpful advice of the kind that has seen the pond bolt through the door the moment music heralds the start of The Drum ...

Ah yes, the reptiles will be bitterly disappointed and spiteful and Malware will cop the blame, and it's going to get ugly … in fact the Bensonites have already shown the way forward …

And the mutton Dutton must be looking over his shoulder. The pond's helpful hint? It's all the fault of the Sudanese … launch a pre-emptive strike of bigotry and prejudice, it helped so much in the by-elections ...

And now, just for completeness, the pond should include the final oscillating fan gobbet, still dreaming the impossible reptile dream of Comrade Bill's demise ...

And with that gobbet made redundant and suitable only for digital fish and chips wrapping, and with the reptiles already gearing up for the next crusade, why not a final cartoon celebrating what Pakistan might become if only Khan can offer the inspirational leadership delivered by the Donald …

In which the pond meditates on the uselessness of reptile crusades ...

 

The pond warned the reptiles about their latest crusade, and their catering for dreams and delusions …

It wasn't just the savvy Savva building up expectations …

… all the reptiles were at it, and only succeeded in proving the uselessness of their by-election polling, and their inability to sway voters …

All the reptile talk was of Malware winning and Comrade Bill trounced and Albo taking over … and now Comrade Bill will flounce around the joint, defiant and empowered, and all the chatter will be at the way the bloodbath was a nightmare for the PM, when on the balance, it would have been remarkable for such an incompetent PM to score even a single victory against the odds.

The reptiles are their own worst cheerleaders and crusaders … in much the same way as their climate science denialism would currently get short shrift currently in Greece, other sweltering European countries and California.

And so to a Sunday meditation about another business where the reptiles have managed to shoot themselves and their message in the foot …

The pond can hear a sigh and a groan from those who haven't immediately sprung up and gone off to do some useful winter gardening … not the bloody Crisis in Western Civilisation yet again …

This time the challenge is to discern a single topic the pond didn't study at UNE many years ago, or couldn't currently be studied at ANU ...

Oh he didn't mention the Library of Alexandria did he? But that was a bloody Egyptian thingie, and the evidence is clear enough that Caesar and Aurelian played a significant part in its destruction … Greg Hunters can head off here to dispute matters with Plutarch …and see inept attempts to pin the blame on later marauding Islamics ...

So much for the knowledge-burning, destroying, looting, pillaging Roman part of the Greco-Roman glories of Western Civilisation …

But back to the challenge. By his own definition, Monk managed to construct out of available courses his own curriculum, even if outlined with more than a hint about his being  gloriously up himself in terms of his voracious reading and acquaintance with great minds … you know, of the library-destroying Greco-Roman kind …

Now around this point, before Monk gets on to quoting Byron, the pond should offer a reminder that there's nothing to date that couldn't be found in any conventional y'artz degree.

The pond suffered through the excessive and indulgent Byron - go on, Greg Hunt how to live a wild life in celebration of western self-absorption and romanticist delusionalism - and even worse had to read the entirety of Wordsworth's The Prelude …

If searching for the Romantic spirit, the Brontë sisters, and in particular Emily's Wuthering Heights was infinitely more satisfying, but what's the bet that Monk won't be quoting her …or should that be Ellis Bell?

Only a preview here - these days you're expected to pay for access to the academic library - but it's back to the Byron-quoting Monk ...

There's not a jot or whit in any of this which might not have been encountered at UNE many years before - to balance the rogue utilitarian lecturer who roamed the halls saying "it's all chaff to me", there were plenty of ponces posing as inheritors of the Ionian dream …

In fact the English department was stacked with Oxford graduates who routinely sounded as whacked as Monk.

What always irritates the pond is the narrowness of the discourse and the way this sort of blather reduces what's available. When it comes to personal taste, the pond would rather have one lesser Beethoven sonata or string quartet than a dozen Byronic poems. And what of the plastic arts, and architecture and so on and so forth?

No doubt they'll get a casual mention, but in the main Monk can be celebrated for the narrowness and parochialism of his vision ...

Oh go burn a very large library. There's a lot more to Western Civilisation than the sort of trickery embodied in Big History and mindless blather about the "apprehension of Western Civilisation", as if listing a series of fields of study somehow encompasses everything …

As for consilience?

...even Wilson's sympathizers might suggest that, given his root social and environmental concerns, most of his censures are misplaced. What prevents us from coming to grips with environmental decay or the rest of our social bedevilments has less to do with a lack of consilience in learning than with the interplay of interests and power. Wilson hardly touches on such issues. He writes that ''ethics is everything,'' that what we need is ''a powerful conservation ethic'' and that by exploring the biomaterial basis of ethics, ''we should be able to fashion a wiser and more enduring ethical consensus than has gone before.'' In the end, ''Consilience'' is an evangelical book, an arresting exposition of Wilson's religion of science and a kind of sermon -- forceful in delivery if shaky in substance -- intended to assist in the reform of the world. (NY Times here)

More bloody sermons about the way that everything fits into some delusional cosmic unity.

Monk's sort of listicle shouldn't obscure the notion embedded earlier that somehow it's currently not possible for students to inform themselves of areas of interest in the past …a monstrous stupidity …why, the glories of Western Civilisation are all around us …

Phew, the pond just had to throw that one in … the reptiles get terribly restless talking about the glories of Western Civilisation when the Donald isn't mentioned at least once …

And so to the final gobbet of Monk ...

And there you go, the main point it seems is to promote Monk's books and website with a plug at the end of it all, while also promoting blather about dogma and obscurantism … a feat Monk manages perfectly well himself with lots of rhetorical flourishes and not a single clue about what a Western Civilisation degree might offer students in distinction to a conventional y'artz degree, except a distinction which would raise an eyebrow when ever anyone encountered someone deeply embedded in deeply meaningless culture wars …

You know: "Um, we're looking for an expert in algorithms who might be able to draw together all the knowledge available on the full to overflowing intertubes. An expert in consilience, big history and wanting, as it were .."

"Well I do have a degree in Western Civilisation certified by little Johnny and the Onion Muncher and Paul Monk as being deeply meaningful."

And so, just as they have given comrade Bill a boost, the crusading reptiles keep on helping fuck up meaningful tertiary study in the land …

That surely deserves a couple more cartoons celebrating the joys of academic reward in Western Civilisation …

… though hopefully there are other rewards for certain brands of study ...

In which Dame Slap and Polonius celebrate diversity in conforming reptile ways ...

Please allow the pond to set the record straight from the get go. The pond is completely and utterly in favour of mass monotonal conformity …

 

The pond abhors eccentricity of all kinds, and so is completely at one with Dame Slap today … 

Let the chant two legs good, four legs baaad ring out around the land …

Actually the real misery for the pond involved the discovery that Dame Slap reads the Daily Snail … as low a form of click bait as exists anywhere on the intertubes …

It made the pond doubt for a second the Dame's potent message "we are being sold a lemon every time someone says that monotonal conformity makes us stronger, and more united, sheep ready for the Murdochian slaughterhouse"

Ah, the joys of conformity … here no diversity, no diversity here …

 

Of course the pond might be accused of conforming to Dame Slap's dull monotony, but that's an outrageous charge …

Agreeing with Dame Slap is simply agreeing with someone blessed with an infallible capacity for seeing the world through one eye, and where's the harm in that?

Now at this point the pond will confess to being a tad confused and bemused. 

Conformity is a terrible thing, especially when tribal, and yet diversity is a terrible thing, and the google logarithms cry out to Dame Slap, yet speak in strange tongues ...

Stranger and stranger. The pond began to suspect that Dame Slap was actually arguing for diversity …why should't Dame Slap be allowed to play a TG woman? Is there any problem with Ann Coulter performing this sort of role should she want to pursue a career in acting?

It seemed that the time was right for a complete and utter backflip ...

The pond is completely and utterly against mass monotonal conformity …the pond is totally in favour of epic diversity ...

Around this point, the pond suspected it had been taken for a sap, because only a sap would fall for the sort of bullshit that wove an opinion piece around the notion of a meaningful difference between "respecting diversity" and "revering diversity"… as if there was some difference between your average Sydney Anglican fundamentalist 'respecting' complimentary women and 'revering' complimentary women ...

Um, so the pond should remember all that the next time an overpaid scribbler for Murdoch champions monotonous conformity and respectful diversity, while donning a Donnish MAGA hat and slipping out into the night to celebrate being at one with other Donnish MAGA sheep?

Never mind, the pond must always find room for prattling Polonius - let respectful diversity sound alarums around the lad -  and happy days, this time the lad wasn't blathering on about their ABC … the heartland for monotonous conformity to Murdochian thinking ...

Now it's hard for the pond to shed tears for either Greer or Carr, but how pleasing it is to see Polonius take up the cudgels ...

By golly, every so often Polonius takes the Sydney Writers' Festival, with or without an errant apostrophe, and the pond suspects there's something deeply insecure, possibly Freudian about his hostility …

If only the logarithms that confused Dame Slap could hint at the ineluctable Polonial mystery ….

A rare invitation to address a literary festival?

Of course, just as the ABC refuses to give Polonius the job of hosting Media Watch - damn their mindless conformity - literary festivals tend to think of Polonius as a serve of tedious old stodge ...

Never mind, the pond suspects that Polonius is about to join Dame Slap in a rage at tribal, ideological mates …

Perhaps somehow, in some strange way, this might become a howl against diversity … and the mindless fools who worship and revere diversity ...

Say what?

How did the pond not see that coming?

How did we get from "revering diversity encourages an ugly backlash" to revering "centres for diversity in debate and discussion", and worshipping proud mindless conformist Polonial advocacy of Western Civilisation?

Well the pond is pleased that Polonius managed to drag in the ABC and Fairfax - though shortly will he be stripped of that latter shorthand word for conformist abuse? - while at the same time interminably rehashing the Western Civilisation matter in a way seemingly designed to remind the world - or at least the ABC and literary festivals - that he's the most boringly, mind numbingly repetitive columnist in the reptile stable …

But as for the question of diversity, the pond ended up thinking that Dame Slap and Polonius had joined together in a conspiratorial enterprise to mind fuck the pond into thinking that diversity was exceptionally good and exceptionally bad … and in that diversity, the pond would settle for novocaine for the soul and mindless conformity to reptile thinking, no matter how extraordinarily conflicted and confused it might be …

And now to celebrate diversity in all its forms, the Rowe for the day offers up an eclectic mix of ingredients, with the only certainty being more non-conforming, diverse Rowe here …

… while the infallible Pope offers crow eaters a splendid opportunity to chose between conformity and diversity, with more diverse Pope here ...

Yes, begone dull conformity … hello rampant surreal diversity …

  

In which the pond's Friday is saved by Moorice ...

Bloody typical. Paul Keating defaming alley cats again …when it's well-known that most alley cats have more ethics in their front paws than can be found in the entirety of Nine …

There's been much concern at where this might leave the ABC, but the reptiles must also be looking nervously over their shoulders … 

After all, the only reason to buy the Terror in Sydney is for its thugby league coverage, but Nine controls the thugby league on television and will expect favourable treatment in its new, shortly to become even more tabloid, acquisitions … while Nine's 'journalism' - or perhaps 'sensationalism' - has always veered towards lizard Oz territory in terms of feral political philosophies …

Once you've been run for years by a bully, and then Petey boy steps in, it's hard to change that sort of tainted culture ...

Let the turf wars begin … but as the pond stopped looking at Fairfax the moment the 'magic water man' disappeared over the horizon, others will have to decide what it all means. 

The pond's main concern is for the fate of the immortal Rowe …

… and the infallible Pope …

Still, talent endures, so they will survive … which is more than can be said for the desperate, narcissist, onion-munching attention seeker out on parade today in the lizard Oz …

He really has moved beyond the valley of the desperately hysterical paranoid, and for a moment the pond thought it might have had the odious duty of paying attention to the loon still lurking in its masthead …a nauseating duty, seeing as how the onion muncher has moved into pure, undiluted Hansonite racism turf ...

Luckily, with things exceptionally dire at the Speccie mob - no Giles, no Flinty, just the usual arm breaker, Switzer, John Stone, Brownie and, bizarrely, Helen Dale explaining how to succeed at scribbling - Moorice heard the pond's plaintive cries and rode to the rescue …

Look, there, just below the McCrann celebrating the deal of the century, as two flailing, failing businesses come together...

Phew, what a relief, and a way for the pond to liquidate some more of its excess US cartoon stock … as free floating in the market as soybeans …

And so to the Moorice main course …

Talk about rich and rewarding reading. Who knew that Moorice was a lover of tariff wars and would be able to scribble furiously in praise of a basic income?

Can a full conversion to socialism and the New Deal be far behind?

It was so delicious - the lemonade and Moorice's thoughts - that the pond was overcome with the sort of overwhelming tristesse that is supposed to come with la petite mort, knowing that there would only be one more short gobbet of Moorice groping for the truth …

Say what?

Is there a little doubt creeping into Moorice's infallible understanding of what works in the world?

"… however imperfect … Trump may fail…"???

Yet somehow the deplorables will manage to march on and the revolution will continue and intensify?

That sounds more like some desperate scribbling frantically as the French revolution devolved into a killing fields frenzy than the coal loving, climate science denying Moorice the pond has routinely celebrated over the years …

Glorious times … a glorious revolutionary future lies ahead comrades … Aux arms, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons! Marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!

The blood impure? Why it sounds just like the onion muncher!

Please, join Moorice and the onion muncher in singing along here … with those who suffer the dreadful impact of bone spurs most welcome to join the chicken hawkery …while others celebrate the coming distractions ...