In which the pond cashes in its reptile chips and banks some nattering "Ned" ...

 

The pond wondered when fear-mongering would be trotted out, and the reptiles were standing by for a 'Saturday special' … as the obsession with comrade Bill continued, and blotted out almost everything, even the sun.

All hands were on the 'Saturday special' deck, guns blazing away at comrade Bill, the leets and the filthy Commie swine …

Ah our Gracie, that mention of apparatchiks was particularly touching, and so apparently we are now licensed to call the reptiles neo-fascists …with Godwin's Law just a distant memory in reptile la la land.

But the pond was particularly disturbed by the continuing reptile desire to feature their polling, as all around it the reptiles rant on, while the poll numbers suggest their valiant, noble efforts might still be in vain …

What a roll call - carping Caroline, Dame Groan in full moan and conspiracy theory, the dog botherer in full climate science denialist mode, and little Johnny still campaigning on, but sounding and looking more like a doddering, irrelevant, verging on senility old fart (being one, the pond can recognise the breed).

It's desperate times and all hands must rally to the cause.

The pond had hoped for some distraction from the politics, and the march of Clive on Canberra, and it's true Polonius offered one, but the pond has selfishly held him back for the usual Sunday meditation.

And then there was Dame Slap, but she had gone GOT barking mad …

The only fun to be hard there was this very same day Shanners of the Angels called the show "tacky" and deplored the need to sit down with SloMo to watch it …

No, there was nothing for it, but to turn to nattering "Ned" to generate the required sense of ennui and tedium, which might in turn lead to a relaxed, laid-back weekend …

First the pond must issue it's now standard warning.

Whenever "Ned" comes down from the attic, there's no stopping the old goat when he gets to shouting at clouds. It's always interminable, but the pond is a Freudian, and believes that "Ned" reveals, in his prating, the deepest and richest reptile fears and anxieties.

Here for example, "Ned" purports some balance, berating Clive and GetUp together, along with the Americans, but actually Clive goes largely MIA, while GetUp cops the full "Ned" fear and loathing …but then "Ned" also cops a Lobbecke illustration, so he remains in reptile cult heaven ...

Is there a rich irony here?

Well yes, from the very get go in the headline, with "Ned" bleating about symptoms of Americanisation in a newspaper owned by an American, who has in all in his papers led the charge towards tabloid Americanisation, and who is currently, with the aid of his family, doing the very best possible to turn Sky into a feeble imitation of Fox News. The fact that few people want to follow chairman Rupert down this path and pay for this particular form of insanity is one of the few redeeming features of politics in this country …

Chairman Rupert is determined is minions will do their very best to ensure the speaker in tongues and welcomer of the rapture triumphs over comrade Bill, so there's Americanisation for you.

But wait, there's even more Americanisation irony to hand, as "Ned" is now fully cranked up and ready to let loose with both barrels …

So what deep neuroses and anxieties and fears does this gobbet reveal? Well it hints at one of the deepest reptile worries … the loss of the onion muncher, the mutton Dutton and other noble warriors …

And yet the reptiles and their readers are doing their very best for the onion muncher. Look at his stern, brave visage as he sets out to save the children from the under toad …

But what, as little Tommy once suggested, you can't kill the Boogeyman? What then? Wheel in some more "Ned" perhaps might be your only chance ...

Yes, the fear is deep for the onion muncher, and "Ned" is spooked, and perhaps even more spooked for good old Kev.

In the process, lost are fond memories of Kevin Andrews, Natural Family Man of the Year (The Monthly in 2014) …

Ah wonderful, just a few of the greatest his … and what about what was then the Fairfaxians cruelly mocking the Father of the House, hinting that he might have hung around a little too long and been infested with delusions of grandeur and feelings of being ignored?

Fathers want to be honoured as they grow old. They tend to get cranky when they are left sitting in the shade, a car rug over their knees, reduced to shaking their walking sticks and hollering "get off my lawn!"

Ah the glory days of delusion and natural families, but Kev was right about that - Malware was a mere blip, a momentary bug who nonetheless managed to fuck up the NBN for all eternity, but what if Kev himself was going to turn into a blip? 

Oh sainted father, could this be the end of little Kev?

Be still beating heart, send out to "Ned" for some more natter about the wicked boogeyman … why, in the sequel Jamie Lee did seem to manage to take the beast out, so maybe there's still hope for the ancients protecting their lawns and their turf ...

Dear sainted long absent lord, sorry for the pause, but the pond just fainted. Did "Ned" just praise Jon Faine and the ABC? Did he realise he was risking pariah status with this sort of odious heresy?

Even worse, in the next gobbet, "Ned" dangerously veers in the direction of suggesting that perhaps GetUp and the ALP are not as one, and perhaps they don't always think and act in consort together? How much heresy can a koala or the pond bear?

Ah, Stephen "let's censor everything" Conroy, it's been such a long time apart …

But enough of lifesavers, because it turns out that the real thought crime has to do with climate change, and the mocking of the onion muncher's wondrous climate science expertise, and for that the reptiles offered up an illustration of the deviants at work with their scandalous satire and vicious pleading ...

How unfair they are, when everyone knows and appreciates that the onion muncher has just been illustrating the four seasons with his changes of position … they come, they go, and they change, and so does the climate, and there will be a season for growing and there will be a season for stunting, and there will be time for more "Ned" ...

Sound familiar? Well the pond knows what sounds familiar and is never tired of running it, thanks to the efforts of the Angry Goddess, sounding off on Sky News here, and elsewhere…

Ah great days indeed, but here's the real rub.

You see, nattering "Ned" spent an inordinate amount of time, defending the indefensible, such as doddering Kev and time-warped, let's have a 'knight on the barbie', 'have I got a dose of climate science denialism for you' onion muncher, but what has been the single most indefensible action of the campaign to date?

That's right, almost guaranteeing a notorious, corrupt robber baron a seat in the Senate, where he might rabbit on about everything, and become an unendurable bore, even worse than when in company with the ABC's Tony Jones, two bores boring the world, making a mockery of the brand, until the late night show eventually sailed off into the irrelevant sunset.

What's that indefensible preference deal worth in "Ned's" la la land? Why a couple of pars at the end ...

Oh fucketty fuck, how pathetic a defence is that? May as well go with Clive because what the hell, if we don't, we'd only get more Pauline …

And that's why the deplorables will turn to any politician in a storm. The sublime contempt that runs underneath the reptile ramblings of "Ned" tosses off lightly SloMo's fully sick attempt to win power by doing the beast with two backs with Clive …

If it turns out as expected, that might mean offering scraps, tokens, gifts and deals to a man who has spent years fucking over his workers, but it seems that monumental form of corruption is a never no mind

...because Pauline …

How contemptible is the mindset, which has nothing to do with Americanisation, and all to do with the cynicism of domestic conservative politics? A cynicism on parade in the one-eyed ramblings of "Ned" …

… because not a word about Advance Australia, and Moorice and his mob. How unfair is that, how unjust? Not even a word for Captain GetUp?

Is the caped crusader a flop? How cruel, how unkind, to the brightest marketing minds of a generation of coal lovers ...

Meanwhile, it wasn't just "Ned" who know how to balance the cynical ledger.

Little Johnny was out and about defending the deal …

Yes, yes, we know that SloMo and his mob are quite happy to gift the robber baron, whose main skill is fucking his workers, a seat in the Senate. 

What's the excuse this time?

Uh huh. So while "Ned" says Pauline is the worry, little Johnny is out and about saying that Clive is a better alternative than the greenies, because after all, fucking the workers is great fun, up there with fucking the planet …

As for offering policies and discussing them? No sign of that in nattering "Ned", it was just a shriek of fear and a howl of pain, and blather about Americanisation, as if he'd come down from the attic with a memory lapse about his American overlord …

And speaking of memory lapses, so to a redeeming Pope, with more infallible Pope here …

In which the pond settles for flaming pigeons and our Henry for a Friday ...

The pond has been having a terrible trot with movies lately.

There was Burning, a slow-burning South Korean show that only dullard art house movie buffs could learn to love (there was, gasp, a metaphor involving the main villain), and Thoroughbreds, essentially a two hander, which should have stayed in the theatre where it belonged.

In the end, the pond went back to The Last Picture Show, but north Texas always reminds the pond of north Tamworth, and the fate of the Royal always reminds the pond of the poor old Capitol theatre …

It's been a bit like that with the reptiles too … and so the pond finds itself amongst the dregs, with ancient Henry 'hole in the bucket' Ergas, gone a tad off in the noon-day sun …

Of course there were alternatives, but why do the reptiles torment Dame Groan so by reminding her each day of the onerous, burdensome task at hand?

Talk about pitiful battles, but away she groans, hope always triumphing the graph ...

Even worse, the reptiles set SloMo up for the Hawkie pub test, or even worse, SloMo set himself up, the silly doofus, as if getting pissed in a pub still stood for something about manliness and the ability to go out the back of Maguires and have a mindless brawl …

Talk of getting pissed as a parrot also reminded the pond that the parrot was out and about today, still squawking on about Folau …

But the parrot is a mindlessly repetitive bird, and his squawks always verge on the hysterical. If rugby union's constituency is barking mad fundamentalist Xians, at last the pond understands why it's never had much time for the professional bum sniffers …

No, there was nothing for it, the pond had to bite the bullet and go down the cathedral path with our Henry.

Now the pond is a cathedral devotee, but it should be clear that the pond draws strange lessons from any visit - like a trip to St Peters, where the enormous astonishing vulgarity of centre stage is a genuine wonder.

If that isn't gigantic narcissism and vanity at work, why perhaps only a splendid frock is needed to complete the picture. And of course everywhere there is marble stolen from the ancient Roman heathens, and everywhere signs of the looting of Christendom for benefit of assorted conniving, corrupt Popes … such that if Christ, with his blather about poverty and rich people and camels, were ever to come back, he might wonder if he'd landed on the right planet should he visit the Vatican…so much worldly power, so deeply corrupted ...

But enough of the pond's meditation on cathedrals, it's time for Henry getting right down with Western Christendom, the divine right of Kings, the right of lords to collect taxes, and in due course, it's not the meek that will inherit the earth, it's the one per centers ….

You see? Our Henry was blessed by the divine pigeon of chip stealers, thanks to the cult master Eric Lobbecke, confirming the cult status of our Henry's piece … as we go about the business of  finding an elevated meaning in the likely way that French workers managed to ignite the building (in much the same spirit, it should be noted, as Thomas Farriner aka Farynor's bakery, managed to produce the Great Fire of London …)

Of course the pond could have gone the metaphysical route and marvelled at the sublime indifference of God towards religious property, but then She's always been absent when it counts, and the pond finds it hard to rabbit on about the greatness of civilisation, when it might all boil down to a carelessly tossed cigarette butt, or perhaps a fire in the oven of the kind that reduced London, or in the kitchen of the Happy Chef in King street, ruining Chinese takeaway forever in Newtown …

But no, we must now put up with Henry embarking on some kind of scholastic crusade, which is admittedly better than another reptile offering, Brendan the valiant, ready to head off to Palestine…

Acts of terrorism aren't unprecedented, not in terms of scale or impact, since one minor one helped produce the major disaster of the first world war, and another fake one was used to help install Hitler in power, but in the end, O'Neill as crusader is as useless as an outdoor dunny without the lizard Oz tree killer edition for bum wipe, and his proposal as helpful as a jihad against Christians because of Christchurch …

So glumly the pond returned to our Henry, blessed by the immortal Lobbecke pigeon of peace and love and glowing phoenix spirit …

It takes a singular ability as an historian to conflate medieval times with the spirit of the Renaissance, and the Reformation, and even the counter-Reformation, but when it comes to the crunch, our Henry is that sort of historian … and where our Henry sees the seeds of a splendid Western Christendom, the pond sees the French hastening slowly towards the French revolution, and the invention of the guillotine …while cathedral dwellers embraced the lunacy of chastity, and gradually developed a taste for fiddling with whatever warm flesh happened to pass their way, as the young fell victim to their unholy power ...

So it goes when it comes to taking different views of history, and for a moment the pond was tempted to step away and take a look at SloMo making a goose of himself by pretending, in the style of all politicians, to be what he's clearly not …

Foolish, foolish SloMo and it reminded the pond of that cartoon that has been doing the rounds of late, though perhaps more inspired by the Donald …

Yes, it's a discursive outing for the pond, but it's Friday and the pond has the ultimate excuse - reading our Henry is like listening to the mad uncle dragged out of the attic to blather on about great wonders and glories, when the rest of his family just want him to eat his porridge and return to watching Fox News  …

Oh dear, perhaps that's due to the very rag that our Henry furiously scribbles for, it being part of a Murdochian empire which has sent a great beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born …

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The reader cannot hear the Murdochian; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold at Fox News; 
Mere Murdochian anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of Lobbecke pigeon innocence is drowned; 
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Murdochians
Are full of passionate O'Neill intensity.

Yes, and the pond has no excuse for defiling great poems in the cause, but Greg Hunters can find the original here, as we return to our Henry, at least those of us who managed to make it through that summary of The Phantom of the Opera, and some bizarre notion that Andrew Lloyd Webber represents the triumph of Western Christendom …

Oh okay that was Gaston Leroux, but our Henry's melodramatic blather about villains and sweet damsels in distress took the pond back to the good old Capitol Theatre.

So now Western Christendom is just an over-ripe fruity drama, and we should recall Charles Laughton at his fruitiest?

And so we should all yearn to be serfs slaving away for the Lord of the Manor and content with being illiterate, for fear of getting hold of a book or three with alternative ideas?

The pond decided it didn't have the first clue as to what our Henry was banging on about, except that generally it sounded like the sort of stuff that would gladden the hearts of Luddites everywhere.

Perhaps our Henry didn't have much of a clue about what he really wanted, unless it was a chance to do dress-ups in some cathedral, since it's the intertubes that brings his thoughts to the pond this morning, while once upon a time in Tamworth, the pond would have relied on a flaming, ethereal Lobbecke pigeon …

So everything is lost, and and yet somehow everything might be found, and our Henry imagines himself as some kind of biblical prophet calling on us all to repent our folly …and return to medieval times.

Well the pond started out with dud movies, and sure enough, our Henry delivered his usual dud column, peddling the usual tripe about persecution and suffering of the Xians, as if nobody else scores the odd raw prawn in this veil of tears …

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in Murdochian clothing, but inwardly and outwardly are ravenous wolves of the Donald kind … (perhaps the pond misremembers Matthew 7:15)

The pond wished it had been better fun, but as we've been talking of pigeons and dances with the devil, why not some cartoons celebrating the dance, with more Rowe here, more Pope here, and hapless Kudelka trapped behind a paywall …

In which the pond turns from the savvy Savva to the joys of hellfire ...

Today the pond will start with the savvy Savva, and then will sink into complete religious nuttery.

This is a vast relief, as it means being able to avoid all the usual reptile guff about Anzac day.

At the same time the pond can avoid much of the noble work of the lizard Oz grunts, hard at work in the field … even as a graph next to their endeavours suggests they might be facing some difficulties, much like the pond's machine gunner grandpa did in the Somme's mid-winter mud …

The pond tips its lid to these noble warriors, as each day they answer the call to service, but on the political front this day, only the savvy Savva can be called …

Oh dear, immediately plunged into existential questions about the meaning of SloMo, with prayers and shouting at imaginary friends apparently not quite enough ...

Uh huh, all this is well and good, but then Savva turns to the weirdness and sets the scene for the nuttiness to follow … a Pentecostalist evangelical into gratuitous sex and violence ...

Indeed, indeed, more than a few problems noted in that final gobbet, and sensible enough, a harsh word for former Chairman Rudd, SloMo being a goose, Barners being a treasure …

And so to the fruit loop nuttiness … undiluted essence of bromancer, who proposes exactly the opposite to the savvy Savva, suggesting that anyone who took on the bromancer as a political advisor might end up in as deep a doodah as the onion munching member for Warringah …

Now this is yesterday's reheated stew, and the reptiles advise that it's a nine minute read, and so the pond must warn that at least nine minutes of life can never be recovered for those foolish enough to proceed …

But then again, who can't get enough of SloMo delivering that salute to the Master Overlord, the imaginary friend who rules over all, and enlists followers in assorted armies of delusion who must perforce clash in Abrahamic nights, consigning each other to hell?

The bromancer kicks things off with a couple of quotes from the bible, apparently unaware that he is heading to hell, at least if the theology SloMo professes is to be believed ...

Um, actually the Pentecostals are busy consigning other Xians, notably Catholics, to hellfire. Oh they don't make a big deal out of it, they're quite modest, but they're also indefatigable and cheerful about the hellfire business …

YouTube is full of the hellfire consigning types …

And so on and so endlessly forth … but the pond isn't going to link to YouTube nutters, not when it has its very own reptile Catholic nutter defending the right of Pentecostal nutters to consign bromancer-style heretics and deviants to hell ...

The pond doesn't know what planet or country that the bromancer lived in during the 1950s, but rest assured, the division between Catholics and Protestants wasn't settled by the 1950s.

That's how the pond knows that one side of its family was destined to Protestant hell, while the other side of the family was destined to Catholic hell, while the Masons who ran assorted government departments not run by the other two mobs (determining employment opportunities etc) were destined for their own brand of hell …

Oh it was a hell of a time, and the weirdest of them all were the clap-happys, who were viewed with deep suspicion, as this poignant tale of a true believer, who left the cult of clap-happiness for the cult of Mary, sets the scene  …

Ah yes, many a time the pond was warned of the dangers of unbelief and clap-happys and their path to hell, and many a time, the clap-happys warned that bromancer types were destined for hellfire come the time of the rapture …

But apparently these days bromancer types are sublimely unaware of their fate ...

Sheesh, not only would he defend SloMo, he'd defend former chairman Rudd for the indefensible, the shameless flaunting of his piety for political advantage.

Sorry, it's way past time to consign the bromancer to hell, as explained by that convert to the cult of Mary …

Having lived for a time with a speaker in tongues, the pond can testify to that bit about a cheerful lack of humour.

And so back to the furiously scribbling bromancer, apparently unaware that SloMo's faith has consigned him to hell. It's not just Folau who does these things you know, everyone is busy consigning everyone else to an eternity of hellfire in the Abrahamic tradition ...

Oh there's no need really. It's understood well enough, both from summaries by others and by their own  online publications …

An unfair summary? Not really. Here's a gobbet from the primary source:

Lordy, lordy, long absent lordy, did the pond forget to include speaking in tongues? Here you go …

And so on and on.

How can the pond gently break it to the bromancer that he's destined for an eternity of hellfire?

These things can get tricky in even the politest and friendliest of conversations ...

Yes, and Hawkie's probably destined for hellfire too, all things considered.

The pond doesn't like to point these things out, but surely it must be done, just as hell itself must be explained.

Here the pond always reverts to James Joyce …

There's loads more of that in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and what's more it can be found in a larger, friendlier to read font at Project Gutenberg here … but now back to the reptile condemned to an eternity of hellfire ...

An attractive expression of Bible-based Christianity?

Why the hapless bromancer has been sentenced to an eternity in hellfire, and is too fuckwitted and theologically inept to know it … some bloody lake of fire and brimstone somewhere set up by an understanding and sympathetic God, because apparently She's tolerant, forgiving and loving, and so can't think of a better reward for the reptiles for their untiring, unceasing work…

And so to a little bonus for those who, likely having wasted possibly more than nine minutes of their life, what with the pond padding things with Joyce and actual beliefs and such like, won't mind wasting even more precious moments, thanks to Stephen Chavura, he of the reptile inverted commas ...

Now spoiler alert, Chavura works at Campion College, so the pond feels free to note that everybody in that wretched Catholic institution is destined for hellfire … Catholics being amongst the worst deviants, heretics, and ne'er do wells consigned therein by the theology followed by the likes of Folau.

It's a rich irony, but apparently Chavura is as theologically ignorant as the dog botherer …

Still, he's been blessed by the Lobbecke of the day, ensuring his cult status, as he wends the path ever closer to that waiting lake of brimstone and fire ...

It gives the pond no pleasure to consign Campion College and all within it to hellfire … though the pond could be in error, and perhaps the Catholics are right with their brand of hellfire, or the feuding evangelicals.

Could it be that condemning anyone or everyone to hellfire is itself a sure path to hellfire? Could it be charismatics who are destined for hellfire?

As I watched the video I felt a growing anger as well as a disgust for what MacArthur was saying and how he was saying it. His speech is as lofty as his demeanor. His criticism of charismatics is as old as the charismatic movement itself. So it’s nothing new. It is a familiar flame. What I found dismaying is his complete dismissal of the movement and all its adherents in a single one hour dignified gesture. With one speech he purged the rolls of salvation of over 500 million believers. Basically his argument is that charismatics dishonor God. Since they are therefore not in Christ, their theology is demonic. So since they are serving Satan and promoting him, there is a hotter hell reserved for them. He claims that the charismatic movement has done nothing to advance sound doctrine or biblical theology but in fact has caused more damage than anything else ever has because it has only delivered confusion, distortion and error to the church. He questions the church: You have always defended God. You have always defended Jesus Christ. Why do you not defend the Holy Spirit? Instead, the church opens the gates to the charismatics and they have taken over the city of God and set up an idol in its center. He doesn’t understand why God doesn’t just strike all these people down. He sadly supposes his ways aren’t our ways… (more gazing at fluff and other intercine splitter nonsense and feuding here, though the pond notes that none of it makes any sense, except everyone is going to hell)

About now the pond realised it was hopelessly confused about hellfire and who might be heading there, but what fun there was to be found in the ranting.

Sometimes, a few people get agitated about the free and random way that everybody ends up consigning everyone else to hellfire, but the pond loves it, especially when the likes of Campion's Chavura turns the other cheek, and freely embraces his fate …

There must be something intrinsically beguiling about brimstone ...

Oh heck, or we can simply keep on consigning everyone to an eternity of hellfire, which is great fun. 

Sure a few people take it personally, but not your average Campion lecturer, who cheerfully accepts that Folau-ian theology has got his number pegged … though strangely, while perfectly happy about Folau being able to consign everyone he doesn't agree with to hell, Chavura gets a bit agitated about pesky Islamics doing the same thing, or even worse, pushing for Sharia, which as everyone understands, is completely unlike the Catholic church's desire to control women's bodies, or have sex with young people, or the angry Sydney Anglicans love of complimentary women ...

Indeed, indeed, the pond is all for diversity … let hellfire reign down on everyone, including the bromancer, the reptiles, the lizard of Oz, Chavura, Campion College, the Catholic church, liberals, progressive leftists, and anyone else within earshot …

There's nothing like a goodly dose of hellfire to sort out everything …

The pond will admit that sometimes the question of the exact location of hell is raised, and no one has the answer, and after all this high-grade tosh, now is probably not the time to go into it, for the sake of the few exhausted readers who made it to the end (oh devotees of reptiles, how life is hell for all of us). 

But given climate change, it seems that the genuinely, uniquely infallible Pope might have the answer, with more papal answers to unsolvable riddles here ...