Let's take a turn with Hephzibah, Sydney Anglicans, George Pell and fundies of the good old USA ...

(Above: Mr Pooter and chums catch a wild claret, a little like wild "fast" Sydney Anglicans. You can catch The Diary of a Nobody at Project Gutenberg here).


It's been an epic week for the Sydney Anglicans, with only that preening supercilious wretch Mike Carlton striking a sour note in Ah, men, all's right with the world:

Submission may take many forms, some of them quite simple. Seeking to please her husband, the dutiful wife will find satisfaction in homely tasks: the sparkling clean bathroom, his favourite shirt freshly ironed when he needs it, his golf shoes polished, the delicious evening meal ready on a neatly set table when hubby arrives home weary from daily toil. Why, my own dear wife Priscilla makes a point of abstaining from alcohol so that she may drive home if, by mistake, I have imbibed one cup too many of the claret punch at a parish function! Therein lies the recipe for a happy marriage.

Oh it's so cheap and so unfair, as Carlton makes hay with the church of St. Jensen, Lot's wife turning to salt, and a bunch of Jensens, from Dr. Nesbitt Jesen to Mrs. Hephzibah Jensen.

Carlton shows some fair knowledge in his mockery. Hephzibah turns up in only a couple of places in the bible, as a wife's name (My delight is in her) and in god allocating a name to his chosen people (take it away Rev. Carl Haak here).

Hephzibah is one of those profoundly silly words - like Mr. Pooter or a zillion Dickens character names - guaranteed to please.

Of course none of the fuss of the week penetrated the moat and walls of castle Jensen, also know as the Sydney Anglican web site.

It's September funky town, as the Anglicans get down to the urgent business of raising cash (and never mind that it might be pissed against the wall, or Prayers unanswered as Anglicans brace for more cuts).

Dear sweet absent lord, that's just so funky town. Get down wit it Anglican youffs, join John Travolta under the sparkling glitter ball and the flashy laser lighting.

Oh wait, didn't Mr Travolta go rogue scientologist?

Russell Powell turns the other cheek and puts his best face forward in relation to an ugly week, surely a loss-loss week for a losing church.

He pointedly avoids doing a lengthy diatribe against the Sydney Morning Herald, preferring to celebrate the positives as he scribbles away in Expect the unexpected:

The key thing is not to kick the media but to see the opportunities in this for talking about our faith. Whether the starting point for the discussion is marriage or people's view of Christians or the Judds or the Archbishop or whoever, my prayer is that we will engage people in conversations about Jesus. (That includes letters to the newspapers and talk on talkback)...

... Remember, its not where you start the conversation but where you finish that matters.

But what if you finish with mockery and laughter and more women (and gays it almost goes without saying) marching out the door, either to turn secularist or join a church which has yet to find a foot in the twentieth century (we'll get around to the current century later).

The only other singular achievement this week for the Sydney mob, as Michael Jensen continues to duck and weave and avoid his obligation to deliver unto the world his explanation of the seventh sin of Sydney?

Well surely it must be the hapless Kara Martin's review of Fifty Shades of Grey. The pond has very little time for the appalling writing of EL James, but after reading Kara's review, some sympathy bubbled to the surface. How's this for a synopsis?

Uni student Ana interviews Christian Grey for a student magazine, and he instantly falls for her, seeing her as a possible Submissive for his Dominant sexual practises. He pursues her and woos her with gifts of clothes, a computer and a car. She agrees to a non-disclosure contract, and an agreement to participate in his sexual practises.

That's clunkier than James, and when Kara gets on to the approved Sydney Anglican Christian view of human sexuality, it gets positively silly:

This is making mainstream, sexual practices that are fringe. It is popularising bondage and discipline practises, and legitimising sexual experimentation, without any warning about some of the psychological and physical consequences. The New York Post reported a tenfold increase in rope sales at New York hardware stores, and 30% increase in kinky sex toys.

Is that the slippery rope that the pond's heard so much about? Or merely the kinky slippery slope?

And then there's the usual hairy palms, stop touching yourself there girl or you'll go blind routine:

This book is disturbing and addictive. Porn works on stimulating physical desires in the reader/viewer, but cannot satisfy those desires. The reader falls into a pattern of voyeurism, yearning for the excitement, but left unable to be fulfilled. It results in feelings of guilt and shame. It begins to impact on the way the reader/viewer looks at human beings as objects of desire, things to be used.

But, but, but billy goat butt, women are there to submit and be submissive. The Jensens told the pond so ...

Anyhoo, it would be mean of the pond to do too many spoilers, when the fun is in the full read, as Kara reminded the pond that almost any kink, even EL James, is better kink than Sydney Anglican submissive kink, though if you're looking for a bit of European style, you should really start with Story of O.

But it does lead to the ultimate irony. Even the vanilla Richard Glover makes hay with For a happy marriage, try the submissionary position, along with the mandatory joke:

Sydney's Anglicans have changed the marriage ceremony so the wife agrees to ''submit'' to her husband. People criticise the Sydney Anglicans for being out of touch, so how wonderful to see the success of Fifty Shades of Grey being so rapidly reflected in the service. The only question: will fluffy handcuffs now be a mandatory part of bridalwear?

Et tu Mr Glover, joining in the Fairfax war on the hapless stupefying Sydney Anglicans?

Sadly, putting frivolity and silly marriage vows aside for a moment, the Sydney Anglicans did a grave disservice to the world by providing comedy routines that distracted from attention being paid to Cardinal George Pell.

The Pellists are still embedded in a much more serious set of wars - a nightmare of their own making, seemingly without end - which will see Pell reluctantly, and with pushing, front a Victorian government inquiry into sex abuse (Cardinal George Pell to appear at Victorian sex abuse inquiry - paywall affected).

Back in the day Pell was in the thick of it, as noted in Archbishop George Pell urged to clarify handling of Victorian abuse cases - paywall affected):

Cardinal Pell's connection to the issue is twofold: first as the archbishop of Melbourne who dealt with the church's initial response to the scandal, dubbed the Melbourne Response; and second as a younger priest who worked and lived in the same district as some of the worst offenders.
When former priest Gerard Ridsdale made his first court appearance in 1993, Cardinal Pell stood by his side, although he has steadfastly denied knowledge of his activities. Ridsdale, one of the world's worst pedophiles, has served nearly 20 years in jail.
Cardinal Pell later lamented his decision to support Ridsdale that day.
The Ballarat diocese was so riddled with pedophilia 30 and 40 years ago that attending school and mass became a form of Russian roulette for the largely young male victims.

Meanwhile, Pell came out fighting in his piece last week for the Sunday Terror about the Catholic Church.

In a dissembling way, Pell assured the world that the Catholic church, its leaders and officials, and entities can be sued. He said nothing about the difficulties of mounting cases against unincorporated associations, or working out the appropriate person or entity to sue, pausing only to note that In some well publicised cases lawyers have sued the wrong party. As if the Catholic church should step forward and settle things in an honourable way ... ya ya, got the wrong party ...

Pell also says nothing about the way the church has used its financial resources to hire top quality lawyers to befuddle and deny justice to victims of the institution.

But the real capper is this line:

There has not been a systematic failure by the Church to take action on sex abuse. The procedures were improved in 1996 and again in 2000 and 2009. The Newcastle and Armidale cases now being investigated predate these procedures. While a review of processes and conclusions is available to victims, these are very rarely requested.

That's denialism at its epic worst. The reason that there is now a Victorian inquiry independent of the church is that sufficient evidence has been led to suggest that there was a systematic failure by the Church to take action on sex abuse.

And that's why Pell has ducked and weaved and issued a four thousand word attempt to distance himself from the mess. And he's a dab hand at sharing around the blame:

While Catholic and indeed Christian organizations receive considerable and possibly disproportionate publicity for sexual abuse of minors, it would be a vain hope and badly misleading to conclude that this problem is confined to Christian institutions.

Possibly disproportionate publicity?

The problem isn't confined to Christian institutions?

Uh huh. Another variant on that old proposal sure some of our guys might have done bad things, but have you seen the bad things the other guys have done. So if the other guys do bad things, why are you so hard on, why do you focus on and publicise, the bad things our guys have done?

The answer of course is that churches are given a special position of power, obligation and trust in relation to children. The same applies to schools, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, creches, child care centres, and other places where children are clustered together.

Teachers, priests, child care workers, institutional employees are given a duty of care, and are offered an elevated level of trust. Or else there'd be a shortage of children for choirs and altar work ...

This isn't so hard to understand, unless you happen to be an institution seeking to avoid the implications of breaching that duty of care and breaking that trust.

A breach of that trust should be a major cause for concern, mortification and rectification, instead of the defiant defensiveness shown by the Pellists.

Even now the church must be dragged kicking and shrieking towards doing the right thing, and that is wrong ... and the inquiry in Victoria is but one of a number of inquiries that should have been mounted long ago.

This sickness continues in the church like a festering virus. The latest example comes from the United States and Father Benedict Groeschel, noted here, in which responsibility is lumped on children for being seducers, and in which he offers sympathy for Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Amazingly the National Catholic Register let the remarks run, only to take them down and replace them with an apology here:

Child sexual abuse is never excusable. The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel's comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our publication of that comment was an editorial mistake, for which we sincerely apologize. Given Father Benedict's stellar history over many years, we released his interview without our usual screening and oversight. We have removed the story. We have sought clarification from Father Benedict.

Ah well, so it goes, it's all too sombre to contemplate the suffering and the damage done, so let's end with a comedy item from Mother Jones, noting 14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Louisiana's Voucher Schools.

Amongst the wacky "facts"? Humans and dinosaurs hung out together, dragons are real, the majority of slave owners were nice guys, the KKK is seriously misunderstood, the Great Depression wasn't too bad, Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson were errant, algebra is too complicated, gay people are down there with child molesters and rapists, and global environmentalists are involved in a global conspiracy. Coming in at number 14?

"But instead of this world unification ushering in an age of prosperity and peace, as most globalists believe it will, it will be a time of unimaginable human suffering as recorded in God's Word. The Anti-christ will tightly regulate who may buy and sell."—Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999

And you wondered how Arizona could pass a law proposing that pregnancy begins two weeks before conception?

The point in that case is to limit access to abortion - Arizona Abortion Bill: Legislators Pass Three Bills, Including One That Redefines When Life Begins - but does anybody in the GOP begin to wonder if they might be involved in a Grand Old Peevish Perverse Patriarchy of Preposterous Pieties?

And finally, finally, thanks to a thoughtful, attentive correspondent the pond is able to draw attention to Phillip Jensen's latest exercise in devil-fearing, The Power of a Dependent Father.

Jensen starts by brooding about powerful fathers, and then weak and inadequate fathers, before haring off into Exorcist territory and demonising a powerful father:

The devil is a powerful father. Or so he seems to his children. His power lies in his lies; for he is the father of lies (John 8:44). A murderer from the beginning, he uses his deceit to accuse both God and God’s children. He accuses God of not having our interests at heart; of not being righteous and merciful; of not forgiving the sinner of his sin ...

Etc etc, yadda yadda, children of Satan, good old dad Satan, yadda yadda etc etc, with Jensen not pausing to think or contemplate the complexity involved if you remember that Satan was a son of god ...

Damn it, that father sure fucked up his son good and proper (as explained in the Book of Job and the wiki here). Surely it's time to call the long absent god a She so the blame can be properly laid at the feet of the Almighty Mother?

Next week, the Sydney Anglicans explain why children should continue to fear the cookie monster that lurks under their bed at night ...

Shouting at brain-washed feminist chairs with the commentariat at The Australian ...

(Above: special feminist brand).


Sometimes the pond misses the commentariat at The Australian, and on the weekend the sense of loss is at its finest, or perhaps its keenest.

Today for example we have a Shanahan - there's a flock of them, like Jensenists - astutely pinpointing what is wrong with Australia:

Feminist brainwashing saturating the land with myths!

Shanahan's analysis is fine so far as it goes, but the pond found it a tad conservative. When will she reveal that feminist brainwashing is responsible for climate change, the carbon tax, the mockery of Sydney Anglicans, pedophile priests, the war in Afghanistan and the failures of capitalism?

When you get past the excessively verbose header - Women are not fools at the ballot box: they vote for policies, not a leader's personality - thankfully trapped behind the Oz paywall like a herd of lost sheep - it turns out it's just another Shanahan yarn about how unfair the world is to Tony Abbott, and how unfair it is that Julia Gillard is allowed to exist, and how fairly women will vote, for Tony Abbott of course, because a thinking woman will vote for policies and Tony Abbott has the right policies ...

Moving right along, sure in our knowledge that feminist brainwashing has ruined the world, we turned to that old faithful, Christopher Pearson, rummaging through the offal and the kidneys to come up with his umpteenth variation on the future of Australian politics.
Clearly feminist brainwashing is responsible for Pearson's addled thinking.

For years now, Pearson has been running various lines up the flagpole to check who might salute. The Ruddster has been a long running favourite, but any port in a storm - Simon Crean, Wayne Swan, Stephen Smith, Bill Shorten, amongst others, have been given a trot by Pearson's fevered brain.

The latest - Good early election option - is more infantile lap poodle fantasising in service of Pearson's master, Tony Abbott esquire, who no doubt wishes devoutly that Julia Gillard would call an early election, and the sooner the better.

Pearson's piece is trapped behind the paywall - like a wayward sheep lost in the back paddock - and it's just as well, because Pearson leads with Yes Minister as his guide to politics, and leadership challenges, and what this might mean for Gillard as a way of sorting the Ruddster, the sooner the better.

Sadly in a desperate attempt to show he has some connection to reality, Pearson is forced to offer a caveat which makes the entire exercise a supreme example of wankerdom.

Yep, even Pearson concedes that calling an election in response to a Ruddster leadership challenge is not by any measure, her preferred card. But it is the preferred card of Pearson and Abbott surely, and in this crazy mucked up world isn't that enough of an excuse for a column?

By any measure, Pearson is a fool and the pond feels like issuing an alert - at best you'll feel like you've wasted fifteen minutes of your life you'll never retrieve, and at worst you might suffer irretrievable brain damage while reading Pearson.

So hey nonny no, on we go and next up is Greg Sheridan, with his complete incomprehension of anything:

Air in the balloon?

That's right Sheridan is ecstatic about Clint Eastwood, and almost faints with excitement in Magnum force for Mitt Romney, fortunately trapped behind the paywall with the other sheep seeking to make sense of the world.

"Go ahead, make my day."

What a brilliant moment. The most unplugged, out-there, adventurous twist of the hitherto bland Mitt Romney campaign for president was Clint Eastwood and the empty chair act.
The Hollywood legend, beloved of tens of millions of Americans, was the X-factor for the Republicans.

Uh huh. What a brilliant moment? What a brilliantine twit ...

Reading Sheridan you get the impression that one day he was a hundred pound weakling who had sand kicked in his face, and as he retreated, he kept having an epic fantasy of pulling out a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world (way back when), whirling on the punk, and asking him whether he felt lucky.

It turns out that once Eastwood speaks, it's holy writ:

If Eastwood regards Vice-President Joe Biden as a laughing stock -- "the brains of the Democrats, you know, kind of a grin with a body behind it" -- then the Vice-President has a problem.

The pond blames feminist brainwashing.

Of course if you read the rest of the world's responses, Clint Eastwood's performance drew mixed reviews, ranging from "eccentric" to "bizarre".

Not only did it cut into coverage of Mitt Romney's speech, going more than twice the scheduled time, even the likes of the Oz's fellow tabloid (in spirit if not in shape), the New York Post asked questions, as you can read in Ann Romney says Clint Eastwood is a 'unique guy':

TAMPA, Fla. — Ann Romney says she appreciates the support Clint Eastwood gave her husband's presidential bid, even if the actor's bizarre monologue at the GOP convention isn't earning rave reviews.
Romney told "CBS This Morning" on Friday that she didn't know what to expect when Eastwood came on stage Thursday night as a warm-up act.
Eastwood's rambling conversation with an empty chair representing an imaginary President Barack Obama drew laughs in the convention hall, but has been widely mocked by critics.
Romney chuckled during awkward pauses both times she was asked about Eastwood.

Yep, in Sheridan's world, bizarre equals brilliant.

You won't find any nuance or balance or insight in Sheridan, which leads the pond to ask if he's the Bill Collins of commentariat scribblers for the Oz. Soft on film stars, and their movies, and in the end a little soft in the head ... oh feminist brain washers, look on your work and apologise to the world.

But wait, there's even more. That stuffed pompous shirt known as Paul Kelly (the editor at large, not the nice singer songwriter) contributes a fine piece of hysteria titled Carbon wars go global, which earns a big splash, happily trapped behind the paywall with the rest of the bewildered sheep:

Will you ever see a header in The Australian, bold and brave, that shrieks CLIMATE CHANGE GOES GLOBAL?

Only in your dreams.

Anyhoo, the befuddled nervous nelly Kelly spends the entire column hand wringing and anguishing about the carbon tax, the bottom line being that this is put us in bed with the perfidious, uncertain Europeans.

What a brave isolationist Kelly makes, and if he can only ensure that Australia has nothing do with climate change and international trade, his policy trifecta will be perfect.

Of course being Kelly he pretends to contemplate all the policy issues with an even-handed balance, which may be summarised faithfully as Tony Abbott is right, and Labor and its climate change edifice and the EU pretty certain to be fucked.

Meanwhile, the pond patiently awaits that big splash in The Australian headed ARCTIC SEA ICE SHRINKAGE HAS GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS.

Even its sister tabloid (in mind if not in body), the Daily Terror, managed a little coverage awhile ago in Arctic sea ice hits record low as melt goes on, which concluded thusly:

The melting of Arctic has helped open up new shipping lanes but is also believed to hold serious consequences for the rest of the planet as the ice serves a vital function in keeping the planet cool.

The pond and google have searched fastidiously to check The Australian's detailed coverage of the issue, and drawn a blank.

Never mind, how does the fastidious futtock Kelly conclude his piece?

Labor's climate change edifice is now tied to the EU.
It is a further elaboration of the market and administrative arrangements that Abbott is determined to tear down. His pledge to repeal every aspect of Labor's structure looms as one of the defining policy and ideological contests of recent decades.

Uh huh. Of course the issue of the effectiveness of the carbon tax, and whether Abbott's set of alternative government/socialist/bureaucratic interventions might be preferable and more effective, could be construed as a response to one of the most important scientific issues of recent decades, or perhaps even recent centuries.

But you won't find much of a word about any of that in The Australian.

The pond blames feminist brain-washing.

What else could be responsible? Certainly not the ability to see everything as an ideological contest ...

(Below: and now for some chair-shouting).

(Or in other words, click to enlarge)

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings ...

(Above: First Dog sets the tone for the pond, more of him here, and if you're prepared to give up an email address, you can access Gina's think piece here. Don't do it, for the love of the absent lord, don't do it, you'll be on a list).

In an alternative universe, the pond dreamed of being a television programmer.

Sit around all day watching television programs and shaping them into a seamless gown that would have viewers riveted to their sets. What a wanton, wastrel lifestyle.

Which brings us to the Ten network, and its current woes, with the memory jogged by Crikey's Lach, stock and both barrels: who's killing Channel Ten, harking back the good old days when Ten owned the youth demographic, and even though it was invariably behind Seven and Nine, the network always made a tidy profit. It was lean and mean and quite often fun to watch.

A lot of water and television muck has fallen off the box since then. The Simpsons has long since nuked the fridge and lost its mojo, and then there was Ten's disastrous attempt to turn itself into a serious prime time news and current affairs channel with George Negus.

While fond of him, even the pond's maiden aunt thought George was a little long in the tooth.

And now we have the current regime, which fails at both a board and management level. They'd love to get the youth market back, but they don't have the first clue as to how to go about it.

The young 'uns have hared off elsewhere, lured by the massive repeats that Nine deploys of sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory. In terms of animation, Seven has similarly been saturating the airways with American Dad and Family Guy (and they even try to shelter American Dad from the impact of a show like Underbelly: Badness, here).

Seven knows what it is, and what will appeal to its audience which is why it can also run the squillionth repeat of Fawlty Towers and Yes Minister. Ten doesn't even have the gumption or know how to bring back Duckman!

Can Ten ever get its niche youth demographic - loved by advertisers - back?

Its secondary channel Eleven is a complete mish-mash of tired product, harking back to the glory days of the catalogue, but now completely irrelevant. Show the pond a nerd who isn't over The Simpsons and Futurama, and the pond will show you a nerd still on trainer wheels.

As for One, this secondary channel has become a mess, running arcane sports programs because Ten can't afford the big audience winners, and then pretending it's actually not a sports channel, it's for general entertainment. What a mess.

Worse, these days the youth market is tricky and flighty. Even if Ten could get hold of a cable show like Hatfields & McCoys, which shifts Romeo and Juliet to West Virginia after the Civil War, it's already out there, gone, done and dusted for anyone who knows how to click a button. And the young do ...

Which brings the pond back to Andrew 'the Bolter's' Bolt Report and why it's symbolic of management failure.

The Bolter is fond of comparing his ratings to The Insiders. Oh yes, it's a hit, a palpable hit for the Bolter ...

Excuse the pond burping.

The ABC? Boring cardigan wearers offering up Barrie Cassidy? That's an epic fail because in the meantime the show's rivals on the commercial networks have tippy-toed off with the youth demographic.

The pond's maiden aunt might have a soft spot for Barrie Cassidy, but she'd no more dream of watching current affairs on a Sunday than the average teenager who just wants to watch Video Hits.

The Bolter's show is something of a legendary joke in rival commercial circles - remember the joking about the Usain Bolt campery?

It's true the show is only a minor symbol, but it's a symbol all the same of a network distracted by trivia when the name of the real game is the audience. If Ten were serious and dedicated to a cause, it would toss out Bolt in the same way it's been shedding all kinds of shows these last few weeks.

The point, in the end, is that watching daytime television, watching any sort of television is a wanton, wastrel exercise. You don't get brownie points from your audience approaching them with cynicism and contempt, and by hectoring them for being bludgers.

Two things remain true in relation to Ten.

When David Mott walked out the door, there went one of the few people at Ten who had the first clue. And so long as the current board and management thrash about without a target demographic, programs that will deliver to that demographic, and a business plan that seeks to appeal to that key advertisers interested in that demographic, the network will continue to flounder.

This is a network with a serious identity crisis, and the Bolter isn't the way forward, no matter how much some people think he's big in the country (or maybe he's big in Japan).

There, and we ended this rant without once mentioning Gina Rinehart and how she doesn't have a clue, how she fears and loathes the audience her network needs, and how she supports ideologues when all the youff demographic, the pond and the advertisers want is a bit of entertainment. Especially on a Sunday ...

What else before we hit the weekend?

Well astute observers of The Australian will have already noted Dennis "the pompous tie" Shanahan's epic misuse and abuse of Lewis Carroll in Our leaders live in looking-glass land (behind the paywall but you know how to google).

After its relentless pursuit of Gillard in recent weeks, it seems the rag is now aiming for some kind of objectivity and balance in its ranting commentariat, and so Shanahan affects an air of cynicism in relation not just to Gillard, but also to Abbott:

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are behaving like Lewis Carroll's Walrus and the Carpenter taking young oysters from their bed for a walk on the briny beach.
The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader lead the fat young oysters along, remarking on how fine is the view, then sit down on a rock "conveniently low" to talk about cabbages and kings and "whether pigs have wings".
While engaged in conversation about boiling seas and sealing wax the two companions feast on the distracted oysters with buttered bread and vinegar.

Yep, Shanahan thinks its whimsical and engaging to portray himself and his readers as hapless distracted oysters. What a goose, and perhaps only a second class form of pâté de foie gras at that, given the way the rag shoves rabid right-wing corn down the throats of its readership.

Anyhoo, readers - oysters on the sea-bed of life - will have tremendous fun, watching Shanahan as he dares to take a poke at Tony Abbott:

The strategies are all about scare campaigns on the carbon tax, mining busts, penalty rates and job security, and the only defences are more scare campaigns and a refusal to speak about other vital issues.
No one expects Abbott to produce a John Hewson-style Fightback package of massive details on a new tax, and no one expects Wayne Swan to just roll over and give up on the prospect of a budget surplus.
But the hysteria, verballing and distraction have to stop.

What, you mean that the hysterical The Australian will stop verballing Gillard over a distraction involving ratbags and an ancient union scandal?

In your dreams Mr. Shanahan, in your dreams. The pond looks forward to the next crusade by your rag, and to its continuing slide into irrelevance through excess, which is right up there with Ten's inability to recover a decent audience.

And lastly a treat.

The pond's usual business is abject loonery, but every so often it's worth celebrating an amusing read, as is the case with Richard Ackland's With nod (and wink) to past, it's more fodder for maintaining the rage.

Ackland seizes the moment of the launch of Jenny Hocking's second volume of her Gough Whitlam biography to wipe the floor with Gerard "toxins into the brain for another burst of rage maintenance" Henderson, without once mentioning Henderson.

After pausing to contemplate the amazing judicial activism involved in the dismissal - no howls from Janet Albrechtsen about activist judges here - and marvelling at the audacity of Bob Ellicott, and remembering the alleged separation of powers, Ackland puts the meaning of the dismissal in a nutshell:

Hocking's revelations are a reminder of the informal world of nods, winks and forefingers tapping the nose.
Everything from the Crown to the judiciary, the Murdoch press and many in the legal profession were arrayed against Whitlam.
Need we be reminded that these embodiments of virtue are just as capable as the whatever-it-takes types of perverting the rules to achieve their ends.

Indeed. Right now Dennis Shanahan is crying into his pool of tears, and who knows, smoking a pipe with a caterpillar and munching on a mushroom, while the Murdoch press goes about the business of arraying everyone against Gillard.

The only upside? Dennis Shanahan is an oyster, and Gina Rinehart doesn't have the first clue about how to use the media to achieve her ends ...

(more Kudelka here).

And now, if you've made it this far, with the weekend beckoning, here's to the news that not only has Tony Abbott been reading Fifty Shades of Grey, he's also read Nikki Gemmell's With My Body and The Bride Stripped Bare (thanks Crikey, here, paywalled).

Here's a cartoon for you Mr. Abbott, and do try not to get excited:

And now that the pond has declared an uneasy truce with Optus, here's another cartoon, also doing the Facebook rounds. The pond doesn't agree with the Samsung Apple riff, but loves the Nokia motif. If it'd only been Optus ...

First the pond gets dental policies sorted with pliers, then it's on to a Farrelly Blair spat ...

(Above: dentistry, Dad and Joe style, with Dave watching).

It's the pond's boast that one of its favourite uncles always removed his teeth with a pair of pliers.

The notion that they were a rusty pair of pliers was an exaggeration, it was simply that the procedure saved the time, trouble and expense of attending a dentist.

The pond's uncle is in esteemed sociopathic company. On page 99 of Zhisui Li's scurrilous tale The Private Life of Chairman Mao, it's recorded:

Mao never brushed his teeth. Like many peasants from southern China, he simply used tea to rinse out his mouth when he woke, eating the leaves after drinking the water. He had resisted all attempts to get him to see a dentist.

This excellent regime finally produced a result:

As the years went by, the problems with his teeth continued and so did his aversion to dentists. His teeth became blackened and began falling out. By the early 1970s, all his upper back teeth were gone. Fortunately, his lips usually covered the remaining few teeth even when he talked and smiled, so the absence of so many and the color of the few that remained were not often noticed.

It almost goes without saying that untended, discoloured, deformed teeth are the first sign of a lumpenproletariat, working class - dare we say peasant - lifestyle.

This is most noticeable in the United States.

There's simply no point in getting out of bed and attempting to become a Hollywood film star without a gleaming set of capped, highly whitened choppers, which can bring an exceptional Stanislavskian intensity to portraits of people suffering in concentration camps and the like. You know the drill - mud spattered face, and a dazzling set of choppers.

What's the point of having class distinctions, if the do gooders are always out and about trying to get a decent minimal standard of health care to poor people?

The pond notes that jolly Joe Hockey has a great set of choppers, no doubt earned while selling used cars and used Liberal party policies, but we simply can't afford to help poor people. Think of the cost of maintaining a yacht in Sydney harbour!

But the current dental fuss, and all the neigh sayers, set the pond to thinking about the way a caring Liberal party, run by a compassionate Catholic, could resolve the conflicting tendencies, catering to the capped gleaming rich while pretending to give a toss about the poor.

It's simple really. Provide a piece of string and a door knob (afix to any flat surface) for free at every post office in Australia, along with a decent pair of pliers. Problem solved.

Some do gooders have also suggested discounting the price of tea, so that the peasants can tend their teeth while imbibing a caffeine hit, but really the pond couldn't countenance interfering with market forces.

Not to worry, there's your dental policy, done and dusted. Now you can see why the pond is consulted on all the major policy issues let loose in the land ...

Cynics might detect a little irony on the day that a story breaks about pollies and perks (Rein reigns supreme in Qantas upgrade spree - forced video at end of link), but that only says all you need to know about pollies, perks and failed Qantas business strategies. By golly did the board pick the wrong CEO or what.

Meanwhile, after the exhaustion induced devising a new dental policy, the pond went in search of light relief, and there's nothing like an intertubes war to provide said relief.

Poor hapless Elizabeth Farrelly is in the thick of it, as she explains in Anonymity powers the cudgels in hatesphere.

The sweet, confused and miffed thing posted a few snaps of a removalist (and truck - we're not quite sure what was featured, because it seems the original post has now disappeared) who had dared to block a bicycle path.

As he stalked off I took a couple of pics of his unmarked truck and posted them on my blog.

The funny thing? Farrelly then goes on to complain about the response:

I was called a pompous prat, a rude and viscious (sic) idiot, an incredibly stupid woman, a small sad person, a pompous git, an old commie bat, an absolute wanker, a poor little suffering Doctor princess pet, a moron, an imbecile, a pestiferous little idiot, a selfish fool, an arrogant conceited woman, an old tart, an old fart, a dolt, lord of the bicycle paths, a wowser, pathetic, despicable, weak, dishonest and a complete f---wit.

Shocking. You could spend a lifetime siccing the spelling on the tubes.

Naturally Farrelly gets agitated, critiquing cyberspace and the rise of secrecy and the digital hatesphere and the way the intertubes provides both secrecy mask and cudgel.

There's a new strain of hate out there - misogynist, anti-education and clearly frightened of change; the Julia Gillard bullet-hole T-shirt; the threat to kill Nicola Roxon; the Nazi slogans with which radio host John-Michael Howson abused Christine Assange.

Yes, it's only since the internet's rise that we've seen Nazi slogans.

Oh and the leflaneur.mobi blogger who deemed it okay to put up an image of a worker going about his business as a form of payback (it's a favourite sport of workers to block the pond's rear lane access to the water lilies).

Now leflaneur.mobi was acting within rights. You can't control your image if it's snapped in a public space (unless it happens to be in the precinct of the Opera House and the goons come out in force to stop you filming).

But isn't it a bit rich to be complaining about the anonymous hatesphere, having launched a bit of hating of an anonymous trucker into said sphere? The polite thing to do would have been to ask for the insolent chappie's name and inform he would be featured on the tubes.

I understand the truckie didn't like being outed. But it's that old privacy thing: if you wouldn't want it known, don't do it. If it was OK for him to do it, it was okay for me to say so.

Uh huh. So there's a nice double standard, with Farrelly cast in the role of a truth teller:

If you pillory truth tellers, you chase decency from public life, skewing politics and ending meaningful debate in a way that helps no one, least of all those on the bottom.

Oh please, conducting a minor skirmish with a trucker isn't meaningful truth telling. It was payback that went wrong.

So why did the payback go wrong? It turns out that the reason has bugger all to do with anonymity, it has to do with that gadfly Tim Blair. After blogging about the trucker, Farrelly was assaulted by the hive mind, by way of emails and comments:

...blogging became a kind of experiment. I knew failure was on the cards. Humiliation even. But I did not expect to feel endangered myself.
Now I am hourly reminded that experimental knowledge is sometimes so dark and loathsome we'd sooner be without.
And it's not all anonymous. Of the mob pursuing me, some used government or university or work email addresses. Some - including their apparent puppetmaster Tim Blair - gave names.
I don't read the Tele. I'd never heard of Blair. Turns out he blog-blags me so often it looks like attention-seeking, calling me ''crazylady'', ''grandmaw'', ''bossypants'' and ''idiot doctor'', imputing motives I've never had to incite his hate-filled acolytes.

She'd never heard of Blair? But it's a rite of passage for any blogger to endure an assault from Blair and his mentally deficient drones.

It's how Blair makes his living, making his parrots wheel and squawk as they fly through the digital ether to do his bidding. It's an even higher mark, a greater honour, if you've copped an assault from the Bolter's assorted pack of first grade idiots and tossers.

The point here is that while the actual grenade-tossers might be anonymous, the motivating tossers are well known and housed within News Limited. It's exceedingly rich of Farrelly to talk about the blogosphere and the hatesphere when in reality she's talking about the Newslimitedsphere, and its routine business of spreading the fear and loathing and the UD in FUD.

Yes, it's not Anonymous, it's News Limited, the very same News Limited that once featured John Hartigan railing at the way journalism, not the limited intellectual value of blogs, is the future of the web.

It's News Limited readers, clustered around Blair and Bolt and Piers "Akker Dakker" Akerman and Miranda the Devine and The Punch and such like, who are encouraged in their behaviour by a publicly listed company.

It's Blair and Bolt in particular who revel in their dittohead following and who regularly unleash the hounds, as they indulge in a very public, completely un-anonymous cyber bullying.

What to do if you happen to be assaulted by these bullies and their acolytes on line? Well the last thing you should do is quail and quiver and show weakness, as Farrelly did. First the quailing:

Some of Blair's blogs use more of my words than his. I'm considering sending a bill.
And so he blogged on, relentlessly. Thursday, Saturday, Monday; clearly enjoying the rabble. He might not be responsible for his nut-job devotees, but he carefully fed them their ideas and terminology. Describing me as an "idiot Doctor of Urbanism who thinks 'traffic' means her in a freaking bike lane" he told them repeatedly that I wanted the truckie fired, hated ''working men'' and thought myself too good to "get off her stupid bike''.

Uh huh. But the first thing to do, to be polite, is to offer a link to Blair's ranting, so that readers - if they desire to step into the cesspit - can do it with a click and head off to Path of Most Resistance.

It turns out that it's just a typical set of Blair jibes:

He helpfully posted links to my blog and CV, even requoting some of the comments from my site, where I was derided as a communist, a Green, a hypocrite and a tory; as rich, powerful, supercilious, menopausal, adolescent, a Green ''self-annointed [sic] member of the ruling class'' and cause of everything wrong with both the inner city and the Fairfax share price.
It was a lynch mob; bike-hating, city-hating, education-hating. Wound up by Blair, they rode a tide of anger, envy and sexism.

At which point, you almost begin to think Blair might have a point about preciousness:

It wasn't just criticism. A personal blog is personal. The comments come to your email. These people were in my living room, spraying hot pus. Suddenly I saw how teenagers can kill themselves over cyber-bullying.

Oh for god's sake, just send the email to the spam bucket and don't read any of it. And delete comments on the blog you don't like, rather than yank the whole blog. And if anyone complains about having their comment yanked, tell them to fuck off, you want some fucking politeness and some fucking decent language deployed on your corner of the intertubes.

Tim Blair is a dickhead and a stirrer, that's a well-known fact, with the depth and intelligence of your average gadfly, fancifully imagining that he makes a contribution to climate science.

At the same time, it's completely fanciful to lather this little online bruising up into an indictment of everything:

There are two issues here; the infection of politics by unmodified emotion, and the poisonous strand of class-based secrecy that sanctions the wrongdoing but not the telling of it.

Alternatively, don't take an easy shot at someone doing a job, and that way you might avoid being on the receiving end of a set of easy shots. And don't resort to gobbledegook in the quest for self-justification ...

What happened on the street should have stayed on the street ...

Meanwhile, Farrelly should be aware that Blair has constructed a law to describe him and his stupid flock:

... the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force revolving around one giant useless blog flung together by one spiteful spleening blogger (oh we made a bit of it up but you can read the real law at the Urban dictionary here).

This sort of warfare is grist to Blair's pathetic mill (see Tim Blair human rottweiler or light weight lap puppy of Big Media?)

The lap puppy loves to play ... ask him nicely and he'll explain all you need to know about Arctic sea ice ...

(Below: and so to the good news. Just as in secret Andrew "the Bolter" Bolt is an Italian opera loving, quality red wine sipper and Europhile, it turns out that Tim Blair is a chardonnay slurper and swiller. Image found here under the header Tim Blair's dirty little secret is out. A chardonnay swiller! Oh crawl away and die of shame. What next? The Arctic sea ice is in a record melt, and can't be used as ice blocks to chill the chardonnay?)

Remember, marriage is like a crucifixion, a burden and a weight and a sip of vinegar the only reward ...

The Sydney Anglicans, always determined to paddle against the stream, are making a bit of a splash with Peter Jensen's Fairfax outing, Men and women are different, and so should be their marriage vows.

So far as Jensen goes - which isn't very far - it's the usual gobbledegook, and the usual slaying of demons.

Marriage is under dire threat, and seemingly about to be abandoned, individualism cops a whack, and bizarrely, the role of the male in marriage is to endure a kind of Christ-like crucifixion in stoic silence:

Where different promises are made, the man undertakes great responsibility and this is also the wording of the book, as it has always been. The biblical teaching is that the promise made voluntarily by the bride to submit to her husband is matched by the even more onerous obligation which the husband must undertake to act towards his wife as Christ has loved the church. The Bible says that this obligation is ultimately measured by the self-sacrifice of Christ in dying on the cross.

Yep, for any man getting hitched, why you can feel the nails slicing through the feet and the palms, the side being pierced and the blood flowing, the crown of thorns applied by the relentless harpy, and a drink of vinegar at close of day all that's offered for refreshment.

Why do the Sydney Anglicans always cast the conversation in terms of joyless burden, self-sacrfice, immolation and Calvinist suffering?

This is in complete contrast to the evil view of marriage as a chance to share a little happiness, joy, life and the odd fuck:

Secular views of marriage are driven by a destructive individualism and libertarianism. This philosophy is inconsistent with the reality of long-term relationships such as marriage and family life.

Yep, if you're a secularist, you simply can't get married and enjoy family life, because it will get you involved in an inconsistency time warp.

But if you're a faithful Sydney Anglican woman, you make out like a bandit. Not only does your partner endure a Christ-like capacity for noble sacrifice, in a masculine way, by agreeing to submit, you snap the collar tight and hard around his wayward neck:

This is not an invitation to bossiness, let alone abuse. A husband who uses the wife's promise in this way stands condemned for betraying his own sworn obligations. The husband is to take responsibility for his wife and family in a Christ-like way. Her ''submission'' is her voluntary acceptance of this pattern of living together, her glad recognition that this is what he intends to bring to the marriage and that it is for her good, his good and the good of children born to them. She is going accept him as a man who has chosen the self-discipline and commitment of marriage for her sake and for their children. At a time when women rightly complain that they cannot get men to commit, here is a pattern which demands real commitment all the way.

(uh huh, but which one is Sam?)

I guess it begs the question as to why Christ never got married, and instead preferred to hang out with twelve dudes ...

It is a pity that the present discussion has been so overtly political. Instead of mocking or acting horrified, we should engage in a serious and respectful debate about marriage and about the responsibilities of the men and women who become husbands and wives. The Bible contains great wisdom on this fundamental relationship.

Which, it has to be said, leaves out any wisdom you might derive from Hinduism, or Confucianism. It really is remarkable that a billion plus Indians and a billion plus Chinese have the institution of marriage within their midst, without the benefit of Jensenist interpretations of biblical wisdom. How passing strange ... perhaps it's all the fault of the secularists:

The rush to embrace libertarian and individualistic philosophy means that we miss some of the key relational elements of being human, elements which make for our wellbeing and happiness. It's time to rethink marriage from first principles. It really matters.

Yes it is, those Indian and Chinese libertarian individualists need to rethink marriage from first principles. And if they do, why they might find the instinct to mate and share a life goes back a tad further than the young earth creationism that infuses biblical literalists.

Thus far it's fair to say that it's all pretty much same same, just another tired Anglican outing, resolutely shouting defiance at the modern world, and harking back to a never never land in search of camel-droving tribal wisdom.

What's more interesting is the way the outing served as an opportunity for Jensen to be given a fair old pounding in the comments section.

No doubt it's water off a duck's back, but it was Jensen's supporters in the comments section that attracted the attention of the pond, and should in a sensible world give Jensen a little pause to reflect:

I’m no longer Christian but I agree with the basic premise made by Peter.
I’ve been married twice and they failed because, typical of most women now, my wives put their own wishes above everything; including the welfare of their children.
In all human societies throughout history, women submit to their husbands. In all ape societies females submit to males.
The price for feminism is a lot of failed marriages, children from broken families, a lot of men who don’t trust women and a lot of women who don’t trust men.
Peter is not a dinosaur; feminism is the unnatural belief we have now.

Uh huh. Amazingly rick of Melbourne seems not to understand why, with this attitude, a couple of women failed to submit to his ape charms.

With supporters like this, the intrinsic Jensen message is exposed to the baleful air.

And then there was more predictable biblically based support:

Just after the request to get women to submit to their husbands. God says that men should to submit to Him - by loving his wife as Christ loves the Church ... to give his all life for her, to serve her with everything he has, to give her everything she requires, to support and strengthen her at all times. This is a harder deal on the man than on the woman. God says the weight is all on the man's shoulders. God gives just three verses to the women, then the next nine to the men.
Have a read through Ephesians 5:22 - 33 to get the bigger passage. You can view it here ... http://www.youversion.com/bible/eph.5.niv84

Yep, it's a real burden, a real weight, a huge amount of suffering to be married. And wisely in her infinite wisdom, god short-changed women, giving them just three verses, while she gave nine verses to the men, and the men are long suffering and the women have it easy, and why marriage is little short of a crucifixion considering the hard deal dished out to men and the weight on their shoulders and the sword in their side and the vinegar drink after a hard day's work supporting the little woman and the bawling brawling spawn ...

And so on and so forth.

As the Anglican church in Sydney slides into complete irrelevance - in the last census Anglicans registered the largest fall among big Christian denominations and those claiming 'no religion' now outnumber Anglicans - at least the comedy stylings remain fresh and a marvel to behold ...

Jensen proposes there should be no mocking, but what else can you do when with all solemnity, he proposes that the duty of a man in marriage is to suffer like Christ crucified on the cross.

Does he even begin to comprehend what he's saying?

(Below: we just had to include a dinosaur joke).

The pond settles on expansionism and to hell with the Arctic sea ice ...

(Above: Cardinal Pell with hand gesture and handy holy water).

What a splendid sight.

Cardinal Pell opening a medical centre dedicated to tackling cancer by sprinkling holy water on the building, and giving journalists and photographers a special sprinkle (here).

Using scientific principles, the pond would have preferred to call in a Filipino faith healer, a New Orleans voodoo artiste, or a witch doctor, but it's the scientific thought that counts, and St. Vincent's Hospital has passed the test. When you want a cure, call on a quipping Cardinal and he'll give you a sprinkle, and before you know it, cured, done and dusted ...

And another thing.

When will Apple come to understand that it's current 'lawyer at ten paces' strategy is totally stuffed? Rather than compete on quality of product, and pricing, Apple has chosen to compete with lawyers, litigation, patent law, and dubious claims.

Is it possible to be an all-Apple household, and yet loath Apple? Sure thing, though no doubt there are plenty of PC users out there who might say the same about Microsoft ...

Damn them, damn them all. It isn't a victory, unless you're a fan of pyrrhic victories. As soon as lawyers start devising your business model, you're fucked. (Apple v. Samsung: The legal aftershocks). The exercise is eerily reminiscent of the music industry deciding to sue its customers, only this time Apple is feuding with a rival which happens to build a lot of its components. The only guarantee? The customers will suffer ...

Phew, and we haven't even got on to doing the rounds of the commentariat, or what's happening in their world, or mentioning the demise of Derryn Hinch. (3AW presenter Derryn Hinch fired). Waiter, bring me ten wooden stakes, moistened with cloves of garlic and the purest of silver. The pond just wants to make sure ...

Hinch's latest trick was to head off to court to defend his right not to vote - or so mUmBRELLA says. The pond suggests Hinch head off to Russia, where the right to vote is the right to participate in a totally meaningless display of support for Putin ...

And while we're at it, let's pause just to record the joy of Grahame Morris calling Leigh Sales a "cow". What a feral pit bull the lad is, how classy (Lib strategist sorry for calling journalist 'cow', forced video at end of link).

He's welcome on the pond any time, we need classy examples of how to lower the tone of the political discourse ... not that we'd resort to calling him a fat frump of a dinosaur - that's for other low rent sites - we'd much prefer just to note he's an exemplar that any Sydney Anglican would be proud to vote for. Submit cows, and serve your masters, or some such thing ... (Crikey says: cows and dinosaurs, behind the paywall).

In relation to Morris, can we just record a doozy by Andrew "the Bolter" Bolt in relation to the matter, as the Bolter got agitated and lathered up by the ABC and the mention of dinosaurs (Sexist attack by ABC on respected veteran):

UPDATE

Note how unsubtly The Age wove this in with Julia Gillard’s red herring about Larry Pickering and the Labor’s fraudulent attack on Tony Abbott’s alleged sexism.
The few undergraduates left at the paper are turning it into a university student paper in their frantic efforts to tear Abbott down.

CORRECTION: The copy was written by AAP. Apologies to The Age.

It must be awesome to be an error-laden fool, quick to abuse, and then forced to make a dull, leaden apology.

Oops, is that sexist, deviant Age and ABC thinking?

So it's on to the commentariat, and here's the thing of immediate concern to the pond. Lately the papers have been full of news that the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has melted to the smallest level ever recorded (Arctic ice melts to record low: scientists).

Usually and often in unison, brave members of the scientifically expert and eminently qualified commentariat have in the past stepped forward to explain how shrinking ice caps is the work of fraudulent grant-devouring scientists involved in a vast international conspiracy, perhaps involving the United Nations or even a cartel of bankers.

But lately the commentariat has been distracted. Today for example Janet Albrechtsen is busy explaining how the Fair Work Act is a legal nightmare, and how there exists the odd just judge because they agree with Albrechtsen (The just judge gets full marks behind the paywall).

Other pundits at The Australian are cock a hoop at the dumping of the floor price for carbon:

There's simply no time to consider whether the Arctic sea ice is in pain.

If it wants to sulk, let it sulk, if it wants to melt, why then let it melt ...

Perhaps the most preeminent scientific expert - he'll give you an opinion sourced from AAP at the drop of a hat - Andrew "the Bolter" Bolt is also away with the pixies.

Today, amongst other pressing matters, he's concerned with the damage being done by the carbon tax, recycling the thoughts of Dennis Shanahan and Terry McCrann (hello, little Sir Echo, hello echo chamber, hello) in The carbon tax just became another damaging tax grab.

Tragic really. The Bolter has spent years assuring the world that the Arctic ice is doing fine, but just when it needs a little care and loving attention and reassurance, he goes missing in action.

What about Miranda the Devine then? She sat at the feet of Lord Monckton and supped at his font of knowledge so many times. Nope, in the latest of her intermittent communications, she's agitated by union thugs (Union thugs - what a surprise).

How about Piers "Akker Dakker" Akerman, always keen-eyed when it comes to a UN conspiracy? Nope, Akker Dakker's off sorting out the refugee crisis in Repair broken boat bridge.

At long last, desperate for the ice, the pond resorted to the punch-drunk Punch.

Only to find Sophie Mirabella scribbling Who will make the next giant leap for mankind?

Amazingly Mirabella spends her entire column brooding about space travel without once mentioning the way conservative creationist Republican tea party luddites have done more to reduce the collective intelligence of the United States in the past decade than Mirabella has managed to achieve for Australia ... but she's working on it. (as they are in the United States, as you can read in Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Debunks Creationism, Gets Killed Off By Twitter).

Back to the Mirabella vision:

This year marks 40 years since man last stood on the moon – yes, it’s been that long. It’s worth pausing to think about what sort of human endeavours will enrich mankind in the future.

Uh huh. Damned if it will be climate science, or scientists braving the chill winds of the north and south poles to help discover what makes the world tick:

Are our children being imbued with that same sense of wonder and willingness to take risks to discover new horizons? Has our connectivity made the world so much smaller that exploration seems pointless or passé? Is our society so risk-adverse that adventure is now just imaginary fodder for books and movies? Are our kids so continually bombarded with the “reduce, conserve” message that quests for expansion or exploration now have negative connotations?

Conserve? Bah humbug, I spit on your petty conservationist ways. What we need is epic destruction, quests for expansion, lebensraum, the fight for ultimate victory, ultimate triumph of the will ...

Mirabella will be fondly remembered for her berating of climate scientists for being dubious untrustworthy sooks:

The carbon tax debate is important and should be conducted without hysterics. The apparently false allegation of death threats have diminished the individuals involved and reflect poorly on the scientific community. (Explanation needed from chief scientist).

A simple summary of simple-minded thinking? Neil Armstrong wonderful, space exploration wonderful, more vision needed, climate scientists casting shadows, not making honest disclosures, telling porkies, indulging in hysterics, making false allegations ...

Oh bugger off Arctic ice, you'll just have to take care of yourself.

Ms Mirabella has no time for actual observed events in the real world.

Let's join with her in a messianic quest for expansion, and to the conquest of Mars in the name of earth.

Oops, that sounds a little too UN. As if we live on a planet where the Arctic ice seems to be under stress.

Well then, in the name of the good citizens of Indi and their fearless expansionist leader Sophie Mirabella ...

Got your top hat and your glass topped up, because today we're doing a toast to John Kerr, thanks to Gerard Henderson ...

(Above: found here in a site dedicated to the dismissal).

Happily once a decent time has passed, the AFR paywall lifts and Mark Latham's lunches are revealed to the world in all their glowing glory.

So it is that the average punter can access the thoughts of Robert Manne, as channeled by Latham, sorted over two vegetable soups, spring rolls, steamed scallops with vegetables, roast duck, fried rice and two Vietnamese teas for the grand spend of $63 at the BBQ House Seafood Restaurant 240 Victoria Street, Richmond ... (A home away from home for the pond).

Since today is prattling Polonius day, let's get things off with a bang, as Manne and Latham brood about said Prufrock:

His most persistent critic is the Sydney Institute's Gerard Henderson, who blogs every Friday on a series of imagined Manne atrocities. Henderson is notoriously precious in his exchanges with other people, reaching into his encyclopaedic filing system to even the score with rivals who might have crossed him any time in the past 50 years. And so it is with Manne.

As he tells the story, "Gerard and I were at Melbourne University together in the late 1960s. He was known very much as Santa's man on campus, an acolyte of B. A. Santamaria. He submitted an article to the university magazine for which I was one of three co-editors. I actually wanted to run it but the other two editors didn't like it. Ultimately, the piece was rejected and Gerard, quite incorrectly, blamed me. For many years I didn't even realise he hated me, but that's Henderson for you."

Some years ago Anne Henderson, Gerard's wife and the deputy director of the Sydney Institute, wrote a book called Getting Even. For Gerard, it could easily be biographical, a neat precis of his outlook on life. For anyone who doubts Gerard's capacity for revenge, Manne's recollections are instructive. Like most rivalries, this one is laced with jealousy. Henderson detests Manne's reputation as Australia's leading public intellectual, while Gerard himself languishes in the nit-picking trivia of his Friday blog. (and if you want the rest of Latham's self- and Manne-congratulatory effort, you can find it here under the header Robert Manne is all we have left).

Naturally pompous Polonius found the bait irresistible, and found the time to respond.

Truly if he were a trout, he'd provide no sport at all, as he furiously fired off Manne and Latham's false claims and nonsense.

The silly goose - or should that be the desiccated coconut - spends a good deal of time in his letter suggesting there was no enmity between him and Manne in the eighties and early nineties, and no envy or spite in relation to Manne, which makes you wonder if Hendo actually reads his own relentless tirades about Manne.

Naturally he refutes all imputations about Anne Henderson's book as ridiculous, and he also blathers on about how the article rejected by the Manne troika was picked up by James McAuley for Quadant, "a much more influential magazine than MUM" (yes, even in denying a point, hapless Polonius can't help revealing himself as a pompous prat).

Now here's the strange thing. The cruellest cut in the Latham/Manne conversation is the reference to Henderson being a lap poodle of B. A. Santamaria - the bit that runs He was known very much as Santa's man on campus, an acolyte of B. A. Santamaria.

No defence? No resistance? An acolyte of a barking mad Catholic fundamentalist? Or is it guilty as charged?

No wonder Henderson has trouble getting two coherent thoughts together in a single sentence, yet he has the cheek to talk of Latham and Manne as inconsistent thinkers.

Does he really think it constitutes a defence of Anne Henderson's book to propose that the title was suggested by the publisher HarperCollins? What on earth has that got to do with anything? It's a joke, about someone of precious hue, who's always intent on getting even. To the point of acting like a salmon and sending a missive to the editor of the AFR, trying yet again to get even ...

So it goes, and so today, we have yet another peculiar insight into the thinking of Gerard Henderson, as unveiled by Left closes ranks to consign Kerr to wrong side of history.

What's so peculiar? Well for starters there's a kind of puffery and self-esteem at work, right up there with Mark Latham.

Polonius is indignant that upstart Jenny Hocking has dared to step on to the hallowed turf of Henderson, and the matter of Sir John Kerr and the dismissal. He revealed all two decades ago, it was all Gerard, Gerard, Gerard!

My revelation that Mason was the third man in the dismissal was published in the Herald on January 8, 1994 and received wide coverage. Before submitting the piece, I wrote to Mason advising what I proposed to do. His office acknowledged receipt of my letter and expressed thanks for giving advanced warning. Later I corresponded with Whitlam about this.

Me, me, me, I, I, I ...

Now the naughty Hocking has muddied the waters, stirred things up, and brought Mason out of the closet, stealing Gerard's thunder! (Mason speaks out on dismissal, forced video at end of link).

It's just so wrong, so unfair. So let's have a barrel of nit-picking snidery discharged in the direction of Mason:

Mason recalls that he told Kerr he should warn Whitlam of his intentions. Kerr never said this to me and Hocking has found no such recollection in Kerr's papers. Since Kerr died in 1991, his attitude on this matter will never be heard.

Uh huh. That damn Mason. Could he be involved in a perverted leftist conspiracy to consign Kerr to the wrong side of history, and without the drunkard around to defend himself?

Well it would be a bit rich of Henderson to accuse Mason of lying or disremembering, so he has to turn his double-barreled buckshot of spleen and envy on someone else. Come on down Jenny Hocking:

Hocking is the Left's bespoke biographer who has published adoring accounts of such left-wing identities as author Frank Hardy, politician and judge Lionel Murphy and Whitlam. In a number of soft ABC interviews yesterday, Hocking described Kerr as a "weak man" with "an animated concern for his own position".

Oh no, Ms Hocking, you spoke to the ABC! You know they're notoriously soft and leftist.

The mere fact that you speak the obvious about Kerr, a weak man, and a bit of a vain peacock with an animated concern for his own position - just look at his love of fancy toff clobber - is simply neither here nor there.

No doubt it's sad that Kerr, always a bit of a tosspot, eked out his remaining years in London, where he could be seen most days, usually the worse for wear, at one or other gentleman's club, but them's the breaks (here at his wiki).

But do go on Mr. Henderson, worship your idol:

The latter reference was a comment on Kerr's expressed concern that, if he gave warning that he intended to dismiss Whitlam for attempting to govern without supply (i.e. money), Whitlam would have advised the Queen to sack him first.
This was not a question of self-preservation. In his conversations with me, Kerr made it very clear that he was desperate not to involve Buckingham Palace in an Australian political dispute. There is little doubt that Whitlam would have moved against Kerr if he had been consulted by Kerr along the lines Mason suggests. In the climate of 1975, this would have caused a constitutional crisis and possible political disorder.

Uh huh. So thanks to John Kerr there was no constitutional crisis and no political disorder. And in your alternative universe, Buck Rogers meets the Martians ...

And so Malcolm Fraser came slouching towards Bethlehem, and as an ultimate payback, now torments Henderson weekly with his leftist attitudes and pronouncements.

There's an irony in there somewhere.

But let's get back to embittered unhappy Henderson, still fighting the dismissal wars some 37 years after they started. Is that a giant massive chip on the shoulder or what?

Hocking's attacks on Kerr should not detract from one central matter. The dismissal resulted from the fact that the opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, blocked supply and Whitlam attempted to govern without supply. Yet today Whitlam and Fraser are left-wing heroes while Kerr is criticised for doing his duty and resolving the impasse by dismissing Whitlam and ordering Fraser to conduct an immediate double dissolution election.

Yes, in Henderson's bizarro world, Fraser is part of the left-wing conspiracy, and poor old Kerr is posthumously persecuted for just doing his duty while inclined to a drink or three.

Back in the day of course it was understood to be not so much a resolution of an impasse as a rewarding of Fraser for his obstructionist conduct. And a critique of the Whitlam government, which deserved a critique but which had also recently been re-elected ...

How silly to situate a political discussion in the political realities of the time, and how silly not to realise the doofus in the middle was blind-sided by Fraser ...

Does it say something about Henderson that he approves dissembling and subterfuge, and Kerr not having the balls to front Whitlam and stare him down, as Mason said he proposed?

Might Kerr even have rung Malcolm Fraser an hour before doing the dirty deed of the dismissal, to tip him off, as Fraser has claimed? No straight bat or derring do from this man ...

It goes to the character of Kerr, and perhaps it might also go to the character of Henderson as he yammers on yet again about the ABC, the left and the history wars, which now strangely include Sir Anthony Mason on the wrong side ...

Phew, after that, the pond feels like a sit down slap-up meal.

How about we start with a serve of goi cuon, before moving on to heo rang muoi and bo tai me (just love that rare beef with mint and tamarind dressing). It ain't Victoria Road in glorious Richmond, but the Thanh Binh in King street Newtown should see you right.

And remember to raise a glass and drink to the ABC, Anthony Mason and Malcolm Fraser, those heroes of the leftist class struggle ...

(Below: and now let's go to the races with Sir John and get a little tipsy).