The usual visual delights, flourishes and follies on view in old Sydney town ...

Old Sydney town was alive with visual delights, flourishes and follies last night.

Oh it was a gay old time in the town, what with the old Customs House lit up like post-modern lantern:

And then in the usual way, the Opera House was bathed in post-hippie lighting as a reminder that the spirit of the 1960s still lurks in the land.

(genuine, authentic, brand of reliability original pond photos by Dorothy)

But perhaps the funniest visual oddity, the most supreme visual folly came in a nearby bus shelter:

Say what? An intelligent, poised, tablet-using woman, a bright young thing on the rise, hip and now, on the go, interested in the Daily Terror?

Should even young blondes be defamed in this way?

Like she's strangely compelled by this sort of wall to wall digital front coverage of boofheads smashing each other up in the boofhead approved way?

Well there's demographics and then there's delusions and it seems at the Daily Terror they're in the grip of some kind of unholy desperation.

But there was one comedy upside, thanks to Mumbrella and Dr Mumbo here:

Oh dear. Yes that totally gormless picture is a better indicator of the Terror's demographic.

As a wag below the fold noted, that's what happens when artists don't like a particular columnist, but oh the sweetness of the payback ...

Meanwhile, as you can see in the Terror's barnstorming, smashing coverage, the fists of fury spoke.

How soon before gentle readers cop a poke in the eye from the Devine, or a stern solemn editorial from the Terror, both deploring casual random violence in the streets and fisticuffs run wild?

How soon a call to ban said violence and street hooligans? While the casual smashing of cane toads on the field is deemed a civic duty for cockroaches?

Oh it's a violent society, full of violence worshippers, completely unaware of the contradictions within them, so why not celebrate the visual violence done to the Devine?

Meanwhile, while visiting Mumbrella, it was jolly to see David Gyngell reveal that he has absolutely no understanding or awareness of his network's audience, as you can read here:

“I probably got too driven on sport, you know what your watching, you want the information, without the thought that there are a lot of kids watching they’re absorbing this and this is not good information for them so we’ve pulled back from that now and I think that’s the right balance,” he said.

Yes there's an entirely new definition of information abroad in the land.

Odds for mug punters are now "information" and good old Tom Waterhouse is an astonishing mine of valuable "information".

What follows is the usual sanctimonious humbug of a suit out for a fast buck:

“I think we over-egged it and I think we’ve pulled back from it. And personally and emotionally, being the father of a new child, I don’t want my child to saying all the odds either, but at the same time, it’s the way you do it."

Say what? Better get back on that "information" mantra pretty damn quick:

"People are allowed to receive information. It’s legal if it’s done properly."

Yes, we're all allowed to receive information. From now on, be pleased and dance in the streets, all that incessant, mind-numbing, head-banging noise you hear all the time isn't a blizzard of white noise and insinuating, sinister propaganda at all, it's just pure, distilled, essence of "information".

So let's have the amazingly articulate Gyngell wrap the Waterhouse affair up in a tidy rhetorical bundle:

"I think we pushed it too far, I respect that. But I think equally we all go jumping on the bandwagon of something that has been around for a while, if you don’t like it its still horrific to you as far as the people are concerned.”

Oh yes, that's as clear as a swig of moonshine.

Meanwhile, the comedians at the Labor party keep mining the same old material, and doesn't the Murdoch media just love it.

There was Kevin Rudd bobbing up one more time - as if promoting a game of Whack-A-Mole - to call for discipline and telling MPs to pull their heads in and urging unity. Why he's as funny as the Black Knight ...

And there was Joel Fitzgibbon showing all the style and class of an adolescent sulky schoolboy mocking the lines he'd been given by reading from the "manual" for the day.

Having ensured he hadn't pulled in his head, and made clear that unity was the last thing on his mind, Fitzgibbon was chased by a Nine TV cameraman who fell and landed in a large pot (Media goes boots and all in chase of MP Joel Fitzgibbon).

Fitzgibbon belongs to the NSW Right, the same clowns who delivered perpetual rule in NSW to big Bazza and a second airport in Canberra, connected by a VFG (very fast goose), and in one interview "Smacka" Fitzy used the word "disaffected" some five times (Labor faction chief Joel Fitzgibbon becomes face of party disaffection with Julia Gillard).

The clowns in the Labor party had a couple of choices: act responsibly and sensibly, or do their level best to imitate the last days of the Whitlam government. They could show class, or they could act like the class clowns.

Well Fitzgibbon is doing a wonderful impression, though whether of Jim Cairns or Rex Connor or Tirath Khemlani, it's hard to say ...

Meanwhile, over at the lizard Oz, a few of the reptiles are already starting to have a panic attack.

Poor old Niki Savva cranks it up to something approaching a heart attack in For Abbott, winning's the easy bit (behind the paywall so you can avoid sharing said heart attack).

Tony Abbott actually running the country? Oh dear sweet long absent lord ...

Savva proposes that Barnaby Joyce might be beaten by Tony Windsor, that Kevin Andrews will become a bicycling Speaker (well where else can you put a bear of little brain out of reach of the honey), broods about the boats, implicit in the brooding that Abbott won't stop the boats but will certainly managed to alienate Indonesia, and then spends an inordinate amount of time fearfully contemplating the way that Abbott goes about managing business:

What he also needs to think about is a restructuring of his office and the way he operates. There is no point having regular hook-ups of leadership groups, shadow cabinet meetings, joint party meetings and early morning conference calls to deal with issues, if they are going to be treated like mushroom farms.
If nothing else, his colleagues hope the political funding scandal has taught him to seek wider counsel and follow proper process. Good luck with that. There have been two other major by-passes - paid parental leave and support for the referendum to support local government - so it's not as if proof of lessons learned is immediately apparent. 

Of course Savva doesn't know how to count.

There's also the matter of broadband - how long ago was it that it was going to be destroyed? - and the matter of "direct action" on climate change.

Abbott's absurd plans for both of them can be added to sundry other matters where Abbott has devised bizarre, on the run, improvised "real" policy responses, and people inside the party have just shrugged their shoulders and rolled their eyes, because the nattering negativity has put them within reach of power and all the perks of office.

According to Savva, it's because Abbott is currently acting as if he's channeling the Whitlam government himself, with only him and a female Lance Barnard pulling the levers:

One complaint about Abbott is that his inner circle too often comprises only two people - him and his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, a one-woman version of the Praetorian Guard, who is married to the party's federal director, Brian Loughnane, which adds another layer of complication and potential conflict. 
Abbott described Credlin recently as "outstanding". Considering where they all began, it is hard to argue with that. Nevertheless, no matter how outstanding, one individual cannot assume all the policy, political and media responsibilities in a prime minister's office, where every issue eventually lands. 
It is critical to consult while trusting experts to do their jobs in accordance with established procedures because what gets you there won't necessarily keep you there.

Now Savva's column is a piece of hand-wringing but for the pond it's pure delight, foreshadowing as it does what is to come.

The pond is already poised to win big in the way of bottles of wine on the Federal election result (so much more civilised than soiling one's paws with Tom) and the pond is poised to win in an even bigger way if or when Abbott assumes power ...

The pond will of course go into totally negative nattering mode - the pond has learned to hate thanks to the reptiles at the lizard Oz, and any move the Abbott government makes, the pond will be agin it.

Unity? Go suck on a bottle of tomato sauce Paul Kelly.

The nattering negativity of hate has been fed to the pond like a mix of mother's milk and kool aid.

That's what passes as responsible journalism these days.

But even better, the pond is scoring good odds - not quite as good as a Grange to a De Bortoli, but not bad either - as to whether Abbott will survive in power beyond the two year mark.

The pond is betting he won't, and that he'll be taken out by his colleagues, who once they're in power can have the pleasure of power, and lop off his perverse policies head, and the fall will be spectacular, and once again we will witness a Ruddster-style demise of a PM ... and every botched policy moment will bring the pond that little bit closer to a nice little cellar ...

Oh it's going to be a grand old time, and Savva's hand-wringing is just the start of it ...

Yep,  it's going to be a fine old bash, fisticfuffs of fury, with gambling galore and with heaps of "information", and not once will the pond think of the children, in best Gyngell approved style ...

(Below: more David Pope here).

Enough already, so many loons, so little time ... time to face the organ music instead ...

So once again the pond owes fellow road users a profound apology. It must be truly disturbing to see a driver shouting at the radio, almost as shocking as seeing mobile phone users blather into the invisible air.

Why does it always fall to the pond to be out on the road at the wrong time, listening to the wrong radio, and with predictably wrong results?

In this case, the pond happened to catch the wretched John Dickson talking to the wretched Rachael Kohn, apparently in rebuttal of Gene Robinson (the pond missed that bit, but masochists and self-harmers can listen to the thing on RN here).

What's worse, it was a repeat of a show that the pond diligently avoids for reasons of blood pressure and the desire to maintain some vestiges of intelligence, yet here they were, Dickson and Kohn, yammering on sympathetically to each other about how in three thousand years there had been only the one Christian definition of marriage, and that being strictly between a man and a woman.

Now you can understand why the pond began to shout back.

Shameless lies or shameless profound ignorance, the pond shouted at the radio. What of polygamy you stupid. maliciously mis-informed or shamelessly distorting people?

Explain polygamy and its frequent appearance, including but  not least Abraham, the very founder of the Abrahamic tradition, who had assorted wives and concubines, but also David, with five named wives and assorted other wives and concubines - and if you want a short summary, here's the wiki.

Now don't take refuge by claiming Abraham was outside the timeline, at c. second millennium BCE, face up to some of the elements in the Abrahamic tradition and discuss them in an adult way. Stop sounding wilfully ignorant, and stupid ...

Oh feel free to do your "love teh gays but hate teh married poofter" speeches, expose your smarmy biogtry and prejudice all you like, but do it in a way that shows that at some point you've actually read the bible and understand what has been  handed down as part of the Christian tradition.

Enough already, the pond swears not to shout at the radio again, at least until Rachael Kohn next makes an accidental appearance.

Meanwhile, the pond is confronted by another crisis today. It will mean nothing to sensible folk living in sensible cultures, but for seven long years, New South Wales has suffered under the burden of losses to cane toads in strange tribal rituals ...

What to do? How to show solidarity?

Well it so happens that Charles Dutoit is in town and doing the Saint-Saëns' Third (Organ) Symphony, as purloined shamelessly for Babe, and what better way to spend a few hours away from the boofheads? The pond loves the sound of a good organ, and so it goes ...

Lately the pond has been enjoying the clarinet concerto by Finnish composer Magnus Linbberg - what a quirky tribute to Gerswhin and Benny Goodman and jazz - and thinking about this, it occurred to the pond what joy there is in exotic media.

Yes, the ABC can use Rachael Kohn to ensure the pond will switch off RN, but there are other alternatives. It could be ABC-FM, or while on the road that cockroach of the airwaves JJJ, or when in Melbourne RRR, and maybe now it has a shop-front on Broadway, 2 SER might be worth a go.

Confronted by the likes Kohn, why not flick the dial? It doesn't mean you have to listen to that damned parrot, getting high on amphetamine-infused, anger-laden bird seed ...

The same can be said in these bountiful times for newspapers. Now you might feel like banging your head on the table reading Janet "Dame Slap" Albrechtsen but there are plenty of alternatives.

The Guardian down under has already had its veritable first hit, exposing the gormless Julie Bishop and her word games over Indonesia, as you can read in Julie Bishop, Indonesia, boats and Guardian Australia.

Now you might propose that exposing Bishop is a bit like revealing Kohn has all the depth and insight of a sock puppet, and you'd be right, but still someone has to do the job.

The Guardian has maintained the same style as its UK masthead, which happens to be the same style as the reptiles at the lizard Oz, but here's the relief. There's not one EXCLUSIVE in sight, just the exclusive sight of Julie Bishop sounding like a sock puppet, as you can read in the original story Indonesia 'would co-operate with Coalition on boats (and never you mind what the Indonesian Ambassador might say).

The Guardian also provided a story on the gormless Abbott trying to sound tough by shouting out of the depths of the ditch that Bishop dug for him, as you can read in Tony Abbott addresses questions about Indonesia asylum contacts.

Now why, you might ask, is the pond pumping up a UK publication? Where is the loyalty to the American-owned media which dominates the Australian landscape?

What? You've already forgotten it's Dame Slap day, and Dame Slap is as supremely predictable as ever:

Yes, she's at it again, like a cracked 78 rpm record, where the shellac has long since melted in the sun, so that all that's left is a kind of hissing and crackling of the warped kind.

Now look, you might, if you want, ignore the possible implications for blood pressure in later life, by circumventing the paywall - you know how to google - and read Gender wars can't help the Labor cause any more than a quota PM. But surely the opener serves as a warning:

Girls, girls, girls. Please put down your gender guns. When will Labor women wise up and work out that if you hand out gender favours for women, it's easier to do factional favours for men. And when factors apart from old-fashioned merit determine preselection, too many unremarkable women and even more deadweight factional men end up filling Labor's parliamentary benches.

Girls, girls, girls? Oh fuck off, fuck off, fuck off ...

Funnily enough, there's a story going around that there's a fuss at the Manly football club at the use of "boy" (Kiwi claims racism at Manly NRL club) which in turn reminds the pond of the famous time that Bert Newtown announced to the world that he liked the boy (yes you can see it on YouTube here).

Which is a round about way of explaining that you can't even in jest, and even as a woman, get away with that sort of condescending opening, at least not when talking to the pond. Girls? Oh just fuck off ...

Enough already, the pond can't do it, reading Albrechtsen is simply too hard ...

But, but you say, what to read, and perhaps on the matter of Labor party preselection?

What, already forgotten the rhetoric about there being alternatives out there?

Well there's also a paywall problem with Guy Rundle at Crikey scribbling Dear Labor, please continue to treat us with contempt, but it is very funny, and it is very different from Dear Janet, please continue to treat us with contempt ...

Rundle is very winning in his plea for David Feeney to win pre-selection for a Melbourne seat:

This would be an epochal moment in Australian political history. Three years after the Faulkner-Carr review, which investigated how out-of-touch, arrogant and generally loathsome Labor is perceived to be by many of its supporters, the candidacy of David Feeney for this Melbourne seat would be a chance to show that the party has learnt nothing, absolutely nothing from the last three years, that its factional leaders would rather lose an election than lose internal party power, and that it continues to treat its supporters with utter contempt. 

Rundle also gets a jab in at the Caterists:

Please have as many people as possible in the local party read and learn Nick Cater’s The Lucky Culture and continue with the fantasy that the latter group of people are in some sense unreal and therefore don’t count — that there is some ghost 1950s electorate out there ready to materialise, Brigadoon-style, and vote in the last grouper to be offered to an electorate that includes the Socialist Republic of Northcote, the Hippie Demesne of Clifton Hill and the Lesbian Margravate of Thornbury.

And so on and so forth until he wraps it up:

Please show that you are truly a sovereign party — the Louis XVI of Australian politics, you have forgotten nothing because you have learnt nothing. Please, above all, hurry on the utter disaster it appears will be necessary before you take seriously the dire state of your politics.

Now Rundle in his initial outburst made a mistake about Feeney in relation to same sex marriage - Feeney supports it - but this is easily explained. He must have accidentally caught a burst of Rachael Kohn and John Dickson on RN, an irradiation more deadly than the fallout at Chernobyl.

Never mind, Rundle in full flight is better than being irradiated by Dame Slap, which is more like grasping kryptonite and holding it close to the brain ...

(More David Pope here)

But wait, don't stop there. If you want permanent brain damage, there are a host of options. How about Paul Kelly, showing all the signs of a zombie brain-dead apocalypse:

Say what? Tony Abbott as the head of a unity ticket? Abbott to fill the unity vacuum? What addled-brained vacuumed empty-headed dodo would even begin to think of Abbott as the man to deliver unity? As opposed to nattering negativity?

Wait, we have a winner for clown hero of the lizard Oz commentariat award.

Waiter, a gallon of the kool aid that deluded, delusional man is drinking. It's so beyond bizarre, he's mixed a little acid or dope in it, hasn't he?

Oh give me more, give me more, bliss the pond out:

Say what? The man and the program that the lizard Oz conducted a war against for the entire time Holmes was fronting the show?

Does Dennis 'the suit and tie' Shanahan think lizard Oz readers have short memories? Sorry, that's only Peter Garrett ...

But give me more, please give me more:

There's no fucking doubt, you first class loon?

When your splash should, if you had the slightest shred of intelligence, have read There's no doubt The Australian and all the reptiles at the lizard Oz and the rest of the dark star Murdochracy have a problem when it comes to fair and balanced reporting on climate change ...

So who is this Marc Hendrickx? What is his scientific expertise? What are his credentials?

Who knows. He's just a bloody blogger with a bee in his bonnet, as you can see if you read his blog here.

What was that the pond said about maintaining minority interests? Sorry, we take it all back. You're better off reading the back of corn flakes packs than reading bloody useless bloggers (yes we take one self-loathing pill with our orange juice in the morning).

And what's worse, this Hendrickx used to waste the ABC's time by filling up The Drum with his blather, another bloody geologist doing a bloody Ian Plimer, as you can see here ... until, it's likely, they realised they had one weird bloody cuckoo in their nest ... and so he turned to his natural cuckoo home, the lizard Oz, which now features bloody bloggers in its digital splashes ...

Enough already, it's all too much, the pond is starting to rant, as hordes of Kohns and bloggers and Dame Slaps and the risible Kelly and the suited Shanahan rise into the air like ethereal, spectral spirits ...

Time to think about Dutoit and a little organ music ...

(Below: a classic example of the lizard Oz's idea of reporting on climate science. More details here. Do they think this sort of stuff is just forgotten? Lie, after lie, after dissembling distorting lie, and yet they have the cheek to publish Hendrickx railing at the ABC)

A short note on Peter Hartcher forgetting the underpants and discovering climate change ...

(Above: yes it had to be David Pope, Canberra Times 28th April 2010, found here).

Amazing scenes.

Peter Hartcher has just discovered climate change, as you can read in Canary isle shows climate change is real.

Even more amazing, he's discovered that maybe the opposition might be more of a problem than a solution:

The record does show that about a quarter of the Coalition's federal MPs have, at some point, expressed disbelief or outright denial that man-made climate change is real. Among them is Tony Abbott, who, before becoming Opposition Leader, said he was "hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change", and famously called it "absolute crap". 

What's amazing about all this?

Well there's not one mention of Kevin Rudd, which brings to mind Mark Latham's crack back in 2010:

A defining feature of Rudd's prime ministership was his constant briefing of Hartcher on the behind-the-scenes processes behind big decisions, invariably to glorify his own contribution. As one caucus wag told me earlier this year, "Kevin doesn't change his underpants these days without telling Hartcher about it." It would have been obvious to his colleagues (Gillard in particular) that the Herald's story came from the PM's office, a stunning valedictory to Rudd's misreading of his colleagues and his ineptitude as a caucus tactician. (here, may be paywall affected)

Stories about the changing of the Ruddster's underpants have gone on being an interminable, insufferable irritating part of Hartcher's limited repertoire of stories since the long absent lord knows when ...

Hartcher's delving into the underpants over and over again, even attracted the mockery of media rivals, as noted here (may be paywall affected):

Peter Hartcher of The Sydney Morning Herald was the main driver of the narrative. Target firmly in his sights, "The evidence of the last month is that, as a campaigner, Gillard is ineffectual," Hartcher said of the Prime Minister's attempts to win over voters in Sydney's west. "So if Gillard can't do it for Labor, who can?" 
The following day Hartcher doubled up with Fairfax's new political correspondent Mark Kenny to deliver perhaps the key story of the week. 
"Ministers turn on PM" the headline said, the exclusive report detailing how Foreign Minister Bob Carr and a key Labor Left faction member Mark Butler had voiced their lack of support for the Prime Minister. "Both are understood to have developed grave doubts about the Prime Minister's political judgment and her ability to campaign," the story said, again upping the mood for change among those in the Rudd camp.
Hartcher's analysis that day was even more to the point, declaring the government to be in the grip of a full-blown "crisis of confidence in its leader". 
"The dam of Gillard support has now been breached," he told Fairfax readers.

And so on and so forth.

Now sure that version of the yarn is from the reptiles at the lizard Oz, but the truth is Hartcher has rarely had his nose out of the underpants these past few years, and has been the source of much mischief and mayhem. Dams breached and damn the torpedoes and so on and so forth ...

What to do when the Ruddster takes his underclothes to the dry cleaners rather than use Hartcher's washing machine?

Why suddenly Hartcher discovers climate change.

Wasn't that the "greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time"?

Didn't the greatest challenge somehow get lost in contemplation of underpants?

Seems like it's back on the agenda:

The topic of what to do about climate change is returning to the centre of the agenda for the world's two biggest economies and biggest carbon emitters, the US and China. It's one of the half dozen top issues at their coming California summit. 
The problem will not go away for the planet, even after the Australian election, even if some would prefer to ignore it, although it's probably too late for Kiribati.

Perversely that's almost a relief.

Now things haven't been much better under Gillard when it came to climate change or the mining tax, though it's a dead cert to get a lot worse under Tony Abbott, but at last and at least Hartcher seems to have discovered that there's more to life than the Ruddster's underpants ...

Gerard Henderson shows how to blame the media and Rome in order to praise the Pellists ...

It was one of those poignant "black is white, white is black, and never mind any shades of grey" digital splashes that make Tuesday such a calendar day in the life of the pond.

Yes, there's good old Hendo, the prattling Polonius of the commentariat, doing his bit for the Catholic church, and already copping four comments, a rare feat early in the morning.

Naturally he's upset at the abuse directed at the church - forget about the abuse of children, let's talk about Hendo's major concern, the abuse of the poor, hapless wronged church - and naturally the abuse is all the fault of the ABC and Fairfax:

During their recent appearances before the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse, Pell and Hart were subjected to hectoring by some parliamentarians, along with occasional demonstrations and generally hostile media coverage, particularly on the ABC and in The Age.

Uh huh. Shocking. Everyone should be upset at such shocking and upsetting abuse of the church.

So what's the first crime the ABC is alleged to have committed?

A lot of the commentary on this issue has been replete with an ignorance as to how the Catholic Church operates by those who should know better. For example, on ABC1's News Breakfast last week Wayne Chamley of Broken Rites said the Church "runs on anarchy". It doesn't.

Yep, it dared to report the views of someone outside the official Hendo line, when really no one should speak except Hendo. And then searching for a better example, Hendo comes up with this:

Last July, the Four Corners program ''Unholy Silence'', by Geoff Thompson and Mary Ann Jolley, failed to make the point that Pell is not responsible for archdioceses or dioceses other than his own. Each bishop reports direct to the Pope in what is an authoritarian structure. 

Now some might think that excusing the church because it has "an authoritarian structure" a tad bizarre - a bit like excusing the activities of fascists because they rely on "an authoritarian structure" - but what is more revealing is the way Hendo immediately refuses to explore the implications of said "authoritarian structure".

Which is this. In the case of child abuse, Pell and others in power have been able to wave their hands and say nothing to do with me, why don't you take it up with Rome, while strutting about in their robes and finery, presenting themselves as the leading figures in the church down under. All the glory and none of the responsibility. Confessor to Tony Abbott himself ...

When it comes to financial and legal responsibility, it gets even better, because the structure used by the church is carefully honed to make any legal action extremely difficult.

Now in the usual way, Hendo is a dab hand at cherry picking, selecting a single fact, and ignoring the big picture, looking at and grasping a single leaf, while ignoring the shape of the tree:

More seriously, Four Corners refused to run Pell's comment to this effect, either in the program itself or in the extended interview which is on the Four Corners website. The latter omission looks like censorship. This was important since the cases of sexual abuse covered in the program pertained to crimes committed by a one-time priest identified as "F" in the dioceses of Armidale and Parramatta, which are outside Pell's immediate control. 
The bishops of Armidale and Parramatta commissioned a report into the management of F by retired Federal Court judge Antony Whitlam, QC, (a non-Catholic). 
Whitlam identified a significant error in the Four Corners program. He found that the the program incorrectly claimed that F had made admissions to the Catholic Church authorities in Sydney which should have been reported to police. This claim remains uncorrected on the Four Corners website - some six months after the report was handed down.

Is there something bizarre about the church commissioning a report into its activities, which is then used to exonerate it, or at least correct alleged errors of fact?

Well yes it is, if you happen to think that Parramatta is somewhere on the moon, and has no connection at all with Sydney, or with Kenthurst where "F" was kicked to work as an assistant priest in 1990, and then in Merrylands, where he did another short stint.

And if you overlook the way that Father "F" was invited to a meeting at the Sydney Cathedral presbytery on the 3rd September 1992, attended by three church officials, Reverend Brian Lucas, Reverend John Usher, and Reverend Wayne Peters.

Now what was said at the meeting might be disputed - though the result - "F" sent back to Armidale is clear enough - but the moment that "F" was dealt with at Sydney Cathedral, it became a problem for Sydney, and in due course for Pell, and no washing of the hands can solve the problem. (You might care to read the story at Broken Rites here unless you have blood pressure or anger management issues).

Why is none of this mentioned by Hendo, described in detail, the forensic and gory behaviour flushed out and exposed? Why you might almost write that these omissions seem to amount to a kind of censorship ...

The form, the modus operandi of the church and its apologists, has always been to blame others, the media, Fairfax, the ABC, parliamentarians, those no longer on the scene in the Catholic church, dead and departed, and present the new generation as the problem solvers.

First attack the media, then attack a few nominated straw men:

Like Kennedy in Armidale, Little and Mulkearns were weak men who were in denial and who put their misplaced sense of loyalty to the church, and fear of scandal, before their duty to the victims. 

And then award olive wreaths to the brave new bunch:

Pell and Hart do not claim to have handled an extremely difficult situation without error. But they did well enough.

Actually Pell has been a shocker. He's mishandled the media, and he's mishandled cases, such that the church tried to find ways to get him out of the mix. His mix of arrogance and condescension, personal aspects not easily overcome, are offputting to many people.

Even the most superficial observation of events over the last few years would confirm this, but not when you're a blinkered Polonius pushing a wheelbarrow up hill. Push away prattling Polonius:

It's just that these days, whatever they do is criticised: if they point out that each bishop is responsible only for his own diocese, they are accused of avoiding responsibility; if they acknowledge the errors made by the likes of Little, Mulkearns and Kennedy, they are accused of shifting the blame and; if they apologise, they are invariably told by the victims or their families that they are not genuine or lack sufficient remorse. 

But of course that's because they have constantly attempted to avoid responsibility and they resolutely refuse to accept any blame, and their apologies have been tinged with arrogance or contempt or disclaimers - such as the notion that the church isn't the only haven for paedophiles.

And yes, you can find paedophiles within the community and within the family and within other institutions, but that's not the point. The Catholic (and other churches) were entrusted with children, and that trust, and the children were abused, and the abuse was covered up, and it wasn't a single case here or there, but a substantial number of cases.

And that's why there are three inquiries currently investigating the activities of the church and the cover-ups, and that's why when you read this closing line by Polonius, the mirth is somewhat thin-lipped:

Yet, in spite of the critics, the likes of Pell and Hart were leaders in the community in addressing child sexual abuse. It is unfashionable to say so, but it's true nevertheless.

Uh huh. Which is why if you read various stories about Pell and his activities, such as the story of St John of God - Pell urged to close order over abuses - you might well want to risk Hendo's charge of being fashionable.

There you will find the tale of a gang of paedophiles, extremely active, and Pell providing cash to the gang, and here's how you get off the hook:

Cardinal Pell's spokesman said the order was not responsible to any Australian bishop. It managed its own affairs and reported to its headquarters in Rome. 
''Cardinal Pell was not involved in the investigation of any abuse within the order. He was not briefed on any outcomes. He was not involved in the payment of any 'hush money' … 
''Cardinal Pell's recollection is that the order had a liquidity problem in meeting its obligations to victims, that a loan was made by the Sydney Development Fund and repaid.'' Cardinal Pell supported this. 

Indeed. Got a problem? Here's a bundle of cash, but say and tell me nothing. Waiter, another bowl of water, and please, send it to Rome ...

Is it any wonder that Sister Annette Cunliffe said Pell didn't speak for everyone?

Some of his views perhaps came across as somewhat defensive and I think people feel that this is not the time for being defensive, it is the time for being open and honest. (Time for Bishops to step back).

Come to think of it, you could make exactly the same remark about Hendo's column:

Some of prattling Polonius's views perhaps came across as somewhat defensive and I think people feel that this is not the time for being defensive, it is the time for being open and honest. 

Fat chance, thin chance, sweet bugger all chance. Denialism remains the go amongst the Catholic fundamentalists ...

How to deplore hate speech, by calling people zombies, insufferable and unspeakable, attack dogs, and so on and so forth ...

(Above: a few xkcd cartoons to set the mood, more here)


So these sins are major crimes?

His contributions on Twitter also reveal an open contempt for the Coalition, a fawning regard for Julia Gillard, an obsessive dislike of News Ltd and Rupert Murdoch, Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones, and a preoccupation with global warming, asylum-seekers and Aboriginal affairs.

Well the pond can't do the fawning over Gillard routine, but the other attributes seem quite fine ...

What a pity it seems he also didn't display fear and loathing for the Monday columns of Paul "generally grumpy" Sheehan,  and their ostentatious display of humbuggery.

Yes, if he'd done that the pond might have quite warmed to Russell Skelton, recently given the task of checking facts at the ABC ...

You've guessed it, it's Sheehan at his worst in ABC fact-checker needs scrutiny, as good as any reason to remind readers that the alternative to Fairfax, the Guardian down under, is just a click away here.

But way worse than Sheehan's assumption that ipso facto a deep dislike of the death star News Ltd, Chairman Rupe, the Bolter and the parrot somehow puts you beyond the pale is the pathetic way he puts together the rest of the column.

You see, it suffers what can only be called the generally grumpy Alan Ramsey syndrome.

In his later days, Ramsey frequently settled for filing a column made up of the thoughts of others, or even worse, a cut and paste of previous works by Ramsey.

Now the pond always had a soft spot for Ramsey (short wiki here) but reading him became a terrible chore.

So it is with Sheehan, because he spends most of his column quoting the thoughts of Eric Abetz, and then has the cheek to say that Mark Scott has an unpleasant odour.

Now one of the canards doing the rounds, especially in the lizard Oz, the Bolter and amongst other reptile hacks in the Murdoch death star world arises from a recent survey of journalists which deemed that the ABC was full of greenies.

You can see this at work in Sheehan, whingeing about Shelton re-tweeting Marcia Langton, without a shred of concern about Sheehan re-quoting Abetz, without a single modifier or additional insight of his own:

Senator Eric Abetz (Liberal): ''Mr Scott, do you have any sense that a recent survey which found that 41 per cent of ABC journalists said they would vote for the Greens, 32 per cent for Labor and 15 per cent for the Coalition generally reflects ABC journalists' political leanings?'' 

Now here's the thing. The survey, self-admittedly, surveyed a mere 34 ABC journalists to arrive at these grand figures.

Now even those with the most cursory knowledge of sampling and margin of error would know that this survey was fatally flawed, and it is a disgrace that this pathetic academic work, allegedly by a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of the Sunshine Coast, entered the conversation by way of self-admiring reports in locations like The Conversation.

Oh it's always reported with blather about higher margins of error and appropriate statistical methods but it has about as much validity and usefulness as spit on a griddle, and the use of the percentages, rather than placing those percentages within the context of the total number surveyed means Abetz was at best being cynically disingenuous and indulging in a smear.

Because he's being lazy and simply offering a transcription service, Sheehan has to immediately go on to report Mark Scott's obvious response - not his own mind you, just what he can parrot:

''No. There are about 1000 journalists who work across the ABC in news, radio, rural divisions and others … we have 1000 journalists and 34 were contacted … Do I believe it is an overwhelming problem? No, I do not … '' 

So why quote the Abetz smear in the first place? Well either (a) Sheehan is lazy or (b) he thinks the data has something useful to say.

Now much the same could be said about the faux statistics led by the survey in relation to Fairfax (Labour) and News Limited journalists (46.5% Labor, 26.7% Coalition) because the samples in those cases involved a sample of 86 from Fairfax and 86 from News Limited, along with this sort of breath-taking gibberish:

If we disregard the 42.8% of journalists who are undecided, refused to answer or would vote for a party or candidate other than the major three, this is a statistically significant result.

Yes, if we go howl at the moon, and disregard its glow, we might well end up with a statistically significant result.

Oh dear, the pond got a little distracted by all the data, so let's cut to the chase.

You see, at the very beginning of his piece, Sheehan berates Russell Skelton for being a fierce partisan and leaving an unedifying trail of puerile smears. Mirror, say hello to Sheehan.

Because right at the end it turns out that Russell Skelton has done the right thing, and included Sheehan alongside the likes of the Bolter and the parrot, and has forced the generally grumpy and lazy Sheehan to actually scribble some copy and reveal he has a hand in the game:

Here I make two personal notes. The first is that Mark Scott is an old comrade of mine at the Herald, and I know him to be a good person and a fine manager. At the committee, he was in damage control. The other note is that when I was scrolling through Skelton's Twitter feed, fact-checking Abetz's remarks, I was gob-smacked to discover a tweet that Skelton had posted on October 10: ''This column by @Paul_Sheehan_ originally said 'he (Tony Abbott) raised 3 daughters, something she (Julia Gillard) was unable to do' #vomit.'' 
It was a retweet of a tweet by Mia Freedman. At least Freedman had the decency to publish a retraction after the Herald's news director pointed out that this was a fabrication. Skelton, the ABC's fact-checker-in-chief, did not check the lie. He just passed it on, and let it stand, unchecked, uncorrected and unpleasant.

Here's what Sheehan said that day, if we may adopt Sheehan and Ramsey techniques, and fill up this piece in their all to easily imitated style:

The dictionary defines misogyny as "hatred of women". It is an ugly word, an ugly accusation and an ugly fact of life. It is now the word that has driven Australian politics to its lowest point in decades. Yesterday, the mask fell away, the curtain dropped, the real driver of the politics of personal abuse was revealed. 
After sending out two attack dogs, Gutter and Sewer, to do the dirty work, after hiding behind two political zombies, Insufferable and Unspeakable, to stay in power, after using the Minister for Innuendo and the Compromise-General to play the gender card, the mask has finally dropped away to reveal the driver of the politics of hate in Australia. 
The mask fell at exactly 2.42pm in the House of Representatives. Looking on were the member for Gutter, Anthony Albanese, the member for Sewer, Wayne Swan, the Minister for Innuendo, Tanya Plibersek, and the Compromise-General, Nicola Roxon, and the independents who will do anything to avoid facing their electorates, Mr Insufferable, Robert Oakeshott, and his fellow regional zombie, Mr Unspeakable, Tony Windsor. (Gillard reveals true nature in playing gender card)

Sewer? Regional zombie? Insufferable and unspeakable? While talking of drivers of hate?

#vomit

But do go on:

Why tip a bucket of bilgewater into a fierce wind? Why invoke the accusation of misogyny, hatred of women, against an Opposition Leader whose chief of staff, Peta Credlin, is famously one of the most formidable woman in politics, whose mostly female staff is devoted to their boss and who has raised three daughters? 
But then why did she mislead the Australian people before the last election on the carbon tax? Why did she leave her law firm under a cloud? Why did she shaft her own leader? Why did she depose a prime minister who had a mandate from the people? Why has she methodically deployed the politics of personal abuse?

Uh huh. Why raise the matter of three daughters in this context? Why raise unanswered questions designed to smear? Why methodically deploy the politics of personal abuse?

There seems to be only one satisfactory response.

#vomit

And then at the end of the piece by Sheehan, this curious note:

Editors Note: This story was changed post-publication and, in the 9th paragraph, a reference to the Prime Minister was deleted.

#vomit.

Because in revisiting his pile of hate writing, Sheehan doesn't make any reference to this curious note, or explain it, or give details. It's just there, unexplained, un-noted and unmentioned ...

So what did he say? What was deleted?

Who knows ...

The conclusion at the end of all this?

By golly, The Guardian down under is looking like a good place to go ... because for decades readers of Fairfax have had to put up with Sheehan, his follies and his foolishness, and now there's a viable alternative for a morning read ...

The always obliging and helpful pond tries to help the inner urban elitists at the Daily Terror ...

Now the pond is deeply sympathetic to the inner urban elites (Surry Hills, don't ya know) who run the Daily and Sunday Terror, and who must gouge the punters to make a crust so Chairman Rupert can keep filling his Twitter account with bizarre thoughts.

Oh dear sweet long absent lord, he's coming to the lucky country (?) which is lucky (?) to have its print media controlled by him, and it's not just to finish off the Gillard government (the reptile hacks at the lizard Oz are doing their very best), but to do some other hard work. Like how to make the rags he owns turn a dime.

Quick, dust off the aspidistra ...

Now the pond is always obliging and helpful when it comes to inner urban elites getting themselves into a frightful pickle.

You see, it gets even harder when the job at hand is asking people to hand over their shekels to read a rant by Miranda the Devine, even when the target is Eddie Maguire.

Still a job's a job, and duty is duty, and so if you head off to the rag's feature story, Eddie McGuire's career is just one long gaffe, you'll get the usual sob stuff about how all you need to do is register and how cheap it all is, and how you'll just love the exciting new world of News ± √∅∏∑.

But the pond has already spoken sharply to the editor of the Terror about this, and warned of the dangers of the staff using the jewels in the crown to fill up their blogs, and sure enough this is what happens when you head off to the Devine's blog here:

It's what looks like the whole bloody story laid bare, and with no sign of a paywall or an invitation to join News ± √∅∏∑, as you can see by clicking on the offending piece to enlarge, or perhaps by just plucking out the eye that offends you.

Because what's worse, once you read it, you realise it's just the Devine on another hate rant, which isn't worth a red cent or a brass razoo. She even calls the hapless Maguire King Kong. 

What's she got against King Kong?

Sure she can rant all she likes, but why should anyone pay for it?

Now this simply has to stop. We simply can't allow the Devine the privileges of a free-range blog lifestyle, she must be put behind the netting like the other chooks.

Stop the blogging, end it now, or else chairman Rupert will have to roll up his sleeves and take a view!

Now we now that the Devine is ready to act the clown, or don clothes as part of her routine. Here's the comedy act she put on while visiting the Lakemba mosque:

But for the love of the long absent lord, it has to be locked away, out of sight behind the paywall.

Make the punters pay for the pleasure, or it will be the end of  News ± √∅∏∑ ....

Yes, the cartoon below is now a much loved internet meme and cliche, but in terms of chairman Rupe's rags, it also happens to be deeply true ...

Pointless incessant barking behind a paywall! 

That's the point, the entire point, and no other point can be allowed! End the blogs, end them now! Kill them off the way The Punch was killed or the freeloaders and the cheapkates will keep on making hay ...

Best of all you don't have to pay the always obliging and helpful pond for this advice. It's free! With one stroke, you can end all the worry about the cost of moderation, and the barking dogs roaming wild outside the chook pen ...

Another tough week for anti-intellectual fundamentalists and conspiratorial conservatives ...

(Above: why do the Sydney Anglicans keep doing it? What explains their insatiable lust for cookies, like a perverted cookie monster?)


It was J. G. Ballard who wrote about dreary and genteel London suburbs that they were:

... far more sinister places than most city dwellers imagine. Their very blandness forces the imagination into new areas. I mean, one's got to get up in the morning thinking of a deviant act, merely to make certain of one's freedom. (as noted in The Invention of David Bowie, outside the NYRB paywall at the moment)

The pond feels very much the same whenever it approaches the website of the angry Sydney Anglicans.

Quick, think of a deviant act. Almost any deviant act will do ...

Only a little while ago, Michael Jensen, now sent into the wilds to tame the heathens in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, asked whether evangelical anti-intellectualism is alive and well.

And sure 'nough, there's Phillip Jensen on the front page of the site, celebrating Dwight L. Moody as The Billy Graham of the 19th Century.

Moody was the quintessential example of evangelical anti-intellectualism, yet you can scour the Jensenist tract, and all you will find is blather about the Moody Bible Institute coming to Sydney, and Sydney Anglicans being asked to pray to God to bless their endeavours.

So who are the Jensenists celebrating?

Well naturally Moody deplored the theory of evolution, preached the gospel and the bible in a heavily literal way (with all the stupidities and lack of nuance that involves), and looked towards a premillennial Second Coming ... which naturally didn't Come.

Indeed Moody can be credited for helping inspire the profound ignorance and suspicion of the theory of evolution that still litters parts of the United States, a position which helped fuel the split between fundamentalist evangelical and liberal Protestantism. (more on Moody's role in putting evolution on the defensive here).

In short, Moody was a man who was fundamentally wrong about many things, unless you happen to be a fundamentally silly angry Sydney Anglican ...

Ironically Moody also preached a kind of ecumenical Arminian Christianity that undermined Calvinist doctrines of original sin, thereby undermining the very foundations of the angry Sydney originally sinning Anglicans ...

But Moody did believe in keeping women in their place, so he and the angry glass ceiling Sydney Anglicans have that in common.

So it goes, as the pond's old mate Kurt Vonnegut exclaimed on a daily basis when confronted by such nonsense, and enough already, because this week the Pellists have been at the front of the action  ...

And what do you know, the Pellists have been involved in a secret society, a deep conspiracy revealed by the Sunday Terror this very day, and the Terror thoughtfully provides a very large snap of one of the key conspirators in the story (James Packer, John Howard and Cardinal George Pell part of secret Chartwell Society):

By golly that man looks like the very heart and soul of a conspiracy.

Naturally the conspirators in this secret society keep everything secret and furtive, and according to the Terror its success had depended on its secrecy.

Seems like the old habits of the Franco-loving Catholic church die hard ...

It's been a bad week for the Pellists, what with Pell being forced to acknowledge various mis-deeds, as you can re-live in nightmare reads like Cardinal George Pell has confessed to creation of false documents and 'reprehensible' cover-ups of child sex abuse.

It makes it even more bizarre to contemplate the week old thoughts of Pell in the Sunday Terror, which happens to dwell on Vatican Two:

The Catholic Church had only celebrated 21 councils in 2000 years, with the previous one in the Vatican in 1869-70. Nearly all of these Councils were followed by periods of upheaval and confusion. This was spectacularly true even in Australia, as the tertiary educated Catholics who were tired of being different were swept up in the permissive revolution which followed the invention of the pill and was spread by music groups like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. 

And there you have it.

Could there be anything more superficial, simplistic and addle-brained an explanation of changes way back when? The pill and a couple of pop bands? Could Pell get any more condescending?

Well yes he could:

Mass and the sacraments had been celebrated in Latin. All this changed as English was introduced. It was also acknowledged that no state, Catholic or otherwise, could compel religious belief in citizens and Catholics were urged to be more co-operative, and to dialogue with those around them. 
These are wonderful benefits, but rates of Church-going slipped, priests, brothers and nuns left, those who remained often abandoned distinctive religious uniforms and vocations to priesthood and religious life dropped spectacularly. 
In a few countries like Holland the situation was much worse. It needed Pope John Paul II to steady the ship. He made much progress.

Now if you read between the lines here, you will see it's more of the usual.

The Latin mass changed everything, English was introduced and the world fell apart, Catholics were forced into dialogue, and what happened? The Church suffered, folk stopped wearing frocks (that's distinctive religious uniforms to you) and conservatives were needed to reintroduce the peculiar brand of intellectual repression and oppression beloved of the Catholic hierarchy ...

Of course he's right. Frock wearing should be encouraged and the more the merrier (though Australian naval officers must take care when in charge of a ship).

It turns out however that it wasn't Vatican Two that was a problem for the Catholic church, it was the Catholic conservative movement, and its wilful denialism, evasiveness and shiftiness, with the Pellists to the fore.

You can't blame the pill, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for what's gone on in the Catholic church all over the world, from Ireland to the United States to Australia over the years - it began well before the Beatles emerged from their cavern. It's an institutional disease, and it goes to the heart of the celibate culture of the institution ...

No wonder Pell feels comfortable attending secret societies to advise the Liberal party on the way forward ...

And so to a few cartoons to relieve the grimness of the week, one of which coincidentally features Evolution:

But don't think this is new.

Cartoonists have been having a field day with the Pellists, ever since the church kicked Pell out of Melbourne and foisted him on Sydney.

This appeared in the Canberra Times on 26th August 2004, and what has changed since then?

From doing nothing to blather about saints and miracles and marriage ... how did you guess it was the first day of winter ...

(Above: found here, and what a great pitch for a show)

The pond was forcefully reminded this morning that the best way to sound active, engaged and involved is to announce an inquiry, perhaps with a view to amending standards, or perhaps merely to produce a study, which might lead to further inquiries and a consideration of amending standards...

In recent times there has been no better effort than Anthony Albanese's inquiry into a second airport for Sydney, which required further study and further inquiry, there not having been enough of these since the Whitlam government first fudged the results of an inquiry by doing nothing ...

Fresh to this conga line of inquiries comes ACMA, and you could have knocked the pond down with a feather to hear ACMA's chairman and CEO Chris Chapman discuss a new inquiry into the media, community standards and yadda yadda ... on Saturday AM (the story will appear here in due course dated 1st June).

Well he could have announced it on the Goonoo Goonoo Herald Tribune, all the sheep droppings that are fit to print, for all that it mattered, but still, it's cheeky to become radio filler on the Saturday dead zone, when on the first day of winter, any sensible human bean apart from the pond, would be safely and snugly in a bat cave, sound asleep ...

No, the real point came when Chapman was asked about the Eddie Maguire matter, and how the new iinquiry might pertain to such matters, and Chapman immediately deferred and suggested a complaint might still come before ACMA and so he couldn't discuss it, couldn't even contemplate discussing it, not even in the abstract ...

And there you have, in a nutshell, the entire problem with ACMA. The issue isn't with community standards, which generally yabber on about accuracy and fairness and so on and so forth.

The problem is that if you want to complain, you have to go through an elaborate process that first of all requires dealing with the broadcaster, then trotting off to ACMA, and then waiting twelve months or more, while the bureaucrats twiddle their fingers and cultivate their files and ponder on whether they're denying anyone - especially powerful broadcasters - natural justice.

And then when it comes to the crunch, what might be the penalty? Well in the case of Eddie Maguire, should anybody at any time decide to raise the matter, the pond feels comfortable asserting that it might be a slap on the wrist, or perhaps a rub of the belly. The only other alternative is to withdraw the broadcaster's license, and how often has that happened in the world of Sydney or other city shock jockery, in the world of hate cultivated by the likes of Ray Hadley and Alan Jones?

Not once of course. Now if ACMA had announced an inquiry into why it had been so bloody useless and ineffective and completely bloody hopeless and irrelevant since Chris Chapman took up the gig in 2006, that might have been an interesting, if ultimately futile, inquiry.

Don't hold your breath, the point is merely to look engaged while doing nothing ... and so self-regulation will continue to fluctuate according to the amount of pressure that can be applied via mainstream and social media, while wallflower ACMA dances by itself in the corner ...

And so, with a deep sigh, the pond turns to the reptiles at the lizard Oz for the latest round of suppurating abuse, and sure enough, there's the man - who took tedium and ennui to new existential kool aid levels - on the case:

Yes, it's absolutely astonishing, mind-boogling, perhaps even astounding, that anyone would expect anything Tony Abbott put in a signed letter, agreeing to anything, would ever hold any water. Besides, it's all Labor's fault ...

Look, if you want to read any more, here's the link, Funding move trips up Labor, and remember to google, but why would anyone want to endure this sort of nonsense on a Saturday morning?

Speaking of hasty revisions, the man who helps manufacture the kool aid, has been busy at work finetuning and revising a new edition of Tony Abbott's Battlelines, which you can read about if you google Tony Abbott's revised battlelines reflect new realities ...

Oh dear. Well there's the usual bit of pompous Latin-loving Pearson channeling Abbott - no referendum to squash the states, a chance to tinker with superannuation yet again, but what's the highlight, the go to takeaway matter requiring further discussion?

Yep, it's Pearson brooding on the need for conservative governments to hop back into the bedroom and crack down on morals:

One of the suggestions most commented on in the first edition of Battlelines was covenant marriage, a proposal enacted in a number of American states. In essence, it allows for a more restrictive form of wedlock in which the participants freely enter an agreement to make dissolving the union more difficult and - for a partner who has broken the rules - more expensive than ending an ordinary marriage. 

Yes, that'd figure, punishment and pain, it's the conservative way:

All the usual left-liberal suspects, led by David Marr, saw it as an attempt to subvert by stealth the notion of "no-fault divorce" introduced by Lionel Murphy. For them, the idea that any marriage be viewed through the prism of fault when it comes to the issue of sexual fidelity is not merely anachronistic but downright offensive. But this is a relatively recent development. I remember John Bray, as chief justice of South Australia, remarking in 1975 that he had never imagined that a contract as solemn as matrimony could be unilaterally, almost effortlessly, undone. 

 John Bray? Well those with long South Australian memories will remember Bray, Pearson, Kernot and the likes of Paddy McGuinness in a different context (Possum it here), which might make it unseemly to talk of a contract as solemn as matrimony and blather on about sexual fidelity and the prism of punitive fault, but do go on:

Abbott has decided he can no longer support experimenting with covenant marriage. Given the mores of Liberal branch activists, I don't suppose it's surprising. Still, when you consider how little social support the institution has and the constant undermining it's facing from the marriage-equality brigade, a more pluralistic and unapologetically conservative approach would have been welcome.

Yes, what to make of the unseemly way Liberals seem to get caught with their pants down, in Memphis motels, with sex workers, and while flashing the member for Parramatta, but what's really irritating is the reference to the constant undermining, as if Pearson's own lifestyle choices couldn't be said to be implicitly undermining the institution.

Which brings us to an even deeper question. How is it undermining the sacred institution of marriage to allow even more fools to join in the foolish institution? The more the merrier, the pond would have thought, and the more comprehensive the conservative embrace ...

Sadly Pearson is just one example of how Abbott is going to endure future haunting from past ideologues, but is there any better example than the Shanahans, and most particularly that egregious Catholic fundamentalist, Angela Shanahan?

Now if you've ever given the pond a passing glance, you'll realise that long ago the pond stopped wondering why the lizard Oz on a Saturday gave space to Shanahan's fatuities and turned itself a passable imitation of L'Osservatore Romano ...

If you've ever read Shanahan, you'd be too wise to expect her to offer anything other than Catholic hagiography and worship, or to have anything useful to say about the profound new level of superstition engulfing the church with its new frenzy to create saints - remember that musical Three Miracles in a Fountain?

Already there are some ten thousand of them, unless you count everyone in heaven, in which case there might be millions ... and never mind what a bizarre variant on the definition of sainthood the Catholic church provides (wiki it here).

The concept of saints - and saints' relics - is one of those ridiculous things that swings the church straight back to the middle ages, but once you get into the saint business, and get a taste of it - a bit like biting through the orange coating to hit the faux chocolate inside - it seems it's very hard to stop.

Oh yes, there's canonisations to the left and canonisations to the right, as boldly rides the Shanahan, who just loves a saint the way some love the idea of Prince Chuck ascending the throne after getting rid of that tyrannical mommie dearest ... (well the pond knows at least one and a half people and David Flint).

One thing's certain. So long as Shanahan keeps supporting the notion of celibacy, and the church's bizarre attitude to sex and contraception, the institution will remain irrelevant to many Australians, including its own alleged constituency.

What on earth to make of this sort of blather? Naturally even within the church there are deviant, perverted liberals and lefties:

John Paul's fast track to canonisation has exposed some divisions within the church. The so-called Left of the church, the liberalisers who were very vocal just after Vatican II and are still vocal on internet sites and in alternative Catholic media, are especially critical of the lack of action on sexual abuse during John Paul's papacy, although they tend to blame his successor, Benedict XVI, for his lack of decisive action when he was a cardinal. However, even John Paul's critics concede the Polish pope had no idea of the extent of the problem until late in his papacy, and was horrified when he became aware of it. 

Yes yes waiter, but perhaps we'll need a couple of bowls of water this time for the washing of the hands, and m'lud we knew absolutely nothing about it, and we were horrified, horrified to learn that priests were kicked all over the place, even to Rome ...

 But what really gets up the noses of John Paul's critics is that they found themselves in a strangely isolated position because their bete noir, the conservative Polish pope, was a hero among non-Catholics as well as Catholics. He was a great influence on the world stage as well as an exemplary human being. He had suffered under the Nazis and under communism, yet was unbowed in his staunch opposition to secular materialism - whether of the Left or the Right, which he saw as two sides of the same coin.

No plasma screens for the lucky country!

He was compassionate, yet no friend of the liberals who wanted changes to church doctrine on essential matters such as sexual morality. Nor did he want traditions, as of priestly celibacy, radically altered.

And so the profoundly distorted, weird world of the Catholic church will continue, and better still, it will continue by maintaining a rabid crusade against the Islamics by displaying a longer memory than the Irish still at war with Cromwell:

Francis's approach is a pre-emptive outgoing style, exemplified by his approach to sainthood, which is certainly unique and even more controversial than John Paul's. Francis has recently canonised the 800 Otranto martyrs. The inhabitants of this Italian village refused to convert to Islam and were murdered. By canonising such a large group of mostly unknown 15th-century Christians in the face of liberal secular squeamishness about multiculturalism, he has drawn obvious, shocking parallels to our own difficult times. He has underscored the vital ideological importance of Christianity to European culture.

Uh huh. And so on and so forth.

And so it was that the lizard Oz became  L'Osservatore Romano and Tony Abbott came to power and made the world safe for fundamentalist Catholics and celibates and Christopher Pearson and the Shanahans ...

As to why, it passeth the pond's understanding, except to note that She certainly works in mysterious and deeply superstitious ways ...  (Beatification of Pope John Paul II) ... santo subito and blather about miracles indeed ...

(Below: was Nicholson's cartoon about Chris Mitchell landing in heaven? Probably not, but there's more Nicholson here).