A snark de triomphe, Pellists and two Jensenists in a single day ...

Too rude! Bingle in dingle-creating bingle. And George Pell! Howzat?

The pond was determined to give the Pellist heresy and the angry Sydney Anglicans a rest this meditative Sunday, but truth to tell the pleasures are simply too excruciatingly pleasurable.

As you can see above, there was the splendid sight in today's Terror of the Pellists once again frolicking amongst the tabloid pap.

Thank God we won the Ashes?

What, the dinkum down under Aussie god is way better than the filthy vile perverted Pommie bastard god, and so we'd better thank Her for lending a helping hand?

Could it get any better? Of course it could, as Akker Dakker joined in to help explain why Kerry O'Keefe has been brutally silenced by the ABC, despite our Kyles returning home to save him:

Yes, the pond was forced to endure O'Keefe's farewell - at great, inordinate length - while on the road. Marriage can lead to purgatory ...

The cutting of a bloody birthday cake ... on radio!!

But enough of the witless curmudgeon Akker Dakker maintaining his ever-lasting rage about the ABC - he has more repetitions in him than a washing machine and a clothes dryer combined - because real masochists will want to read the Pellist tract Thank God for Test cricket and that we won the Ashes.

In the text, Pell didn't make the mistake of attributing test cricket and winning the Ashes to god,  since it leads to various philosophical tangles, including Epicurus long ago, on the notion of an interventionist god:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. 
 Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. 
 Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? 
 Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?”

Thanking god was left to the Terror subbie, who clearly didn't care about the finer theological points.

But Pell did come up with this sort of meandering stupidity:

One or two old-timers still claim "it's not cricket", when confronted with injustice. However this imaginary world of innocence has been destroyed, to our loss, by the match-fixing scandals. Such corruption must not be allowed to return. 
The matches are now played in an atmosphere of crude psychological warfare. It is difficult to know whether this is fiercer than in the Bodyline series of the 1930s or 35 years ago with Lillee, Marsh and the Chappells, but public attitudes and on - field microphones encourage the press today to highlight any incidents rather than hide them. 

It's difficult to know?

It is of course sublimely easy. You just need to do a Greg Hunt and read the wiki here, with the affair escalating to the level of a diplomatic incident, talk of boycotts, changes to the laws of cricket, and fierce rhetoric on all sides, as evoked by S. G. Wells' 1932 cartoon:

Oh there's nothing new under the sun, not even Alan Bond.

And then in his usual way Pell came up with a profoundly offensive capper:

When we win, and Australians like winning, we should not forget that cricket is only a game, part of my summers for more than 60 years, a wonderful recreation, but no substitute for real life.

Real life? So professional cricketers, and presumably by extension anyone making a professional living from all sorts of sports are living an unreal life?

Why you might just as well say that hermetically sealed clergy locked into a life of celibacy, but still spouting on about abortion, marriage, sex, contraception and such like, and with some seeking refuge from the folly by fiddling with children, and the hierarchy do their best to cover up the fiddling, are leading unreal lives ...

The pond is profoundly grateful for the Terror now routinely featuring the Pellists on the front page of their Sunday edition, reminding the world this dodderer is allegedly the spiritual mentor of Tony Abbott, especially when Pell seems to be saying that being a MAMIL is simply no substitute for real life ...

Meanwhile, the angry Sydney Anglicans are still stuck somewhere back in the 1950s:

Yep, for whatever reason, the wretched angry Anglican graphic artist decided to lift an image of a Mansfield Holiday II 8 mm Cine Camera, with turret and three fixed lenses ready and waiting with a twist of the wrist, as a way of illustrating Phillip Jensen's rambling, incoherent Moving Pictures and Gospel Motivation.

Well two can play that game. Here's more angles:

Oh the little beauties were all the go in the 1950s, because you see, you could have three lenses of varying focal lengths at your fingertips, and before the age of the zoom, that meant you could do a close up, medium and wide shot with just a tweak ... (or so they said, but it was never that easy)

By golly those bold brave black and white images could bore anyone way better than slides at a slide party.

But where were we?

Is it true that talking about almost anything, even 8mm photography in the 1950s, is better than reading Phillip Jensen?

Well yes, because Jensen's homilies all fit the same stale, tired theme and pattern. Introduce the theme, kick it around the park at inordinate length and then wrap it up with a flurry of quotes from the bible, in this case, being careful to ensure there's no bracket creep:

... the work of the missionary is primarily that of taking the eternal message of the gospel into the world. Any missionary, like any Christian, may attend to the needs of the poor or the sick, the oppressed or the wounded – but that is not the reason to go as a missionary. That is what the United Nations, the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations are for. The task of the missionary is to take the great news of the Gospel of Christ crucified into the world calling upon people to be reconciled to God through his Son.

Charity work? Red Cross and the UN, and never mind the black helicopters.

But remember as a missionary you do have the pleasure of kicking the crap out of gays, the wicked deviants, handy for missionary work in Uganda, and women, who really should just shut up and sit silently in church, handy for missionary work in Sydney ...

And there was one further insight. We're accustomed to the angry Anglicans and their website graphic artist living in the 1950s:

What you get today as a bonus is Jensen's fear of graven images, television, paintings, heck any image you can think of really:

The value and worth of pictures is deceptive. Most art galleries place titles, descriptions and explanations of the pictures that hang on their walls. Many provide booklets and audio commentary so that the viewer can understand what they are looking at. The paintings are often not self-explanatory but require words for people to appreciate them.

Deception, fear, and guilt, the stock in trade of the angry Anglican preacher, but do pictures need an explanation?

Not all the time, surely. Take a gander at those images above, and you know immediately that the angry Sydney Anglicans are lost in a deep time warp, beyond imagining

 The same is true of the wonderful world of television documentaries. We are shown incredible images – of animals and landscapes, of towns, cities and reconstructed history – that fill our understanding and appreciation of our world. But it is the voice-over narrator who explains what we see. The visuals are only the backdrop for the silky voice that reinterprets the world for the viewer. The pictures persuade us that what we are being told is true. They move us with a sense of wonder and of ‘seeing is believing’, but they are selective impressions designed to ‘prove’ the truth of the commentary’s viewpoint and move the viewer to belief. 

Which is surely paranoia incarnate. The "silky voice", the moving of the viewer to belief ... as if somehow the silky verbal and written gobbets of nonsense delivered up by Jensen are somehow better  and more truthful ... and not designed to move the reader to belief ...

Well the image they rustled up, of a 1950s 8mm camera, gives the lie to that in a very convincing way...

But do go on:

Worst still is the dominance of the picture over the news. If there are good visuals it is newsworthy, but if there is no picture it is less newsworthy. If there are cameramen available the story is news but if it is only words it’s not newsworthy. While the fire burns, the river floods or the volcano spews; the nightly TV news will report it but it is difficult to photograph the hard grind of rebuilding lives and so once the pictures stop the disaster is no longer reported. Photography is powerful in emotively moving the audience, but weak in analysing the truth.

Uh huh, but is it any weaker in analysing the truth than the average Sydney Anglican still fixated on the story of Adam and Eve?

Jensen also takes a swipe at missionary snaps:

Here was the problem of the 20th century missionary photographs. The pictures of preachers preaching or people praying were not worth showing compared to strange deforming medical conditions, impoverished families begging, refugee camps bulging or old donkey carts still being used as basic transport. Photos showed us a world of pain and suffering; of conflict, war and superstition but they couldn’t show us the spiritual battle that is the real work of the missionary. They couldn’t show the lives of sin that took people to hell, or God’s work of regeneration that rescued people and transferred them into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

Snaps of preachers preaching? Truly all is vanity, saith the preacher ...

But even more jolly were the sorts of alternative snaps currently deployed on the angry Anglican site, including one cheek by jowl with Jensen's musings:

By golly, even Eric Blair himself would approve of all the happy, smiling faces.

Shiny happy people holding hands 
Shiny happy people holding hands 
Shiny happy people laughing 
Everyone around, love them, love them 
Put it in your hands, take it, take it 
There's no time to cry, happy, happy 
Put it in your heart where tomorrow shines 
Gold and silver shine 
Shiny happy people holding hands 
Shiny happy people holding hands 
Shiny happy people laughing 
Whoa, here we go

And if you can't get enough Jensenism, as a special bonus, you can also read Michael Jensen's equally garbled and confused Educating for Failure.

The foolish younger Jensen dares to put his toe in the Nazi water:

As the literary critic George Steiner once said: 
We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning. 
Nevertheless, it is a rare school indeed that insists that the education of its young people should take place in full view of the cross of the Christ who died for fallen humankind. 

Which of course completely fails to comprehend the complex relationship between religion and the Nazis in Germany, or the way, while some churches resisted, many other established churches became fellow travellers, such that George Steiner might have observed, We know now that a man can read the Bible in the evening, and to to his day's work at any concentration camp you might name in the morning. 

Time for another Greg Hunt:

In his study The Holy Reich, the historian Richard Steigmann-Gall comes to the conclusion that Christianity, "in the final analysis, did not constitute a barrier to Nazism." 
Furthermore, he comments on the reason why Nazism is quite often seen as the opposite of Christianity: 
"What we suppose Nazism must surely have been about usually tells us as much about contemporary societies as about the past purportedly under review. The insistence that Nazism was an anti-Christian movement has been one of the most enduring truisms of the past fifty years.... Exploring the possibility that many Nazis regarded themselves as Christian would have decisively undermined the myths of the Cold War and the regeneration of the German nation ... Nearly all Western societies retain a sense of Christian identity to this day.... That Nazism as the world-historical metaphor for human evil and wickedness should in some way have been related to Christianity can therefore be regarded by many only as unthinkable." (Religion in Nazi Germany)

In the end, the younger Jensen gets exceptionally mawkish, and very very Kevin Donnelly:

Perhaps a new dark ages is upon us. And perhaps, as after the decay of mighty Rome, it was the Christian monasteries that preserved the possibility of a less savage way of life, so now our schools and churches will need to become the protectors of the true, the beautiful and the good. 
This is already in evidence. People with no faith can see that our Anglican schools preserve something precious which has been lost, and that in their devotion to what is true, and right, and beautiful in creation and in human life, they point beyond themselves to the source of all these things.

It's just as well he throws in a few 'perhaps' because perhaps it just happens to be nonsensical stuff.

Why do Christians always try to take over Rome and claim it as their own, when for most of its time, Rome was both profoundly barbaric and pagan? Why do they cling to this notion of a golden age? Why do they blather about precious things lost as if they are the only way and the light amongst a horde of barbarians?

Why is there never a mention of the role of the Arabs in preserving Greek and Roman thought? Why is it always Christian monasteries? Why this profound Anglo-celtic ignorance and bias? (go on, Greg Hunt it here in Transmission of the Classics)

The answer is simple. Because the angry Sydney Anglicans are in the business of guilt, and telling the world that it's sinful and corrupt, and that only they have the answer, just like only Tupperware has the perfect food containers, and so you end up with rhetorical guff like this about the New Atheists which is beyond silly:

Without God, it turns out, everything is permissible – the ugly, the false and the evil. Leading philosophers argue for infanticide. Even the New Atheists have begun to wonder how civilisation might be saved if the God of Jesus Christ is abandoned. 

Oh yes, Richard Dawkins ... take that ...

Now can we get any sillier?

They cannot paint a universe with any colour to it; they cannot appeal with any conviction to a sense of absolute right or wrong, and so any outrage they have looks insincere; and they cannot know that what they see around them is real. There is now a sense among them of tragic loss – an acknowledgement perhaps that their project has destroyed the only things worth having.

Enough of this silliness, which it has to be said, in best Python fashion, has got very silly indeed.

Time for a bonus treat for any long suffering soul who made it through this almost unendurable slog. Pellists and two Jensens in one day? It's almost unimaginable.

So here's a little fun from Harper's current edition. Apply examples how and to whom you will:

It's what they do ...

 (Above: Charles Barsotti for The New Yorker).

Speaking of religion, as we must do on meditative Sundays, it didn't take long for Kevin Donnelly to stir the pot:

Mr Donnelly says religion does not have enough of a presence in Australia's "very secular curriculum", and that it needs to be taught "more effectively". "I'm not saying we should preach to everyone, but I would argue that the great religions of the world - whether it's Islam, whether it's Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism - they should be taught over the compulsory years of school," he said. 

The references to the other religions were, of course, window dressing, fig leaf covering, a tugging of the forelock and the foreskin before getting down to the real business at hand.

"...When you look at Parliaments around Australia - they all begin with the Lord's prayer. If you look at our constitution, the preamble actually talks about God. Now we are a western liberal democratic nation, our heritage is one that goes back to Judaic Christian tradition. If you look at when the Europeans first arrived in Australia, if you look at Federation for example in 1901 90% of Australians described themselves as Christians, so that you can't airbrush that from history - it has to be recognised."

Why on earth you'd want to head back to Federation or to 1788 as a guide to reforming and modernising the Australian education system must remain an arcane mystery, a bit like transubstantiation.

 Mr Donnelly is also making the argument that Australian education has lurched to the "cultural left". "The curriculum, as with most of the Western nations - England, America, New Zealand, Australia, over the last 20 or so years - they've adopted a curriculum that I call progressive, new age. On the left side, if you like," he said. 
 "I have argued in the past, as Minister Pyne has, that we need to get the balance right in terms of Asia, Indigenous, sustainability - that's OK - but the pendulum has swung too far towards what I call a politically correct view. "So we do need to emphasise the fact that we are a Western, liberal, democratic nation." (see Education reviewer Kevin Donnelly makes case for more religion to be taught in public schools, with video clip)

Such is his ideological zealotry, Donnelly doesn't even have the nous to purport an objectivity - you know, we will enter the review with open minds, and consider all the facts and come to a conclusion.

Instead he announced, on national television, his conclusions. Education was biased, there needed to be more Christianity rammed down young throats and all that PC stuff needed to be sorted.

What this has to do with improving Australia's skills in maths and science must remain an arcane mystery, a bit like a virgin birth.

Naturally this brought out all the usual sorts of suspects:

...Christian Schools Australia says Australia's Judeo-Christian heritage cannot be ignored. 
 "We need to make sure that in telling the story of Australia through history and various other curricula, we're not airbrushing the role Christians have played out of that story, it's just anathema to the whole idea of history that you don't tell part of the story in favour of another - that would be indoctrination," he said.


As for Donnelly's proposed changes, already announced prior to the bothersome business of actually conducting a review?

Mr Pyne says he would like the changes implemented in 2015.

There you go, done and dusted, more religion and less of this PC nonsense, and all of it in place by 2015, and don't you go bothering yourself with any of this actual review nonsense ...

In short, the country is now in the hands of a form of the Taliban ... and if you happen to be a subscriber to Harpers, why not have a read of Mujib Mashal's The Pious Spy, A Taliban intelligence chief's death and resurrection, a poignant insight into the follies endured by the people of Afghanistan in all their various shades and hues ...

But back to our own Taliban.

It might well be that Donnelly and Co. are just a handy smokescreen, a culture wars fog so that the government can go about its real deviant business, as argued by Lenore Taylor in The fog of culture wars is obscuring the facts ... but that's the point.

But at the same time, as well as obscuring the facts and not providing any effective or meaningful reforms to the education system, the Taliban have managed to take significant steps to disrupt and harm the secular, public school system, as witnessed by John Howard's expensive roll out of the chaplain system, endorsed and extended by the ostensibly atheist Julia Gillard's government:

Wallace expressed the concern that Rudd had only pledged $42.8 million to fund the school chaplaincy program to the end of 2011, and that further funding would be subject to a government review. He asked what the Government could offer by way of assurances beyond 2011, and whether she would guarantee that chaplaincy will remain tethered to "the Christian faith." 
 On this topic, the Prime Minister abandoned her reserve. She praised the school chaplaincy program ("I think it's a great program... I believe it's a great program") and went out of her way to assuage any fears about its future funding. 
 "The reason we're reviewing it," she explained, "is not because we're in any way concerned with the program not meeting its objectives - quite the reverse. We think it's been a great success and what we wanted to see for the future was how we could make sure that schools around the country were fairly benefiting from it." 
Although it had not escaped her notice just how popular this program was in "the great state of Queensland," Gillard insisted that the Government wanted to get "a lot of regional and rural schools involved in it." 
To leave Wallace and the ACL's constituents in no doubt, she once again affirmed, "I am very positive toward the continuation of this program, so in my mind it's getting it sustainable and bigger rather than looking to see the program whither away - I definitely do not want to see that." 
When Wallace pressed her for a second time about the chaplaincy program retaining "its unique flavour linked to the faith, the Christian faith," Gillard assured him that "it would continue as a chaplaincy program, with everything that that implies." Once again, she pointed to the specific example of Queensland, that "has long experience [of chaplaincy] and so really good links with the churches." (The Prime Minister puts her faith in chaplaincy)

So it goes. When confronted by the Taliban, many people see the need to fall in line.

Meanwhile, another front threatens Donnelly:

You can read the rest of Bianca Hall's piece here, and what fun to discover that along with your new Federation style 1901 emphasis on Christianity, and a world stripped of PC, you can make your own decisions about having a fag or three, or as many as would make Phillip Morris very happy, bless your little exploratory teenage hearts.

In Hall's piece, Donnelly comes up with that classic fudge:

Dr Donnelly said on Saturday he had never hidden his work for Phillip Morris ...

Which, when you think about it for a nano second, is a bit like someone saying that they had never hidden their work for the Taliban, or for fundamentalist Christians or for Kevin Andrews ...

... (he) had taken the project on condition he would have full editorial control over the content. ''It was more a resilience program,'' he said of the fact the material did not mention the health risks of smoking. ''A lot of the health impacts had been, and were being, covered very well.'' 
Announcing the curriculum review, Mr Pyne said the pair's appointment was ''an important step on the path to a world class national curriculum''. He did not mention that Dr Donnelly had worked as Liberal frontbencher Kevin Andrews' chief of staff in 2004 and 2005. 

Indeed. Hall also took the trouble to read through the incessant scribbles Donnelly has delivered to the media over the years:

In 2004, he wrote that ''many parents'' would consider homosexuality ''abnormal behaviour'', arguing: ''the reality is that gays, lesbians and same-sex couples with children are a very small minority and such groups do not represent the mainstream.'' 
He has also called for the Bible to be taught in state schools. 
But Dr Donnelly said his work would be independent. ''I've written a lot for the popular media but, really, I think people need to distinguish between the day-to-day political debates and what is a significant challenging, but sensitive, review of the curriculum,'' he said.

But, but, but, you billy goat, you just went  on national television and explained your agenda, a return to Federation 1901 and a stripping out of any of that PC malarkey ...

In this context, the pond couldn't help noting on a Saturday stroll that the scientology school around the corner, recipient of federal funding and therefore some handy new infrastructure, had attempted to remove identifying L Ron Hubbard material from the front gate:

Poignant really, just a trace left of 'piness' and 'L. Ron Hubba'.

Hubba hubba ...

The new emphasis was on getting them young:

But if you go online, here, happily you can still see L. Ron's Applied Scholastics front and centre:

Yep, there it is:

And if you like, following in the noble footsteps of Greg Hunt, you can read more about Applied Scholastics at its wiki here, while resting safe in the knowledge that the federal government has lent the school a helping hand.

Bet they didn't have Applied Scholastics in 1901.

The funny thing is that the Christians have shot themselves in the foot in this area, and they did it long ago, and the fact that Kevin Donnelly had to start off his quest by tugging the forelock to Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism shows the how and the why.

These days the federal government funds a cacophonous range of religious voices, from fundie Islamics to fundie Exclusive Brethren to L Ron Hubbard's methods of teaching, all because to get more for their own cult they had to conform to "fair dibs" notions and hand out some of the goodies to other cults.

It's not just the angry Sydney Anglicans and the Pellists with their paws out for cash, it's any one who can hang out a shingle. And next thing you know, a born again speaker in tongues is running gulags (in a most Xian way) for the federal government ..

As a result, trying to get this herd of cats to toe the Donnelly/Pyne line will require a handy array of loaves and fishes, and more than a few flagons of water ready to turn into wine.

According to Taylor:

A good culture war full of shouty generalisations can provide a government with very handy cover ...
...It’s easy to yell over someone who’s yelling back. It’s much harder to argue against scrutiny based on facts and real comparisons.

Sadly in terms of Australian education, exactly the opposite is true.

Donnelly has been yelling at everyone for years, and has now scored his reward, and if you're an ideologue it's terribly easy to argue against scrutiny based on facts and real comparisons. Facts and real comparisons rarely bother fundamentalists like Pyne

The lord will provide, just as She did in 1901 and as She does in Federal Parliament, and there's an end to the argument.

Uh huh, but the new Taliban, anxious to transport us back to 1901 or at least the 1950s, should bear in mind this anecdote about the old Taliban ...

In private, some members of the Taliban enjoyed the entertainments they attempted to deny the rest of us. One of the reasons Ahmadullah's bodyguards came over to my uncle's house so often was that he owned a VCR. They would enjoy a meal prepared by my aunts, then retire to watch whatever smuggled film was available. Sourcing these films required stealth and shrewdness, because cinema, music, and many other forms of art were banned. My uncle and his neighbourhood friends shared their collection of old movies and Hindi-language gulcheen, compilations of Bollywood sound tracks. But if they wanted the latest release, they had to get it from a red shipping container down the street. My uncle once asked me to pick up a movie from him there, saying I should be sure to tell the shopkeeper who sent me. The container was partitioned. In front was a kiosk with a small array of snacks and drinks. At the back of this kiosk was a little door, behind which, I assumed, lay the illicit film stash. I waited as the owner attended to another customer, like me a boy of about eleven.
"How much are the orange Anata biscuits?" the boy asked, pointing to a neat stack of boxes.
"We're out of Anatas," the shopkeeper responded.
Apparently this customer wasn't worth the trouble of keeping up appearances ...

No matter how you try to herd them, the secular cats and their corrupting ways will always keep turning up ...

(Below: and since we opened with a Charles Barsotti cartoon for The New Yorker, here's a Barsotti for writers of the masculine kind)

Wars everywhere, as poodles and ducks go on the march ...

Steady, you might say, what has this World War Two propaganda got to do with Australian politics circa 2014?

Well might you say, but that's what happens when you have an unreformed pugilist and Jesuitical rhetorician as a fearless leader. 

We're in a state of war! There are wars everywhere,  booze wars, history wars and boat wars:

What a humbug, what a doofus. Seeing is believing and you can see him here Waking up Australia on Ten's Wake Up.

So now the poor fuckers trying to get out of war zones and civil chaos are entering a new war zone? 

So now - given Morrison's refusal to talk to anyone about anything - we have to resort to The Jakarta Post to learn about developments? 

Such as the hapless Indonesian military (TNI) commander General Moeldoko getting caught out and suffering a serious loss of face, as you can read in TNI chief denies backing Oz policy?

Remember the days when people used to laugh at the banana republics around the world who used to militarise politics? Uh huh, and now we have an elephant in the room, Australian Defence Force chief General David Hurley, who has caused his counterpart said loss of face. 

Hmm, how else can we advance relations with Indonesia? I know, I know, pick me, we'll get AussiePatriot to write a comment at the bottom of that story:

Australia needs to understand that Indonesia, a Muslim nation, has a vested interest in flooding Australia with Muslim immigrants - it's part of The Hijra, the Muslim Doctrine of Migration.

Now there's a genuine love child of an Abbott and Morrison mating.

Meanwhile, remembering how the United States shot itself in the foot, by declaring everything a war, including a war on drugs that saw people incarcerated and lives ruined for minor offences? Yep, everything is now a war down under ...

Now you might think it was the subbie's fault, but in his usual useless combative way, Abbott provided said subbie with a cue:

''The tragedy is that places that should be entertainment precincts have become on some occasions almost war zones because there is just so much alcohol-fuelled violence,'' Mr Abbott said.

War zones? What the fuck is it with this warrior mentality, this martial approach to everything?

Syria's got a real war going on, so has Afghanistan, and Iraq is currently reviving its war, and let's not even begin to contemplate the recent events in South Sudan.

Does everything have to be dressed up down under as a war to make any action acceptable?

There are simple obvious measures available in relation to booze on the streets, not attempted by various political parties in the pockets of the AHA,  while the poor fuckers trying to flee genuine civil strife are used as an excuse to turn places like Manus Island into a new kind of Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Meanwhile, the poodle Pyne keeps peeing in the corridors of power, any attempts at toilet training clearly a failure (was it the sight of Gene Hackman's Jack Russell terrier pissing in the corridor of a nuclear sub in the Simpson/Bruckheimer clunker Crimson Tide that triggered this metaphor?)

You see, he's reignited the history wars, ostensibly with the aim of improving Australian education, but in reality to prove he's learnt a thing or two about propaganda from the Jesuits and the Stalinists.

How to reconcile these two stories which turned up yesterday in the Pravda of Holt street, otherwise known as the Oz, the official organ of the government?

He wants to take politics out of the curriculum issue? 

Sorry no link, because the pond was rolling around on the floor with laughter and didn't read any further.  The featureless " " " - couldn't they find a generic picture of a poodle? - wants to be apolitical and take politics out of the issue? After everybody's just spent six years trying to herd state and federal cats towards a shared curriculum?

What's this then?

The appointment of Kevin Donnelly to co-conduct the review is a particular disgrace. 

Donnelly, in his relentless scribbling, has revealed himself to be a partisan ideologue and zealot, remorselessly dedicated to the promotion of the private education sector and undermining the public sector, and rabid about anything beyond the Anglo-celtic pale.

Naturally as the official organ of government - grey apparatchiks in their grey propagandist Maoist Murdochian suits - the reptiles were immediately on the case today:

The best?

So we're worried about physics and maths, and the deplorable reality that the federal government funds schools dedicated to creationism, scientology, or assorted other mumbo jumbos which might lead a writer of an article for the reptiles to declare "There is no fundamentalist Christian or Islamic way of looking at the theory of evolution"?

No, not really, not when Pyne actually got around to blathering about his ill-defined mission statement for the review.

All he could do was come out with half-assed poodle notions reviving the history wars, reminding the world once again that, in the peculiar Liberal bestiary, poodles can indeed also be bears with little brains:

The education minister, Christopher Pyne, says the review will address concerns about the history curriculum “not recognising the legacy of western civilisation and not giving important events in Australia's history and culture the prominence they deserve, such as Anzac Day”. He also wants the curriculum to “celebrate Australia”. 

Oi, oi, oi is an advance to the heights of education?

So will Donnelly put a stop to this "oi" and western civilisation nonsense, and focus on what counts?

One of the two people appointed to lead the review, the conservative education commentator Kevin Donnelly, recently attacked the curriculum for “uncritically promoting diversity” and undervaluing western civilisation and “the significance of Judeo-Christian values to our institutions and way of life”. Donnelly, a former chief of staff to the Liberal minister Kevin Andrews, wrote Why Our Schools are Failing in 2004 and established a think-tank,the Education Standards Institute, in 2008. (Christopher Pyne: curriculum must focus on Anzac Day and western history)

So it's not about maths, physics and the rest of it, it's just the usual guff designed to dumb down Australia and turn it into a servile, submissive copy of the southern states of the good old USA ... where intelligent design roams the corridors and Americans wonder why they're losing their competitive edge in innovation and education.

Now having endured various branches of history for some seven years as a topic of study, the pond is compelled to wonder just what parts of western civilisation we're undervaluing?

World War One, World War Two, or the Holocaust, all with the participation of the home of Beethoven?

Or is it all the colonial adventures that traduced the Middle East and contributed to assorted slaughters in Africa and helped turn the partition of India and Pakistan into a bloodbath?

Or any of the other minor warrior follies, such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan?

What particularly irritates the pond is all the relentless blather about Anzac Day, with nary a thought to the lies taught about the likes of Simpson and his donkey, a deserter and trade union activist, and nothing wrong with that.

What's wrong is the way donkeys like Pyne have preferred the myths to the facts.

Of course Australia isn't alone in conservative stupidity.

Britain's education secretary Michael Gove has been in the advanced forces of the celebration of the start of the first world war (mark down 28th July 2014 for the day the ghouls really get going) and already new wars have broken out:

Blackadder has come under fire in the UK in the centenary of World War I for giving children a misguided view of Britain's role in the campaign. 
Only in Britain, perhaps, would the spat pit the Conservative-led government's education minister against a comic actor - Tony Robinson, who played the dim-witted soldier Baldrick in Blackadder Goes Forth, a much-loved television sitcom about the war. 
In an article for the right-of-centre Daily Mail newspaper, Education Secretary Michael Gove said Blackadder and other satires had created a public impression of the four-year war - in which more than 8 million troops and millions of civilians died - as "a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite." (here)

Yep, we should be grateful down under.

Pyne has fierce competition when it comes to historical twittery as Gove goes about the business of defending an indefensible war conducted by dunderheads on both sides (with a few honourable exceptions like the bold and imaginative Monash).

Meanwhile, conservatives have been at war over the role the colonies played, with David Cameron forced to come out and say that ANZACS would be honoured for their dinkum efforts (here), after Gove stuck a stick in the ants' nest, and caused the likes of Van Badham to scribble Michael Gove, the British education secretary belittling Australia's war dead.

And just like that, by clicking their heels thrice, Pyne and Gove and their cohorts are a long way from any problems with reeling and writhing, though perhaps they might think it gets us closer to the Mock Turtle's definition of the chief branches of arithmetic - ambition, distraction, uglification and derision.

Which brings us to the real scandal of the day. Cue The Guardian:

No, not all the obvious angles. Who can argue that the poodle isn't on about history, he's on a propaganda mission?

You can google such stories at your leisure if you can stand the tedium of discussing the poodle at play.

No, it's that last entry that caught the pond's eye, that bit about the Christopher Pyne quiz.

As explained, the pond fancies itself as history, you know sundry degrees, years of study, almost up itself as Pyne, any quiz would be a real doddle, so we clicked on it here and faithfully answered all the questions to the very best of our ability.

After an early warm-up, the pond bounced out of the gates in style:

Sheesh, this was easy bloody peasy, and that one about Kings Cross was made simple because Tony Abbott explained it's a war zone, where rum rebellions go on 24/7 (without that help we might have got it wrong and voted for running out of bundy and coke on Australia Day). 

Keep rolling them out Martin Farrer, we can handle anything you've got:

Naturally the pond was expecting some sort of prize - after all, who would have caught that clever curve ball, with John Howard disappearing up his fundament at sea on the MV Tampa?

It proved we'd begun our history odyssey under the gentle but firm hand of Ming the Merciless and Harold Holt and Billy McMahon, and we just knew Kevin Donnelly and Chris Pyne would be proud at such comprehensive proof of the benefits of a conservative education. 

Oh sure, the pond's maths and science are completely stuffed - we know climate science is just a global conspiracy involving black helicopters and academic grants thanks to the reptiles at the lizard oz - and we believe in intelligent design, but golly we really nailed that question about the Eureka Stockade because it's all this politically correct leftist talk that's misled the world about the acidification of the oceans.

Time to check the results:

Say what Martin Farrer?

Of course we were trying, we even prayed to the icons we keep in the cupboard of warrior Abbott and poodle Pyne, hallowed be their names.

Oh David Rowe, David Rowe, how you nailed it:

More Rowe here, and as always, David Pope also nails it here:

I know, I know, it's wrong to keep quoting Santayana, but you know with this latest revival of idle PC stupidity, you just have to think he might have been on to something when he said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

And so we're condemned to go through it yet again with the poodle and Donnelly.

But let's not forget our colonial duty to the motherland, the font of Anglo-Celtic-Graeco-Roman civilisation, with a dash of Jewishness. 

After all, it's Saturday and still not the middle of January in the new year, and all this talk of war on all sorts of fronts has left the pond frazzled and exhausted.

So let's join Steve Bell in celebrating Michael Gove's contribution, as willing as Akker Dakker denouncing Peppa Pig in his denunciation of outrageous entertainments like Black Adder. 

While we have our poodle, Britain has its very own fatuous duck (and more Bell and others here):

Akker Dakker and a dash of terram stultus ...

(Above: Abel Tasman on his second voyage in 1644, published in 1744 by Emanuel Bowen with this text added:"It is impossible to conceive a Country that promises fairer from its Situation than this of TERRA AUSTRALIS, no longer incognita, as this Map demonstrates, but the Southern Continent Discovered. It lies precisely in the richest climates of the World....and therefore whoever perfectly discovers and settles it will become infalliably possessed of Territories as Rich, as fruitful, and as capable of Improvement, as any that have hitherto been found out, either in the East Indies or the West...")

Careful luvvies, Akker Dakker is on the prowl, and he's mad as hell and he's not going to take it any more, especially you bloody luvvies ...

He's outraged, outraged and shocked, the pond gathers, because of all the historical inaccuracies revolving around the Aldi T-shirt debate.

This from a man notorious for producing inaccuracies, howlers and goofballs. But do go on:

Discount supermarket chain Aldi was correct to pull an Australia Day T-shirt and singlet carrying the message "Australia Est. 1788" from its stores. 
 It was inaccurate, though that was not the point the Twitterati hoped to make. Australia wasn't officially branded as such until navigator Matthew Flinders decided to give the landmass the name in 1804. As he wrote to his brother: "I call the whole island Australia, or Terra Australis." 
Australia the independent nation wasn't established until 1901, but that's hardly the point. Those who have been protesting to Aldi via knee-jerk antisocial media are the usual attention-seeking rabble who come out around Australia Day to reiterate the never disputed point that there were people living on the continent before 1788.

Oh dear. So it's all Matthew Flinders work?

What a pity poor old, hapless, inept, and rapidly approaching his use by date Akker Dakker didn't do a Greg Hunt, and take a minute to google up a wiki dedicated to the very subject of Terra Australis:

The notion of Terra Australis was introduced by Aristotle. His ideas were later expanded by Ptolemy (1st century AD), who believed that the Indian Ocean was enclosed on the south by land, and that the lands of the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. Marcus Tullius Cicero used the term cingulus australis ("southern zone") in referring to the Antipodes in Somnium Scipionis ("Dream of Scipio"). The land (terra in Latin) in this zone was the Terra Australis. 
Legends of Terra Australis Incognita—an "unknown land of the South"—date back to Roman times and before, and were commonplace in medieval geography, although not based on any documented knowledge of the continent.

And so on and so forth:

The Flemish geographer and cartographer, Cornelius Wytfliet, wrote concerning the Terra Australis in his 1597 book, Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum: 
The terra Australis is therefore the southernmost of all other lands, directly beneath the antarctic circle; extending beyond the tropic of Capricorn to the West, it ends almost at the equator itself, and separated by a narrow strait lies on the East opposite to New Guinea, only known so far by a few shores because after one voyage and another that route has been given up and unless sailors are forced and driven by stress of winds it is seldom visited. The terra Australis begins at two or three degrees below the equator and it is said by some to be of such magnitude that if at any time it is fully discovered they think it will be the fifth part of the world. Adjoining Guinea on the right are the numerous and vast Solomon Islands which lately became famous by the voyage of Alvarus Mendanius.

The wiki even has a splendid map by said Cornelius showing ... Terra Australis (click to enlarge):

As for Flinders? Let the wiki take up the story again:

In 1814, Matthew Flinders published the book A Voyage to Terra Australis in which he wrote: 
There is no probability, that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern latitude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country, and of its situation on the globe: it has antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two claiming nations, appears to be less objectionable than any other which could have been selected. 
...with the accompanying note at the bottom of the page: 
Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth. 
Flinders had concluded that the Terra Australis as hypothesized by Aristotle and Ptolemy did not exist, so he wanted the name applied to what he saw as the next best thing: "Australia". 
His conclusion would soon be revealed as a mistake, but by that time the name had stuck.


Yep, like Akker Dakker himself, the naming of Australia was a bloody big mistake. All Flinders did was rip off the ancients, vary a couple of letters, and get it bloody wrong. Aussies, oi, oi, oi.

As the wiki also notes, the real Terra Australis - Antarctica - would be sighted in 1820.

Here it is, thanks to the wiki, as imagined in 1657 by Jan Janssonius (click to enlarge):

As always, there are more things dreamed of in the universe than Akker Dakker's feeble imaginings and Anglo-centric worldview.

If you wanted to get picky, you might also like to quibble about whether Australia became an independent nation in 1901. After all:

...for several decades after the Commonwealth came into being in 1901, the Australian Government itself was unsure as to whether it could even declare war against another country without British Government approval. (and more on that here in pdf form) 

Independent and you couldn't even bung on a do without seeking permission from the Poms? That's independence? Cue WW1... and throw in an Aussies oi, oi, oi if you like.

Billy Bunter howlers aside, what to make of this flourish by an agitated Akker Dakker alarmed that people might think there were no people living in Terra Australis, or was that Antarctica, before 1788?

No one has argued with that - no one - but as usual the professional activists get their moment in the spotlight as they did when, egged on by spin doctors within the office of former minority Labor prime minister Julia Gillard, they discredited themselves with their disgraceful riot outside Canberra's Lobby restaurant on Australia Day, 2012. 
To find the "Australia Est. 1788" slogan racist is finding a wrongdoing where none could have been identified except by a Salem witch hunter circa 1692.

A Salem witch hunter circa 1692? Let loose in Terra Australis in 2014?

WTF? What about Murdochian commie and socialist and greenie hunters circa 2014? Now there's a metaphor that fits the bill.

There is of course only one set of witch hunters worthy of the name, and that's the crony commentariat and the Murdochian hacks, determined to be offensive.

I mean, you have to be totally up yourself to berate others for being professional activists when you're a paid propagandist and hack without an independent bone in your body - so one-eyed that 'professional activist' barely seems to cover what's going down. Even "rabid activist" barely gets close ...

If you read on, you can see a real professional activist at work, offensive, insulting, berating, stone-throwing in all the usual Murdoch ways:

This continent didn't have one name when it was occupied by successive migrations over the past 40,000 years. The inhabitants only gave specific names to their areas, with generalised names for regions beyond their range. 
Aldi and Big W, which removed items bearing similar slogans, have paid a big price in bowing to the humourless watchdogs. 

Reading that, you might get the sense that Akker Dakker is full of humour, but is there any better example of a humourles watchdog watching the humourless watchdogs?

And what big price have they paid? A few T-shirts probably printed for next to nothing by workers grateful the factory didn't burn down that day?

True, Akker's a great source of comedy:

(more on Akermangate here).

(more on Piers' porkies here)

But he really doesn't live up to the family tradition:

Instead, what do we get for a closer? The usual: Fairfax and the Ruddster, as if the Ruddster still carried weight:

Reports of backdowns to the internet twits in the Fairfax media noted the "seven designs had been approved by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in July last year, after passing guidelines regarding products bearing the Australian flag". 
That would be the department responsible to former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd, whose empty apology to indigenous Australians captivated the luvvies but left indigenous people as poorly-educated and lacking in health resources or employment opportunities as they were before the Canberra love-in. How racist and culturally-insensitive was that?

Actually that apology captured a few more people than the luvvies and some of them were indigenous, and none of them were as culturally insensitive or offensive as Akker Dakker attempts on an almost daily basis.

And as for attempts to improve the lot of indigenous people, how strange that Akker Dakker never mentions the Howard government and its invasion of the Northern Territory, surely the most singular failure in a long list of failures by governments of all hues and ideologies ...

Is there an explanation? Well try decoding the messages embedded in Akker Dakker's piece, and you'll get a ripe sense of the hostility to Aboriginal people which seeps through everything he scribbles, especially those who dare to take a view on Invasion Day ...

That's when he's not being a clown about Peppa Pig, just like Jerry Falwell was a clown about Tinky Winky, and the Bolter was a clown about Finding Nemo ... (and more on their clowning here).

Still, Peppa gave Akker Dakker his moment of internet glory, as a meme, thanks in part to The Project:

Cory Bernardi Walks A Fine Line ...

(Above: sheesh, Tory, too much, way too much information, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi gets six-pack after 8-week bootcamp).



The fun surrounding Senator Cory Bernardi continues apace.

Yesterday the wires ran hot - or perhaps that should be the HFC cables ran at a snail's pace - with reports such as Senator Sue Boyce lashes fellow Liberal Cory Bernardi for anti-abortion comments.

Senator Boyce, who described herself as ''pro-choice'', said Senator Bernardi's views on abortion exposed a ''lack of compassion, a lack of genuine Christianity''. 
''I find it immoral to pontificate on the topic of abortion without looking at some of the reasons behind why a woman might seek to have an abortion,'' she said. 
''Women don't have abortions for frivolous reasons.''

And Boyce was a late arrival, with Liberal MP Warren Entsch attacks Cory Bernardi on 'gay obsession' already out and about several days earlier:

''He's obviously got an obsession with people that are gay,'' Mr Entsch said. ''It worries me. You've really got to watch out for those that have these obsessions. He who protests the loudest …'' 
Mr Entsch wondered what Senator Bernardi would think if a member of his family turned out to be gay. ''Would he advocate sterilisation?'' 
Senator Bernardi is reportedly seeking legal advice over Mr Entsch's comments.


Oh yes, pretty please, sue him, let's all be able to witness a bloody good Liberal party stoush with lawyers at ten paces ...

It seems Entsch, a step-father, took exception to the notion that only a married biological mother and father could provide a "gold standard" for children's development, while also dismissing Bernardi's views on abortion as nonsense.

Meanwhile, the bold brave leader maintained a resolute silence - it takes exceptional bravery to defy the steady drip of a drippy Bernardi but such willingness to stand up to water torture is the mark of a hero, as you can read in Tony Abbott keeps distance from Cory Bernardi abortion comments.

Abbott's spokeswoman issued a one-sentence statement on Monday:

''Senator Bernardi is a backbencher and his views do not represent the position of the government.''

Would no one stand up for the steady drip?

Cue Senator John Madigan, fundie, racing to the rescue, as reported in Under fire Senator Cory Bernardi finally finds supporter in John Madigan.

With friends like these, who needs enemies? But at least we now know Bernardi's real home, the DLP:

Senator Madigan said Senator Bernardi had been subjected to "vitriol" and this was "a dangerous development and hurts our democratic system." 
"It is becoming increasingly obvious there is an element that does not believe in freedom of expression and the right of all individuals to hold a belief," he said.

Indeed, indeed, and never mind that it's becoming increasingly obvious that rabid gay haters and loathers of women's rights, also tend to be deniers of the right of people to express freely their support for gays and women and call Bernardi out as a first class rolled gold ponce of the first water.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that this is  a dangerous development which hurts our democratic system - seeing as Bernardi seems to have a goodly dose of vitriol and bile stored in his brain (is it the liver that's not working, and how does acidic vitriol get on with the alkaline bile?) - and we can thank the Abbott government for setting the tone that encourages the squawking of the loons.

Of course a few people got agitated, like Andrew Porter banging his drum at The Drum with The real danger in Cory Bernardi's comments. But what else would you expect at the home of the cardigan wearers.

Crikey even went so low as to name names - well they kept a discreet silence on a few - but there were already enough glaring examples of Liberals who didn't fit Bernardi's gold standard of family life.

Like the love child adopted out back in the day when Abbott thought he was the father, with Abbott involved in the decision to give the child a bronze standard upbringing. Or Abbott's sister, or Malcolm Turnbull with a single father, or George Brandis with a single mother.

Crikey also trotted out another Liberal:

Coalition MP Sharman Stone told Crikey that Bernardi’s book contains “angry and hurtful views”, and talking down non-traditional families is “just nonsense”. Stone, a Victorian Liberal MP, was particularly annoyed at Bernardi’s description of those who advocate for abortion rights as “pro-death” and his claim that some women use abortion as “an abhorrent form of birth control”. 
 “I find that deeply offensive … it’s a hate-filled statement,” she said. Stone called on her author-colleague to donate the proceeds from his book to a women’s refuge. “I certainly don’t think we should have people trying to make profit out of books which are deliberately provocative and anti-women and children.” 
 As to Bernardi’s views on families, Stone said: “Well, certainly in stereotyping a particular group or individual, it’s just that — it’s not looking at the reality. Blended families have been the nature of Western cultures for generations. After each war there’s been single mother-reared families … what matters is if the child has stability and love.” (Cory's hit-list: Bernardi's colleagues who don't make the grade, paywall affected).

With colleagues like these, who needs enemies?

But perhaps the greatest crime Crikey reported?

Some of Bernardi’s Coalition colleagues may not be aware of his concerns about their upbringing, however. A number of Liberal sources told Crikey no one they knew was reading his book. “I’ve not seen a copy of it yet anywhere in the building,” a Liberal staffer said from Parliament House. 

Eek, he's being ignored? And with a six pack body?

Which brings us, as usual, to the reptiles at the lizard Oz.

First of all, read this letter from Robert Wrona to the reptiles:

Okay now think of a header for the letter.

Think of a it a bit like that cartoon competition in The New Yorker. The latest one closes on 12th January and some time ago they tweaked the rules so Australians can enter, here.

                                So Cory, standing on the red carpet of shame one more time?

No, no, that's pathetic, hopeless, and not a single American will understand a reference to a two bit bum from South Australia.

Anyway, they get his sort of gibberish every day of the year from fundie ratbag tea partiers, and they'd be astonished to see someone aping the worst of American politics ...

So it's back to that reader's letter. How about?

Bernardi Out of Touch With Mainstream Australia

No, that's far too severe.

What about?

Bernardi Alienates Voters from The Coalition

Steady, steady, that sounds vaguely threatening and personal.

Perhaps your eye moved to that last line?

Bernardi Lectures Women and Gays on Their Inferiority

You think you're going to pick up a subbie job amongst the reptiles with that? Last chance:

Bernardi Walks a Fine Line

I know what you were thinking, balanced, but with a hint of trouble, and a direct homage to the letter.

Golly do you have a lot to learn about the fine art of spin.

You see, it's essential to be supportive, what with all the vitriol and the bile doing the rounds.

Yes, you doofus, wrong or right, he's entitled to his opinion!

Hmm, that's still not quite right, is it? Oh sure Bernardi is entitled to his opinion, just like any other loon, but that right or wrong bit suggests he might be wrong.

What to do, what to do?

That simply won't fly on the front page, but remember brevity is wit:

There you go, done with class and style.

Senator Bernardi entitled to opinion! Fair and balanced and say no more.

Now that you've learnt the art, take it for a spin, see how it drives:

Chancellor Adolf Hitler entitled to opinion 
Stalin entitled to opinion
Chairman Mao entitled to opinion

You see, one size fits all, and it can be used in the most dire circumstances and without, it has to be said, breaching Godwin's Law, since a little known codicil to that wonderful law says:

People invoking Adolf Hitler, Cory Bernardi or John Madigan are entitled to their metaphor

Meanwhile, the Amazon reviews have now spiralled out of control, with - at time of writing - already over 500, here,  for a book likely to hit the remainder shelf pretty quickly for the remaining tree killer readers out there.

And everybody's laughing and mocking and cat-calling and reporting on the folly, as in Amazon flooded with reviews mocking Cory Bernardi's book The Conservative Revolution, (forced video at end of link) and Cory Bernardi's magnum opus sparks a wave of satirical book reviews.

Dammit, a couple of days ago, Junkee even had the cheek to nominate The Five Best Amazon Reviews of Cory Bernardi's 'The Conservative Revolution'.

The poor old six pack has turned into an internet meme.

It turned out that the funniest note in Junkee came in the comments section:

A genuine, or so it seems, since who knows on the intertubes, tea partier turning out for good old Cory.

It being Friday, and with supporters like this, and after a full week of water-cooler fun, laughter - and dare we say it, gaiety, perhaps even gay abandon - Bernardi has hands down won the pond's "loon of the working week" award, dedicated to all those who relieve the gloom of people working long hours at mill ...

It might not be as grand as the 2014 loon of the year award, but give him time, give him time. Loon of the month beckons and then Everest itself calls. And remember this man is a six pack goer ... mere mockery will never stop an international internet meme ...

(Below: statesman and visionary, eyes fixed on heaven)