Tuesday, March 20, 2018


 

There's much to shock and horrify in the lizard Oz today, but please first allow the pond a little digression.

Of late the reptiles have been much taken with a certain Jordan Peterson, and the pond has been yearning for a smack-down of said Peterson, and then it came in the NY Review of Books

12 Rules for Life is only Peterson’s second book in twenty years. Packaged for people brought up on BuzzFeed listicles, Peterson’s brand of intellectual populism has risen with stunning velocity; and it is boosted, like the political populisms of our time, by predominantly male and frenzied followers, who seem ever-ready to pummel his critics on social media. It is imperative to ask why and how this obscure Canadian academic, who insists that gender and class hierarchies are ordained by nature and validated by science, has suddenly come to be hailed as the West’s most influential public intellectual. For his apotheosis speaks of a crisis that is at least as deep as the one signified by Donald Trump’s unexpected leadership of the free world.

Of course Mishra couldn't be expected to know about the likes of the Devine and Dame Slap while berating the predominantly frenzied male followers.

Luckily the pond had plenty of coins handy for the swear jar, because it knew certain things had to be said, and that they would come in handy at any price …


Ah that felt good and the pond had to strongly resist the urge to compound its crime by running a Donald cartoon, but there was no time, because the reptiles called … and this day, the pond was compelled by the reptile idea of "reporting" …


Oh that old routine … suddenly the pond couldn't resist a cartoon …



Funnily enough, the reptiles didn't listen to Malware. 

They suddenly decided they'd introduce their own version of climate science into the discussion …or should that be the "reporting"?


Um Joe baby, Andy boy, for the record, you do realise that if the argument is that the greenies are out of line by linking an event to a general pattern, you're being just as stupid citing particular other events as if it's some kind of refutation of a general pattern? 

You do know the company you're keeping? The same as Joel Peterson …


Never mind, go on with your "reporting" of the facts. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts …


Well the pond's so glad that all that's been cleared up and it's back to business as usual …

 

Meanwhile, Chip has also giving the greenies a good dose of the whack a mole treatment … and with some greenies clearly finding a leak to the reptiles an attractive way to present their cause …

Please excuse the pond if it drops in on the tail of the conversation ...


By golly how the reptiles love to listen to complaining greenies ...

Never mind, in the end Di Natale trying to use climate science to distract from his own woes, is no excuse for the reptiles trying to use Di Natale to discredit climate science in a way that's as fatuous and as foolish as the Donald in full stride …

And so to another matter which outraged the reptiles this morning …


It reminded the pond of Media Watch last night where both Sunrise and the reptiles and Dame Slap were given a sound spanking …


Rarely can a bunch of reptiles have so cynically exploited class envy and ignorance, and to what avail?


Et tu Bolter?

Hmm, the pond could get to like this business of just reading the headlines, but it probably should finish off the rest of that piece.

You know, 18C, freedom of speech, how dare they silence Bill Leak, what's this, uppity blacks making a joke about whites, how shocking, how outrageous, how demeaning ...


Oh heck, it attracted likes and views?

Dammit, the pond will have a couple of those Donald cartoons now … could the first few show off manly men in a way sure to delight Peterson, the Devine and Dame Slap …

 

And now because a few are never enough ...




6 comments:

  1. Mishra: "...obscure Canadian academic, who insists that gender and class hierarchies are ordained by nature and validated by science."

    Oh he's just a wannabee "evolutionary psychologist", DP who believes that there's a gene for everything - including the one that signifies his immaculate omniscience.

    Besides, if we're onto that theme, whatever happened to that runaway best seller for many years, 'Iron John' by Robbert Bly ? Heard any mention of this million seller lately ? Then what about that all time best seller by the greatest mind of his day: Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. Heard much about that lately ? How about Teilhard de Chardin's 'The Phenomenon of Man' - do you need to renovate your noosphere ?

    Do we detect a pattern here ? Would it be any clearer if we added Stephen Covey's 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' ? Does this help: "...men looking desperately for maps of meaning in a world they found opaque and uncontrollable."

    Or maybe just: "And here am I, alone and afraid in a world I never made."

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  2. Now is not the time to discuss: Andrew Kehoe (you know how to greghunt, don't you ?) Actually, apart from Bill Bryson's very memorable 'One Summer: America, 1927' I've never seen or heard Andrew Kehoe discussed at all. Should he be ?

    But here's a goodun from Kelly, Burrell and Baxendale:
    "Cyclone Marcus swept across the Northern Territory on Saturday, bringing down power lines and hundreds of trees in what Chief Minister Michael Gunner described as the biggest storm to hit the Top End in 30 years."

    Wau, what damage just a bit of wind power can do - you wouldn't want to invest in something that casually flattens power lines as a source of domestic electricity, would you ?

    But then, now is not the time to discuss that.

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  3. Funny, I don't recall the Libs being reluctant to use a natural disaster to push an ideological agenda when it involved a blackout in South Australia. It seemed like a classic (maybe neoclassical) market failure to me - the owners of Pelican Point studiously ignoring AEMO's request until they reached their desired price point.

    Of course the reptiles hardly touched on that, it would point out the obvious deficiencies in the preferred model of their sponsors. Similarly, any close examination of class or race bias is seen as a threat to the current social and economic order.

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  4. I saw Peterson being interviewed on Tonightly With Tom Ballard the other week. He reckoned that young people should tidy up their rooms before they go out to protest the wrongs of the world.

    "A loon from the Land of the Loonie" was the phrase that came to mind.

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    Replies
    1. ABC Comedy, being the bunch of self-promoting narcissists that they are, have put the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kxgeevlRElw

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