A lot of people say to me, “Emmjay, you’ve got an Ag Science background, what’s going on with the National Party?”
And that’s true. I have deep connections to the land (I have a backyard amongst the latte-sippers of Inner West Cyberia) and I am deeply connected with Gaia’s biosphere (I have some plants and sometimes wildlife flies (or scurries) in from time to time).
But I think what qualifies me to give advice in this sphere is that my sciency Darwinian background provides me with a useful framework for coming to grips with this terribly troubling National Party leadership vacuum.
Without a doubt, the best framework for understanding this matter comes from our old mate Charles Darwin. Let’s look at the Nats from this perspective.
The Nats are, of course the love children of the old Country Party, known by that phononymic joke allegedly born in Federal parliament “I’m a Country Member”, to which some wag responded “No, but I’ll try.”
The crux of Darwin’s Theory is that in every population there will be genetic mutations. And the Nats are redolent with genetic mutations. I should have rested my case after that last sentence.
But Darwin posits that some of these mutants will have characteristics that give them some superior fitness to survive and thrive when their environment gets seriously crazy – like when coal mining overtakes a rural person’s central focus or when everyone in the bush who grows stuff that’s getting hammered by climate change, votes for some clueless bozo with highly frayed moral fibre and less comprehension of science than pond scum.
Darwin theorises that Nature will weed out those individuals who are not “fit” – as you know, his phrase was survival of the fittest. Not those who are necessarily the most physically fit, but those who can adapt and thrive – be fit in changing environments – say, like a 2 degree increase in global temperatures. Although, one might hazard a guess that mental fitness could come in handy in the current Cretinacious Period.
It was not always thus, and in the Decentfolkus Period, the Nats – or the then Counts were led by men (and it was always men) who were marked by actually looking after their constituents as opposed to looking after themselves and a handful of their white shoe clad mates.
That was before the Akubra, the Drizabone and RM Williams boots became tropes in the Pretentious Period.
But enough of this wordy sciency stuff. You’re almost certainly hanging out for a decent table that distils a complex topic like “How did the National Party come to peer over the edge of a precipice that is increasingly looking like their extinction ?”
According to the above web page, we can summarise this in a few short paragraphs…
And I quote:
“Earle Page, the party’s second leader, is its longest-serving, at 18 years, 5 months and 8 days. Page also had the longest service in the House of Representatives, representing Cowper (NSW) for 42 years between 1919 and 1961.
The shortest-serving leader was Charles Blunt, who served 11 months between 1989 and 1990. Having deposed his predecessor Ian Sinclair, Blunt lost his seat in the general election.*
In its first 69 years since 1920, The Nationals had seven leaders.
In contrast, the period since 1989 has also seen seven leaders, including Joyce’s two non-consecutive terms
The 44 years between 1940 and 1984 was a time of unparalleled stability, with just three leaders (Fadden, McEwen and Anthony).”
Psephologists at the Pig’s Arms Socio-economic Institute have taken this one step further – identifying that no leader of the Nats with the slightest clue, has been born after 1960.
And here we see it, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and gender non-specific people, the epoch which has triggered the threatened demise of the once great Country Party began with long haired louts in the Rollingstoneaceous Period of the 1960s.
And although it is pure speculation whether the next leader (and I use the term loosely) of the Nats will be a lump of anthracite or the methanous fart from a Holstein Friesian, what is fairly certain, is that if the Nats don’t get their (literal) shit together, they’ll be political toast in the coming climate change era.
Editor’s Note 1. Stay tuned for our next hard-hitting article – Pond Scum – how the Nat’s tried and failed to trash the Murray Darling Basin Plan….
* Editor’s Note 2 – this is not to suggest that the Hon. Blunt member was altitudinally-challenged, but that his successful challenge of his leader was met with the kind of voter backlash sadly lacking in the most recent Bonoboesque farrago.
Editor’s Note 3. It has been brought to our attention that that we may have mixed up the captions in the photographs, but we can’t for the life of us figure out how.
Editors’s Note 4 – NoAntony Green was harmed in the writing of this folderol.
Borrowed with undying thanks to the Shovel – Australia’s #1 Satirical News Provider
With Sydney’s Eastern suburbs facing a growing outbreak, we’ve collated some of the most common questions about the new restrictions.
#1 Distancing: Do I need to keep a 1.5 metre distance from my Porsche Cayenne and the Land Rover Vogue next to me in the supermarket carpark, or can I just be a fuckwit and park across two spaces as usual?
#2 Masks: Are masks required while doing lines of coke outside, or just while in homes and offices?
#3 QR Codes: Whenever I go to check in at my day spa with my phone, my phone’s camera is always pointing back at me (I think I permanently changed the setting ages ago). Do I just show the person at reception the selfie I took, or should I upload it to Instagram with a #Covidlyfe hashtag?
#4 Density limits: How many litres of lip filler can I have per square centimetre?
#5 Panic buying: In amongst all the craziness, we bought three investment properties last week. Are there likely to be per-customer limits introduced?
#6 Police powers: How much is the fine if your mask doesn’t match your activewear? If I see a crime being committed should I report it to police?
#7 Tests: I’ve heard COVID tests involve putting something up your nose. Can I just pay in cash when I get there?
#8 Symptoms: What are the first signs that house prices are about to drop?
#9 DifferingViewpoints: I understand there are a lot of different views and we need to be open to all of them. But can we all agree that the window table at Icebergs on a Saturday afternoon is the best?
#10 Exceptions: My Mum is desperately sick and lives in Britain. Can I still go to Port Douglas for a girls’ weekend next month?
I usually start student report cards with something positive, address things that our student needs to work on, and then finish with something praising our student’s better qualities.
However, I am struggling with this format for Scott’s report card.
I have spoken with the staff and I’m afraid that the most constructive thing I can say is that Scott’s friends seem to like him. However, as we discussed previously, the headmaster and I are less than comfortable with Scott’s choice of friends.
Peter, let’s be frank, is a psychopath in the making and we are worried that Peter’s influence seems to have arrested Scott’s development – especially his compassion for people less well off than himself.
Michael, well, being kind, I think we can agree that Michael’s doing the best he can with not a single sharp tool in his kit. This is also true of Scott’s other friend Barnaby, who we understand has some family issues.
But to focus on Scott’s work, let’s not mince words. Nobody at St Generic’s has seen evidence of any actual effort.
Scott’s studies in climate change, pandemics, indigenous studies and flood and fire management have been very disappointing, to the extent that it would not be an exaggeration to say that he is simply not interested.
Mr and Mrs Morrison, I would hazard a guess that this is because Scott simply does not in any way apply himself beyond going on excursions and hanging out with the bigger boys and girls overseas. The headmaster and I worry that Boris and Donald are not good role models for Scott.
Scott is renowned at St Generic’s Brand for his interest in sport. Not as one might think, actually playing sport, but watching it, beer and steak sandwich in hand. To be sure, Scott is a dyed in the wool spectator, he seriously is not a player. And this, according to our sports coach, Brother Peter O’file, is not helping Scott to maintain any level of fitness.
I am sure that you as caring parents aspire more for Scott than a career modelling hi-vis apparel and sitting in military vehicles and doing thumbs up gestures. This would be a terrible waste – of hi-vis apparel.
So, in conclusion, let’s agree that Scott really needs to lift his game in the crucial second half and let’s make it clear to Scott that there is no such calling as “everybody’s mate”.
Sincerely yours,
Father O’Way, St Generic’s Brand Parish School.
Ps – thank you for the generous donation of coal fired room heaters and the new girls’ shower block. In the event that we ever enrol girls, it will become very handy.
I’ll be surprised if any regulars have heard of Lord Huron. To be honest I don’t know much of them. But I came across this album, which was released last month, what a surprise. Lord Huron could be described as Indie folk or Indie Rock. This album is a very nice mix of Baroque pop, folk, outlaw country and rock’n’roll with just a hint of Ennio Morricone and spaghetti westerns. Some lovely guitar work on some tracks.
We love you too, Biloela Tamil Family, but apparently not our Government.
Dear Prime Minister,
I imagine that as a Christian man, and particularly one with a family, you must not have heard about this family of Tamil asylum seekers being held in detention on Christmas Island.
They were torn from the Biloela community that had taken them to heart and have been in detention for years for no crime. They are simply seeking asylum from ethnic persecution.
Now, since you are a Christian man, and I’ve told you this disturbing news, I invite you to consider the question of what would Jesus do.
Well, to save you any confusion, I can pretty confidently tell you that Jesus would show them love and compassion and free them to return to their adopted community in Biloela.
We are deeply concerned about one of the daughters who has been brought back to Australia for urgent medical attention.
Now, Prime Minister, if it was one of your daughters who was rushed into hospital, I have no doubt that you and the missus would want to be there with your daughter.
So I am asking you, as would any fair-minded Australian, to bring the family back to Australia and let them settle in peace in Biloela.
I told yer Son, I’m not coming out!, I’ve bin 30 years trying to get past them stop lines. Whadda y’ want?
Dad, I gotta ast you somethin
30 YEARS! can you believe that?
……. What for? Yer never Listen! 30 YEARS. What?
…… Dad, how do ya make sense with a woman?
!!##***#!!??????
30 years son. THIRTY years I’ve bin trying to get past them stop lines!
Dad. Its important …..
I won’t answer THAT question. It ain’t fair …………… …………… 30 YEARS Boy .. an for all that now you want ter get stuck on the stop line too. Ya know what that does inside me? Any idea?
fffffwacKKKK ….. glue all over. Stuck agai……!
I know dad. But its not what you’re thinking. Its all wrong in yer ‘ead.
At seventeen YOU know THAT?
Course I know that!
OK ! you know what’s hard? Its not the answer to yer question that’s hard. The answer’s as simple as sunrise. Its the fashion that’s the problem Boy. The answer’ll do you no good. No good fer another 50 years. You’re part of a dumb sticky fashion and no wise words from me’ll get you out! NO Chance!
Dad!
OK. I’ll give yer the truth Boy. But yer world’s not ready fer the truth. Its too self-important fer the truth. Everyone’s too parked at the stop lines. The truth’s no good to a stopped world Son. Truth’s alive, moving, its no use to yer world and yer world’s no use ter the truth
Dad?
‘ave you got any idea how it feels standin ere an someone pours a bucket of cold glue over yer, like that? eh?
?
There ain’t no one will tell you the truth about that!
? ……. Dad, its Doreen … I can’t do nuthin right. … Yer know what I’m saying. I know yer do. Isn’t that why yer in ‘ere?
Yeh …..
OK…….. I’ll tell yer. Its me duty. … but no-one’s gonna thank yer fer knownin the Truth … Thiry years getting by them stop lines though! Remember that!….
I’ll tell yar, but , its a secret. Its no good sharing it. …. what I tell you in here. … it’ll haveta stay in ‘ere. And I gotta tell ya, yer wont find yer girl in here.
.
SO?……………………………………………………………………………………….
At night yer know, yer look up. And y’ see the stars in a great white band direkly over’ed and stretching from horizon before ya t’ horizon behind ya. On either side of the band … its just blackness. … That’s the Milky Way yer looking at.
Its been there since before boy or girl ever looked up at night. Its there every night. When y’ look up, yer looking out through it, through OUR solar system, through millions of other solar systems, to the very edge of the galaxy and the very beginning of the universe. THAT’S THE TRUTH!.
Remember that, son. At night y’ know, as darkness falls the first bright stars begin to glow in the east. Each night the stars change a bit – but always according to the same LAWs of nature. During the night they rise slowly in the midst of the milky way and pass slowly overhead to disappear into the west as morning breaks. Its always the same – every night, every week, every year, every lifetime. Even as it changes its changing in the same cycles.
As the year goes around, as the seasons change, the stars rise slightly higher on the eastern horizon then months later slightly lower. The Arab nomads tracked ’em and charted ’em thousands o’ years ago. They’d camp in the heat of day and walk at night. They got t’ be so certain of the regular motions in the heavens, through the seasons , they learned to navigate by them stars.
There are such things in nature Boy and many of the things in nature have the nature of constancy. These have been called the cosmic things because they are like the things of the cosmos having constancy and certainty.
The cosmic world is a world of order, of routine, of seasons and cycles. Each part operating in marvelous harmony and beauty with the others. You’ve seen the tides follow the moon, you’ve seen the spring winds come every year to scatter the blossom sending the seed far and wide, you’ve seen the garden flowers bloom in spring and autumn 6 months apart. At night you’ve smelled the fragrant jasmine flowers release their perfume deep into the air for the night bugs to come an pollenate them and you’ve seen how they close silently every morning.
In see’in them things, m’boy … yer’ve seen the woman o’yer dreams too.
….. The secret of the woman, m’boy is to understand she too is a cosmic creature. She is not a creature born to carve out ‘er own destiny. No more than the milky way can cease to spin in its axis. She’s a creature to ebb and flow in ‘er seasons. Her beauty is in ‘er ease, ‘er patient grace, ‘er joy in the place God ‘as set for her. She is the vessel, the soil, the star, the flower . An aren’t these things the things that cause yer emotions to sing fer ‘er?
And?
And yer cant find ‘er, can ya Son?
No . Yer won’t find ‘er. Not fer 50 years, if yer lucky then.
An yet yer know, she’s there …. she’s just stuck at one of them stoplines. She’s read somethin’ in a magazine, seen it on the TV, who knows where it came from? A bit o marketing junk free-falling from one of them satellites maybe.
Her nature’s cosmic so she’s easily led, an this thing she read as gone in an stuck to ‘er. She’s bin run into a siding an’ she doesn’t know it. But this thing she’s stuck to is rubbish, son .. junk. Its says shes to turn her back on wot 60,000 years as been perfecting. 60,000 years of wisdom an development traded for a bit o space junk. Got it?
Huh?
An so how do you drive yer truck with a flat tire, How do you write soft poetry with a red pen? How do read yer sonnets at night with a burned bulb. Sure, yer can find a way t’ do all these things …… but will it satisfy yer? Will yer hate it or love the time yer have with it? Is it worth the bother or ….
Dad it ain’t what I asked yer for.
No Mate!……………………….. but now yer know why I’m not coming outta here.
Dad, tell me about the space junk. Why is it so hard to make ‘er behave fair with me?
Boy, Just think about it. Think it through. Try t’ unthink yerself as a lad. Imagine! From the time yer first knowd yerself, yer knowd yer body’s stronger than yer mind. Its got a strength of its own even. It starts to do things soon enough that cause yer moods t’ change, cause yer shape ter change, cause yer needs t’ change … an there’s nothing yer can do about. An’ as it goes on yer realise how vulnerable yer are. How easily yer could become a mother with any number of kids feedin on yer. Yer realise how much yer matter to the biological forces an how little your own wishes an wants can matter. You realise yer like the moon, like the stars, like the seasons … yer in an orbit o’ destiny y’ can’t change and its yours fer most of your life.
Tell me where yer feel anxiety, if y’ feel fear. Tell me if safety isn’t the center of your needs. Tell me if rules don’t make sense to yer? Tell me if yer don’t just want t’ find yer place, own it, keep it, merge yerself into it eh?
An tell me, if a bit a marketing junk came falling down from space sayin yer could have a destiny of yer own makin, wouldn’ yer want t’believe it?
Yeh, OK but they believe it … but … so why dont they know what they want?
….. Son, they do. They do know what they want. Trouble is, it ain’t any good fer ’em. Yer see, what they think they want …. what that bit a space junk told em t’ go fer …. what you blokes go after … involves a fair bit of danger sooner n later. The bit a space junk don’t say nuthin about that.
…….
Yer know its all bin told a long time afore. The griks knew all about this stuff. Try to slip a girl out from under the watch of a grik dad and you’ll see about that.
Huh?
Once upon a time there was two brothers an there was a grik girl who was onta both of ’em. The first bloke – ‘e was Promeefius and the second bloke, ‘e was Epimeefius – or somethin like that.
Now the first bloke, he had a look at this grik girl, ya know, the clear white skin, the black hair, the dark eyes, an all that, an he sez, “christ ‘ere’s trouble, I’m gettin outta here!” Now ‘is name means “thinkin ahead”; yer get it?
But the second bloke, ‘iz name means “thinkin too late”, sez “heh, this is a bit ov orright. I’ll ‘ave ‘er”. An’ so he marries ‘er. Grik dad an all!
Now at the weddin’ some big grik smartarse gives ’em a big box fer a weddin’ present. An he sez “its yorz but yer musn’t open it.”
Now if some big grik bastard give you a box an told ya not to open it, would ya? Well Epimeefius he got it. But iz little bride? Whaddaya reckon? Her name was Pandora. Whaddaya think that means? Eh? I’ll tell ya. It means UNIVERSAL BLOODY WOMAN! Thats what it means. Does she get it?
Now .. can yer guess where this iz goin?
Well, not this pair. Az soon as her husband, whom she’s sworn to honour and obey, turns ‘iz bloody back, what does Pandora do.
SHE OPENS THE BLOODY BOX !!
An inside is every bloody problem the world ‘az ever ‘ad since! So what does she do? What would any woman bloody do? She sits there an screams to be bloody saved …. while every nasty yer can bloody think of climbs out.
Then she shuts the lid. An whaddya reckon she leaves locked inside? Whats the only thing she doesn’t let free? EH? Its bloody ‘ope. Thats what!
(Christ! Can you you imagine?)
An now, jest a bit later on, you’re ‘opin I’m goin t’ tell you how t’ bloody live with’em! Well son, there’s no ‘ope.
Now you know why. Ya can’t live with ’em an y’can’t shoot ’em. Ya just gotta find a way to love’em and not get destroyed by’em. Cause they’ll destroy yer if they can … thats wot all them books is about… try to make yer into a nice bit a useless furniture.
Dad?
Son! There’s a whole generation of young blokes is gona havta grow up fast and take control o’ yer women … Thats what yer gotta do. Its the only middle ground between Promeefius an Epimeefius. But I dunno if you can do it. Truth is I think the world’s doomed an there’s nothin t’do.
Ya might as well get in ‘ere with me an Promeefius.
After a long association with the famous Mondrian Brothers – abstract builders to the proletariat – Merv has decided to break with tradition and give an all-females team an opportunity to work with the pub’s architect.
When asked what he was contemplating for the pub, Merv responded “Oh, I dunno, maybe something in brick.”
*….. Sub Editor’s note I couldn’t bring myself to subtitle this real photograph “New meaning for ‘brickies’ cleavage”
It was published on LinkedIn this morning – by a woman championing the progress women are making in the building industry…. and if anything, furthering the rampant sexism at the same time.
With thanks to the Pig’s Arms semi-resident philosopher Norm de Plumette
Woke is a strange populist concept that any sane thinking person has to double-check its current meaning to the specific audience in order to understand it. It has now become the latest religion of the clever club of conservative disrupters.
It is a right of the right to express venomous outrage against the invisibly woke conspiracy that denies the preeminence of their prejudiced opinions. They are woke to the inherent evils of woke by being anti-woke.
An example of their woken contribution is the great debacle of Climate Change. The soothsayers are very woke to the old memes. Like woken sailors they regurgitate legitimate but resolved concerns to justify their prejudices.
Their woken eyes are unable to read the extensive research into continuously improving climate models. Instead they cite numerous confounding indicators: sun spots, solar cycles, axis precession, the little ice age, the plant growth boosted by CO2 . . .
All true but these are factors that real climate scientists are woke to and have accommodated in their models. If only these anti-woken warriors had the time to examine the models instead being too busy denying their validity with critiques that are no longer relevant.
The back and forth of the scientific method addressing and improving our understanding of global warming has been going on for years. It is still far from perfect. The extent of the undeniable anthropological change is debated by scientists through their research. Most of those woken to the conspiracy of these scientists have awoken that their simple right to unjustified denial can no longer be supported; so they take refuge under a cloak of natural variability to justify inaction.
Now you may hear the clamour of those woken to an epoch where the earth was warmer. They point to this fact to warm themselves in the embrace of inevitability and refuse to support any action to mitigate the problem. Natural variability is a restatement of fact out of context. The past climate was also a lot cooler and produced a snowball earth.
This woken objection is a restatement of the factors that the climate scientists are grappling with, but in extremis. Humans did not exist in these previous climate extremes the deniers are woken-up about. It is unclear how these epochs justify refusing to try to stop a cataclysmic species extinction event unless you support euthanasia and suicide.
Anyway . . . these denialists are so woke to many other shiny gems to distract from pursuit of any agreement on how to interpret fact . . . look over here!
For example, aren’t you woke to plastic pollution that is somehow sponsored by the big Rothschild Illuminati conspirators that is seek exorbitant profits by reducing petrochemical consumption under the guise of protecting us from the ravages of an increasingly volatile climate whilst these same woke radical left capitalist lunatics are also conspiring to increase petrochemical use to devastate the environment?
They dangle more flashy lures as they trawl for justification from woken supporters of other causes. Through these confounding distractions they seek to misappropriate from one woke to another and subvert rationalism.
Now the proselytisers are asking whether you are woke to this new war or just woke to another battle in the perennial war between the inappropriately named left and right.
Woke now seems to be another of those abusive labels like ‘political correctness’, ‘cancel culture’, ‘greenie’ and ‘bleeding heart’. Labels appropriated to combat the barrage of ‘nazi’ ‘troglodyte’ ‘racist’ ‘supremacist’ accusations. The ‘right’ have cleverly weaponised the badges of pride of specific ‘progressive’ groups and exploited a myth that the ‘left’ is united in its march towards the ‘communist’ light on the hill.
Unfortunately for the conservative cause the business world has become woke and are no longer fully aligned with the conservative domain. The conservative dilemma is that the free enterprise they championed now chooses to be concerned about climate change and other issues. The conservatives now appear out of touch and their cherished individual freedom is a casualty in a battle with the corporate world where they deem that corporate capitalist opinions which used to be a political ally are now woken.
Despite their success in woking the mythical left, the mythical right seems to be caught in a bind of their own design. They are unable to desert the vanguard of woke bashing extremists who will never be woke to the stench of inevitable change, and they cannot follow the self-interested sniffs of individual rights to snuffle in the trough of money to be made from a cause like seriously addressing climate change.
Meanwhile, with the movement of the woke battlelines, the extremists of woke who started it all have a free pass to propagate their unscientific feelings. The rational persons of progressive persuasions don’t want to highlight the ludicrous claims of their less-than-inane allies, because winning the climate debate is more important. Wokeness to the data can be abandoned if the end justifies the means.
The loser is the scientific method, and the extremists are free to dance in the echo chambers of their woken clubs, demanding the inclusion of their right to exclude others and preserve diversity. Some are woken enough to have their pants down low enough to expose a cleft of buttock. In your face is fashionable and not a homage to the denial of belts to incarcerated criminals.
This extreme left lunacy has produced mishmash of uncomfortable causes each competing to be more woke than the other with the ultimate goal of supreme wokeness to everything. An accolade that does not address the fundamental needs of society.
Meanwhile the wokerati in the cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of our inner cities are struggling to be woken to what woke means in any specific context. Is this discombobulated wokeness a free-thinking anarchist plot the intent that of the bomb-throwing Bakunin or the book throwing considerations of Tolstoy or simply Stalin’s attempt to negate the concept of cooperative syndicates? Few are woke to that, because anarchy has been appropriated to the dustbin of history by its detractors in the parlance of populist media, and woke it seems has a similar destiny.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 