I like to rummage about in the back drawers of our culture, dig out a bunch of glittery gee-gaws and trinkets, and then play with them in public. I have been called a ‘Cultural Commentator’ but I think that far too grand a title. It is also misleading. It is a bit like calling the victim of an assault a ‘Boxing Analyst’.
Especially with Trump and co in the picture. Everything is now serious. Irony is dead. Chuckles are inappropriate. Smirks are entirely misplaced.
There is simply no place for puns about total social and political meltdown during the course of total social and political meltdown. I get that. Not only is it rude, shallow, and juvenile, it is also likely counterproductive. I have to look after my own interests. When all you really care about is pleasing a vaguely defined and likely grossly misinformed audience, then caution is warranted, as it is really easy to accidentally provide offence.
It is therefore obvious that the best course of action in these current circumstances is to just keep it all light and happy. Which simply means totally avoiding all discussion of anything to do with politics, ideology, plummeting planes, failing nuclear plants, starving aid recipients, warmongering totalitarian dictators, nervous Panamanians, outraged Canadians, indignant Danes, utterly incoherent cabinet members, a pending Dutton dictatorship, a potential WWIII, a looming climate catastrophe, a pending financial market meltdown, bird-flu, and the death of the free press, etcetera. But…
I just can’t help myself. I am such a shallow vessel. I think I have typers’ Tourettes. My fingers keep on spitting out very funny but undoubtedly bad taste observations in a seemingly autonomous manner. So I would like to take this opportunity, in advance, to apologize profusely for any offence I will likely cause. It is just so difficult to resist; but I do have to grow up and take back control. I need to clench my buttocks, suck it up, and avoid offending all these nice people.
Just because the current leader of the free world is a convicted sex offender and fraudster who is selling sneakers and watches online while running the USA from a golf resort in Florida, does not mean that I can spend all day laughing hysterically while composing satirical verse. Just because the head of the health department is a crazed escapee from Camelot with a worm in his brain who is renowned for indulging a deep hatred of medicine in general and vaccines in particular, who is currently trying to work out how to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of covid-test kits so as to save money, does not give me a license to just rudely point these sorts of things out in public.
When the head of the FBI has a hit list of agents that he wants to prosecute on behalf of a convicted felon, events have obviously gone off the rails so completely and utterly that levity may be plain rude. After all, that large proportion of those who can look at the fifteen layers of decaying orange paint peeling off Trump’s ever squinty-eyed face, without instantly bursting into fits of uncontrollable giggling, may find any comment at all unwarranted and plain discourteous.
So, todays article will be about… Ahhhh? Hmmm?
Fuck it.
(Stop me if you’ve heard this one:) A President, a Porn Star, and a Multi- Billionaire Walk into a rocket shaped like a penis…
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Mob Boss Donnie and his MAGA cult worshippers have killed satire.
I’m reminded of the observation made by the German philosopher Eugen Herrigel in his book The Method of Zen, where he refers to his experiencing an earthquake shortly after his arrival in Tokyo in 1924. He was in a restaurant on the fifth floor of a hotel. He wrote that as alarm and excitement mounted, the diners, mostly Europeans, rushed to the stairs and lifts. Unlike the panicked westerners, however, a Japanese colleague with whom he had been talking sat there unmoved, hands folded, eyes nearly closed, as though none of this concerned him. He said that the sight of this man was so astounding and had such a sobering effect that he remained standing by him, then sat, spellbound.
After the earthquake had subsided, the Japanese man resumed the conversation at the exact point at which they had been interrupted, without wasting a single word on what had just happened.
The Japanese man was, of course, a Zen Buddhist.
Might be timely to try inculcating some of those timeless practices in the face of the current socio-politico-economic tsunamis currently sweeping the planet.
A new haven for us all to rest our weary ideologies – Clive’s new party quite appropriately something to do with flatulence, The Trumpet of the Patriots.Their motto We fart in your general direction.
Like the coalition they don’t actually have any policies but they have Chinese Made caps with the very original motto, Make Australia Great Again: clever stuff from Clive.
Clive had actually approached Pauline Hanson with a view to merging her party with his new creation, to be called The Clive & Paulie Party but they couldn’t come to an accommodation as she insisted on being President for Life and to raise funds by selling Tasmania to Donald Trump in lieu of Greenland – or in addition should he be collecting islands.
Interestingly, the only elected person representing Clive in the parliament (Ralph Babet) will not follow his leader down the Trumpet rabbit hole and suggests we all avoid the same folly.
The Palmer United Party has been deregistered and Clive then registered the United Australia Party (UAP) but that lapsed due to national lack of interest and the High Court has declined to re-register it ahead of the next federal election. The Chief Justice noted that under Australian law even idiots only get one look in.
@ Canguro:
If you are suggesting that the greatest threat to US constitutional democracy and world stability and peace in 80 years presently being wrought by a criminal coup is comparable to an earthquake which might best be responded to by monkish dissociation you have made the joke de jour.
Sometimes the jest is a necessary refuge from fear and even despair.
Certainly from multiple quarters we hear expressed in urgent tones that this is the precise moment WE MUST NOT LOOK AWAY (especially given right wing stirrings at home as we approach a Federal election).
For light relief from this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NqT8zcAda8
I can recommend this:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/germany-tries-to-explain-history?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1783367&post_id=157328992&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=424bcs&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
@Herbert Rude, I can assure you that the Zen communities of the planet are not running around, Henny Penny-like, shouting ‘the skies are falling.’ Mindfulness is just that, and amongst other benefits implies freedom from identification in whatever mode it presents itself. While it may feel just and appropriate to rail against Trump and the gang of acolytes currently busy wrecking what were considered to be social & political norms, I’d invite you to consider what personal benefits accrue from giving vent to expressions of outrage and angst at the actions of the barbarians.
I’d note that, for the record, my position is utterly in the minority; I’d also note, for the record, that the majority views are deeply flawed in the sense that as one peeks through a door barely cracked and assumes he sees the whole room, not realising that there is much more to that room, let alone having awareness of the two stories above that are not even suspected.
Perhaps the best we can expect is a return to relative sanity in time along with an utter rejection of these autocratic jingoistic crazies. Fingers crossed.
Words of wisdom from Canguro.
But hey — I would expect nothing less! 🙂
Good to see you back old mate.
@Canguro:
If I remember correctly, according to your own previous comments here, during your formative years you endured the “crazies” of a tormented war veteran father.
While ‘mindfulness’ may be your chosen pathway to peace and acceptance – one that may immunise against the return of unwanted memories triggered by the current return of sociopaths and autocrats to power in a Western democracy (with which which we are in a security alliance; they are back in the house!), this is not necessarily the solution for the rest of us who, having been spared those early traumas, are better capable of entering the fray in more resolute fashion – if only to warn our fellow Australians of the imminent return of the precise political conditions that ultimately destroyed so many fathers and mothers and so many families down the line.
There are limits to tours of duty. Those who have suffered enough are not expected to join the fray.
Canguro,
Applied Zen Buddhism + a natural behavioral adaptation (alongside soft-walls, flexible jointing & routine tsunami drills) to the realities of living in a perennially unstable environment.
Keep well, corvus.
All I can say is, “Holy shit!”
https://news.bgov.com/bloomberg-government-news/noem-directs-polygraph-use-to-target-homeland-security-leaks