Yes.. err, No... well perhaps they're framed.

Shane framed

G'day Possums,

it's been an "ART" week: with a visit to Geelong Regional Gallery to peruse the "Archibald" finalists follow by a visit to the NGV Potter Centre to have a look at Del Kathryn Barton's big show.

Variously described as whimsical, romantic, sexual, cathartic ,sensuous, exuberant and seductive, DKB's is a big show with big works which really do whack you around a bit.

 With a wall full of flying eyes and framed graffiti faced by large psycho-sexual renderings (are they paintings?) which in their "dottiness" resemble indigenous techniques it was difficult to clearly gain a focus in this large scale cornucopia of colour and bits and things.

An extremely intense video excoriating car sales techniques was followed by some large priapic sculptural flowerings and drawings of genitalia and I left, feeling that I didn't want to know THAT much about someone's personal obsessions.

Gustav Klimt had came to mind but days later the nagging background thought of that day revealed itself. It was the illustrations in a book by Ernst Kris that I had read many years ago: "Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art".

Around the corner in the Ian Potter were works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of a simpler verve and self-deprecating humour. Gary Namponan's "Camp Dogs" were a joy in their most basic carving and renditions of canine personality as was "We Know Where You Eat (Koala) by Pitcha Makin Fellaz, Ballarat, Victoria.

The Archie at Geelong was a much more traditional affair and the funniest, (to me) was the portrait of the retiring principal of Sydney Grammar "painted" by mosaic, each little tile made by an individual student of the school body which brought to mind Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall ",  hardly the attribution probably sought.

Andrew Bonneau's  Ayako Saito was a serene, renaissance influenced piece which seemed to repay his "direct and patient observation" and Jessica Ashton's querulously amused self portrait exposing her state at juggling so many roles, hence her daughter's tutu around her neck, as Ashton contemplates her second pregnancy as well. Both are beautifully painted, one fine, the other looser, a'la Fragonard, and very controlled.

Anh Do's wet-in-wet bravura rendition of Jack Charles is a fine penetrating work placing his subject front and centre in all his complexity and with a witty little piece of collage making reference to Judas in amongst the globules of paint.

Exhibiting in Canberra this week was more of the ruling rabbles hypocrisy writ large. The dinosaur rump of the rabble, putrid at having lost the marriage equality survey decided that it was up to them to not only organize its slowed and amended passage but to also find problems with religious freedoms where none actually exist. Screaming "Freedom, Freedom, Free to be a bigoted discriminator" Vichy Abetz, Bestiality Bernardi, Horse-shite Corman and the other minority Neanderthals also failed at this when the Senate, 42/12 voted to pass the Equality Bill and summarily rejected their "amendments." 

Unable to have a sitting and passage through the house of Reps because Truffles funked a confrontation with his rural carbuncle over banks and a poor showing in the Deep North election he refused to have the reps sit..... Ah, democracy.

Better news was then apoplectically announced that they had something big on Halal Sam Dastyari being naughty with the Chinese. Re-hashing his policy difference with his leader Willie Shortstuff and leaking from, no-one knows where, the advice Halal Sam gave, "talk-outside-they-might-be-listening," to the character, who in all likelihood would be more than aware of our spooks methodology, all of which had Bookshelves Brandarse happily ranting, raving and verily frothing at the mouth when, exhibiting a double back flip with pike and somersault, Truffles got Halal off the menu and announced a Royal Commission into the Banks just like he said he didn't want to!

"It will be a short RC but comprehensive.." said the vacillating Truffles,".. just like the banks want....not an analysis of capitalism but with the terms of reference set as  they mailed me yesterday."

Truffles has a full plate; two by-elections both seemingly going, not well, The Harpy Cash under fire...again, Bennelong going feral, more pollies coming out as dual citizens and ineligible to sit in parliament and the bush-pigs from the Nationals after Truffles ... no wonder it's called the killing season!

Hoo-roo petals,

Shane.

...and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth...

House of Cards

G'day Possums,

The air was being rent with wailing, gnashing of teeth, garments being shredded, ashes thrown and sackcloth worn following the failure of the Lying Lyle's Oz Xtian Lobby "No" campaign against marriage equality when up popped the young grim faced IPA senator, Unterscharfuhrer Paterson with a solution to their woes. Well, as it was apparently written by Lying Lyle, the un-elected senator was really only the delivery boy attempting to foist a set of apartheid-like discrimination acts on the country in an attempt to "improve" and stymie the passage of the marriage equality bill  through parliament. Using the furphy of "religious freedom" Lying Lyle's epistle suggested that flower and cake purveyors, church ministers and civil celebrants be allowed to refuse their services to anyone they thought might be LGBTQI and that parents can take their children out of school and not be taught to use a strap-on. 

This caused such consternation that Chwissie the Whyning-Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect, Pyne whom many think is still in his closet, had to deny sending a "like" to a gay porn movie on his Twitter account and Matty, Thug Canavan uncrossed his eyes long enough to chime in with a coal-smoke induced offering that Xtian Rock Groups be included in this discrimination, too.

Poor Thug, he certainly is a blockheaded, Deep Northern hetero with little understanding..... to assume that any Gay would want be seen doing the wedding waltz to Xtian Rock, wholly underestimates their verve and taste.

The postal survey in 5/8 time and at a cost of nearly $100,000,000.00 only proved that the polls of the past years were correct and that the ruling rabble's Little Johnny Howard's malicious mangling of the marriage bill nine years ago was just another example of his nastiness and further; the Catlic right wing rump of the rabble have cost the people more than money, they have cost parliament its integrity.

Not that they care.. their only role is to push their own personal agenda's and those of either the Catlic run IPA or their donors/bribers.

Agendas, which as the survey has amply demonstrated, are so out of kilter with common thought that we may come to see this postal survey folly as the real breach in the dyke of neo-liberalism and its further crumbling to eventual destruction.

Prime Miniature Truffles took the survey result as a personal victory but the hollowness of his reality was betrayed by both his body language and bombast.

The disloyal Bestiality Bernardi was his usual graceless self, intoning that the "Yes" side shouldn't gloat and that a 38% loss wasn't that but a victory and he would win in the end.

Poorlene, Please-Explain, Hanson of the Noe Notion Party whose paucity of affection to all ethnic groups not white, Xtian and stupid is legendary was thoroughly confused with the result.  All those she rails against, Chinese, Muslims, Xtian Arabs, Asians, and Afghanis etc  tended to vote that way she did.

Oh, the irony!

Ex Premier, Christine "Eddies Gel" Keneally has rattled the net in the Bennelong by-election taking ruling rabble dual citizen, Backhander Alexander to deuce in the first week of the campaign. Ruling rabble first serves have started down in the clay but might become ineptly unproductive as their constant chipping on the Obied factor could just draw his over remunerated worker with the shocking memory, Uncle Arfah Sinodinas into the unwanted glare of public view again.

You couldn't make this stuff up, could you?

Pics are from the Nutcracker.

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane

Teaching Ravens to Fly Underwater.

G'day Petals,

I was watching "Insiders" last week (5-11-17) and observing panellist Geriatric Gargoyle Henderson of the Sydney Geriatric Institute's school-boyish mumblings, floor searchings and hand-wringing attempts at every oblique reference, straw man, selective observation and misrepresentation to avoid facing the obvious fact that the ruling rabble he supports is now a terminal shambles. 

He provided at least, much benign amusement to journalists Laura Tingle and Mark Kenny and also to host Barrie Cassidy in the process.

Then, on the same program another ruling rabble apparatchik Kelly, Shadduppa-ya-Face O' Dwyer whose predictable rote practise of spitting forth her unblinking, flat-earth, loud, "in-your-face" refutations of any question put was again confidently performed.

Shadduppa-ya-Face is such an assured liar that I really think she thinks she almost believes what she says.

As both the Geriatric Gargoyle and Shadduppa-Ya-Face live in the parallel universe manufactured by the IPA and promulgated by The Ugly American, Murdoch's media, it's no wonder you cannot but draw reference to other forms of satire and it occurred to me there was not only a similarity in this Insiders program's content with both of these ruling rabble "guest's" comments but also a curious relevance to a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore "interview" about "Teaching Ravens to Fly Underwater."

Five minutes into the "interview" Moore, as Interviewer asks Cook as Interviewee who had spent some twenty years in his activity:

"Have you ever managed, in all your years, to teach a Raven to fly underwater?"

"Err...... no!"

"Then you could say that your whole life has been a miserable failure."

"Err.... yes..... you could  say that."

Having "gone-to-ground" in the vastness of Western Australia apparently to avoid compounding her less than sound rationale for the mangled AFP  witch-hunt of Willie Shortstuff, serial parliamentary liar The Harpy, Cash popped up at an industry talk-fest with that well known Aussie car-maker, BMW extolling the virtues of the manufacturing business. Hmmm... pity about the thousands of jobs in manufacturing her ruling rabble associates have recently destroyed at both Holden and Ford.

Ruling rabble apparatchik Nola, Madam Lash Marino has discovered she's ineligible to sit in parliament at the same time as ex tennis player, Backhander Alexander also revealed that after five months cogitation that he's also an illegal member due to citizenship malfeasance.

Bingo... minority government!  And irony of ironies, on the same day Gough Whitlam was sacked by the Governor General in 1975.

This Governor General though, is taking a lead from Harpy Cash and is nowhere to be seen or heard, lest he not only play his role in dealing with so much unlawful constitutional activity promulgated but being ignored by the ruling rabble but also brooking the anger of his conservative fan base in working to prorogue an unworkable parliament and calling an general election!

Rumour has it that IPA apparatchik, Gorgon Downer is being touted as a potential candidate for the SA seat of Mayo...and even though, the incumbent has fallen foul of citizenship sloppiness too, this "challenge" must provide her some wry amusement.

Downer presents as seemingly imbued with all the simpering personality of a stale rice pudding and with an intellectual acuity to match. Master of the bleeding obvious but a mediocre practitioner of Straw-Man argument, (an IPA favourite.. must remember to send them a new bale for xmas) Gorgon has during her frequent but boringly lacklustre TV outings given every appearance of not only enjoying but celebrating the most banal of ideas. This scion is probably being touted as either a continuation of a tired family political dynasty of utter mediocrity or as a sop to ruling rabble faction ploys.

Psst.. her father was once a ruling rabble, mesh stocking wearing, opposition leader (haw, nudge, nudge, haw, haw) but one gaffe too many (making light of domestic violence), saw him eventually removed to London as High Commissioner where his faux accent better suits this expensive but mostly ceremonial sinecure.

And then there was ANNE!  Henderson, that is. A fiercely in-your-face talk down, over, through, brooking no facts to counter to the "truths" of her fantastical right wing polemic! Golly, no wonder the Gargoyle of the Sydney Geriatric Institute looks so trodden ... dinner conversation must be interestingly mono-directional !

Well the ruling rabble is now a definite shambles, terminal and all but destroyed but in its hubristic arrogance is refusing to lie down....  perhaps they're teaching Ravens to fly underwater.

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane.

Oh, the Schadenfreude...

Shane all ends up

G'day Possums,

The pics today are from France and may reflect our current national state.

High stench from  the High Court...as Barnyard Joyce is dumped as a dual citizen and has to front a bye-election; his deputy, Princess Fiona of Nash is outed too which is causing some real friction within ruling rabble coalition ranks but not as much as the now ex-Kiwi.  Apparently he's still using RAAF aircraft at taxpayer expense (as a common citizen) to ferry him around with his electioneering.

Although,  just when all looked bleak, a little ray of sunshine lights the firmament as  Mal-Addled Roberts of Noe Notion hilarity has been told as well that his "feeling" of being an Aussie is trumped by empirical evidence and he joins his senior adviser in the unemployment queue ...though not on the same rape charges.

 

Oradour sur Glane

I was a little more than surprised at some journalists defence of The Harpy, Cash's innocence at her lies x 6 to senate estimates... because she looked.... convincing.

This woman has form in the lying stakes and knows that 80% of the media will give her a free ride, hence her insouciance.

It also turns out that that all the raiders of the AWU offices were not plods!  Will we ever find out... as they refused to identify themselves? Even ASIO identify themselves when rounding up suspected terrorists. 

Democracy in action,  Cash style!

The tide might just be turning as the shambles that this ruling rabble has been since 2013 election is now being commented on by mainstream press more frequently

Goodness, gracious me... Is this ruling rabble, the vaunted "born-to-rule," "natural-economic-managers," "creme-de-la-creme" who can't even fill out their paper work?

President of the Senate "Stevie Wonder" Parry has stepped down as he's a Brit, too!  Not that this was a sudden revelation: Stevie-Boy knew back in August and confided this to other cabinet ministers but was apparently told to keep shtum!  Truffles denies prior knowledge of anything at all except that it's all Labor's fault and that he hasn't had so much fun in ages.

Poitiers

Replacing Stevie will be the next candidate on the ruling rabble senate ticket who lost his higher place on that ticket at last election due to the internal machinations of our favourite ruling rabble fascist, Vichy Abetz.

I'm sure they'll all get along famously down there in Tassie.... wont they, I mean they're all adults, aren't they?

Azay le Rideau

Given that it took the Prof of Constitutional Law from Sydney Uni 3 minutes to ascertain whether Barnyard was a Kiwi; what on earth can you say about the tardiness of these ruling rabble types? Arrogant and born to rule, elitists ?

A Citizenship Audit "is too Expensive, Protracted And Inconclusive" pontificates Truffles, as the unnecessary $122 Million Voluntary Postal Survey for marriage equality begins its final week and Fictions Frydenberg whinges that the finger is now being pointed at him over his mother's Hungarian birth which he reckons is unfair because she was a refugee. Hmmm... and what about the state of the current refugees in the Manus concentration camp, Fictions?

Riding under two historically foreign flags and cheered on by Truffles and Willie Shortstuff, a motley re-enactment crew cantered down into the once Palestinian town of Beersheba to celebrate the brave charge of the 4th and 12th Australian Light Horse to overwhelm the Turkish Ottoman Empire defenders of 1917. No mention was made of the very significant contributions made in this 3rd Battle of Gaza by the British troops and New Zealand cavalry in facilitating the Light Horse's military achievement.
The mythologized version of events was that the Light Horse needed water for their horses but the truth is it was, Beer...Sheba!

...and a little ode to the tune Tannenbaum in the hope of spreading a portion of  early xmas cheer....to the ruling rabble.

Oh, shadenfreude, oh schadenfreude

Your time is come to mock them all.

Their hubris worn with such disdain

To all and sundry regaled in pain

Oh schadenfreude, Oh schadenfreude

Their antics wasteful must surely cease.

Hoo-roo, Petals,

Shane