In which the pond enthusiastically embraces the Major Mitchell's war on everything, and does a little cultural background checking ...

There's nothing like a good war on everything ... who doesn't fondly remember Goebbels' Sportpalast speech?

Ich frage euch: Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg? Wollt ihr ihn, wenn nötig, totaler und radikaler, als wir ihn uns heute überhaupt erst vorstellen können?
"I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine?"

Nun, Volk, steh auf und Sturm brich los!
"Now, people, rise up, and let the storm break loose!"

Let the crocs be skinned and turned into shoes and purses; let the sharks become flake around the land!

But enough of the pond's attempts to ramp up its Godwin's Law swear jar holdings, it's on with the warrior Major Mitchell mourning the way some bloody useless greenies think that other creatures should have a place in the sun, as opposed to a presence on the plate ...

Indeed, indeed. 

If Malware follows the Major Mitchell, a war on sharks might well boost his numbers. It would follow on from any number of other useful wars ... the war on digital, the war on wogs, the war on 457, the war on the onion muncher, the war on Islamics ... and might lead to many more fruitful wars ... the war on North Korea, the war on Indonesia, the war on the EU ... so many wars, it's hard to remember them all, or guess the wars to come, but the polls already dance with delight ...

Now don't get the pond wrong, shark is in fact one of the pond's favourite foods, firm but flavoursome in a fishy way, it curries up nicely, suits a stir fry, fills out a marinara sauce, takes pride of place on a seafood pizza, and the pond's in-law is a dab hand at frying it in a light succulent batter ...

Forgive the pond for wiping away a slavering spot of spittle ... in fact the pond bought a kilo of Angel shark fillets on the weekend at the fish market, for just under thirteen bucks ...

Ah well, there goes the green readership, but to return to the in-law.

This in-law happens to be a keen surfer, and spends much time in the water, as well as being a keen fisherman, who spends much time catching and cooking gummy sharks and the like.

He's had a few close calls with sharks, but is inclined to be philosophical. He catches and eats his fair share, so he understands the impulse of the average shark, and takes a variety of precautions to pre-empt their live to eat, eat to live philosophy.

He hasn't got much time for a war on sharks - well that's the pond trying to turn "fucking pathetic" into family friendly discourse - but then he thinks he's heading into their turf for his pleasure, and that doesn't mean that all of them should die.

He also thinks the war is delusional, unless the aim is to wipe sharks from the oceans of the world, but then he lives in a remote location where the notion of netting or mounting a war on sharks is absurd, in economic terms, and also as a way of actually avoiding shark attacks.

The pond has repeatedly tried to explain to him the necessity of a war on sharks, the killing fields or at least the sea running red with their blood, and even suggested other wars for the area ... like a war on crows, a war on possums, a war on koalas and a war on snakes ...

Frankly the sooner the bush is cleared of dangerous creatures (beware the drop bears), the better the planet will be. The sooner we have a mammal monoculture where the only serious competitors are cockroaches and flies, the safer the planet will be ...

Thank the long absent lord that the Major Mitchell has given up temporarily his hunt for the Order of Lenin medal that Manning Clark wore so conspicuously on so many famous, well-recorded, well-publicised occasions so that he might explain the virtues and benefits of shark-hunting ... no doubt the pond's in-law will be diligently reading ... (well at least there's as much chance as a snowball in hell has) ...

Other critters might die? True, but so what. Fuck 'em, fuck 'em all ... who do they think they are? Do they think they have a right to swim in the sea? Who said? Man has got dominion over the lot of 'em (and over complimentary women too, and don't those uppity feminists go forgetting it ...).

And as for flogging horses to death in the name of entertainment, and fuckwitted loser gambling on same, who are these bloody objectors?

Why if the pond wants to indulge in so-called "wastage", who's to say that's wrong.

Hmm, the pond must remember these arguments when it bashes the shit out of the eternally barking dog in the house next door. If the neighbours get uppity, the pond will remind them that the Major sees nothing wrong in a little wastage ...

Sorry neighbour, your dog just got wasted, but where's the harm in a little wastage?

And so to the other mission of the day. 

There were so many reptile delights on view in the lizard Oz this day that the pond had to cull furiously to get to an acceptable bag limit. Tiddlers were thrown back, though it has to be said that the pond's connection to either fishing or surfing is extremely limited.

While fishing in the Peel river (with occasional tedious trips to the Namoi in search of Murray cod), the pond learned the wonders and joys of watching paint dry, and has been a devotee of the art of drying paint ever since (it has to be noted that these recent twenty minute dry to the touch paints have quite ruined the art). The pond subsequently learned that root canal therapy was a way to liven up fishing so that all might enjoy it ...

Speaking of Tamworth - always a sign the pond is in a brooding mood - one of the other early skills the pond developed was wog spotting ... which brings us to this effort ...

Okay, let's forget the the "cultural values worth testing" angle - the google splash better represents the header for the piece, "Cultural background of citizens is legitimate object of scrutiny."

Well indeed, indeed, and so who better to scrutinise in Joe's Garage than Stephen Chavura himself.

The pond, its well honed Tamworth-refined wog radar on high alert, noted that the name "Chavura" didn't seem to fit what it knew of Anglo-Celtic name-calling ...

In fact the closest match in terms of googling was the Temple Sholom coming up with Eco-Chavura, though it seems it's a word which can be used in a variety of contexts.

So Chavura's a community? A self-contained, self-enclosed community? Alarming, conspiratorial, paranoia-inducing stuff ...

But it really brought the pond no closer to an understanding, though it did remind the pond of the splendid way that the Peel street pawnbroker Mr Solomon was always called "Ikie" ("Ikey" if you will) Solomon ...

Oh there's nothing like a cultural stereotype, but the Macquarie University listing here for Chavura didn't help either ...

Well yes, indeed, and it no doubt helps to know that Dr Stephen Chavura is a Campion College Australian teammate, but  we're not doing religious identity here, we're doing a rigorous scrutinising Joe's garage style on cultural identity.

Really why aren't there many biographical details allowing for the legitimate scrutiny of the cultural background of this citizen?

Not to put too fine a Tamworth point on it, what's the source of the wog-sounding name? What does it mean? What are the origins? Were orgies involved? Should the pond be suspicious and paranoid? Is there something to hide here?

Would the author start off his piece for the reptiles of Oz by saying, "my name reveals a foreign, corrupting taint, and it's true my family came here on boats or planes or such like, but I have adopted Australian values and I am therefore immune from the legitimate scrutiny of my cultural identity?"

Unlikely ...

Well that wasn't very revealing, was it?

I mean, the pond is no racist, but who on earth let the Chavura name into the country?

Oh gosh darn it, there the pond goes for feeling guilty, when all it's doing is asking a possible wog to be explicit about his potential wogdom ...

The pond routinely reveals its German blut, and an uncanny Irish ability not to get to there by starting from here ...

In the end, it has to be said that this piece isn't much more revealing than a cartoon celebrating dinkum Aussie values ...

The pond sensed that nothing would be revealed or cleared up in the final short gobbet ...

Never mind, it reminded the pond that as well as a war on sharks, a war on wogs and Islamics is a fine and noble thing, and a dinkum Aussie thing to do ...but that a war on Xians is mean and hurtful and definitely unAustralian ...

And now, since the pond has been tracking the tweets and mentioned Adolf a couple of times, an old cartoon ...

And in these LePen times, let us not forget the war on the EU ...

And while we're at it,  wandering down memory lane, let us recall Toad's famous war on the stoats and weasels ... 

There's a piece in Meanjin by John Clarke doing the social media rounds ... it's a fun read in full here, starting as it does with memories of primary school, moving through Beckett plays, dropping in on Plutarch's Lives of the Greeks and Alexander, and ending up this way with Alexander scoring a horse ...

Every so often the pond is tempted away from the usual reptile shyte to a fun read, but where would that leave the pond? Swimming with the sharks and the reptiles is also fun, albeit in a deeply weird, kinky and perverted way ...