In which the pond continues its travel and other studies, with herpetological duties scheduled to resume in the new year ...

 

 

The pond, continuing in its travelogue vein, sans reptiles and herpetological studies, couldn't help but note what a sad and sorry town Gundagai has become over the years ...

The pond always stops in the town, but each year the cafe that always reminded the pond of the glory days of the Greek cafes of Tamworth and Gunnedah sits in sombre silence, a shadow, rather like the few ancient picture palaces that can still be found in odd locations ...

 

 

 

 

Of course there's a sign in the window promising that the glory days will soon return ...

 

 

 

Soooon!?? That sign has been there for yonks, if the pond might drop into its Sloane Ranger argot.

For years, the cafe dined out on having hosted Ben Chifley for a meal, but now the only dining to be done is by way of a sign ...

 

 

 

 

Many other buildings are closed, abandoned, verging on the derelict, as with one very forlorn looking ex-hotel, though the odd curiosity remains, such as the town museum - though it was closed the day the pond visited, and who knows if it's still working ...

 

 

Fifteen bucks for a family, when really that exotic conjunction of  dinkum cottage and ancient civilisation was free for all to see ...

 

 

Was there any need to see more? How could the pond movie past that majestic portico?

The pond can't remember how many bets it has won regarding the distance of the dog on the tucker box from Gundagai - people tend to think the now largely ignored statue out of town was the correct distance - but again the museum gave away the figure featured in the original poem ...

 

 

 

There was also a plaque on view on the front wall ...

 

 

 

That reminded the pond of a discussion, call it an argument if you will, that took place over the seasonal break. 

The pond was advised, in one of the usual gatherings of assorted clans, that the past should be forgotten and forgiven, so we can all move forward together. 

Invasion day, under the patriotic label of Australia day, was cited as an example, with the pond noting that there were still a few people with reason not to celebrate the day, what with dispossession, genocide, terra nullius, a couple of centuries of abuse, degradation, stolen children, and so on and so forth …

The pond pointed out that the obvious day to celebrate Australia was the day of the actual creation of Australia, namely 1st January, but of course there's a big problem right from the get go with that notion. 

We already have an excuse for a public holiday that day, so we'd prefer to allocate another holiday for the celebration ... and so we started out with state colonist day, or if you will, NSW colonist day …

The pond also noted that the day has been contested, though it didn't go so far as to resort to the day's wiki … though as we're here now, why not?

Although it was not known as Australia Day until over a century later, records of celebrations on 26 January date back to 1808, with the first official celebration of the formation of New South Wales held in 1818...

Yes, it was NSW day, cockroach day if you will, which only counts as Australia Day in the minds of people happy to be considered new Welshpersons dwelling in the south... 

And there are other confusions to note ...

On New Year's Day 1901, the British colonies of Australia formed a federation, marking the birth of modern Australia. A national day of unity and celebration was looked for. It was not until 1935 that all Australian states and territories adopted use of the term "Australia Day" to mark the date, and not until 1994 that the date was consistently marked by a public holiday on that day by all states and territories

It has been a moveable feast, as anyone with an interest in history knows, and with historians eager to trot out assorted ironic images ...

 

 

What else?

Well the pond has also been noting the decline and fall of cinemah, but on the occasion of the grave-snatching known as the latest re-boot of The Matrix, the pond will leave it to Kermode and Mayo to have a word on YouTube. 

Kermode is inclined to be a garrulous enthusiast, but the pond shares his taste for Paul Thomas Anderson and is looking forward to Licorice Pizza, and who could argue with Kermode proposing that only one Matrix movie has been made, and the rest are just phantoms of the silver screen, a miasmic mishmash of surfaces? Or words and concepts to that effect ...

As for paying attention to political knaves, the pond has only intermittently glanced at headlines, though it was deeply moved to spot a little example of cancel culture at work ...

 

 

 

Robert is by far the dumbest of the SloMo ministry, only kept in cabinet because he's a clap happy fundie of the SloMo kind.

He's a walking disaster area, but he bounces back time and again, like Cats the movie, or Spielberg somehow getting the money to fuck over West Side Story ...

His wiki has a list of blunders and errors and stupidities, but a nanosecond's googling will produce heaps more ...

For once the pond could breathe a sigh of relief. No need to read stupid reptiles defending a stupid clap happy ...just the irony of the cancel culture clowns doing a little cancelling of culture was more than enough holiday comedy.

There was a particularly nauseating speech made by SloMo, in full here ...

Inter alia ...

And so I want to talk about a topic tonight that is dear to your hearts - community. Community of individuals, we heard it on the video, a nation of individuals.
Now, as some of you may know and as Steven has mentioned, I have been deeply influenced in recent years by the writings of the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Julian is responsible for that, because he has thrust Jonathan Sacks works into the arms of anyone who he can get a book into the hands of, rightly so and I am very grateful that he did.
On one occasion, he said because I was consuming this, that you’d better be careful, you might become Australia’s first Jewish prime minister. And I said, don’t tell Josh.
But his books Lessons in Leadership, Covenant and Conversation, and Morality, his last work, have given me a more textured understanding of Judaism, my own Christian faith and what unites us all as human beings. I shared some of these learnings with my own church community last week at the Gold Coast with Stuart Robert at their national conference.
In his works, Rabbi Sacks wrestles, a bit like Jacob, wrestles with the practical complexities of our modern pluralistic world and finds, through the tenets of his faith, as he did, a pathway to the common good.
At the heart of our Judeo-Christian heritage are two words.
Human dignity.
Everything else flows from this.
Seeing the inherent dignity of all human beings is the foundation of morality. It makes us more capable of love and compassion, of selflessness and forgiveness.
Because if you see the dignity and worth of another person, another human being, the beating heart in front of you, you’re less likely to disrespect them, insult or show contempt or hatred for them, or seek to cancel them, as is becoming the fashion these days.
You’re less likely to be indifferent to their lives, and callous towards their feelings...
 

All the usual bullshit from a consummate bullshit artist. So here's your human dignity, love, compassion, selflessness and forgiveness, and seeing the dignity and worth of another person, another human being, a beating heart ... waiter, the pond needs a second puke bucket, there's too much puke for one bucket to handle...

 

 

 More from men in search of complimentary women here ...

What else?

Well the pond wasn't deeply moved by Crikey pronouncing Scotty from marketing the arsehat of the year ... the pond would only have been astonished if he'd lost.

But the pond did shed a quiet tear reading Leslie's open letter to the chairman. 

It's outside the paywall here, but for anyone who missed it, this will give the flavour of what happened to her dad after overdosing on the poison called Fox ...

 ...the person he’s become, Rupert, is so unfamiliar and hard to deal with. If he wasn’t my dad I’d be keeping the same distance adopted by his former friends and golf buddies who, my brother says, got so sick of Dad’s constant political aggression — even after they all agreed not to discuss current events any more — they dropped him.
My stepfather almost did the same the other day after yet another pugnacious assertion by my father of a false fact, this time that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States.
“Why is he even talking about Obama?” I asked when my brother called to tell me about the near implosion of my extended family in Boynton Beach.
“Who knows? But I told him 'Dad, if you don’t stop talking about politics, you’re going to lose what’s left of your friends.’”
But my father can’t stop because he can’t bring himself to stop watching Fox News and compulsively regurgitating its content…
...I've tried everything to return the soul of the man I once knew to the void beneath his skin; ignoring him, reasoning with him and trying to distract. But this holiday season I’ve suddenly accepted I just can’t win. Fox News is more present than I am in his life, and the way it’s taught him to “think” and what he’s come to believe is true has made him a citizen of a planet of resentful unreason where I can’t — and won’t — follow.
No one will, not even my brother who loves him more than anything in the world, which means he’s been left there on his own, destroying his legacy as a person as he stamps his foot and says mean and silly things.
So, here’s to you Rupert. For what your evil disinformation empire has unleashed on the most precious things in this world: the love of family and the freedom guaranteed by democracy. As we head towards the close of another difficult year on Earth One, I hope life in the alternative reality your fact-free infotainment complex has created — and the jangle of coin in your pocket — is worth it.

The pond thinks that chairman Rupert probably prefers the jingle of coins in pocket, in keeping with the Xmas season ...

It made the pond pause. Did the pond really want to get back into the cesspit of the lizard Oz, kissing cousins to Faux Noise?

With a shudder, the pond realised it was likely, and it got the pond to thinking that at some point it would have to abandon its travels and resume herpetological studies. 

There was the weekend of course, prime time for reptiles, but the pond felt a deep, overwhelming sense of fatigue and foreboding, and given the pond's notes on Australia Day, it would be too ironic to start on the Monday, the 3rd being New Year's Day holiday and all ...

That might missing the Major and the gang, but the thought cheered the pond up ... it wouldn't have to think about SloMo, and Iron Pyrites' standard Dom or reptile defences thereof until the Tuesday ...

And with the spring back in the pond's step, a few cartoons to end on ...