In which the pond gets up early for our Henry, only to be left with a Killer moment and a wretched Groaning ...

 

When driving the Hume, the pond always recommends a stop off in Holbrook to see the sub ... but not enough people know there's another sub, a small one, a classy model...

And not enough know that the town's name was a sign that progressivism was doing its deadly work long ago ...

The town was originally called Ten Mile Creek and the first buildings were erected in 1836. A German immigrant, John Christopher Pabst, became the publican of the Woolpack Hotel on 29 July 1840 and the area became known as "the Germans". By 1858 the name had evolved into the official name of Germanton, though the postal area retained the name Ten Mile Creek. In 1876 the name Germanton was gazetted and the old name Ten Mile Creek consigned to history.

Ten Mile Creek Post Office opened on 1 January 1857, and was renamed Germanton in 1875.

On 17 August 1878, Germanton hosted the earliest known game of Soccer (Association Football) in New South Wales between Germanton and Yarra Yarra football teams.

During World War I, the town name was deemed unpatriotic so on 24 August 1915 the town was renamed Holbrook in honour of Lt. Norman Douglas Holbrook, a decorated wartime submarine captain and winner of the Victoria Cross. Lt. Holbrook commanded the submarine HMS B11. (wiki)

The plucky Germanton soccer team no more, and all because of political correctness and nary a reptile in sight to be outraged ...

Of course the same thing happened in the pond's German side of the family way back when, with any hint of the Germanic deeply unfashionable ... with names changed, and the language abandoned ...

No point brooding, and instead the pond couldn't resist mentioning this wondrous ad thrown up by its logarithms ...

The IPA paying to seek attention, and most comical of all doing spiritual counselling about lack of purpose, and paying YouTube for the pleasure, and with just 1.4k views, and jostling for attention with Kurt Vonnegut and the first crusade ...

It was too rich for the pond, which dined out on the chuckles for hours ... and didn't reward the pathetic effort with a click, though there was probably a lot more comedy to be mined. So it goes ...

And so to today, and the pond will confess to breaking early, simply so our Henry's offering would be above the ruck and maul of ordinary weekend reptiles ... and guess what ...

No bloody Henry. He'd done a bunk, took a powder, abandoned the field, was in some sort of funk, and the last offering in the lizard Oz remained that outing where a cruel flag looked like it was covering up the sun, or at least the white nationalist heritage ...

Well the pond was up and about, and though feeling very short-changed, had to do something, and so it settled on another old favourite, Killer, suddenly feeling very bold and brave, and up to taking on the mango Mussolini ...

Long gone, it seems, are the nights when Dame Slap donned the MAGA cap and slipped out onto the streets of New York to celebrate and rejoice. Now all sorts of reptiles are chanting the death of the Donald ...

It is, the pond must remind itself, strictly transactional. It won't be long before the reptiles swing behind abject imitations of the Donald, of the DeSantis kind ... or the even wackier tribe of Trumpists who will keep the rabid legacy alive ... and it'll take a long and careful weaning before Faux Noise, Laura, Hannity and the Cucker can be seen to be marching to a different beat ...

Even showing the Don and his family at a Mafia style funeral, with those obvious Coppola references, won't hide that shift ...

Mehmet Oz? Is he the one running for a senate seat in New Joisey? Even Stevie Van Zandt is trolling him ...

As for the downfall of the Don, cartoonists are in two minds ... not quick enough, or already done ...

Back to Killer, suddenly discovering the bleeding obvious, except he has to confuse and conflate the WSJ and the NY Post with Faux Noise, which has for the most part, in its evening commentary division, remained devout ...

But the reptiles can let go? Only if they have a rough equivalent, some other form of demonic ratbaggery to support ...

And so to a last Killer gobbet ...

The pond has long trained in cynicism, and whenever the likes of Michelle Obama's name is trotted out, the pond is inclined to think that the reptiles are doing a deep trolling ...

But at least Killer's presence meant that the pond hadn't felt the need to do a catch-up with petulant Peta ... out and about yesterday with the expected ...

And there was the Milner doing his usual thing, but the pond had run out of spittle ...

As for petulant Peta blathering on in her usual groupthink fundamentalist Xian way about the joys of Xian bigotry, the pond had to remember what a bunch of dropkick losers this mob was ...

You could make a career out of tracking the wretched ratings ... but the pond will leave that to TV Blackbox ...

Of course petulant Peta wasn't the only one doing it ... this very day the bubble-headed booby was also out and about blathering about the weevils of progressivism, with Margaret Court and the SDA more her style ...

Once upon a time, the pond might have remarked on what it learned on its trip to Samoa ...

Faʻafafine are people who identify themselves as having a third gender or non-binary role in Samoa, American Samoa and the Samoan diaspora. A recognized gender identity/gender role in traditional Samoan society, and an integral part of Samoan culture, faʻafafine are assigned male at birth, and explicitly embody both masculine and feminine gender traits in a way unique to Polynesia[citation needed]. Their behaviour typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to conventionally masculine. (wiki)

Or perhaps dropped in on Jioji Ravulo scribbling for the Nine rags ... Don’t blame Pacific Island cultures for queer fear. Blame colonisation

Actually the pond blames the Xian missionaries, and even worse, they were of the fundamentalist Seventh Day Adventist deeply bigoted kind, with a natural appeal to the likes of bubble-headed Claire, while all Ravulo can do is reminisce about the good old days before the Claires went out on their crusading colonisation ...

The players say they can’t wear a gay pride jersey for cultural and religious reasons. I’m assuming, similar to what we saw with Israel Folau, that such staunch views against diverse sexualities is based on conservative family values and a deep commitment to the Christian faith.

From a wider community perspective, we may view Pasifika cultures as being homophobic — full of fear for the queer. But this was taught to us by white, Western attitudes brought with colonisation.

Before the missionaries visited our beautiful island homes in the period of colonisation during the 1800s, sexuality among many Pacific communities was fluid. Men would have sex with men without fear and shame. Sexuality was seen as an expression of connecting socially and relationally with others.

From various written accounts by missionaries, they were appalled with how comfortable we were with our nakedness. They saw our nudity as lewd and forced us to cover up. They saw men expressing affection for other men as morally corrupt and dangerous.

Indeed, indeed, and that's why the pond didn't bite on either petulant Peta or bubble-headed booby Claire, but settled for a cartoon ...

And after that, looking for a bonus, the pond turned to Dame Groaning for a Friday groaning, and what a short, wretched groaning it turned out to be ...

Is it unseemly for a reptile to gloat at a fucked economy? Not when they can point the finger at others, but all the pond could see was a chance to catch up with the latest Rowe and infallible Pope ...

The reptiles were also desperately short of ideas on how to pad the Dame Groan into a decent full length Groaning, so they inserted a huuuge shot of the monster himself ... as well as a click bait video, carefully neutered by the pond ...

The pond had a back catalogue of cartoons ...

And so to the final feeble gobbet of Groaning ...

The pond hopes that the Groaner will do better than the usual "free lunch" routine - the pond can still remember the free milk going sour in the noonday sun at Tamworth primary - but the early indications aren't promising ...

And so to catch up on a little more with a few Wilcoxes, and the earnest hope that our Henry will be on hand when it matters ...

The pond did like that lump of coal being tossed with a Groaning malice ... and will return tomorrow to toss a few lumps at the reptiles ...