Barnaby, the best un-Australian polly the lobbyists can buy.

“We will just have to take people head on,”

“Those people collecting the tax deductibility to fight us, take them head on, and start selling back to the Australian people the economic message ‘this is how you are actually going to survive, this is how you are going to win as a nation’.”

And he’s right, he’s not even a real Australian, but the deputy (pending the High Court decision) is absolutley right in holding the line and stopping green groups, who are benefitting fullly from charitable status from putting the blockers on progress. Though he was not there to talk about what kind of progress, we gathered it was all about taking money from the Northern Australian Infrastructure Fund, and giving it to an overseas mining magnate, for free. And ensuring that this smooth passage of taxpayers money was poured unfettered.

A non voting lump of coal holds the floor in Parliament.

Which makes good sense because Mr Joyce is 100 percent overseas himself, and obviously has a great deal of sympathy for other foreigners who wish to tap into the “rivers of gold” gifted to them from a supine, unquestioning australian public.

We at pcbycp abhor environmental groups. We abhor their constant guilt campaign directed at shaming those who cannot destroy natural resources for short term interest. We abhor the puritans amongst the conservation movement who decry the loss of the Great Barrier Reef for a few short term mining jobs. And we abhor those who protest the use of the Artesian Basin, the greatest resource this country has, for a short term buck and taxpayer funded free ride. We stand in lock step with Barnaby, Australia’s most Australian un-Australian, for assisting a few cotton growers in diverting the entire resource of the Murray Darling basin so they can make a killing. And as the philosophy goes, ‘bugger the silly buggers downstream, and fuck the environment’, Cos it, (the environment) don’t go to church and it don’t know how to lobby, for foreigners like Barnaby.

Barnaby and George. Conservative Brains trust.

We want Australian taxpayers to jump on board and give Barnaby a go. Give the stuff away, and stop those greeenies for harping on the sidelines.

And he’s right, whilst the Minerals and Energy Council don’t receive tax breaks directly, their membership does get a nice kickback for explortation, diesel, depreciation, and mining. Basically everything. Up to 100 percent if you’re looking for really valuable stuff like gold. That’s why just the environmental groups should be singled out. Someone’s gotta do the heavy lifting.

Churches get the full charity status tax break and as a minority, they’ve stymied debate on same sex marriage, enforced a very narrow view of religion and reinforced the conflict between church and state. The spectacle of a PM pleading with business execs in the power industry for adopting the business model successive government’s approve indicates that with charitable staus comes the right of few, to extert their viewpoint on the majority. And make them PAY. And as Barnaby so lucidly said:

Twiggy, diverts what would have been his tax burden into philanthropic ventures of his own choosing, like footy clubs.

“Now we are still fighting. Still fighting to this day. And they fight it in the most ardent forms, right in your face.  In fact many of the groups that fight you have tax deductibility. They’re charities, apparently. A charity whose job it is to completely destroy the economic base of Australia.”

Joyce said that conservation groups fought projects with “green tape” (a reference to environmental litigation), “red tape” and “black tape”, Aboriginal activists. (Guardian)

Black, Red and Green Tape. Barbaby must be an Afghani.

And we heartilly, agree, green tape, black tape, red tape. It’s not right and as a foreigner he should know. Its the colurs of another persons flag. Perhaps it’s Barnaby’s national colours? At heart he’s a warm and fuzzy sentimentalist.

God bless him.

Sir Atney. When not committing anecdotes to posterity, hard at it on federal energy policy

Dear reader, just to demonstrate the completeness of our “new age” and whollistic approach to modern physiology and in particular, the regulation of the intensity of physiological reactions we present to you, this, (hot off the press) piece of self-help advice from that luminary of the lower intestine Sir Atney of Emo.

Stand with us and exult as he delivers some expert advice couched in an anecdote which puts light on our previous corrsepondents condition.

And may we suggest if this condition persists we urge you to contact our hotline and consult the eminent physician, Dr Erasmus Windtschlapper (late of UTRECHT) who will expedite a cure. And we also advise a caution for minors who may find this description offensive. Sir Atney suggests:

My advice to the ‘Petomane of the Aisles’…

First, I’d be careful about trying to offload onto a guiltless fellow-shopper the ownership of one’s offensive effluvia, simply to divert the odium usually attached to such odoriferous outrages.

The Horse, “Blossom’.

Your stratagem could so easily backfire, for example…

Many years ago, in rural Ireland, a nun hired a horse-drawn jaunting car to convey her from the train station to her convent.

After jogging along at a sedate pace, the elderly nag strained to climb up a steep hill, then slowed down – and eventually stopped.

The the horror of the jarvey (the driver), the horse slowly lifted its tail… and vented a rumbling, drawn-out flatus.  Within seconds, the driver and the nun were enveloped in a warm, musty cloud of methane and hydrogen sulphide – prompting a paroxysm of coughing and breathlessness.

Having thus relieved itself, the horse once again strained against its halter and resumed its slow plod up the steep incline.

Josh Frydenberg pretending no one has noticed.

In an agony of embarrassment, the jarvey turned to the nun, who was still dabbing her streaming eyes.

“Faith, Mother Superior, I really don’t know how to apologise to you for that appalling incident,” he stammered. “Sure, and it must have been something that was eaten…”

“Now, don’t feel at all embarrassed, my good man,” replied the nun.  “Breaking wind is a natural, often involuntary act…. As it happens, until you apologised I had actually assumed it was the horse that had farted!”

Alternative ploys:

– Stick an over-ripe camembert atop your trolly

– Place an Odor-Eater (or charcoal bag) down the seat of your track pants

– ‘Accidentally’ loosen the cap of a bottle of Jeypine

– Walk closely behind a dishevelled geriatric of the ‘Old Fart’ description, holding your nose and grimmacing

Other underutilised energy sources abound in the “Clever Country”.

Hope that helps!  (Works for me.)

Sound advice. And in the absence of any overarching coherent Federal energy policy, perhaps a pointer to where future energy storage lies.

The pcbycp polyvinyl poof.

Dear reader, it’s difficult keeping step with the spirit of our time. Not since good ol ’38’ have we seen such a seismic shift in international power relations with another little tin-pot dictatorship sabre rattling to the world at large. Just the other day a dirty great blockbuster bomb, unexploded was uncovered in Frankfurt, There after all these years, just to remind us of how bombing made some cities really dull and uninteresting.  And right across this pulsating globe there’s change and dire predictions. It seems as famously described by the cartoonist David Low, the world is about to either explode, implode or just vanish in a poof of smoke. And speaking of poof of smoke, whilst the whole globe gyrates to this crazy era of uncertainty, back here in Australia we shall devote trillions of dollars and hot air to the vexed question of poofs in general. Incidentally the polyvinyl poof at pcbycp headquarters was interviewed, and was only capable, (when pressed) of letting out a barely audible sigh. Such indifference.

So from a scribe from the near north a message that makes some sense of the crisis, and invests us with the dignity of good manners, sound advice, and civic virtue. He writes:

To whom It may concern,

Our Glorious RAAF. Making jobs for urban designers and civic planners for the next 70 + years.

Wholly involuntarily, reaching down for the Black and Gold rolled oats, without effort, without encouragement and without preliminary or indeed warning of any kind, with a strangely strangled note vaguely reminiscent of a child’s first violin lesson ,my body, utterly indifferent to one’s hitherto unsullied public reputation, broke hopelessly irretrievable, screeching wind in the cereal aisle at IGA.
The initial and singular advantage to winter clothing is its capacity to contain the resulting parfum for long enough for one to escape the site of one’s red-faced faux pas. But this is a double-edged sword. The disadvantage is that your faux pas, temporarily contained within one’s winter garments is, at least ’til the air clears, always with you.
And there is no escape! You can’t immediately approach the checkout lest you asphyxiate a member of staff. Neither can you, in all good economic conscience, abandon your hard-won discounted purchases in the middle of the aisle and bolt out into the night. One might be judged demented (not to say incontinent) and barred from entering the premises ever again.They might even insist, (horror of horrors!) should they allow you back in,  on a public check of your incontinence trousers!.
The only way, in this circumstance, to avoid losing face in the face of the general public is to do as others do. 

The Crime Scene.

Allow me to explain. 
Have you ever noticed there is always, in the supermarket, somewhere amongst the aisles, and in the midst of the most horrendous trolley jam, an ill-mannered and frightfully pushy person who insists on pushing through? Who barges past, arms akimbo, trolleys and baskets knocked to right and left without thought or feeling? Is there any reason NOT to consider that this behemoth, this human battering-ram is about some business other than a hurried shopping spree? That he (or she) before the winter coat fails in its duties, this person must at all costs, keep up a lively clip about the aisles lest the Harris Tweed betray one’s condition BEFORE it finally releases the last vestige of intestinal inadvertency to the air conditioning system?

On the other hand, I may be wrong about all this, but do,I implore you, keep careful watch for the hurried shopper lest the miasma following in the shopper’s wake cause you to faint entirely away.
You have been warned.

M.R.L. Doyle

We wish M.R all the best.

This is the third of four parts revisiting Oliver Goldsmith’s  The Deserted Village which, with commentary from our Poetry Editor Ira Maine give insight on our social condition.

One of the important things to understand about this poem is the pace.  The poet is remembering his home village, not only as it was in his youth, but how it will be when he comes to retire there.  Villages in the 17^th and 18^th century, tucked well away in spectacularly beautiful parts of the countryside, hardly changed from one century to the next.  The poem is written deliberately to match this unchanging pace and demonstrate the unhurried nature of village life.

I have chosen random lines and phrases here to show how the poet  remembers his boyhood village.  To get the full flavour of this account, a proper reading is essential.

Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain…
Seats of my youth, where every sport could please…
How oft have I paused on every charm…
The cultivated farm…the brook…the busy mill…the decent church…
The seats beneath the shading hawthorn bush…the bashful virgin…the reproving matron…
The sport…the singing…the dancing…  

Then quite suddenly,the poet introduces a darker, less Elysian, much more forbidding tone.

But now the sound of population fail,
No chearful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread,
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced, in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep til morn;

What on earth has happened here?  Who is this ‘matron’, this ‘..widowed, solitary thing…’  forced to sustain herself by her wits, by scavenging, in the ruins of what had been a thriving village?

In the wake of whatever calamity consumed the village, she appears to be, on the surface just another penniless casualty of that calamity.  On the other hand, I suspect the poet intended much more for her.  The matron is surely intended to represent the spirit, the very essence of the village itself, and her paupered condition, her ruined circumstances, reflects exactly the present state of that village.

The village of Auburn has ceased to exist.  The animals, the barking dogs, the blacksmith, the wood-men, the farmers, the geese, the women and children, the barber, everyone, all gone.

There was no famine to kill them, no plague, and no war.  At least not in England.  There was however, the American War of Independence, which was followed closely enough by the Napoleonic Wars.  Soldiers needed bread and the demand for flour was insatiable.

Land in England, as little as 200 years ago, did not belong to anyone.  The idea of ‘owning land’ simply didn’t exist.  You couldn’t buy it and you couldn’t sell it.  However, industrial cities were growing and their workforces needed food.  Enterprising industrialists, like the famous Coke of Norfolk, seeing an opportunity, took wire and fence posts and enclosed thousands of acres of land to grow wheat.  These ‘Enclosures’, when they enclosed villages, gave the encloser the right to consider the inhabitants of these villages as his property!  He could then demand a percentage of every scrap they produced!

The government of the time consisted of the King and a few of his aristocratic cronies.  The King essentially didn’t care what industrialists got up to as long as he got a cut.  Landowning, not industry, was the mark of a man, and peasants didn’t matter.  So when the same Coke of Norfolk in the 18^th century, infected as he was with the fashionable notion of a Great House, needed not just a stately home, but hundreds of acres of well manicured ‘grounds’ to boot, he enlisted one Joseph Paxton who promptly littered the place with hunting lodges, fountains, parterres,and lakes, not to mention statuary, waterfalls and spectacular ‘vistas’.

If you allow for the fact that these vast land enclosures were like small countries then you will understand why the great ‘landscapers’ of the period, Joseph Paxton and ‘Capability’ Brown amongst others, much more than occasionally found villages, hamlets and whole towns inconveniently situated amidst their grand plans.  Now and then, a little compensation was offered.  Sometimes a whole new village was built and the people moved en masse.  Much more often the peasantry were simply driven both out of their homes and off the land then left to fend for themselves.  Their houses were pulled down to stop them coming back.  This is why to this day we have people on the roads in Europe called “tinkers’ or the ‘travelling people’, as distinct from gypsies or Romany, who took up this peripatetic existence as a result of the notorious ‘Enclosure Acts’ or later, in the 19^thcentury, because of famine.  Enclosure drove people off the land and into the industrial cities, where so many of them died of disease it became a national scandal.  Thousands more died en route to Canada, America and Australia on what were referred to as “coffin ships’.  The usual ever present exploiters dispatched their desperate passengers on overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels.  Some of the vessels simply sank, drowning everybody, while others made it to their destinations, overloaded and weeks behind schedule, with no food left, disease conditions rife, and many passengers already consigned to the sea.

I feel we might stop here. Nothing I’ve said is untrue. Every example of callous exploitation I’ve used here may be verified.

Oliver Goldsmith was appalled that the wholesale destruction of an entire, wholly self-sufficient country way of life was allowed, indeed encouraged, in order that a handful of men could become fabulously rich.  This was at the expense of almost the entire rural population of the British Isles.

Is it any wonder that the workers who remained fought for over a hundred years thereafter to be allowed form unions?  To form societies to protect themselves against this band of murderous curs?

I shall continue next week when my equanimityis restored.  In the meantime, beware; these same murderous curs are with us still.

Ira Maine, Poetry Editor.

Our bonus is this which came from the Front the day after last week’s dispatch was received. 

Dear readers,

In yesterday’s (last week’s) Dispatch I had 59 years reduced to “almost half a century”. And, no, I didn’t sneak this in to check if you were paying attention (and some of you were). I now suspect this Freudian slip slipped in because “nearly half a century” has a nicer ring to it than “nearly six decades”.

No, the actual reason for my error is that I don’t have the luxury at my disposal of an editor. Those true unsung heroes of the literary world- the editors and translators.

Tina Arena- Unsung Hero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E_naDXcMNw

A further snippet from the Wikipedia entry on B. Traven’s ‘Deathship’

“Just before the German version went to press, the publisher wrote to Traven asking for publicity information and photographs. The author replied:

My personal history would not be disappointing to readers, but it is my own affair which I want to keep to myself. I am in fact in no way more important than is the typesetter for my books, the man who works the mill; … no more important than the man who binds my books and the woman who wraps them and the scrubwoman who cleans up the office.”

So this from my dad’s anecdotes (he told it to me in Dutch, this is my English translation):

JULY‘07- Jacobs was the best bookbinder in Oberhausen. He was always busy and earned good money, but he was a tiny man, who for years had been threatening to hang himself from the highest tree in Oberhausen. All of a sudden, he did; from the lowest branches of the highest tree in Oberhausen. Because my father was the Chairman of the Dutch Association, it was his duty to notify Mrs. Jacobs. I was only a little boy, when my dad took me along for ‘support’. When Mrs. Jacobs heard what had happened, she asked: had her husband used the highest tree in Oberhausen? When my father confirmed that, she burst out laughing. After a while my dad started laughing with her, and in the end all three of us where laughing our heads off. After all those years, I can still picture the scene. Poor woman.

A friend sent me this link  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1-cES1Ekto it tells the story of Alfred Wegener whose 1915 Theory of Continental Drift caused him to be dismissed as a crack-pot only to be posthumously reinstated as a genius.

Aboriginal Australia produced a large number of unsung heroes. History is replete with the names of explorers who ventured into the barren inland. The “native boys” who made it possible for some of these explorers to survive and succeed by leading them to water are all but forgotten and often weren’t recorded in the first place, certainly not by name.

And then of course there are the unsung Aboriginal heroes of the present.

Bay City Rollers- ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u-rYzSSs7U 

Dag,

Frenk

‘Mother Nature’ in Houston. Nothing to do with Gobal warming.

Whilst the Federal Government has no energy policy and will do whatever it takes to stick to the age-worn benefits of a strident and singular coal policy it is instructive to take a look at our near neighbours the U.S and see what they’re doing to tackle climate change head on.

Well folks, it’s almost the same as what’s going on here.

Some of the states have gone it alone, and are busy doing their own energy policy, whilst the rest of em are leaving it to God and providence. And coal.

Houses under water. The cleansing effect of not having a climate policy.

Which is good, because just in case you noticed, what used to be a one in ten year event, a one in fifty year event or a one in one hundred year event, and the latest a one in five hundred year event is now a yearly event. That’s it folks, from 500 to 100 to yearly. And that’s not all, this hurricane, is bigger and better than the last. But at last there are flood management plans…and they’re all entirely do able. Cos we’ve been told so by the first man of America Donald. ‘To trust in God’.

Donald says that Texas can take it. And taking it up the choof is what they’re famous for. The floods there have been horrendous, the worst ever, but nothing to do with climate change. The floods in Louisiana, the worst ever in living memory, and if you calculate it, probably the worst in six thousand years, (that’s when Noah, embarked on the ark, and saved all species excepting those who were destined to be destroyed and swallowed up by the flood ordained by a kind, all pervading, all knowing God).

Soddom and Gomorrah, destroyed by an “all loving God” for daring to conduct a same sex marriage vote.

God in his righteous fury not only destroyed the cities of Soddom and Gomorrah for having a non binding, non compulsory same sex vote, but for being evil and indulging in aything from same sex marriage to stoning women on any other day than a Sunday.

Noah is blessed by an all loving God for not having a climate policy and condemning the rest of humanity to a rightous loving death.

That’s why the people of New Orleans, Texas and Florida can take it. It’s God’s will and nothing to do with unprecedented ocean warming and changed cycles due to man made climate change. And to prove it we know that this hurricane, this adornment of “mother nature” is just another natural cycle, and nothing to do with the predictions based on climate science, because as our acting Prime Minister, Saint Tone of the Santamaria says, ‘climate change is crap’. And just for believing it, you deserve to be stoned, mutilated and trod on by an all caring, all knowing loving God.

So drown you Louisianans, and know that this time round the winds of wrath and the righteous flood is colour blind, and whether you be black, white or polka-dot, you know that according to Rupert, and Donald, this has nothing to do with climate change. And besides, from the flood, a cleansing of streets and houses, and furniture will result in more God-fearing people, returning to God. And with that God-fearing comes certainty and the conviction that an renewable energy policy is wrong. And why, because it is written.

And who wrote it?

Not God stupid.

Saint Tone of Santamaria. Ordained by God and Lord Rupert of Murdoch for eschewing an evil Climate Policy.

But Lord Rupert of Murdoch, supreme leader of Christendom.

The Prime Minister has given another serious talking to the power companies. It’s all the power companies fault. Their fault that electricity prices have gone sky high. And now they thoroughly deserve a dressing down. In powerful ‘man of action’ mode, the Prime Minister, a champion of privatisation and asset stripping told the companies they had to do more about reducing the size of power bills. And we at pcbycp are right behind him.

The Prime Minister talks tough on Energy

For those who have a postal service that works and still receive a paper bill, we propose doing as we do, and that is cut your bill in half. This is easily achieved, and we urge power strapped households to re-register for a paper power bill. This is almost the same process that will be required for those amongst us who choose to celebrate the opportunity to have a non binding say on the marriage equality non binding, non referendum.

The PM demonstrates ‘Strong Leadership”.

Place the bill on a flat surface. Then, ensuring that the bill is dead flat, horizontal, and matches to the utmost perecision, the level of that flat surface, (we reccommend a table, or a very large bible) place a ruler over the bill. Selecting, a portion to, (we at Pcbycp provide a very useful template,) determine whether you’d like to slash your bill by a quarter, a third , or completely in half.

The P.M suggests that ringing the energy company is the best way to go about it. He also urged the energy companies to contact all electricity users, (those stupid enough or too poor to not get off the grid) and tell them that if they’d like to, they could change their power supplier. Into the mix, he’s told the power companies to suggest to their clients that they should look elsewhere for cheaper power. We at pcbycp applaud this initiative. It makes good sense. It is a ‘free market’, and the Liberal, National coalition wants you, the consumer to excercise that pillar of economic doctrine “freedom of choice: The P.M suggests, most ardently, “shop around”, get the “best price”, and if you have to change energy companies every year, quarterly, monthly, fortnightly, (we suggest weekly), you’ll get the best price, and rather like choosing supermarkets other than the duopoly of Coles and Woolies you might get a better deal.

Power Company executives pretending to listen to the PM

This is all sound advice, and very do-able. We also would like to suggest, that every household purchase an ‘electricity price watchdog’, (they are freely available from any Lort Smith or RSPCA pound) to bark, when bill stress is at dangerous levels.

‘Primrose’, the electricity price watchdog.

But, just for the moment, back to slashing your power bill. With the ruler as a template and guide, hold a Stanley knife, blade, or cutting device other than a chainsaw, to the edge of the ruler, and score a line across the energy bill. Then, delicately tear the portion from the rest of the bill. Voila!! Your energy bill is cut.

WE applaud the Federal Government for this far reaching initiative and like the non-binding, non compulsory, non-referendum same sex marriage bill it proves once again that the P.M and his party are dertermined to win the next election with decisive legislative action.

How poor people can reduce ‘Bill Shock’

And prove that, they’ll do anything other than have a coherent energy policy.

Learning to say “NO”

We at pcbycp are delighted with the latest advert for the “No” vote screening on commercial telly. WE are delighted that the Australian Christian Lobby feel so strongly about same sex marriage, and delighted further still that their wonderful values based ads are not being shown on the ABC. What would be the point of that we ask? And concur, the ‘Gay BC’ would just distort the message, and leave us all confused with the taint of tolerance and inclusiveness. Say ‘No’ to the ABC, and ‘NO’ to their insidious brain washing. That is the message we want to hear. As all good living Australians, we abhor the same sex marriage lobby, it’s insidious message of inclusiveness, open-ness, and equanimity. WE as Christians, would like their ilk, (all of them) to be shunned, and return to the good ol days of purity, backyard abortions, stoning and virulent xenephobia. All under the loving embrace of an all knowing, all caring God. It made us number one on the world stage. And world leader where it counts, winning olympic medals, and being pure.

The message is pure.

The advert, from the Coalition for Marriage group, led by the Australian Christian Lobby, features four women opposed to same-sex marriage and focusses on concerns around the impact of same-sex marriage on children. And their message is one of unswerving unanimity, FEAR.

“School taught my son he could wear a dress next year if he felt like it,”

ACL’s Lyle Shelton.

“Kids in year 7 are being asked to role play being in a same-sex relationship,” another said.

WE at pcbycp are deeply worried about he impact same sex marriage is having on kiddies. For example, one lady is quite right to worry, worry sick about having their child wear a dress. Who wouldn’t be? But we don’t know yet if the child is straight, gay, lesbian, lgbti, or just LGBTITT BSRX or non normative. That’s the problem that all ‘us’ parents face.

Clean-living aussie kids from same sex marriage understand the clean-living values of vegemite , anzac and HATE.

Because the adverts aren’t subjected to the same restrictions on a normal vote by the electoral act they can go right into the nub of the issue and have a good old crack at all those who eschew the righteous’ god-given virtues of marriage between man and woman, stoning, and genital mutilation in general. WE hope the christian lobby takes our advice and spruiks the benefit of black muslin, (that’s a cloth not a religion) for widows, the right of men to beat their wives, and the right for all men to muck around outside marriage.

The right of men to inject their wives with battery acid, douse them in petrol, stab, and burn them before running over them repeatedly with the car. The right to mutilate children and punch, shake, and break their little bodies so that they may be freed from the taint of original sin. The right to stab them so many times, they, (their wives) resemble an overused pin cushion, and the right to bury them in unmarked graves in the bush. All in God’s name, whether they be Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or just plain ol Mormon.

The God-Given virtue of stoning women.

Every week reveals numerous examples of respect for the tradition of same sex marriage, and the inrtricate and quite creative way women can be punished. We’d also like, (there are so many numerous examples) to grant men the right to imprison, coerce, bully, bludgeon, and banish as was decreed in the bible when they’ve grown tired of being nagged and we’d also like them to be publicly whipped, shackled, and degraded by good God-fearing men. Cos it’s fear at the heart of the message that’s written into the bible.

God created the work-house to keep women PURE.

Keep that message pure and propitiate hate, and fear in the name of God’s righteous certainty. What works for Rupert, will work for the rest of us. And keep us pure. And it all begins by saying “NO”.

This is the second of four parts revisiting Oliver Goldsmith’s  The Deserted Village which, with commentary from our Poetry Editor Ira Maine give insight on our social condition.

Both the parson and the school teacher in Oliver Goldsmith’s poem ‘The Deserted Village’ are described as ‘sentimental’ characters by modern scholars, as if this were a fault.  It very well might be, had not Goldsmith deliberately intended to  create easily recognizable, sympathetic stereotypes to set against the monstrous reality of the day.  Goldsmith, in the manner of Shakespeare, uses a wholly recognizable conceit to win his audience over.  Do these same critics regard it as ‘sentimental’ when Prince Hal, in Shakespeare’s ‘Henry 1V’ (Part Two) rejects Falstaff and Ancient Pistol (who symbolize Hal’s youthful dissipation) in favour of the crown which will make him Henry V?

Elizabeth the First didn’t think so.  The Virgin Queen and her court loved the down to earth reality of Falstaff so much that, when Shakespeare wrote off Falstaff and his cronies as unsuitable companions for a King (they are almost wholly absent from Henry V) Elizabeth demanded of Shakespeare that he write entirely new plays which had to include all of the discarded old favourites, like Moll Tearsheet, Mistress Quickly, (both ladies of somewhat forward reputation) Justice Shallow, Ancient Pistol and Falstaff himself.  The Merry Wives of Windsor was the first of these.

You might have gathered by now that I am averse to critics.  I am not.  I am however, averse to bad ones.

But back to the plot.

Here is the parson from Goldsmith’s village, his sins set out  like diamonds.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil’d,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher’s modest mansion rose.
A man he was, to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor ere had changed, nor wished to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sate by his fire, and talked the night away;
Wept o’er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits, or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

[here we skip a few lines, stay with the parson and find him about his sacred duties;]

Beside the bed, where parting life was layed,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood.At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man’s smile.
His ready smile a parent’s warmth exprest,
Their welfare pleased him and their woes distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.

As with the school teacher, Goldsmith’s parson, a selfless man, is an essential member of village society.  This village society, down to it’s last man, woman and child, believes absolutely in God.  God’s representative in the village is the parson.  It is important to be aware how strongly people believed both in God and the afterlife in the 18^th century, especially when it came to dying.  You were born into the village, christened, baptised and taken to regular church services as a child, long before you were aware of what was happening.  You believed in God before you even knew what God might be.  You grew up in the village, raised a good, christian family in the village, and died in the village with the parson in attendance because,

………………………At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise…

People were terrified of death, the unknown, of being whisked away by the Devil, and derived great comfort from their absolute belief that the parson had God’s power vested in him when he administered the Last Rites.

The parson baptised and buried babies, comforted the sick and dying, gave succour to vagrants, tramps, and crippled soldiers, and every Sunday welcomed his flock into his church, where they might all rejoice together.

There were, of course, the usual suspects who inevitably arrive at any gathering to mock the proceedings.  At least, (according to Goldsmith) they arrived with this attitude.  But they soon discovered that they’d reckoned without the parson and his persuasive oratorical command;

Truth from his lips prevailed, with double sway
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray…

How glorious to come across an oft quoted familiar line like this, but have it take you by surprise!  The pleasure is in the unexpected… there is another stoutly quotable line in the poem describing the Parson’s character which again must not pass by unremarked;

‘…More bent to raise the wretched than to rise…’

The parson saw it as his duty to help the wretched, the halt, the sick and the lame, rather than pursue advancement for himself.  He neither wanted to ‘..change his place…’ [move to another, more influential town] or indeed ‘…to seek for power…by doctrines fashioned to the varying hour…’  To take to philosophical doctrines, ‘fashionable’ doctrines, which, though he might not believe in any of them, might get him noticed.

Oh dear.  My enthusiasm may very well have outstripped your patience.  It would appear I have expended much too much time on the parson.

Next week another entertaining episode!

Ira Maine, Poetry Editor.

Imbroglio.  (Dispatched 24 August 2017)

G’day mates (just reinforcing my Australian nationality),

My family arrived in Australia on the Dutch ship ‘Johan van Oldenbarneveld’ (yes we were ‘boat people’) nearly half a century ago in January 1958.

Not long before, Sukarno had deported a large number of “Dutch East Indians”. He denied them dual citizenship.

On our ship I remember a young man who played a ukulele and regaled us with Indonesian songs on the deck. The young man told us that his brother was denied entry into Australia because he was too dark. Later during my studies I was to become familiar with Soil Colour charts. I now think the use of these charts wasn’t confined to soil science. I suspect the “populate or perish” apparatchiks ( “a blindly devoted official, follower” by one dictionary definition) stationed in foreign shores, made use of the CSIRO soil colour chart when enforcing the White Australia policy.

The exquisite irony was that as we approached the equator the East Indian moved down the colour chart and disembarked almost as dark as the uniforms worn by NT Police.

It is around this time I read ‘Het Dodenschip” by B.Traven. I suspect that if our leaders had read such books, such travesties as warehousing people on Nauru and Manus Island wouldn’t have happened. Neither would over-policing and high levels of incarceration and removal of children be seen as the best way to deal with Indigenous Australians.

The Plot-from Wikipedia: Set just after World War I, The Death Ship describes the predicament of merchant seamen who lack documentation of citizenship and cannot find legal residence or employment in any nation. The narrator is Gerard Gales, a US sailor who claims to be from New Orleans and who is stranded in Antwerp without passport or working papers. Unable to prove his identity or his eligibility for employment, Gales is repeatedly arrested and deported from one country to the next, by government officials who do not want to be bothered with either assisting or prosecuting him (my emphasis). When he finally manages to find work, it is on the Yorikke the dangerous and decrepit ship of the title, where undocumented workers from around the world are treated as expendable slaves.

Over the years there have been cases in Australia (how many isn’t easy to tell because “transparency’ is not a feature of our Immigration services -now relabelled ‘Border Force’) whereby people arrived as children with their immigrant families only to fall off the rails in later life. Sometimes they are ‘conveniently’ found not to have become Australian citizens and are thus deported (convict transportation in reverse) to find themselves on the streets in a foreign land whose language they don’t understand singing “I still call Australia home” to no avail.

I still call Australia home – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYg97BGmmLE

For those who don’t live in this Sunburnt Country, also sometimes referred to as the ‘Lucky Country’ or even the ‘Clever Country’ (the latter not always without a tongue firmly lodged in the cheek), we are currently witness to high farce in our Parliament. (A Dictionary definition of ‘Farce’: “an event or situation that is absurd or disorganized”)

This link is to a timely article by Chips Mackinolty: https://dailyreview.com.au/i-am-you-are-we-are-australian/64212/

I am, we are, you are Australian:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkrjYitgeA

What Chips describes with such panache is far from being an isolated case. Here in Yuendumu we have known some people (not necessarily old) who didn’t officially exist. Through some circumstance their birth did not involve the “authorities” and their birth was not officially recorded. To get a birth certificate (to be able to get a driver’s licence) often involves a trip or two to Alice Springs, a distance equivalent to the distance between the southern and northern extremities of my country of birth each way. Trips often by unlicensed drivers in unregistered cars running the increasingly tight gauntlet.

What is happening in our Parliament is that a number of parliamentarians turn out to maybe be dual citizens which according to the Australian Constitution precludes them from being allowed to sit (in the Parliament). The single word that best describes what is happening is ‘Imbroglio’ which the Oxford Dictionary defines as:

“an extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation”.

The single word which best describes how I feel about all this is ‘Schadenfreude’

Auf wieder sehen

Franz

I repeat one of my favourite songs: Across the Wire by Calexico

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkryXbJ14dE

those with so much and no show of heart…..