And the public will Love him for it!

In a stunning turnaround for the Turnbull Government the Coal Minister Josh Frydenberg has unveiled an ambitious plan to run the entire Melbourne Tram System on coal by the end of the decade. Opening the Coal Utilisation Network Taskforce at Parliament House he unveiled a map indicating the first super coal networks to transition Australia to an energy security future. The Minister, beamed;

George and Tony, Saving us from ideological purists on the left.

’This is a red letter day for Victorian technology moving forward. We as the Federal Government for Big Coal were stymied by the CEFC, (Clean Energy Finance Corporation) and realised we were up for some pretty stiff legislation through an unfriendly Parliament. We also had a big problem convincing states other than Queensland that Big COAL was great for humanity. But now the problem is solved. By gifting Melbourne’s tram network to the ADANI Corporation we’ve opened up super new efficiencies moving forward. Indeed the Melbourne tram network, though popular and burgeoning with patronage just wasn’t visionary enough and with Hazelwood closing there was not enough incentive for the public to transition to clean coal. That’s why we’ve developed ‘Route 20 20’. The ADANI Corporation will extend the tram network to outback Queensland, and ensure that the entire system is Re-routed to the country’s needs. And what better place than Victoria! By passing this Special Legislation, (PUTRID), the Public Utilities Transport Rent Infrastructure Deal, we’re acting responsibly to ensure that Victorians and the Victorian taxpayer will own this stunning piece of infrastructure. And it’ll establish balance for all Australians with a viable energy mix to ensure sustainability in the near future moving forward.

‘We’ve got to look at all our options because of the challenges the we face. Namely to have energy security and energy affordability, as we transition to a low carbon future’. (this is a real quote) Victoria was moving dangerously close to renewables and this was causing major trouble with our donors and the right kind of people who lobby us in Government. By gifting the tram network to Mr Adani, the problem is solved and will provide unparalleled efficiencies for new transport users, which happen to be lumps of coal. Lumps of coal have inalienable rights. They sit on the front bench in parliament and represent a persecuted black minority. In addition to giving this constituency representation we’re waving the statutory Myki fee for the fare. They’ll be transported comfortably by a fleet of augmented W class trams and transitioned directly to our loading facility at Portland. It’ll save the Great Barrier Reef from further coal related pollution and allow what’s left to be mined and converted into viable Real Estate. It’s a win for fast rail and a win for regional areas. AND it’s a win for third world countries we don’t give a fuck about, because Mr Adani owns them also. And the best thing is that like our lobbyists in the gambling and banking industry Mr Adani pays bugger all tax, so that any unrepresented, persecuted lump of coal left lying around will be available for really destitute people, the Melbourne homeless for example, and it will give them a rung on the ladder of opportunity.

Billy Snedden. Free from the taint of ideological purity and died, ( allegedly) a happy man.

The Sth Australian blackout was a crucial watershed. And they’re fucked on water too. Though we’ve worked tirelessly to close down the car industry and manufacturing in this country, we were worried that there wouldn’t be enough reliable energy to build the first two froggy submarines, ‘le toilet’ and ‘le merde’. Ideological purists within the party have sold off all the infrastructure to rapacious core private providers via our GREED initiative ( Green-ish Rented Energy Efficiency Developments). We were pretty much stymied on doing anything about that, and to be quite frank we were running our of ways to privatise anything else, (though we’re interested in healthcare) without the public getting suspicious. But this initiative is a doozy, the public in Victoria like rail, they’re crazy about it, this way they get plenty more rail, and the legislation ensures that the public get entirely routed. They’ll be so routed they’ll be shagged. And who aint happy after a good shagging. It’s what made the late Billy Snedden a great leader.

Last week brought  Rabindranath Tagore to our pages.  Today we bring a short poem from “The American-educated poet Yonejiro Noguchi, who fell out with Tagore in the 1930’s, published a poem in 1944 rejecting his earlier obeisance to Western ideals as profoundly mistaken:

America and England in the old days were for me countries of Justice:
America was the country of Whitman,
England the country of Browning:
But now they are dissolute countries fallen into the pit of wealth,
Immoral countries, craving after unpardonable dreams.

Reprinted in “From the Ruins of Empire” by Pankaj Mishra. 2012
[the best review I’ve seen of this brilliant book is here]

And this from  Rabindranath Tagore  (1938) quoted in the same book,

The carefully nurtured yet noxious plant of national egoism
Is shedding its seeds all over the world
making the callow schoolboys of the East rejoice
because of the harvest produced by these seeds
the harvest of antipathy with its endless cycle of self-renewal
bears a western name of high-sounding distinction.

Great civilisations have flourished in the past in the East
as well as in the West
because they produced food for the spirit of man for all time.
These great civilisations were at last run to death by men
of the type of our precocious schoolboys of modern times
smart and superficially critical, worshippers of self,
shrewd bargainers in the market of profit and power
efficient in their handling of the ephemeral, who . . .
eventually, driven by suicidal forces of passion,
set their neighbours’ houses on fire and were themselves
enveloped by the flame.

Today’s dispatch is  The gifts that keep on giving.  Originally dispatched on 16 January  2016

Hola, que tal amigos, bienvenidos a 2016, ojalá será mejór que el quince,

This Dispatch is being written on the 6^th of January. On this day Spanish speaking children are visited by the three Kings and showered with gifts (if they’ve been good and their parents can afford it).

In 1971 on our return to Australia from Canada, we drove through El Salvador. I was told by a local that 97% of land in El Salvador was owned by 3% of the population.

Whilst some “take me to Cuba” airplane hijackings had taken place, two years were to pass before Chile experienced its “9-11” and three more decades before it was North America’s turn. Access to San Salvador’s airport was unhindered. No metal or explosives detectors and no sniffer dogs. No heavily armed guards in black Ninja uniforms nor service personnel in bright yellow fluorescent jackets, lest they be run over.

A small group of Salvadoran airport workers in white overalls gathered in a café on the periphery of the airport during their lunchbreak. Just as the best value roadside food can be found where truckies take their meal breaks, so it was at this café. Simple fare, at the lowest price imaginable: brown beans with tortillas and generous dollops of sour cream, prepared con cariño, just right.

Our budget did not stretch to staying in motels, so we were grateful to be able to make use of the free airport bathrooms.

A brass plaque at the entrance to the building informed us that North American foreign aid had provided the airport for the people of El Salvador.

Apart from the white-overall brigade polishing the floors or lugging luggage, and a sprinkling of Latin looking men in business suits, the majority inside the building, also in business suits, spoke loud English with North American accents. Presumably these businessmen had come to San Salvador to make deals with the 3%. The Latin looking gentlemen presumably were the brokers and real-estate agents and interpreters doing their bit for their country to move forward.

Too much monkey business (Chuck Berry)… .  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Y3ONAbaC0

In all fairness to those who convinced the U.S. Congress to approve the gift of an airport to the lucky denizens of El Salvador, some consideration had been given to the trickledown effect. Couples whose loud North American accents were matched by their loud clothes were sparsely distributed among their business suited compatriots, elderly men in Hawaiian shirts, palm tree motif, and Bermuda shorts, generally accompanied by younger women.

The trickledown effect was also very evident at the café of the brown beans, tortillas and sour cream. Where the runway crossed over the main road, the traffic dipped down to a short tunnel to get to the other side. The whole complex was located on a level playing field (such a one as the Trans Pacific Partnership rests upon).

All Salvadorans we spoke to, unprompted expressed their gratitude to the U.S.A. Government for having gifted them such a magnificent airport complex.    

Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain’t gottime to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone I’m a goin’ home
My baby, she just wrote me a letter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95v7R67to-I (Joe Cocker-The Letter)

It is simply uncanny. Back to the future. In Yuendumu we are reliving this experience. Often Warlpiri residents stop us, unprompted to express their gratitude to the Government for having gifted us such a magnificent $7.6M police complex.

When discussing gifts, a friend rued the fact there hadn’t been three wise Queens instead of the three Kings. He speculated that three wise Queens wouldn’t have got lost, would have assisted with the child and no cabe duda (undoubtedly) borne more sensible gifts.

We three Kings of orient are,
bearing gifts we traverse afar…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrsWF3JlScw (We three Kings-Dolly Parton)

Que los tres reyes les hallan traido suerte, amór y felícidad… y risa, mucha risa (Mirth not Myrrh)

Franklin

My Goodness gracious! Can you believe it?

Why weren’t the Japanese terrified by Percival?

Singapore fell seventy five years ago. It’s uncanny. It seems like yesterday. And every now and again the little thought, “What if Singapore hadn’t fallen’? Would Percival have pulled through? Would Bennett not have done a bunk?
And what of the troops? They would’ve just enjoyed a tropical interlude and written Evelyn Waugh type novels of an eternal imperial sunset.

Would all those nurses not have been slaughtered on the beach? Would the ships not have been bombed? The sick and injured not bayonetted in their beds. And would have the Brewsters, the Wapiti’s and Wildebeeste’s been able to defend the skies above? And finally and most emphatically, would’ve the mighty guns fired in real anger and sunk dozens of big Japanese capital ships?. And rather than go down in scarcely fifteen minutes to an inglorious end, would’ve the Prince of Wales and Repulse shooed those pesky naval forces away? Imagine if it never happened? And Singapore, still a colony, would be a popular stoping off point for Malaya, Ceylon and the jewel in the crown India. All gone now, and nowadays the closest the old empire gets in showing its might is when a cruiser gets stuck on a reef somewhere off Lord Howe Island. Captain Cook would turn in his grave.

An aliance you can rely on, and great ironing skills.

But what have we learnt from Singapore?

Tons!!

We’ve learnt not to rely solely on one big ally for protection! We’ve learnt unlike the brief experiment of ABDA alliance, (the American, British, Dutch and Australian alliance to sweep the Japanese navy from Java) not to rely on flimsy alliances with near neighbours. And most of all we’ve learnt not to be seduced by the promise of paying vast sums of money for equipment that is either obscenely over-priced or hopelessly out of date.

No longer will Australia be seduced by the requirement for Big Navy, Big Airforce and the contemporary equivalent of Brewster Buffaloes, (the F35) as the very best thing in aviation technology. And never again will thousands of young Australians to be ensnared by global geo politics. That’s the lesson learnt from Singapore.

What the end of Empire looks like from the air. HMS Prince of Wales going under.

Well, the truth be known.

What have we really learnt?

We can tell you, and it’s quite rude.

We’ve learnt Fuck all!!

Brewsters, Up there with the F35 as an expensive excercise in scrap metal recycling.

Australia still doesn’t posses a foreign policy beyond a supine forelock tugging to our big brother somewhere on the other side of the Pacific. We’re tied lock stock and smoking barrel to the next act of international lunacy, and our military brass hope that by purchasing a fleet of outmoded froggy subs, we’ll be at the forefront. The forefront of what??

But it does prove one thing. It keeps the military brass busy, and that’s a good thing. Without an obscenely huge defence budget they may turn their attention to something even more obscenely absurd, the process of Australian government. That would be real tragedy. The lesson of Singapore, a lesson unlearnt, and Lee Kwan Yue told us what our future would be: ‘the white trash’, perhaps contributing in our now special way to global stability in the early twenty first century with our staunch ally ,(whats his name? Trunbull?) .

Or as Hollywood would call it; not ANZUS but ‘Dumb and Dumber’.

Ira at bath time. Correct water temperature is vital.

Dear reader. At last something more interesting than politics, a melting planet and Corey Bernardii. This comes to us from our esteemed anthropologist Ira Maine, esq, who graces us with a startling discovery from what’s left, (paddock sized now) of the Amazonian rainforests. We are reliably told the remaining fragment of rainforest is watered regularly and had a nice fence made from real wire to protect it from further development.

The amazonian rainforest protected behind a purpose built fence. It’s custodians, Bill and Trish Leefeater pose for the camera.

Deep in the Venezuelan Amazon a group of scientists groped their way (how dare you, you filthy swine! mind where you’re groping!) amongst the Yanomami (named after a Dutch guy who had no  Mammy) tribe, collecting samples of skin flora and fauna from this vastly remote-from-civilisation mob who’d never heard of soap. The outcome of all this was the discovery that the Yanomami tribe carried umpteen times more bacteria on their bodies than  the rest of us. This, it was concluded, was because us sophisticated, squeaky clean Westerners wash away vast quantities of useful bacteria every time we bathe. Science reckons that we probably need every one of those old microbes we have just washed down the sink and scientists are beginning to think that that the loss of these microscopic fauna may be directly contributing to all sorts of modern ailments.
Well, as they say, ‘I’ll go to the foot of our stairs…’
And the prescient Poms,triumph again. Ahead of the rest with the Industrial Revolution, now leading the world once more in their avoidance of soap!

One way or the other, you can now buy, in the States, a body spray which contains every bug known to man, and even James Hamblin, senior editor at the Atlantic, has given up showering altogether! His missus says he now smells like a bloke rather than a walking ad for Brut!

Why Australia didnt end up buying the Invinciple, Conversion to showers and soap requirement considered by RAN to be too expensive. Cheaper to buy the f 35 Stealth Fighter. ( Hansard)

God help us all.  I can see it all now…Palmolive penniless, Bath salts bankrupt and bubble baths bust. Where will it all end, I bleakly ask? This news will most decidedly cause a great stink and the vapours will quickly reestablish their place in society as ladies of delicate sensibilities encounter evidence of the resurgence of that long neglected, personally perfumed manly essence, Body Odour. . I feel it is the first whiff of the beginning of the end.. I have, purely as a precautionary measure, divested myself this morning of my shares in Madame Frou-Frou’s Personal Bath-Time Playthings (modelled entirely from the finest French Soaps) God, I’ll miss them…

And finally they say that the meek shall inherit the earth…
A modern twist on this is that the meek shall inherit the inside lane…

I am re- investing my few shillings in heavily perfumed handkerchiefs in order to help the discerning lessen the stench of the mob.

Ira

So, I was right after all!

And this fragment from Sir Atney, shows how they “do it” up North.

I wait until there is a heavy downpour after midnight, strip off and go for a naked run around the block. That’s enough to keep me squeaky clean!

Sir Atney

oh, I forgot to mention… While I’m running around I balance a bar of Mr Pears most excellent Coal Tar Soap on my head.

Sir Atney

Kevin Rudd closes the gap

Kev 07. Loves dressing up. Craves RECOGNITION!

You’ve gotta hand it to Kev, welched on climate change, carbon taxes, grotesque inequality and reform of any significant type and stood back as the intervention wiped a swathe of incarceration across indigenous communities. Kev you posturing sanctimonious wanker .You are at one with Tony Abbott on this. Your ignorance is so profound. You let the incarceration, the disfunction, the entropy happen and did nothing. In actual fact by your hand alone you made it worse.

Could we please keep politicians, and ex Prime Ministers out of the indigenous equation. They always have an axe to grind, a legacy to nurture, and they never ever listen. You and Jenny Macklin made the ‘second stolen generation’ happen. It’s your baby Kev. And it’s you who must bear some major responsibility for the lives of people rotting on Manaus and Nauru. You posturing wanker!!

Goodonya Kev!

Hmmm, another case of workplace bullying?

So the world pissed you off from the U.N top job where you thought you’d find a cosy sinecure. Now you’re back for whatever brief interval to sermonise on the “ second stolen generation”. Yet your policies, unchecked and rampant, did more to alienate communities than your predecessor John “intervention” Howard ever did. By your hand alone you ensured that the militarisation of the NT was complete and whilst you pounced around talking of the ‘biggest moral dilemma of our time’ you walked away. You offered an apology because it made you feel good, but you never backed it up. You allowed the mass incarceration to continue as the only function of governance and ignored all the indices of communities riven by police and do gooders (a little like your self) who all had strong opinions on what needed to be done to repair the confected crisis you inherited from your predecessor.

Funny, you never listened to members of your own cabinet either. So what motivates you to posture once again upon the lives of people you are so thoroughly and profoundly removed from. You’ve never once tried to understand the complexity of issues they face and your solutions comes as the facile musings of someone who always has a simple solution to complex problems. And they’re usually wrong.

And you assume the electorate hasn’t got a memory. On that you’re probably right.

Remember the you were big on homelessness before you came to power. You actually visited the odd shelter and pronounced, bit like the apology, that you’d do something about it. Homelessness is off the scale now, because you did nothing. Nothing on tax reform, nothing on negative gearing and nothing on the yawning abyss between haves and have nots. And the reason? You have benefitted by the divide, and have no intention of doing anything about it. As another ambitious Queenslander you balance your convictions between righteous indignation and a holier than though assumption that your views are shared by others whom you never listen to. You are the echo chamber of your own convictions. And mostly you’re wrong. Like the other ex PM who believed he knew first Australians, Tony Abbott, you have a self belief that is purely delusional.

Please Kev, go back to wherever you came from and find a sinecure in a university somewhere , where you can make pronouncements on all manner of things and pretend to be worthy. And we’ll pretend to listen.

Dear reader what follows is a particularly silly description from Australia’s glorious manufacturing history. And what better personification of ‘Can-do’ than the CAC Boomerang. Designed and ready within fifteen weeks. Demonstration than when put to the test Australia could really be innovative and forward thinking. Now we squabble over energy policy whilst the world literally burns. Still though the Liberal Party has seen the light and thrown it’s weight behind One Nation in W.A.
A decision guided by a shared interest in strong governance and principle to keep the status quo intact. And do nothing about the future which is a whole election away.

This illustration depicts the glorious moment when 422 Squadron “Wignell’s own Wings”, performed their ceremonial fly past over Black Rock on the 23rd September 1944. The Boomerang, originally designed as high speed interceptor in 1942 was outclassed by 44 by the Spitfires, Mustangs and Corsairs then in use in the Pacific Theatre. However as a close support aircraft and close attack interceptor its agility was highly valued, The Boomerang could get into tricky spots and out again. As the Pilot Bluey-Bouncer-Booma , the famous red headed fighter ace enthused “ it’ll do the job once , twice, three times and all day long and always get you back again’.

Such was the performance of the legendary Boomerang that a flight of Boomerangs en route to Sydney found themselves flying via Hobart in a complete circle due to faulty Astro Navigational compass. The Boomerangs almost drained of fuel returned to Point Cook. Their reliability was well and truly proven. As a close support aircraft they were famous for their penetrating work upon Shaggy Ridge, the Pimple and the Krause’s Knob in the prelude to the Finschafen campaign. In one instance, a flight of Boomerangs armed with two underslung Mk V anti personnel mines were able to subdue an impregnable japanese dugout by landing the charges at precisely the right spot an at precisely the exact moment when the commander of the japanese Northern New Guinea was having his bath. The resultant explosion, sent the bath flying in a parabolic arc which sank the adjacent destroyer Fukiyaki in a sheet of flame and smoke, to which the commander enthused, bombed, bathed and bust in one hit. ‘A clean sweep’.

Nowadays fifteen weeks of Government innovation results in something like this.

However in spite of the glory, during the closing stages of the war, the allied high command were still gravely concerned about groups of japanese infantry that still held out in isolated outposts across the pacific. Unable to spare the resources for mopping up exercises and unwilling to sacrifice so many lives at the end of the war which was to all intents and purposes won, they set about developing a modified anti personnel mine which could be dropped at almost ground level, and the resultant shock-wave, when detonated, would render all individuals within a twelve kilometre radius insensible. The bomb, nicknamed the “Sleep-maker’, resembled a torpedo. The armourers had a splendid time painting moons, cows, and all manner of sleep related images. But after a two day period the victims would recover, enabling a peaceful rounding up and surrender. Initial trials on paddocks filled with sheep and open range chicken farms had proved promising. In one instance a flight of Boomerangs operating out of Canberra inadvertently dropped one on parliament and no one noticed for several weeks.

Finally a date was slated for the operation on the island of Teri-Yaki part of the Itchy- na na chain, in which a large garrison of Japanese had refused any entreaty to surrender. A flight of twelve Boomerangs were readied for attack and under cover of night their escort carrier, (seen in the background) HMAS Prolapse. At first the attack seemed to be an outstanding success, the Boomerangs all taking off in perfect formation and then headed directly towards their designated target. Just before they arrived over the target, the Boomerangs in perfect formation turned southwards and headed back towards their escort ship. In a matter of minutes it was all over. The escort and the Boomerangs were engulfed in a titanic explosion and slid to the bottom of the Ichi-waki sea. The subsequent enquiry revealed the astro navigational compass had not been re-calibrated to the Northern hemisphere and subsequently their “return instinct” counteracted the pilots course. The rest of the squadron were scrapped, and the Boomerangs retired from active service.

The Sunset of the Century by Rabindranath Tagore 

(Written in the Bengali on the last day of last (19th) century)

1:

The last sun of the century sets amidst the blood-red
clouds of the West and the whirlwind of hatred.
The naked passion of self-love of Nations, in its drunken
delirium of greed, is dancing to the clash of steel and the
howling verses of vengeance.

2:

The hungry self of the Nation shall burst in a violence of
fury from its own shameless feeding.
For it has made the world its food,
And licking it, crunching it and swallowing it in big morsels,
It swells and swells
Till in the midst of its unholy feast descends the sudden
shaft of heaven piercing its heart of grossness.

3:

The crimson glow of light on the horizon is not the light of
thy dawn of peace, my Motherland.
It is the glimmer of the funeral pyre burning to ashes the
vast flesh,—the self-love of the Nation—dead under its own
excess.
Thy morning waits behind the patient dark of the East,
Meek and silent.

4:

Keep watch, India.
Bring your offerings of worship for that sacred sunrise.
Let the first hymn of its welcome sound in your voice and sing
“Come, Peace, thou daughter of God’s own great
suffering.
Come with thy treasure of contentment, the sword of
fortitude,
And meekness crowning thy forehead.”

5:

Be not ashamed, my brothers, to stand before the proud
and the powerful
With your white robe of simpleness.
Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the freedom
of the soul.
Build God’s throne daily upon the ample bareness of your
poverty
And know that what is huge is not great and pride is not
everlasting.

THE END.

Buckley’s

Ngurrju mayi?

I graduated as a Geologist in the early 1960’s. Back then not very many students at Melbourne Uni. studied Geology. When the Nickel Boom with its inflated salaries and bonuses burst upon Australia there was a seismic shift in the incentive to study Geology, a love and fascination with rocks was replaced by an obsession with share prices and wealth ‘creation’. Earth Sciences student numbers rose exponentially.

One such pre-Nickel Boom student was Stan Stroud. Stan called into our student flat in Carlton with a handful of 45s (if you don’t know what these are, ask an old person).

It was Stan who introduced us to Little Richard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Ujb6lJ_mM

For this I’ll be forever grateful to Stan. Years later ‘Lucille’ was one of the favourite numbers to feature at Yuendumu jam-sessions and concerts.

Another pre-Nickel boom student of Geology was Craig Robertson. Like Stan and others, Craig disappeared into the Geo-sphere. There was no Google search engine back then. Social Media hadn’t been dreamed up as yet. Most of your friends and acquaintances simply ephemerated into vague memories (such as Stan and Little Richard).

So imagine the pleasant surprise when 15 years later a publisher friend of ours gave me a book ‘Buckley’s Hope’. The author? None other than Craig Robertson. A third of a century has passed since I read Craig’s fascinating well researched and well written novel on Buckley.

In a second hand book shop in Lorne we chanced upon ‘Our Australian Colonies’ by Samuel Mossman. Although it doesn’t appear on the tome, I estimate the publishing date to have been around 1867.

I quote from page 108: “… Shall it be said then that this fair and fertile portion of our common mother earth was destined by the Almighty to be perpetually occupied by the indolent savage? Such a conclusion would be contrary to His mandate, where He commands us to ‘multiply and replenish the earth’ …” You get the drift.

On a wall at Marla on the Highway named after him, there is a poster featuring John McDouall Stuart’s expeditions. JMcS aborted his first attempt at crossing the continent from south to north in 1858 because he ran out of provisions according to the poster. Page 51: “…when he was compelled to retrace his steps, on account of meeting a hostile tribe of natives, who barred his further progress…” Thus history is written and rewritten.

William Buckley was an escaped convict who emerged after 32 years (1803-1835) living with the Wadawurrung people on Bellarine Peninsula near present day Geelong.

Page180-182 deal with that ‘European savage’ Buckley (nowhere on these pages is Buckley referred to as William)… “… One would suppose that any civilized man of ordinary activity of intellect, would have improved the occasion and taught these simple people how to improve their condition. Instead of doing so, or even retaining his position in the scale of civilisation, he adopted their savage habits, and lived like the beasts in the fields…”

Civilization (Andrew Sisters and Danny Kaye)…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6LQojHOxjY

In 1861 the Burke and Wills expedition ended in tragedy. Burke and Wills had Buckley’s. Burke and Wills died within a few days of each other. King succeeded in joining a group of Yantruwanta and lived with them for several months before being found (alive). It was to no avail that Burke and Wills retained their position in the scale of civilisation, but it did save them from being vilified as was William Buckley. Page 181: “This case is a melancholy instance of the depravity of human nature, notwithstanding the material advantages of a civilized birthright, when the individual is deficient in moral and religious principle. Those who conversed with him afterwards, describe his mental deficiencies as bordering on idiotcy (sic)…”

I can’t recall reading anything like this in Craig’s novel.

Notwithstanding his ‘idiotsy’, Buckley was given the position of Interpreter to the natives, and as a guide for Captain Foster Fyans, among others; his knowledge of the Aboriginal language was put to good use (Wikipedia). After a year Buckley became disenchanted with his new life and left for Van Diemen’s land. I suspect his disenchantment may have been due to this “good use” to betray and be complicit in the dispossession of his friends and family.

The 19^th Century book has reminded me of a saying from the Pacific Islands: “When the Missionaries came they had the Bible and we had the Land, now we have the Bible and they have the Land”… Hallelujah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YaGwI7GjlA

For four decades I’ve witnessed the ethnocentric assimilationists trying to finish off the job of dispossessions, disempowerment and ethnocide started in 1788.

You know what? I reckon they’ve got Buckley’s

Ngaka-na-nyarra nyanyi,

Jungarrayi

PS- Googling, I find that Stan Stroud is the Senior Metocean Advisor to Woodside Ltd.

In offshore and coastal engineering, metocean refers to the syllabic abbreviation of meteorology and (physical) oceanography. You learn something new every day!

And that Craig Robertson is a technical writer who documents computerised information systems. He lives in Melbourne, and is also the author of ‘Song of Gondwana’

(Must read it!)

New Sun Smart ” Heat Wave Alert” Signs to be installed in all capital cities. Courtesy Minerals and Energy Council

Good Governance

Australia swelters in a heat wave. A heat wave more intense than the last. It promises just to be a preamble to the imminent Hyper Heat Wave. The Hyper Heat Wave will be so intense, cars will sink into the oleaginous goo of molten road surfaces. Kiddies, will be burnt upon the surface of the schoolyard. Their lifeless forms vapourised to a post Hiroshima-esque shadow. Mums and dads, will die horribly. Dessicated, dusted and decoupaged as mere carapaces of their former selves. That is the terrible, frightful reality of global warming. That is the hyper reality that reality television just don’t get. The unutterable truth of where we stand now. Poised on the precipice of humanity’s last hour. Moments before being swallowed whole by the gaping maw of a revengeful and bitter earth god thingy.

Donald indicating where Lord Murdoch stands in the greater scheme of things

Luckily, Rupert of the book of Murdoch was on hand to help Donald go through his lines when interviewed by Time. And to the readers satisfaction, climate change is just a myth. Therese May has made herself giddy by keeping up with Rupert’s constant to-ing and fro-ing between the U.S and Downing Street.  And, just to remind the western corporatised pseudo democracies where the power lies, Rupert is adamant that climate change is rubbish for Australia also. To prove a point, his mates in the Minerals and Energy Council bought along a lump of coal to pass around the floor of the federal parliament.

And the ” little people” play at governing for the other 99%.

Coal doesn’t technically vote. But the pollies were worship-ful. They know the reason behind the South Australian blackout, the reason behind ‘black’, (pick any day of the week) and the reason why manufacturing, education, healthcare, thinking and imagination are stone cold dead. We’ve lost our faith in coal. Coal pleads the reason why. Possibly the best non question time in parliament. The treasurer “Scott of the Impenetrable” passed it to Barnaby who tossed to Tony, who bowled it, ( left arm unorthodox) to Kevin and then lobbed it over the speakers head into the lap of Eric who declared it ‘righteous’, and before hand-balling it to Susan, made a quick pass to Malcolm. And with that, Malcolm’s credentials as leader, (for at least the rest of the week) was secured.

‘Mission accomplished’ hurrahed the new leader of Australian Conservatives. High-fives from Gina and Sophie. Australian politics on sale to the highest bidder. Because in governance, as in the board room, Malcolm proudly proclaimed, “in politics, you quite often get what you pay for’. The day over, the pollies all retired to investigate the current value of their investment properties, superannuation schemes, parliamentary pension funds and anything else that proves to them that they’re on the right side of history. And Coal, God bless it’s soul, demonstrated once and for all ‘the power of One’.

And on this day our Lord Murdoch, uttered; ‘I see everything that i have made, and behold, It is very good’