Bonjour mes amies,

Je suis desolé something went wrong and this is a few days late….

I was going to do a dispatch contrasting the destruction of a significant Aboriginal site in the Pilbara with the bulldozing of Oombulgurri in the Kimberley Region a few years ago. The bulldozing resulted in the destruction of a community’s social fabric. Oombulgurri’s very existence was erased. Which is worse? Was going to be the theme of the Dispatch.
Oombulgurri has this in common with Yuendumu in that it also was subjected to a massacre, the Forrest River massacre in 1926, only three years earlier than the Coniston massacre.

The Eve of Destruction (1965- the Vietnam War, 2020- Black Lives Matter)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doIuh9Q7d4g
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

But I only got as far as typing the title and deciding on the song, when subsequent events overtook my intention.

The Black Lives Matter movement suddenly took centre stage and resonated in Australia. Just like the photo of Alan Kurdi the Syrian toddler washed up on shore five years ago had a now almost forgotten impact on us all, so too the murder of George Floyd has brought into focus what has been called the Great Australian Silence.

Australia’s Indigenous people are subjected to one of the world’s highest incarceration rates, higher than blacks in South Africa during the Apartheid era and higher than African Americans in today’s USA. Once again nearly everyone in Australia has an opinion: “They can only blame themselves,”, “They lack education,”, “they commit more crimes,”, “they’re all drunks,” “they……”. Note, more often “they” than “we”. Rarely do we look into the mirror Aboriginal Australia holds up to us.

Lucky Dube- Mirror Mirror- See them coming, hear them talk, never believe the word they say…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmGpb1PHYjA

The word ‘police’ appears 96 times in the 205 pages of the latest draft of my attempt at a book. I’m tired of ear-bashing people, I’d rather play you a nice song:

…and the words of the prophets….The Sound of Silence…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgTaIOoXr3s

Not for me to tell you what your opinion should be, I’ll simply ask you to watch the 11 minute video half way down an ABC article which you can find by Googling “ABC numbulwar taser” or at this link:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-10/numbulwar-police-station-aboriginal-man-tasered/12319494

Now form your own opinion, but only if you’ve watched past the first calm few minutes.

The young man found guilty of assaulting the police had gone to the police station to pay a fine.

Meanwhile that virtuoso of the dog-whistle, former Prime Minister John Howard’s legacy keeps surfacing. In 2007, John Howard with his accomplice Mal Brough, sprang the Northern Territory Emergency Response on Remote Aboriginal Australia. Sunday is the 13th anniversary of the Intervention.

This from the book attempt (page 154):

“From memory it was $A45M which was allocated to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to investigate Mal Brough’s alleged ‘paedophile rings’. Despite the AFP coming after the alleged perpetrators armed with Star Chamber Powers under the Crimes Act 1914, not a single case of paedophilia was prosecuted. No more were there paedophile rings in Remote Aboriginal Australia than there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Or reds under the beds in 1950s Australia.”

Only yesterday (12^th June) Scott Morrison, our current Prime Minister, when discussing Indigenous matters in his usual seemingly sensible conciliatory manner, opined that the ‘Gap’ could not be closed without first dealing with: “…. the abuse, sexual violence, alcoholism and drug abuse in indigenous communities….”. If you blinked you would have missed it … there it was again ‘sexual violence’.

So is John Howard , in his retirement, giving dog-whistling lessons?

In 1983 the Warumpi band released their Jailanguru Pakarnu (out from jail) song in the Luritja language. In the video clip the band is seen breaking the law (riding unrestrained in the back of a ute) and if they’d been caught some of them might have ended up going to jail again. Since 1983 policing on remote communities has intensified. In a 2012 study, based on Yuendumu and Lajamanu, I learned that from mid-2006 to 2010 the incidence of driving criminalization increased 250% in the NT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1baOxLwccB8

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – only worse.

Community policing has morphed into policing the community…

c’est pas la même

Au revoir,

François

PS- my favourite song from the land of the long white cloud:  (Slice of Heaven)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0pWejAnLUQ

I hasten to add my second favourite NZ song:

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

In dem old days, kids would reap REWARD for TOIL by working the mills, cheaper than 457 Visa holders. 

Once again, the scribes at pcbycp are “TRENCHANT”.

In the south, they’d start em younger. REWARD for TOIL!

‘What does trenchant mean’? You may ask. It means having a thought that’s terribly deep, bit like a trench. This is what our scribe from the near north does for us. He anchors us firmly inthe ground.  And the ground is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Cos it’s GROUNDED.  That’s why people get buried in the ground, (Unless youre buried at sea) as it’s about as profound a statement of “deadedness” you’ll find. You can’t be half-dead. Just as you can’t have a conflict of interest when you clearly do. That’s why  all the members of the Covid Committee bar one, can’t declare a conflict of interest. They’d rather not go there, cos to put their hand up would be a declaration of a trenchant failure in the system. But one outta six aint bad. What can we expect in these times? It’s more diversity of opinion than Witness K will ever get, and in the end it’ll arrive at the same place. And that is, to screw the taxpayer, and ensure that the latest disaster, will be converted into shareholder billions. Ultimately. For those corporations who cleverly pay no tax. 

But this is an aside. From Ira, comes this gem, which poses the question, what would happen to all the stately mansions built post occupation in the Western District? Could they be converted back to rubble in recognition, that the land, the wealth, and “respectability” was gained through the systematic extermination of a people?  Much closer to home, but worth a look.  Meanwhile, rather than worry about the technicalities they just blow the past away. It’s a cleansing thing. 

Ira writes; 

Manchester, when cotton was KING! There is WEALTH in HARD WORK!

Dear Letters,

With the Industrial Revolution, a whole new class of industrious folk arose in England. Cotton was king, grown in the American South by black slaves, and shipped to Manchester to be processed by white slaves.

In the past, the English aristocracy had measured their wealth by the acre. Now cash from cotton was threatening these certainties. This ill-gotten, arriviste money bought dilapidated stately homes and manor houses and rebuilt them.  Then, having rebuilt them, their new owners had the temerity not only to move in and hire servants,  but they also, god help us, set their sights on becoming that most odious of inventions, the English middle class.

Nowadays Iron Ore is KING! WEALTH for those who ” BUM-SNIFF”, (modern interpretation of wealth in Toil)

Now as I see it, in ‘outing’ the slavers, mere statues are much too small  to bother with.. English stately homes, stained with slavery, are a much more acceptable target. With a decent bulldozer, any  dedicated  BLM person, with a few moment’s practice could probably reduce most Van Brugh stately Rococo masterpieces to a heap of smoking rubble in a few days.And good riddance too, I say!

Those who “BUM-SNIFF” shall reap REWARD!

As for the English middle class themselves, there is little to be done. If Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab  and Michael Gove are held up as shining examples of the breed then surely and sadly, all is lost  already.

Hola,

From pages 63 and 64-latest draft of my attempt at a book:
†Lucy Napaljarri Kennedy was the first Yuendumu resident to be conferred the Order of Australia. That was in 1994.…..Years later, when I had a stay in Alice Springs Hospital, Lucy was down the corridor from where I was. She regularly complained screeching loudly in incomprehensible language. The nurses who treated her like the cantankerous demented old crone she’d become, had no idea that they were dealing with what had been a dignified lady who’d been honoured by the Queen…..

And then this on page 200:
In 2007 Andrew, Peggy and Johnny were awarded the Order of Australia Medal for their pioneering work on the Mt. Theo programme.
Peggy wasn’t too pleased when soon thereafter she was put on Income Management by the Intervention.

Many of you will know the story of the Mediterranean bridge builder:
“See that bridge over there? I built that. And see that other one over there? I also built that. I built many bridges, all over the land. So you think I’m known as Giovanni the Bridge Builder? No sir!
You have sex with one goat and what happens? Everybody calls me Giovanni the goat fucker”

Aretha Franklin’s 1971 version of Bridge over Troubled Waters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7pjMZdcaQI
Stick with this to the end…. The ‘yes I do- whoo’ at 5:24 makes it more than worth it….

The Honourable Bronwyn Kathleen BISHOP Newport NSW 2106 received Order of Australia honours for distinguished service to the Parliament of Australia, to the people of New South Wales, and to women in politics.
I don’t know if Bronwyn built any bridges, but everybody knows her for her $5,000 taxpayer funded helicopter joy ride.

The Honourable Tony ABBOTT NSW received Order of Australia honours for eminent service to the people and Parliament of Australia, particularly as Prime Minister, and through significant contributions to trade, border control, and to the Indigenous community.

You should have heard journalist Amy Mcguire on the ABC’s ‘The Drum’! She rattled off a list of Tony’s so called ‘contributions’ to the Indigenous community and came to the conclusion, with which I vehemently concur, that Tony did not deserve the honour and should give it back.

Tony most certainly did not build any bridges.  He’ll be remembered by everybody as Tony the onion biter.

Chau,
Franklin

PS- for your delectation Ronnie from Botswana- may he rest in peace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTvyHKBuUpQ

Plato’s Republic. Originally printed on mosaic. Each page weighed 14 tons. A weighty tome.

Sebastian Brandts tome.

Within the age of “corona-geddon” comes the realisation for those of us who are not necessarily winners, but aren’t entirely losers, that the world has been corrupted by neo liberalism.  And though politics has been taken over by the requirement for entertainment, and Boris and Donald stand as exemplars of their craft, we drift closer to the shoals, and the lighthouse keeper has done a bunk. Apparently, (this is astounding news) Plato, (Boris is the full bottle on ancient Latin) alluded to all of this in his book V1 of “The  Republic“. And then Sebastian Brant wrote his very own treatise, ” Ship of Fools”  which really got the Reformation going. Then some yank as recently as 2018 (Tucker Carlson) wrote his very own version of “Ship of Fools”, which took a red- hot go at the very luminaries we mentioned in rapture previously.

For SCOMO, the way out of this current crisis is to offer the tradies more cash via the home renovation initiative, (possibly up there with Franking Credits as the single most intelligent initiative of our time), and we look forward to his tome, “Ship of Tools”. There is a rumour about that the impressive leader of the Nationals, Michael McCormick is about to launch his Nation building treatise on waste water management, “Shit from Stools”, but it has been hijacked by Barnaby’s latest tome on meditation, “On  Stools I Shit”.

Barnaby, his very own fool, up ship creek sans paddle

But all of these are “Big READS”! Dull as dog-shit. And not one of the aforementioned will ever read them or take heed, cos they can’t be condensed into Dot-point or power-point. This is the problem with what’s left of western democracy.  For the leadership, (read Management-class and porn merchants) If it aint in Dot-point and cant be sent through to Lord Rupert of Murdoch and converted to FEAR, it’s effing USELESS!

That’s why we stand in unison to celebrate our very own scribe, St Ira of the near north for condensing it all and making some sense, which normal people, (read non-management class) can readily digest. Being digestible is what all good comprehension is about. That’s why we subscribe to the Ill-Read Digest.

Anyway, this is confabulation, so take it from from Ira, He writes……..

Dear Sir or Madam,

It is almost impossible for me to imagine the subconscious, almost permanent fear and anxiety a black person in white society must feel.

The View from Michael McCormacks boat

But there’s a catch here…Murdoch, Bolt and Jones do not, and have never, represented the downtrodden, the dispossessed, or the marginalised.They are and always were the equivalent of Hitler’s propaganda machine. They represent the ruthless face of neo-liberalism., or neo-capitalism, a system of exploitation encouraged by the Chicago School of Economics and hurried along by Reagan and Thatcher. ‘Greed is Good’ has held sway for fifty years and has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, a wholly unprepared neo liberalism which has killed thousands of people over the last three months.

Ira fishing, before Barnaby and Michael rooted the Murray Darling.

Because we’d never heard of NEV. NEV is POWER PERSONIFIED. He deserves an AWARD!

Queens Birthday. Confused and conflicted?

The simple proposition is, in these times of pandemically induced crisis, WHO AINT? 

We in the editorial department of pcbycp have huge issues just coming to terms with the significance of HUGE ISSUES

No Kidding. This is a POWER-LOOK!

We were going to devote this entire installment to the very important nation-building work being done by the Covid 19 Commission. Those luminaries gathered by SCOMO to provide light at the end of the tunnel. To ensure that from this disaster comes disaster capitalism. (some uncharitable folk have referred to is as ‘Vulture capitalism’). To ensure that massive disruption and unemployment may deliver rivers of gold to select companies. Companies who can find profit from misery. Leading the group, (like Mr Tracey from Thunderbirds) is Nev. Not an ordinary Nev, not even a nifty Nev, but ‘NEV POWER’. 

Nev is  a man of our time. Come to save us. Nev has the power. No one could be more powerful than Nev. No one could be the personification of all consuming un- elected power than Nev. And what does Nev represent? He represents the only power we have in this country. 

This is the POWER LOOK

Not the power of imagination. WE HATE Imagination!!

Not the power of Science.  Our government looks as kindly towards science as Superman did to Kryptonite!

Nor the power of popular appeal, galvanising story telling, and national buidling deeds of inclusive vision which shall capture the collective hearts and minds!

New either learnt the POWER- LOOK from Donald or Mr Tracy!

Nup, Nev represents mining. He worked with Twiggy for years and years. 

Nev knows all about diggin up shit.

He aint interested in science, renewables, or imagination. He’s fucking interested in digging up shit. Nev’s task is to find a way to make his mates rich from ‘Corona- geddon’ via the taxpayer. Nevs plan is Romanov in its breadth and depth.  His vision, to create mega gas pipelines, and hook us all up to big gas projects. And we the taxpayer, can pay for all the infrastructure.  Nev and his mates, like his mates from Transurban, Exxon, and Amazon, can take what they like and laugh all the way to an offshore bank. It’s rent- seeking on a national scale. They’ll be lauded as fucking heroes for saving us from ‘Corona-geddon’. 

Mr Tracey and his team of Thunderbirds saved the world!

Onya NEV!. 

A solution to our current problems with more of the same ol. Cos we hate smart arses, and do- gooders. And while we’re at it we’ll devote a few hundred million to making home owners via the renovator subsidy richer still. That’s code for;  ‘stuff the renters, they don’t vote for us anyway’. 

Tone and Bronny also saved us. That’s why they won an AWARD!

Funny thing, Nev is a bit of witness K.  It’s pretty hard finding what Nev really stands for. Apparently some lefty shit-stirrer has suggested that running a big government response group and still being involved with mining interests is a bit of a conflict of interest. WE say;  “GO GET Witness K’d”. Nev knows what’s good for us, and we needn’t know anything else about him, cos he is a noble private individual. 

Which gets us back to the Queens Birthday honours. No such anonymity for two well deserved recipients, Bronny and Tone. No need to even supply a surname.  Both are paragons of the utilisation of public office for self advancement.  Australians who make us proud. 

If only more of us could be like them, and ensure that the bounty of this wide land is diverted from us by the likes of Nev. To keep us safe. Keep us fearful. Keep us small.  And in our place.

Rolf earnt one also!

God Save the Queen. And a free prize to the first who can answer this simple qustion. Though we understand honours are awarded on merit, and leadership… does it help if you’re a mate of Nev’s?

Buenos dίas compañeros,

My attempt at writing a book is titled ‘Resilience- My Yuendumu Story’. It is in the late stages of gestation and I keep my fingers crossed it won’t be stillborn.

Herewith a vignette from the hopefully final draft:

A young man, having just returned from Yuendumu Police Station told Wendy dejectedly that he’d failed to get his car registered. The reason his application had been rejected was that he had unpaid fines. He’d been fined for driving an unregistered vehicle. He didn’t have enough money to pay for both his unpaid fines and the car registration.
“I hate the police...” said the young man to Wendy. Then a pause and in quick succession:
“I hate Centrelink, I hate the Government, I hate the Land Council ”.
I expect the young man would soon thereafter be again fined… for driving an unregistered vehicle. He may even go to jail for unpaid fines.

Pending legal advice I’m claiming the tome to be a work of fiction and any similarities to real people and events to be purely coincidental!

From George Orwell’s 1984:
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth”
Echoed by Lucky Dube:
When lies becomes truth- The future becomes the past. No truth in this world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NM7W0Y_9Kc

You all know that old adage: “A picture is worth a thousand words”
So true! This one from Chips Mackinolty is worth one thousand and four words:

Adiós,

Franklin

Ira studying, an ardent ornithologist

Dear reader, in these conflicted times its always reassuring to know that our sage from the near north-east is hard at it. Whilst we weep for Donald’s devotion to the bible and justice, he is selflessly out in the field observing to his hearts delight the wonders of bird life. And from this observation comes a keen assessment of language and human character. Just a the Lyrebird is known to mimic the cockatoo, the sawmill, the chainsaw and the sound of African Americans being asphyxiated, so our birdo from the bush offers us another teling insight into what makes us tick. 

Due to bushfires and feral cats, this is the only image of a lyrebird we could find

We would have included a sound recording of his bird calls but due to an Covid 19 oversight, his tape recorder and 78 rpm Garrard Radiogram has been seized due to the collapse of funding for those in the cultural sector. We are heartened though to know that the funds that would have been directed to him have been sequestered to the Australian Ballet and Opera, so that high arts can flourish in this season of austerity. 

Now it’s onto Ira, 

Ladies and gentlemen,

Certain birds are noted for their capacity to perch. Notable amongst these, and it is especially noticeable in Europe, are the swallow, thrush, blackbird, redwing, ring ouzel and field fare.. The Latin has it that these are ‘passerine’ birds, ‘passer’  meaning ‘to perch’. This seems to suggest, rather amusingly that birds given (perhaps) to congregating at the margin of things, as in ocean, roadway or meadow, might be referred to as ‘margarine” birds, and might easily lead those lacking the aforementioned Latin, into grave error. What on earth can one do? the poor, sadly, are always with us.

King CNUT, an anagram the significance of which escapes us.

Cnut’s last stand.

However, to return to my main theme.

It is unfortunately the case that the above mentioned selection of birds has earned  itself an unenviable generalized description. You see, in former times, when all the world was young and Julius and Hadrian variously had Europe in thrall, the Latin language held sway in matters of importance. These very words, the words you are reading now have developed from a dog’s breakfast of Latin, Viking, Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, with assorted side dishes of Gaelic, Breton and Spanish. This  means that when yesterday’s language falters in the face of an entirely new one, the very meaning of words themselves change as the centuries drift by.

Lays of Ancient Rome

Which brings me back to our collection of birds.

Two Roman farmers  having a break. One of them suddenly raises his head.

‘Jayziz, Agricola, did ya see that?…’

Roman Farmers

‘Woh? whoh are you lookin’ at?

‘There, look… a couple of fine turds flying through the air. A grand sight altogether…’

‘ Jayziz, Claudius, I see them now meself. Tell me, are they good eatin?’…’

‘What? Only the best thing a man could have for his dinner, and no mistake.’

Polly Farmer

The thrush  belongs to the family ‘Turdidae’ and the genus was known as ‘Turdus’ in Latin (The Latin word for pooh was ‘faeces’) .Our ‘turd’ came out of the dung beetle or ‘Tord-weevil’ in Medieval Dutch. In the eighteenth century , having the form or appearance of a thrush became (hilariously). ‘turdiform’, or ‘turdine’ and in Ireland (I cannot resist this) the modern interest in Eastern mysticism  and particularly the business of the third eye, created…….. ‘turdoid’!

KA BOOM!

The FORCE is with Donald

Watching events in America. 

What’s happening in the U.S is shocking. We at pcbycp daren’t turn on the telly for fear of seeing another shocking event. Happening right before our very eyes!!! Scenes of such brutality and injustice it shakes our very notion of a civilised society to the CORE! And in spite of the injustice, the rioting, the looting, Donald Trump is doing his very best impersonation of Louis XV1th or perhaps Caecescu before it all turned to shite,   and says he just will not tolerate “wapscalliaons, wascals and scally wags diswupting the peace”. He says, (we paraphrase) “you malcontents better watch out, we’ll crush you and any soft-cock governor who doesn’t go hard (no pun intended) will be humiliated by being called  a “Socialist”.. and a “Terrorist”!

George Floyd

And that dear reader is a sign of real leadership. Telling the people what to do in this moment of crisis. From a Bunker, underground. Donald knows about African America. Because he undrestands them he will stand in front of a church and hold a BIBLE. In the U.S…THAT’S LEADERSHIP!

He even has some (African Americans) as friends. Well not as many since Bill Cosby got done, but still, more friends of African American extraction than Rolf Harris has friends in the music industry. When Donald talks of terrorism, he’s making a big claim.  But we support him. Terrosrism is anything that’s not with Donald.  We hear you DON. 

Pink Floyd (no relation)

WE in Australia are so shocked a thing like this would ever happen here. We assure ourselves that we are above this systemic racism. Good thing then we kill aboriginal Australians in police cells, in divvy vans, in remote places, in isolation, in suburbia, in front of the telly and in neglect and sufferance for their own good. For the heinous crimes of unpaid parking fines and jay walking we ensure that their incarceraton will be for their own good. And that’s great news for the taxpayers. And, when confronted with a complex, long standing, intelligent and  ancient culture we dont understand, our first option is to BLOW IT UP.  To keep us safe from DANGEROUS IDEAS

We also, perhaps are more intuitively in touch than our American cousins in support of the rule of law. 

To prove it we’ve been attending day one of the Witness K Trial. 

Witness K, Do you remember him? He’s the bloke that allegedly broke state secrets for exposing Woodside Petroleums barstardry, and Alexander Downer’s bastardry, in corruption, screwing and nailing to the wall any fair negotiation with East Timor. Witness K will go down, for reasons we are not allowed to know in  the interests of National Security. All we know is that we bugged their embassy, intimidated their officials and shafted them good and proper. Real industrial strength espionage. 007 would be proud! We did it to a close friend, the same one we ignored for thirty years. But what we did was NOT terrorism, it was Good Governance under the rule of International LAW!

“Use the FORCE Donald”

This thing in the US is different. Seems African Americans  still don’t understand their place in society.

Witness K Does. 

Heres’ a transcript of his defense, ………………..(deleted by Government censor)

Here’s a transcript of the Crowns case, .. “For dobbing in Alexander Downer, his mates, and standing up for a weak, defenceless little country who looked ot us as a friend, we should throw away the key’. 

Here’s Witness K’s testimony………………………(deleted by Government censor)

Here’s the Crowns first witness……”Hang Him”  (A. Downer) 

Here’s witness K’s plea to the judge…”Have you ever heard of Habeus’……(deleted by Government censor)

May the FORCE be with you Donald

Here’s the Crowns determination………”We hereby submit that Witness K be done like Julian Syringe, and any other silly bastard stupid enough to believe in the rule of Law’. 

Only known image of Witness K

Here’s the defences plea,, “Anyone for tennis?. 

Good afternoon,

The British Royal Family, were doing one of their periodic Australian showing the flag exercises. Yuendumu’s Superintendent received a letter on Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) letterhead marked ‘Highly Confidential’ and advising him that a Royal Visit to Yuendumu was being contemplated. The Superintendent was commanded to carry out an urgent and thorough clean up of Yuendumu just in case the visit happened. The letter further instructed him that if he needed help he should ask for it under the code words “Send Coronets”. The task was impossible within the time frame provided. DAA had a radio shed in Yuendumu which as well as communication via the Alice Springs basedRoyal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) short wave radio network, was used for a daily radio sched with the DAA Alice Springs office. 

The frantic Superintendent got onto the DAA office on the radio and pleaded with them to “Send Coronets!” “Send Coronets!” No one at the DAA office had a clue what he was talking about. After several days of multiple requests for Coronets, the DAA mob wondered if he had lost his marbles. They sent out an official to ascertain what was happening. No Royal visit materialised.
The letter had been typed by the manager of the Yuendumu Social Club store.

A coronet is a small crown half way between a tiara and a crown. I’m not aware of anyone ever having worn one in Yuendumu.

The word ‘corona’ derives from Latin and in Spanish means ‘crown’. Typical of our times that the latest evocatively named Corona Virus has been renamed COVID-19 under the lame excuse that we might confuse it with other corona viruses. So are we going to change U.S.A. into U.S.N.A. lest it be confused with the United States of Venezuela (Estados Unidos de Venezuela as that country was known until 1953)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2cFN2iC9u8

So what can we learn from the Corona Virus Pandemic?
An invisible (to the naked eye) organism has disrupted the best laid plans of mice and men.
Our conservative government which was hell bent on achieving a budget surplus and wouldn’t contemplate increasing the highly inadequate social safety net payments suddenly could ‘find’ billions aimed at re-starting the‘post-Corona’ economy.

A government intent at continuing its death by a thousand cuts destruction of the Trade Union movement suddenly buried the hatchet.

One hardly hears of millions, it is all billions now. All targeted at getting back to “normal”. The “normal” of the Global Economy with its imperative of perpetual economic growth in a finite planet. An economy spreading like a virus.

Surely we need to pause and think about what was happening and what should happen in future. Surely we need to perceive the nakedness of the Emperor?

Take those hybrids of Tokyo’s Capsule (coffin) Hotels and Balinese luxury resorts, those cruise ships. Is it really a good idea of having hundreds of such plying the world’s oceans like so many Vliegende Hollander (Flying Dutchman)s? Isn’t something amiss when as I’m told, in Australia it costs less to stay on a cruise ship than it is to stay at an old folk’s home? Is it really a good idea to allow ships flying flags of convenience to land at our ports? Ships that hire crew at cheap labour rates and pay no income tax. Companies that declare their profits in tax havens.

Shouldn’t we expand our policy of stopping the boats to include these incubation vessels?

Undoubtedly many of you have thoroughly enjoyed stopping over at some exotic places and descending like a swarm of locusts on some hapless sycophantic communities and pumping some of your retirement money into local economies which have become thoroughly addicted to the tourist dollar. You may even have enjoyed the odd game of croquet, mini golf or shuffleboard or had a flutter on a roulette wheel on board. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly squeaky clean when it comes to a carbon footprint. By the age of twelve I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean four times. We had to cross the Indian Ocean to arrive in Australia as part of the post war wave of boat people. To take part in the search for hydrocarbons for a year in Canada we crossed the Pacific Ocean twice and covered at least 15,000 km by road to catch our boat in Panama. As a family we went to Europe for a couple of months. I flew to an International Rangeland Congress in Argentina and we went to a wedding in Kerala. Once a year we drive 5,000 km to visit friends and gaze upon the Southern Ocean for a couple of weeks.

No, I’m not having a go at you-all. All I’m saying is that we should all pause and ponder the fact that in some of the worst polluted cities on our planet, there is a whole generation of fellow human beings who are experiencing clean breathable air for the first time in their lives. The next time we who are fortunate enough to live in democracies should consider voting for those who intend to do something about climate change. Those who think Greta Thunberg is a canary down the coal mine rather than disparage her as a spoiled brat. Rather than vote for those who want to safeguard our negative gearing and to continue on this crazy headlong race to the cliff.

Anyway, am sure your eyes are glazing over so let me turn closer to home:
I can summarise the situation in the Northern Territory in one sentence-
“Pubs have re-opened, book shops and libraries not yet”

As for Yuendumu:
At Yuendumu school, trees on the periphery of the school yard have been viciously pruned. Children were using these trees to climb over our recently installed school fence, a mini-version of Donald Trump’s Mexican “wall”.
Our Art Centre remains closed and so is our Centrelink office. The swimming pool also closed because of the Corona Virus and with the arrival of the cold weather will not reopen until next year. Our Police Station remained open and the Alice Springs jail has remained closed, but the monthly two to three day Yuendumu court sessions have been deferred.

Something to look forward to in the post-Corona world- extended catch-up court sessions.

History has turned the page- ah ha….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS3O5zg290k

And the beat goes on… la-dee-da-dee-da!

Saludos,

Frank

This is what civilisation is. Sacred, and Periclean, and Noble. The Turks didn’t like it,  so they blew it up.

If it aint civilised……Blow it up

We at pcbycp are so sick of culture wars.  That’s the great thing about ‘Corona-geddon’. It makes us appreciate the bounty of being ‘Civilised’. We know from our excellent secondary education that ‘Civilisation’ is roughly several thousand years old. We at pcbycp date civilisation to the time, when there was enough wealth and security generated by agribusinesses to establish a slave class. Today that tradition continues with renters and anyone else who cannot get onto the ‘ladder of opportunity’. “Before civilisation” is a period as long ago as five thousand years. Older than the pyramids.  To civilised people, anything older is just shit. If you ask Donald and Boris it’s the western civilisation that counts. That’s why they like Ramsay Centres and know how to close down institutions that do stupid shit like save lives. Lives of poor people. ‘Corona-geddon’ has sorted that out. Civilisation at work.

Boris knows Latin. ie; Good Governance and Civilised Values

And Boris should know cos he knows how to strue. “STRUE”? you say. Yes “Strue”. “Con- strue”. Boris likes to talk about how he learnt Latin at school. He’s telling those who don’t know Latin that’s he’s fucken EDUCATED! So when he kills thousands by doing fuck-all about Corona-geddon, you can’t question him cos he’s a full bottle educated toff. We learnt a bit of Latin too. For those who don’t know what a “Finno-Whack is” it’s being taught Latin with the sharp end of the ruler, by an old pederast, who wore academic gowns, who walked up a down the grim scruffy aisles and asked, faster than  a onager would hurl a boulder on a four b tower, (for the uninitiated a four be two-er refers to the  Israelite defence of Masada in ad 70) to  construe “to love”. And then in an exctasy of awkwardness,  would follow, “ amo amas, amat  amamas’…., (where’s Boris when you need him?)  etc….etc.. until breathless and anticipating the whack, the construe- ing would be completed. Then, onto another slab of Virgil. Not the bloke who flew Thunderbird One, but some Roman tosser who banged on about poetry and that, during the so- called Republic. Anyway, it was civilised cos it was old and European, and used Latin.

THIS is not a Great Piece of Civilisation. No Doric Columns, no portico, just scrub and rock. FAIL

That’s why  Brumbys are vital to the high country.  They’re a transplanted European tradition. Bit like rabbits, foxes and any other feral animal, cept they’re NOBLE. They’ve been in the  high country for as long as over 120 years. Some of them could be related to the one what Banjo wrote about. Some could’ve been related to horses that died gloriously in Mesopotamia way back in 1917. Get it?  Died for ANZAC! Our nationhood was born there. In noble sacrifice so that franking credits should be a sacred right for the financially secure.  So that blokes wearing dryza bones can identify with a GLORIOUS past.  And be Real men. Light horse- men. And enjoy dressing up as Cultural Fucking HEROES!. Not poofy stuff like dancing around with didgeridoos. But the flag, Gallipoli and decent God-fearing blokes who wouldn’t shag a shielah if it were his sister. ( Tasmanians exempted).

The point is anything different from what the  Roman’s and Greeks did, anything that’s not steeped in Western civilisation ain’t really civilisation. 

Abo Art that can’t be converted, carried or transported is WORTHLESS! Ipso Facto (Latin Term) : Not Civilised. Good thing then it was blown up!

You see its relative. if you’ve had a good education, (In Australia, read that as Expensive) you know a lot about  culture.  There’s ballet, which gets shitloads of funding from what’s left of the Australian Council.  There’s Opera what rich counts (royalty love ballet and Opera)  go to and other rich counts get tax write offs through philanthropy.  And  there’s low culture.  Occasionally Low and high culture get mixed up. It’s a bit like anything Andrew Lloyd Webber did or whether you barrack for Melbourne or Footscray.  That’s the shit that poor people like, and as a consequence you wouldn’t touch it with an auctioneers paddle.  In a sense it’s all art. High Art and Low art. What people pay for art determines whether its high art. If it cant be bought it aint worth Nuffink.

Which brings us to the vexed question of about what’s colloquially referred to as ‘Abo-art’. There is a distinction. If it’s transportable, to be hung on a wall, or even a spear, a woomera or a shield it might be worth something. But if it’s something that’s a chunk of rock out the other side of buggery, it’s worthless. Even the pyramids, the highest and most enduring (or Stonehenge ) are worth something to the tourist market. But ‘abo-art’ out whoop whoop is shit.  Worse than shit if it sits amongst a shit- load of iron ore. 

Iron ore is worth heaps, worth more than anything the Abos may have done 45000 years ago. 

Its a no brainer really. Cant see what all the fuss is about.

45, 000 years ago, is immaterial. And besides,  God created the world  six thousand years ago.  We read it on the creationists web site. Someone is having us on.

And besides it’s black-fella art, and in this country they’re lucky we just blow up their cultural artefacts. In the U.S they’d just be killed for jogging down the street. 

One day this building will stand as a testament to a MIGHTY CIVILISATION!

That’s why they call us “ The Lucky Country”. 

Trouble is, some bastards just don’t know how lucky they are.