This Dispatch was originally distributed 20 January 2013. The post has been edited.
Amicos romanos popularium commoda mihi auribus vestris,
Like the owner of Pangur Bán the cat, (google it sometime, you won’t be disappointed) I love words. (Ed note: See tomorrow’s PCBYCP Poetry Sunday for this poem)
The antonym of ‘benign’ is ‘malignant’ (from the Latin: Mali bad).
‘Malignant’ succinctly describes the 2007 NT Emergency Response that in short order became known as the ‘Intervention’.
The Intervention has rapidly metastasized.
The body of remote Aboriginal society has been invaded by numerous rapidly spreading cancerous growths which its cultural immune system is being overwhelmed by.
‘Closing the Gap’, ‘Generation One’, ‘FaFT’ (Families as First Teachers), ‘Stronger Futures’, ‘PAP’(Public Awareness Program), ‘READ’(Read every available day), ‘Every Child, Every Day action plan’ to mention just a few.
A much prescribed range of medicines come under the heading ‘Law and Order’. The most often prescribed of this range is increased policing. The Territorial and Federal Pharmacists have not yet realized that these medicines are highly ‘incarceragenic’ and should be withdrawn, or at the very least the dosages should be much reduced.
….don’t you send me no doctor, filling me up with all of those pills…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IfEx6p4Ces
Near the end of the 18th.Century (14th.Dec.1799) George Washington died after having been bled the previous day. Bloodletting as a cure retained some adherents as late as the 20th.Century.
The Intervention has reintroduced bloodletting to its ‘client’ (Aboriginal Australia). It also makes copious use of leeches.
Medical practitioners pay very high insurance premiums to cover themselves against being sued for malpractice (there it is again the ‘mal’ Latin root) and misdiagnosis which on very rare occasions they are found guilty of.
Malpractice and misdiagnosis however are inherent in the Intervention and its plethora of derivatives. Their bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. Misdiagnosis comes as no surprise, whenever the ‘client’ says ‘pillars’ they hear ‘pillows’.
From the ‘Singing Detective’… this clip says it all….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDOe7Npinl4
The Interventionists are answerable to no one but themselves.
The assimilationists are mining the cultural pillows of Aboriginal Australia whose society is in danger of collapsing.
The strength and potency of Aboriginal anti-bodies is evidenced by the fact that despite the sustained multi-pronged attack not all of remote Aboriginal society’s structures have caved in.
Took my body to the doctor
He said son you won’t last the night
Took my body back to mamma
She said Jesus going to make it all right
Always thought of myself as a hunter
Lion out on the night
But I turned all my weapons in to mamma
She said Jesus going to make it all right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi8Dau0l4Vs
Usque ad proximam tempus
Franciscus
PS- an omen… the Intervention’s first Surgeon General was called Mal.