Power without Glory. Which one?

Dear reader I should apologise in advance for this grotesquerie of political observation, this malapropism of pan-grand strategy, this corruption of common metaphorical usage. But recently, post brexit I’ve had it up to my armpits with allusions made to the inglorious endeavors of the Third Reich. In modern times, (no hint of irony here) every second tier, presumptive popinjay is now either coded hitlerian, hitler-ish or just plan old Adolphian . This gross and overt simplification of history must cease.

A funny read about a modern world mired in the past… more or less. But learning nothing.

Rupert! I hold you personally responsible!!

Though you have a capacity for distortion that would make Herr Goebell’s blush, the fact that you and your ilk are so happy to refer to Hitlerism’s just proves one thing. We’re all hypocrites! As in ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, we are prisoners to cherished notions of a past reinterpreted to stupidity. Bereft of meaning, written in stone, and a new post war biblical certainty, that incarcerates us all. Imagination, soul and humanity cheapened to two word slogans so that we must repeat the dreadful mistakes of the past. History is now the unreformed alcoholic, who shambolically resolves to go on the wagon, and yet drinks to oblivion.

Do we have a capacity for learning, I don’t think so. So I’ll pick up where Rupert left off.

Carving up Iraq? Rumsfeld, Bush, Petraeus, and some other dumb knob-head. (apologies the editor has been sacked and we had to take on a work experience student as part of our jobs and growth strategy)

George, Tony and John getting awards for being incredibly stupid. Proof. Stupidity and greed pays. (unless you’re an Iraqi, or Afghani, or Syrian, etc. etc..)

The Chilcott Report, though reserved, and reputedly over two  million words long, and weighing in at a comfortable three hundred thousand human souls, gives us chapter and verse how we choose to learn nothing. Of how an oligarchy of insecure, nationalistic, reactionary nutters, decided they’d do over a government. Invade it. Incarcerate it. And leave it’s people as a refuse to be swept and whipped at their will. At the heart of it was a contempt for the governance, the culture, the language, and the social structures that kept a nation state together. Imperfect, but no less imperfect than our own. And once having fucked it over, walked away, and established quite cleverly the next hundred years war. A victory of hubris, dumb ignorance and an eternal glorification for the industrial military complex. And when the dust settled, Chilcott, suggests, we washed our hands of the consequences. By Jingo we won!  And medals duly distributed for those who legitimised the greed-ripened theft.

Should these be war crimes? Most certainly. For John, George and Tony. They’re guilty.

Carving up Poland. Same dumb greed. Same nationalistic bullshit.

Look what Germany did to Poland in 39. Was that any different? Invasion of a sovereign state, trumped up reasons for doing so. A real desire to gain lebensraum, and assets. A contempt for the people, language, culture. And after the Russians had knocked off the intelligentsia, doing the same to what was left over. No difference really. Ribbentrop was executed at Nuremberg. Not a clever diplomat by all accounts, brittle and insecure, with a Rumsfeld-ean, sense of self belief. (Cowards make the worst despots).

Invasion allowed the Gauleiters free rein to deport the assets, liquidate the stirrers and enslave the general populace. It is no different. Funny thing though, this reminds me of our treatment of the first Australians .

Carving up Poland. Please note, the uniforms here were generously donated to us by the Rt Hon Christopher Pyne. M.P (from his personal collection)

Sorry, that’s incorrect. The first Australians were ‘settled’. Some of them ‘lost their lives’ in ‘settlement’. And though we don’t have a treaty or such to demonstrate our settlement nor respect for the people we liquidated and conquered, they’re allegedly being cared for. Sounds like General Petraeus, (Allied Marshall of Baghdad), or Greiser (Gauleiter of Poland). Any difference?

Of course there is. John Howard is the only leader to invade Iraq, and then invade his own country with the intervention. With a record like that Ribbentrop would be envious. Still the message of history is simple. We won! Truth belongs to the victors. And besides, there never was a war in Australia. It was ‘settled’. And, to coin a phrase ‘that’s settled that’ . And if your confused, go ask John Howard. If asked, he’d “do it again”.

That’s progress.

Onya Rupert!

‘Saw it in the Papers’,  a poem by Adrian Mitchell.

I will not say her name
Because I believe she hates her name.

But there was once a woman who lived in Yorkshire

Her baby was two years old.
She left him, strapped in his pram, in the kitchen. She went out.
She stayed with friends.
She went out drinking.

The baby was hungry. Nobody came.
The baby cried. Nobody came.

The baby tore at the upholstery of his pram. Nobody came.

Nobody came.
The baby died of hunger.

She said she’d arranged for a girl, Whose name she couldn’t remember, To come and look after the baby While she stayed with her friends. Nobody saw the girl.
Nobody came.

Her lawyer said there was no evidence of mental instability.
But the man who promised to marry her Went off with another woman.

And when he went off, this mother changed
from a mother who cared for her two-year-old baby into a mother who did not seem to care at all. There was no evidence of mental instability.

The Welfare Department spokesman said: ‘I do not know of any plans for an inquiry. We never became deeply involved.’

Nobody came.
There was no evidence of mental instability. When she was given love
She gave love freely to her baby.
When love was torn away from her
she locked her love away.
It seemed that no one cared for her.
She seemed to stop caring.
Nobody came.
There was no evidence of mental instability.

Only love can unlock locked-up-love.

Manslaughter: She pleaded Guilty. She was sentenced to be locked up In prison for four years.

Is there any love in prisons?
She must have been in great pain.

Now she is locked up There is love in prisons, But it is all locked up.

What she did to him was terrible.
There was no evidence of mental instability. What we are doing to her is terrible.
There is no evidence of mental instability.

Millions of children starve, but not in England. What we do not do for them is terrible.

Is England’s love locked up in England? There is no evidence of mental instability.

Only love can unlock locked-up-love.

When I read about it in the papers I cried.
When my friend read about it in the papers he cried. We shared our tears.
They did not help her at all.

She has been locked up
For locking up her love.
There is no evidence of mental instability.

Comments by Ira Maine esq. Poetry Editor

In the majority of cases, partnered or not, young women cope very well with being pregnant and having babies. Contrary to popular opinion, these pregnancies are not spontaneous. Neither are they produced by magic or witchcraft. They are produced in reality by that force of Nature which simply demands the race continue. To achieve this end, the mechanism involved in the getting of babies has been made so pleasurable, so irresistible that it is amazing that we have managed to keep its practice off the streets and out sight.   Roger McGough, in one of his poems, imagines, in an ideal world, a bus load of commuters, in the warm confines of a Liverpool double-decker bus, indulging in group sex on the way home from work!.

Because they are theoretically capable of having a child at any time from puberty onwards, Nature of necessity appears to endow young girls with a much higher level of maturity than that allotted to boys of the same age. Nature also prepares women for the time immediately following the birth by providing other, additional, more subtle mechanisms which help the new mother to love, succour and nourish the new child. All of this involves an astonishing level of chemical juggling, particularly as the child grows in the womb. The mother’s body must provide every single essential ingredient both for herself and, in absolutely different mixtures and quantities, for the growing foetus. The body’s chemical producing factories go into non-stop, need-driven hyperdrive. This is, as we know, an everyday occurrence, one we almost take for granted. It is no less miraculous for that.

When the child is finally born, it takes quite a while for the physical and psychological effects of this chemical maelstrom to subside. Some women are changed utterly by it, others hardly affected at all. If there is such a place as ‘normal’, most girls after the birth eventually find their way there. It may take months or even years, but they get there. Sadly, some girls never get there at all.

When a man kills his own children and then kills himself he is either mad, or so mad with jealousy or rejection that he wants an ultimate, shocking revenge. This killing, this unspeakable act is designed to break the heart of the woman involved. Deliberately killing the kids in order to destroy the mother is entirely sadistic. Horrifyingly, it is how the murderer demonstrates his power.The killer’s final act of taking his own life must never be read as an act of remorse.  By removing himself from the world, the killer demonstrates his absolute ability to completely avoid the consequences of his crimes.

The truth of all this, as we all know, is much more prosaic. What has happened here is nothing more than an act of contemptible cowardice which will affect the lives of those around the killing for years. I find this type of bastardry almost impossible to forgive.

Women on the other hand, abandon their kids in supermarkets, drive them into rivers and drown them or, as in Adrian Mitchell’s case, simply leave them at home to starve whilst they go off on holiday. In my view there is not the slightest suggestion of sadism in this. I cannot in my wildest imagination, think that any woman, in her right mind, would kill her own kids. But there again, and if we consider again the post birth chemical cataclysm that so effects some women, it must be seen that some of those women, for years, are not in their right minds at all.

‘…There was no evidence of mental instability…’

Add to this the appalled sense of abandonment, the loneliness, the loss when the new father walks out and leaves the mother with the sole responsibility for  the kids. Half the time the mother is not much more than a kid herself. And all of those demented chemicals are still churning away inside her. She’s now required to feed, wash and clothe the kids, keep the place warm, pay the rent and everything else involved. One day she wakes up, out of her mind, with a level of responsibility that’s simply too much to bear. Sections of her mind simply close down. The worry, the torment, the tedium gradually slip away… unbearable relief floods in… She can do what she likes… Off she goes, happy as Larry and mad as a Hatter, out into the day…and never comes back…

Or…she busies herself making sure the kids are safely buckled up in the back seat of the car, fussing over them, checking and rechecking before taking off, driving the car into a lake and drowning them all.

“…there was no evidence of mental instability…’

Women do awful, irrational and grotesque things in the years after childbirth. We should forgive them, again and again and again. They are not generally into revenge, or sadism or the pursuit of power. They are, 99.9% of the time, simply out of their minds and cannot be held responsible for their actions. Perhaps, one day all laws applying to women will be written by women. Perhaps women should sit down  and draft a wholly new set of laws for themselves and tell the men to simply butt out.

After all, absolutely all of the laws regarding women have been written by men. Women have been ‘unclean’, ‘unchaste’ and ‘unholy’. They have been ‘witches’, ‘agents of the devil’, ‘scarlet women’ and shameless ‘temptresses’. They have been burned and drowned and tortured. And they have, since time began, been beaten up, raped and murdered.

I reckon it is time things changed.

Another election has passed without recognition that we white Australians live on the proceeds of monstrous crimes, those of theft, murder, genocide.  The wanton disrespect for the oldest culture in the world is palpable.

Today’s dispatch is  Oxymorons.  Originally dispatched on 16 November 2014

Γεια σας και πάλι φίλοι μου,
That 21^st Century Oracle ‘Wikipedia’ tells me that ‘Oxymoron’ is derived from the 5th century Latin oxymoron, which is derived from the Ancient Greek: ὀξύς oxus“sharp, keen” and μωρός mōros “dull, stupid”, making the word itself an oxymoron. The Oracle also tells me that “modern usage has brought a common misunderstanding that ’oxymoron’ is nearly synonymous with ‘contradiction’.”

Of this I plead guilty. It is the ‘moron’ bit that makes my sense of irony find ‘oxymoron’ a useful and appealing word even if laboring under a common misunderstanding.

For over a decade the Howard Government undermined Land Rights and Reconciliation. Around 2006 then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Mal Brough made claims that paedophile rings were operating on Aboriginal communities as part of, in hindsight, an orchestrated campaign of stereotyping and stigmatizing Aboriginal communities (and Aboriginal men in particular). In 2007 in a desperate bid for re-election the campaign climaxed in the announcement of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER or Intervention)

The NTER included a significant effort by the Federal Police (from memory several years with an expenditure exceeding $30Million) acting with extraordinary powers under the Crimes Act 1914. The Act inter alia forbids people questioned to reveal that they have been or will be questioned and to mention what they have been questioned about and should they so reveal, they risk years of incarceration. Despite this massive effort no more paedophile rings were discovered than there were WMDs found in Iraq. A straw giant.

When John Howard lost the election and when Kevin Rudd made that famous Sorry speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKWfiFp24rA

we all thought that we’d arrived at a Bran Nu Dae…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiShXMojKfY

The speech in hindsight was a political stunt. Its main purpose, it now seems, was to show up John Howard who had wedged himself into refusing to say sorry.

Mal Brough’s baton was handed to Jenny Macklin who proceeded to take ownership of the Intervention and to further tighten its grip on Remote Aboriginal Australia.

Her chutzpah knew no bounds and is epitomized by her using the Aboriginal Benefits Account (a money tree nurtured by royalty equivalents derived from mining on Aboriginal land) as a personal slush fund to further her agenda, such as building a community stores empire (Government owned Outback Stores) and (wait for it!) paying rents to Traditional Owners for compulsory acquired leases.

During the campaign for the election that saw the end of Jenny Macklin’s Protectorate of Aborigines, Tony Abbott pledged that if he won he would become the Prime Minister  for Indigenous Affairs.

The first Abbott/Hockey Budget saw half a billion dollars cut from the funding of Aboriginal Affairs. Most of the cuts will have very little effect on places like Yuendumu.

The Warlpiri word Waralypa means rain that doesn’t reach the earth. Consulting the oracle I find:
“In meteorology, virga is an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates or sublimes before reaching the ground.”

Thus is funding and that capitalist myth the “trickledown effect” (which is right up there with  “level playing field”) 

I want to know…Have you ever seen the rain?…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEY8clFcm2E

Yesterday we had our first decent shower of rain in Yuendumu for quite a while.

Tu pelo tiene el aroma de la lluvia sobre la tierra…(your hair has the aroma of rain on the earth)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E3gvCTC2EQ

It isn’t  all doom and gloom in Yuendumu. The much maligned (by me) Centrelink at Yuendumu (you know, the $2M plus building that arrived on the back of 5 trucks all the way from Bendigo?) is now run and fully staffed by Yuendumu locals. The little flame of self-determination flickers on.
….Long as I can see the light….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1809vqz3zA

Last July, our self styled Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs delivered a speech at The Australian/Melbourne Institute. The speech included the unsettling premise that:

“I guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British government in the then unsettled or, um, scarcely settled, Great South Land,”

The Adam Giles (Northern Territory) Government is very keen on empowering itself. The $7.6M police complex being built at Yuendumu (not to mention the half a billiondollars  third prison , which in fairness to Adam Giles precedes his tenure) being but one facet of this.

The Abbott Government is very keen on empowering Aboriginal communities. How do I know this? I’ve been made aware that despite the budget cuts, $5M has been made available to ‘Empowered Communities’(EC) through ‘Closing the Gap’ (CtG).

An EC is defined as one “committed to enforcing individual rights and responsibilities including:

• Children attend school every day, are on time, and are school ready.
• Children and those who are vulnerable are cared for and safe.
• Capable adults participate in training or work.
• People abide by the conditions related to their tenancy in public housing – they maintain their homes.
• People do not commit domestic violence, alcohol and drug offences, or petty crimes and pay their rent. “

Sounds alright, but can you hear the dog whistle?  Am I being a bit too cynical when I suspect “enforced rights” to be an oxymoron?

Coercive Reconciliation: Stabilise, Normalise, Exit Aboriginal Australia

A bit like “coercive reconciliation” (The 2007 Intervention).

Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F69PBQ4ZyNw

Δύναμη στο λαό …Power to the people…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wos-dDxpJlQ

Μέχρι την επόμενη φορά

Frank

Rio. Beautiful, exotic and colourful.

Dear reader, we at PCbyCP must confess that we’re a little bit under-enthused about the upcoming Olympics in Rio. After prolonged introspection we believe it may be due to a combination of intersecting factors. And perhaps, the feeling, formulated somewhere in the deep recesses of the subconscious, that these Olympics, these anticipated, exciting upcoming Olympics are a little desperate.

Australia. National costume says it all.

And please understand, we’re committed to giving them the benefit of the doubt. But there is this sneaking suspicion. Looking at it obliquely. Taking everything into consideration. That Rio, beautiful, exotic and colourful, might just be a symbol, a high water mark for a movement that’s just had its day.. And this, to be quite objective, poses the inescapable conclusion, that like the Royal family, and all it’s trappings, the Olympic movement is more symbolic now of the most overblown manifestation of high kitsch and grotesque inequity. A voting system that seems more dodgy than Fifa’s. And the simmering turgid realisation that for all it pretends to be, it’s a tired, ossified example of high level corruption, entitlement, and subversion of a good idea by a self serving oligarchy of sports plutocrats and satrapcy of games officials.

And this conclusion has nothing to do with the ad-nauseam promotions building within our ABC of “ exciting Olympic moments’. And they’re not the funny one’s either. It’s just that from all the snippets we get from Rio, it seems that these Olympics are symbolic of the ‘trickle down effect’. And perhaps as hollow as Berlin, Moscow, and Los Angeles Olympics in demonstrating the corruption of an international ethos, by self seeking, parochial governments.

Now you’re probably thinking, this is outrageous! And we know at home you’ll be collecting you Olympic memorabilia and delighting in the latest “cute” mascots. But the news out of Rio aint encouraging, From what we can gather, the vast majority of Rio de Janeiro-ians are under-excited by the upcoming Olympics. They are also desperately poor. And we have it on good authority that for over a century they have enjoyed their very own movement which is fun, colourful and mass participatory. It’s called Mardi Gras. And they manufacture their own individualistic and flamboyant costumes, and indulge in exuberant and flamboyant activity all night long. How could the Olympics and the very highly priced syndicated and official merchandising compete with that?

The locals are not entirely benefitting from the boon of Olympic investment either. Recent accounts have them being quarantined by a paramilitary, who seems keen on eliminating undesirables. A government who’s just tossed out the president and replaced her by an ageing white minority of old blokes, and a virus that makes peoples heads shrink and consequently reduces their cognitive function. Recently some aussie Olympians were held up at gunpoint and their bicycles stolen, and we’ve been told it’s really safe if you stick within a cordon of guns and steel happily provided by the local paramilitary to keep the Olympians safe. But step outside it?… And you’re a gonner!! And there’s ‘special treatment for the officials, who seem principally to enjoy the benefits more than the actual athletes, in sinecured comfort. As always.

Olympics. Often, a boon for real estate re-distribution.

More kitsch imbued and grotesque than Olympic uniforms comes the suspicion, well founded, that the Olympics, is more about corrupt funds, vote rigging, and other activities pioneered by international banking to ensure that the status quo is maintained.

A simple equation is at work. The amount of medals won, is in direct proportion to the amount of money invested. Consequently rich countries get lots of medals. Poor countries are left without. Which is why we believe the Rio Olympics is the high point. You get what you pay for, and for those on the bottom rung, the four year cycle of beer and circuses, flag waving and sickly anthems is just a little bit empty. But then, there’s another home truth in that. The Olympics never ever were a bastion for self reflection, irony and humour. A sick joke really. Unless you want to talk Montreal and the cost blowout, or what Jessie Owens did to Hitler’s master race theory. Mere sideshows, to the main game, bad art, bad architecture, and an Orwellian reality, that we get what we deserve.

More or less.

Took on a whole new meaning by the psychedelic era

Reports are coming in to our research facility indicating an encouraging growth trend in non formalised school holiday activities. As far as we can tell no children we know of in our extensive survey were entrusted to any formal holiday programme or euphemistically referred ‘day care activity centre’. This is an encouraging trend, and indicates once again the value of ‘throwing the charges outside’ so to speak, in order that they amuse themselves.

Also, and this is encouraging the school holidays have not entirely spent devoted to electronic devices. This is also good news. Though reading, and compositional story telling may still be in decline, we are encouraged to report that the following activities have been reported to us, which indicates that improvisation and imagination are still valued. we list them in now preferred order.

Ball throwing. The ancient art of kick to kick. Still very popular.

Walking has been observed, either as a practical from ‘a to b’ scenario, or as part of an improvisational activity encompassing discovery, adventure,and some risk taking.

Bicycle riding. Bicycle still utilised as principle form of physical and engagement externality activity. Stone throwing still evergreen, and breaking glass still evidenced as ultimate reward. Improvised explosive development and manufacture was observed with various ignition techniques, fire, sudden impact and accelerant, most favoured procedure.

Nick knocking. Age old practice observed in several instances, accompanied by running and hiding. Story telling, improvisational scenarios employed successfully to mask nature of previously cited scenarios. Television watching, traditional ritual observed on frequent occasions, between heightened activity phases. Shooting, general shooting, air rife, and twenty two under supervised conditions. Bow and arrow skill, cognitive and physical enhancement. Balloon blowing, and puncturing.

Improvised boat making, and sinking observed via rock and immersion processes. Running, observed and documented. Jumping, as per running. Falling over, as a consequence of ball activity or general ‘Horseing around”.

Cooking, low level sandwich and baked beans delivery. Doing dishes, occasionally, under duress. Construction, of models, and improvisation with ‘bits of stuff’, (objects) ‘hanging around’.

As was observed traditional holiday activities are still practised on a regular basis with preference to improvisation and physical properties of doing things with ‘stuff’. We note with encouragement that none of these activities are part of any established school ATAR assessment process. Which proves once again the holidays constitute a heightened educative function infinitely more productive than standard education practice of rote learning and dull bludgeoning acquiescence. A victory for fun and common sense.

Dear reader, we hope you don’t mind, but it’s time for a diversion to the murky world of politics. Please excuse us as we indulge in the dim craft and shed another half light upon a non problem.

As you can imagine, things are not so rosy in the Lodge. That’s because no one lives there. They’re not that fresh at Point Piper either. And judging by the external appearance of the PM’s house, painted in glorious salmon pink stucco, there’s something clearly wrong with australian politics. Salmon pink should not be evinced anywhere outside the Mediterranean, and even there the salmon has been fished out.

We hate to be judgemental and loathe to invoke matters of taste, but to be quite frank as a colour it’s in poor taste. Almost, parvenu. Now I now perfectly nice people who still live on the harbour and who aren’t crowded out cheek by jowl by over-renovated stucco mausoleums. They’ve managed for almost half a century to be content with the off-white, the cream, and the plain red brick. Sydney is a lovely interplay of these subtle, and well tried colours. That’s what made it the chosen destination for painters, who sought to capture the light and the exuberance of plein air.

‘That’s why Peta gets credit where it’s due. She coined the term, “ Mr Harbourside Mansion”, and in doing so eschewed her undying love for the PM that replaced her Tony’.

These days, i’m afraid to say that being on the harbour in Sydney is synonymous with being quite gauche. There you go! I’ve said it. It strikes of nouveau riche. And to be quite frank, demonstrates a sort of manifest destiny of the insecure and bombastic. Ostentation personified. Almost impossible to find, as in the old beach road in Sandy or Brighton, a house that hasn’t been enhanced with a sort of suburbanised version of elephantiasis. Everything is enlarged. This exctasy of enlargement finds its ultimate expression the closer you get to the waters edge. I know this, because just prior to the election, people, (journalists) were indulging in commentary from a boat, poised within spitting distance of the PM’s house. And come to think of it, it’s the first time we’ve had a real P.M who has really really outperformed on the harbourside mansion. That’s why Peta gets credit where it’s due. She coined the term, “Mr Harbourside Mansion”, and in doing so eschewed her undying love for the PM that replaced her Tony.

Malcolm’s front gates. Is that a Prius in the driveway?

What has this got to do with the price of fish in India? Well I’ll tell you. All the other PM’s have been bog suburban. Even Keating with his froggy clocks was anchored in the half shade of Jack Lang-dom, bottle drives and the Apex table in the park. Not so our current P.M. He has credentials that are the sine-qua non of the manifestly successful. But has he the ticker to be the P.M? Only John. E.Howard can tell us that! It’s all about Mr Harbourside Mansion. In evolutionary terms he’s already the superior species. What could he possibly have in common with the unwashed? Not much. But now, post election, he’s discovered the truth about Medicare. And he admits now that the electorate don’t trust either him or the Liberals to leave it alone.

Dufy painted nicely. Note absence of Salmon Pink.

But how can he really emphasise? We have a solution, spend a week somewhere else. And Canberra is not counted. Try a caravan park, or just, dull normal suburbia, and then, that salmon pink may be just a little dun-coloured. It’s all a perspective, but in Malcolm’s place, it’s not rose coloured glassed, nor salmon pink, but dun coloured. Of everything that palpitates beyond his somewhat garish over ornamented wrought iron gates. Sort of Dufy with a Penis enlargement, and Botox. And that is the question, that is often forgot. Like the price of fish in Indi, which believe judging on the spot price of Integrity is on the rise. Good news for all of us, cept you can’t eat the fish caught in Sydney Harbour. It’s unfit for human consumption. Not much Salmon to be found there either.

Olivia and Errol. Star Quality. And sword fights to boot!

Thought we’d break with another election wrap up?. Forget it. There’s so much in this world to celebrate, and if you’re not over the election, think again, for now we have something completely different.

Olivia de Havilland turned 100 this week! And by all accounts she’s clever still, and though Errol died back in 1960, she lives on, as all anointed romantics do, in Paris.

Olivia knows politics is crazy, and is alone as a last vital link between the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’, and the shabby thing they call cinema today. And I’ll tell you why, because, she’s adorable. And like all goddesses… Immortal! Who could forget that scene in Captain Blood when she bought Errol cheap at the slave market. What an eye for a bargain!! Or as Maid Marian, in arguably the best Robin Hood ever. And if you don’t believe me, vomit once as you see how Russell Crowe murdered it… And then vomit again, when you see how Kevin Kostner, murdered it once more for good measure.

As Maid Marion. Sets constructed of real cardboard and Plaster of Paris!

Olivia done good, and when you think that it cost five cents way back in 38 in the US to watch a flick, (perhaps threepence in OZ) the film grossing several millions puts other great films , such as Kung Fu Panda, Rocky 1V and Independence Day 2 well and truly in the shade. What makes these films endure? It’s not the scratchy visuals, the muffled soundtrack and abundance of Hollywood corn, or the thrill of hyper enhanced technicolour. No! It’s neither of these, it’s the artifice of a genre in which the hero is hamming it up and there’s always a ride into the sunset. And though the studio system burnt more careers than Pol Pot, they seem to be having fun. And when Olivia laughs, the sun, and the entire nebula adjacent gamma epsilon star system four, (adjacent five), is snuffed out.

It’s the raw power of vaseline coated lenses, violins, overblown naivety, of craft and the lightness of touch when ‘touch’ is rote learnt to perfection. And it all comes gift wrapped with the obligatory bucketload of schmalz.

In ‘Gone with the Wind’, ( centre just in case you thought it might be one of the other two).

Who could forget her in all those other Errol Flynn films? Though we may find, some of them so execrable it’s almost painful to watch. Yet, there she is, anointing the screen with her presence, and laughing in that ‘I cannot believe that aint rehearsed and cardboard’, candor. But oh! She’s so much more convincing than anything performed by a Nicole, a Kate, or a Merrill. I suppose its because the modern genre demands seriousness, demands, introspection and gravitas, it seems shabby. Whereas everything Olivia is in, just jumps off the screen. Cos you know it’s artifice! And ultimately entertainment.

A hundred years from now people will say; ‘Malcolm Who’? correction; about three weeks from now…

Olivia, you goddess, you. Frozen in perpetuity as you were at eighteen in ‘Captain Blood’, and immortalised in ‘Gone with the Wind’, a perfect foil to that other super nova of the theatrical arts Vivienne Leigh. But I spose its cos we’re all more mundane, and when an actress farts it’s news 24/ 7.  Well the fact of the matter is that Olivia never farted, she never went to the toilet, and i’ve been told by none other than Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, that she never ever, put a knife in her mouth, or burped. Not once. That’s star quality, and there, we have it as a proven fact that Paris, since Marlene died is still intact because the spirit of Hollywood and the ‘Golden Age’ lives on in her likeness. Poised somewhere between 1937 and eternity.

Nigel and Basil in discussion with Errol on his next film.

If Paris was a woman? Seek no further. Paris is Olivia. Celebrate with us this centenary. And know that for just this moment, that politics, is where it belongs. Allegedly on the cutting room floor.

‘Bingo night at the Dalrymple RSL is quite the event’

We had such high expectations, but strangely it all went awry.

Dandiwallop and Stiffington compete in last years Grand Final.

Usually, and I can say this with some confidence Bingo night at the Dalrymple RSL is quite the event. And when I say quite the event, I can say without exaggeration it’s probably bigger than the flower show or the art show put together. And Dorrie Allcock says it’s even bigger than the muscular dystrophy charity tractor-pull event put on by the Apex and Rotary. I mean people come from as far afield as Dunt and Randybollock West. Though I must confess nothing competes with the Dalrymple Grand Final put on at the Prince of Wales Show-grounds. That’s a truly national event. Last year it was between Dandiwallop and Stiffington, and I’m afraid to say that when the ‘stiffies’ won, the town went a little berserk. Thy take their football seriously in Dalrymple. And we hadn’t seen such a spectacle since Dalrymple defeated Effing in the firsts and the seconds way back in 98.

But now he’s (Rolf) is in a bit of strife we’ve been doing Alf Tomkins and his Gerry Gee doll, ‘Willie’.

Well Bingo night is special. We get that nice man from Myora, to do the numbers. He’s got such a nice voice, and we like to have an interval, (it can get quite heated) when some of the local talent likes to put on a bit of show. It’s a real rip snorter I can tell you. For years past it was Clarrie Knobton doing a a Rolf Harris number. His ‘Jake the Peg’ would have us in stitches and Des Kunk and his boys would join in on the piano and ukelele. But now he’s (Rolf) is in a bit of strife we’ve been doing Alf Tomkins and his Gerry Gee doll, ‘Willie’. It’s guaranteed a laugh and everyone goes home satisfied, that the usual high standards are met. It’s good family fun, and there’s nothing blue about the humour which is always appreciated by the ladies present.

Recently though, we’ve had some problems.

Ladies of the Dalrymple RSL Auxilliary

I spose it was ever since Bertie Tonks got dumped from the auxiliary. Bertie is very civic minded, but he tends to take it all a bit over the top. He has this authoritative streak. I think that’s because he’s a Catholic. Dad says it cos he was a bit wet behind the ears, and came back with a chip on both shoulders after he’d come back from the big smoke and chucked it in after being a jesuit. They’re nice people the Tonk’s, but very religious. In the bush, they go either one way or the other. We decided we’d had enough when he suggested that the parking attendants wear uniforms. Then he suggested the school kiddies perform a guard of honour for the bingo announcer Mr Snell. And the final straw was when he demanded the the ladies auxiliary drill! Ridiculous, but he wouldn’t let it go. He’d say things like ‘Debt and derelict disaster’ about the hall upkeep, and ‘Stop the Notes’, when the agenda was sent round. Eventually we’d had enough! Told him to stay away from the auxiliary and we gave the job to Morrie Krinklade, who runs the local bank.

The old pie warmer was getting on, but in hindsight we should’ve kept it!!

We knew then we were putting the affairs of the hall and the bingo into a safe pair of hands. But to our dismay, no sooner had we got Morrie on the job, than he began to make things a bit complicated. He wanted to see the auxiliary accounts, and then demanded we stump up fifty quid to upgrade the hot water system. Then the final straw was he said he’d stump up funds for a new pie warmer, urn and P.A system. It cost a bomb. Took several months to arrive, in which we were P.A-less. And then we discovered the PA wouldn’t work. Not much better than a megaphone says Clarrie. The pie warmer was dodgy, fried instead of warmed, and the urn gave everyone an electric shock. And then finally when the Bingo night came, he was nowhere to be seen. We had volunteers racing all over the place, till Jess Mouldtart told us he’d gone home to watch ‘Australias funniest home video’ and wouldn’t come out.

To be quite frank, in hindsight we’d have been better off with Bertie. But it’s too late now. The night was a disaster. We’re now a laughing stock, and we’d been assured by Phonse Wangel that Morrie would be a ‘sure thing’. Even after the debacle, Morrie says he’s quite confident that we’ll be able to get the pie warmer back for a refund, but the rest of the entertainment committee has lost faith in him. Worse still he never thanked the auxiliary for filling in when he didn’t turn up on the night. And when he did turn up he berated all the volunteers, and blamed the public for the pie debacle.

Nothing wrong with the old urn either!!!

Dorrie thinks that the problem is with Morrie is that he forgot about all the ‘little people’. Bertie says he’s just a dick-head.

Clarrie says he wont do it next year. I asked Doris and she’s lost her appetite for pie warmers and will just stick with sausages. A pity, but then on Bingo night, you never ever can be sure who’s numbers will turn up. If it’s a fizzer we’ll just have to wait till the next Bingo night. And the way the mood is in the auxiliary that wont, be long either.

. . . and our Poetry Editor (Ira Maine esq) has added this to last weeks offering:

John Dryden (1631-1700)
It is almost impossible to grasp, to comprehend how astonishingly important the 17^th century was to our modern way of life. It was the century where, for the first time, how we viewed the world began to change. Scientific discoveries had begun (heretically) to suggest that perhaps looking at the world through practical rather than religious eyes might yield us more practical, down-to-earth benefits. The Church didn’t like this at all. In the early part of this remarkable century, Shakespeare died and Galileo Galilei, with his revolutionary telescope, was appearing in Rome before the Inquisition. It was in this time that Harvard, the Royal Society and the Dutch East India Company were established. Most of Europe was at war, Giordano Bruno was being burned at the stake and Guy Fawkes was attempting to blow up the English parliament. The King James Bible was established, the Ming Dynasty collapsed and Bach, Handel, Corelli, Albinoni, Momteverdi, Vivaldi and Purcell were writing some of the most exquisite music ever heard.

Thomas Savery exhibited a rudimentary steam engine at the Royal Society. Elsewhere and by microscope it was discovered that maggots did not, as was previously believed, spontaneously occur but were hatched from eggs. Again, and using a microscope, Robert Hooke discovered the existence of cells. Leeunhoek by the same method, discovered microbes. Under a tree, some where in England, an apple had let loose its grip on the branch and was about to bounce off Isaak Newton’s head. And, in 1606 a Dutch East India Company vessel was making the first ever European landfall in Australia.

The above is just a fraction, a scintilla of the astonishing goings-on of the 17^th century, but to go on enumerating them ad nauseam would be tedious, however…Appalled by the levels of societal inequality in England and in search of their own promised land, the Puritans, with little or no knowledge of farming or indeed animal husbandry set off from England, sailed the sea and eventually landed at Cape Cod. God was not on their side…

The latter half of this century, at least in England under Charles the Second, was a time of extravagant, libidinous licence, a reaction of course, against the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell’s time with his puritanical, holy-joe, anti-theatre, anti-dancing anti-everything decrees.

Typical of this time were the rude Restoration comedies, risque poems and shamelessly smutty songs of the period. I include a rude Dryden poem here which I hope you will enjoy.

Song (“Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of Fifteen”)
I.
Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of Fifteen
Felt an innocent warmth, as she lay on the green;
She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guest
By the towzing and tumbling and touching her Breast:
She saw the men eager, but was at a loss,
What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;
By their praying and whining,
And clasping and twining,
And panting and wishing,
And sighing and kissing,
And sighing and kissing so close.

II.
Ah she cry’d, ah for a languishing Maid
In a Country of Christians to die without aid!
Not a Whig, or a Tory, or Trimmer at least,
Or a Protestant Parson or Catholick Priest,
To instruct a young Virgin that is at a loss
What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;
By their praying and whining,
And clasping and twining,
And panting and wishing,
And sighing and kissing,
And sighing and kissing so close.

III.
Cupid in Shape of a Swayn did appear,
He saw the sad wound, and in pity drew near,
Then show’d her his Arrow, and bid her not fear,
For the pain was no more than a Maiden may bear;
When the balm was infus’d, she was not at a loss
What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;
By their praying and whining,
And clasping and twining,
And panting and wishing,
And sighing and kissing,
And sighing and kissing so close

Spend your money wisely.  Originally dispatched on 24 September 2014

¿Que tal amigos?

To those that read last week’s Dispatch, let me inform you that I received an acceptable explanation of what I saw. On that occasion I did not witness a legally sanctioned crime.

That doesn’t leave the system that systematically (as systems do) remove Aboriginal children from their families off the hook. And yes I’m aware that “child welfare” results in many non-Aboriginal families and welfare officers also being traumatised by attempts at solving complex social problems with pragmatic/bureaucratic/legalistic “solutions”. Not quite throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but moving it to a distant bath with unfamiliar water, and leaving behind an empty bath. The return path from the distant bath to the empty bath is studded with often insurmountable hurdles of perception and value judgements..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNXbwhW7NIg Lucky Dube’s “Respect” …. Watch it … a familiar story.

In hindsight I am very glad that I chose to study geology. The mineral and oil exploration industry was an exciting and interesting endeavour to be part of. I have no way of knowing to what extent it still is exciting and interesting, but there has been a significant paradigm shift. Geology is more than just a science, an exploration geologist could let his or her imagination take flight as to where that elusive ore body might be hiding. Many colleagues read books and played music or created art or were otherwise far from dull. Yes, certain pragmatic parameters were applied, such as maximum information per dollar, prioritising drill sites so as to increase the chances of paying off for those that provided your bread and butter. All the same the name of the game was to be creative at trying to find the next El Dorado. Being a member of an exploration team was just as satisfying as being a member of an orchestra or a volleyball team. These days the imperative is to be creative at creating “shareholder wealth” and there are “stakeholders” that shuffle “capital” and “investments” around, barely noticing the beauty of an unconformity or an exposed anticline or cross bedding, or a drill core containing sulphides or the bright green fluorescence under ultraviolet light of oil staining on a porous sandstone fragment lifted by drilling mud from a few kilometres below the surface. Dollars per tonne is all they care for. Price transference and tax minimisation let alone corruption and greed are the order of the day.

One need only look at one example, the Zambian Copper belt. Zambia is “blessed” by the world’s 9^th richest copper deposits, yet 64% of its population lives on less than a dollar a day.

Budgeting was not part of a university Geology course. Frugality was taught to us by parents and grandparents that had gone through a depression and a world war. “ A stitch in time saves nine”, “penny wise and pound foolish” “waste not want not”, we old fossils all knew the meaning of these.

A few days ago the NT Government released a Media Release: “Improving safety in Central Australian communities”:

A Central Australia construction company has won the $7.6 million contract to build a state of the art new Police Station in Yuendumu.

“The existing Police station in Yuendumu is being demolished and replaced with a modern complex that includes a multi-function room for use as a community meeting venue, three new Police houses and four, one bedroom visiting officer quarters.”

A moot point in that at the rate Yuendumu people are being incarcerated the new meeting venue may not be all that well patronised even if everyone decides to no longer to use existing meeting facilities. Certainly those with a warrant out for them are not very likely to use the multi-function room!

I don’t know why the politicians chose not to make this exciting announcement here in Yuendumu (an interstate friend passed it onto me). Surely they would have enjoyed the spontaneous outburst of dancing in the streets such would have elicited! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGpgkCE41x8

As I mentioned Budgeting was not part of my studies, but let me try none the less:

Reintroduce bilingual education at Yuendumu School … $650,000

Support the setting up of a Homeland support organisation at Yuendumu…. $1,500,000

A fighting fund to pay for the legal costs of Yuendumu people that wish to have their children returned by “Child Protection” ……$450,000

Funding for a trial period for Yuendumu Council to be reinstated and run its functions locally instead of from Alice Springs ……$1,000,000

Funding to run the Yuendumu Pool for the next three years so the current operators don’t have to get out the begging bowl…..$500,000

Set up a Yuendumu Housing Association to gradually get all tenancy and maintenance contracts currently being outsourced  …….. $1,500,000

Re- establish WYN Health (Willowra/Yuendumu/Nyirrpi Health) to increasingly take on a role in local health initiatives. ….. $1,000,000

Support the PAW Media (aka Warlpiri Media) cultural centre …..$500,000

Fund the Yuendumu Social Club to get out of debt and once again become a profitable locally owned and managed organisation …….$500,000

Total $7.6 million

As I said Budgeting was not part of my studies. As is so famously repeated in the film ‘The Castle’….. “tell him he’s dreaming”.

Another song of Freedom…Bob Marley….Redemption Song….

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

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfjon-ZTqzU

Hasta la proxima. Que les valla bien.

Franklin