El Salvador Airport possibly about the time Frank did a stopover there. Possibly at this stage it wasn’t sold off and privatised for ‘greater efficiencies” !

Drear Reader,

We should apologise for this deliberate mis- spelling but it seemed apt as it’s from our scribe from the distant North-West Frontier, when he writes to us about the trickle-down effect.

‘Is that something moist we ask running down our inner trouser leg’?

Could people still believe in the trickle-down effect? Last time we looked it, was being espoused by Ronnie Reagan and Maggie Thatcher and that was flamin years ago. Could it still be active as a principal plank of public policy?

After it’s been discredited by personal experience for years and years. Or perhaps is there something amiss?

Ronnie and Maggie pioneered ‘ the trickle-down effect’!

Is the trickle-down effect the latest in a long line of what’s old is now new again?  The 19th century tycoon, who like Jeff Bezos and Elon Mush (another incident of deliberate mis- spelling) want profits and workers to be paid next to nothing?  Cos they can. 

Find out.  For in this episode Frank lifts the lid, to expose Babushka doll like…….. (wait for it) ……ANOTHER LID!

Frank writes; 

A myth extolled by the Global Economy, is the so-called trickle-down effect.

The first leg of our return journey to Australia in 1971 was an unforgettable several month odyssey by car from Canada to Panama during a to tourists relatively non-perilous socio/political window of opportunity.

A rare colour photograph of El Salvador Airport, before the colour process was also sold off for ‘greater efficiencies’.

It was when we traversed El Salvador, that we got a new insight into Foreign Aid.
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 Hi-Viz fluorescent vests (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 lunch break. 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 routinely 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 United States of American foreign aid had gifted the airport to the people of El Salvador. I haven’t checked but I think I’m on the money when I assert North American construction firms most likely built the airport with cheap local labour.

Ronnie tells Maggie; ” Go for your life public assets are no good for the filthy rich, that investment is better served by those who know BEST’!

Ronnie was very worried about the sex- trade and socialist medicine. That’s why the U.S Health System is ‘Rooted”.

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% who owned all the land. The Latin looking gentlemen probably were the brokers and real-estate agents and interpreters doing their bit so that their country would move forward. Pimps aren’t confined to the sex trade.

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 trickle-down 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, often accompanied by beautiful younger women with East European accents, would distribute some of their greenbacks, mostly to foreign owned hotels and restaurants. The café of the brown beans, tortillas and sour cream, also benefited from the gifted airport, as virtually all of its clientele worked there. 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.
I don’t think I’m drawing too long a bow, when I perceive much of the money being spent on and in Yuendumu to be akin to foreign aid.
I think it is very appropriate that they refer to it as the trickle-down effect. It certainly isn’t gushing down.

Ronnie was the Full- Bottle on the trickle-down effect. He boned up on it constantly!

Over to you.

FDB

This post is dedicated to the 2024 Trump Presidential Campaign.

Dear reader, another thrilling installment awaits…..

This post is also dedicated to the Glorious Gina Rinehart foundation. A foundation committed to keep Australia’s mineral rich bounty away from the taxpayers and citizenry of Australia for their own good.

As the rotodyne descends upon our hapless trio we pause to thank Gina, Australia’s richest woman for attending the GOP Fundraiser. Donald needs more money from Australians so that they can be free of the taint of Minerals derived income. It’s best looked after by those who know what best to do with it. Rather than the silly outmoded idea of a ‘Commonwealth’ and good governance.

With this in mind, and the neo-liberal experiment still playing out, we return to the coalface and the fate that awaits our trio. Out there on the dusty desiccated landscape of Australia’s dry interior.

Will ‘Lady Luck’ grace them with her spirit this time?

Or are the spirits on offer only methylated?

Read on, and find out.  And for those who are weak, suffer from a chronic condition or are addicted to day-time television, talkback radio or Sports bet 24/7 this might be as a good as it gets.

Sergei Lavrov, a late attendee at the 2024 Trump Presidential Campaign launch.

The engines changed tempo again, and then as the whirling blades slowed we could see individual blades with ‘Hancock Prospecting” stencilled to the undersides, and admired the Fuselage art, a picture of the boxing kangaroo and the caption ‘Make Australia GRATE AGAIN’.

Then, with everything suffused under the low hum of the turbine, the engines cut off completely. All we could hear were the ‘swish swish’ of the slowing blades, and the tick, tick, ticking of the cooling system. And before us, the sparkling silver duralinium fuselage and its mighty insect-like form prone as a praying mantis, a caddis fly or perhaps a dung beetle would after a day rolling dung, in seeking respite from the intensity of the central Australian heat. A dry heat that desiccated these three fragments of humanity to the very spot they stood, immobile, immute, and implacable to the fate that awaited them.

They still couldn’t see into the cockpit, and though they strained their eyes they still couldn’t make out who, (barely discernible as a grey shape within) drove the craft. And though they tried with every ounce of their being to hear, detect, glean some small signature of what lay within, they were unrewarded. It was as yet an enigma. And a paradox at that. And, they didn’t like it.

‘No sign of a door opening yet’, muttered Ces.

‘Nup’, replied Terry, ‘whoever it is, is laying on the suspense, and’…..  interrupted Quent. ‘ I just don’t feel good about this’.

Historic photograph of Rotodyne undergoing trials at Essendon Airport prior to the arrival of Lang Hancock for the ‘Diggers and Dealers other Ball’. Melbourne C. 1966

Still, the Rotodyne just stood there. Barely twenty metres in front of them.

And then just as they looked about and realised there was no one else on board, something absolutely strange took place. Somewhere from within, they could hear a crackle, the sound of an intercom.  They realised an announcement of sorts would be made and at last they could determine their new protagonist, protector, foe. It would be revealed.

They strained in anticipation and what followed struck them immobile with raw unrestrained fear.

‘Two little boys had two little toys’.

It was worse than the ‘Candy Coloured Clown’

‘Each had a wooden horse

Gaily they played each summers day’

Whatever lurked inside…… it was beyond evil…

‘Warriors both of course

One little chap had a mishap

Broke off his horse’s head’

This was beyond anything Vladimir would do, it was beyond obscene

‘Wept for his toy then cried with joy

Australia’s true and only Fair Dinkum NATIONAL ANTHEM.

As his young playmate said’.

The trio by this time disconsolate, stood paralysed. Beneath them, a thin trickle of liquid betrayed their inner state, and the Camel’s, stuck more firmly than Araldite sagged on bottom lips rendered frozen.

‘Do you think I’d leave you dying’…….

And then from the Rotodyne

‘Ha ha, ha HAHAHAHAH’! A maniacal laugh. A laugh so filled with the paroxysms of pure insanity it rent the air and if as much as a breeze had interrupted the orchestrated trance of despair. They, all three of them almost died on the spot.

‘Did youse miss me boys’?

Another hysterical laugh. A laugh unhinged from humanity itself. A laugh Hyena-like in its intensity and hideousness.

‘You knew I’d never leave youse, me boys, and now it’s time for a little game.

And do youse know what it’s called me boys’?

‘Cluedo’? stammered Ces,

Sophie’s back! Is this the worst thing since ‘the BLOB’?

‘Good try Cecil me luv, but this game is called ‘Consequences’…

Ha ha’….

And the door, surgically, robotically and remotely opened. We could hear the internal air swish out of the pressurised cockpit and froze to what emerged, Jackboots, Pudgy Fish-net stocking legs, a Sobrani in a black cigarette holder, a hand dripping with bling, an officers uniform borrowed from Gestapo Central Casting and the face the face of Medusa itself. It was our long-time nemesis, our bête noir, our grief encapsulated and personified by one person,

Translation; ‘Three blokes in Deep Shit’!

It was Sophie.

Sophie had returned.

‘I betchya pleased to see me’.

Will our heroes get outta this un?  Find out in the next episode; ‘Sophies poor choice’, Or… ‘Sophie or Barnaby’s Joyce, either way you lose’.

Dr Werner Von-Brain, the top rocket scientist at NASA.

These are tremendous distances on paper, but on a macro scale a mere trifle. As we write, the Artemis spacecraft is hovering a mere 185 kms above the lunar surface. It has been proclaimed that a human colony on the moon may be only a mere decade away. That gives us a decade to start destroying the first extra-terrestrial eco system. ‘If there’s water in them craters, we’ll grab the lot’, says former Rio Tinto Vice President Will Juukan- Gorgeit.

What’s 300 kms in the scheme of things?  The distance from Dimboola to Melbourne?  Or if you take the cultural extreme, the distance from London to Newcastle is 379 kms. And in that instance a whole separate culture between the south and the north is derived. A cultural chasm one might think.

The Artemis spacecraft, shown here in downward position for lunar re- entry. Also trialed for up-coming missions to Uranus and Mars.

So, though the nearest bank branch may be 300 kms away, that would indicate a breakdown of not just the bureaucracy and its diminishing reach, but the breakdown in simple communication. Communications that could only be improved by conscripting (under generous leave and superannuation entitlements) native runners, Morse and Heliograph stations, and Semaphore across the dry interior. A boon to employment and a fraction of the cost of paying executives for the Snowy River Mk2, The NBN, and those whose task it is to rein in the overreach of the NDIS.

Still though Frank may have a point, in short; ‘It’s enough to make you go MENTAL’!

Frank writes…

 

 

Buenas,

Both these men suffer from severe undiagnosed mental conditions. Brought about by failure in communication and access to un-answered Centrelink enquiries.

Wendy and I were watching a programme on TV on the Mental Health Crisis in Australia. It made us realize that there is probably not a single person in Australia who doesn’t know anyone (including themselves) who has mental health “issues”. In the programme, there was a wide-ranging discussion on the effects on the nation’s mental health by covid lockdowns, the housing crisis, education, inflation, poverty, prejudice, health staffing shortages and you name it.
It was then that Wendy came up with one of her perspicacious insights:

“One of the main causes of mental health problems in Australia is the bureaucracy” she declared.

A week after that programme, I caught myself in a room by myself, loudly and furiously shouting obscenities. Absolutely not my style. I’m one of those fortunate people whose top paddock is relatively devoid of loose kangaroos. What had caused my fulminations, is hearing the following two alternating recorded messages interspersed and repeated in a matrix of rather crappy music:

Banking Call-Centre operators eagerly transcribing Frank’s enquiry into bureaucratic gobbledygook via the ‘Weaselword app”.

“Thank you for waiting, our operator will be with you shortly” and
“We apologise for the continuing delay. We appreciate your time is important and will ensure your call is answered as soon as possible”
‘Shortly’ ended up being 1 hour 45 minutes. A further half an hour only to be told they couldn’t help me and I had to go to the nearest branch.
The distance from Yuendumu to the nearest branch is just short of 300 Km.
I restrained myself from remarking that from Manila to Luzon is only slightly further.

What precipitated my need to contact the bank is that when making some, for me, unusual bank transfers, an algorithm (not a real person) locked my account. It is still locked while I suffer from what is no less than bureaucratic/administrative torture. This is the closest I’ve come to losing my marbles. I don’t look forward to in due course having to try to get onto the NDIS. Nor completing a decade of overdue tax returns, nor belatedly applying for an age pension.

Yes, I know, many of you reading this will be able to retaliate by boring me with similar tales. The point I’m trying to make is that 300 Km is a fair distance which can be glorious but can also disadvantage the disadvantaged.

This poor man waited so long on the Centrelink help- line he was forced to take the law into his OWN HANDS! (If you’re forced via centrelink call centre to take the law into your own hands, or know of someone who is suffering feel free to call lifeline, and wait. As they have been told to treat your call as important, though we all know they couldn’t care less and their jobs are not as highly paid as an NBN executive, so you can’t really blame them anyway.

 

 

Hasta luego,

Frank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYQ4uV8NDJo Futurama Hermes bureaucrat song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV2Tsoam-wI Frank Zappa- The torture never stops.

And this one just for the music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvHBEQsHFAA Aretha Franklin – Baby I love you.

No such problem is the NATIONS FINEST are called upon to deliver JUSTICE!

—

This stunning episode is bought to you by the Twittersphere. Upholder of Twits the world over.

 As the famous writer Donald E Trump said in his most famous ‘Make America Grate’ speech to an adoring crowd; ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times’.

Our heroes have suffered imprisonment, kidnapping, summary arrest, involuntary detention and worst of all, as a consequence of who or whom defiled their tea lady Ms Culthorpe as she endured an internship in Australia’s parliament, they are no closer to finding out who the evil oppressor was…

GREAT MEN ! With a singular vision in making America GRATE AGAIN!

It’s downhill ever since it stopped being uphill and a thankless task. Now after being entombed beneath Australia first ever underground city, “Radium Springs” and then, escaping only to fall in with the nefarious duo Benny Boy Roberts Smith and His sidekick Julian,(he’s not the messiah he’s just a very naughty boy’) Assange both in the employ of that master mind of criminality Angus (Cayman Island Fund) Taylor, they are on the move to escape from the most organised and powerful criminal gang of them all. The Firm aka, the crime gang who puts fear into the hearts and minds of the colonies, and even the Russian Kleptocrats take heed; The Windsor’s!

Will Gina get her peerage through siphoning off Australian mineral assets in the form of gold ingots to King Charles the turd?

Or had Brenny-Boy Nelson got another ace up his sleeve? Whilst his sidekick Nev, the Power makes big money on the Gas-led recovery.

Find out in this next chilling episode, ‘Ice Cold in Alex Downers Spy ring’, or; ‘Funky fascism, bought to you by Exxon, Woodside and Victoria Police’,

Where’ Fake News” (To quote from his deceased speech writer) ‘where freedom’s just another word for nothin left to lose’…

We return to our saga.

They looked up.

The scrub, the desiccated twigs of long dead trees, the derrick of the oil rig, the bits of tin, and the three humans, were tossed about by the downdraught as the Rotodyne hovered above.

It made the physical act of smoking one of the last of Terry’s Camels a feat of endurance. In spite of it they took one last drag, threw the butts to the wind and waited for the Rotodyne to descend. And with its landing, another determination upon their fate. Were the Gods with them? And if they were, were they Gods of the old grey bearded patrician type of the Greco-Roman model? It was too early to tell, but in anticipation, they knew just one thing.  That when the rotor blades stopped whirring it might be all over. No reprieve.  Not even a Zac Rolfe’s chance of redemption.  Just by pleading redneck- ism, stupidity, xenephobia and bravado wouldn’t be enough.  There was nowhere left to run. Precious little cover in which to hide, and no point in worrying about it either. This was their dead end.

Our pcbycp North Carolina Office is swept up in the thrill of another Trump presidency.

‘Spose this is It’, Ces mused as the Rotodyne hovered.  The air was rent with the turbos on the blades whining in a high-pitched scream. ‘If it’s Gina it’s all over, unless she’s off at a republican fund raiser, and if its Nev he’ll slot us just cos he can. If i’ts Brenny boy there’s a chance, and if it’s Clifford we’ve got about as much chance of Brexit in pulling through and making sense of it’.

In Victoria, only one man can save us from oblivion. He likes TRAINS. He likes to travel on trains ALONE!

With a change of pitch the Rotodyne began its descent inch by inch, foot by foot. It descended and the seconds felt like hours, as time dragged on and on…. This was beyond suspense. It was sheer agony. It was worse than the Coalition’s deliberations on Climate. Or the creation of a Federal ICAC or even and without a hint of exaggeration worser still than the deliberations of the Kumanji Walker inquest and Zac Rolfe’s duty as a god fearing patriotic Son of ANZACKERY!  There was just too much dust to see who was flying it. But they could make out this much, a steely and determined hand guided the mighty craft, and that could only mean one thing. A powerful force was behind the wheel.

Within seconds it completed the last plunge and bounced upon the dusty ground.  For a moment they could see mothing, it was all dust and desert sand.  And the swirling vestigial outline of a roptodyne as its mighty engine’s still oscillating and beating a piercing, ear splitting roar began to change gear and de- activate. Whatever, Whoever, However, this object was being piloted, it was driven by a hand so ice cold in its calculus of power that even the desert itself seem to quail and recoil in fear for the presence cocooned within that aluminium and alloy exoskeleton. An exoskeleton burnished white by the iciness of whatever guided it.

A forlorn hope looks like THIS!

Whichever way you look at it, a free Rotodyne to every Victorian Citizen may be cheaper in the long run than the planned, sub orbital, astro navigational compass space port rail network planned for the (Seattle World’s Fair), Melbourne for the year 2085

Will it lead them out of their perilous pit of peril or punish them for thinking of a forlorn hope?

Find out in the next prospective episode; ‘Gina’s with the Republicans on establishing a resource rent tax free banana republic”, or ‘how many banana’s does it cost a failed state to get a unemployed Vice-royal a decent job’? And is ‘vice’ a prerequisite?

Frank’s personal memoir of Yallourn tech and his life spent at ‘Camp Rolfe’ (Yuendumu) was adapted by Hollywood into a cinema classic.

From Frank of the North-West Frontier. 

Another fascinating insight into the power of metrics. Good thing we say the Americans haven’t been seduced by the metric system and have stayed pure with the old imperial system. It makes perfect sense as the Imperial system is what made empires GRATE!

In this episode Frank casts a half-light upon measurements, and why it’s important to keep measuring things, cos if you don’t you run the risk of losing your school-teacher. They’re rarer than Diprotodon’s in the outback, and possibly as adapted to a remote, outback kinda environment.

Frank writes;

 

Guten Tag Freunden,

The Science Wing at Yallourn Technical College.

Not sure if I ever told you about when I did night classes in ‘Scientific German’ at Yallourn Technical College. All we had to do was translate German scientific articles into English with the help of a dictionary. The class would take it in turns to read and translate paragraphs. The textbook had chapters on various disciplines. The biology chapter dealt with the atrophying of Körperorgane by underuse. When the organ eventually fell off, the class collapsed into uncontrolled hilarity. Ah, to be young and silly again.
Atrophying isn’t confined to body parts. My knowledge of calculus has met the same fate as the tool in the Scientific German textbook.

I’m not one of those who dismissed mathematics as useless and not worth learning. On the contrary, the minimal mathematical knowledge I eagerly acquired has served me well.
I cannot listen to a politician abusing statistics without almost instantly detecting the insult to my intelligence and the intelligence of others who have the misfortune of listening to his/her drivel.

I’ve never had a problem with the knowledge that the odds of flipping six heads in a row are 1 in 64 and neither that the counterintuitive odds of flipping a sixth tail after having flipped five tails are 50:50.

Yallourn Tech. In the olden days, before it was dug up.

So when the sealing of the Tanami Road commenced with a 90 Km stretch, to be followed by 30Km a few years later and a subsequent 10km, I thought that we were dealing with a geometric progression which could be expressed as a calculus formula. Derivative? Integral?

The next stretch of sealing would be 3Km followed by 1Km, then 300 metres, 100 metres and so forth, never reaching Yuendumu, ever.

In the olden days Yallourn Teachers experimented with Coal-powered vehicles. Seen here a prototype being tested.

I had already worked out that the NT funding of schools method (based on attendance rather than enrolment) was a downward spiral, when an article appeared in the ABC online NT news in which figures obtained by Independent Arnhem Land MLA Yingiya Guyula reveal that out of 15 remote schools listed, Yuendumu School suffered the highest percentage drop in funding. In 2022 Yuendumu school funding had dropped 27% from $3.7M to $2.7M.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-16/nt-remote-education-funding-effective-enrolment/101517962

Recently Yuendumu School lost two Kardiya teachers. This is how it works, attendance drops, when the school needs more resources to attract students back to school, it receives less funding, and attendance drops, thus fund allocation drops, ability to attract students drops. Anyway, you get the picture. I am sure mathematicians can express this as a mathematical formula.

Bis zum nächsten Mal

Frank

As a student, young Frank excelled in algebra and trigonometry

Multiplication (Bobby Darin):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPEMzWk2rSg

This edition of pcbycp is proudly brought to you from the G20 Summit. A summit where happy faces and old friends have a chance to meet up, talk about trade blocs, old empires and promise with the utmost sincerity….. absolutely nothing!

We return to our saga. Our heroes find themselves in hot water once again.

Its akin to arriving at a G20 summit and finding that apart from the nice t shirts, the ethnically themed dancing, and photo ops there’s nothing on offer.

No big picture.

No global re- alignment.

Just wealthy, spoilt politicians and A-listers pretending to do something.  And the conga line of suck holes pretending to really care. Like the good policemen and women at ‘Camp Rolfe’, (formerly Yuendumu) who really are quite sincere about their duty, their remote living allowances, their special allocations, their entitlements, and somewhere at the bottom of their priorities a secondary and almost sincerely expressed concern for native indigenes.

But as our heroes wait for the Rotodyne to descend, they realise that for all the struggle there is contentment in knowing that at the very least, they are being looked after by those who seek to enrich themselves by making obscene profits from our collective resources. And in doing so, the status quo is kept intact.

An opportunity to have a nice cup of tea, with or without polonium.

A comforting thought indeed.

Irrespective of their own well- being, they stand as representatives of the Democratic Process, the Commonwealth, and the August power of our Sovereign King Charles the Turd.

Now read on….

The sound got ominously louder, and Quent the first to spot it pointed to the horizon; ‘and there it is’! Surely enough the Rotodyne, insect like, touched the horizon as a pallid dash of white and crimson, before merging closer, and closer. Hovering and circling over the very spot where our three heroes resignedly waited.

For mates to talk about house- keeping, shirt- fronting and pan global strategy on a domestic scale and hope that no one else is paying attention.

They wondered what kind of a greeting they’d get, how they’d construct a reality, what options they could offer when all they expected was a hail of bullets or summary incarceration. Terry being an ex copy-boy for ‘The Truth’, was optimistic. ‘Whatever happens don’t let TRUTH get in the way of a good story. If its overblown enough, they’ll buy it. No one wants to be made to look silly’. And with that the three anti-heroes glumly awaited the arrival of whatever or whoever was on that aircraft.

What if it’s Gina and Nev, have we got a snowflake’s chance in hell or a parliamentary internees chance?

Is Gina the sort of person who understands compassion? Can Nev think beyond Gas, and his naked self interest, or are they more loke Benny Boy, drawn to a higher calling. Can we look to them for a reconciliation of sorts’. With the word reconciliation there was a pause, the Rotodyne , harpy-like hovered, reconciliation as a word had a sense of impending doom.

An opportunity to dress- up and demonstrate you have heard of poverty and third world countries cos you’ve read about ‘Camp Rolfe’ in the pages of the Australian.

‘I dunno’, Ces demurred, ‘perhaps they want to make amends and do the right thing. Both of them (Gina and Nev) are very much public figures of stature and like Gina, want to show the public by funding netball teams why it’s reasonable not to pay tax and keep Australia’s bounty all for themselves.  They might see losing the ingots as altruism and we who’ve done the right thing by looking after it as saviors’.

Ces had a point, perhaps by hanging around this might be their redemption. Perhaps in the end Gina and Nev might grant them a royal pardon or some sort of reprieve?

But Quent was deeply worried about the whole affair. It was messy and there were too many loose ends. He knew from his brief association with Angus ‘s Cayman Island Murray Darling investment funds that some people in real positions of unanointed power don’t like it messy. It makes them anxious, and liable to erupt. And, in the end slot the little people who had nothing to do with it. Because in the end as is axiomatic with obscenely rich people and the rich and powerful, the little people of no significance must always pay.

‘But what happens if they find the gold is fake and the real gold is hidden right under their very noses?

I dunno, probably do nothing, as it’d embarrass them to admit they stuffed up, and King Charles will just ask for another 30 ingots’, Ces paused, ‘Gina makes that much in a day, so whose gonna be upset?

To establish an outstanding legacy that will be long remembered.

Yeah but, well but’, Both Quent and Terry stood flummoxed.

‘Well in that case’, Quent had formulated a response of sorts, ‘in that case whatever we do, however we plead it makes no difference as in the end it’ll be up to those in power’, he pointed to the rapidly descending Rotodyne,, ‘they’ll do whatever they do because’ … he paused for effect, ‘THEY CAN’!!

With minutes to spare, (as Rotodynes) are not as fast a Gipsy Dragon rapides, we re- arranged the gear and made it look like we were having a big barby. For extra punch we threw a dead kangaroo carcass onto the hot plate to make it look like we’d been feasting on bush tucker. The fact we were miserable, hungry beyond measure, and would happily have just put our hands up and been shot than have to go through another round of the emotional torture of Brendan Nelson and his dreams of a ‘Sons and Daughters of Anzac Lazer, Light and Sound Extravaganza’ was immaterial. We’d been hard worn by too much ‘Anzackery’ and just didn’t have the fight left in us.

‘Camp Rolfe’, (Yuendumu) Internees await life- affirming leadership from the G 20 summit.

‘Well this is it’!  sighed Ces. ‘It’s been good knowing youse’,

We winced at Cec’s grammatical inexactitude and realised how he’d given up. Terry handed us the last of his Camels, and for the very last time, clutching the naked flame we lit up, and exhaled grey blue whisps of smoke into the midday air.  We’d achieved one thing, and that in itself was sublime, the freedom to drag on a Camel, without worrying about the guilt associated with the packet,

“Smoking Kills” and the amputated eyeless baggage that stared out at us from the crushed and discarded carton, offered caution and anxiety in just being a piece of rubbish. In a way it symbolised Australia in the 21st Century. All anxiety, not much passion and generally speaking whichever way you looked at it…..Rubbish’

Our nadir, or a new beginning? As the dust swirled and flayed our creased and desiccated countenances, we had little time left to wonder, and in that there was a measure of peace at last.

What will happen to our heroes?

Like G.20 summits,. the Rotodyne requires significant spin in order to achieve lift.

Will the Rotodyne, whisk them away?

Or are they slotted for something much worse? Find our next rotational episode, “a Rotodyne in the nick of time’, or….

‘Who the hell is Nick? And if he’s not into mining, he shouldn’t be here in the first place’

This G20 award winning episode of pcbycp is brought to you by those who promote LEADERSHIP and Civil Duty as their Highest calling. Those who serve selflessly, so that others may feel SAFE and PROTECTED!

Dear reader, implausibly we’ve had a few delays in setting up the latest instalment of our saga.

What could the reason be you may ask, the instalment of a new monarch, the red wave turning into a pinkish hued wave, or the attendance by our scribe from the near north into the zac Rolfe case? All of the above, and a distraction on any measure. We return once again to our saga. A sage ripe with irony and dripping in realism. For those detached from the last episode, we had the trio, aided by Australia’s bravest soldier Benny-Boy Roberts Smith and Julian Assange, hiding the Hancock gold, where Sherlock would say the best hiding place was; ‘in plain sight’. Substituting the real gold for a lead counter weight in an oil drilling derrick for the painted lead in the rear of the ute. And in barely the blink of an eye, or ‘Augenblick’ as our German readers would understand it, the plan was to substitute the gold for gold painted ingots, and then before midday make a run for freedom.

BRAVE MEN! and (though no sightings have been confirmed) WOMEN! BIG- CHESTED MEN who know how to keep the Civil Society on track and adorn themselves with Chest Medals as a symbol of their HONOR!

In the hope, the wry hope, that Brendan, (‘Nelso’ to his mates) and his cronies, Clifford, the dullard from MI5, and Nev,( ‘Nev’ to his mates’)  the power behind the Gas-led recovery would be none the wiser.  And duly pick up the gold and take it back to the most powerful woman in the country, Gina, ‘there’s no such thing as a resource rent tax’, who would then deftly use the gold to pay off her crime boss henchman, (King Charles the Turd).  And in doing so secure herself what every West Australian mining magnate really wants, a seat on the House of Lords and a lifetime tarnished by greed, corruption and bloody mindedness to emerge newly sprung, freshly minted and beyond reproach as ‘respectable”,

Can Gina pull it off?

Can our trio pull it off?

Will Nev, Clifford and Brenny Boy get to them before the scheme is up?

Is Angus Taylor on hand to monetise the debacle and convert it into a Cayman Islands trust?

BRAVE MEN! Who shall not suffer the TAINT of enquiry!

And all awhile, after everything they’ve been through at the very end, after converting the lead to gold and vice versa, their two gaolers Benny Boy Roberts Smith and Julian, ( ‘he’s not the messiah, just a very naughty boy’) have pissed off in their only serviceable ute. And all awhile they hear, as a final ignominious curtain call, the sound, the piercing harpy type sound of the unmistakeable whirr of the Rotodyne. The Rotodyne and the sinister thought that whoever is on it, seeks revenge. There’s  nothing  scarier than an angry Westralian mining magnate Sheila, scorned. ‘Hell hath no fury, cos fury incarnate is what’s on its way’.  We return to our heroes;

MEN, (It’s impossible to verify the sightings at this stage), and some women, (though none would agree to be interviewed) who perform solemn feats without the protection of a shirt or wrist watch.

‘Jeez Ces whaddawegonna do now’?

Terry offered the trio, now abandoned and more forlorn that the owner of a sachet of undefined powder at a gaming Table at Crown Casino another Camel and realised that this time their game was up.

‘I dunno’ They looked around, there was the gold in front of them, the carefully painted and smelted ingots laid out neatly, cooling in the morning sun in front of them. And the counterweight, the real gold suspended metres above the ground, painted grey and innocuous. Gold on one side lead on the other. A ‘fools gold’ for those ‘who dare to win’.

‘I suppose the best thing is to gather up the instruments’, he pointed to the gas bottles the smelting tins and the moulds and pretend we’re having a barby. ‘We can tell em Julian and Benny-Boy have pissed off, and with a bit of luck with nothing stolen, we can be on our way,

Men who obey the highest calling for a nobility undiminished by time or tabloid newspaper.

‘But’, Ces interjected; ‘Why would’ve Julian and Benny Boy pissed off without taking the gold’?

Indeed, we ask ourselves the very same question, even for a much-loved national war hero ‘Anzackery’ Icon, and winner of the coveted V.C. The temptation would be to take the money and run. But Like Zac Rolfe, benny Boy has a sacred duty to perform. A higher duty as they say.

Are their death duties payable on higher duties, is doing your duty all that counts in the nefarious world of crime, graft, corruption, and the firm they refer to as Windsor Inc?

BIGMEN!!! ………………………………………..and the interests of very small men.

Find out in our next aurically inclined episode; ‘How many ingots you got’? Or …’wanna know about inflation? Thirty ingots won’t even get you an audience with Fergie these days’!

Franks First ham-radio was converted from a bacon smoking kiln, (ham) with valves and knobs donated by Phillips Australia.

Ohayō

When I was an active radio amateur, I accumulated a Japanese vocabulary of around 50 words. This prompted an Australian ham who heard me valiantly struggle when speaking to someone in Japan to mail me a little book “Japanese in a Nutshell” Well let me assure you, there is no language on earth which fits into a nutshell, but all the same the booklet was quite interesting and useful. For one, it made me aware of some similarities of Japanese to Warlpiri. I found with the exercises at the end of each chapter that translation into Warlpiri was easier than into English. Two easy to remember words stood out, the Japanese word for ‘shirt’- wayishiritsu for instance which derives from English ‘white shirt’ and then there was takushi which I’m awarding no prizes for to guess what it means.

The long room. short-hand view

When visiting Ireland apart from the Long Room at Trinity College, what impressed me the most were the Dublin taxi drivers. I suspect that Ireland is the only country in the world where taxi drivers are both comedians and philosophers.

His second radio was a more compact portable device, capable of adaptation as a surveillance transmitter, colloquially referred to as the ‘Boxed Brown-eye’

Which brings me to one of my favourite songs of all time- Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFB-d-8_bvY

And finally, a segue to Yuendumu:

The super portable ‘little ripper junior’ took out the 1957 innovation prize for agricultural implements as it could be converted to a three-stand shearing rig in under an hour.

When a decade ago a family dispute got ample rather negative publicity and friends and relatives rang us enquiring if we were OK, we had to reassure them that the disturbances were targeted and did not affect people who weren’t directly involved.

I also recall that an Adelaide based journalist rang me to ask if I had anything to tell her about the riots. I told her that it wasn’t a riot, but a confrontation. She wouldn’t have it; the police had charged a number of people with rioting. Thus, we had one of those Monty Pythonesque arguments: it is a riot, it is a confrontation, it is a riot…. ad nauseum.

In the end I told her that I’d lived here decades, the police only weeks, so in future don’t call me, call the police, and yes it is a riot, OK? It must be because the police reckon so.

When I launched the previous Dispatch into cyberspace, I received many responses saying that my more nuanced reportage on the coronial inquest was appreciated. I herewith undertake to keep it up.

Franks final adaption, the ‘walkie squawky’ became a ‘ must have ‘ for servicemen in the field.

The response from one of the Dispatchees included the following:

“Also, the media hyping up the last family dispute to the point that the public (including my taxi driver) thought that Yuendumu was a riot, so the police feel justified in letting loose on it.”
Melbourne taxi drivers indeed, not exactly intellectual giants, neither comedians nor philosophers.

Japanese ham radio listeners listen eagerly to the happy hour, as Frank plays his favourite disc; ‘Two Little Boys’ to a worldwide audience.

Sayonara,

Frank

Harry Chapin- Taxi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5dwksSbD34

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Welcoming entry to Alice Springs law Courts. Water Cannon and Public Order response unit located at rear.

Dear reader, this time there is no preamble, Just Frank telling us how it is. 

In Nepal they have over five hundred definitions, (so we have been told) for snow, ice, avalanche etc. At Yuendumu we wonder how many definitions they may have for frustration? 

Frank writes…

Ngurrju mayi?

Parumpurru is one of those powerful hard to translate Warlpiri words.
An English approximation of parumpurru is justice.

Law Courts in Alice Springs, Voted 1# by ‘Love your Authoritarian Regime Magazine”

Here an oft repeated song (originally from Argentina but applicable worldwide)
Que te ha pasado Justicia? (Justice, what has happened to you?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5tQ6Y8xH28

Under the auspices of the NT Department of the Attorney-General and Justice, the three-month long Kumanjayi Walker coronial inquest is being held in the Alice Springs local court. The Yuendumu community’s Parumpurru Committee is represented by pro-bono lawyers. To clarify, other parties are represented by other lawyers, such as the victim’s family, the Health Department, the Police Association and others. In the live streamed inquest just now, I count 15 lawyers in Alice Springs court No.1, but it goes without saying that not all involved are present. Zac Rolfe who fired the three shots is also represented.

On the lawns on the opposite side of the road to the court house, a pergola is set up on hearing days, where a small group of Yuendumu residents and supporters hold a vigil.

Zac Rolfe, undisputed, hero, legend, deserving public figure according to his biography, ” 3mm and much more”.

The proceedings in the coronial inquest are to Warlpiri people best described as foreign or even alien, as were the proceedings during the criminal trial which resulted in Zac Rolfe being found not guilty.

In contrast to the media frenzy leading up to and including the criminal trial, reporting on the inquest is fairly minimal. The ABC NT news’ Melissa Mackay being a notable exception. Melissa as far as I know has been attending all sessions and regularly reports on the proceedings, in a reasonably fair unbiased way.

Proposed New police facility at Yuendumu. Winner of numerous architectural awards.

The aftermath of the killing and consequent murder charges, engendered what appeared to be a well-coordinated campaign of denigrating Kumanjayi Walker and the Yuendumu community. This campaign disregarded court injunctions and had not a skerrick of objectivity nor fairness or decency. In sharp contrast was the dignified response by the Yuendumu community and Kumanjayi Walker’s family and friends, which did not however restrain Zac Rolfe’s defence counsel from stating that Kumanjayi Walker had been “the author of his own misfortune”. An obnoxious example of victim blaming if ever I heard one.

Despite it being so serious and sad, the coronial inquest is providing some moments to be savoured by irony-tragics like myself.

The Health Department tied their knickers in a knot trying to prove that the evacuation of clinic staff had resulted from the perceived (assumed) danger the community presented to the nursing staff and was therefore justified. The possibility that it had been a case of ‘them and us’ “Teach the community a lesson” was vehemently ignored or denied. We all now know that the order to evacuate emanated from the Alice Springs office. What also became clear during the inquest is that remote clinics are very understaffed and health workers seriously overworked and subsequently not always very friendly or helpful. There is a serious disconnect between the health system and the local community, with exceptions the Health Department witnesses drove this home. Our clinic used to be part of our community, sadly this is no longer the case.

Mock- up of new Police Facility being trialled at Yuendumu.

I’m confused by Police hierarchy and titles. During the inquest we have had Senior Constables, Sergeants, Superintendents, Detectives, Commissioners, Commanders and so on as witnesses. Because of my predilection for alliterations, I describe them as a conga line of constables (you pedantics, please disregard this).

Police person after police person exhibited what in Dutch used to be called “East-Indian deafness”. When asked if they’d ever heard racist language being used by their colleagues within or outside the police station, they invariably answered with a straight face that they never had. The word that comes to mind is disingenuous.

Almost all NT police have a Glock pistol hanging off what I term their ‘Swiss Army Knife Belt’. In the inquest they kept referring to their pistol as an accoutrement, which somehow makes it sound less lethal. When asked about the use of and wearing of guns, they invariably had reasons why they felt justified in doing so. The classic was the officer who wears a gun because “you never know what is around the corner” not to mention the officer who thinks that wearing a gun when being involved in a dispute, earns him respect. The thought that people might react to his weapon with fear and loathing rather than respect didn’t appear to have crossed his mind. Myself, I also don’t know what to expect around the corner, but somehow, I don’t have an urge to wear an accoutrement. But then again, I’m not a member of the constabulary.

Please hang in there, there is more:

Watching the inquest, has reinforced my belief that the NT Police is run as a military organisation. I fully realize that in this they are not Robinson Crusoe. One witness even used the word ‘paramilitary’ in a morning session, and subsequently in the afternoon tried to deny (unsuccessfully) having used the term. A classic ‘Freudian Slip’.

‘Nothing para-military about our police’; says Victorian Premier Mr Bjelke Andrew’s.

Victoria Police and NT Police? Can’t tell em apart. (shown at work on school crossing to arrest jay-walkers)

Immediately after the shooting, the troops all retreated to the Yuendumu Police Station, took up defensive positions and called in reinforcements. They assumed (wrongly) that the community would attack them and their precious station. When questioned, they asserted that “making the community safe” was their top priority. Never mind a dying young man and a traumatized community. There is a long history of the use of ruses in military scenarios.  From the Trojan Horse to the use of red-cross marked vehicles in battlefields to now the Yuendumu ruse. A convoy consisting of an ambulance escorted by police vehicles set off to the Yuendumu airstrip, the waiting anxious crowd was deliberately led to believe that a wounded Kumanjayi Walker was being flown to Alice Springs by the Flying Doctor. We now know that Kumanjayi Walker had died hours before and that Zac Rolfe was being bundled off allegedly to the Alice Springs Hospital to have his stab wound administered to. From memory the stab wound was 3mm deep and required no further treatment.
The real reason that Zac was urgently sent on his way, was that within the police station they feared “pay back” which is right up there with “walkabout” as a misunderstood mythical stereotype of remote Aboriginal Australia.

Pay-back is a highly ritualistic nuanced form of Aboriginal justice/reconciliation which I, after nearly half a century living in Yuendumu, cannot begin to fully understand nor know. Payback is not revenge. it is not an immediate reaction but a process, just like a coronial inquest. That at the Yuendumu police station they felt under siege because of fear of payback and felt no compunction in disrespecting the community and the family of Kumanjayi Walker by calling in reinforcements and withholding the truth by the use of a ruse, is a further demonstration of the complete disconnect between white-fellow law and justice and Warlpiri Society.

At present at the front, the police presence has been increased. A family dispute has escalated and I believe that this results in no small part from the heightened tensions and frustrations following the not guilty verdict. The cruising cops and occasional sirens add to this tension and a large number of Warlpiri young men are being systematically arrested and sent to remand. For a long time now in the NT the presumption of innocence has been turned on its head. I am told that the Alice Springs judiciary is prone to go hard on Yuendumu residents as part of an initiative to regain full control.

I’m waiting for the inquest and the media to do something about the perception of Yuendumu and the Warlpiri as dangerous and out of control, instead of the proud dignified people I know they can be.

Heroes proudly display their medals. Adored and worshipped by the public for keeping us ‘SAFE’!

Announcement in memoriam Sabine Kacha:

A Memorial Service for the late Sabine Kacha will be held in the Redfern Community Centre (Sydney) on Saturday, 5 November 2022 at 10am (AEDT).
The event will be live streamed. The link for the live streaming and further information are available here: http://www.respectandlisten.org/vale-sabine-kacha

Sabine was a formidable fighter for justice for Australia’s First Nations. She was much loved by us at the front line.

Ngaka-na-nyarra nyanyi,

Frank (Jungarrayi)

P.S. A non-sequitur song and dance for your enjoyment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxT32ormkhk&list=RDMM&start_radio=1&rv=Yldy-0K5ujo

Our representative of Australia’s favorite crime family, “The Firm” , makes guest appearance on next series of ‘The Crown’. To uphold the principles of justice and fair play for those who don scary black uniforms to keep the public ‘ SAFE’.

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In this he suggests that commentary in the local newspaper might be skewed. Perhaps he’s right.

The Truth always reported ‘Just the facts’!

Ever since they ceased publication of ‘ The Truth” it’s been hard to reconcile what’s on the page with the real-life situations happening in front of you. That’s why we at pcbycp read ‘Pravda” and the ‘ Global Times’, for balance and objectivity. 

Frank writes; 

 

Boa tarde amigos,

We live in a divided world. Keep in mind that for every 51 Brazilians who voted for Lula there are 49 Brazilians who voted for Bolsonaro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etg66Miq3sQ Cabeza Hinchada, Oscar Aleman, a Portuguese language Brazilian baion from my childhood

Today I drove back from Alice Springs. Crossing the road, I saw a large perentie and several goannas. This didn’t surprise me as not long ago a warm strong westerly wind sprung up. This in Warlpiri is known as the karapurda which signals the start of warm weather and makes reptiles come out of hibernation.

Even GREAT GLOBAL SUPERPOWERS have a little trouble getting down to the bare facts.

The online Alice Springs News also on occasions wakes up from its slumber and posts eagerly awaited articles. Yesterday there appeared an article headlined:
Alice Aboriginal art gallery’s ‘competitor’ put on hold.
The article refers to the suspension of work on Adelaide’s “Tarrkarri Centre for First Nations Cultures”

Sometimes the facts can get in the way of a good story

Within hours of its appearance, the article elicited the following comment:

Why in the hell are we wasting money on “cultural centres” when the very mob we are bowing and scraping to, detest our (Australians’) existence, flag, holiday, government, law enforcement, laws and most of all, our generosity, health care, child protection and anything else the radicals are so displeased by.

From my perspective the only redeeming feature of this letter to the editor, which I’ve rendered in its entirety lest I be accused of cherry picking, is that the author used his own name.

It is symptomatic of a Great Divide in Alice Springs non-Aboriginal society. No prizes in guessing on which side of the divide I dwell.

That’s why we in Australia can justifiably be historically proud of LEADERSHIP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUPbIbHUem0 Across the Great Divide- The Band

Até a próxima vez

Frank

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