Penii (sic) with Cecil Poole

We here at Passive Complicity have held a long interest in penii. (as opposed to an interest in long penii, which may or may not hold true, however the information is private and confidential, and probably in poor taste.) Actually this is not true.  I have undertaken comprehensive research and the medical writings all recognised the plural of penis as either penes or penises.  My research only covers medical writings.  I have, again in the interest of propriety, eschewed the more salacious writings (of which there are volumes, with pictures)

As part of my bedtime routine I’ve been reading biologist Tim Lowe’s “Where Song Began – Australia’s birds and how they changed the world”.  This book is filled with interest, building understandings of our natural world and the influences on ‘the origin of species’ through climate changes, tectonic plate movement, migration birds and  other animals and the spread of flora.

Previously we reported Lowe’s accounts of the promiscuity of certain bird species.

Today we look at penes (or penises if you prefer).  Through Tim Lowe’s words.

“A little know fact about birds is that very few species – only about 3 per cent – sport a penis.  Most practice the ‘cloacal kiss’, a transfer of sperm when their cloacas (lower openings) breifly meet.  Penises are made interesting by how well they fit the phylogenetic tree, in that nearly all birds with a phallus are landfowl, waterfowl or Palaeognaths.  Penises were inherited from dinosaurs, then disposed of by the line of birds that gave rise to most species alive today.

Hygiene probably explains why penises were lost.  Birds face more disease risk than mammals since they use the same opening for defecation and sex.  Reptiles have a single opening as well, but they have lower temperatures to reduce the risk of infection.  In birds, to limit the contact between warm damp skin, evolution may have favoured smaller and smaller penises until none remained.  Penises are to birds what platypus eggs are to mammals – a ‘primitive’ feature.  Teeth are something else that in birds but not in mammals count as ‘primitive’.  

Some bird penises are exceptional.  An aroused Argentine lake drake finds himself in command of a 40-centimetre implement.  The sharp spine along the base probably facilitate rape.  Australian blue-billed ducks may be similarly endowed since they are closely related, but no one has produced a tape measure at the right moment.  To thwart rape, the females of some ducks possess multiple false vaginas.  Ducks probably face little disease risk because they have so much water washing over their cloacas.  Landfowl are by comparison modestly endowed.

Ref. ‘Where Song Began’ Tim Lowe, Penguin Books, Melbourne 2014

Poetry Sunday features Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Intervention Payback from her anthology Little bit long time (Picaro Press)  We begin with her Cordite essay “The Northern Territory Emergency Response: Why Australia Will Not Recover from The Intervention” published on 1 February 2015.  This short essay gives background to the poem.

It was always an exciting time for me, during my time in the role of Art Centre Manager at Titjikala, to escort Aboriginal artists from central Australia to their art exhibitions and forums in Adelaide. On one occasion were two senior Pitjantjatjara / Luritja artists from Titjikala, and they were accompanied by their granddaughters. My granddaughter had joined the group in Port Augusta. And so we were in Adelaide when the news was announced.

The next day, after the exhibition, and on the front page of the Weekend Australian, a large photo showed army soldiers playing football with children in the community we had just left. One of the elder artists lay down on the floor. I lay beside her and asked what was wrong. She said she was ‘waiting for a heart attack,’ as she did not believe that the other children she had left behind would still be in the community upon our return. She was sure the Army would steal them. Why else would they have invaded her home? I held her in my arms and reassured her that everything would be alright. I kept my voice strong. But my mind was addled with confusion and doubt. What was the Army doing in the remote Simpson Desert of central Australia?

In August 2007, The Australian Federal Government, under the leadership of Prime Minister John Howard and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough, rolled out a policy titled the Northern Territory Emergency Response, which has become more infamously known as The Intervention. Howard based his argument on the findings of the Little Children Are Sacred Report that claimed paedophilia rings and child sexual abuse cases were rampant in Aboriginal communities with the Northern Territory. This report also pleaded for locally based action, education and resources.

A total of seventy-three Aboriginal communities and town camps were targeted. Operation Outreach involved about six hundred soldiers from the Australian Defence Forces, led by Major-General David Chalmers. Many Aboriginal soldiers from NorForce were deployed to ‘protect’ the bureaucrats to deliver the new policies. It was a strange and mixed message.

I was living with my kinship family at Titjikala, on the edge of the Simpson Desert. I witnessed firsthand intimidation methods to implement the following strictures, justification for the extreme wages paid to ‘interventionists’: alcohol restrictions (these have been in place for many years, and ineffectively monitored due to lack of police); mandatory ‘sex checks’ on all children residing in the communities, overriding the regular health checks in the local community clinic (doctors from interstate were paid $5000 per week including benefits, due to their perilous task); Welfare quarantining of money, for all families and Aboriginal residents, including high standing community leaders and long-term employed; Changes to land tenures, what became five-year leases evolved to 40 to 90-year lease holds by the federal government in return for essential services; Suspension of the Land Councils permit system controlling access to Aboriginal communities; and the abolition of the Community Development Employment Project (CDEP), often the only employment strategy in these remote communities. I was there the day all the staff got sacked!

The loss of the international tourist venture at Titjikala was a result from the CDEP’s elinimation. Here was a community that had worked in partnership with Macquarie Bank and the Indigenous Land Council, to build an authentic cultural enterprise and showcase their community and history. Many overseas visitors arrived to stay for short residencies at Gunya Titjikala, a series of deluxe safari tents boasting polished floor boards, private en suites with claw baths and eco-toilets, and exceptional views of the Simpson desert and the night skies. Guests were treated to bush tucker catered by locals. Entertainment provided and reciprocated at night was a true example of the friendships I had imagined might exist in a mature Australia.

It was terrifying to watch the effect of the loss of livelihood upon the men of Titjikala. The confusion and constant changes to their lives made them nervous to speak out. Respectfully, I wrote the poem ‘Intervention Pay Back’ in support of the men, who I knew as kind, hard-working, fun-loving and strong husbands, fathers and sons. These men are my family and also my friends.

Intervention Payback

I love my wife   she right skin for me   pretty one my wife   young one   found her in
the next community over   across the hills   little bit long way   not far
And from there she give me good kids   funny kids mine   we always laughing all
together  and that wife she real good mother   make our wali real nice   flowers and
grass patch and chickens  I like staying home with my kids

And from there I build cubby house   yard for the horse   see I make them things from
the left overs   from the dump   all the left overs from fixing the houses  and all the
left overs I make cubby house and chicken house

And in the house we teach the kids  don’t make mess   go to school   learn good so you can work round here later   good job   good life   and the government will leave you alone

And from there tjamu and nana bin tell us the story   when the government was worse
rations   government make up all the rules   but don’t know culture   cant sit in the sand oh tjamu and nana they got the best story   we always laughing us mob

And from there night time when we all aslepp   all together on the grass patch   dog and cat and kids  my wife and me   them kids they ask really good questions about them olden days   about today   them real ninti them kids   they gunna be right

And from there come intervention   John Howard he make up new rules   he never even come to see us   how good we was doing already   Mal Brough he come with the army we got real frightened true   thought he was gunna take the kids away   just like tjamu and nana bin tell us

I run my kids in the sand hills   took my rifle up there and sat   but they was all just lying changing their words all the time   wanting meeting today and meeting tomorrow   we was getting sick of looking at them   so everyone put their eyes down   and some even shut their ears

And from there I didn’t care too much   just kept working fixing the housing   being happy working hard   kids go to school   wife working hard too   didn’t care too much we was right we always laughing us mob all together

But then my wife she come home crying   says her money in quarantine but I didn’t know why they do that   we was happy not drinking and fighting   why they do that we ask the council to stop the drinking and protect the children   hey you know me ya bloody mongrel I don’t drink and I look after my kids   I bloody well fight ya you say that again   hey settle down we not saying that   Mal Brough he saying that don’t you watch the television   he making the rules for all the mobs   every place Northern Territory he real cheeky whitefella but he’s the boss   we gotta do it

And from there I tell my wife she gets paid half   half in hand half in the store   her money in the store now   half and half   me too   all us building mob   but I cant buy tobacco or work boots   you only get the meat and bread just like the mission days just like tjamu and nana bin tell us

And from there I went to the store to get meat for our supper   but the store run out only tin food left   so I asked for some bullets   I’ll go shoot my own meat   but sorry
they said you gotta buy food   that night I slept by hungry   and I slept by myself thinking about it

And from there the government told us our job was finish   the government bin give us the sack we couldn’t believe it   we bin working CDEP for years   slow way park the truck at the shed   just waiting for something   for someone with tobacco

The other mens reckon fuck this   drive to town for the grog   but I stayed with my kids started watching the television   trying to laugh   not to worry   just to be like yesterday

And from there the politician man says I’ll give you real job   tells me to work again
but different only half time   sixteen hours  but I couldn’t understand   it was the same
job as before   but more little   less pay   and my kids can’t understand when they come home from school why I can’t buy the lolly for them like I used to before   I don’t want to tell them   I get less money for us now

And from there they say my wife gets too much money   I gunna miss out again   I’m getting sick of it   don’t worry she says I’ll look after you   but I know that’s not right way I’m getting shame   my brother he gets shame too   he goes to town for drinking   leaves his wife behind   leaves his kids

And from there I drive round to see tjamu   he says his money in the store too   poor bloke he can’t even walk that far   and I don’t smile   I look at the old man   he lost his smile too   but nana she cooking the damper and the roo tail   she trying to smile   she always like that

And from there when I get home   my wife gone to town with the sister in law   she gone look for my brother   he might be stupid on the grog   he not used to it   she gotta find him might find him with another woman   make him bleed drag him home

And from there my wife come back   she real quiet true   tells me she went to casino   them other kungkas took her   taught her the machines   she lost all her money   she lost her laughing

And from there all the kids bin watching us   quiet way not laughing round   so we all go swimming down the creek   all the families there together   we happy again   them boys we take them shooting chasing the malu in the car   we real careful with the gun not gunna hurt my kids   no way

And from there my wife   she sorry   she back working hard   save the money   kids gunna get new clothes   I gunna get my tobacco and them bullets   but she gone change again getting her pay forgetting her family   forget yesterday   only thinking for town with the sister in law

And my wife she got real smart now   drive for miles all dressed up   going to the casino with them other kungkas   for the Wednesday night draw

I ready told you I love my kids   I only got five   two pass away already   and I not complaining bout looking after my kids no way   but when my wife gets home   if she spent all her money   not gunna share with me and the kids   I might hit her first time

Having succeeded in jailing indigenous peoples at rates unseen in any other part of the ‘civilised’ world (3% of Australian population yet 28% of the prison population), we now turn back the clock and steal their children. (We will have that song!)  When the Army, as part of our Government’s racist, culturally genocidal ‘Intervention’ invaded the Northern Territory’s ‘remote settlements’ in  2007 approximately 200 children were in ‘foster care’.  Today the number has grown by a factor of 5 to close to one thousand.  (Read Paddy Gibson’s report here.)  So the Intervention is working!

The major growth industry in the NT is Prisons.  And despite numerous inquiries including the Deaths in Custody report it seems that we are still able to kill indigenous people in custody with absolute impunity.  So what do we do?  We withdraw funding from Aboriginal legal services!

Education – of course.  Education is the answer.  (Although we don’t really know the question.)  This is what we found in a relatively recently closed outstation school in the Tanami region.

Resource Material for Indigenous students in remote NT

So let us all light candles for the two Australian’s on death row.

Refugee and Indigenous injustice inexplicably rolls on with nay a whimper.  (I was at a small dinner where 2 of the guests said they were fed up with all this emphasis on indigenous rights, that we, the invaders, had won, and the indigenous people should just ‘suck it up’.)

However I see it that we owe our extraordinary standard of living as white Australians to the proceeds of the heinous crimes we have committed against fellow human beings, the theft of their land, culture, children, resources and their lives.

 And THAT – living on the proceeds of those ongoing crimes-  that it is our problem,  I think we need to reconcile that amongst ourselves before we can humbly ask for reconciliation with the First Australians.

Cecil Poole

PS. Tomorrow in Poetry Sunday Ali Cobby Eckermann presents her poem Intervention Payback, together with a short essay on its background.  Compulsory Reading!

by Quentin Cockburn

I am thoroughly sick of this business about Jap subs.

Allright then, they’re not regarded highly in this country and I suppose that has a lot to do with the first time they tried subs in Sydney harbour.

Australia’s Midget Submarine

Midget subs, manned by dwarves. Useless, and yet they persist with this federal Government in the hope, (probably proven) that we’ve forgotten about Commander Iwaki, and Lieutenant Ito.

But what irks me more profoundly is that we still become ensnared in lengthy, costly and prohibitively time consuming contracts with overseas suppliers (our glorious allies) to get the very worst result for defence, taxpayers and border security.

Shall I mention them?

Alright, the Collins Class, Dud. The F1-11 Dud. The Stealth Fighter, unproven and expensive Dud. The Navy helicopters that never flew, Dud.  The U.S auxiliary ships riddled with rust, Duds. We never learn. And if you want to go back in time there’s the Brewster Buffallos’, (Duds) and the Beaufort’s (Dangerous Duds). In short we are crap at defence, when we buy off the shelf, unproven and expensive material we don’t need with prohibitive spares and maintenance costs.

It’s time we consulted the ledger of history rather than leave it to the same dolts, (Army, Navy and Air force procurement teams) who seem more interested in junkets than providing what we need, and what is proven.

The Japs have failed at submarines. Their effort in Sydney pathetic.  They are no good with nomenclature either. Why on earth would you have aircraft with such prosaically quaint names, as ‘Oscar, Emily, Mavis, Nell, Kate, and Tony’. No wonder they flopped with the ‘Cedric.’ The only one I can think of that worked was the ‘Zero’, not many Zeros around these days either.

So give the Japs the flick, go to them for suicide planes, torture devices and public transport infrastructure, they have proven expertise there.

Where else would you go other than Germany for Submarines. U boats came closer than any other weapon in bringing us to our knees.  They were readily mass produced, feature prominently in ‘Das Boot’, and have funky insignia, brilliant uniforms and use such words, as ‘verdammt, teuffel, Englander and Torpedo Los’!.  We could at the very least get the Williamstown shipyard to produce, not twelve or eight, but several hundred type seven’s and larger 1X’s at half the cost of one Collins.  They could be on constant patrol and employ wolf pack tactics in pursuit of our major threat, boats teeming with refugees and asylum seekers.

Similarly I would rebuild Kittyhawks, Spitfires and Lancaster’s for air defence, and re- equip the army with the proven Lee Enfield and Bren Gun Carriers.  They say the next war is always fought in the strategy of the previous war.  Should’ve learnt from Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, The Somme.  Its axiomatic, If you want to get ahead in war, know your history.   Big ticket items will send you broke.  How useful was our very own Dreadnought (HMAS Australia) in defending us in the First World War?  Nought.

What we need is a proven strategy of cost effective equipment and mass production at affordable prices. What cost? Military intelligence. Sorry that’s an oxymoron.

by Cecil Poole

Here at Passive Complicity HQ we’ve discussed monogamy in a somewhat desultory, and disinterested fashion.  See for example Family Values or perhaps Christianity and Sexual Revolution.  We’ve also looked at Nuclear Families of which Kurt Vonnegut said “A husband, a wife and some kids is not a family.  It’s a terribly vulnerable survival unit.” (From “A Man Without a Country” Kurt Vonnegut 2005).  We’ve argued that First Nation Hospitality shows how embracing broader cultures with strong extended families can be, with examples from North America and from Australia.

Many people have used nature to support their view that monogamy is the natural state in the animal kingdom.  This has been the case with song birds in Europe and in North America which Tim Lowe suggests are ‘comparatively conservative’.  ‘The male uses spring song to stake his claim, then helps his mate rear their brood.  Biologists saw in this the monogamous nuclear family idealised by Western society.  Most of the worlds mammals, by comparison, are promiscuous. (My emphasis)

Filthy big bugger

Lowe then goes on to say there is an alternative: ‘Australia’s birds break every ‘rule’, and in every possible way.  Male Bower birds do nothing to aid the young they sire, instead pouring all their energy into boudoirs kept for sex.  At the other extreme are large miner groups, where many males bring food to one nest.  Fairy wrens are highly promiscuous, males almost never siring the chicks in their own nests, instead inseminating the faithless wives of rivals.  

Filthy little bugger

The highest levels of infidelity ever detected in birds have been in Australian magpies (82 per cent in one population), followed by splendid and superb fairy wrens.’

Co-operative breeding (where three or more birds help with parenting) is rare in Europe and North America – where the greatest number of ornithologists are, yet it is common in Africa and Australia.

Ref. ‘Where Song Began’ Tim Lowe, Penguin Books, Melbourne 2014

by Quentin Cockburn

So what if George didn’t know what metadata was.  He knew it was wrong not to look at what people were up to.  They could be up to all kinds of things.  For our own safety we need to know.

There’s a bit of a stoush going on about George’s treatment of Gillian Triggs.  Triggs is a lefty do-gooder.  A trouble maker, an Academic.  We don’t like those types in ‘Team Australia’, even if she is the President of the Human Rights Comission

But what really get me is that we offer Triggs a job, bit like the Vince Gair option, and she snubs us.  That’s plain ingratitude.  She’d done a hatchet job on the government as head of the Human Rights Commission.  She said some really nasty things about our treatment  of kiddies in detention.

George had had enough.  A gutful!!  He objected on principle to the commentary in the report.  Asked if he’d read it he replied, ‘I don’t need to read it in order to object to it’.

He’s right.  I hate Evolution for the same reason.  Every right minded person knows that the Earth was made six thousand years ago, that human kind was fashioned from Adams rib, and we all went downhill when some sheila ate the apple.  That’s why we keep them – sheilas that is – in the kitchen.  Gods truth!!

Like Tony, George doesn’t think much of science, it gives people big ideas.  He loathes and detests Human Rights Commissioners.  They interfere in our right to put 99 percent of the Aboriginal male population in Jail.  George has an idea, (and I wholeheartedly agree with it) that somehow in this country, (people NOT in Team Australia) have got their rights confused with liberty.

They keep referring to the Magna Carta as a document universally accepted as being the foundation of the modern justice system.  Fair trial and all that!!  Modern justice?  The bloody thing was written in the Twelfth Century, by King John.  Do you believe that? And who was King John?  Yes, the very man who tried to get Errol executed for stealing Olivia de Havilland from Basil Rathbone.  He should’ve been knocked off there and then, but what did Errol do, he demonstrated way too much compassion!!  He sent him into exile, cancelled his rights as a citizen, and forfeited his assets.  Soft-cock!!

Errol failed in his mission to restore freedom to Normans and Saxons alike.

I think George has learnt from history, and is on the right track.

Justice is a blunt weapon, and the burden of administering justice is an onerous task. That’s why George has shared the responsibility of “Freedom Commissioner

” with Tim Wilson.  They work as a team and can tell just by looking at someone if they’re a problem.  Not much work for the ‘Freedom Commissioner’*, and pretty soon there’ll be no work for the Human Rights Commissioner, the problem will be solved.  But for all those ‘pooncy sondomites’, (Marquis of Queensberry’s words) agitators, I’ve got one thing to say. ‘ If you don’t like it here you can just shove off!  And on your way out you can tell Triggs, that’s there’s always a place for her type in Nauru or Manaus Island.  That’s what Gerard Henderson talks about in the Australian, mixing like with like.. Onya Gerard!!

* Freedom Commissioner. Not to be confused with Other Marvel Comic Heroes. 

Our Poetry Editor, Ira Maine has presented us with a doozy this week – “The Spider by the Gwydir”. (Anon)  Mr Maine also has some comments that may be of interest:

The ‘Spider by the Gwydir’ is an “anon” work. No bastard is prepared to accept responsibility.
Ira Maine, Poetry Editor

The Spider by the Gwydir

By the sluggish river Gwydir lived a hungry red-backed spider,
Who was just about as wicked as could be;
An’ the place that he was camped in was an empty Jones’s jam tin
In a paddock near the showgrounds, at Moree.
Near him lay a shearer snoozin’, he had been on beer an’ boozin’
All through the night and all the previous day;
An’ the rookin’ of the rookers an’ the noise of showground spruikers
Failed to wake him from the trance in which he lay.

Then a crafty-lookin’ spieler with a dainty little Sheila
Came along, collectin’ wood to make a fire.
Said the spieler, “He’s a boozer, an’ he’s goin’ to be a loser;
If he isn’t you can christen me a liar.”
“Hustle round and keep nit, honey, while I fan the mug for money
And we’ll have some dainty luxuries for tea.”
But she answered, “Don’t be silly; you go back and boil the billy,
You can safely leave the mug to little me.”

So she circled ever nearer till she reached the dopey shearer
With his pockets bulgin’, fast asleep and snug;
But she didn’t see the spider that was ringin’ close beside her
For her mind was on the money an’ the mug.
The spider sighted dinner. He’d been daily growin’ thinner;
He’d been fastin’ an’ was hollow as an urn.
As she eyed the bulgin’ pocket, he just darted like a rocket
An’ bit the spieler’s Sheila on the stern.

Then the Sheila started squealin’ an’ her clothes she was unpeelin’,
To hear her yells would make you feel forlorn.
One hand the bite was pressin’ while the other was undressin’
An’ she reached the camp the same as she was born.
Then the shearer, pale an’ haggard, woke, an’ back to town he staggered
Where he caught the train an’ gave the booze a rest;
An’ he’ll never know the spider that was camped beside the Gwydir
Had saved him sixty smackers of the best.

Anonymous