By Cecil Poole

The first thing I do when I book into an hotel is check the bathroom.  Provided there is no mould on the walls, floors, crevasses, the the drain is not blocked with exfoliate or hair, (reasons to cancel the booking), I choose to sit and think.  In a memorable Las Vegas hotel where the bathroom appeared larger than my whole home, and there was no sign of either exfoliate or mould, I noticed a remote control beside me.  I push the power button and from within the mirror, which took up a whole wall, there appeared digital images, an imbedded TV screen no less, a fact which has nothing at all to do with this story.

I recently arrived in Honolulu, repaired to my hotel in Waikiki and undertook my customary bathroom check.  Finding all to my satisfaction I sat and thought.  Finding thinking not to my liking I looked around again and there on the vanity was a sight not seen before, at least not by this correspondent.

Soap?

An elegant white box sat on the righthand side, and the label read “Massaging Bar for Bath”.  I was taken aback.  I did not think it that sort of hotel; in fact I had my daughter, and grandchildren with me.  Come to think of it, my son-in-law made the booking; I must question him about it.

I know the Americans are strange people but this intrigued me.  I picked up the box and looked for instructions, there were none.  Making sure the door was closed and locked I opened the package to find, once I had removed the wrapper (as in cover, not musician) I had in my hand what plainly looked like a cake of soap, a bar of soap if you prefer.  I feel sure it was soap, and having now used it in the shower, for the purposes for which my mother taught me to use soap, I feel certain it was soap.  And far better I contend than those dreadful ‘Body Wash’ or ‘Shower Gel’ that many of the less reputable hotels (and even more reputable ones) fill their bathrooms with.

What the heck was wrong with a cake of Lux, Palmolive, or even Velvet.  I remember how useful the velvet was, a long length from which you could break off a fresh cake as needed, that you could and would have some in that wire handled basket in the kitchen and that you could swish about in the sink to produce wonderful suds.  And Solvol. Who, as a child, doesn’t remember the abrasive effect of this sand encrusted bar rubbed by your mother over the days dirt ingrained in your hands and knees?  And then we had that great footballer Alec Epis (HBF for Bombers in their ’65 Premiership team) advertising Cedel Hair soap on Sunday’s World Of Sport.   At last an answer another teenage embarrassment – Dandruff!  Yes, in those days soap reigned supreme.

Now in a world where hand sanitizers and liquid soaps seem to dominate, I must say it was a relief to get soap at my Waikiki hotel, even if they called it a ‘Massaging Bar’.  To be able to rub something solid over my body, around my neck, under my chin, arms and crutch, down my legs and over my feet creates a feeling those gels can never match.

And finally, the answer to the question of ‘where’s the soap’, the age old answer, at least of schoolboys I’ve known is “yes, doesn’t it.”

In which Adjunct Professor Kimberley Jong concludes his learned treaties on Science Education in schools.

I asked an expert in the Science teaching profession,

Dr Miranda Polkinghorne at work.

(Leading educator in the field) and she shrugged, before describing, (with some emotional intensity) that her crop of students are barely beyond robotic, uninspired and dis-engaged.

‘Why’? I implored.

Polkinghorne, took off her glasses and thoughtfully rubbed the bridge of her nose,  ‘There’s a number of factors.  Well for a start, there’s certainly bigger opportunities in Reality Television, and Real Estate.  And Car Sales are booming with high end punters.  The body politic are happy with things as they are at the moment, and there’s no reason to change’.  She picked up a file, titled ‘Exam Results’, and continued talking resignedly whilst flicking through the markings neatly inscribed on the upper right hand corner, distinguishable by the same scrawl, ‘FAIL’.

“Science, is subversive, and in a funny way, (she stifled a laugh) it runs counter to notions of Feudalism’.

‘FEUDALISM!” I scoffed.

‘Yeah, Feudalism. As we morph into the society of the 1% and the great unwashed, pre Copernican Science sort of fits… Science like good literature encourages enquiry.  But, Look here,’ she said, pointing to an Atlas, coloured half in deep red,  ‘You now about Isis? The Republicans in the U.S?  The Peoples Party Congress in China?  The Arab Oil States?  the Hindu Nationalists?  Farage and Ukip?  And Prince Harry?’

‘PRINCE HARRY’ I exclaimed.

‘Yup’, she said matter of factly, ‘they’re all on the side of the Brave New Feudalism’.

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed.

She continued, scratching out a ‘Pass’ and over-writing ‘Fail’ on the margin. ‘The basic experiment post Industrial Revolution is over.  It’s quite simple.  Capital has won over Labour.  Materialism over Reason.  Anxiety over Happiness.  It’s a new post modern divinity of sorts.  Money and Power as divine’.

‘But is that the end of society?’ I gasped.

‘Oh no,’ she replied, ‘It’s the dawn of a new era’.

‘What’s it called?’  She put the file down, considered putting it back on the desk, then threw it into the bin.

‘Well in geological terms you’ve heard of the ‘Anthropocene’, where mankind reshapes the world’.

‘Yes’, I replied flatly.

‘Well this is just called ‘The Scene’. It’s a collapse of outdated values.  Human Rights.  Equality.  Democracy.  All that stuff is replaced by ‘the Scene.’

‘The Scene’? I queried.

‘Yeah.’ She replied dully.

I leaned forward, ‘What if I may ask is ‘the Scene’ exactly’?

‘Well that’s just media jargon, it’s the preoccupation for the other 99%’

‘What’s this preoccupation then?  Assuming that Capital has won over Labour etc ..etc…. ‘

‘Oh ‘the Scene’ is Reality Television’.

I looked up, gazed into those reflective brown eyes and asked, fearing the answer, ‘Are you hanging around in Science?  Is there a future in this?’

‘No, Fuck No,  Real Estate!  The Block and My Kitchen Rules are rating their socks off.  No wonder the kids are bored.

Science Sucks.’

High resolution image of a typical science teacher

Science Teacher

By Adjunct Professor Kimberley Jong, Un-Australian Academy of Science.

My son HATES Science in School.  He loathes and detests his teacher.  He describes her as dull beyond reason, sub-human, bereft of humour, depleted of fun, niggardly, simplistic, whining, and bullying.

This is a sad but paradoxically telling reminder of the status of Science in schools.  Science has been rendered thus.  It’s a reflection of “US”.

I’m surprised Robin Williams still fronts the ‘Science Show’.  Tony Abbott wasn’t joking when he said ‘Climate Science was Crap!!’. The entire front bench thinks that Science is crap.  They don’t need Science, they’ve got certainty in God!!

Is this true for the rest of us?

Have we so depleted ourselves with an absence of imagination, we allow quite funky scientific apparatus like the synchrotron to become mothballed, whilst we mothball the imagination of several generations and turn their enthusiasm and passions in to Real Estate and Reality Television?

Surely it can’t be this bad?

It’s not always been this way. When Robert Holmes wrote the ‘Age of Wonder’, (2009 Royal Society prize for Science Books) and described that synthesis between Art and Science in the Eighteenth century he captured a society anointed by the Enlightenment to inspire themselves with limitless spiritual and intellectual potential.  Joseph Banks, Isaac Newton, Hershel, and Joshua Reynolds got the ball rolling, and encouraged by the Aristocracy, Royalty and Business established great Science with great thinking.

Copernicus awaits the invention of the Spirograph

Once lit the spark was limitless.  Limited only by ourselves. As a kiddy in the Space Race I was inspired by Science Fiction and our inexhaustible human potential.  What has since stilled this I asked?

I asked the mutinous student, “Hey man what gives?”, and he summed it up. ‘I dig Science Fiction Man, I adore ‘Doctor Who, Bladerunner, Stephen Hawking’, (one of these three is not fiction) but we don’t get to use the Bunsen Burner, nor Magnesium, Phosphorus, Calcium like you used to in the olden days.  It’s too dangerous, and wont get past Occupational Health and Safety.  And we don’t indulge in the crossover between pure Science and Physics, you know.  Like Rockets, Telescopes, Quantum Computers, Atomic Particle Science and the Super Hadron Collider.  It’s like the teacher can’t weave the Science into a compelling riveting human story’.

“Jeez’, I said!

He continued expostulating;  ‘Perhaps that’s why God, in spite of all the atrocities of kiddy fiddling Priests is on the rise again’  I scratched my head, he continued, ‘Yup, It gets to the stage that some crappy bullshit narrative dished up by a mad hermit in the second century B.C, beats Black Holes’.  He paused before delivering the coup de grace, ‘That’s all there is really.  Age of Enlightenment, Reason, Science.  Game over!’

‘Fuck.’ I exclaimed. ‘It can’t be true!’

Tomorrow we publish the second incendiary instalment of Prof Jong’s report

BONUS!  we end with a bored artist’s impression of bored students

Bored Artist’s impression of Bored Students

New Standards in Innovation and Sustainability.
by Quentin Cockburn

It is with some justifiable pride I inform you of the rapid progress taking place in developing an exciting project within the Melbourne CBD.

Under wraps for several weeks, it has been revealed that the former Planning Minister Mr Guy approved the construction of the Dai Gum Happy 8 Towers for the corner of Flinders and Swanston Street.  ‘With capital advanced from the Shenzhen Peoples Investment for Party Cadres and Make Great Investment Corp, the proposed building at 356 stories will surely be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere if not the world’.

The Director of Happy 8 Mr Li Kwung Fat assured reporters that the building ‘Will be great for people, make happy long term interest benefit important Chinese investor community’.

The Prime Minister was on hand to congratulate Mr Fat, and dismissed talk of an investor bubble. ‘Speculation is good for humanity’, he said.

Questioned about the demolishment of the landmark and historic Flinders Street Station building, Mr Abbott said, ‘Landmark? This is a new landmark, an INTERNATIONAL LANDMARK!  As Infrastructure P.M  the removal of track and rail infrastructure will make way for a bold new landmark freeway interchange, paid for you by the taxpayers under WBP PPP arrangements. What’s good for the Shareholders is good for the country.’

Flinders Street Railway Station

Tom Bloodnose CEO of the Committee for Melbourne assured the public; ‘This significant project is good for Melbourne, good for investment, and good for shareholders.  The building advances the very best in sustainability, the envisaged 20,000 tenants will have access to first class facilities and infrastructure, three express lifts to the observation deck, and all built with recycled materials’.

Mr Fat, (CEO Happy 8) affirmed, ‘there is so much redevelopment of Melbourne suburb we make use this material to build fit-out and make good comfort for everyday living’. Indeed the building is designed to reflect the recent passion for neo Georgian and French Empire ‘Maisons’ replacing post war suburban housing in the leafier suburbs.  Significant embellishments include a Georgian facade at street level, a French Empire middle section,  and neo Stalinist upper level for senior party cadres .

The REIV (Real Estate Institute of Victoria) CEO, Mr Dick Envy reiterated the development managers ‘Once again this is a strong tick of approval for growth in this vital sector, very good for the industry and great for Investor confidence’.

He enthusiastically described the green credentials, ‘Sustainability! Yes; first principles of sustainability, zero gravity toilets, and parking for any number of Maserati’s and Ferraris. Each unit has a triple A energy rating, It will guarantee to use three times more energy than the average home.  And ensure that growth in the energy sector is assured. Radically the ground floor and mezzanine have a Maserati and Aston Martin showroom, with a Mercedes showroom for lesser ranking party officials and  a discreet panel repairs shop at the rear’.

Chief Executive of Arts Victoria Mr Nino Napoli  said; ‘At last a really significant large scale public sculpture outside Melbourne’s Docklands!’  Admiring the physicality of the piece; ‘This is a boon for the 1% art co efficient.’  Citing the sculpture ‘1%’, as a landmark in its own right, he ignored claims from the Community Services Union that the average tax pay of residents was below 1%. ‘Hey that’s why they represent the 1% from the 1% who own the 99%.  You can’t expect more than that’?

With a basic asking price of $2 million for a one bedroom unit, there is already confirmation that 95% of the units have been bought off the plan.  Asked who the vendors were? the Business Development Manager, Sunny 8 Developments said, ‘all member of Hu Jin Tao family. Good for family good for people’!!... Asked how Mr Hu acquired so much capital, he responded obliquely, ‘Next question’.

Mr Wing Shenzen, President of the National Trust has voiced his approval, ‘The removal of Flinders Street Railway Station and the proposed re-erection at the Sunny 8 Amusement Park in Shenzhen, is win win for responsible development.  By preserving heritage building in China we ensure Melbourne legacy is retain and enhance.  Mr Envy, (REIV President)   enthused, ‘Recent developments in conjunction with the Peoples Party Development Congress to convert the State Library into a gaming venue, the National Gallery into a sporting arena, and the Shrine into a high roller, blackjack VIP lounge is assured to develop great economies of sale to all Victorians.’

Asked about housing affordability for low income earners, and those missing out on a foothold in the market, the Minister for Housing, Mr Obeid of Bailleau Knight and Frank and Obeid, said; There are plenty of opportunities on the outer fringe for younger and less well heeled, the outer fringe, closer to new regional growth centres of Broken Hill, Sea Lake, and Robinvale.

Artists impression  of the Happy 8 Dai Gum Towers.

Today we have a bonus.  Two poems is by Andy White

french film #1

there is vaguely eastern music as an elderly chinese man stares out of his
apartment window at a young french woman in a negligée standing in
the window of the apartment opposite.

cut to the next day and a different old man in a sweaty t-shirt hangs
his enormous beer belly over the balcony, listening as the young french
woman moans in ecstasy. she’s busy making love in the apartment below.

he looks over to the chinese man. they nod. they sigh, both expressionless.
the music swells, the moaning increases, the scene fades to black.

Andy White.

french film #2

two people meet
they look at houses
they dance

there are pauses

they smoke
they smoke more
there are people smoking in the background

they make love
they break up
they meet in a café one last time

they laugh
they quarrel
he walks away

fade to black

if there is another final scene
and she runs after him
they will kiss

if the credits roll
from now on
there’s only smoking

separate smoking

Andy White

Here is the second part of the Musical Dispatch first published on 10 June 2015.  (The first part was (re)published 23 May 2015)

My brief stay in Africa didn’t do much for my mental image of Africa. Like most non-Africans I’ve been bombarded by images and stories of cruelty, corruption, and suffering. War, child soldiers, female genital mutilation, and famine. Ravanalona the mad queen of Madagascar in George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman’s Lady, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the rape of the nuns in the Belgian Congo, the war in Katanga Province over mineral resources, Idi Amin’s murderous regime, not to mention Idi’s rumoured predilection for human flesh, South Africa’s Apartheid era, the Rwandan genocide, the Blood Diamond film, recurring famine in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, on and on ad nauseum.

This is what we are told by our mainstream media, the implication being that somehow we are superior to those Africans that we are therefore justified in despising or feeling pity for.

Yet there it is on the internet : a wealth of positive stories and images of smiling Africans getting on with their lives  and making exquisite  music, not to mention writing some great literature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_literature

If you have the time… enjoy:
http://youtu.be/LXYgCf24z5M
http://youtu.be/6xmYkjesR5k
http://youtu.be/NqsVD2ojNO0
http://youtu.be/MFW7845XO3g

All of this despite an army of foreign NGO’s, mercenaries, volunteers, government agencies, investors, philanthropists and philanderers doing their bit for Closing the African Gap. How this works in practice is illustrated by how in Kenya charity donated second hand clothes killed the thriving local textile and garment industry:http://jetems.scholarlinkresearch.org/articles/Lessons%20from%20Thriving%20Second-Hand%20Clothing.pdf

We have known Nangala all her life. When Nangala became a young mother, my wife Wendy was invited to baby Japaljarri’s ‘smoking’ (a ceremony attended by a few close women relatives such as grandmothers) and took some treasured photos of the event. Japaljarri displayed symptoms of what in western society we call autism; for example, he would ignore people ‘cooing’ at him. Nangala wasn’t having it. Warlpiri babies lead a blessed life. They receive constant attention from their extended family and are expected to reciprocate. Warlpiri passers-by will usually address a baby or child before talking to the adults. Every time one of us spoke to baby Japaljarri, eliciting no reaction, Nangala would gently move his gaze in our direction. She’d gently but insistently force her baby to pay attention and respond. Japaljarri is now a healthy happy very sociable four year old that actively plays with his younger brother.

In Warlpiri society, childhood disorders (bed wetting, etc.) are virtually non-existent.

Last year I attended the anniversary of the ‘Wave Hill walk-off’ at Kalkaringi. At one of the Kalkaringi ‘workshops’ someone mentioned that in a ‘top-end’ community with a population of less than 2,000, 82 NGO’s were operating.  This did not include govt. agencies.

 Sherman Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene native North American writer. In his book ‘War Dances’ there is a poem ‘Go, Ghost, Go’. An excerpt:

The professor doesn’t speak. He shakes his head
And assaults me with his pity
I wonder how he can believe
In a ceremony that requires his death.
I think that he thinks he’s the new Jesus.
He’s eager to get on that cross
And pay the ultimate cost
Because he’s addicted to the indigenous.

Yuendumu has been designated (without asking us) a ‘Growth Town’. A plethora of government and private initiatives are flourishing. Quite a few are to do with child rearing:

PaFT … Parents as First Teachers
YMJC…Yuendumu Mediation and Justice Centre Inc. (“Working together to make Yuendumu a safe & better place”)
YPMC… Yuendumu Peace Mission Calendar (produced by the YMJC- and subsequently taken down when some Warlpiri ladies objected to it being displayed )
READ… Read Every Available Day (Interstate Volunteers get an airfare paid to come and listen to Warlpiri children read- in English)
YTN… Yuendumu Training Network
LRG… Local Reference Group
LIP…. Local Implementation Plan
RDRM… Red Dust Role Models….Striving to improve the lives of disadvantaged youth in remote indigenous communities…
Safe4kids…. Self explanatory.

And the list goes on.

A lady has been sent to Yuendumu whose job it is to deal with ‘0 to 3’ (year old children that is) and another whose mission it is to prevent ‘children at risk’ being removed by Welfare agencies. At an ‘agencies meeting’ we were told that the previous week only one child had been removed.

I wonder if Japaljarri is considered at risk?

With the Intervention driven ‘urban drift’ away from remote communities, these ‘agencies’ are increasingly competing for Warlpiri ‘clients’ and participants.

We are being assaulted with their pity.

Why don’t they let it be?…
http://youtu.be/eof2c5fTcI8
There will be an answer…

hata sisi kukutana tena

Frank

Decode: Google Translate Swahili

by Quentin Cockburn

Happy families.

There just aren’t so many happy families around these days.  Take the Hancock’s.  You’d think Lang leaving all those billions for the grandkids would make them all deliriously happy for life.  Not so I’m afraid.

Gina

Gina, doesn’t like it, she reckons the kids can’t be responsible enough to keep the family enterprise going.  She tells the kids she got rich and powerful through bloody hard work.  Inheritance is like that, it bequeathes the nobility of struggle to the recipient.  The kids say ‘bollocks’.  Gina lost this round, but she’ll appeal, and the whole thing will drag on for another few years.  She wanted to keep it quiet, but the spoilt little bastards went public.  That’s the thing about families, they like to keep scandals quiet.

Seth Blatter has had another victory.  I heard his daughter on the radio,  ‘Seth is not interested in money’.  Good on him, I know he gets paid billions for just being a decent bloke and after a trillion  years in the job, you can’t expect him to know that everyone else in FIFA, from the pencil sharpener to the ball pumper is more bent than Cardinal Pell’s crook.   But we all know with Vladimir and his unqualified support (Russia scored the 2018 world cup) and some other bloke in Qatar, won the rights to the cup in 2022.  That’s nothing to do with money.  Vladimir is a decent bloke, bit like Tony.  He’s got principles, and he’s not afraid to let us know that’s the way it is.

Now before you think I’m going cranky on people with foreign sounding names there’s the Clintons, who seem to be pretty happy on keeping it in the family and the Bush’s.

W

Good old George junior and George Senior, and their latest, Jeb, is set to give the presidency a red hot go!  They’ve certainly helped us sort out Iraq.  Those bloody ungrateful bastards, going crook on us now we’ve given them democracy.  At least they’re better off than under Saddam.  He was an evil bastard….  And that’s the thing we don’t have in Australia yet, real political dynasties, but I reckon if there was a Johnny Howard junior he’d rocket to the lodge.  Though we do have second tier Beazleys, Hunts, (get the pronunciation right, there’s a silent ‘C’) and Bowen’s, they’re not a touch on the Bush’s.  Just think of it one family all on their own have sorted the Middle East out good and proper…possibly we’ll be involved in one way or other for the next two hundred years, and that’s being optimistic..

But the truth is, you may envy Frank Lowy and his kids, the Myer dynasty, the Packers, the Murdoch’s, the Beesens, but I ask you… Are they happy?  Does having all that money and that well earnt right to pay no tax, make no contribution to the broader Australian community working for them?

C’mon think hard and deep.  They’ve got more money than they know what to do with.  But they aren’t happy!   Just like Hu Jintao, and his family, there’s perks in running China, and siphoning off all that money into Melbourne and Sydney real estate but it doesn’t make you any happier.  Perhaps that’s why there’s a whole lot of people who want to start afresh on Mars.  Now that’s lateral thinking, no happy families on earth, lets go to Mars, and a one way trip to boot, and who’s the beneficiary?  Mankind?  Science?

Nup!

Reality Television.  You see this demonstrates how far we’ve come.  One small step, a giant leap has become reality telly.  We really are the inheritors of the universe.  We’ve earnt it.  If you don’t believe me just ask Gina.  She can afford it, and possibly buy the whole red planet.  I believe it’s 100 percent iron ore.  On second thoughts, don’t.  There aint no rocket big enough to get her there.

by Quentin Cockburn

Over the past few electoral cycles there’s been a lot of talk about Working Families.  Both sides of politics have shown a remarkable uniformity of opinion when it comes to this constituency.  Wrapped up in the concept of Working Families is the very essence of being Australian.  Beyond all this talk of other emergent Australian families, single sex marriages, single mums, Catholic priests rogering kiddies and the hopeless, ghastly, status, “devastating breakdown” of families in aboriginal communities, the Working Family stands as being the very acme of decency, thrift and struggle.  By definition Working Families are noble.  The foundation of everything we hold dear, and their contribution to the Australian politic immeasurable..

I suppose that’s why so many politicians and bureaucrats recently, (who have been accused of not working quite hard enough in the interests of Real Working Families) have gone that extra yard, to prove that being family, and working can be a benefit to all sorts of people above and beyond the singular and vulnerable nuclear family unit.

Eddie Obeid

Take the Obeids for example.  Nobly, Eddie and his sons, Missus Eddie and their mates have managed to thriftily utilise the resources of whole public departments to ensure that his family achieve a level of comfort and security.  Security is very important to Working Families.  They are vulnerable.  And Eddie, as minister for Labor, was rightfully entitled to ensure that very important decisions at the highest level would ensure that tens of million of profit was redirected away from the public purse to ensure that his family were secure from the vagaries of economic struggle.

Thoughtfully Eddie even sent quite a bit of public funds to his extended family home in Lebanon to build a sort of palace there.  Who said foreign aid was dead?  It’s a symbol of success to show a bit of largesse, and if it was “borrowed” from public institutions, the return to the wider community is entirely justifiable.  Community is family, there’s symmetry in that!  It’s called the trickle down effect.  Not criminal really as Stuart Littlemore (defence Q.C) rightfully suggested, but the canny use of loopholes, and opportunities in the system.  Which reasonable person wouldn’t?  And like Eddie, who wouldn’t seek public funding to pay for his defence.

Now in Victoria we’ve recently heard about Nino Napoli.  He nobly, is an exemplar of Working Families.  In Sicily, there’s a whole network of Working Families that support each other, where the state can’t.

Nino Napoli with publicly funded Toupee

It seems Mr Napoli has brought that cultural preference to the Education Department.  Over a decade, he redirected funds intended for struggling public schools, (being “old school”, I always get confused with private schools, but John Howard ensured that they’re looked after) into the accounts of a few mates and his extended family.  Millions were sent directly to brothers and cousins under alleged “false invoices” to procure other stuff.  Other stuff: gifts, expensive wine, entertainment, trips, and study tours to everywhere exotic and expensive and exclusive.

Nino and his mates got so used to such largesse, they became naturally quite casual about covering their tracks from the auditor.  Funny though, they made themselves the auditor.  Some families from really quite poor schools were peeved that their hard earned through fund raising, sausage sizzles and the like were squandered amongst this elite.  But they don’t get it!!  Some working families just work that little bit harder than others, and deserve a little bit extra.  That’s only fair.  And lately some of the money was used to buy Nino a new hairpiece.  Keeping up appearances!!

So what happened to the principle of Conflict of Interest you say?  Conflict of ‘who’s interest’? I say.  Isn’t that the core principle in ‘Commonwealth’.

‘Help yourself, mate ‘cos if you don’t some other bastard will’

by Quentin Cockburn

My children enjoy watching ‘Modern Family’.

The Brady Bunch

It’s a sort of mockumentary, reality sit com, akin to the ‘Brady Bunch’ with a more contemporary feel.  The stars are portrayed within family groups that are cross cultural, openly gay and “out there”.  It’s only the straight family who encounter generational tensions, and inevitable compromises through being ‘normal’.

It is light, humourous, well scripted and contemporary.  The only thing missing?  The poor modern family.  Poverty in the television modern era is akin to sexuality in the sixties. Verboten!!

You remember the Brady Bunch?  A saccharine sweet interpretation of the immediate post nuclear family.  Two groups of kids coming together to form a wholesome family unit.  The parents Mike and Carol, getting it on, to raise the kiddies, in a classic split level seventies house.  They had it all, it was wholesome, and of its time.  Only years later we discovered that Mike was a real homosexual, Alice was a lesbian, and all the kiddies ended up in way or another experimenting in sexuality, drugs, alcoholism and each other!  You see what went on in the sixties and seventies was also about keeping secrets to themselves.  Within the family.  Now the secrets are out of the closet.  For some amongst us, that’s a breach of faith.  You’ve got to keep a secret, and when it’s out it constitutes a breach of trust.  It’s that simple.

But now everyone on telly is going the same, and they’re not trying to hide their sexuality, their differences, and individuality.  It’s akin to all those single father sit coms and dramas from the sixties, where the missus and the concept of sexuality were airbrushed out.  ‘My Three Sons’, ‘A Family Affair’, ‘Leave it to Beaver’, ‘My Favourite Martian’, ‘Mr Ed’,  and in the Australian context Matt Hammond and the Skippy family. These days, Skippy ‘d be gay and Clancy, the eternal innocent would be an LBGT exotic dancer.

Now its come to the attention of the Royal Commission that some families were way ahead of their time.  The Catholic Church for example is a broad family.  From this wellspring of family virtue, almost the entire front bench of our current parliament derives its moral certainty.

It seems for decades Catholic Priests have been insisting that little kiddies, whether they be in Orphanages, ordinary families, or just children of the flock should be buggerred, bastardized and abused as part of their education.  One bloke,

father rissole and Cannonball Fred

Father Risdale, was so good at it, he was sent all around the country to ensure that every little innocent was taught the fundamentals of original sin.  Of course, though Cardinal Pell shared digs with Risdale and other notorious predatory sicko paedophiles, he never ever knew what was going on.  Can’t blame him.  At Nuremberg way back in ‘46 no one at Dachau, Auschwitz or Treblinka ever had any idea what was going on either, ‘befehl ist befehl’, ‘orders are orders’, and aint the priests all just orders??

Well recently the Irish, who haven’t had the benefit of a Royal Commission, have voted 63% in favour of same sex marriage. It seems the Catholic Church in spite of its best ministrations have not been able to sway public opinion against this corruption of family values. That, and the economic meltdown have given the Irish something to think about. They’ve rejected ‘old style family values’ and the likes of ‘dear old’ father Risdale.  Now there’s talk of doing the same here. Not on your nelly!!!  The front bench would not have it. Labor has proposed a private members bill designed to fail. The P.M wont have a bar of it!!  He says it’ll (same sex marriage) resolve itself as an issue in cabinet, one way or other ‘in the usual way’.  Good on him, that’s what he’s learnt from the church, to do things in ‘the usual way’.

I spose that’s reinterpreting modern family as post modern?