גוט מארגן , בוקר טובДобрий ранок, Dzień dobry, Доброе утро, Guten Morgen,
Frank enlisted for technical, factual and field descriptions the services of Australia’s most highy decorated soldier (“ever”) Ben Roberts Smith. who was also, by his own recognisance “also there”.
Dear reader, in this-un Frank takes a wry look at the problems in the Ukraine. You can read all about it in his official history; “Flashman in the Charge” and though written at the height of the first Ukraine Conflict in 1854, essentially nothing much has changed. Same goes for the covid crisis in remote communities and the federal government insistence that nothing much needs to change their either. Because, as that famous frenchman said, ‘ I don’t think, I know’, in reference to our PM, he also said; ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’.
Anyway, you cant blame the French, the Ukrainians or the remote communities whose members, ” choose to live in such conditions’, (Abbott) because they’ve all had scrapes with power politics and its difficult to be chipper when you’re being done over. So please, we, (the editors of pcbycp) assure you, that you’ll not, ( Unlike Glady’s, Brittany, and Grace) be done over by Scomo for reading this article. But you may get a mea-culpa from Barnaby. Either way it’s ‘Mazel Tov’ to our readership and ‘Tarren Kowt’ to our mate ‘Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith, who’s hanging on to his V.C through thick and thin. May the spirit of Flashman protect him…
Frank writes;
Frank wrote his first factual account of the Ukraine under the pseudonym George Macdonald Fraser.
During WWII, in occupied Holland my father and his friend, after committing an act of sabotage, narrowly escaped the pursuing Ukrainian guards and their dogs. Many Ukrainians had mistakenly perceived the German army as liberators (from the Russians) and fought on the German side.
Dad never forgave the Ukrainians and tarred them all with the same brush as traitors. He did not give much consideration to the fact that they were between a rock and a hard place. Not to mention the Jewish population who were squashed underneath that rock.
Dad was convinced that the East European old man he’d engaged in conversation with and who lived by himself at the end of Dad’s Nunawading suburban street, was a war criminal. Dad had a nose for such. He should have got a job with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
Incidentally Simon Wiesenthal was born in the Ukraine.
At the beginning in David Fraser’s book ‘David Borshch’s Cart- Narrating the Holocaust in Australian War Crimes Trials’ There is ‘A Note on Languages’ and I quote: “In his moving account of the search for the stories of the fate of the members of his family killed in the Shoa, Daniel Mendelsohn offers a telling tale:
Someone said;
‘There is a joke that people from this part of Eastern Europe like to tell, which suggests why the pronunciation and spelling keep shifting; it’s about a man who’s born in Austria, goes to school in Poland, gets married in Germany, has children in the Soviet Union, and dies in the Ukraine. Through all that, the joke goes, he never left his village!”
I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin. The obscene wealth he and his cronies have amassed at the expense of the Russian population exceeds the excesses of the pre-Bolshevik revolution Czarist regime.
‘That the first….
The extra-judicial killing and silencing of journalists, the bombing of what is left of Syria and on and on, are far from being admirable qualities.
Yet the simplistic scenario we in the west are presented with in regards to Ukraine, belies the complexity on the ground. Putin as the embodiment of evil versus the NATO knights in armour to the rescue of the poor bugger beleaguered noble Ukrainian population, who are once again between a rock and a hard place.
The Rolling Stones- Between a Rock and a Hard Place:… and peasant people poorer than dirt, who are caught in the crossfire with nothing to lose but their shirts…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pYBQg4qifU
‘Victim of any war was’….
Russia supplies a quarter of European natural gas imports. Eighty percent of these imports flow through pipelines on Ukrainian soil. Might this have anything to do with the current stand-off? Not to worry, Australia has come to the rescue! The Lucky Country has let it be known that they’re more than willing to supply Natural Gas to Europe to enable the latter to impose more economic sanctions on Russia.
Meanwhile the Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has introduced strict biosecurity zones preventing travel to and from dozens of remote communities in the NT amid escalating COVID-19 cases. Measures to be in place until February 17th.
On the Northern Territory Government COVID-19 website I can’t find any information. On the Federal measures. I don’t think many people in Yuendumu are aware of these measures, let alone what they are. I certainly don’t know.
..’The Truth’
Reports coming into us from both China and Russia suggest that kleptocrats, (senior party members) from both countries are not interested in buying shares in the Crown resorts Yuendumu offer. We are clearly dissapointed and plead the federal government for assistance in getting this ‘World’s Best Practise’ initative off the ground. As they do for other ‘Nation Building’ Casino projects.
Shalom and Mazel Tov
Frank