Dear reader.
Another insightful dispatch from our man on the North West frontier. That enigmatic and mysterious individual who goes by the epithet ‘ Frank’! This-un offers an insight into policing. How it might be done, or how the citizenry may be treated in a more enlightened era.
‘Enlightenment’?
There’s a pentecostal right- wing conference on how not to govern in a church near you. Donations of over one hundred dollars, (US) will guarantee you a smart baseball cap and badge; ‘Why elected right- wing leaders don’t like government’.
An olden days bobby on a bike. We couldn’t find an Argentinian policeman on a bike, but was reliably informed that this individual P.C Panchez, late of Sao Paolo P.D, was on secondment to the London Police for the coronation. He then returned to Argentina to prepare security for their 1954 Commonwealth Games Bid. Which was sadly unsuccessful as Argentina had no historical alliance to a criminal organisation of international standing, (The House of Windsor).
Frank writes;
Buenos dias,
In Ciudad Jardin Lomas del Palomar, my childhood home in Argentina, there were two policemen who would patrol our town at night on bicycles. They were armed with whistles, which they blew from time to time to let their colleague on the opposite side of town know that ‘all is well’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTRS4fe9ngs
At around the same time in the early 1950s, Bobbies in London were helping old ladies to cross the road.
The late P.C Stanes, proudly displays the bicycle sent to him from Argentina, courtesy of P.C Sanchez. The bicycle was not suited to conditions in the U.K as it was equipped with a LHD chain guard, with a tendency to drive to the extreme right of the road.
Whilst I recognise the pointlessness of yearning for those more innocent times, it doesn’t stop me from deploring modern trends.
The escalation of policing of our fragile planet sees no abatement and to me because of its immediacy, is as serious as the climate change cliff and the re-emergence from Cold War hibernation of the nuclear button.
All of this is exacerbated by police/military cross pollination, not to mention the humongous elephant in the room, the Military Industrial Complex that U.S. president Eisenhower warned us against.
The increased enforcement by armed uniformed police of ever more rules and regulations is bad enough, but this paradigm has infected every nook and cranny of our society. For example, public servants can obfuscate, insult and disrespect the public with impunity, more so if their ‘clients’ are ‘ethnic’ or Aboriginal.
local Argentinian police in the Peron Era conducting the annual, ” Find the Dutchy festival”. The festival was popular amongst the locals who were offered prizes for locating individuals of Dutch origin, or either their bicycles or a pair of clogs. All in good humour a feast followed in which the entire community, Argentinian and Dutch alike gave a stirring rendition in Spanish of the popular hit; ‘ Two Little Boys”.
American born author and journalist Lionel Shriver in her 2016 keynote address at the Brisbane Writers Festival mounted an attack on identity politics and the constraints it imposes on authors to write anything on identities other than their own. For this she was savagely censured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw (Prejudice-Tim Minchin’s)
At the beginning of her address, she told of the two college students who had thrown a tequila-themed birthday party for a friend at which they’d distributed miniature sombreros. The students were ejected from their dorm and their party hats condemned as an “act of stereotyping” and of “cultural appropriation”.
Argentinian Police, (Peron era) embarking on the annual Sunday School Picnic. Which was held once a year on a Saturday to coincide with the popular football match between the ‘Buenos Aries Barrista’s’ and the ‘Sao Paolo Sangria’s’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuPG4H4S2K4 (Mexican Hat Dance- The Wiggles)
When in 2015 the refurbished Yuendumu Men’s Museum was reopened much of the local population had gone to Alice Springs to the footie grand final which the Yuendumu Magpies won.
A small group of remaining old men accompanied by their clicking boomerangs started to sing traditional songs to reward the invited guests who had come from afar. At one point one of the men asked “what shall we sing next?” Another jocularly suggested “bah bah black sheep” to which I heard one white lady amongst the audience whisper to another “Did you hear that? How disrespectful!”
If the U.S.A. decides to further amend their constitution, I suggest they amend their first amendment to add the right to a sense of humour.
Victoria police have received uniform advice from Hollywood, ( Robocop) and the Geheime Staastpolizei, (The Gestapo) in establishing pure fear and intimidation as a separation between justice and the citizenry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do1EGAs_UNQ
Is a Swedish group singing English songs in Spanish, cultural appropriation? Nah, I don’t think so, its crap music
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a coloured person by the toe.
And this one from Argentina, definitely not culturally appropriated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYei_BKOOGE
Hasta la vista
An olden days NT copper, sensibly dressed in a non intimidating khaki shirt and bush hat reading (in Argentinian) a draft of Frank’s second volume.
Frank