Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Walalja is a Warlpiri word, often translated as Family.
Mishpocha is a Hebrew derived Yiddish word, usually translated as Family.
It isn’t the first time I mention that the meaning of Walalja is closer to Mishpocha than it is to Family

Walalja means so much more than just Family. It is everything your extended Family ‘owns’ including your homeland.

I was in conversation with a Jewish-American (U.S.A.) academic working in Yuendumu. When I used the word Mishpocha, the academic got all dewy eyed. The wordFamily is far less likely to evoke such a strong emotional response.

The Family-Mishpocha-Walalja sequence could be said to increase exponentially in depth and scope of meaning.

At one end of the Family spectrum are the single-parent and nuclear Families. Ranging through various polygamous or extended Families the other end of the spectrum is reached. The Family of Nations.

The stereotypical nuclear Family appears on cereal packets. A man, a woman, a boy and a girl, all with perfect teeth and haircuts. A regular Family in more ways than one.

In fact, in the global experience it is the most irregular Family. In Africa, Asia, the Arab World, Latin America and the 4^th world, extended families are the norm.

The No.1 song for 2015 (Wiz Khalifa – ‘See You Again’, featuring Charlie Puth) includes the following words:
….”how can we not talk about family? when family is all we got”….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgKAFK5djSk

Do a search for Family on Youtube and it is like entering the multi-million dollar Centrelink building in Yuendumu. (Centrelink’s motto: ‘Giving you Options’)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMVe_HcyP9Y Sister Slade- We are Family… I got all my sisters with me…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSafdm92NIM Lajamanu Teenage Band- Prisoner …I just want to be free with my friends and family, and family…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxz7CYkQltE Black Fella, White Fella- Warumpi Band-
Are you the one that’s gonna stand up and be counted?
Are you the one who understands these family plans?

We need more brothers, if we’re to make it
We need more sisters, if we’re to save it

The latest socio-political buzz words in Australia are Diversity and Innovation.

Jessica Mauboy singing the National Anthem in a Sydney Aboriginal language on top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge on Australia Day epitomizes this embracing of diversity.

Many new and old words have become commonly used in my life time. Take the verbs: utilize and prioritize (not to mention google).

The Northern Territory government has prioritized the building of prisons and police complexes above the celebration and supporting of cultural and linguistic diversity when it comes to utilizing available human and financial resources.

If you are going to listen to anything on this Dispatch, listen to Missy Higgins’ rendition of Joy McKean’s (Slim Dusty’s wife) composition ‘The Biggest Disappointment’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I51ImqkOAM

They had my future wrapped up in a parcel
And no one even thought of asking me…
And the biggest disappointment in the family was me
The only twisted branch upon that good old family tree
I just couldn’t be the person they expected me to be…. 

Remote Aboriginal Australia refuses to be what they, the assimilationist authorities, expect them to be. They are the twisted branch, the most diverse section of Australian Society. They are the biggest Disappointment in ‘Team Australia’ (the lovely Australian Family of our collective national psyche)

Until the next time,

Jungarrayi (brother of Jungarrayi and Nungarrayi, father of Japaljarri and Napaljarri, husband of Nangala and so forth…)

Dear reader, I’m afraid not all news is good from Noo Orleeens, but there’s an excellent film with Gary Cooper, (Saratoga Trunk 1943.) which, like Errol Flynn, (Robin Hood 1938.)  makes sense of the whole thing we used to call History.  I heartilly reccomend viewing both documentaries on the real organ of public opinion. Youtube. G.T continues where he left off…

‘In the matter of Pee Bo I must of course declare an interest. Nevertheless, Great-great-grand-daddy Pierre, as he is known in the family, could undeniably ride a hoss, as is depicted here:  As a benevolent father to his chattel-folk he showed an ante-bellum taste for enjoying an income stream derived from the fruits of others’ labour. Expropriation in the wake of Bobba-Lee’s craven surrender generally spelled the end of this pleasant state of affairs. But not for Pee-Bo: he bravely served the Louisiana State lottery, and the wealth of the poor continued to flow Bo-wards by streams terrestrial and subterranean. It is from Pee-Bo’s example of firing the first shots of the glorious secession upon Fort Sumter that our family has learnt and lived by its motto, “If in doubt, kick ‘em in the nuts and start running.”

G.T’s illustrious namesake. In defence of ‘Southern Values’, and the odd publicly funded sinecure. Proudly adapted by the West Connect consortium, (NSW) in seeking funds from a pliant and agreeable public.

Jeb Davis, I gotta say, was a disappointment. Unlike Pee-Bo and Bobba-Lee, he was not a man of action, more a bag of the southern breeze, a zephyr of swamp gas. He stands yet at the southern end of his eponymous parkway, contemplating the deep financial failure of the glorious confederacy. Things mighta bin a whole lot different had he, like the recently retired governor of the mighty state of Louisiana Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, enjoyed the benefits of an Oxford education. Alas, he wuz borned all too early to enjoy the elevating benefits of scholarship founded upon Cecil Rhodes’ civilising African enterprise. But no, Jeb had no ideah of how to finance a conflict; the book of derivatives, collateralised obligations and one time money was entirely closed to him. The con-see-quences wuz utterly dire for our brave southern boys, our virtuous southern belles and, most notably, for our laughing, contented darkies.

Who could disagree with that!

As Ms. Josephine Bass has recently pointed out in the electronic pages of the region’s foremost news organ: “You been lied to. Slaves were given care, food, clothes, shelter, medicine, from cradle to grave. Nothing is life is free not even your government check.” How very true. She touches here on a further reason to keep this experiment in social organisation at the forefront of consciousness: welfare and reliance on others saps the sense of enterprise so necessary to the development of personal responsibility. The true reason for the failure of the beautiful southern way of life was the presence of a vast proportion of leaners amongst the population, leaners who did nothing to take care of themselves, who had their brown hands out for every advantage that the more responsible members of society might confer upon them. The deeply corrosive effects of this moral failure are passed from generation to generation and are only too evident today in parts of the otherwise fine city of New Orleans. So, can we agree with the concerned citizen-sage below?

 I think so. But all this is to be forgotten and swept away. Such is the degeneracy of our times that even the judiciary has joined the atheistic cabal to falsify the collective memory of our way of life. That Judge Carl Barbier of the United States Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana should have refused to intervene against this vandalism was entirely to be expected.

Judge Griffin

The Union remains full of hatred for every trace of civilisation. And locally elected “Judge” Piper Griffin of Orleans Parish has predictably refused to prevent this effacement of the culture.   Ms. Griffin doubtless has many fine qualities. However, there are, to any right thinking person, two great and obvious deficiencies in her appointment. First, and most obviously, she is a woman. Secondly, she is evidently not of the pure European stock which gave us the Enlightenment. On both counts, sadly, she is simply not equipped by nature to judge of these matters. This is what happens when the so-called democratic franchise is extended to those lacking the ability to exercise it wisely. Before you know it, the lower orders will be afforded medical care without payment and remuneration for their limited services at a level which saps their vitality. We appear doomed to proceed in benighted ignorance of our past.

POSTSCRIPT, (G.T. sent us this just after publishing)

‘Note the prominent jaw, the noble brow of the thinker. The red staring eye, strained by poring over the historical record in the dim light of the scholastic garret. The facial hair growth, testament to a life of devotion to the world of ideas rather than personal grooming. He, like many another before him, has wrestled with the deep contradictions of the American past, but plainly reconciled them’. Editors Note: There is an unsubstantiated rumour that this could be the new adviser to the former Minister for Education, upon the ‘History in Schools ‘syllabus. The Rt. Hon Christopher Pyne. Debonair hat and leather belt generously lent on this occasion by the Minister for Innovation. (from his personal collection).

Dear reader, another enthralling piece from our near south, (Paris End) correspondent Gran Tourismo Bearegard. Once again, he has untied the Gordian Knot of American Politics and faith and explained all in plain Ye Olde English.  There is truth in the old adage that Southern Culture always leaves skid marks upon the soul. That’s why good soul music is crafted there.  Read on…

30/1/16 ‘We seek wisdom, not equivocation. Some sit at the feet of a guru. Some uncritically accept the word of parents, teachers, preachers or Uncle Bubba. But there are those few whose heroic intellectual struggles are finally rewarded with the clarity of vision that is achieved only by the truly devoted. Such an one is above, the very model of Chaucer’s clerk’: 

But al be that he was a philosophre,


Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre;


But al that he myghte of his freendes hente,


On bookes and on lernynge he it spente,


And bisily gan for the soules preye


Of hem that yaf hym wherwith to scoleye


Of studie took he moost cure and moost heede


Noght o word spak he moore than was neede


And that was seyd in forme and reverence


And short and quyk, and ful of hy sentence


Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche,


And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

(Protestant Bobba Lee noticing that the spire of papist St John The Baptist is an ill-disguised muh-zuh-lim minaret.) Stand Proud!!

Gladly, too, would those of us learn whose minds are not poisoned by the communistic and godless “education” system of these United States. For only an opportunist atheistic commie could have done what Mayor Mitch did in the shadow of Holy Week, and secured the agreement of the stooge councillors of Orleans to erase the collective memory of the populace. These ideologues have decided to rewrite the Dixie story by removing from public display the memorials to our illustrious forebears Bobba-Lee, Pee-Bo and Jeb Davis together with the obelisk in Lib-er-tay Place. Not so much re-write it as expunge it altogether. So, we are to witness Lee Circle’s transformation into what? It is a matter of historical fact that before the erection of the ever-enemy-facing Virginian’s statue in 1877, the then Tivoli Circle was given over to danger.

The Picayune of September 20 1876 reported the grievous injury suffered by a lady struck in the head as she passed a dozen men – read “thugs” – playing at base ball in the square. For more than a century and a quarter, ladies have been spared the threat of “heavy balls flying promiscuously around” the intersection of St Charles and Howard Avenues. “Incessant swearing and vulgarity” has been eliminated from the vicinity. Uncle Bobba has spent that time standing sternly upon his column, staring fixedly in the general direction of Nova Scotia as we sing “all day and all night, angels watching over me.”

When MORE is NEVER ENOUGH, stand by for G.T’s gripping conclusion in tomorrow’s unspeakable next installment. You can tighten the cord of your pyjamas, now. Or for those up super early in Lycra fitting comfort, rest easy!

Dear Reader, these are troubled times. Most recently I couldnt get the triple word score and found myself stuck on T, A, and only an X to help me across the line. The next round to my utter dismay the only useable tiles on my penultimate game were S, E, and X. It’s all quite clear, there is a diminishment of the other double word score G, O and D. Could it be true that like Tinkerbell, if you dont believe in fairies, they’ll shrivel and die? Here then is some learned commentary from our esteeemed and highly regarded religion correspondents, Tony Emo, and Ira Maine.

From Tony Emo:

‘Nice to see Tones rubbing shoulders with his spiritual kinsfolk in the US of A.

Our most (recently) successful export.

However, I think we need to see this threat of the Funda-Mentals in context. The fact is that throughout the Western World (North America, Western Europe and Oceania) Christianity is on a steady and relentless decline: churches are emptying and even Ireland now has so few priestly vocations that they are importing clergy from the Third World.

Over the past decade or two one notices that the Christian churches have adopted one of two postures. One group, such as the UK Anglicans, is becoming ever-less prescriptive (especially about theological matters) and seeks to be ‘relevant’ by endorsing the social causes of the bien pensant. These churches are seen as wishy-washy and standing for nothing much at all (didn’t a recent Archbishop of Canterbury admit to entertaining atheistic notions?). No wonder their congregations are drifting away.

Losing Faith?

The other, more vocal group of Christians are turning to ever-more rabid positions in opposition to reasonable mainstream values, as can be seen with the Abbott clique, Corey Bernardi, et alii and the Lunar Fundies in the Southern Baptist Caliphate of Mittel-Amerika. As the tide of belief recedes, even in America, the birds left perched on the emerging rocks tend to be the squawking loons! And the more strident and alien their raving dissent, the more the reasonable
middle-of-the-roaders (the young especially) will walk away.

Just so long as the emergence of a Post-Christian West does not signal the arrival of a Pre-Islamic West!

And the reply from Ira Maine;

Dearly beloved,

Charles the Second. Here’s hoping Charles the Third is as merry.

The modern society we have created, where the least fortunate amongst us are provided for by the state, where the best of medicine is available to all, and the halt, the sick and the lame are miraculously made whole again, has brought about a situation where it is no longer necessary to cry out to Jayziz to ease the pain and suffering of being a down trodden peasant. All we’ve got to do now is cry out to Centrelink and our appalling penury is magically swept away.
Our form of religion, with its subtly attendant guilt, surely came about as a last resort, a court of appeal when all other earthly avenues and possibilities had been explored, when people were on their absolute uppers, and when earthly salvation had been found utterly wanting.
Echoing in my mind is that old parish priest of mine who suggested that earthly suffering is a trifle we must bear because the reward for it was an eternity of bliss in Heaven.
Hedonism was the order of the day when Charles the Second came to power. In the years following the accession, England became best known for gambling, whores and Restoration Comedy. The organized religion of the period, the C.of E., being the private club of the aristos, took little or no responsibility whatever for the spiritual well being of the man in the street. The lower orders, the down trodden man in the street, needed God, because he had nothing else.
Out of nowhere came Whitfield and Wesley, who took the peasants by storm with their astonishing open air meetings, directed at the peasants(which no one had done before) and Methodism was born.
Whitfield went off to the US (Georgia) and was instrumental in establishing something called ‘The Great Awakening’. Wesley stayed in England and became a legend.

‘Fanatic, Schmatic, What’s the difference’!!

My point here is that if government is benign and looks after its people, religion will become, for the most part, unnecessary.
Apparently abandoned by the Establishment, Wesley’s peasants said ‘fuck you’ and went wholesale over to Methodism.
As long as we can maintain a comfortable way of life in the West, then religion will continue to recede. The second the lower orders feel they have been abandoned spiritually and economically by governments, religion will very quickly re-establish itself with appallingly disastrous results.
I think that multi-nationals, with their disregard for people and their post industrial drive to automate everything, might easily bring this about. The result will be, as it has been in the past, the rise of fanatics and lunatics like Hitler and Stalin and the re-establishment of demented superstition.
A frightening prospect.

God bless you all!

Stay tuned, for tomorrows scintillating description of thought from our North America, (Paris End) correspondent G.T. Beauregard. The same rumblings that shook the ‘Collosus of Rhodes’, (Cecil himself) are happenning in New Orleans, (pronouced Noo Orleeens). A socio political earthquake? Tsunami? Hurricane? Or just another overcast day with rain and some morning fog.

 A PCbyCP Exclusive

Dear reader, there’s been a remarkable flurry of interest in the recent problems encountered on Victoria’s regional rail system, and we know now that in the higher echelons of the Ministry of Transport offices there’s been mysterious going’s on, and intense global interest, at a height not seen since David Bowie recorded the; “Let’s Dance Video’ in an outback pub.

A BOLD NEW FUTURE FOR VLINE!!! Airfix and Hornby unite to solve the Regional Rail Disaster. ( Kit includes Fat Controller, faulty wheels, level crossing and very tight curves)

It is rumoured the Ministry is seeking International assistance from ‘Experts’. The Public Transport Users Association spokesman was succinct in his appraisal; ‘The conundrum for V Line is immense, people are flocking to the regional rail carrier, it was never meant to work this way, they just haven’t got the capacity. Right across Victoria, the trains are chocka block as people take advantage of the free travel. It’s a death by hundreds of thousand of fans ’. A spokesman for the RACV was less generous; ‘I can tell you this much my friends at Vicroads are hopping mad!! The fact that good money was diverted from freeways has well and truly put their noses outta joint, and there’s some developers who are absolutely FURIOUS’!!

Curiously an unrelated report suggests that the entire stock of model railway scenery and track have been bulk purchased by the Ministry for “Evaluation Purposes”. A spokesman, for Victorian model railway enthusiasts described the conundrum, “We’ve got our annual exhibition and show scheduled for the Exhibition Buildings, and we can’t even buy a foam tree or plastic passenger, the entire lot has just been “ sucked up” by the Ministry’. It’s not fair’!!

We at PCBYCP have unlocked the Mystery. The following an edited extract from the press conference this very morning, about 8.25, (though due to an equipment malfunction, the conference was re-scheduled for 8.43).

Senior Executives in the Ministry of Transport Offices ‘burning the midnight oil in solving the Rail debacle.

The Minister: ‘The Ministry of Transport are upgrading the entire fleet of V’locity trains!! (thunderous applause). And how? By the POWER of lateral thinking!! (thumps rostrum). We have a NEW MODEL! We have commissioned International experts, and come up with a FINAL SOLUTION! (Cataclysmic applause and wolf whistles) AND HERE IT IS!!!(Minister unveils very attractive model railway. Even bigger in scale then Ai Wei Wei’s bicycle sculpture). This is the FUTURE!!! It is my pleasure to present to you the Architect of a BOLD NEW Direction in Regional Rail; Mr Stan Dardgauge, CEO of Triang Hornby: “Thankyou Minister, when we were contacted we were literally stumped. This is a catastrophic event! But our experience has won through. May I demonstrate our new kit. The Bombadier!! And I’m gonna tell you this it’ s a real BOMB!! (Much laughter) This Model is the new working Prototype. It will be Up- engineered and establish a new Standard. Manufactured HERE in Victoria. (Explosive Cheering)

From our experience gained in the reliable manufacture of functioning scale models, we’ve made some significant changes to the V’locity fleet and are pleased to offer this advice to the state rail authority. A polite suggestion in the dearth of proven engineering experience. These trains are 100% reliable, and have been augmented with the wonder of STEAM!! The NEW BOMBADIER promises incredible savings and is ON TRACK. The is the very first time that we at Triang Hornby have worked in conjunction with Airfix, and in doing so has SOLVED the Problem. (Cataclysmic applause, and Minister drenched with tears of joy)

CEO of Hornby Mr Stan Dardgauge working on the problem at the Company’s proving ground at Tyttenhanger prior to transfer to the Company’s research facility at Ballencrusher

Triumph Herald. Used as prototype vehicle to test new Vlocity Curve Tolerances photographed outside Ministry of Transport secret Research Facility.

Each kit comes with a loco and three carriages, as you can see, (holds carriage in the air) the wheels WILL fall off!! In this instance, thanks to our friends at Airfix we can provide both unworn, semi worn and positively square wheels in easy to select change-over bogies. Also and I think you’ll be impressed, each set comes with a level crossing which stays open as the train passes, and the tracks, (holds very tight curve to ghasp of the audience) these curves are so tight, they’ll make you squeak!! Not since Airfix produced the Triumph Herald sedan in 1960 have we had to replicate such a tight turning circle, and like the curves, the components all fit together in a SNAP!! (much laughter).

We’ve captured the essence of this very individualistic V’locity Train. Advance model sales have gone through the roof and our Shatshoo plant has been working 24/7 keeping up with demand. Indeed we’ve had orders from as far afield as Iraq and Afghanistan, both places that are keen to instill the virtue of rail infrastructure after being ‘civilised and democratised’. This is a unique train set, and I’ll remind you there are features on this set you wont find anywhere else in the entire world. It presents new challenges to Australian manufacturing. We’ve literally jumped the gun, and incorporated real steam, from a boiler located in the forward compartment. No more smelly fumes, and courtesy of our friends in the Minerals and Energy Council it is completely coal fired. And to avoid stoppage, each rear carriage, (hold rear carriage to oohhs and ahhhs of audience) has an electric reel cable to ensure that when the coal runs out it’ll just go and go and go. It’s a win win for industry and ensures once again that we are truly the clever and innovative country. We cannot keep up production, and know that demand this year is forecast to outstrip Star Wars merchandise!!!!!

Much applause, and confetti and streamers released overhead to rapturous applause, and recording of Gracie Field’s iconic, ‘Wish me Luck”.

Today’s poem comes from celebrated Nunga Poet Ali Cobby Eckermann

Emptiness

The big black bird struts proud
defiantly
along my front fence garden.
‘Fark’ it screeches loud.

The whole street can hear
yet no movement
no-one walking around
no friendship
no sense of community.

A knock at the window
I look out quickly.
The branch bangs on the glass again,
the breeze blows by.
An empty beer can rattles,
rolls along the empty street.

The big black bird struts proud
defiantly
along my front fence garden.
‘Fark” it screeches loud.

I sit inside
thinking exactly the same thing.

From little bit long time 2009.

Originally dispatched 25 November 2013

Selamat pagi teman-teman saya,

Since 1788 there has been a huge Communication Gap between the First Australians and the new arrivals. The Gap that the assimilationists have defined and are determined to close pales into insignificance when compared to the massive Communication Breakdown….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5PvAi8PTsI between ‘white’ and ‘black’ Australia.
In July 2012, Chris Graham wrote an article in Tracker Magazine. The article contrasted Liam Jurrah the AFL footballer and Liam Jurrah Jungarrayi the Warlpiri man.
A quote from the article:
“When you strip it all back – when you take out all the politics and the history – one of the main problems between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians is a massive Gap in Understanding”
….people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening….and no one dared disturb the sound of silence…

Brett told whoever cared to listen that he felt greatly honoured for having been ‘given’ an Aboriginal name: ‘Mangarri’.
‘Mangarri’ is what Warlpiri people call Bread.
Wendy Baarda was sometime jokingly referred to as Mrs. Jara by her pupils.
‘Jara’ is what Warlpiri people call Butter.

A white lady was part of an ‘initiative’ to convert Aboriginal language school books into ‘talking books’ as an aid to teaching literacy to those children whose mother tongue is an Aboriginal language.
Like European languages, Aboriginal languages encompass regional dialects that can vary significantly in pronunciation and vocabulary. This lady took a bundle of books written in a southern dialect to a place where a northern dialect was spoken. She got some local ladies to read the books into a recording device. An observer noticed that the words being recorded weren’t the same as those in the written text. When the observer pointed this disparity out to the lady making the recordings, the rebuttal was “No, this is how the ladies want it” “This is how they pronounce it”
Very clever that, a talking book, ‘talking’ in another dialect! That surely will help Aboriginal children learn to read!
In fact the Aboriginal ladies got it right. Making writing meaningful is the first step in attaining literacy, word recognition and matching sounds to the writing comes next. If the sounds, words (such as from another dialect or language) and/or text are meaningless to a child, the chances of that child learning to read are slim indeed. Something the NT Dept. of Education, with its English literacy first policy, hasn’t picked up yet.

From Dr.Seuss’ DID I EVER TELL YOU HOW LUCKY YOU ARE ?:
And how fortunate _you’re_ not Professor de Breeze
who has spent the past thirty-two years, if you please,
trying to teach Irish ducks how to read Jivvanese.

A quote from the 1998 Wentworth Lecture by Dr. Raymattja Marika :
“We believe that our children have a right to know and understand their own cultural beliefs within the model bilingual program. Learning literacy in the children’s first language takes precedence in the first primary schooling years from Transition to Level 3. The focus of the English learning during this period is very much an oral one, helping the children to become a confident speaker of English before they have to grapple with English literacy and concepts. Once children have mastered literacy skills in their first language they can then transfer them to English literacy.”
……teach your children well…. And feed them on your dreams…..

Note: nothing about “learning their own language” they already know it when they enter school. A common misunderstanding regarding “bilingual education” in the case of those places fortunate enough to retain their Aboriginal languages is that it is about teaching two languages, rather than about teaching children to be literate and numerate and to think and to be inspired to learn.

A white schoolteacher had lost her little boy. She searched everywhere in the school yard. “Yes” she was told outside a class room “your boy was here, probably looking for you”. “How do you know? “Look, here are his footprints” “Oh, is that what my boy’s footprints look like!” “Fancy not knowing your own son’s footprints!” the incredulous Warlpiri teachers remarked.

At a meeting held in English, Nungarrayi got up and made an impassioned speech from the heart. What she wanted was for her children and grandchildren to grow up as confident literate Warlpiri people who retained their language whilst having competence in English, who retained their Warlpiri identity and values in relation to family and land and so on…
As told to me, when Nungarrayi sat down, the meeting went on where it had left off in English ‘management speak’. It was as if Nungarrayi didn’t exist.
….such are promises. All lies and jests. Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest….

A white teacher was given the task to give ‘Luritja lessons’ to school children. She was of the opinion that learning the language should not be too difficult. After all, she thought, these are 40,000 year old simple languages.
…. And here a song in Luritja… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1baOxLwccB8 (if this song had been recently recorded, there is a good chance the musicians would have gone straight back to gaol, for traffic offences!)
So there she was in a class “teaching” their own language to some pupils. As she told it, for no apparent reason the children kept slapping her. “I think they have some behaviour problems” she said.
I wonder why they were slapping her? Maybe they got the idea from this:

Team teaching: A boy who owned a shiny new bicycle (a long time ago when there were very few bicycles in Yuendumu) was allowed to keep his bike in the class room. Another non school attending boy, a close relative of the bike owner, came into the class to ask to borrow the bike, seeing as it wasn’t being used. A conversation took place in Warlpiri amongst the children and the Aboriginal teacher. The Warlpiri teacher then gave permission to the boy to lend his bike. The white teacher that hadn’t understood a word that transpired then put a stop to all of this, and was much enraged by the impertinence of the school wagging child to come in and ask for the bike. The bike stayed put.

Have a think about this vignette….. It illustrates so much that is different about ‘western culture’ to the culture of often confused Warlpiri people. Chris Graham’s Gap in Understanding. Attitudes to possessions, family obligations, school attendance (for its own sake), discipline, reward and punishment. But foremost, who is in charge.

More team teaching: A Warlpiri teacher told the class in Warlpiri to go and sit on the floor mats. The white teacher then told the kids in English to go and sit at their desks. Both teachers then chastised those children sitting on the mats.

Terima kasih untuk memperhatikan
Hamba Frank

dan sekarang lagu yang bagus untuk kepentingan diri sendiri

Mussolini expressing his disgust at the odd late train. (Said with convincing Chico Marx type voice) ” The train she’s a gonna be late again’!

Special Exclusive. Another week of free country trains for Victoria.

Dear train traveller, please accept this correction. Mussolini didn’t make the trains run on time. It’s a Furphy. But he did pave the way in expanding prisons, and making sentencing efficient. So he can’t have been half bad in establishing “ greater efficiencies”.

The Glory Days, and quite economical.

Incidentally if you’re playing with your Hornby HO Scale Flying Scotsman, the next news item may come as a bit of a shock! We suggest you turn off the transformer and make a cup of tea.

ThIngs in Victoria have gone from bad to worse. The government has just sacked the CEO of V-Line. That’s the State Railway. Allegedly the most patronised rail system in Australia. Because the situation is so dire, they’re allowing another whole week of free regional rail travel. This is marvellous news.

Right across this state families are being re-united, and the roads are emptying as tens of thousands of people take advantage of this fare amnesty. From my own personal observation, the railways system, so often characterised as the option of last resort for the poor, the disposessed and recently arrived is literally chocka-block with that unwilling constituency. And though the queue’s are long, and the frustration deep, the general mood is one of jubilation. I heard an older member of the train travelling public remark; “Ooer, its just like during the blitz, aint it, all this queueing, and waiting, but it’ll come good in the end and wont do any of the young-uns any harm to put up with wot we went through to save civlisation from the yoke of totalitarianism, authoritarian power crazed individuals and crazy nation states’. Indeed a spokesman for both the Chinese Government and Rupert Murdoch was on hand but declined to be interviewed, suggesting with a most acute display of projected body language that the most powerful man in the world would rather read the Herald Sun rather than be seen dead on anything remotely associated with public transport.

The nice new ‘Bombadier’ Trains. Perhaps in hindsight an unfortunate namesake.

When will it end? How can it be fixed? No one really knows?, That’s the fun of it. It’s all allegedly because of a faulty signalling system and faulty rail, faulty wheels and faulty whistles, (whoops I made that up). Indeed the only thing not faulty with the train is the familiar ‘clickety clack’ sound they make when they go through points and crossings, cept that some are worried that they’ll make a ‘clickety clickety clack smack BOOM crunch’ sound, as they seem to be sailing though level crossings without the boom gates coming down. For a train, that’s dangerous behaviour!!

But we’re all sure it’ll sort itself out and there’s a lesson in this. If the government had done as every other preceding government had done, NOTHING, the problem wouldn’t exist. But this government has made a real effort to get things right and it’s all falling apart because people are actually using the trains willingly!! Sort of ‘hoist on their own signal box’ as the Fat Controller would say, and as you know dear reader all the skills that made the rail system run efficiently, the empire building stuff that made the Bendigo line the eighth wonder of the world (and envy of all those who would like their bridges and viaducts crafted from REAL stone and WROUGHT Iron) were built by engineers who knew their business. Now it’s bureacrats who build railways, and that’s why they’re broken. We’ve lost the knowledge.

Regional Rail. ‘Back to the Future’!

On my line, they removed the twin gauge put in 1862 for a single track. That’s why the trains stop, because they have to wait till the other passes. This NEVER EVER happened on the old line. Try telling a road user that ‘their freeway will be improved from dual lanes to a single lane as part of an upgrade’. You can only do that with rail because until recently no one gave a ‘Mitchell Pearce” about rail. But then the old line had the older diesels and they weren’t streamlined and gaily painted and pretended to go ‘Whoooosh’….which gets back to the absolute core of the problem. We should’ve stuck with steam. Coal is getting cheaper by the minute, and steam trains are much more attractive. Only one problem though, are there any boiler makers left?.. I’m stumped. I’l go and ask the Fat Controller.

A real photograph of a Masters Store. On an exceptional day there were observed cars “other” than staff members in the carpark.

Dear reader, if any of you own shares, or are even remotely interested in the stock-market, you may have taken a breather over the very busy christmas holiday period to watch the unfolding of the Master’s Big Box store saga. Ill be straight up with you, I know nothing about shares, and have next to no experience in matters of fiducial jurisprudence, and hazard to wager that if ever given custody of the chook raffle funds, there’d be a minor case of fraud or misappropriation. The fact is that ‘big business like to tell us they are in charge and they know what’s good for us. Because of this they like to think that unlike public enterprises like government, ‘theirs’ is reliable, and works efficiently. To paraphrase Mussolini, ‘the trains always run on time’.

The story goes that Woolworth’s, which is quite a big company thought they’d take on Bunnings, a very successful hardware chain run by Westfarmers. I don’t know much about hardware, but if you go to your corner hardware, sure enough you’ll find it closed, and a recent inductee to the dole office directing you to visit Bunnings. Bunnings is full of stuff that people want, and then curiously throw away. It’s a hyper, super cargo cult, we import rubbish from China, and then reconfigure it as rubbish after a year or two. Well the upshot is that this very successful business model has really worked, and Woolworth’s exec’s filled with the prospect of bigger bonuses eyed off this tasty morsel and decided they’d do one better, establish super-dooper stores all over the place, and quash the Bunnings giant.

It all went wrong. The executives at Woollies probably still got HUGE payouts and bonuses and all the poor people who worked there are all unemployed, discarded, effluvium, junk, rubbish. They have become the material personification of what they sold. There’s poetry and irony in that. But that’s not the end of the story, cos a lot of people have been saying, “See, this is where capitalism eats itself”, but I think it’s less capital eating, but bludgeoning bullet headed stupidity, AND I would hasten to add, has it been all that bad?

Woolies recently trialled the ” Wooly-Train” concept in order to attract punters to their Masters Stores. The idea has been scrapped but taken up by the Minister for Innovation The Rt. Hon. Christopher Pyne as a possible rapid transit link between Adelaide and ‘anywhere else’.

The answer is most assuredly ‘NOT’. As Woolworth’s expanded on their quixotic quest the cunning Goths at Aldi saw their opportunity and expanded right into the market Woolies thought it had stitched up, and in the meantime, Coles was fined for treating their suppliers like serfs and it all gets very confusing. That’s why there weren’t any Coles or Woollies exec’s getting Australia Day honours gongs. But you know that once the dust dies down it’ll be chock a block full of the deserving MBA’s and senior exec’s. It restores the natural order of things. So you may think i’m trying to suggest that unbridled laissez fair capitalism is a bad thing. You couldn’t be wronger. In the 90’s when we were told that Victoria was an economic basket case, Jeff sold off everything.

Mussolini who made the ‘trains run on time’, being congratulated by another Private Public Partnership expert.

Our rail system is quaintly Victorian. Recently the train system has just about collapsed. The regional trains are defunct and everywhere you look it’s a domino effect of spiralling incompetence. The trains, they just wont go. Exasperated the regional carrier, VLINE have granted us an ENTIRE WEEK of FREE TRAIN TRAVEL. This is how private enterprise should be. I’ve been to town three times in as many days. Hadn’t had to worry about the ticket Gestapo (Myki Inspectors) and the Gauleiters, (PSO’s), and today, whilst we all laugh that this week is a one off for bad service, it took me only three and a half hours to get to Castlemaine, some 120 k’s away. And as a consequence I had an opportunity of seeing familiar scenery up close, and marvelled. Not a Woolworth’s scale disaster, but we, the citizenry are now re- engaged with the world around us thanks to the beneficence of PRIVATE ENTERPRISE and their promise, that in the end, they’ll get it right. And occasionally the old adage runs true, ‘the trains WILL run on time’. More or less.

Jack Charles, ” A taxi service fit for a KING’!

Dear reader, once again, Australia is a world leader. The statistics speak for themselves. Aboriginal Australians make up less than three per cent of the population, yet account for up to 80 percent of incarcerations in the N.T and W.A. An aboriginal child is thirty times more likely to end up in the slammer, and as current indices suggest they are less likely by ten to fifteen years to achieve the national ‘batting average’. Proof perfect that ever since the bounty of Australia Day was inaugurated ‘we’, the other 97 percent demonstrate a profound and tangible understanding of Aboriginal Australia. We should be proud, ‘numero uno’, and our most recently deposed P.M, as ‘Prime Minister for Aborigines’ was destined to make real change. Sadly, (and we are in profuse agreement with Noel Pearson), his reign was cut short.

But there’s good news, the new police complexes, will prove a boon to privatised prisons, and an absolute sure-fire thing to shareholders. Where once all was hopeless,  a veritable “terror -nullius’, we now have growth. Similarly there’s a silver lining in the knowledge that the celebrated actor Jack Charles will soon be able to get a ride in a taxi. A taxi service dedicated to Aboriginal Australians. A private public partnership pointing to a new way forward.

‘Aboriginal Australia and Australia Day is a vexed issue. But what do Indigenous Australians really lack? A treaty? A rapprochement? No!! They lack certainty!! Real and tangible certainty when they require a taxi. Certainty to know their place, make a contribution to this country, and in recognition of the hard yards we’ve undertaken to improve their lot, a spirit of gratefulness. Being grateful is so important to their sense of self’ the CEO of ‘Black on White Taxi’s’ Ms. Blanche White proclaimed. ‘It challenges cultural stereotypes, and balances the general populations feeling that they should be more grateful. That’s in keeping with the spirit of Australia Day’.

‘Black on White Taxi’. Soon to be a familiar sight in the southern states. This vehicle depicts the ” Conniston” accessory pack, of rifles and ‘solitary’, passenger accomodation module.

‘The Black on White Taxi is a purpose built taxi. Drivers are rigorously selected and as a pre-requisite, “colour blind”, and the taxi fare is cashless. Fares are deducted automatically from the basics card. The taxis themselves are modified paddy wagon’s and each have a distinctive black on white. (colour bars) to indicate their ‘Special use”. The taxi routes are all defined by a specific set of ‘knowledge’ skills, with major exits and routes leading to railway stations, airports, and any public institution, (Gaol or correctional facility) that will expedite the transfer of aborigines from urban to remote areas’. The CEO of ‘Black on White Taxi’s’ Ms. White, was beaming at the unveiling; ‘Like Prisons, this is a growth industry for Aboriginal Australians. It also demonstrates the utility of modifying existing infrastructure to achieve practical outcomes. A win win for the post manufacturing sector, to demonstrate Innovative thinking’.

Attractive interior finish of the ‘Black on White’ taxis includes historical documents and tasteful posters celebrating Australia’s glorious settlement and a wattle pinpointing the unrealised potential of REAL ESTATE.

Speaking of innovation Ms White proudly unveiled the new vehicle “Yes indeed we’ve take the principle of the modified utility vehicle as used by the N.T, and W.A police for prisoner transfer, and have adapted the bench seat and windows, with a polyvinyl, (washable) bench seat in a range of aboriginal related themes, in the tradition of the Papunya and desert artists and matching curtains to ensure privacy and creature comfort. Our drivers are versed in basic aboriginal language being able to say “get out” in most surviving tribal languages. A deluxe version is also planned which includes handcuffs, bars and abusive language, designed to acclimatise the passengers in transfer to the familiar sounds of prison life. Indigenous Australian of the year Mr Charles was unavailable for comment, but the secretary to the Minster for Aboriginal Affairs made a brief statement. ‘We now have a clear direction in giving something back to aboriginal australians, who must be grateful for our assistance, once again, in reminding them not of all they have lost, but how much they’ve gained since settlement’.

‘Don’t forget, These are an ancient and special people, and once again we have re-defined our special relationship. And this is neither tokenistic nor superficial, because we’ve crafted for them, from their dreaming and their noble ancestry an appreciation of what contribution they have made to the rest of Australia’. ‘And what is that contribution beyond and the near certainty of incarceration’? the Secretary was asked. ‘Oh that’s simple, the gift of real certainty and incidentally what constitutes the real drivers, (no pun intended) of this economy, REAL ESTATE!!’.