Todays Dispatch is entitled Vogons, Palimpsests and the Gap-Part II
G’day again,
In Part I of this Dispatch, the price remote Aboriginal Australia is being forced to pay to Close the Gap was alluded to
…..The policeman said to me, son
They won’t build no schools anymore
All they’ll build will be prison, prison….
Lucky Dube… Prisoner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1bjgVGuSQo
There is a debate raging about what price humanity should pay to be safe from terrorism.
Sér o estár (to be or to be) that is the question.
Sér Libre o estár fuera de peligro (to be free or to be safe)
Raúl el balilla – libre soy …(I’m Free)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy7SiGd5xQ8
Recently I saw it on the Television…
Yothu Yindi – Treaty (Original Version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf-jHCdafZY
…someone asserted that in Australia the chances of being killed by a terrorist act were far less than the chance of being killed by your own furniture falling on you.
I might add that in some parts of the world the chances of being killed by a foreign bomb aimed at putting you fuera de peligro by liberating you from terrorism are far greater than being killed by terrorism per sé.
Despite knowing that the chances of being killed in a road accident are far greater than the chance of falling out of the sky in an aeroplane, I used to suffer from an irrational fear of flying, not dissimilar to the fear some people have of tiny little spiders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOAfXUshpVY
I’ve overcome this fear. We Shall Over Come – Mahalia Jackson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTyKJjj2oC0
No longer do I assist the pilot by exerting my willpower during take-offs and landings (“keep flying ya bastard!”)
Next time you fly in a plane, check out how many of your fellow passengers look out the window- not many you’ll find.
Myself I’m a looker-out-the-window. I blame my having attended lectures in geomorphology for this.
On our way back from Melbourne I discovered that Harry Jakamarra is also a looker-out-the-window (on the way down from Alice Springs to Melbourne there were clouds all the way).
I blame him being Warlpiri for that.
When we crossed the region either side of the Murray River, we discerned the ghost of a dune field not quite erased by the irrigated fields. A palimpsest of gigantic proportions.
Having had the meaning of ‘palimpsest’ explained, I re-read the thus named chapter in Kim Mahood’s book ‘Position Doubtful’.
It is one of those not all too common books you can read again and again, if only to savour the skilful choice of words, let alone to grasp some insights into the Great Cultural Divide, nay the Grand Canyon, the Magnificent true Gap which separates Mainstream Australian society from Remote Aboriginal society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-315A0Os6kA Yothu Yindi-Mainstream
A Gap which shouldn’t be closed, shouldn’t be eliminated by Vogons.
A Gap which should be bridged and appreciated.
Only then will Australia be Free.
Chau,
Franklin