not the motorcycle diaries

Down by the harbour today, to exchange the last of my pesos and reais (check for counterfeiting, halve the number) …

I walk past an ‘archaeological dig’ at The Rocks (with genuine artefacts dating back to 1790). There are panels stuck to the fence explaining the significance of the site: 1 sketchy panel referring to
40 000 years of Cadigal history (there being ‘no physical [genuine] evidence’ of their presence ever existing on that particular site), and 5 on the first 100 years of ‘the first European community’.

I keep walking, passing a genuine Koori man in white paint and genuine possum fur playing a genuine didgeridoo, as well as shops full of genuine Aboriginal art (not a Destiny Deacon in sight, mind).

After exchanging my millions I sit by the quays and watch the ritz pass by. There’s a storm rolling in. The water’s a murky green, the clouds as black as my genuine armband …

There are two pelicans hanging out on the lake in Victoria Park at the moment, living alongside eels, the moorhens and their babies, three species of duck, schools of tiny fish, and dragonflies. Oh the heartening urban biodiversity.

Last night, Tony Jones asked the Commonwealth Ombudsman, John McMillan, if:

“the political climate and the politicians that write that legislation radiate that culture [of racist assumptions about immigration status, ignorance towards basic indicators of mental illness and systematic incompetence] downwards, or does the culture just exist in the system when it’s not properly monitored?”.

His question was regarding the latest evidence of stupendous prejudice and idiocy in Australian governmental practice.

In first year sociology we often ask students to contemplate whether or not the bureacratic systems of social welfare, child protection, prison, immigration, mental health, policing et cetera are de facto systems for sorting out and doing away with people who do not fit a particular notion of ‘normal’, ‘Australian’, ’sane’, ‘reasonable’ and so on. The cases of Rau, Alvarez and Mr T show that this is no abstract question. It shows the policing, immigration, prison and mental health systems intersecting, like a well-oiled machine, to consistently uphold the notion of ‘an Australian citizen’ as English speaking and Anglo-Saxon.

As John McMillan put it:

“… the similarity in three cases indicates that the cases prompt - not just the Department of Immigration I think, but … all of us to ask some deep questions about how well our society handles mental illness and even about who we regard really as Australian. Say in each case, two of the people were Australian citizens and one was a long-term permanent resident, and the fact that the Department of Immigration was called in as part of the solution raises some worrying questions about national identity”.

Yes and yes is the answer to Tony Jones’ question. The police force, immigration department, mental health system and private security company staff have been shown up as racist, neglectful, incompetent and ignorant in 220 cases of ‘wrongful detention’ investigated by the Ombudsman. And that’s not even starting on the rest of the people wrongfully incarcerated in Australia under immigration detention policies. That story is much, much worse - all the more so for its invisibility, which itself reinforces the sorting-out mechanism of ‘Australian’ and ‘non-Australian’. Tony Jones alluded to it:

“There are, of course, thousands of people who’ve been through the detention system, most of them not legal at the time that they are put into detention and yet the same things presumably apply to them - the disregard for mental illness, for example. We’ve just seen the outcome of the Shay Badreye case in which the Government admitted the little boy was psychologically damaged by his detention. Today there’s anecdotal evidence of mentally ill people in Baxter Detention Centre, so ill they can’t come out of their rooms…”

Welcome to Shame Town, kids.

A belated citation for the image below (I Respect Artist Integrity. Really). It is by the incredible William Kentridge, from Drawing for STEREOSCOPE, 1998-99, charcoal and pastel on paper.

PS. * businesslike *

* big business * small business * own business * close of business * business hours * business transaction * doing your business * out of business * back in business * business suit * business man * business woman * none of your business * any other business * back in business * my business * your business * business statement * business start-up grant * business plan * business lunch * business meeting * business conference * business trip * business club * business summit * business purposes * business community * business interests * business dress * i mean business * business class * business wear * business climate * strictly business * business and/or pleasure * order of business * business impact statement * good for business * bad for business * business ethics * business relations * business at the front, party at the back *

I heard Provencal being spoken whilst in Nimes, and found I could understand it slightly better than French, because it sounds a little like Spanish and/or Italian. For example, the word *star* in Provencal is *estello*, which is more like the Italian *stella* or the Spanish *estrella* than the French *etoile*.

Today’s procrastoresearch suggests that Provencal is indeed related more closely to the ‘Ibero-Romance’ language family, which fits with the geographical location of Nimes, i.e. the south of France.

These days, there are about 400,000 speakers of Provencal in circulation. This compares to 1,075,000,000 Chinese Mandarin speakers, 129,000,000 French speakers and approximately 35 speakers of Livonian.

I’ve become one of *those* bloggers, haven’t I.

One thousand peace women, one George Bush.

One thousand peace women, one George Bush.

One thousand peace women, one George Bush.

Take a deep breath and repeat until sick feeling in stomach goes away, thus freeing you up to continue your own peace making (and this is not restricted to singing Masters of War in thin warbly voices whilst clutching your 1983 Greenpeace calico bag).

I can’t help wondering if Jane Drake-Brockman, in the news over this oil for food business, is related to the Drake-Brockman family who employed Sally Morgan’s grandmother.

Whilst travelling the fabled lands of Overseasia, I made many erratic notes of Things To Find Out More About. One such note reads “the symbolism of the narwhal horn?!“, made whilst wandering the Melancholia art exhibition in Paris.

Rigorous google-based research has since informed me that the narwhal horn gained its value by being detached and flogged off as an alicorn, a genuine unicorn horn. It was attributed to all sorts of wonderment: not least phallic glory, but also things like curing epilepsy and whitening teeth. And was also, presumably, linked to the perverse power and magic of ye olde melancolie. Somehow.

I hereby challenge the author of Spicy Pony Fantasy #1 to do something with this information.

To Chris Kraus, I say rock. To Nick Minchin, I say not.