Soil.

Earth, dirt, soil and all that it contains for a healthy environment to live and plant, feed and prosper. There was a time when ALL peoples had a healthy respect for that piece of land that they lived upon. A sacred respect, a worshiped thing of unknown quantity with a reliable certainty that the Earth would provide.

Cut to the twentieth century, pre second world war..a time when self sufficiency on the land was still considered a religious endowment from God. This was especially relevant among the Germanic settlers who came from the deep soils of Silesia / Posen with the start of the settlement of South Australia. Their Lutheran teachings humbly drew their faith toward the debt to their God that the soil in this new land was holy grist for their mills and families and communities. Seasonal festivals for sowing and harvest were celebrated with gifts placed near or upon their church altars, their stern benevolence conditional on the continuity of hand to plough to faith to harvest and reward for work done.

And the arbiter of all this source and supply was the Earth itself..the soils of the settled lands…in reality if not in recognition ; a Pagan celebration of Gaia .. Mother Earth.

“ She lives, she sees..her breath I breathe,

This Beauty ,

This island ; Earth.”

This was how it stood in those years before hire-purchase, compound interest mortgages and bank-loans became commonplace…When small holdings of farmland could support a single family with crops, chooks, a cow or two and the veggie patch to sustain a well-balanced diet and the household could get by on barter-exchange for what they did not produce with other farming families. I remember being told of one son, who upon joining the army in the time of the 2ndWW, literally sat down and wept when he received his first pay-packet with his own name on it…never before had he ever had money of his own.

The ownership of land gave you status within the district..With the working of the soil, you were considered one of the “ins” of the farming community..as against those who laboured for their living outside of ownership of land..these were the “outs”. Seen as spurned by God and considered a lesser member of the community.

“ As I see it, they (the pioneers) accepted their arrival here as Divine Providence – they were led here- and their land was taken up at the hands of Divine Providence for themselves.” (Mr. “B” 80+ yrs.)

Mr. Colin Thiele (the Author), who lived on family property in the Valley until he went away to school said :

“Yes, there was a spiritual bond with the soil, linked with their religion. Their land was a gift from God and it was from the soil that good gifts flow. This knowledge was deeply and unquestioningly instilled in them.”

The strict discipline brought to the new land in regards to system, method and social order, sustained these hardy pioneers through the rigors of unfamiliar weather and shallow top-soils..their over-zealous regard to form and measure causing damage to those very soils they revered as God’s gift to them..their hopelessly small allotments in this dry land soon showed them reason to doubt their benevolence.

“The German farmer who ran his farm in an ordered and efficient manner thought of himself, through the teaching of his church, as a good steward of that which had been given him through Divine Providence. To own land and to farm it well gave him status in the sight of God and of his fellow men. Any person not exhibiting signs of good stewardship, that is, an inefficient farmer, in the terms of this ideology was ‘out’, and considered to be of lower status. Colin Thiele suggested that through their zeal and desire to be good stewards the German pioneers (ironically enough)l:

overtilled the soil through ignorance of Australian conditions compared with those of Silesia where they came from. “ ( https://data.environment.sa.gov.au/Content/heritage-surveys/3-Barossa-Survey-Vol-3-1977.pdf )

The years of the Great Depression and the foreclosing by the banks on many of those small family farms drove some off the land, and by losing their land, there was “inside consideration” that they had fallen from faith with God and so were sometimes forced to leave the district and community. This had grave consequences for many Fathers and head of the family…breakdowns and suicides were not infrequent at this time, and the cruelty of financial dominance by the banks sent many other farmers into labouring for extra income in what was now a capital rather than a barter-based community.

Even the wording of the teachings from the Lutheran pulpits changed with the times..where once praise for hard work on land and stock was singular for the owners and tillers of the soil, after the War, an equal consideration was given to WHATEVER means was employed to gain wages to support the family.. God had yielded his preference toward a life on the soil to any means available to keep one’s head above water!

The bankers were now writing the gospel…..The conservative politicians were empowering the banks.

“ Now mute, this soil of ravaged earth,

Speaks a language I no more discern,

Where once I tilled with bare hand..

. . . and DID understand.

Mute ; the soil that gave me birth,

Speak to me!..my mother silent,

This island ; Earth. “

Suddenly the means for subsistence was mercilessly altered..The soil, the Earth, lay open for rapine and pillage..cropping moved from small acreages to broadacre and machinery from horse-drawn to satellite controlled in the space of a couple of generations. The descendants of those old Germanic pioneers, those hardened tillers of God’s earth moved from being “dirt-farmers” to “chemical-farmers”…the barter system redundant now as there was in place corporate conglomerates to shift mega tonnage and if your farm was too small for consideration, you were left behind.

There was no place in this brave new world of hedge-funded mega agri-corps for either sympathy for the old handed-down generational family farm, nor banking finance for the same to restructure the size of their holdings..the family whose heart was from the soil was finished, percentage was the new arithmetic of farming.

The prayer of capital religion was one of cold, hard cash..and woe betide they who lacked capital or credit, for theirs will not be the kingdom of this new God.

“ Mr. B. ( 80+) :

‘ It is an economic position as a result of politics that young people can’t afford to stay on the land. By and large they can’t even build a ‘blinkin’ house for themselves anymore because the prices have just escalated. ‘

Mr. B. apparently, has only, as many disillusioned elderly people will do, seen government policy working towards this disintegration, and has failed to recognise the steady encroachment of the capitalist ideology within his own community. This encroaching capitalist ideology has been recognised by most of the younger generation, as witnessed Mr. N. (35) who knows that to be competitive in the modern economy, farms must be mechanised and holdings must be increased in size to warrant capital expenditure on the necessary machinery. He is aware that the old ideology requiring a good steward of God’s gifts to supply his family needs from his own land through his own labour is beyond the financial capability of the non-capitalized, restricted acreages which were sufficient in the days of the pioneers.” (ibid)

 

“This Island Earth.

Lament, fair children, Lament fair child,

Lament for what you have to abide.

Born to us a gift supreme, sight sublime,

Beauty’s hand to hand in mine,

But now I turn mine eyes askine,

Now in shame and guilt decline

To walk hand with hand in thine.

Whilst fair Beauty and her entourage

Lay dying in irreversible damage.

And ponder I, why ‘tis always encouraged,

That we pluck the prettiest flowers,

But leave the weeds to flourish..

On this island Earth.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Island Earth.

This Island Earth.

Beauty is absorbed into the ether, like raw energy,

Each unto its own moment does flare and burn.

Each into age does lose its attracting power.

Such vigor waning , hour upon hour.

She lives, she sees..her breath I breathe,

This Beauty ,

This island ; Earth.

*

This island Earth..

Her patience shaped in the antiquity of years

Mountains, trees..east to west

Deserts, seas..around her girth..

All of life a painful birth..this island Earth..

Now deaf to me, this soil of ravaged earth,

Speaks a language I no more comprehend,

Where once I tilled with bare hand..

. . . and DID understand.

Mute ; the soil that gave me birth,

Speak to me!.. mother silent,

This island ; Earth.

*

This island Earth…

Waiting, waiting, rain softly falls in stacatto’d drop,

Rapping, tapping, upon a patient crow’s shellacq’d back..

It’s gimlet eye does sprightly espy,

From vantage perch on a tree’s barren bough..

Beauty’s last breath ; just another roadkill death.

But for the moment, just a moment..stay!

There is a bizarre purity here,

While the kill’s vacant eye explores the open sky..

Between the seconds of decision,

Before the crow scavenges its share of flesh,

All is so perfectly plain, peaceful and calm,

On this island Earth.

*

On this island ; Earth,

What beast is man with his awful plan,

Myself, called to hand deliver death,

On Beauty’s last breath .

Lain’ before me in unretrievable, wracked injury,

Smashed bone and eye..body awry,

Limp crawling agony demands such a thing of me.

That I must kill what is fated for death,

Save one wild eye and awful breath,

That I must kill..merciful kill..what little left..

What’s left to die on roadside breadth..

For this island ; Earth.

*

This Island Earth..

Lament, fair children, Lament my fair child,

Lament for what you have to abide.

Born to us a gift supreme, sight sublime,

Beauty’s hand to hand in mine,

But now I turn mine eyes askance,

Now in shame and guilt decline

To walk hand with hand in thine.

Whilst fair Beauty and her entourage

Lay dying in irreversible damage.

And ponder I, why ‘tis always encouraged,

That we pluck from Nature, the prettiest flowers,

But leave the weeds to flourish..

On this island Earth.

The Tradesman’s return.

“Trades-unions, composed of the workmen in the different

trades, were recognized in the time of the (first Roman) monarchy,

and no effort was ever made to dissolve them, until

they began to exert a political influence.” … R. W. Husband…Source: The Classical Weekly, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Oct. 9, 1916)…

By the time of the return to Roman Imperial governance with Julius Caesar, these Unions or Guilds were banned by decree….seen as “dangerous to public order”…It is now time for them to return WITH political power to RESTORE public order.

First, let me assure the reader that by “Tradesman”, I am referring to a gender-neutral title..there are many of both genders now working hand in hand toward the one end. “The workers united, will NEVER be defeated!”

Over the last millennia, while the Aristocracy, then the Military, then the Oligarchical upper-middle classes have fooled about with their power base, debauching, slaughtering and fiddling with both populations and economies, till we see evidence of their gormless incompetence literally screwing up the entire environment of our planet, driving a huge percentage of its denizens into refugee status and yet STILL proclaiming brazenly from all its various media platforms that THEY…and THEY ALONE are the best managers of political and economic outcomes.

WHAT AN ABSOLUTE EFFING LOAD OF BULLSHIT!!

Look at just the century past..At the start of the century, we had the last remnants of the inbred aristocracy drag us into their world war of pride and pomp and ceremony that claimed the lives of millions of young people…and then with the next world war, we get the rising middle-classes dragging us into their war of economic opportunity that claimed the lives of millions more…and since then, we have had an unending parade of greater or lesser conflicts and skirmishes for in most cases nothing more than political / economic or religious (the high priests of capitalism) ideology.

All these “players” that want to drive their peoples or other nation’s citizens into a game of monopoly control of either cheap labour or cheap raw commodities, come from the one central class…the non-producing, non-productive middle / upper-middle classes….NOT the trades, NOT the farmers or producers, NOT the service/ health carers classes…ALL..if not in actual position, then in aspiration toward the upper-middle classes.

It is time to put an end to this madness.

The representative bodies and unions of the producing classes have both the right and the capability to govern and manage production and economies. The rise in numbers of the educated working classes to sustain and improve the functioning capabilities of a society BEYOND personal individual grandiose statements, would result in an improved social status for ALL citizens of The State.

This is not just a pipe dream, an attempt at persuasion toward socialism or communism. We can now look to see which Nation States that exist as an example of civil governance that best caters for its particular peoples and which operate in a state of absolute mayhem. We do not need to copy in exact detail those governments..indeed, such would be foolhardy, some having enormous population control challenges, some having long histories of conflict with bordering neighbour nations..etc. What we here in Australia need to look to is that ideal which gives the average citizen access to infrastructure, education, health and secure employment that offers dignity of life and security of lifestyle. We are definitely NOT getting either from the continued rapine of our resources and working young and those whose health situation is vulnerable.

The trade/working class representative unions, coupled with the true “On the Land” farmers and producers..along with engineering and scientific research bodies can lift the nation out of the greedy clutches of an anachronistic strangulation of the conservative upper-middle class oligarchs, who have secured for their own riches, their own wants and scheming, the machinery of State. Their rusted and seized intellects no longer have the spark of imagination to set in motion a new world opportunity of “Equality, Fraternity, and Liberty”….Theirs is no more than a dark dungeon of despair, deprivation and desperation.

“Away with all pests!”

There is a measure of undeniable certainty by which to gauge the honest intent of a person’s capability to envisage, oversee and manage a situation, particularly if that situation requires knowledge of planning, supply, needs-base and results. That person may not need to oversee the entire go-to-whoa job, but they do need to have practical insight to envision or to pass over to others WITH PROVEN ABILITY to manage the project. This is where “factory-floor” experience is vital. It is in the space between proposal and approval that the “job-skills” of government members come into their own.

The upper-middle and even some of the old middle-class management styles are both inadequate and incapable of seeing long-term requirements of infrastructure needs above their “consciousness of kind” colleagues who lobby them incessantly for financial or political favour that benefits only their own class but is paid for and in the long run suffered by the producing classes.

Corruption, deceit, fraud and dishonesty are the hallmarks of this decayed and debauched class that has over time worked its favoured sons and daughters into positions of power and influence in both governance and authority. People who, in many cases have little knowledge or capacity to do a half-decent job. The one thing you cannot fake, unlike the “fake it till you make it” middle-class brigade that in the end never really “makes it” at all, or else makes a complete botch up of the whole job!..witness the NBN, the NDIS, the ABCC, ASIC, ACCC, the Productivity Commission, the Fairwork Commission and Government itself!!…we could go on….the only thing you cannot fake is hard work…honest application to create out of raw materials, be they animal, vegetable, mineral or human…is that end result that is visible, tangible and applicable in a practical sense…NOT some will-o-the-wisp rubbish that is only “funded-for-fun” for speculators and investors seeking profit above utility..profit above people. The producing classes can and do deliver the staple infrastructure that is the foundation, the building blocks, structural design and finishing touch to the WHOLE of society!….It is the working trades that are the backbone of production and living standards of ALL societies in any time in history…All religious / ethical beliefs follow from them…and ought to give credence to them and in the end offer thanks to them.

We have seen the damage that the unskilled and unqualified can do…It is time to go one better..it is time for The Tradesman’s Return.

 

 

Nailing down a pine floor.

Let me tell you how we used to nail down the floorboards of a house back when I was an apprentice carpenter. It was always the apprentice’s job to nail down the floor as it was THE WORST job in the list of second fix carpentry. The youngest apprentice got the job and when he was older and a new apprentice came on site, it was passed on to that younger one…it was the way it went.

Most houses in those days were smaller with smaller rooms, so the usual “run” of continuous nailing was about 3-4metres (in this new money)..or around 10 -15 feet..with around 7 or 8 runs per room..each board with two x 2inch nails per board per joist. You would clasp as many two inch nails as you could hold in your fist and you would start “feeding” the nails from palm to thumb/forefinger and keep up a rhythm with the nailing…First strike, lighter , to start the nail off, second to drive it in and third to finish it off flush with the surface of the floorboard so the punch can sink it below the surface in just one blow..and the foreman or carpenter boss got shitty if you over struck the last blow and left a “two-bob” dent in the floor from the head of the hammer.

Three strikes from a 24ounce claw hammer..no lighter hammer, because it then may take an extra blow to do every nail and they add up, believe me!..no heavier (I can recall 28ounce hammers some brawny chippies had for framing or shutter work on the multi-storey constructions)  or your arm would fall off by the end. Three blows in a continuous rhythm with out break and speed…if you missed feeding the nail from the clutched handful that fed to your thumb and fore-finger, you’d keep the rhythm going by striking lightly on the floorboard next to the nail spot just to keep the rhythm going…

“Tap-bang-bang…tap-bang-bang…tap-bang-bang…tap-bang-bang… on and on and on…

Sometimes you’d not have that 2inch nail the right way up or not in quite the right position and you’d come down with that “tap”..which wasn’t a soft touch, by the way, but rather a solid starting hit to set the nail solid ready for the next heavy blow..and you’d spin the nail away and take the force of the hammer blow onto your thumb-nail edge and BY FUCKIN’ JAYSUS…did it hurt..and you would end up with a black nail that would, if you are lucky just drop off in a couple of weeks time..unlucky and it would fester under the nail and you’d be weeping in agony at night until you got your mother (you were only fifteen or so, remember) to heat up the blunt end of a paper-clip and burn it through the nail so that the pus would squirt out and you’d almost swoon with relief..

But you would keep going..”tap-bang-bang…tap-bang-bang…because it was no use stopping and weeping, no-one else was going to do the job…no-one else was going to rub your hand and say coo-cooing things to you to comfort you because they had suffered the same back when it was their turn…they may come in to check why you’ve stopped the rhythm and say : “Poor bastard”, but you’d keep on going because that was your work that was what is required to get the job done and someone had to do it…and sometimes because of the bruising of that first miss-hit, you’d do it again a few minutes later on the same nail and you’d literally WEEP with the pain..but it was no use walking away, quitting or whatever,  because the next place you went to also would have a floor needing to be nailed down and there you were ; the apprentice..

So you just got better at your job..you concentrated on that rhythmic feeding of the nails to your thumb and fore-finger…you kept the blows coming and eventually you could hand the chore over to another apprentice and listen from another room for that rhythmic hammering and wince when you heard the cry of pain…

You got better..but by Jeesus you got a few bruised thumbs and black nails until you did!..and when you got older and went to the pub with your mates and you raised that schooner or pint of beer, you’d see the ingrained dirt and cuts and callouses on your hand and you’d know which class you and your mates belonged to and you’d know about pain and you’d know about bludgers and con-men and shirking the job and who was really a responsible grown man or woman and any decent worker would respect any other worker for that reason…and be fucking proud to be able to do so!

The wealth gatherers.

 

Who are this one percent?….These creatures of our societies who have gathered about their persons wealth so immense to be able to claim ownership of a commodity so out of proportion to need or necessity so that it is said that their number of one percent holds as much possession in their hands as the poorer 50% of humanity .

But what is the measure of “wealth”? How does one put a value on such an amorphous title?..Sure, the material possessions of a person could be held up as proof of status, but held up against what..a lack of possessions of a poor person? But that is ALL it is, isn’t it?…Wealth, as a thing considered measurable can only be valued in comparison to those who lack it. A good apple is held up and measured in quality against a bad apple..as is a solid building structure measured against a lesser structure..I don’t think I need extrapolate any further on the logic…enough to validate that “wealth” can only be measured in value when held in comparison to those who are impoverished.

However, it must be appreciated that while comparisons between similar produce, livestock or, say, rivers in the natural world can be measured against each other with statistical or health / consumerable qualities obvious to the eye, taste or physical liveability, Wealth must be held up as comparison to what?…the obvious answer to that query is poverty…and if the only way to claim “high status” of social position of ones person using such a measurement so as to obtain and hold influence of power, then it is also obvious that Wealth MUST CREATE AND MAINTAIN that level of poverty for which it can be measured against.

Ergo..: Wealth does not rise FROM poverty, Wealth CREATES poverty so as to LOOK DOWN upon it as a measure of its own status.

Wealth is a “commodity” that cannot exist in isolation…what value a gold coin or a jewelled amulet on a desert island?..Wealth must buy and it must be seen as a recognised value to be able to command price. The old “rags to riches” story is misplaced, for no wealth can be gathered without scraping shavings from an already established store of any such horde in any community..More correct would it be to say : “rags to plunder” or ; “rags to rapine” to give it poetic licence! For the person who would, either with opportune cunning or rapacious callousness want to collect about themselves that which is the property of the whole community and THEN to exhibit such opulence in ostentatious display for no other reason but to elevate their own tragic and lacking personality above their equals is no more than a gauche pastiche of all that is wrong with human endeavour…for even in the case of “honest entrepreneurship” , where singular innovation and inventiveness of an individual gives both advantage to the community, and a modicum of wealth to the innovator..is not such insight a gift to the innovator FROM his environment…his community?…Surely in the nurturing of the individual within the community, from a babe in arms to responsible adult, is not all that which finds its way to the inner personality and intellect of the individual no more than that which is already in existence…albeit perhaps not obvious to the masses…in the world about them, as either conflicting opposites or colluding opportunity?

Once, we could read of certain wealthy persons as “millionaires”…such a level of wealth was enough to conjure up pictures of exclusive opulence…Now, “Billionaires” are the measure of such “respectable wealth”…soon, no doubt is the title of “Trillionaire” to be aspired to. Such wealth accumulated must by necessity be guarded.. either by raw armed strength or by political protection. Once those with extreme riches would have a private army maintained for such…The establishment of the Nation State secured for ALL the community via a national defence force and a sub-branch civilian policing arm, protection against blatant robbery of private property.

However, the rise of the number of wealthy families showing disdain on the poorer masses gave occasional reason for revolt against such decadence that resulted in many of the rich being grossly executed in public displays of blood-revenge that horrified both  sections of those demographics…the rich, because of the fear of violent death, the poor because of the level of blood-thirstiness to which they had sunk..So a system of “safety-net” welfare was instigated to both give relief to the impoverished to exist with a modicum of dignity, and for the wealthy to go about their “business” without fear of the vengeful masses. This agreeable state existed and should exist while  stable State Governance exists.

What we are seeing now however, is perhaps the first signs of the super wealthy becoming active not just in a political sense to steer the ship of State in a direction most suitable to their means, but having reached a stage of “maximum saturation” of the limits of wealth accumulation outside of NATION STATE regulated control, they are using their immense wealth to buy influence or use existing ownership influence of media communications to not only lobby for political outcomes, but to actually use those politicians they have command over to pass legislation or simply to kill-off regulation or to sell-off State owned utilities and social welfare bodies so as to limit that same State control over their means of accumulating even more wealth and power..by forcing people whose wages and living standards are no longer protected by civil laws and codes or fair regulation to accept or perish on the harsh demands of the oligarch’s workplace conditions.

In short, The Wealthy are attempting to destroy the the stability of the Nation State.

And if this line of reasoning was followed through, it becomes clear that the Wealthy to continue to prosper, MUST DESTROY the Nation State to replace it with a dictatorship.

For an individual to even want to climb to such a level of wealth without a desire to relinquish a goodly portion of such useless riches back into the community, demonstrates a personality that places no limits on its ambition..a greed unchecked, a venality unsatisfied, a desire insatiable, a depravity unstoppable!

The Wealthy are working to destroy OUR Nation State…we, the citizen body depending on civil governance fair to all now, VITAL to all in the future, in benefit to the many, must now work toward destroying…for the good of the many, for the possibility of a future and for the good of the Nation State…; the Wealthy.

The Wealthy must be stopped and contained.

 

 

 

The long term effects of the Drought.

One can feel the drought settling in for the summer around here in the Mallee. (NB. This article was written in the lead-up to this Summer of 2019..it’s now 2021 and even worse!) It’s dry now and as the farmers will sighingly say..: “There’s nothing in the bank..there’s nothing in the bank…” Of course, they are talking about the “bank” of residual moisture in the deeper soil…it is dry down there as it is dry on the surface, there’s nothing put away to cover the drought..there’s nothing in the bank.

And Summer has yet to start.

So we are going into this warmer season already behind the eight-ball as we say. I can see the mallee trees in this district kind of settling down for the duration of the dry..a kind of hunkering down onto the broad, ragged boles of their base trunks and holding tight to their footings against the expected winds. They will shed some foliage, lose a limb or two, but with the companion plants of saltbush and other chenopods gathered like petticoats about their roots, they will ride out this storm like they have held fast against many millennia of adversity….they will survive.

But will we?…It is alright for the home gardener to heave a sigh of relief when five millimetres of rain dapples and cools their aching flower beds…or gives welcome respite to a small patch of favourite veggies…or even tops up that two module rain-water tank next to Father’s shed down the back yard. But out here in the sticks, anything up to five millimetres is useless…it is gone by an hour later..five to ten millimetres is not much better if it is not followed up after a couple of days with equal or heavier, as the false sense of security will cause residual seeds in the soil to just germinate and then whither and die after a week from lack of following rains, thereby compounding the desperation of the situation.

But the Mallee will survive, as it has survived and thrived out here in the semi-desert regions for more millennia than can be imagined. A wonderful species that , even though reduced and harangued to a flora state of poverty by the cruel eyes and wasteful hand of past settlers, is still there, and still ready and waiting to once again march across a wide country if we give it a chance.

There is a mystery about these mallee regions, about the relationship of all the native plants and fungi that co-exist in this now parched environment. There is a close connection between the mycorrhiza fungi that lives in the soil and roots of the mallee, likewise with the many varieties of chenopod (saltbush) species that will shelter under the mallee foliage. These relationships combine to gather, hold and maintain moisture about the tree so as to form mutual habitat that benefits the flora which in turn allows fauna to live and prosper off the tree’s generous bounty.

I have made my own experiments on the whys and wherefors of the trees in this area..I have conducted unauthorised and unqualified studies on the soils and temperature relationships between the seeding and germination of the mallee tree to see why, after the abandonment of cropping on this particular property nearly seventy years ago, NOT ONE mallee tree has self-germinated outside an isolated copse on the far corner of the farm.

I found that temperature testing revealed a large variation between bare soil exposed to the full sun of the day and the cold frost of a night and soil that was covered with natural litter that now has been thoroughly removed by many years of grazing…the soil temperature variation 25mm down from morning to midday to afternoon can be as much as fifteen degrees between the two locations but 500 mm apart, creating a environment unsuited to the germination of the seeds..also, my observations have displayed a theory that with the original mallee soil, it behaved much like any forest-floor matting in that the fallen seed found its way to the rotting mat of organic matter and there in the moist warmth, it germinated and THEN sent its roots down into the earth to seek footing. So the removal by grazing of this organic litter has reduced the chances further for seed germination, while the direct sun onto the top-soil remnant kills off the mycorrhiza fungi and completes the chain of events destructive to the expansion of the mallee forest.

Also, if we look to the chenopods, we will see their “keenness” to gather about the trunk of the mallee trees like so many little-ones about the skirts of a matriarch. Which brings us to another observation of my own. These saltbushes are of a variety..some are quite leafy, while others have foliage of a “succulent” kind that can be squeezed for moisture. I had a leaking pipe in a cluster of this succulent variety…it was a small leak not on the main line, but on a “feeder-line” to a trough..so I left it for quite some time before attending to it..now, in this dry clime, as any gardener will attest to in regards to a water leak, one would expect those plants in the near vicinity of a leaking pipe should and in most cases do, benefit from the liquid largesse…not so these succulent saltbushes..or at least so very little to differentiate from their cousins some little way away…which led me to consider if certain varieties of these hardy plants gather most of their water needs NOT from the root system, but rather from the moist night air, taking the moisture in through the succulent leaves and THEN transferring it TO their roots and in consequence supplying the mallee tree with a modicum of that precious liquid as a tenant will pay rent for shelter.

Then there is the soil in the immediate vicinity of the tree canopy circumference…I have conducted a small experiment with watering-can trickling water out from the base of the tree bole to the limits of the canopy and beyond. I found that there is a non-wetting soil under the canopy that ceases as soon as one crosses the unmarked limit of the canopy circle…I suspect this is managed by the tree to stop unwanted weeds and other flora parisiting its valuable nutrients and water in its immediate vicinity..also, I have noticed that in the lead up to a projected rainfall of some substance..not a small shower..the mallee tree weeps from its canopy perimeter branches a kind of oil or sap that drops to the ground and , I believe, is the means that the tree uses to create the non-wetting situation for its own protection.

And another last thing if I may tax your patience, Those rolly-pollies one sees tumbling across open paddocks like the tumbleweeds in a B Grade western movie, that then cluster against fence lines next to a road…if you get the chance to take one of those tumbling, dry balls, and rap it onto a flat, white surface, like the bonnet of your car, then look very close to the residual left there. You will commence to notice many, many varieties of seeds and insects that are gathered up on the rolly-pollies tumbling journey over field and shrub by the hooked lugs extending from its branches and brought with the plant to jag up against trunk, bole or in the case of the roadside fence and then to deposit this bounty there where it stops to allow the transportation of flora and insect life from one place to another.. a veritable environmental factory.

All this is well and good and if let go will continue for as long as forever is measured……..but for one little thing..an oversight that may cost us humans the very Earth we live on.

A  sheep farmer will remark to you with fatalistic exasperation when they see injured or starving stock just seem to lie down and give up on life..: “Any excuse to die”… a sad admittance of the failure of husbandry skills to revive even with any amount of care, those beasts that have decided when enough is enough…We see the same with some plants in a garden  we nurture that for no particular reason we can ascertain, they just wilt and die regardless of our worrying.

Well, let me give you warning…not that any will listen to yours truly, myself having little qualification in this world to claim right to give it..AND there being so many in the “consultation world” with self-assured knowledge and more wisdom than Socrates or Christ combined so that one could rightly observe that there are those who are so smart, they even outsmart themselves!…Still..let me, as one human to another, give you warning..There is a “knowing wisdom” in the heart of this natural world unmeasurable by either test or research, that while it does not stop altogether the natural cycles of reproduction of either flora and fauna, there is a “knowing”, much like the knowledge of seasonal change inherent in the DNA of all nature, and this “knowing”, evolved over millions of years has a means of “understanding the situation” when a line of no return is crossed and..I suspect..like those stock that surrender themselves to an inevitable fate, so too will the time come when we humans force the natural world to cross that line of no return, the limit of capability for homeostasis and She too will then decide and decide with no intent of either redemption or cessation, neither pity nor interest to opt for ”any excuse to die” ..and THEN we will ALL be well – and truly – fucked!

You know it makes sense. . .

Rid ourselves of these Fascist vermin!

What depth of moral turpitude forges the State of Fascism?

“Just because the shrewdest lie feels itself

inwardly annihilated before the simple truth, and because

all the dignity and glory of human nature ultimately depend

not on shrewdness but on honesty, Cato has played a greater part

in history than many men far superior to him in intellect.

It only heightens the deep and tragic significance of his death

that he was himself a fool; in truth it is just because Don Quixote

is a fool that he is a tragic figure.  It is an affecting fact,

that on that world-stage, on which so many great and wise men

had moved and acted, the fool was destined to give the epilogue.

He too died not in vain.” (Theodore Mommsen..; “History of Rome” Vol’ 5 chap’ 10.)

How many times have we, in private deliberation of a great work, metaphorically bowed our head in acknowledgement of a magnificent sentence of writing, it’s power of word and vision giving concise agreement to our thoughts?….The above paragraph is in my mind one of those magnificent moments. In it is contained that force of nature that pushes past both the author and social constraint to lay before the reader, like a cartographer’s splendid map before the experienced geographer, the undeniable truth of boundaries and borders of topography real and absolute, so that to alter such would require both a duplicitous nature and an indelible pen.

That we now see the rise, in deliberate confrontation, of those who would once again in the space of only a couple of generations, forge the desire for a Fascist State, demands us to seek an answer as to how such a vile body corporate could justify itself to a public that honourably marches in sombre celebration every 25^th. April in memory of so many millions who died in two World Wars, the latter under the cursed image of Mussolini’s Black-shirt Fascists and the Nazi Swastika?

What depth of moral turpitude would it take to forge again this ghastly talisman of hate and despair? For surely there can be no closer comparison nor more accurate depiction of the clumsy buffoonery of the philosophic ideology of Fascism, than to compare it to the manic pursuit by Don Quixote of a hallucinogenic state that must be contained and controlled.

Yet here in Australia, a land of absolute plenty…of sea, sunshine and surf, there is a troop of fools trying to orchestrate just that idea… What do we do?

Well..we must have known it would come to this one day, what with the rise of “Howard’s Bogans”…not battlers…that would be an insult to those who have suffered under his mean, tricky and vicious government..no..not the poor and vulnerable, but rather the “greedy aspirants” of those people who want more than a fair share of the nation’s resources and were encouraged by the upper-middle classes to scheme and grasp and to shout down those who only wanted a decent wage and social conditions.

“Axe the Tax!” they shouted..”Ditch the Witch / Bitch !”… they demanded for their sponsors and patrons..these were the slaves and bonded labourers of a new Fascism…A Fascism for the poor and vulnerable, NOT for the rich and privileged…For them was the reward of more riches and largesse, thrown at their feet by the unscrupulous Howard..More luxury, more opulence that they displayed in gross dress and no style…now too obese with their gluttony and slovenly behaviour..a pox on them all!

So..now we have these aspiring fascists..and a dumber looking collection of motley hangers on you would be hard-pressed to find…every man-jack of them seeking entrance to orthodox politics through membership of that carriage of criminality ; The LNP. What other way would such vile creatures gain entrance to the chambers of Parliament than through the corrupted veins of those who consider themselves “born to rule”?…This party is the sewer used by such vermin to slink and slope into honest society, spreading their waste and wanton destruction like the saboteurs and traitors they are.

They destroy national infrastructure like the NBN..They dismantle social assistance programs for the disabled and vulnerable like the NDIS. They defund educational institutions like TAFE and our public schools and universities so as to promote their precious alma maters that nurtured the hate and cruel ideology they preach in the first place. They corrupt those public institutions of oversight that are in place to hold corporations and criminals accountable by stacking the boards and panels and administrations of management with their own corrupted kind…A “consciousness of kind” then persists throughout the entire government administration platform so that trust can no longer be assured in even the most benign departments.

They have done the damage..Now..how do we undo it?

Let us look to a guide who knew only too well the machinations of the corrupt State or Prince..: Machiavelli ..:

“ It was therefore a great good fortune for Rome that no sooner had these Kings become corrupt than they were driven out, and that before their corruption should pass into the vitals of that City; which corruption was the cause of the infinite tumults which took place in Rome (men having good intentions) [and which] did no harm, but rather benefited the Republic. And this conclusion can be drawn, that where the people is not corrupted, tumults and other troubles do no harm; but where corruption exists, well ordered laws are of no benefit, unless they are administered by one who, with extreme strength, will make them be observed until the people become good [cured]; I do not know if this ever happened, or whether it be possible that it could happen; for it is seen (as I have said a little above) that a City coming to decadence because of the corruption of its people, if it ever happens that she is raised up again, it happens through the virtu of one man who is then living, and not by the virtu of the general public, that the good institutions are sustained:” ( The Discourses of Niccoli Machiavelli. . .)

Fortunately for us in Australia, It is not that “ONE MAN” that is required..In our democracy we still have institutions and enough good, honest people to turn the ship off the rocks..but it has to be done soon, as another term of this vile LNP government will see irreversible damage done to the peoples and the State. We..the citizens who have most to lose from the destruction of our institutions and our livelihood, have to hold firm to the absolute dedication to remove this pariah of Fascism from our midst and purge to a person those corrupting elements that poison our nation’s heart, pollute our heritage and despoil our good name. Show them no quarter, give them no peace!

WE WILL SUCCEED!!

VINCEREMOS!!

 

 

 

 

A two dollar coin.

The song linked below, takes 3:13 minutes/seconds to play…if you start reading the incident related below there just as you start the song, it should take exactly that amount of time to complete…have a shot at it…I call it : “Muse music”.

 

A two dollar coin.

On the seat outside the supermarket but across the mall from the cheap variety store, sat three people…Two of them were an older couple just that moment resting from the market shopping, the other was Arthur Simms. Arthur was seated there waiting for his wife who had ducked into the supermarket to pick up a box of a particular brand of custard powder that was not available at their local store.

Arthur did not accompany his wife into the supermarket this time as he was sent to the variety store to purchase a pack of triple “A” batteries, as the clock in the kitchen had now failed to work. Arthur had taken the four dollars in coins his wife had given him to cover the cost of the batteries and had purchased, as desired, those batteries at the discount price of two dollars..So he was sitting at the seat outside the supermarket with their shopping trolley parked between his legs and that extra two dollar coin held between thumb and finger in anticipation of his wife’s return so as to give it back.

There were no words spoken between Arthur and the other two people, being strangers to each other, there was no need.

Then, along came an old aboriginal woman, in a rather unkempt state, slowly making her way toward them…she halted a passing woman to beg from her..the woman hardly noted the request, but with a quick shake of her head kept going…The old aboriginal lady approached the seat where Arthur and the two other people were sitting…with the obvious intent to beg from them..But before she had chance to speak, Arthur held the two dollar coin up in front of them both and then let it slip into the outstretched palm of the old woman’s hand…who, without a word clasped the coin and moved away with a fatalistic bow of her head.

“Why’d you give her that?” the woman sitting next to Arthur asked.

“Why not” he responded “It’s only a two dollar coin.”

“She’ll only waste it….on grog, no doubt” the lady snorted.

Arthur shrugged his shoulders…”Life’s short”..he suggested.

“Well you could have given the two dollar coin to them” and the lady motioned toward a person over the way with a charity tin collecting for some organisation “They would put it to better use.”

“Was she the woman we saw drunk outside the hotel there in the street last week?” the man of the couple noted…The woman pshawed and turned her head.

Arthur did not continue the conversation..weary as he was of the inevitability of the conclusion of these things…instead he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes..He let his mind create a fantastical moving picture in his imagination…a familiar song played over the intercom.

The old Aboriginal woman was dressed in a voluptuous ballroom gown, her worn slippers replaced with a beautiful, sparkling jeweled creation, a tiara perched resplendent in her matted hair, and the most contented smile gave compliment to the sparkle in her eyes as she took to the arms of a tall marionette soldier in the uniform of a Napoleonic era officer, as they set to swirl and dance a waltz of the most fantastic complexity in a hall of mirrors filled with a multitude of high-society creatures who, if not dancing with their own marionette soldier, were fanning themselves with intricate coloured Japanese hand-held ivory fluted fans….and the music softly serenaded the strange couple….

“Are you asleep?…I can’t believe you can fall asleep so easily” Arthur’s wife said as she packed the “Foster-Clarke” custard powder into the trolley..” I think you should ask Dr. Hooper about that”.

They stood to leave..the other couple had already departed…