ancient regime.

Ancient regime.

There was a radio show on ....  a doctor of the law ( a real one) talking about the changes to the constitution needed for Australia to move to a republic.  It’s a familiar enough script..    society hidebound .. grub in a cocoon becoming a butterfly under the influence of the suns rays.. .. harder to stay in than to burst out..   but if it stays in .. then obviously it will be worse for it than just death.. it will be the thwarting of an opportunity for the self-expression of a beautiful thing.   It’s a saga independent of locality or point in time..  rather.

What is so surprising is that the debate is necessary ..   well it is..  here and other places that are due for resolution. (revolution is way incorrect).

I'm not a particularly literary person..and have read very little Balzac and no Mollière at all.. but…  its a famliar enough cycle.. revolution.. >new order ..> despotism ..> revolution.. >new order .. >despotism…

In this case it is the despotism of conservatives who will not pass beyond the confines of earlier founding fathers..  its bizarre twaddle actually...... change or die!

So,,,  the ancient regime was that before the modern times.. the king .. the knights.. the slaves.. basically.. the French got the model from the romans.. and it was streamlined into the form of growth economics by the time it grew up in the usa.  Dazzling the world.. putting a man on the moon..true.. i'm  not just looking at america and  extrapolated supply/demand economics models. (ahem) .. but  as with all things.. this too shall pass.

  The question is.. what next?

Well.. I tend to go with the archangel metatron  and koothoomi.. but to each her own.

the pen

Pentrige

In coburg there are the remains of a prison built in 1850 to house Victorian prisoners.   its bluestone walls like that of a medieval castle are partially removed to make way for  housing develoment  ...the prison having being decommissioned in 1997.

My current address is close by.  Its an oppressive part of melbourne.  I don’t like walking past the old jail..   the ruined lives.. the prisoners hanged..  I can even recall the last hanging there in 1967.   It was a controversial affair.

The ghosts of the past haunt the place..  I don’t like walking past it. Call me a wimp.  Go ahead!

I lived in Melbourne in the 1980s for a few years as an undergrad.. .i recall driving by the prison then a few times on my way some place else..  guards armed with rifles were at attention in the turrets on the medieval walls .   It was fierce..  guns pointing both in and out.. intimidating everyone.. inside and out.

People called it ‘the pen’.   enough to make your hair curl.

The message was clear.. forget the enlightenment.!. forget the renaissance…!!  we have a subtext!!.. the real text taken from the book the inquisitors had in spain.. (and elsewhere) --- one is to know that behind these walls.. if you transgress the rules here and get caught.. behind these medieval walls -- things happen.............  that you will never know about ..  i can just about hear machiavelli's laughter rising (or whatever it is he does that sounds like laughter.)

It has been in the press more recently as the prison that Gregory david roberts .. aka shantaram escaped from in 1980.    A talented author to say the least.

Its closed.. the pity is that the ideology has not closed but is alive and well....and transferred to places like villawood detention centre.. and Christmas island .. the Australian answer to Guantanamo and abu graib.

let me make myself perfectly clear.. i am not calling for the overthrow of this or any other regime (at the moment at least)   but i feel perfectly within my rights to call attention to the fact that there is at least one incubus at the round table.  hehehehe..

unknown by some.

Today is the 11^th of November.  I happened to be in the city at 10 30 and decided to stop by the tomb of the unknown soldier in the main business street of Sydney.  All the brass was there.. well.. a lot of it at least.  Important people in Australian society laied wreathes.  High ranking soldiers, politicians,  businessmen and women.

The last post was sounded . there was a minute’s silence.. the words.. “lest we forget” were read out by the speaker. it is a solemn occasion.  Remembrance of those who gave their lives for the freedoms that maintain the status here and in many other parts of the world..

Armistice day was at 11 am on nov. 11 1918  when the ceasefire went into effect.

Of course there are no diggers* left now.. but there were a couple of old soldiers from the second war,  and a few in the crowd from Vietnam who showed up.

The people who are highlighted are the soldiers who fell at the front. .  “they shall not weary…”

But actually.. it is the unsung heros that have made the difference. If you ask me.. the mothers who bore children to fight in one capacity or another..   the men and women who worked themselves to death to keep the place going while everyone else was away.. ..   the unsung heros .. the unknown soldiers are the ones that win the war and keep the place worth fighting for.  ( I don’t mean to take anything away from the courage of the soldier at the front, but he is doing his duty no more or less than the soldier who has no uniform at all.)

*digger is what the australians were called in the first world war (by the English I assume).. they were English who had gone digging for gold (in Australia.. that’s how I understood it at least