English: Monument at the birthplace of Steele Rudd (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
OUR TOWN…Not a happy little town.
This is an old post from April 2011. Resurrected it when I saw a Turnbull line about referendum for recognition of Local Government (This means SFA to me.) would fail.
Would like to remind readers of what was probably the opening paragraph of Steele Rudd’s (Arthur Hoey Davis) 1908 satirical take on Queensland politics,“Dad In Politics.”
“Smith, the member for our district, died one day, and we forgot all about him the next. Not that a politician is ever remembered much after he dies, but Smith had been a blind, bigoted, old Tory, and was better dead. Politicians are mostly better dead, so far as other people and their country is concerned …”
Appreciation once again to the invaluable Wikipedia.
Remember that one about empty drums making the most noise? That’s how it is in any Main Street, Scrubtown. The less cerebral talking over the top of those who hesitate a few seconds to intelligently consider before making an impulsive retort. Walking away from and avoiding these anti-social boors gives them free rein to become the insufferable Cambell Newmans and the cautious mayor never secretive about the wider picture, ready to tilt at fuller tills. Newman doing a Charlie Sheen, a wind-bag pushing his amusement interest beyond the ho hum, his Peter’s Level exceeded.
Of mundane, domestic interest, my Saturday visits to the library involuntarily suspended after strong implications I risk tarnishing a blameless life by indulging in petty theft. Inquiring on consecutive Saturdays the absence of that days Curious Mail, the third Saturday was set upon and told that stolen chronicles a problem and I could have access only under supervision. Dumb Les again the schumck. I would rather be accused of ram-raiding an ATM machine.
For an anti-confrontational peace lover, I never can comprehend why is it so that the shortest of outings has me arriving home with another conundrum or two. Even a glance from my study window could invoke a committal hearing. I and one other sixtyish, tubby, curmudgeonly Cromwellian look-alike and imitator were the only users of the reading room first thing, he on the dot machine and the one most adept at sowing seeds in contrite, bucolic minds.
Unknown to me initially, I expressed wonderment at the ease an amateur’s letters being used by NY Times and Guardian even before I was conversant with email. Reminding him of my novice status, I reluctantly agreed to ‘edit’ his three emailed stories, every line a paean to the cause. His intro. notes a grammatical and structural mess, an obvious lure. I was livid and had it out with him at the library.
When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.
This bloke wears an array of hats, significantly that of founding member of a local revamped political party who put an eventual turncoat in Parliament, has now endorsed a mate to grace George Street Looter’s Club. It was a church cap that propelled his belief once too often and the rift. “It’s my job,” he excused his enthusiasm. He may well have used “God made me do it.” I’ve already speculated on yet another hat where a Council building contract to unnecessarily replace a popular faculty has probably been decided.
Newman stands condemned as far as I’m concerned, for reassuring the major State Bureaucratic criminals of their everlasting top-level omnipotence. Contra stitched deals between the new head-man and back-room bastards hiding behind the elected pretenders of democracy, whatever the individual’s take on that word. Whoever the ultimate power-brokers, the status quo won’t change and my naive mind suggests there is little to be gained by exchanging one lot of $1,000 a day rank thieves and bludgers with a similar crew.
I suppose that is a version of democracy at work, rotate the bandits to shush and appease ’em all. We could be reminded more often of their personal sacrifices to serve the community they love for a miserable $!,000 a day when their real worth in the real world outside George Street would get them much more than tea and biscuit money. Les.
Drop site:lesjohns.wordpress.com into your search bar for 60 more good reasons for dwelling in the desert.
A Letter From Les 
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