Beneath our eyes violence was being done, but we were as detached from it almost as from history.
Hear how he rounds it out: "Fred Astaire, whatever he may do in whatever picture he is in, has the beat, the swing, the debonair and damn-your-eyes violence of rhythm, all the gay contradiction and irresponsibility, of the best thing this country can contribute to musical history, which is the best American jazz".
Australia, which gives considerable aid to the police in Papua New Guinea, should press its government harder to strengthen internal police discipline and to punish officers who turn a blind eye to violence against women, including violence committed with the flimsy excuse of defense against sorcery.
"They didn't simply turn a blind eye to violence," he added.
In the preceding years, police had often turned a blind eye to violence against gay men or deliberately ensnared them.
To his untutored eye, the violence that guilt-ridden fans like myself decry was a feature, not a bug.
The MPAA, a voluntary body set up by Hollywood studios to self-censor movies, has come in for criticism in the past for zeroing in on sexual themes but allegedly turning a blind eye to violence.
And allegations from the Awami League, the main opposition, that the government has turned a blind eye to violence by Islamist extremists because its coalition includes two Islamist parties, have lost their bite.All the same, many observers, not least those watching anxiously from Bangladesh's giant neighbour, India, remain sceptical.
It says that the BNP turns a blind eye to violence by Islamic extremists, and to all sorts of encroachments on Bangladesh's traditional tolerance.Take the fate of Bangladesh's Ahmediya minority, who number some 100,000 out of a population of about 140m.
It is at once one of the slickest and sickest moments in a movie that constantly encourages its audience to believe that it is watching something serious while it is actually being fed a diet of eye candy, violence, and standard repartee.
