We came home to a mass of emails, most of them rubbish but a
few that needed attention. One, in
particular, made me think.
What?
Have I been transported back to 1984?
Is Big Brother watching me? Have
I been dobbed in for slagging off pommies and making fun of the kiwi
accent? To make matters worse, it came
from some group called People Development and Strategy/People Services
Branch. If that doesn’t make you think
of George Orwell, what would.
However, it turned out to be a
mistake. Yesterday, I received an
apology from the Australian Electoral Commission that I had been enrolled by
mistake. What a relief: I’m not good at
playing Politically Correct games.
We’ve hardly heard any news for weeks and I confess my blood ran cold when I read the report on the Man Who Shot Osama bin Laden . I might be an old lefty school teacher, but I can’t help but feel despair when I think of the sort of society we have developed where young men are trained to shoot on sight. The language used frightens me. ‘That’s him, boom – done! I shot him two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap!’ That’s the way that Batman comics are written. It’s horrifying. The report says that the young man has resigned from the navy, missing out on his pension, because he doesn’t want to carry a gun anymore. I wonder what the bloodthirsty rednecks in America think of that.
I should say a quick word on my birthday party. As I’ve said, I would prefer to let my birthday pass un-noticed, but this one was great. Our friends Sandra and Jeff had gone to no end of trouble. I had particularly asked for no gifts but will enjoy the bottle of red from Mudgee that Anne and Alan gave me and was touched by the reproduction, hand-made by Jim, of an illustration from Voices, a book of poems we used at Chakola in Kangaroo Valley in the late-1960s and 70s. The particular poem illustrated was My Father by Ted Hughes.
Hello ,
To help raise awareness and build
relationships across cultures, you have been enrolled in the Cultural Awareness
course …..We’ve hardly heard any news for weeks and I confess my blood ran cold when I read the report on the Man Who Shot Osama bin Laden . I might be an old lefty school teacher, but I can’t help but feel despair when I think of the sort of society we have developed where young men are trained to shoot on sight. The language used frightens me. ‘That’s him, boom – done! I shot him two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap!’ That’s the way that Batman comics are written. It’s horrifying. The report says that the young man has resigned from the navy, missing out on his pension, because he doesn’t want to carry a gun anymore. I wonder what the bloodthirsty rednecks in America think of that.
I should say a quick word on my birthday party. As I’ve said, I would prefer to let my birthday pass un-noticed, but this one was great. Our friends Sandra and Jeff had gone to no end of trouble. I had particularly asked for no gifts but will enjoy the bottle of red from Mudgee that Anne and Alan gave me and was touched by the reproduction, hand-made by Jim, of an illustration from Voices, a book of poems we used at Chakola in Kangaroo Valley in the late-1960s and 70s. The particular poem illustrated was My Father by Ted Hughes.
Some fathers
work at the office, others work at the store,
Some operate great cranes and build skyscrapers galore,
Some work in canning factories counting green peas into cans,
Some drive all night in huge and thundering removal vans.
But mine has the strangest job of the lot,
My father's the Chief Inspector of - What?
O don't tell the mice, don't tell the moles,
My father's the Chief Inspector of HOLES.
Some operate great cranes and build skyscrapers galore,
Some work in canning factories counting green peas into cans,
Some drive all night in huge and thundering removal vans.
But mine has the strangest job of the lot,
My father's the Chief Inspector of - What?
O don't tell the mice, don't tell the moles,
My father's the Chief Inspector of HOLES.
No comments:
Post a Comment