Has Scott Morrison no sense of irony? I know he has no sense of decency but does he realise he has left his party open to accusations of hypocrisy? Apparently not.
What a low act it is to direct his department to call asylum seekers ‘illegals’ and to call refugees ‘detainees’. It is not illegal to seek asylum, it is not against international nor Australian law. This is a clear case of negative labelling which has been used for generations to build up a fear and hatred of our enemies. We called the Germans ‘the Boche, the ‘Huns’ and the ‘Nazis’. The Japanese were the ‘Yellow Peril’, the Vietnamese were ‘the Gooks’ and so it goes. It dehumanises them and our leaders do this so that it easier for us to accept that our soldiers are killing them.
The refugees who come to Australia are not the enemy. In most cases, they are genuinely desperate people looking for safety but labelling them ‘illegals’ and reminding us they are thrown into detention like common criminals sets them apart from the comfortable, white anglo-saxon community so we don’t have to concern ourselves about them.
Here’s the hypocrisy - Mr Morrison, it’s not illegal to seek asylum but it is illegal to rort your expenses. Maybe you could have a word with your corrupt, criminal mates who rip off the Australian people on a regular basis and tell them to get their own house in order before slandering other people.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Monday, October 14th....
I found a link on my Facebook to a review of a new book about letters. It's compiled by Sean Usher who has made a hobby of collecting letters from the rich and famous. The sample in the review contains a letter from the Queen to Eisenhower including a recipe for drop scones,one from Gandhi to Adolf Hitler, and one from Elvis Presley to President Nixon offering to become a secret agent. Brilliant!
I've attached a link to a letter from a senior man in the BBC refusing to take on the production of Fawlty Towers.
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/interactive/2013/oct/12/fawlty-towers-bbc-rejection-letter
Madi and Josh have just left. They came down for the weekend to do some work in the winery and a lot was achieved. We filtered a large batch of plum, bottled and labelled nearly 300 bottles of Raspberry and blended and filtered 120 litres of Wildberry. That lot of Wildberry is now ready for bottling and will produce about 350 small bottles.
I've attached a link to a letter from a senior man in the BBC refusing to take on the production of Fawlty Towers.
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/interactive/2013/oct/12/fawlty-towers-bbc-rejection-letter
Madi and Josh have just left. They came down for the weekend to do some work in the winery and a lot was achieved. We filtered a large batch of plum, bottled and labelled nearly 300 bottles of Raspberry and blended and filtered 120 litres of Wildberry. That lot of Wildberry is now ready for bottling and will produce about 350 small bottles.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Sunday, October 13th ....
I opened my Facebook this morning and waded through the dozens of posts I get, including old photos of Drummore in Scotland, pictures of cute dogs and cats, inspirational verses, 'selfies' from various narcissists and other vital information. But among them today were the results of a poll on how unhappy people are that Tony Abbott is PM. It was seriously skewed so I put it aside as just another bit of the spurious stuff which inundates the Internet.
A few hours later I was looking again and was astounded to discover that I had supposedly shared it with everyone on my list. I've never shared anything in my life let alone such an obvious load of rubbish. To make things more interesting, the whole lot has just disappeared. I don't pretend to know how Facebook works but it's clearly not the innocent time-waster I thought it was.
A few hours later I was looking again and was astounded to discover that I had supposedly shared it with everyone on my list. I've never shared anything in my life let alone such an obvious load of rubbish. To make things more interesting, the whole lot has just disappeared. I don't pretend to know how Facebook works but it's clearly not the innocent time-waster I thought it was.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Thursday, October 10th ....
I've been off-line for a few days. We had a delivery of bottles to the winery early in the week and the truck, backing down the driveway, cut our NBN connection which is just a flimsy length of fibre stretched from a pole on the boundary to our roof. The linesmen came in this morning to repair it and have arranged for another team to put it underground next week. In the meantime, we're back in business and not expecting any more deliveries for the foreseeable future.
Madeleine and Josh arrived last week and their little dog, Mushu, came the next day. Madi (she spells it Maddii, but that is 2 superfluous letters) is taking over Jamie's house at Dilston while she finishes her schooling. It's extraordinary how domesticated she is, boasting about her cooking on Facebook. The Wild Child has become the hausfrau.
On Sunday, Marilyn and I took an order of 10 dozen wine to the Berry Patch at Turners Beach and took the chance for a walk on the beach. The sand was covered with seaweed churned up by the recent storms and the northerly wind was icy, but we enjoyed it anyway.
It's just three weeks to the Fair and things are starting to hot up. Jamie will have a stall at the Fair, giving tastings, selling wine and Pink Ladies. I'm hoping that the weather will be fine because it's not much fun in the mud. One year we had one venue flooded and it was a nightmare.
Madeleine and Josh arrived last week and their little dog, Mushu, came the next day. Madi (she spells it Maddii, but that is 2 superfluous letters) is taking over Jamie's house at Dilston while she finishes her schooling. It's extraordinary how domesticated she is, boasting about her cooking on Facebook. The Wild Child has become the hausfrau.
On Sunday, Marilyn and I took an order of 10 dozen wine to the Berry Patch at Turners Beach and took the chance for a walk on the beach. The sand was covered with seaweed churned up by the recent storms and the northerly wind was icy, but we enjoyed it anyway.
It's just three weeks to the Fair and things are starting to hot up. Jamie will have a stall at the Fair, giving tastings, selling wine and Pink Ladies. I'm hoping that the weather will be fine because it's not much fun in the mud. One year we had one venue flooded and it was a nightmare.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Thursday, October 3rd ....
I can't believe that the Public Service is being encouraged to change the spelling of program to programme. This particular issue was laid to rest many years ago. The accepted spelling in Australia is 'program'. John Howard decreed that it should be 'programme', which he thought was more British and so it became. Typically, he didn't know what he was talking about. The traditional spelling in both Britain and America is 'program'; it became programme only during the 19th century in a period when the English elite loved all things French and adopted lots of French words and phrases - c'est la vie.
Shakespeare used program but Honest John clearly thought he knew more about language than the Bard.
Kevin Rudd reverted to the more-correct spelling in 2007, but now Tony is harking back to the foibles of his mentor and turning back the clock. What a trivial thing to hang his hat on.
Spelling should be simplified if possible. It's ludicrous to prefer a spelling which adds two superfluous letters.
The Grammar Ninja has spoken.
Shakespeare used program but Honest John clearly thought he knew more about language than the Bard.
Kevin Rudd reverted to the more-correct spelling in 2007, but now Tony is harking back to the foibles of his mentor and turning back the clock. What a trivial thing to hang his hat on.
Spelling should be simplified if possible. It's ludicrous to prefer a spelling which adds two superfluous letters.
The Grammar Ninja has spoken.
Thursday, September 3rd ....
The weather yesterday was about as bad as it can get in Tasmania. The temperature never rose over 11degrees, there was a gale blowing off the Southern Ocean and it rained non-stop. A day for sitting in front of a log fire reading a book and drinking hot chocolate.
However, Marilyn and I were booked in to do a Defensive Driving course at Symmons Plains raceway. We're crazy!
It was organised by the local council and we were invited because of our Community Car involvement. The rest of the participants were employes of the Council, including two ladies from the office, Robbie who is the senior mower driver and a handful of various maintenance men. The Council supplied the vehicles: a couple of Camrys, a Nice little Dualis and various Hiluxes and Navaras.
Being asked to drive at 100 kph, in a howling gale and heavy rain, and being told to hit the brakes when the whistle blew was a challenge but we all survived, and passed. Most of the cars did very well, but the Hilux, not having ABS, was a nightmare. We drove the Dualis, which is quite impressive.
Today was fine so I managed to get some mowing done. The grass here is different to Dilston and the soil is fantastic. There are plenty of weeds, too, and some of them I've never seen before.
However, Marilyn and I were booked in to do a Defensive Driving course at Symmons Plains raceway. We're crazy!
It was organised by the local council and we were invited because of our Community Car involvement. The rest of the participants were employes of the Council, including two ladies from the office, Robbie who is the senior mower driver and a handful of various maintenance men. The Council supplied the vehicles: a couple of Camrys, a Nice little Dualis and various Hiluxes and Navaras.
Being asked to drive at 100 kph, in a howling gale and heavy rain, and being told to hit the brakes when the whistle blew was a challenge but we all survived, and passed. Most of the cars did very well, but the Hilux, not having ABS, was a nightmare. We drove the Dualis, which is quite impressive.
Today was fine so I managed to get some mowing done. The grass here is different to Dilston and the soil is fantastic. There are plenty of weeds, too, and some of them I've never seen before.
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