Opinion - The Grumpy Old Man of Gympie

The latest entry is at the top of the column
and the very first at the bottom..

THE OBAMA ASCENDANCY

I find it disconcerting watching US talk shows (especially Fox News) with the constant attacks on the policies of the Obama administration. For my part I think Barack Obama is the best thing that happened to the USA in years (well, perhaps as many years back as the time of Bill Clinton). He has made many sensible moves, especially in relation to nuclear arms and repairing fractured relationships with foreign nations. And as for healthcare: anyone with half a brain could see that the USA had an appalling health system. Not the technology; that's good stuff, but the way so many people were denied healthcare and struggled to meet medical bills. But I guess we cannot expect too much commonsense from a country where a reported 40 percent of the population treat as fact the Genesis fairy story of creation. [12/04/10]

PERFORMING ANIMALS?

Are we surprised at what happened to the woman at Seaworld? She is described as a 'trainer' - but why do we want to train animals for perform? There has been a movement in recent times against allowing performing animals in circuses; the same should surely occur in relation to aquatic shows. 'Circuses are no fun for animals' says PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). And neither are these water-based circuses. [27/02/10]

GO GEENA DAVIS!

One of my favourite female actors, Geena Davis, has founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media - with the aim of bringing some balance to the proportion of males and females in movies and TV. Geena was stirred into action watching - with her own children in mind - movies and TV shows where she discovered what has bothered me for years. There are often more men and boys than woman and girls on-screen. I have complained before about this. Just recently a TV advert for a car has shown a mother, father and two boys. Why not a boy and a girl? And there are TV shows like the original Flipper where two boys were featured. Why not a boy and a girl? I often look at the list of players in a movie and they are overwhelmingly male. That is usually sufficient o turn me off - I don't even both looking at such a movie. I've even written to TV program guide editors complaining that they list two males for a movie but no female even although the female lead may be a well-known actor. Geena herself is a great example to young women and girls. I love her as the battered and almost-dead heroine who finally beats her enemies in The Long Kiss Goodnight. Who needs male heroes when we have Geena (and, incidentally, she does her own stunts). Go Geena! [25/02/10]

FINLANDIA IS IRREPLACEABLE.

The Finns are unhappy with their concert hall and plan building a new one. A BBC news report tells us they are about to replace the present building, known as Finlandia Hall. Finlandia was a wonderful piece of music written by the Finnish composer Jan Sibelius. But if they are going to play music such as was being played during the BBC report it is a waste of effort building a new concert hall. What a long way composers have come - all downhill - from the days of men like Sibelius. Can such meaningless noise be compared with the intense beauty, power and meaning of the Sibelius symphonies, or the Violin Concerto (which nearly reduces me to tears) or for that matter Finlandia? [05/02/10]

IRAN ENGAGES IN CRUELTY TO ANIMALS (AND HUMANS).

I guess it shouldn't surprise us that an Islamic republic, in this case Iran, is sending animals into orbit. The poor creatures will, of course, die, but then innocent people who dared to protest at the recent election are being murdered in the country so I guess this cruelty to animals comes as no surprise. Nothing we can do about it but at least we can record our objections to this monstrosity. And who can forget the public hanging of a 16-year-old girl (Atefeh Rajabi) who dared to enjoy herself? [04/02/10]

ABC NEWS CHANNEL A GREAT IDEA.

ABC (Australia) has announced it is setting up a 24-hour news channel. It is a curious fact in the media world that Rupert Murdoch (a man I admire in many ways) has of recent date been critical of government media bodies, more especially the BBC. Anyone who watches the local Australian Sky News (in which News Corp has an interest) will know what a poor job it does. You get 10 minutes of news, sometimes a few minutes more if you are lucky, then it moves onto the sport. In that short span much use is made of canned news from the UK Sky and from time to time of long boring dissertations by their Canberra correspondent or some such figure. Coverage of local Australian news is very limited, as can be ascertained by noting the news items that are heard on ABC Radio National and comparing the coverage on Sky. In fact the evening Channel TEN news, even with commercials, provides far superior coverage.* And as for Fox News, a channel with a big audience, time and again I have found BBC World providing excellent coverage of an event within the USA (e.g. a plane crash), Fox's hometown, while Fox is merrily replaying recordings. So, please Mr Murdoch leave the BBC and the ABC alone. They are both doing a great job. [28/01/10]

[* To be fair, there may be more later; I always switch off the sport, so I don't know. Channel TEN do sport much better. They have brief sports headlines about 20 minutes in, then full sport coverage about 40 minutes in; I can then switch off after the excellent coverage of the day's news. And, besides, they have a very nice weather girl!]

PRIME MINISTER BEWAILS AGING POPULATION.

Prime Minister Rudd has been meditating in public on the growing problem of an aging population and how to support it. The proportion of working-age people in relation to retirees is steadily falling. Well, Mr Rudd, put aside your religious superstition and consider the need for voluntary euthanasia. Note, I said VOLUNTARY. Many of us would happily end our days with an injection if facilities were provided and in doing so we would be helping reduce the burden we oldies impose on society. Time for politicians to stop the madness and cruelty of 'palliative' care. Act like human beings, not like slaves of the (fictional) gods! [27/01/10]

DON'T CHANGE OUR FLAG.

Poor Ray Martin - does he have a need to stir up controversy? Perhaps he has been too long out of the spotlight! Leave our flag alone, Ray. It is a perfectly good flag and nicely incorporates reference to our geographic location with our historic roots. I am perfectly proud of our British heritage. Britain had many faults, but gave the world much - chiefly the English lkanguage, parliamentary government and the rule of law. The Union Jack reminds us of all that great history stretching back through time, of figures like the great Queen Elizabeth 1st, of Shakespeare and many writers, of Edward Elgar, of Tennyson and other poets and great inventors and scientists, especially of Charles Darwin. [25/1/10]

OSAMA FRAUD?

Another audio tape from Osama bin Laden? Why on earth do we keep giving the terrorists the publicity they seek by treating these messages as genuine? I have long believed bin Laden to be either dead or incapacitated. There is no other way to explain the fact that all the recent tapes are AUDIO tapes, not video. It is quite easy these days to make a video tape; the simplest of cameras on a phone can be used for at least a rudimentary tape. The early messages from this evil man came via video. But, of course, if he's dead he cannot make a video; but someone can mimic his voice. [25/1/10]

THE DARK SIDE OF PAY-TV.

When I first subscribed to pay-TV ('cable' as Americans call it but mine comes via satellite) I thought: Great, I'll avoid all that boring advertising. Alas, it was not to be. Pay has advertising too and, quite frankly, I'd rather see Mr Shamwow or Lady Snuggies any day than put up with some of the awful in-house promotional material polluting the screen, especially for sport.

Lately I am being driven near-crazy (crazier than my regular crazy self) by a 24/7 barrage of promotions for the Canadian Olympics. There's this crooner with a funny name who, I gather, is very popular (not my kind of music) and a whole slew of characters, including a lady reclining on a lounge who rattles off a bunch of gobbledygook and some low-rent pinheads babbling about 'budgee-smugglers' - whatever they are. I suspect they are like the underpants worn by the terrorist who smuggled explosives onto the plane, only these are for people who want to smuggle budgies; who knows why anyone wants to smuggle budgies?

On and on it goes, relentlessly, day and night. I can't seem to watch any channel without some boring person bobbing up to tell me a 'thrilling' story about their success at some ice-based game or other. One sequence showed people who were lying on the ground pushing a bit of wood along; how weird can you get? Do people really want to pay $50 to watch such nonsense? This, by the way, is the 'special price' one has to snap up (regular $65). Wonder when the $65 kicks in? I can only assume they are promoting this great offer so strenuously because they can't get enough people signed up to cover their big outlays to the Olympics money machine.

Roll on February - but even then we'll be regaled with endless stories of the games and, doubtless, we will soon start hearing about the next big sports-fest. They never end. Good luck to sports-mad people but why do we all have to put up with it? [21/01/10]

MORONS ON THE LOOSE AGAIN!

What sort of subhuman moron shoots a baby koala out of a tree with an air rifle, leaving it near-death and its mother also injured? The RSPCA have a campaign to catch the culprit; hopefully they will. But all too often the justice system is weak when it comes to animal cruelty cases. I once wrote to a magistrate complaining about the pathetic sentence she handed down in a case of cruelty to a cat. Naturally she didn't bother to answer. (Latest word (as I write) is the baby joey has a 50 percent chance of surviving; the mother has been operated on and seems to be coming through o.k.) [20/01/10]

JESSICA WATSON ROUNDS CAPE HORN.

Jessica Watson, the 16-year-old sailor from Down Under, on a quest to be the youngest person to circumnavigate the world single-handedly, has just rounded Cape Horn. I may have missed reports but her bold journey seems to have been ignored by most of the world's media. My local Channel Ten Sunshine Coast news has given her good coverage but I have heard no mention on ABC Newsradio nor seen or heard much else. Disappointing. Perhaps you have to be a philandering golf champion to get noticed? [15/01/10]
See original entry

AREN'T I GLAD I DON'T SMOKE?

Noticed a news report the other day. Australia's Assistant Treasurer, Nick Sherry, was apparently experiencing memory problems following his move to quit smoking. I'm glad I don't smoke. Never did. Nor drunk alcohol either, for that matter. Nor smoked weed. When I was aged about 11 another boy gave me a cigarette to try. One puff was enough. Never touched one again. When I was a bit older my dad offered me a beer. Took one sip and said, Yuk! Unlike many folk I'm not cursed with the desire to conform. Quite the opposite; I've always enjoyed telling people I don't smoke, don't drink and don't do drugs. Never took up dancing, either, nor playing card games. And don't mention sport! What a dullard I am. But at least I don't suffer from some of the bad effects these drugs produce. [15/01/10]

JAPAN'S AMAZING SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM.

The scientific study of whales, seems like a worthwhile study but, curiously, it involves the killing - and eating - of 900 whales (at least in its current phase). Quite some program! Leaving aside the debate over the killing of whales isn't it utter hypocrisy on Japan's part to pretend that their program is 'scientific research' when its end purpose is food - and doubtless some byproducts? The Japanese should stop this charade and at least have the honesty to say they want to hunt whales for food. [08/01/10]

THE PARADISE FANTASY INSPIRES TERRORISTS.

The family of the suicide bomber who killed a group of CIA personnel say he wanted to die for jihad - and go to Paradise? Time and again we see the false promise of Paradise inspiring the martyr - in past centuries the Christian martyr; in our time the Islamic martyr. Perhaps some of our brightest minds can think out ways to convince people that no such place exists. I guess this is a pretty impossible task as religious belief becomes so entrenched in the human psyche. But any way we can undermine faith in the false promises of religion will surely help towards the cause of peace in our time. [06/1/10]

GUN-MAD AMERICANS STRIKE AGAIN.

A 4-year old American child playing in a church has been shot dead. Apparently people aren't even safe inside a church in this gun-toting nation. The story is that some idiot was 'celebrating' New Year by shooting into the air and the bullet fell through the church roof, killing the little child. What can one say about such madness? NRA. [04/01/10]

SWEDES RELIEVE BLOODLUST.

I'll never understand the desire of some people to hunt down and murder beautiful birds and animals. I guess it provides an outlet for bloodlust and perhaps diverts some people from hunting down and killing humans! But I still find it hard to comprehend. I even have trouble killing spiders and only do so when I think it is really necessary for safety. No less than 10,000 Swedes are expected to join in a hunt for foxes. The authorities have limited the 'kill' to just 27 animals as foxes are an endangered species. Why even 27 need to be shot to provide doubtful sadistic pleasure to hunters is beyond me. In another country and another context a spokesperson for South Africa's biggest lion sanctuary, Lionstock, says: 'People are satisfying their ego to say they killed a lion. They don't particularly care how they shot that animal . . . but these are living beings.' [03/01/10]

DUMPING ON THE SALVATION ARMY.

I may be an enthusiastic atheist but I do have some respect and admiration for the Salvation Army. I read once a report that showed this body had one of the lowest levels of overheads of any Australian charity. I might not agree with their theology but I think they do genuinely help people. It was therefore appalling to see in a recent TV news report the problem the organization faces with stupid people dumping rubbish at their depots. Not useful secondhand furniture or good used clothing but utter rubbish. The Army says it is costing them $6 million a year to get rid of this garbage. I can't believe people act in this unthinking selfish manner but they do! [31/12/09]

DRUG RUNNER EXECUTED.