Three recent blog entries that caught my eye

1. Simon Bedak recently posted The Age: Good farming piece today by Carolyn Webb:

Particularly pertinent for me is a story in The Age this morning by Carolyn Webb entitled “Poor wheat crop leaves farmer down, but not out.”

At our farm, we’re also bailing crops much like Mr Pollington, but our joint I don’t think is doing as badly as his is. We’re lucky in that earlier this year we spent up big putting in 15kms of pipe to run water to paddocks so that we can water our cattle if things get dusty in the dams again. Because we can run stock, as well as dabble in the cropping, if the crops fail, we can move our cattle directly onto the failed crop and have them graze it. Doing this means it’s cheaper to convert the paddock growth into a potentially saleable items because you’re not paying for people and fuel to cut the crop, rake it, bale it, cart it, store it and sell it.  Broadly, it takes about 7-10kg of feed to get 1kg of beef which is presently selling for $1.60/kg liveweight for animals less than 24 months of age at a specification of apprx 385-420kg per head, so you end up with more money on the hoof than you would from a bale, provided you’ve got good condition on your animals and a bit of water handy…

A reminder of something that is otherwise a bit abstract here in the city.

Update on gay marriage, Marcel, Jim, Rabbit and David Smith…

Marcel has posted a follow-up. (See also here.) It contains a dreadful pun… Carefully argued, though. Again I anticipate more discussion.

Very serious note: yesterday Thomas posted Today’s news, one item concerning someone he had been in primary school with: Reward offered for missing Matthew. See also Help Find Matt. Not looking good, that, and it does seem it may be a reminder of the dark side of homophobia.

Related, but lighter: I see in SX News (Sydney) a write-up of the 12th annual Gay Parade at the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Some light rather than heat on non-standard marriages

… otherwise known as “gay marriage” and the focus of much heated debate on both sides. However, do look at the discussion that has started between Jim Belshaw (from a somewhat conservative but far from homophobic perspective) and Marcellous on this topic. I am not joining in as I feel outclassed by both of them. However, go there for a refreshingly hysterics-free — and non-theological — exchange of views.

A trained policy analyst and a barrister on the case. Interesting.

Monday

Check The Rabbit’s comment on Marcel’s post, and Jim Belshaw’s excellent follow-up.

The novel Andrew Bolt hates and Zadie Smith’s 21st century classic

 Underground by Andrew McGahan (2006): Andrew Bolt hated it! Now there’s a literary critic to take notice of, eh! It must be a good book… 😉 Andrew Bolt concludes:

It is said that a mark of the great artists is to see us as we really are. If McGahan is a winner of our top literary prize we must conclude this country has no great novelists at all. Truly, ideology does not just blind a writer but strangles his art. How many more examples must Australia endure?

In all honesty I have to say that Underground is not nearly as good as the same author’s The White Earth, but even that novel did not impress me as much as some others:

Back again

I was hardly away long enough for anyone to miss me, was I?

Over at the “new” blog, which now features evil ads from which I plan to make my fortune, I have just been having a lovely template fiddle, settling on the one I began with. 😉

This penchant of mine for rearranging things ought not to be mistaken for some stereotype you have in mind. Like Marcel I am a hopeless case when it comes to domesticity, unlike M I should add. My reluctance to rearrange my humble Surry Hills palace is almost pathological…

Speaking of Marcel… His latest entry recounts yet another concert — I am just jealous — but makes this interesting point: 

Before you rush off to congratulate Channel Seven…

… for their fearless public-spiritedness, consider these posts by Marcellous.

“Pedophile “monster” knee-jerk reaction” (7 July 2007)

Serious sex offenders – Detention orders (13 May 2007)

Serious sex offenders – Detention orders 2 (29 May 2007)

See also Let me be, says child killer to the media. There are issues here: see Fr Hugh J. Baron, O.P.