Beth Yahp

I greatly admired Beth Yahp’s The Crocodile Fury (1992). I was interested to see Beth Yahp: Open letter to Abdullah Badawi is a top WordPress post today.

Dear Prime Minister Abdullah,

26 September 2007 saw two thousand lawyers “Walk for Justice” to defend the good name and protest the sliding standards of their profession. “When lawyers march,” said Ambiga Sreenevasan, President of the Bar Council, “something must be wrong.”

Honestly, I plan to focus on the cricket after this…

Now that there is a season to sit back and enjoy. It has already delivered some interest, even if I just began watching today.

However, about NSW and those horrible events involving the Department of Community Services. I was at The Mine for a while today (delivering copies of my feature article in the South Sydney Herald) and chatted with someone who has experience with autistic children and the accompanying nutrition issues, which if neglected could produce the outcome we have been reading about. Beyond that I propose to say nothing about that issue.

However, consider some background issues. I have this memory in the late 80s of talking to a DOCS worker who said that there would sooner or later be a catastrophe. What he was referring to were the cuts in funding and staffing that were then happening, a result both of state (Liberal Party then under Greiner) and Federal (Hawke Labor) policies. Jim Belshaw will know much more about this, but I offer Working in Community Services: Management and Practice by Michael Wearing [Allen & Unwin 1998] in support.

Benign spam

I received the email which follows and it was promptly and correctly delivered to the spam bin at Unwired (or rather Bluetie). I have chosen to rescue it. You may have seen it before.

MY MESSAGE FOR PEACE AND HARMONY

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

We all need to pray for one another, and to love one
another. We should always pray for the safety, peace,
love and brotherhood for people all over the world.
Too bad we can’t have an independence day for the
entire world. A day of freedom from ignorance, hatred,
war, illusions, power and control. A day where we can
all love each other as human beings and toss away the
weapons of war, and cast out our fears and hatreds
from our hearts into the graves. We must mourn the
graves of the innocents all over the world, and give
the children of the world the hope of a peaceful,
loving and beautiful world.

A world full of love and without hatred or fear. A
world where we can join hands together and accept one
another, regardless of our skin color, ethnic
divisions, religion or nationality. If we don’t unite
as a human race, then we have condemned the future
generation of children a dark and very grim future.
Think of love, compassion and peace always…

When asses rule…

It must be said that mere name-calling is no form of argument, but it is really difficult to think of Immigration Citizenship Minister Kevin Andrews without simultaneously thinking po-faced plonker. My reason for that today is noting the first batch of on-line so-called Citizenship Tests have started, at God knows what expense. The Plonker is apparently now admitting it is actually an English test but fails to explain why this level of English — not to mention computer skills — is necessary (albeit desirable) for someone to be a perfectly functional Australian citizen. I have ranted on this before, as some of you know, under the rubric of “Trivial Pursuit”: you can’t possibly be an Australian citizen unless you know the country’s floral emblem. Really? Seriously?

I agree with Senator Allison:

Ask not whether they be Left or Right…

… just consider that on many issues they may simply be right! It is high time to put such Cold War dualisms aside. Visit The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice, which I have just added to my classified links page.