(My) Photo of the day, Or A view to a kill

Here is the view looking up towards Mount Wellington from the bottom of the overpass next to Lindisfarne North Primary School. This will be the school that I will be more than happy to send Henry and the next one (and the new baby, it will be coming online in early-August). Close by, nice size, friendly, no toffs in ties and blazers.

Now, after the fallout from my commentary on the French Rail unions yesterday, I certainly won't be drawn on offering my opinion on the recent offerings of the Australian Education Union and their ever-increasing demands.

The letters faxed in from the SNCF legal team were very interesting and made me think twice about public comment on this thorny issue. (To the SNCF lawyers: je mai reconsidérer mon avis indiqué si vous pouvez brancher sur moi la sauce que vous avez de chemin de fer en cours!)

Thus, I have decided to hold my tongue and grab a famous quote from Albert Shanker, the former President of the American Federation of Teachers: "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."

ZOWEE! That should set the cat amongst the pigeons! :)

[I really have not been totally fair to Shanker here, but the quote was too good to ignore. Read this for a little more depth on his position, and it should be easy to reflect upon the role of the AEU in education reform in this country.)

Comments

Anonymous said…

Cool picture. And congratulations on the forthcoming new arrival!

19 May 2008 at 19:39

Jane Hards Photography said…

That is a fantastic image. The colours are superb along with the composition.

20 May 2008 at 18:53

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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