Skip to main content

Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.


A farewell to Summer. Opossum Bay, February 2010.

Above is a 'farewell to summer shot' that I took earlier this year. I am anxiously and eagerly awaiting the 'welcome of summer shot'.

But first...

Things That Annoy Me #3,432,237

Number 3,432,237 on the list of things that annoy me is people who carp on about how terrible everybody apart from they themselves is concerning the protection of the environment. Generally, the target of most bile in his regard tend to be a) “the government”, and b), “the lower classes”.

People that exemplify annoyance #3,432,237 typically choose to
  • drive their car everywhere, print out every e-mail they receive;

  • switch on every light in the building and leave them on upon leaving;

  • buy pre-packaged meals each day;

  • purchase new and innovative gizmos and gadgets (that they cannot use) before quickly discarding them for even newer and more innovative gizmos and gadgets;

  • assuage all potential guilt for their wanton and reckless consumption by scrawling a 1 next to the name of a particular political party once every three years.

Often, but not always, their culpability in contributing to the World’s ills is also avoided (it seems) by sporadically ruing the death of whales and dolphins coupled with a vaguely ‘yellow peril-esque’ tirade against the Japanese.

Comments

Roddy said…
You are right!
You do know that the beginning of summer heralds the end of another year.
smudgeon said…
I agree - there's a certain smugness about people who think voting Green and slapping a Wilderness Society sticker on the back of the Rav means they're "saving the environment/whales/Daintree/etc".
Very annoying.

Excellent rant, by the way.
Kris McCracken said…
Roddy, if it is not one year, it's another.

Me, a very slap-worthy trait...
Carola said…
Yes, Kris you are right, and comment from "me" tells it all. In Germany it is the same. Show how green you are by buying certain products, and then driving all the time with the car. They have allways a reason to drive with the car. But pretend to be totally green, haha.
And I wait for your summer welcome shot.
Kris McCracken said…
Carola, Tasmanians all drive far too much. Also, it seems that for many to be ‘Green’ is more about looking like you’re doing the right thing, more than doing the right thing itself!

Popular posts from this blog

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. ...

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.

Can you believe that it is time for Theme Thursday already? Today we are not talking chocolate , toddlers , mess or ignominy . No, today we're dealing with ANIMAL . Now I could have posted a picture of a possum, numbat, wombat, wallaby or any other furry killing machine that roams our fair isle, but I figure that I'd use a far more deadly creature as an example of an animal . Some people - I know them as fools - have chosen to embrace that highfalutin idea that human beans are for some ungodly reason superior to animals. Of course, what these imbeciles seem to forget is that were are simple animals ourselves ! Anyone with a baby, toddler, teenage boy or Queenslander in their household could tell you this. Look at Henry [above]. One chocolate frog in the back of the car on a sunny day and all of a sudden it's Elagabalus meets Bacchus for a quick shandy in the Serengeti and we're down on all fours carrying on like a cat in heat. Fair dinkum, anyone who chooses to ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...