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.
Labels:

Comments

Roddy said…
You are right!
You do know that the beginning of summer heralds the end of another year.
22 September 2010 at 08:58
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.
22 September 2010 at 11:36
Kris McCracken said…
Roddy, if it is not one year, it's another.

Me, a very slap-worthy trait...
22 September 2010 at 13:27
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.
22 September 2010 at 14:27
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!
24 September 2010 at 10:04
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
5 comments
Read more

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
38 comments
Read more

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.
36 comments
Read more