Letters/Articles Marriage equality a morning’s work: now get down to business Story & image S Sorrensen
Sometimes, you find beauty just when you need it. A salve to the soul. I’m walking along the Rocky Creek Dam wall. It’s a beautiful summer’s day – except it’s winter. I’m sweating. This makes me a little uneasy. Call me-old fashioned, but I like cold winters and hot summers. That seems natural, right? I look at the forest around the dam: rainforest trees already looking a little dried and fried. What will summer bring? Bloody climate change. Wrecks eveything. Makes me anxious. I can’t even look at a beautiful forest any more without wondering how it will fare in the future. Climate change is the
Barney’s trouble If the Kiwis are so keen to have him as one of theirs why don’t we send him over? Besides, why such a concern over parliamentarians having dual citizenship? Surely, it can be nothing to do with their loyalties as, in my book, their loyalties extend only to their own interests. Ron Bay Suffolk Park
Rum corp rules
big issue facing humanity. (Yeah, yeah, we know, but what about NBN download speeds?) But few want to address the awful reality. You talk about climate change these days and people roll their eyes, quickly finish their turmeric latte and make some excuse for leaving. The problem is too big to contemplate. Especially for the government. So they go about making a complete and expensive meal out of marriage equality when it should have been a morning’s work before they got down to the real business of reducing carbon emissions, implementing renewable power and preparing for an uncertain future. For a delusion of importance, they imitate that American weirdo and are ing is a waste of time. They are condemned forever to the underclass. Now on the bottom of the tree are left-leaning Liberals and Laborites; they have no BTR at all. Why, even asking a simple question about NZ citizenship rules is reason enough for accusations of treachery (maybe treason?), and public denunciation. Let’s set up the stocks in Martin Place or Garema Square. Such gross disloyalty surely deserves the scaffold (but we have lost the privilege of hanging the undesirables on the opposition benches, more’s the pity). Note that it is LGBTi and most definitely not LG(BTRi). Enough said! The Rum Corp and the squatters still rule – right! Enough of this dribble about democracy; oligarchy is never out of fashion. Vince Kean Murwillumbah
What’s with all this argument about who can govern Australia? Everyone knows that Australia is governed on the BTR principle (Born to Rule). Some people have BTR and others don’t. The coalition for instance has stacks of BTR. The law doesn’t apply to them because quite obviously law is only needed to sort out right from wrong, and they are never wrong. The constitution is a set of rules and conventions designed to keep the BTR faction on the treasury benches; Fishy business it can be freely circumvented The ground-breaking convicif this is ever in doubt. Sub- tion of a Sydney Fish Market orning governors-generals trader for cruelty is being celand sympathetic judges, re- ebrated. All animals deserve fusing to pass Supply bills protection from cruel treatand securing their position ment and painful death. by filibustering in the High The trader’s subsequent Court are quite acceptable appeal against the ‘severity’ for the BTR; faction. It goes of the fine of $1,500 imposed without saying that PMs have has been rejected by the Disevery right to pre-empt High trict Court, which stated that Court decisions, straighten ‘the public was entitled to be them up, and point them in informed’. the right direction. Crustaceans were added Grubby little Greens have to the Prevention of Cruelty very little BTR, it is only right to Animals Act in 1997 after that they should instantly it was medically proven that obey the law and respect the they feel pain. The incident, constitution. Let them pos- recorded on film, showed the ture as unfortunate victims trader holding a struggling of circumstances if they must, lobster down on a chopping but really they should shut up board, chopping off his tail and just suck it in; complain- with a butcher’s knife, which North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
prepared to send Australian troops to yet another war (we love making war) against that Korean weirdo (who has a better haircut than the American weirdo anyway). Politicians live in another world barely connected to reality. They live in subsidised denial, confident their privilege will give them better survival opportunities.
I’m coughing a lot now and my throat is sore. I suck on some sugary menthol thing, breathing in the cooling menthol flavour, but it makes no difference. I’m coming down with the flu. Oh dear. Maybe that explains the sweating. This morning, waking up in my shack under the cliffs, I was okay. But now I’m rapidly spiralling down into a black
doesn’t kill the animal but causes immense pain, according to the RSPCA. The remainder of the animal was then fed into a bandsaw. While this case may cause the industry to think twice before abusing crustaceans, other sea creatures are still routinely subject to appalling suffering and agonising deaths. No Australian laws regulate the treatment of fish caught or raised for their flesh, and both commercial fishers and fish factory farms treat these animals in ways that would warrant crueltyto-animals charges if the victims were dogs or cats. Fish who are ripped from the ocean suffer from rapid decompression, which can cause their swim bladders to rupture, their eyes to pop out of their heads, or their stomachs to be forced through their mouths. Others are still alive when they are cut open. On fish factory farms, tens or even hundreds of thousands of fish are confined to cramped, filthy enclosures, and parasitic infections, dis-
eases and debilitating injuries are rampant. Many farmed fish suffer from chronic sea lice, and have their faces eaten down to the bone by these parasites. Farmers use antibiotics and powerful chemicals to keep the fish alive in such conditions and to make them grow; many still die before slaughter. Experts report that fish are intelligent and sensitive animals. The journal Fish and Fisheries cites more than 500 research papers proving that fish possess long-term memories, complex social structures and learning patterns as well as the ability to use tools and even build things. In some respects, fish’s cognitive abilities surpass those of dogs and some primates. It is time that all animals were given the basic rights to live and die without humans adding pain and terror for the sake of profit. The best way to ensure this is simply to not eat them. Desmond Bellamy PETA, Byron Bay
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hole of biliousness. A few days ago, a mate told me that I should get a flu shot. I laughed at him. Ha, ha, I laughed. I’m not that old. What next? Measles shot? Slippers? (I’m in age denial.) Getting the flu, I said to him, makes you tough. It’s as Aussie as dual citizenship. That’s why we have sick days. Now if there were a hangover shot, I said, I’d have one of those for sure. I sit on the dam wall, and breathe deeply. I’m tempted to assume the lotus position but there are other people around and it would be embarrassing. I’m not sure that deep breathing helps with the flu, but it is a general hippyremedy for most things. It does help with my anxiety. The flu can exacerbate de-
pression. My body is under attack from a horde of nasty germs. My body situation is a metaphor for the planetary situation. Sick and wheezing. And time has nearly run out (some say it has already) for our politicians to take decisive action on the issues that matter. I don’t feel well. Sometimes, you find beauty just when you need it. I look out over the dam. At its edge are lilies. Hundreds of them. A carpet of many colours – from baby green to mature gold to dying orange. It’s gorgeous. Like a sunset, even an ending can be beautiful, I guess. I don’t assume the lotus position (I’m not that flexible), but I straighten my back and put my hands together in my lap.
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by Ian Rogers Garry Kasparov’s much heralded comeback in Saint Louis this week has revealed only that which was already known: not even the greatest are immune to the ravages of time. Kasparov, 54, retired 12 years ago and was induced to test his skills against some of the world’s best players in rapid and blitz tournaments by Saint Louis billionaire Rex Sinquefield. Sinquefield supported presidential candidate Trump on the grounds that he would reduce income and company taxes. Sinquefield has also claimed that the Ku Klux Klan invented public education in order to hurt black children and therefore public education should be abolished. Kasparov prepared hard and expressed optimism about his prospects but by the end of the rapid event it was clear that the accumulated rust was impossible to shake off. He completed the rapid tournament tied for last place (with fellow veteran Viswanathan Anand and Czech wild card David Navara) and won only one of his nine games – after a beginner’s blunder by his
opponent in an equal position. Kasparov’s games followed a pattern familiar to any older player; his broad knowledge and experience would lead to a promising position, though often at the cost of too much time on the clock. However, later in almost every game Kasparov would be out-calculated and tricked by his more tactically alert opponent. The most extreme case came against Navara in the seventh round. Kasparov, playing White and on the move, had played for the diagrammed position and thought he was winning immediately with 49.Nc6+?? when any safe queen check would have drawn. Navara replied with a trick he had set up six moves earlier: 49...Qxc6! 50.Qxc6 Rd6! whereupon a visibly distressed Kasparov had no choice but to resign. a
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The Byron Shire Echo August 23, 2017 15