If you are reading this, thank a Teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a Soldier
Kae at Kae’s bloodnut blog challenges all you right wing chaps and chappesses who visit here to help Austcare help people in Darfur. Remember our government have sent nine soldiers (only nine, the miserable bastards) to Darfur. Maybe you can address the balance.
Go to Kae’s and follow the links
Couldn’t resist putting this pic up.
From old Army mate Len.
Married 38 years last Friday my bride and I went to Malaney in the Sunshine Coast hinterland for some quiet time and were then in-place for a wedding on Saturday night.
My daughter from Perth flew in for the wedding unannounced, affording me the pleasure of the company of my wife and three daughters. All went well, until fortified by alcohol and a great five piece combo, I thought I should dance with them all.
Today I visit the cardiovascular surgeon who no doubt will comment on my swollen right leg. It should be better by now, Kevin, he will offer – the surgery was eight weeks ago!
I will simply lie and blame him – I’ve had my leg up, compress bandaged and iced all the time Doctor – I swear.
And yes, it was worth it!
Friday night was pretty good too!
From a Defence Mailing list email.
The ADF is hosting military pilgrims from around the world attending World Youth Day 08 (WYD08).
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) and foreign military pilgrims will hold a ceremony including a reading of a statement of peace and singing hymns on the Sydney Opera House steps to thank their NSW hosts for World Youth Day 08.
Seems a contradiction in terms to me but never mind….things do change.
Moving right along I note academics still hold us in high regard;
THE Australian Defence Force is planning to open the nation’s army, navy and air force bases to high school work experience students in a bid to arrest the crisis in recruitment.
All well and good – at least it’s a plan but besides people panicking that a young man or woman should be exposed to, or actually use a weapon, academics apparently think so little of the military culture that the writer drops this little quote.
The program is also likely to be opposed by some education professionals on grounds that military culture is incompatible with the higher ideals of learning that high school teachers are expected to instil.
I can almost guarantee that I spent more time study tertiary level languages, logistics and management than the reporter, and for that matter, most high school teachers, ever will, but I’m a product of the military culture and whereas my higher ideals of learning had to include the pragmatic with the academic, what would I know – I’m just a dumb soldier! I might add, I haven’t always been convinced that an arts degree is compatible with higher ideals of learning as the academics might suggest, but I’ve never thrown gratuitous insults at the young grads I’ve had working for me.
Statements of peace, singing hymns and insults from academics.
Ned Kelly, you were right…..such is life – but I will reserve the right to feel insulted for myself and the current batch of ADF members.
Olympia, an 11 year old girl, has become a pawn in the debate over photos of prepubescent children being publicized for arts sake, or, as might be the case, for increased magazine sales.
Her parents – the flamboyant, bow-tied art critic for The Age, Robert Nelson, and his photographer wife – allowed the nude photographs to be published to protest the furore over “similar pictures” taken by Bill Henson.
They hustled their mite before the nation’s cameras yesterday, so that she, at age 11, could insist that she didn’t mind being photographed wearing only her Grandma’s pearls, and displayed in a magazine.
“I think that the picture my mum took of me had nothing to do with being abused and I think nudity can be a part of art,” she said, in words that sounded somehow unlike her own.
In another article she has been primed to say
“I’m really, really offended by what Kevin Rudd had to say about this picture.”
Sorry sweetheart, you were six when the photo was taken and are only 11 now. Your opinion and any words you say have no bearing on the matter. Go to your room now and play with your barbie doll.
Jesus wept!
SEVENTEEN people were injured when soldiers fired live bullets instead of blanks during a military display in France’s southwest.
….investigators believed the deadly ammunition was loaded by mistake.
A bit hard to imagine. Most blank rounds, in my experience, are a different colour and weigh a lot less. I have no experience with French blank rounds but can’t imagine them being much different.
Should make for a career changing and interesting investigation.
UPDATE:
A sergeant has been identified as the culprit;
The 28-year-old sergeant fired his assault rifle into a crowd of hundreds of visitors watching a mock hostage rescue operation Sunday at the base near the southwestern city of Carcassonne.
He fired the shots from his FAMAS assault rifle and was described as an experienced soldier with no history of behavioural or psychological problems.
The report confirms my belief that French blank ammo is of a different colour and weight than live ball ammo.
Presuming he only fired one mag of maybe 30 rounds then 19 hits is pretty deliberate shooting and even if he fired it all in one burst it’s still hard to imagine all those casualties.
The final report will be interesting
The art world are releasing a flood of words that seek to justify Bill Hensen taking and displaying photos of nude girls. Others are shouting ‘Pornography’ and even Rudd doesn’t like the pics (or he sees some votes in taking a public stand against them)
……Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described the works as “revolting” and devoid of artistic merit, the art community has come out strongly on the side of Henson, rejecting the accusation that his works are pornographic.
Put simply, it is morally wrong and illegal to take photos of naked children and display them. Calling it art doesn’t change the law or nullify the moral status and anyone suggesting that it does is simply giving us an insight as to why there is a disconnect between artists and the rest of us.
The fact that Hensen might be charged and that commentators have suggested it would be difficult to gain a conviction likewise doesn’t change the status of the act; it simply reflects on a legal system that places legal point and counterpoint above justice.
More poor taste in a poor taste week
UPDATE:
ACTRESS Cate Blanchett and other prominent Australians who attended Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit have backed controversial photographer Bill Henson, saying charging him would damage Australia’s cultural reputation.
Well they would, wouldn’t they? It’s their style.
The letter, whose signatories also include writer Peter Goldsworthy, playwright Michael Gow, journalist and broadcaster Marieke Hardy, film maker Ana Kokkinos and economist Saul Eslake, said Henson was being subject to trial by media.
The Art world stand just doesn’t make sense to me. If I, or even Cate Blanchet had nude photos of children on our respective computers we could be charged with an offence if the pics were discovered. It’s not about art, censorship, trial by media or us terrible conservatives getting our way and I don’t care if Bill gets charged or not but I do care that we apply the same standards of law right across society.
It is simply about the law.
I’m off to the RGH Greenslopes to have a femoral artery rebore so will be otherwise involved for a week.
By the time I get back Wayne Swan will have done his part in stuffing the economy as he builds up reasons for a conservative come-back. Is the honeymoon over? I note Denis Shanahan pens a negative report on the Rudd government.
LABOR’S industrial relations changes are likely to trigger job losses and higher inflation that will ultimately create “wage-price spirals” and drive up interest rates, according to Treasury’s official analysis of the plan to scrap Work Choices.
And that’s before we delve into the Unfair Dismissal laws.
Wage increase can’t flow on: Gillard. But they will Julia, the union power play/you owe us, Rudd approach to fiscal conservatism is about to roll over us.
I’m reading books all week in hospital and will wait and see what come out in the wash next week.
My Holy Day of Obligation.
I’m back from the Dawn Service at Enoggera Barracks and sadly note that the 500 odd my regiment lost in Vietnam over ten years is less than what my fathers ship, HMAS Sydney, lost in an hour in 1941. (He was taken off the ship and sent to hospital the day before she sailed or there wouldn’t be a Kev!) I will take my Father for a walk through Brisbane shortly, or at least his medals, and then I’ll retire to the Pig and Whistle for a beer with old mates. I feel safe giving the location of the reunion as my other regiment (SASR) also meet there. I doubt any anti-war/soldier type people would be dumb enough to mix it with two line Regiments.
Still…could be lucky.
Lest we forget
Speaking to my son last night who is living in Jordan and has just come back from a trip to Egypt.
Some quotes;
If they put all the Egyptian antiquities on a truck and moved them elsewhere, no one in their right mind would visit Egypt.
My daughter said something similar when she visited years ago. The men have no respect for woman and actually maul female tourists in public. It was a constant fight for her to maintain her dignity.
Nothing surprising in this one either;
I visited the Cairo Military Museum and could not see the word Israel anywhere at all
Wonderful place, the Middle East.