Same-sex marriage

THROSBY MP Stephen Jones is the new best friend of gay and lesbian couples.

Mr Jones was instrumental on Saturday in Labor amending its official policy platform to advocate same-sex marriage.

Federal MPs will vote next year on a Private Members Bill, which Mr Jones will put forward early next year, to allow same-sex couples to marry.

No doubt the homophobes will jump up and down about the idea of same sex couples marrying, after all, it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, right?

But could that attitude be somewhat narrow minded?

It certainly was the way I used to think until many years ago when an eye-opening event changed my mind.

I used to work with a bloke whom I would drink with, play sport with, invite to parties; all that “normal” kind of “blokey” stuff.

Then one day I borrowed his car and, while driving into the sun, put the visor down and found a hand-written note: Chris loves Paul.

Suddenly I was confronted with mixed emotions because of my own bias – why should I now be intimidated or dislike Chris because he was gay? He was no different to the man I knew before I discovered his sexuality.

I know of many same-sex couples that live as married couples that have children and live and love the same as heterosexual couples. They nurture their children the same as heterosexual couples – and probably better than many heterosexual couples.

Should same-sex couples be denied the same benefits and opportunities as heterosexual couples?

Should they be denied “formalising” their union through marriage as heterosexual couples do?

Perhaps Stephen Jones is on the right track.

The above YouTube clip is very telling ...

The farce that passes for politics

Many people voted for the bloke on the right (who is Left) to be Prime Minister,
not the woman on the left (who is Right)!

FOREIGN Affairs Minister (and former Prime Minister) Kevin Rudd has called for “sweeping reform” of the Labor Party, saying “the aggressive conservative onslaught of a resurgent right” could push the party into a situation where it could “fade away”.

“We are fools if we do not understand that the public has had a gutful of what currently passes for much of our national political debate,” Mr Rudd said.

He is absolutely correct.(LINK)

As Southern Highland News columnist Dr John Hewson often writes, our politicians are too busy paying attention to their egos rather than paying attention to what the country wants or needs.

Dr Hewson wrote in one of his columns: “The essential problem is that politics has become a game, an end in itself, a daily contest to win the media against the other side.” (LINK)

But the whole political system seems to be flawed, especially within the Labor party where essentially there are three parties within the one – the Left, the Right and those in between.

This is how Kevin Rudd was rolled by Julia Gillard – and too bad for those voters who wanted Rudd as PM and not Gillard.

Rudd said in the Sydney Morning Herald at the weekend that his core concern “is how to reform our party so that it has a future, not just as a diminished political rump …”.

That’s a problem for the ALP to solve, but in the meantime we must educate our children about politics and that must start in school.

Too few of our young people pay any attention to politics when they should – and I doubt they realise that without paying attention democracy is dying – if it is not, indeed, dead already.

Five minutes to midnight

ALAN Jones made a very valid point at the Our Water Our Land Our Future rally on Saturday – it’s five minutes to midnight.
That term is in reference to the Doomsday Clock; the closer the clock is to midnight, the closer the world is estimated to be to global disaster.
But Jones made the comment in reference to Australia’s future – whether we will maintain our pristine farming land, our aquifers, our rivers and forests.
Make no mistake, mining and coal seam gas exploration is going to ruin this nation and make it inhabitable for our children.
Which brings me to my next point – our children know little about what is happening to their country.
At the rally on Saturday there were few young people; there were few people under age 40.
I asked my 14-year-old daughter what she knew about coal seam gas extraction and she looked at me as if I had two heads.
Our educators need to make our children aware of this issue, but you can bet it won’t happen because politicians are involved and they will say it’s a political issue.
Well it’s not.
This is a very real issue that involves the future of our country.
Tell your children about these insidious miners from foreign countries that are raping our country and couldn’t care less about the consequences.
Tell them to add their names to the petition that will be circulating in the Southern Highlands.
Tell them to write to their local members of parliament.
Tell them to write to the Prime Minister.
Tell them to get off Facebook and to use the internet to research this subject and that unless they start to take an interest in politics and what is happening in the world around them, then by the time they have children they won’t have a decent world to live in.
This threat is real and we must react.
Take a look at THIS LINK Take a look at this link, especially the YouTube videos. Or go HERE.  Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

Respect and Gen Y

I had a disturbing, as well as disheartening, run-in with a young woman during the week.

She had parked her car in one of our company car spots. I'd been out and returned in my company car only to find there were no spots available - so I double parked (leaving her exit blocked) and left a note on her windscreen to knock on the back door do I could let her out when she returned.

Sounds simple enough. The manager told me he had done the same thing in the past and people had been apologetic and headed off embarrassed.

Not this 19- or 20-something.

You see, I was the one who had inconvenienced her.

"Did you not see the signs on the building wall?" I asked (this was after waiting 5 minutes in the rain while she ended a phone call).

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw the signs," she said. "Hurry up and move so I can get out!"

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"That (blocking her in) is a very arrogant thing to do."

"Oh, and you jumping in a company car park, that is clearly marked, isn't? I might just go back inside for half an hour and you can wait a bit longer."

"Yeah, well, go ahead. I'll call the authorities then - I don't care if I get booked or whatever."

The young woman's car - the police were given the rego nuumber.

By now I could tell I was going to get nowhere with this young narcissist - she could not have given a shit about anyone or anything.

So I moved my car, let her out, parked my car in its spot and went back upstairs to finish my work.

When it came time to head home I exited the back door - and found a bloody huge gouge on the driver's door of the car.

The cow had returned when the car park had emptied and no one was around and keyed the car.

What is it that makes these kids so aggressive today?

There's a very good article from the Christian Science Monitor (see here) that offers some reasons - in part:

The "all about me" shift means much more than lots of traffic at self-revelatory websites such as YouTube and Facebook. It points, says the study's author, to a generation's lack of empathy, its inability to form relationships – and worse.

"Research shows [narcissists] are aggressive when they have been insulted or threatened," says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and lead author of the report, called "Egos Inflating Over Time." "They tend to have problems with impulse control, so that means they're more likely to, for example, be pathological gamblers [or] commit white-collar crimes."

But that aggressiveness, selfishness and lack of empathy is what has more "normal" people worried.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph reported today that police are sick of being used  as punching bags during alcohol-fuelled violence (Link here).
There's that lack of respect thing again.
As one comment on the site noted: "There once was a time when Police were respected. We as children were taught to respect the police, to call on them in need and to go to them when in trouble. Now it's belt a cop, sue a cop and every other thing the doogooders can throw at them. Stop now and give police powers to 'BIFF'. and bugga any one who objects."
Another post suggested we should blame the courts for not imposing penalties that are tough enough or that fit the crime.
Personally, I believe there has been a combination of influences (or probably non-influences).
When my generation was growing up we had little in the way of possessions. We had big families in small houses. Now there are small families in big houses!
We copped a belting when we deserved it - at home and at school. I can still remember my father taking his belt off and using it on me when I got out of line; and the teacher pulling out the cane at school to give your two, four or six "cuts", depending on the severity of the "crime" committed.
We'd stand for the national anthem, which was screened at the beginning of a movie in cinemas.
At school we'd sing the national anthem, salute the Australian Flag, and sing the school song - with gusto!
That's just scratching the surface - but those acts were about engendering respect - for others, for the school, Queen, and country.
I don't know what's to become of these aggressive Gen Ys, but I'm sure glad I won't be around to see it.
Hopefully the respectful ones, from good homes with caring parents, will be able to overcome the narcissistic ones.     
 

The journalist

It's not always that easy being a journalist.

I think that sometimes the reader loves to hate us.

On the scale of job prestige, journalists rate right down there with the lowest of the low.

But if you think about it, we don't have an easy task.  

Bathurst!

It gets in your blood.

Don't ask me why. Some people reckon that watching a bunch of petrol heads driving around and around a motor racing circuit all day long is akin to watching the grass grow or the paint dry; they think it's a complete waste of money and effort.

Maybe so, but the sound of those big V8s roaring, the smell of burning rubber and the exhaust fumes, the atmosphere ...

There's nothing quite like Bathurst in that first half of October.

... and death

It's just on 21 years since we said goodbye to my father (Barry Dare "Steelo" Bransdon), who died of bowel cancer on August 23, 1990.

Racism and reconciliation

That dreaded word - reconciliation - popped into my head tonight.