I’m slowly getting back on deck after Easter. For starters, here’s the Monday Message Board, a day late, again. Please post your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). My suggested discussion starter “What I did in the holidays”.
9 thoughts on “Monday Message Board (on Tuesday)”
Comments are closed.
John Quiggin 
I went to Melbourne- snippets are here
Link no work, Scott…
I slept in on Easter Sunday. Does this make me a tenager again?
I too was very pleased to enjoy those aspects I love about Australia. Going to a park and talking to another who was from another place and yet feeling as if we could be friends because our differences really didn’t matter. Walking in a national park where many others were doing the same and saying hello to each other as we passed.
How easy is it for women in many parts of the world to view strangers with confidence and trust?
There may still be problems for the Australians in Iraq as they tend to hang out with those who are insensitive, reactive and full of their own confidence and importance. It is interesting to know that in East Timor the Australians handled themselves with aplomb and dignity in very difficult circumstances because the military understand that it is possible to lose the peace.
The reasons I supported Australia going to East Timor were that
a) It is our neighbour
b) We owed the East Timorese for helping our troops in WW 2
c) the people were oppressed by a power with no historical, cultural or religious links to the population
d) the risks seemed worth it although in the light of the Timor Gap negotiations appear to be less worthy.
The reasons I think our army should leave Iraq are
a) The pre-emptive approach is deeply flawed in its logic and gives every bullying nation a precedent to emulate
b) The US is running strategy and is ill equipped to do so
c) War has provided a focus fot terrorist groups
d) Australia has no quarrel with the Iraqi people
e) The reasons for being there are fuzzy and there is no end point as the weapons of mass destruction have been found – to be non existent, Saddam Hussein is no longer a tyrant and no matter how long we stay there will be no democracy established as people will seek civil order as a lesser goal.
I would have enjoyed my holiday even more if I didn’t have to bear the responsibility for the actions of my leaders who seem wedded to an ever expanding role in wars which are against our interests and diminish us.
Drove to a surf beach along the Great Ocean Road. Everyone else was wearing wetsuits, but I felt like going in. The waves were medium big, just big enough to be a little scary but fun. Whoa! It was like champagne!
avoided the AFL like the plague
I am getting a little worried about talk of the US re-introducing the draft as I happen to be a US citizen, despite living in Victoria for 85% of my life. The last time I got my passport renewed they made me fill out the draft registration forms.
It’s alright Blair, you will be hidden by waves of bloggers desperate to make a difference in the real world.
Seriously, it’s a bugger but no different from the situation of any of your countryfolk. I think if the Bush fedayeen tried to run the draft up again, on a mass level, all hell would break loose. There would be a kind of weird symmetry at work – a significant number of young men in the sixties and seventies, and their families, were sustained at least emotionally by an older generation of anti war activists. Now they – and we, in Australia – are old enough to have the other role..
Yeah, been doing some checking. As I am a dual national of Australia and the US, I am exempt from duty but not registration. I only got worried as I am going to try to get employment over there soon.