I was at the sink doing dishes, busily mind-whinging about how sore my knee is, when this news came through...I cried...for all of the horror and suffering constantly jammed in my face, admittedly mostly self-jammed, for some reason this has really hit me as such a saddening loss...a simple accident whilst helping others...it's just not fair and I can't even write about it without crying...the Country Fire Service are extraordinary people, as indeed are their counterparts in other states...
I apologise that I have no humour in me today and no desire to even try really...for all of the crap I've got going on in my life, at least it isn't this...my heart truly aches for those kids and the rest of his family and I've been unable to think of much else all afternoon...it is a sadness born of mine own experience that my child nearly lost their father (to a massive Lymphoma tumour) at the same age these kids have lost their father...
Some days I feel like that segment on the show Fear Factor where bowls of offal and shizzle roll along a conveyor belt and you have to take big mouthfuls of gourd knows what and run around and spit it out and go back and get another mouthful of whatevs and spit that out and so on and just do it without thinking about it and/or vomitting...and that's the game I have chosen to play and not chosen by choice but by necessity...
There have been extensive commemorations in Albany, the port city South of Perth, Western Australia, on the 100th anniversary of Australian and New Zealand troops leaving there for World War 1...I re-iterate my position that there is nothing to be celebrated about "the Birth of a Nation" or whatevs, about what Australian and New Zealand troops were sacrificed for in being sent by Britain to invade Turkey (the Gallipoli campaign)...and I am yet to hear it described as this reality...my dis-ease is further exacerbated by seeing PM Tony Abbott extolling the virtues of sacrifice...
It's one thing to rightly acknowledge the horrific slaughter and loss of young men, etc, but it's only part of the respect and gratitude we are constantly told we must feel, and it is in many ways an empty respect if you don't understand and acknowledge why this stuff happened...ANZACs (themselves landing in the wrong place) were sent to invade Turkey to distract the Turkish troops away from where English troops were landed, a campaign designed by Winston Churchill to make it easier for the English...I've read/heard various versions of this and how those involved were responsible, etc, but what I've put here is a simple truth, good bad or indifferent...
My concern as always are in the many ways in which these things are misrepresented and misappropriated and stampeded from commemoration into celebration...my thoughts are always with my grandfathers, both WWII veterans, and their individual decisions to not 'celebrate' ANZAC Day, but to still recognise that it was important for some veterans and how they dealt with the traumas and losses of war service, etc, as covered in previous posts...love you and miss you Pops and Papa...the extraordinary strength of gentle men...
Please find attached two articles that cover a bunch of stuff I've posted about, namely, 1) the connection between the Main Corner leasee and the nearby cafe, following on as it does from the outrageously corrupted and nepotistic first Main Corner 'free lease' for Councillor Des Mutton's son Lachlan...not my allegation, just the highly corrupt reality...(***now 2nd November 2014) I further note that Council recently 're-leased' the Main Corner after kicking everybody out of the associated Council meeting...(so the leasing of a ratepayer owned, ratepayer funded facility was done in secret?-Ed)...yep, and Cr Andrew Lee and Mayor Steve Perryman who both have definable Conflict of Interests on this issue, they both remained in the Chamber and/or voted on this...
This is just one of the latest in a litany of highly corrupted Council 'votes' that have trampled all over appropriate process...it would be quicker for me to list the Council meetings where there haven't been gross corruptions of appropriate process...(well I'm struggling to think of one-Ed)...fair enough...I don't know if the young women pictured are aware of any of these shenanigans, nor if there is any connection to Councillor Ian Von Stanke...(isn't he the clown who came out to your home in 2011 with a letter repeatedly referring to 'Council' and threatening 'defamation' ?-Ed)...indeed, and as covered in previous posts...
The second article is another GG classic that flies in the face of reality and doesn't mention the one candidate who has been up front the standout candidate, eg, at the CAS Forum Friday 17th October 2014...(well I don't believe that GG was even there...I sure as shreck didn't see 'im-Ed)...indeed...and in my limited experience, in my 'straw poll' people believe this bumph as much as anything else in The Border Watch...in my reality, in my Straw Poll House, people are telling me that they're putting any current Councillors and Mayor Perryman last on their ballots and then going from there to putting some new people on Council...
Apologies for the orientation but I had to get a new printer and haven't sussed-out the new program, it just scans and automatically saves any which way...
Tomorrow: The Council Meeting (sorry)
(And so you should be sir, it's nearly 2 weeks ago now-Ed)...I've had some stuff on and stuff comes up and it's just really depressing to go through that a second time...once was bad enough...(fair enough-Ed)...and thankyou to all of those people who have called me, and/or stop me in the street, at the Show, etc, to thank and/or congratulate me for 'at least having a bloody go', and/or continue to send me the Wind Turbine stuff, local issues stuff, eg, the Aldi shenanigans re the Showgrounds site, etc, etc...
However, I'm less enthusiastic about statistics showing that the average return of postal voting forms for the current Local Government Elections struggles to get into double digits...(sorry, what?-Ed)...early return counts have roughly only 11-14% of voters returning their voting slips...(sorry, how much?-Ed)...and that's being generous, with some Council areas not even getting to double digits...even if you generously round it up to the nearest 5% it's still only 15% across the state...(but where are the other 85% of votes?-Ed)...good question, who knows...(and the numbers I'm looking at suggest it's a state-wide average nearer 10% than 15%-Ed)...indeed...
So at least 8 nearer 9 outta' 10 votes are unaccounted for...(omg, how could that possibly go wrong?-Ed)...well I can think of several immediately obvious ways which I'll list after the Election is over...(yeah sorry, it was a rhetorical question-Ed)...oh right...anyhoos, those voting slips returned are immediately identifiable because the official postal envelopes have the voters details on it, are sent to Council offices, and then sit there for sometimes weeks, etc, etc...it's a farcically insecure way to run an election and it's a real grind trying to engage appropriately in a system that is more of a game and that you have absolutely no confidence in what-so-ever...
You'll excuse me if the relentless, rank pro-paedophile corruption I've experienced and/or exposed in Mt Gambier and/or South Australia denies me any faith in an Election/Electoral system so obviously insecure and open to corruption and manipulation...I've also noticed my voting slips already have small handwritten marks on them that could immediately identify them as mine...(doesn't it render the slip 'informal' and therefore not counted if it has anything written on it outside the Candidate boxes-Ed)...indeed it can, but I'm not sure to what extent that applies...
Written and Authorised by Nick Fletcher, 16 Kooringa St, Mt Gambier, SA 5290...cheers and laters...
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