Monday, 25 February 2013

A Maiden's Prayer Answered.



 Oh, God, is this one of your tricks?
You nasty old five (*****)!
You promised to help me,
 So why did you give me
To Salvador Dali to fix!?

 Trying to rhyme 'Dali', leads one to Bob Marley on a Harley so I abandoned that idea and employed the good old set of (five) asterisks to denote a word one would rather not commit to print. Find more erudite contributions at Magpie Tales.

Thursday, 21 February 2013

Why I am becoming depressed.




Dateline Brisbane, October 2013.
I was told this is Tony (Climate Change is bunkum) Abbott, our newly elected Prime Minister relaxing in downtown Brisbane before taking off to Bowen to open the largest coal loader in the world.

Pic borrowed from ABC Australia Images.

Tuesday, 5 February 2013

Flogging dead horses?















1.
Baffling scaffolding;
pondering, wondering.
Building and gilding,
An edifice crum-bl-ing.

..............

2.
Library of stone
in the digital age,
bastion of relevance;
Ink on the page.

Yes, I still 'belong' to a library. Maybe I will buy a Kindle when all known literature has been digitised. Otherwise I am contributing to the destruction of knowledge, or am I just too old to change?

Get with the strength and click here for more contributions to the Digital Magpie.

Monday, 28 January 2013

Recorded History














The old man
in the stranded tram
played me jazz
on his Edison Phonograph.

Beethoven
on the Parlophone;
twelve inch,
seventy eight.

Sinatra
in the wee small hours.
Microgroove
for twenty minutes.

CD’s
and downloads
I-pods and
Memory sticks.

Hours and hours;
unlimited time,
unlimited technology,
unlimited choice.

But of those,
I loved microgroove the best
because
I was eighteen.

..........
Thanks Tess at Magpie Tales for the memory lane prompt.

Tuesday, 22 January 2013

Profundity.



















“The most important thing in life is a hand to hold as we cross the road.” Ruth Mildenhall.

See more wisdom at Magpie Tales.

Monday, 14 January 2013

Flawed Strategy.



















It took so long to get it on,
determined to not be spied upon.
But it must come off agin
After the tonic and gin,
So I can go to visit the john!

...................

Suggested design improvement.



















Image borrowed from here.
You can come out now Tess, we know you are in there!
See more at Magpie Tales.

Monday, 7 January 2013

Barriers



















First the door;
I can open that.

My negligee,
I can let that fall.

But without trust,
They stay.

Thanks Tess for your weekly Magpie and Happy New Year to everyone.

Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Smokebusters


The opening song from the musical play Smokebusters. 
Photo prompt from Magpie Tales and a Happy New Year to anyone desperate enough to stray here looking for enlightenment.

Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Getting to the bottom of Climate Change.














It took only twenty five years after scientists had warned of the consequences of melting permafrost for the Sydney Morning Herald to give it a banner headline: “Even the earth is melting!”

I will leave you to further research that one while we have a look at two really simple propositions. The first is this question: Is CO2 a greenhouse gas or not? We know that it is, so that should be the end of Climate Change debate, but it still rages. Why?

 The second is about logic. If a discussion is in progress on any issue where differences of opinion are mutually exclusive, such as “Climate change is the result of human activity V Human activity has no effect on Climate Change”, there are two possibilities. Either one is correct or none is correct. Simple? One would think so, but we are not wired for logic. It must be learned. We are wired for Faith, a process by which we take on a notion and ignore evidence to the contrary. It seems we can be hypnotised and our powers of reason bypassed. An example is the hold Hitler had over an otherwise logical and civilised people that led to the Jewish/Polish/Gypsy Holocaust with death by war of millions more.

 We think we have learned to recognise the Hitlers of the world, but have we? Perhaps we are backing the next generation of gurus who are leading us into the next holocaust; the Climate Change Holocaust.

Some questions to contemplate:
Who is constantly promoting economic growth and why?
Is it impossible to live without coal and oil?
What level of carbon emissions is sustainable?
Should I ‘think globally and act locally’ by investing in solar panels or becoming a vegetarian or riding my bike to work or or or, when the Chinese and Indians are ramping up their emissions?
Is population the elephant in the room, and if so, should we accept immigration from cultures in which large families are promoted?
Should I vote for a party with an aggressive climate change policy rather than one that promises jobs in coal mining and CSG, even though it might cost me money?
Does it really matter that we trash our environment if God is about to stage the Rapture?

Add questions, or better still, answers!

Monday, 10 December 2012

I've Been Everywhere!



















www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpRvAnhHfmc

The 1959 song by Geoff 'Tangle Tongue' Mack was made popular by my mate Lucky Starr, but this variation sung by Geoff himself appeals to the older listener.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjwjDjwAjxs

But wait there is more!

Touch my sweet lips in America,
Admire my atolls in Spain
And if you go down to Antarctica
You'll come back again and again!

Prompt offered by the still young and gorgeous Tess at Magpie Tales.