An evergreen word on editors

A hatip to Clarrie Rivers for this glimpse into our collective newspaper past.......

From the last Australian Newspaper History Group newsletter of 2010:

60.4.7 A TOAST TO THE EDITOR Grafton Argus, 28 May 1875 (from the Papers): ―At a printer's festival at Boston, a short time since, the following capital toast was drunk: ‗The editor—the man who is expected to know everything, tell all he knows and guess the rest; to make known his good character, establish the reputation of his neighbours, and elect all candidates to office, to blow up everybody, and reform the world; to live for the benefit of others, and have the epitaph on his tombstone, ―Here he lies at last; in short, he is a locomotive runner on the track of public notoriety; his lever is his pen; whenever he explodes it is caused by non-payment of subscriptions.'

Some issues of the Grafton Argus and Clarence River General Advertiser (1874-1920) can be found in print and on microfiche and the National Library of Australia.

GetUp! loses all credibility

I’ve had a lot of time for GetUp! Action for Australia in the past but this organisation is beginning to stretch its credibility too thin these days.
Get an load of this from the website:

Save Wooli

Right now the Clarence Valley Council is considering adopting a policy of "planned retreat" for village of Wooli and its unique environment. This abandonment is their only response to the increased threat from coastal erosion caused by climate change.
Urge them to reject it and protect Wooli, by signing this Right now the Clarence Valley Council is considering adopting a policy of "planned retreat" for village of Wooli and its unique petition below.

I believe that if Council approves the recently released Wooli Coastal Plan, no action will be taken to defend the Wooli Community and environment from the threat of coastal erosion caused by climate change and Council will adopt a policy of planned abandonment of the village. I ask that Clarence Valley Council reject this plan.

No mention of the fact that Wooli is not the only place on the Clarence Coast or in the river delta suffering the early effects of climate change and relentless erosive wave patterns.
Not a word about the CSIRO predicting higher and stronger tides taking away coastal and estuary foreshore, making the aquifer saline and raising the water table. That this will often be occurring in urban areas built on reclaimed marshland and in natural flood storage areas.
Absolutely dumb on Commonwealth Government predictions of ‘worst case’ sea level rises and storm surges which will see quite a few houses in Yamba inundated on a regular basis or lost completely. That coastal erosion on Yamba Hill and at Broom’s Head is a fact of life, as well as sections of Palmers Island now so unstable that no-one can safely live there.
Silent as the grave when it comes to Clarence Coast landowners (including those at Wooli) knowing the risks for well over a decade and putting their heads in the sand while buying seafront or riverfront property anyway.
Last but not least, no mention of how a local government with so much vulnerable shoreline and a small rate base is going to manage to pay millions of dollars decade in and decade out in a vain effort to hold the ocean back from a small village built on a sand spit between a tidal river and the Pacific Ocean.
GetUp! needs to grow up.

Australian journalism continues to attract blinkered conservatives into its ranks

The Daily Examiner, 14 December 2010, Opinion,
snapshot of opening paragraph

One regional reporter from the Andrew Bolt School of Journalism obviously has problems with the concept of universal health care as practised in Australia through the 'free' public hospital-community health system, Medicare rebates and subsidized medicines.

Apparently the 17th Century British notion of there being deserving and undeserving poor still has supporters loitering in dark and dusty corners of the fourth estate.

This particular journalist's attitude to taxpayer funded health services taken to its 'logical' conclusion would see proof of innocence required to be shown when presenting at the local hospital's accident and emergency department.

Given that cardio-vascular disease (according to the Heart Foundation the most expensive disease) is impacted by a wide range of environmental and lifestyle choices, his attitude would see around three million Australians across all socio-economic groups locked out of subsidized health care - and that's only one of many disease groups.

What Son-of-Bolt also forgets is that even the poor pay taxes in this country, if not always through personal income tax then always through the national consumption tax and indirect taxation.

However, what elicits a big grin is that part of his taxes already go towards supporting people who are sick through no fault of their own, so he has little to complain about in reality.

McDonald's Yamba - only open days and the littering of surrounding streets begins

Maud up the Street wants to know if she has the first 'official' pic of branded litter from the newly opened McDonald's hamburger joint in Yamba.
Maud reckons on the third day of Maccas opening its door she followed a trail of tossed litter down one of the streets leading straight to this store.

Hot on the heels of Maud's pic came this one from a Yamba resident who picked it up in Admiralty Park - at least half a kilometre away from Macca's new outlet.

Clarencegirl sent me evidence of this bit of branded litter picked up from the vacant lot opposite McDonald's fast food outlet and she tells me that she has heard that clusters of Macca's litter are now turning up in front yards on the outskirts of Yamba.
Well done, Ronald McDonald - you're living up to your lousy and very messy reputation!
And please write a reminder note in block letters on your Neanderthal foreheads, all those Clarence Valley shire councillors who voted to impose this architectural and social eyesore on a very reluctant Yamba community.

UPDATE:
This cluster of branded litter ran in a trail from outside McDonald's in Treelands Drive, Yamba and on through to Telopea Steet at about 10.30 am on Sunday 19 December 2010 according to the Yamba resident who picked it up.