Dear Sol, How sweet it is to see another rich patriarch showing an Achilles heel

Dear Sol,

Yes, I freely admit it.  It’s class envy times infinity from someone who grew up in what could be classed an Aussie slum, the son of a man who grew up likewise, the grandson of a man who often went hungry and the great-grandson of a man who spent his life in abject poverty but managed to raise a family which endures to this day.

So I take a somewhat perverse please in seeing you, Solomon Lew, controversial billionaire, in the courts airing the family’s dirty but expensive linen in Lew & Ors v Priester & Ors 28 February 2012

Maudie's Ex
Yamba

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration.

CSG Free Northern Rivers Rally & Concert, Riverside Park Lismore 10am 12 May 2012

Gawd 'elp us all if we grow old, frail and alone in the Land Downunder

This is part of the Gillard Government response to Australia's aged care needs:

"To make it easier for older Australians to stay in their home while they receive care, we will:
Increase the number of Home Care Packages- from 59,876 to almost 100,000 (99,669).

Provide tailored care packages to people receiving home care, and new funding for dementia care.

Cap costs, so that full pensioners pay no more than the basic fee." and

“care recipients with higher than average care needs, an indexed annual cap of $5,000 for single people on income less than $43,000”
A positive policy move. Except Maud Up The Street tells me you need at least six hours care in the home per week and a family member coming in, or living in, to pick up the rest of the care hours to take the pressure of the lack of available dementia-dedicated nursing home beds on the NSW North Coast.

Not every older person has the luxury of children and grandchildren or of having them live close by if they do. In fact, in some areas around 30% of the 50 years plus population is probably childless if ABS stats are any sort of guide.
The Prime Minister and Health Minister speak a lot about "older Australians and their families" - without recognizing that the norm is changing more than they realise and this welcome move which will allow more people to stay in their home as they receive aged care may accidentally exclude the elderly without families.
Even the announced extra aged care beds may not always materialise in regional areas such as the NSW North Coast, because nursing homes sometimes display a reluctance to take up available residential bed quotas.

Prime Minister and Health Minister Media Release 20^th April 2012

Dodgy $20 notes doing the rounds in Lismore area

NSW Police Force media release 22^nd  April 2012

“Detectives on the state’s north coast are conducting inquiries after a number of fake $20 notes were found in circulation in the Lismore area.

A number of business owners contacted local police on Friday (20 April 2012) after the counterfeit notes were used to pay for good and services.

The phony cash was detected by staff at a Lismore kebab shop, pub, convenience store and fast food restaurant, and by two taxi drivers.

Detectives have launched an investigation in a bid to identify who’s responsible for producing them.

The counterfeit notes, totalling $240, have also been seized for forensic examination.

Richmond LAC Duty Officer, Inspector Robert Cairnduff, warned local residents and business owners to be on the lookout for the notes.

“I would encourage everyone to be extra vigilant when handling their money and if you do notice something odd or that doesn’t look quite right, please contact us immediately,” Insp Cairnduff said.

“The counterfeit notes that we have seized are not of great quality; however, in poor light or to the unsuspecting eye they could quite possibly be passed off as the real thing,” he said.

Inquiries by local detectives are ongoing.

Anyone with information that might assist investigators is urged to contact Lismore Police Station or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.”

Oh, Carole, I am such a fool or Click send and lose your job

One can’t help feeling that this particular LNP staffer is no loss to both the Queensland and Federal political systems. Senator Ian MacDonald must have cringed when Crikey published this on 17 April 2012:

Dear Carole,
I have just read your pathetic piece in the Courier-Mail. While I generally ignore the bleatings of sourpusses like you, your piece was so depressing and negative that I was moved to find your email address and simply say: Get a life.
The world would be a better place if people like you stood for political preselection and learned the hard way that ability is not measured by chromosomes.
Question: Why don’t you have a go? Answer: Like most women, you probably don’t possess the necessary drive, determination and decisiveness that men innately possess. It’s not a personal criticism; it’s a fact of biology. Where, for example, are the great female explorers, mountaineers, warriors, inventors, chefs? Blokes dominate most areas of human endeavour because Nature equipped them with something called testosterone. That was part of Nature’s grand design to enable men to be stronger, more fearless and more determined than their sisters. Sorry, Carole, fact not fiction.
Women occupy a special but different place in the world to that of men. I’ve been married to a wonderful woman - a proud mother of four successful adult children, not a nuclear physicist - for nearly 40 years. For yeras [sic] I’ve heard women like you ask my wife at cocktail parties, functions and dinner parties: And what do you do? The clear inference in the pregnant silence that follows my wife’s answer that she is a proud home-maker makes my skin crawl. Women like my wife are the life-givers, the embodiment of sacrificial love (the purest form of love), the primary keepers of the flame of civilisation that separates us from the animal world, and yet the Sisterhood frowns on them for not joining the anti-male club that you so typefy [sic].
The anti-male world of conspiracy theories in which you and the Sisterhood inhabit is the complete antithesis of the world in which positive women thrive. Women who can’t cut it in - what did you call it?, the boys’ club - can easily cover their inadequacies by claiming bias, sexism, misogyny, chauvinism etc. etc. ad infinitum. It’s so tiring to read such twaddle.
Face reality, my dear. Smell the coffee. Try to turn your sour, negative, anti-male view of the world into something more positive and productive. Demonising men may be your life’s quest but fewer and fewer people are listening.
I repeat: GET A LIFE.
Kind regards,
Max
Max Tomlinson

Article which raised Max's ire here.

Wot I didz wiv me down time at the taxpayer's expense

It will almost be a relief when Phelps gets back to doing those nothings recorded by Hansard on 1^st May  - these tweets are getting weird.

                                                 

Peter Phelps‏@PeterPhelpsMLC

Spent the last hour standing on a vacant, wind-swept, overcast beach doing nothing #mylifeisavirginiawoolfnovel