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ACHTUNG
when words matter most
AFL has been messed with by former players and luminaries of the game to serve up a version their sensibilities are happy with. They wanted to turn the clock back to more high scoring and less ferociously defensive AFL games of the 1980s and 1990s. However, there are always side effects that come with any fixes – just ask the medical/pharmaceutical fraternity. AFL: What s**** me about the game and broadcasts. What we have in season 2023 is the ball carrier walking on water in terms of being protected by the umpires. Holding the ball has just disappeared from the umpire’s rules book it seems. Players must not attempt to fight off the tackle but just hang onto the ball for a ball up to be whistled. The obvious ramifications of this are the spate of dangerous tackles, as the tackler attempts to dislodge the ball and/or incapacitate the ball carrier because he cannot get a free kick for the now obsolete holding the ball rule. Players are getting head injuries and being suspended for dangerous tackles, as a consequence of this change to rule interpretation.
Fresh Sport
Most people refrain from delving too deeply into history. Some, especially the young, are too busy making their own history or trying to anyway. However, our lives are built on assumptions and often these are the assumptions of others who have gone before us. Yuval Harari calls them myths, the myths that we live by. There are myths which give our lives meaning – the myths of money and of God. Many of us work the live long day in the pursuit of money. Some of us believe in a supernatural, invisible entity that lies at the centre of our universe. What if both of these things have no real tangible substance and are, rather, myths that we live by?
Culture Economics Fresh Politics
Looking back on recent federal governments in Australia is very revealing. Counting up the cost of Coalition governments to ordinary citizens is somewhat shocking. Peter Dutton and the Coalition government awarded a $400 million contract to a company registered at a beach shack on Kangaroo Island – Paladin. This shady entity had no previous experience running offshore detention centres and the Richardson enquiry revealed a dodgy provenance. Further companies engaged by the Coalition to run these refugee lockups on islands have been exposed to have links to drug dealers and arms running. Much of this happened on Peter Dutton’s watch as Home Affairs minister. Dutton talks tough to the media on border security but his track record is another matter altogether. Dirty deeds done really bloody expensively by shady organisations – would be a fair assessment.
Culture Economics Fresh Politics
AFL side, the Sydney Swans, went down to Geelong undermanned and got thumped. Swans shellacking by Cats is déjà vu, after the 2022 grand final thrashing was repeated. The Geelong team were mighty and won the contest all over the ground. The Swans were missing their full back, centre half back, and other big man in defence. Sydney was also without their full forward and first choice ruckman. The Swans battled manfully and never gave up but were severely outclassed and outplayed. The result of the match exposed some serious flaws in the #Swans recruiting over the previous few years.
Big congratulations to the Swans for their victory over the Giants at the SCG. It did not look like happening for much of the afternoon, as GWS were on top for three quarters. The Sydney Swans Qualifying Final win report card must pay the ultimate […]
Fresh Big congratulations to the Swans for their victory over the Giants at the SCG. It did not look like happening for much of the afternoon, as GWS were on top for three quarters. The Sydney Swans Qualifying Final win report card must pay the ultimate […]
Fresh
We have had 40 years of people in power telling us that the market will take care of everything. That market forces are the most efficient means of regulating all aspects of our lives. This economic mantra has been repeated by those on both sides of the political divide. Admittedly with more fervour by those on the right with a conservative bent. Well, Australians cannot afford housing, with both renters and first home buyers struggling to put a roof over their heads. The market has not looked after the most basic needs of the many in this regard. Governments have failed Australians and seem powerless and hardly inclined to do anything about this state of affairs. The market has failed renters in Australia and is eating up the livelihoods of a third of Australians.
In Australia, we like to tell people that we are not a racist nation. We are the whizz bang wonders of a multicultural society, after all. We judge things like racism by our own experience of such things. Coming from privileged, white backgrounds, our view of the world is rosy and she’ll be apples mate! Too much is made of this kind of thing. Hell, it doesn’t bother me! Nobody talks much about the concept of walking in another man or woman’s shoes. If you haven’t had shopkeepers and bystanders staring at you suspiciously. If you haven’t had women crossing the street to avoid your presence. If you haven’t experienced closed minds judging you when you apply for a job, a loan, or an even break – how the f*** would you know anything about racism in Australia, really.
In Queensland, yet another Indigenous Australian man is shot dead by police. 6 police officers could not restrain an angry young man with a knife without shooting him dead. The training around guns is so bad that we should follow the British example and only have specialist units armed with deadly force. Australian police: Take their guns away to save lives. Police should not be called out to domestic violence situations, as they too often make things much worse. Police officers in states around Australia fail to talk offenders down and disarm them. Their presence actually escalates the problems and results in the unnecessary use of deadly force.
Melbourne, the Nazi capital of Australia, is, also, the booing capital of the AFL. I wonder if the same folk booing at the footy are the same racist scum booing Aboriginal footballers? Victorian footy fans seem to think it is their God given right to boo every moment of a match when things don’t go their way on the field. It is an ugly sound just listening to it on the TV. Umpires and opposition players and fans have to listen to this crap from ungrateful entitled members of the crowd. Either these folks don’t know the rules of the game or just don’t care and loudly complain anyway. The ugly sound of booing during AFL matches is something you don’t hear at other football codes.
This is the world we now live in, where it is considered to be police policy to taser an old lady with dementia. NSW police so tough they taser 95 year old woman in nursing home. You have to ask yourself if there was, perhaps, another way of disarming an old lady with a steak knife? How about throwing a blanket over her arm and taking the knife off her? How about talking her down without the use of physicality in the first place? Why were the police called at all? Isn’t it the responsibility of staff at the nursing home to manage such incidents?
The Swans never stop trying but list management has let the side down. Yes, injuries have cruelled their chances this season so far but a lack of big man talent is pretty bloody obvious. Lance Franklin is seriously out of form and one needs to ask whether this year is one year too long? Has it been a case of Sydney Swans: Marketing over matter? Too many ‘feel good’ stories and not enough hard-nosed substance has been exposed. Paddy McCartin down back has been a vulnerability waiting to happen like a boxer with a glass jaw.
The AFL has a problem with crowds booing players during matches. Collingwood fans boo Buddy Franklin at the MCG. St Kilda fans booed young Jason Horne-Francis the weekend before against Port Adelaide. Booing is mob rule and sends a blunt and loud message to the targeted individual. It is prone to misunderstandings and is not a good look for the game. Sure, those fans who go to the game get passionate about what happens during a match but booing is not the way to express those heightened feelings. The booing of Lance Franklin, a Swan’s champion of the game, echoes the treatment of another Indigenous AFL former champion Adam Goodes.
Knowledge is Power. Beat Sticky Inflation, Recession & High Interest Rates. Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt & Financial Freedom is the new book by Robert Sudha Hamilton. In this collection of his articles on the Australian economy readers can take an investigative journey into the local and global issues facing us all in the current clime. The twenty-first century Western economy is built on the foundation of credit and debt. Credit and debt are intertwined and play a critical role in the functioning of modern economies. Money matters more now than ever before and things happen at breakneck speed in our modern digitised economies.
AFL has been messed with by former players and luminaries of the game to serve up a version their sensibilities are happy with. They wanted to turn the clock back to more high scoring and less ferociously defensive AFL games of the 1980s and 1990s. However, there are always side effects that come with any fixes – just ask the medical/pharmaceutical fraternity. AFL: What s**** me about the game and broadcasts. What we have in season 2023 is the ball carrier walking on water in terms of being protected by the umpires. Holding the ball has just disappeared from the umpire’s rules book it seems. Players must not attempt to fight off the tackle but just hang onto the ball for a ball up to be whistled. The obvious ramifications of this are the spate of dangerous tackles, as the tackler attempts to dislodge the ball and/or incapacitate the ball carrier because he cannot get a free kick for the now obsolete holding the ball rule. Players are getting head injuries and being suspended for dangerous tackles, as a consequence of this change to rule interpretation.
