PS

I knew there was something else I wanted to say.  I had a bit of fun with yesterday’s poem.  I was scrabbling around for a name when the Discovery space shuttle blasted off live on SKY News.  Perfect!  But I thought it would be amusing to include other shuttle names – Endeavour, Enterprise & Challenger.  I deperately wanted to use Atlantis and Columbia but I couldn’t make them work without giving the game away or ruining the poem.  I also used a couple of space references.

Did anyone spot my game?

General Elections & Natural Selection

Rallentanda wrote an interesting reply to yesterday’s blog; my reply to her reply was a bit long so I thought I would post it here instead.  She wrote:

…in Australia voting is compulsory by law.If one fails to vote you receive a heavy fine $300 and if you fail to pay on time your drivers license is taken away and if you continue to fail to vote any property you have is confiscated and you could also receive a prison sentence. Be grateful that you can exercise your freedom not to vote!

I have often thought about this.  There is a part of me that likes the idea of a compulsory vote – if you prefer not to vote, you could spoil your ballot – but I’m against it in principle.    I think that to be forced to vote is as bad, in its own way, as being refused the vote: it should be a democratic right to abstain, if that’s what you wish.  My problem, and the reason for yesterday’s shameless diatribe to guilt the lazy into voting, is that getting the vote has been such a hard-won battle over the centuries that it’s like spitting in the faces of those who fought for it.  Our freedoms are being eroded by stealth – statutory instrument, anyone? – and we are too idle to stop it.  When we refuse to stand up and be counted, we end up not counting for much.

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Yesterday’s prompt required us to write about a picture.

 

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Two Beautiful Things

A bloody baby
and his brother, screaming their
way into my heart.