I was inexplicably tired this morning, before we went to daylight savings I was happily bounding out of bed at 5am, this morning I kept slapping the snooze button and muttering “gimme another 5 minutes” until about 10 to 6 when I finally slumped into a shower.
As much as it pains me to admit it, after spending 4 days on the Gold Coast and being able to get up way early to run I do sometimes think those recalcitrant Queenslanders have a point about not accepting day light savings. Then again when I am sitting in my garden at 7pm with a glass of wine and my dinner enjoying a balmy summer evening I just think they are plain nuts for not wanting all the light at the back end of the day.
Guess you can’t have everything, maybe I should move to the Arctic for the northern summer.
Suffice to say I did not manage a run this morning but considering I had a crap run the last time I headed out the morning after a massage it was probably for the best, I’ll do my session this afternoon and report back later.
My Run
I headed out this afternoon after I got home, instead of in the City, just for a change
Distance - 9Km
Time - 46:53
Avg Pace - 5:12
Avg HR - 85% (hmm, bit high, maybe the heat)
Avg Cadence - 180 
You asked for it
Alright, I’ll bow and make just one post on the politics of the day.
Regular JJJ listeners will know that the current affairs show, Hack (530pm weeknights) has been trying to get an interview with John Howard for about 6 years and with Kevin Rudd since the campaign started. To Kev’s credit he has deigned to give the occasional interview over the years, as had Julia Gillard, however to my knowledge he has not made an appearance since the campaign began. I could stand corrected on this as I have not caught every Hack over the last month or so.
Over the last year or so JJJ have been running a campaign to encourage those recently turned 18 to get themselves enrolled to vote, something I am pretty confident the likes of Nova or MMM have not done. As jaded as I have become I do not take the democratic process for granted, I don’t think some people truly understand how privileged we are to have the right to vote. How many countless 100s of 1000s of people around the world have died or been jailed over the years fighting for this right? I won’t go into the whole compulsory or not argument though; it will take me too far from my original thread. Just to say however that it is not compulsory to vote in this country, it is merely compulsory to have your name crossed off the electoral roll.
So, JJJ have been heavily promoting the upcoming election and was encouraging those who will be first time voters in November to get themselves enrolled before the rolls closed 3 days after the election was called.
You would think Liberal and Labor would see the network as a fantastic platform to get their message across to a whole crop of new voters wouldn’t you? Sure the Js don’t rate through the roof, only capturing about 3.8% of the market to Nova’s 9.3%. Though I do note with interest that most of JJJ’s listeners fall into the 25-39 age bracket, while Nova’s biggest fan base fall into the 18-24 bracket, so perhaps I am not making a fair comparison here.
The point I am making here is this though, Howard and Rudd have been doing the rounds of all the stations, both National and State, yet neither of them can make the time to be interviewed by JJJ. On the breakfast show this morning Steve Cannane (Mmmm, give me a moment) recalled with disgust an interview Howard gave by phone to a Melbourne commercial network where the DJs giggled and carried on and posed not one challenging question. Oh, hang on, rant over, there is my answer right there really.
So if the leader of the government of the day and the opposition won’t lower themselves to address me via my preferred medium, no doubt due to some ill conceived idea that it’s just a little too left of middle for them, then they can go to hell. As it stands a couple of conservative right wing Christian middle aged (and that is being very generous to Howard) men have absolutely nothing to offer me, I invite them to get onto the radio station I prefer to listen to and try to convince me otherwise. Perhaps this is arrogant of me, afterall I can read the paper and watch the 730 Report, however I want them to speak to people who I believe will ask the questions that I want answers to.
And stop trying to bribe me with tax cuts, I am not greedy and I am not that easily bought. Give me a decent health care system so I don’t have to fork out for private health insurance every month (which is subsidised so more money the government diverts from public health services), give me a decent public education system so my nieces and nephews can benefit from the virtually free tertiary education I was lucky to receive (though only just), do something about the affordability of housing in this country so my nieces and nephews are not trying to poison old Aunty Em just so they can take over her house, reform the work “choices” legislation before we start sending kids down the coal mines again, offer real solutions to the problems suffered by indigenous Australians, don’t send the Army in and treat them like second class citizens, have some compassion and work with the communities, stop denying climate change, nuclear power is not the answer and most importantly offer real solutions and alternatives instead of finger pointing white anting, backbiting and childish sniping, if I wanted to hear school girls bitching at each other I would go and stand at a suburban bus stop at 330pm.
Afterall, I vote in the seat of Deakin, only a 5% swing is needed for it to fall to Labor. I’ll still be picking up the Green how to vote card on the 24th, it remains to be seen who preference 2 goes to.
Now don’t even get me started on the insidious creep of religion into Parliament House, we could be here all day. Am I the only person who thinks it is patently wrong that a conservative catholic should be our HEALTH minister?
