(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

I have an exceptionally crap letter to the editor in today's Herald. Usually I write about something of importance!

Andrew Partos (Letters, June 20) makes an excellent point: cities that fail to manage their water needs cannot survive. However, the Aztecs managed their water carefully, using canoes to transport fresh water and sewage, and building an aqueduct almost five kilometres long. Their great cities were still flourishing when Cortes arrived.

ETA: A much better letter describes the Howard government as a "mob of grotty alley cats".

Comments

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

Funny, I never pegged you as a fan of the Wonder Twins.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Well sure, Jayna and Zan were cool.

[kitzen-kat.livejournal.com]

The govt is nowhere near as cool as a mob of grotty alley cats. They only wish!

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

I love that you referenced the Aztecs, Kate! I saw that letter this morning. Pity you didn't sign it, "Author of The Left-Handed Hummingbird."

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

The Mexica are on my mind at the mo, as I'm writing something Aztec for BF's The History of Christmas.

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

Ooh, cool!

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

The comment is an insult to all grotty alley cats everywhere!

The Howard Government is the political equivalant of the MRSA virus. Tough, infects everything in sight and extremely hard to get rid of.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

It's only going to compound my know-it-all credentials if I point out that MRSA is a bacterium and not a virus. :-) (Despite which, what a brilliant analogy. >:-)

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Oops. And me a medical librarian.

Then again, Nursing Times refered to it as a virus (that's where I heard about it). And they are the top Nursing magazine in The British Isles.

(and if you're wondering why I'm reading a British nursing mag, it because my library subscribes to the thing, and guess who has to prepare it for table of contents email distribution?)

Thank you for the compliment :)

[kylaw.livejournal.com]

That letter's gorgeous, Kate. And proof that no learning is ever wasted!

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

The embarrassing thing is, I thought Lake Texcoco was freshwater. I had to go and look all that stuff up!

[cherrypep.livejournal.com]

"mob of grotty alley cats"? Excellent work.

Off-topic, this of course reinforces the prejudiced view of Aussie politics maintained by those of us who read Bryson's enjoyably nutty ramblings about Australia :-)

I quote:

Australians have the best and most entertaining parliamentary debates anywhere. American and even British TV news coverage would be vastly enlivened if it provided a nightly report from Australia's parliamentary chambers. You wouldn't have to explain what it was all about - it generally surpasses understanding anyway - but just allow the audience to savour the rich thrust and parry of Australian insult.

In his book Among the Barbarians, the Australian writer Paul Sheehan records an exchange in Parliament between a man named Wilson Tuckey and the then Prime Minister Paul Keating of which the following is a small part:

Tuckey: 'You are an idiot. You are just a hopeless nong...'
Keating: 'Shut up! Sit down and shut up, you pig... Why do you not shut up, you clown? ... This man has a criminal intellect... this clown continues to interject in perpetuity.'

This was actually a fairly tame exchange for the linguistically versatile Mr Keating. Among the epithets that have taken flight from his tongue during the course of public debate, and are to be found gracing the pages of whatever is the Australian equivalent of Hansard, have been scumbags, pieces of criminal garbage, sleazebags, stupid foul-mouthed grubs, pissants, mangy maggot, perfumed gigolos, gutless spivs, boxheads, immoral cheats, and stunned mullets. Not all parliamentary invective is quite so ripe, but it is nearly all pretty good.

Bryson's book gives you the distinct impression that the Slitheen should have tried landing in Canberra, actually.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

the Slitheen should have tried landing in Canberra

Bwa ha ha ahahahah!