DON’T PUT YOUR CART BEFORE THE HORSE

Unfortunately, unlike naked runners outside hotels, there was no camera available for this next story. We recently heard of an incident in Ballarat that proved that this saying can come true.

In Sebastapol recently a car turning in from Gillies Lane onto the Glenelg Highway had one of those rare events only performed by dickheads.

The driver was towing a fairly hefty load of fencing supplies in his 6 x 4 when a strange an unsettling noise came from behind his vehicle. A few moments later a trailer laden down with fencing supplies crossed over on to the other side of the carriageway and proceeded to overtake the towing vehicle. The trailer had been carefully balanced as with a water-vessel so it continued on down the road for about 200 metres before the draw bar lowered itself to the road, leaving a coxcomb of sparks behind it, and brought the trailer to a stop a further 200 Metres down the road conveniently on the nature strip.

Fortunately for the very surprised driver there were no cars coming the other way. The driver in the car behind pulled over to assist . He described the event as the trailer rounded the corner.

“The trailers’ rear rose up as the towbar lifted off the ball and then slowly lowered itself to a level position and followed the towing car in its tracks. You moved into the left lane but the trailer did not and at that point the safety chain snapped and the trailer was free to follow its own path. Even I was surprised when it overtook you” said the witness “it looked like a horseless Roman Chariot race”.

The driver had been contemplating a Pit Manouvre if any vehicles came the other way but it was not necessary. The moral of the story is to check and double check that your balls are secure before towing anything.

Mark Apollo

THE LINTON WORLD OF CORKS

What does one do with old reduntant buildings in Linton now that the CFA has moved to their spacious new lodgings just South of town.

Well, something we don’t have is a proper Museum. The Historical Society has a small museum with a limited collection of artifacts related to the town but these societies are plentiful in the general scheme of things and too be honest, although of great interest, has all the excitement of a carpet remnant showroom.

No. We need something totally unique.

In Australia we have so many ‘World Of …..’ . Every possible object or idea has been thought about it is hard to find something totally different. In in all my research however I have yet to find a ‘World of Corks’. That’s right, new ones, old ones, used ones and artwork made from them. In this day and age of screwtops, ring pulls and poppers the use of corks is becoming less common. Only in the rarified atmosphere of the best wines and champagnes - those that average around $2 per.grape - are corks still in vogue,

The idea that Linton could be the central suppository of all things cork is a valid one. As time progresses the younger generation will appreciate the wonder of this natural product and a suggestion that a Cork Tree actually be planted with the collection. The museum proper could display corks from bottles and some that still intact as a demonstration of their flexibility. Other exhibitions could demonstrate cork flooring, walls and ceilings, cork boards with pins, and duck bird corks the type used to prevent ducks from sinking. We might even be able to demonstrate the use of burnt corks in a daily Black and White Minstrel Show. A demonstration of removing corks from bottles with cutlasses and teeth, the possibilities are endless.

This idea has so much potential that the Astonisher has already started by donating 736 different used corks from red wine bottles and 201 from sparkling wine including Champagne and Porphry Pearl. So with nearly a thousand bottle corks we are almost ready to start putting them on display.

We are now looking to recruit several of the towns artistic community capable of creating unique works of art from cork. Any volunteers?

IDEAS BOX

Almost every country property I know has a spare bathtub floating around the yard. For kids that don’t like to bathe it’s an ideal spot for it to be as they do tend to splash water everywhere.. But is the bathtub being used?

If you like worms then why not turn it into a Worm Farm. Here are the basic things you need and you can Google whatever else you need to know.

Lay 10cm of gravel or stones on the bottom of the tub while at the same time fitting a Colander over the plughole to keep the drain hole clear. Cover this with a small layer of mesh to ensure water is roughly filtered. Add a layer of wet coir and straw. Add worms and then cover with aged horse manure. Regularly add green materials (semi-composted greens, horse, sheep, and rabbit poo. Here’s a chance to use Mum’s blender and churn it all up into a gloopy mess like your cereal dish at breakfast time and you’ll find that the worms really like it slushy.

When the tub is full, remove worms, clean out to the gravel of garden loving worm castings (poo) and start again. Keep moist but not wet.

If you notice lots of other creepy crawlies muscling in on the act then dust with lime or supervise ducks to clean up the surface.

Ants? Smear Vaseline around edges and legs. The baths legs - not yours. Keep covered with shade cloth or similar porous but dark materials (e.g Hessian) Do not feed with acids (tomato, onion, etc)

Malcolm Turnbull and his five friends

THE EFFECT OF LEGALISED ABORTION ON CRIME AND THE COMMUNITY

Sometimes referred to as the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis is the theory that legal abortion reduces crime. Those who promote this theory generally argue that children who are unwanted or whose parents cannot, or are incapable, of caring for them are more likely to become criminals and that it is theorised that the availablity of abortion has supposedly an observable effect on crime.

The counter arguement of the anti-abortion lobby is that the termination of a faetus is in itself a crime, especially in those states that believe that God is the only decision maker. There is an arguement that in countries where abortion is legal has reduced crime but opponets argue that data is data is date and proves nothing and that reduced crime comes about in other ways.

There have been no studies in Australia to argue either way and generally we accept that women have the right to make decisions about their own body wether it be tits, tattoos or terminations.

There was a study in 1972 in the United States (that’s more than a generation ago) that was able to prove that the children of women denied an abortion turned out to have been, with a control group, registered more often with psychiatric services, engaged in more anti-social and criminal behaviour and more likely to be on ‘public assistance’ for much of their life.This study argued that the social cost to society economically far outweighed the cost of allowing termination even if paid for from the public purse.

Even earlier studies in Sweden in1966 which looked at the long term data from 188 women denied abortions between 1939 and 1941. They compared these unwanted children to another group, the next child born after each of the unwanted babies, as a control group.

What they found was the unwanted children were more likely to grow up in adverse conditions, such as having divorced parents or being raised in alternate care, including extended family and in the worst case scenarios as a Ward of the State. Their liklihood of becoming delinquent, drug dependent and engaged in crime was about double that of the control group brought up under normal societal conditions of that time
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In the Roe vs Wade case, which is still a highly charged arguement in the America, where abortion was made legal federally but then subject to the laws of individual states, has resulted in a hodge-podge of laws either side of imaginary geographical lines. Their arguement was ‘too many social and private problems occured bringing a child into a family already unable to, financially or psychologically, care for it.’

The on-the-run decision making by Trump that women who have abortions should be punished is absolutely mysogenistic, one hopes he doesn’t get to the Whitehouse even as an aide.