Sick

I am sick. I'll write more soon, when my throat is no longer on fire.

GTAH #1

This is the first post in a new, occasional series called Great Things About Heather (GTAH). Every now and then, I'll describe a great thing about Heather. There is no particular order, so don't assume a hierarchy.

GTAH #1: Heather is extremely patient, and she also likes to explain stuff. These are great qualities because it means she always catches me up when I've missed part of a television program. The scenario usually goes like this: I come into the living room ten minutes after Law and Order has started. I probably don't have a particularly good reason for missing the first part of the show.

'What's going on?' I ask.

'This chick's husband is dead,' Heather tells me.

'Oh. Shot?'

'Yeah, two times in the head. Point-blank range. A jogger found him in some bushes in a park the next morning.'

'Did the wife do it?'

'Don't know yet. Could've been anyone. The guy was a right-to-lifer, protested outside abortion clinics all the time. He apparently had some run-ins with an abortion doctor, and with pro-choicers. But I get the feeling things weren't quite right with the wife, so it could've been her, too. Mariska's going to interview the abortion doctor next.'

'Ahh.'

And that's how it goes. Heather gives me her summary, and we get on with watching the show. And she's never, ever said to me, 'Why don't you watch the damn thing from the start, instead of asking me to explain all the time?'

Back to the future

Yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australians are getting re-married more often. Where once multiple marriages were generally the domain of celebrities, now it fairly common for Australians to marry three times. 'Between 1989 and 2003, these unions increased by 55 per cent nationally' the paper reports, and 'there were close to 10 000 ceremonies' where one partner was entering a third mariage. And I can't even get married to a woman once!

In another article, the paper reports that a third of all Australians are idiots. Well, that's effectively what it reports when it tells us that one third of Australians think that homosexuality is 'immoral'. The article was accompanied by a bar graph which depicted survey respondents' opinions on the issue according to their religion (and non-religion). Baptists, it appears, hate us the most, with 75% of Baptist men and about 63% of Baptist women believing that homosexuality is immoral. Overall, about 26% of women and 43% of men agree that it is immoral. The results come from a recently-released survey of almost 25000 people by the Australia Institute. The article also discussed what many academics believe to be an increasing conservatism within Australian society -- not only with regard to sexuality, but across the board.

I don't know what to say about all this. I just wanted to share the bad news, I suppose. And to say that I'm apprehensive, as well. How many steps backward can our society take?