As a Liberal insider involved in ousting Santo Santoro, I can tell you it has nothing to do with philosophical, right wing or moderate views and everything to do with avoiding destructive forces. People think all politicians are “dirty” dealers; some of us are not. We have no problem with philosophical differences, but I won’t be a member of a party with Santoro anywhere near it!

It can take weeks to shoot a skateboarding video, as it’s difficult to get the shot when security guards pounce if you’re present for more than a couple of minutes. Noting that security guards seemed to ignore WYD pilgrims with skateboards, a professional skate crew signed up as pilgrims. Wearing their orange backpacks and neck tags, they were able to skate and film all over the CBD for as long as they liked.

The Rocks was not the only area hit by a downturn in business activity for WYD. My partner works at a cafe located just a stone’s throw from St Mary’s Cathedral and they had a woeful week.

It is interesting, in the light of all the news print about the Parliamentary Inquiry into Royal North Shore Hospital last year, that little has been made of the comment in the introduction to the report to parliament by that committee, that:

A culture of bullying and harassment exists in significant parts of Royal North Shore Hospital. It is also indisputable that inappropriate workplace behaviour has been allowed to thrive for several years. This has had a devastating impact on many staff members, and most likely on patients.

(Paragraph 5, page 11 (New South Wales. Parliament. Joint Select Committee on the Royal North Shore Hospital. Report on inquiry into the Royal North Shore Hospital/Joint Select Committee on the Royal North Shore Hospital. [Sydney, NSW])

The system at RNSH (I mean, at the NSCCAHS, which administers RNSH, as well as the Central Coast hospitals) has not improved, to my knowledge. Many staff are still being bullied, sidelined, ignored by the processes put in place to supposedly rectify these things, and the staff doing the bullying remain in senior positions and are promoted. The above-quoted paragraph goes on to say: “We look forward to a progress report on this matter when we receive the Government response to the recommendations in our report in six months’ time.” (that would be June, 2008) Has this progress report come to light?

The MV Cape Don, which is being kicked off its berth by NSW Maritime, is now on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels. Notification, which came on Tuesday, was a shot in the arm for the weary group of volunteers fighting the eviction order. If the ship is banished to the “dolphins” at Snails Bay, Balmain, where there is no wharf, power or fresh water, the project will die and so will a large part of Australia’s maritime history.

I have been a true fan of the .mac service for the past four years, using it to keep connected to my mail and iDisk when traveling overseas. I used to also log on at work to check my personal email. With the “upgraded” move to MobileMe another problem has become apparent. It appears that Apple is engaging in potential anticompetitive practices because when I log in at work (using MS Explorer) the welcome page states that it recommends either Firefox or Safari as the preferred browser and then provides links to download said applications. There is no opportunity to try to access the MobileMe site using Explorer. I am unable to download software on a work computer (like most employees Australia-wide), therefore the MobileMe has well and truly made me imMobileMe. For a company that prides itself on smooth operations, this is well and truly off-the-mac!