"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
...

again, just because most of them
don't rely
on rainfall to make a living does not make the awareness any less
acute.
(snip)

Well they know is a very, very limited sense.

well, "know" is a word with various meanings. (and then there's the biblical
sense! but let's not go there.) it really only sounds like you are cross
with them because they experience the effects of drought too but don't
suffer. should they somehow be _made_ to suffer like we suffer?!

And that sense is that
they are now talking of the need to get MORE water for Sydney. And
taking it from further and further way, like the Shoalhaven River.
The bloody Shoalhaven for God's sake!

are you mistaking the iemma govt's machinations for what literally everyone
in sydney wants? i'd hope not as i suspect they're even less popular in
sydney than elsewhere. in fact, now i'm back in nsw they represent me as
well, and i _still_ don't approve of them any more than anyone else does
(i'm just glad to be out of the sodding a.c.t.). many people come up with
many ideas concerning "what to do about" sydney. many of them are rubbish.
rarely are they backed by a critical mass of sydneysiders. like chookie
said, the presence of the dills does not mean everyone's a dill - otherwise
all the countryfolk are clearfellers, fertiliser polluters, and dickheads,
aren't they? the fact remains though that a city of 4 million people, and
the biggest in the country, is an important place which one would rather not
see turn completely to shit (and not least because the rest of us rely on
them in many, many ways for the time being).

And frankly I'm equally amazed at your inability to take on board refe
rences given to enable you to do some research and that may challenge
your generalisations (you can even access then online so don't even
have to inconvenience yourself by going outside) .

let's not be snarky. which references was i unable to take on board? the
fact you referred me to two things, and i didn't reply specifically to
those, doesn't mean much. i have an extremely long reading list & i'll get
to it. much as i would love to magick books out of thin air, i can't do
that.

why am i not allowed to speak generally, but you're allowed not only to
generalise wildly but also think your generalisations count for more?

Really? I particulalry enjoyed the one about:
"city peeps are generally better-educated and have a much broader view
of the
world, their world is just bigger than ours is"

Such a generalisation really surprised me.

clearly. you're having a great deal of trouble getting over it, i see. city
people are, proportionately, better educated (this partly includes people
who left rural areas _in order to receive_ more education not available in
their area). not least because educational facilities tend to be
concentrated in cities, where many small country towns don't even have a
high school, never mind a tafe or a uni or any private adult ed. for
example, amongst others:
http://ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia/chapter6.html
While retention rates for secondary school students, particularly girls, are
increasing, these numbers differ when examined geographically. That is,
students in remote and regional areas are more likely than those in cities
to face problems of access and limited choice as they aim to complete their
education. Residents of regional and remote Australia have consistently had
lower rates of attendance in the non-compulsory years 11 and 12 of school
and at non-school education institutions than city residents.5
Evidence from Haberkorn et. al. indicated that in 1996, average school
attendance rates of 16 year olds in non-capital city Australia were below
those for capital city Australia (76 per cent and 83 per cent respectively).
Attendance rates had remained stable over time, increasing only 0.6 per cent
across Australia between 1991 and 1996. However, in non-capital city areas,
there was a decline of 0.6 per cent in this period.6

According to Collins et al., in 1996 rural girls were only five per cent
less likely to complete school than urban girls, but the chances of rural
boys completing school were 11 per cent less than for urban boys. Girls and
boys in remote areas were both noticeably more unlikely to complete school
than their urban counterparts: 19 per cent and 16 per cent respectively'.7

Haberkorn et. al. found a negative relationship between the proportion of 16
year olds in school and the degree of remoteness. However, some care needs
to be taken in interpreting this as people aged 16 who grew up in remote
areas may have left home to continue their education.8

I know I get to the Opera
House more often than my city rels do now that the ballet dancer has
ended her career (and they only went to see her anyway, not a range of
things) and I am always amazed at how busy my city friend and rels are
but how little they actually use the benefits of the city. The
routine of daily living for them is much more restrictive on their
lifestyle than it is for the country people I know. They go to more
restaurants and movies but not to do anything useful in a cultural or
educative sense - just much more social. Lots of talk but no meat.

And when it comes to education, my (country born and bred and working)
Mechanic has 2 degrees and he's not the only country person I know who
has such surprising qualifications behind his rough exterior. I also
get a particular kick out of the very traditonal sheep farmer I know
who looks like a total hay seed and lives in the deep deep country but
who has a PhD (thesis was on sheep).


what has this to do with anything? how often your rellies go to the opera,
or how many hicks you know with phds, is really not relevent to anything i
said. if you cannot see the obviousness of a statement entailing 1: a
literal truth (that city peeps are more likely to be better educated -
they're also healthier & slimmer - do you want to argue about that too?) and
2: that the outside world is a great deal closer to, and interacted with, a
person who lives in a very big, international city which contains every
imaginable type of person from literally everywhere on earth, living cheek
by jowl in every imaginable economic and family situation, then i really
can't help you. if i want to fly to beirut or london or marrakesch tomorrow,
i think i have to go to SYDNEY first, don't you? that's the literality of
it. the figurative element is what is gained by meeting & working with &
living amongst more people, with different experiences, and having further
access to more of those people and experiences should one wish. i moved to
the city from the country at 17 & believe you me, it was a real eye-opener.
i make my claims from experience & in good faith, but even so, it's hardly
worth arguing about.

i'm NOT saying "the city is better" or "country people are all dumb" or
anything LIKE that. i'm making some observations which you've decided to get
completely off-side about, for absolutely NO reason i can fathom. what's the
problem??!
kylie