Bringing them home
CONGRATULATIONS yet again to the pilots and crew of Flight QF30 for bringing the disabled plane in safely to land without a loss of life.
The Qantas record still holds they have never lost a life on a passenger jet aircraft. It's still the world's safest airline. Well done.
Jane Chapman, Latham
Way off on water
IN HIS latest piece (''Haste and lack of thought in carbon pollution plan'', The Canberra Times, July 24, p19) of anti-Rudd bucolic buffoonery, David Barnett states the Snowy scheme has taken water from the Murray-Darling system to generate power.
Hello! What planet does Barnett live on? As every primary school student knows, the Snowy scheme was devised primarily to put water into the Murray-Darling system.
It has never taken a drop out of it. Power generation was always a secondary consideration, and in any case generating hydro-electricity (anywhere) does not take water out of the system. It merely utilises the potential energy of the water as it falls from a high level to a lower level. But the same amount always comes out at the bottom as goes in at the top.
Haste and lack of thought?
Roger Quarterman, Campbell
Oil crisis on our heads
WHEN JOHN Howard, backed by the Liberal and National parties of Australia, joined US President George W. Bush's coalition of the willing and invaded Iraq, they reduced the flow of oil from Iraq to a trickle. The huge proven oil reserves in Iraq have remained untouched since that time. It is only recently that Iraq has again started issuing licences for the establishment of new oil wells.
The world has needed this oil reserve to be tapped and used as a buffer to rising oil prices until alternatives such as gas can be bought on line.
In the present Federal Parliament we find Liberals such as Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull and others endeavouring to paint themselves as white knights in shining armour over the pricing of fuel, yet they are all to be blamed as part of the problem for backing the invasion of Iraq.
Bill Wallace, Ayr, QLD
Happiness is served
VIRGINIA Hausegger discusses evidence that happiness levels plummet when we become parents (''It's child's play: we're happier without pitter patter of little feet'', The Canberra Times, July 26, pB7). Many will agree with the comment of Steve Biddulph that this idea demonstrates a shallow understanding of the word happy.
True happiness can only be discovered over a lifetime of service and self sacrifice in love towards others, especially children.
If we have no children of our own then we may find other children who need love and nurturing.
Olive Schreiner, the South African novelist, put it well when she wrote: ''Happiness is a great love and much serving.''
Robert Willson, Deakin
Lack of Timor aid a shame
IT IS a crying shame that wealthy Australia has reserved in Australian medical schools a mere eight placements for poverty-stricken Timorese students while far-flung Cuba has offered the Timorese 700 such places.
All this despite the fact that East Timor is Australia's next-door neighbour and the poorest Asian nation on earth.
As a Portuguese-Australian, I believe it's high time that Australia does something concrete in return for the military help the noble Timorese gave to our diggers and other servicemen and women during World War II.
Failure to render assistance to the tiny nation of Timor will result in her seeking help from other more generous nations like Cuba, China, Japan, Korea, Portugal, etc. This in turn will lead to Timor's quitting our sphere of interest.
Martinho de Souza, Giralang
What's in a name?
I PRESUME the recently announced roadworks will be called the Gungahlin Drive Extension Extension?
Gordon Fyfe, Kambah
Roads to nowhere
CRISPIN Hull says that finally making Gungahlin Drive into a decent freeway is a big waste of time (''Leading all roads to Civic is dense policy down fiasco drive'', The Canberra Times, July 26, B7).
He says that the answer is to locate more government departments out where the people are: in Tuggeranong and Gungahlin. He's right. It would help stop the city centre from becoming even more of a transport choke-point.
But, paradoxically, decentralising employment actually requires more and better freeways and ring roads, like Gungahlin Drive, be built.
People don't live where they work. Even if some do initially, they don't when they've been promoted a couple of times or changed employer.
They've all found local friends, like the way they've done the house and the kids love the school. So they'll live where they live and drive the plug-in hybrid to work.
Way over on the other side of town. On the freeway.
Tom Waring, Ainslie
On your bike
SINCE petrol and diesel are bad for the environment, perhaps Chief Minister Jon Stanhope should close the one-lane Gungahlin Drive Extension to motor vehicles and turn it into a bicycle freeway.
Kenneth Griffiths, O'Connor
Get with the AFL
THE PUSH to bring an AFL team to Canberra is never going to be successful for a number of reasons.
A reason that is never mentioned, but a powerful one nevertheless, is the lack of Australian rules culture so evident in the capital's sports journalist community.
References to an umpire as a ''referee'' and the ball going ''into touch'' when it is out of bounds are still to be heard.
However, nothing makes the teeth grind more for a Baby Boomer Aussie rules diehard expatriote from Melbourne than to hear the scores incessantly given as a total points score, like a game of basketball or soccer.
There's no indication of the goals kicked, which fails to reflect the flow of the game.
How about trying to get with the true AFL culture? That way, a few more supporters might be won over.
John Bell, Lyneham
A case of etiquette
WE WERE appalled at the rudeness of concert patrons at the Canberra Symphony Orchestra's July 24 concert.
There are sometimes perfectly good reasons why lateness cannot be avoided.
However, as Llewellyn Hall management should know, it is concert protocol that patrons are not admitted to the auditorium once any concert has started.
Last Thursday evening, the start of the performance had to stop to allow patrons to walk, audibly, to their seats, thus breaking the concentration needed for any live performance.
Full credit must go to the conductor, orchestra and soloist for starting the performance again with such professional aplomb.
It is not the fault of the ushers, rather the lack of training of concert etiquette on the part of management.
Jan Sutherst, Isaacs