Webber

It’s underway….

His classic one-on-one win against Johanissen in the GF, getting in front and keeping JJ away from the ball was worth the Premiership medal all on its own. Love that stuff.

I reckon the one to Gawn in last quarter Rd 23 was ok.

https://www.theaflstore.com.au/products/at-last-the-pictorial-history-of-melbournes-2021-afl-premiership?variant=39531193303086&currency=AUD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkquOj67N8wIVChsrCh1HRwtkEAYYASABEgI8kvD_BwE this looks good….

Was at both the semi-final and elimination final flogging. After making the finals for the first time in twenty years, it was like they were on drugs against North. Biggest shellacking I’ve seen live, final or no, and a huge Dees-happy crowd. Wonderful stuff. Almost as good as you know what!

We would have gone into the GF limping, at least 3 players down, including Robbie, and got absolutely belted. Much like ‘88, but different opponent.

Just think of it as a necessary evolution of your MFCSS, Andy.

Great wrap-up gents. How good is podcasting and listening during a premiership year?!!!

Or Stephen Tingay for me. Three great no. 2’s of my lifetime.

I prefer the ‘spins’. More skilful. I also used to practise these ‘blind turns’ in the backyard in the 70’s. Mine weren’t quite as good.

My hope is, RBG, to have prints of various sizes, thus various prices, and hopefully some economy of scale. Stay tuned.

I completely agree Jara. Maybe it’s not just lacking the guts, but perhaps the ability/leadership to convince the Australian people of a need to reverse the ‘shrink’, as you say. Look at the negative gearing shambles from the last election. Couldn’t be a better way to address an egregious advantage to the wealthy than getting rid of negative gearing. What happened? Labour lost the election, got spooked, and have dropped it. Is that an inability to prosecute the case, or a lack of courage? Both maybe?

Fair enough, too.

If you blow-up the head peaking out between Max and Jack, it’s blue. So I think it has to be Gus’s helmet?

As some of you will know, I have a side-hustle as an artist/painter. I’ve decided the first of a likely Dees triptych will be a painting of this from the Prelim. Captain and Vice-captain, legacy (Todd) and reinvention (Maxy). Brotherhood, team commitment (small bloke launching big bloke), layers of meaning everywhere! Will be in a fully realist style (with artistic licence on background, removal of sponsor labelling, etc,) acrylic on canvas, and large (likely ~ 48 inches high). If I get enough expressions of interest on here, I’ll have prints made and available for purchase. Let me know…

I might just review Mark Maclure’s assessment of it, and the Dees utter lack of hope and potential 😎.

Likewise. Can only hope they get a clear run at it without Covid interruptions. Have been to a few, and the atmosphere is truly wonderful…..family centred with young girls kicking footies, wholly invested like only boys used to be seen/allowed. A brilliant testament to the health and future of the game. A game a week it is then…..

Opening = go hard on vaccine mandates for employability (even harder than currently), hard on vax certificate mandates for any public engagement/entertainment, and bring forward the date for gathering in homes to 70% double vaxxed, i.e. personal discretion with responsibility. For Covid I’d do nothing different in the short term, cos we’re almost there, but then I’d make aggressive long term investments in health care/quarantine facilities, which means infrastructure, staffing (increase intakes for all health care by improving professional attractions) and medical research.

Big question BB! Can’t avoid a political answer. As someone with a single vote, I will continue to use it as best I know to reinforce a philosophy and practise of social responsibility. If I were someone looking for votes, I would want to aggressively address wealth inequality - taxes, regulation, and move Australia back toward free comprehensive health-care, education at all levels, basically a social democracy as we see practised elsewhere in the world. That’s just me, though. Too much?

Certainly was. Post-war, in fact post-polio in the 1950’s, our infrastructural pandemic response was high. Fairfield Hospital as @Premiers has mentioned, and Point Nepean quarantine facility to mention two now non-existent entities. Without getting too political (though it’s not really possible), the Kennett years savaged Victoria’s public health protections. Labour governments as you say haven’t had anywhere near the guts to repair it. NSW avoided the Kennett effect. The broader trend is post-war neo-liberalism’s erosion of governmental responsibility for health. The rise of Private Health, which creates a horribly ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ system in itself (just look at the US), together with growing societal wealth disparity simply means we have an under-resourced, hierarchical system of health provision and protection. COVID should be the biggest wake-up call. I’m not hopeful. We can, as you also say, vote for a correction. But we need the choice to be offered. Depressing. As a positive, the paramedic student I treated was attracted to the profession only because of a complete overhaul of pay and conditions, which people may remember was such a hot union issue a few years ago (ambulances with ‘graffiti’ calling for improvements?). They now get 12 weeks annual holiday, protections on the job through better staffing, mental health care, etc. They are an essential Public Health Service that was being run into the ground by economic deprivation and staff exploitation. Oddly enough, it’s now seen as a much more attractive profession. Would that this model be applied universally, and those who hoard an ever-greater slice of the wealth pie be a MUCH bigger part of footing the bill. We’ll see.

Interesting point. Sounds good. The AstraZeneca vax is of course partlyrelated/piggybacked on flu vax technology.

My first graduate job was at Fairfield. Fantastic place, wonderful people. The ‘economics’ of de-institutionalisation defeated it.

Agree entirely. The problem is that this requires enormous investment (18 months was never enough time to bridge the gap, but I agree the process should have been fast-tracked regardless), which must be sourced from the populous. Tax levies must be increased to pay for a more expansive system, wages and conditions for health-workers must be improved to attract them. I’m happy to pay for this. Do you think our governments (all) have the stomach for selling this to the public at large?

The health system doesn’t have the workforce, LH. It is currently stretched beyond graduate professional limits.

That’s not a ‘most likely’, it’s an absolute. As per influenza, it will circulate, evolve and mutate whilst it has humans to infect. Vax or no, it’s never going away. As for the flu, but more compellingly obviously, and government mandated to various degrees around the world, we will require vax boosters for the remainder of our lives. These will improve, so it may end up as every 3 years or such like. Treatments for the disease will and already are improving. There is currently a trial growing through its last stage that decreases symptom potency by 50%, thus hospital admission/ventilator support and death. I find it frustrating to re-iterate the point, because it’s so poorly reasoned and understood, particularly by the ‘just open up’ crowd, but the reason we are locked down is very simple. Greater infection rates means greater numbers who become ill. A high enough percentage of those who become ill need hospitalisation and OUR hospital infrastructure becomes overwhelmed. Not enough beds, not enough staff (who can become ill themselves and thus leave the workforce - temporarily and some permanently), and not enough equipment. What comes next is the salient point. ALL those illnesses, injuries and diseases that would normally have access to hospitalisation and care CAN’T then be treated. This could and will be any one of us. Heart disease, life-threatening cancers, broken limbs, everything then gets neglected, and our fabulously privileged, otherwise healthy society suddenly becomes not so. Knock-on effect of COVID. Two recent stories. Last week I treated a final year paramedic student. She has for the last 3 months been seconded to a vaccination hub, to be a vaccinator, in order that nurses who would normally get the gig are allowed back into the hospitals, because they are desperately short-staffed. Remember, she is a student. Knock-on effect of COVID. I witnessed a car accident outside my double vaxxed 96 year-old mother’s house just yesterday. Two cars, one driver ok, the other trapped in his van. I went to help, he was incredibly distressed and agitated, desperately trying to get out of his van, which was smoking, trying impossibly to crawl out his shattered window. I couldn’t get any doors open, so tried to keep him calm whilst someone else called the ambo. He appeared relatively unharmed, no blood, able to move all limbs although his right arm was in spasm. He was clearly in shock, and couldn’t tell me his name, or in fact speak at all. He then lifted his cap to show me a broad surgical scar along his forehead. I asked if he’d suffered a previous head-injury, to which he calmly affirmed with a nod. He became easier to settle after this. Within ~ 10 minutes of the crash the paramedics arrived, two minutes later the fire-engine, who wrenched open his door with a portable machine (clearly built for such things). He was assisted out and into the ambulance. This is simply spectacular emergency attendance and care. It’s what we’ve come to rely on. This would not happen if COVID is allowed to overwhelm the system. Let’s assume he’d suffered his pre-existing head injury from trauma, or perhaps cerebral incident - tumour, bleed. He obviously survived whatever this was, and has thrived, undoubtedly because he was treated in a timely fashion - AS AND WHEN IT WAS NEEDED. All of this goes away if COVID runs our health system beyond its limits. We are lucky, and privileged. We have two simple choices to keep it that way. Get vaccinated, and do what the experts tell us to limit infection. The light is at the end of the tunnel.