Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Rosalie Update

Thursday, July 13, Courier Mail page 4. "Final bell tolls for embattled school"
This is the story about the decision to close. Catholic Education Council Chair Sister Mary McDonald says "it would be unfair to [the students] and the staff to continue to run the College with such a low number of children."

Old Boys' president Joe Nowak describes the decision as a 'disgrace' and the Our Rosa Committee people get a few paragraphs.

Friday, July 14, Courier Mail page 4. "School vows to fight"
"Angry parents of Marist College Rosalie boys have accused the Catholic Church of closing the school to sell the land — prime Brisbane real estate worth tens of millions of dollars."

"[The Catholic Education Council] cited a steady decline in student enrolments during the past five years for the closure.

"But incensed parents say the Catholic Church is compromising their children's education for money."

"The school site at Rosalie, in Brisbane's west, is estimated to be worth $35 million."

**both the above stories had several colour photos.**

Saturday, July 15, Courier Mail page 10. "Parents say they are losing options"
"The days of affordable Catholic secondary education near home were over for many families, parents of Marist Brothers Rosalie students said yesterday."

Small article about how parents would have to send their kids to — shock, horror — State School or pay double the fees to send 'em to a posher Catholic school, and for some of them "schools like Terrace are out of our reach".

Monday, July 17, Courier Mail page 9. "Tears run as Rosa closes"
Poor old Harry Mitchell, 11, won't get to go to Rosalie "in the footsteps" of his two older brothers.

"[Executive director of Brisbane Catholic Education, David] Hutton, a former old boy of the school himself, has denied parents' accusations the school is being sold for the land worth tens of millions of dollars."

Monday, July 17, Courier Mail letters to the editor. "Closure just doesn't add up"
There are four letters in the block on the right-hand page under the cartoon. All are negative, but it wouldn't be hard to find four negative letters on any issue if that's the angle they wanted to play. One of the letters points out that "land in the Pine Rivers area is being made available for a primary to Year 12 Catholic school at North Lakes. One wonders where the money for this will come from."

La Valla
There were also a couple of nights' worth of stories on the local news. The first night both of these had a bit about some old boy ex-international football player whose ashes are scattered at La Valla and they mentioned it would be sold as well (hence the tearful widow.) But the newspaper didn't mention it anywhere.

I took a drive out there a couple of months ago — yes, along part of the walk-a-thon route — and it's a little more developed now out in that part of Fig Tree Pocket. Most notably, the side of the road directly across from the fields has massive houses on it. It's not hard to see that development expanding very quickly. And remember, the fields go on forever: I'm not sure where the property line is but if you've ever been forced to run the cross-country (and I think we all have) you'll know it's a big big piece of land.

[END]

This month's Air Show Disaster


Air show jet crashes in Hillsboro neighborhood

[END]

Weekend Football Update


The Queensland Roar lost 2-1 to Sydney in a pre-season cup match at Carrara. We didn't see the winning goal because we were walking back to our car to avoid the rush that would come 5 minutes later. Still, as Boycat's Mum said, at least we didn't stay to watch Queensland lose the match and then get trapped in the carpark for half an hour. You don't really see the perpetual drizzle in the photo above, but we don't complain about rain here in South-East Queensland.

Taringa Rovers beat Brisbane City 3-0 to go back up to fourth in the Brisbane Premier League.

The Souths-Logan Magpies lost a close one to Easts, 20-16, putting them in seventh place in the Qld Cup but they're two-and-a-half wins (5 points) out of the five. This is about the best they've ever done, though.

[END]

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Bye Bye Rosa

Rosalie is closing at the end of 2008.

[END]

World Cup Wrap

The Guardian has printed an article where about 10 people gave their opinions on some topics (best this, worst that, Jericho this, crucify that, etc.)

Here - after a bit of mathematical manipulation - are their findings:

(They're British/English, so that explains some of the results in the 'worst' categories.)

Best Player: Cannavaro by a landslide.

Worst Player: 1. Frank Lampard, 2. Ronaldinho - obviously most of them took this to mean 'biggest let down', although Zeljko Kalac got a nomination.

Biggest Joy: 1. Cambiasso's Goal, 2. Ghana.

Best Match: 1. Portugal - Holland, 2. Australia - Croatia, 3. Argentina - Mexico, 4. Italy - Germany

Worst Match: 1. Switzerland - Ukraine, 2. Anything with England playing

Team of the Cup (4-4-2):
Starting Eleven:

Buffon (GC)
Zambrotta
Lahm
Cannavaro (Capt.)
Marquez
Pirlo
Rodriguez
Riquelme
Zidane
Klose
Torres

Substitutes:
Lehmann (GC)
Edwards
Grosso
Ferdinand
Miguel
Kaka
Ribery
C Ronaldo
Ronaldo
Henry
Crespo
Ricardo (GC)

I had to make some choices here about who to use as a substitute. There were so many votes for the run on full-backs that I had to use players who had only received one vote for the subs. So Rio Ferdinand gets the gig by virtue of playing for Man U. If I didn't have to stick to people nominated by the writers, I'd pick Lucas Neill.

It was the same with the strikers: Klose, Torres and Henry got most of the votes, leaving a few single votes.

Ricardo only got one vote, too, but you have three keepers in your squad of 23. I'm not sure of the proportions of the other players you'd have in a squad, though.

[END]

The Last Rights of Syd Barrett*

Syd's Dead.

*title of a Slaughterhouse Joe song, circa 1988.

[END]

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Rosalie

The fight to save Rosalie has hit the papers.

Actually, there was a small story a week or so ago - I think they've found someone to do P.R. - that I didn't mention because I didn't think it would be online, but this one is fairly big and on a right-hand page.

[END]