
Courier spares us grisly details


Courier spares us the grisly details
The Courier-Mail earlier this week brought us the latest charming
installment in the life of Fredo the peregrine falcon who's family
live on the rooftop of Admiralty Towers One apartment block in
downtown Brisbanal.
That's him on the left of the Courier's picture, with his two
new hatchlings and the missus, Frieda.
It was a charming little story that pointed out that Frieda was
far from impressed with the "three fresh kills: that Frodo
had brought home for the family dinner.
And thus the reason for this month's column.
It appears that the original story included a paragraph saying
exactly what those "fresh kills" were. Now while there
are probably a lot of readers who would be interested in reading
what peregrine falcons find rather yummy, someone at the Courier
decided that the paper's younger readers didn't need to know that
the killing machine we now know as Frodo Krueger will get his
talons into just about anything that moves.
This includes sweet little pigeons, some miner species or other,
and we're only guessing here, but someone's pet budgie.
So we at The Bug reckon that if Reality TV is all the go, let's
hope that the Courier in future will be a little more up front
with life in the wild..
More than that, we're keeping our fingers crossed that the following
headlines might appear sooner than later.
"Frodo kills Frieda, eats chicks in vicious attack"
and
"Child's eyeball found in Frodo's nest"
Finally, some news you may have missed....
There's a fair chance you wouldn't have read this story in
most other newspapers, so your family Bug decided to bring you
the news.
A recent AAP report said a Rupert Murdoch-owned company had lost
its appeal against an order by the Australian Industrial Relations
Commission ordering the reinstatement of printers sacked for drinking
on the job.
The four printers, working for Nationwide News at Chullora in
Sydney, were dismissed in mid-2002 after being caught on video
drinking beer during work hours.
The full bench of the AIRC found that while the company had a
valid reason to dismiss the printers, it also found the sackings
were "harsh" given the length of service of the four
printers and the lack of previous warnings about their behaviour.
While The Bug believes bosses who act harshly and sack people
without warning deserve to lose such cases.
But, we also think the printers themselves must share the blame
for the predicament in which they found themselves.
They shouldn't have been working for an American in the first
place - especially when there are so many media employers to choose
from in Australia.