Our Australian Aborigines own Uluru and its surrounds, formerly known as Ayers Rock, and lease it back to our Federal Government and it is jointly managed by the local aborigines and Parks Australia. If you haven't seen what the monolith looks like, Jackie in Toronto has a good photo taken when she and her husband visited. It's also like an iceberg with much of the rock below ground level. While we have the honour of having the largest monolith in the world, Mount Augustus not Uluru, Uluru is pretty damn large.
As of yesterday, Friday, climbing the rock will be banned, some time after the local aborigines requested people to not climb their sacred rock. Also, 37 people have died while climbing the rock and many more have been injured. Meanwhile today, there is a long queue to make the climb. My view? It's their rock and if they don't want people to climb it, so be it. It isn't the end of the world, but some people have a very different view. Some things are best admired from a distance. The Ponte Vecchio is perhaps not so interesting to walk across but how wonderful viewed with some distance.
I have not seen the rock because I have never really wanted to. I liken it the joyful surprise in finding out how wonderful Barcelona, Lisbon and Porto are as I knew little about them before visiting them. I've grown up knowing Uluru by photos, documentaries, travel shows and descriptions. Majestic as it is, I don't think I would find it too surprising.
Another matter here that went off like a bomb this week was stoked by a simple cartoon by the at times controversial Michael Leunig.
I think it rather depends who you are talking about. Is it the young blonde women who lunches and shops in High Street Armadale with a baby in a carriage that might cost as much a motor bike, often seen in the streets pushing a pram at speed in exercise clothing and glued to her phone? Or is it the new mother in the outer suburbs feeling socially isolated and friendless apart from the connections she has via her phone?
If the job of a satirical cartoonist is to cause controversy, Leunig did a good job, especially with setting off war between the nodding in agreement Baby Boomers against the defensive Gen X and Y. What a hoot! Of course when daddy looks at his phone, it is only for really important reasons, like sports scores and photos of naked women.