Destroying of Prejudices
Posted by:
bunyip (---.as1.adl6.internode.on.net)
Date: December 06, 2008 02:37AM
Just read this and thought what else could be put in with it. An intelligent comment from a politician, and Prime Minister at that. Kind of ruins your faith in them to be a useless pack of self serving incompetents, doesn't it.
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Rudd says bookshops temples of the soul
02:31 AEST Sat Dec 6 2008
10 hours 29 minutes ago
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described bookshops as "temples of the Australian soul" that provide ritualistic escapes from modern life.
At the official launch of Century of Pictures - Celebrating 100 Years of Herald Photography on Friday, Mr Rudd praised bookshops for successfully overcoming the assault of the digital age and finding new ways of marketing books through technology.
"Ten years ago at the height of the dot com revolution we were told about the death of books," he said.
"It hasn't quite worked out that way.
"Australians are actively buying more books than they did 10 years ago."
Mr Rudd told the audience at the launch, at Berklelouw Books in Sydney's Newtown, that as a child in the small town of Eumundi on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, he had little chance to discover the joy of books.
There was no bookstore and the school library was nothing more than a "little room at the end of the verandah", he said.
"In the Queensland that I grew up in, reading was not always encouraged, books were not always encouraged (and) intellectual pursuits were not always encouraged."
"It's good that we have today a spread of these wonderful oases of enjoyment, celebration of literature and learning spread right across the country, including my own home town," he added.
"It's good to see."
Just spending time in bookstores had become an Australian pursuit, he said, citing his family's own ritual of heading to their local Brisbane bookstore every Sunday morning.
"Having paid our respects to the Sunday morning, we would then retreat to Bulimba to Riverbend Books and spend some time there," he said.
"(It was) a place to nourish the soul ... a place where the mind can roam free and find fresh nourishment."
"It was a good ritual."
He added that he hoped that some of the federal government's $10.4 billion economic recovery strategy would find its way to Australian authors through Australian bookshops.
Century of Pictures, edited by chief photographer of The Sydney Morning Herald Mike Bowers, showcases some of the best photos published by the newspaper over the last 100 years
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But it was at a newspaper function, so any truth to the comment awaits verification as to both substance and bias. Politicians may fail in the general disregard of them, but newspapers are forever when it comes to bias, self service, deceit, and general untrustworthiness.
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A picture is worth a thousand words. A chocolate is worth a thousand pictures.