Courage
COURAGE in politics is a rare quality.
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John Howard displayed it when he took on gun control. Julia Gillard displayed it when she suspended live cattle exports.
More recently, Mike Baird demonstrated that same quality when he took on and shut down the greyhound industry in NSW.
Cowardice is always easier than courage and sadly both major parties in Tasmania have demonstrated the latter in their response to the greyhound industry here.
The price of cowardice in this instance is more unnecessary suffering and "wastage" of innocent creatures.
Unnecessary suffering is just that: unnecessary.
Whether it is human suffering on Manus Island or animals used for entertainment, it must stop.
Peter Ronald, Steglitz.
Diabetes
Hassanah Wilkinson (The Examiner, August 24) wonders what happened to the word “sugar” in the term “sugar diabetes” .
Diabetes is a word of Greek via Latin derivation, and refers to the last amount of urine passed in one of two diseases: the rare diabetes insipidus (insipid) of the pituitary gland, and the different but much more common diabetes mellitus, from the Latin “sweet”, which refers to the presence of sugar in the urine.
So if one wants to be pedantic one should really talk about “diabetes mellitus” and not just “diabetes.”
John J. Ball (Dr), Launceston.
Same-Sex Marriage
Michael Scott (The Examiner, August 22) makes his point in a denigrating manner “I really don’t understand what same-sex marriage homosexuals hope to achieve…” and “They should just stop wasting taxpayers’ money”.
A large number of the people who support marriage equality are heterosexual; we simply believe that everyone has the right to marry under the same conditions.
I wonder what Mr Scott fears, and how the bringing of happiness to so many could possibly have a negative impact on his life?