Quirk of history
In 1945, an American marine biologist called Joel Hedgpeth became the founder and sole member of the Society for the Prevention of Progress. He rejected all membership applications, on the basis that “growth in members would represent progress”.
That was one warped mind, and talking of minds, I like the thinking here 
Outside the door,
lurking in the shadows,
is a terrorist.
Is that the wrong description?
Outside that door,
taking shelter in the shadows,
is a freedom fighter.
I haven’t got this right .
Outside, waiting in the shadows,
is a hostile militant.
Are words no more
than waving, wavering flags?
Outside your door,
watchful in the shadows,
is a guerrilla warrior.
God help me.
Outside, defying every shadow,
stands a martyr.
I saw his face.
No words can help me now.
Just outside the door,
lost in shadows,
is a child who looks like mine.
One word for you.
Outside my door,
his hand too steady,
his eyes too hard
is a boy who looks like your son, too.
I open the door.
Come in, I say.
Come in and eat with us.
The child steps in
and carefully, at my door,
takes off his shoes.
He could have joined the UK Tory party.
The western border of NSW and Victoria with South Australia was supposed to be on the 141° line of Longitude. Unfortunately the Victorian surveyor’s watch was 2 minutes out so the border at the junction of NSW and Victoria (the southern bank of the Murray River) has a bit of a kink in it.
SA sued Victoria to try to get their land back (over 1000 sq km) but the court ruled that it was too late. The kink in the border remains.
Considering he used a pseudonym to create the group and used it to publish papers under the pseudonym, having more members wouldn’t help his cause.
Guess some folks just feel the need to slow the Human “Race” down a bit, that’s just a guess.
I like that. It reminds me of when I did a piece of work for Reuters. I was mainly dealing with the financial data division rather than the news reporting people. But the head of services that I met a few times was head of customer services for all divisions. It was his name on their web site.
Reuters had a very strict rule. People fighting were called activists rather than freedom fighters or terrorists. The logic being one person’s freedom fighter is another persons terrorist. This head of customer services would regularly get hate mail and even death threats from the side of people who reports on ‘activists’ but they saw them as terrorists.
Those words were from Imitiaz Dharker, a Pakistan-born British poet.
On the bridge over the Murray at Yarrawonga, Victoria and NSW had a customs post at each end until after federation. When they built the weir to form Lake Muwala they had to build a new bridge so the two states agreed to build half each to their border.
NSW started their bridge using a tried and tested design seen all over the state. However during construction it became evident that the different states were building in different directions following the line of the road on their side of the river. Eventually when the bridge was completed Victoria had to build a bend in the middle to join the two halves up.
There is also a problem with the Victorian half - it is sinking, as can be seen in the picture.
BTW because NSW was divided up to form the state of Victoria it also got the final say on the border. Instead of running down the centre of the Murray River it runs along the south bank so Victorians need a NSW Fishing licence to fish in the river from their state.
