I click over to another tab on my browser and there is a sense of inevitably when I see Marnus Labuschange raising his bat once again, the various voices of the commentary team assuring me it was a well-built and determined innings.
The preponderance of runs scored on the on-side shows Neil Wagner is indeed a new model of Terminator, sent from the future to eliminate a random child but instead was distracted by cricket.
Truth is, I have no idea if Labuschagne scored his runs fluently, luckily or through grit and determination. I haven’t seen any of the wickets fall, haven’t seen a boundary, haven’t heard Kerry laugh; it was 11:30 before I even remembered the cricket was starting today.
I also didn’t really follow the build-up. I had to check the New Zealand team sheet four or five times before I realised that Tim Southee wasn’t playing and spent another twenty minutes reading up on the new faces. I can’t remember watching six balls in a row today.
Because as inevitable as more Australian batting feats feel, just as inevitable today has been the phrase, “we’re just switching now to our correspondent in [insert town here] for some breaking news”, followed by more tales of destruction and despair as numbers are continuously revised upwards.
Between the ABC on the telly and the live updates and articles on my laptop I haven’t had the time, or even the inclination, to watch more than a couple of minutes of the cricket.
And I love cricket. I’ve never not wanted to watch cricket. It’s not that I don’t want to watch today, it’s just that I’m more interested in what’s happening in Western Australia, in Victoria, New South Wales and on Kangaroo Island.
Because, worst of all, this devastation was made inevitable also. Thousands are evacuating from eastern Victoria and tens of thousands are fleeing the New South Wales south coast. Half of Kangaroo Island is burning. And the worst is still to come.
Some things are more important than cricket. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Cricket doesn’t operate in a vacuum and today it feels irrelevant, a nice distraction to check on every hour or so, but I cannot spend seven hours listening to Shane Warne gratingly plug sponsors. Tomorrow, heat and wind will hit the south-east and the SCG will most likely be shrouded in smoke and the distraction will be over. There will be nowhere to hide.
There’s nothing wrong with escaping from the bad into a pleasurable pastime. In times of tragedy and crisis, people gather for small moments and sometimes find themselves forgetting before reality brutishly sets in. They are special and important moments of solace. But they cannot be used to bury our heads in the sand or forget or ignore the anger and sadness we should be feeling.
I didn’t choose to not watch the cricket, and I’m not saying I’m great or special for not doing so. It’s just that for the first time I didn’t feel that urge, and I’m certain there were many others.
This bushfire season is so exceptional and so destructive that the cricket can wait.
We owe it to those communities who have lost people and property to watch and read all we can so that we can understand the anger and sadness they feel, and feel angry and sad for them ourselves. The cricket can wait.
JC
Roar Rookie
What’s a presciptive
TRhing-me
Roar Rookie
Lets hear it for the Black CAPitulators! Hoop-ray! Hoop-ray! Hoop Ray!
Seymorebutts
Guest
Back of Burke is a throwaway line to refer to any remote bush location in Australian, I guess you are a new Australian and have never heard it before. To make something more interesting writers often exaggerate, overstate, use synonyms, metaphors etc to make the story more dramatic. Example ''.. the sixty four thousand dollar question ....'' i.e. there was never a question for which someone was going to get $64,000 if they answered it correctly, but people use it in everyday conversation. So the ''Back of Burke'' is any bush location in Australia. Its symbolic statement, a metaphor. Hope that clears it up for you.
Seymorebutts
Guest
Well 170 lives were lost in 2009, more than 80 Ash Wednesday in 1983 those are two of the top of my head that I remember. Historical blazes going back to the 19th century indicate vast swathes of the eastern seabord ablaze.... So it will remain to be seen if this is the worst fire in our history, I recall even 1993 fires made the international news. To be honest, I dont remember a single year when we havent had bushfires. As for the ''hottest year on record'' (which you didnt state, but others have) I think people need to look at the underlying data very closely. I recall a few years ago, we had the hottest average temperature on record that was 43 celicius... taken from the hottest 200 measuring sites around the nation... if you included ALL 800 sites the tempeerature dropped a full 5 degrees to 38, making that year the 44th hottest on record. It was a clear case of temperature data manipulation... fraud to use laymans terms. Remember the IPPC report about ''missing heat'' from a few years ago?? Oceans were not as hot as they predicted..so they gave that farcial answer that even a 10 year old wouldnt buy into, '' we think the missing heat is at the bottom of the ocean'' oh pulease...!! Remember the ARGO project? Funded by a Microsoft Billionaire... thousands of temperature buoys floating around the world for years.. to prove the oceans are getting hotter? It proved exactly the opposite!! Oceans got colder during the period and suddenly environmentalists were saying the study was flawed from the start.... it was their damn study that they designed. The ABC does it as well, on Quantum they did a story to prove rainforests were the lungs of the earth... it found forests produce more CO2 than they consume... when confronted with this unfortunate fact by a journalist, the lead ''scientist '' said we are going to have to tweak the model'' I kid you not!! Sorry bud, its a scam to get billions of taxpayer dollars into an industry which is manifestly ineffective , inefficient and massively expensive. It takes more energy to fill up a hydrogen fuel cell than it gives off.. thats the reason they only used in the space program. Follow the money trail... where does it end up? You'd be suprised how many billion dollar UN contracts have gone to companies with links to families of members of the IPCC.. If climate change is real, why are insurance companies still collecting premiums for coastal properties, and insuring new developments? They know its a f*&ng scam!!! Have a look at the low tide photos of Fort Denison in Sydney harbour from 1870's and today... NO CHANGE!! Sorry bud, you've gotta have another look at it. I used to believe the same stuff you believe, but now I dont. Read into that what you will.
Seymorebutts
Guest
Who are you referring too? I vote LNP so I have no problem with Abbott either as PM or volunteer firefighter and Ive never criticized him on this forum or any other for that matter.
Seymorebutts
Guest
So I guess you are 11 years old since you must have missed the 2009 fires, 170 dead? Ash Wednesday 1983, 80 dead... There have been at least 5 fires that have caused more loss of life, and going back to the 19th century other fires that burned a bigger area.
Spanner
Roar Rookie
I'm imagining that you are going pretty well Max. How much joy do you think those crackers would have brought the bushfire victims on NYE ? Have some respect fella !
Pierro
Roar Rookie
tell that to those suffering
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Thoughts worth pondering about Lewis, especially when people are being badly affected close to home. But perhaps also worth reflecting that often there are things equally bad or worse happening around the world any time a cricket match is on. e.g. likely escalation in the Middle East following the US drone strike may well result in a lot more deaths than happen here during this bushfire season, whatever we thinking of the rights and wrongs or the causes. I’m not saying that to diminish your reaction. Just an added perspective.
max power
Guest
thank you for providing your detailed research and intense hostorical knowledge of the scale of australian bush fires. you keep an archive? is it possible they are continually getting worse? i also loved your "fact" that more australians are moving to rural areas when the opposite is true
max power
Guest
abbott copped abuse for being a fire fighter? nope you are imagining that what mob are you referring to Johnnie? i think you are imagining things
max power
Guest
there was fires out the back of Bourke during their time as PM?
max power
Guest
except the greens dont oppose back burning.
max power
Guest
yeah noce one, the money was spent a year ago and is drop in the ocean compared to the revenue it generates and joy it brings people. we are not that hard up that this tiny amount needs to be stopped to help others
Justin Kearney
Roar Rookie
He’s been fighting fires.
Justin Kearney
Roar Rookie
You seem to know an awful lot about greens policy.
Justin Kearney
Roar Rookie
Gloriously put!
Mitcher
Guest
Thoughts and prayers
Marty
Roar Rookie
Just because in some parts of the piece you state that your not telling other people what to do/feel doesn’t cancel out the other parts where you implicitly, not explicitly, do. It doesn’t work like that. Whether this is your intention or not, that is the distinct impression that myself and several others have got. You can either refuse to acknowledge this and resort to name calling as others have, or you can take it on board, it’s up to you.
Rabbitz
Roar Guru
"We owe it to those communities who have lost people and property to watch and read all we can so that we can understand the anger and sadness they feel, and feel angry and sad for them ourselves." By all means don't watch the cricket. Follow the news sites and social media all you like but please do not fall into the modern trap of thinking that because you read a story about something on the internet you helped. Because you didn't. Clicking links and liking posts is not action and it is not being helpful. Use media and the internet to keep up to date and to ensure you are not in harm's way but don't conflate that with actually doing something. Feeling angry for them, unless it spurns action, them what does it achieve? Slacktavism doesn't create anything but slackness. By way of disclosure, I am not watching either but for different reasons.