Saturday, 21 July 2012 - 8:49am
I'm not sure whether I should be taking this personally. I've lost another final sentence of plodding curmudgeonly wit at some point in the Advocate's comment approval process:
Yes, the majority want to get all the nature out of the way of their view of nature. If you would care to run a poll on this you'll also find the majority want to be able to drive their cars right up to the water line so that they're never out of earshot of their Cold Chisel CDs, never out of reach of the next can of rum and cola, and never out of sight of the australian flags hanging from their car windows, painted on their children's faces, tattooed on their spouse's buttocks, etc.
This utopian vision of beach-as-bogan-car-park is likely not the objective of the Advocate's campaign here. When next you're on a beach, turn westward and peer through the trees at the expensive houses whose owners, estate agents, accountants, and assorted courtiers are the principle beneficiaries of "opening up" the view from the beach to your social betters and vice versa.
Excised this time:
A cynic might say that this "majority", in the sense of being the majority of the Advocate's advertisers, are the majority on whose behalf the Advocate is advocating.
At least this time a plausible motivation for the cut comes to mind without difficulty.