Seeing the light
I WOULD like to publicly thank some people who helped my 11-year-old son last Saturday morning. He was sitting on a bench at Len Shearer reserve in Booragoon when one of the flood light towers suddenly fell over.
Luckily, he was not struck by it but as it fell only a couple of metres from him he received quite a scare. Two fitness trainers from the Melville aquatic centre immediately abandoned their classes and ran over to check he was ok and provided some comforting words.
A fellow resident, Mark, was also in the park and was also quick to check Jacob was ok. Many news reports may lead us to believe our sense of community is disappearing. I think the actions of these good people suggest otherwise. Thank you to all.
Craig Peterson
Hatfield Way, Booragoon

Suck it up and stay out
IN reference to your envious readers who keep writing to you about Port Coogee and how it has destroyed the local beaches—I say, “suck it up”.
I absolutely love it down here and each day is like a holiday. I have worked extra hard over the years, day and night up to 70 hours a week including extra jobs in the evenings and weekends, and guess what—I have achieved my goal. There is nothing like this place on the coast.
The only problem is we have “outsiders” like you people who write to the Herald and make our little beach look like a tip. There are signs on the beach advising no smoking and no alcohol consumption and guess what, the council does not care because nothing is being done about it with all the “outsiders” destroying our sacred area.
I say, put up a sign saying no “outsiders” allowed on “our” Port Coogee beach. We are the ones who pay the Port Coogee levy on top of our rates—or maybe we should gate it up.
Sam Cutzo
Newalk Turn, Port Coogee

Bypassing responsibility for gridlock
LACK of awareness of Labor’s history seems to be the reason why some local members have been lambasting the government over its inaction with growing traffic congestion.
They have forgotten their party dismantled the visionary Stephenson Plan of a future road system by deleting the Fremantle bypass, a vital link in a proposed freeway system.
To secure the seat of Fremantle for Jim McGinty the Labor government sought to appease a vocal minority and resorted to political treason by deleting the bypass from the plan. It then proceeded to sell the designated road reserve land in expectation it would be too expensive in future years to buy it back. The predicted traffic problems, community inconvenience and the health and financial cost to the community are already evident.
The taxpayer is now being asked to fork out millions for an ill-conceived patch up job by redirecting heavy haulage trucks and containers along High Street. While Labor has the rail projects to its credit, it needs to be careful when criticising others for the road system problems it helped create. Rather than pour money into creating cosmetic monuments to themselves, the Libs should bite the bullet and get on with the job of reinstating the bypass. The longer it is left the more expensive it will become. It would be at least one legacy of great benefit to the community in which the Barnett government could be proud.
Daryl Binning
Norton Ridge, Winthrop
The Ed says: Never could quite work out how traffic congestion on east-west routes like Leach and Canning Highways is solved by extending a north-south route (Stirling Highway) through White Gum Valley and down to Cockburn. Stephenson’s original north-south bypass route of course trammelled through Dalkeith, to serve as a link between the western suburbs and Melville. But that was knocked on the head by Sir Charles Court.

Home for hens
ARE the guests coming to stay in Jenny D’Anger’s reviewed property (Herald, February 8, 2014) likely to be hens? It is an interesting mental picture to think of them “laying”  in bed enjoying the view!
J Kerr
Preston Point Rd, East Fremantle
The Ed says: Buk.

Greed change
I THOUGHT Gordon Payne’s letter (“Do we live up to the anthem?” Herald, February 8, 2014) was pertinent, thought-provoking and relevant to modern day Australia.
I was born in 1952 and life was great in this country back in my formative years. Things like trust, honesty, mateship and respect for other people and their property were in abundance.
Around the mid 1980s things began to change.
Being an ex-serviceman I am all for our alliance with the US and hope it continues to flourish but we seem to have taken on some of Uncle Sam’s less attractive qualities, like greed, ruthlessness, violence and forsaking mateship in the pursuit of wealth and power.
I still believe Australia is the best country in the world to live in, but it saddens me to see it becoming a more impersonal, artificial and apathetic society.
As for Gordon’s last paragraph about the “fair go” that used to exist, I think that was thrown out the window a long time ago.
Steve Grady
Murray Rd, Palmyra

Cull hysteria a token effort
H JONES (Herald letters, February 1, 2014) you are spot on in every respect—you, unlike the average anti-drum line protestor, are informed!
We have had 4500 protesting at Cottesloe beach, then a couple of weeks later 6000—for what? About three weeks into drum lines seven sharks have been caught and killed.
Hysteria at its max—there are between 40 and 100 million sharks killed (that’s 11,500 an hour on the hour every hour,) every year for finning and fish and chips, including juvenile great whites, tigers etc—that is the threat to sharks!
How many protesting on Cottesloe beach for sharks on this serious issue? None. On behalf of all sharks please get informed, stop being so easily manipulated and on behalf of all sharks thanks for nothing.
Chris Harris
Longreach Pde, Coogee 

Freshen old eyes
WHEN it comes to defining graffiti as art or eyesore, the eye of the beholder is often guided by age.
The young seem to like what others might describe as “extreme” and extreme wall art is mainly the style of work seen around central Fremantle’s streets and laneways.
A check reveals an increase in graffiti and of “tags” over the months since Fremantle council relaxed its attitude toward this dubious improvement to the central city environment. This uglification of the CBD has clearly not helped keep retailers in the city or attracted business to them.
There is an alternative that satisfies both council and visitors to the city’s attractions, fits the ethos and history of the city and it is being demonstrated in Sydney: It will only upset the taggers and those bent on denigrating the city and dragging it further down.
On a brief visit to the Rocks in Sydney a short time ago, I photographed an extraordinary painted wall which can really only be described by the picture I took. Not my best attempt at photography due to circumstances, but arresting none-the-less.
It is really painted on a flat section of wall, although appears three-dimensional and runs along a laneway near waters-edge. Surely this is the way Fremantle’s blank wall sections should look: scenes and people of early days, depictions of buildings gone but brought back to life in paint, depictions of the township as known to the early settlers and in the later boom days.
Such wall art would be a great attraction and talking point and build on the existing heritage. It would also cover the spreading garish rash that only further drives Fremantle into the nether-land of a “sick city”.
Colin Nicol
c.nichol@bigpond.net.au

So sick of this
I WOULD like to say how pathetic, disgusting and disloyal the WA housing and works and police departments are.
For starters, I have been complaining to housing regarding two lots of tenants that need to be evicted. But no, they continue to be antisocial and if you ring the police they don’t come out at all to deal with it.
I’ve complained to both departments of loud noisy tenants all hours of the night and morning. This is every day of the week, cars coming and going. So sick of this crap, as we shouldn’t have to put up with this.
The police department, well we don’t need them. Other than myself, neighbours have noticed drugs, stolen electrical goods being delivered daily to these properties and no police action is being taken.
I’m going to see if Today Tonight or A Current Affair would like this story.
This crap in Willagee needs to stop, but honestly it won’t. More houses in this street will go up for sale and new people will move in. Cause we are going to be on ASAP.
Shaz Trilsone
Willagee

Out of Africa
AFTER reading John Carrodus’ letter (Herald, February 1, 2014) in which he referred to tigers in Africa, I wonder how much he really understands about nature?
John C Rice
Sweetman St, White Gum Valley 

A dirty little secret
THE only surprise about Marius the giraffe being deliberately killed at the Copenhagen Zoo is the zoo was so open about it.
Surplus animals are the zoo industry’s dirty little secret. Zoos know nothing brings paying customers through the gates faster than newborn animals but breeding programs, often erroneously defended under the guise of species preservation, inevitably result in a surplus of less crowd-pleasing adults.
So zoos routinely trade, loan, sell and barter adult animals they no longer want. Others, like Marius, are killed, dismembered and fed to other captives.
Des Bellamy
PETA Australia