Clever clucks
CONGRATULATIONS to the Herald  for a very clever and amusing cover story, (“Fowl fencing,” Herald, July 26, 2014). Brilliant.
Jane Crothers

Monstrous
THROUGH their own actions over the past 50 years, and more recently with their inhumane military strikes on schools and hospitals in the Gaza strip, successive Israeli governments have demonstrated their unworthiness of being granted a spiritual homeland for Judaism post World War II. The human slaughter they are executing is a monstrous crime against humanity and unjustifiable.
Sharon Collins
Curedale St, Beaconsfield

Peckers in peril
I WAS horrified to read about rogue poultry running untethered in WA (Herald, July 26, 2014).  Has no-one ever heard of cock fighting?
Some years ago a friend of mine was bitten on his pecker by a chicken who bit him with his pecker. My friend’s penile area was swollen for two weeks and the girls chased him around until the swelling went away.
You should take these situations more seriously. What if one of those kids became aggressive and attempted to choke the chicken? I bet you never thought about that.
Keep those chickens penned up and watch out for their and your own peckers.
Scott Petrill
Old Monroe Marshville Rd,
Wingate  

No more war, no more blood
THE last of the Australian military departed from blood-soaked Iraq and Afghanistan some eight months ago and already some are baying for yet more bloodshed in a foreign land.
The tragedy of MH17 is indeed heartbreaking but let not anger and revenge cloud our thinking about yet more inglorious military adventures.
Remember that each time we go off to kill people in other parts of the world, far too many innocent civilians and their families will suffer the same fate, pain, agony and trauma as the innocent civilians on MH17 and their families.
Proud talk of military heritage in last week’s Herald brings to my mind the wartime experiences of grandfather and father. They returned from war as damaged men and did not talk much about the nightmares they fought and lived through.
On the rare occasions they did tell of their wartime service, the horrific stories about senseless innocent civilian deaths has instilled in me the need to question what the consequences will be when we next decide on military action.
It also convinced me that violence and war should be the very last, not the first course of action for consideration.
Fortunately my grandmother was not one of the 7.5 million civilians who died in WWI, nor was my mother one of the 25.5 million civilians killed in WWII.
These numbers are so large it is difficult comprehend their meaning.  So let us look at smaller numbers in a more contemporary war to bring some reality to what is actually happening.
Last week a two-and-a-half-year-old toddler was shredded with shrapnel and died instantly whilst receiving treatment in hospital during the conflict in Gaza. Five other innocents also died whilst receiving treatment in another hospital. Eight more young children suffered horrible deaths when hit by missiles as they played in a refugee camp. And so it goes on. It beggars belief anyone would call for more war.
Pamela G Leeson
South Fremantle

Clerical chaos
I WOULD like to bring to your attention the chaos at Fremantle Hospital with clerical staff.
All clerical staff at the hospital who have worked for many years and been appointed to permanent positions after proper interview processes now find themselves having to re-apply for their positions.
This is the government’s way of cutting costs and saving the budget due to the over-spending at Fiona Stanley Hospital.
The whole process is flawed: staff were advised in writing about the changes with no consultation undertaken whatsoever as to which jobs should stay and which jobs should go.
Some positions are very site specific and there has been no consultation at a senior management level. Senior management has just blatantly flaunted all HR policies, staff were asked to put their date of birth on forms which is a blatant breach of the Equal Opportunity Act—discrimination on the grounds of age.
The current Fremantle management team is made up of clinical staff with no knowledge about how administration at management level works. The place is in an absolute shambles and needs a good shake up.
Disgruntled staff member

A sad day
IT is a sad day to see yet another coffee outlet close at Gateways, the third this year, due to the outlets being unable to meet the demands put on them. Business investors want stores to operate in their shopping centres, but do not come to an agreement that is acceptable to everyone.
Frank Cherry
Elderberry Dve, South Lake

Thank you
THANK you to the lady who stopped and helped me Tuesday July 22 as I slipped getting into the car at Murdoch medical centre, before my husband came around to pick me up.
I didn’t have a chance to say thank you as I was in shock. Everything happened so quickly!
Marion
Hilton

Seagulls swoop
OUR local councils provide a great service by having junk, e-waste and whitegoods collections during the year. We‘d hope the cost of collecting the junk would be recouped by the sale of recyclable materials and scrap metal collected, keeping rates increases to a minimum.
This seems unlikely as junk collections are now a bonanza for scavengers who remove anything with any residual value, no doubt to sell at garage sales, scrap dealers or the markets, and I wonder how many unsuspecting people have bought a useless and worthless item which appeared OK on the sale table.
The goods I put out for the Cockburn collection were all unrepairable, incomplete or damaged. I always put out the junk on the eve of the start of collection time to minimise scavenging, but even so, within three hours of putting it out on Sunday, a succession of desperados had removed the lot. Sorry, Cockburn, you still have to send out the truck for almost nothing but intractable rubbish, and sorry unsuspecting buyers at the next garage sale—what you bought is not worth repairing—better put it out at the next junk collection where the cycle can start all over again.
P Fletcher
Hamilton Hill

A disgrace
THE WAFL game of Aussie Rules, played between East Perth and West Perth at East Perth Oval on Saturday, was a disgrace and dangerous, played in heavy mud and water.
It was not a pleasure to watch, and I am sure less pleasure to play, win or lose.
In the short time that I could bear to watch it, I saw at least three ankle or leg injuries. If this was a building site or any other workplace, be sure there would be no work. The sensible thing to have done would be to change the ground to West Perth HQ at Joondalup or a neutral and dryer ground.
Frank Granger
Melville Beach Rd, Applecross 

Get outback
AFTER reading Greens MLC Lynn MacLaren’s letter (Herald, July 19, 2014) I was so upset.
We’d just spent a year in outback Queensland. Now all the sheep, cattle, and livestock are starving to death. What a painful way to die. Camels are being culled too—they shot dead 100, so maybe Ms MacLaren should travel to see how bad it is in the outback with animals just dying and flyblown everywhere.
Marie Wood
Cockburn Rd, Fremantle