The reason Beaudy misses mark
Columnist Mark Reason’s critique of Beauden Barrett was confirmed in Saturday’s test. Beaudy prompted a minuscule fumble by Ardie Savea, costing one try. Ngani Laumape’s forward pass to Waisake Naholo was a Beaudy-inspired special. Another certain try down the gurgler.
He muffed a conversion from the sideline after he had sprinted 80 metres to finish off everyone else’s great lead-up play, but even John Eales would have slotted it. Cross-kicking within his own 22? The world player of the year landed it short of Ben Smith with the line open only 78 metres away.
Yes, he scored other tries. Aaron Smith threw a pass from the 22 which he caught under the crossbar for his first. He caught another Smith bullet and fell over the line for his second, then scooted in for a third while the Aussies were watching a big-screen replay of Michael Cheika ranting in the box.
Although behind a RollsRoyce pack, and inside a Ferrari backline, the reason Beaudy misses the mark is because he spent his youth dreaming about Man U instead of watching videos of MR when he was world player in 19 . . .? He wasn’t? Ever? Who would have guessed?
Philip Lynch, Elderslea
We judge them
I attended the funeral last week of a man in his 30s who should not have died. That makes me very angry. Why he did not feel he could ask for help I will never know.
In my opinion, the problem is that there are many who are so critical of people who feel they want to die. They don’t understand that some people just feel they can’t bear to live any more.
Those people feel ashamed about how they feel. So, they are compelled to keep their states of mind private. They feel so guilty and odd.
No wonder they don’t present to their doctors and their friends. Shame on you, New Zealand, for judging them, for criticising them, and just saying ‘‘go for a walk on the beach’’.
You may have no idea how depression affects people. It insidiously creeps up and takes over, just like a cancer creeping through one’s psyche.
Sigmund Freud said grief is very close to madness and I agree. But if it is addressed maybe fewer people would feel the need to take their own lives. They would experience some compassion for themselves. Susan Lugton, psychologist, Nelson
Greed exposed
Thank you, Brian Cotterill, for your brutal honesty (Fairness isn’t a factor when it comes to pay, Aug 27). It’s straightforward capitalists like you who allow us to see the system’s greed and bewildering shortsightedness.
Perhaps you have spent too long in the elevated world of business to remember that people at the top didn’t get there alone and that the highly paid sports people you mention succeeded by making use of the experience, skills and dedication of others.
If we believe that the people who immediately generate the money have value and those who have contributed further away – ie workers, including teachers and nurses – have less, then we will get the kind of society we deserve – poorly educated, in poor health and eventually dysfunctional.
We pay taxes so that people like teachers and nurses can be fairly remunerated. People at the top, who clearly got a lot from our taxpayer-funded education system, pay higher taxes. Then we have higher standards in education and health. That seems fair to me. Jan Farr, Carterton
Being accountable
I assumed the election to public political office involved the baseline ethic that the office holder is to be accountable. That’s what the job is . . . leadership accountability for we citizens.
How odd then that the witchhunt into exposing the identity of the leaker of Simon Bridges’ expenses has been quashed because the leaker has pleaded his/her vulnerability to the very exposure he/she was more than happy to deliver to Simon Bridges. What?
In what universe has the National Party found itself that it has a self-confessed suicidal parliamentarian ready to pull his own trigger for being accountable.
Barry Thomas, Island Bay