I didn't stop...

I don’t know if you can tell from my Facebook posts or if you have even seen them, but I am very BAAH HUMBUG when it comes to The Melbourne Cup. For weeks anything to do with the spring racing carnival has been plastered on our TV’s and within the past week it has really ramped up in readiness for today’s race. The catch cry for the event is ‘the race that stops a nation’. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a ‘good news ‘ story as much as the next person, and with all the wrong that goes on in our world today its nice to see people out and about in the sun being happy and enjoying a day off if they are lucky enough to get one. But if you take a minute to look through all the fancy dresses the horses and the alcohol, it is not a good news story. What we are not shown on the TV is the dark side to this race, the fallout from the pretty girl all dressed up who got way to drunk and embarrassed herself, the guy that got into a fight and taken away in a divvy van, the gambling addict that lost all his money and potentially his family because he had promised that he would never do it again. Imagine if Tom Waterhouse didn’t care about what the ‘punters’ wanted, but instead what the families of the punters want. They want to be able to eat, they want to be able to go to school, and they want to be able to have a life. What a difference this nation would make if we invested the time and money this event uses every year into our schools, hospitals and aid organisations. What a different nation Australia would be, and what about the real good news stories we would have!