Hunter S. Thompson's Fear & Loathing Down Under

In 1976, the great American writer Hunter S. Thompson, came to Australia for a lecture tour. This story promoting the new Thompson documentary, Gonzo, tells a few tales about the good doctor's Australian experiences :

...Peter Olszewski, who back in 1976 was "manager" of Thompson's often disaster-prone Australian lecture tour, says he was surprised by how "writerly" the Kentucky-born Thompson was.

"He worked on every word," Olszewski remembers.

"He told me how he wrote Las Vegas — what was true about the book and what was fiction — and that he set out to write an American classic, and even that admission gives the measure of the man.

"He deduced that most US classics were short books and he told me that if I did a word count on Las Vegas and The Great Gatsby, I would discover that the two were identical in word count, down to the last word."

...Thompson's...notorious smoking-drinking-swearing appearance on The Don Lane Show, but after a thorough search "in the bowels of Channel Nine's archives" (the documentary makers) discovered that all footage had been lost or destroyed.

Olszewski remembers it well. "This just confirmed the stupidity, crassness and ineptness of commercial TV producers at that time," he says.

"Rather than let Hunter the talent present himself as himself, the producer pushed him into appearing like a poseur, with coat casually draped over one shoulder. It looked so fake that when Thompson saw himself in the monitor he swore and brushed the coat aside, and of course the expletive was not deleted and it became a quite large story the next day in the morning papers."

I can still vividly remember Thompson's appearance on The Don Lane Show. He didn't brush that jacket off his shoulder, he violently jerked in his seat when he saw that he looked like a dick, and shouted something like "Get this fucking thing off me!" Don Lane's mouth fell open, a perfect O.

It's amazing to me now to think how incredibly controversial it was back then for someone to swear on live TV, particularly a loud, drunk American, and how impressive his performance was to a seven year old, already writing short stories, who didn't know that writers could be so outrageous, free, and wild.

Olszewski, who as J.J. McRoach stood for the Senate as an Australian Marijuana Party candidate, wrote about his often nightmarish job minding Thompson in Mandraxed Wombats and The Monster in Room 450, which was published in his 1979 book A Dozen Dopey Yarns.

His worst moment came when he "disobeyed the doctor's instructions" and swallowed a small piece of powerful blotter-paper LSD.

"Several hours later, after I had crashed a Fairlane into a concrete pillar in the car park under the Southern Cross Hotel, Thompson admonished me with, 'I clearly told you to chew it slowly'," he recalls.

Olszewski remembers (Hunter) on stage at the Melbourne Town Hall. "People weren't all that interested in meaningful discourse — they wanted gonzo madness. At one stage he turned to me and said, 'Help me in this thing. I feel trapped. I feel like a goddamned animal in a cage with people poking sticks at me.' "

Hunter S. Thompson never seemed to lose that feeling that he was a sideshow, that his notoriety, the Dr Gonzo character he created, consumed him and trapped him, as a person and as a writer. His widow recently said that his celebrity, the unreality of the rampaging Hunter myth versus the old, near crippled man that he actually was, added to the reasons why he shot himself in the head in February, 2005.

You Are Being Offended. Yes, I'm Being Offended

For its inflight internet access, Qantas knows what its customers find offensive, without even asking them :

"Restrictions may include sites that contain violence, profanity, nudity and other content we consider may be offensive to our customers."

No profanity? Well you fucking well won't be reading this blog on a fucking Qantas flight then, will you? I'm working on the violence and nudity.

It's Still Terrorism, But Without The Shocking Video

By Darryl Mason

Australia is under attack, PM Kevin Rudd, tells us, by the forces "of extremist capitalism." After Thursday's stock market blood-drainer, these forces seem to be winning. Or at least, what they set into motion is still wreaking incredible damage to the Australian economy.

How much has the stock market lost in the past year? A few hundred billion? Al Qaeda nuking Adelaide would have cost the economy less. So who is the greater threat? Al Qaeda kills people in the vicinity of the bombs they explode. Financial terrorists shred shrapnel into everybody.

We supposedly know who Al Qaeda are, or at least some of them, the few who can bother to front up in front of a webcam every few months, and the various leaders who we keep killing, over and over again.

But what about these "extremist capitalists"? Who are these financial terrorists?

Can we have some names, please? Are there ten of them? Or a few hundred? What do we know about their sleeper cells? What is their ideology of hatred? Why do they hate our values of a fair go and rewards for hard work so very, very much? Will they be held to account for what they've set into motion? Why aren't any of these financial terrorists being arrested? Why aren't we seeing them being hauled in and out of police stations in shackles? Will they be waterboarded to get at the truth? And why will so many of them get to keep their jobs, even if on greatly reduced pay?

The financial terrorists who are gutting the savings, investments and retirements of millions of Australians seem, today at least, to be even more illusory than Al Qaeda. One enemy lives in caves and poverty-smashed villages in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. The other extremist enemies live amongst us, they fly over our traffic choked streets in helicopters for their daily commute, and they live in most of their same pre-The Great Fucktober Crash Of 08 splendour. Well, that's not completely true. Some of these nation-shattering extremists have already headed off for calmer waters in the 80 foot floating palaces they built from the fleecing of thousands of work-haggered 65 year olds, who are now contemplating another decade of unexpected labour, or battling with a rising tide of unemployed youth for fewer and fewer jobs.

It's all but too late now, but where was that Financial Terrorism Hotline, so those that knew could have anonymously dobbed all those fuckers in?

In a stunning week of actual non-boring financial news, it was also remarkable to see just how much money an Australian government can make available in a time of "national emergency". More than $10 billion to the people, before Christmas. With a commitment to prop up banks and institutions that could soar into the hundreds of billions.

Ten billion dollars, thwomp, slammed down on the table, to save the Christmas spending season from expected disaster.

But do you know any pensioners or families planning to rush out and blow their government mini-bailout on Christmas presents?

There is definitely a mood of "thanks, but that'll go to pay off some debts" instead. Shopping malls around Australia are emptying of customers, and soon, staff, as people quickly begin to realise just what they can actually live without.

Paying off debts before guilt-induced holiday consuming is never a bad decision, but if the point of throwing around ten billion in cash is to get the people back into line at the checkouts, it doesn't seem likely it will pay off. Even if most people take their fresh cash to their local megacentre, it will only delay the inevitable mass layoffs of Generation Y staff for a month or two more.

Most elderly pensioners won't be splurging but will probably be remembering the once easily dismissed warnings from Depression-era grandparents and will be stockpiling long life food, or ripping out the ornamentals and laying in vegetables for next year. Just in case.

You might want to take up veggie and herb growing as a hobby, very soon. You know, just in case. My local supermarket in Sydney put up a big stand of vegetable and herb seeds a couple of weeks ago, after months of requests from locals. They couldn't re-stock that display fast enough. They've now sold out of just about everything, with a few days delay in getting more seeds, or maybe a week.

I found the seeds I wanted in the next suburb. But still, it was a strange experience to go to a local shop to buy more seeds, and find they've run out. Another sign of these unnerving times.

And here's an excellent, edible, street beautifying project we should see all over our towns and cities. It sure beats lining up in a petrol station carpark for four hours, waiting for the government food trucks to maybe arrive :

The English have their allotments; in Sydney we use the streets. In a variation on guerilla gardening, Sydneysiders are moving veggie plots from the backyard to the street verge, and converting formerly fallow public land into mini-market gardens.

"Environmentally, ethically and, from a community perspective, it's a great thing to do," says Eva Johnstone, a landscape architect, who with her husband, Bill, has been growing vegetables on their Marrickville street verge for the past two years.

"We always wanted to grow our own food, but our backyard is quite small, so the logical step was to grow it on the street, which was not being used for anything," Ms Johnstone said.

The Johnstones now have an established vegetable garden, with spinach, artichoke, rhubarb, peas, potatoes, beans, broccoli and beetroot. A nearby tree bears a passionfruit vine and a sign telling passersby to help themselves.

Street verges are council property but Mrs Johnstone says the council has been "happy to turn a blind eye.

Global warming, the drought and rising food prices have other Sydneysiders looking at local solutions to food production, says Michael Mobbs, a sustainability expert. A year ago, he and fellow residents of Myrtle Street, Chippendale, planted their nature strips and footpaths with a range of edible plants, including tomatoes, herbs, strawberries and fruit trees. Raspberries, rocket, native mint and passionfruit vines climb the telephone poles.

"We want to show people that they can grow food where they live and return to simpler, lower-impact lifestyle," says Mr Mobbs,....

Other councils are following suit.

The mayor of North Sydney : "We would certainly be very supportive if communities wanted to grow veggies in their street, as long as it's a community initiative."

Blame The Microwave Oven

Very weird. One of the stranger possible explanations for why a Qantas jet almost plunged out of control into the sea last week :

Air safety investigators say they will look into claims signals from a naval communications base near Exmouth in Western Australia's north may have caused last week's Qantas mid-air emergency.

Early last week a Qantas Airbus travelling from Singapore to Perth was forced to land near the town after nosediving hundreds of feet in seconds, injuring about 70 people.

A preliminary investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) found a computer fault caused the aircraft to nosedive twice.

The ATSB says it will examine whether signals from the communications base could have sparked the glitch.

The communications base was originally used by the US Navy.

'Signals' from a coms base can cause a jet airliner to dramatically lose altitude, twice?

This might be the last you hear of that extremely curious explanation.


"What's this thing do?"
"Dunno. It's something the Yanks left behind."
"It's sure got a lot of buttons..."
"Don't touch any of them."
"...................okay."
"I'm going for a piss. You're in charge."
"Cool."

Eat The Poor

The Professional Idiot explains why financial hell is raining down all around us, and thank Rupert he's there to do this, to spell it all for us, otherwise we might go around thinking that it was somebody else but The Poor! who are responsible.

The “greed” that initially created this crisis was of poor people in the US who took out home mortgages they had little hope of repaying. Banks were encouraged to lend them the money by federal laws demanding more lending to minorities, or else, and by the expectation that the US Government would underwrite such lending. It was magnified by many other (greedy) investors, many of the middle classes, who borrowed money to play the stock exchange or to bank on rising property values.

Hallucinatorally stupid, and simple. This is the Fox News explanation that even its most die-hard viewers no longer believe, no matter how much they want to.

Is it more disturbing that The Professional Idiot actually believes this is what has happened, that The Poor helped destroy world economies by simply desiring more than poverty and for believing the soaring rhetoric of their own president who spent a good chunk of his eight years in the White House stumping at lower income communities across the US telling them they had to all become homeowners to be worthwhile Americans?

Or is it more disturbing that The Professional Idiot feels absolutely no shame in distributing this incredible propaganda, these fish-brained simple myths, so as to delay his readers from actually starting to think too hard about how monumentally they all just got fucked, and really start to wonder who did this?

So blame The Poor. Why not? Fuckit. What are they gonna do about it? Nothing. They just had the phone cut off.

So soak it up Povos, the hatred and blame directed at you by the gatekeepers for the privileged and rich is just beginning.

The mostly always excellent Eric Bana as Nero in JJ Abram's new movie version of Star Trek.

Rudd Takes A Bet Worth Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars

The odds are good that PM Rudd's monumental bet, in stumping up future taxpayer revenue to guarantee bank and credit union deposits for all Australians, for at least three years, will pay off. Some predict profits. But it's still an extraordinary gamble, a stake in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The biggest bet ever laid in the history of Australia.

Though none of the major banks appear to be shot full of holes from the shrapnel of America's extended 'Economic 9/11', unless they're hiding something monumental (fatal derivatives exposure, perhaps?), its still a remarkable event in the history of the country. Perhaps it would have more resonance if there were visuals to go with it other than numbers on boards, and a fantasmagoria of graphs. It's been porn for actuaries.

The October 12 emergency meeting also showed that behind the theatre and media-filling antics of our politicians, they usually all fall into line when they sense a true and total threat to the nation, and their own futures.

And so for today, a new week for millions of Australians obsessively checking stock market figures begins. There will be misery, hope, ruin, horror, terror, joy, despair, probably all within the first twenty minutes of trading.

It seems very likely that if markets in Australia, the US, Britain and Europe drop more than 20% further by Tuesday, we will follow the example of Russia and Indonesia, amongst the many, and suspend all trading. Shut down the markets for a week or two, sort out the mess. Perhaps such a closure would be a good thing, for reasons other than financial.

Being able to have constant market updates coming through your phone, your TV, your radio, every news site you visit, is one step away from having a permanent ticker flowing through your mind's eye.

People are going to need a solid time out from this full-core media flow soon. It can't be good for the mind, or the soul. We already know its not good for the nerves.

Free Speech, Just Not The Angry Or Illegal Kind

The Professional Idiot sounds the warning today on why corporate media blogs are now useless for finding out what people are really angry about, and are instead training readers to subdue their emotions and opinions.

...if your comment doesn’t appear, consider resending without any abuse.

Not even a little abuse?

No. The Professional Idiot has to keep it G-rated.

The big wuss.

Here Comes The Water Train

Considering much of NSW and Queensland in still in drought, it's surprising that more isolated outback towns haven't been forced to truck or train in their water supplies :

An outback Queensland town is preparing to transport in drinking water by rail as a drought sucks the last of its dams dry.

The first water tanker could arrive in the northwest town of Cloncurry, population 2400, as early as next week.

There are plans to rail up to 12 million litres of potable water to the town, between Mount Isa and Townsville, which has watched helplessly as its supplies have dried up.

160,000 litres of water a day will arrive by rail, from Mount Isa.

What happens if Mt Isa dries up too?

Southern Australia Drought Now Worst On Record

It's Not Just The Longest Drought, It's Also The Hottest

Melbourne Suffers As South Australia Dries Up

Change You Can Indulge In

By Darryl Mason

An exciting ABC News headline declaring Victory for Australians who know what is bad for them, but who give not a fuck, regardless:




Wait a sec....Okay, I'm still a plodder when it comes to screen captures. That wasn't the full headline.



Damn.

That doesn't sound like any kind of fun.

The New Poverty could be expected to take care of too many people smoking and drinking, unless they brew their own beer and wine and grow their own smokeables, and let's face it, the dedicated drinkers and smokers will do exactly that. Obesity? Toxic intakes of cheese and peanut butter are expensive, and you kind of get the feeling, watching even mild fortunes vanish, that most people will be doing a lot more walking. Very soon.

So lay off all the expensive mood-blackening ads flash-blasting our evenings with death-plagued declarations that even the few occasional relieving luxuries left for the many are actually suicidal acts for which appalling guilt is mandatory.

"Hi George, It's Kevin, And I'm Here To Help"

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has spoken on the phone with US president George W. Bush about the Economic 9/11 that is wreaking more destruction upon America than anything suicidal terrorists could ever be capable of cooking up.

Do you think Kev told George it was time to "get with the new program"?

You don't get a transcript of that no doubt interesting conversation, unless you are signed up with the iKev ultranet, which, fortunately, we are :

Kev : "Hello, George, it's Kevin from Australia, and I'm here to help. Now, I want you to know that we are very concerned about the global financial meltdown..."

George : "........................I'm a puppet on a string..............."

Kev : "I...okay, George. Now, I know you're feeling enormous pressure as this..."

George : ".....they said they'd do it, and they did it. They did it, John. They actually did it...."

Kev : "It's Kevin here, George. The Australian prime minister. You remember, Rupert's friend? We've met at....anyway, I want you to know that Australia will stand side by side the United States all the way through this crisis. We have faith, that's faith, George, that you can...hold it together. Your country needs you, Mr President. The world needs you to..."

George : "Rummy warned me what they could do. They fucked us all. Like the goddamned Skull & Bones extra special initiation. They ripped down our pants, bent us over the altar and rammed their..."

Kev : "I can't talk too long, George. I'd imagine your very busy. But I want you to know that Australia will not abandon your country, even if everybody else except for Mexico and Georgia does. We will be ready with emergency food aid, and energy aid, and none of your forces in Australia will have to worry about going hungry if funding is...cut off."

George : "My presidency began with 9/11, and now there's another one to finish it off. But I know for sure this one was a controlled demolition, John. A once in a lifetime crash. That's how historians will write me up now, as the president that sent his country into the Greater Depression. I'm going down in history as the absolute dumbest fuck ever to walk into the White House. They'll mock me worse than Carter. They'll..."

Kev : (off - "Are you fucking crazy? Don't put him on hold! I'll get rid of this call...") "Yeah, that's great, George. Listen, it's always great to talk to you, even when times are tough. We're all in this together, remember that George...some more than others. But I'm sure you'll pull through with...anyway, I've got China on the other line, so I've got to go."

George : "Okay, John, okay. But before you go, I'd like to invite you and Janette to come over when I open my presidential library in..."

Kev : "That's great, George. Bye."

"America, Can You Hold? We Have China On The Other Line"

"So what's the good news?"
"You keep digging it up, we'll keep buying it."
"Are you sure? Can I announce that?"
"Of course. Just don't try to put up your prices any time soon. That would not please us."
"That's great news. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you..."
"Please do not grovel. We find it very unattractive."


The United States stumbles out of the casino, pockets empty, pants around the ankles, cleaned out, gutted, dropping near worthless IOUs nobody inside wants to cash anymore. China still sits at the high stakes tables, hanging onto most of its mountain of chips. A few big bets go down, there are substantial losses, but the chip mountain remains formidable, and the game is not over for them yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

You can almost hear Kevin Rudd humming that old Hunters & Collectors song, 'don't rock the boat, keep your head down...'

Kevin Rudd has sought and received a personal assurance from the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, that China's demand for exports would remain strong enough to prop up the Australian economy in the face of the global slowdown.

With the rapidly slowing global economy now a reality, Mr Rudd said he rang Mr Wen at 9pm on Monday to quiz him about his growth projections for China. Mr Rudd said he was told growth would slip from "something like 11 and 12 per cent down to 9 and 10 per cent", still strong enough to sustain a healthy demand for Australian commodity exports.

Mr Rudd believes China is the greatest militating factor against the global crisis and said the Communist nation was "now critical for Australia's continued economic performance".

"Part of the long-term strategy of this Government, and the strategy for the period immediately ahead, is how to more deeply and broadly engage with the Chinese economy," he said.

Asia will set the rules for the New Economic World Order, now that the UK, the EU and the US are busted out, choking on debt, shocked and staggered by the collapse (or demolition) of their banks and once AAA-rated financial institutions.

So the Communists didn't really lose, in the end, did they?

Just another confirmed lie, to heap onto the festering pile of lies we've been fed for decades, about free markets, globalisation, investing vs saving, and the bitter freedom of bountiful credit.

Sun Wookie

Some people like to search photos of nature and the stars questing for collisions of light and shade and colour that somewhat resemble the visage of Jesus, say, or a stomach churning demon. Or if they're really boring, the plain old face of The Devil.

I only search for faces that remind me of wookies.

And I found one in an extraordinary image of a sunspot.

Really, look for yourself. Sun Wookie!



More Images Here

Crunchy, Chickeny, Trippy

Can we eat our way out of the environmental destruction wrought by the repulsive Cane Toad?

Maybe. If the cane toad had a value high enough to make it worthwhile spending a night catching the invaders; if as a food product it proved profitable to round them up, gas them, and prepare them for cooking, then we could shut down their spread, wind back their numbers and unleash a new Australian delicacy into restuarants. That is, if you can hold your vomit.

Local food activists are having a hard enough time convincing Australians to get stuck into roo burgers, let alone grinding down on deep fried toad legs.

From the NT News :

Zimmern's chef prepared the toad legs in a garlic and white wine sauce, and deep-fried them with sweet chilli sauce.

Chefs skinned the legs and avoided toxins when preparing them.

They got rid of the most fun part.

Ms Britton said only the bigger toads had legs with enough meat on them to eat, and they were tough and sinewy in the joints.

And what do they taste like? Chicken, of course.

Full Story Here

When Truth Is 'Trolling'

I wrote a comment to this post by Tim Blair at a Daily Telegraph blog, about claims Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin linked the Iraq War to 9/11 in a speech to US troops, but it was censored for supposed 'trolling'.

I cited this story from the reputable Jane's, published on September 19, 2001, which shows that Israel's military intelligence service, Aman, were probably the first to publicly draw deep linkages between Saddam's Iraq and the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC :

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.

When I sent a second comment, asking these questions...

How exactly is trying to clear up where the Iraq Did 9/11 myth came from 'trolling'? Or is Jane's not a reputable enough source for Tim Blair's blog?

...the comment was again censored for 'trolling' :




So what exactly did Blair and his moderator object to in my comments? Was it that Israel is responsible for trying to link Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, a myth eventually rejected by President Bush? or was it the fact that I mentioned the Jane's story also details how the CIA and Mossad have used car bombs, killing dozens of civilians, as part of their joint 'counter-terrorism' operations?

A year later, in a combined CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful car bomb went off at the entrance to the house of Hizbullah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five people were killed.

Terrorism, ironically, is a fairly effective weapon used by the West to supposedly fight terrorism, in the 'War on Terror'. Is this really such a big secret? Only if you read nothing but the Murdoch media.

Obviously Tim Blair's readers need to cushioned from such uncomfortable truths. Wouldn't want facts to get in the way of the 'Our Terror Bombs Are Freedom Bombs' modern warfare narratives.

Busted

A massive police operation swept through the grinning crowds at the Sydney ParkLife festival yesterday, and came up with a measly handful of drug-related arrests :

The operation included general duties officers, traffic units, drug detection dogs, plain clothes officers, mounted police, licensing supervisors and operational support group personnel.

It's not that people are doing less drugs at these gigs, they simply know to imbibe their gear before they reach the police checkpoints. Police mostly cautioned those busted with personal-use amounts of cannabis, instead of hauling them away.

Police are in an interesting quandary. They know the more people on cannabis or Es, at festivals like Parklife, the less likely it is they will have to deal with toxic, violent drunks. But police have to spend their 'Fighting Drugs' budgets at the same time.

Still, there are no cocaine dogs patrolling the financial district, or Macquarie Street, of course. And while you will find police leading drug dogs through Kings Cross and along the platforms of Blacktown and Penrith train stations, you still won't see them along New South Road, Double Bay, Military Road, Cremorne, or Queen Street, Paddington.

Cops have to bust people for carrying small amounts of illegal drugs, just not so much the ones that can afford a battery of expensive lawyers or who have hassling political connections.

No Idea

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair claims Bruce Springsteen "isn't the draw he once was".

Yeah, now Springsteen only draws tens of thousands of people together to hear his songs.

Rupert Murdoch Doesn't Back Climate Change Fear Mongering, Except When He Does

I asked Daily Telegraph opinionist Piers Akerman why he shreds Labor and professors and Al Gore and the ABC over climate change fear mongering, while continuing to give a free pass to his own boss, Rupert Murdoch, now the most prolific and influential promoter of climate change reality in the world :

Your boss backs the fear mongering as well, Piers. Why don’t you get in his ear?

Akerman denies that his boss uses his media to spread fear and unease about the effects of climate change :

"I don’t think he backs fear mongering, I believe he makes decisions on the best available evidence and is not afraid of admitting his mistakes when he’s been wrong..."

I stand corrected. Rupert Murdoch and his media, like the Daily Telegraph, do not back the fear mongering promotion of climate change reality, apparently. Which is why stories and headlines like this never appear in The Daily Telegraph, except when they do, which is often :


Akerman also claims that "Murdoch’s editors are responsible for their own decisions," meaning that Murdoch has no influence over editorial decisions made by his newspapers. Except, of course, when Murdoch openly admits that he does indeed tell his newspaper editors what to publish :

Rupert Murdoch has admitted to a parliamentary inquiry (in the UK) that he has "editorial control" over which party The Sun and News of the World back in a general election and what line the papers take on Europe.

The minute stated: "For The Sun and News of the World he explained that he is a 'traditional proprietor'. He exercises editorial control on major issues..."

He also helped "shape" the pro-Iraq War message across his worldwide media empire, and admits it here.

Embracing Corporate Greenism has proven very profitable for Rupert Murdoch, and his media, as energy giants flood his newspapers and websites with advertising promoting their new Green Consciousness.

The blogs of former Murdoch 'global warming deniers' now 'climate change realists', like Akerman, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt are where you will now most often see such Corporate Greenism advertising.

If there's money in it, Rupert's always a true believer.

I, Too, Agree With Everything That Strange Little Australian Said

So Canada's prime minister was getting the same BushCo. propaganda sheets on the Iraq War as John Howard :

Flanked by two large televisions, Rae played a split-screen video showing Howard and Harper, then leader of the Canadian Alliance party, giving their speeches to their respective parliaments.

Howard delivered his speech on March 18, 2003, before the bombs fell on Baghdad. Harper gave his on March 20, the first full day of the Iraq war, which has killed more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers.

Both urged support for the U.S. effort. "Alliances are a two-way process," Howard and Harper said. "We should not leave it to the United States to do all the heavy lifting just because it is the world's ("only" added Harper) superpower."

At several points in the video, the voices of the two leaders are heard to overlap perfectly, prompting laughter and cries of "Shame! Shame!" from the crowd.

Lethally Non-Lethal

They will probably prove to be very handy in encouraging former home owners to leave their homes, as banks somehow are able to deploy police to do their dirtiest work, but who will be the first mother and child to be tasered in New South Wales?

In a move aimed at alleviating community concerns, the taser X26 models are fitted with a small video camera on their stock to film their use.

In May, the former police minister David Campbell said the government would spend more than $1 million on 229 units to give police the option of using "less than lethal" force.

A report by the NSW Ombudsman into the safety of tasers is not expected to be tabled before the NSW parliament until later this month.

It surely can only make sense to hand out hundreds of tasers nearly a month BEFORE the safety report is made public.

'Two Lives Taken By A Single Taser Blast'

How Turnbull Bulleted Brendan

Brendan Nelson may have been an idiot, but as opposition leader he was a mostly harmless idiot. And he was our idiot. The peoples' idiot. He put on his show, and we enjoyed it, most of the time. Brendan Nelson was fun as opposition leader.

Malcolm Turnbull is no fun.

No fun at all.

And he killed Brendan. The bastard. Paul Sheehan follows the blood stains :

...a picture of political bastardry, animosity and aggression. I now understand why Dr Brendan Nelson took what at the time appeared to be a dangerous and illogical decision to open up his leadership position to a vote less than 10 months after becoming his party's leader. He couldn't take the pressure any more. And the pressure was unrelenting.

Turnbull carved a big X on Brendan's forehead, the very first day of Brendan's reign :

Turnbull walked up to Nelson and gave him a negative review of his first performance as leader. Soon after, unable to contain himself, Turnbull walked into Nelson's office and dressed him down in front of his wife and staff. Nelson was stunned. So were his staff.

Now that's downright nasty, and no accident. Turnbull wanted to shatter Brendan, he wanted to fuck with his mind.

The denigration soon spread. Turnbull told a member of Nelson's staff that his boss was "hopeless". He told journalists the same thing. It became common knowledge in the press gallery that Turnbull's attitude toward Nelson was dismissive and corrosive, a corrosion which built up the pressure and ate into Nelson's credibility in the press gallery as his opinion polling numbers floundered.

Turnbull holds very good, very grand parties to which he invites his friendly media. And they love him for it.

The state of chaos that was the Liberal Party for most of this year has subsided, somewhat, with the completion of Turnbull's all but unprecedented four year rise to the top of conservative politics in Australia. Well, liberal-Green-Conservative politics. Turnbull's invention.

What the fuck do they stand for now, anyway? Turnbull wants to bail out the banks, and the front bench wears its newfound greenism unconvincingly, uncomfortably. They champion The Greens years long demands for increases to the pension, and more investment in new, alternative energy. Nobody in the Liberal Party wails about how awesome the Iraq War has turned out for everyone involved, including all those dead Iraqis, like Alexander Downer did. Now the free market is viciously mauling the poor yet again, with far more bloodshed to come, everyone wants to be a socialist.

Sheehan :

As of now the Liberal Party is not a political movement or a political philosophy but, apart from a band of idealists, a collective of opportunists masquerading as a cause. The deeper you go, the less you find.

The reason why the media, particularly the ABC, keep boring us with stories about Peter Costello still eyeballing the leadership of the Liberal Party is because he actually is, and a very anti-Brendan-like campaign of undermining Turnbull has begun. Costello expects Turnbull to crash and burn. He will piss on the flames and take over.

Forever the optimist.

The Dark Reality Of Kokoda's Heroes

A new generation of film-makers discover there is so much more to the horror of Australians fighting in New Guinea during World War Two than they ever could have imagined :

Structured around candid interviews with saddened Australian veterans, this beguiling piece of filmmaking by two young director-producers, Stig Schnell and Shaun Gibbons, also speaks publicly for the first time with still-shocked Japanese warriors. With a production team made up of both nationalities, Beyond Kokoda provides a deeply personal account of the thoughts, feelings and experiences of those directly involved in the awful battle that lasted from July 1942 to February 1943.

Of course, the film revives the simmering debate over whether the Kokoda campaign was not just a decisive Australian victory but one that delivered Australia from Japanese encirclement and possible occupation.

"This film doesn't attack the national character; we just want to raise questions about what we have been told about Kokoda," Schnell says. "So many books are about beating Australian nationalistic drums, and the jingoism takes us away from what really happened."

...Schnell says he and Gibbons wanted to strategically pinpoint the corrosive and increasingly pervasive Kokoda myths, not only the notion that the Japanese were poised to sweep into Australia but also the feel-good mythology of the so-called "fuzzy-wuzzy angels", who helped transport Australian wounded.

"No one has told us before that they were principally indentured labour, slaves really," Schnell says.

They were also occasionally executed to set an example to the rest, not to help the Japanese, not to refuse orders and not to steal.

In this documentary, the veterans from both sides sadly distinguish the Kokoda experience as a campaign of exceptional savagery. Few prisoners were taken; most were shot. War conventions were routinely flouted by both sides. The troops were reduced to a primal level, such were the inhuman conditions in which the battle was waged and the impossible expectations made on soldiers of both sides at the front line. "Bombs, mortars, screaming, yelling, swearing, bayonets; you name it, it was there," says the dapper sergeant Joe Dawson, one of the most articulate subjects, a strong man who wears compassion for his enemy easily on a tired face. "It was a shocking state of affairs; the fellows were going down like flies."

The physical torture, the mental assault, endured by both the Australians and Japanese soldiers in New Guinea - and many of them were children, really, late teens, early 20s, who had never traveled more than a few dozen miles from home before they went to war - is unimaginable, incomprehensible to us today.

The documentary discussed above, ' Beyond Kokoda' is screening on cable and digital, but I'd imagine it will be on DVD by Christmas :



Kokoda was a living hell torment shared by the Japanesel :



Heres' Kokoda veteran Graham Palmer, at The Australians At War Film Archive, telling a story of simple humanity amongst the madness :

"I have seen blokes crying with fatigue. They had to drag themselves up the side of a mountain, and sliding, and scared of being left behind, and being isolated, it's very frightening country...

"...we were trying to drag ourselves up the side of a mountainside, he was a big strong bloke, and I had my rifle, and I wasn't going to make it. He didn't say a word to me, he just reached over, and took my rifle, and put it on his other shoulder....He did not say a word...and that got me to the top."

20-Somethings All Fkd Up On Drugs And Booze....

Well, A Few Are

By Darryl Mason

Studies that show young people are blasting themselves out of reality on drugs and booze should never be trivialised. Then again, it is traditional for tabloid media to take statistics and turn what could actually be good news, positive news, into another 'Young People Today Are Anti-Social Drug Pigs' set of headlines and community decaying charicatures.

When the stats actually reveal that most Australian 20-somethings are not actually fukk'd n' bombd out of their minds, tabloids must apply the word 'underclass', and load up the intro :

An underclass of young Australians is battling depression, booze, drugs, and poor health, according to a landmark study.

One in five Australians in their mid-20s has a serious mental or physical health problem.

Twice as many suffer depression or anxiety, take illegal drugs, or engage in risky, anti-social behaviour.

What the decades-long, landmark study, the Australian Temperament Project, actually reveals is far more interesting than that guff. But the good stuff, that is the positive news, is dumped beyond the headlines and the first few paragraphs, where most people do not read :

"(They seem) to be an industrious, engaged group of young people..."

About 80 per cent had jobs, 20 per cent were studying, half of them worked 39-50 hours a week and another 10 per cent worked more than 50 hours a week. And 60 per cent were involved in a committed relationship with a partner.

Spin the 'underclass' stats another way, and you get this :

5 out of 6 23-24 year olds do not suffer depression or anxiety.

5 out of 6 do not engage in anti-social behaviour.

5 out of 6 do not use cannabis, or any illegal drugs, and do not binge drink regularly.

4 out of 5 do not have any long-term mental or physical health problems.

Consuming toxic quantities of booze, however, remains a problem. They hit their mid-20s, they drink more, and more often. Then again, isn't 3 or 4 drinks regarded by health officials as a 'binge' now? But as with cannabis, Es, speed and acid, most of them will likely decrease their drinking as they get bored with it, in their late-20s, and tire of hanging in nightclubs and pubs most weekends, when clear-headed work and love and hibernation Saturday nights become more desireable, along with healthier bank balances.

If the worst that can truly be said of a reasonably small number of 23-24 year olds is that they drink too much, then they're not doing too badly after all.

They may not be marrying and having kids at the rate that Baby Boomers did, but they are not soaking up anywhere near the same quantities of drugs and alcohol. More of them have jobs, more of them are working longer hours, and far less of them are dying on the roads.

Plus, more importantly, the mid-20ers are nowhere near as isolated from their families as Boomers were in the 1970s. Look at this remarkable stat, shamefully buried at the bottom of the story :

...94 per cent of young people said their relationship with their parents was important to them.

The best news of all.

Turnbull : Buckets Or Spliffs?

Malcolm Turnbull has joined a long list of once blaze-crazed state and federal politicians who have openly admitted to guffing the gungun.

"Yes, I have smoked have pot," he said...

"I think most well not most, many people have, it was a mistake to do so."

He says it was a long time ago and he would not have done it if he knew the risks at the time.

He didn't explain what the risks were. His experiences with the Assassin Of Youth certainly didn't seem to have harmed his career. It's a shame that we still live in a hypocritical tabloid media land where Turnbull would be unable to explain what he believes some of the benefits of using cannabis were, along with the risks.

So we know Turnbull once danced with rainy day women. But for a deeper insight into his personality, we need to know whether he was a purist or a hashnflash man. Did he bang down buckets or suck on fatties? Did he punch billy, or spark up a few Phillies Blunts? Was his usage confined to single schlooks or did he go chronic for weekend wastelands?

(above slang definitions here, if needed)

It'd be interesting to know Turnbull's opinion on medical marijuana, an issue of growing popularity in his Sydney electorate, in particular. Baby Boomers with arthritis, and there will be hundreds of thousands of them, will want their weed, without the risks of prosecution.

They're Both Birds, With Footballs

I was wrong. Maybe the new opposition leader, Malcolm "John Howard Broke This Nation's Heart" Turnbull, will be as hilariously gaffey as the already missed Brendan Nelson was.

He's already showing lots of potential :

On Radio National on Tuesday morning, Malcolm Turnbull was asked the simple question of who he supported in the AFL: “I have to confess I vote for, I support, in Australian Rules the Roosters, who of course aren’t in the grand final - sorry the Swans.”

Could Turnbull be any more thrown off guard by an unexpected question? Labor has just found a gaping chink in his armour.

Battling to recover his composure, Turnbull hastily added, “And the Roosters in Sydney in rugby league which are, of course, the Eastern Suburbs Rugby League Club which is right next door to my (Bondi Junction electorate) office in fact.’’

As Jack The Insider calmly reminds the oppo leader, the Swans are based in his electorate.

If Labor are smart, they will never let Turnbull forget this.

If they're smart, they will find a way to bring this up in Question Time answers, and in Lateline anecdotes, every few months, for years to come. It's pure dynamite, and reminds all politicians, particularly leaders, that if you don't follow a sport, or any sport, never pretend that you do. The real fans will instantly that you are full of shit.

Sure It Doesn't

I know these have been kicking around in e-mails for years, but I think they're excellent and I wish there was a whole collection, instead of just two :





Who made these originally? Anyone know? They deserve a credit. Why don't we have a real tourism campaign that takes these ideas and runs riot with them? That blows apart the tired old cliches, however true some may still be, about Australia?

The re-appearance of these images on Digg and other blogs have unleashed some vile, rabid anti-Orstrahyanism. Witness :

I’ve traveled all over the world, 5 different continents, and I can honestly say that Aussies are the only people that are dumber than Americans.

Now that hurts. A lot.

Costello : I Am Immortal

Peter Costello finally confirmed tonight, on Lateline, what so many of his adoring colleagues always suspected. Death does not know his name.

Costello : "I'm 50 years old. I'm not going to die."

The Hotel That Ran A Country

Veteran ABC foreign correspondent Mark Corcoren delves into the "secret life" of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad (excerpts) :

For me all roads once led to the Marriott, in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan. For six years the hotel was like a second home - as I worked on assignments in Pakistan or stopped off in transit on my way back to Australia from the madness of neighbouring Afghanistan.

Architecturally, the hotel building was unremarkable, 1970s vintage. But location is everything, and the Marriott was minutes away from the National Assembly, the Prime Minister's residence, Government bureaucracy and the headquarters of Pakistan's all-powerful spy agency, the ISI.

What made this hotel special for the privileged few was the commodity being traded day and night in the foyer, cafes and restaurant: information.

Information, as they say, is power, and in Pakistan, power is a life and death struggle.

The Marriott, as American diplomats and spies were fond of saying, was "the real deal".

Hollywood may have created "Rick's Café" of Casablanca fame - a fictional world of intrigue - but the characters who inhabited the Marriott were playing out a real life drama, a latter day version of the "Great Game" to control Southwest Asia.

It often seemed that Pakistan was run from this hotel to the strains of the incessant hotel muzak.

This was a neutral ground for competing politicians, diplomats, warlords, drug lords, peddlers of nuclear weapons technology, and perhaps a few who fell into all those categories.

Alcohol was a tool of the trade even in an Islamic state such as Pakistan. At first it was brought to my room in a brown paper bag - after I filled out a government form declaring myself to be an unstable foreign alcoholic.

Later, hotel management discretely opened a windowless basement bar - one of the few venues in the capital to serve alcohol. Occasionally I'd disappear into this gloom for a quiet drink with the army officers-turned spies who were running Pakistan's secret wars in Afghanistan and Indian-occupied Kashmir. Many had embraced the extremist zeal of the militants they sought to control and exploit - yet they still enjoyed a scotch or a beer when I was paying.

Change for the Marriott came after 9/11. As the Americans gathered their forces to invade Afghanistan, the hotel became media headquarters of the world.

Hundreds of foreign media established a surreal Tower of Babel in the hotel. TV networks fought for space on the roof to erect plywood studios, guests slept on stretchers three to a room. The function centre became a paying dormitory - and the room rate, like the punditry, seemed to escalate on a daily basis.

As CNN anchors shared their insight with the world from their rooftop plywood stage, South American journalists down in the foyer, watching the broadcasts on TV, transcribed every word before relaying back to anxious readers back home.

The foyer transformed into the theatre of the absurd. There was the chic French TV crew kitted out in the flowing robes of traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez; and the American reporter complaining that he couldn't bring his gun into the hotel.

With the fall of Kabul the circus moved on, but the Marriott had changed.

After 9/11 the security barriers went up outside the hotel, but no one seriously believed it would stop a determined teenager on a one-way ticket to martyrdom.

Read The Full Story Here

Australia Has The Largest Intact Wilderness Left On Earth

There really is nowhere else on the planet like Cape York, the Kimberley, Arnhem Land. This is true wilderness. Preserving our wilderness, for future generations, will ensure prosperity, sustainability and life :

A study has identified 40 per cent of Australia - 3 million square kilometres - as the largest intact wilderness on Earth, ranking in quality with the Amazon forest, Antarctica and the Sahara desert.

"Few Australians realise the extent and quality of their own wilderness," said Barry Traill, a wildlife ecologist who co-authored the study identifying 12 regions of Australia that "remain almost completely untouched by humans".

"As the world's last great wilderness areas disappear under pressure from human impact, to have a continent with this much remaining wilderness intact is unusual and globally significant," Dr Traill said.

The Wild Australia Program Study found that while Australia's wilderness areas support some of the world's richest concentration of flora and fauna, they face serious threats, including feral animals, such as pigs and buffaloes, and invasive noxious weeds.

Areas identified in the study include the Kimberley, Carpentaria, Cape York, Arnhem Land, Gibson Desert, Simpson Desert, Sturt Stony Desert, Nullarbor, Great Victoria Desert, the Great Sandy Desert, and the Tanami Desert.

NSW Premier : I Want To Save Sydney's Children From Monster Cat Attacks

I'm not too sure where random vicious leopard and puma attacks on bushwalking children sits on The Priority Ladder for the new NSW premier, but it's reassuring to know he intends to take preventative action nonetheless:

New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees says rumours that a leopard inhabits bushland on Sydney's outskirts cannot be dismissed, because the safety of children could be at risk.

Talk of panthers or leopards in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury region has persisted for decades and there are almost 300 claimed sightings of a big cat in the area.

While there is still no conclusive proof such an animal roams Sydney's north-western fringes, Mr Rees says the animal cannot be discounted as an urban myth.

"I know I don't do policy on the run, but I think it's three years since Minister Campbell had a look at this, I think it's probably time to do it again," he said.

Sydney's Monster Cat(s) will probably take out a tourist first.

Reserve Bank : Our Debt Binge Is Over

The Reserve Bank has sounded the alarm. Put away those credit cards. It's Frugal Days ahead :

Australia's decade-and-a-half-long debt binge is coming to an end and a new era of austerity, in which consumers pay down their debts, live within their means and save for the future, is beginning, the Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, has predicted.

As US authorities were forced to stump up $US85 billion to prevent the collapse of the insurance giant American International Group, Mr Stevens said it was time for a debate about how debt-fuelled asset bubbles could be prevented in the first place, as opposed to regulators simply waiting to "clean up the mess afterwards".

... amid the financial maelstrom, Australian households were likely to hunker down and focus on repairing their debt-burdened balance sheets.

"There is … a good chance that households will for some time seek to contain and consolidate their debt, grow their consumption spending at a pace closer to income, and perhaps look to save more of their current income than in the recent past," he said.

Since the early 1990s, households had run up their gross debt as a proportion of annual disposable income from about 50 per cent to 160 per cent. A period of low inflation, low interest rates and rising incomes had enabled Australians to indulge their love affair with housing. "As we have become wealthier, our aspirations for housing in terms of position, quality and size have naturally enough increased. But … there is only so much well-located land … In the end, a lot more of our income is devoted to housing, acquired by servicing mortgages, than was once the case."

Relaxed lending standards had also fuelled the debt boom to the point where "anyone who was creditworthy - and some who were not - have been able to access ample amounts of credit".

But with the world entering a new period of constrained credit and tightened lending criteria, Mr Stevens said he expected Australian consumers would begin to rein in their big-spending ways.

We were relaxed and comfortable under John Howard, but mostly because the lounge chairs were so stuffed with credit card receipts and second mortgage demand letters.

The Australian stock markets have probably just about finished their "adjustments". But where will the credit come from that funds small businesses, that allows a builder to buy a ute, or a delivery man to buy a bigger truck? Nobody seems to know right now. This is the quieter, but far greater concern, amongst economists than share market ups and downs. Who will lend us money now?

The Australian government continues pouring tens of billions into the markets to keep the dream alive, as they keep telling themselves, "It's almost over, it's almost over, it's almost over."

The free market turned out not to be so free, after all.

Australia, Japan Pump $50 Billion Into Markets In 24 Hours

Oz Stocks Slam To Three Year Low

US Crisis Grows, Australia Cops Fallout

Rudd : Our Financial Crisis Has A Long Way To Run

RIP (Rock In Peace)

Forget politics, Brendan. You gave it your all and those dirty bastards still stabbed you in the back whilst nodding collectively as you raged about pensioner poverty and the poor quality of cheap soup. Hit the open road, Brendan, jump back in a truck and plough those highways. And don't forget your guitar.


(image by Grods)

Grods pays a hearty tribute to the most entertaining leader of the Liberal Party since Alexander Downer.

Who will speak up now for the elderly pensioners of Australia who are so poor they can't afford toilet paper and have to wipe their bottoms with their cats instead?

It's What God Wanted, Apparently

If you don't have a legal right to make a choice about how you die, when death is close and living is beyond miserable, and yet the the law still sides with religious beliefs over simple humanity, well, it smells very much like theocracy, doesn't it?

Angelique Flowers, 31 :

Just a month shy of her 31st birthday and half a lifetime since she was diagnosed with the debilitating Crohn's disease at 15, Angelique Flowers was told she had colon cancer. It was so advanced and so aggressive, she was given only months to live.

Frightened of a slow, painful death from a total bowel obstruction, this softly spoken Melbourne writer wanted her life to end peacefully and on her own terms.

It wasn't to be. She regretfully turned away from her loved ones and spent her final weeks searching for information about euthanasia and a dose of the lethal drug Nembutal. Her final hours were robbed of the dignity she had wanted as she died vomiting the content of her bowels.

Angelique's video plea to Kevin Rudd to change the euthanasia laws in absolutely shattering.

There's Nelson, Who Wants To Blow Him Away?

I thought calling for the assassination of political leaders was illegal?

Laurie Oakes, writing in the Daily Telegraph, seems to be able to get away with it :


Oakesy :

I have discovered that (Rudd)...has a fondness for guns.

Come on, Laurie. You didn't "discover" this. This news is so old, it's wearing incontinence pants and a Seekers t-shirt. December, 2006 :

Kevin makes no apologies for being a long-standing supporter of shooters’ rights. He has participated in a number of celebrity events at the Belmont range throughout the years, along with former South Australian ALP Senator John Quirk, who serves as a patron for a number of shooting organisations.

You can "discover" this news about Rudd & Guns for yourself through deep, thorough investigative journalism in the fetid heart of Canberra, like Oakesy, or by some complex Google searching, using the words "Rudd gun".

I'm going to miss Brendan Nelson. He was pure Comedy Gold, however unintentional his brilliantly hilarious impression of a Liberal Party leader was.

Nelson was as funny as a kitten as with its head caught in a empty yoghurt container.

Unlike Malcolm Turnbull, who's about as amusing as a school bus accident.

What It Meant To Be An Australian In 1914

"They Clung To The Principle Of Standing By The Weaker Brother"

(Note : I have run this story before on this blog, and I'll run it again next year as well)

C.E.W. Bean's essential history of Australians at war during World War 1, Anzac To Amiens, includes some invaluable insights into Australian society, in the cities and in the bush, in the year before the war broke out.

In amongst all the talk today of what it means to be an Australian, it was with great interest that I found within Bean's book an encapsulating description of Australians and Australian society in the years just before the "War To End All Wars" broke out.

In only a few pages of his book, Bean manages to nail down an Australian identity rarely discussed today, or even widely recognised as an identity Australians once had and happily shared.

In many ways, the Australian society he describes in the first chapter of Anzac To Amiens - as he sets the scene for the inspiring and shocking story that follows - was never to be the same again.

The war, its crippling financial costs and its monumental casualty take shattered the width and breadth of the Australian society, from sparsely populated country villages to the tram-noisy chaos of Sydney, as it tore away (in Bean's words) "husband from wife, son from mother, (and) savings from those who had spent a lifetime in patient thrift."

How near to the optimistic heights dreamed of by those Australians, then only 14 years after Federation, have we soared in the 94 years since?

How close to their utterly essential "basic creed" and ideal of what defined an Australian do we now stand today?

Here are some excerpts from the first chapter :

In 1914, Australians were only 126 years from their first settlement in this continent...we were only 101 years from the first crossing of the Blue Mountains, only 63 (years) from the first gold rush, 58 (years) from the first establishment here of democratic self-government. Some Australian who went to the war had ancestors still alive who could remember some of the first generation of countrymen; many had grandparents or great grandparents who could tell them of the gold rush, the bushrangers, the later explorers and the imported convicts.

Yet, though many of the older men and women had actually lived in them, the colonial days were, by 1914, almost as extinct of those of William the Conqueror.

The people of the six colonies, which had federated only fourteen years before, regarded themselves as being in the forefront of human progress, and indeed, in some not unimportant respects they had reason to do so.

When emigrating from Britain most of their ancestors had half-consciously tried to cast off what they vaguely felt to be elements of inequality and injustice in the inherited social systems of Europe.

They were disrespectful of old methods, eager to try out new ones. They had of late deliberately changed the whole basis of their wage system, in an effort to adjust it to the public conscience in place of the uncontrolled results of supply and demand.

They had made many mistakes, due to vague thinking and inadequate study, but they had achieved something.

They had established at least one very great and successful industry - that of wool production - and had managed to so spread its profits that real wages were then possibly higher in Australia than anywhere else in the world; at all events the life of the ordinary man, woman and child contain probably more healthy recreation than anywhere else.

Public education then compared favourably with that of any people except perhaps those of Scandinavia; in the enjoyment of such modern material benefits as telephones and electric light Australians were ahead of the British though behind the Americans.

Probably nowhere were the less wealthy folk more truly free, or on such terms of genuine social equality with the rich, in dress, habits and intercourse....

It is true that in one respect living conditions in Australia - as in most newly-settled lands, even the United States - differed widely from those in older countries; a vast gap existed between the conditions in country and city. In the cities life was not markedly different from that of any great European or American town; but country life was in many parts still set in almost pioneering environment.

Yet the outback homesteads often contain surprising evidence of culture. It was much more than a superficial sign that the women who drove in to meet the mail train at a distant siding often dressed in the fashion of Paris, London, or New York.

And if in the bars and hostels even of the big cities at racetimes and on holidays there was sometimes evidence of the Wild West, there was little inferiority complex about the people of this particularly free country.

Its universities were in many ways progressive; its governments were launching into social experiments. Its business and political leaders thoroughly believed in its future and, with only 4 1/2 million white people (and perhaps 100,000 Australian blacks) in the continent, they borrowed freely from overseas to launch into industrial and social enterprises.

Many young Australians tended to condemn the English immigrant for his comparative slowness and lack of confidence in dealing with the unknown men and conditions, and were irritated by his certitude as to the superiority of the methods of the "old country".

The Australian ballad writers, Gordon, Lawson, Paterson, Ogilivie and others, were constantly read and quoted. The people were not formally religious, but there was a marked comradeliness in their outlook, and no degree of economic pressure could induce them to abandon it.

The people, newly federated, were at this stage very consciously intent upon building themselves into a great nation.

Without giving the matter much thought, most Australians assumed that the development of their country would be similar to that of the United States.

...with easy optimism, Australian anticipated that within a century or so her 5 million people would be increased to 60 if not 100 million.

The historian, who tries to to discover what motive most powerfully moved the Australian people at that interesting stage, will probably come to the conclusion that tradition - such as is consciously or unconsciously handed down in almost every word or action by parents and teachers to children, by priests and pastors, professional trades and business men to their successors, by witters to readers, even by older children to younger - was immensely strong and enduring.

The tradition was largely British...But with the British standards were mingled those of the pioneers - the backwoodsmen, and the men of the great ruins and the mining fields.

It was to these last that Australians owed their resourcefulness and readiness to grapple with their objectives even against authority, and also their basic creed, in industry as in war, that a man must at all costs stand by his mate.

...they clung to the principle of standing by the weaker brother.

* * * * * * * * *

Almost one in every twelve Australians alive then served in some capacity during World War 1; in Europe, the Middle East or at home.

A force of 417,000 was raised from a total population of just under 5 million people.

Some 331,000 "took the field" during the four years of WWI1.

59,342 were killed or died as a result of wounds suffered during fighting.

Another 152,000 Australians were wounded.

Of all who "took the field" during the war, 64.8% were killed or wounded.

By the start of World War 2, in 1939, more than 2000 men remained hospitalised for physical and mental injuries resulting from the war twenty years previous.

In 1939, some 50,000 veterans of the first world war visited hospitals or AIF-related medical facilities for ongoing treatment and rehabilitation.

* * * * * * * *

C.E.W Bean devoted decades of his life to writing the full story of the Australian Anzacs, and his official history, encompassing twelve volumes and millions of words, has proved invaluable to every modern chronicler of the war that consumed many of the very best of two generations of Australians, and left it deeply in debt to Britain and the United States.

Bean was no public servant, back in Australia combing official reports and daily casualty lists to compile an official history that met with official approval. Bean was there, he wandered many battlefields and had the experiences of Australians at war during WW1 carved into his soul.

Remarkably his own photos of the battle at Lone Pine detail the early edition I'm now reading.

Unfortunately, Anzacs To Amiens doesn't appear to be for sale online, outside of collector's copies which start at about $160.

Orstrahyuh : The Movie

It will be worth watching for Mandy Walker's spectacular cinematography alone, but please, please, please Do Not Suck :



Not mentioned much yet in the media is that there is, apparently, a potentially controversial sub-plot involving Aboriginal children (or at least one as the trailer seems to indicate) being stolen away from their families. I think a controversy should begin over those cowboy movie-style swinging doors hanging in an Australian pub. Pffft, they won't keep the blowies out.

More on the plot of 'Australia' from the IMDB :

Luhrmann's film is set in northern Australia prior to World War II and centers on an English aristocrat (Kidman) who inherits a cattle station the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn stock-man (Jackman) to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.

If director Baz Luhrmann gets it right, many Australians who see this film will be absolutely shocked by the scale of destruction inflicted on Darwin by Japanese bombers, and surprised at how little they knew about what happened there all those years ago.

'Australia' needs to do huge business just to turn a profit, hundreds of millions of dollars around the world. It needs to be as big as Titanic was at the Australian box office, in fact it needs to knock it from the top spot, but the movie doesn't appear to have anything like the same youth appeal.

Hopefully, teen appeal won't be necessary for this movie to go epic because it's hard to imagine how a love story between two 40-somethings covered in dust and cow shit will pack in the kids and get that essential word of mouth happening that keeps youth coming back to see it at the cinema again and again, thereby driving up the box office, as they did with Titanic.

The cast for 'Australia' is absolutely spectacular, it looks fantastic, it should work. If it does indeed box office up a half billion dollars around the world, we could finally get something of an AustralianFilm Renaissance firing up. Maybe. But am I the only one who gets the giggles during some parts of that trailer?

Oh, please do not suck...