Homer at the Bat

Sorry for the intermission, dear readers. It's been a little bit of deep thinking, a little bit of traipsing into the bush (more awesome wildlife pictures to come!), and a lot of trying to get a license to practice law Down Under.

I'm having my own Mardi Gras (by myself!) here in Sydney today. Such a shame to see a whole country that has NO IDEA IT'S MARDI GRAS!!!! Don't worry, I'm prostelatizin'.

Anyhoo, some great stuff from Deadspin today in celebration of the 500th episode of The Simpsons, and specifically on the episode that made me a die-hard fan, Homer at the Bat. Lots of other good (Simpsons) stuff afoot too.

All this Simpsons talk reminds me of one of my consummate Portland moments. The one fact you need to know before reading is that Simpsons creator Matt Groenig grew up in Portland, Ore-gon (my adopted hometown). You ready, bra? Here goes:

For all the years I lived in Portland and all the fun stuff I did there, I will never forget my quest to find 742 Evergreen Terrace. I had ridden my bike up to the top of Nob Hill one Saturday morning -- that's the one you see in the background of the show's opening sequence when Bart cruises by on his skateboard. It's actually a mountain, a little over 1,000 feet above downtown Portland.

I was tired from the climb, and I knew satisfying this little goal of mine would give me a good excuse to head back down the hill without further work. So I zig-zagged my way down slowly through the steep streets. I stopped to check my GPS often, because I wasn't going to climb back up again if I passed it.

Eventually, I came upon Evergreen Terrace, a short dead-end street buried deep in the fir trees about half-way down the hill. I rode up the street checking the house numbers, but they were all five digits. They had been re-numbered years ago, and none ended in 42.

So I did what any idiot would do in this situation, I looked for a house that resembled the Simpson house. Not surprisingly, none did. After a couple of passes, I noticed a guy eyeing me while he raked his lawn. I went over to him and asked sheepishly, "Which one used to be 742?" He pointed two houses over.

It was a white split level. Like most of the other houses on the street, it was relatively modest with huge mature evergreen trees in the yard and a driveway on the side. It was probably a great buy 40 or 50 years because it was no doubt worth quite a bit of money now thanks to its amazing location close to downtown Portland in a quiet neighborhood with great views of the city. Still, it was essentially  a nondescript and middle-class home.

As I stood in the street straddling my bike and staring at the house, I imagined the real Homer mowing the lawn and the young Matt hoping on his skateboard for a ride down the hill to school.

An older lady came to the window and peered out. Mrs Groenig, I was sure. Matt's mom. AKA Marge! I waved excitedly, then suddenly felt foolish for gawking at this nice old person. I sped off down the hill, satisfied that I had found the real Simpsons' house.

Mutiny in Townsville

Townsville is a city in Queensland, about halfway up the Coral Sea coastline. During World War II, it was home to an American military base used to launch Pacific campaigns, including the Battle of the Coral Sea.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was critical to Allied success in the Pacific. It took place over a few days in the spring of 1942, so its 70th anniversary will soon be upon us. American and Australian naval forces fought together against Japanese naval forces, which were attempting to occupy the critical South Pacific ports of Port Moresby in New Guinea and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. It was one of the first (if not the first) modern naval battles, in that the combatants' ships did not fire on one another. Instead, all of the combat, and ship-sinking, was done by carrier-based aircraft.

The battle itself was essentially a draw. Both sides lost some major ships, including aircraft carriers, before withdrawing. The Japanese were successful in taking over Tulagi but not Port Moresby. Most importantly, two Japanese fleet carriers involved in the Battle of the Coral Sea were unable to participate in the Battle of Midway, which contributed significantly to this decisive American victory against the Japanese and to America's eventual conquest of the Japanese-occupied Pacific.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was also critical to Australia's freedom from Japanese occupation. In the dark days of 1941 and 1942, Australians had little doubt that their resource-rich nation was next on the Japanese target list after New Guinea. And they were right. The presence of the US Navy in Australia, especially in the Battle of the Coral Sea, probably prevented a bloody battle for control of Australia between the Japanese and the Australians. Certainly the Australian military forces were no match for the Japanese forces, but I doubt the Australian people would have ever surrendered. Regardless, Australians remain grateful for America's help in repulsing the Japanese, and this is the foundation for the modern American-Australian alliance.

All of this is background for a very interesting story that appeared in this morning's ABC News. It seems that the US brought about 600 African-American soldiers to the American military base at Townsville. The soldiers were part of the US Army Corps of Engineers and were tasked with building airfields at the base.

Locals have long wondered why then-US Congressman Lyndon B Johnson took the unusual step of visiting the Townsville base in 1942. Rumors swirled, and it turns out they were true. An Australian historian, Ray Holyoak, has discovered documents proving that the African-American soldiers mutinied.

According to the story, in response to racial taunting (or worse), the African-American soldiers took control of machine guns and anti-aircraft guns and fired them into tents containing white officers. Over 700 rounds were fired, and "at least one person was killed and dozens severely injured." Australian troops were called in, and it seems that both mutineers and officers were later convicted of (military) crimes. You can read all about it here.

Apparently, an American journalist embedded at the base reported on the conflict, but of course the story was suppressed by both the Australian and American governments and never made it into the press. It looks like there are a lot more details about this story still to be learned, and I will be following it with great interest. I will also be interested to see whether this story makes it into the US media and, you know, if it gets anything close to the attention devoted to Katy Kardashian or whatever celebrity nonsense passes for news these days in the US.

Hawt, Part II

Gentlemen, Do you like model-esque blondes? Slender Asian women? Doe-eyed Indian women? Vivacious, vaguely ethnic brunettes? If you answered Yes to any or all of those questions, you will love Australia. They're all here, and pretty much everywhere. It's a good place to be a straight man, even if all you get to do is look. It's a little like Vancouver, BC, but with a lot less clothing. (Short shorts are in this summer!)

And before you ask: Yes, I am aware that my wife reads this blog. She's geogirl, one of the blog members over there to your right. (While I'm thinking of it, maybe you should join.) That's just how lucky I am. A lucky guy in the Lucky Country (where the geckos are paid to live in the sun). She gets an extra-special Valentines Day for letting me do this post.

Shaq is a man of his word

Earlier this year, Shaquille O'Neal and Jimmy Fallon played a basketball video game on Fallon's show. They bet on the outcome, with the loser condemned to walk two blocks in a pink bikini.

Fallon won, and this week during Fallon's Super Bowl show in Indianapolis, Shaq made his walk of shame. Check it out, it's pretty funny and not gratuitously gross.

What does this have to do with Australia? In Australia, men don't call walking two blocks in a bikini losing a bet, they call it "going to the beach."

BOO-YA!

PS: Thanks to the copyright Nazis, I'm not supposed to be able to watch Hulu in Australia. So I set my computer up in Oregon and I just squint real hard from here. (Wink.)

I can't ...

Some competition for Moonbeam Swingrich in the ironic hypocrisy department -- a new high.

The American religion

Hint: It's not Mormonism.

White wombats

Check out this picture in the Sydney Morning Herald of two very rare white wombats rescued in South Australia.

Wombats are pretty neat. Known as the "bulldozers of the bush," they are really stout and squat and they make prolific burrows. They are herbivorous marsupials, about the size of a small dog. They're pretty chill, unless you surprise or corner one, and then they can mess you up. They have backwards-facing pouches, which prevents dirt from getting in and suffocating the young while they are digging. And despite having fat little legs, they can run at up to 25 mph and maintain that speed for up to 90 seconds. The only time I can do that is when riding a bike downhill, and my legs are considerably longer.

But you know what makes the wombat really cool? Two things. First, their method of defense. They have an armored ass that is basically impenetrable. When attacked, they dive into their burrow head-first and let predators flail away back there. Second, and more to the point, they have square poo. Seriously.

Update: More great pics here.

"I'm solid as a sailor's wang on fuckin' shore leave!"

That phrase was just uttered on prime time television here in Australia. Not premium cable, or pay-per-view, or even basic cable, but over-the-air television. Channel 1 to be exact, at about 9:10 PM. It was during a scene in a political drama. That show was rated "M" for "mature."

One political operative, a man, was asking another, a woman, if she could be counted on in an impending crisis situation. "Are you solid?!"he yelled at her. "I'm solid as a sailor's wang on fuckin' shore leave!" was her reply. That was about the (seriously) 50th time the word "fuck" was said during the first 10 minutes of the show.

You can't say things like that on over-the-air television in America. The Federal Communications Commission will fine you upwards of $350,000 each time you say something like "fuck" or "shit" on TV. I don't know about you, but I can't afford that.

Isn't that interesting? How do you explain that difference between Australia and America? Aren't we (Americans) supposed to be "free"?

As a Doctor of Jurisprudence and a licensed attorney, I did a bunch of fancy book learnin' on this. There's this law, you might have heard of it, it's the First Amendment to our Constitution. It says, "Congress shall make no law ...  abridging the freedom of speech."

And yet, there it is, a law -- an FCC regulation, to be exact -- abridging the freedom of speech. Weird. If you go back and read the entire First Amendment, indeed the entire US Constitution, there's no exception to this rule. There's nothing like, "...unless it's a really bad word, which might make some people upset." It's just a very simple rule: The government has no authority to make a law abridging the freedom of speech.

So how does this figure?

To understand this, we have to take a step back. You know how conservatives frequently complain about "liberal activist judges" who "make law, instead of interpreting law"? Most recently, Newt Swingrich was using that little rallying cry to foment enthusiasm amongst his "freedom-loving" supporters. And lots of other Republican have leveled this complaint, specifically in regard to Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision holding that the Federal government lacks authority to outlaw abortion.

Well, "judicial activism" is the reason why you can't say "fuck" on TV in America! Except the "activist judges" who "made law, instead of interpreting law" were conservatives. Conservatives on the Supreme Court during the 1960s and 70s didn't like people using words that make the baby Jesus cry, so despite the crystal clear rule that the government cannot regulate free speech, they made up a rule that says "obscenity" is not part of "free speech" and so the government can prohibit "bad" words if the "average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the word (or words) is "obscene." That rule came out of another 1973 Supreme Court decision, Miller v California.

If you're thinking that sounds like a pretty difficult rule to interpret and thus enforce, you're right. The clear rule in the Constitution is now a squishy one that basically says the government can prohibit whatever the average person would find offensive. Admittedly, it's slightly more complicated than that, but that's basically it.

This intellectual turd from the Supreme Court is epitomized by Justice Stewart's offhand remark about how difficult it was for the Court to decide what constitutes (illegal) pornography. "I know it when I see it," he said. And he would know. Justice Stewart and the rest of the Justices spent hours watching pornography (seriously), strictly for research purposes of course, while deciding the 1964 case Jacobellis v Ohio. They eventually decided all that boning they saw was illegal and thus could not be viewed by the likes of you. Thank Jeebus for the Internet, amirite?

Anyway, next time some Republican starts complaining about "lib'rul activist judges," or some redneck starts belting out "God Bless America" ("...where at least I know I'm free..."), you can ask, "If we're so free, how come we can't say 'fuck' on TV?" It even rhymes. So maybe you can work it into the song, or something.

I stand corrected

The other day, I thought I had found the most ironic thing ever. But it turns out that I was wrong. Now I have found the most ironic thing ever.

Jane Harman is a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from California. She has, ahem, allegedly been busted trying to sell favorable treatment for Israel in Congress in return for the chairmanship of an important Congressional committee. That's basically the same thing that put former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in prison, except that it comes with the added facet of treason.

Rep Harman was supposedly caught doing her dirty deal via a warrantless wiretap. Rep Harman has taken to the media circuit to call on the government to release transcripts of her recorded conversations because, she says, she can't remember ever doing such a deal. She is "outraged" at this "abuse of power" by the government, and she demands to know "whether members of Congress are routinely wiretapped without their knowledge." Because the civil rights of members of Congress are more important than the rest of us...? Wow.

The answer to the question of whether you're routinely wiretapped without your knowledge is probably Yes, Jane -- just like the rest of us. Why? The Patriot Act, of course, which makes this practice "legal" (even though it's obviously unconstitutional). And because the paranoia in America these days apparently knows no bounds.

And here's where the most ironic thing ever happens. Jane Harman voted for the Patriot Act. That's right, she voted to allow the very practice that, when it targets her, is an outrageous abuse of power. Incredible.

And just so we are clear, the most ironic thing ever is not that she might have been busted using the same overreaching governmental power she voted to authorize, it's that she now has the balls to complain about it being used as a tool by law enforcement officials to catch foreign agents committing crimes in the United States, which is exactly what it was intended for, and presumably why she voted for it.

And here's a related question: Is this now the most hypocritical thing ever? Or is the most hypocritical thing ever still impeaching a US President for marital infidelity while you're committing adultery yourself? I can't decide.

Hawt

We are at 32 C right now, that's 90 degrees to you and me. And we will probably make it all the way to 35 later in the day. It's the hottest day of the summer so far, and the first time we have made it into the 30s.

Fifty-two percent humidity as well, but the breeze continues to keep things bearable.

It's not grandma's house-hot, but hot nevertheless. I'm thinking it's time for a swim.

Don't believe the hype

There is a great piece on the ABC News website this morning about the Australia Day incident involving the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader, and Aboriginal protestors I mentioned a few days ago. It's an eyewitness account of the incident written by a geophysicist at the Australian National University who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Apparently, "riot," "violent," "angry mob," and "disgrace" are not the most accurate adjectives for what took place, yet that's what has been all over the media since the incident.

I'm pretty sure peacefully assembling and chanting loudly, banging on things, and burning flags is what democracy looks like. Why is it bold and courageous when it happens in, say, Egypt, but disgraceful and violent when it happens in America or Australia?

This incident actually reminds me a lot of the Little Beirut incident that took place in Portland in 2003 when George W Bush visited our fair city.

Here's one thing that's perfectly consistent between America and Australia: The corporate media lies to sell more papers. Their version events is accepted by the average citizen, which regards them as an authoritative and accurate source of information. The average citizen's views are thus distorted, and their opinions are hardened, making resolution of critical social issues even more difficult. The corporate media thereby serves the State's interest and the interests of those who benefit from the status quo. Sad.

This is a good example of how you just can't believe the hype.

Sepo

That's the derogatory term for Americans, Sepo or Sep. It's short for Septic Tank.

Septic Tank, Yank.

Why? Because you're full of shit.

Hollywood, GOP politics, etc. Its bang-on, for a generalized national insult.

Tellingly, I'm not even really offended at the thought of being called a Sepo. I haven't actually been called that by anyone yet, but I'm sure I will be eventually. It's more amusing than anything else. It's difficult for me to deny that many of us (most of us?) and probably our society as a whole are pretty full of shit. And I'm sure it seems even more so from the outside, where you get the media nonsense full-on.

Sometimes I cringe when I have to speak in public places. You know the old Mark Twain saying about how sometimes it's better to remain silent and appear a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt? As soon as I open my mouth, I can see the heads turn and gazes fix on me. I can feel the assumptions forming. Fortunately, I have found Australians to be pretty friendly, once you get talking, and they generally have a positive view of Americans.

It's funny how, when you're a foreigner, you can't really escape being associated with so many things you loathe just because they're also from the same country. Things like unabashed enthusiasm for firearms, reality TV, idiot politicians, illegal wars, country (and other really shitty) music, or the New England Patriots. You hate them, yet they're associated with you, because you're both American. You can't escape it. I guess it could be infuriating if you let it. You have to hope people can see past the stereotypes.

Blue Suede Shoe

Julia Gillard lost her (size 36 blue suede) shoe on Australia Day yesterday when her security detail dragged her away from what is now being described by the media as a "mob" of Aboriginal Australian protestors. The activists behind the protest have seized on this opportunity to air their grievance.

The Prime Minister can have her shoe back, they say, if she comes and picks it up in person:

"Julia will be eligible to make a shoe title claim which will take approximately 20 years or more before this is seriously considered. This will be dependant on Julia being able to show continuous connection with the shoe. This may be difficult to prove as she will not have had the shoe for 20 years. Julia will also have to provide evidence she is a full-blooded shoe owner. ... A very formal handback ceremony due to the great importance, will be held to return the stolen shoe in return for the stolen land."

OUCH.

Alone

Everyone I love -- everyone I have ever loved -- is at least 7,400 miles away, on another continent, across an ocean. Over ninety-nine percent of everyone I've ever known is in North America (or Europe). And here I am in Australia, so very far away.

It's a little bit of a weird feeling. My life takes place on a different day than yours. Sometimes it feels like I've gone to a parallel dimension, or like I've died and this is existence in the Greek afterlife. I get to observe America from a great distance. I follow its society from 30,000 feet, but I do not intercede in the lives of individuals.

This feeling is exacerbated by how Americans respond when I phone them. "You're calling from Sydney?!" They say it like I died and have returned to Earth through some cosmic ghost-connection.

I'm ready for my wife to come home.

Soon

I will be the one to find the thylacine. It's out there. I can feel it in my bones.

I say "Hell Yes" to the Tiger Pie

I finally had an opportunity the other day to patronize an Australian institution, Harry's Cafe de Wheels, and its amazing Tiger Pie. This thing is fantastic!

Its base is beautifully-cooked beef and gravy inside a flaky pastry crust (the pie). That is topped with a giant lump mashed potatoes and mushy peas, which is hollowed out to accommodate a ladle full of gravy.

To wit:

The photo doesn't even do it justice. (Or what's left of it, anyway.) It's my new favorite, and I'll probably be heading over to Woolloomooloo (that's a Sydney neighborhood and, yes, that's the correct spelling) as often as I can.

The beef is outstanding. It's not like the beef you would get in a bistro or even a decent steak restaurant in the US. The lack of quality in meat in most places in the US is one main reason why I rarely eat meat anymore when dining out. I find the meat generally of much higher quality here than in the US. And no risk with the Tiger Pie. Its beef is lean and cooked until soft, similar to BBQ. And the gravy is sublime. Same for the mashed potatoes, the peas, and the pie crust.

This is English food at its finest. The fare of my childhood. I know this is technically Australian, and the Tiger Pie is certainly a unique thing, but this is the legacy of the the food brought by the Colonists. Its food evolution Down Under.

A lot of ill-informed American tourists think English food sucks, and certainly some of it does, but most of them travel to England and go eat at the Old World equivalent of McDonald's on holiday. That doesn't help much.

Tiger Pie is WHERE ITS AT, YO. Try one and I'm sure you will agree.

Australia Day

People (and things) were being really Australian today.

Everyone was out paatyin, crackin some coldies and cookin snags on the baabie. Here in Sydney, we had speeches, music, dancing, fireworks, and general merriment. We even had a flyover by some fighter jets.

Interestingly, Australia Day does not celebrate Australia's day of independence, which was either on 1 January 1901, when the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed and its Constitution came into effect, or on 11 December 1931, when the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, granting legislative authority to Australia, ... or on 3 March 1986 when the Australia Act eliminated all authority for the British Parliament to enact legislation affecting Australia, ... or maybe it hasn't happened yet, since the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is also the Queen of Australia and retains authority to appoint a Governor General of Australia, who retains some interesting executive powers, such as authority to dissolve the government.

So yeah, it's complicated. What Australia Day does celebrate is the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove, also known as the day the white people turned up and never left. It was very cool to be able to go and stand on the very spot where, on this day in January 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip landed on what he referred to as "without exception the finest harbour in the world" with 11 ships, 778 convicts, and 221 free men, to establish Sydney and indeed the modern nation of Australia. I tend to agree on the harbour thing.

Australian flags were everywhere today. I saw a several people wearing them as capes, as though they had just won an olympic medal. There were even flags in places you wouldn't expect to see flags, like attached to flying airplanes:

And stuck behind horses' ears:

Yes, that horse is pissing, which just makes it that much more Australian. In his defense, he was probably pretty drunk by that time in the day (3pm).

I think Lonely Planet's Sydney Guide was "bang on" (as they say) when it described the Day as "much nationalistic flag waving, drunkenness, and chest beating. In less mood to celebrate is the Aboriginal community, which refers to it as Invasion Day or Survival Day."

And indeed the fun was marred by an "incident" in Canberra, where the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader were confronted by several protestors from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. This "embassy" really is a set of tents, which have sat for 40 years on the lawn of the Old Parliament House in Canberra. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is controversial, and the Australian Government doesn't regard it as a "real" embassy, and it is basically a protest, but many Aboriginal folks state that it represents their desire to be taken seriously as sovereign people.

The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, apparently said they should shut it down. As you can imagine, that wasn't very popular with some folks, so they went to tell the Opposition Leader and the Prime Minister what they thought of that. They started banging on the glass windows of the venue where the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader were speaking, and they were shouting cries of "shame" and "racist." The Australian Federal Police seem to have overracted a bit, dragging away the Prime Minister to a waiting car after she "was trapped by protestors." Poor dear lost a shoe in the process.

Today's events are taking place in the context of a charming and heart-warming national debate on whether Australia is a racist country. I use those adjectives sincerely and with not a single iota of condescension or irony. This is exactly the sort of national conversation we need in America. We thought we were going to have it when we elected President Obama, but it hasn't really happened. No, it's clear that even after that historic event we still lack the capacity for rational self-reflection that is required for such a debate.

The Australian debate was begun by a prominent Australian physician of Chinese descent who noted that while growing up in Australia he was frequently subjected to racist language and behavior from white Australians. But he also said that having racists doesn't make Australia unique and it does seem to be getting better. There has been a fair amount of defensiveness in response, perhaps understandably, but the discussion has been remarkably civil and frank.

I find this discussion very endearing. It makes me like Australia and Australians. And it leaves me wondering if America will ever achieve this level of collective maturity.

And I will save you any suspense on the great, Is Australia racist? debate. The answer is, Yes.

OK, I'm being a little flippant. But my experience here is that it's fairly similar to the US in that regard. There is a pretty small but hard-core minority of nationalistic types who make no apology about favoring whites over "others." To wit:

In case you can't read it, the shirt says, "This is Australia. We eat meat. We drink beer. And we speak fucking English." In the greatest irony ever, you buy this shirt at Paddys Market from a little Chinese lady who literally does not speak English. Pretty hilarious. I'm certain I will buy one if I do not end up settling in Australia, (because I want no chance of being taken seriously wearing it).

Other than my brief visit to The Rocks, I mostly left the Australia Day fun to the Australians. But I did have a remarkably Australian day. I went for a long bike ride out to Manly Beach. On the way back, I got passed by some racer-roadies going up one particularly lung-busting hill. The lead rider looked over as he passed and said, "G'day." I reflexively responded in kind, just like a real Australian. So I guess they're starting to rub off a bit.

Lamar Smith, even dumber than you thought possible

It is really difficult to plumb the depths of stupidity in the US Congress. It is seemingly bottomless.

In the news this week, you will see that Americans' approval of Congress has hit a new low. Nearly 90% of Americans think Congress is doing a bad job of addressing the nation's problems. That's damn-near unanimity, something exceedingly rare in a democracy. So, Republicans and Democrats do agree on something: Congress sucks.

And we all know why: They're bought and sold. The main difference between Democrats and Republicans seems to be that the Republicans do a better job of attracting money from the super-rich.

There is no better example of that than than the role played by Republican Representative Lamar Smith from Redneck Wonderland Texas with respect to SOPA. Demonstrating an utter lack of knowledge or concern (at least one of those, but probably both) for bedrock constitutional principles like due process and free expression, Smith did as he was told by his overlords in the corporate media and introduced a bill that would have allowed anyone who alleged a copyright violation to shut down a website (yes, the whole thing just disappears) with nothing more than a "letter of good faith" that sets forth the letter-writer's assertion that the site had violated US copyright law. No chance to respond. Your site's just gone until you comply with the request or the case makes its way through Federal court, which could easily happen in 2-3 years.

Utterly ridiculous. And almost certainly unconstitutional, even in this Supreme Court. Of course as soon as folks (like Wikipedia) started to protest, the rats started to jump ship. Thankfully, SOPA is doomed.

Although Smith's sponsorship of SOPA qualifies as pretty deep stupidity, he has sunk even deeper! His own campaign website contains copyright violations that, under his bill, would have allowed the photographer whose rights were infringed to shut down the website. Oh, the irony.

But of course Smith is not alone. We learned today that self-professed "defender of traditional marriage" former House Speaker Newter Gingrich asked his (second) wife for an open marriage, so he could keep having extra-marital sex with his soon-to-be third wife, while he was trying to impeach Bill Clinton for his "immoral behavior."

This is getting ridiculous. Will someone with half a brain please run for Congress?

Shake it off

Sunday morning, I arose unusually early for me on a weekend, around 7am. I got a quick coffee and headed across town with the Mrs in a torrential thunderstorm to the Star Casino. Arriving around 8.15, we sat nearly alone in a cavernous room in front of a giant projection screen while small Filipino people used a remarkably wide variety of vacuum implements (backpack-vacuums, zamboni-vacuums, rolling-vacuums, to name a few) to incessantly clean the carpet for several hours.

Why would I do such a stupid thing, you wonder? That was the only way to watch the Saints live (unless I wanted to pay the NFL $50 and stream the thing, which I didn't).

 I've been a little bummed out since the game. I really thought we had it this year. We had the greatest season ever by an NFL quarterback. Ever. Seriously, Drew's was the most prolific and most accurate passing seasons in history. Football nerds everywhere are mumbling the tired cliche, "Defense wins championships, man." Yeah, fine. But the defense was strong. It wasn't the best unit in the league, but they were remarkably good at getting stops when they needed them. And Drew was just the best guy on a pretty good team. Darren Sproles? The receivers were great, the O-line was great, and the running game was strong. I really thought we had it this year.

But it wasn't to be. The game will probably go down as one of the best in NFL history, but I could not possibly give less of a FUCK about that. We'll see yall next year.

Now it's time to shake it off. The truth is that it doesn't sting as much ever since the Miracle in Miami. I still cry when I watch that.

And pitchers and catchers report in about a month. The Yankees just did a huge deal that got the hot stove a roarin. They shipped The Jesus to Seattle-beria and got a Stud pitcher in return. Not to mention a young guy who looks like he has a pretty good shot at becoming ace material himself. I love it. This gives them what they need to win those post-season series.

If both of these guys make it, this will be the best trade the Yanks ever made, even if the Jesus has a great career with the Ms. And hey, I'm an Ms fan too, so it's great to see them get something for the middle of the lineup. Jesus will hit.

Yankee home games will start at 11am here, with most of the road games even earlier. That should make for a fun day once in a while come Fall.

Back home

About 76 degrees F today. Partly cloudy with moderate humidity but the ever-present sea breeze keeps it fresh. I'm probably gonna ride my bike out to the beach and chill for a while.

Ready for a chuckle?

Also, this.

American foreign language education

I was riding my bike back across the Harbour Bridge this afternoon after the whole lodgment episode when I noticed a guy who was pretty obviously a tourist starting to walk up the ramp onto the bridge's bicycle track. Pedestrians are not allowed on the bicycle track, and bicyclists (and everyone else who is rolling, like skateboarders and rollerbladers) are not allowed on the dedicated pedestrian walkway (or "footpath" as they say).

The bike track and footpath are both bi-directional and they are on opposite sides of the bridge. Both are on the outside edges of the bridge so they have great views of the city. The footpath is on the bridge's east side so it has the best views of the harbour, including downtown, Circular Quay, and the Opera House.

I knew from previous experience that the security guard standing near the middle of the bridge, whom you can't see from the end of the ramp due to the bridge's curve, would stop the tourist and send him back. He would have go go back down the ramp, under the bridge, and back up the other side. And he'd be better off doing it too, since he could put that camera he was carrying to better use.

So, seasoned Sydney Harbour Bridge user that I am, I stopped to give this guy the 411.

"Hey man, you're gonna have to go back and go over to the other side of the bridge to walk across. This side is bikes only. The pedestrian walkway is on the other side."

He stared at me for a second. "I don't ... unless iz ...  French."

"Ah, Francais," I said. "Je m'appelle Christophe."

His eyes brightened briefly when he heard some semblance of the French language coming from my lips. But the quizzical look returned to his face as he almost certainly quickly began to wonder where the hell I had learned to speak French.

Mississippi is the answer, of course. I had two years in high school and another two in my lib'ral arts undergraduate education.

"Je ne parle pas Francais." I said.

By now he was beginning to wonder whether I was fucking with him. I had just told him in French -- shitty, horribly accented French, mind you, but French nonetheless -- that I do not speak French.

And that's the truth. Rote memorization of vocabulary words and constantly repeating, "Where's the bathroom?" does not magically cause you to learn a foreign language. Oh, what time I wasted on that nonsense.

He pointed over my head towards the pathway. "Nord," he said.

I thought for a second. "North!" Yes, that's north!" I pointed over his shoulder and nodded in agreement.

"But you can't go that way, you have to go back," I pointed back. "And under ..." I made a sweeping gesture with my arm to indicate going under something.

He looked at me as if to say, Did you forget the part where I just said I didn't understand you?

"What 'under?'" he asked.

"You know, under," I said, committing the cardinal sin of repeating the same word more slowly and loudly to help a non-English speaker understand an unknown word. Perhaps even more foolishly, I repeated my wide sweeping upper-cut motion with my arm. "Under."

He stared at me. "I go nort," he said.

"No, bicyclette only," I said. I put my fingers on the rail and made the universal gesture for walking. "Walk," I said, "over there." I pointed to the other side of the bridge (not across the bridge).

Suddenly I remembered the French words for right and left. I remembered our lesson about how Paris is bisected by the River Seine. Parisians call the part of the city on the right side of the river "rive droite" and the part on the left side "rive gauche."

 "Bicyclette, gauche, ici." Bicycles on the left, here, I said. "Walking, " I made the universal gesture again, unable to remember the French word for walk, "droite, over there." I pointed to the right.

He seemed to understand. This time I omitted words all together. I pointed back, then down, then to the other side of the bridge, and then I made the walking gesture.

"OK," he said.

"Good luck," I said.

And that is how you communicate with a Frenchman after four years of making A's in your French classes in the Mississippi public school system. Truly said.

In case you're wondering, the guy hadn't missed or been unable to read the sign saying that he wasn't supposed to be walking on the bike track. The City of Sydney simply hasn't bothered to put up a sign directing people to the walking path. This is despite the fact that every damn tourist who comes to Sydney at some point attempts to walk across the bridge. So WTF, Sydney? Put up a damn sign already telling people how and where to walk across the bridge.

Lodgment

Finally, at long last, today I "lodged" (as they say) my Form 16 application with the Legal Profession Admission Board of New South Wales. I used the in-person lodgment option by riding my bike downtown with the application package in a sweat-proof binder in my backpack. After giving me a salutational grunt, the guy at the desk took the application package from my outstretched hand and rummaged through the documents for a few minutes before he unceremoniously tore open the seal on my official law school transcript, voiding its "official" status -- even though the LPAB's own rules clearly say the transcript must be official. After that, I had the urge to "lodge" my application a little more forcefully.

It will take the folks at the LPAB -- none of whom seemed particularly swamped when I walked into their office this afternoon -- a mere six to eight weeks to use my $200 application fee to review my single-page law school transcript, single-page letter of good standing from the Oregon State Bar, and my (admittedly two-page) letter describing my legal experience. Including the application form, which has critical information such as my name, address, phone number, law school, and signature, that's five whole pages of paperwork. If you're wondering, that's an amazing average of 0.71 pieces of paper reviewed per week. That's a blazing clip for an American government worker, and by the looks of it the Australian government worker is every bit as efficient.

After this exhaustive review process, the LPAG will be able to say what additional education and/or practical experience I require before being admitted to practice as as a solicitor here in the great state of NSW. Then I will get to take some law classes, e.g., Australian Constitutional Law. Then I can apply for a visa that will allow me to work. So I should be working here in Australia shortly before I hit retirement age.

Welcome to the New America, Australia

Australians seem to have a healthy sense of skepticism about the economy. Although they have not been greatly affected by the global financial crisis, the Australian financial news is filled with worry about what might happen the Australian economy based on reports of what's happening in America and Europe.

As we know, the global financial meltdown was the result of crimes committed by greedy, ultra-wealthy Americans in search of more money. Conclusively demonstrating that the American federal government is utterly corrupt, its response to these crimes was to bail out the institutions who profited from them rather than to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. The result has been utter disgust from the American people, a further loss of confidence in our governmental institutions and leaders, and people protesting in the streets of every major US city for months.

And now the Australian people are unfortunately getting a taste of what it's like to live in the New America, as the one-percenter thieves have finally arrived on these shores.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Australians are quite proud of their car-maker, Holden. But Holden was bought years ago by the poster child of corporate welfare, General Motors. GM made inferior cars and trucks for years and was just about to be driven (pardon the pun) from the car-making business by the market forces worshipped by the big capitalists running the US government. But Uncle Sam came to the rescue, just in the nick of time,  and GM now seems to be "back on its feet" after accepting hundreds of million dollars of US taxpayer money to continue its operations.

Amazingly, living off the dole hasn't caused GM to "go all socialist." In the true spirit of US crony capitalism/government, where profits are privatized and losses are socialized, GM is now blackmailing Australia by threatening to take its Holden manufacturing operations "offshore" (read: somewhere in SE Asia, where they can avoid paying a living wage and abiding by environmental regulations) unless Australia gives it some spending money.

Recognizing that automobile manufacturing is "crucial to the health" of a modern industrial economy, the Australian federal and South Australian state (where the GM-Holden plant is located) governments will pay GM about $200 million to keep Holden manufacturing in Australia. The news reports do not say how much time this bribe will buy Holden, but my advice would be to get that term in writing.

Welcome to the New America, Australia. It sucks, unless you're in the 1%.

Aussie rules/college football

Some of my posts have gotten quite long, so in this post about two Aussie blokes who will be playing in the NCAA's BCS National "Championship" Game, I will not spend time talking about how truly shitty it is that US college football lacks an actual championship game and instead lets old rich white dudes pick two teams who will play to claim the title of "national champion." I will also not discuss how truly shitty it is that these idiots have picked Alabama to play undefeated LSU in this farce of a "championship" game, since there are many other really good teams who have just one loss (like Alabama) and who have not already been beaten by LSU earlier this season (again, like Alabama). Finally, I will at no time refer to the Alabama Crimson Tide by using my favorite nickname for this ridiculous excuse for a university, "the Menstruators."

No, instead I will simply link to the story and point out why the story is interesting and thus why you should go read it. It is interesting because the two fellas have both had unusual life journeys (perhaps that part is obvious) and because it illustrates some funny cultural differences (and asymmetries) between America and Australia through those journeys.

Particularly interesting for me, and for other fans of American football (and possibly Aussie rules fans as well), is learning about how playing Aussie rules football has ably prepared Brad Wing to be a to be a fantastic punter. Some pundits claim that the kicking game is a strength of the Pac-12 (nee -10). But, as a long-time Tennessee Volunteers fan (another SEC team, like LSU and Alabama), I saw first hand from watching Dustin Colquitt play just how much exceptional punting can affect the outcome of a game.

Terra Incognita

I have been fascinated with maps ever since I was a little boy. Putting a good map in front of me is a sure way to get me to spend hours still and quiet. I'm not sure why, but I think it is the thrill of finding someplace new.

As a boy, I was interested by maps from the Age of Exploration. I particularly enjoy reviewing maps from this age that show how Westerners' understanding of the world differed from what we know now. For centuries, for example, they knew that there was something down here below Indonesia, but they didn't really know what it looked like or exactly where it was. For a long time, many people thought that what we now know as Australia and Antarctica might be the same landmass.

When someone asks, "If you could live at any time in history and do whatever you wanted, what would you do?" My answer is always "I would be an explorer." I am drawn to terra incognita like moth to flame. The urge I have to go to these places is very difficult to put into words. I need to go to them.

That urge is probably why I am in Australia right now. I'm mostly speaking subjectively, of course -- Australia is terra incognita to me. But, remarkably, terra incognita still exists (though not as it once did). There are still parts of this continent that have not yet even been mapped, some of which are in far western New South Wales. According to people who know about these things, there are still probably relatively large areas of the Kimberly, Arnhem Land, and central Western Australia (e.g., the Pilbara) that have never or rarely been visited by Europeans.

As recently as 1984, there were Aboriginal Australians living in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia who, incredibly, had never seen or been seen by the rest of Australian society. Members of the Pintupi people known as the Pintupi Nine, lived as hunter-gatherers unaware of the modern world until one fateful day when they encountered a group of Australian whites and Aboriginals from the outside world. Anthropologists call this "first contact."

The story of this encounter, and the reactions of the Pintupi Nine to the modern world, is astounding (see the links in the previous paragraph). Although most of them were favorably impressed with things such as running water, one of them chose to return to his previous life after having seen what Western civilization had to offer.

The Pintupi Nine are widely believed to have been the last uncontacted people living in Australia. But before this encounter, it was widely believed that there were no uncontacted people in Australia.

So, what else is out there?

Perhaps the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, which is thought to have gone extinct in 1936. There have been thousands of unconfirmed sightings since then. My hope is to be the first to prove its continued existence.

And so, on days like this, I sit on my porch here in Sydney and think about getting myself a 4WD, provisions, and taking off to the unknown. I'm just waiting on the rest of my crew to arrive from the US.

In the meantime, I satisfy my need vicariously. I pour over the maps in my Explore Australia 2012 book, I read the Strange Maps blog (favourite post here), I plan my trip to the State Library of New South Wales' new free (!) exhibit entitled "Finding Antarctica: Mapping the Last Continent," and I plot to claim sovereignty over some piece of terra nullius.

I also delight over news like this from Slate, which reports on this year's winner of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society's "Best of Show" award (not to be confused with "Best in Show"). The winner, David Imus, spent nearly 6,000 hours working "alone on his map seven days a week for two full years." The result of this "artisanal cartography" project is what Slate calls "the best printed map of the US you'll ever see."

Reading the article, which you should, will give you a great feel for why map-making is an art and for what sets apart great maps from the run-of-the-mill type that are usually produced by the big corporations that dominate the industry. So what are you waiting for?

One final note: America's (possibly) last artisanal cartographer is, of course, an Oregonian. Only in Oregon, right?

No pennies

It's true, Australia has no pennies.

The smallest monetary denomination in circulation (i.e., coin in use) is $0.05, what we Americans call the nickel -- in spite of the dearth of actual nickel in our five-cent coin. But not to worry royalophiles, the Queen's mug appears on every other Australian coin.

Why have the Australians done away with pennies, or pence, or whatever this corner of the Commonwealth might have previously dubbed the one-cent piece, you wonder? It's very simple: Shit is too expensive to be worried about pennies. If you have to count yer wad down to the penny, you cannot afford this South Pacific paradise. So buck up and round up. It all evens out in the end -- meaning you lose between $0.01 and $0.04 on each transaction.

G'day.