This river could be a lot higher up or a lot further down the list, it all depends. This is the ultra-classic Tasmanian creek that gets run more than any other in the state. It features stunning scenery, clear water and fantastic rapids, with the best and biggest ones having smooth bed rock and soft pools to land in.
The Lea is easily accessible, has a dependable flow, fun grade 3+ and 4 rapids and is open to a wide variety of paddlers. You can scrape down with barely any flow, or survive your way down the solid class 5 at super high flows and everything in between. Plus, you can get from the first solid drop to the lake in a bit over 10 minutes if you’re participating in the Lea Race!
This is probably a bit out of left field, but this is an amazing river. It flows after heavy rain and snow, up near the Great Lake, which means that when it flows it is FREEZING ARSE cold. The first part of this river, from the highway down is good, with some nice rapids (one rather sketchy one) and lots of brush growing in the river. Soon after Deep Creek you hit a small weir (maybe 4 metres high) and the river is dewatered, all the flow being diverted by pipeline. You need water to be flowing over the weir so that you’ve got something to paddle in downstream until the flow picks up again with water coming in from side streams. Once those side streams do their thing, this river gets really fun.
The rapids are not particularly hard, mostly grade 4, but everything is boat scoutable except for one rapid. And the rapids are linked so that you have sequences of what feels like kilometres at a time when you’re bouncing down the river, taking eddies, dodging rocks, punching holes, and just having a blast. The one rapid you need to scout is just more of the same, only a little bit bigger.
This river doesn’t get run much, because it’s hard to get to and needs lots of rain, but it’s very, very, very, very fun and not too difficult.
A few years ago I was having a discussion about real estate with a work colleague. I ventured the opinion that it just didn't seem sustainable for house prices to continue to rise, year after year, at rates higher than inflation, without something bad happening.
How exactly are you going to pay for your house when it costs 7 times your yearly earnings instead of 3? Yes, you may get higher wages or have 2 incomes, but eventually you have to hit a peak, where prices either stagnate or decline.
While this seemed to make sense, my friend insisted that housing always goes up and that if you stay in the market you're sure to make a profit. Maybe she was advising some of those bankers in the USA who said "well housing has always gone up, therefore it's ALWAYS going to go up".
Click on the link to read a very interesting article about the asset bubble in the United States and how the problems that have occurred so far are merely the first act, rather than the conclusion. While potentially scary stuff, there's also lots of positives. After all, if prices come back to realistic levels it suddenly allows lots of people back into the market, people who were priced out by speculators, investors and sheep following the flock baaing about "you have to buy before it's too late".
I'm not sure that things are quite so bad in Australia, although there lots of people with lots of debt (credit cards, store credit, cars) that is basically worthless. If something goes down in value over time, whether it be an LCD TV or a new Hyundai than it's not an asset, it's a liability, so if you're writing these things down on your list of assets, dream on. An item is not worth what you paid for it, it's worth what you can sell it for, that's how you determine value. So all those people with lots of debt and no assets are in trouble.
Also in trouble are those people with highly leveraged assets (investment properties and the like), however, if they can hang on in the long term they should be alright. We still have a housing and a rental shortage and low interest rates make it easier to meet payments.
The big problem in Australian investment real estate, the 500 pound gorilla in the room, is in fact capital gain. All those investors who have their properties negatively geared (recieve a tax benefit) in the hopes of making their money back through capital gain in a couple of years, are in deep do-do. I would suggest there'll be no appreciable rises in the market for quite a while and potentially a lot more falls. When those investors realize the tax hole they've dug themselves into they may try and divest themselves of their properties, further lowering prices.
It's all very interesting, for those who care about such things.
Before reading this post, first click you need some accompanying music. Open this link in a new window or new tab and then click on the video. Read the article while listening to music.
A little bit overly dramatic I know, but still it's all very Orwellian.
After all can you think of any other time when there has been much discussion about the "rights" of the "people", with said rights laid down in law and statute and protected by special branches of Government?
Anyone? Can you think of an example?
What about a system which insisted that it was for "the people" but that it needed to temporarily dissolve democracy in order for the "rights" they were seeking to be achieved.
Or maybe someone can tell me of a system where the elected legislature continued to exist and theoretically have control, while at the same time handing over absolute power to unelected officials who used the organs of the state to achieve their own ends while continuously talking about "the people"?
I'm scractching my head but I can't come up with any. Oh well, I guess this new idea is alright then, after all, what could go wrong? It's worked so well in Canada, why shouldn't it work here?
All sarcasm aside, I think this is a very dangerous idea and moreover an extremely insidious one, that creeps up on you in the night, nibbling at a corner here, scratching out a spot there, and if challenged retreating ever so slightly while screaming "perfidy" and trying to make you feel ashamed for doing what is right.
Now I don't normally rate Paul Kelly, whenever he comes on Insiders I always switch over to see some sport or go and make some toast, but this is a very good article.
Personally, I think this is "the thin edge of the wedge" to use a much abused term. It starts here, but where does it finish? Do all fatties have a right to a second free seat no matter where they go? Do junkies get an entitlement to free smack? Do kiddy fiddlers get the run of the playground (maybe only if they're "artists", afterall they're a better class of people)? Do illegal immigrants get an automatic launch onto welfare and government housing, just for doing the wrong thing?
The EU constitution is full of various rights and is the size of a book. Not a small book, but rather the complete Lord of the Rings. In hardcover. Complete with maps. And appendices. And notes from the author. And notes from the author's children. Plus a complete annotated list of all sources he used. Including the complete reading notes for those reading the book for uni.
By comparison, the Australian constitution is published in a small booklet the size of a christmas card and not much thicker. A small christmas card. Where would you rather live? France with double digit unemployment, high taxes, "youth" rioting in the streets burning cars and a nuclear power plant down the road, or Australia?
You don't have a "right" to a house, or a job or a needle exchange program or a free sex change or a marriage to your underage houseboy. You should have the right to try your best to achieve those things (within reason). You should have the right to an unfettered media that gives you all the information you need to help you in your quest. You should have the right to live a life free of danger, or at a minimum, the right to defend yourself with force without worrying about being banged up for it.
If the rights that you're seeking are not popular enough to be supported by a majority of voters in a majority of states (the basic requirement for amending the constitution), than maybe there's a reason why we don't have them.
If you want the right to eat two barbecue chickens with a lard based dipping sauce for your lunch and then sit in your double seat at the cinema drinking a bucket of coke and smelling vaguely like bacon grease while complaining about discrimination against people with "glandular problems", then I should have the "right" to date Christina Aguilera, on an ongoing basis.
In fact both "rights" are remarkably similar, as they impinge on someone else and their freedoms.
So I say NO to a bill of rights or any such document that takes away power from our elected representatives. Chimpanzees they might be, but they're OUR chimpanzees and we'll vote them out if they eat too many bananas. I'd much rather a chimpanzee than having my fate decided by Justice Michael Kirby or any of his ilk.
And furthermore, while they're at it, I suggest repealling as much of the legislation that is in existence as possible. It was only created to give politicians an opportunity to create more power and authority for themselves, most of it we don't need. At least that stuff we can get rid of, a Bill of Rights is a far more insidious cancer which is much harder to treat.
Why do we constantly accept fat people? Why is alright to be a porker? Why isn't it alright to be judgemental of someone who's eating for two, even when they're not pregnant?
People routinely complain about "celebrity obsession" and our ideal of the "perfect body" and tell us that fat people are actually happier. Well are they? They certainly can't be healthier. After all, if you're eating lots of vegies, drinking lots of water and doing lots of exercise to keep yourself looking trim, surely you're a lot happier than some fatty on the couch eating pies and looking for crumbs that have fallen into their fat rolls. And I don't know about other people, but I enjoy not needing a crane to lower me onto the toilet and not running out of breath everytime I walk up 3 consecutive steps. And at a minimum, doing exercise is going to give you an endorphin kick which should make you happy at least temporarily.
The reason I bring this up is because of this article here about how we accept fat people, even though they basically suffer from a self induced disability. Even if you don't like the writer (many won't), you should check it out anyway, see what you think.
I've actually read about the Canadian deal elsewhere and it does seem a bit ridiculous to me. I have trouble fitting in airline seats because my legs are too long. If I don't get in the emergency exit I normally have a pretty uncomfortable flight of it, why can't they help a brutha out?
Anyway, thought you might be interested.
cheers
Harry
ps: none of the photos above really have much to do with this post at all. Oh well, sue me.
You know, living in the Kimberleys I regularly see stunning and spectacular scenery. Colours you don't see anywhere else, amazing sunsets, rugged mountain ranges, massive cliffs, beautiful rock formations and beautiful rivers.
But then I was perusing the internet researching waterfalls when I found this bushwalking site that features photos of Tasmanian wilderness from a variety of contributors. Seeing these photos reminds me of just how beautiful and spectacular Tasmania can be and why it really is the prettiest state.
I would highly recommend going through the posts on the forum and having a look at some of the photos. Even if you're not keen on bushwalking yourself there are still some amazing locations you can check out and remind yourself that you're living in the Kimberleys so that you DON'T have to go around walking in the snow :)
Very few people have run this creek. It has a tiny catchment, massive drops and it drops into a lake with a very, very hard landing off an enormous waterfall.
This creek flows through farmland, before it suddenly starts dropping. It’s not particularly pretty, but it is spectacular, with big bed rock drops that are cliffed out and very difficulty to scout and portage. In fact there are only 5 drops on this creek.
The first waterfall drops onto rocks and needs to be portaged on the left.
After this you have a cool boof onto a long slide, in fact probably the biggest paddleable slide in Tassie, it’s quite fun.
After this you have a very sketchy exit from your boat on the left to scout the next drop, with the cliffs stopping you from portaging or getting close to the drop. This first drop is a little bit rocky, and drops into a small pool which immediately then drops off a very large waterfall with a massive tree inside it. It’s a bit intimidating dropping into the pool on this one!
The big waterfall needs a rope and some dodgy climbing amongst trees to get around it, and then you’re into the pool and ready for the last drop, the big one. This drop is almost impossible to scout and has a long, fast, sliding, curving entrance that then drops into a big vertical drop, probably 15 metres, with a very, very hard landing into Lake Barrington. It’s a hard hit!
This creek is short and serious, probably needing three days of continuous, heavy rain to get it high enough. The more water the better. Get on it, but take it easy, and you HAVE to paddle some of these drops, a walk out would be a nightmare and portaging is not really an option.
Incidentally, if anyone here has watched the classic video X-Tas, Extreme Kayaking in Tasmania, the sequence on Forth Falls Creek is easily the best segment of the movie, with great shots and perfect music. Jimmy launches off the log drop in spectacular fashion, a shot that just blows you away. Try and find a copy and check it out.
cheers
Harry
btw, sorry for the lack of kayaking shots, I don't have access to any of my pictures at the moment and I don't have any of this river anyway. Similar story to a few of the other top ten as well :(
Tassie is blessed with lots of rivers, big and small, all contained within a reasonably small geographic area. We don't have the aweseome bedrock creeks that you find in many classic whitewater destinations, similarly a lack of big water rivers means we don’t get the massive waves and amazing play spots that other places enjoy.
A lack of snow pack means we’re usually heavily dependent on rainfall, apart from those golden times when there’s been so much rain that the run off keeps the classic creeks running, or the rare occasions when a late dump of snow melts into the rivers, keeping them up for two or three weeks at a time.
But what Tassie does have is a huge variety of classic rivers, from easy grade 2 through to solid grade 4, with even some legitimate grade 5 rapids and rivers to be found. We have big volume rivers through to super steep, low volume creeks, great surf and even some good play runs when the rain really pours down!
Any list must necessarily take into account personal preferences. For me, I like wild places, steep creeks and beautiful scenery. I like running rivers rather than just stopping on a wave and the more gradient the better (within reason).
So with all that taken into account, over the next few days I'll be posting my top ten list of the best rivers in Tasmania.
What is it about flying? We live in an amazing world, where we can travel thousands of kilometres in a mere matter of hours. We can soar high about the earth, seeing sights that earlier generations could only dream of. We travel in air-conditioned, pressurised comfort, with adjustable seats, private music and in-flight magazines. No leaky flying boats for us, no tiny airports in the middle of nowhere on the multi-week trip across the world.
Things are just as good for the airlines. They have vast numbers of cashed up customers eager to travel to every corner of the globe. They have an inter-linked global economy heavily reliant of frequent travel by business people happy to pay a premium for the privilege. Consumers are more than happy to have their products shipped same day and pay for this luxury. Airlines have expanded rapidly, buying the latest, greatest, shiniest planes to fly to every conceivable destination and a few that seem somewhat unconceivable.
So, with this perfect marriage of demand and supply, why is flying such a frustrating and painful experience? Surely an environment with a multitude of different providers is one perfectly suited to reward a company that provides exceptional customer service? After all that’s the tack that Virgin Blue have taken in Australia, although seemingly less so lately.
It starts with the airport terminal itself, an uncomfortable, irritating and expensive experience, especially if you’re one of those lucky ones forced to wait with your luggage for hours until you’re allowed to check in. Even in a modern, technological age we still need to arrive hours before departure, just in case things go wrong, or the line is glued to the spot (anyone flown through Perth airport?). And of course, heaven help you if you’re flying multiple legs, because one single delay anywhere along the chain can completely ruin your whole trip, even if you do allocate yourself lots of extra hours sitting in the terminal waiting for the privilege of being allowed to check your baggage in, baggage that the airline may deign to take, but only if it’s not too heavy, not too long, not too much hassle.
Then of course you have the customer service. Virgin are good, although now slipping as they start to tighten up on the things that gave them their reputation in the first place. Jetstar, a supposedly budget airline, with a rather ordinary reputation, offer better customer service at their counters than QANTAS, a supposedly marquee provider.
In the departure lounge you generally have a range of choices of fine dining, with Macdonalds often the restaurant of choice, due to its freshness and value (not necessarily ideals normally associated with the chain). You can buy various unhealthy snacks, sit on uncomfortable chairs and wait for hours.
Then on the airplane itself you are confronted with uncomfortable seats, a cruising altitude far too high to actually see anything, and cost cutting means you have to pay for the privilege of a glass of water. Those addicted to nicotine find themselves unable to do anything about their cravings, making them irritable and annoying everyone in their vicinity, while meanwhile it’s apparently alright to shoot up, with needle disposal units provided in the toilets.
Why is it such a frustrating and painful experience?
Don’t we live in the 21st century?
Isn’t this a world where things such as customer service and creating a positive experience are necessary for companies who want return custom?
Maybe it’s the quest of the cheapest fare that sees many of us fly different legs with different carriers. As we switch from one flight to another there maybe seems no point in offering us anything special, knowing that we have picked the cheapest fare and will do so next time as well.
Maybe it’s just flying itself. Travelling vast distances (distances unimaginable even very recently) in a big metal box is very technical and things can go wrong. Flights are not reliable, staff are not perfect, companies just want your money.
So what’s the solution?
I think that Boeing’s new point-to-point strategy is a sensible one. Flying in a smaller plane for a long distance means you don’t have to switch planes every leg. Less passengers means it’s faster to embark and disembark. More smaller planes means that there’s more flexibility built into the system.
I think that airlines need to accept baggage whenever you turn up, not just 2 hours before a flight. Our world is full of computers, if a computer can’t track a bag and put it in a pile to wait for a flight that’s coming later that day than what use are they exactly? If they can’t do that, they need to have more seats outside the actual terminal, plus food/drink etc.
Lastly, maybe we just have to pay that little bit extra to get the better service. This one seems much trickier, as I said. QANTAS provides somewhat indifferent service at times, while Jetstar are actually working hard to remove the stigma of being total bastards that follows them around from their start up days, when they were.
I have come to believe that Johnny Cash's American albums are the best 5 albums presented by any artist, ever. The fact that they were released sequentially over a relatively short period of time also adds to their impact. These are not albums separated by many years, or the occasional good album amongst a sea of ordinariness and bland.
For a little background on the albums, go here or here or here, or for a bio on Cash, go here. It's truly an amazing story, the way that Rick Rubin met Cash and together they collaborated on these albums that not only revived his career, but won him multiple grammys and put him back at the top of the public consciousness and showed the American public what a truly great artist and singer he was.
I don't think that these albums have much of a presence in Australia. Personally, I'd heard the Cash version of Hurt by the Nine Inch Nails on Triple J, plus a couple of others that I can't remember. I'd also listened to some of his older stuff and seen the movie Walk the Line, which features some fantastic music. It seems that his older stuff is still very popular with country music fans and most music fans stock a range of it, however the American albums are only stocked spasmodically and certainly not featured strongly.
Anyway, I ended up downloading the 5 albums off the web and they are amazing. Now I wouldn't say that every single song is good, it's certainly going to appeal to individual taste, but as albums, they are simply stunning. Some of the songs are reworks of older Cash songs, some are newly written, some are old spirituals and gospel songs and some are covers of modern songs. Most prominent of these are probably Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, One by U2 and Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode.
I'll put my hand up right now and say that Cash's versions are better than the originals, in all three cases.
Now this guy makes a pretty compelling argument about the overall theme of the albums being somewhat cheesy (plus heaps of interesting background material), but I tend to disagree. Johnny Cash was always a fan of the melodramatic. I've read an article about the movie Walk the Line, explaining how he was a big fan of Joaquin Phoenix because of his work in Gladiator, where he plays a particularly nasty character. Cash might have given up the drugs and booze, but he still looked fondly back on those days and never really gave up those "outlaw" days that saw him write songs about crime, murder and gaol time, even though the biggest crime he ever committed was being busted for drugs.
I tend to see the American albums as a continuation of the existing Cash character, particularly the idea of the "Man in Black", a dangerous, dark, mysterious person, who is fundamentally good, but a solitary outsider, choosing to live away from society. Now that's not necessarily the real Johnny Cash, but it's a persona that he created and pushed and enjoyed and one that has a lot of romance about it, such that it is very appealing.
All 5 albums of this collection are great, but I prefer the later stuff. The music gradually gets more and more sombre as time progresses.
For me the overall theme of the albums is melancholia, a deep sadness and even mourning. Some of the songs are up tempo or lighter, but these are not generally happy songs. They feature, loss, mourning, love, loneliness, death and solitude. But they're not songs to make you want to kill yourself either. Listening to a sad song when you're sad can make you feel like you're not alone, while a great song is great, no matter the mood you're in.
Contemplating these albums, the biggest thing I've noticed is this. These songs make me WANT to believe in god. Not that I do, but when Cash sings about death or loss or Jesus I really wish that the things he's talking about are true and that there is a heaven out there where we can meet up with those we care about.
The sound of these albums is very stripped down, a lot of the songs feature nothing but acoustic guitar and vocals. Later on a few strings (mainly violin), piano and harmonica also feature, but the main act is the amazing vocals. Even in the last album, recorded very soon before his death, with Cash physically unable to do much singing, his voice still retains real power.
My favourite song out of the five albums is Four Strong Winds, which is apparently a "Canadian Folk Classic". It used to be on youtube but seems to have disappeared. Having heard most of the different versions, including some by very notable country artists, the Cash version is head and shoulders above the rest.
Other notables are Wayfaring Stranger (which I would like played at my funeral), Further On Up The Road and The Mercy Seat (very dark). Overall, I would say that probably half of the songs on these albums are classics, and all of them are good to listen to, although I do find myself skipping some of them, especially the lighter ones.
Some of the songs feature some very basic rhymnes to make the song work, such as "Uncle Fud" to rhymne with "Tennessee Stud". A little more work might have improved these songs, but a lot of the songs where this occurs seem to be older Cash songs. For me, the biggest problem with his older stuff was the steel guitar, which gave a jangly, fast paced feel to his songs and to me, grated on the ears. The acoustic guitar sounds much better. I imagine that if some of his older stuff was remixed today (think Elvis vs JXL) you could come up with some real classics, let's wait and see.
It's really hard to write about such a visceral topic like music, but I've heard these 5 albums at least a dozen times over, probably more and they still have a huge power whenever I hear them. Cash can take any song, make it his own and make it better than the original, especially if the material is a little dark. If you haven't done so, do yourself a favour and get onto Youtube, check out some of the songs and maybe get the albums.
As those of you who follow How I Met Your Mother (only the most educated, erudite and intelligent of our population of course) may know, one of the very few things that can make Barney show emotion is the movie Field of Dreams.
Well.
I watched it today with my Grade 8 boys class, although they weren't very impressed with the idea at the start. All I can is wow...
If there hadn't been a bunch of grade 8 boys in the room I probably would have cried myself. Ted was quite correct to be critical of Robin for not liking it, there's no more to say.
Now yes, it's schmaltzy crap and totally unbelievable, but the story is so well scripted, directed and acted that you totally accept it and go with it. The only slightly dubious point is right at the end when all the cars turn up, even though the team had already said they were done for the day and would be back tomorrow (giving away most of the ending here, but hey, it will still be powerful when you see it). Now the bit with Kevin Costner's Dad was good, but not that powerful, but when the doctor gives up his dreams to come to help I genuinely had to fight to keep the tears down.
There's not many things that can do that, maybe a few war movies and the like. I think it's the notion of personal sacrifice, consciously giving up something valuable for the sake of others that is what makes men vulnerable. Puppies and cute little kittie cats? Who gives a crap? But this movie, this movie made me emotional in a way that few others have or could.
Now maybe I'm turning into a little bitch, that's quite possible and I'll concede that right now (I think I need a girlfriend to get me back on track!), but this movie is genuinely moving and even if you have a heart of stone it's still well written, directed and acted. I highly recommend that you check it out.
The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind....
Somewhat like that lefty rag the Age, Fairfax's trusty mainstay in the Melbourne newspaper market.
Now I'll check out the Age website occasionally to read their footy stuff during the year, especially now that the Herald Sun have a new and stupider way to arrange their columnists on the website, but apart from that the Age is good for little more than lighting fires.
It's intensely politicised (way to the left of the spectrum), consistently runs opinion or biased pieces in their news and often just gets things plain wrong.
For anyone who cares about or is interested in newspapers at all, HERE is a very interesting editorial in the Australian explaining how a newspaper should be run if it is to make a profit and decrying the decline of Fairfax and newspapers around the country and the world in general. It's very interesting and it's spot on the money. There might be 110 million bloggers out there, but they're mostly unpaid hacks (like me) spouting opinion with little or no fact checking or research. If newspapers can't leverage that comparative advantage to be big online while continuing to sell hard copy papers as well, than they're doing something wrong.
As luck may have it, I'm currently reading a novel that features, along the way, aspects of the massive changes that occurred in India after it was split in twain, into what is now Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
Now as I'm sure everyone knows, there was a massive movement of people both ways after partition, and a massive loss of life as Hindus murdered Muslims bound for Pakistan and vice versa. There were riots in the street, mobs going around killing innocents and lots of people generally had a bad time.
However, to imply that India is bigoted against Muslims is too much of a simplification, since the Indians are pretty much bigoted against everyone, including most of their own people. The Sikhs, the Tamils, the Muslims; all the ethnic groups in India have gotten a bad time of it on occasion, not to mention the lower caste groups who've been getting a bad time of it for untold centuries.
What does all this mean? Well when was the last time a group of "untouchables" made their way into the middle of Mumbai and tortured and murdered as many people as they could?
So having said that, a much better writer than me (Mark Steyn) has written an interesting article HERE about the attacks and the response to them.
In an interesting note, a few years ago there was an attack on a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires, of all places, by Muslims.
Something has to change, but the reality is that things never change until the problem is so great that you can't possibly avoid it any longer (think Britain and France pre WW2). What does this mean? Well you'd better start having lots of kids, because there maybe some SERIOUS military confrontations going on in 25 years or so, maybe even earlier.
I was going to talk about Obama in relation to some other post (which has slipped away from me now) but I found this post on a discussion forum about Obama's victory and the ramifications it has for politics in the US, in particular his mobilisation of direct support as opposed to support from the Democratic Party.
The other thing, that they didn't mention, is that a lot of Obama's money may have been dirty. There's very simple procedures in place when recieving internet payments to ensure that identity is correctly verified. Obama instead went with a system of "Oh, if a find a problem later down the line we'll return the contribution", which is all well and good but extremely unlikely to happen.
Anyway, a lot of the consequences for US politics may happen here in Australia as well, although we're a Prime Ministerial rather than Presidential system (and I don't need crap about the constitution thankyou, I mean that Australia has evolved to a system where the Prime Minister controls the power on the basis of control of the legislature). KRudd certainly attracted a great deal of support in the last election but I wonder how much of that was just anti-Howard? His ridiculously high poll numbers would suggest that people actually do like him for some reason though.
Ok, well maybe not me, that would probably take too much work.
After watching a few of the episodes of Make Me a Supermodel this year, it seemed that there wasn't anything particularly special about most of the contestants. Tom and Rhys had class and charisma but most of the girls were gangly stick insects with weird faces, especially Shanina, who had the confidence and the attitude but a particularly unattractive face.
Now it might be shallow of me to mention another person's looks, but considering they're on a TV show which is based totally on how you look it seems like a fair comment.
The reason I bring this up is that tonight I was "The Ball", here in Wyndham. Don't really know the proper name, but it's basically a social event for all the young people (18 and less) to dress up and go out and dance and stuff. Similar to a school formal, but a much greater range of kids. They all turned up two hours late, but that's not the important bit.
There was one kid there in his grey suit who was just Mr Charisma. He oozed it just walking. On the parade to pick the best dressed he was just amazingly confident. And on the dance floor he took charge and made it all look effortless. Now I happen to know that this particular kid would make two short planks look like a supercomputer, but is that really a problem?
After all, when faced with a situation like this one above, surely too much thinking is just going to get in the way? And the reason we all laughed at Zoolander was, after all, the fact that it played up to stereotypes about models that already exist.
You're only there to be confident, have charisma and do what you're told, while being "really, really good looking".
And not only that, there's a few other kids up here (male and female) who would be at least as talented as most of the drones that managed to make it onto the show this year.
So what does all this mean? Buggered if I know.
Anyway, if there's any modelling agencies out there I'll be happy to spill all I know; for a finders fee!
Don't you ever just wish you were talented? Even just a little bit? Wouldn't you just love to have a tiny fraction of the writing talent that this guy has got?
For those of us who live in Australia or other first world countries, things are looking pretty good at the moment. Let's face it, even if you're a complete train wreck of a person, the Government will still give you money to buy metho and the salvos will give you soup and an old coat. When have winos ever had it better?
That being said, one of the features of the modern world is its inclusiveness and acceptance. Are you a transexual junkie with wierd plastic surgery and tourettes syndrome? Society will still accept you for who you are. Are you a former member of some violent militia who raped and murdered your way through Africa and moved to Australia for a new life? Again, you'll be treated like everyone else (or better in some cases).
Our world is one in which pretty much anything is accepted, if not by every single individual, then certainly by society in general and by governments in particular. And that list of what is acceptable is slowly becoming wider. Only this week there was controversy about Australian artist Donald Friend and his accounts in his diaries of being "seduced" by 10 year old Balinese boys. He, together with that old freak Bill Henson, are being defended by their buddies in the arts world, because they're well, artistic, and artists shouldn't have to conform to the same rules as everyone else.
The problem with this acceptance is that the more we accept something, the more we promote it as being not only acceptable, but potentially good.
A prime example of this is the two parent family. Traditionally, in Australia, the vast majority of people stayed together in marriage their entire lives. If some young girl were to get knocked up the natural reaction was to get her married off quickly or else hide the pregnancy and hide the child in an orphanage or pass her off as a younger sister.
Now the stigma associated with unwed mothers was obviously very serious and no doubt very difficult to deal with for those who went through this situation. However, this stigma also meant that the number of single mothers out there was considerably lower. Now some apologists out there may claim that alternatives are just as good, but it seems to be pretty compelling that, in general, you're more likely to turn out alright if you grew up in a two parent household (and by that I mean one of each!). So as the stigma of being a single mother has been removed, so more young girls have been knocked up. Their shiftless, lazy arse impregnators have moved on because society no longer forces them to be accountable (except for the farce that is the child support system) and the kids grow up with a single mother, sometimes with multiple siblings, all with different dads.
This then means those kids are more likely to have issues, be on welfare, go on reality TV, sell drugs, grow moustaches and drive around in hotted up Camira's, all things that are undesirable for society as a whole. This is the law of unintended consequences writ large.
What to do about it? Well that is definitely the 100 billion dollar question. For possibly the first time ever, I don't know. You can't go back, you can't put the problems back in the box.
I may write further about this and other ways in which our new acceptance have created unintended consequences that change our society for the worse, such as alcohol trading hours, pornography or public violence.
I think that generally you might be able to lump me in a group with the "South Park conservatives", those younger people who favour conservative politics from a common sense point of view, so called because of the influence of "South Park" in looking at ways in which our reality is distorted by what goes on around us.
Has anyone seen the South Park episode where the boys are all given Ritalin? Well in the Australian it's reported that thousands of children in Australia, including BABIES have been prescribed anti-depressants, medication that the manufacturers themselves say shouldn't be prescribed for people under the age of 18.
Now I'm no doctor (although I do play one on TV), but I'm pretty sure that this is not completely the fault of the medical profession. No doubt there's lots of quacks out there who are happy to distribute drugs like candy so they can get free pens and trips to Stradbroke Island, but the real issue at fault is the parents. Who is going to the doctor and saying "I think my baby is depressed, is there anything you can do to help?" Is this code for "I'm a bad parent and I want my baby to sleep all night, even if it's probably extremely damaging for them in the long run"? Or maybe it's code for "I only got this baby as an accessory to go with my Chihuahua and now I need it to have an interesting problem so I can talk about it at cocktail parties"?
Last week I saw an Adam Hills (host of Spicks and Specks) live stand up comedy show on the ABC. It was rather excellent. One bit that I particularly enjoyed was his talking about language and words and he explained the meaning of the German word "Schadenfreude".
I was recently accused of being a "pretty boy", something which is obviously ridiculous. I own neither shampoo, nor conditioner, I put no product in my hair, I wear no aftershave, I don't even use deodorant anymore!
Maybe I get my hair cut more than twice a year and I wear clothes that are clean, but apart from that where's the evidence for such a slur?
Just turned on the TV to discover a new episode of "The Unit". This show never got much of a run in Australia, it quickly got shunted back to a timeslot roughtly around midnight, which obviously wasn't too good for it's ratings.
I really like what I saw and ended up watching all three seasons (downloaded off the net). The third season got a bit wierd and moved away from it's core business, but it looks like there's a new series now out. Fingers crossed it'll be good!
If you like action, well developed characters, great locations, good stories and lots of shooting then check out "The Unit", it's the biz.
One of my favourite commentators, the American writer P.J. O'Rourke, has inspired me to this post. PJ is one of the most conservative writers you might find today (in the modern sense of the word, not as someone who wants to keep things exactly the same forever, which is a much more realistic definition), being all for small government, low taxes, relaxed gun laws and minimal interference in the free market.
These are basically libertarian ideals, which holds that an individual needs to be responsible for themselves and their families where possible and that government should have as small a role as possible, because of the crippling impact on a person's psyche of having a big government controlling all our actions (the nanny state). Ironically, my little brother at times fancies anarchism and libertarianism as well, but he fancies it more from a big government, high taxes, free health care kind of view, which really doesn't make any sense, except from a specifically selfish point of view (he doesn't actually pay any taxes!).
Anyway, amongst all these views, Mr O'Rourke has clearly stated that we should legalise all drugs and let the whole shebang play out on its own, a view that I strongly agree with.
Now there are certainly lots of pros and cons for this position, but right from the start, I'm going to say that i think society would be better and safer if all drugs were decriminalised.
We'll start with the pros first. The biggest fan of criminalisation are the criminals, more specifically those criminals who control access to those substances that are now contraband. If something is illegal access to it is automatically heavily restricted which means that the price will automatically go up. This means much more money for the criminals.
To protect their new source of wealth they will then revert to violence, intimidation and stand over tactics to protect their turf and acquire new markets (re. "The Wire"). Moreover, they will bribe public officials to allow importation and distribution, a system that weakens the integrity of our criminal justice system. The police themselves become ever more focussed on fighting the drug trade and lose sight of the real criminals, or are kept busy locking up low level dealers while the higher echelons take their profits and stay out of the game (again, see "The Wire"). Lastly, drug dealers will cut their products will all kinds of things (battery acid, powdered glass, soap etc) to make it go further, posing an obvious and serious health risk to the end user.
By legalising drugs we can remove all of these problems.
The drugs themselves generally come from overseas and more often than not are used to prop up illegitimate or illegal regimes, or organisations that are dedicated to the overthrow of governments. The reason the Syrians kept their Army in Lebanon for so long was to control the Heroin trade of the Beqaa Valley. The Taliban in Afghanistan were and continue to be supported from the sale of heroin. The FARC in Colombia have been trying to overthrow the government there for many years, aided and abetted by the sale of cocaine. In Panama, Manuel Noriega provided a safe haven and easy transport for drug traffickers from South America. I'm sure I could find many more examples, these are all off the top of my head.
By removing the profits for these drugs from these countries and organisations, people who are our explicitly our enemies, whether we are in combat with them now or not, will find a massive hole in their funding, without the flow of monies overseas to pay for their drugs.
Now the cons.
For me, the biggest con is the moral issue. If substances such as crack cocaine or crystal meth are so incredibly harmful (which it appears they are), then how can the government (the representative of the people) be associated with it in any way? If we tax a legalised crack trade are we not complicit in the damage such a drug causes? Even if we decriminalise and look the other way, the moral issue remains.
Furthermore, by removing criminal sanctions, do we risk seeing a vast increase in the usage of such drugs, drugs that we KNOW are harmful?
We also have problems with public health, access to health services and impacts on our community if a vast army of junkies arises from the ashes of our drug laws to inhabit our streets, feeding their addiction by begging for change, washing windows and breaking into houses to steal TVs.
So how could we implement such changes to the drug laws? While we continue to have problems with drugs such as ice, crack, heroin and ectstacy, the reality is that in Australia right now the most addictive substances with the highest usage rates, biggest health problems and the most fatalities are tobacco and alcohol.
I suggest that initially such substances become decriminalised. Such a process will immediately see a massive drop in prices and a massive associated decrease in organised crime, due to the lack of money from drugs. The criminals maybe able to hold onto some market share, but removing criminal sanctions for importing or dealing would immediately see much more competition in the market place.
After finding our feet on this, I would then move to full legalisation, with associated taxation and regulation. Wouldn't you rather smoke some crystal meth that was made in a factory rather than some that was made in the kitchen of a bikie with HIV, a sink full of battery acid and a problem with personal hygiene?
Now, such moves would seem to guarantee increased usage, as availability increases and consequences for use decrease.
To combat this I have two suggestions. Firstly, I would ban public intoxication, of any kind. If you're drunk, stone, high, wasted etc in public (especially during daylight hours) the police should grab you and chuck you in the tank until you're dry. If you're on crack and you get the DT's while you're in there, that's all for the best. After all, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger (read point number 7) and it's a lot better than what might have happened to you before. This public intoxication includes alcohol. We shouldn't as a society accept someone walking around or lying around during the day who's drunk. Living in a place where such a sight is commonplace, I would suggest that while this may seemingly infringe on the individual's human rights, the community as a whole will be a much better place.
Secondly, i give you a quote from the inimitable PJ O'Rourke (paraphrased I'm afraid). When talking about drug laws, he asked, "Why isn't crack cocaine an issue anymore? Because all those kids who grew up with it around saw the consequences and stayed the hell away. And all those users either cleaned up or else they're now dead"
We live in a world without danger, without risk, withou consequences for our stupid actions. How can we clean out the gene pool and when all the retards and troglodytes continue to breed? Drugs can be the answer! Those people who fail to realise how dumb it is to take a substance that permanently affects your brain chemistry are probably good candidates for a little bit of evolutionary pressure. Those junkies are just doing their bit for the survival of the species :)
So, lets legalise drugs, get the criminals out of the way and then deal with the consequences. We need to tighten up on alcohol anyway, lets treat all drugs the same and try and make society a better place.
For all those of you who haven't heard about potentially the best TV show ever made, here's even more reason to go and have a look.
The following article links to the website of prolific writer and expat Clive James, with a brief blurb about "The Wire" and a link to this article by David Hepworth on the same topic.
All I can say is that I agree. This is a show all about the people. There's no easy answers, the heroes don't make everything right, the bad guys get away (and even more frustratingly, the REALLY bad guys, the ones running things, get away).
Managed to watch 10 episodes of Dexter in a weekend, it's bloody good! Only two to go, but I couldn't keep going otherwise I'd be a zombie at work tomorrow. It's definitely got me hooked though, I really want to know what happens. How will Dexter escape the labyrinth he's got himself locked into?
Why do george and john cop it so bad? This is a really interesting article about George Bush, says a lot of the things I've been saying for a while now. Even if you don't like him you should give it a read.
To get started on the hating, I'll say right now that a few of the things that George has done in the spirit of compromise and moderation have been flawed. Fundamentally flawed. And, he has received no recognition for his compromise, his opponents seeming to believe that it's their way or the highway, with no room for middle group between two opposing viewpoints.
Now I dislike lots of people, for lots of different reasons. Their personality, their lack of ability, their weight, their smell, their annoying holier than thou attitude, their sheer, unbelievable, incomprehensible stupidity! However, i don't spew vitriol and bile like lots of people seem to do whenever certain topics are brought up.
Take a test, find your average uni student or teacher or wanna be intellectual and mention how much you hate George Bush. Watch them foaming at the mouth, agreeing with you and coming up with irrelevant or incorrect examples to back up why they hate him so much (plastic turkey anyone?).
It also works for John Howard, try it and see.
Now I'm all for a bit of dislike or personal attack, that's fine by me. But I just don't get the amount of time and energy taken in attacking someone the way these two get attacked. It seems to be a part of a real culture of personal attack that has grown up recently, especially on the left.
I thought it was quite funny that Obama aides were saying after the election that it's time for differences to be put aside and both sides to work together to solve the problems of the world. They know just how petty, mean spirited, obtuse, vicious and vacuous the Democrats have been in Congress and the Senate recently and they're hoping it's not going to come back to bite them in the arse. I think the people saying that without saying what they really mean are turds personally, however, I think they're right that we need to move beyond the bitterness, vitriol and inability to compromise on anything that has characterised the recent years of the Democrat congress.
Now, if you dislike someone (I'll put my hand up of disliking Kevin, so dibs) than that's fine. That's a wonderful part of our glorious political process. But instead of making wierd, obsessive, personal attacks that have little meaning and don't reflect the real world, why don't you try talking about actions and policy? And try using real data instead of made up stuff from John Pilger?
Cheers
