Those Who Don't Learn History...

I saw Emma Tom's newspaper column while passing through Australia's Gold Coast - I'm glad it's on the Web!

Australian students are just as ignorant of history as their American counterparts, but then again, our politicians are ignorant too (even as an outsider, I know 'Damien' just won 'Australian Idol'):

ONCE again, Australian school kiddies are in big trouble. According to a new report commissioned by the nation's education ministers, bucketloads of the ignorant little buggers don't know why we celebrate Australia Day, have a governor-general or whack a Union Jack in the corner of our flag.

...Australian students are a bunch of lazy pinheads who should be sent to a corner to think about what they haven't done. And while they're down there, why not force 'em to start memorising important dates such as 1788, 1901 and 1947 - the latter marking one of many previous media panics about ill-educated Aussie youngsters unable to write in proppa sentences.

Here's the thing, though. If students are required to swot up on subjects politicians think are important (namely history, civics and blindly swallowing spin), surely politicians should have to gain a rudimentary knowledge of something young people rate highly, namely pop culture.

Last week during the electioneering in Victoria, punters were treated to what has become a pre-poll staple: candidates making tokenistic appearances on yoof media programs and revelling in their dearth of pop cultural knowledge, wearing their ignorance (or at least their professed ignorance) of Paris Hilton's shaggin' habits like rosettes of honour.

On the penultimate day of the campaign, Steve Bracks and Ted Baillieu accidentally ended up on air at Fox FM at the same time. Neither was able to answer questions about Jessica Simpson, Australian Idol or even the winner of the Melbourne Cup.

...It's easy to dismiss the nipply adventures of Hilton, Simpson et al as low-brow ephemera, but this could well be at politicians' peril.

Insisting that citizens develop more interest in crucial matters of state won't change the fact that many are not interested - or at least not as interested as they are in whether bootleg honeymoon videos reveal that Britney Spears is bisexual and threesome-eager (to quote one popular, saliva-dripping internet site).

One Australian broadsheet - regarded as a quality publication - regularly charts the most clicked-on stories from its internet site ... the A and AB-demographic readers of this particular organ prefer feasting on fast food features about grisly baby deaths, celebrity sex romps and cyclops kittens. On Monday, the fifth most popular story here was Crocodile yak: Elton shouts at shoes - 321 words about Elton John dashing off stage for a Down Under chunder during the first performance of his latest Australian tour. Apparently a guitarist masked the knighted pianist's sudden and wordless exit by noodling an impromptu solo.

While I'm not suggesting that knowledge of such an event be tested in HSC exams, it is worth ditching the heated, high versus low culture debate for a moment and looking at the situation from a realpolitik perspective.

Growing political disengagement among young people is regarded by many pundits as a serious threat to democracy, with party membership, trust in office-holders and interest in traditional politics plunging faster than a Brownlow Medal ceremony neckline.

Reaching these voters requires learning to speak their language or, at the very least, not taking such elitist delight in disparaging it.

Carnivorous Plants Seem To Worry East And West Alike

Great civilizations, with little prompting, sometimes come to a common understanding. People worldwide seem to fear being eaten alive, whether by sharks, tigers - or plants.

DMTC recently hosted Steve Ross' and Jabriel Shelton's production of "Little Shop of Horrors." Fear of chlorophyll hung in the air.

Meanwhile, in Brisbane, artist Jean Poole focused on an Asian version of a Venus Fly Trap as he prepared for battle. People worldwide, in many languages, may instinctively agree: "Don't feed the plant!"

Vietnam Deja Vu In Iraq

Remember how Richard Nixon, after exploiting how badly Democrats botched Vietnam to win the presidency in 1968, decided to go for victory instead of withdrawal? Remember how well that worked?

We are at it again, in Iraq:

Since the Pentagon has decided to discuss its new strategy in gambling parlance, it should at least use the proper terminology. Today's LA Times article says that a Pentagon official has referred to the option of sending more troops in to Iraq as a "double down" strategy. The reference is to a bet in blackjack when, based on the cards that have been dealt, the player seeks to maximize a payoff that is more likely to occur in that hand, given the probabilities. The double down is a calculated bet, made from a position of strength when the odds are favorable to the bettor.

In Iraq, we are certainly not in a situation where the odds are favorable to winning. Our bet is not a double down. Let's call it what it is: double or nothing. This is more like the gambler who has been on a bad losing streak deciding to empty the savings account and put all of his chips on red, hoping that the roulette wheel will spin his way and bring him back close to even. Double or nothing is a desperation play. It is an ill-advised way to gamble, with chips or human lives, and such a strategy inevitably leads to another appropriate gambling term. Gambler's ruin: winding up completely broke.

"Weekly World News" On Top Of Things

Jim McElroy writes:

This afternoon I was down at SaveMart picking up E-Coli samples for some research I am conducting and noted this 4 page research report on the library rack near the checkout. I know that you are interested in Titanic Research and thought I should draw it to your attention. As is well known, most research leads to information that you were not even looking for, and I saw this other report that contradicted your recent research on drain swirl effects. Maybe you should tweak your parameters and try again (justifying NSF funding for another trip to OZ?). Also a small Item that would make a good footnote to your excellent description of various flora and fauna that you encountered.

Here are edited versions of some of the JPEGs Jim sent:

WMD sank the Titanic!



Why I had so much trouble in Australia finding Koala Bears.

The real importance of the Coriolis Force.

Rehearsing For "Mame" at DMTC

Left: Mary Young in the title role.



Mame (Mary Young) and Vera (Peggy Schechter)

Julia Othmer This Saturday

I like this concert series: it is an introduction to splendid music that one otherwise might miss.

STC-2

Here is an article from Sacramento's "Inside The City" regarding STC's Peggy Shannon's STC-2 classes for young actors (and featuring Anna Miles):

Anna Miles, also 15, concurs. “Theater is literally like my home. I’ve never experienced any feeling that’s better and more amazing than when I’m onstage. I love it, and I can’t ever stop.”

Report On The Australian Drought

Here is a recent governmental report regarding the unprecedented drought affecting Australia. The figure to the right helps express the terrible nature of the drought. The new hyperaridity of Interior Queensland contributed to my unease while travelling there recently. I just hope that the climatologists will screw up with their forecasts and that things will improve over the next few months.

Key conclusions:

Much of southern Australia and coastal Queensland has experienced a protracted downturn in annual rainfall which has intensified since the 2002 El Niño event and has most severely affected the eastern states and the southwest corner of Western Australia.

Some areas of central Victoria, southern New South Wales and south east Queensland have had continuous lowest on record or very much below average rainfall since 1997.

A sequence of seven failed autumn breaks in the Murray-Darling Basin has not previously occurred in the records. Chances of a break in the current Autumn are fast receding. There is no sign that the months up to December 2006 will lead to any major relieving rainfalls, with rainfall in the southeast and even the summer rainfall in north-eastern Australia likely to be below average.

Indeed, the presence of a developing El Niño event suggests that it is very unlikely that Australia will see extensive drought breaking rain before the autumn of next year.

Major urban water storages are low and well below average for this time of the year across the south eastern part of Australia and south eastern Queensland. Storages for virtually all the major urban centres of Australia are being progressively drawn down, with no signifi cant inflows for a number of years.

Tough water restrictions, which include complete bans on the outdoor use of water, are already in place in Goulburn, Gosford, Bendigo and Toowoomba. More cities, such as Brisbane, Gosford and Ballarat, are likely to follow in the immediate future. Sydney has had a ban on sprinklers for three years. Significant water conservation measures are already in place and contingency measures for augmenting water supplies in the face of a deteriorating situation are also well in train.

In rural areas, inflows to dams in the Murray-Darling Basin System over the past five years have been the lowest on record. Consequently, irrigation allocations are significantly below entitlement.

Storages such as in the Wimmera Mallee in central Victoria have received no substantial inflow for six years.

The impact on individual farm incomes will vary depending on the way irrigators respond to low water allocations. The ability to trade water under the NWI will assist farmers adapt to the shortfalls.

"Happy Feet"

Very interesting, clever and fun computer-animated film! All-star voices, lead by Elijah Wood as the Emperor Penguin Mumble, and including Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman, and even the late, great Steve Irwin.

Take the kids!

Terrible Fires

The fires in Victoria, Australia, east and northeast of Melbourne, are seriously out-of-control, taking a huge toll on wildlife, and destroying property:

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said the weekend conditions could be compared with the 1939 Black Friday fires that killed 71 people and destroyed several towns.

Black Friday is considered to be Victoria's worst day of bushfires.

We Sell! We Buy!

Still trying to track down some of that strange MAAP art. Having trouble, maybe because the artists fear being ripped off, maybe because the artists are obscure, but maybe most of all because I read neither Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. Still, it's gotta be out there somewhere on the Internet!

For those who like soothing music with imagery frenetic enough to make you seasick, here is something from Candy Factory regarding - Okinawa!

Tornado Hits North London

Amazing! These things CAN happen, though.

Signs

Left: Meaning "Yield"


Left: Meaning "Cattle Guard"


Left: Watch out!

Left: In America, when surveyors were faced with just another redundant creek, they usually called it 'Deer Creek.' In Australia, they tended to speak a little more directly to the problem.

Australian Miscellany

Left: A "Road Train", full of cattle.

Memorials

Left: "Wall of Remembrance", in honor of military service, at Miles, Queensland.


Left: A military aircraft, piloted by Americans, and filled with Australian soldiers, crashed at this creekside site near the base of the Carnarvon Mountains, during an electrical storm, on November 16, 1943.

Australian Churches

Left: St. Patrick's Cathedral, Toowoomba, QLD.

Left: Tenterfield Uniting Church, NSW

Left: St. Mary's Catholic Church, Casino, NSW

Left: St. Carthage's Cathedral, Lismore, NSW

Left: St. Andrews Uniting Church, The City, Brisbane.

St. Patrick's Church, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane

St. Stephen's Cathedral, the City, Brisbane

St. John's Cathedral, The City, Brisbane

The Longest Day

December 3rd began with the harrowing forest walk at Mt. Glorious, then the surprisingly trouble-free drive to the airport, then airport security, then the flight on the crowded Boeing 747-400 from Brisbane.

My mates on my row of seats were two pleasant women, representatives from SunSail yacht rentals. Based in northern Queensland's gorgeous Whitsunday Islands, they were headed to the British Virgin Islands, for serious work discussions with American compatriots. Such a life!

I watched three movies, but imperfectly, because of jet noise and entertainment center glitches: "Joyeaux Noel," "Little Miss Sunshine," and the recent Australian hit "Kenny." "Kenny" is one funny movie: an Australian foreman of port-a-loo installations talks about his life and work, and even finds romance, when he travels to attend a portable toilet convention in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. My mates found "Kenny" uproariously funny, and I must agree with them.

Crossing the International Date Line, we caught the last few hours of Western Hemisphere December 2nd, but then December 3rd started all over again. We landed at LAX about 7:30 a.m. (after an abortive landing, however, because we got too close to another aircraft on the ground and had to circle back again).

After returning via Southwest Airlines to Sacramento shortly after noon, I took a much-needed nap (two nights in a row without sleep is tough), before heading to Davis, to catch the DMTC folks after "Oliver!" strike, and to pick Sparky up from Steve and Jan. Sparky had gotten along famously with Mrs. Lovett and Scruffy, but had repeatedly peed all through their house, so - it was time to leave!

December 3rd was the longest day ever! I thought it would never end!

Does Water Drain Clockwise, Or Counterclockwise?

In graduate school, we learned that the Coriolis Force is much too weak on the distance scale of a sink to affect how water drains. Only over large distances is the Coriolis force large enough to affect fluid flow. Local friction effects and residual circulation determine whether water drains clockwise or counterclockwise from a sink, in either hemisphere.

Now that we were wise to this little Coriolis factoid, we made fun of people who believed otherwise.

Still, it would be nice to know.... The last time I shaved at Mt. Glorious, I paid attention to how the water drained, so as to know for sure.

The drain at the bottom of the sink was so large that the water didn't have a chance to drain either clockwise or counterclockwise - instead, the water drained straight down.

When You Shut One Door, You Open Another

Left: Paradise at Mt. Glorious!


I returned Saturday night from Fortitude Valley at 1 a.m. and prepared for my last sleepover at Mt. Glorious. Andrew had left two days previously for the United States and I was all alone. I removed my keys, coins, wallet, and every other item from my pockets and laid them on the bedroom table.

Then I remembered I had not yet studied southern constellations in much detail, and this was my last chance to do so. So, I grabbed my newly-purchased southern star chart, walked out the front doorway, and casually closed the front door.

Instantly, I knew, and my heart froze: I was locked out of the house!

I quickly ran around the house and assessed the situation. Because of our diligence over the last several days, the house was now hermetically sealed. All doors and windows were locked and secure. Entry was not possible. But I had to leave Mt. Glorious by 9 a.m. to make the noon flight to the U.S.! What was I going to do?

For about one-and-a-half hours, I tried to pick and pry locks, all the while jumping around in the dark so that the motion-sensitive outdoor lights would generate enough light by which to see. I found a tool tray in the garage, which provided some tools, but the tool tray also sported a giant Australian Brown Huntsman Spider guardian, so every time I reached into the tool tray I had to shoo the spider away first.

Giving up on lock-picking, I decided I had to break a window. I decided to break the guest bathroom toilet window, because it was the smallest window in the house and would be the easiest to repair. Despite being divided in half by a metal frame, and requiring me to stand precariously atop a ladder, I figured I could wiggle my way inside, kind of like a contortionist entering an air-conditioning vent; one arm in first, then the head, then the other arm, until I could fall in, using the inner toilet door for support. I began cutting the outer screen of the window in preparation for shattering the glass.

Reality is a hard teacher. Sorry, Marc is just too fat a person for this to work! I might easily hurt myself! Plus, since Andrew isn't here, I must see to the window's immediate repair. Even a bad repair job would cost too much time in order to successfully catch the noontime plane. So, I HAVE to get help!

Even though this house was in a fairly-remote rural community, there were a few neighbors nearby. But how can I bang on their front doors at 3 a.m.? They don't know who I am. I have no identification. And my urgent insistence that I had to enter their neighbor's home despite his absence might strike them as not credible.

The only thing that could work would be to find a locksmith. But how do I call anyone without a phone? I wondered whether there was a pay telephone in the village of Mt. Glorious, which was located about 2 kilometers (1 mile) away through the dark forest. Funny, I THOUGHT so, I thought I had seen one, but I wasn't sure.

I changed my mind about breaking Andrew's windows. I still had several hours with which to work with, and I didn't HAVE to sleep. I would try to work through this problem with the remaining time. I was thirsty, and a little uncomfortable, but the night was cool, and I could manage for a number of hours yet without drink.

So off I went, tramping along the desolate road through the forest to the village of Mt. Glorious. The moon was nearly full, but the sky was overcast, so the darkness was nearly complete. I worried about stumbling over pythons in the dark. There was no reason any longer that snakes would prefer the tarmac, since the sun had long ago set and the pavement was cool, but animals sometimes do inscrutable things, so I tried to stay close to the slight glow emanating from the road's center dotted line, so that I might have at least have a last-second warning if *something* was in my immediate path.

I heard lots of rustling in the roadside forest, and sometimes the worried coos of startled birds as I walked past, but what exactly was *out there* I didn't know and couldn't tell.

After the longest walk, I found the village, with its two street lights. The place appeared utterly deserted at 3:30 a.m. Indeed, there was a phone booth there, next to a restaurant, but possessing no resources, and with no identifying phone number or phone book in the phone booth, I was limited to toll-free numbers only. I could monitor the time, however, by peering through the windows at the restaurant's clock.

I called "000" (the Australian equivalent of "911") and the Brisbane police reluctantly gave me the toll free number of Locksmith #1. He refused my appeal for help - after all, there was little attraction to rescuing someone atop a mountain, 30 km outside of the big city. He referred me to Locksmith #2.

Locksmith #2 said he couldn't respond immediately. He was far away, in Coloundra, but if I called back at 6 a.m., he would see what he could do.

I called back Locksmith #1, to see if he could respond sooner, and he said no way - it was illegal to open locks for people like me, people who had confided they weren't the actual homeowner. He said that I should be grateful that Locksmith #2 hadn't turned me down cold.

The directory assistance operators commisserated with my problem, but the trouble was these two locksmiths were the only two toll-free "express" locksmiths in Brisbane: I would need to find some coins to call other locksmiths. There were toll-free glaziers, however, if I wanted to return to Andrew's house and bust some windows instead.

At a loss, I lay down on a bench outside the restaurant and tried to sleep. Sleep didn't come.

For reasons I don't quite fathom at this semi-tropical locale, dawn came early. Despite an early-morning shower, the sky began lightening up. Australian King Parrots were fussing around, as were kookaburras, and those birds that sound like super-expressive drops of water. For the first time, I got a good look at a Sulfur-Crested Cockatoo, as it prowled around some nearby forbs. All the cockatoo need was a safari hat to look like a Great White Hunter stalking his prey.

At 5:30 a.m., I called Locksmith #2 back. He sighed and asked if I had a mobile number. I said no, I had nothing at all. He said "look, there's nothing much I can do without a mobile number. I want to refer you to another locksmith (Locksmith #3) who lives on that side of Brisbane, but I can't do it without a mobile number. You need to ask someone if you can use their mobile number." I said I was reluctant to ask before, because it had been dark. He said, "yes, and I can understand that. But this is Australia. Everyone has a mobile number. And they'll help you too. But you need to ask."

So, I reluctantly began walking through Mt. Glorious, looking for help. The village was utterly silent, except for the deafening parrot roar in the treetops.

Walking past a house, I thought I heard some thumping. Summoning the courage, I knocked on their door.

A young family and their five thumping kids answered the door. They had moved to Mt. Glorious from Brisbane just the day before (although the mountain biker husband was long-accustomed to taking his bicycle on nearby trails). They offered coffee and marvelled at my story.

The mother looked at her kids, then me, then asked "walking through the woods, weren't you afraid of dingoes?" "Dingoes!", I replied, "no, I was worried about pythons!" She said, "well, they removed dingoes from these hills a while ago and took them over to Moreton Island, but they've been filtering back, and they've been spotted again around here lately." I said "Wow, no I hadn't thought about dingoes - glad I didn't really! It was so dark that dingoes could have walked right up to me, and I would have never known!"

The family lent me their mobile phone and I made contact with Locksmith #3, who promised to come out. The kids ran around the house and rounded up some coins, which they lent me, if I needed them, in order to contact another locksmith in case Locksmith #3 didn't turn up. The husband decided to travel to the house to see if he could puzzle a way inside, now that it was light. I returned to waiting by the phone booth for Locksmith #3. The owner of the restaurant was now present and preparing the place for breakfast, and he lent me a phone book so I could get extra locksmith phone numbers if needed.

After just half an hour, a couple drove up and asked "are you in need of the services of a locksmith?" "Boy, am I ever!", I replied. Locksmith #3 was a part-time lifesaving instructor on Bribie Island: his wife came along for the fresh mountain air. We returned to the house and met the husband, who hadn't found a way into the house either. I returned his kids' coins to him and we talked about mountain-biking as Locksmith #3 went to work.

By 8 a.m., the drama had concluded. I was in the house again and I succeeded in leaving for the airport by 9 a.m. Just the damage to the window screen to worry about. And dingoes too (although I hope these are just hypothetical boogey-dogs in this part of Australia).

Who Is That At The Bottom Of The Tree?

Left: A nervous young Galah at Apex Lake, Gatton


Australian parrots want to know!

Noisy Crimson Rosellas, Carnarvon Gorge National Park

Scaly-Breasted Lorikeets at the University of Queensland, Gatton.