Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, not quite the speaker MLK was.

I don’t point out the obvious here because it’s as if the mainstream
won’t mention it.  Quite the opposite: a Democratic mayor says
something stupid, it’s Headline News.  A Democratic former vice
president accuses the sitting president of intentional repeated
criminal acts, it’s sandwiched between a space probe and a cake for Ben
Franklin.  (Gore would have gotten more coverage if he’d taken
hostages, spilled toxic waste on a highway, or both.)

I mention Nagin here out of basic fairness: sure, it’s offensive when
the Pat Robertsons of the world invoke some weird notion of god as
projections of their own ego and desires.  But it should obviously be
just as offensive and idiotic when someone else does it, too.

If not, then I hereby justly declare that God Almighty, the Infinite
and Unknowable, Creator of All That Is Beyond Comprehension, is
cheating on his diet with a tuna sandwich at the moment.  He also bats
left-handed but throws with his right, loves the ketchup-flavored
Twisties snacks you can buy in southeast Asia, and hasn’t played the
banjo in almost a year.

Oh — and God Almighty really, really thinks it’s incredibly stupid-sounding when anyone claims with certainty to speak for Him.

From today’s Los Angeles Times.

This estimate includes costs the government will have to pay for years
to come (e.g. disabled veterans’ benefits) and the cost to our economy
and society (e.g. the dislocation of the work force), compiled by a
former assistant secretary of Commerce and a professor at Columbia who
won the Nobel Prize in economics:

I never thought 14-hour plane rides would start to feel almost normal. 
But there are a lot of things I never thought would happen.

I am back in Los Angeles.

Yesterday, to help my own mental transition, I went to an Aussie Rules
footy exhibition held at UCLA.  This is an actual conversation
(probably not quite verbatim; I didn’t have a notebook) I overheard
between two of my countrymen:

Ah.  So it’s agreed, then: if you haven’t personally heard "Advance Australia Fair," logically, it does not exist.

Don’t get me wrong; ignorance about the rest of the world (much less
the basics of logic) isn’t an American thing.  I met one woman in
Queensland who proudly told me she has no interest in the rest of
Australia, much less any other country.  It simply wasn’t important to
her, and she couldn’t see why it would be.  If I spoke the local
languages better, I could probably find people like that in all 30-odd
countries I’ve visited so far, if I looked.

But America is in the unique position of greater military and economic
influence over (even when not trying actively to control) the rest of
the world.  And so you’d think we’d realize we have a much greater
obligation to try to understand the planet and base our opinions on
actual facts, examined closely.

Instead, we can’t seem to bother to understand our own constitution.  I’m hearing even people I like,
mind you, people I care about and respect, repeating things that are
disreputable dangerous rubbish, convinced that their words are the
height of patriotism.  Yes, of course, the president has the power to interpret law.  Yes, of course, the president has the power to spy on anyone, anytime.  Yes, of course, the president has the right to kidnap and torture and imprison people without trial.

I am back in Los Angeles.  But I — and all of us — are a long, long way from home.

UPDATE: Read this MLK day speech by Al Gore.  I never liked the guy much when he was in office, but ever since his political future ended, he has gone Bulworth on us and said a lot of stuff that needed to be said.

Rented a car this morning for the drive up to Brisbane.  Turns out Hyundai makes the southern hemisphere equivalent of the Vauxhall Blindspot.  So that'll be fun to wobble around in, assuming I survive the week.

The sales lady at RedSpot, the auto rental company named for what may soon become in one of their cars, was incredibly helpful.  She was downright happy, in fact, to rent me a "newie," although she warned I should be careful about reckless "truckies" on my way up to "Briz."

Australians talk this way a lot.  It's not some sort of debilitating neural malfunction, nor the inability to pronounce the second half of their own words which sadly afflicts the French.  It's actually a delightful habit of giving affectionate nicknames to every single thing in the universe, constantly.

These nicknames ("nickos") usually end in an "-ie" or an "-o" sound, but often include an "-er," "-s", or a bonus "-azza."

Thus, my first meal here was a "brekkie" centered around a "chokko" "bikkie."  When I dropped my sunglasses, by the time they were returned, they had become "sunnies."  And the lady at my hotel front desk actually started calling me "Bobbo."  Although I think she was joking, because she'd heard me comment on the nickos.

Even the cricket team indulges: for the next match, played at the "Gabba" (not to be confused with "Subi," the "Waca," or the "G"), players won't wear their own surnames, but diminutives like "Punter," "Marto," and "Brecks." 

Not surprisingly, their uptight British opponents are frowning, which is to say (if I am getting the hang of this) that the uppy Brittos are all frowners.  (Actually, I'm not certain that's what any actual Australian would say, even at gunpointies.  But you get the idea.)

It's the sort of cheerful habit that could make even tragic news seem perfectly fine.  I wouldn't be surprised to hear some "fresher" home from "uni" who had forgotten to wear "screenie" on his "skinno" might breeze into the kitchen and lightly tell mum that he now has a large "melanomazza" which has gone all "maliggie," with smiles all around.

This would sink in somewhat.  Then he and his mum would play rugby in the hall while eating meat pies.  

Then, after mum had won 25-24 by throwing an elbow on the last point, he would break the sad news that his "cance-o" would require "surgers" down at the "hospie" and that "dokkos" only gave him eight "weekies" to "liverazza."

After which, he would turn out to be fine.  No worries.  He'd be back on his feet, playing meat-pie hallway rugby with mummer again in no time.

Because it's like that down here.

You really, really have to spend some time in Australia.

I’m pressed for time, so for a while, instead of a carefully-edited
bit of prose, you’ll be getting a raw feed from my notebook, entries
arranged by topic.  So this will leap about a bit.  Bear with me.

In the hotel, flipping on the TV for the last ten days or so:

In
the commercial broadcast world, the influence of media barons seems
as obvious here as at home.  Kerry
Packer (imagine an Australian equivalent of Ted Turner with a dash of
Montgomery Burns) just died.  No one I’ve met on the ground here seems
to care, to be honest.  Not even slightly.  But the media mourned
deeply, with roughly the same sort of coverage you’d expect for the
death of a president or king.  (It was hard not to laugh, actually,
seeing Packer’s former employees — many of whom now work for Packer’s
son — struggle desperately for words of praise.  "Really, um, sometimes he
wasn’t that big a prick, sometimes" seemed to be pretty much the subtext.)

But that doesn’t mean the media culture strongly resembles the U.S. in every respect.  Nope.

In addition to the ABC (think BBC, but Australian), there’s also the
SBS, a national free-to-air service at least as ubiquitous here as PBS in the U.S.  This
morning, according to the listings in the newspaper, the SBS aired news
broadcasts from around the world in Japanese, Mandarin, Italian, German,
Spanish, French, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Indonesian, Polish, and of course English.  Then
in prime time they show "South Park."

This may, all by itself,
explain why I love this country so.

"The Simpsons" seems to be on 24/7.  Seriously.  Obviously, that can’t be true.  But it sure seems like it.

During
the lullaby hush of cricket matches, commercial interruptions
invariably involve some voiceover guy shrieking about cheap furniture
as if it’s crammed up his own ass.  One minute, you’re listening to the
articulate purr of Richie Benaud,
who could make Armageddon sound like a fine day with a good cup of tea,
and the next minute, a soulless drone having a pre-orgasmic spasm is
urging you to buy an end table:

This is the audio equivalent of a sudden convulsive shock to the groin.

Incidentally,
I want Richie Benaud to do the commentary on my funeral someday.  He’d
make everyone feel just splendid by the end, ready for a glass of
something chilled.  And never mind that he’s 75 years old.  I’m sure
he’ll outlive me, even if I live to 100.

"The Corporation",
a documentary which compares the behavior of the companies controllling
the world to sociopaths, is being broadcast nationally on SBS tonight. 
To my knowledge, this is the first national free-to-air broadcast of
the film in the world.

While cable is ubiquitous, there are only
three broadcast commercial networks here, just like the States had for
decades.  One of them, Channel Ten, is showing the
questioning-the-official-version documentary "911: In Plane Site"
tonight.  (Incidentally, in my opinion, the video is a deeply mixed bag —
containing a few provocative questions which remain unanswered and some
truly dopey stuff which makes it hard to take any of it seriously — but that’s
not the point.)

Think about this: Australia is one of America’s
key allies in the War on Tara, and a major broadcast network here is about
to show a video questioning the entire story of 9-11, and — get this
— it’s not even controversial.  There’s no outcry, at least none that
I’ve seen.  Nobody’s hollering about it in the paper or accusing anyone
of treason.  Nobody’s scared of dangerous ideas, or the public thinking
for themselves. 

Try to imagine NBC airing a 90-minute
documentary questioning the official version of 9-11.  This is
impossible, of course, but just try.  And then try to imagine the
whirlwind if they did.

So much for the "free marketplace of ideas" you hear hacks in the U.S. media trumpeting all the time.

UPDATE: I’m informed by several readers that "The Corporation" aired a few weeks ago in the UK.  This is excellent news, and thanks for that.  And btw, it’s really worth a see.

UPDATE again: "The Corporation" also aired in Canada, where it was originally financed.  So when I say "to my knowledge," please be aware that those words have significance, and it’s entirely possible I don’t know squat.  I’m sure we’ll shortly find out that the film was projected on the full moon when I wasn’t looking, and everyone knows this but me.