The Daily Boomerang

Yesterday April 25th was ANZAC Day here in Australia. Across Australia Aussies remembered the ANZAC soldiers of World War I along with other Australian soldiers of the past and today. ANZAC stands for the Australian New Zealand Army Corps that was formed in response to the British Empire’s request for troops to fight in World War I. The ANZAC’s most memorable battle was on the shores of Gallipoli in modern day Turkey where the Australians took massive losses in the blundered attack. However, the shared suffering and bravery of the attack resignates with the Australian character of mateship and is thus remembered on ANZAC Day.

I spent ANZAC Day by attending a dawn service that began at 5:45AM at a local military base. The service began with some Australian soldiers dressed in World War I uniforms performing a skit of complete with flares and machine guns firing blanks. After the skit a chaplain gave prayers for the ANZAC soldiers and then different Australian Army units and community organizations laid wreaths on the cross you see pictured above.

Towards the end of the service a local elementary school chorus sang the official ANZAC song.  After the song everyone at the service recited the ANZAC oath that Australians appear to remember just like we remember the Pledge of Allegiance in America:

They shall grow not old as we are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Following the service the group I was with went and got breakfast and then in fine Aussie tradition spent the rest of the morning at the pub drinking beers and watching the ANZAC Day Parade happening in downtown Melbourne on TV. All in all a really good day and we in America could learn a lot from the Australians about how they honor their veterans like they do on ANZAC Day. 

Here is a final tribute to all the diggers past and present on ANZAC Day:

A question I get asked often by friends in America is, “What is the Australian drinking age?”  The drinking age here in Australia is 18 years of age with a few caveats by state:

 Liquor laws vary by state. It is illegal to buy, drink or possess alcohol if under 18 on licensed premises, but states allow drinking or possessing alcohol on private premises for people under the age of 18 (under the supervision of an adult[s]). In New South Wales there is no law against minors possessing or drinking alcohol on private premises, but there are laws against supplying or selling alcohol to a minor, as well as against minors “carrying away” alcohol from a licensed club.^[32][33]Minors may be on licensed premises accompanied by a parent or guardian (but not purchase alcohol) and parents can not provide alcohol with a meal on licensed premises. In Victoria, if a minor is caught with alcohol it will be confiscated and guardians notified of the offense, and a fine may occur. It is also illegal to provide minors with alcohol, and one can be fined by it if caught in the act. It is illegal to buy alcohol if already drunk, and to supply alcohol to such a person.^[34]

In Queensland, it is illegal to drink in public or in a vehicle and drivers cannot operate a vehicle with a blood-alcohol level higher than 0.05 when on their open license. P and Learner drivers cannot blow anything but 0.00.

For those that do not know, Australians love to drink.  The love drink so much that they are in fact fourth in the world in per capita beer consumption:

1. Czech Republic
2. Ireland
3. Germany
4. Australia
5. Austria
6. United Kingdom
7. Slovenia
8. Belgium
9. Denmark
10. Finland

Notice that Australia is the only non-European country to crack the Top 10.  Out of the Top 20 nations the only other non-Europeans to make the list were the United States at 14, New Zealand at 17, and Canada at 20.

So when it comes to beer consumption the Aussies are right there at the top. However, in regards to alcohol consumption per capita to include wine and hard liquor the Australians are not as prolific compared to the rest of Europe:

Nonetheless it is clear Australians like the drink and this fact becomes clear once someone comes down here and spends time with the Aussies.  However, this distinction also bring with it the side effects of drunk driving and alcohol fueled assaults.  In regards to combating drunk driving I think the Australian police does a very good job because I have been hit with many more random breathalyzer tests here in the two years I have been here in Australia then the all the time combined I spent growing up the United States.

The alcohol fueled assaults though is something that is increasingly getting out of control.  You cannot turn on the weekend news without reading about how someone was assaulted and beaten in downtown entertainment areas.   Often times the fights involve gangs of young men roving around and beating people for the slightest transgressions because they are looking to fight.  For example just this week the brother of famous South Korean actor Lee Dong-gun which is making huge headlines in that country, was stabbed and killed in the streets of Sydney by a gang of men for simply staring at them.

In Melbourne I went out one time at night there and almost became involved in a fight and will not go out any more.  I don’t want to get involved in any altercation that would effect my visa status here plus I’m older and married and the bars have lost the allure long ago anyway.   Then I watch the various Melbourne news outlets which has been following the alcohol fueled violence in downtown Melbourne very closely and I am even more glad I don’t go out down there.

In response to the alcohol fueled violence that is making so many headlines an effort is now underway beginning in Victoria to raise the Australian drinking age to 21 years of age:

THE legal drinking age could be lifted to 21 if attempts fail to curb binge drinking among the young, according to the Victorian Government’s top alcohol adviser.

Professor Jon Currie, chairman of the Victorian Drug and Alcohol Prevention Council, says lifting the legal drinking age would be a “last resort” but one that should be a definite option.

The Sunday Age said Professor Currie will make recommendations to the Brumby Government within the next few months on how to deal with the growing level of alcohol abuse by young people.

Prof Currie, director of addiction medicine and mental health at St Vincent’s Hospital, said if social, educational and parental strategies failed to change dangerous drinking habits, “governments will inevitably look at legal ramifications or legal restrictions”.  [AAP]

According to the article when the US and Canada raised the drinking age to 21 it reduced violence by 15%.  I have no dog in this fight since it doesn’t effect me, but I am curious to what others think.  Does anyone think raising the drinking age in Australia to 21 years of age worth the possible reduction in violence?  If you don’t think so why?

The Age this week had a really good article that really puts into perspective the problems surrounding Australia’s aboriginal population:

From infancy to adulthood, indigenous Australians die at twice the rate of other Australians. As children, they are seven times more likely to be under protective orders, and three or four times more likely to be failing to make the grade at school.

And as adults, they are 17.5 times more likely to be in jail than other Australians. In Western Australia alone, Aborigines make up 2.7% of the adult population, but almost half the state’s prisoners.

The figures, compiled in more detail than ever before, illustrate the breakdown of Aboriginal communities in remote areas, particularly in the Northern Territory, which prompted the Howard government’s controversial intervention.

While the data show improvements in some areas — declining rates of infant mortality and rising rates of school retention — the gaps in health and education levels between blacks and whites remain massive, and in some areas they are worsening.

On most indicators, those most outside the mainstream are Aborigines in the Northern Territory. Most of them fail all but one of the school benchmark tests conducted in years 3, 5 and 7 to test reading, writing and numeracy.

In year 5, for example, only 4.6% of Victorian students failed the numeracy test, including just 10.5% of the state’s indigenous students. In the NT, by contrast, 65% of Aboriginal students failed the numeracy test, 64% failed the writing test and 59% failed in reading. Those who leave school without basic skills, white or black, are more likely to end up in jail. The report found that at any time, more than one in 50 indigenous adults are in jail, rising to more than one in 30 in WA. The vast majority are male. [The Age]

Often Australians have asked me if the United States has similar problems with the Native American population as they have with their aboriginal population.  I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on Australia’s aboriginal issues, but I can tell you what I have seen first hand.  Judging by my first hand experience the quality of life for the Native American population in the US is far superior to the Aborigines.  Most Native American tribes do very well for themselves including some that are down right wealthy from their casinos.  There are definitely some extremely poor Native American tribes as well that I have seen for example in eastern Montana, but the poorest Native Americans I have it much better than what I have seen of Australia’s aboriginal population. 

If you go to the Northern Territory you cannot help, but notice how the Aborigines have not integrated into Australian society.  Often you can see Aborigines sitting around everywhere doing nothing.  While driving back from Ayers Rock my wife and I saw a body lying along the side of the road just outside of Alice Springs.  We stopped and found it was just a aborigine woman sleeping along the side of the road.  If you go to the river bed of the Todd River in Alice Springs you can see the Aborigines sitting around drinking beer and getting drunk.

Also I’m not saying this to be mean, but it is true, many of the Aborigines stink and I mean stink bad.  In Darwin there is a beautiful park along the water front that my wife and I had to leave because the smell from the Aborigines there was so bad.  Katherine was probably the worst place we saw.  About half the town’s population is aboriginal and while walking through town my wife and I saw two fights break out between aborigines to include one where an aboriginal male was slapping around his wife. 

I’m not saying all aborigines are like this because there were some extremely exceptional aboriginals we met who worked at Ayers Rock and Kakadu National Park.  They were excellent guides and were extremely fascinating to listen to and a tribute to their culture, however I think it would be a mistake to say there aren’t some significant issues within the aboriginal population which the statistics support. 

I don’t know what the answer to the problem is, but a solution I often hear from Australians is that the welfare payments to the aboriginals need to end so they would all have to get jobs and earn a living instead of drinking grog all day.  To me that seems like a good idea if these people are trained to work a job and there a jobs available for them to work.  One thing is clear that no solution to this problem will be easy and the longer it takes to find one the further behind the aboriginal population will fall. 

Today is Australia Day which celebrates the establishment of the first European settlement at Sydney Cove by CPT Arthur Phillip in 1788.  It is pretty much Australia’s equivalent of the US’s Independence Day.  In celebration of Australia Day Aussies have been posting YouTube videos expressing what they think Australia Day is about. 

This video here is really funny and I know I have been living in Australia for too long when I actually understand almost all of his Aussie slang:

Here is one that blames America for bringing its pop culture to Australia and ruining what Australia Day should be about:

I don’t like the hip hop rap culture either, but don’t blame the US for young people in Australia who choose to listen to and live that life style.  The guy does make some good points though that make for good food for thought. 

Speaking of food this guy is celebrating Australia Day the way it was meant to be celebrated, with a BBQ:

Happy Australia Day everyone!

Congrats to Casey Stoner for being named the Young Australian of the Year.  Well deserved.  Let’s hope he keeps his title longer than last year’s winner who was stripped of it for being caught in a cocaine bust. 

This is something that is definitely news to me:

AUSTRALIAN and New Zealand homes are the least affordable in the world, according to a US-based survey of 227 cities.

The 2008 Demographia study of international housing affordability listed 18 Australian cities in its top 50 of severely unaffordable markets.

The study rates housing affordability in the English-speaking nations of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, UK and Ireland.

The least affordable city in Australia is Mandurah (sixth-least affordable overall), south of Perth, where houses cost 9.5 times a household’s average annual income, with Sydney (8.6), Perth (7.6) and Melbourne (7.3) in 11th, 19th and 22nd place overall.

Demographia rates a city’s housing market "affordable" when the cost of an average home is three (or less) times average household income, "seriously unaffordable" for four times the average and "seriously unaffordable" for five times.

The Property Council of Australia said state governments needed to release more land, cut back on developer taxes and reduce red tape. [AAP]

I have been looking at property prices around the Melbourne suburbs and have found the houses here a little more expensive than in the United States, but I did not realize overall how much more expensive Australia is. 

This story just shows how hypocritical Australia’s stance on whaling really is:

Australian animal protection groups questioned on Monday a new government guide for the humane killing of kangaroos which recommends "forcefully swinging" the heads of young animals against a vehicle tow bar.

A proposed code of conduct for shooting young kangaroos, called joeys, and smaller wallabies released by the Department of Environment also recommended a single close-range shotgun blast.

"These changes are basically saying the federal government believes it’s okay to blast a defenseless joey to bits with a shotgun," Pat O’Brien, President of the Wildlife Protection Association, told local newspapers.  [Reuters]

Remember this the next time you read how inhumane the Japanese are in their whaling practices. 

A further hit to the anti-whaling lobby came from an unlikely source Australian of the Year Tim Flannery:

ENVIRONMENTALIST and 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has declared his support for the hugely unpopular Japanese whaling program.

As Australia prepares to monitor the whaling fleet in Antarctica amid rising diplomatic tensions with Japan, Professor Flannery says there is nothing unsustainable about its annual cull of up to 1000 whales - particularly the common minke whale.

"In terms of sustainability, you can’t be sure that the Japanese whaling is entirely unsustainable," Professor Flannery told The Daily Telegraph. "It’s hard to imagine that the whaling would lead to a new decline in population."  [Daily Telegraph]

The anti-whaling lobby has been spreading the disinformation that the Japanese were going to hunt whales to extinction even though the Minke whale which they are authorized to hunt 935 of is not endangered.  Neither is the hunting of 50 Fin whales going to impact its population as well.  In fact both whales species numbers continue to grow and as Tim Flannery says are sustainable.  So this completely destroys the other anti-whaling argument I hear over and over again that Japanese whaling effects the Australian whale watching industry which is now obviously not true.

The whaling issue has nothing to do with the protecting the environment and conservation as the anti-whaling people are trying to lead people to believe.  This whole issue is that these people find whales cute and intelligent and feel that there lives are worth more than other animals.  If they would just come out and say that I would have more respect for their argument instead of hiding behind the phony environmental angle. 

The fact of the matter is that they need to hide behind the environmental angle because protecting animals because they are cute and smart isn’t likely to mobilize people against whaling.  However, when you pass propaganda that the Japanese are hunting whales to extinction, torturing them, violating Australian territorial waters, and going to wipe out the Australian whale watching industry then that will mobilize people even though it is all rubbish. 

The actions of the anti-whale lobby may have mobilized people in Australia but it has now also mobilized people in Japan which whaling has now become an issue of nationalism.  Additionally the Japanese government has now included whale meat in school lunches in show of solidarity with the whalers. If the anti-whaling people had actually approached this issue in a responsible and mature manner, the eating of whale meat probably would have naturally died off in Japan because the older people that grew up eating it would eventually age and pass away over the years. Now due to the anti-whale people, a whole new generation of Japanese children will now grow up eating whale meat.

Remember this all happening not because of environmental reasons, but because whales are cute and smart.  Kangaroos are cute but I guess they are just not smart enough for these people.  Not that I am complaining. 

This is interesting:

FOSSILS have revealed that one of the earliest kangaroos did not hop on its hind legs but galloped on all fours.

This prehistoric kangaroo, which was about the size of a small dog, also had canine fangs that were probably used to scare competitors or attract mates.

The new findings about the extended family of the kangaroo come from a 25-million-year-old skeleton dug up in Queensland during the 1990s.

The near-complete skeleton represents a new species called Nambaroo gillespieae, one of the earliest known predecessors of the modern roo.  [The Age]

The important thing that needs to be determined is how the Nambaroo would taste on a barbeque?

If you have never been to Australia you probably have no idea what a didgeridoo is; I know I didn’t until I moved down here.  However, once you visit Australia you cannot help but find out what a didgeridoo is because just about every tourist store in Australia sells didgeridoos to visitors at usually exorbant prices.  The didgeridoo is thought to be the oldest wind instrument in existence that is played by Australia’s abroginal population.  It definitely has a sound unlike any other musical instrument in the world and the sound can be down right annoying if it is being played by someone with no skills.  However, if someone with some didgeridoo skills is playing the instrument; it is really quite impressive. 

Here is a good example of how the didgeridoo sounds:

This guy is not to bad but I have seen much better didgeridoo players before like these guys you see around Circulary Quay in Sydney that are really impressive:

Or this guy in Sydney as well:

This didgeridoo player up in the Northern Territory is pretty good as well:

I have tried to play the didgeridoo and it is definitely something that takes a lot of practice, but I do enjoy listening to guys that can play it well. 

To further show how big Australia really is, here is another graphic to help people appreciate how big Australia is compared to the Far East:

Here is something else to add some perspective for you. Japan has a population of 180 million people compared to Australia’s 20 million people. Little South Korea shown has 50 million people compared to Australia’s 20 million. I think what I’m trying to say is that Australia has a lot of room compared to the Far East.

Next I am going to have to dig up something to show Australia compared to Europe. Give me time, I’m sure I’ll find something.