Is Mad Max just an Australian thing, maybe?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

They're supposed to be the best remediated country. Over remediation? Are they maybe just being more forthcoming with their problems? Or, is it just Carl's less picky than others? Granted, some of these reports are not demonstrated Y2K events, but it does seem like a phenomenal amount of problems. We haven't been seeing derailments, in the US, for example... Are they having a rougher time of power because it's summer? Look what's been reported in just the last five days.

Third Derailment in Australia in Two Days

Massive Sewage Spill fouls Australian Tourist Town

Australia: Switching yard failure blamed for north-east NSW blackout

Australia: State told to act urgently as more trains leave the rails

Australia: Military equipment malfunction blamed for sonobuoy crashing into residential home

Update: on Australian Aviation Fuel Crisis

Australia meetings on power outages

Adelaide Australia: Electricity Blackout in southern suburbs

OT? Source of the contamination - Mobil Oil Australia Ltd., a subsidiary of U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp

Australian Mobile phone glitch blacks out coverage across New South Wales and Capital Territory

power pole fires in australia

More problems with mobile phone in Australia

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), January 20, 2000

Answers

Maybe he's out derailing trains for some new movie...

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), January 20, 2000.

The hell with Y2K, where's that hotty Mel Gibson?

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), January 20, 2000.

Crocodile Dundee would be unperturbed. No worries, mate.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 20, 2000.

Oh no way Ed, my favorite Irish /American /Australian (that's right kids, 4, count em, all 4 grandparents full blood Irish) is down south filming The Patriot about a farmer turned militia in the American Revolution. Can you say "topical" and "ear to the ground" when it comes to role choices? Although you can toss that Lethal Weapon crap. Melvin Columcille Gibson (As in St. Columcille, Dove of the Church) emigrated from the US at age 10 to Oz. Dad fled with the whole family so his eldest brother would not have to fight in Vietnam. Up Madmax! And Christian Fletcher!

-- William Wallace (braveheart@highlands.com), January 20, 2000.

Au Contraire -- what it does show is great freedom of the press in OZ. From my limited experience, they reaaly do have extroardinary NEWS in their newspapers -- not to mention independence in journalism, intelligent editorials, etc.

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.mizzenmast), January 20, 2000.


Brain typing faster than hands can think. Sorry, make that Fletcher Christian all ye Bounty fans. And ditto to above, with the exception of the Murdoch tabloids posing as real journalism. Aussie Murdoch is a flesh merchant, make no mistake about it. Having poisoned Fleet St., has now set his sights on Main St. USA via Fox TV/NY Post. Watch

-- William Wallace (braveheart@highlands.com), January 20, 2000.

Dear Dancr,

As an Australian I appreciate a forum like TB2000. It re-affirms that Americans are strongly for God, country and healthy paranoids, and not necesarilly in that order.

Mad Max themes and scenery introduced a surreal nightmare, almost a contemporary Heironymus Bosch artwork with some laconic horizon gazers. If you ever have an opportunity to sojourn with Queensland pig hunters and their caged killer dogs you'll actually taste Mad Max.

I personally think our media is manipulated ad nauseum. I can tell you though that our media is under constant poling. If a letter to the editor is pointedly current affairs, and receives support, the spin-meisters use a 20 times equation to guage public awareness to the issue. This shakes the Houses of Assemblies in our States and Federal representatives. It's a lathering game with high stakes for soapbox freaks.

Y2K remediation received huge parliamentary support here, and tax breaks for business etc. The way it was sold though is another matter altogether. Most people I know were and remain skeptical about any problem in the computers and embeddeds. The media in no small way contributes to keeping a lid on it.

The oddness of things going wrong now as reported does make good copy and was hardly possible to keep out of the press. Let me add that more things have hiccupped in my small town provincial region. It will remain unreported.

Our daily news covers the world. Australians know America well by it. Conversely I think Americans can not claim to know Australia that well when forum flamers say we are a third world country with aspirations. That is not true. Australian are switched on well enough. It's just that our leadership is a fabrication of their own imagination. In that regard we do mirror America so well.

Mad Max is not just an Australian thing. We are open about our short comings, more so than anywhere else, so it appears. That's why we're so glad you've got Murdock now. Regards from Oz.

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), January 20, 2000.


Now Pieter, that came off a bit harsh. Been following your excellent posts for some time now. Truly, lad, Yanks have much more in common with Oz than most think. Obviously the "third world with first world aspirations" was way out of line. Perhaps it simply came from the experiences of a mere tourist. Third world, of course not. Britain with swimming pools? Not that either. It is its own place. And we have much to thank her for helping us to expand our wee yanqui minds. Indeed, we here in the western hemisphere have our own colonial chains to still overthrow. Cromwell sent many a Celt here on white slave ships whilst cleansing the Highlands and The Emerald Bogs. To remote Leeward isles like Montserrat and to indentured serfdom in places like the Saugus Ironworks in Massachussets. Remember, after Cornwallis left here in defeat, he went on to bigger and better tyranny elsewhere back in Erin and for the British East India Co. Alas, America and its lack of study of lost and forgotten history!

I find the most poignant description of Australian longings in the recent writings of Thomas Keneally. And Mel seems to have really epitomized the pseudo-European in The Year of Living Dangerously. "And Guy Hamilton watched them with a calm wistfulness. Their Europe would never be his. He would always be a temporary resident, and in the end, Asia would claim him." so wrote C.J. Koch in that novel.

My dear Pieter, we too, are children in the diaspora of that once far flung empire, struggling to find our identity. Mistakes, yes plenty. But that you see was always the lion's trump card, the ability to rule by the principle of divide and conquer. The division achieved by playing the elitest games of aristcratic superiority. And no Crown civil serpent cartographer could ever look at a map without taking a ruler and drawing a line of division. Same old story. Still true in every place they imperialized. We are left squabbling over their remnants. Brilliant strategy, eh? Whether it's Aboriginal rights, Native Americans, Quebecois, Ulstermen. The pattern is the same worldwide. Cypress, India, Hong Kong, Rhodesia, need I continue? There were Irishmen wasted as cannon fodder at Gallipoli too. Their broken amputated bodies returning to their Irish villages helped spawn the uncontrollable rage which spilled over into the Easter 1916 Rebellion and hence their neutrality to this day. Don't be angry mate, we have much to learn and share and overcome. Eternity rules! P.S. The old caveat goes something like this, imagine if the French had colonized the world instead. :>)

-- William Wallace (braveheart@highlands.com), January 21, 2000.


Yes of course you have it pinned down William Wallace, but I have lurked this forum daily since 1998 and felt out of it entirely. A certain change is happening to this place and its becoming people talking and sharing ideas. So I decided to tell it somewhat differently, and for other reasons make contribution, thankful for this facility and jumping at the chance to push my brain.

You mention Keneally and I'll mention 'The Trinity' by Leon Uris, a book that is essentially a 'must read' if anyone wishes to grasp Australia. afterwards read 'Power without Glory' by Frank Hardy (sp?) and Australia begins to develop a three dimensional form. Then...., well it goes on, but Irish themes run throughout our story.

I like to shock the cocky Irish with their proud Eureka Stockade gleam by telling that the definitive tale of that day was written by an Italian who fought with Garibaldi. Australia is as pollyglot as the American colonies that booted out those poms, an action directly responsible for an accelaration to settlement down here.

I think I read everything to read by Nigel Tranter about the William Wallaces of Scotland. Soldiers from there camped in the village I grew up at in Europe and Frisian is old, very old, and we communicated without too much hassle at all. (Nigel Tranter died recently from that savage flu)

I won't bore you with more on this thread, suffice to say that I think the Internet is one great vehicle to bring a world of contrasts just a bit closer to understanding. I do fire up in exasperation sometimes though :o)

Regards from Down Under

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), January 21, 2000.


Pieter, don't stop just yet! Finally a voice in the wilderness. Yes, absolutely correct on America "begetting" Australia. To all those lurking and listening we would both urge you to read The Fatal Shore. This explains why when the American colonists would no longer except the ex-convicts in their petty street sweeps of the London underclass, that Britain was forced to "invent" a new penal colony. We could also share many a horror story of the young vigins who were rounded up out of workhouses and shipped off, gang raped on board during the 12 week voyage and thus "broken in" for prostitution upon arriving at Sydney Barracks but then we would be digressing a bit, eh? Tis an evil mess that we will be cleaning up for generations to come. Suffice to say, our rebellion helped induce the Crown to greater "glory" down under.

As for cocky Irish, tis true, and you could say it was their fierce determination to survive which led them to remain with Washington at Valley Forge when all the others had long since deserted. Not for naught is this country deliberately misled about the ethnic makeup of its Revolutionary Army. They would have us believe that the Irish and Scots Irish were all Famine era arrivals. Not so. Many hundreds of Irish names on the Revolutionary Rosters. Indeed, 695 Kelly's, 495 Murphy's, 331 McCarthy's, 327 O'Connors, 322 Ryan's, 266 Sullivans, 248 Daugherty's, 223 McLaughlins, 178 Fitzgeralds, 150 Callaghans and 108 Gallaghers to name just a few. (Irish American Historical Soc.) More "secret" history. Along with Boone and Crockett's Scotch roots

There is much to admire in the spirit of the Netherlands. The worthy Friesian milch cow for instance. The portrait paintings of the Dutch Masters. The incredible defensive air game strategies of Ajax. Of course, Celts have a more "offensive" mindset in their playing style. But alas, we cannot WATCH that here without paying RUPERT MURDOCH- style exorbitant satellite fees for a live feed, hence $20 cover charge to get in the door. Or the infohighway robbery of pay-per-view SKYTV is an abomination and will corrupt Europe further. Does that tie in with the above rant on the media? Hope so! Let's pray that some kind of journalistic integrity survives yet in Oz, to guide our perspective. American news of the "outside" reality consists now on tv of literally a "world minute" update each night. With only four 15 second video clips and or sound bites to inform us. Thanks be to God for Internet. Good luck to you Pieter. BTW, am French Huguenot on maternal side. Isaiah de Guimond, anglicized to "Guymon" as a 6 foot 7 infantryman in the North Carolina Militia during our own American Revolution,FWIW. And to all Americans, study your own past if not any others. Perhaps then global conquest history might not repeat itself before we all end up living in a Mad Max nightmare movie by 2035.

-- William Wallace (braveheart@highlands.com), January 21, 2000.



Wallace W. et al,

Much is made of the potato famine triggering the great Irish migrations and so it did. But the migration was well and truly a 100 years old by then.

One real trigger of the Irish migration to America was the tenancy laws creating constant servility that Cromwell visited upon them, and then William and Mary brought the Orange to rule the Northern Industrial base that employed a Catholic or two. It was the Industrial Revolution times needing cheaper labour. Malcontents got shipped far away.

The Americas brought to Ireland the potato which, as a stable source of protein, meant a larger population. Any single source reliance of energy did eventually bring a sorrow that even now reverberates in the chemistry of Australian social development, and likewise that of America. There remains a memory of it, and of a system ill prepared for handling the injustice it brought.

The reliance we are building on information and data flow, techno product and consumerism branding, all owned by fewer multi-nationals brings a servitude by consumers. Today fewer people in Australia own the farm properties, yet the farm people are tenanted, in contrast to only a few years ago when soldier settlements opened up rural holdings and enjoyed full private ownership with the owner running affairs. This Y2K thing brings to the fore so many questions and engineering of society observations that I'm almost afraid to admit to a sensation of deja vu..., we've been on this road before and it'll not become a pleasant sight.

You may be interested to know that by a quirk of political connivism the Frisian Republic was the first international legislature to formally recognise the American colonies declaration of their independence. This came about through considerable Frisian trading investments and monies paid out to fortify the Americans and also to fan several flames of skullduggery in trade competition. Later on the seven Netherland repulics unified with the House of Orange (Nassua) as a crown monarchy, a luke warm marriage of convenience to stick it up a bunch of Spaniards, Frogs and the odd Pom who contested the trade routes. The Mennonites traders enter the debate here and Spice Island trade bubbles.

The French were quite a bit preoccupied with personal affairs during all these times which sort of muddled up the antipodean thing for them. They helped America though because America helped the French revolutionary mindset. (here certain arts and sciences can be discussed but I was taught to be cautious)

You will be happy to know that in our rural cemetaries the Scottish and Anglican are buried on and east to west alignment to fascilitate an easier rising on judgement day. On the other side are the random graves of the Catholics in a willy-nilly affair. A substantial paling fence seperates the two.

I spend today on Coola Station, a large rural property that once housed many employees in its own village with school etc. The farmer and I stood on the flats of Lake Bonney seeing the huge mobile sand dunes away distant spill to the water. There is a Y2K tale here and it is one echoing over this land. I'll write about it soon and might post it.

Regards from Down Under.

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), January 22, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ