"Troy is only 8, but he knows the words to Yanguna, an Arnhem Land song celebrating kava. He sings in tune with Saltwater Band's anthem to the drug as the car bumps along the dirt track.
Kava came to Arnhem Land 20 years ago as a ray of hope. Aboriginal community leaders believed the calming drink from the Pacific could be a peaceful alternative to alcohol, then raging through Aboriginal communities like a cyclone.
But kava became just another abused substance.”
posted by jason's_planet
on May 1, 2007 -
43 comments
Yahoo! Australia introduces a new search engine that uses OpenSearch and pretty little AJAX tricks to integrate results from Flickr, Wikpedia, YouTube (and so on). You can customize the layout, and even add your own search sources. It’s called Alpha, it’s currently in Beta, and aims to get through the rest of the Greek alphabet by June. (Via
podlob.)
posted by Milkman Dan
on Apr 10, 2007 -
13 comments
QANTAS, Australia's national airline carrier that was once refrenced by Dustin Hoffman's character Ray in
Rain Man, is to be taken over by a private consortium called
Airline Partners Australia (APA) after the Federal Government
gave approval for the takeover yesterday. So what better time than to endulge in a little bit of QANTAS history?
Founded in Winton, Queensland on 16 November 1920 as '
Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited' with just one
Avro 540k, QANTAS has played a prominent part in Australia's history, with its fleet being
nationalised,
privatised and even
conscripted for national service during WW2. And although Ray was wrong when he said that QANTAS had never had a crash (indeed,
it had 8 and
has had several more since
Rain Man), the 'flying kangaroo' was still considered an "iconic Australian company" (
although there is some debate on that). Nonetheless, if you're
really interested in checking out some more QANTAS history, head on over to the National Library of Australia's website, where they have
plenty of QANTAS ephemera material online for you to gander at.
posted by Effigy2000
on Mar 6, 2007 -
38 comments
Australia: the new 51st state John Howard's servility to the US is even greater than Tony Blair's. "John Pilger," wrote Harold Pinter, "unearths, with steely attention facts, the filthy truth. I salute him."
via New Statesman.
posted by adamvasco
on Mar 5, 2007 -
40 comments
MacRobertson's Confectionery were, in the 1930s, trialling new ideas for their children's range. An employee suggested that as "women and children were afraid of mice," rather than a chocolate mouse,
a chocolate frog would be more popular with children. Three days later, what would become Australia's most popular children's confectionery, the
Freddo Frog, was born. Its supposed creator, Harry Melbourne,
died last week, having never received a cent in royalties. However, to this day there remains confusion as to whether he, or rather the inventor of the
Cherry Ripe, Lesley Atkison, was
in fact responsible. Those that only know him in chocolate form may be surprised to find out that Freddo was also the star of
Australia's first cartoon.
posted by Mil
on Jan 29, 2007 -
22 comments
If you thought the video of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon was rather blurry, it might interest you to know that this was never broadcast as well as it could have been. The original video quality was much better. You can't view the original video today, because NASA has
lost the bleepin tape. Nobody seems to care, but the guys who once made the transmission possible are looking for it. An Australian
minister is on their side. If the tape hasn't been accidentally degaussed, there's only one machine left that is able to read it.
posted by Termite
on Jan 11, 2007 -
19 comments
World Tales : See folk tales, myths and legends from around the world, brought to life by twenty Australian animators.
posted by dhruva
on Jan 2, 2007 -
7 comments
Hey, Mum, look at the hairless monkeys! A group of hairless monkeys are the latest exhibit at Adelaide Zoo. Some background information on the project is available
here (you may wonder, as I did, why it took a news site to provide the background to the project) and a live stream from the enclosure
here. [more inside]
posted by dg
on Jan 2, 2007 -
22 comments
The Dreaming (arguably better known as 'The Dreamtime') is more than just the story of how the world was created as told by Aboriginal Australians. It is also the basis for their way of life and death, their source of power in life and it tells of the life and influence of their ancestors on their culture. It was so important to Aboriginal Australians in the time before the white invasion of Australia that it was the one commonly held belief amongst a culture that consisted of over 500 different tribes (
discussion of Dreamtime beliefs here). Thought to be the oldest continuously maintained cultural history on Earth, it is often presented as a series of inter-related stories explaining Aboriginal Australian origins and culture, such as how the Australian landscape was created or how the
Mimi spirits taught them how to paint these stories on the walls of caves more than 40,000 years ago.
And what better way to learn of several of the many different Dreamtime stories than to
listen and watch them being told by Aboriginal Australians elders themselves? And if that isn't enough Dreamtime mythology for you,
here's some links to various sites which allow you to view Aboriginal rock art to see how these stories were translated into a form of artistic expression which is now five times older than the Egyptian Pyramids themselves.
posted by Effigy2000
on Dec 23, 2006 -
14 comments
Palm Island off Queensland’s stunning north coast is one of the most beautiful places on earth, well maybe not if you’re an Australian Aborigine.
Mulrunji Doomadgee, a fit, healthy, 36-year-old man, died in police custody on Palm Island on 19 November 2004 following his arrest by Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley on a charge of "public nuisance". Yet Queensland DPP Leanne Clare has
described the death as "a terrible accident’ caused by a ‘complicated fall’. [via
crikey.com.au- subs req’d]
posted by mattoxic
on Dec 14, 2006 -
10 comments
From far away they came to toil under the scorching Outback sun, and their hardy dispositions and tireless labor helped to create the central
Australian railway and telegraph systems.
They are the
Camels [NPR story w/ audio], and today they are free (well, okay,
feral), and they are many (700,000 strong, at least.) While they're no
cane toads, they're becoming a bit of a pest. What to do with all those dromedaries? Well, you can
race 'em, or you can
eat 'em, or maybe you can even try
milking 'em. Just get 'em before they get
you, mate.
posted by maryh
on Dec 9, 2006 -
18 comments
The Seventh State. An
Australian federal parliamentary committee, tasked
with looking into the harmonisation of the Australian and New Zealand legal systems, has
concluded that the two countries
should work towards a full union, or at least have a single currency and common markets.
NZ's
Minister for Foreign Affairs has
rubbished the idea as "parliamentary adventurism", but the Australian constitution
provides for just such an eventuality.
One of the
key hurdles for any union would
be the
Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document.
Misinterpreted, misunderstood, and hotly debated Te
Tiriti has long been one of the reasons put for the difficult road facing New Zealand in
becoming a republic. Having
abolished appeals to the Privy Council,
adopted a
new electoral system, declared itself
nuclear free (.pdf), taken
France to court and
opposed the war in Iraq, New Zealand has
certainly embraced it's 'independence'. But a
contracting sharemarket, muddled
coalition building in government, and an increased
focus on
trans-Tasman alignment has lead some to
support the idea of a less formal separation between the two countries. However a common currency
has already been
rejected by New Zealand's Finance Minister.
What hope then, for
ANZAC union? And does it matter, when the
rest of the world can't tell us apart?
posted by szechuan
on Dec 6, 2006 -
64 comments
Sheikh Hilali, the mufti of Australia, has raised more than a few eyebrows when he declared that
rape-victims are to blame for tempting men: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park and the cats come and eat it -- whose fault is it? The cats or the uncovered meat?" Needless to say, the mufti doesn't think the cats are to blame. Australians (including their PM) are not amused and
call for the mufti to step down. Even many
Islamic women think it's the mufti, and not the meat, that stinks. Others argue that at least the mufti (quickly christened the "
rape cleric" by some news outlets) will
force Muslims to fess up and take a stand on whether they really think that women are Satan's agents who incite rape with immodest dress.
The Sheikh himself found it wisest to go on a "
self-imposed holiday" to join the Hajj in Mecca, possibly to pray for attire with larger surface area, and left with the disingenuous remark that he
might step down if someone could "prove" what his *real* intentions were when he made his controversial comments.
posted by sour cream
on Oct 28, 2006 -
112 comments
The Australian cigarette health warnings have pretty much filtered down to every retail packet that's bought now.
They're pretty gruesome and some smoking acquaintances cover them up with stickers. I thought I'd have a look around and see what other countries warnings were like. None of them were pulling any punches except for Uruguay.
posted by tellurian
on May 17, 2006 -
118 comments
15 days ago, there was a relatively small earthquake near Beaconsfield, Tasmania, which left 3 miners trapped in a gold mine. The situation looked grim after the body of
one of the miners was recovered. But after 5 days, there was elation as the other two were found,
still alive, buried one kilometer underground in a small cage. Australia's major commercial networks immediately sent their top news celebrities to the small mining town, assuming there would be a quick and easy rescue. In hindsight, they were perhaps a bit over enthusiastic. Accusations of a
media circus, and
chequebook journalism soon followed. After a couple of days of nothing happening, the media even started
turning on their own.
The story took an unexpectedly sad twist this weekend when one of Australia's most well known journalists
died at the site from an apparent heart attack. But tonight, after 15 days underground, it seems the rescuers are
finally breaking through the rock to
reach the unfortunate trapped miners.
posted by Diag
on May 8, 2006 -
19 comments
A Dramatic New Portrait of Leo Sayer "Leo Sayer is ebullient, passionate, and immensely talented. He is the ultimate people person, enthusiastically embracing life. A neighbour of his who is familiar with both my work and Leo's told me that Leo would be the perfect subject for a portrait. So I wrote and asked, it was as simple as that."
Sadly, Tony Johansen's portrait of Leo Sayer didn't win this year's
Archibald Prize. Then again, neither did
this.
posted by Biblio
on Apr 15, 2006 -
19 comments
