Australian of the Year

It sounds funny to American ears, but Australia actually appoints an official Australian of the Year. It's like being the MVP, only of the whole country. Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that the 2007 AOTY was Tim Flannery, a scientist and environmental activist who is urgently pushing the message that climate change is real and we need to do something about it. His selection wasn't a surprise - climate change (and Australia's ongoing drought) has risen dramatically in profile over the past six months, and is likely to be an issue in the elections later this year.

But not all winners are picked for such serious topics. Previous winners include actor Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan (1985), Olympic gold-medal winner Cathy Freeman (1998), Wimbledon champ Evonne Goolagong (1971), and soft-rockers The Seekers (1967). Plus plenty of worthies like the first ever AOTY, Sir MacFarlane Burnet (1960), a Nobel prize winning medical researcher.

AOTY is usually announced on the eve before Australia Day (January 26), the day that commemorates the establishment of Sydney by the First Fleet back in 1788. Except not all Australians really care for that day. Aborigines certainly don't see it as such a great day, much the way that American Indians aren't overly enthusiastic about Columbus Day. And some Aussies in states other than New South Wales gripe that it's no good that all of Australia has to celebrate SYDNEY's founding as their national day.

But anyway, put on some AC/DC or Midnight Oil or Keith Urban, grab a Fosters or an Aussie wine, put a prawn on the barbie, watch a Nicole Kidman or Guy Pierce movie, and have a great Australia Day. And if you see Tim Flannery, give him a handshake and a "good on you, mate."

The Fate of a Kangaroo

The kangaroo is Australia's national animal, the source of the nickname for the men's national soccer team ("Socceroos") and featured, with the emu, on Australia's coat of arms.

A revered animal? Well, sure. But not so revered that the Aussies don't use kangaroo meat as CAT FOOD. Yes, you can come to Australia and (once your cats are out of quarantine) feed delicious kangaroo meat to your striped tabby.

Two of our cats are crazy for the raw kangaroo meat. I've never seen them so frenzied about any other food before.

I have a business plan. I think I'll make a brand of cat food called "Australian Coat of Arms Cat Feast", and will mix a bit of emu into the delicious raw stew...

Hanging with My Peeps I Mean Sheeps

This past weekend Canberra's exhibition park hosted a show for Great Southern Merino sheep - so we went. This wasn't a tourist thing - this was a working event for sheep stations (we'd call them ranches in the US) from parts of New South Wales and even Victoria.

We went and watched experts assessing the ewes and rams in a pavilion that had about 400 sheep. Such bleating! It was interesting to see them assess these critters. They look pretty dirty and brown from the outside, but pull the surface layer back and it's fleece as white as Little Bo Peep's favorite lamb. I must admit to being a little nervous when people were leading rams back to their pens. They looked pugnacious, and I think those horns could do some serious damage.

We watched one ten-year-old boy straining to keep his ewe under control - it weighed easily twice as much as he did, but he handled it pretty well, with some help from mom. But this was serious stuff. This show wasn't just for ribbons and pride and socializing (although there was plenty of that), but the judging was also establishing benchmarks for the next day's auction of rams, which can fetch up to US$12,000.

In the adjacent pavilion were, in addition to various nutritional supplement booths and a product that will make the fleece fall off the sheep (no shearing needed) a bunch of ladies spinning fleece into wool. Australians are serious knitters and, being in one of the world's greatest wool-producing countries, a bit disdainful of acrylic fibers...

There were also huge piles of fleece with information about the different grades of fiber. Not that I could see or feel the difference, but obviously wool isn't all the same, and different grades of wool (based on how long you leave it on the sheep, age of the animal, and who knows what other factors) are used for different things, with the finer grades being suitable for light-colored wools, and the coarser ones for things like carpets.

One common anti-Canberra joke (about as common as anti-Washington jokes in the US) is that Canberra is "a good sheep station spoiled." Before being established as the capital of Australia, Canberra in fact WAS a sheep town, so the show this weekend was entirely appropriate.

Poetry from Electronic Pork Shoulder Transmissions

Allow me to present for your reading pleasure a short piece of abstract poetry. I particularly like how the poet repeated the first line at the end.

Mine profile links, simply strategic?

Sill amber cox andy hosier.

Store went bought saved left, happy fiberbed, disklike pokey.

Am ordinary miracles below, lyrics song?

Had message about not quiting stepping up even when!

There is nothing more cute than kid.

Feathers regular down pads comforter!

Going into really didnt any, good made, laugh.

Movie whamright know but please dont try home.

Mine profile links, simply strategic?

Where did I find this, you may ask? Some small piece of poetry written in ten minutes by William Burroughs on a bad acid trip? Lost verses from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky? Mangled English-language instructions from a Chinese manufacturer of bed linens?

Nah. It was the text of a spam email urging me to buy some stock. It also included a link for me to click to download some free emoticons, which doubtless would have come with some nifty computer virus. I didn't click.

Australian Vocabulary Lessons (III)

Once again, Australian language lessons for those in the Northern Hemisphere. I've heard all of these words in daily conversation and/or on TV and radio. Hit the links for the real answers, and try them on your friends and neighbors.

King-hit (verb and noun): a) regicide, to commit regicide (a favorite term among Australians who want to fire the Queen and establish a republic); b) sucker punch; c) a complicated surfing maneuver invented on Bondi Beach that involves a surf board, a sheep, and Crown Lager

Jumbuck (noun): a) a complicated surfing maneuver invented on Bondi Beach that involves a surf board, a sheep, and Crown Lager; b) sheep; c) a nickname for Australia's Parliament

Bowser (noun): a) gas (petrol) pump; b) a complicated surfing maneuver invented on Bondi Beach that involves a surf board, a sheep, and Crown Lager; c) a rude nickname for a politician who is not quick on the uptake

Wowser (noun): a) a complicated surfing maneuver invented on Bondi Beach that involves a surf board, a sheep, and Crown Lager; b) a prude, an ineffably pious person who mistakes this world for a penitentiary and himself for a warder; c) the noise, repeated several times, that groups of Australian men (often construction workers) will make as a particularly attractive young woman passes by. Reputedly the chant that started the Cronulla Beach riots in December 2005.

A Good Spider

Australia has lots of nasty spiders and snakes (brown snakes kill 15 people a year here, just killed a teen in Sydney). Had a whiteback spider in the bathroom the other day. They aren't actually venomous (good news), but they have a bacteria in their mouth that causes severe reactions in some people who are bitten. If you're writhing in pain, it really doesn't matter if it's spider venom or some single-cell beastie that's the cause...

But scientists have found a GOOD spider. Not in Australia, though! A spider near Lake Victoria in eastern Africa that prefers to eat mosquitoes that carry malaria. Be nice to help people identify those spiders to let them live, as maybe one way to keep malarial mosquitoes away from people.

Australian Vocabulary Lessons (II)

Another selection of Australian words for you to puzzle over, all of which I've heard in daily conversation and/or on TV and radio. Hit the links for the real answers.

Bogan (noun): a) a large humanoid with furry feet in an upcoming Peter Jackson movie; b) an insulting term for an immigrant from an East European country; c) a unsophisticated or lower-class person

Arvo (noun): a) an insulting term for an immigrant from an East European country; b) afternoon; c) an Australian pharmaceutical product designed to improve the concentration of cricket spectators

Dob (verb): a) to turn in somebody, to tell on somebody, for example for using too much water on the lawn; b) to be an immigrant from an East European country (pejorative); c) to go topless on a beach

Larrikin (noun): a) a small sprite-like creature said to live in Australian rivers and lakes; b) A person given to comical or outlandish behavior; c) a) an insulting term for an immigrant from an East European country