Coal-Eating Surrender Monkeys

With props to Tim Hollo over at LP for the inspiration, "coal-eating surrender monkeys" are what we here at BmL will be calling the new breed of climate denialist: that is, those who accept the science, but now say "its too late to do anything" and/or "we wont do anything until everyone else does". For example, the Australian Liberal/ National coalition.

When the call for action came, they immediately surrendered. When the global threat arrived, they vacated the field. When others made a stand, they ran a mile. We found them huddled and crying behind the coal sheds. They are the enviro-cowards.

They are the coal-eating surrender monkeys.

What if Churchill had done the same, hmmm? "oh, we wont be fighting them on the beaches unless everyone else does first.... and its probably too late anyway...(etc, whine whine cry)"

Pathetic. Fortunately, people with some semblance of backbone are in charge now. The main game is making sure they don't cop-out under pressure from the carping surrender monkeys, currently flinging their poo from the safety of the treetops.

The Wreck of the Batavia: why no film?

White settlement of Australia first took place, inadvertently, on June 4 1629 when the Dutch East India Ship Batavia was wrecked on Houtman's Abrolhos (which means "open your eyes" in Portuguese), a small group of inhospitable islands off the West Australian coast. Three hundred civilian passengers were left to wait as Commander Pelsaert and most of the officers sailed in a small boat to Batavia (now Jakarta) for help.

Left under the command of the deputy VOC commander, a psychopath called Jacob Cornelius, the passengers entered a three-month living hell of murder, rape, enslavement, and deranged tyranny under Cornelius' gang. Only 116 survived.

This story has it all. There's even good guys - Wiebbe Hayes, a Dutch soldier who resists Cornelius' thugs after being marooned with other soldiers on a nearby island.

And how's this for a gripping climax? Cornelius is captured by Hayes, but the rest of his gang a still at large as the Dutch rescue ship comes over the horizon. There's a desperate seaborne race to get there first, to win the authorities to their side of story.

SO WHERE'S THE FILM, Australia???? This is sheer madness. This story is unbelievable - and true. Why the constant failure of the imagination in this country? The failure to see how great, how universal even, some of these magnificent tales are.

And I've been watching the fantastic The First Australians series. Same goes for that - perhaps more so. Ok, so we've had The Tracker, yes, but where's the movie about Pemulwoy and the resistance around Sydney? He and his warriors took Parramatta! Its an incredible tale. And Jandamurra in the Kimberleys? The Kalkadoons at Battle Mountain in Queensland? Why are we so pathetic at this? New Zealand is way ahead on this score.

Is it that we daren't offend the pathetic denialist sensibilities of certain high profile culture warriors? Or is it a deeper malaise, a cringing disbelief that any story taking place here is worth telling? Or worse - are we just plain scared of the truth? That we might displace Cap'n Cook from his endless victory in grade 7 social science texts? Or demonstrate how constant was the Indigenous resistance?

Honestly, I'm sometimes genuinely embarrassed by this country's never-ending adolescence. Here's hoping it changes with the apology. I think it might, actually. I'm optimistic. Now, a good start would be some quality films on key episodes of our history - exciting, wild tales, like those above. Do I ask too much?

UPDATE: Hooray! Some googling suggests there may be a film about the Batavia (starring Vinnie Jones) underway. I'll believe it when I see it. This project has been mooted before. But still.... no Aboriginal resistance movies? Come on!!

The Magnificent Gene Clark

You know, The Byrds had some luminaries as members: David Crosby, and Roger McGuinn. But watch their early videos on Youtube, and the only fully-fledged musical genius in that band is the guy playing the tamborine. The magnificent Gene Clark.

Any hit the Byrds had, if not composed by Dylan, you can bet it was written by him. Try "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", "She Don't Care About Time" and "Eight Miles High" on fer size. All Clark compositions.

And if "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" isn't objectively one of top 5 greatest songs of the 60s, I'll personally eat your hat. Sometimes, when it's late at Keating Towers, and I'm ferreting away here with headphones, while the world sleeps, I believe it to be the finest pop song ever written.

And how many other native American pop stars were there? If anyone knows others, comment away.

Anyhoo, if you like 60s west coast sounds, get yourself his solo album from 1967, after he left the Byrds: its sometimes called Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, other times known as Echoes. It's truly a forgotten gem. In mon humble opinion.

Through fields of cane....

It may not surprise you to learn I'm really not much of rural type. But last night I was staying at Ms LE's ancestral German -Australian farm just outside Brisbane, where her Prussian antecedents settled in the 1860s. Her sister and brother still live there; though they don't farm or anything earthy like that.

Anyway, the more genuinely rustic neighbours were burning their cane crop. I watched for an hour, and it was magnificent. Fire licking the sky, cane bark flying high over bulging smoke clouds, big bursts of flame followed by low crackling subsidence, then another rush of hot flame leaping skyward.

In the morning I could see why the method was once favoured (I'm told its used less now, for reasons I don't get). The cane was so clean, black and straight, ready for easy harvest. Awesome!

Classic Australian Cinema: Petersen (1974)

Yes, from the team (David Williamson scriptwriter, Tim Burstall Director) that brought you the more renowned Alvin Purple, Petersen (1974) starring Jack Thompson in his first lead role is a classic.

Basically, Thompson is an ex-AFL star and electrician who saves up his dough to go to Uni in the pre-Whitlam era. Great scenes from University of Melbourne in the early 1970s. Thompson has an affair with his English lecturer (Wendy Hughes), fails the course when her Professor husband becomes jealous, becomes frustrated with his own wife (Jacki Weaver), and eventually gets beaten up by the cops while mouthy and drunk, sealing the conflict of class cultures theme with a nice little Queensland-style 'police interview'. Bud Tingwell appears briefly - and quite hilariously- as Thompson's agnostic Reverend father. All very raunchy in that frappez le bourgeoisie early 70s mode.

I also saw Stork recently - an earlier incarnation of the same team's work - which is rougher, and doesn't flow nearly as well as Petersen. Mind you, you get to see Monash Uni in that one, so they're both interesting pieces of social history.

Strange times at the Yasukuni Shrine

So, if you had this idea that the Yasukuni Shrine (and associated Museum) in Tokyo was probably a grand exercise in historical revisionism, well - you'd be pretty much right.

Naturally, I had a poke around while I was in Tokyo. Actually, the kids (our one, and two of a friend) loved it, lots of Zeros, tanks, even a piloted Kamikaze torpedo to look at. But I will outline the revisionist high (low) points for you.

But firstly, some possible misconceptions:


















The Yasukuni Shrine is not a monument to WW2 (known as the East Asian war in Japan). It's a Shinto Shrine, originally built in the late 1860s to commemorate the Imperial Army which ended the 600-year rule of the Shogun warlords, who kept the Emperor around as a quaint figurehead. This was the birth of the modernising Meiji imperial regime which took Japan out of a era of near-complete isolationism, and general Koto-plucking feudal backwardness under the Shogunate. In that sense, the Shrine itself is originally a monument to a wholly unobjectionable -indeed rather positive - development in Japanese history.

Second, well, no one really has a problem with a memorial to the ordinary war dead, do we? The poor schmos in the lower ranks etc. Pretty much no one in the region objects to that, as I understand it.

Nope: its the interment of 1000+ documented war criminals - including several very high profile ones - that really pisses off Japan's Asian neighbours, and a whole lot of other nations for that matter. This is where the Japanese Government goes off the rails at Yasukuni.

And then the revisionism: so, apparently there were loads of "Chinese soldiers in civilian uniform" at Nanking. Oh really? I guess that would explain the indiscriminate massacre of people looking like civilians. I mean.... seriously. Do the kids get taught this? This section of the Museum is a card-carrying outrage in progress.

And oh yeah, Pearl Harbor happened because the US was deliberately denying resource-poor Japan access to steel, energy etc. Actually, that's pretty much true: but what it fails to mention is that by that point the Japanese army had not only been committing major atrocities in China for several years, but had just recently invaded French Indochina.

And can you believe it? Then the Yanks blockaded us! Yeah, what a head-scratcher. Hard to fathom, right?

Moving along, the really notable feature was the emphasis placed on the support the Japanese armies provided to anti-colonial movements in South and Southeast Asia.

Actually - and this can be hard for many in the West to swallow - there's substantially more than a grain of truth in that. Of course, it would have been 'Cheerio George, Hello Hirohito' - but nonetheless, you will find first generation nationalists like Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore ambivalent about the Japanese, and despite the atrocities, publicly acknowledge their role in inspiring post-war, anti-colonial nationalism. And in India too, the veterans of the Indian National Army - set up by the Japanese - still receive state pensions. Unlike the vets from the British Indian Army.

So, there it is. Yasukuni. Hard to fathom why they don't cut their losses and decommemorate the war criminals and move on.

"Asia/Pacific Region"?

Ok, you internet heads, I've got a question. You may have noticed my Neocounter below. Frankly, I get very excited every time a new country appears. I can't wait to see the new flag scroll up. Which will it be? Luxembourg? Paraguay? The more obscure the better. Preferably a member of the CPLP (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa) countries, thanks. A really tiny one like São Tomé e Príncipe would do nicely.

So tonight, I saw the magic number had gone up one digit. I waited with baited breath, only to discover it was "Asia/Pacific Region". Huh?

My only thought: Is it a non-self-governing Pacific territory? Like Tokelau or something? Or could it be Norfolk Island? Or American Samoa? I'm assuming it would have to be somewhere without its own url country suffix.

Any thoughts folks?

Liberated from ***, and more Portuguese in Asia

Not much of a tech-nerd, me, but let me tell you: my whole system is soooo much smoother and faster since I uninstalled [forced update: a certain browser which appears to bug those who dare criticise it].

I don't mean 'ceased using it'. I did that a while back in favour of Mozilla. I'm talking uninstalled. It's like a new machine. Huzzah!

Now, back to the main game: so, there I was, in this bakery in Kyoto, buying some bread for Little Miss LE when I hear the shop assistant say "pow" - in reference to the well-known leavened flour of yer familiar western variety.

"What the...!" thought I, excitedly. Like you, no doubt, my immediate thought was: That's gotta be straight up Portuguese from 16th century trade contact. That word, Sir, is none other than pão!

And indeed it was. You'll be relieved to know I've since located this handy-dandy page, and you'd be amazed at the number of Portuguese words in Japanese.

However, arigato is not one of them. Lot of myths that this is related to obrigado - but I'm going to have to let you down gently here. It ain't so.

Anyway, as if all that wasn't cool enough, there was a massive Brazilian festival on too. Loads of Brazilian guest workers there of course, many with Japanese ancestry. The ATMs all have Portuguese language options.

Do you see how this is all coming together? Finally?

Wi-Fi: The Great Leap Backwards

...for public internet access.

Couldn't help but notice on my recent trip the Japan that most of the touted 'internet cafes' were closed, and replaced by Wi-Fi instalments. The guide book - the latest one - was out of date in most cases. but only by a month or so.

Now, I know Wi-Fi is all bells and whistles etc. But frankly, its a royal pain in the ass. It has this air of increasing internet access, but it doesn't really. It increases private internet use in public - not public internet access. It's actually killing that stone dead.

Indeed, I'd say the internet hasn't been this inaccessible since about 1996. Welcome to the great leap backwards. That's the last time I remember a medium sized, cosmopolitan city like Kyoto having, say, one or two public internet places. So unless you're dragging your own terminal around with you (and let's face it laptops are not cheap), you're increasingly screwed.

I actually own one myself, but who wants to drag it around on a holiday? Not me. But am I still and email junkie? Of course I am.

But more broadly, wasn't there once some idea of public access to the www? The info superhighway? Global connectedness etc? Paying a modest buck and getting some tube-time as global citizen, on the cheap? Forget it. That idea's dead. And unlike telephones, the state never did have a stake in the technology, so there's not even a residual welfare-style system - as there is with public phones.

I doubt the global gulf between the wired and unwired has ever been greater.

Secrets on the interwebs

I don't know about you, but I find this page kinda groovy. People write secrets on postcards and send them in for interwebment, by erm .... interwebbers.