Peter Costello: gone but not forgotten.

It’s quite appropriate that Costello is displayed next to books about fear and chickens

I was flicking through a book named Mongrel punts and hard ball gets: an A–Z of footy speak just now and found what is undoubtedly the greatest description of Aussie Rules I’ve ever read.

Apparently it was written at the beginning of the 20th century by one Hway Ung, a Chinese scholar in Melbourne:

I went … to see the game they call Foo-pah … It is played in winter heaven, for it requires top endurance and activity … Men on one side try to kick goose-egg pattern ball between two poles that represent a gate or entrance. They run like hares, charge each other like bulls, knock each other down rushing in pursuit of the ball to send it through the enemy’s pole… 

I defy anyone to do better than that.

UPDATE: Oh, dear. Just out of curiosity, I plugged a line from the above quote into Google and came up with this:

The following excerpts were written in 1899 by a Chinese visitor, describing his experience in America (Hwuy-yung, A Chinaman’s Opinion of Us and of His Own Country, London: Chatto and Windus, 1927).  He was writing for Chinese readers who were eager to know what Americans were really like.

Authors Paula Hunt and Glenn “the Bolt” Manton: research FAIL.

UPDATE II: Do click on that link, though. There’s some very funny stuff, including this earth-shattering observation about Americans:

Their arms and ears do not reach to the ground, as we depict them.

Last week, the Editor whimpered something about damned responsibility preventing him from getting one of those infamous leftard drinks known as a latte.

I was reminded of his 10.23am latte withdrawals when the book I’m currently reading, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg, mentioned them. Goldberg’s book is, clearly enough, about the rise of Christian nationalism, that is, right-wing evangelical and fundamentalist so-called Christianity. A snippet from the book’s website describes it as thus:

In Kingdom Coming, Goldberg demonstrates how an increasingly bellicose fundamentalism is gaining traction throughout our national life, taking us on a tour of the parallel right-wing evangelical culture that is buoyed by Republican political patronage. Deep within the red zones of a divided America, we meet military veterans pledging to seize the nation in Christ’s name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country’s social problems.

I was amused by a paragraph she wrote and I wanted to share. Writes Ms Goldberg:

[D]uring the Democratic primary season [in 2004], the right-wing Club for Growth ran an anti-Howard Dean ad featuring an elderly Middle American couple ranting against a type that populates much of the Northeast and Northwest. The man began, “I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading…” His wife continued: “…body piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs.” Imagine for a moment, if MoveOn had run an anti-Bush ad that called his following a gun-toting, Bible-thumping, McDonald’s-eating, gay-bashing, gas-guzzling right-wing freak show. There would have been no end of hand-wringing about the supercilious secular elite and their contempt for so-called ordinary Americans. Having defined Americanism as an amalgam of anti-intellectualism, provincialism, self-righteousness, and bellicosity, conservatives then attack everyone who finds these things repellent as unpatriotic, and few mainstream voices challenge them. (Incidentally, conservative evangelicals are the only religious faction I’ve encountered who sell lattes in church.)

It seems that even one of the bastions of right-wing rabble-rousing — the pseudo-political evangelical, fundamentalist “Christian” church — cannot resist the lure of a leftie latte.

It’s a well-researched, well-presented book, very alarming and a good record of the damage the right-wing “Christian” nationalists are doing to the good ol’ US of A. I finished reading it tonight while drinking a flat white with one sugar. Go get this book. Highly recommended.

Sick of boring old Dick and Jane readers? Stuck for Christmas stocking-fillers? Fed up with the fascist media / Maoist teachers? Why not try some ‘political education texts for kids’. Reminiscent of those What’s Happening to Me? sex-ed books we sniggered at back in the 80s, all are cute, informative and (of course) thoroughly objective. There’s wonderful titles such as Why Mommy is a Democrat, Why War is a never a Good Idea and The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming.

Our conservative friends shouldn’t feel left out. Also available is Help Mom! There are Liberals under My Bed (a possible crossover into the horror genre Down Under). For Bolt and Blair, there’s The Sky is Not Falling: Why it’s OK to chill about Global Warming (it’s blurb claims to give “kids the scoop, not just about global warming, but the real-world consequences of the Left’s responses to it”). At least we now know what’s on the coffee table at AWH headquarters.

The children of Australia are missing out and need their own titles, like Mummy, When’s the Election? and Why Kevin says Executing People is Wrong, except in Other Countries, Unless they are Australians. Suggestions?

I contributed some work (along with 4 other colleagues) some time ago to a technical book that was recently published. Today the 5 of us each received cheques for 21 pounds and 80 pence for our efforts. Awesome… it’s going to cost me 20 odd bucks to cash the thing, leaving me approximately 30AUD for my trouble. I think I will get it laminated for posterity instead. We actually asked for a single cheque so we could maximise the amount of hookers and blow we could acquire but they did not oblige.

Obviously I didn’t work on it for the money, rather because it would look good on the C.V. However this book is so expensive (400 Euro) that I can’t even afford a copy to put on my bookshelf….. so my dear friends, you won’t be getting signed copies of this riveting tome any time soon.