September 2006 Archives

Strong winds experienced last weekend have played havoc to the Sty's power connection, which requires rectification work over the next couple of days.

As a precaution, I'll be shutting down the server while the repairs are taking place. Everything should be up and running by Sunday.

Went to see this movie last weekend. I can recommend it.

The clincher for me wasn't the pictures of receding glaciers and dried up lakes, powerful as they were. What got my attention was the graph of CO2 levels, derived from Antarctic ice cores, covering the last 800,000 years. (Similar to the one below.)

Current C02 levels are way above the highest levels for that period. Projected levels for 2050 are literally off the graph.

The planet is not approaching something unprecedented. We're already there.

Graph from http://news.mongabay.com/ Click to enlarge.

My favourite team of all time, the Sydney Swans, is poised to defend their hard won premiership of last year.

I'm loath to discuss their chances. They may be favourites to defeat the Dockers and proceed to the MCG the following Saturday, but finals footy history is littered with fancied teams that didn't make it. Suffice to say that I'll be at the Olympic Stadium on Friday night to lend them a hand.

It's the penalty shootout.

My daughter's rep soccer team lost the chance to play in the grand final due to this farcical method of deciding a draw. This is despite dominating the opposing team.

Is it so difficult to invent a means of deciding a draw that involves the team playing as a team?

Peter Brock, the second prominent Australian to die in the space of a week, was not an international celebrity like the first, but arguably influenced a lot more Australians.

For me, it was during my teens and due to an unhealthy interest in cars. Production car racing was big, it was your Dad's car (sort of) being flogged round the track, and (chances were) Brock was driving it.

The 1970s were the golden age of production car racing, with the 'Bathurst 500' race (later '1000') the pinnacle of the season. In those days, production cars were simply taken off the street, rebuilt to the manufacturers specifications, fitted with a roll cage and full harness seat belts, and let loose on the racing circuit. It took a lot of skill to drive one quickly.

Sunday of the October long weekend was invariably spent watching Bathurst race. The undisputed champion was Peter Brock. I was never a great fan, my father didn't drive a Holden, but anyone who took more than a passing interest in the sport acknowledge he the best there was.

Brock had his idiosyncrasies, promoting pseudo-science performance devices at one stage, but he had a strong commitment to road safety. One aspect of this was to emblazon his car with the number '05,' rather than the champion's number '1.' It was his own personal campaign to have the prescribed alcohol limit for driving lowered from 0.08% to 0.05%.

It appears that Brock's unwillingness to retire from the sport was his undoing. There's not many active racing drivers in their sixties. In the absence of any mechanical failure of the car, it seems his skills failed him.

He refused to grow old gracefully, and paid the price, but he'll always be remembered as one of the greats of Australian motor sport.

What was Steve Irwin doing to get his chest so close to the barbs on a stingray's tail? We'll have to wait for the inevitable enquiry and subsequent examination of the film to find out, but it's likely he was doing what he did best. Getting close and personal with dangerous creatures.

Whatever the circumstances of this tragic incident, Australia has lost an overseas icon and a tireless advocate for environmental issues.

It would surprise many of Irwin's overseas fans that he was a household name in the US long before he was generally noticed here. I first heard of Irwin on a radio program when it was explained how he was a runaway success on US TV.

Steve who?

Those same fans would also be surprised to find that a section of the Australian community has always been uncomfortable with his 'over the top' Australian-ness, ie, his 'ockerism.' Irwin himself acknowledged this.

When I see what's happened all over the world, they're looking at me at as this very popular wildlife warrior Australian bloke and yet back here in my own country, some people find me a little bit embarrassing. You know there's this ... they kind of whoah! cringe, you know, because I'm coming out with "crikey!" and "have a look at this little beauty!"

You know is it a cultural cringe? Is it, you know, they actually see a little bit of themselves when they see me and that they find that a little embarrassing?

Although I've heard his on and off screen persona's were similar, I suspect the local media did not initially take to him because of it. It was only when his overseas fame became so large it couldn't be ignored, that the local Australian media started to give him exposure.

I have to admit I'm one of those who found his boyish ocker enthusiasm a little disconcerting. It worries me that the ocker images of Irwin and others, like Paul Hogan, are ones so associated by many foreigners to be quintessentially Australian. Let me assure any foreign readers who stumble over this corner of the net that Australians are a lot more complex than portrayed by our more famous media exports.

That been said, nothing should be taken away from Irwin's genuine enthusiasm for the environment, conservation and promoting Australia.

He was a great Australian; one who died far too young, at a time when the environment needs all the advocates it can muster.