The Aussie Bastard

One thing that intrigues me about our Australian culture is this - we can call someone a bastard and they'll turn around and buy us a beer. In most, if not the rest of the world a broken nose is probably a good outcome - many places we'd have our throat cut. Why?

While I have never been able to find anything to confirm my theory, I suspect it goes back to the First Fleet. If my memory is correct, there were 11 ships, one carried women. The women were there for one reason, and one reason only - the authorites in England believed there would be riots if there was no female company.

Unlike the Americans, whose first white settlers gave thanks to God for their new land when they first embarked, our forbears rolled out the keg and had a good old fashioned drunken orgy. The first white bastard concieved on our shores was probably conceived that night. And perhaps that's why we are so relaxed about the term. In our early days we may well have been a pack of bastards.

Now one would think that given the differences in our orgins - Australian and American - that America had the more enlightened origin and we would therefore expect that they would have developed a more enlightened society. Yet, from where I sit, I see us as having developed a more cohesive, fairer place to live and it concerns me now that we seem to be going down a different road.

If someone can correct my understanding of our history, please feel free to do so.

Is marriage equality irrational

There is something I see as irrational in the debate over so-called marriage equality. Now if I were gay, Christian, and believed that gay marriage were consistent with my faith, then seeking to have a relationship recognised as a marriage makes sense.

But what if I reject religion, and specifically the Christian version of such? What, if in that rejection I see Chrisianity as inhibiting and repressive, putting silly, stupid restrictions on human freedom?
What then is my rationale basis for a monagomous relationship? 

When I look at both the world of humans and the larger world of living things, monagomy seems a rare, unusual sort of thing. There are few animal species that mate for life. And in the human sphere, monagomy seems to be something that largely evolved in the Christian world. Polygamy was allowed, and in one place even commanded, in the Old Testament and seems to be the norm in other cultures.

So, if the only basis for monagomous marriage is Christianity, then why would those who reject Christianity clamour for the right to relationship that appears only to have any basis in that which they reject?

Iraq - a 'well-rooted country'

Iraq means 'well-rooted country'. It came into being as a result of a decision by Winston Churchill in 1921.

Arabs are not one homogeneous bunch - they hate each other with a vengeance. But the Ottomans had held their empire together for a few centuries by recognising the different groups and organising them into some form of autonomous regions.

The Ottoman Empire crumbled with the end of WW1, leaving the area to some extent under the influence of the Britts - but there was not support in England for a continuation of the Empire. Against all advice from his advisors Churchill drew lines on a map and divided the area into different countries without regard for ethnic tensions. He then handed power over to local strong-men who he believed would look after England's interests - forget democracy.

And part of that legacy is modern Iraq, a mix of Sunnis, Shites and Kurds - a 'well-rooted country'.

(History's worst decisions and the people who made them, Steven Weir, p.p. 134, 135)