This piece first appeared at The Punch.

If you are a fan of reality TV then there’s every chance you’ve imagined yourself as contestant on one of the genre’s many shows. Maybe you’ve thought your singing ability could make you the next Australian Idol, perhaps your love of the outdoors made you feel like you could be the next Survivor or maybe you thought a childhood spent playing with table-tennis balls was worth $500,000. If The Amazing Race is your reality show of choice, your dreams of becoming a D-list celebrity could well be on their way to fulfilment.

Channel Seven recently announced that it will be producing an Australian version of the popular US reality series, giving a handful of Australians the chance to race around the world for a ‘massive cash prize’. The show has been running in the US for nine years in which time CBS has managed to pump out an impressive sixteen seasons, with a 17th due for broadcast later this year.

For those that haven’t seen the show, take the biggest scavenger hunt you’ve ever seen, add pairs of clueless tourists, some Big Brother-style 24/7 surveillance and the most stressful elements of travelling, mix them together and you get something that vaguely resembles The Amazing Race.

Hundreds of teams are likely to apply for this ‘opportunity’ and if you thinking of throwing your hat in the ring, be aware that the 16-page application form provides would-be racers with more than a few hoops to jump through.

For starters, you’ve got to be willing to divulge some fairly personal information, including your weight, your relationship status and the names and ages of any children you might happen to have. If you’ve been arrested you have to provide full details and if you’ve ever hit someone ‘in anger or self-defence’ you have to explain why you did it.

If the personal questions are a little pointed then the questions about your relationship with your teammate are even more so. ‘What is the worst experience you have had with your teammate?’ doesn’t seem to be all that constructive a question and ‘What is the biggest disappointment you have experienced from your teammate?’ is not a whole lot better.

Of course it’s all about building a profile of you as a potential contestant and there are several questions within the application that will help the producers to narrow the field. For example, answering ‘no’ to ‘I am available for 5 weeks between September and December 2010′ is likely to see your application rejected before they even get to read your name. An answer of a disparaging nature to ‘What is your opinion of foreigners?’ is equally likely to terminate your prospects of appearing on the show.

As pointed and personal as the application is, it’s the fine print that will determine how much people are willing to sacrifice in order to get their faces on TV. One section explains that applicants ‘agree to comply with all requests and directions given by the Producers’ with a later paragraph insisting that such cooperation will be on a ‘twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis’.

But if the desire to get your face on TV outweighs your desire not to be a Channel Seven pawn, it’s worth considering the contestant pool from previous versions of the show. For example, if the US version is anything to go by, the 11 teams are likely to cover a mixture of ethnicities, relationship types, ages and sexual preferences.

There will be an old married couple, a gay couple, the young female friends who provide eye-candy in the promos, a non-Caucasian team, a team of brothers or sisters, a father/son or father/daughter team and, being an Australian version of the show, a team of bogans. Tailoring your written and video applications to one of these combinations is likely to be the best route to the audition process.

But of course your application needs to be special in order to stand out from the hundreds of entries that Seven are likely to receive and it’s the video application that presents the best chance of catching the producers’ collective eye. You should try to engage with the viewer, convince them that the show would benefit from your presence and as the application form says, ‘personality counts!’

But if you want a serious advantage in making your application stand out then John Safran’s 1997 audition tape for Race Around the World is just about the best audition tape you are ever likely to see. Not only is Safran aware that the producers need a way of labelling him but he uses his otherwise-annoying voice as a way of selling himself.

Having said that, Race Around the World did see Safran running naked through the streets of Jerusalem and placing a curse on his ex-girlfriend.  Whether or not these sort of antics will be included in the ‘requests and directions’ given by producers of The Amazing Race Australia remains highly unlikely…

For those that were fortunate enough to miss my torrent of Twitter and Facebook spam two weeks ago, I had an article published on News Limited’s opinion website, The Punch. The silly little piece about Channel Seven’s new US-import Hung attracted criticism from a large percentage of the 84 readers that commented, leaving me feeling a little despondent.

As well as attracting a whole slew of comments, the Hung piece also attracted the attention of one reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald. She was keen to find out more about my distate for the show and after interviewing me over the phone, my comments made it to her story the next day.

Keen to get another article in The Punch as soon as possible, I penned another piece, this one critical of the Nine Network’s choice of programming. Nine’s RBT, a show about random breath testing (hence the ultra-stylish acronym), premieres tomorrow night and I thought it a worthy target of some sarcasm-laden criticism.

The folks at The Punch said the piece was good and that they would get back to me on Thursday about publishing it on Friday. I didn’t hear back from them and I’m not quite sure why; it’s not like there was a major political story unfolding that day or anything.

So, without further ado, here’s episode two of ‘The Discarded’, ‘Front-line heroes…’

With around a third of Australian road fatalities being directed related to drink-driving and with millions of drivers being breath tested every year, you’d think that people would start to realise that drink driving might be a bad idea. Apparently not, given that the percentage of alcohol-related road fatalities has remained constant over the last two decades.

This Sunday, with the premiere of their snappily-titled reality show RBT, the Nine Network will do their bit in the fight against drink-driving. Or, to put it another way, Nine will now start capitalising on people’s inability to separate the acts of alcohol consumption and motor vehicle control.

For those that are a little confused by Nine’s trendy acronym use, RBT stands for Random Breath Testing; a decidedly less marketable title you might agree. According to a press release from Nine, the “compelling new series goes behind the lines of the NSW Police force on breath testing operations”.

While it’s true that RBT is a “new” series for Nine, the idea of going behind the scenes of a public department or service is about as original as the songs being played by the cover band at your local watering hole. The “front-line heroes” formula has produced a number of forgettable shows for the commercial networks in the last few years; Ten’s Bondi Rescue, Nine’s Customs and Seven’s essentially-xenophobic Border Security, just to name a few.

The “front-line heroes” show is a close cousin of the “feel-good” reality show, examples of which include Seven’s RSPCA Animal Rescue, the soppy Find My Family and Nine’s equally emotional Random Acts of Kindness. Both genres are in the business of thriving on their emotional impact; the “front-line heroes” show drawing strength from a feeling of pride in the admirable work done by our community services, the “feel-good” show drawing us in with the promise of tears and emotional fulfilment.

As well as drawing respectable audiences such shows have the added bonus of being very cheap for their respective networks to produce. After all, why bother paying someone to write and create an original show when there’s money to be made by sending a crew to film the everyday workings of an existing department or service?

While I’m not nearly important enough to get my hands on an advanced copy of RBT, I have been privy to the fleeting promos for the show’s upcoming premiere. And, while this isn’t a review of the show, I’m willing to hazard a couple of educated guesses at what one might see, should they decide to tune in to RBT in its run on Nine;

What you will see

-          A disproportionately high number of drivers being caught under the influence of drugs and alcohol

-          Nine hamming up the “front-line heroes” angle

-          At least one concerned-looking police officer proselytising about how “kids these days think they’re invincible”

-          Commercial breaks featuring the latest alcohol-awareness ads

What you won’t see

-          The overwhelming majority of Australian breath tests that show drivers to be free of alcohol or drugs.

-          Commercial breaks full of Carlton Draught and Victoria Bitter ads

-          A nuanced analysis of what makes people decide to drink-drive

So as we head into the weekend and many of you head to after-work drinks I’d like to propose a toast to the 33 per cent of Australians who have admitted to drink driving. Without you lovely folk providing work for breath testing officers we wouldn’t have the likes of RBT on Australian TV.

Cheers.

Update: Once the dust had settled on the Labor leadership spill, the folks at The Punch got back to me and said they still wanted to run the piece. So, I tracked down the first episode of RBT on the Nine Network’s website, had a watch and re-wrote the piece. The finished product is now online at The Punch.

In the world of five-star hotels the serving of breakfast seems to be inextricably linked with the serving of breakfast television. Until a few weeks ago our news-tainment provider of choice was Channel Seven’s Sunrise, hosted by dynamic duo Kochie and Mel. Nowadays, at the behest of “the man”, we fill our restaurant with the sounds of Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson of Channel Nine’s Today. According to the powers that be within our reputable establishment, Nine’s breakfast offering is “better” than Seven’s. It isn’t exactly clear what “better” means in this context but I’m willing to hazard a few guesses.

Perhaps the celebrity gossip on Today is “better” than the gossip featured on Sunrise. Perhaps the advertising spots on Today are of far greater quality than those seen on Sunrise. Or maybe it’s Today‘s ability to sensationalise recent news stories better than Sunrise that makes it the pick of the breakfast viewing.

On yesterday morning’s edition of Today the team ran a story about the recent stabbing death of 12 year old Brisbane boy Elliot Fletcher. The story began with several parents discussing the apparent increase in violence in Australian schools before cutting to host Lisa Wilkinson reading through a list of incidents that demonstrated such an increase. As if Today‘s angle on this story wasn’t clear enough already, they concluded the story by “interviewing” Norm Hart of the Queensland Association of State School Principals.

As a journalism student I have been taught that interviews should consist largely of “open” questions rather than questions which lead the interviewee to a specific answer or force a simple “yes” or “no” answer. In the case of the story in question, something like the following might have been appropriate;

“What does the recent stabbing death of Elliot Fletcher tell us about safety in our schools?”

But no. Apparently that line of questioning is a little too boring for Ms. Wilkinson who decided to go with something a little different;

“Should parents be worried as they send their kids off to school this morning?”

To Mr Hart’s credit he participated in the interview as well as could be expected given that he need not have been there at all. I mean, why would you bother inviting someone to give their expert opinion on an issue if, when concluding the interview, you are going to completely disregard everything that they’ve said thus far?

“Understandably a lot of parents (are) not feeling that’s the case today but we do thank you very much for your time this morning”.

Sure, you could probably argue that Lisa Wilkinson isn’t technically a journalist in her role as co-host of Today but if you are presenting news items and interviewing relevant authority figures related to said items, then surely some minimum standards of journalistic integrity must apply? You know, like presenting information in an rational and objective way rather than trying to sensationalise important issues.

Let’s keep things in perspective here – a 12 year old boy getting stabbed to death while at school is truly horrific and of real concern to parents and teachers alike but that doesn’t mean that kids around the country are suddenly unsafe at school. There are a lot of kids going to a lot of schools on a lot of days of the year, I hardly think a couple of isolated incidents of school yard violence are cause to keep the kids at home.

But it’s all about the kids. The mainstream media loves nothing more than a “kids are at risk” story but most of the time such stories are dependant on deliberate scaremongering in order to provoke emotional responses from concerned parents. That’s not to say that the issues at hand aren’t important, they should just be dealt with rationally and in a considered fashion.

Speaking of fashion, most people know of Miley “Hannah Montana” Cyrus but far fewer would be aware of her younger sister, Noah. Nor should they be because Noah is a little girl of 10 years old – not that you would know it from her choice of attire.

In October of last year Miley’s younger sister “made headlines” when she donned a “dominatrix-inspired” costume for Halloween celebrations and in the last couple months there have been rumours circulating of a lingerie line being released by junior Cyrus and her friend Emily Grace Reaves. Thankfully such rumours appear to be false and the clothing company in question, Ooh! La! La! Couture, seems to make tutus with tanktops rather than girls’ lingerie.

Noah Cyrus is only one example of an apparent shift toward the sexualisation of young girls and social commentators like Mia Freedman have written extensively on this issue. To a significant percentage of the community, young girls dressing and acting as if they were far older results in the corruption of childhood and the premature loss of innocence. “They are growing up too fast”, the older generations often remark, with advertising, the media and the internet often copping the blame.

Regardless of one’s own thoughts on this issue, it’s hard to deny that it is an issue that a lot of people feel very strongly about. While the solution to the problem isn’t as easy as banning the sale of lingerie for young girls, for example, it’s clear that parents have an important role to play. If you are concerned about your little girl growing up too fast then it’s probably not a good idea to let them watch Beyonce film clips at six years old.

The mainstream media has an important role to play as well. Rather than the aforementioned scaremongering that the commercial networks love to fill their “current affairs” and breakfast shows with, there should be a greater focus on programs that facilitate meaningful discussion about serious issues. The ABC’s Q & A is a perfect example of such a program and it makes for brilliant viewing.

The weekly show features a panel of expert guests who discuss topical issues as directed by the audience and moderated by one of Australia’s greatest interviewers, Tony Jones. Of course he isn’t “Australia’s best interviewer” because that mantle belongs to Tracy Grimshaw of Nine’s A Current Affair. Step aside Andrew Denton, stop tryin’ Kerry O’Brien, Ms. Grimshaw has you both covered…

Christmas is a confusing time for us non-believers. It’s hard to know whether or not to boycott the usual celebrations in protest of the continued influence of ancient religions or rejoice in the fact that the day has lost the greater proportion of its aforementioned influence.

Everyone knows the story of Christmas – some dude called Yeshua was supposedly born in Bethlehem on December 25, the son of God, a virgin mother and a father who allowed his wife to get knocked up by some mysterious entity known as the Holy Spirit. The new born was hailed as the Messiah, the individual prophesied in the Jewish Pentateuch as being responsible for reunifying the tribes of Israel and leading a peaceful world into the “Messianic Age”.

Even if we allow the generous assumption that an individual named Jesus actually existed at the time he was supposed to, it is almost certain that such an individual was not actually born on December 25. According to Luke 2:8-12 there were “shepherds living out in the fields” on the day of Jesus’ birth but, being in the Northern hemisphere, Palestine is well into winter by December 25 and well out of shepherding season. It is therefore more likely that Jesus’ birth, if it even occurred, did so somewhere between March and November. Some Christians believe that he was born on May 14 6BC, others believe he was born in September 5BC and some others believe he was born on August 21 7BC.

For those that find this argument about Jesus’ date of birth a little weak, it might be worth pointing out that such reasoning has been appropriated from an article on the accurately-titled website allaboutjesus.org.

Jesus’ birthday was not initially set aside as a day worthy of celebration and when it eventually was, it took until the 4th century AD for the powers-that-be to decide that December 25 would be the day in question. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that December 25 is just any old day, picked at random.

Much like the tradition known as Easter, Christmas day just happens to coincide with one of the most important days of the solar calendar. While the winter solstice occurs on December 21 or December 22 in the Northern hemisphere these days, 2000 years ago it fell on December 25 and was believed to be the day of the sun’s rebirth.

It sort of makes sense, in a cute kind of uneducated way – light and darkness are locked in a year-round battle for supremacy and at certain times of the year one of them is stronger than the other. At the summer solstice light is far stronger than darkness and the day is significantly longer than the night but at the winter solstice the tables are turned and the majority of the 24 hour cycle known as the “day” is bathed in darkness.

Indeed many of the “pagan” religions featured such a myth, with a sun god in the role of light.

So what do sun gods have to do with Christmas? Well, it is generally accepted that authorities within the Church appropriated December 25 for Christ’s “birthday” in order to make it easier for “pagans” to ditch their primitive ways and jump on the Christian bandwagon. How very thoughtful of them.

Given that I’m in no hurry to board any sort of religious vehicle, how can I make sense of the unavoidable beast that is Christmas? Well perhaps I can embrace the secular meaning of Christmas and rejoice in the giving and receiving of presents.

It’s no secret that the “primary gifting period” is the most lucrative time of year for the retail sector. It’s also no secret that people are more than happy to contribute to the consumerist machine that kicks into overdrive in the month of December. Sure, the feeling of buying someone a present that they like is quite satisfying, and receiving presents is always good, but feeling obliged to buy presents for anyone remotely important to you seems like a rather unnecessary burden to bear. One of my Facebook “friends” put it most eloquently when he quipped; “most people on Facebook seem more excited about finishing their Christmas shopping than Christmas itself”.

And then there’s Santa – an overweight, ageing gentleman with abundant facial hair and a penchant for little children. The jolly red and white fellow that we know today has evolved from and been influenced by several historical entities including a 4th century Greek bishop called Saint Nicholas of Myra, the Norse god Odin, the mythical English gentleman Father Christmas and the drawings of the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast.

Setting aside the assumption that it’s ok to lie to children about the existence of fictional characters, do we really want to set children up to expect gifts every year? Do we really want to promote the idea that Christmas is all about receiving presents?

As I am wont to do, I shall close today by defaulting to the wisdom of Tim Minchin and in particular his song “White Wine in the Sun“.

As an employee of a reasonably-professional accommodation provider, I am required to work the occasional breakfast shift. As if the horror of getting up at 4:30am isn’t enough, the powers that be insist that we broadcast mindless drivel on the restaurant’s television.

Now I don’t know anyone that’s going to claim that Channel Seven’s Sunrise program even vaguely resembles quality programming, but last Sunday’s episode was something special. Not half an hour after broadcasting this attempt at balanced journalism the Sunrise crew were throwing to their resident astrologer for the daily horoscopes.

As was explained in the aforementioned video, astrology is the pseudoscience that claims that the positions of the stars and planets can be analysed in order to provide information about human personalities, behaviours and the workings of society in general. In the West this tradition manifests itself most frequently in the form of horoscopes which can be found in trashy magazines and newspapers everywhere. These lovely snippets of “information” claim to provide predictions about the future, based solely on the reader’s date of birth.

According to astrologers a person’s zodiac sign is determined by the position of the sun relative to the background stars on the date of their birth and that person will have certain character traits determined by their particular zodiac sign. For example, between November 23 and December 22 the sun is said to appear in the constellation of Sagittarius and therefore, with my birthday falling on the 25th of November, I am said to be a Sagittarius. According to Astrology.com.au Sagittarians are extremely confident, prone to bouts of good fortune, are known for their contagious enthusiasm and so on.

But there are some major problems with this theory. Firstly, in order to believe what astrologers tell us, we must convince ourselves that the position of the sun at a particular date, relative to the background stars, can actually affect an individual’s personality. Exactly how it does this is a mystery but Astrology.com.au offers this helpful explanation;

“…our luminescent sun apparently moves month by month throughout the year, transceiving the energy of those different constellational signs and thereby transmitting the celestial radiations to our Earth“.

Ok, so that makes perfect sense. The sun somehow grabs some sort of mystical personality-building energy from constellations that are millions of kilometres away (the closest star in the Sagittarius constellation is Ross 154 and is located 91,577,915,000,000 kilometres from the sun) and beams it down to earth. Sounds very scientific to me.

Secondly, even if it’s true that the position of the sun at the time of my birth imbues me with certain character traits, astrologers would have us believe such traits are common to all Sagittarians. That is, everyone born between November 23 and December 22 is supposed to share a set of common character traits. I find it rather difficult to believe that everyone born between these dates is confident, lucky and enthusiastic as I supposedly am.

Even if we believe all of that, there is still one major hurdle to overcome. When the Babylonians first drafted the Zodiac around 2,500 years ago, the sun was in the constellation of Sagittarius between November 23 and December 22. However, thanks to the efforts of Greek fellows like Aristarchus of Samos, Hipparchus of Rhodes and Ptolemy we now know of the phenomenon known as “axial precession”.

While you may know that the Earth spins while in it’s orbit around the Sun, you might not know that it spins off-centre. While we are taught to think of the Earth as spinning around a vertical axis, this axis is actually tilted by 23 degrees. In addition to causing the different seasons that we experience on Earth, the tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis has a secondary effect. As this short clip demonstrates, by having an axis that is a certain amount away from the vertical, the axis of rotation actually moves over a period of time. This results in a gradual change in our observable “star field”.

Imagine you are lying in the dentist’s chair at the end of a check-up, focused on a spot on the ceiling. Imagine too that you can’t move your eyes at all and that you are forced to look straight ahead. As the dentist changes the angle of the chair to bring you into an upright position, your eyes, unable to look around, will trace a straight line from the ceiling down the wall. Axial precession is kind of like that – as the angle of the Earth’s rotational axis changes, so what we can see from our vantage point on the Earth changes.

So, what does this have to do with astrology and the Babylonians? Well, as I mentioned, the signs of the Zodiac were first assigned around 2,500 years ago. Since that time axial precession has changed the apparent location of the background stars. So, the Sun, which once appeared to be in the constellation of Sagittarius on the 25th of November now appears to be in the constellation of Scorpio. Therefore I am no longer “a Sagittarius”, instead I am “a Scorpio”.
In order to be a Sagittarius now I would need to be born between December 18th and January 19th.

Well that’s all pretty clear cut isn’t it? Astrology is a pseudoscience that makes claims above and beyond its station without considering the workings of relevant celestial phenomena.

But two days after watching Sunrise at work I stumbled upon a book at my local shopping centre that I couldn’t resist flicking through. It was “What Your Birthday Reveals About You” by Phyllis Vega and it claimed to provide “astonishingly accurate revelations about your future, your secrets and your strengths” based, you guessed it, on the individual’s zodiac sign. I flicked sceptically to November 25 and read through some of my alleged character traits;

• Those born on November 25 are inclined to live “intense lives of crusading ideals”

• Although I “give the impression of being a bit of a loner”, I’m “actually searching for meaningful ways to connect with other people”

• I could “satisfy my creative muse…as a writer, journalist, publisher, artist, musician or actor”

• I am “a natural athlete with a genuine love of the outdoors”.

I could go on. Scarily, all of these suggestions are quite true and as I read on, more and more of the statements seemed to be accurate. I faced a brief internal struggle – “I know astrology is bogus, but how are these predictions so accurate?

And then it occured to me. If astrology is an accurate and consistent scientific pursuit then surely these predictions are based on some immutable, objective truth that is directly related to my date of birth. Consequently, if I was to go to another source of birthday-based wisdom, I would find similar, if not exactly the same results. So, does Astrology.com.au say the same things as Phyllis Vega about those of us born on November 25?

Life of crusading ideals? Not mentioned. Loner with intent to communicate at a higher level? Not in so many words. Suited for a creative career like journalism? Not quite. Naturally sporty? Doesn’t come up.

However, I am apparently blessed with a colourful imagination and a rare tolerance for others. Are either of these mentioned in Ms. Vega’s book? I think you know the answer to that…

I don’t spend a lot of my time thinking about issues like animal rights but lately there have been some things that have forced the issue into my mind. Take this ongoing news story for example. For those that missed it, the Australian Racing Board announced back in March that as of August this year, a whole swathe of new regulations would be imposed on Australian jockeys. Some of the more controversial changes state that only padded whips are to be used when whipping horses, that a jockey must not raise their arm above shoulder height when whipping a horse and that a horse must not be whipped more than five times in the final straight, before the 200 metre-to-go mark.

Following the announcement in March there has been significant backlash within the horse racing community including a half-day strike by jockeys last week which allegedly cost Tabcorp $2.5 million. Since the strike there have been talks between the Australian Racing Board and the Australian Jockeys’ Association resulting in a compromise between the new regulations and the status quo.

To be honest, I couldn’t care less about horse racing or about Tabcorp’s daily takings. I’m more interested in the fact that there is an issue of potential animal cruelty here that is, for the most part, completely ignored. Who knows, maybe horses don’t feel anything when jockeys whip them, but good on the ARB for having the balls to bring the issue out into the open.

It got me thinking – surely there must be other issues of potential animal cruelty that are often overlooked, and then I remembered – Tim Minchin’s “Bears Don’t Dig On Dancing”. The song might be a little silly but the point seems to be pretty clear to me – sure, making bears dance is pretty cruel but what about all those other animals that are used to attend our every need? Coal-mine canaries for example? Or packmules? Or those poor horses that drag tourists up and down Swanston Street in those fancy looking carriages?

I’m not really saying anything new here am I? I mean, animal rights organisations have been preaching to us for years about how animals should have equal rights to those of humans, that we shouldn’t eat meat, that animals shouldn’t be used for scientific testing and so on. Part of me jumps up with fists in the air and yells “yeah, right on!” while another part of me can’t help but recommend this article to all and sundry, Seriously, “better dead than fed”?

I guess the point that I’m trying to pull out of this convoluted mess is that the animal rights/cruelty debate isn’t a clear cut one. Sure, I can fully appreciate that testing medicine on animals poses serious ethical considerations. On the other hand, without the knowledge that thousands of years of animal testing has uncovered, our understanding of disciplines such as biology, microbiology, toxicology and a whole lot of other -ologies would be severely restricted.

Something that has never really made sense to me, and something that is particularly relevant when talking about animal rights is the issue of de-sexing. Specifically, how is it that the process of neutering a pet is so widely accepted in our society? I’ve never met a single person that has decided not to neuter their cat or dog because they thought it would constitute an animal rights abuse.

Does the excuse “we can’t afford to have a litter of dogs running around” really justify taking a knife to your pet? As I mentioned earlier the issue of animal rights is a contentious one but surely your desire to only have two dogs rather than eight is outweighed by your dogs’ desire not to have their reproductive organs chopped out? What gives us the right to jump in and control the reproductive cycles of our pets? Oh yeah, the same rights that let us breed cats and dogs as domestic animals in the first place, resulting in out-of-proportion monstrosities like the British Bulldog. I’m not convinced that the positive health effects are justification enough for neutering our pets either. As this irrefutable source shows, the negative effects are equal, if not greater in number than the postive effects.

I might be missing something here – maybe there are genuinely good reasons for forcing your beloved pets to part with their reproductive organs. Either way, there is not nearly enough discussion about this issue in our society at the moment and it’s a real shame. All we need is for some psycho-parent to crack the shits at their teenage son for banging every chick in site, castrate him in order to prevent the advent of multiple grandchildren and then justify their actions by saying “but it worked on the dog”. Now that would generate some discussion…

Every so often working in the hospitality industry gives you a valuable insight into just how irresponsible some parents actually are. Some days it’s a mother who leaves her two year old bare-foot child to run around the restaurant unsupervised while she cackles away with her friends over a sixth glass of champagne, other days it might be the mother that disappears to the TAB at the other end of the hotel while her four-year old son supervises himself in the play area.

The other night, however, was something truly special. As I headed from the bar to the host stand with a handful of menus, I saw a father pouring beer from his nearly-empty pint glass into the open mouth of his son, who looked no more than two or three years old.

Is it really any surprise that binge drinking among young people – both over and under the legal drinking age – is so prevalent when parents deem this to be acceptable behaviour? After all, if a child’s attitude toward alcohol use is determined largely by their parents’ attitudes then what kind of message does pouring Carlton Draught down a three-year-old’s throat send to that child?

Alcohol use and abuse has been making headlines around the nation a lot recently. Over the last two years alone alcohol-fuelled violence in Melbourne’s QBH nightclub has resulted in the deaths of two young patrons, a 70% increase on the tax on so-called ‘alcopops’ was introduced last year in an attempt to dissuade ‘at risk’ drinkers from purchasing their alcoholic beverage of choice and various AFL and NRL stars have been caught drink-driving and promptly suspended by their clubs. There seems to be little doubt that some young people are drinking too much and too often.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in 2004 19% of males and 11% of females in the 18-24 age bracket were guilty of ‘binge drinking’ – defined as seven or more standard drinks for males, five or more for females – at least once a week.

The federal and state governments have an unenviable task in this dilemma. To generalise, the public is looking to the governments to provide a solution to the problem, and perhaps rightly enough, but this isn’t a problem that will go away just by throwing tax increases or 2am lock-outs at it. The consumption of alcohol is so deeply embedded in our culture that it is going to take something drastic to alter people’s perception of it.

You see, there is also a bit of vested interest here. While the government has to be seen to be doing something about the problem, they profit massively from it. In the 1997-8 financial year the federal government pocketed over $4 billion in alcohol and tobacco taxes, and the Australian Medical Association estimates that in 2001 that figure was as high as $7 billion. Similarly, the Australian Football League, while trying to make a stand against the alcohol abuse demonstrated by a handful of its players, is enjoying a lucrative sponsorship provided by none other than Carlton Draught.

But the question is, why do young people feel the need to go out and get on the turps every weekend? Sure, I might be one of the aforementioned ‘young people’ and I might be guilty of the occasional spot of overindulgence, but I couldn’t give you a definitive reason for why I did so. Is it that it allows us to overcome certain inhibitions that might plague us in a state of sobriety? Is it a case of ‘well my mates are doing it, so…’? Is it that we like the feeling of losing control? Is it that alcohol provides us with an escape from the monotony and boredom of every day life? Or is it that we are over-privileged first-world kids with too much money to spend?

The reasons really aren’t that clear and most likely vary from person to person. What is clear is that alcohol use and abuse is responsible for massive problems, both for individuals and society. Let’s have a look at some figures;
Around 40% of the traffic fatalities that occured in the USA in 2004 – 16,694 – were the result of alcohol-related motor-vehicle crashes; In 1998 ‘hazardous and harmful’ alcohol consumption contributed to 3,271 deaths in Australia alone; the annual cost of alcohol-related problems to the Australian community is around $5 billion.

All this scare-mongering isn’t to say that I think alcohol should be made illegal, far from it. This is a bigger issue than some dickhead dad pissing-on with his infant son – it’s an issue of personal freedom and the ability to decide what we pump into our bodies. Sure, I might be putting myself at greater risk of various cancers and other medical conditions by ‘getting on it’ of a weekend but that’s my choice as an autonomous adult. Similarly, if I wanted to make the undeniably dumb decision to take up smoking tomorrow – incidentally, tobacco usage contributed to over 19,000 deaths in 1998, six times more than alcohol – then that too is my right. Why stop there?

If I woke up tomorrow morning and decided that I wanted to ‘go green’, if you know what I mean, then I should be allowed to do that. Should the government be allowed to control what I do or don’t put into my own body?

Again, it comes back to a double-standard on the government’s behalf. While the purchase of alcohol or tobacco are perfectly legal, the possession of marijuana in Australia will land you with a nasty fine, the size of which is dependent on the state in which you live and the quantity you possess. This is in spite of the fact that countless studies have proven that marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, as demonstrated, for example, by the research done by the USA’s National Institute on Drug Abuse which has shown that marijuana is less addictive than both nicotine and alcohol.

Furthermore marijuana does not cause or exarcerbate violent tendencies among young people in the same way that alcohol does, and compared with the thousands of deaths attributed to tobacco and alcohol usage, marijuana usage has not been responsible for a single death, ever. Sure, there a major health risks associated with marijuana usage, but then check out the list of stuff you put yourself at risk of by smoking, a perfectly legal activity.

Let’s be clear about one thing here – I’ve never smoked a single joint or taken a single hit from a bong – and I don’t intend to – but it’s not about me. It’s about people having the freedom to decide what they want to do with their bodies without having the government impose restrictions on them.

You see, I reckon the people in the weed legalisation movement have missed out on a great business opportunity here – that is, wouldn’t the government be far more willing to legalise marijuana if they could benefit financially from it’s distribution? Hmm, I feel a business venture coming on…

Aaah yes, Easter. That confusing time of year when we all benefit from a day off work while trying to remember just what or who we have to thank. But really, it’s simple isn’t it? Jesus took one for the team on Good Friday, found himself entombed for a couple of nights before deciding on Sunday that the lack of sunlight wasn’t doing his tan any good. Well, not quite.

You see, the period that we refer to as Easter is in fact an old pagan celebration that dates back well before the supposed time of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In fact, the name ‘Easter’ is a derivative of the name ‘Eostre’ – Anglo-Saxon paganism’s ‘goddess of dawn’ – whose existence symbolised the increased fertility of the land at the turn of spring. Ever wondered why the date of Easter Sunday changes every year? Or put a different way, does it seem a little strange that the date of Jesus’ death and resurrection varies from year to year?

Easter Sunday is defined as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox – the period in March wherein the length of day and night are equal. Long before the advent of Christianity the vernal equinox was seen as the time in which the sun found itself in a fierce battle with darkness to see which would gain ultimate supremacy. After a couple of days the sun would emerge victorious with the days becoming longer in the lead-up to the summer solstice.

In Greek mythology this period was symbolised by the plight of Persephone whose abduction by Hades – the God of the Underworld – led to the earth becoming barren of life – winter – and whose rescue by her father Zeus at the time of the vernal equinox led to the Earth’s rebirth into prosperity and fertility – spring. In Egyptian mythology this transition was represented by the life of Osiris whose death and consequential rebirth led to the reawakening of life on Earth following the vernal equinox.

In fact history is littered with examples of the death-resurrection myth being used to represent the transition from winter to spring, Christianity’s appropriation of earlier customs being the most recent case. That’s right, the Jesus resurrection story is a centuries old myth plagiarised and repackaged by early Christians.

That’s all very interesting, I hear you say, but where do easter eggs fit into the equation? Well, according to the New International Encyclopaedia, the use of eggs at Easter “is of the highest antiquity, the egg having been considered in widely separated pre-Christian mythologies as a symbol of resurrection”. The use of chocolate easter eggs apparently began in Europe in the 1800s following the Industrial Revolution and this practice has continued unabated since then. Cadbury allegedly sells around 240 million chocolate easter eggs in Australia every year – around 12 per person – and with business like that, is it any wonder that ads for Easter eggs come out the week after Christmas?

The prevalent rabbit symbology associated with the Easter period, as demonstrated in the ever popular Easter Bunny, is also a remnant of ancient pagan tradition. Giving birth to huge litters in the early weeks of spring, the rabbit was a symbol of the increased fertility of the earth in the weeks following the vernal equinox. For us Aussies though, the rabbit is revered to a far lesser extent, having been introduced to our great land with the First Fleet in 1788 and subsequently breeding out of control. Hence, the Easter Bilby. How’s that for putting an Aussie spin on things?

In all seriousness though, why, as an apparently secular nation, do we still cling to Easter and Christmas so fervently? Is it because the majority of our population truly respects the religious significance of the periods which these holidays cover? I suspect not. Is it because both periods have been so corrupted by commercial interests that we don’t have a choice in the matter? Sounds a bit more like it. Whatever though. Just give me my double-time and a half and a truckload of chocolate and I’ll celebrate anyone’s resurrection…

I often consider the ethical implications of having my wages paid by sad old ladies who have nothing better to do than play the pokies at all hours of the day, and indeed night. I can’t help feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea of living off the pensions of all the old dears that frequent our reputable establishment. However I, and I suspect the majority of my co-workers, try not to get bogged down in the morality of it all.
I mean, it’s bad enough that we have to deal with screaming kids, whining mothers and the social-life-killing hours that hospitality work entails without worrying about the ethical considerations of our employment, right?

My ongoing attempts to resist joining the ranks of the addict-attendants (aka gaming staff) have been treated with some disdain by the upper-echelons and this has prompted me to consider my position – if my being hesitant to work in gaming is due to an ethical commitment then surely I’m over my head already.

Here are some lovely factoids for you, courtesy of the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission;

• State governments in Australia collect around $4billion a year from the gaming industry.
• The average Australian adult loses $260 a year through gambling.
• The average Victorian adult loses $350 a year through gambling, the highest of any state.
• 18 to 30 year olds spend the most on gambling of any age group in Australia. In fact, the 18 to 30 age bracket contributes almost 3 times as much to the treasury than the 60 to 69 bracket does.
• Men lose more money on gaming machines than women, and indeed on gambling in general.

When I think of gambling, I think of frail old ladies sitting at the pokies for hours on end, day after day, night after night, and my (somewhat limited) observations of the gaming room at our reputable establishment serve only to reinforce that view. So where are all the young men?

Regardless of the location of the hitherto invisible, gambling-addicted young men, I’m starting to feel a little better about myself. Not only are retired old ladies tucked up at safely at home, far from the call of the evil pokies, but they are at far less risk than partially-employed young men.

How do I get my gaming license again…?