I'm an Australian, based in the Washington, DC, area of the United States. I spend a lot of time there with Jasmine, Australia's best-known speedsolver of the Rubik's Cube. Prior to the US, Jasmine and I were based in London, UK. We have also lived previously in the United States and Australia.
I have worked for an Australian business rules and compliance company since 1999 in Australia, the US and the UK. I have also lectured in IT and Law related topics at King's College, London, and at The Australian National University.
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These are a few of my favourite links:
- Jasmine's site
- Jasmine's blog
- Mikal
- Daveydweeb
- Beth
- Lyn
- Doug
- Marissa
- Lisaloha
- David (Greenomics)
- Paul's Ramblings (music)
Hits since 1 Sep 2004
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Wed, 01 Sep 2004 [Australian eastern time]
Alice Cooper on musicians' politics
There has been a succession of incidents here in the United States in which musicians have come out against President George W. Bush or the Republican Party. These actions have been quite controversial:
The Dixie Chicks were pulled from radio after criticising the President last year.
Linda Ronstadt was escorted from a Las Vegas casino after praising Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11.
When a large group of musicians, including the likes of Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and Pearl Jam, announced a "Vote for Change" tour, they led rumoured-Republican Alice Cooper to weigh-in. In a tongue-in-cheek style Cooper argued in a recent interview that:
"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."
"Besides," he continued, "when I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn't already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that's a good reason right there to vote for Bush." (citation)
Cooper got himself in some trouble with his remarks due to his use of the word "treason" to describe the anti-Bush musicians in his remarks ("I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics."). His official website currently features a clarification that he never meant to suggest the artists had committed treason against the United States.
Meanwhile, the website You Have Bad Taste in Music freely slams bands based on more basic criteria than political analysis. The website features a silhouette of a figure in a gown, wearing a helmet, and imploring people, "Do not attend this concert, stop listening to bad music". You can see the figure in action in a series of "documentaries" (the Christina Aguilera/Justin Timberlake one is great but you need QuickTime and a good net connection), and there are t-shirts for sale as well!
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Big Bad Al and Sheena Gothskull -- thanks, curiously strong Altoids mints!
I've just finished playing a cute game on the Altoids website. It's a point-and-click quest-style game, done with Flash so it runs in a web browser window. The player takes the role of Big Bad Al, a loser who has managed to arrange a date with Sheena Gothskull over the internet. The quest is to get through the nightclub to find her and then to perform a sleuthing task that Sheena specifies. Along the way, it helps to hand out lots of curiously strong Altoids mints. If you win the game, you are offered a series of downloads as a reward.
I enjoyed it! Maybe I have too much spare time.
I just found a link on Slashdot to the American Library Association's list of most frequently challenged (banned) books for the period 1990-2000.
It's amazing what is being banished from some libraries in the US. The list includes a number of staples from my Australian school education (at a relatively conservative church school), although there are several more controversial titles listed as well.
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