10th January 2023
10/1/23
First day of 2 or 3 days on site. I was supposed to be at another site today, but as it’s a gold mine, and gold is normally mined in rivers and creeks, well it’s under water isn’t it. I like this site. Although phone service at the camp is almost nonexistent, we make do with what we have. Oh the joys of remoteness. The mine pit itself actually has no phone reception at all, but when all the workers come back to camp it just overloads the network, and even with full signal, phone is limited, and data is just nonexistent.
A comment came up today on one of the socials about my content. You know, the compliment sandwich. Are you familiar with that term? It goes like this. “Fuk mate I love your content (the bread), I don’t however like your little jabs at Americans (the shit bit), but mate, keep making the awesome content that you do (bread again)” and there you have it, a complement sandwich. This however folded into one of the podcasts that I listened to today (the 2nd half podcast) direct from a political commentator, non partisan, down to earth kind of bloke. Today he was talking about the inability for the house to elect a speaker, well the Republicans any way. But it came to this comment. “If congress decided to enact a declaration of war against a country, currently we would not be able to pass that motion as the house can’t sit until a speaker is elected” (please note, the podcast was a week old as I only listen to them when at work)
Now this got me thinking. Why was his first thought that sprung to mind war. What about a health crisis. What about a natural disaster. Why do Americans always jump to war.
I think this is a 2 fold situation. The always linking things to war and the need for the “emotional support weapons” that so many seem to live their lives by.
The first thing (war) when you come to think of it, has been the American way of life for 80% (pulled that figure out of my arse) of their population for the last 40 years. Anyone that lives in the USA and was born from ‘85 onwards knows nothing more than their country at war. Almost everyone older than that, I do understand that Vietnam is the exception, only knew the space race. War was over, everyone was cashed up, muscle cars were in the driveway of everyone’s house. Segregation was *technically* dealt with. Education was power. Engineering and science degrees were what everyone strived to have. Violence was down, economically the country was booming. And in 10 years, from absolutely nothing, man walked on the moon. The average age at nasa that day was 28. Today NASA’s average age is almost 47.
And now to the emotional support weapons. We can’t blame the laws or the constitution for this. It’s been written into their laws from the very inception of their constitution. So in this modern time why is the gun violence so rapidly increasing. Are we just seeing more of it being reported? Or are we actually just seeing less of it being reported and only the “big ones” get our attention. A recent meeting of doctors from around the world in Sydney were talking about gun shot wounds. 1 of the American doctors full time jobs was treating them at the hospital he worked at, and the other reported that he would treat 4-5 a week. Of the 2 Australian doctors, one had treated a gun shot wound 5 years ago, and the other had never seen one. Other Dr’s reported similar to the Australians. So what is it? Let’s just bypass ye olden days, the days of bush rangers, scally wags and snake oil salesmen. Let’s just look at for the 60’s onwards.
One of the best ways to judge social economic standing of a country is to look at its birth rate. The poorer the population is, the higher the birth rate. The more educated the population is, the lower the birth rate. And just a quick google will confirm that indeed the birth rate of the USA has been rising, and the birth rate of australia is falling. Shit, even our liberal government a few years ago had a campaign of “one for mum, one for dad and one for the country”. Bonuses were paid to people to have babies in Australia. But our birth rate still continues to fall. The USA though has had steady growth in birth rates for the past few years. It almost aligns with the increase of gun violence. One may say that they need the weapons to protect themselves, but one could also say that people are so poor that breaking into a house may just be the only way to actually live and put food on the table for your increasing number of children that you’re having.
No, I don’t know the answers. Yes, I will be studying this more (once I have some fuking internet service), but more to the point, if you’re able to, and you find something that shows me I’m off track, I’m more than willing to accept it.
I don’t know how to put any of this to a pub test actually. This is just more of the random thoughts that run through my head. But I suppose we could put something to the test. Aussies will take the piss out of our mates, when we don’t like someone, as a general rule, we just ignore them. Well that’s how I handle the situation any way. I’d agree with some of them though, but I won’t as it’s pointless 2 people being wrong isn’t it……..
Any way y’all. Have a spectacular time today, the the best you can, and let’s make tomorrow a better day.
Craig.
