Australia - An American's assessment

[Bricktop]

Australia: an American's view



Interesting set of observations from a visitor from the other side of the Pacific.'Value what you have and don't give it away.' There's a lot to admire about Australia, especially if you're a visiting American, says David Mason. More often than you might expect, Australian friends patiently listening to me enthuse about their country have said, ''We need outsiders like you to remind us what we have.'' So here it is - a small presumptuous list of what one foreigner admires in Oz.



1... Health care. I know the controversies, but basic national health care is a gift. In America, medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy. The drug companies dominate politics and advertising.

Obama is being crucified for taking halting baby steps towards sanity. You can't turn on the telly without hours of drug advertisements - something I have never yet seen here. And your emphasis on prevention - making cigarettes less accessible, for one - is a model.



2... Food. Yes, we have great food in America too, especially in the big cities.

But your bread is less sweet, your lamb is cheaper, and your supermarket vegetables and fruits are fresher than ours.

Too often in my country an apple is a ball of pulp as big as your face.

The dainty Pink Lady apples of Oz are the juiciest I've had. And don't get me started on coffee.

In American small towns it tastes like water flavoured with burnt dirt, but the smallest shop in the smallest town in Oz can make a first-rate latte.

I love your ubiquitous bakeries, your hot-cross buns. Shall I go on?



3... Language. How do you do it?

The rhyming slang and Aboriginal place names like magic spells.

Words that seem vaguely English yet also resemble an argot from another planet.

I love the way institutional names get turned into diminutives - Vinnie's and Salvos - and absolutely nothing's sacred.

Everything's an opportunity for word games and everyone's a nickname.

Lingo makes the world go round.

It's the spontaneous wit of the people that tickles me most.

Late one night at a barbie my new mate Suds remarked, ''Nothing's the same since 24-7.'' Amen.



4... Free-to-air TV. In Oz, you buy a TV, plug it in and watch some of the best programming I've ever seen - uncensored.

In America, you can't get diddly-squat without paying a cable or satellite company heavy fees.

In Oz a few channels make it hard to choose.

In America, you've got 400 channels and nothing to watch.



5... Small shops. Outside the big cities in America corporations have nearly erased them.

Identical malls with identical restaurants serving inferior food.

Except for geography, it's hard to tell one American town from another.

The ''take-away'' culture here is wonderful.

Human encounters are real - stirring happens, stories get told.

The curries are to die for. And you don't have to tip!



6... Free camping. We used to have this too, and I guess it's still free when you backpack miles away from the roads.

But I love the fact that in Oz everyone owns the shore and in many places you can pull up a camper van and stare at the sea for weeks.

I love the ''primitive'' and independent campgrounds, the life out of doors.

The few idiots who leave their stubbies and rubbish behind in these pristine places ought to be transported in chains.



7... Religion. In America, it's everywhere - especially where it's not supposed to be, like politics.

I imagine you have your Pharisees too, making a big public show of devotion, but I have yet to meet one here.



8... Roads. Peak hour aside, I've found travel on your roads pure heaven.

My country's ''freeways'' are crowded, crumbling, insanely knotted with looping overpasses - it's like racing homicidal maniacs on fraying spaghetti.

I've taken the Hume without stress, and I love the Princes Highway when it's two lanes.

Ninety minutes south of Bateman's Bay I was sorry to see one billboard for a McDonald's.

It's blocking a lovely paddock view. Someone should remove it.



9... Real multiculturalism. I know there are tensions, just like anywhere else, but I love the distinctiveness of your communities and the way you publicly acknowledge the Aboriginal past.

Recently, too, I spent quality time with Melbourne Greeks, and was gratified both by their devotion to their own great language and culture and their openness to an Afghan lunch.



10. Fewer guns. You had Port Arthur in 1996 and got real in response. America replicates such massacres several times a year and nothing changes.

Why?

Our religion of individual rights makes the good of the community an impossible dream.

Instead of mateship we have ''It's mine and nobody else's''.

We talk a great game about freedom, but too often live in fear.

There's more to say - your kaleidoscopic birds, your perfumed bush in springtime, your vast beaches.

These are just a few blessings that make Australia a rarity.

Of course, it's not paradise - nowhere is - but I love it here.

No need to wave flags like Americans and add to the world's windiness.

Just value what you have and don't give it away.



David Mason is a US writer and professor, and poet laureate of Colorado.

[Anonymous]

David Mason is entitled to his opinion even if it is mostly horseshit. The province I live in would be SOOOOOOOOO much better off as  a US state. If we switched sides, Saskatchewan would almost surely follow us. The rest of Canada would make New Zealand look like a land of opportunity if that happened.

[Anonymous]

David Mason is entitled to his opinion even if it is mostly horseshit. The province I live in would be SOOOOOOOOO much better off as  a US state. If we switched sides, Saskatchewan would almost surely follow us. The rest of Canada would make New Zealand look like a land of opportunity if that happened.

 ac_dunno

[Bricktop]

David Mason is entitled to his opinion even if it is mostly horseshit. The province I live in would be SOOOOOOOOO much better off as  a US state. If we switched sides, Saskatchewan would almost surely follow us. The rest of Canada would make New Zealand look like a land of opportunity if that happened.

Your "province" is overrun by opportunistic, bourgeoises mainlanders wanting to establish another worker's paradise governed by The Little Red Book.



Saskatchewan? That's Chinese too, isn't it?



You reds are trying to take over the world.

[Anonymous]

David Mason is entitled to his opinion even if it is mostly horseshit. The province I live in would be SOOOOOOOOO much better off as  a US state. If we switched sides, Saskatchewan would almost surely follow us. The rest of Canada would make New Zealand look like a land of opportunity if that happened.

Your "province" is overrun by opportunistic, bourgeoises mainlanders wanting to establish another worker's paradise governed by The Little Red Book.



Saskatchewan? That's Chinese too, isn't it?



You reds are trying to take over the world.

Funny guy, but I am being serious. The prospects of Canada remaining part of Canada in the long term are not good. It makes no economic sense. I will be posting about it tomorrow.......STAT TUNED!!

[Bricktop]

So, you're going to claim it as part of the mainland???



Cos it sure as shit won't EVER join with the US.

[Twenty Dollars]

I don't live in Canada

[Anonymous]

So, you're going to claim it as part of the mainland???



Cos it sure as shit won't EVER join with the US.

There was something that got a lot attention last year in the news that said Alberta would be better off as a American state.



http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-leaving-canada-makes-sense-for-alberta-and-u-s-would-likely-welcome-a-new-state">http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canad ... -new-state">http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-leaving-canada-makes-sense-for-alberta-and-u-s-would-likely-welcome-a-new-state

Q Amid this interesting geopolitical shift, you devote a chapter to Alberta's possible secession.



A Canada's demographic situation is similar to the rest of the developed world — a large population moving toward retirement and hardly any young people in the replacement generation coming up.



However, Alberta does not fit that mould. It is the youngest province, and is becoming younger, better paid and more highly skilled as the rest of Canada becomes older and less skilled, and a ward of the state financially.



The other piece is, of course, energy. British Columbia has been hostile to Alberta's efforts to diversity oil exports and the Atlantic is more than 2,000 miles away.



But really, it comes down to demographics. Right now, every man, woman and child in Alberta pay $6,000 more into the national budget than they get back. Alberta is the only province that is a net contributor to that budget — by 2020, the number will exceed $20,000 per person, $40,000 per taxpayer. That will be the greatest wealth transfer in per capita terms in the Western world. The only other place we see things like that is in Saudi Arabia, where the oil-producing regions subsidize the rest of the country.



Q Secession has been a dirty political word in Alberta for several years, with politicians rumoured to be secret secessionists. That talk died down when the Harper Conservatives were elected —  when a group of people who came out of the Alberta mould assumed power.



A On Stephen Harper's watch, Alberta's tax bill has basically tripled. This is going on while you have a federal government that is pro-Alberta.



From my point of view, it doesn't matter if it's this government, the next government, or the one after. The demographic trends are locked in. If you get a government in Ottawa that isn't Conservative, isn't born, bred, raised and trained in Alberta, what do you think they're going to be doing to the tax policies?



Q So this is a conversation about secession to the U.S.?



A Alberta as an independent country doesn't solve a huge number of problems. If it left Canada, its currency goes through the roof because all it has is oil exports, and that would drive agriculture out of business. It would be a one-horse economy in a very short time.



Seceding to the U.S. becomes the only political and economic option. If you do that, the inflation issue goes away, the tax problem goes away, the security problem goes away. Alberta gets everything it says it wants out of Canada within the first year of joining the U.S.



Q Do you think the Americans would have us?



A Americans have a reputation for being ignorant and short-sighted, but I would be stunned if there was a single person in Congress who would think this a bad idea. If you bring Alberta into the country, the U.S. becomes technically energy independent overnight. I would expect ratification of the expansion to sail through Congress in a matter of hours.



Q In Alberta, the numbers and logic might make sense, but politically and culturally it still seems to be a huge stretch to think Albertans would seriously consider this.



A I'm a forecaster. My job is to look at the trends of how the world works. Comfort makes people a little more passive and Canada is a comfortable place. Because secession is legal, Albertans are going to have to think about this  — that doesn't mean they will seriously consider it. But a $40,000 per taxpayer bill every year, that's a bit of a motivator.

[Anonymous]

So, you're going to claim it as part of the mainland???



Cos it sure as shit won't EVER join with the US.

There was something that got a lot attention last year in the news that said Alberta would be better off as a American state.



http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-leaving-canada-makes-sense-for-alberta-and-u-s-would-likely-welcome-a-new-state">http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canad ... -new-state">http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-leaving-canada-makes-sense-for-alberta-and-u-s-would-likely-welcome-a-new-state

Q Amid this interesting geopolitical shift, you devote a chapter to Alberta's possible secession.



A Canada's demographic situation is similar to the rest of the developed world — a large population moving toward retirement and hardly any young people in the replacement generation coming up.



However, Alberta does not fit that mould. It is the youngest province, and is becoming younger, better paid and more highly skilled as the rest of Canada becomes older and less skilled, and a ward of the state financially.



The other piece is, of course, energy. British Columbia has been hostile to Alberta's efforts to diversity oil exports and the Atlantic is more than 2,000 miles away.



But really, it comes down to demographics. Right now, every man, woman and child in Alberta pay $6,000 more into the national budget than they get back. Alberta is the only province that is a net contributor to that budget — by 2020, the number will exceed $20,000 per person, $40,000 per taxpayer. That will be the greatest wealth transfer in per capita terms in the Western world. The only other place we see things like that is in Saudi Arabia, where the oil-producing regions subsidize the rest of the country.



Q Secession has been a dirty political word in Alberta for several years, with politicians rumoured to be secret secessionists. That talk died down when the Harper Conservatives were elected —  when a group of people who came out of the Alberta mould assumed power.



A On Stephen Harper's watch, Alberta's tax bill has basically tripled. This is going on while you have a federal government that is pro-Alberta.



From my point of view, it doesn't matter if it's this government, the next government, or the one after. The demographic trends are locked in. If you get a government in Ottawa that isn't Conservative, isn't born, bred, raised and trained in Alberta, what do you think they're going to be doing to the tax policies?



Q So this is a conversation about secession to the U.S.?



A Alberta as an independent country doesn't solve a huge number of problems. If it left Canada, its currency goes through the roof because all it has is oil exports, and that would drive agriculture out of business. It would be a one-horse economy in a very short time.



Seceding to the U.S. becomes the only political and economic option. If you do that, the inflation issue goes away, the tax problem goes away, the security problem goes away. Alberta gets everything it says it wants out of Canada within the first year of joining the U.S.



Q Do you think the Americans would have us?



A Americans have a reputation for being ignorant and short-sighted, but I would be stunned if there was a single person in Congress who would think this a bad idea. If you bring Alberta into the country, the U.S. becomes technically energy independent overnight. I would expect ratification of the expansion to sail through Congress in a matter of hours.



Q In Alberta, the numbers and logic might make sense, but politically and culturally it still seems to be a huge stretch to think Albertans would seriously consider this.



A I'm a forecaster. My job is to look at the trends of how the world works. Comfort makes people a little more passive and Canada is a comfortable place. Because secession is legal, Albertans are going to have to think about this  — that doesn't mean they will seriously consider it. But a $40,000 per taxpayer bill every year, that's a bit of a motivator.

I have voted Liberal before, but I did not support Justin's leadership and I will never vote for them as long as he is the leader. Martha Hall Findlay was the candidate I wanted. She would be much so much better for national unity than Justin.

[Blurt]

I'd love to visit Australia some day.



I'm a fan.

[Anonymous]

I'd love to visit Australia some day.



I'm a fan.

I would too Blurt....we can go together.

 ac_smile

[Rambo Wong]

Holy Angelina Jolie  ! White people are so short in Australia because they shouldn't be in Asia. White Australians had the whites only policy because they only want blue eyes and blonde hair. I hate Australians.

[RW]

Australia: an American's view



Interesting set of observations from a visitor from the other side of the Pacific.'Value what you have and don't give it away.' There's a lot to admire about Australia, especially if you're a visiting American, says David Mason. More often than you might expect, Australian friends patiently listening to me enthuse about their country have said, ''We need outsiders like you to remind us what we have.'' So here it is - a small presumptuous list of what one foreigner admires in Oz.



1... Health care. I know the controversies, but basic national health care is a gift. In America, medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy. The drug companies dominate politics and advertising.

Obama is being crucified for taking halting baby steps towards sanity. You can't turn on the telly without hours of drug advertisements - something I have never yet seen here. And your emphasis on prevention - making cigarettes less accessible, for one - is a model.



2... Food. Yes, we have great food in America too, especially in the big cities.

But your bread is less sweet, your lamb is cheaper, and your supermarket vegetables and fruits are fresher than ours.

Too often in my country an apple is a ball of pulp as big as your face.

The dainty Pink Lady apples of Oz are the juiciest I've had. And don't get me started on coffee.

In American small towns it tastes like water flavoured with burnt dirt, but the smallest shop in the smallest town in Oz can make a first-rate latte.

I love your ubiquitous bakeries, your hot-cross buns. Shall I go on?



3... Language. How do you do it?

The rhyming slang and Aboriginal place names like magic spells.

Words that seem vaguely English yet also resemble an argot from another planet.

I love the way institutional names get turned into diminutives - Vinnie's and Salvos - and absolutely nothing's sacred.

Everything's an opportunity for word games and everyone's a nickname.

Lingo makes the world go round.

It's the spontaneous wit of the people that tickles me most.

Late one night at a barbie my new mate Suds remarked, ''Nothing's the same since 24-7.'' Amen.



4... Free-to-air TV. In Oz, you buy a TV, plug it in and watch some of the best programming I've ever seen - uncensored.

In America, you can't get diddly-squat without paying a cable or satellite company heavy fees.

In Oz a few channels make it hard to choose.

In America, you've got 400 channels and nothing to watch.



5... Small shops. Outside the big cities in America corporations have nearly erased them.

Identical malls with identical restaurants serving inferior food.

Except for geography, it's hard to tell one American town from another.

The ''take-away'' culture here is wonderful.

Human encounters are real - stirring happens, stories get told.

The curries are to die for. And you don't have to tip!



6... Free camping. We used to have this too, and I guess it's still free when you backpack miles away from the roads.

But I love the fact that in Oz everyone owns the shore and in many places you can pull up a camper van and stare at the sea for weeks.

I love the ''primitive'' and independent campgrounds, the life out of doors.

The few idiots who leave their stubbies and rubbish behind in these pristine places ought to be transported in chains.



7... Religion. In America, it's everywhere - especially where it's not supposed to be, like politics.

I imagine you have your Pharisees too, making a big public show of devotion, but I have yet to meet one here.



8... Roads. Peak hour aside, I've found travel on your roads pure heaven.

My country's ''freeways'' are crowded, crumbling, insanely knotted with looping overpasses - it's like racing homicidal maniacs on fraying spaghetti.

I've taken the Hume without stress, and I love the Princes Highway when it's two lanes.

Ninety minutes south of Bateman's Bay I was sorry to see one billboard for a McDonald's.

It's blocking a lovely paddock view. Someone should remove it.



9... Real multiculturalism. I know there are tensions, just like anywhere else, but I love the distinctiveness of your communities and the way you publicly acknowledge the Aboriginal past.

Recently, too, I spent quality time with Melbourne Greeks, and was gratified both by their devotion to their own great language and culture and their openness to an Afghan lunch.



10. Fewer guns. You had Port Arthur in 1996 and got real in response. America replicates such massacres several times a year and nothing changes.

Why?

Our religion of individual rights makes the good of the community an impossible dream.

Instead of mateship we have ''It's mine and nobody else's''.

We talk a great game about freedom, but too often live in fear.

There's more to say - your kaleidoscopic birds, your perfumed bush in springtime, your vast beaches.

These are just a few blessings that make Australia a rarity.

Of course, it's not paradise - nowhere is - but I love it here.

No need to wave flags like Americans and add to the world's windiness.

Just value what you have and don't give it away.



David Mason is a US writer and professor, and poet laureate of Colorado.

#5 is what I was talking to you about the other day.  Make sure you don't lose that to corporate America because it's a slippery slope.

[Blurt]

Holy Angelina Jolie  ! White people are so short in Australia because they shouldn't be in Asia. White Australians had the whites only policy because they only want blue eyes and blonde hair. I hate Australians.

See, Rambi, this hatred of an entire population based on the policies of its government is of limited use.



Why not deal with individuals instead? Imagine if I were to hate all Rambos based solely on your output! I'd deprive myself of some possibly entertaining and enlightening viewpoints. As it is, I have only the one Rambo to go by. You. So I limit my floccinaucinihilipilification of Rambos to you.

[Blurt]

I'd love to visit Australia some day.



I'm a fan.

I would too Blurt....we can go together.

 ac_smile

We can?



And here I thought you were married!  ac_biggrin



Seriously, a trip to Australia would be a blast. There are people there I'd love to meet, too.