Positively earth-shattering . . .

"Almost half of young people fail first driving test." (ABC News Online)

The Western Australia Government is concerned over the number of teenagers who are failing their practical driving tests.

New figures show 46 per cent of people who sat their practical assessment in the last financial year failed at their first attempt.

Similar failure rates were recorded for people sitting their second and third tests.

The most common mistakes were failing to give way, rolling through stop signs and speeding through school zones and on suburban roads.

The Government has urged young drivers to take a more responsible approach to obtaining their licence.

Ever heard of nerves?

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What's happening to the Labor Party?

Alan Carpenter will be WA's new Premier, and it is to be hoped that his tenure will not be marked by the rank idiocy of his NSW counterpart Morris Iemma:

SCHOOLS across the state will be forced to play the Australian anthem before class under a radical NSW Government plan to create respect in the community.

Teachers at primary schools will be required to introduce "Australian values" studies from the beginning of this school year while the Three Rs will be expanded to five to include the topics of Respect and Responsibility.

The move marks the first stage of plans to foster respect of authority which will be rolled out over the next few months.

The changes cover all the major portfolios, including police, transport and housing.

It will include a law enforcement package with new laws to make it easier for police to crack down on anti-social behaviour including riots.

Fines and penalties for a range of offences such as damaging public property, including transport and housing, will also be reviewed.

Unveiling the details exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph, NSW Premier Morris Iemma said the recent Cronulla riots demonstrated the need to build respect for authority within the community. "I believe what happened at Cronulla, Maroubra and Brighton-Le-Sands had its roots in a fundamental lack of respect for authority developed at an early age," he said.

This comes in the wake of Young Labor's call for compulsory national service. And hopefully, when the next Federal election comes around, wiser heads prevail in Federal Labour. Because it will never be able to out-Coalition the Coalition, and it will never unseat any Coalition governments by trying.

(Hat-tip to commenter Steve Edwards at Larvatus Prodeo. As he points out: what, exactly, are "Australian values?" And who gets to decide? And what gives them the authority to decide?)

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Closer to God

From the theological news site Ekklesia:

Goth priest stirs up staid Cambridge
With fresh and experimental forms of church life top of the agenda for many of the traditional denominations facing declining attendances, the idea of a ‘Goth vicar’ is perhaps less of a shock to some Christians than to religious observers – which may be why the Rev Marcus Ramshaw is having to get used to a minor frenzy of media attention.

Mr Ramshaw, a priest in the Church of England who serves his title at St Edward King and Martyr Church in Cambridge, has devised a worship service especially for members of the local ‘goth’ community and others on the local dance and club scene.

[. . .]

[T]he enterprising clergyman, whose inclinations span both Anglicanism and gothdom, has devised a liturgy which incorporates the music of bands like the Sisters of Mercy and Joy Division, as well as candles and other goth-friendly symbolism.

Hmm . . .

(And yes: the opportunity to title it "Closer to God" is the only reason I posted this story.)

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History ad populum: the Right whines about postmodernism . . . again (yawn)

So beset is the right-wing echo-chamber that is the Opinion section of The Australian with arrogance and hubris--its commentators no longer appear to deem it necessary to encumber their bloviations with details, examples, or even an argument. Take, for instance, "Can't we just teach serious history in the classroom?" by high school history teacher Gregory Haines, in which he talks about the "decline" of academic history: a decline that he attributes to . . . drum roll, please . . . "The rise of postmodernism and theory in arts faculties." But it is very difficult to tell precisely what kind of history Haines believes the academies should be teaching--or would be teaching were it not for the pernicious influences of postmodernism and theory. And given that his piece closes by drawing an analogy with current controversies in science education--"It is little realised how closely the relationship between history and the cocktail of postmodernism, theory and political correctness resembles the relationship between science and creationism or intelligent design"--one can reasonably infer that Haines believes that an unbiased, apolitical, scientific and objective approach to the teaching of history is possible.

Sadly, no explanation of what such an approach would look like is forthcoming.

Instead, Haines regales us with horror-stories of how students

seem fed up with many of the courses on offer, especially history from below, politically correct history and the current fad of historiography.

Aside from the fact that you will struggle to find a course in any educational institution that calls itself "Politically Correct History," notice that Haines doesn't really tell us what's wrong with history from below or historiography--all he gives us is pejorative and the idea that these things are unpopular, which is, for the Right, critique enough.

He continues:

Students, it appears from a number of surveys, prefer history courses of substance dealing with the grand themes, courses which are educational as well as informative and which open them to diverse cultures and times.

According to surveys? Again, his assertion is long on jingoism and short on detail, but it does reveal one thing: Haines thinks what he calls "politically correct history" should be supplanted by . . . politically correct history! History ad populum rather than history from below. Poll-driven history, the content of which is determined by what people--particularly, the majority of people (as "a number of surveys" would indicate)--want to hear.

Haines' remark is interesting, given his allusion to the ID debate. If he thinks what gets taught in history courses should be dictated by surveys, does he believe the same should apply to other subjects--such as science or mathematics? Are his own history lessons conducted in this fashion?

I think not. I think Haines has a fairly precise notion of what he thinks should be taught in a history course, and I suspect it would not differ greatly from the politically-correct version of history that prevailed in Australian high school curricula until a few decades ago (i.e. the version of history that tells us that Australian history more or less began in 1788). But why not tell his readers about (even if he is preaching to the choir--his piece originally appeared in Quadrant)? It seems all you need to do to get a right-wing op-ed piece published these days is to string together the requisite red-scare words--"postmodernist," "left-wing", "Marxist," "academic"--and let the sheeple fill in the blanks.

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Gallop quits

WA Premier Geoff Gallop has resigned from politics suddenly and unexpectedly, citing depression. Often derided as "Good News Gallop" by WA's right-wing press (there being no centre or left-wing press), he had some half-decent policies--particularly concerning industrial relations, public transport and housing, and the environment--and it is to be hoped that he makes a swift recovery.

Former ABC 7.30 Report presenter Alan Carpenter and former Opposition Leader Jim McGinty have been cited as frontrunners for the post.

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This man is an IDiot . . . so we can't show you his face on television

As Panda's Thumb reports, the US state of Ohio will soon very likely play host to its own "Dover Trial":

Late this afternoon (Jan 10) the Ohio State Board of Education, by a 8-9 vote, defeated a motion to delete the offending “Critical Analysis” lesson plan from the model curriculum. Two members were absent.

A little background: on December 10th, 2002 the Ohio BOE voted 18-0 in favour of adopting a new definition of "science":

First, a new "definition" of science was added: "Recognize that science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, based on observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, and theory building, which leads to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena." This replaces the following statement in Scientific Ways of Knowing, Grade 10, Indicator 3: "Recognize that scientific knowledge is limited to natural explanations for natural phenomena based on evidence from our senses or technological extensions."

Hmm . . . sound familiar? There's more:

Second, a new statement was added as Life Sciences, Grade 10, Indicator 23: "Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory. (The intent of this indicator does not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design.)" This same statement was also added to Benchmark H in Life Sciences, Grade 10, with the substitution of the word "benchmark" for "indicator."

The main issue, however, doesn't concern the benchmarks--however much they open the door, as in Kansas, for the Wicked Witch of the East to be cited as a "more adequate explanation of natural phenomena." The chief cause of concern for science educators has been the mooted adoption of lesson plans which, while they purport to offer a "critical analysis of evolutionary theory" (why only evolutionary theory?), emerge directly out of the ID/creationist playbook. Ohio Citizens for Science give a more comprehensive account of the problem here.

The sheer arrogance of the ID/creationist crowd never ceases to amaze (or give pause for concern, given Brendan Nelson's vision of what an Australian science education should look like). Take, for example, the fellow in the picture below (from the Columbus Dispatch's coverage of the Ohio BOE meeting, mentioned at the head of this post, which narrowly defeated a proposition to expunge the creationist lesson plans).

(In case the original article is archived and the image disappears, here's the text that accompanies it: "Richard E. Baker, a member of the State Board of Education, displays his apparent lack of interest in arguments for changing the state’s science standards being put forth by fellow board member Martha W. Wise. Baker, who later voted to maintain the current standards, did not speak during yesterday’s afternoon session, choosing instead to read the newspaper throughout.")

The picture speaks for itself, but more telling is the "challenge" laid down by board member and lawyer Michael Cochran:

I’m bothered deeply by all this legal advice from nonlawyers: "The Dover case means this; the Dover case means that." If they think we are wrong — take us to court.

I really hope, if and when a Dover-style challenge is mounted against the Ohio BOE, that these fools get to eat their words (as the Dover board members did). Richard Dawkins spoke truly when he labelled such folk "Know-nothings." Unfortunately, these generally turn out to be heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situations for the ID/creationist crowd: if not victory, then martyrdom.

UPDATE: I was wrong. The latest "Dover-style" encounter between ID and the Estabishment Clause is actually happening right now in California.

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On My Selection

At around the age of 17, I migrated from the wasteland of commercial radio to the ABC's self-styled "youth network" Triple J--a journey which I have since discovered is common among late adolescents, though many of them subsequently move back. In those days, Triple J had only recently become a national network (having begun life as a Sydney station), and "alternative music" was (in Australia at least) only beginning to establish itself as a distinct genre on the shelves of chain music retailers--even if it rarely (and then belatedly) got a look-in on commercial radio playlists, a trend which largely continues today.

Let's put it this way: J Babies--a staple of the pub cover band in Perth for years now--could not have existed (as a lucrative venture) prior to 1993/94. Prior to then, "Australian music" meant Johnny Diesel, Jimmy Barnes and Johnny Farnham (Diesel and Wendy Matthews dominated the ARIAs in '93), as opposed to, say, You Am I (who picked up the inaugural "Best Alternative Release" gong in 1994), Regurgitator, Spiderbait, or even "King of Pop" Dave Graney. Triple J's role in dramatically boosting the profile of alternative music in the local music scene--at least until 1997, when bubblegum pop, locally in the guise of Savage Garden, internationally in the form of the Spice Girls, made a big comeback--has been far from insignificant. Neither has been the yearly release of its "Hottest 100" compilations, the first of which--which also happened to be one of the first CDs I ever purchased--was released in 1994.

For reasons best articulated by John Doyle in his 2005 "Andrew Olle Lecture," I have not since returned to commercial radio (the argument that the line between JJJ and commercial radio has faded somewhat of late notwithstanding):

I’ve always loved radio. Mornings was Gary O’Callaghan and Sammy Sparrow until pop meant the 2SM Good Guys introduced the songs that would become the diary of adolescence. Many years later, what’s changed? Talkback. That’s all. Commercial radio now: AM. Bandwagon talkback, water cooler drivel as talkback thought starters, competitions, finance and weather, quizzes, traffic, more talkback, then an inflammatory lunatic with talkback. FM. Whacky clubs or Crews, old music or a balance of old music with unthreatening new, competitions, requests, racy talkback with swearing and repetition. All programs are substantially written by the daily newspapers. Breakfast and Mornings used to have a deal – Breakfast got the stories on the odd pages and Mornings got the ones on the even pages. The quirky stories are good for the Crews – often they are survey - based stories. Four out of every ten Swedes prefer briefs to boxers. ‘Come on guys, what do you prefer? Give us a call.’ ‘G’day Brian, love your show. I wear briefs, mate.’ The Crew might ask blokes who freebag to phone in. One of the Crew will have an insight. ‘I always freebag in my trackies’. ‘You’re wearing your trackies now’. ‘Bloody hell!’ – much hilarity and that becomes a promo sound bite for the next month.

Nevertheless, I have always been something of an indifferent participant in the Hottest 100 poll. This year, for a change, I've made the effort. Here are the songs I voted for, in no particular order of preference:

Dears: "Lost In The Plot"
Franz Ferdinand: "Do You Want To?"
Gorillaz: "Feel Good Inc."
Jose Gonzales: "Heartbeat"
Kanye West: "Gold Digger"
Ladytron: "Destroy Everything You Touch"
Maximo Park: "The Coast Is Always Changing"
Pendulum: "Fasten Your Seatbelts"
The Strokes: "Juice Box"
Sufjan Stevens: "Chicago"

Unlike in previous years when Adult Oriented Rock reigned supreme (cough*Powderfinger*cough*Alex Lloyd*cough), the winner for 2005 is much harder to pick. My money's on Gorillaz or Kanye West. Please don't let it be Missy Higgins.

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Anna's Pasta Sauce

I'm half-Italian (on my mother's side), which means that from a very early age I became aware of a curious phenomenon: the stark difference between Italian cuisine, and Australian interpretations of the same. For instance, "Spaghetti Bolognese" . . . well, strictly-speaking it doesn't exist in Italy--the Italians eat their ragù "with ribbon pasta, such as tagliatelle or pappardelle, or a heavier tube shape such as bucatini"; while "Spag Bol"--variations on a basic theme of mince, bottled tomato pasta sauce, water and perhaps (if one is feeling adventurous) chopped carrot and celery, is painfully Anglo-Australian, and about as bland a dish as you're ever likely to encounter.

Why is this so? Though pasta has been available in some form in Australia since at least the mid-19th century, Italian pasta didn't really make its presence felt until the post-WWII influx of migrants from Southern Europe introduced Mediterranean cuisine to the Australian palate (which has taken some adjusting). Since this coincided with the arrival of American fast-food and supermarket chains, not to mention a booming post-war economy, the traditional "slow foods" of Europe had to be translated into what was becoming in Australia a "fast food" culture. (And in those days, "fast food" also meant the need to have something hot waiting on the stove for when hubby arrived home from work.) That the White Australia Policy wasn't effectively abolished until the 1970s is also significant: the Australian "fast food" culture that was emerging in the post-war period was still highly Anglocentric and xenophobic. Hence it has been difficult, until quite recently, to sample decent Italian food in Australian suburbia outside of a few isolated pockets--my grandparents' kitchen being one of them.

And from that kitchen I now present to you "Anna's Pasta Sauce" (named after my aunty, who passed it on to me). It isn't a ragù--I'll have to get back to you on that one--but it is authentic. The secret, you see, is in a little parcel of herbs and vegetables that you prepare ahead, freeze, and use as required.

"Parcel" mixture (makes 2)
1/2 carrot
1 whole bunch parsley (Italian)
5 or 6 basil leaves
2 cloves garlic
1/2 onion
1/2 celery stick

Place into food processor and process until ground. Freeze unused portion for next time

Meatballs
olive oil
500g beef mince
parsley (lots)
garlic
basil
egg
Parmesan or Romano cheese
breadcrumbs
a couple of slices of bread, crusts removed, soaked in milk for 1/2 an hour

Roll into balls

The sauce
one "parcel"
chilli
extra virgin olive oil
fried onion
350g pork ribs, cooked (or, if you prefer, 350g spicy Italian sausages, cooked)
1 bottle passata
1 can tomatoes (diced/crushed)
1/2 passata bottle water
1 glass red wine
1 tsp sugar
meatballs

Bring to boil, then low-medium for at least one hour, or until meatballs are cooked.


You'll think you've died and gone to heaven.

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