"Midnight Express" come to life...

Unbeknownst to my US brethren, a drug war of the most nefarious kind is being waged at the airports and shipping ports of the US. The federally appointed Drug Czar is losing sleep over it. TSA inspectors are on high alert to search passengers for it. Profiling is running unchecked and unchallenged for "mules" carrying it.

I'm talking about Vegemite(R), of course.

According to a spokesperson for Kraft in Australia, the US Government has undertaken a policy of blocking, confiscating, and destroying any Vegemite attempting to reach US shores. This includes stopping Australians landing in the US and performing searches of their personal effects looking for the innocuous dark brown jar with the bright bio hazard-yellow lid.

"WFT?!?" you are very correct in asking as any reasonable person would (except for anyone who's actually eaten the stuff - yuk). It seems that Vegemite contains the additive folate, which has many health benefits including being key in the initial phases of fetal development in pregnant women. However in the US, folate can only be added to baked goods and cereals. So that, in the eyes of the dreaded Folic Acid Mafia, means anyone carrying it needs to be leaned on. And hard.

"Dat's right!" rasps the Pillsbury Pop'n'Fresh Doughboy followed by his signature giggle. "Cross us and we'll stuff you in an industrial baking oven for 20 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet just to teach you a lesson! (giggle)"

And yes, you would also be right in thinking why the hell are they concentrating men, money, and materiel on scoring The Big Vegemite Haul when there are illegal drugs hidden in Tickle-me Elmos, aliens and possibly dirty weapons they keep on scaring us about streaming into the country virtually unchecked?

Only the makers of Wonder Bread know for sure.

- Farmer Ted

To have and to hold? Yeah, right...

Q: What's black and brown and looks good on an attorney?
A: A doberman pinscher.

How can you avoid the Sir Paul McCartney/Heather Mills bust up in the news. After claiming the divorce would be amicable for the sake of their daughter, one quoted source said that after a "furious row" two months ago the tone of the divorce proceedings turned ugly, putting Mrs Mills-McCartney on the the scent of all that dough like Jethro Bodine after a passle of Granny's hog jowls.

But I know where it all really came from: her lawyers.

Draw up a chair, I'm gonna tell you a story about the divorce of a male friend of mine who was in a similar situation. Wife, young daugther, not rich but with a couple of houses they'd purchased together (they both worked long hours). Their divorce started friendly enough with both agreeing that for their daughter it would be as non-stressful as possible.

This lasted until their first visits to their lawyers. My friend related how his lawyer kept saying things like "You know if you do this or say that, you stand a better position to get the thing." He didn't pay any attention until suddenly from out of his wife's camp, similar type requests began surfacing. Bitter court claims ensued and because of it the divorce dragged out making everyone the loser.

Except the laywers that is. Who sat there racking up billable hours in my friends case; and most likely a share of the spoils as well in the McCartney/Mills case.

You can just see Heather Mills' lawyer, JD degrees (and past victims heads) on the wall behind him, like a real-life Grima Wormtongue leaning over her shoulder, rubbing his dry stick like hands together and whispering whispering "You say he took an occasional sleeping pill when he was having trouble sleeping? You poor dear living with a man who's a drug addict. You deserve compensation for that pain and suffering. Yessss. Yessss."

There oughta be a law.

- Farmer Ted

Observing the Aussies: Food...

I think the Aussies fall somewhere between England and the US when it comes to food. Not that the US is in any stretch of the imagination the land of haute cuisine, but I do think because of the large immigrant makeup of what makes the (now) 300 million people there has been an amazing diversity in American cuisine.

So what's here, my countrymen back home might ask?

Well I think the oddest thing they eat here is what they affectionately call "meat pies." Now once any Americans reading this get their minds out of the gutter (shame on you!), they are actually hand-sized tarts of flaky crust containing a meat gravy mixture.

And are they ever available here! You can get them flash frozen, from street vendors, and from bakeries. Served with gravy on top, with a side salad, and in a plate of mushy peas (don't get me started). They come filled with beef, chicken, lamb, or even vegetarian. For lunch. For dinner. On the run. They are considered the height of deliciousness and people here will drive miles to go to a bakery that makes "the best meat pies."

Can any American even think of using the words "best", "meat", and "pie" together in a sentence other than to say "I had a Swanson pot pie last night and meat was so nasty it was the best feeling to throw it away."

Another thing they do that cracks me up is sell you slices of bread in coffee shops and such for about, oh, $3 for 2 toasted slices. Of course, this price is in Australian dollars which means you really paid about 45-cents US, so that makes it more palatable. But when I first expressed astonishment at seeing this displayed in a bakery case I was met with that blank "WTF!" look I'm so used to these days.

What I'd love to do is turn them loose at Jim's Steaks on South Street in Philadelphia. Once faced with that greasy array of options and a sweaty tattooed overweight grill guy braying"Waddayawantandmakeitfastoryousegotodaendofdaline!" they'll crumble like the crust on one of their meat pies.

Then I'll have my revenge.

- Farmer Ted

Observing the Aussies: On the road...

I mean they do it all over the world. Driving, I mean. Only here they take it to a form not seen since Exit 11 off the New Jersey Turnpike.

First off? No solid lines between traffic. Yep. All the roads, including the major ones simply have the same white dashed lines all over, punctuated from time-to-time with cement curb-height bumps where the center would be, designed to be just at the right height to rip the exhaust system clean off your car.

Want more road danger? Their telephone poles on the side of the road, called Stobie poles, are made of concrete and steel. That's right, hit one of those and say hello to Jesus, my friend. Some people say it's because the termite problem is so bad that wooden poles wouldn't last. I say, it's the reason there are only 25 million people on this whole continent: It's some sort of perverse population control mechanism devised by the roads department.

Then there's the fact that there are cars here you will not find anywhere in the world. Not because they're unique, just that everywhere else junked them long ago. I'm talking Gremlins, Novas, Ford Fairlanes. It's a veritable "Island of Mis-fit Cars." You know, that Christmas stop-action island where Santa left toys too weird to give as gifts? Like the train engine with square wheels? That's what Australia is for cars. Maybe it's the climate. Maybe Santa has an extra large sleigh. But here they are. Death traps moving on four wheels since these things were long before safety devices. Again, population control.

Finally there's a maneuver I call the "dart and switch", where they dart out of a side road in the teeth of solid wall of oncoming traffic and switch right into your lane going well below the speed limit. I saw one get their come-uppance yesterday when they didn't switch quite fast enough from the dart and got sideswiped by one of the on-coming cars. "NOVICE!!!" an old lady screamed out her car window as she disappeared in a cloud of noxious fumes.

Yep, these guys play for keeps here.

Of course, Australians seem to accept all this with the same stolid incuriosity they meet all such things that puzzle the rest of the world: With a bright "G'day, mate!" and a cheery wave.

Meanwhile, I'm terrified some AMC Alliance will misjudge the dart, have it's brake system ripped out by those median bumps, hit a concrete and steel telephone pole and wind up careening into me.

Now THAT, gentle readers, is terror.

- Farmer Ted

Sometimes a DVD is just a DVD...

Being on my own here, I've been finding I have a bit of free time on my hands. Expecting this, I packed about two-dozen DVD of movies and TV series that I enjoyed back home. One of these is the movie Se7en, arguably one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen and one of my top 10 thrillers.

And no, I won't go into my Desert Island Movies, okay.

One of the things I look forward to are the extras on the discs. I just LOVE them! I watch all the deleted scenes and turn on the commentaries and watch the entire movie again. To me, the commentaries add to my enjoyment by increasing the understanding of what's behind the movie.

So hearing the director, David Fincher, and especially the writer, Andrew Kevin Walker, discuss Se7en while watching the film made it even more incredible. If you liked the film as much as I do, things to consider:

There is no explicit violence in the film - it's all implied. Yet many people claim there was because it was directed to make you complete the acts in your mind.

Writer Walker wrote the movie while living in New York City - a city he hated. He wrote Se7en as a gift to NYC for the misery it made him feel. Walker is from Mechanicsburg, PA. He also is the first dead body you see in the movie.

The Brad Pitt character, "David Mills", was originally screenwritten for Denzel Washington.

Kevin Spacey was an outside shot for serial killer "John Doe": he was too expensive. Only when the studio relented and increased the budget was he able to be signed.

"The head in the box" ending was the original screen write of the movie but almost didn't make it. Only intense lobbying of the producer by Walker, Pitt, and Morgan Freeman stopped the ending from being written having Mills crash in to save his wife (played by Gwenyth Paltrow) from Doe, killing Doe in the process.

Of course, sometimes it doesn't pay to read too much into all this. On an episode of The Simpsons I just saw, "Apu" meets up with a cartoon version of Butch Patrick who played "Eddie Munster" and asks him, "If your father was a Frankenstein and your mother was a vampire, why were you a werewolf?"

Good question. Guess sometimes you can just plain over-analyze anything.

- Farmer Ted

Observing the Aussies: Money...

Did you know they don't use pennies in Australia? They have bills plus $2 and $1 coins; 50-, 20-, 10- and 5-cents peices -- but no pennies. It's not because of things not costing any number of cents, but somehow the Aussies have bought into practice the idea of rounding to the nearest multiple of five in order to eliminate the need for pennies in circulation.

So how do they manage this? Well, I was pretty surprised when following a purchase I got the receipt only to see the entry "Rounding" with the amount "0.01" cheerfully and boldy printed next to it. Of course that penny was computed to round UP to the nearest nickel. "Does it ever round down?" I wondered. Who knows. No one in front of me in line was complaining about the practice, though.

A completely random and biased survey of citzens revealed first puzzlement as to what I was talking about; and then the startled "Oh yeah! They do do that, don't they mate!" followed by the rueful laugh. My then asking if merchants ever rounded down was met with laughter so loud I swear even a kookaburra was startled off the old gum tree.

"But there's a bright side to it!" they always hasten to point out, "Purchases with credit cards aren't rounded!"

Gee. Thanks.

- Farmer Ted

That little white guy...

It was one of those moments frozen in history that are indelibly stamped in time. I'm talking about the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City in which Tommie Smith and John Carlos when, at the awarding of their medals on the podiums during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner, raised their fist in a black power salute in silent protest against racism in the US. Smith and Carlos were sent home the next day by the US Olympic Committee.

What we Americans don't pay attention to is the little guy on the left. His name was Peter Norman, an Australian, and he played a part in supporting this moment, knowing of it in advance and helping in the execution by suggesting the pair of gloves that Smith and Carlos are wearing (which why one has his left fist up and the other his right).

The three of them remained friends since that fateful day.

Mr Norman passed away yesterday at the age of 64.

I've always held the belief that great moments in history are made up a thousand little stories. Mostly untold. Mostly unknown. And mostly unsung. Even Mr Norman was censured by the Olympic Committee for his part in the protest.

I do wonder if I've ever contributed to such a moment, even in a small way.

Guess I'll never know.

But I know about Mr Norman now.

- Farmer Ted

Innocence lost...

I do feel such sorrow for the people touched by the recent tragedy at a small Amish one-room schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. From my limited contact with the Amish and Mennonites (who to the Amish are practically decadent, believe it or not), I knew the murderer was not Amish.

So Dubya, I guess feeling that he has to do something to appear like he cares, will be holding a summit trying to connect the recent shootings in Colorado, Wisconsin, and now Pennsylvania. To me, any fool can see that the only thing that connects them is the tragedy of these schools being used as killing fields by disturbed people. Each perpetrator was completely different: one was a student, in another a deranged drifter, and finally an (to all accounts) otherwise stable father who snapped. Plus each community and type of school was different. Going back to Dubya's ill-conceived gesture, most likely he'll wind up doing what he always does when faced with a problem: look blank and then hide behind a heartfelt prayer, rather than there be any real outcome.

Who knows what the answer is? Perhaps there is no one answer. Maybe it's a combination of many things whose final tragic outcome was enabled by the ready accessibility of guns.

What I do know for certain is that for so many children and so many families, there is innocence irretrievably lost.

- Farmer Ted

Observing the Aussies: Sports...

Australians like the oddest sports. Like cricket. This was made vivid to me when I looked in the newspaper and saw a local sporting goods store advertising a sale on cricket bats. Tell me, have you ever seen any circular in the states even include cricket bats? I haven't.

They also love rugby and have two major leagues - the Australian Football League (AFL) and the National Rugby League (NRL). As both held championships this weekend with lotsa press coverage, I've noticed some things about rugby compared to American football.

American football players are fat-assed slobs. I say this because, from what I've seen, there is no such thing as a fat rugby player. What with all that running back and forth across the field and bumping into each other as mysteriously as those plastic men on those vibrating NFL games you got as a kid at Christmas that never really worked right, they are all fit as hell.

Rugby players are glorified brawlers. This is easy to tell because they tackle, hit, and slam into each other with no body protection other than a team logo and a mouthguard. This makes them either incredibly tough or incredibly stupid. Either way, you gotta admit they would be the ones to have your back in a bar fight.

US football teams only pick rugged team names. Here there are rugby teams with names like the Swans, the Waratahs (a type of flower, ferchrissake) and the Rabbitohs. Hardly imagery US teams would even consider since there's nothing rough and tough about a rabbit.

Finally, Australians love their rugby in a way the US can only dream of. That was easy to see if you look at attendance of the recently completed championships: 97,000 (AFL) and 85,000 (NRL). Not only do we just not do venues like this, but because Australia's population is small (1/10 of the US) this meant a statistically significant portion of the population actually attended the matches. And this is with two leagues.

Hmm. What did I do with my old USFL coffee mug, anyway?

- Farmer Ted