Of beaches and beef

Despite my reservations at what might have been a bad weekend, the beach was great! Even though I'm Australian, and the most common question I get asked is "Do you surf?", it has been years since I had been to the beach. I was never a Bondi bum to begin with (too many tourists) as we had holidays pretty close to an awesome surf beach about two hours out of Sydney. Though most of the holiday was digging trenches and chopping trees, at least two days were spent at the beaches. And Greek-style bbq nearly every night. There's nothing better for keeping mozzies away than throwing some tea tree branches on the fire.

July 4 was also Independence Day for the U.S.A. It galls me that books at my school teach a rosy picture of great patriots rising up against an evil empire. In reality, the whole issue about independence from Great Britain was more about taxation than lofty ideas of freedom. You can read more about it here. In other words, we'll gladly let you fight for us, but don't you dare try to tax us for the service.
That being said;


"Pledges of allegiance are marks of totalitarian states, not democracies," says David Kertzer, a Brown University anthropologist who specializes in political rituals. "I can't think of a single democracy except the United States that has a pledge of allegiance."

The Korean Government will require all restaurants serving beef to specify the country of origin from this week. Some in my area already do, and it's Australian beef. Like I mentioned before, Australia's top importer of beef is the U.S., which exports its own beef to Korea.

Today is also the birthday of Marc Chagall. I was lucky enough to have a friend take me to Seongnam Arts Centre last winter for a Chagall exhibition. The ones I saw had a clear circus theme.

Still, it will be nice to sleep until noon and then laze about this coming Saturday.
And the answer is no.