Small Apple Chip Tidbit: Come Estai...Mate??!!!

Dear Reader(Myself)

I promise my entry this week will be short. When one thinks of Australia's demographic makeup, it is natural to think of the commonwealth's Aboriginal(50,000 years old) and Anglo-Celtic(223 years old) heritage. However  many people might not know that close to  5 percent of Australia's population is made up of......immigrants from Italy and (mainly) their descendants? Starting with the Australian Gold Rush in the middle of the 19th century, London encouraged  limited amounts of immigration to fill labor shortages in agriculture caused by men leaving their jobs to attempt to find fortune in Victoria and South Australia. Amongst immigrants brought in mainly from northern Europe, these Italians were mainly middle class and wealthier folks who could afford passage to Australia. After the rush subsided,many of these folks stayed on in the country and assimilated into the fabric of Australian society. Many of them were skilled professionals and merchants who were quick to find success, and made a major impact upon the cultural and economic life of Victoria and the city of Melbourne especially. Fast forward some 70 odd years down the road  and we land in 1945.  At the end of the Second World War, Australia's political leadership, most notably amongst them, Prime Minister Ben Chiffley, realizing both how close the commonwealth had come to being invaded by the Japanese and the implicit necessity for more people to grow both the economy and thus its ability to defend itself properly, launched a massive immigration program. During the thirty years following 1945, more than a half million Italians, this time a much more economically diverse group, along with millions of other displaced persons from around Europe, were welcomed to come work and live in the country. As a result, 1 out of every 20 Australians today were either born in Italy or descended from someone born in Italy. I am stretching it a bit here, but if there is such a thing as Apple Gelato, I hope that this could be considered a mildly satisfying spoonful of such a concoction.
Cheers!

APPLE CHIP TIDBIT: Australia's Jessie James

Dear Reader(myself and I),
I have got a sour apple gummy bear for ya( yay says dave..I like anything with sugar and an artificial sour apple flavor)! No chips of knowledge today. This is blood and guts and calories and intellectual fat up the wazoo!!! Today, I will talk about  briefly about Ned Kelly. Who is Ned Kellly, you might ask? Well, dear reader, he is only the greatest bushranger(read: wild west outlaw in the United States) who was a complete an utter thug, robbing, torturing and killing scores of people in the bush(read:country or rural) regions of  northeastern Victoria, Australia throughout the early to late 1870's  However is legend is more popular then that of any lawman or "good guy" that existed at the same time. Some say that this is due to  his supposed representation of the defiant and individualist ethic that many of the early pioneers that settled the then western stretches of Australia had. Some say his legend is due to the resonance of the great resentment that many Irish convicts, who were sent to Australia to serve time as prisoners or periods of indentured servitude held towards the colonial British authorities(today almost one third of all Australian citizens claim some Irish heritage on one or both sides of their family).  His legend was mostly forged in blood as he seeminlgly murdered with impunity for a period of five years, while successfully evading capture with the help of the large Kelly clan that would often shelter him after commiting one of his many crimes. One night, in late October of 1880, four regional policemen who were searching for Kelly were ambushed by Ned and his gang. Three of the officers were captured and one was able to escape. The escaped officer, realizing that he had been captured by Kelly, told the officers of his  gneral wareabouts. A posse of officers was dispatched to the area around Glenrowan, Victoria and found the three officers dead having had their scrotums and testicles shot off by the Kelly gang.  The regional police received a lucky break from a local informant that Kelly and his gang were holed up in a safety house in town. A few days later, a large contingent of police brought in from Melbourne to raid Kelly compound. The police arrived late in the afternoon on a freight train and promptly surrounded the compound and began firing live rounds at it. A ferocious gun battle raged into the night between the two camps. The next day during a lull in the fighting, Kelly, clad in a homemade suit  made of steel that covered his head and upper body tried to make a run for it into the bush in back of the house. However, one of the policemen spotted him and shot him in the leg, which was not protected. He was quickly apprehended and brought to Melbourne where he was quickly tried and convicted of murder. He was sentenced to death by hanging. A few days later, he was executed by British authorities at a  prison within the city limits.  He was only twenty five years of age at the time of his death. But his legend lives on in Australian folklore. Villain, symbol of defiance and the wild early years of  the European settlement of the Australian bush country and the untamed appetites, dreams and dangers that were realized there, Ned Kelly has come to symbolize an antihero whose chararcter has deep resonance in the Australian psyche. That was like eating a bag of just sour apple gummy bears! Thanks for indulging me, dear reader!!!

APPLE CHIP TIDBIT: I was never a math or science guy in school...

But "THE ROCKS" of Sydney tell a story that has more to do with vice then geology!

Dear Reader(Myself),
This past Thursday, I had the distinct pleasure of being able  to travel two hours south of Newcastle on the New South Wales "Country-Link" commuter rail service in order to visit the state capital(and one of the true gems of the Pacific Rim), Sydney. This is where the story of  modern Australia starts. As I may have mentioned in a previous post, Captain Arthur Phillip, who oversaw the first European(read: British) settlement of Australia, set up camp at Port Jackson(the formal name given to what most people call Sydney Harbor) in January of 1788, in the what is now known as the Circular Quay area of Sydney, in the shadow of where the Sydney harbor bridge crosses the water seperating the city center from suburban north Sydney. The very first neighborhood of what would become the city of Sydney was quickly erected and in  short  order would become a crime and disease ridden slum filled with brothels, taverns, boarding houses and trenchant poverty. It was the embodiment of  all of the social ills that manifested themselves in the British policy of "transportation" or simply the shipping  of criminals to serve their sentences far away from the motherland's shores(in the case of Australia, to what might as well have been the end of the earth) and out of sight and mind. The area's buildings were constructed largely with the use of local sandstone and the new locals started referring to the collection of sandstone structures as "the Rocks", and the name stuck. As I mentioned earlier, the natural sciences and math never were the subjects in school that truly animated me. However, the study of the human past does, and I found it to be rather neat to be amongst the sandstone rocks that would eventually spawn with it a major center of commerse and would thus establish  the  foundation of what would become the Commonwealth of Australia. You will have to forgive me as I poured an overflowing handful of chips into your hands. The chips that fell on the floor and that are still plenty good to eat will  boost your immunity to all sorts of illness. Sometimes, my pedantic ways gets the best of me. But  in the end, they are good for you!
Take Care!

APPLE CHIP TIDBIT: If only I had been born 192 years and 363 days earlier and was a british convict...

Then I could have been a member of the First Fleet!  The First Fleet was the group of eleven British Naval supply ships which set sail from England in May of 1787 and arrived at Port Jackson in present day Sydney harbour on January 26th, 1788. The flotilla, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, was sent to establish a colony on land claimed for Great Britain on the east coast of the Australian continent by Captain James Cook eighteen year earlier. Cook called this land, New South Wales. The First Fleet consisted of almost eight hundred convicts and more then six hundred members of the British military sent to establish the claimed lands' territorial integrity. Although numerous European explorers had set foot on the Australian continent prior to the late 18th century(Potuguese and Dutch), none had taken the time to establish an actualy community on the island(of course, the indigeneous peoples, known here in Australia as "first peoples", had been living here for almost 50,000 years prior to European settlement). This day is known as "Australia Day". I was born on January, 24th 1981. If I had been born 192 years and 363 days earlier in Britain and had been convicted of a crime, I could have been one of the first of His Majesty's subjects establishing the United Kingdom's largest(physically) colony! Crisp crunching sounds can be simulated by the reader at this point.

Lady Randolph Churchill

Mother of The Right Honorable Winston Churchill was born and raised in.....BROOKLYN, NEW YORK? Yes, it is true! This Apple Jack of a fact may surprise some! Winston Churchill's mother, Jeannette Jerome was born in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, New York about one city block from where I used to live with my dad! Crazy huh? She met Winston's father in Paris, Sir Randolph Churchill in Parus later on in life! She was born on Amity street! Pretty nuts huh?

Serious Educational Anti Oxidents! Australia and the World Wars

Interesting and quick note here! Australian, until 1949,were citizens of the United Kingdom! However both World Wars left Australians feeling somewhat alone in the world with the motherland being a dubious protector. During the First World War, the sacrifice of 8,000 Aussies during the Gallipoli campaign and the close call brush with the Imperial Japanese, left many Aussies feeling either betrayed and/or vulnerable to the outside world. This convinced many that self reliance and further independence from Britain was necessary for survival in what was an unruly part of the World(i.e Communist Threat in Asia/The Pacific Rim) which Britain had proven itself unable to defend. Thus the Australian Government' threw open the gates to newcomers from across  Europe and eventually the world(after 1970) and  started a great post war immigration push to expand both the country's population in order to grow the economy as well as the countries military might.  This wave of immigration changed the face of Australia forever and would go along way to creating the dynamic and vibrant multicultural-outward looking democracy that exists today.
Thank you Bill Bryson-"In A Sunburned Country".  A good read!

AYYYYY! AYYY! AYYYYE! Baybay!---Mira a los caballos!

Photo by Photosho

Photo by PhotoSho

Hola companeros! Me and my BAYYYBAY Sho, traveled to Chincoteague Island, on the Eastern Shore of  Virginia, as well as Assateague Island off of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. There are approximately 150 feral horses on each island both of which are part of the Assateague Island National Seashore, of which it costs 15 dollars to enter for a one week visit. Supposedly in 1750 a Spanish ship ran ashore, causing a rupture in the hull, thus causing a group of horses to run free. The other more widely accepted explanation is that land owners on Virginia and Maryland's eastern shore simply set the horses that they no longer wanted loose (trying to avoid taxes) on the island on these barrier islands and thus a group of domesticated horses became wild.  I would certainly recommend a trip to the Maryland half where the above pictures were taken! As you can see, one can get quite close to the horses. They are beautiful! In addition it was interesting to drive through the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Va.  Although they are in relatively close proximity to the Washington D.C metro area, they are quite rural and one feels very distant from the hubbub of the  Mid -Atlantic/Northeast Megalopolis and the Eastern seaboard in general.  Do go visit!!!!

This is David, signing off saying every once in a while, drinkin' and bloggin' is so much fun!!!( listen to the Business circa 1982.... )

Adios and Buenos Noches..mundo carino! 

Have a bite! Tzu does not =zoo!

Good Evening to myself and the world! As I mentioned in post number one, I am on a dead end quest to learn as much useful and useless information that I can pack in my lifetime. This posting will be relatively short. Look at it as having one of those mini apple sauce containers that your mom packed for your lunch when you were but a wee babe in arms! It's not a full Fuji Apple eaten to the core but at least you can say you were in the ballpark! Its all good, karma gives us some slack.

  Anyway here it is: What is famous Eastern Zhou dynasty military advisor, Sun Tzu's real name? Answer: SUN WU! SUN WHO? Yes, indeed, the TZU in Sun Tzu means MASTER. WU is his given name! Who knew that the TZU is really a WU???!!!! Not I.  Join me tommorow for a bit more cranial nutrition. For now, sleep tight, and soak in the nutrition!