Australia's rep as a nation of rule-flouting larrikins takes fatal blow!

A big part of the white Australian psyche is a supposed rebel spirit borne from its convict beginnings in the nineteenth century, men, women, kids ripped from the motherland and thrust into a wild, tough country.

The truth is very different, of course.

Australia is marked by its slavish adherence to rules, whether its water restrictions (citizen police diligently telephoning authorities if a water is being unlawfully watered), driving at a determined speed limit or ensuring music is neither heard nor played after nine pm.

A country of docile rule-followers, demonstrated most recently by the population’s response to the most draconian pandemic lockdowns in the world, the few protesters quickly dispersed with rubber bullets and swarms of police arresting the uncooperative.

And, all aided and abetted by armies of citizen police armed with sharp eyes and telephones.

After an ungodly amount of rain on Australia’s east coast, surfers on Sydney’s northern beaches used shovels to open up lagoons to create standing waves, something that’s been happening for decades.

Real good, real clean fun,.

Not any more. Citizen cops, along with local councillors, have combined to call for a shutdown of the “illegal” activity, kids threatened with $1100 fines if they take up a shovel.

The warming came after a member of Dee Why’s citizen police force “saw people, including four teens, with spades digging a channel to the ocean from Dee Why Lagoon on Saturday, September 10… he witnessed the the two adults watching the teenagers, aged 12 to 14, create a metre-wide trench. The resident, who asked not to be named, told the Manly Daily that the trench soon opened to close to 4m wide and started funnelling a large flow of water. ‘It created a large wave that the children were surfing on with surfboards. I asked one parent what they were doing and the man said ‘I know some people don’t like it, but it’s fun for the kids and people have been doing it here for years’. I was told I’m part of the fun police.’”

The council, for its part, warned, “Unauthorised lagoon openings are illegal and can be dangerous for members of the public. The water outflow often develops into ‘standing waves’, with particularly dangerous downward pressure. This can trap even strong swimmers.”

Trouble in paradise!

The former BFF of big-wave honeypot Kai Lenny has come under fire following a series of suits related to his 300-acre property on Kauai or, to quote Chas, “the cocoon wherein the Harvard honorary degree holder entered a worm and exited a butterfly.”

The thirty-eight-year-old Zuckerberg’s transformation from “pale silicon drone” to foil and fight king is the stuff of legend. 

Foiling down the Ne Pali coastline with Lenny, choking the hell out of his sparring partners.

However, not all is cool, as the kids say, in Zuckerberg’s bucolic paradise. 

After dumping BFF Kai Lenny for MMA expert and UFC debutante Kha “The Shadow” Wu, Zuck has had to fend off claims from the builder of his $2.9 million “Jungle House and Cabin” and “Tree Houses” that he stiffed him of 133k. 

Williams Construtions claims it “has not been paid for all of its labor, materials, and equipment as agreed” and “(Zuck’s company) has failed and/or refused to make payment in accordance with Williams’s requests.”

A spokesperson for the Zucks told Kauai Now, “To our knowledge, we have paid all invoices submitted by Williams Construction in full.”

Whether the claim is right or no, why the billionaire don’t just cut a check to get the damn thing off his back remains a mystery. 

Meanwhile, the family of a former security guard has filed a wrongful death suit against the Zucks after the seventy-year-old guard, Rodney Medeiros, died of a heart attack shortly after walking up a steep and muddy hill on the property.

Zuckerberg, who is worth sixty-billion dollars, give or take a few bill, offered the fam seven-and-a-half gees to bury ol Rodney.

Either he tight or a believer in fighting for the truth, no matter how minuscule the amount.

A brave and beautiful new world.

One thing I learned having a daughter that surfed was, until a certain age, there wasn’t much that separated the sexes.

Girls, although wildly outnumbered, regularly won contests and demonstrated the same stratospheric improvement in skills groms get from long days spent in the ocean, free of the need to work or tend to kids etc. 

Then, around twelve, the girls split into their div and the boys into theirs. And, what happened when the genders were divided was the boys continue to improve, due, largely, to the volume of boys surfing. 

Meaning if there’s fifty boys in the boardriders club, a few of ‘em are going to be preternaturally talent, whereas if there’s six or eight girls, it’s way less likely.

Ergo, competition brings out the skill, not a little extra muscle and  weight. 

If Stephanie Gilmore had gone through the men’s system, boys junior events, the men’s qualifying series, you think she wouldn’t be a level above even what she is now? 

Anyway, I ain’t sure about other sports, MMA, boxing, swimming, football and so on, muscle and power count for everything there, but The Atlantic’s Maggie Mertens argues we gotta smash the gender binary in her (guessing the pronoun here) story, “Separating Sports by Sex Doesn’t Make Sense”. 

 “Gen Zers are more likely than members of previous generations to reject a strict gender binary altogether,” she writes. “Maintaining this binary in youth sports reinforces the idea that boys are inherently bigger, faster, and stronger than girls in a competitive setting—a notion that’s been challenged by scientists for years.”

And, 

“Though sex differences in sports show advantages for men, researchers today still don’t know how much of this to attribute to biological difference versus the lack of support provided to women athletes to reach their highest potential.” 

Where do you stand?

Binary, non-binary or do you,  like I, enjoy any kind of sugar in your bowl?