There’s an article in the Sunday Mail, ‘Students quit over anti-US slurs’, that I found really annoying. And that was just from reading the headline.
American students have told The Sunday Mail the verbal attacks are unbearable and threatening to escalate into physical violence.
Griffith University student Ian Wanner, 19, from Oregon, said abusive Australian students had repeatedly called him a “sepo” — short for septic tank. “It is so disrespectful. It’s not exactly the most welcoming atmosphere here,” he said.
Are you shitting me? If every American student left the country for being called a seppo, the population of Brisbane would be about half of what it is. The fact is that when you are given an irreverent nickname it is often a sign that you’ve been accepted, and I don’t think this kind of humour is peculiar to Australia.
It’s also true that if you are a humourless douchebag and take offence at being called a name, then no matter whether you are in Brisbane, or Portland, people will keep doing it. Don’t you dare come over here and expect my country to tiptoe around your fragile ego.
Unless things have really changed since I was at University—which is still ongoing, but I’m referring more to my 2½ years at a residential college—people are not generally openly hostile toward Americans.
Since then, the war in Iraq has happened, and it was supported by our government just as much as theirs. So I’m going to assume the people abusing American students know why that’s stupid, and move on.
Queensland Anti-Discrimination deputy commissioner Neroli Holmes said the alleged labelling of students as “sepos” could be classed as racial vilification under anti-discrimination laws.
No, dickhead seppo would be vilification. Seppo is just cockney rhyming slang meaning an American person. As with most other ethnic soubriquets it really depends upon the intent of the speaker. I just hope this journalism student hasn’t done any real damage to our city’s reputation, because I happen to feel that American students are treated pretty well here.
Been having fun with this new Google Maps thing. It’s a service where you can look at satellite pictures of the entire world, and pan, zoom in, and zoom out. Some areas have higher quality pictures than others. Check out these classics:
Uluru — low res but still cool (now hi-res!)
Cameron Corner — state borders of South Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland meet
Cape Byron — easternmost point on Australian continent
St Lucia — suburb of Kings
Area 51 — nothing to see here
Abu Dhabi — big empty suburbs on the outskirts of the city just waiting for people to build
Chernobyl — deceptively lifelike
Adelaide — the most planned city in the Southern Hemisphere
Canberra — a close second
Superfluous traffic device — in Los Angeles
Almost-as-crazy traffic thing — in Bratislava, Slovakia
Pyramids and suburbia — Cairo, Egypt
Lake Baikal — a lake “bigger than Belgium and almost as dull” (© P.J. O’Rourke)
Lo-res Reykjavik — Iceland, with vast, nondescript plains to the north of the nation’s capital conveniently provided in high quality
Rock-like structure — Gibraltar
Although I’m not sure what the site itself has to offer, the very idea of Free Katie is enough to make me inclined to assist the cause in any way I can.
At first I thought Katie Holmes was just a bit naïve, and we all cringe whenever an old man takes a young, fertile woman out of the market, but that’s the dating game for you. So, I was happy enough for Tom Cruise and the 26-year-old star of such masterpieces as The Gift and Disturbing Behavior to be going out.
Cruise has been telling everyone who will listen what a wonderful woman Holmes is, as she has made it clear that they will not have sex. This is, again, sort of how relationships work.
Now, it is reported that Cruise has converted Holmes to his religion, Scientology. This filled me with a pure, wholesome rage—not the kind that makes you smash your mouse against the desk, or break light poles with your fists, a rage without any physical manifestations.
You miserable bastard. Putting that shit into her head.
So, Free Katie, and send a message to weirdos everywhere to stop propagating their weird brainwash cults.
