Argh, Kizzine!

I'm a huge fan of Iron Chef. I myself am the Champion of the Seedyville Iron Chef League and was quite excited when Emily told me of the new Iron Chef Australia production. But then I figured, since I live in Australia and our entire media industry is run by fuckwits, they'll inevitably cock it up because they're so retarded and install Matt Preston as the Chairman Kaga analog which will be complete and utter shite.

So here's my suggestion for the 4 Iron Chef regions instead of the original Japanese 4 (Chinese, French, Italian and Japanese) and American (who knows, who cares) versions.

1. Iron Chef Asian
Since having one Iron Chef per country seems a bit narrow in Australia, I think it's pertinent to have an Iron Chef versed in all Asian cuisine - Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian and from the Indian sub-continent. Australia has a wide range of local ingredients and chefs that specialize in all these forms and could easily tackle any international challenger.

2. Iron Chef Mediterranean
This one seems obvious for an Aussie version since nearly every metropolitan city has a sizeable Italian, Greek or Slavic population. The Meditteranean would also take in Spain and southern France which covers most of the influential European styles. It could also take in North Africa and parts of the Middle East.

3. Iron Chef Western Contemporary
This Iron Chef would take in the best fusion styles from the US and UK. There would be variations on Central and South American flavors, Indian, Chinese and even Middle Eastern cuisines. The chef would also be well versed in making new artistic creations based on Cajun, Southern US, Southwestern US and Soul food.

4. Iron Chef Australian
Of course, there must be an Aussie representative on the show that showcases the best innovations from the Australian culinary world. This chef could also be called the "fusion" Iron Chef but still keep his or her style rooted in the Australian culture - both traditional and modern. He would be literally "writing the history" of the new Australian cuisine.

Its just a thought, but I want Australia to have a competitive cooking show that it can actually be proud of this time!

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

Clarity and Passion

Either August will kill me or I will kill it.

In addition to my actual studies, I'll also be:

• leading the Melbourne NMMNG support group
• Contributing two talks to the Australian General Semantics Society National Conference in collaboration with AGS members with valuable assistance from Media Ecology Association founder and Fordham University Professor of Media and Communication Dr. Lance Strate
• Attending the United Nations DPI/NGO Annual Conference on Global Health representing the Institute of General Semantics
• Writing my sarcastic as hell columns on the insipid and tasteless AU federal election for Onya Magazine
• Gearing up Melon Race for production, writing and shooting.

I'll probably need a drink at some point. Its also come to my attention that a candidate for the Secular Party of Australia is running in my electorate against incumbent Simon Crean who holds Hotham with a 13% margin. Since I don't want to vote for or even preference the ALP, Liberals or Greens or (shudder) Family First in the Lower House it makes sense to vote informal to avoid my vote going to a party I disapprove of. Then there's the dilemma of voting for the Secular Party to grant it some measure of public campaign funding for the next election and their ambiguous policy on "banning religious attire at schools" (Yarmulkes? Hijab? Crucifixes? what?) which seems to contradict their call for maximizing civil liberty. Though I have decided to preference Stephen Conroy dead last in the Senate Group Voting Ticket (below-the-line) I'm still undecided as which party to preference first. I am of course leaning toward the "Triumvirate of Libertarians" - the LDP, the Australian Sex Party or the aforementioned Secular Party. It seems politics, like everything else in life, one size rarely fits all.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

This Human Equation

Holidays from both study and work leave me with spare neurons to devote to idle reflection. I decided to read extensively on media ecology and economics over my semester break in preparation for my Masters' thesis as well as work on my General Semantics studies.

Chatting to an acquaintance of mine (whom I hope to get to know better!) we settled that, amongst a great many other things, one aspect of commonality we shared was we "didn't understand humans properly" despite our chosen professions of reporting on what they do and why.

Therefore, I will embark on an ongoing project entitled the Human Equation project, the title inspired in part by Arjen Lucassen's Ayreon record of the same name and the motto of the American Psychological Association; "man is the sum of his parts." It is my contention that our society has willfully disconnected us from one another; we work longer and spend more money and time alone, purposefully separate ourselves and hole ourselves off from the world using a myriad of digital distractions. These will comprise three initial experiments.


1. The Ellis Experiment
As regular readers may know, Albert Ellis, Ph.D was the father of Rational Emotive Therapy, a widely successful cognitive behavioral therapy. By applying rational, empirical thinking to every day situations he found that people could live happier, calmer and neurosis free.

One of his earlier experiments involved talking to members of the opposite sex since he had an exaggerated fear of speaking in public during his adolescence. At age 19, he forced himself to himself to talk to 100 women in the Bronx Botanical Gardens over a period of a month. Although "he didn't get a date, he reported that he desensitized himself to his fear of rejection by women." I, along with several others will attempt this experiment on a smaller scale to reconnect with people in a meaningful way.

2. The Postman Experiment
Media ecologist Neil Postman was both in awe of and skeptical of technology - especially media technology. While many of us take it for granted he contended that media was a Faustian bargain. It both giveth and it taketh away. It takes our sense of community, ties to the real and tangible and forces us to spend time away from others. In his book Technopoly, he sets an assignment for his students - they must forsake their use of all media technologies for 48 hours. If they broke their media "fast" they were forced to start again from scratch. Set in the mid-90s before the advent of cheap and easily accessible hand-held devices with access to the internet, it will seem that media is unavoidable by design in 2010. Therefore me and my fellow experimenters will attempt 24 hours and record our experiences.

3. The Rushkoff Experiment
I think this one will prove the most challenging. This will be an attempt to re-create tangible value amongst the community by exchanging goods and services in real terms with other people. Instead of buying from corporations, I will try to buy locally and trade with neighbors and others using a modified principle of "comparative advantage" - what I can do well in exchange for something else another can do well that I cannot. In his Life, Inc. he argues that corporations have abstracted wealth from local institutions and people and clustered it towards a center, far removed from everyday life. If we can use the abundance in front of us instead of from somewhere inaccessible, we can add value to ourselves locally instead of an elite few.

These experiments have a two-fold purpose - for myself to further my personal development and re-connect with people in a true-to-fact and purposeful way and to "debunk" the givens of modern society. That we must be disconnected and that "bowling alone" is not the right way but merely the path we have chosen in the environment we find currently find ourselves in. If the map is not the territory, it is time to redraw the map and hopefully through our own action and effort, carve out our territory for the better.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor