Rites of Passage

Justin Schmidt is an entomologist who, in 1984, published a paper in which he presented the comparative pain caused by insect stings, as a scale. In 1990 Schmidt refined this scale and classified the stings of 78 species of insects. The Schmidt scale rates stings from 0 (completely ineffective against humans) to 4 (pure, intense, brilliant pain). Among the insects at the top of the scale is the Paraponera, or South American Bullet Ant, so named because the sting from one is akin to being shot with a bullet. Schmidt described the effect of being stung by a bullet ant as:

"Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel".

Now, as we all know, men on the whole often don't have much to recommend them. They're often not too smart, may not be wealthy or good looking and sometimes smell funny, but one thing a bloke might have in his favour, even if he lacks all other winning characteristics, is toughness. A bloke who knows he hasn't got much else about him will often go to great lengths to establish his toughness, so that at least he has something to offer the prospective mother of his children.

With this in mind, certain tribespeople of the Atlantic coastal lowland rainforests, have evolved an initiation rite for their boys, that will be sure to win them partners, if from no other motivation than sympathy. What they do is, they catch a whole lot of these ants, knock them out by drowning them in a natural chloroform, then weave hundreds of them into sleeves made out of leaves, stinger facing inward. When the ants come to, the boys slip the sleeve onto their arm and have to wear it for ten minutes without showing any signs of pain. This ordeal causes temporary paralysis and days of uncontrollable shaking, but at least everyone knows how tough the boys are.

A typical first reaction on reading this will probably be something along the lines of "I'm glad we don't have stupid initiation rites for adolescent boys to prove how brave and tough they are", but on second thoughts, of course we do. On any given day the electronic and print media serve up a cornucopia of examples of teenage boys doing stupid things to prove their courage and virility. Particularly exciting examples include gang wars, gay bashing, binge drinking, rape, vandalism, the list goes on and on, and what distinguishes these acts from the primitive rituals described above is that the initiate, in fact, suffers no pain or personal loss. This is yet another example of how modern western society is so much cleverer than all other societies. In our male initiation rites, the pain isn't inflicted on the adolescent male, it's inflicted on the rest of society by the adolescent male! This is a much more sensitive and intelligent approach than that of those South American savages.

Far be it from me to disparage teenage boys, I used to be one after all, and for all I know, gentle reader, you may be one as well, or at least related to one that you like. I'm not tarring all adolescent boys with the same brush, but honestly, who can argue that a huge percentage of the mindless destruction that takes place on our streets is perpetrated by teenage boys who feel inadequate about themselves. Look, if you think you fit into this category, I have a message for you. You really don't need to compensate for your inadequacies by knocking over my garbage bin. You're really not all that ugly or stupid, OK? Really, would I kid you?

Drought Solution #1: Attack India !!

Why? Because they've got what we want ... Water. In Brisbane at the moment, the ongoing drought and resultant Level 5 water restrictions mean we can't water our gardens, wash our cars or fill up our swimming pools. We're now restricted to 4 minute showers and being encouraged to install water-saving devices and even rain-water tanks, though how a rainwater tank is supposed to help anyone when it never rains is beyond me. Any civilised inhabitant of 21st century Earth will agree this situation is completely unacceptable. Clearly something needs to be done, but our elected decision-makers are wasting time, Dilly Dallying about, arguing the relative economics of recycling sewerage, diverting reservoirs and desalinating sea water, when the real answer to the problem is staring us all in the face. WAR !!

One of the great attributes of the Human species is its ability to accumulate wisdom by learning from the past, and if there's one lesson the past has taught us it is surely that when we want something we should make war on our neighbors and simply take it from them. In recent times America has reminded us of the wisdom of this strategy by declaring war on Iraq because they wanted more oil, but this war was only the most recent in a proud tradition of wars waged on countries that have stuff we want. In the past, the stuff people wanted was often land. Land is good because the more you own, the more socially adequate you feel. So if, for whatever reason, you feel inadequate (eg; small penis, no friends, stupid) you can accumulate land and feel really tough, especially if you accumulated it by killing other humans.

In the 21st century, water has become an important and valuable resource. My local petrol station charges me about $1.25 for a litre of petrol, but a litre bottle of drinking water costs nearly twice as much. We in Australia need water. India has lots of water. Cherrapunji in India holds the world record for the highest rainfall ever recorded with 26,461mm in 1 year. Measured in another way, Mt Waialeale in Hawaii has the highest average annual rainfall with 11,680mm, but we can't attack America because they're much tougher than us. We'd end up with egg on our face. This is another lesson history has taught us; make sure, before you attack another country, that you can actually win, otherwise you will end up with egg on your face, and we Australians can't afford to get egg on our face because we don't have any water to wash it off.