In the Aussie news

Since I can’t share photos yet, I decided to share a few cultural “funnies” while I have internet access.Since we’ve been here, the news has been dominated by the prime minister’s war on “bikie gangs”. This started because of a brutal beating and murder of a biker gang member in the Sydney airport (just a few hours after we walked through that very spot). They sound awful, but the word “bikie” just makes me chuckle every time I hear it because it makes me think of five-year-olds on trikes sticking their tongues out at their mothers.

The murder touched off other violence amongst bikie gang members and the newspaper this morning ran a story about one of the funerals with this touching item: “About 300 bikies attended Mr. Roberts’ funeral yesterday, remembering the man they called ‘Rebel Rick’ as a ‘superstar’ of drinking who ‘loved the chicks and they loved him.’”

Now that’s a classy obituary note. I liked the fact that the bikies ran the red light at the crematorium and the police didn’t stop them (they were grieving, after all).

The paper also wrote up this juicy item:

“Penis threat

Two childcare workers have been handed suspended jail terms for holding a knife to a four-year-old boy and threatening to cut off his penis. The mother and daughter admitted making the threats to ‘shock’ the boy so he would stop exposing himself at the Perth daycare centre where they worked.”

Wow. The article didn’t say whether the boy was shocked enough to keep from the said activity, but I imagine he’ll remember the threat!