Lack of knowledge? I blame all of the phonics reading courses- a lot of the names people mock seem to be phonetic spellings of acceptable names. Like the parent has heard the name, though it sounded klassy and applied phonics. As the holder of a formerly exotic name (kylie was unknown in the USA when I was born) I…

SinJin is the typical pronunciation for the very traditional British upper class name of St. John. Yes people name their child St John. This sounds like someone who has only heard the name, never seen it spelled and wants to sound rich/posh. An awful lot of the “terrible” names often feel like the names tried to be…

The shitamachi museum at the edge of ueno Park is an excellent little museum about the life of that area of town. It has a recreation of a tenement neighbourhood, a merchants front room and a few other set ups (fixings from an old bath house, seats from a cafe). Local guides (they speak English) take you round the…

And if you are a plan ahead person, who sorts out their passport with a couple of months factored in, it can be closer to a year. We went to Europe via South Korea last year and my Aussie passport would have hit the 6 month timeframe two days before our return trip through Korea. And because we would have been…

The Texan founding fathers were not fans of politicians, or so I gathered from the amazing molly Ivins. They placed some interesting restrictions on governors as well- significant enough that any governor from there is not exactly well versed in actually working in government. Basically the state government in Texas…

I concur! I am a progressive American in Australia, married to an Australian and I am not surprised by this. I put a lot of blame on the Murdoch though. I was very openly pro-Hillary and had an elderly (female) co-worker that she would never be able to vote for her- would rather choose trump. Horrified. Of course…

Back when I was in jr high, in NM, there was a 9th grader in my “home room” (we had a weird mixed grade home room for one year) who learned for the first time that year that she could tick the box “Caucasian” on demographic forms. Prior to that she would tick other and write white. People are remarkably stupid

I think that it is hard because humans like to say something, and what we fall back on is cliches. Marriage is hard work in the same way that school is hard work. We tell kids to deal with it and that it will work out. But if a kid is being bullied , or struggling (for many reasons) it’s time to drop the hard work…

Maybe it was the median then. I just remember reading a newspaper article that mentioned the average wage and it was what i was earning at the time.

Good to know indexing has taken it above the average. In 2012 $70k plus was around the “average” not that it really was. A lot of sky high resource salaries against much lower at the other end.

Correction- the Medicare surcharge kicks in at about the average wage now (it was frozen at $60k for years but has indexed recently). That can happen at any point where you earn over the magic threshold. The extra penalty also kicks in at 30- an extra 2% loading on premiums for every year over 30 you dont have it. As…

I can’t have children, and my first miscarriage kicked off on Mother’s Day, so I generally don’t want to hear about how being a mother gives you some special power that only moms I’ll understand. (It gives you wrinkles)

Ha! My mum and stepdad are both English, grew up within about 150 miles of each other (they met and live in Australia). On a trip back they went to a museum that served old style fish and chips, made with dripping as the fat (or maybe lard). This was what they grew up with, but neither of them liked it much. A couple…

I doubt many of them are enthused by these EOs. The JOD person I know was always very progressive. He worked for them because he felt it was more in line with his morals, so this would be awful

I hope so- a national go slow workmovement for federal employees

How hard did the DOJ try? It must be pretty sickening to spend your career trying to strengthen the law and the government and be forced to argue against it because your boss is an egotistical idiot

One of the most heartening things about the election season for me was when the person who always publishes religious stuff on their FB feed went on a full blown cannot vote for trump stream. She made some very coherent arguments about how he was unchristian and voting for him was unchristian. Sadly the replies were…

I have been saying this since November, much to the horror of the Australians I work with. At this point he needs to be medically incapacitated and an act of god needs to take out pence and Ryan. Nothing that could remotely be construed as minority violence or terrorism either. I will take a rogue alt-right sniper,…

This! People think that they want to outlaw abortions, but it will have roughly the same effect as prohibition did on drinking. Banning abortions sound good (to those voters) in the abstract but becomes an issue when a beloved child/grandchild/friend needs help. Unless they are living in a tiny rural town composed…

I love Lee Lin Chin’s twitter feed. If she’s covering the inauguration for real, someone needs to get her some pussy related clothing to wear. (For non-Australian her clothes selection can be eclectic)