Cracked Australia

So I was going to write a heart warming and hilarious entry today, but truthfully I got really sidetracked. My little sister, Rebecca, is flying out tomorrow to spend two weeks with me, and I have been planning some trips and activities for us to do, so expect to see a lot of tales of adventure and heroism soon.

However, it has been more than the impending arrival of my sister that has kept me from my blogging duties. As lately, I have found myself addicted to a website called Cracked.com, and its plethora of articles featuring lists such as Top 8 Real Photographs that Prove Hell Exists on Earth, or The 9 Manliest Names in the World. All of this thanks to a man I will keep nameless. (Let's just call him J. King... No that's too obvious, let's call him Jon K.) Hours have disappeared for me while browsing through this site. It's like eating peanuts at 5 Guys. You say your only going to have one, but it never works out that way.

So, because I am lazy, I want to give you a few of the interesting and weird fact I have found out from reading Cracked.com in relation to Australia. (Disclaimer: Cracked is not a PG website, and if you do choose to indulge be mentally prepared)


First fact comes from the list 6 Real People with Secret Identities No One Saw Coming:

Number 2 on the List is: Alfred Deakin

The public persona:
Imagine finding out that Glenn Beck's last book was entirely ghostwritten by Barack Obama. And that there was in fact no Glenn Beck -- the whole operation was just the president trashing himself in public for some bizarre reason.

Well, for years, an anonymous source posted scathing articles in the London newspaper The Morning Post, commenting on, among other things, the political scene in Australia and what an idiot the Australian prime minister was. This was back in the early 20th century, but just like now, people mainly read about politics so they could hear about how stupid politicians were. This source posted weekly for 11 years.

The secret identity:

The beard was fake.

The anonymous journalist dishing dirt on Australian politics was in fact the freaking prime minister of Australia. Alfred Deakin was the Australian prime minister from 1903 to 1910 and a Morning Post employee hired to basically write about himself. Shockingly, Deakin's editorials almost never included passages about the magnificent size and firmness of his manliness, and they were often extremely critical about the decisions (and personal hygiene, we assume) of the Australian PM, aka himself. And you think people on the Internet know how to troll?

For example, in 1905 he called himself "a bookish theorist recklessly pursuing impossible dreams." And in 1906, while on the PM campaign trail, he even accused himself of bullying his opponents. It all started in 1899, while he was still just representing Australia at the U.K. Parliament. The owner of The Morning Post offered him a job as a foreign correspondent. He agreed and continued writing one long report a week for 11 years, seriously risking his political career but wanting to keep the British Empire updated with what was happening in Australia beyond the massive swarms of poisonous animals. (And the teeming hordes of bunny rabbits.)

Incredibly, only a few people knew about this, including his editor, friends, family and ... the taxation official to whom Deakin declared every cent he made from ripping on his own policies. We guess he ... just needed the second paycheck?


The next fact comes from the list 5 Most Horrifying Attempts to Teach Sex Education to Children:

Number 4 on the list is (you guessed it): Condoman

Soon to be a feature film staring Wesley Snipes

Getting kids to listen is tough, ask any teacher at a school for the deaf. You really need to get in there and talk to them in terms they can understand. Often, adults take this as a license to say insincere and awkward things like "fo shizzle" or "I swear your father told me to pick you up."

Nowhere is the difficulty in appealing to children more apparent than in Australia where 90 percent of the adult population has to constantly be on the lookout for the 1,000 different animals that can kill you no matter where you are. The other 10 percent are working on projects like Condoman. Condoman is targeted directly at the condom fearing youth in the aboriginal community. Unwilling to force the kids to eat them just yet, the Department of Community Services and Health sat down and thought, "Damn, is anyone in this room sober?" The answer was a resounding no.

The result was Condoman. Standing proud like a Down Under, Gay Pride Flash, a vaguely disinterested sneer on his face, one hand clenched into a fist and a far away look in his eyes that seems to say, "the Great Lakes Avengers would be a better gig than this," Condoman wants you to not be ashamed of taking a box of condoms from a spandex-clad man on a beach. (That's perfectly normal.) Condoman was so beloved back in 1991, they had to resurrect him in 2009 with an updated campaign in which he hurls condoms like ninja stars at his unsuspecting victims, daring you to feel shame lest he pummel you with another latex barrage.


The last fact is found on the list 6 Strangest Ways Anyone Was Ever Mistaken for God:

Number 5 on the list is: Captain James Cook

Captain James Cook was the first European to set foot on the Australian continent, but when the sails and masts of the famed British explorer's ships were first spotted off Hawaii in 1778, one islander described them as "trees moving about on the sea." When Cook eventually checked out the islands himself on Jan. 16, 1779, he was greeted by thousands of Hawaiians in canoes, presenting lavish prizes. (Mainly surfboards.)

They weren't just being generous hosts; it turns out that those sails and masts on Cook's ships looked virtually identical to contemporaneous imagery of the Hawaiian god Lono. Lono is a sex god, and his job is to cruise around on a rainbow and sprinkle the world with ... you don't want to know. By arriving not only on a vessel that looked just like Lono, but also on the same day as his annual festival "Lonomania," Cook presumably responded with the loudest "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!" this side of Caddyshack.
Thus the captain, tempted by the perks of being a sex-king, decided to go along with the charade by allowing himself to be smeared with pig fat, and then showing off some fireworks he happened to have in his boat.

Come visit beautiful Hawaii

Unfortunately for Cook, the Hawaiians were pretty ticked when he paid them a second visit, and not just because of the mounting list of paternity suits awaiting him. Cook's fleet had suffered a heavy battering during a wild storm, and the Hawaiian natives were deeply offended that Cook's ships had returned in such poor condition. Instead of pig fat and flower necklaces, the natives were waiting for him with clubs and daggers. Capt. Cook soon realized that his fertility feast-days were over. He tried to explain that it was due to the horrible weather he had recently experienced on his rainbow, but the islanders wouldn't have it. Cook was "clubbed, repeatedly knifed, half-drowned and battered about the head with a rock," at which point we imagine the islanders realized that the man was not a god after all. The fraud was subsequently scarified, torn to pieces, eaten and whatever they didn't finish was made into trophies.

The lesson? It is entirely possible to pretend to be a god, but just politely leave after your festival is over. It's not the sort of thing you can keep up forever.


Thus, ends my lazy post for this week. I promise to be back with more adventures and interesting tidbits from down under, but for now enjoy browsing Cracked.com. (Because you'll probably being doing it for the next several days, *evil laugh*)