The Australian Index

Extract: New-generation antidepressants don't work, according to a new study. Selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, of which Prozac is probably the most famous, work no better than a placebo in people with moderate or severe depression. Even in the most severely depressed patients, evidence for their effectiveness is questionable.

Extract: Last night, I watched a rather depressing documentary on SBS called The Anatomy of Evil. It was about people who perpetrate genocide. I’ve been morbidly fascinated with this question for a while now, as I’ve explained in an earlier post. I’ve never quite been able to fathom how people could shoot/gas/blow up an innocent civilian

Extract: Rolling Stone, the magazine that’s known for treating female performers, ahem, seriously, is currently featuring an article about the travails of Britney Spears on its website (my print-out of the article has the by-line saying, “Ho lost it all” rather than “How she lost it all”). In charting the rise and fall of Britney, the piece seems to be suggesting that she is suffering from a severe case of arrested development and a desperate need to rebel against the image of wholesomeness others forced her to adopt. Britney apparently also needs to surround herself with folks who won’t challenge her take on her plight, which reminds of another famous singer from the South who was equally ill-equipped to deal with fame, or at least the unhealthy aspects of it.

Extract: This week, the Oscars were handed out, and, as usual, I ignored the ceremony, opting to instead read about it the next day.

A small relief, though... I had feared that the middling English period movie, "Atonement", would make a clean sweep, prompting studios to throw more money at movies featuring Keira Knightley in a green dress.

Extract: The idea for an annual Twenty20 fiesta in India has been defended by all and sundries as a necessary "window" for fitting the short caper into the international schedule. Spin. If the T20 in India is a raging success, you'd have to be a very thick thicko indeed not to be able to see that other countries will want their cut and eat it, too.

Extract: So you want to rent, or you need to rent but are finding it impossible to find a place? You're now walking the streets wondering why landlords and real estate agents have to be such pricks. So what do you have to do in order to secure a decent rental property? Let me tell you, it isn't that difficult. And now I'm going to make it a lot easier with my Few Simple Rules To Renting. You read this and follow the rules and not only will you be in a place so fast your head will oscillate, but you'll be wondering why you were so worried in the first place.

Extract: Robert Henke, also known as Monolake, is a musician, but only just. He explores that area of music on the very edge of becoming sound or perhaps he explores that area of noise, just on the edge of becoming music. His particular interest is the amorphous - clouds of detail, atoms of sound, grit, dirt and patina or as he puts it, "fragile structures, morphing timbres constructed of millions of microscopic sonic particles, cathedrals of filtered noises". His works are long meditations in which he explores in exhaustive detail a single aspect of tone.

Extract: Hired as actors for a TV series, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones went on to feature in one of the most successful American pop bands of the 1960s. The four were chosen for their youth, good looks and ability to play themselves. Being able to play musical instruments was not so important. The idea was not to create a band, but to create a TV show about a band. And to make sure things didn’t get out of control, the original contract for the show banned the four Monkees from playing instruments on any of their recordings. All they had to do was say their lines, clown around and sing.

The trouble started when the music began to outperform the TV show.

Extract: You won't see a more gripping ending to this one at the inaugural World Handball Championships.

Just as Allan Jeans, Tom Hafey and Peter MacKenna are about to stage an all out barney over Barney's hit on Neville Bruns behind play, Jack Dyer puts all grudges into perspective with a well timed Bertocchi Hams presentation.

Extract: Next week there is going to be a very special day, a day that will make you feel overwhelmed with emotion. No, not Valentines Day. I’m talking about Wednesday 13 February. It will be a national day of apology for Australia, because the Australian Government under its newly elected Prime Minister intends to apologise to the Aboriginal people f.i.n.a.l.l.y for the way they have been treated under government policies of the past, namely the Stolen Generation.

Extract: Defamer Australia loves Mark Philippoussis and his turbulent love life.

Not too long ago, Mark turned to the power of reality television to find him some true romance, the general premise behind which being that The Poo would be given access to a group of "kittens" (ie. younger ladies) and a group of "cougars" (women of a more mature vintage) and select one lucky lady from amongst the pack to be his new paramour

Extract: On this side of the planet, we’re currently in the pinnacle of summer: great heat, long days and of course, that sense that you should never be sitting still. There’s a million things going on to take advantage of the extra sunlight and the fact you’re not freezing — and with it has come the usual slew of summer music festivals to go to. I just spent some time with the crew from Big Day Out and of course one of the main attractions of working there for the day is the parade of fashion which walks back and forth for the duration of the day.

Extract: With the weather dithering between sunshine and rain, it's hard to know what kind of meal to go with. Shall I go for something heavy to blubber-up for the cold or do I go for something light and refreshing? It's the same kind of dilemma when you go out- should I bring a cardigan or will I regret having to carry it in my already stuffed bag, ten blocks away from the car? Sometimes you just have to put your money on the fact that although it's mid-summer, it's probably going to rain.

Extract: The nature strip gods have been good to us of late. It occurs to me that perhaps my foreign friends do not understand this term. The nature strip is the strip of lawn that runs beside the footpath (sidewalk, some might say). As an aside, there is a line in the Oz national anthem that runs "our land abounds in nature's gifts", which my sibling unit as a small child thought went "our land abounds in nature strips". Not totally illogical since it does. Anyway, the nature strip gods are the deities who leave us manna from heaven on the nature strips. Of recent times we have found a working bubble jet printer (quite a bonus, since we didn't have a printer, and my PU#2 can refill the cartridges with ink (although this one had a working cartridge anyway), much against my PU#1's wishes as she reckons he gets ink from one end of the house to the other), two ladies' business shirts (one of which I will actually wear. Once I've soaked it thoroughly) and a light pink handbag.

Extract: My problem is a young man. A very young man. And a case of overwhelming physical attraction that, well, defies all my logic.  It’s actually quite difficult to admit this as he ticks absolutely none of my usual boxes being, as he is, kind of the anti-Jarvis.  He is completely unread (his main reading material being pr0n-lite) and knows so little about anything that all conversation includes prolonged explanation and frequent recourse to a dictionary.  In short, I have a seriously disturbing physical attraction for a boy who really oughtn’t do anything for me.

Extract: The graffiti in my suburb: I’m probably biased, but I think it’s unusually classy.

This painting was built up from cartoons (as in Michelangelo cartoons, not Warner bros.), and I’m kicking myself I didn’t get a photo of it at all the different stages.

Extract: Modernism called for "the machine for living." And the city was also to be a machine. The architecture and urban design of modernism - in particular, the publicly subsidized high-rise housing projects on large cleared sites that became, along with the flat-topped glass and steel skyscrapers of the city center, are the very emblems of modernism - in Australia.

Extract: On January 15, Channel Nine launched their website to promote their new drama series Underbelly. Despite much being made by Nine surrounding www.Underbellytv.com, the website is a fairly generic television show website. If Nine really want to prove themselves in 2008, they really need to start with being able to create quality online content.

Extract: As you can see from the video above, there was no love lost between probable chess cheat Veselin Topalov and his nemisis in a recent world championship battle, Vladimir Kramnik. Anyway, though in previous comps Topalov looks like he’s managed to pick up the odd surreptitious signal from his team I presume he did it all on his own against Kramnik this time - with the help of a pre-prepared speculative piece sacrifice. Not unusually for a Topalov game, the ordinary laws of chess (or of what makes a good move) seem to be suspended for a surprisingly long period of time, shortly after which it was all over.

Extract: So I was having a chat to a guy I sort of know on MSN at work today. A bit of a long story but he was asking my opinion of a poem he was writing. Now, it wasn't a very good poem but no matter. This post isn't about good poetry, it's about jerking off. I know, poetry and jerking off go together like mash potato and ice cream.

I asked him who the poem was for - to get a clearer idea of the context around the poem - and he said it was for his ex-girlfriend. Why anyone would break up with that gorgeous hunk of boy I don't know, but again, this post is not about the fickle nature of (hetero-)women, it's about jerking off.