The Daily Smartass

Throwing away for a moment the clichés involving cars and their affiliation with ego (or appendage), your average freeway (or motorway) is often a congested, confusing and frustrating place. We all know the idealism that exists behind them, that they’re meant to aide us in our never-ending quest to get where we want to go, as quickly as possible. A great idea in theory, but a practicality that drifts further away as increasing numbers of drivers crowd the road.

It’s not hard to deconstruct exactly why most freeways end up resembling car parks more often then they do freely-moving streams of happy drivers. It starts with Sunday drivers, lane dodgers, then breakdowns and accidents. Before you know it, every driver on the road has a CSI badge, and it is their personal job and sole intention mid-commute to inspect every crash/accident scene.

It’s only natural that amidst all the chaotic tension, that your mind wonder a little bit. You might sneak a glance at the newspaper on your passenger seat, check your hair in the rear-view or turn up the radio for a quick sing-a-long. Whatever the choice, the quick break in concentration usually dissipates when the traffic starts to flow again. Except maybe in Norway:

A Norwegian man faces a heavy fine and a driving ban after police caught him having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on a motorway. (SMH)

Now, I don’t claim to be a straight arrow by any means. Your car is your castle, so do as you please – but within reason.

As comical as this is from the outset, this quickie (poor pun intended) distraction was potentially life threatning for other drivers. The driver in question has his view obstructed, using the speed of his vehicle as metaphoric goal posts. His passenger is girating around the vehicle, clearly not wearing a seatbelt (or much else). Other drivers on the road are faced with a speeding, swerving car with two sets of headlights to look at – and the confounding decision of on which set they should be focusing. It’s all very erotic, dangerous and very, very perplexing.

The main concern here however, is what happens next. Without a license and a car, this driver is somewhat limited to the types of transport that he can have sex on/in. Doing it on a bike is uncomfortable and far from elegant or discreet. Taxis are too vouyeristic and the mileage isn’t great. Doing it on a train or bus is simply inexcusable and shows complete disregard for your fellow passengers.

Because, even if they’ve got music on to block out the noise and sunglasses so you cant see them watching, nobody wants to sit in the wet patch.

Someone told me once that I had oil on the brain: the propensity to speak what ever blubber was sitting atop my brain (mush) without  considering how it would be interpreted by others. It’s landed me in many difficult situations, leaving me to steadily back-pedal to save face. Every once in a while, a little self-censorship kicks in and saves me from myself. I’m not perfect, but I like a little slip of the tongue every now and again; just to stir things up.

Naturally, there are takedowns – not everyone thinks it’s a great idea to spew your sentiments freely. The Australian government has issued it’s latest weapon on free speech: internet filtering. Consisting of massive pipes physically directed to the homes of Prime Minister Rudd and Senator Conroy, the aim here is to keep the internet squeaky clean for the netizens of Australia. Thank god someone’s stepping in, for a while there I was starting to get worried.

Paint brushes and placards down before we start the picket lines, the filters are very specific. Conroy’s (fairly) adamant that they’re only going to push for the ban of illegal content with a specific emphasis on child pornography. There’s no need to worry – yet. Still, I couldn’t help but think of net censorship as a catapulting snowball: it’s going to slowly roll toward us, creeping up ever so slowly. Until it’s no longer a snowball, but a gargantuan white wrecking ball.

So, in the interests of staying ahead of the game, I present the revised list of topics or sites that will be added to the blacklist in the future:

• Video streaming: the videos showing pets trying to attempt human like behaviour are both misleading and dangerous. Displaying such content publicly could prompt an uprising of the lesser species in a Darwinian-esque power struggle. We are trying to cull the amount of baboons, monkeys and seagulls running the country – not increase them. Furthermore, that video of your Mum (sister/brother/grandma) blasting “My heart will go on” into her hairbrush is not only preposterous but repulsive.
• Online shopping (conditional): with the flagging economy, it will no longer be acceptable for you to purchase goods from sites outside of Australia. Why on earth would you want to bail another country out of the slimy economic disaster anyway? Besides, by stomping out all non-Aussie sites we’ve made it easier for you to choose what we you want to buy. Sure, it might cost a fraction more. But, as long as you’re not buying new undies, we’re keeping the jobs in-house.
• News websites: they’re completely impractical. Nobody wants the inconvenience of being interrupted by current news and events as they happen – it’s too hectic. With those computers whirring away all day long, it’s simply not environmentally friendly. Let’s return to the glory days: broadsheets and tabloids from media conglomerates. It’s not stifling the news, we just want to make sure everyone’s on the same page (pun intended).
• Online gaming: we need to get back to the grass roots of what the internet is about – productivity and sharing information. Let’s use it as a governmental tool to keep you all in the loop about how we’re doing. It’ll still be interactive. There’ll be buttons you can click with feedback (that disappears into the ether) that you can submit too. It will be awesome. Wayne Swan has already started coding it.

The future looks rosy in net-land, no? Outlandish as they may seem, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that our government could consider. I don’t like to play fear card often, or even be serious. But net sensorship is a blood-boiler for me. I’m simply not willing to accept that our traffic online should be monitored in Orwellian like fashion.

Because, it starts off with child porn and P2P and progresses eventually to China. And I’m not good at using chopsticks.