Well it seems like there is so much going on at the moment I don't know where to start however this blog is supposed to be about rants and raves and the world at large so perhaps I'll start global and move to the local and more personal in time.

There's a "war" on if you didn't notice (I'm not normally one to use quote marks to signify that I dispute something's title but I'm feeling pretty confused about this whole thing so they seem somehow appropriate). I'd always thought of wars as something that the so-called good guys didn't make it their business to start. Yet here we are. I know it's not entirely an issue of American imperialism - though this is what most people object to deep down at the end of the day (well that and the needless killing I guess) but it is certainly symptomatic of some screwed up thinking over there.

There is a fair case to put that Saddam Hussein is a genuinely nasty person - what with the chemical attacks on the Kurds in Northern Iraq and the fact that his people would probably be better off without him. Is this enough of a reason to justify invading one country and not another though - Zimbabwe, Burma and probably another 20 or 30 that don't have the world's second largest oil reserves. There are too many questions to ask and given the foreign policy (to put it nicely) of the US in the last 100 years, the answers don't look good.

As for the matter of supporting troops but opposing the war - this I don't particularly get either. Just because someone believes that they are doing the right thing for their country doesn't excuse acting in opposition to common sense and morality. No-one is forced to join the military and no-one is prevented from leaving on principle - if an invasion is wrong and you participate, you are equally wrong. Harsh words, perhaps but that's my 20 cents.

Media coverage of the war has been interesting - it's always easy to sit and watch the blanket coverage, flicking from channel to channel when it is at it's peak (much quieter of late now that it is apparent that this is going to last much longer than expected) in the quest for some new insight or information. How stage managed does it all appear? The western military really appears to have learnt lessons from the last few conflicts in the impact media coverage can have on public support. Minimal footage of death and maiming to be seen, lot's of "Aren't we so big" military hardware and bombs going off in Baghdad. No-one seems very interested in political ramifications in surrounding countries either, something which I would've considered fairly important given that at the back of most peoples mind is how much this is going to (understandably) piss off a lot of Muslims who have dealt with Western Imperialism for the better part of 200 years.

The Oscars were interesting as much in what was not said (for fear of losing some very nervous advertisers) as in what Mike Moore had to say. Media coverage of the reaction to his speech - referring to the fictitious war of a fictitious president (check out his website www.michaelmoore.com where there will no doubt be more info) - focussed heavily on how he was booed off the stage but from where I was sitting, it seemed to be 50/50 boos to cheers for the most part.

Moving on, as no doubt your mental diet is already bloated with war rants and raves - Well done Australia for trumping the cricket World Cup . It almost got to the point of making proceedings a little dull but you have to respect the work of Ricky Ponting and the Aussies- the greatest thing to come out of Tasmania since Bob Brown and Boony - in not losing a match.

Having a bit of mental meander, as one does watching the cricket, it struck me that format for scoring in cricket and the differences therein between Australia and other cricketing nations may in someway reflect something of the ethos of each nation. To be clearer, the format is either X runs scored for Y wickets (players) lost (the case in England, Sth Africa and I should've checked my facts as to where else) or it is X wickets lost for Y runs scored (as is the case in Australia and New Zealand). To my mind, the former suggests that the runs scored are the most important factor and that the players (and how many you have left) are secondary. Ultimately the team is dispensible in the pursuit of the wealth of runs. The Australian system of focussing instead on how many wickets have fallen stands as a reminder of the importance of each member of the team in amassing the runs and seems much more in keeping with concepts of mateship. It seems to me a format more grounded in the working class (if you want to apply some kind of Marxist analysis) while the English system is rooted in the bourgeois. (And people think cricket is boring)

Getting to the personal - the weekend also marked the breakup of one of my longest relationships, that with Sasha.
Not sure how much I want to say about this right now, still feeling a bit odd about the whole thing really, it was no real surprise to me as the candle had been dwindling for some time and there wasn't even that much passion in the denouement, suggesting that although it was quite saddening, it had simply run out of puff. Perhaps I'll say more later.