Wandjina
Travelling through and around the US over the years, I have had the opportunity to observe the pains to which the country went to construct road and rail ways through it, particularly evident in the cuts dug and blasted out of solid rock. If you’ve never noticed them, you ought to have a look, to the extent it does not impede safety, because the rock bears evidence of more than the hand of man. As observed in many essays over the years by John McPhee (and collected in Annals of the Former World), vast, unimaginable forces have shaped the earth, and we can observe the effects by means of what many of us would otherwise regard as mere quotidian conveniences. (They’re not, of course; great effort went into these deconstructions, great labor by otherwise ordinary men, and worthy of no small admiration.) Now as I travel in and around Sydney, I can see into the earth here, too, by the same means, and I am interested by the differences, not just in the stone, but in the stratifications evidencing the geophysical forces that have shaped this region. The cuts are often not terribly deep, but the layers are terrifically flat. I imagine this is much like what you’d see in the Midwestern US, if such road cuts existed there, which they largely do not, from my observation, simply because it is so much easier to go around than through, given the room (and the predeliction some such builders reportedly had toward drama). In Sydney, however, the cuts are present – perhaps because development has gone through the usual stages but in a different order than occurred in the US, sprawl being followed by population density, as well as the restrictions of Australia’s green rim enforcing limits to habitation that the US did not face, thus feeding the populace back upon itself after it had met its natural boundaries. . . . It’s all speculation; I’m not a scientist, physical or sociological. It feeds imagination, however: this is a country that has been trodden out flat by the creator spirits of the Dreamtime, and marked in sigils and runes for the people to know their homes. It is a manuscript.

The Welfare State
Now that I’m living in a country that subsidizes health care, I am more aware than previously of the differences between the United States and other developed nation: employee benefits. Here, employers can focus on granting lots of vacation time. They don’t have to shell out to offer medical and dental benefits to their employees. There are no life insurance premiums or disability coverage costs. If I need to see a doctor, I can, and that doctor will get paid by the state, leaving aside the Howard government’s efforts to eliminate the welfare state, and doctors’ efforts to get paid more. If, however, a person dies or becomes disabled, there is nothing. No death benefit, no income protection, whereas in most of the US, there is worker’s compensation and state-mandated (and income taxed) disability insurance – it doesn’t pay much, but it’s there – and most employers offer at least 1 x annual salary in life insurance. So now if I want my mortgage covered in the event of my untimely demise, or my salary replaced should I become unable to work, I have to purchase coverage on my own, putting me out in the cold, cruel world where the uninsured of the US have been living. Well, except for the health care part, and that’s the more important. On Monday night, I put my personal details in the hands of the Walter Neff’s and signed up for some insurance. It’s amazing what you have to do to get an affordable premium. I’m not allowed to go diving – sky or SCUBA – or play contact sports of any noted roughness, or I’m not covered. I have to swear up-and-down to my good health and lack of HIV and offer blood samples should they suspect I’m pulling a fast one. On a philosophical level, I don’t believe this is anything but gambling, and the odds, as usual, are in favour of the house. It’s not probable that I’ll die before age 65 or become disabled. It’s possible, sure, just not likely. So over the next twenty years, they’re gambling that the money I pay in won’t get paid out, and if I’m honest, I’m covering their bet with my money. I’m not, after all, betting that I will be disabled or die; I’m betting that I won’t need the coverage, and hedging by paying the premiums anyway.