The Outback
The Australian outback has been romanticized by authors and film makers. Its reality is hard work, aridness, and casual danger. But perhaps the most defining characteristic is distance. Although there is no agreed upon definition of the perimeter of the outback, a general description allows for a size of about 2.5 million square miles. Compare this with Alaska (663,000 square miles) and Texas (269,000 square miles). Although the Outback occupies the center of Australia, some scientists argue that its limits extend to some of the coastal regions. This map probably makes it a little too large to the south and northeast, but you get part of the idea:
Outback Australia, as defined by PEW Charitable Trusts. Picture: PEW Charitable Trusts.
Oh yeah, distance: from Darwin (not usually considered part of the outback), on the “Top End” to Alice Springs is about 930 miles. From Alice to Adelaide (on the southern end of the Stuart Highway) is about another 900 miles. The Stuart Highway is paved the whole way – as of 1987. For an alternate way to cross north to south, try The Ghan, a luxury railway.
Lounge Car on The Ghan
If you want to go west, you can take the Eyre Highway from Port Augusta in South Australia to Perth, Western Australia, a distance of just over 1000 miles. This highway was sealed in 1976 and features the 90 Mile Straight, a section 91.1 miles long with no curves.
The Eyre Highway runs along the southern edge of the Nullarbor Plain. If you really want to experience the Nullarbor, you can travel on the Indian-Pacific Railway, which includes the longest straight-section of track in the world – almost 300 miles.
Indian-Pacific Sleeper Cabin
If you’re really brave & adventurous (or profoundly stupid) you can drive the 620-mile Trans Access Road which runs alongside the railway and is completely unsealed.
To American eyes, the size of Australia is not much different than the continental US -bigger than most places, but not as big as Canada or Russia. But climate and geography matter: the vast expanses coupled with one of the most arid climates in the world means there is nothing in the center of Australia even remotely close to the American Great Plains. The absence of heavily productive farmland, means that the population is fairly small. Again, defining the region is up for debate, but a 2006 study (pdf) put the population at about 690,000. FWIW (and it’s not worth much since the population is not evenly spread), that works out to 36 square miles/person.
There are outback towns some legendary, such as Alice Springs. Others well-known, to Australians (at least to my generation; they may be well-known today, I just don’t know): Bourke, main town of the New South Wales outback and source of the phrase “back o’Bourke” (an extremely remote place). Resource towns like Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie (both gold); Coober Pedy (opals); Broome (pearls). There’s also the legendary Birdsville, home to the world-famous (yes, really) Birdsville Races. The normal population of the town is about 100, but up to 7000 attend the races:
This is one of the things that distance does: it makes for small towns. Coolgardie, now long after its mining heyday has less than 900. Bourke, only about 1800. Kalgoorlie has fewer than 30,000. Even the magical Alice only has about 27,000. And remember, Alice and Kalgoorlie are big outback towns. It’s not just a lack of opportunity that keeps these towns small. It’s a lack of everything. They’re hard to get in and out of. Unless you favor a very isolated life and get on with all the neighbors, you may not want to live in these towns. For example, Birdsville is connected by the legendary Birdsville Track to the South Australian town of Maree; about 320 miles. It’s considered a high-quality road because it is a graded dirt road, now passable by non-4WD vehicles. Oh, and if you drive the Track, the big town of Marree has a population of 630.
The distances between towns, and between towns and small working mines, communities and cattle and sheep stations (ranches) are significant. For many of the small number of people who live in the outback, the few towns are far from them. The climate in the region means that cattle stations (ranches) are huge because the stock is spread out. Until the 1970s, many of these stations were family-run. But they were, and still are, big (distance remember). Anna Creek Station—the biggest in the world—is about 9100 square miles. (bigger than the land area of eight American states). For comparison, the largest ranch in the US is King Ranch in (where else?) Texas at 1290 square miles. King runs 20,000 head of cattle, Anna Creek ran about 17,000 in 2012. The nearest town to Anna Creek is Coober Pedy, a 2 ½ hour drive away, most of it on unpaved roads.
Obviously, the distance presents challenges. You don’t have a problem getting fresh meat, but most other supplies have to be obtained from the closest town (these days, I suspect there are more deliveries, but I doubt they have taken over). But what about emergency medical care? Education?
The Royal Flying Doctor Service
Emergency medical care was a significant concern for those who worked in the outback. Of course, in the early days of European settlement, emergency medical care in the outback was probably no worse than such care in a hospital. That is, it was based on dubious scientific certainty and odd assumptions. But, as medical care advanced in the twentieth century, there was a growing advantage to having access to trained physicians and modern medical care. Concern for access to medical care was expressed by many charitable groups, including a number of mission organizations (these groups were focused on providing clergy to white communities rather than evangelizing indigenous peoples). One of the men who sought to bring medical care to the outback was Presbyterian minister John Flynn.
Rev. John Flynn (1880-1951)
Flynn was born in 1880 in what was then the Colony of Victoria, part of the British Empire. As a young man he developed an interest in first aid and, while in theological college, he spent two summers as a missionary to sheep shearers. After being ordained, he worked out of the small South Australian town of Beltana (2016 population = 26) where he traveled to outlying livestock stations. Flynn was instrumental in the creation of what became known as the Australian Inland Mission (n.k.a. Frontier Services). The AIM ministry was primarily to small outback towns, isolated cattle and sheep stations, mining sites, and so on. Flynn was one of a small number of men who spent most of their time traveling around such locations to preach, baptize and so on (the idea of baptizing kids in the outback always brings to my mind the classic Australian poem “Bush Christening“).
Like many “modern” missionaries, Flynn was concerned with temporal as well as spiritual needs and sought funding to construct basic health care facilities and/or small hospitals in outback/bush towns. As welcome as these facilities were, they could not always help those injured or taken suddenly ill on isolated stations or in very small outback settlements. In some cases, men or women with basic medical training attempted to provide some kind of relief before victims were transported by road. But those suffering severe illness or injured in accidents, often died before they could be transported to any kind of medical facility. Occasionally, doctors tried to reach victims, but often arrived too late. Medical care improved in the early twentieth century driven, in part, by the tragedy of WWI. By the 1920s, survival chances from accidents increased if one could get professional attention quickly. Motor vehicles made this somewhat more accessible (for a terrific fictional, but realistic, post-WWII account, see the classic Anglo-Australian novel, A Town Like Alice.).
As early as 1917, Flynn was, apparently, contemplating the use of even more modern technology to aid in health care in the outback. That same year he received a letter from Lt. J Clifford Peel, written in 1917 as Peel sailed to serve in the Australian Flying Corps in France. Peel had heard of Flynn’s work in the outback and his letter proposed the use of aircraft to transport the sick and injured to medical care. Even in 1917, air travel made more sense than using the rudimentary roads in the outback. Sadly, Peel would not live to see the fulfillment of his vision. He set out on a recon mission on September 19, 1918 and never returned. Just one more casualty of the folly of nations.
Peel’s idea appears to have lodged in Flynn’s mind. By the 1920s, as aircraft became more common, the idea merged with another relatively new technology: radio. Commercial radio had emerged in the 1920s, often made possible by the knowledge gleaned in the WWI. By 1928, Flynn had raised enough money to institute an aerial medical service. AIM contracted with the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service (QANTAS) to operate one aircraft out of the Queensland outback town of Cloncurry (2016 population 2700). The service was initially known as the Aerial Medical Service, transport was conducted in a de Havilland DH-50A, and QANTAS charged 2 shillings/mile for the service. The first flight took place on May 17, 1928 to Julia Creek (2016 population 500) 85 miles from Cloncurry. The pilot was Arthur Affleck, the surgeon on board, Dr. K St. Vincent Welch. Welch had been called to treat two patients, one of whom had tried to commit suicide by cutting his own throat.
De Havilland DH50A: same model but not the actual aircraft
Within a year, technology aided the nascent service even more. In 1929 Alfred Traeger developed the pedal radio. First powering a morse code keyboard it then was used to power radios. This radically changed communications in the outback as electric power was still a pipe dream for most and batteries were too expensive.
Alfred Traeger operating a pedal radio utilizing a morse keyboard.
Pedal radio in the field.
By 1934, the renamed Australian Aerial Medical Service had three bases in Queensland, and six more in other parts of the outback. In 1937, the first female doctor – Jean White – began working for the service. Nurses, known as flying sisters (no relation to the Flying Nun) began working for the service in the 1940s. The nurses were responsible for some important innovations to the service including a medical chest with numbered medicines and a chart with parts of the body numbered so that, on first contact with someone at a remote site, doctors could have more accurate information.
In 1942 the service changed its name to the Flying Doctor Service. It had quickly gained attention from overseas. In 1932, the British Medical Journal reported on a lecture given in London by Dr W.D. Waljer of Adelaide on the work of the flying doctors. In 1936, the New York Times ran a story on the work of these “flying doctors.” That story included the account of the first trip from Port Hedland (2018 population 14,000) in Western Australia 125 miles away to care for a woman who had already been two days in labor. The Times also reported on the work of a doctor at the original base in Cloncurry who had flown (after visiting needy people in other locations) to the South Australian town of Innamincka (2016 population 44) to operate on a young woman who recovered.
In 1954, during her first visit to Australia, Queen Elizabeth II visited a Flying Doctor Station. Of course, rather than have her visit the home of the Service in Cloncurry, those m-f in N.S.W. managed to steal the limelight so she visited the base in Broken Hill. Nonetheless, she broadcast across the service’s radio network and later authorized the use of “Royal” – the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS).
18th March 1954: Queen Elizabeth II broadcasting from a Flying Doctor base at Broken Hill, New South Wales during a Royal tour of Australia. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)
If you run a web search for “flying doctor aircraft” you can get an idea of how the service’s ‘planes have kept pace with technological development. Up until the 1960s, the service continued to lease aircraft from other entities, but, in the 1960s, it began to purchase its own. It now uses 4wd vehicles as well as aircraft. Of course, technology continues to advance, and many RFDS aircraft are jets or prop-jets. Communication is more often done by satellite phone, or more sophisticated radio. But the RFDS continues to provide medical care to the isolated residents and communities in the outback.
Such care often still has an edge of adventure to it. Unlike the myth sold to Eisenhower about the American interstate system, the RFDS does sometimes use the outback highways (such as the Stuart Highway) as landing strips in an emergency.
The most recent such incident I could find was from 2020, just outside Eucla, Western Australia (2016 population = 53). This online story is annoying because it uses the event to demand money but, if you scroll down, there’s a short clip of the landing.
Of course RFDS planes didn’t always land on paved highways. One story concerns a mission in a Queen Air which had landed on a dirt road to evacuate the badly injured victims of a road crash in Western Australia. Fully loaded with victims and personnel, the Queen Air needed 90 knots to get airborne. At 85 knots, they’d run out of road; the pilot pulled back on the stick; the props shredded the shrubs, and they got airborne. The pilot looked at the doctor and said, “there, I told you, a piece of piss.” There is more than one story of a take-off/landing strip being marked in unusual circumstances. Melanie Smith, manager of the Canobie cattle station in northwest Queensland, reports that, on occasion, they’ve soaked toilet paper rolls in diesel, stuffed them in empty pineapple or coffee tins and, when they hear the aircraft engines, lit them on fire. Another doctor told the story of taking off from a bush airstrip at night when kangaroos began popping up along and across the runway. As the doctor told the story, the pilot threaded his way through all the hopping trespassers until the plane was airborne. The doctor turned to the pilot and congratulated him on such a brilliant piece of flying. The pilot responded, “Is it safe to open my eyes now?”
Another account tells of a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl from an aboriginal community who was evac-ed out. As they got underway, the pilot radioed in to their destination—Alice Springs—to let them know the Persons-on-Board (POB) number was six. Before they’d started their descent into the Alice he’d amended the POB to seven as the RFDS doctor has delivered the baby en route.
The School of the Air
The RFDS also had one important offshoot. In 1950, progressive educator Adelaide Miethke, who had supported the work of the Flying Doctors, witnessed how two-way radio was revolutionizing medical care in the outback. She conceived the idea of what would become the School of the Air. Lessons would be mailed to students to complete then, a couple of days a week, the class would meet—via the radios used to call the RFDS—with the teacher. The teacher would speak with each student individually while the rest of the class listened in. In June, 1951, the first lessons were flown out of Alice Springs destined for children in isolated stations and the SOTA became a way-of-life for thousands of outback kids.
Adelaide Miethke (1881-1962)
Time, of course, marches on. While it hardly seems possible, the population of the outback has become even smaller than what it was when John Flynn began to think of new ways to bring health care to the region. The diminishing population, coupled with technological advances, has brought some changes to the outback. These days, the SOTA utilizes satellite ‘phones, internet, and personal computers.
Cattle are now surveyed from light aircraft and helicopters so that those running the stations know where to go to get the herds/flocks in. Stockman (cowboys) use motorbikes instead of horses so that fewer people can now accomplish the same amount of work. Some outback towns have disappeared while many have shrunk. But, at least until the insect ranchers get a hold of us, the outback is not going away. The RFDS and the SOTA remain vital components of life in the red center.
Music: Aussie folk-socialists sing about life in the outback.
features the 90 Mile Straight, a section 91.1 miles long with no curves.
And I used to think US50 across Nevada sucked.
90 Mile Straight, a section 91.1 miles long
Australian miles are longer than American?
The real question; is it as straight as English teeth?
What a great article! Hopefully you have more in you!
The Ghan (or any of the other rail trips) looks really cool. Going to have to add that to my bucket list.
That really looks like a great train ride!
And I also think this was a great article.
Seconded.
“She looka like a man.”
/Ms Swan
She looks like Tucker Carlson.
SOTA was an amazing idea for the time.
Agreed, on the second point.
Probably better than being in an ‘inner city’ school.
Here we are 20 minutes in, and no one has Firsted. I am here to save the day. This First takes us all one step closer to salvation from the horde of seconders who seek to destroy The Order Of The First and The Golden Firters. I have foreseen it.
It’s all good. I Firsted for you.
The first went to the late.
You were born to second. I was born to First. You wouldn’t know a First even if you watched it make your wife climax right in front of you.
Ouch.
While reading it, I kept wondering if people living out there in the middle of nowhere are more likely to be left alone by the noxious Australian national and state governments.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-26/three-nsw-residents-arrested-after-flying-into-coober-pedy/100246682
Bunch of assholes traveling about as if it’s a free country.
The whole sidebar for that article was COVID fearmongering.
They will never let it go, will they?
I didn’t have space (or inclination) here, but the RFDS was a major factor in distributing vaccines to isolated communities. Some were so isolated that you wonder if just delivering the vaccines was more of risk than leaving them alone.
Is it run by the government?
Though that probably wouldn’t matter since it seems most of the Dr.’s are true believers anyway.
I wonder about many things that were done to people.
I keep wondering if the uranium (and thorium?) deposits can be utilized to power desal and pumps to get some water in the interior. I’m sure the environmental impact statements would preclude it… must…. leave…. planet… pristine!
I had the same question. At least to some extent it must be the case.
Obligatory Aussie aircraft link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transavia_PL-12_Airtruk
I made it to Sydney once. It’s a beautiful place.
Being from Brisbane, I’m obligated to despise everything about New South Wales and Sydney. But, yes, especially the harbour area is wonderful.
I have the same obligation for San Fran, but then there are plenty of reasons to hate San Fran.
I have so much family from SF that I am allowed only tears at this point.
But I will always, always root against the Giants.
2002 World Series
Nice. Thanks for a fun read.
I’m sure Brisbane is far superior. But I have not been there.
I’ve been to both. Brisbane is less dirty and not as crowded. There’s more tourist stuff in Sydney.
Since I left, the riverfront went through a major upgrade: https://www.hunterandbligh.com.au/food/the-7-best-waterfront-restaurants-and-bars-around-brisbane/
Excellent article, RN. Thanks!
Really enjoyed the article.
I know nothing about Australia except what I learned from Mr. Inbetween(an excellent dark comedy/action drama).
In one episode he was carrying drugs through the outback and hit a kangaroo.
They had been driving forever, but I really didn’t get an idea how big and desolate it is.
That’s not a knoife!
I’ve always wanted to visit the outback. I like to watch shows like Aussie salvage squad, ,em>Aussie Gold Hunters, and Outback Truckers.
I doubt I’ll ever make it there.
Enjoyable read, thanks. I hesitate to ask… ‘in memoriam’ of? Everyone who has fallen victim to the notorious drop bears?
Hah! No, that was a nod to John Flynn
on the southern end of the Stuart Highway
I was on the other end of the Stuart Highway. I was in a rental car that had seen better days. The part I was on was a little ways outside of Darwin and had a speed limit of 130 km/h. I popped over a hill after somehow getting the car to do the speed limit going up the hill. I left my foot on the accelerator pedal a bit too long as I popped over the hill. The car got up to 140 km/h on the downhill. The car was… unhappy and I actually got scared. I let off the gas and got things under control as the car slowed down.
I like Australia. It’s a shame the place is full blown authoritarian.
I toured the Darwin Aviation Museum. In there is an exhibit about a pilot who went missing during the Second World War. After a Japanese attack on Darwin, there was a damaged airplane that was flyable, but not repairable at Darwin. The officers decided that the plane would have to be flown to Brisbane for repair. This pilot volunteered to fly it. He never arrived at Brisbane. Searchers never found him, and the search was abandoned. Sometime in the 1990s, a park ranger in Queensland found the pilot’s skeleton and plane wreckage. I poked around on the Internet to see if I could find more but I couldn’t find more.
Same can be said for many places I had previously planned on visiting.
Colorado isn’t as bad as you think.
I was thinking japan and the UK, but there are plenty of staes that went off the deep end as well.
Been to Colorado once, the Denver/ Boulder area.
It was gorgeous.
I’ve traveled a bit, but I fear that a lot of my bucket list trips are gone forever.
Best I can tell in Japan participation in all the COVID theater is still “voluntary”.
Mind you the social and job requirements essentially make it mandatory, but oddly it was more free during peak COVID lunacy than the US.
Right now, our daughter and her husband want to come visit us, but she says they will have to stay in a hotel for two weeks when they return to Japan.
I thought that was finally waived. Although that might depend on vax status.
It seems odd that a triple vaxxed tourist to Japan can travel freely, but a returning resident must quarantine.
Had a nice trip to the Land Down Under spring 2018, IIRC.
Syndey was like most big cities, but more quaint.
The women are pretty and friendly to Yanks (not a euphemism) and the Aussies love their rugby. What’s not to like?
Thanks, RN. Great article.
♪♫ Well I’ve never been to ‘stralia, but I’ve been to New Zealand.
Preferred being in a place that didn’t have flora and fauna intent on killing me.
Thanks Raven Nation, great article. I did a week in Sydney on R&R, in ’67. Met a number of charming people that enjoyed parties. A big surprise was how many of the young people had already traveled Europe and many to the US. Fond memories…
My wife took a tour a few years ago and did get out of the big cities to see what the tourist Outback was like.
The “gap year” concept was big in Australia before it became a thing elsewhere.
I wish I had known about working holidays when I was younger.
Fully loaded with victims and personnel, the Queen Air needed 90 knots to get airborne. At 85 knots, they’d run out of road; the pilot pulled back on the stick; the props shredded the shrubs, and they got airborne. The pilot looked at the doctor and said, “there, I told you, a piece of piss.”
Australia, fuck yeah!
Thanks RN! I was not familiar at all with the RFDS. Fascinating and completely badass.
Oh, and a song from my favorite Aussie band!
I can’t even.
“My”, not “your.”
Can we agree that Midnight Oil sucks massively?
Yes. We can find common ground there.
Midnight Oil is wonderful…
…for seducing your high school girlfriend. Nothing else though.
Can we agree that Midnight Oil sucks massively?
Yes.
They were great for a long time as long as you ignored the lyrics.
I’m digging these guys in recent years.
Yes, excellent band.
Why do you hate Pierluigi Collina?
I know right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJakepFG-Mw
INXS was more my taste.
One of the best ever. Australia is responsible for some amazing bands. Nick Cave, Hoodoo Gurus, Men At Work, Hunters &Collectors.
Just a shit-ton
Another Aussie band
And yet another.
And another.
Do you guys even Hoodoo Guru?
Yes. We do.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Christopher's_Chapel,_Queensland
Annual service held on the Sunday closest to July 4. One day I will be there.
late to the party, but a good score
Daily Quordle 323
4️⃣7️⃣
3️⃣5️⃣
I figured the Outback was no different than flyover country, here in the States…
Anyhoo, can’t be too bad as my mom and her husband drove across it with out dying.
Favorite Aussie guitarist here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VtBUEDyHtE
RIP Rowlie.
A fellow Black Rock Ranger, and dedicated desert rat, shipped his truck over to traverse the outback. He ended up making friends with some locals who talked him into joining them on a Cape to Cairo run.
My mother and her husband had been shipping their tiny motorhome all over and only just settled into staying in North America. I went to every continent except Asia and Antarctica. I literally have no idea where in the world she will be when I call her.
“I figured the Outback was no different than flyover country, here in the States”
Except for way more most deadliest bitey and stingy things.
This made me want to link to Quigley Down Under where he asks when they will get to the ranch and is told that they’ve been on the ranch for several days already.
But, I couldn’t find that clip. But I did find something that some Glibs may have interest in.
*Animal has entered the chat*
(seems like something he’d be into)
Kiwiland: home of the free
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-13/new-zealand-imposes-lifetime-ban-on-youth-buying-cigarettes/101768694
What about the hobbits? Pipes still allowed?
Apparently just banned cigarettes?
Smoking rates remain higher among Indigenous Māori, with about 20 per cent reporting they smoked.
Minorities hardest hit.
OFFS!
Is the Kiwi government made up of former Twitter employees? I guess they couldn’t get far enough away from the tyrannical Musk and find someone who would actually employ them.
I’m gonna need to see where you got your numbers.
To be perfectly honest, I’d just as soon not see where she pulled those numbers from.
Everyone who smokes dies eventually.
Quit being a science denier.
100% of smokers die.
brave
new
world
‘Enough is enough’: UK PM announces crackdown on illegal immigration
Britain on Tuesday said it planned to bring in new legislation to prevent migrants who cross the English Channel from remaining in the country, as the government tries to control a surge in people arriving in small boats on its southern coast.
The number of people arriving in England across the Channel has more than doubled in the last two years, with government figures showing Albanians account for the highest number of people arriving by this route
Uh, racism crosses the Atlantic and infests England.
Limey Bigots.
But no worries, Zoolander is sending a fleet right now to rescue them and bring to Canada, where everyone is welcome.
except truckers
Well, the Prime Minister is a POC, so he can’t be racist.
And Albanians are (technically) white, so he’s probably combatting white supremacy by banning them. Bottom line: it would be racist not to ban them.
Coconut!
The brown face of white supremacy.
They’re almost Greeks.
Speaking of Greeks.
European Parliament removes Eva Kaili as vice-president after Qatar corruption allegations
Still under a mil. That’s amateur corruption. Hunter won’t get out of bed unless it’s a scheme to get the Big Guy 1.2 mil. The hooker is out by 10am regardless because that’s all the time he paid for on daddy’s credit card and they’re typically out of blow.
Albanian, Albion – it gets confusing.
Thanks all for the kind words. Just got out of a meeting and need to run to an appointment. I’ll respond to any questions in the links.
I’ve always wanted to see Tasmania, myself. I saw a documentary once about the young Albert Einstein’s time there.
I remember that one
Saw that at the theater!
You can’t be Serious. That makes him look like a Yahoo!
Would you rather he look like a Houyhnhnm?
For those who would like to learn a bit more about Aussieland, Bill Bryson wrote a charming little travelogue around the turn of the century called In A Sunburned Country.
The title comes from a popular poem written by one Dorthea Mackellar, the second stanza of which is:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
A rather bizarre historical footnote regarding the Stuart Highway: in 1860, John Mcdouall Stuart made his first (unsuccessful) attempt to cross the Outback from Adelaide to Darwin. On the seventeenth week of their expedition, Stuart and his two companions were resting at a place now called Keckwick Ponds. They had pushed far into the interior, and were convinced that they were the first men of European descent to ever lay eyes on this land. So you can imagine Stuart’s surprise one evening when an older aboriginal man wandered into camp and greeted Stuart with the unmistakable sign of a Freemason. Stuart returned the gesture, and the old man smiled, patted Stuart on the shoulder, and went about his business. Clearly someone else had been that way before — but whomever it was will forever remain a mystery.
“Are we there yet?”
Ugh, kill me.
whomever it was will forever remain a mystery
Peachy Carnehan?
NYC Mayor Eric Adams’s terrible plan to forcibly hospitalize homeless people with mental illness
I miss the 60s.
Progressives do get all nostalgic for the 50s.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-winter-looms-this-philly-area-school-district-could-have-virtual-instruction-if-too-many-teachers-are-sick/ar-AA15eLsL
How is there that many sick teachers? I thought most of those commies were super vaxxed.
But it’s now a tridemic!!!11
Everyone must submit to the overlords or we’re all going to die!!!
Is it time for our collective annual freakout over Baby, It’s Cold Outside?
Awesome article. The Ghan has been added to the bucket list…if Australia ever becomes a free nation again.