Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

Alberto Granado, the friend and companian of Che Guevara in their famed motorcycle odyssey across South America, has died recently aged 88. 

Years before poverty porn and gap years to India were popular; Guevara and Granada exemplified the innocence of youth and the incredibly transformative affect that seeing truly oppressive poverty and injustice can have to open minds and empathetic hearts.  

For any young people starting out on their first big trip, perhaps this is change you seek.

Perhaps like Granado you'll look back and see yourselves as kids "who went looking for adventure and found the truth and tragedy of our homeland".  

But remember the essential point; when you see these terrible things you have to do something about it. You can choose to either take up arms against it and die young or practice medicine and make old bones.

The important point is to do anything to help. 

Are you on a Guevara/Granada big trip and hoping to change the world? What are you doing? Tell us and remember....Disqus!  . . read more

With Berlusconi before the courts and with Libya's war pornography helping the world get off, it's easy to forget that there's a 23 year old kid sitting in solitary confinement facing life imprisonment.

Bradley Manning, the U.S private accused of leaking 720,000 documents to WikiLeaks has been forgotten; he's not getting Assange like fame or reverence, or an Assange like house arrest.

Instead he's been shackled, alone in a cell and very often disrobed so he doesn't harm himself.  

Whether you agree with what he did or not, we have to remember that he's a U.S citizen, we have to remember what rights he has, and we have to remember what terrible long years he faces alone. 

We have to remember him.   . . read more

Disorientated, Unaware, blissfully so

Moving towards a destination but not knowing where or what it is, 

the freedom that comes from the collapse of boundaries is incomparable to any other freedom that one can construct. 

Jack Kerouac and the Beatniks referred to the freedom of the road, this concept did not die with beat poetry or the demise of the free spirited. 

It is alive and well in this day and age, we just have to have the courage to reach out and embrace it. 

Grasping the unknown and accepting its presence, giving oneself over to fate. Halt the logical and stop the reasoning. 

Give up the suit and grab the fedora, it's time to start living again.

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For a man synonymous with the 60's, social revolution and civil rights; Dylan's recent state approved set list in China was a new low. This was a man that might have been a reluctant figurehead of the protest movement (see "It Ain't me Babe") but actually obeying a repressive government and lending it his credibility is something else.

It speaks of cowardice, irrelevance and suggets that the 'never ending tour' should end pretty soon.

How many times do we have to see this passivity before we turn off?

One too many Bob. 

Do you think Bob Dylan has lost his edge by playing a state approved set list in China? Should he just fade away? Tell us and remember....Disqus!

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The story that Canadian teen pop idol Justin Bieber has caused mass hysteria in a planned concert in Australia, has been reported the world over.

While the premise of what happened sounds simple- pop star, hyperventilating teen girls, absent parents, mismanaged security- the truth is a lot more complex.

It has shown that although Gen-Y is meant to be diffused and inherently individual there are still times- like for teen girls in the '60s during Beatlemania- that one group screaming for one thing dominates and scares the shit out the rest of us. 

So although Bieber Fever might not have a cure, it's a pretty amazing phenomenon and shows symptoms that maybe young people can unite.   . . read more

First there's the unadulturated glee as you jump about the house, content in the knowledge that you are now, officially living off the fat of land.

Then comes that delightful sense of schadenfreude as you remember how crap hospitality and bar work is, and you think maliciously to all the poor suckers stuck in the grind.

And finally (usually after a few weeks) comes annoyance, as you realise you might have to go back to that job because that $445 a fortnight goes like the clappers when you live in Sydney.

Still though, living with ingenuity, battling to survive on a pittance and scoring freebies is so uplifiting that I can recommend living la dolecheque vita to as many people as is possible (who don't reduce my payments).  . . read more

Yet what other choice does the US and Obama have?

The political realities of today tell us that the world and its international institutions will soon be distorted as another lumbering giant enters the fray. It's also a reality that for any successful tomorrow China will have to feature prominently; something that due to inherent cultural and governmental differences will cause friction with the established Western/Free Market model so deeply ingrained in today's thinking.

So how seriously can we believe Obama? Well really we'll just have to wait and see, but if history tells us anything, the rise of China will be anything but 'pacific'.   . . read more