Listing

A couple of lists tonight.

First, there is a great opportunity for people outside of Oz to understand a special part of our country - Queensland. I've written about its quirks before, annoying my friend Jon in the process so I will try to tread carefully now.

This weekend Queensland was in the news for all the wrong reasons. There had been a bad oil spill near Brisbane, and it was polluting the waters and the beaches. The story became the lead on international web sites, including CNN.

Meanwhile, the Queenslanders (affectionately known as "banana benders" by those of us south of their border), showed us something about themselves. At the same time that CNN was telling the world about Queensland's eco-problems, here are the five most read stories on the Brisbane Times' web site:

1. Inside Melbourne's sex slave trade
2. Seven-meter crocodile decapitates girl
3. Lost Aussie survives by getting naked
4. Workers hold boss of SONY France hostage
5. Horse bites off man's testicle

I really am not writing this to make fun of the Queenslanders. To be perfectly honest, I would probably read about the sex slave trade before an environmental disaster, even if the oil was closing down my local beach. But the totality of the list is quite telling.

If you think about it, this list of only five stories has everything a newspaper aspires to. There's national news (Melbourne sex slaves), local news (the croc), international news (the French workers), human interest (the lost Aussie) and the always popular animal story. I just hope that whoever edited the horse story had the good wit to write the headline, "Horse Gelds Man".

And while on lists, let's look at the results of the third 4Q Readers Poll. This one asked you to choose your favorite Don Kennedy. The results:

1. The champion stallion (35%)
2. An old fart in Sydney (28%)
3. The opponent of horse-drawn carriages (21%)
4. A creator of LEGO creatures (7%)

No one chose the atheist or the Obama campaign worker, and one person wondered who Don Kennedy is.

I wasn't too unhappy with my second-place finish since I was lagging well behind with only one day left. However, had I known I was only a single vote shy of winning, I would not have voted for the LEGO Don.

The one trend that is obvious from the 4Q Reader poll is that you all definitely love horses. Hey, 58% of you voted for either the stallion named Don Kennedy or the Don Kennedy who opposes horse-drawn carriages as cruel and inhumane. I can handle that, but it does make me wonder if you all haven't clicked through on the link about the horse biting the guy's testicle.