It's Good Friday people, go HOME!

It is always interesting seeing how different places work.

At the moment I am sitting in the study with the window open, and a gazillion cars are flogging down the freeway that runs on the other side of a masonry fence about 20m away.

It is late peak hour on Friday arvo.

Only this is Good Friday. In Australia it is a public holiday. It is a sacred day for Christians and for the rest of us, it is a good day to bludge around or try to get to someplace for the last gasp of summer.

In Australia, the traffic would not be as heavy as a normal Friday. Noone works if they can possibly avoid it on Good Friday (and if they do work, they try to make sure that they get at least double time).

Australia is not nominally or constitutionally a Christian nation. If our prime minister said "God Bless Australia" at the end of a speech or what have you, everyone would be very very surprised. We have separation of the church from the state and it is not considered appropriate to ask for god's blessing on the country. (Mebbe cos Aussies consider that we already have that? Even with the drought and all?)

The US does seem to be a Christian nation, no matter what its founding fathers intended: '"The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion," states the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli. This document was ratified by Congress without much debate or contention and stands today as a reminder of the founding fathers' intentions.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States, accessed 21 March 2008). The president says "God Bless America" at the end of speeches. It seems very odd then that Good Friday, being a Very Important Day in Christianity, is Just Another Day To Go Shopping.

I admit to going shopping but then again, I'm not a Christian 8-)