U.S. could do well to adopt some Aussie practices

I have often dreamed of a super-nation that would steal the coolest holidays and tastiest delicacies from every other nation, one FrankenNation of unimaginable splendor. Supposedly, in an age of instantaneous information, innovative procedural improvements should be universally transmitted and adopted worldwide within weeks - and perhaps this is true in, say, the bra-hook production industry and among the food canners of the world. (For example, the much-loved welded side-seam is relatively ubiquitous in today's canned culinary produce. Try to find a can with a hand-soldered side seam! I dare you.)

But cultural traditions are notoriously resistant to change, even when obviously outmoded (See: Marriage). So it seems that while the whole world has access to the best in canned corn and tchotchke-production tech., the very best of the world's cultural practices remain sadly rooted in their far-flung homelands.

I suppose America is probably the closest we've got to the ideal Melting Pot, but it has its flaws; I pine for a land when bubble tea, salsa dancing and Tandoori chicken will be as ubiquitous as McDonald's and Tom Hanks are today.

The catalyst for this reverie came from the winter break, which I recently spent in Australia. Or should I say summer break? The seasons are reversed down there; blazing sun until 9 p.m. in January really throws your hibernating circadian rhythm for a loop.

Topless sunbathing is a perfect example of a brilliant tradition that isn't nearly as widespread as it should be. It's something the whole world ought to be able to rally around, and yet the glories - the bronzed, unsheathed female anatomy - are to be found in relatively few locales. This is truly what those of an economical bent might term a "dead-weight loss."

Sadly, it often seems that the world, rather than evolving culturally, seems hell-bent on taking the worst from each nation to assemble a global hegemony of the tasteless and unappealing. While Australian culture has much to offer the rest of the world, its two most ubiquitous exports - crocodile hunters and Ugg boots - would be last on any sensible list of go-to cultural adoptions.

Besides toplessness, Australia is further home to the brilliant conception of the drive-through liquor store. In a move that surely nullified millions of dollars worth of drunk-driving campaigns while bringing smiles to punters throughout the continent, Australia has many liquor stores that are little more than hollow tubes, run through with a two-lane road, along which the walls are stacked high with 30-racks and wine bottles. Drive in, hop out, load up and peel out, as it were. Could the United States not benefit greatly from a chain of such stores - especially in, say, the Northeast, where the bitter cold can make even the pleasurable task of shopping for inebriants a painful chore?

The other valuable cultural practices of the Land Down Under are perhaps more difficult to export - how does one ship overseas an easy-going sense of humorous fatalism, and a wine-guzzling joie de vivre? And so perhaps Australia's potential contributions to the future ubermensch of nations draws to a close - though, for a continent with less people than Mexico City, I should say it made a good showing! Now, a few more practices sniped from this nation, a few more traditions yanked that country, and I say we'd be well on our way to the cultural Elysium of the future. Onward and upward, men!