Completely Unnecessary

This is seriously the front page theage.com.au is running at the moment (too wide, hence the thumbnail):

Stories include: testimony at Charles Taylor’s trial, fleeing molesty schoolmarms and ‘Kristen’s’ musical popularity. Don’t miss the two stories at the bottom about the ‘naked kidnap ordeal’ and that lady who was on the toilet for two years.

Every other goddamn headline these days is some sensationalist, Herald-Sun sex story.
And this is why, Fairfax Media, I’ve pretty much stopped reading the online version of your newspaper.

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• Joy of Sex at the Age

Just before I left, someone left a comment to the Obama entry below that read simply, “Racist.”

I thought it was odd, and I’ve spent the last three weeks (oh, you wish I was kidding) conjuring up a witty rebuttal. It was along the lines of, “Ha! I actually went to Asia! Now don’t you feel silly, anonymous commenter person!”

Zing?

Luckily, upon revisiting the comment it turned out just to be AJ, who we don’t count anyway. So danger, racism and wit averted yet again.

And, it’s a good thing that I’m not racist because then I wouldn’t have enjoyed Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia so much.

Instead I would have chuckled merrily along with the Darwin police officers who stopped Sam and me in the park at the beginning of my trip. They helpfully suggested that we might want to go home to wash after using the seesaws, as Aboriginals use them and they carry diseases.

Thank you, helpful officer man! I hope your supervisor enjoys the letter he’ll be receiving this week conveying my feelings about your useful tips!

Look soon for other entries that will recount my adventures, including: eating everything in sight, getting felt up by a man on a bus, visiting a horrible political prison, and, most excitingly, my body’s extreme intolerance of sea lice!

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Which brings me to the point I was making two days ago - welcome to my brain.

People keep asking me if I’m moving back to Chicago after my Melbourne sojourn (which, if you pronounce it the aussie way, kind of rhymes!). The answer is most likely ‘no,’ as Chicago is not the hotbed of national politics and media that we’d like to think.

The question that usually follows is: well, are you going to stay in Australia? The answer to that is probably also ‘no,’ but I wish it was ‘yes’ for at least one very important reason: walking.

I hate what living in Chicago does to me. After just six weeks visiting home, I felt unsafe walking home after the films the other night. One of the great things about living in Melbourne is that I can walk home at 1am by myself without concern. And yet I found myself looking around and constantly glancing over my shoulder. I wondered if the guy in black on Victoria Parade was just just drunk or if he kept stopping because he meant me harm. I crossed the road.

Look, it’s wise to be a savvy city girl no matter where you are, and it’s also wise to look over your shoulder when you’re walking alone late at night. But I hate the resurgent sense of threat that comes from visiting the States. After a year of living in Melb, I looked to see if anyone was there, not to see if I should be scared. It might not make sense, but those are two different things.

I appreciate the lack of feeling of risk I have walking alone here. I would everywhere were as safe.

ps - Also my bike is fixed, which just makes me speedier anyway. I have ten gears again!

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Turns out that a Google search of things like, “1890s Carlton” brings up a link to one of the Metblogs I wrote a while back. A man doing research on his family found my email address via the site and asked for some general information about what life was like in the neighborhood back then.

Dork that I am, I’m now engaged in an all-out search for his elusive relative.

Old records are so much fun! And I get to look for his great grandfather’s will and everything. I’m so insanely flattered to be asked for help doing this. It’s as though I have a useful skill.

So now I have a project to occupy the days before leaving for Asia. Not, you know, reading about where I’m going and what I’m doing, but spending the day at the archives (and then going to see Cloverfield).

Really, it’s completely impossible for me to play it cool about stuff like this. He was like, ‘Hey, so I’m doing this research, but it’s hard because I’m 3000k away’ and I’m like, “I’m going to the archives tomorrow!’

Vaguely Related

• Wind (and a little bit of media studies!)
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As I was saying the other day, no one seemed very interested in the actual people involved in the Aurukun case.

News Limited finally got around interviewing ‘rape girl’s’ family (and I’m just going to hope my inverted commas there let you know how I feel about that moniker).

The uncle said no authority had contacted the family since the story was reported. He first heard about it on the radio, and he welcomed the opportunity to speak to the media.

They apparently warned authorities that the girl would be in danger if she was returned to the community because they feared the boys would rape her again.

“She should never have been allowed to come back from foster care while those boys were still here,” the girl’s mother told a News Limited newspaper today.

“We told that to welfare. (Some of) those boys had raped her in the past.”

So, the family asked authorities to keep her safe, they were rebuffed, and then their child was attacked again. And yet we’re told that ‘new paternalism‘ is the best way forward?

Man, I am just feeling so stabby today - the joys of watching Alan Keyes do the crazy dance at the Republican debate notwithstanding.

Links:
Rape Girl Family’s Warnings Ignored [the Age]
Aboriginal Gap Prompts Call for New ‘Paternalism’ [CS Monitor]

Extra Links:
A new paternalism for Aboriginal Australia , which nicely sums up a number of the problems with the Intervention and the Howard Government’s approach to problems in Aboriginal communities. A longish, but good read.

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I’m addicted to the news. I know this. But I really wish I wasn’t. I had this nice little post I was going to write just before bed. Short and sweet. It was entitled, “Off the Market” and all it said was, “Go see Lars and the Real Girl.”

Unfortunately, I chose to read the Age. Now it’s 1:53 in the morning and I have to write a post that’s going to get me all agitated right before bed.

The child described in my previous post was also group raped at seven. Really, the whole situation is just appalling and you can read about it here because I just can’t detail it all.

No one denies there’s a problem with child abuse in some Aboriginal communities. The Little Children Are Sacred report clearly identified this, but there’s a myriad of politics caught up in it, as well.

And part of what is upsetting is the tone taken in the unsigned AAP piece to which I’ve linked above:

The child - who cannot be named - was gang-raped at the age of seven in Aurukun on Cape York in 2002, and was later put into foster care with a non-indigenous family in Cairns.

However, child safety officers in April 2006 returned her to Aurukun, where she was raped again at the age of 10.
…
The girl is now in the care of the Child Safety Department away from Aurukun.

The juxtaposition of the girl’s safety with the non-indigenous (presumably white) family before being thrown back to the dogs, so to speak, is just not the proper way to address a story with this much emotional and political content. The subtext of this article just screams ‘Intervention in Queensland.’

Most disturbingly, it seems to suggest that separating Aboriginal children from their families and communities is the only way to ’save’ them. I don’t think ‘been there, done that‘ is a strong enough sentiment.

This is a highly emotional issue - and rightly so. Such a situation requires incredibly careful, nuanced reporting. This is a hard news piece; it’s not really the place for detailed analysis. And this is a breaking story. But missing here is any voice from the community, any sense that these are acts committed by and inflicted on real people. They just seem to be things spoken about.

I don’t think I can say that’s equally disturbing, but it’s definitely part of the problem. And, more importantly, part of the reason why the problem exists in the first place.

These early pieces are going to set the tone for what looks to be a national debate about expansion of the Intervention. I just hope a traumatized young girl isn’t going to become the latest cudgel with which to beat indigenous Australians.

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In case you thought Werribee was a one-off, Judge Sarah Bradley wants you to know that boys’ fun is for all ages.

Judge Bradley refused to record convictions against six teens and suspended the sentence of three more in the gang rape of a ten-year-old girl in far north Queensland. In her ruling, the judge said that the girl had ‘probably agreed’ to the sex.

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that a ten-year-old can’t legally consent to sex with anyone - really Judge Bradley? You think a fifth grader said, ‘Yeah, let’s get it on’ to nine boys and men several years (at least) her senior?

Three of the men, the ones who received suspended sentences, are 17, 18 and 26 years of age.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the men all come from powerful Cape York Aboriginal families, whereas the girl ‘does not enjoy the elevated family status of her attackers’. She’s now been put in foster care.

Judge Bradley argues that her judgment was legitimate since it’s the ruling for which the Crown asked.

I know it’s unfair that I’m extra appalled that a female judge handed down this ruling. Women shouldn’t be held to higher standards, nor should they be expected to rule more harshly cases where violence has been visited upon women. But, god, all I can think about is how little I was when I was ten.

From what I’ve read of the court statements, it seems as though Judge Bradley is explaining to the men that sex with those under sixteen is wrong. And ideas about legal consent are different in some Aboriginal communities. But I just can’t understand a 24-year-old man who participates in the gang rape of a fifth grader.

Or the judge (and Crown) who excuses him.

Links:
PM ‘disgusted’ at gang rape comments [The Age]
Row over gang rape of 10yo [The Daily Telegraph]
Girl, 10, ‘probably agreed’ to sex [The Courier Mail]

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No long waiting periods after an election in Australia - the Rudd Government was officially sworn in today. Labor voters have waited 11 and a half years for power, and boy do they have it now.

First up - ratifying Kyoto, which is highly symbolic for both climate change and, I would argue, a more general breaking of ties (or sycophantic lockstep) with the Bush government.

Also - seven women in the Cabinet, which is just awesome! Women are shockingly unrepresented in Australian politics - even given the pretty abysmal standards set in countries like the US. (I’m talking here about percentage of women involved in politics versus their 50+% of the population, so don’t go waving Pelosi or Clinton at me.) It’s great to see Rudd moving to elevate female ministers; hopefully, it will encourage more women to run for office and see more successful female candidates in the future.

People are clearly looking for change in Oz, and here’s hoping they get it. I’m a little uncomfortable with both the Federal and all the state governments now in Labor hands. I think governments work better when there is a division of power. I’d hate to see Rudd go ramming legislation down people’s throats, similar to what the Bush Admin and all Republican-controlled Congress did.

Rudd has promised to govern for ‘all Australians’ - including indigenous peoples. Let’s hope he holds to it. Someone mentioned to me the other day (or I might of read it in the paper), who better to ‘keep the bastards honest’ than the investigative journalist that now holds Mr Howard’s seat? Onwards and upwards.

It still doesn’t seem real somehow. I keep expecting Howard to be like, ‘Just kidding! I threw some kids overboard, and all immigrants go home now. And take the Aboriginals with you; we’ve opened mines on all sacred sites.’

PM Rudd Rolls Up Sleeves [Age]

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This morning,  in one photo and accompanying caption, the Age neatly summed up why I have not, as of yet, married an Australian bloke:

Just everything about this picture makes me cringe.

And is it just me, or does the guy on the far right look like he has his ass on backwards?

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Walking home from uni today I looked up and there was a big cockatoo just hanging out on someone’s downspout. He flew around the back of the house when a crow came up for his perch. Animals we have in the zoo back home are just hanging out around the city. It’d be like having cardinals in the zoo - you don’t see them that often, and it’s nice when you do, but it’s not day-changing.

I still like the magpies the best. They evil little bastards (watch your eyes), but they make the coolest sounds I’ve ever heard.

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