Cranky Queenslander

I’m constantly amazed not only at how poorly the average human being can behave, but also by how others can seek to make excuses for the behaviour. The latest step toward moral decay is this Henson characters photographing of naked children.

I think this article in the Sydney Morning Herald shows how we are sliding down the slippery slope. Let me pull out the key phrases;

It’s a triumph of the philistines

The title of the piece says it all. If you are upset by the fact that children are being stripped naked and photographed, my must be a philistine. There is no way you can just be a concerned citizen who thinks children’s naked bodies should be confined to the family bathroom. Clearly there are a lot of people who don’t have a problem with their children being on public, naked, display. That worries me for a start.

No other contemporary Australian artist in any medium enjoys such an exalted reputation or has a more devoted market for his work.

So what? His reputation has nothing to do with the question of being allowed to strip children naked and photograph them. Seriously. I can’t understand this argument at all. If I went next door, borrowed the neighbours two little girls, took all their clothes off and photographed them, I would be in prison right now. And rightly so.

it would be foolish to write them off as "pornography".

This is where the lewd sector try and skew us off point. These photos are NOT pornography. That doesn’t mean they are okay though. They are indecent, morally bankrupt and wrong, but are not porn. The writer of this and other similar pieces need to get back on topic. You cannot possible tell me its okay to photograph naked children.

It is not surprising that many people are shocked and disturbed by images of naked adolescents

No it is not, and this is the first statement that gets close to reality. However, you can see the writers use of the word adolescents to make the kids seem less like kids.  We are talking about 12 and 13 year olds here. They are children, and you should refer to them as such.

He obtains the full co-operation of his subjects and their families, many of whom have remained friends.

Again, so what? So he as willing accomplices in his dirty work? If I have a few mates who think its fine to help me rob the local ANZ, does that make it all right?

The real point here is that the parents of these children should also be charged. They have cooperated in the exploitation of their children, and they should be made to understand the seriously of this. They should have the kids taken from them and placed in foster care where they can be safe from this kind of rubbish.

This case has the potential to drag on for many months in the courts, giving the world a ring-side view of the narrowness of our minds

Oh, I see; If I think that children should be children and not paraded around naked for the world of perverts to get off on, then I am narrow minded? I wonder if the writer of this piece has children, and if so, would they mind dropping them at my place for a little nude photo shoot. I’ll put the pics on the internet and call the art, it’ll be great!

No, they wouldn’t. And any self respecting parent wouldn’t either. Who is looking after the children?

I had to scratch my head and wonder today when I had cause to ring the jobsearch employer line. Nothing major, but the nice lady at the other end took the time to warn me about some important new rules that have just been brought in.

Apparently, I am not allowed to use the word "junior" in a job advertisement, with the only exception being to describe a junior rate of pay.

Seriously? This is so laughable, and yet I find myself thinking perhaps I should be writing to some federal ministers asking for a list of banned words that I am no longer allowed to use.

Alternatively, I might place a job ad and make it my business to use the word so many times it gives some bean counter a migraine.

It’s just another example of where government should get out of our lives and leave us to live them.

Nice to see that we have a real "education for all" attitude down here; Reports are that family members of the military dictatorship running Burma are living in Australia, and getting degrees at our Universities.

This, despite the fact that we have imposed sanctions on the country to try and force some change over there.

Perhaps we can stick this lot on the next plane full of medical and other supplies we send over for the people affected by the recent cyclone.

It was one of Derryn Hinch’s favourite one liners, "Who’s looking after the children". It’s also one I might be adopting over the coming months and years, as I start to see a pattern of failure to care for our kids across society.

The latest evidence comes from Forest Lake, where a five year old girl was hit by a car. Its a pretty tragic thing to happen to anyone, let alone such a young child. Plenty of people are upset about it, but as you can see from this courier mail article, they are all upset with the driver of the car.

This week the local paper has a call to lower the speed limit 10k’s an hour on the road, citing the incident as the latest in a string of pedestrian accidents that demonstrate the speed limit needs lowering.

Really?

I would have thought it shows that either we have drivers failing to obey road rules such as stopping at red lights, giving way, and what not, or it shows that we have raised a generation of stupid people who can’t cross a street.

In the case of the 5 year old, she was (as would be expected), with her mother, but her mother was not, as far as I can tell, hit by the car. I hope the girl pulls through, and I hope her mother realises that you can’t let five years cross the road by themselves!

From what I gather, the pedestrian light was green, so the mother and child were following the rules to cross the road; That means that the drive failed to obey a traffic signal, and should be charged with that offence, plus something like grievous bodily harm for the damage this failure caused to the girl.

Once we stop worrying about a few k’s over the limit, and start worrying about how badly some people drive, things will improve. At the same time, we should perhaps start fining people for jaywalking again. I had two people wander out onto Ipswich road at Annerley just yesterday as I was approaching. It wouldn’t have taken much to go wrong for me to have hit one of them. Should we drop the speed limit to 40 on Ipswich road to allow for people to wander about it like a shopping mall?

In closing, let me make this wake up call to parents. You need to teach your kids how to cross a road. You need to set an example on how to do it safely, and you need to hold their hands while you do it!

Currency Lad put it nicely when he described this budget as a shuffling of deck chairs. Many punters will see the glossy spin and get excited, safe in the knowledge that their union mates are sticking it to the man.

Those of us who open the cover and look at the cheap newsprint containted within, however, will see something different. I’m no analyst, so lets just take a quick look at a couple of key points;

Wayne Swan’s big issue was cutting government spending. Did he do that? No. How do I know? Well, look at the budget papers for last years budget, and then this years.  Down on page 6-3, you will see the total government spending estimate. Last years budget was estimated at 235.6 Billion. This years budget is 292.5 Billion. The current budget revises the actual spending from last year to 280 billion, so even taking that figure, the new government is upping spending by 12.5 billion dollars.

The other thing that irks me is the fact that Labor was all about the environment before the election, and is now nowhere to be seen on the issue. The Australian gives us a roundup of the environmental initiatives in this budget,and they are pretty woeful.

Where are the new solar power stations? The Hydrogen development? Why are we wasting money on "clean coal"?  Time for more letters I think, but first I’ll do some more reading to see what other clean energy options are already on the table.

Would love to hear your comments on these two issues, let me know what you think.

Here’s a corker; Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma wants the burden of proof in cases of racial discrimination to fall on the alleged offender, instead of the person making the complaint. [via The Age]

I shouldn’t have to go into too much detail to explain why it is utterly preposterous to think that anyone believes that people should be found guilty until they can prove their innocence.

Andrew Bolt went as far as suggesting we all make complaints against the commissioner himself, and see how he likes being guilty of racial discrimination with no way of proving otherwise. How exactly do you prove a negative anyway Tom?