Friday, December 30, 2005

RU486 - don't leave it to Barney's conscience

There is a petition on the Get up - Action for Australia site to show support for the legalization of the drug RU486 which is not just related to early unwanted pregancy but also useful in treating cancer. Have your say... here, don't leave it up to politicians' morality to determine the outcome of this debate.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Auld parties and New year's eve

In the search for the ultimate New Year's eve bash, the Blogosphere's conversations turn to occasions old and new , whilst others contemplate [wishful] resolutions for the coming year.

In the wrapping-up of events over the last year, few things could rival the rise and rise of blogging as credible successor to mass-media, its demise attributable to its monolithic need for pr & advertorial revenue and revenue growth, and gross underestimation of consumers' intelligence & taste.

A lack of adaptability saw numerous mass-media print-media dinosaurs out of a job in 2005 and extinction of technophobic journalists looming as a very real threat.

Humour aside, threats to journalists increased this year internationally with 68 journalists killed and 197 imprisoned.

In Australia, journalists have faired little better with ever-increasingly repressive media legislation and gaoling and fines for journalists who dare to uphold the Australian Journalists Code of Ethics and the pursuit of freedom of information and the public's right to know.

In the coming year New Matilda is welcoming a
Bill of Rights in Victoria and Keks is welcoming the Australian Blog Awards.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

A capitalist's fairytale - not so bulletproof after all

He saw the other side - there was nothing there, so now he will probably be buying up big on the other side and building several huge multinationals, greasing palms to change the laws and hiring roustabouts to see to it that his will is done. But he leaves the Packer empire headed by someone of much more spiritual insight which I know will leave the Saint with lots of warm fuzzy feelings [and Lefty] and create much more diversity on the late night telly.

Kerry Packer had a number of 'charming' sayings, his serve to those who opposed him or didn't appease him in the journalism industry was, 'I am going to bury you,' and when he was seeking the rights to broadcast from the ACB he was sure he would charm the pants off the ACB members when he said,"there is a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen. What is your price?" - a guaranteed tender winner...not. After which KP, stunned at the ACB's audacity to turn down such charm and wit, started his own league and televised his own games, but he wasn't a bad loser at all.

Kerry Packer had a number of great claims to fame, like appearing in U.S. career madam to the stars', Heidi Fleiss' diary, which said KP had hired 8 prostitutes and flown them to Las Vegas and had to pay them a very large sum of cash[indeed! - author shudders], each.

KP surprisingly, also came out smelling like a media mogul after an appearance at the Costigan Royal Commission as a suspected drug importation mogul, and evading paying tax to a tune of $143 million, claiming the laws needed to be more lenient on the rich, which would later become one of the main platforms for KP's R/C lawyer, Malcolm Turnbull's career in politics and is strangely reminiscent of some changes being made by the coalition majority parliament at the moment, to the detriment of the average working and middle class Aussie.

Kerry was 'a great man of the people' apparently and the pm is in mourning. It was eerie the way his enemies magically fell and his influence over public right to know via the media will be blissfully felt for generations.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Mad dogs 'n' Englishmen: the effects of Australian summers

The wake of youths rioting in Sydney has highlighted existing vulnerabilities in the Blogosphere's social & political commentators in these tumultuous times. This impact is particularly prevalent in those who are living amidst this climate in Sydney and Melbourne's youth cultures on the east coast of Australia.

Anonymous Lefty and his subsequent commenters point out that generalizations aren't the privilege of extremists, or maybe it's just fighting fire with fire, or, an eye for an eye...[another handy phrase]

Media Dragon offers perspective, while an Islamic terror suspect was heard quoting from the Old Testament of the bible in police surveillance tapes played to the court during a bail hearing.

All this, in conjuction with Darp of all bloggers [allegedly?]banning a pacifist, and a 'right-wing-death-beast' fighting for free speech for a leftist, all adds up to one way-out week in the Blogosphere - if only the ludicrousness stopped there.

But, in parliament this week, Backdoor Barney tries a very bad Geoffrey Robertson impression, posing a hypothetical on the degree of criminality of shooting a 'host' mother - perhaps the subject of cloning would suit Barney's argument better.

It wasn't very long ago the public heard the same middle-aged white profoundly patriarchal all-male pollies saying 'you can't legislate morality,' it is a most useful term in its astounding adaptability, particularly in application to legislation governing the other half[the female half] of Australia, that is, the majority who aren't based in right-wing patriarchal religion.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

George realizes his mistake...

From the BBC World News...

"President Bush says much of the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war was wrong, but says the decision to oust Saddam Hussein was right."

All he had to do was listen to all the pre-Iraq War whistleblowers...maybe he could blame it on a lack of intelligence?

The invisible blogger...

The spiritual euphemisms fly as the absent, yet ubiquitous Saint, proves himself a dab hand at ghostwriting...

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Youths riot in Cronulla & Maroubra

The Blogosphere right and left, is up in arms over rioting in beachside Cronulla, which apparently involved a few thousand youths. [TDM can only speculate about the numbers involved as the number involved in the riots increase with every telling of the incident on mainstream news.]

Meantime the commercial mainstream media, mostly television news crews it seems, are doing their best to incite more riots with commentary and coverage that can only be described as inflammatory.

Those left to pick up the pieces, are average Aussies, some more culturally diverse than others, but average Aussies one and the same, who have worked all their lives to make Australia a resource-rich and culturally diverse place bonded together by racial harmony and the rewards of hard work.

It would be highly irresponsible for the commercial media and bored adolescents to throw away a couple hundred years of their parents' and ancestors' labours creating this culturally rich and tolerant society.

The criminal and mindless actions of the offending youths are sadly indicative of a generation of youth culture which has been hand-reared on a multi-media barrage of violence, tolerance of drugs and drug culture, gender inequality and disrespect, and the subsequent anger and loss of hope could hardly have been unseen until the violence erupted on the weekend.

Media and advertising can play a huge role in the building or destruction of social dynamics and the commercial media coverage of the rioting has merely amplified problems that need strategic government planning to overcome.

Certain issues need to be addressed, such as how things were permitted to escalate to that degree and why habitual large gatherings of criminally-minded youths at Cronulla Beach had not been dealt with previously. In areas where anti-social behaviour is an ongoing problem strategic initiatives can be used effectively to divert or avoid negative group focus.

In the meantime, probably more potential funding will disappear from the ailing health system to prop up special services units who were unable to cope on the day, another kick in the guts for the aging population who have slaved to make Australia a land of opportunity and to give these youngsters the opportunity to completely blow the gig.


It is fortunate for those located on the West coast that WAPOL confine outbreaks of gang-related violence virtually as soon as they arise, with incidence of even small skirmishes thankfully drawing a certain amount of big-small town policing fervour.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Mothers grieve while governments execute a deterrent

The last two weeks of media coverage have contained an overwhelming number of stories about the convicted drug smuggler, Nguyen Tuong Van's execution - mostly gratuitous, a small amount were highly effective, while some bordered on tawdry and voyeuristic.

It appears there was nowhere near the amount of public concern for the young man's life by the government and the media for the last three years, until it was too late to actually do anything to preserve his life, which is frighteningly convenient for Australian business' sake.

Probably the most effective of the media coverage amidst the struggle for journalists to write about the story from a new aspect, was the examination of the public's empathy and compassion. This was not merely from Nguyen's mother's point of view which was made clear from the start, but from parallels which explored how easily it could be any Australian in their places.

The effectiveness of this angle struck at the heart of Australian ideology - Australia's highly developed sense of decency and compassion, where state-sanctioned killing is thought of generally, as beneath our values.

In the heat of this heightened awareness and exploration of the Aussie idea of a 'fair go' and second chances, was the examination also, of the level of effectiveness of execution as a deterrent.

In North Carolina the Friday morning execution of a 57 y/o man Kenneth Boyd, who has lived on death row for the last eleven years, brings the US grand total of executions, in only the last 30 years to one thousand. Singapore's number of executions is considerably lower but does not compare well given the low population and the types of crimes that warrant the death sentence.


HREOC said the planned execution of Australian man Nguyen Tuong Van ' reminds us why we should remain vigilant in our opposition to the use of the death penalty and support efforts to universally outlaw its use.'

President von Doussa said: “The very sad case of Van Nguyen illustrates that there is no place for the death penalty in the 21st Century.”


Mr von Doussa said “ courts must be able to consider whether the death penalty is an appropriate penalty in all of the circumstances of the case. In other words, it must have the option to impose a lesser penalty depending on the individual circumstances. Mandatory death penalties therefore constitute a breach of international human rights law because they can result in an arbitrary deprivation of life.”


In any event, the number of executions must clearly spell out the lack of effectiveness as a deterrent, particularly in the US which still allows the carrying and use of firearms allegedly for self-protection and has a heavy culture of promotion and acceptance of firearms use, while having an excessively high violent crime rate.

Ideas of justice from one system of government to another really need to be reviewed on a regular basis due to changing populations and shifting belief systems which dictate the basis for individual morality and ethics. It is clear that in both the USA and Singapore there are significant numbers of people who disapprove of the use of capital punishment. Mandatory death sentences, which prevent judges from using their own judgement and discretion from one case to another, have also been discussed as preventing the application of effective justice.

Interestingly, Lefty discusses the appropriateness of violent punishment for non-violent crimes, which has implications even in 'compassionate' Australia, where the likes of serial child sex offenders and serial murderers are deemed to be worthy of keeping their lives - does that suggest that the justice system considers offenders such as this are capable of reforming? Some religions also assert that in death particularly a punishment of violent death, such as in the event of the stoning to death of offenders of 'immorality' crimes such as adulterous or 'immoral' women or homosexuals, that the offenders are freed from their crimes/sins. It seems that the answers to the ongoing conundrum of capital punisment hinge on the assessment of the value of human life weighed against the extent of immorality in crimes against humans or against God.

There is little currently being said about the Australian authorities' 'handing over' of 9 very young Australians to a country where there is a death penalty for drug trafficking. If they were found guilty how would the Australian authorities manage to wriggle out of the responsibility for their death sentences, when, as young western prisoners, they would have been managed with prison sentences and rehabilitation?

While some support the death penalty for large-scale drug traffickers, the degree of guilt [ie. mules as compared to high scale drug trafficking organizers] needs to be addressed somewhere within the sentencing equation. After all, it is the already financial high-flyers who organize shipments, who really benefit from the importation of drugs, rather than young mules who are frequently coerced or blackmailed and often carry the drugs to clear a drug debt or to earn small amounts of cash in exchange for risking what they see as unimportant and mundane lives.

Australia stopped using the death penalty four decades ago, Queensland was the first state to abolish the death penalty in 1922 and New South Wales the last in 1985.

The last person to be executed in Australia was Ronald Ryan, hanged in 1967 in Victoria. William Burrough's Baboon has a summary of an account of Ryan's hanging...

'...I opened my eyes and Ryan was gone and there was just the rope waving back and forth, and just the creaking of the rope and it just awful, a real horrible scene it was so deliberate. Noone moved, there was just not a sound in the place.'

Australia has committed itself to opposing the death penalty by becoming a party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which prohibits signatories re-instating the death penalty.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Mother demands justice after tube shooting

It was announced this week there will be an inquiry into the conduct of Sir Ian Blair after the shooting of Brazilian-born plumber Jean-Charles de Menezes by special service officers .

In an investigation following the July 7 bombings, Jean-Charles de Menezes was mistaken for a terror suspect who allegedly lived in the same block of flats and was under surveillance.

The mistaken killing of de Menezes raised serious questions about the reliability of the application of the 'Shoot-to-kill' Policy, requiring multiple shots at close range to the head, in the instance of people suspected of wearing explosives.

A police whistleblower revealed with photographic evidence that Mr de Menezes was wearing light clothing, which conflicted with the statements released by the police which said the plumber was mistaken for a terrorist due to the 'heavy winter clothing he was wearing in the height of summer'.

The whistleblower for her efforts, was raided and arrested, while the officer who shot 27 y/o plumber, Jean Charles de Menezes, was given a holiday.

The mother of the victim called for justice for her son's grizzly death at the hands of the police, and a spokesperson for the family complained that the misinformation was used strategically to avoid culpability and had been spread through "off the record" statements by senior Met officers to journalists immediately after the shooting'.

The Met are claiming they 'welcome' the inquiry and stress that it is not specifically an inquiry into Sir Ian Blair's involvement in the cover-up and Sir Ian said he welcomes the inquiry which will facilitate accountability.

In relation to a free and unbiased press, one has to question the presence of this profile of Blair on the BBC World website, which in a court in Australia would be considered to be in contempt, due to being counter productive to creating an impartial hearing via manipulation by the mass media.