http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12116684%255E12274,00.html
For crying out loud, let's get our bleeding priorities right
02feb05
WEIRDLY enough, the two hottest topics round Australian water coolers
at the moment are mutilated kittens and menstruating prostitutes.
The former relates to the increasing number of citizens who think
responsible pet ownership includes incineration and throat-slitting.
Perhaps they're confused about the "keep fresh water available at all
times" part of the animal-care manual. It's easy to mistake this for
"feel free to drag your defenceless pet behind a speeding vehicle
while your pustulous mates guffaw". Particularly if you're a nascent
psychopath.
The second topic du jour is the sexual degradation Americans allegedly
used to torture prisoners, enemy combatants and unprivileged
belligerents at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
The word on the street is that former detainee Mamdouh Habib was tied
down while a prostitute "dripped" menstrual blood on him. This was
designed to break his ties with God, given that Islamic law forbids
men from having contact with menstruating women or ladies who aren't
their wife. (Hopefully Allah goes easy on chaps if such contact occurs
at the hands of unethical American interrogators.)
While both these topics are performing strongly on Australia's
outrage-o-meter, some members of the commentariat are concerned that
kitten killing is scoring higher than the vile menstrual activities at
Guantanamo Bay. One newspaper letter writer claims torched felines are
devoid of news value and that it's disgraceful they're making the
front pages. Another condemns the nation's sympathy for a couple of
cats when innocent people are being tortured and killed overseas
(apparently it's not possible to feel for two demographics atonce).
Trying to rank atrocities is a bit like the old "would you rather be
eaten by a shark or blown up by TNT?" game from the schoolyard. But as
long as we're playing, here's a novel suggestion: Australia is
screwing up its torture-related outrage. The kittens warrant a whole
lot more and the Guantanamo bleeding business a whole lot less.
Let's start with the cats. Maybe Australia's hot new trend in kitten
assault doesn't offend you on a cruelty-to-animals basis. But if you
partition animal and human torture in your brain, you're making a
dangerous mistake.
Research points to an overwhelming link between animal abusers and
people who go on to commit serious crimes against humans. According to
a recent report commissioned by the NSW Police Service, 100 per cent
of sexual homicide offenders examined reported a history of animal
cruelty.
Why aren't databases being set up? Interventions made? Animal cruelty
seen as the crime against society it really is? This is bigger than a
couple of kitties. Our outrage-o-meter should be registering a
full-throated, Hollywood-strength noooooooooooo . . .
Now on to the other matter. Any woman who's ever had a period knew
something wasn't quite right when the "Hooker used in torture of
Habib" headlines hit the papers last week.
The average amount of blood we lose during menstruation is about 25ml
to 35ml – the equivalent of a short black coffee. Add to this equation
the six-day length of the average period and the gluggy consistency of
its by-product, and the chance of a threatening geyser is really quite
thin.
Call me culturally insensitive, but I reckon it's the poor old
prostitutes who'd suffer the most during this bizarre new version of
Chinese water torture. They're the ones who'd have to hover for days
in order to produce anything approaching a result. Imagine the size of
their quadriceps.
Anyway, whichever way you look at it, assault with a loaded uterus
doesn't seem nearly as torturous as some of the other techniques
alleged in relation to Guantanamo. Being hung from ceilings, beaten
and electrified are just threeexamples.
So what's with Australia's extraordinary outrage levels? Habib and his
fellow Muslim prisoners have the "it breaks God's law" excuse, but
what's our rationale? Is a smear of menstrual blood really more
offensive than an ally's physical abuse of illegally detained PoWs, or
the foreplay of potential sex killers?
Trying to grade atrocities is stupid and childish. But maybe in this
instance it's worth a bit of bloody prioritising.
etom@bigpond.com
© The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12052399%255E12274,00.html
Gross-out as old woman cops mother of a media hiding
26jan05
THE media loves a bit of mother bashing. The targets are lazy,
bludging mothers who stay at home, and selfish, neglectful mothers who
go to work. Mothers who use too much discipline and mothers who don't
use enough. Mothers who are too single, too lezzo or too inclined to
leave their kids in the backs of four-wheel drives in casino car
parks. Mothers who go nuts and snuff out their offspring with pillows
and gases.
Bad mothers are worse than other bad people because their behaviour is
considered unnatural.
A mighty "up yours" to the survival of the species and the natural
order and also to photographer Anne Geddes, whose recent collaboration
with singer Celine Dion shows just how sugary motherhood was meant to
be. (Please note that super-glueing gumnut hats and fake wings to
sleeping infants may be misinterpreted if attempted outside a Geddes
photo shoot.)
Women get called bad mothers even when they're childless. Consider
Julia Gillard whose barren womb cops far more flak than Bob Carr's
barren testicles. No doubt her "sterile" kitchen would have received a
much better review in last weekend's papers if it contained more dirty
nappies and mashed banana. These could then have been attacked as
evidence that ambition was defiling her parenting (a charge male
politicians also avoid ad nauseam).
Given our deep and enduring interest in women's performance as
breeders, it's not surprising to witness the orgy of hatefulness
currently being directed at Adriana Iliescu from Bucharest.
Iliescu is the 67-year-old academic who became the oldest mother in
the world earlier this month after giving birth to a girl called Eliza
Maria.
Iliescu Jr was delivered prematurely via caesarean after one, possibly
two, siblings perished in utero.
"Horrible", "shocking", "cruel", "selfish", "unnatural" and
"freakish", were some of the adjectives used to describe Adriana's
unfashionably late shot at the reproducing title. One pundit claimed
having such a fossil for a mother would cause Eliza crippling
emotional damage. Another fixated on the donated egg and sperm. "This
is nothing but an elaborate, expensive and grotesque form of
adoption," she railed.
While Eliza Maria has hardly arrived into the ideal family
arrangement, much of the vitriol directed at her mum is irrational –
fuelled partly by old-fashioned moral outrage, partly by new-fashioned
discomfort at reproductive technology and partly by the "eeeeeewwww"
factor. People are grossed out that a baby grew in such a withered old
incubator. It just doesn't seem right. Like those ears scientists
implant on the backs of rats.
But the "it's unnatural" brigade should consider the hypocrisy of its
position. Most medical interventions are taken for granted when they
don't involve the wombs of sixtysomething Romanian spinsters.
And wasn't the implantation of Jesus an early form of IVF?
When examined sans hysteria, Adriana's decision raises only two
serious issues: Is she physically and emotionally capable of raising a
child, and will she live long enough to finish the job? These are
solemn concerns, but can be partly alleviated by a vigorous bank
balance and an extended family.
They're also relevant to all parents – including wrinkly fathers who
usually earn a salacious thumbs-up for shooting non-blanks in their
senior years. What the anti-Adriana squad should remember is that
crappy parents come in all sorts of packaging – just like good ones.
Many kiddies carry the burden of weird parents and survive, just as
many kiddies are raised by grandparents and thrive.
It's dangerous to rate the longevity of intrafamilial bonds as more
important than their quality. After all, if such connections are
irretrievably dysfunctional, it's probably best they end as soon as
possible.
Perhaps all those international media outlets claiming so much concern
about Eliza's well-being will acknowledge that intrusive media
attention can also be emotionally damaging and keep their distance.
And if they do find Eliza at 18 to be a maladjusted hell raiser,
perhaps they could also remember that many equally obnoxious teenagers
emerge from perfectly "normal" nuclear families – without a test tube
or pensioner's card in sight.
etom@bigpond.com
© The Australian
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
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