Five Years Later

...or however long it has actually been since I posted here last. Still, I've decided to reclaim the blog, though am somewhat amused by my high school senior pretentions to current affair commentary. Needless to say, that's no longer what I'm going to be blogging about. Given that no one's reading this other than me, I am giving myself the liberty to write about whatever the hell I want. And I'm not the teacher's pet 17 year old that I was when I started this blog, so there.

I am 23 years old. I still live in Sydney (though a very different Sydney to the sheltered Northern Beaches I grew up in). I'm married. I'm somewhat fucked up (not just certifiable, but actually certified), and I think I'm in the process of dropping out of uni. Oh, and we've just bought a house.

I'm probably going to write a fair bit about the whole house thing. It's pretty cool, I'm only 23 and I've already mortgaged my soul away to a slightly B-grade financial institution in return for a house that no one can kick us out of. I can plant fruit trees, and still be there when they start fruiting three years later. I can buy a cat.

We're not there yet. In the next month we need to pack up our life and material (and emotional?) baggage. But then... a new beginning.

Palestine groups united against violence

So groups such as as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have gotten together to condemn violence. Well, that's good, isn't it? You'd think?

It scares me.

"Any action aimed at spreading chaos or internal strife ... will be considered treason," said the spokesman.

Will be considered treason.

Treason, n. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.

"Our response will be unified and swift."

Great. So now, not only are they terrorists, they are also policemen. Policing themselves, each other. But what it actually is, I think, is a pin-pointing of factionalism. They may come out saying that they're unified, but only because there's factionalism to be dealt with.

And do we want them unified? I really don't know. I really don't.

Beauty takes a deadly turn - World - smh.com.au

Absolutely sick. Sick. Foul. Just sick...

London: A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation has discovered.

Agents for the company have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to Britain, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

With European regulations to control cosmetic treatments such as collagen not expected for several years, doctors and politicians say the discovery highlights the dangers faced by the increasing number of Britons seeking to improve their looks. Apart from the ethical concerns, there is also the risk of infection.

The House of Commons select health committee is to examine the regulatory system and may launch an inquiry and question ministers about the need for immediate new controls.

"I am sure that the committee will want to look at this," said Kevin Barron, its Labour chairman. "This is something everyone in society will be very concerned about."

Plastic surgeons are also concerned about the delay in introducing regulations to control the cosmetic treatments industry.

A former president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, Norman Waterhouse, said: "I am surprised that we are taking the lead from the European Commission, because this is bound to delay action on this important area which is increasingly a matter for concern."

It is unclear whether any of the "aesthetic fillers" such as collagen available in Britain or on the internet are supplied by the company, which cannot be identified for legal reasons. It is also unclear if collagen made from prisoners' skin is in the research stage or is in production.

An agent told customers the company had exported to the US and Europe, and that it was trying to develop fillers using tissue from aborted foetuses.

I don't know what to say. That's not human. (Well, hey, I guess the point is that it is.) I might post about it later, but I'm too sickened now.

Melbourne: an al-Qaeda target?

So there's a video-tape supposedly from al-Quaeda, threatening Melbourne and Los Angeles.

"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne..."

My first thought was one of anger and fear. Australia, while having lost many to terrorism, has not seemed to be an immediate target. Even the Barli bombing, while Australians were the largest group of Western nationals killed, well, it wasn't on our soil. More Indonesians died than anyone else, anyway. It was an attack on Indonesia, then. Indonesian security failed, and Australians died, just as they did in London, in Madrid, in Washington, in Israel, and in Iraq. But Melbourne as a target? That's a threat to Australia.

My second thought, though, is disbelief. Melbourne? Why Melbourne? An American terrorism expert, Bernard Reich is quoted in the article as saying the following:

"And to put it bluntly, while I find Los Angeles an appealing target, I haven't figured out what Melbourne is."

That's my feelings right now in a nutshell - and no offense to any Melbournites. I'm not trying to say that Melbourne is insignificant. I just don't see what it offers as a terrorist target. Of course, Los Angeles isn't a capital either, but it is in America, which seems to be a big thing to al-Qaeda, and it also has 3.8 million people to Melbourne's - wait, no, Melbourne also has 3.8 million people! And that's 3.8 out of 20 million in Australia, and 3.8 out of 295 million in the US. Why should Los Angeles be more of a target than Melbourne? It's a state capital, but so is Melbourne. It's American. That's what it comes down to.

It isn't that Melbourne is insignificant, it's that Australia is insignificant - but what it represents is not. Australia is an international ally (though what we offer the US, given our population difference, I'm not too sure), and this tape is saying that they will attack not only the US, but US allies - even the seemingly insignificant ones. Watch out, Westerners. Don't get complacent.

There's a poll on NineMSN news, asking whether you believe that Australia faces an imminent terror attack. Almost two thirds do. But I'm not sure I do. Am I being complacent? Perhaps. Isn't that exactly what this tape is saying? Don't be complacent in your insignificance? Perhaps.

That is if the tape actually came from al-Qaeda. I don't know enough to presume to make a guess on this point.

But I keep coming back to the point, why Melbourne? Whether it's real, whether it's a stunt, whether it's a piece of al-Qaeda propaganda - we're obviously meant to think it's real. And why Melbourne? Am I too self-centred as a Sydney-sider? But Canberra is the capital city. Why not Canberra? True, it's one of the smallest cities of Australia – three hundred thousand to Melbourne’s four million, and Sydney’s six million – but it is the capital. Or Sydney? Why not Sydney? It is the biggest city in Australia. It’s bigger than Melbourne, than Los Angeles – it’s almost as big as Washington. Why should they threaten Melbourne? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.

Helen Garner

We were reading about Helen Garner in English (part of the Telling The Truth module), and wow. I've never seen Denoir more indignant. Has anyone read her The First Stone? That's what we were reading about, and it sounded like something I'd want to read. You know, so I can rant and be all indignant. Seriously. The Ormond sexaul harrassment case. Just in case you don't know...

In 1992, the (fifty year old) Master of Ormond Residential College in Melbourne groped two young women at a College party. The two women sought advice/solace from the older women at the college, and then pressed charges for sexual harrassment. He was found guilty, but then the charges were dismissed in appeal, however he was still dismissed from his position as Master of the College.

Garner was "appalled," when she heard about the case. She wrote to the accused man saying "how upset" she was. (This letter eventually was circulated, which wasn't great, but still.) And in this book, The First Stone, published in 1995, she spends 200 pages disparaging these two young women, the women that counselled them, young women in general and, more particularly, young feminists. Kath Gelber (Go and have a look at her full response, actually, it is very interesting) puts forward Garner saying that she was "appalled by the idea that these women had taken their case to court," because...

   In the process they ruined the reputation and career of “an agreeable-looking middle-aged man” with a “soft” face. She deplores the fact that they did not just “sort him out later”, and asks, “What sort of people could these be?”The day she first read of the case in the Age, she wrote immediately to the man accused, saying “how upset” she was and that “it's heartbreaking for a feminist of nearly fifty like me, to see our ideals of so many years distorted into this ghastly punitiveness”.

She goes onto write about how injust it was for punitive actions to be taken upon "poor blunderers who get drunk at parties and make clumsy passes..." That's right. A fifty year old TEACHER in a major position of power gropes the breasts of two young students - this is making a clumsy pass?! - but how unfair for him to be punished! Garner says how ridiculous it is that "he touched her breast and she went to the cops?" She says that "a provocative word or gesture may be a positive expression of desire, even awe, when encountering female beauty and vitality." Why, she asks, "must flirting be harmful?" She says that sex should not be seen as a perpetual danger but as "primarily a source of pleasure for both women and men."

Since writing her book, and since her letter to the accused became public, Garner "found herself vilified and turned into an official enemy." But not everyone is against her. Daphne Patai (the woman who wrote the bloody article we read in class) for example, agrees with her views. She says that Garner in The First Stone "recognizes the legitimate grievances of women, but also the power of beauty and the unpredictability of Eros. It insists on a sensible approach to complex, problematic human interactions, rather than vigilantism and retribution. That this posture makes its author in many eyes an enemy of feminism is a sorry reflection on the state of feminism in the English-speaking world."

Of course, Daphne also says that "an unwanted sexual overture is a small price to pay for freedom of expression."

I'll remember that if a fifty year old teacher touches or gropes my breasts. That's sexual harrassment, whether that teacher is a man or a woman.

**nb: I have not read The First Stone, and so I am well aware that I will likely be not giving the woman a fair chance, and am likely to be biased anyway.**