Heidi: 15 Minutes of Opossum Fame...

The internet and social networking media is a powerful tool and a revealing insight into what makes us tick as human beings. Heidi the cross-eyed opossum is an excellent example of both this power and insight.

Heidi is an opossum. She is 2.5 years old. Her claim to fame is that she is cross-eyed and incredibly cute and cuddly.

She also has a Facebook page with 80,000 fans, a YouTube song, and soon a plush toy replica of herself. Heidi and her sister Naira came from a zoo in Denmark and are soon to be the resident attractions at the Leipzig zoo in Germany.

Heidi is to be the main draw in a tropical exhibit that the Leipzig zoo is opening in July. In essence, Heidi's fame is peaking way before the exhibit actually opens and people, or is that "fans", get to see her in the flesh.

So, if one can harness the power of the internet and social media for an opossum, I wonder what you could do for the promotion of an out-of-left-field political candidate, say in the 2014 Indonesian presidential election (after all, it worked for now President Obama in the US, right?)

You have to admit, she is really cute...

Foreign Sex Tourism to Bali..

I read this the other day and sort of pondered whether to write about it or not. I pondered because writing about how the system fails so enormously might encourage pedophiles to chance their hand in the wild frontiers of child sex tourism that are the poor provinces of Eastern Bali. The most impoverished of the provinces; Singaraja, Buleleng, and Karangasem, are those that are most at risk.

Sadly, according to the report, it is predominantly Australians that are taking advantage of Bali's children and sexually abusing them. The reported figures are the tip of the iceberg as a great many of the outrages perpetrated against these children are never reported nor, if they are reported, ever pursued to prosecution. Nevertheless, this is not exclusively Australian perpetrators as there are offenders from all parts of the globe, including Europe (Germany, France, The Netherlands, to name but a few) and the US.

The problem though is not exclusively one of poverty, although poverty is a significant factor, but rather of apathy and corruption combined with an inordinate amount of red tape from a cumbersome bureaucracy that is not pro-active in protecting and supporting children who have been abused.

There were thirteen foreign pedophiles convicted of child sex offences in the period between 2001 and 2008. This does not seem like a large amount considering that there were more than 200 reported incidents of child sex abuse.  A local non-governmental organisation, Committee Against Sexual Abuse, estimates that there are some 150 pedophiles operating on Bali. It does not help that Singaraja does not yet record data relating to pedophiles or child sex crimes.

I appreciate that these crimes can be difficult to investigate and prosecute because not all children or their families are willing to report sexual abuse or suspicions of sexual abuse. I also appreciate that some families unwittingly sell their children into the sex trade in the belief that the "real" intent of the trafficker is to provide an education and a job. Then there are others who perhaps do this knowingly. However, what I cannot understand is why police would not want to investigate pedophilia in a more pro-active way considering that it is a known problem in the areas of Eastern Bali?

Although, in the big scheme of things I am probably less surprised than I should be that one can place a "price" on the violation of a child. Maybe it is just a simple case of everything has its price, and the price to turn a blind eye to the sexual violation of children in impoverished places is undoubtedly not that much.

Is the answer as simple as education and community outreach where men, women, and children are taught that it is not OK to be sexually abused in exchange for food or payment of one's school fees. There is no problem if someone wants to provide you food or fees for school as a gift, but this does not mean that you owe them the innocence of your children to pay off some alleged debt.

It would appear that the modus operandi is now one of "out of sight, out of mind" as pedophiles go further and further away from main urban areas in search of their victims.

What I do not get at the moment, and perhaps this is a lack of research, is why Australia is not more pro-active in pursuing Australian pedophiles wherever they may be found. Australia has laws on its statute books that provide for jail terms of up to 17 years and fines of up to AUD 500,000 for those convicted of child sex offences. The law has been drafted as such that the crime does not have to occur in Australia. The law simply states that anyone who engages in a sexual act with a child under 16 or grooms a child under 16 for sex is guilty of a crime, even where the offence is committed overseas.

The Australian Federal Police website includes a section on Child Sex Tourism and has forms to complete for those who have suspicions about Australians who may have committed a child sex offence overseas.

I am not sure what the point of this post is. It is an issue that bothers me and it is one that I think needs more attention. Perhaps, it is as a father of a young son I cannot fathom such an atrocity happening to him. Perhaps, it is because as an educator I feel a responsibility to ensure that children are safe and know what is acceptable and what is not, after all, our children are our future. Maybe, it is just that getting it out there will get us thinking about it and being more vigilant in our own worlds.

The Campaign Posters -- Offensive?

Saddam Hussein

Joseph Stalin

Adolf Hitler

These are the campaign posters (to-date) for the AIDS Is A Mass Murderer campaign being run in Germany. However, thanks to the Internet this campaign is probably going to take on a life of its own. Hopefully, bloggers and others can contribute to this campaign going a little bit viral (pun intended) to ensure that it reaches the maximum number of people.

The controversy aside, as to whether it increases the stigma on those living with HIV / AIDS, the fact that the campaign holds the potential to get people talking about the virus and our increasing complacency with respect to risk-taking behaviours, then the campaign is in my mind worthwhile.

I also remain to be convinced that the advertisements are suggesting that those people living with HIV / AIDS are mass murderers. To the contrary, I think the advertisements are saying that this killer lives among us, and 'this killer' is the virus.

That is just me though.

But on a slightly different note. Is there anything to be read into why Hitler and Hussein get brunettes and Stalin gets a blonde?

Freedom of Speech Under Attack?

I am an advocate of free speech. I have never considered free speech to be an absolute right but rather one that is modified by defamation laws and protected by an ability to prove what one says.

However, it seems that this freedom of speech is slowly but surely being whittled away as vilification and hatred laws are introduced to the regulatory framework and discourse is restricted to agreed truths that cannot be questioned.

This is a direct attack on the freedom of speech! The cartoon is a statement about the Canadian Human Rights Commission system and it can be found here at the FreedomSite Blog.

I have always wondered for example why it was wrong to publish a cartoon of Muhammad, or more specifically how that was any more wrong than say publishing a cartoon of Jesus or Buddha or some other religious icon?

I have always wondered why there cannot be academic debate say on the holocaust or why saying that the numbers of Jews killed under the "Final Solution" might not have been six million. To my mind there is no doubting that Nazi Germany as led by Adolf Hitler adopted a policy known as the "final solution" and that the purpose was to rid Europe of the Jews.

Yet, I do not understand the fear of having to defend this position. If someone questions whether the gas chambers were capable of poisoning the number of people claimed, then they are labeled anti-Semitic and threatened with jail. Where is the free speech in that and who is protecting the rights of these people to exercise their right to free speech?

Or is it the case that when you want to talk about Muhammad or Israel or other things you can only do so within the "agreed" discourse and to stray from this very limited path makes you a criminal?

Whatever happened to the idea that I might disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it.

How can we ever live in a truly functioning democracy if the narrative and the discourse is dictated by the few? Many vilification and hatred and denial laws are used purely for the purpose of stifling legitimate debate. And, this is a sad development and sets back our ability to live in peace and harmony with each other as these laws foster the ill-will and hatred that they seek to overcome.

It is time that we started behaving like adults rather than allowing our politicians to regulate us like we are children.

The freedom of speech must be a freedom to disagree, a freedom to challenge, and a freedom to question. Anything less makes a mockery of the freedom of speech as a legitimate human right.

Thus endeth the sermon!

Adolf Hitler -- Wax On, Wax Off

Berlin's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum displays wax likenesses of some of Germany's most famous and infamous citizens past and present. The most infamous of these being none other than Adolf Hitler. Critics of the display say that any representation of Hitler is offensive and that he should not be honoured or remembered in any way.

The other side of the argument is that Hitler cannot be ignored and written out of history. History is what it is and ignoring the truth of history does not change that history. My personal view is that the evil that Hitler perpetrated against the Jews and against Europe in a more general sense must never be glorified but equally it must never be forgotten. Hitler was just a man and we must never forget the evil that ordinary men (and women) can do.

The waxwork was hardly a glorification of the man. It depicts him as defeated and sullen.

However, this was obviously not enough to appease some. A man ran into the exhibit and ripped Hitler's head off earlier today. I would reckon there might be plenty of people who wished someone had been successful in ripping the man's head off way back in the 1930's.

Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East

It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the problems of the Middle East are complex.

It also does not take a rocket scientist to know that rhetoric like this means that the problems of the Middle East are not going to be resolved any time soon.

With this post I am not stating a position in favor of one or the other. For me the holocaust perpetrated against the Jews is a historical fact that cannot be disputed. Whether it was six million or five or four is irrelevant in the big scheme of things because they are numbers that many of us just cannot comprehend. The numbers are obviously relevant to those who lost loved ones during the course of the perpetration of this evil. My point though is that for most of us the numbers are so huge that it makes comprehension difficult.

If it was four million then this is the same number of people who live in Sydney. Try imagining a here one day gone the next scenario. One day Sydney is a bustling city the next day it is devoid of citizens, trucked and trained to camps. Scary thought.

Is what is happening in Gaza a holocaust? Not on the scale of the holocaust perpetrated against the Jews during the Second World War. However, serious questions must be asked as to whether the consistent and widespread targeting of Palestinians constitutes a genocide? This post does not lend itself to a detailed debate of the legal issues, but it is worth thinking about.

The Middle East issues are not going to be resolved with dialogue alone. These issues are going to require us to look deep within ourselves to our core humanity and make some hard decisions about the sort of world in which we want to live.

Should we be scared by rhetoric such as this? The simple answer is, Yes! If enough people start believing in it then perhaps this will metamorphose into the next clash of civilizations. Simply, two diametrically opposed views such as these can only mean bloodshed, and lots of it.

The screen capture is of Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi, Head of the Department of Islamic Studies at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, and are from an interview which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on 29 February 2008. Al-Aqsa TV is a satellite news channel run by Hamas. This is old news but I only just found it and I find it to be interesting and important at the same time as it characterizes for me the intractable nature of the problem.

Some of what was said includes the following:

"we will not be satisfied even if all the Jews are killed. So what are we supposed to say in the face of the Gaza holocaust? What compensation will satisfy us? By Allah, we will not be satisfied even if all the Jews are killed."

"One of the important things that we must tell people is that what is going on in Palestine today is a real holocaust. This is the real holocaust. A holocaust is not the burning of 50-60 Jews in Germany or Switzerland, but the Jews continue to call it the Holocaust."

The interview was recorded in Arabic and I must confess I cannot read, write, or speak Arabic and have relied on translations provided by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). I hope they are accurate. The links I have included will direct anyone interested to the original Arabic language versions.