A 16 year old girl has been granted a court order that protects her from being forced to marry someone in Lebanon against her will. The arranged marriage, a custom still practised in some cultures, would quite simply be illegal (void) in Australia as it is without genuine consent of one of the partners. This of course is of no consequence to those who follow the practise. They would ship daughter off to wherever and have their will imposed upon her, often for the rest of her life. We in the west find it hard to understand their thinking, given how they usually profess their deep love for their daughter. The fact remains she has been rendered a chattel, a good or commodity to be bargained with and sold off to the highest bidder.

While the court may have refrained from condemning the practice, I won’t. At least not when they do it here in Australia because it is against our law. It is not a part of our culture and I find it abhorrent. What is just as bad is that these people come here for the good Australia can provide, but they refuse to leave their medieval, even pre-biblical era habits behind. They come here for the stability and prosperity our society offers compared to theirs and they then insist on doing the kind of things that contributes to making their society one worth leaving. Australian culture and society is not better than theirs, whoever ‘they’ might be in any instance. It is simply different. As we must accept their ways, in their country, they must accept and adhere to ours in this country.

I love to share my country, culture and the opportunities we have here with anyone who wants to come. But come here legally, not via the back door. Come here and adapt and adjust, don’t try to change us to suit you. Come here and FIFO as they say in the mining camps. Not Fly In Fly Out but ‘Fit In or F*^%! Off’. When I have lived in foreign countries I have had to adjust and adapt to assimilate. I have had to change my ways, my thinking, to fit in and that is how it should be! I chose to go there, nobody rendered me there in an orange jump suit with handcuffs and leg irons affixed!

The attitude that continues such an alien custom as arranged marriage also harbours other ideas that are out of sync with our culture. Attitudes towards women that are outdated (by our standards and those are the only ones we should judge by in our country) and very unhealthy. Attitudes that condone domestic violence and sexual assault because the male is the dominant partner in any male-female relationship or exchange. I’m sorry, that is not how we think and it is intolerable. Our women are an equal part of our society. We used to have some pretty misogynistic mindsets here (remember when every woman was a ‘Sheila’? What was really just a colloquial nickname had, for many, connotations of inferiority and today it is hardly ever heard and used only in an almost self-deprecating way and very carefully even then) but we have moved on. We have progressed, sa uncomfortable as that has been at times.

In a few years we will probably see women in frontline combat units and while that is something I disagree with, personally, it will send a message. I am not against women in combat because I don’t think they can fight but rather because of the effect they have on their male comrades. It has been proven, in combat, in Israel and elsewhere, that the male soldier will instinctively tend to try and protect his female comrade in arms more so than he would for a male. This takes his focus off the task at hand, of killing the enemy and weakens the unit’s effectiveness. Not her fault, it is the hard wiring in the male to blame. Of course, that was true in my day (1977 to 1986) but today’s generation of young Digger might be different. While they have proven in Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomons in recent years they are just as good as any of their forebears were, they will no doubt have their own idiosyncrasies compared to my era, as we did compared to those of soldiers who served before us. The thing is, if the ADF can’t control the natural and to be expected sexual shenanigans at the Defence Academy, how do they expect to handle them in the highly testosterone charged atmosphere of a bunker after a firefight? If the future leaders of the troops can’t be trusted when in training, how can they expect the other ranks to behave any differently?

Society is changing, the world is changing and it behooves all of us to keep up with the changes. If you change cultures and come and live in Australia, then leave the cultural practices alien to the new culture behind in the old, or go back there and stay where you are more comfortable.  This is not some right wing, nationalist rant, simply stating what to me makes perfect sense. I embrace diversity and welcome migrants, remember? Just so long as they come in the front door and behave like anyone would want someone to behave in their home. Not as a guest, but as a member of the family, respecting the other members of the family. When my family migrated to Australia, we had to adapt and assimilate. When I migrated to the Philippines in 2002, I had to do the same and when I brought my wife and children to Australia a few years later, they were the ones to have to adapt and assimilate. Hey, some people still eat dogs in the Philippines but there is no way my relatives would even begin to think of throwing our pooch on the barby, they know it is not how we do things here. We don’t arrange marriages either, or mutilate the genitals of women so they serve their husbands better or for why ever they do this crime; so leave those barbaric practices back where they are not barbaric, merely accepted as the norm.

Apologies for the painful pun but this is an amazing, true, story. This woman was minding her own business at her street stall in Mexico when she was struck down. She awoke in hospital to find a grenade was lodged in her mouth. The grenade was live and had failed to explode after leaving the launcher, probably an M203 or perhaps from one of the new generation M32 pump action weapons. Whatever it was from, it had stuck in her mouth and hadn’t gone off. A brave surgical team operated on her for four hours… in an open field. The poor woman will now have to live the rest of her life with the scars, both physical and emotional but at least she is alive.

Just when I thought I might feel sorry for myself for some, at the time earth shattering issue…. I read about Connie Culp. I no longer have any problems. This poor woman was shot in the face by her husband in 2004. He is now out of prison and on parole but so what? She faces (no pun intended) the rest of her life with a face transplant. She is grateful to be alive, grateful for the transplant and taking life one day at a time. That, ladies and gentlemen, is courage. Too often we forget that once the ambulance drives off and the CSI guys solve everything in the next 45 minutes plus commercial breaks (that is an intended pun) it isn’t over for the victims of the crime.

Connie Culp has endured pain, ridicule and no doubt a loss of self esteem we can’t begin to imagine. Yet she is still punching back. That is the survivor mentality you need to make it sometimes. Have you got it? Have I? I hope I never have to find out.

What goes around comes around and if you make a habit of breaking into people’s houses you have to expect the odd home owner to take umbrage. In Sydney today a man was stabbed by the home owner after he bailed him up in his own home with a stun gun. There have been a spate of assaults and robberies with stun guns of late, this might quieten things down a tad. I know I am in no shape at the moment to wrestle with anyone, let alone a young, fit criminal armed with a stun gun. I would prefer to reach for a stick but if the knife was handy, so be it. Bottom line, don’t brreak the law and you have no reason to complain. Or die. No doubt this young thug will turn out to be a much loved, beautiful young boy with his life (of crime) ahead of him. Spare a thought for the homeowner, he nearly became a victim of crime. Now he might become a victim of the legal system.

Yesterday in Melbourne a pit bull savaged and killed a four year old girl as she clung, screaming and terrified, to her mother’s leg. As a parent and having five girls of my own ranging from nearly 2 to nearly 13 my heart goes out to Jaclin Apuk Awen, who fought the dog with her bare hands to try and save little Ayen Chol. My wife asked what could she do it it were her and I had to think hard. These pit bulls are not easy to kill, and make no mistake you would have to kill it to stop it. They are bred for one thing and that is killing and they lock on and never let go once they get a grip. They are savage beasts that have no place in civilized society. None whatsoever.

I told my wife that she would have to grab a back leg and lift the dog up and break the leg, I showed her how to snap it at the ankle joint or rip the knee from the hip, then crush the testicles if it is a male dog and then, if it lets go, smash it against the ground until it is dead. Of course, it takes strength to do this and the dog will not stand still. It will be a whirling dervish and you will get badly bitten but hopefully you will save your child. I said if you poked the eye as she suggested, you must insert your thumbs and pop the eyeball out but the dog will likely keep biting and tearing, even when blind. She said to choke it but they have such strong neck muscles so I said if it were me and I could drop my weight onto the neck I would but the dog will not be stationary, it will be moving and hard to pin down. This is what they are bred to do, albeit against other dogs.

My father taught me to grab the front legs and pull them apart and tear the dog’s heart but I would hesitate to put my face so close to the dog’s to get such a grip. If the opportunity presented itself, though, I would try that or, if I had a belt or shirt I could use to entangle the dog, or strangle it with, I would use that. I once fought off a pit bull like dog that attacked my own and all I could find to help was an empty soft drink can. I beat the dog with that but it would not let go. I tore the can in half and used the sharp edge against its throat, slicing and hacking, all the while my puppy screaming and the owner yelling at me not to hurt his dog. Too bad. The dog finally let go after I had slashed half its face off. The owner wanted to sue me once he realised he would lose if he tried to fight me, I made a terrible sight, covered with dog’s blood and still pumped with adrenalin from the fight. In the end he just walked away and I took my puppy home to clean his wounds.. and mine.

The owners of these dogs are too often gutless thugs with no brains who think by having such a ‘tough’ dog it makes them tough. It doesn’t and they don’t have the brains or the common sense to control the animal and be able to keep it under control all the time. Those people who believe they are sensible and reasonable and argue the case for having such dogs are little better than the thug owners, just more articulate. These fighting breeds are all about stroking the egos of men who otherwise have nothing else in their lives as civilization has passed them by. Certain ethnic groups get their kicks at illegal dog fights. Close by where I live they hold them on secluded semi-rural properties and the men who attend these fights are basically either evil or dumb or both. Some of these people even steal large dogs such as German Shepherds and Rottweilers to fight their Pit Bulls, Tosas and other fighting breeds.

I usually stand up against calls to ban anything, preferring to live and let live believing people can choose to take part or not. But these dogs have no purpose other than to kill and their owners have no right to hold that power over others unless we have the means to defend ourselves properly from them. Since we can’t carry handguns, that means the dogs must go. Every time a child is savaged or killed the call goes out and is ignored due to a lack of political guts. How many more children must we lose before our elected representatives take action? The law is not enough because it relies on the owners to control the dog and they can’t, won’t or simply  don’t. I know any dog, even our little poodle, can turn and savage, even kill, a child. But he isn’t built for killing nor is he bred for it and he is a lot easier to defend against than a pit bull. If you want these dogs for hunting then go live in the bush, there is nothing to hunt here. If you want a dog to guard your home, then buy and properly train a suitable animal with a balanced temperament. Oh, proper training requires time, energy, effort and often money. All too hard. Better to just swagger along with the dog and your tatts and your caveman attitude.

Incredible as it sounds, a young Russian woman was eaten alive by bears and called her mother on her mobile phone while it was happening. The mother bear killed her stepfather, then chased her and knocked her down. She managed to call her mother on her cell phone and described how the bear came back with her three cubs and continued to eat Olga. Her story is chilling and very disturbing, but it happened. It was a tragic example of one of the Avenues of Harm – Nature, that we so often forget. We are so desensitized by television and wildlife documentaries we forget these are, indeed, wild animals. It is nothing personal for them, a matter of survival but none the less horrific or tragic.

One can only begin to imagine the sheer terror she experienced until shock set in and she would have become calm. She states she no longer felt any pain, but to have suffered for so long is truly tragic. What is so very touching and speaks so much for the character of the young lady is that she asked her mother to forgive her for any sins she may have committed. I’m sure she was a good daughter and a lovely human being and along with her stepfather, will be sadly missed. As disturbing as this story is, I have published it here for two reasons. First, so that we all remember that nature is not a theme park, it is dangerous and it can take your life. Second, that while Olga Moskalyova died alone, she is not forgotten and her death should stand to remind us all of how precious life is. Go and hug your kids.

There is nothing I wish to say about this piece of offal that I can publish on this site. Let that suffice. On the topic in general, though, this makes a point about our perception of the aged and the disabled. While today’s 65 may be the new 55 and I am the first to admit we no longer seem to ‘age’ the way we did when I was a teen, we still tend to place age limits on various activities. We seem to be amazed that someone past retiring age has leapt out of an aeroplane on a tandem sky dive or returned to university for a degree. This is just as true for criminal activity as adventure sports or tertiary education achievements.

Just because someone is ‘old’ doesn’t make them honest, decent or nice. The same goes for disabled people. OK, they had Life deal them a crook hand but not every wheelchair bound man or woman is a nice, pleasant, role model for young adults kind of person. I know some very nasty blind people, the odd vicious cripple and what and some people on disability pensions who are just the same as us ‘able’ bodied types; sometimes nice and sometimes not so much fun to be with.

The same for age. There are some people who, even in Kindergarten you know are going to be societal problems some day. Old, past retirement men and women who would take you for everything you have if you gave them have a chance. Don’t make the mistake of stereotyping anyone. Just as we can’t assume every young teenager is a gang banger or because that kid is indigenous he must be up to no good (pick your own prejudice and apply) we can’t think that everyone old enough to be a grandparent is safe to leave your kids with.

This tragic case proves once again rape is not a sex crime, it is a power crime. The rapist got his thrill, but what about the terror experienced by his victim? No doubt that is what he fed off. He may be mentally unstable but that does not excuse his behaviour, nor should it allow him to escape severe punishment. He needs to know what it is like to be the victim. I am sure some other thrill seeker will give him a taste of what he dished out when he gets to Pentridge.

Man Raped 85yo Woman For A Thrill

A man who bashed and raped an 85-year-old woman at a Melbourne train station says he did it for a “thrill”.

Victorian Country Court Judge Duncan Allen said 65-year-old Allan Richard Hodson’s attack on the elderly woman in January was “spine chilling”.

“It’s hard to imagine any rape of this type – a rape of a stranger in a public place – that is a lot worse than that,” Judge Allen said during Hodson’s pre-sentence hearing on Friday.

Prosecutor Chris Ryan said Hodson “chillingly” described to police his motivation for the attack.

Hodson told police “here’s a good opportunity, I suppose, to have a bit of a thrill”, he told the court.

Hodson also admitted to police his victim was frail and he punched her forcefully during the assault in a train station toilet.

He told police he threatened to hurt the woman if she told anyone.

“I know where you live and I will come back and cut you.”

Mr Ryan said Hodson, of Bairnsdale, had travelled to Melbourne that day for a psychiatric visit and had drunk four bottles of beer before the attack.

The pre-sentence hearing before Judge Allen is continuing.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/latest/a/-/newshome/9938521/man-raped-85yo-woman-for-a-thrill/

A snapshot of his daughter and her two friends caught the last image of a man killed just seconds later. He was standing near a blow hole in Hawaii when a large wave knocked him into the hole. He has not been found and is presumed dead. Tragic as this is it shows how people simply don’t think. Do we need a large fence and huge sign to warn us of the dangers of getting close to these natural wonders? Think about it. A blow hole occurs when water is forced up it from the sea. So that usually means the sea is channeled through a small opening to build up force and it would not be smart to get trapped in there, you can’t fight nature. So since he is on the seaward side of the hole, any wave breaking over the rocks behind him would push him into the hole. So why stand there? Why not on the other side where the chance of a freak wave would push you away from the hole?

Most people don’t think this way as they have never been taught to do so. We live in a society that thinks everything is either safe or should be and if it isn’t then we can make a law and fine whoever and it will be ok because now rules and money is involved. Real life is still a one way trip to the grave. It is just a question of how long before you reach it and how what will put you there. We spend so much time learning to drive safely, going to self defence classes and learning to cross the road safely as a kid yet we forget to take time to learn how to assess everyday situations for risk instinctively and maybe not doing the dumb things that do us in. I could teach that course, but who would pay for it?

A poor child in Florida is dead, strangled by a large Burmese python. Her mother and mother’s boyfriend are charged with her death as they were responsible for the family pet, and the fact it hadn’t been fed for a month. Under the usual overkill that passes for law in the USA, they face up to 35 years in a, no doubt  private profit center, prison for their stupidity. When you can buy shares in prisons it makes sense to have lots of people in them for long periods of time, that’s capitalism at work. It also lets you get tough on crime and as most crime is done by dumb people without the income to hire a proper lawyer, it is a remote risk to the well off right that vote for any judge, sheriff or politician who advocates more of this ‘justice’.

But what justice does the poor toddler get? She is dead. The snake has a better chance of being saved by animal rights activists than she ever had of being able to graduate high school. The dumb people who were responsible for her well being, and the snake’s are now looking down the barrel of life behind bars. And the winner is…?

At first glance it would seem that this giant marijuana plantation in Mexico’s Baja California would stand out like the proverbial canine genitalia and be quickly discovered. However, the farmers in the area growing legitimate crops also protect their fields from the elements with the same expanses of black shade cloth. So on reflection, perhaps it isn’t as obvious as one might think, especially when the black shade cloth makes it very difficult for law enforcement over flights to identify what is being grown under the covers. Talk about hiding a tree in a forest and things not always being what they seem. It would be easy to jump to a quick conclusion based on a caption saying this is the plantation viewed from the air, recently discovered and wonder what took them so long! Then, with a few more details and facts we see why it took so long. Lesson to be learned, there.