Throwing stones from the glasshouse

I think we can close the book on Senator John McCain and his attempt to win the White House, after the announcement of his Vice Presidential running mate choice. Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska is who John McCain believes has the credentials to be VP, and President if need be. There is not a chance that this woman has even close to the metal required for such a task, and it is nothing short of a desperate grab at the Hillary supporters, and the female vote.

But can she get the Hillary supporters? She may get a few stragglers, but the majority of them see in Hillary a strong woman with convictions. In Sarah Palin, they see an unknown, who failed to even grab the attention of the crowd at her announcement rally. The rumour is, McCain has met her once. How in God’s name can you choose someone for a role this important after meeting them once. It shows she has been picked as a replacement Hillary, and it just won’t work. It also gives us an insight into John McCain, and just how dumb he really is.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, picked very well. He saw his deficiences, surveyed the field and chose someone who could pick up the pieces if he fell. If Barack Obama were to die in office, there is no doubt that Joe Biden would pick up the mantle and be a great President. Does anybody seriously think that Sarah Palin can do the same if McCain dies in office?

The choice of the VP pick on both sides is extremely important this time around, purely because of the two candidates that are running. Barack Obama is at a risk of being assassinated. I don’t believe because he is black that this will pose a higher risk. However, being so high profile, and such an incredible figure in history, nutballs out there have people like Obama firmly in their rifle targets. John Kennedy was high profile and a possible threat to ‘the norm’, so he was shot. His brother Bobby the same. Martin Luther King challenged the masses to ‘rise up’. Barack Obama spoke to nearly 90,000 people the other day, and he continues to gather momentum. If he is assassinated, Obama needs to have a VP that will pick up the ball and run with it. Someone who cannot be fooled, and who knows the political machinations of Washington. Joe Biden is that man.

With John McCain, assassination is not the concern. Old age and ill health is. McCain will be 72 if he takes office, and 80 if he achieves a two term Presidency. Having such an elderly President with such a massive workload, requires a VP who is younger, more vibrant, but also throughly experienced to take over if McCain dies. Being older puts him at higher risk. Yes, Reagan made it through two terms. But even then, there have been suggestions that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease towards the end. However, he had a strong VP; George Bush Snr. I can just see Sarah Palin losing the plot if McCain dies in office. Not because she is a woman, but because she has gone from being a hicksville Governor, eating moosburgers and going ice fishing, to being the second in charge to the President. I sure as hell know who I would want manning the ship in case of a tragedy, and it wouldn’t be Palin.

McCain has had a long, long time to think about his VP choice, and it seems he has wasted that time. Let me leave you with the words of Sarah Palin, and her opinions on the job of Vice President. Says it all, really.

But as for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

Enjoy your day.

Last night, Barack Hussein Obama put everything on the line, as he formally accepted his party’s nomination as their candidate for the White House. As I watched his nearly hour long speech, what came over me was a sense of ‘if he doesn’t win this thing, he will go down as the biggest failure United States politics has ever seen.’ If he wins it, he will do more than create history by becoming the first African American President. The pressure on him to deliver on a ‘better America’ will be more than any other President in that country’s history.

Barack Obama has the usual promises to keep. Improving all the essentials of life, such as healthcare, education, the economy. None of this is new. But he has, over the last 18 months, made people sit up and take notice. He has turned apathy into action. And he has electrified a nation that has been asleep since 1991, when a young William Jefferson Clinton stepped up to the plate and claimed the prize that he believed was owed him.

But like I was saying in my last blog about Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Obama is a great speechmaker. He has that black preacher in him. He is a man that can inspire with his words. If he wasn’t running for President, he could be a very successful TV Evangelist, and make nothing short of a fortune. However, like Rudd, he has to deliver, and boy, does he have to deliver. He will either go two ways. One to be the greatest President in US history or the biggest disappointment in US political history.

The signs were all there last night. He made his acceptance speech on the 45th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s speech at the Washington monument in 1963. He delivered his speech to almost 90,000 people. He has a strong Vice Presidential candidate running alongside him, and a weak and ineffectual Republican candidate. If Obama cannot win this, then no one can. If he doesn’t win this, then I will personally be lost for words. If he doesn’t win this, every democrat will turn on him, and each other and say, “We should have gone with Hillary.”

To say that would be stupid. The Primary process was won fair and square by Obama. He is the one they want to take them to November. If Hillary won the nomination and lost, they would have said, “We should have gone with Obama.” It’s a no win situation. Hillary knows Obama is the best chance. The party knows he is, and the world knows he is. This is a campaign about change. It’s about moving America forward with new policies and a new direction. To have Clinton follow what has already been a Bush-Clinton-Bush chain of Presidents would be disastrous. We need change. We need a new face in that White House. And in regard to John McCain, we need someone who has not voted on George Bush’s policies 90% of the time. McCain may not be a Bush, but he is nothing but a proxy Bush. George Snr couldn’t get Jeb Bush ready in time, so someone who follows the Bush family ethic will have to be good enough.

The only way Obama will lose this election will be if there is a redneck backlash against him being black. There is nothing stopping him apart from that. But like I said before, colour of skin has got nothing to do with it in the end. The redneck southerners will hate anyone who is Democrat, no matter how white they are. They barely even like John McCain!

Obama’s speech tonight diffused a lot of what the Republican party machine will try and whip up to destabilise him. Obama brushed aside issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns, and almost challenged the Republican party to be a bit more clever than to troll out the same old tired issues that distinguish ‘left’ from ‘right’. He even praised McCain and intimated that he would be just as good a candidate, if he followed what he truly belived in; but he doesn’t. He follows what the Republican party expects him to be, and that’s where Obama is at pains to tell us he is his own man, and the Democratic party will follow him.

The sleeves are rolled up. The gloves are off. Let the campaign begin in earnest.

Enjoy your day.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd loves the big announcement. He is also partial to a fair bit of international travel, where he can make those same big announcements, but with a much larger cross section of international media present. However, what I am finding is, he seems to like to announce, but is spending very little time actually doing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Kevin Rudd can’t be expected to perform miracles in less than a year. But come November, he and his government will have been in power for a year, and I have not seen even a glimpse of anything actually happening. It’s like waiting for a bus, but no matter how long you wait, and look down the road in anticipation, that bus just ain’t coming.

One thing is for sure about Kevin Rudd. He has quite a healthy opinion of himself. That’s probably why he loves to tell us about his grand plans. But like a former colleague of mine who just adored the term ‘big picture’, I would like to see Kevin Rudd get out from behind a podium, out from behind a slogan, and away from a ‘launch’ of one policy after another. That was what the election was all about. He has made the promises, now its time to keep them. He was at pains to tell us after he won office, that his ‘agenda for the future, is now an agenda for work.’ Well, Kevin, get on with it. The only tangible thing I have seen him ‘do’ since he gained office, was apologise to our Indigenous people. However, he only said the words. What remains to be seen is if our indigenous people are better off at the end of the Rudd government’s time in office, or was it all smoke and mirrors.

Former Prime Minister John Howard destroyed Australia in many ways. But, he did do something. None of it was good, but at least he got off his arse and did it. He didn’t spend his time merely making grandiose announcements and promising a better tomorrow.

Rudd’s latest ‘announcement’ is nothing but a threat to the education system, and I as an educator can only hope that this time it stays as talk, because if this is to become the norm, then struggling students all over the country are going to find themselves brushed off by the system, because they are dragging a school down.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced a plan to improve teacher quality, including higher pay for teachers in disadvantaged areas and the power to sack principals in under-performing schools.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/27/2348287.htm

It’s the under-performing schools bit that I don’t like. Rudd calls it his ‘education revolution.’  I see it as Kevin Rudd kicking the strugglers in the head and pushing them aside, so he can grandstand yet again in front of the media and say we have the best educational system in the world…look at our results. He will then pat himself on the back, and say it was all due to his education revolution. No, it will all be due to his educational ‘cleansing’ of the weaker students in our community. Schools, and especially school Principals will see that their jobs are on the line, and target education towards the students who can achieve the highest results.

Schools already do this. Students are selected in some schools because of their academic ability, thereby providing top scores when it comes to releasing Year 12 results. Rudd wants that style of selection right across the board. He is sounding more like Howard every day. The good life for the smart and the rich; scraps off the table for the poor and the disadvantaged. This is not traditional Labor party policy, and I would like to ask which Labor party supporters agree with this very right wing shift in policy. Not many I would presume.

So, thank you, Kevin, for developing this form of human selection. A certain German chap had a similar idea on a grander scale, as did a British lady with an iron hairdo that matched her personality.

But, I am probably over exaggerating. Kevin’s talked about it now. Nothing more will probably come of it.

Enjoy your day.

The Kennedy family are the undisputed royalty of not only American society, but American political life. They have had more tragedy than you can poke a stick at, but they still fight on. What can one do but fight on? Today saw Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy address the Democratic National Convention in Colorado, and he proved yet again that, despite recent brain surgery, no-one packs a verbal punch and can work a room quite like Ted.

Senator Kennedy’s brain tumor is invasive, and will most likely kill him. But he proved tonight that he is not going down without a fight. He is also not going down without making sure he sees President Barack Obama behind those White House doors.

His speech was short, but powerful; simple but direct. So many have expressed concern that Barack Obama will not be President because he is black, and America is not ready for a black President. Senator Kennedy referred back to his own brother, President John F Kennedy, as an example of what can be achieved when the odds are against you. Man landing on the moon was a pipedream for many, but Kennedy believed it could happen. Now there is an American flag on the surface of the moon, proving that what we thought was impossible can be very possible indeed.

Same too, with Barack Obama. Yes, he is black. Yes, it is a huge risk that the Democratic party are taking. And yes, that risk was proven true when a man was apprehended by police today with weapons on him and in his truck, apparently on his way to assassinate Barack Obama. Could Obama be assassinated? Of course he can. But I personally don’t see colour as a basis for a greater threat of assassination. Reagan wasn’t black, neither was Kennedy or Lincoln. Leaders, such as Indira Ghandi and Benazir Bhuto were murdered by their own people because someone took offence at what they stood for, not the colour of their skin. Assassinations happen when someone or a group of ’someones’ feel threatened by what may come through the result of this particular person achieving their goals.

Will whites feel more disempowered after Obama is elected? No. The whites in South Africa weren’t when Nelson Mandela became President. In fact, in South Africa, very little has changed for the blacks. They are no better off now than when they lived under apartheid.

Ted Kennedy is a tenacious old attack dog, and Obama has a slightly younger attack dog as his right hand man. It was interesting seeing Senator Joe Biden in the audience, almost in awe of Kennedy. You could see in his face that he wasn’t looking the way he was supposed to look, or clapping when he had to clap, or doing anything that he was ‘expected’ to do. He was believing every word that came out of Kennedy’s mouth, and so he should. This is a time to take a risk.  As the old Aussie ethic goes, “Go hard, or go home.” Kennedy wants us to go hard. A black man in the White House is a risk, but if we don’t take our chances on this young black lawyer from Illinois, who firmly believes we can, our world could well be destined for the scrap heap. George W Bush and Dick Cheney have destroyed the United States, and I know American friends of mine that either call themselves Canadian, or just avoid being around people, as they know the shit they will get. Kennedy knows what people are feeling. He tapped into what has been the mantra of the Kennedy clan; hope.

As he proved what a tough old workhorse he is, with an intravenous drip needle strapped to his hand, he took Barack Obama’s slogan forward, into reality. He turned promise into fact. He turned theory into practice. He turned liquid into solid.

He turned ‘Yes, we can’ into ‘Yes, we will!’

Enjoy your day.

I have been saying for a very long time now that this US Presidential Election is a must win for Barack Obama. He is in the best possible position to be the next President, and his choice of Vice Presidential running mate had a lot riding on it. If he chose wrong here, it could well have all been over. No other Presidential race in recent history has had this level of pressure riding on the nominee’s pick for Vice President quite like this one.

I have said all along that an Obama/Clinton ticket would have been suicide. I always liked an Obama/Richardson ticket, but with so much riding on it, a Black/Latino ticket may have pushed the envelope a little bit far. Richardson is extremely competent, and I’m sure he was among the numbers, but in the end, it does get down to a choice that your opponents can’t pick apart too much.

Enter Senator Joe Biden, who himself has had a tilt at the Presidential job more than once over the last 20 years. He’s a stylish, savvy old workhorse, who knows and is respected by the working class, and has extensive foreign policy experience. Obama needs the blue collar crowd, and he needs them bad. Hillary had them all sewn up, and Obama needed someone who could get them back. Biden will do that.

Obama is inexperienced. Biden has been a Senator for Delaware since 1972. Obama has no real foreign policy experience, which in this present climate could see your political career go down like nine pins. Biden has been on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for many years. So, if Barack Obama had a ’shopping list’ of inadequacies, and needed to acquire products to get rid of them, then shopping at ‘Biden-Mart’ is all he needs to do. Analysts seem satisfied with Obama’s choice, and believe Obama has ticked off all the things he didn’t have, when choosing Biden. The only criticism they have about Biden is that he has the tendency to have verbal diarrhoea, and he was critical of Obama in the past. However, criticism of each other in the argy-bargy of getting the nomination is normal. If anyone criticised Obama the most, it was Hillary Clinton. They all wanted the top job, and in politics, you cut your opponent down before you get cut down. I am sure Biden is 100% behind Obama. He has been wanting to have a sniff at the White House for a mighty long time so he isn’t going to blow it now.

Biden is a good choice. He is comfortable in his own skin. He is a good, strong, matter-of-fact type speaker, and he knows people’s weak points. Obama needs to say no more to Biden but ‘attack’, and John McCain won’t have a hope. Biden and McCain have been working together in the Senate for a very long time, so they each know where to locate each other’s Achilles Heel. However, I think Biden has the smarts to win out in the end. Just quietly, I think McCain was hoping it wouldn’t be Biden.

The next few weeks will prove interesting, as Biden is let off the leash. He has a head start on McCain, who is yet to name his VP. McCain has had months of free reign to sit back and ‘relax’, while Obama and Clinton slogged it out for the nomination. I am sure he was quietly confident that the monumental tussle would take its toll, and he would be the beneficiary in the end. Now Obama has proven what a savvy player he is by getting in ahead of McCain in naming his VP. By the time McCain gets off his flabby old arse and names his choice, Biden will have been scrutinised, prodded, poked, challenged, vetted, hung, drawn and quartered, and will be standing with arms crossed like Bugs Bunny, holding a carrot and saying “What’s Up John?”

Obama may be young, but his campaign has been flawless, and that is in part to the people he picks to run his campaign. His advisors are giving him good, sound advice, and he is obviously acting on that advice. With Biden in on the deal, this campaign is going to become a well oiled machine. Barring a major stuff up, Obama will be the next President of the United States.

It will also be nice to see Joe Biden put some decency, respect, honesty and integrity back into the role of VP, which has been sadly lacking these last 7 and a half years. If they play it right, Obama and Biden could become the greatest political team in US history.

Enjoy your day.

Isn’t it amazing that when people have done the wrong thing, and they are extremely high profile, they think they can simply serve their time, and expect everyone to leave them alone. Such is the case with convicted pedophile, Paul Francis Gadd, or better known to some as Gary Glitter, the tragic glam rocker of the 1970’s.

Even as a kid growing up in the glam era of rock, I always found Glitter to be a bit ‘off centre’, and not really anything to write home about. As he grew older, he looked like a pathetic parody of himself, and then we find out that he has a penchant for young children, which makes my original assumption, made way back in the mid-1970’s, all the more accurate.

What amazed me was the fact that he got out of a Vietnamese prison, jumped on a plane, and was heading straight to, of all places, Bangkok, Thailand. Having lived there, I can tell you point blank that it attracts some of the worst kind of expats, and it was no wonder that Glitter had this particular destination on the top of his list. He also had Hong Kong and Singapore in his sights, which stunned me a bit. These places are wealthy and respectable, and I couldn’t see Hong Kong or Singaporean officials welcoming Glitter with open arms.

However, let’s take a look at where Glitter has got into trouble, and where he wants to stop off next. He went to Cambodia, he has been jailed in Vietnam, and he now wants to put up his tent in Thailand. Watching a news report today confirmed everything I have always said about the high incidences of child exploitation and prostitution in this part of the world. Bangkok, like Manila in the Philippines, has a high rate of prostitution. ‘Money boys’ and ‘Money girls’ are common. Why? Poverty. Places like The Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Burma have the extreme rich and the extreme poor. There is a Middle Class, but it’s small. When there is poverty, families will do anything to get a little extra cash, and if that means selling their children into prostitution, or allowing them to prostitute themselves and they pocket the cash, that’s fine. So people like Glitter literally have a field day. Glitter got caught. Many in South East Asia do not.

I am sure Thai officials would have let Glitter through if he had come in on a normal flight, not covered heavily by the media. Thai officials are not very good with stopping people coming in. If all else fails, cross their palms with a couple of thousand Thai Baht, and we can start talking.

But what astounded me was the images of Glitter wanting to be left alone to enjoy his flight and his magazine. Hell no! You fiddled with little kids, you get the harrassment; that’s part of the deal. You have surrendered your freedom and privacy when you destroyed a child’s life. They will never be the same, and neither will you.

Glitter needs to be returned to the UK and never be allowed to leave again. He should be put on a sex offenders register and everyone should know where he is at any time. Allowing him to set foot in another country allows him to lose himself and abuse again and again before he is eventually recaptured, which will happen. He isn’t the brightest light bulb in the house. He has been caught multiple times with pornographic images of children, and can’t help but go over the line.

I’m glad I’m not the one who is unlucky enough to get the seat next to him on the long haul flight to London. If I was the steward or stewardess, I would be so tempted to ‘accidently’ spill boiling hot coffee or tea all over Glitter’s ‘bits’. If the dirty old bastard feels nothing but pain down there, his urge to abuse might be lower. Just a thought to keep in mind, those of you ‘taking care’ of Mr. Glitter on future flights.

I always finish with ‘Enjoy Your Day’, and it is a joyous day for the peple of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, who are lucky enough to be rid of Glitter once and for all. Many children will sleep more soundly tonight.

So, please, do enjoy your day.

Young Michael Phelps of the United States came to Beijing with a goal. That goal was to beat the record set by the great Mark Spitz; to win more than 7 Gold Medals in one Olympic Games. He has come out the other side of these Olympics having done that, with a record 8 Gold Medals. It took 36 years to break Spitz’s record, and it will be a long time before Phelps is overtaken.

These Olympic Games are producing amazing times, and inspirational winners from parts of the world that we never thought would win medals of any colour. The Mongolians have won a Gold Medal in Judo. An athlete from Togo has won a Gold Medal in Kayaking, and the Jamaicans are literally running away with any medal they can get their hands on. We always see the Olympics as inspirational, but nothing was as much a mix of inspiration and determination as the Gold Medal weighlitfting feat I witnessed. Lu Yong of China lifted 214kg in the clean and jerk, and got 3 white lights that one is supposed to get when they have successfully lifted. However, the decision was reversed, and he was made to come out less than 5 minutes later, and lift the same weight again. Never have I cheered for another country so loudly as I did for China at that particular moment. As far as I was concerned, he made the first lift, and I wanted him to dig in, lift that weight, and shove the previous decision up any orifice that could be found on the judges. He did.

It is those inspirational moments that give us the reason why we spend so much money on this thing called the Olympics every four years. It’s those moments where a little known sport, or a little known athlete, gets the spotlight, and we all sit up night after night to watch a sport we don’t give a care about. Moments like the 37 year old winner of the women’s marathon, athletes competing in their sixth Olympics, or simply witnessing a flawless routine in the gymnastics. It is a wonderful time.

What isn’t so wonderful is the woeful commentary that we have to listen to. The bullshit that these people spin, especially the ‘general’ commentators, is beyond the pale. I heard on a radio show the other day that we, as Australians, talk up our Olympians, and rightly so. We are a strong force in a number of sports. However, when we lose, I wish the commentators would say, “We weren’t the best on the day”, rather than making excuses about our poor performance. And, for those in charge of the Australian coverage via Channel 7, can someone please never, ever have Daniel Kowalski poolside interviewing. He was a 2 bit swimmer and he is a 2 bit commentator. Talk about insipid and wet! (pardon the pun). It was like he had never done the job before, and a 10 year old could have asked better questions than he did. For those of you who are lucky enough not to get Australia’s coverage, feel blessed. It’s so soppy, soaked with sponsorship promotions, and dripping with cliches, that it barely looks real. It’s only when we go to the specialised sports, that we hear experts in each field, such as Phil Liggett in cycling, Nick Green in rowing, Steve Moneghetti in Marathon running, Damian Brown in weightlifting, and the legendary Liz Chetkovich in Gymnastics. These people know their sport.

Amongst the smaltz, there is one commercial that has a really nice tribute to all the parents who give of their time to make these athletes who they are. The ‘unsung heroes’ who get up at sparrow’s fart every morning to get their kids to the pool, the river, the track, or the valedrome. They never get the Gold Medal. Some never even get to go to the Olympics. But they do it, because their kid wants to do it, and their kid has the talent to take them a long way. They think it’s worth it.

The Olympics is filled with amazing moments like these. If you haven’t watched any of the coverage, no matter where you are in the world, take a look. Everytime I turn on and watch, I am inspired. Inspired by the greatness of these simple amateur athletes. No, not all of them are stricly amateur, but they are not the Tiger Woods’, and the Roger Federer’s of this world who are in our faces all the time. They chip away at their chosen sport to be the best they can be, and to be witness to that effort is an honour and a privilege. I wish them all every success.

Enjoy your day.

Move over, Bill, here comes big bad John…Edwards that is. Just when the women of the United States had steering clear of randy Bill down to a fine art, John Edwards throws them a curve ball and admits he can’t keep it in his pants either!

It honestly shouldn’t surprise us. Politicians, world leaders, religious leaders and gurus of all kinds have been dropping the pants and rolling around under the sheets with people they shouldn’t for years. But John Edwards tried oh so hard to be ‘Mr. Credible.’ He was the man who supposedly fought for the underdog, stuck by his dying wife, and with his wife, battled on despite the tragic death of their son. Edwards never quite grabbed me, but I understood why people liked him and what he had to say.

Now I know that an affair is an affair, and I always believed that Bill Clinton should not be judged on what he did with a cigar and Monica Lewinsky, but on what he did for the United States of America. On the whole he was one of the greatest Presidents that country ever saw, and I get very few protests whenever I say that. However, Edwards is showing more here than an attempt to hide and cover up his little fling. He was willing to ruin the Democrats chances of gaining the White House, yet again. If he had got the nomination, and this got out, we would definitely have been inaugurating President John McCain, and the Democrats would have been in tatters for years to come. And to let his very sick wife know about it, and then allow her to cover it up for two years is probably the most extreme sign of blind selfishness.

Now I do realise that most politicians are opportunistic, greedy, egotistical and selfish. John Laws, the great man of Sydney talkback, said, “To be a politician, you have to be a hypocrite and a liar.” But this particular action could have had such damming effects on his party, that they may never have seen office again. He should simply have stepped away from politics. Then if news of the affair did surface, he could have looked down the lens of a camera and said, “I am not proud of it. I am sorry to my wife and family, and I will not be seeking my party’s nomination for the 2008 Presidential Election.” Instead, his ego won the day, and even though his wife was dying inside (physically and emotionally), he was getting as much attention as he could muster. I personally think Hillary and Obama refused him the VP’s job, so there was nothing to go after anymore. Either that, or he knew the affair was about to be revealed by an outside source, and knew his political future was history. If his political career was ending up in the toilet, why not throw shit to the wind.

The reactions I have read have been by people who are deeply saddened by this, not angry. John Edwards has turned out to be a monumental disappointment to his family, his party, and himself. I suppose the ’serves you right’ aspect of this is that he never got anywhere with his Presidential campaign. As you sow, you reap.

“Until last week Mr Edwards could have expected a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic convention in Denver at the end of the month. Now, however, neither he nor his wife are expected to be seen within a hundred miles of Colorado.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4529427.ece

Barack Obama better be as clean as a whistle. The last thing the Democratic Party needs now is for their most charismatic presidential hopeful since Bill Clinton and JFK to end up in the middle of a scandal. And don’t worry, those who wish to discredit him will be doing everything they can.

Now that would be beyond disappointment. The word tragedy comes to mind.

Enjoy your day.

Sandy Allen in the 1970’s

Today, the world’s Tallest woman, Sandy Allen, has died at the age of 53. Very young, I know, but with all the health problems that come with being so incredibly tall, she is lucky she got to 50, let alone beyond it. At the time of her death, she reached 7 feet, 7 1/4 inches.

The news of her death brought memories flooding back. At first I said to myself, “No, this couldn’t be the same woman.” You see, I remember watching a night time talk show back in the 1970’s called ‘The Don Lane Show.’ It was hosted by a tall American, Don Lane, who had come to Australia, and never left. Lane was nicknamed ‘The Lanky Yank’ as he was tall, about 6′3″ in the old scale. My parents are tall. My mother is 6′, my father is 6′3″, and my brother is also 6′3″. Seing tall people was not something that freaked me out. I was a shrimp in the land of the giants!

However, I remember when Lane introduced Sandy Allen as a guest, and at that time she would have been in her early 20’s. She came out and my jaw literally dropped, and stayed that way for a good minute. I remember saying quite loudly in the loungeroom, “She’s huuuuuuuuuuuge!” I had never seen anyone who fit the profile of a giant, and at that time I would have just turned 10, if not just shy of it. Nursery rhymes featuring giants were common, and here I was, seeing a giant in my midst.

So when Sandy Allen died, I didn’t think it was the lady I say all those years ago. As kids, everyone looks old to you, so I thought she was 50 then! Reading about her is sad indeed. You can just imagine what being that height meant to chances of a love life, good health, and even a simple vacation away that we all take for granted. She couldn’t be anonymous, and once she was officially ‘The World’s Tallest Woman’, that was it for a private life.

My mother has always hated being tall, as she is a shy woman who hates the spotlight. Now being a tall woman today is not an issue, but in Sandy Allen’s early days, and especially in my mother’s, which was the 40’s, anyone taller than 5′6″ was a freak to behold. And just like my reaction to seeing someone of Sandy Allen’s height for the first time, imagine what people would have thought in that little country town in New South Wales seeing this very tall blond girl whose age didn’t match her size. A tough task to handle at the best of times, especially for a woman. Tall men have always been a common sight. For women, not so.

So Sandy Allen is finally at peace, free from the watching eyes of a judgemental public, free from the physical ailments that plagued her constantly, and free from working triple time to live a ‘normal’ life.

The term ’shock and awe’ became famous in 2002, but my ’shock and awe’ had nothing to do with tanks, guns and invasion, back in 1978. Like the question “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?”, mine will always be, “What moment in time left you speechless?”

I have Sandy Allen to thank for that.

May she rest in peace.

Enjoy your day.

Watching the news tonight, I saw a story that caught my eye, and you know how critical that eye can be. It was a story that covered the case of a Sudanese-born man who was HIV+, and was charged with ‘recklessly endangering the life of another’ after it was found that he had unprotected sex with a number of woman, one of whom came forward and dobbed him in. As always with me, I noticed a number of disturbing factors to this story.

First, my thoughts went straight to the woman who dobbed him in. She willingly had unprotected sex with this man, even though for nearly 30 years the message has been that we should protect ourselves from infection and assume everyone we sleep with is HIV+. She is jumping up and down because he didn’t disclose his HIV status. He is then charged, with the word ‘reckless’ used in the wording of the charge. Wasn’t she ‘reckless’ when she decided to do the horizontal folk dance with him, with nothing between them but a smile? She wanted it this way, then she is up in arms when she finds out he’s positive. Come on!

However, this man was further demonised, and this bit had nothing to do with the girl he had unprotected sex with. In the news footage, the man was being brought to court by two police officers, arms interlinked, the accused man being handcuffed as well. This is not so shocking. What was shocking was the sight of the police officers wearing medical gloves! Now, as I said earlier, this disease has been around nearly 30 years. We should all know by now the basics of how we can contract the disease. It either takes direct blood contact or unprotected sexual intercourse. It cannot be transmitted if you merely touch the person. For God’s sake, I was teaching that to students in 1997! There was absolutely no talk that this man was violent and may bite, causing an issue. To me, it sent the worst message you can send; that we can contract HIV through touching a person, and on this occasion, their clothes. We seem to be right back in 1981, when we called this disease a ‘gay cancer’ and shut down bath houses in San Francisco as a knee jerk reaction.

I realise that we are nowhere near as vigilant as we used to be with this disease, and that many people are forgetting about it. But surely, the basics of how you can and cannot contract the disease should be very clear in our heads. An entire generation has grown up with this.

I have serious concerns about a charge that is termed ‘recklessly endangering life’, especially in the case of this man. Africa has one of the highest,if not the highest rates of HIV in the world, and it is because of a complete lack of education. Is this man sufficiently educated about his disease,and does he fully understand what that means? I am also wondering whether an Australian in the same boat would be brought to court like this man was, and made such a spectacle of. It takes two to tango, and the girl involved would obviously have thoroughly enjoyed her little roll in the hay, until she found out this guy’s status. Then he was the boogie man. He was reckless. When laying the blame squarely at his feet, I wonder whether she has questioned her own recklessness. As someone said to me years ago about women who get pregnant accidently when they are old enough to know exactly what they are doing: “They like the fun that goes with having the kid, but they don’t like what that fun produces.”

“Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.” – Eric Hoffer

Enjoy your day.