Reactions to the dondale chrisis.

Reactions to child abuse.

 Most Australians were appalled and disgusted by the horrible revelations made by the four corners program. This program exposed the government sanctioned abuse and torture of children in detention. 

 Some Australians however reacted in a very different way. They took to Parliament to try to water down our anti-discrimination laws. I am so ashamed that some Australians reaction to seeig Aboriginal children tortured was to try to remove the limited protections they have under the law.

 It should be noted that our anti-discrimination laws are only ever used in the most heinous and public of cases.

 We can see a few familiar faces behind this pro-racism push. 

 There is Cory, who made a name for himself with his homophobia, but he seems to be spreading his prejudice around. Cory has loudly attacked the freedom of speech of his victims, when those victims accurately describe his attacks as homophobia.
 It should be noted that he did not seek to change the fact that the big religions are exempt from most anti-discrimination laws.

And we cant forget Pauline ruler of One Nation, who has made racism and bigotry her platform as a professional politician. Pauline is well known for her attacks on freedom of speech and expression.

 Roberts of One Nation seems to be a conspiracy theorist. I think the fact someone voted for him means we need a re-think of our voting system, like at least making information on the candidates available to the voting public.

 I cant see much information on Brian Burston, being that he is pro-racism and willingly joined One Nation we can probably assume sadly, that he shares its other bigoted views.

 Rod Culleton is another One Nation member, i cant see much about him, other then he claims to have helped farmers against the banks, and has had a larceny conviction annulled. One wonders as he is with One Nation, if he would support farmers of another race, religion or sexuality?

 These people and their pro-racism reaction to the Dondale kids expose sicken me. If they are your government representatives please let them know we need to strength anti-discrimination laws, not weaken them.

Review: Haunted Australia

 Haunted Australia

 

Author:                               John Heffernan

Publisher:                           Scholastic

Type:                                   Soft Cover

Pages:                                  161

Genre:                                 non-fiction

Published:                            2005

ISBN:                                   9781865048260

 I purchased this book online at about three in the morning, along with a few others, i missed the fact it was a scholastic book. For those who don't know Scholastic does fine works making books easier for school children to access. However Scholastic books tend to be for younger readers, so it has large printing, is wide spaced, glosses over many details and sometimes descends into silly speak.  
 Now don't get me wrong using 'spooxpert' to refer to parapsychologists, or paranormal investigators was kind of amusing the first time, however it grated more and more with every single use, and by the end of the book i wanted to hit something. 
 To be fair to this book i am going to rate it as best i can for its child to teen target audience.

 The book is a collection of true ghost encounters from Australia, while some cover a few pages others take up a single paragraph.
 The book has a good introduction, and i should mention i suppose that the book does deal with ghosts and therefore mentions death a few times, as with everything, if you are concerned about younger readers, be a responsible parent and read it yourself first, and discuss it after you have both read it. There are no pictures in this book at all, though some pages have a pattern (as seen in the above photo).
 The book covers haunted houses, ships, theaters, hotels, islands, barracks, prisons, hospitals, roads and even a haunted toilet.
 There is a section on ghost animals including  horses and cattle in addition to the usual dogs and cats.
 Other topics covered include Indigenous spirits, 'guardian angels', ghost hunting, spook (min min) lights, ghost towns, phantom hitchhikers, animal PSI, possession and old hag syndrome.

 There is a short frequently asked questions, but sadly;

 "Why are you trying to make 'spooxperts' a thing?"

wasn't one of those questions, my personal conclusion is that it wasn't included because there is no excuse as 'spooxperts' is an unjustifiable abuse of the English language.

 The book closes with a glossary and some references. There is no index!

 OK so all joking aside, this is a decent book, i can see myself reading this in mid to late primary school maybe. It might have been nice to know there were other haunted houses in Australia. Its simple to read, doesn't get too dark and should peek a child's interest in exploring the subject more. Personally while i can understand not putting the home addresses in the descriptions i would still have liked to see times, dates, and names, some of the places described have been destroyed so why not give there locations. And it has no index, how can any book of this nature be published without an index? 

 I would recommend this book to younger readers who have an interest in the paranormal or are experiencing a haunting, books of this nature focusing on Australia are not too common so anyone interest in Australia or its history might also find this book a launching point to further research.

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Remember always expect a skeptic to be skeptical of everything, not just what they don't want to accept.

Drop Bear Growls