So very unimpressed. So very, very unimpressed.

Guess what I found out today?
And I quote...
"As one of the very last acts of the Howard Government, Brendan Nelson bought $14 million worth of cluster bombs ..."
My response being "He did WHAT?"
How have I not heard about this before? It must have been more that 6 months ago. Where was the outcry? Where was the media ruckus?
Where was the opposition? The debates?
And why has no one denounced it and said "never mind the expense, we will get rid of these right now." and then done so?
And sorry to sound a little clueless if there is an obvious answer to this, but why exactly does Australia need cluster munitions? Are we keeping them for just in case?
I heard about it because there is a petition from the group Get Up, which is doing the rounds. It is to put pressure on our current government to be stronger supporters of the total ban of cluster munitions. An international agreement on this is currently being debated and apparently Australia is not behaving as many of us would expect.
I will paste the email below.
But I was surprised at it's content. And I'm a student of international politics. Perhaps I ought to study harder. But perhaps also, there are lots of things being swept under the carpet.
Bec

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends,
As one of the very last acts of the Howard Government, Brendan Nelson bought $14 million worth of cluster bombs - weapons that contain mini-bombs, some of which remain unexploded on the ground for years awaiting innocent civilians. It's the first time Australia has bought such a weapon, and one we would hope the new Government would categorically reject.
But right now, as the international community meets in Dublin to ban them, the new Australian Government is going out of its way to frustrate the process. They're calling for their 'SMART 155' bomb to be excluded, and for rogue nations who persist in using cluster bombs to be permitted to do so. We've got just a few scarce days left before the fragile international agreement is drafted. Sign the petition today telling Kevin Rudd to ban the bomb: no loopholes, no exceptions.
www.getup.org.au/campaign/BanTheBombs
Thousands of civilians have lost their lives and limbs, mainly children from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. So much so that the international symbol of the campaign is a limb. Just last week the Pope took the unusual step of calling on the international community to outlaw the deadly weapons.
But our government has refused to accept that a total ban on cluster munitions has to prohibit countries from assisting other nations who use cluster bombs. They are also arguing that the Smart 155 is not a cluster munition, despite having no independent tests on its safety and refusing to provide any evidence to back up that claim.
The UK Prime Minister yesterday reversed his decision to exempt his own weapons, leaving Australia increasingly isolated. We should be encouraging positive international agreements to save lives, not hindering them. Tell the PM today - as this decision is being made right now - to ban the bombs:
www.getup.org.au/campaign/BanTheBombs
The Government is hoping this issue will slip under the radar without anyone noticing - but the stakes are simply too high to ignore. Despite technological advances, cluster bombs can't distinguish between combatant and civilian - we need a strong international treaty to prevent horrors like those experienced as a result of land mines, and that decision is being made right now in Dublin.
The PM has shown what a 'creative middle power' can achieve - advocacy on Tibet, ratification of Kyoto, the Apology. Remind him we're supposed to be one of the good guys.
Thanks for being part of the solution,

The GetUp team

Well, it has been a long time since I posted. And now, I do it mostly to draw your attention to a particular article on the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7297139.stm

Now, you don't have to agree with all of it. Or any of it. Nor do you have to disagree with all or any of it. However, I would recommend reading it, thinking about it, picking an argument with some part of it (always a good tool for deciding your view) and, in short, finding yourself a viewpoint, a sophisticated, multifaceted (it will have to be because that is what the world is like. But don't worry. You really are up to it!) opinion about this issue.
Does this sound like homework?
It needn't be. Everyone loves to talk about themselves. So once you're done formulating, go and find someone to bail up! Air those newly found and clearly incontrovertible ideals! It'll be fun!
It'll all be fun!
Go on!
And have a lovely day.
Bec

It's a spade. That's all it is.

I would like to make a note of two things:
1)The Burmese government is oppressing its own people more than usual this week. The have been oppressing them for a long time but now it has come to the world's attention via the internet because they have shot monks and a foreign journalist. This puts them in a large and comfortable club of dictatorships with little regard for human life, freedom, or indeed, very much, apart from political and ideological survival and individual gain.
2) This may seem reasonably important, but it isn't. If you pay any attention to the news, you will see that of far greater importance is equine flu and football. Football, in fact, will be the most important issue this weekend.

The footballers, it seems, can run faster than Burmese monks.

This sort of narrow focus looks like delusional self interest and is, in consequence, an embarrassment, to say the very least.

Amazing Grace

Hello All.
I saw the film Amazing Grace yesterday. I was it with my grandmother, my mother and my sister. Three generations of socially active, politically aware christians.
I have never been ashamed of Christ. But I have been ashamed of the church in the past (and present.) This film reminded me that the church and christians have plugged away at issues because as christians they had to. And they have won. And I needn't give up.
I suggest everyone sees it, whether or not they are christians. It doesn't bring you out on a high like a lot of very hyped movies. But there is a difference between red frogs and corned beef with potatoes. Only one of them will allow you to work until the end of the day.
It's a good film.
And then, once you've watched the film, have a look at http://www.notforsalecampaign.org
And f course, the song itself is wonderful. Sing it through slowly and quietly to yourself some time when you are alone. You'll see what I mean.
And that will be all.
Oh, wait. If anyone would like to be involved or sponser me, I am running the 40 hour famine at my church with one of my friends. Talk to me about that.
Bec

Pome

I found this poem today. I liked it.

Leftright

In the year 1870

the Grand Duchy of Lichtenstein

sent eighty men

(leftright leftright

in their long overcoats)

and one cannon

to the Franco-Prussian war

and when the war was over

welcomed home again

(leftright leftright)

eighty-one men

and one cannon

no-one has ever

accounted for this

Evangeline Paterson

Oh dear!

Aristotle says:

"... political science is not a proper study for the young. The young man (I guess I, though not Aristotle, could include woman here, ed.) is not versed in the practical business of life from which politics draws its premises and its data. He is, besides, swayed by his feelings, with the result that he will make no headway and derive no benefit from a study the end of which is not knowing but doing."

I wonder what he'd think of the values espoused in today's great work of citizenship/ duty literature.

I refer, of course, to The Princess Diaries .

I see that a great number of my friends are at present posting "it's exam time and I'm procrastinating" blogs, whereas I have other means of procrastination and so haven't blogged for a very long time.
Well, this blog is supposed to be for the discussion of world issues etc. (can a blog be a highbrow art form? I think so.)
So here are some issues to chew over while I get back to my study:
*Darfur - the problems remain and are even spreading because of porous borders with Chad etc.
http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes
*Flooding in some parts of NSW while many other parts remain in deep drought. Farmers are continuing to commit suicide because they cannot provide for their families and are losing their stock and properties.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s1946546.htm
* The planet is continuing to heat up.
* There is yet more fighting in Mogadishu (capital of Somalia)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6655261.stm
*There is plenty of fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo
http://www.pulitzercenter.org/showproject.cfm?id=17&gclid=COuT3IDa04wCFQJIYQodSStTsg
*Iraq continues to be a horrific mess.
*Much of Afghanistan continues likewise. (I don't think I need to put any links on these - everyone knows.)
*Russia and the US are having yet another face off over missiles (and much as I enjoy studying the cold war, I'd really prefer not to live in one, especially considering how desperate we'll all be for Russia's fuel pretty soon.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,2099454,00.html
*Child (and adult) slavery continues to be rife, as does poverty, disease, illiteracy, hatred, violence, drug and other abuse and all the other detritus which forms our fallen world.
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
AND...
*Most people in this area are not particularly bothered about this beyond "tsk tsk, how dreadful . . . have another biscuit?"

Well, in an astonishing act of hypocrisy, I will now leave all those problems to my small but dynamic readership and return to my study of declensions and conjugations. I just thought I'd put them out there. Feel free to investigate them for yourselves, of course!

PS: Please don't get me wrong. I am not sunk into a deep slump of blackness over these issues, not do I suggest that we all should be. Very rarely is a deep slump of blackness the place from which change can be perpetrated. I just think they should enter our consciousness, so that we can build our reactions and decisions around an honest and thoughtful awareness of the world we live in and the people we share it with. Good evening!