Once again we see senseless killing of innocent people. Killing of innocent people cannot be justified regardless of the cause. I offer my deepest sympathy. I hope that the perpetrators will be brought to justice swiftly.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

Hey Benita, Is your UN thing today?

Help Me! I'm surrounded by the little twirps in the library, all playing their flash games and looking at sites about their little tin soldier games. Getting links for a Religion assignment but I think I've gotta get out of here as soon as possible, I'll tell you all more about these people later.

Go Mullum High.

$60,000? yeah if they've been working there for 10 years

Yum, food.
I'd have to say that most punishments at school, of any form are unneeded. So someone doesn't have their shirt tucked in / homework done / diary signed by parents / hair the right colour / correct length socks (the "list" goes on)(not that they actually use a list, not that us students have access to anyway, as far as we can tell they can basically just make up anything and get away with it), are you going to write a note for their parents in their school diary, make them pick up rubbish, or keep them back at school on detention one afternoon? Probably if you're a teacher at my school. But do these "solutions" actually solve anything? Do the students know why these rules are in place? Do the teachers even know why they are there?
No (Well the teachers may know but some of them "wouldn't have the time" to explain it, besides you might get a harsher punishment for talking back (with a few).).

Punishment is never the best way to solve a problem. It only reinforces the idea that you need to be obediant to an authority, instead of the idea that we are all equal.

Rather than punish people, schools should:

1. Makes sure that:
   
   • all students are aware of ALL school rules,
   
   
   • students have access to these rules in a written form
   
   
   • and that students are told of and have access to the justifications of these rules.


2. Give students the opportunity to work with the school in the continual development and review of a set of school rules, thus providing a perspective that represents the student bodies best interest.


3. Give students the opportunity to:
   
   
   • justify and explain their actions when a disagreement about behaviour occurs,
   
   
   • sit down with members from the school community to discuss their actions
   
   
   • not be dismissed or handed a quick fix solution to any problems,
   
   
   • and encouraged to take an active role in the course taken to resolve any issues

I was persecuted once for being in a water fight. Both parties had no complaints, but nontheless a prowling teacher seemed to think the behaviour extremely unacceptable, worthy of both a note in the diary and an afternoon detention 100 papers (picking up rubbish). This punishment did nothing other than to amuse my parents at the "seriousness of the offence" and to make me more determined to change the way in which the disciplinary system at my school works, namely:
the teachers have a few options, it's up to them to decide which course of action to take, influencing factors may include: age, height, gender, personality, appearance, personal experience (includes vendettas), mood at the time, weather, day of the week, etc. (the list is almost as long as the "list" which outlines the schools punishable acts ... I mean rules).

It is simply unfair. How can a school whos motto is "Act Justly" openly flaunt this ideal?

Who knows.

Dear World,
    Just thought you'd like to know that I'm doing a Chemistry and a Religion assignment at the moment.

You keeping your head above the flood waters Benita?, Haven't heard from you in .... oh ..... almost 2 days.

Here's a poem I wrote the other day, and posted on Timeo . Maxime Timeo

Battle of the Sexes,
	Battle against whites,
		Battle of religions,
			Bombings over night.
Battle of the Races,
	Battle against you,
		Battling your dominance,
			Battling your view.
Living with unwanted waste,
	Taking all your cr*p,
		Putting up with ten times more,
			and trying not to crack.
We never asked for new TVs,
	or western social views,
		the violence and the fighting,
			or propaganda news.
We simply want the freedom
	and peace of times gone by,
		the lives of those around us,
			we do not want to die.
Our lives will never be the same,
	our cheeks are scarred with tears,
		from living scared and worried,
			no sleep for twenty years.

Here's the correct excerpt from the transcript of the BBC report on Zimbabwes youth "training" camps.

One day during the filming, I phoned a girl who we had interviewed the day before and I got her voicemail.

In her message she had a sweet voice, high pitched and gentle like that of an innocent teenager.

In fact she had helped beat to death an old lady with a walking stick.

- Hilary Andersson, BBC correspondent, Zimbabwe.
[ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3537511.stm]

I'm writing on paper and in bed. The red ink of the texta I'm using seems to reflect my thoughts of what I've just heard.
Whilst listening to "From our own correspondant", the BBC program, just now I heard the story of Zimbabwaen youths who've been in Mr. Mugabes "training" camps, and of one specific case.

The day after an interview with one of these youths, a young girl, I tried to contact her on her mobile phone." the reporters voice chimed "I was greeted by her voicemail and high pitched sweet sounding voice. I almost forgot that the previous day sh had told me how she had helped beat an elderly women with her own walking stick - and killed her."

The breath was knocked out of me. I felt the despair of countless people around the world, loning for peace.
People the same age as me, are being taught to rape, murder and torture their fellow Zimbabweans.
.: Post time edited :.

Argh!! Too many lyrics.

Interesting, one mans "utopian" society, but somehow definetly not. Same with your comparison with communism, the whole point of which was equality for the people, but the concept of anyone in control, or acting as "leader" kind of contradicts that.

You were talking about the Judicial system and Repaying what you have done. I Agree that prisons are no good, I've heard stories from people "on the inside" of how their lives slowly "rot" away. It used to be the prisoners against the guards, a strangely united social system, but these days it's split along racial grounds, whites with whites, asians with asians, abbos with abbos. You're safe if you're in favour with your group, if you can get them drugs or a "stick" (syringe), but otherwise you're stuffed, no-one gives a sh*t if you live or die you're "the scum of society".

The real problem which needs to be address, like almost all other problems, is the cause. What was the reason behind this persons first stay in jail, which led to them being further inclined to end back there? Why can these reasons still exist.

In one case, of a young Australian of Aboriginal descent, it was almost natural to be in jail by the age of 13. All his male relatives, his role models, were there.

We must find solutions for the causes, only then will we have Peace ( / justice / equality)