Once upon a time it was possible for professional athletes to ply their trade without having to deal with the stress of the modern media. It’s hard to imagine the ancient Olympians facing public scrutiny about their personal lives, for example. But nowadays, with the rise of the global media and a collective devotion to celebrity culture, being a professional athlete entails far more than simply being good at the sport in question. Just ask Michael Clark.

As attention on professional athletes has increased, so has an awareness that athletes need to be savvy when it comes to interacting with and participating in the media. Rather than allowing athletes to speak their minds, great care is now taken to promote good sportsmanship and maintain the reputation of the game in question. While a fight may well break out during an AFL match, for example, it is highly unlikely that the confrontation will continue off the ground, such is the desire to uphold the reputation of the game.

To this end sportsmen and –women are taught skills that will help them act appropriately when interacting with the media. For example, they are taught to be humble and not big-note themselves; they are taught to have respect for their opposition and for the game’s officials; and they are taught to take responsibility for their off-field actions.

While all this might sound fairly reasonable the reality is that it makes the whole process rather dull and predictable for the public. In his address at the conclusion of last year’s AFL grand final Geelong coach Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson said the following;

‘Firstly to the St. Kilda footy club, footy sucks sometimes and you guys have had a fantastic year. You’ve done so much right and you’re one of the hardest teams to play against’.

An undoubtedly noble gesture, but also a rather predicable and unoriginal one. If only he had said something along these lines;

‘Firstly to the St. Kilda footy club, you only lost two games for the season and you finished two games clear on top of the ladder. You also outscored us in three quarters of today’s match and yet you still managed to lose the game. Good effort.’

Sure, it wouldn’t have made Mr. Thompson the most popular man in footy but at least he would have been the most original.

But more than making the whole process extremely predictable it would seem that the regulation of media interaction in the sporting world has reduced such interaction to a series of clichés.

An example of this can be seen when an AFL player is asked to assess his team’s finals chances. Rather than answering the question honestly the player will almost certainly revert to one of the great sporting clichés – ‘we’re just taking it one week at a time.’

Similarly, after a match-winning performance a player might well be asked to comment on his or her contribution. Rather than taking the opportunity to provide an accurate account of proceedings, the modern sportsperson will often reply ‘it was a great team effort’.

If the same player was on the losing side he might well be asked to explain why it was that his team lost. In this situation it is unlikely that he would call the opposition a pack of cheats, even if he had wanted to. The preferred response seems to be something along the lines of ‘we had our chances but let them slip away.’

There seems to be a cliché for every situation in sport and it’s not just the players that are getting in on the action. Sports commentators also seem to revel in language that is saturated with repetition and recurrence. Cricket commentators seem to be quite partial to the phrase ‘good line and length’, for example, while AFL commentators will often mention a courageous player’s ability to put his ‘body on the line’.

The final word today goes to The Australian columnist Chip Le Grand and his brilliant piece about clichés, jargon and the AFL. Hopefully someday I can write like this but until then I’ll just keep giving it 110% and taking it one week at a time…

Critiquing those who peddle tabloid journalism is kind of like using barrel-bound aquatic vertebrates for target practice. That said, it’s also a lot of fun and has the added bonus of making one feel like one’s journalism training is not going to waste.

Depending on your daily newspaper of choice you might or might not have heard about the case of Sudanese refugee Liep Gony. On February 17 Supreme Court judge Elizabeth Curtain overturned a ruling she had made in December, deciding to release the names of Gony’s killers, Clinton Rintoull and Dylan Sabatino.
The following day The Age ran the story several pages from the front of the paper, while the Herald Sun, in all its sensationalist glory, deemed the story worthy of the front page.

It would seem that the editorial staff at the Herald Sun write headlines like Year 12 students are taught to write exam responses. That is, ‘have a clear idea of the “buzzwords” that the examiners are looking for and ensure that you work them in wherever possible’. In the case of the Herald Sun, examiners are substituted for dedicated readers who seem to appreciate the frequent use of decidedly emotive words such as ‘hero’, ‘horror’, ‘evil’ and ‘miracle. In the case of the February 18 edition of the Herald Sun it was decided that ‘FACES OF EVIL’ would be an appropriate headline for the Liep Gony story.

Now don’t make the mistake of thinking that I find the actions of Gony’s killers anything less than abhorrent. But, again, I was under the distinct impression that a news journalist’s job was to inform the public of recent happenings so as to facilitate a considered decision on the public’s behalf. I would like to think that people are smart enough to realise that bashing and ultimately killing someone, not least of all due to their skin colour, doesn’t exactly constitute exemplary behaviour.

And while we’re on the issue of skin colour let’s turn out attention to the “FACES OF EVIL” story as it spilled to pages four and five. While the word ‘fuck’ was censored four times across the two pages, the word ‘nigger’ somehow made it through the Herald Sun’s censorship department not once, but seven times.

Whether ‘the N-word’ should have been censored or not is a separate issue but by deciding to censor ‘fuck’ and not ‘nigger’, a rather loaded value judgment has been made. Are we to believe that a common expletive, used frequently in everyday speech, has the potential to cause greater offense than a term that arguably epitomizes an ongoing history of racial vilification and intolerance?

But it would seem that the Herald Sun is not alone in it’s decisions regarding censorship. The same reasoning was evidently applied over at The Age with the following being an extract from the story run in The Age.

‘Before he left home armed with a metal pole to bash and kill Sudanese teenage Liep Gony, Clinton Rintoull spray painted “f— da niggas” on the wall of his rented Noble Park house.’

Again, one could argue that the word ‘nigger’ should not be censored as the newspaper in question is merely providing an objective report of what was said and written by Gony’s killers. But, by the same token, shouldn’t the word ‘fuck’ also be left in an unedited form as it too is an accurate representation of what was said by the youths in question?

In leaving this issue behind somewhat prematurely, it is to the wisdom of the wonderful Tim Minchin that I once again turn. His undeniably clever song ‘Prejudice’ – formally known as ‘Taboo’ – deals with the power of language when it comes to issues of skin colour and racial intolerance. Five minutes of your time s’il vous plaît…?

In the world of five-star hotels the serving of breakfast seems to be inextricably linked with the serving of breakfast television. Until a few weeks ago our news-tainment provider of choice was Channel Seven’s Sunrise, hosted by dynamic duo Kochie and Mel. Nowadays, at the behest of “the man”, we fill our restaurant with the sounds of Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson of Channel Nine’s Today. According to the powers that be within our reputable establishment, Nine’s breakfast offering is “better” than Seven’s. It isn’t exactly clear what “better” means in this context but I’m willing to hazard a few guesses.

Perhaps the celebrity gossip on Today is “better” than the gossip featured on Sunrise. Perhaps the advertising spots on Today are of far greater quality than those seen on Sunrise. Or maybe it’s Today‘s ability to sensationalise recent news stories better than Sunrise that makes it the pick of the breakfast viewing.

On yesterday morning’s edition of Today the team ran a story about the recent stabbing death of 12 year old Brisbane boy Elliot Fletcher. The story began with several parents discussing the apparent increase in violence in Australian schools before cutting to host Lisa Wilkinson reading through a list of incidents that demonstrated such an increase. As if Today‘s angle on this story wasn’t clear enough already, they concluded the story by “interviewing” Norm Hart of the Queensland Association of State School Principals.

As a journalism student I have been taught that interviews should consist largely of “open” questions rather than questions which lead the interviewee to a specific answer or force a simple “yes” or “no” answer. In the case of the story in question, something like the following might have been appropriate;

“What does the recent stabbing death of Elliot Fletcher tell us about safety in our schools?”

But no. Apparently that line of questioning is a little too boring for Ms. Wilkinson who decided to go with something a little different;

“Should parents be worried as they send their kids off to school this morning?”

To Mr Hart’s credit he participated in the interview as well as could be expected given that he need not have been there at all. I mean, why would you bother inviting someone to give their expert opinion on an issue if, when concluding the interview, you are going to completely disregard everything that they’ve said thus far?

“Understandably a lot of parents (are) not feeling that’s the case today but we do thank you very much for your time this morning”.

Sure, you could probably argue that Lisa Wilkinson isn’t technically a journalist in her role as co-host of Today but if you are presenting news items and interviewing relevant authority figures related to said items, then surely some minimum standards of journalistic integrity must apply? You know, like presenting information in an rational and objective way rather than trying to sensationalise important issues.

Let’s keep things in perspective here – a 12 year old boy getting stabbed to death while at school is truly horrific and of real concern to parents and teachers alike but that doesn’t mean that kids around the country are suddenly unsafe at school. There are a lot of kids going to a lot of schools on a lot of days of the year, I hardly think a couple of isolated incidents of school yard violence are cause to keep the kids at home.

But it’s all about the kids. The mainstream media loves nothing more than a “kids are at risk” story but most of the time such stories are dependant on deliberate scaremongering in order to provoke emotional responses from concerned parents. That’s not to say that the issues at hand aren’t important, they should just be dealt with rationally and in a considered fashion.

Speaking of fashion, most people know of Miley “Hannah Montana” Cyrus but far fewer would be aware of her younger sister, Noah. Nor should they be because Noah is a little girl of 10 years old – not that you would know it from her choice of attire.

In October of last year Miley’s younger sister “made headlines” when she donned a “dominatrix-inspired” costume for Halloween celebrations and in the last couple months there have been rumours circulating of a lingerie line being released by junior Cyrus and her friend Emily Grace Reaves. Thankfully such rumours appear to be false and the clothing company in question, Ooh! La! La! Couture, seems to make tutus with tanktops rather than girls’ lingerie.

Noah Cyrus is only one example of an apparent shift toward the sexualisation of young girls and social commentators like Mia Freedman have written extensively on this issue. To a significant percentage of the community, young girls dressing and acting as if they were far older results in the corruption of childhood and the premature loss of innocence. “They are growing up too fast”, the older generations often remark, with advertising, the media and the internet often copping the blame.

Regardless of one’s own thoughts on this issue, it’s hard to deny that it is an issue that a lot of people feel very strongly about. While the solution to the problem isn’t as easy as banning the sale of lingerie for young girls, for example, it’s clear that parents have an important role to play. If you are concerned about your little girl growing up too fast then it’s probably not a good idea to let them watch Beyonce film clips at six years old.

The mainstream media has an important role to play as well. Rather than the aforementioned scaremongering that the commercial networks love to fill their “current affairs” and breakfast shows with, there should be a greater focus on programs that facilitate meaningful discussion about serious issues. The ABC’s Q & A is a perfect example of such a program and it makes for brilliant viewing.

The weekly show features a panel of expert guests who discuss topical issues as directed by the audience and moderated by one of Australia’s greatest interviewers, Tony Jones. Of course he isn’t “Australia’s best interviewer” because that mantle belongs to Tracy Grimshaw of Nine’s A Current Affair. Step aside Andrew Denton, stop tryin’ Kerry O’Brien, Ms. Grimshaw has you both covered…

Catching the train home from work at around 11pm is always an experience. If it isn’t boozed up teens sharing stories of their sexual conquests it’s drug fuelled maniacs trying to start fights with ticket inspectors. Tonight was a little less extreme, but no less fascinating.

As I boarded the 10:41pm Hurstbridge train I became aware of a younger gentleman sitting a couple of metres away from me. As we started our slow journey into the ‘burbs this gentleman started making eye contact with people as they boarded the train. After a few stations he struck up conversation with one particularly attractive young female who happened to be fiddling with her mobile phone; “How much do you pay for that per month?”

A rather unusual choice of pick-up line, I thought to myself, as I waited to see how quickly she could deflect his advances. To her credit though, she played along, answering his questions generously for a few moments before deciding it necessary to make a phone call.

After the lady had left the train, receiving a friendly smile and a wave in the process, the charismatic gentleman set about searching for another person to befriend. Turning to a female backpacker who had sat beside him he indicated to her large pack and asked “Have you got a dead body in there?”

Whether or not this woman didn’t speak English, didn’t understand the joke or just didn’t want to talk to strange men late at night on public transport, I don’t know. Either way she uttered some non-commital response before turning to face the other way.

As the backpacker left the train and Mr. Charisma began to scan the carriage again, I thought I had it figured it out – he was just some lonely dude trying to make the most of a boring train ride home by chatting up attractive girls, albeit unsuccessfully.

As we pulled out of one of the many stations between the city and home Mr. Charisma turned to a rather portly gentleman and, pointing to his dreadlocks asked; “How long did they take to grow?”

Well there goes the attractive girls idea. But then again, maybe he was just a lonely dude who felt the need for some human contact on his way home. Following discussions about the demise of the Glaswegian shipping industry and the merits of international postage insurance the topic of conversation turned to familiar territory – “Are you on pre-paid?”

That’s when it clicked. The lonely gentleman in the corner wasn’t lonely at all – he was a phone salesman looking to makes some commission in his downtime. Sure enough, when Mr. Dreadlocks asked what his inquisitor did for a job;

“I’m a door-to-door salesman, I sell mobile phone contracts for Optus. I’m not getting enough sales during the day so I thought I’d get on the trains and try to sell some phones that way.”

It made sense. I mean, why else would someone ask a complete stranger how long they had left on their phone contract, out of the blue? It also explained the sales and marketing book that he was reading while he wasn’t busy accosting tired commuters.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t really care that he was trying to sell his wares at 11:30pm to people who just wanted to get home. After all, it’s easy enough to say “no thanks, I’m not interested”. However, one of his final comments to Mr. Dreadlocks got me thinking. Namely, “you can never have enough iPhones can you?”

Now I must confess a certain desire to join the iPhone flock but the last couple days have had me questioning the merits of such desires.

In an attempt to escape the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, the lady-friend and I headed up to her family’s property in Tolmie, a town 30 kilometres north-east of Mansfield. The property is home to a converted machinery shed that is effectively a house without many of the modern conveniences – electricity, running water and mobile phone coverage, to name but a few.

Sitting down on one of the couches that adorn the shed I faced a crisis of sorts. What is there to do when there is no electricity?

When your whole life is dependant on the constant use of electricity, taking it away does funny things to you. Take this blog entry for example. It’s 3:00am, pitch dark outside and without electricity I would be relying on candles to create enough light in order to write these thoughts on a piece of paper. I take it for granted that I can sit here on my couch as late as I like and that the lights, my laptop and the internet will be at my fingertips as long as I need them.

It all sounds a little dumb – of course we need electricity to power our 21st century lifestyles – but a weekend of tank water, longdrops, citronella coils and no Facebook was enough to give me a bit of a wake-up call.

Having said that, the feeling of being completely disconnected from the outside world is an extremely liberating one. I was able to break out of my busy routine and just sit back, smell the fresh country air and appreciate the simpler things in life. Like the fact that daylight is fairly important when you don’t have electric lights all through your house. I was certainly less inclined to wake at noon than I am when I’m at home, that’s for sure.

So, what does this have to do with iPhones and the selling thereof? I’m not quite sure to be honest. Maybe it’s the idea that the iPhone – and the rampant consumption and consumerism that it represents – is somehow at odds with a simple and naturally fulfilling lifestyle. Or maybe someone just needs to invent an iPhone with solar panels on it. The best of both worlds, and all that…

As an employee of a reasonably-professional accommodation provider, I am required to work the occasional breakfast shift. As if the horror of getting up at 4:30am isn’t enough, the powers that be insist that we broadcast mindless drivel on the restaurant’s television.

Now I don’t know anyone that’s going to claim that Channel Seven’s Sunrise program even vaguely resembles quality programming, but last Sunday’s episode was something special. Not half an hour after broadcasting this attempt at balanced journalism the Sunrise crew were throwing to their resident astrologer for the daily horoscopes.

As was explained in the aforementioned video, astrology is the pseudoscience that claims that the positions of the stars and planets can be analysed in order to provide information about human personalities, behaviours and the workings of society in general. In the West this tradition manifests itself most frequently in the form of horoscopes which can be found in trashy magazines and newspapers everywhere. These lovely snippets of “information” claim to provide predictions about the future, based solely on the reader’s date of birth.

According to astrologers a person’s zodiac sign is determined by the position of the sun relative to the background stars on the date of their birth and that person will have certain character traits determined by their particular zodiac sign. For example, between November 23 and December 22 the sun is said to appear in the constellation of Sagittarius and therefore, with my birthday falling on the 25th of November, I am said to be a Sagittarius. According to Astrology.com.au Sagittarians are extremely confident, prone to bouts of good fortune, are known for their contagious enthusiasm and so on.

But there are some major problems with this theory. Firstly, in order to believe what astrologers tell us, we must convince ourselves that the position of the sun at a particular date, relative to the background stars, can actually affect an individual’s personality. Exactly how it does this is a mystery but Astrology.com.au offers this helpful explanation;

“…our luminescent sun apparently moves month by month throughout the year, transceiving the energy of those different constellational signs and thereby transmitting the celestial radiations to our Earth“.

Ok, so that makes perfect sense. The sun somehow grabs some sort of mystical personality-building energy from constellations that are millions of kilometres away (the closest star in the Sagittarius constellation is Ross 154 and is located 91,577,915,000,000 kilometres from the sun) and beams it down to earth. Sounds very scientific to me.

Secondly, even if it’s true that the position of the sun at the time of my birth imbues me with certain character traits, astrologers would have us believe such traits are common to all Sagittarians. That is, everyone born between November 23 and December 22 is supposed to share a set of common character traits. I find it rather difficult to believe that everyone born between these dates is confident, lucky and enthusiastic as I supposedly am.

Even if we believe all of that, there is still one major hurdle to overcome. When the Babylonians first drafted the Zodiac around 2,500 years ago, the sun was in the constellation of Sagittarius between November 23 and December 22. However, thanks to the efforts of Greek fellows like Aristarchus of Samos, Hipparchus of Rhodes and Ptolemy we now know of the phenomenon known as “axial precession”.

While you may know that the Earth spins while in it’s orbit around the Sun, you might not know that it spins off-centre. While we are taught to think of the Earth as spinning around a vertical axis, this axis is actually tilted by 23 degrees. In addition to causing the different seasons that we experience on Earth, the tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis has a secondary effect. As this short clip demonstrates, by having an axis that is a certain amount away from the vertical, the axis of rotation actually moves over a period of time. This results in a gradual change in our observable “star field”.

Imagine you are lying in the dentist’s chair at the end of a check-up, focused on a spot on the ceiling. Imagine too that you can’t move your eyes at all and that you are forced to look straight ahead. As the dentist changes the angle of the chair to bring you into an upright position, your eyes, unable to look around, will trace a straight line from the ceiling down the wall. Axial precession is kind of like that – as the angle of the Earth’s rotational axis changes, so what we can see from our vantage point on the Earth changes.

So, what does this have to do with astrology and the Babylonians? Well, as I mentioned, the signs of the Zodiac were first assigned around 2,500 years ago. Since that time axial precession has changed the apparent location of the background stars. So, the Sun, which once appeared to be in the constellation of Sagittarius on the 25th of November now appears to be in the constellation of Scorpio. Therefore I am no longer “a Sagittarius”, instead I am “a Scorpio”.
In order to be a Sagittarius now I would need to be born between December 18th and January 19th.

Well that’s all pretty clear cut isn’t it? Astrology is a pseudoscience that makes claims above and beyond its station without considering the workings of relevant celestial phenomena.

But two days after watching Sunrise at work I stumbled upon a book at my local shopping centre that I couldn’t resist flicking through. It was “What Your Birthday Reveals About You” by Phyllis Vega and it claimed to provide “astonishingly accurate revelations about your future, your secrets and your strengths” based, you guessed it, on the individual’s zodiac sign. I flicked sceptically to November 25 and read through some of my alleged character traits;

• Those born on November 25 are inclined to live “intense lives of crusading ideals”

• Although I “give the impression of being a bit of a loner”, I’m “actually searching for meaningful ways to connect with other people”

• I could “satisfy my creative muse…as a writer, journalist, publisher, artist, musician or actor”

• I am “a natural athlete with a genuine love of the outdoors”.

I could go on. Scarily, all of these suggestions are quite true and as I read on, more and more of the statements seemed to be accurate. I faced a brief internal struggle – “I know astrology is bogus, but how are these predictions so accurate?

And then it occured to me. If astrology is an accurate and consistent scientific pursuit then surely these predictions are based on some immutable, objective truth that is directly related to my date of birth. Consequently, if I was to go to another source of birthday-based wisdom, I would find similar, if not exactly the same results. So, does Astrology.com.au say the same things as Phyllis Vega about those of us born on November 25?

Life of crusading ideals? Not mentioned. Loner with intent to communicate at a higher level? Not in so many words. Suited for a creative career like journalism? Not quite. Naturally sporty? Doesn’t come up.

However, I am apparently blessed with a colourful imagination and a rare tolerance for others. Are either of these mentioned in Ms. Vega’s book? I think you know the answer to that…

I try to avoid using this blog to talk myself up – after all, that’s what Facebook is for. However, today I’ll make an exception as I engage in a bit of self-congratulatory indulgence.

As part of a university assignment I wrote an article about the lack of an R18+ classification for video games here in Australia. Despite having strong feelings about the issue I restrained myself and managed to, according to the editor of The Age’s Livewire, “present a neutral account” of the current debate. The aforementioned editor, Glenn Mulcaster, was good enough to publish the article in yesterday’s Livewire, the white pages of the Green Guide. For those that haven’t already caved in to the deluge of links on Facebook, the article can be read here.

As a follow up to that story I thought it would be interesting to describe the process of getting published. I pitched the article to Lawrie Zion, the Editor-in-Chief of upstart, “the magazine for emerging Australian journalists”, and he was good enough to publish it. You can read it here.

For those that are used to my more sarcasm-laden writing style, the aforementioned articles might feel seem a little dull but time and place and all that.

Shameless self-promotion complete…

Update: My last blog entry, “The Good Lord…” was picked up by Lawrie Zion and re-published on upstart. Check it out here.

You know it’s time for bed when those religious programmes come on TV. You know the ones – they start about 3am and invariably feature the effervescent preachings of middle-aged American men. I thought I’d watch a couple such programs after work this morning, you know, for a bit of a laugh.

As I watched I found myself consistently amazed by the strength of conviction possessed by these men. Unfortunately for our overnight-evangelists though, confidence in one’s beliefs does not make such beliefs any less wrong.

One of the delightful programmes that I sampled was Life Today, a faith-based lifestyle program that, this morning at least, featured a plea to help Africa’s starving multitudes. You can picture the scene – middle-aged American gentleman and his good lady wife, talking into the camera about how viewers must find it in themselves to donate to Life Outreach International, their associated charity. Throw in some footage of hideously malnourished African children and some tears from the hosts and you have compelling viewing.

I mean, they have a point right? Who doesn‘t feel like they should do something to help out the millions of kids that are far less fortunate than ourselves? I’m pretty sure human compassion will lead us to that feeling everytime without being guilted into it by teary-eyed believers.

Speaking of human compassion, how about this tasteful effort by Life Today‘s South African missionary who gave up his professional rugby career to spread the word of God. After a teary introduction by the show’s hosts, James and Betty Robison, the programme cuts to footage of a child so badly malnourished that he can’t muster up the strength to blow the flies off his lips. Perched over the child and dressed in a snappy outfit is the decidedly healthy looking missionary who delivers the following compassionate analysis;

“This child could die any second – I’m literally watching children die before me. Who will be next?”

At this point, the missionary turns to where a throng of not-quite-as-badly-malnourished children are sitting, clearly bemused by the spectacle. He places his hand on the head of one of the smallest children and hypothesises thus;

“Will it be this child?”

There is a very serious challenge that must be put to the Robison’s and all of those that believe God has compelled them to aid starving children. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent and perfectly good, as the majority of Christians seem to think, why would he let children starve in the first place?

To me that’s almost an “I win” button for atheism but, of course, there are those that offer potential explanations. Are we to believe that God rates freedom of choice and freedom of action so highly that he is prepared to sit back and let millions of innocent children suffer every day? Are we to believe that God has given us all the necessary tools to fight poverty and starvation but that any failure to do so is a failure on mankind’s behalf?

Well, that last idea isn’t so bad, but to paraphrase Pierre-Simon Laplace via Dawkins and Hitchens, it works fine without the idea of God.

Finally, I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the gracious hosts of Life Today as they recounted, tearfully, the story of a child they met some years back;

“When we were in Africa we visited little Matthew in hospital. As we left his bed the nurses told us that he wouldn’t make it through the night. But we went back the next day and Matthew hadn’t died during the night. We went back a year later and we were kicking a soccer ball with him. Matthew didn’t die, he was a miracle of love”.

This sort of reasoning is laughable at best, and at worst, deliberately misleading. Why is it that one child’s survival against the odds is put down to divine intervention and yet, when thousands upon thousands of other children are dying through starvation, dehydration and AIDS, God is nowhere to be seen? What did that one child do to deserve life that countless others didn’t?

Those who find it within themselves to aid those in need are truly worthy of praise. God, however, is not among them…

I’ve been known to spend the odd bit of spare time playing video games. Back in the primary school days I used to spend many an hour turning wizards into cats in Kings Quest III and destroying the Russians in Civilization. I graduated to secondary school and so it was only fitting that I should make the move to Civilization II. Rayman was another massive time-sucker in high school, with its family-friendly “it’s ok to punch people” violence and lush atmospheric soundtrack.

More recently I have found myself craving the higher difficulty settings of Bungie’s Halo and Halo 2 and a borderline-dangerous addiction to Bethesda Softworks’ Morrowind has seen another 100-and-something hours of my life gone.
As great as these games were and still are, there was never one game that stood out. No game that was worthy enough of the honour of being my favourite game. Until last year that is. Enter Grand Theft Auto IV.

Sure, I had played the previous installments in the series – I can remember many an afternoon in my Year 12 Information Systems class engaged in four-way multiplayer deathmatches with mates in the original GTA. When Rockstar Games made the first two installments in the series free to download (which they still are and more than worth a look) I had no hesitation in promptly aquiring GTA2 and playing it through to the end. I have also played GTA3 and GTA: Vice City on Xbox and loved every minute of them.

But nothing that I had seen before prepared me for the epic tour de force that is Grand Theft Auto IV. It is a superb first-person shooter with a truly memorable cover system, it is a top-notch driving simulator with hyperrealistic car modelling and crash physics, it has a rich and detailed storyline that really hooks the gamer and it has well directed and choreographed cut-scenes with fantastic cinematography. The amount of detail that has gone into the production of the game is quite staggering and more than once I found myself shaking my head in amazement and how much care had been taken to create a truly memorable gaming experience. I could go on for hours about how good the game is but why don’t we leave it to the experts?

The game cost $100 million to produce, making it the most expensive video game ever made. Luckily for Rockstar Games it also happens to be the greatest game of all time.

So imagine my surprise when I picked up Volition, Inc.’s Saints Row 2 for $40 at JB Hi-Fi earlier this month. On first blush the two games are remarkably similar. They are both massively immersive open-world games about a gangsta making it to the top. Both games feature a multitude of vehicles, weapons, missions and mini-games, truly earning the title “sandbox”. After playing Saints Row 2 for a while though, the difference between the games becomes far more clear. Where GTAIV is more focused on gritty life-like realism, Saints Row 2 takes a more over-the-top sort of feel. The driving has more of an arcade-style feel to it, the selection of weapons is almost comical at times and overall the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. Here’s what the Good Game guys had to say about Saints Row 2.

Having spent a fair bit of time with the lovely folks of Stillwater, I have come to the rather pleasant realisation that Saints Row 2 might just be a better game than GTAIV.

For example, I can’t remember anything in GTAIV as hilariously entertaining as Saints Row 2′s Insurance Fraud diversion - a mini-game wherein your aim is to injure yourself as much as possible by throwing yourself in front of cars, off bridges and so on.

Sure, SR2 might not be as visually impressive as GTA4 but what it lacks in aesthetics it more than makes up for with its endless ways of keeping the player entertained – check out the character customization options to see what I mean.

But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if Saints Row 2 is a better game than Grand Theft Auto IV. What matters is that I’m utterly addicted and the only way of breaking that addiction is to achieve 100% completion in the game. So, if you’ll excuse me, Stillwater awaits…

Over the last couple weeks, controversy has been brewing over a much publicised episode of Channel Seven’s stalwart soapie ‘Home and Away’, in which two female characters, Charlie Buckton (Esther Anderson) and Joey Collins (Katie Bell), are seen kissing. When so-called ‘conservative groups’ got wind of the lesbian storyline the all too familiar cries of disgust and outrage – coupled with the tiresome accusations of moral impropriety – were splashed liberally across the domestic and international media.

However, in spite of the myriad criticisms and complaints that Seven has reportedly received since the lesbian love-plot began some six weeks ago, ‘the kiss’ was aired on last night’s episode of ‘Home and Away’. Kinda.

You see, when filming the more intimate moments between Charlie and Joey, two scenes were put to tape. The first being ‘a very gentle, loving, sensual, tender kiss’ – according to Bevan Lee, the Head of Creative Drama and Development at Seven – and the second being ‘a more lusty follow up’. Only the former made it to air.

According to an article in ‘The Australian’ newspaper, Channel Seven decided to remove the second kiss from the episode in order to appease ‘conservative lobby groups’ and prevent the further loss of ratings. The aforementioned Mr Lee, however, argues that the lustier kiss was removed purely for artistic reasons and that the article appearing in ‘The Australian’ was an ill-informed beat-up.

To be honest, I don’t think it matters why the second kiss was removed, but it does matter why we are still having this debate at all. Why such outrage over a simple kiss?

Aaah, but of course, it’s not just any kiss, it’s the most feared of all the small screen kisses – the gay kiss. Seriously, are we still living in the 1950s here? Do we still honestly believe that homosexuality is a disease?

Apparently we do. Feast your vile jellies on this completely unbiased clip from ‘Today Tonight’ that in no way seeks to defend ‘Home and Away’ based purely on the fact that the two programmes belong to the same network. More specifically, let’s focus on the drivel that spews forth from ‘youth minister’ Andrew Bynes – he’s the annoying little weed that we first see 53 seconds into the clip.

The following statement of his seems to be fairly representative of the argument employed by the conservative lobby groups – ‘I know my little kids are very impressionable, they believe what they see on TV, most of the time, and this kind of model of relationships and morality is actually undermining what me (sic.) as a parent is trying to do in my own home’. That’s right folks, we gotta protect them kids.

I’m being slightly conservative myself when I say that I only have three concerns with Mr Bynes statement. First of all, why is it that ‘Home and Away’ is able to frequently air plotlines that deal with drug use, murder and rape and no one expresses a concern about the potential effects that such themes might have on children, but yet a simple lesbian kiss – the culmination of a romantic plotline some six weeks in length – has the conservatives up in arms?

Secondly, Mr Bynes, if you have such a problem with the ‘model of relationships’ being presented to your young children by such television shows, then turn the TV off. Problem solved.

Finally, and far more importantly, isn’t it about time that we stopped teaching our kids that homosexuality is undesirable, dangerous and unnatural?

Angela Conway from Pro-Family Perspectives doesn’t seem to think so. As seen in the aforementioned clip, she would go so far as to say that ‘these kind of ways of presenting sexuality are actually quite damaging to young people’. Yep, apparently showing two women falling in love and expressing that love by way of a single kiss is not only undesirable, but damaging to the young ‘uns.

The thing that Ms Conway fails (or refuses) to see is that there actually are gay people out there. Around 10% of the population if you believe some estimates. What kind of environment are we creating when homosexuality is viewed as unnatural, abnormal and damaging? What kind of message are we sending to young homosexual men and women when the most innocuous of lesbian love-scenes is met with derision and disgust from prominent members of the community?

Is it any wonder that young men and women – on discovering that they are gay – are so scared to tell their friends and family? Is it any wonder that gay men and women feel like they are so blatantly disciminated against?

I would love to be a fly on the wall the day that one of Andrew Bynes kids comes home from school and says; ‘Dad, I think I’m gay’. The irony and hilarity of the situation would only be matched by the anger and sorrow you would feel the moment that you realise that Mr Bynes is probably one of those fuckwits that would ship his kids off to ‘Straight Camp’ in an attempt to rid them of their ‘disease’.

It’s about time we stepped out of the dark ages and had a good hard look at ourselves and the way that gay people are treated in this country. It’s time to let go of outdated and blatantly discriminatory religious dogma that alienates large portions of our society and causes unecessary anguish and distress for so many people.

I can’t think of any better way to end this discussion than by pointing you in the direction of the following article, published on the ‘Herald Sun’ website some weeks ago. It reveals that Australian actress Melissa George, of ‘Alias’ fame, is joining the cast of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ as Sadie Harris, an intern at Seattle Grace Hospital. In choosing a headline for the article authors Erin McWhirter and Darren Devlyn could have made reference to Ms George’s previous work with ‘Alias’, ‘Home and Away’ or ‘In Treatment’, or, if they were looking for a racy headline that would be sure to stir up controversy, they could have alluded to the fact that Ms George’s character has a propensity for self-mutilation. But oh no, they went one better – ‘Melissa George joins Grey’s Anatomy as lesbian’.

Sorry kids, no ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ for you tonight. But it’s all right, it’s for your own good…