Social commentator speaks out
Weekend Australian Columns
You can’t censor the Net
Jul 8th
As I blogged last week Telstra and Optus are debating whether to enact their censorship filters this month and try to stop what they consider “undesirable content”.
While the big boys prevaricate, here’s what we humble internet users know: you can’t stop anything by trying to censor the web. My daughter found a site last week where tweenage girls post photos of themselves in pornographic poses. The blog has gone viral among teenage boys and found its way into our home via Facebook.
There seemed to be no commercial reason for the site. No pimping. Just another look-at- me, narcissistic blog-site, indicative of a generation of self-photographing girls. An amped-up version of Facebook which is full of pouting jailbait at the best of times. As a mother and feminist, I was pretty shattered. But its existence proves my point. It’s impossible to censor the Net, especially these days. Anyone can set up a site for free.
But far more importantly, once you censor one site, where do you draw the line? Racism, sexism… and then what? Anti Government sentiment, Erotica, art? And who’s to judge — certainly not the corporate world.
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And read my full opinion in Saturday’s The Australian
Help save our wildlife
Jun 24th
WIRES animal rescue group is struggling due to lack of donations.
A STRANGE and surreal story. I was woken last week by the screeching of birds. Such a cacophony that I had to put two pillows over my head. But it wouldn’t stop.
I glanced up to see that my cat, usually the cause, was asleep. Suddenly I heard my cleaning lady, Eva, cry: “Ruth, what is it?” She was shaken, standing on the veranda of my little Bondi house. “Ruth… it moved,” she said, nervously pointing at what looked to be a large, stuffed toy perched at my front door. She’s from Hungary and had not seen anything like it before.
It was a tawny frogmouth – a nocturnal bird often mistaken for an owl. More >
Plastic poison
Jun 17th
I hate lights left on all night in city buildings, glossy junk mail, plastic bottles. Share your pet company waste hates here and let’s try to make a difference!
ONE of my readers made a disturbing comment on a blog I wrote which showed a distinctly defeatist view about taking a stand. It was in relation to the story about animal exports to Indonesia.
To paraphrase, he said: “If we don’t supply them someone else will. And then our farmers will be the only ones who get hurt.”
I replied that history is too often tragically shaped by silence. As philosopher Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” One person has to step forward and say: “No more!” More >
Dealing with Regret
Jun 10th
PLAY AND DANCE
How do we deal with regret when the decisions we make in life prove wrong?
I’m going through that time of my life where I think to much about what I could have done differently, and should have done. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
What happens as we get older and we suddenly realise we should have been a writer; a musician; a lawyer. We should have married differently or invested that money or not invested and travelled the world. What are the decisions you regret and how do you deal with them? More >
Pet Friendly
Jun 3rd
Landlords continue to discriminate against pet owners. Often it becomes “the dog or the home”. Should bias be illegal?
I MET a woman recently who’d just moved to Sydney.
She’s a single mum with a dog, currently staying with friends while looking for a place to rent. I knew the drill as she started to tell her story. Her tired face said it all. I remember moving back to Sydney a few years ago and the nightmare I had trying to rent with two cats. I was always banished to the back of the queue.
“Friends said I should lie,” she admitted. “But he’s a sheep dog. How can I hide him? It has come down to a home or the dog,” she said, almost in tears.
I wonder why such discrimination is still possible, especially since landlords can take bonds to cover pet damage. Surely animals don’t do any more damage than young kids (or teenagers for that matter, after their drunken parties). More >
Is it time to legalise medical marijuana?
May 28th
U.S father has claimed marijuana helped save his 2 year old son. Is it time to take the drug seriously?
EARLIER this month, a father in the US state of Montana claimed that medical marijuana had helped save the life of his two-year-old son.
Mike Hyde, 27, said he slipped a little cannabis oil into his toddler Cash’s feeding tube behind his doctor’s back in desperation after the boy stopped eating for 40 days. Chemo treatments were making him too sick to eat.
“Not only was it helpful, it was a godsend,” Hyde told American’s ABC News. Marijuana boiled up with olive oil allowed the dying child to regain his appetite enough to recover. Hyde also believes it contributed to the overall cure. More >
Nip and Tuck
May 20th
Beauty comes from the inside, my mother told me. “Smiling is the best face lift,” she said. Wrong. I love my life. But smiling hasn’t taken the bags under my eyes overseas. Call me Judas for betraying my “natural ageing” beliefs, but I’m asking myself: To nip or not to nip. To betray one’s beliefs or look like a train wreck, the new computer or the new face? That is the question.
Share your views and experiences of cosmetic work and plastic surgery with me.
Stop criticising
May 13th
Do friends/family and our partners ever have a right to criticise, or interfere if not invited? Share your stories.
A FRIEND recently stood in open judgment of me. She criticised my parenting without invitation. She’d clearly felt the way she did for a long time, given her eloquence. She also chimed in that “other people” had agreed with her, which clearly buoyed her up enough to liberally share her views.
For a few days I stewed about it, then decided it was a topic worthy of public debate. To what extent are people entitled to intrude on our lives and pass judgment or offer righteous advice on the decisions we make? I mean if our children’s lives are not at stake and we’re not heroin addicts. More >
Should we have babies by 29?
May 7th
On this Mother’s Day weekend, and with a teenage daughter of my own, there’s something I want to canvass opinions on. What’s the latest time in a woman’s life that she should have kids?
The reason I ask is that, as peri-menopause creeps up on me, I find I haven’t got the energy or the patience to manage our mutual hormonal dysfunctions. I anger easily, and often wonder about the decision I made to nurture my career like a mother-hen until it was old enough to walk. Did I leave child-bearing too late? More >
Better than Sex
Jul 1st
Posted by Ruth Ostrow in All Posts
42 comments
I WASN’T surprised by a recent hotel industry survey that showed couples who go away are more likely to watch television than have sex.
Around 80 per cent of Australian hotel guests responded that they preferred to turn on the TV or an in-house movie instead of their partner, the online survey revealed.
It seems to me that most people in long-term relationships are more driven by a need to escape the mundane, and become part of a murder mystery or medical crisis, than have a shag.
And most people I interviewed had 1 to 3 things they’d rather be doing than having sex with their partners. I casually asked a few people who’ve been together five years or longer. Here are some of the answers:
What are the things you find better than sex? Or how do you keep it hot & spicy?
Go to “comments” button above
Read full story in today’s The Australian