6.

Since Australians Jennifer Hawkins and Lauryn Eagle were crowned Miss Universe and Miss Teen International respectively, there has been a dramatic increase in interest in beauty pageants in this country. These wins have also sparked a debate as to whether beauty pageants are just harmless reminders of old fashioned values or a throwback to the days when women were respected for how good they looked. Opponents argue that beauty pageants, whether its Miss Universe or Miss Teen International, are demeaning to women and out of sync with the times. They say they are nothing more than symbols of decline.

In the past few decades Australia has taken more than a few faltering steps toward treating women with dignity and respect. Young women are being brought up knowing that they can do anything, as shown by inspiring role models in medicine such as 2003 Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley.

In the 1960s and 70s, one of the first acts of the feminist movement was to picket beauty pageants on the premise that the industry promoted the view that it was acceptable to judge women on their appearance. Today many young Australian women are still profoundly uncomfortable with their body image, feeling under all kinds of pressures because they are judged by how they look.

Almost all of the pageant victors are wafer thin, reinforcing the message that thin equals beautiful. This ignores the fact that men and women come in all sizes and shapes. In a country where up to 60% of young women are on a diet at any one time and 70% of school girls say they want to lose weight, despite the fact that most have a normal BMI, such messages are profoundly hazardous to the mental health of young Australians.

7.

As far as prediction is concerned, remember that the chairman of IBM predicted in the fifties that the world would need a maximum of around half a dozen computers, that the British Department for Education seemed to think in the eighties that we would all need to be able to code in BASIC and that in the nineties Microsoft failed to foresee the rapid growth of the Internet. Who could have predicted that one major effect of the automobile would be to bankrupt small shops across the nation? Could the early developers of the telephone have foreseen its development as a medium for person to person communication, rather than as a form of broadcasting medium? We all, including the 'experts', seem to be peculiarly inept at predicting the likely development of our technologies, even as far as the next year. We can, of course, try to extrapolate from experience of previous technologies, as I do below by comparing the technology of the Internet with the development of other information and communication technologies and by examining the earlier development of radio and print. But how justified I might be in doing so remains an open question. You might conceivably find the history of the British and French videotex systems, Prestel and Minitel, instructive. However, I am not entirely convinced that they are very relevant, nor do I know where you can find information about them on line, so, rather than take up space here, I've briefly described them in a separate article.

8.

Why and to what extent should parents control their children’s TV watching? There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with TV. The problem is how much television a child watches and what effect it has on his life. Research has shown that as the amount of time spent watching TV goes up, the amount of time devoted not only to homework and study but other important aspects of life such as social development and physical activities decreases. Television is bound to have it tremendous impact on a child, both in terms of how many hours a week he watches TV and of what he sees. When a parent is concerned about the effects of television, he should consider a number of things: what TV offers the child in terms of information and knowledge, how many hours a week a youngster his age should watch television, the impact of violence and sex, and the influence of commercials.

What about the family as a whole? Is the TV set a central piece of furniture in your home! Is it flicked on the moment someone enters the empty house? Is it on during the daytime? Is it part of the background noise of your family life? Do you demonstrate by your own viewing that television should be watched selectively?

9.

When Namibia gained independence in 1990, teenager Pascolena Florry was herding goats in the country's dry, desolate northern savannah. Her job, unpaid and dangerous, was to protect her parents' livestock from preying jackals and leopards. She saw wildlife as the enemy, and many of the other indigenous inhabitants of Namibia's rural communal lands shared her view. Wildlife poaching was commonplace. Fifteen years later, 31 year old Pascolena's life and outlook are very different. She has built a previously undreamed of career in tourism and is the first black Namibian to be appointed manager of a guest lodge. Her village, and hundreds of others, have directly benefited from government efforts to devolve management and tourism development on communal lands to conservancies run by indigenous peoples. “Now we see the wildlife as our way of creating jobs and opportunities as the tourism industry grows,” she says. “The future is better with wildlife around, not only for jobs, but also for the environment”.

10.

Armed police have been brought into NSW schools to reduce crime rates and educate students. The 40 School Liaison Police (SLP) officers have been allocated to public and private high schools across the state. Organisers say the officers, who began work last week, will build positive relationships between police and students. But parent groups warned of potential dangers of armed police working at schools in communities where police relations were already under strain.

Among their duties, the SLPs will conduct crime prevention workshops, talking to students about issues including shoplifting, offensive behaviour, graffiti and drugs and alcohol. They can also advise school principals. One SLP, Constable Ben Purvis, began work in the inner Sydney region last week, including at Alexandria Park Community School's senior campus. Previously stationed as a crime prevention officer at The Rocks, he now has 27 schools under his jurisdiction in areas including The Rocks, Redfern and Kings Cross. Constable Purvis said the full time position would see him working on the broader issues of crime prevention. “I am not a security guard,” he said. “I am not there to patrol the school.

We want to improve relationships between police and schoolchildren, to have positive interaction. We are coming to the school and giving them knowledge to improve their own safety.”

The use of fake ID among older students is among the issues he has already discussed with principals.

Parents' groups responded to the program positively, but said it may spark a range of community reactions.' It is a good thing and an innovative idea and there could be some positive benefits,' Council of Catholic School Parents executive officer Danielle Cronin said. 'Different communities will respond to this kind of presence in different ways.

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