">My Big World Of Crap

It seems to me that the fairly obvious solution to the row going on over the 2nd cricket test in Sydney last week is to tell the players to keep their mounths shut on the field.  If they say nothing, they will offend nobody.  If they don’t sledge at all, they won’t cross the line into racist insults.  Why not just make a rule that says no talking to the opponents on the field (about anything apart from the game in play)?  Simple.

And why not give the umpires the power to enforce this and impose penalties?  Maybe something like this:

• first time - 5 runs deducted from batsman’s score or added as extras (where the bowling team is guilty)
• second time - 20 runs
• third time - if its a batsman, they are out, if a bowler they are removed from the attack for the rest of the innings, if a fielder, their side loses its best bowler of the innings for the rest of the innings,

This would only need to be applied a handful of times … unless of course the players are very dumb … and the problem would go away.

I really can’t understand why cricketers, and the Australians in particular, feel the need to behave like schoolboys and swear at and abuse their opponents.  They don’t need to, they are plenty good enough without it.   Cut it out of the game, its just rubbish.

And I think the Australian team needs to take a good, hard look at itself.  I don’t think it has dawned on anyone in it that “mmm, everyone else seems to be pissed off at us, wonder if we’re doing something to cause that?”  Certainly not captain Ricky Ponting.  Not Mike Hussey either.  I’m certain the prevailing thought within the team is “we’re ok, everyone else has the problem”.  Until there is some acknowledgement in the team that some things do need to be toned down, nothing is going to change …and it needs to, otherwise the Australians will only have themselves to play with.

While I’m on the subject, why do cricketers carry on like they’re having an orgasm whenever they take a wicket?  Umm, at least at the professional level, its their job, taking wickets is part of it, indeed it happens 10 times each innings.  Its not like at my work we carry on with exaggerated celebrations every time we finish a project or achieve a milestone …. we do celebrate major achievements, but not every single one in the way they do in cricket (and plenty of other sports).

A while back I noted that “10 year old pussy” was a popular search term from which people arrived at my blog.  Well, I’m going to cater for that demand now.  Sort of.  Actually, I’m writing about sexualisation of young children, in this case, 10 year old girls being encouraged to wax whatever body hair they have off, including getting a brazilian wax

.Last year Nair, makers of hair-removal products, released their Pretty range, aimed at 10 to 15-year-olds, or, as they call them, “first-time hair removers”. Yes, you heard right. Ten-year-olds. Girls — children — in grades 5 and 6, encouraged to wax and chemically remove hair from their barely pubescent bodies.

The Australian arm of the company has claimed its target audience is slightly older, in an attempt to distance itself from the US campaign, which involves phrases such as “Pretty isn’t a look. It’s a feeling,” “Nair will leave your skin smooth and totally touchable!” and this pearler from Stacey Feldman, vice-president for marketing at Nair’s parent company, Church & Dwight: “When a girl removes hair for the first time, it’s a life-changing moment.”.

And then we have website girl.com.au, supposedly with a target audience of 9-14 year old girls, having a feature about brazilians, which includes this gem:

“So why does it appeal. Nobody really likes hair in their private regions and this removes it.”

According to the article in The Age, this site also had “and it has a childlike appeal” - but that is nowhere to be seen now.

It just strikes me as wrong to be encouraging prepubescent chlidren and teenagers that this is some sort of desirable thing to do.  I just don’t see these as things kids should be worrying about at these ages.  It is foisting adult concepts and images of sexual desirabilty onto them at too young an age.  Why?  So some company can sell some pointless product that no-one actually needs and add to their bottom line?  Are the marketers who thought of this shit some sort of uber-paedophiles …. is 10-12 not young enough for them?  Do they prefer them to even younger?

What sort of adults would encourage children to wax their body hair off?  What sort of parents would allow their children to do it?