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13 August 2007
Woman, 91, bashed as she slept
This is the headline this morning above a report on Herald-Sun online. What sort of a person breaks into the home of a ninety-year-old woman at night and then bashes her? This is a person with no moral consciousness, is the short answer.
During the last week or two there have been news reports of two fifteen-year-olds burning down a school classroom wing, the robbery of a handicapped man on a city tram, a young man king-hit and killed on a cruise, and stones thrown at cars from a freeway pedestrian bridge. How many bashings etc have been unreported?
Week in week out it's the same thing: young men out of control. They're a threat to everyone. The king-hitting death of 48-year-old national sporting hero David Hookes by a twenty-three-year-old should have been a warning to all. It wasn't for people like Channel 7's drink-driving Peter Meakin and 3AW's Neil Mitchell.
Two weeks ago in a series of news reports, Channel 7's news director Peter Meakin displayed an award-winning level of bigotry, sanctimony and hypocrisy by unmercifully flailing Catholic priest Geoff Baron for using bad language. Neil Mitchell continued his verbal assault of Monsignor Baron for two days.
The film clips of Monsignor Baron's foul language episodes were played endlessly on TV news reports. What did the viewer see? The viewer saw an aging priest hysterically trying to deal with a group of young skateboarders who were literally acting like a pack of hyenas. They had him surrounded, kicking, pushing, spitting at and abusing him. They had been warned off the Cathedral grounds many times where they caused more than $30,000 damage with their skate-boarding. These feral creatures don't give a damn about anyone or anything. Monsignor Baron happened to be their victim in this case. It could be you or I tomorrow.
Neil Mitchell and Peter Meakin only heard the sort of language they hear continually around them. But it being a Catholic priest makes all the difference.
There are none so blind as those who for their own venal purposes or their prejudices do not want to see.
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