(no subject)

Students stay silent on sex assaults

"Schools frequently dismiss sexual assault between students as part of the 'rough and tumble' of high school life, a report by the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows."

Fortunately, sexual assault was never a component of my own experience of bullying at school, and physical assault was a rare one. But that who-cares, kids-will-be-kids attitude is entirely familiar.

ETA: The report, available online, is: Responding to young people disclosing sexual assault: A resource for schools. Glancing through, what's familiar is not just the attitude that bullying is normal and harmless, but the attitude that sexual assault is normal and harmless - an attitude which has been used to protect rapists for literally centuries.

(no subject)

Into the last agonising days before OS departure. Thanks to better sleep and better planning this year, I haven't been as much of a basketcase as usual, although I have just inadvertently taken half a Xanax with an expiry date of January 2007, so if I am discovered clinging to the side of Centrepoint Tower swatting biplanes, you will know why. It's not just me, though - poor Jon is also stressed out, and he doesn't have the option of wagging work so he can get through his forelog. It's a huge damn thing, an overseas trip, however you slice it, and TPTB make it a little harder every year. Things I must do before we go: pick up my repaired watch; get five prescriptions filled; and have a blood test. The list of things I'd like to have got done before we go is as long as yer arm. Still: American family; American friends; American food; indeed, this time, a whole new America, just waking up.

(no subject)

Why the fuck is the title of Blackfella/Whitefella asterisked out in the Australian iTunes store?!