Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Not quite a Buddhist Image.

A figure designed by monks to encourage witnesses to remember the Karma of lying before giving evidence in the Killing Fields Trials.


Case 001 found the infamous Duch guilty but he received only 35 years. Both sides are appealing.

Case 002 involves four defendants aged from 78 to 85, and has just passed pre-trial. I was lucky to meet Lars Olsen on the ECCC team, and Judge Rowen Downing.

A Mock-trial at Can Tho University Law School, Vietnam

A murmer went through the packed auditorium, and some nervous giggles. My translator whispered the law student in the role of prosecutor had just announced the first accused should be executed .

After three hours of evidence and argument the panel retired to consider its verdict. It returned in only 10 minutes to find the two men Guilty, and sentenced them to 20 years and 16 years, a bit less than what the real offenders got last year for the rape and murder.

Touring Ho Chi Minh City

Debbie W. escaped Cambodia as a child refugee. She now lives with her family in Canada.  Debbie helped me pronuonce Vietnamese during our bus tour.


I liked the sleeping baby shaded by the rehabilitated angel of death.

As an army medic I used to fly in these at Pukapunyal, Healsville and JTC Canungra Qld.

Flying into Ho Chi Minh

Sunset,  South China Sea - 3/1/2011

Today I visited the War Crimes Museum in Saigon. The official name was changed to the War Remnants Museum after lobbying and cash from the US. The original name fits best. I had flash-backs to 1972, as a Natio at the Jungle Training Camp at Canungra. I'd been telling myself for 40 years those stories can't be true, they were trying to shock us. The returned Regs were traumatised alright, not just from what they'd seen but from what they'd done in 'Nam. They needed to share their demons. Now I think their stories were tame; maybe censored to protect us young Natios.

Thomas Cromwell

Up too late last night finishing Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. An excellent novel in the 1st person of Thomas Cromwell, son of a blacksmith in class-bound 16th century London, who became the trusted advisor to Henry VIII in the lead-up to the Reformation.

As an editor from way back, there is too much detail for me (600 pages), but for those who enjoy intricacies of plot and character, it's great. At times it is brilliant and intense. Historically, the story is just a few early years in Henry's reign, and we sort of know what happens next and how that transforms the history of western civilization. There may be a sequel, and I hope a movie - but the script-writer will need to do acrobatics to retain the brutal character and feeling the detail in the novel provides.

I support Julian Assange

US politicians on both sides, including the most 'liberal', mouth platitudes on free speech:
“I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves.”
- Barrack Obama 17 November 2009

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said on 21 January 2010 -
“Now, in many respects, information has never been so free. .. And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable. .. Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. ... Information freedom supports the peace and security that provides a foundation for global progress."

Now they try to silence Wikileaks and condemn Julian Assange, some even calling for him to be assassinated. Many lawyers and others have challenged Julia Gillard in an open letter to support Assange as an Australian and condemn the threats to do him harm.

Jaqi Pascoe called for Assange to be Australian of the Year and now he has been named Crikey's Readers' Choice Person of the Year and Le Monde Man of the Year. Recently he was awarded a gold medal by the Sydney Peace Foundation.

The alleged sexual offences appear to be politically instigated. He might be polyamorous or dishonest in his personal relationships, but his behaviour as reported would not breach Australian law. In fact he has not been charged with any offence in Swedish law either.

There are parallels in this hypocrisy to St Kilda FC threatening to prosecute the 17 year old girl who posted snaps of posing naked footballers on her Facebook. The footage of the poor 'maligned' footballers is close to vomitous .

Chicago art - recognise anything?

Chicago architecture

I caught up with Peter D at the Gold Coast recently. Mates for about 50 years.

Sometimes there's just too much going on...

Sydney Town Hall - 18 Nov 2010 8.30pm

Hard-Wired Emotion

At the Mind & Its Potential conference yesterday Matthew Lieberman and Julian Short presented on the science of social cognition and described why 'fairness' tastes like chocolate. It appears humans have a large part of the brain dedicated to social interactivity, including our notions of fairness. If you're unsure what fairness is, just ask an average 7 year old. Unfairness includes social exclusion. Our evolutionary experience was that most individuals who are not part of the social group don't survive. You may be fantastic, independent, unique and ... eaten. Fairness activates the same area of the brain's cortex as eating chocolate, and social rejection hurts just like physical pain.

That night at the Dendy I saw Social Network, a fascinating story about the beginnings of Facebook, and the pain and destruction of flaming, and it all came together. Social networking on Facebook, Twitter, texting etc is so popular not because it's trendy, it is 'hard-wired'. In addition to flight, fight and freeze we have a 4th embeded reaction - to see ourselves in the mirror of other's reactions, to confirm our social inclusion. The behaviour of survival has not changed for 20 million years.

Jaqi's back - 8 November 2010