Yes but Reve - you do workl at Australia Zoo - so you shuold expect that reactin!

I did notice one thing though, those who protest most loudly against my argument are the same ones i remember loudly affirming Schapelle Corby & her families innocence (puh-lease!), the same people who think Gretel Killeen is great, think Oprah Winfrey is a godess & never miss an ep of Oz Idol or Big Brother.

So, there might be a typology there.

I’d have to say… there are plenty of kids I feel more sorry for… ones with not enough food, ones forced to participate in war, orphans in Africa, children enduring physical and sexual abuse from their parents… in the scheme of things there are worse things than turning a child into a media icon. She seems a nice kid and Terri seems a nice person… but I personally think the whole thing is ill-advised.

Does no-one else feel there is a kind of disturbing Americanistic, over-cutesified aura about the whole thing that does not fit a natural situation?

And has anyone else noticed how impassioned people are in favour of the situation (especially women).. if you question what’s going on, they get really angry!

Her Dad dies, …in order to quicly establish a new media figurehead for the organisation they thrust a primary school age child into his place to ape & mimic everything he did with sickly & extroadinarily contrived & overdone cuteness. Bindi & the Crocmen?

First they say (rightly) Terri Irwin is concerned that the little girl doesn’t grieve properly & seems to be enjoying the limelight a little too much. That i could believe. Then shortly afterwards, they quickly send out an opposite message in PR overdrive with some wistful words from Bindi about “Dad is always with us” etc. clearly designed to pull at the heartstrings of the average Aussie but with words clearly scripted for her by the media machine around her.

And the whole time i’m thinking, um…..why can’t Terri Irwin be the public face of the Zoo until Bindi is 21 & at least give Bindi a chance at a normalish childhood in the meantime? What’s this obsession with having to cutesfy everything & tear jerk everything with the “Daddy’s little brave soldier doing it publicly” thing?

It’s almost like all the adults around her, sections of the australian & american public are projecting their fantasies & unresolved grief onto this child who has no choice. It’s actually a little sick & hypereal.

The media circus & schedule, the overseas trips, the home-schooling & lack of socialisation with same-age peers, not slowing down for one moment to let what has happened catch up with her with assistance from adults. Does anybody not think it’s going to hit her like a sledghammer in her mid-20’s?

Macauley Culkin, Haley Joel Osment & Dakota Fanning must be watching all of this & going “well,.. there goes another one”

The lack of adult consciousness & responsibility here reminds me of what kind of parents JonBenet Ramsay must have had - “child as media doll”.

This is another example of the americanisation of australia, there was a time when this kind of thing would have been shot down rather than passionately defended.

Time will show this was all wrong & should have been stopped. Terri Irwin & Australia Zoo’s Manager should be listening to their critics instead of discounting everything they say.