Saying No to the Culture of Death

We have finally made the move to Canberra. To me, moving is a real scourge. There is all of the packing and unpacking to complete, and then one has to find space for those things that I do not want to throw away. On top of this there is the scourge of my husband who wants to throw out everything without regard to whether or not the things are useful to me. We have over 400 boxes to be unpacked, and we have been working on this task since our arrival here last week.

We had used the removalist company in a past move and at that time I was quite satisfied, but this time I am feeling disappointed. The packers were Irish, and I also mean that it was their nationality, not just what they did. First of all, the woman packer got into our bedroom on the first day of the prepack, and that meant everything was packed. I was shocked when I discovered that she had packed everything. On top of this a pair  of pearl earrings continues to be missing, and we cannot find the remote control for the TV set. Someone took an expensive bottle of after shave from the main bathroom area that was not to be packed. The company has said that they will purchase a bottle of the same brand.

The pre-pack and uplift took three days, and then we had to move the animals as we drove from Sydney to Canberra. I took the cat in my car. She cried at first but she soon settled down to not making a noise. Upon arrival at the house she refused to get out of her cage for a day, and even then she ended up with her nose flat against a wall. However, she has come out of the shock of the move. The dog was also well behaved on the trip to Canberra.

The unloading was to take place over two days. On the first day the crew was late because of delays due to an accident. On the second day they did not turn up until the afternoon, and there were two containers to be unloaded. They ended up working in the dark because they started on the job so late. 

To add to our woes we had to find our computer equipment, and this was not easy because of the way that they had labeled our boxes. In the end we found everything so that we got our computers running over the first weekend. However, we did not have the ADSL.

On Monday morning I contacted Bigpond, our provider and the young woman was not at all helpful, so I asked to speak to a supervisor, she got upset, said hang on, but then she allowed the line to drop out. I think that this was a terrible example of customer service. So, I contacted them again, and I did as the operator asked, but still no luck. Eventually I got onto another man and a woman, and both were extremely helpful in sorting out the problem. It turned out the previous owner had put in an order to cancel the telephone line on 8 October and this held up our order. Once that was sorted we had to wait another 3 days before getting back online.

Now it is a week later and we are still unpacking. My husband has just found the remote for the TV set top box that was missing, as well as the cross that we had placed near the door of our old house. So at least we are getting somewhere. 

I have been following the news reports about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and I prefer keeping an open mind about what might have happened to the little girl. What has caught my attention though, is the way in which there seems to be a repeat of the Azaria Chamberlain case.

 It is amazing to me how there are parallels that spring to mind between these two cases. Azaria Chamberlain disappeared at a campsite near Uluru in the Northern Territory where her parents and others were camping. The campers were attending to their dinner, when a dingo entered the camp. Lindy Chamberlain uttered a cry "The dingo's got my baby", and from that moment the search for the baby began, but the child had completely disappeared. Once the rumour mill got working, the Chamberlains began to face a barrage of prejudice because they were members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Some people even cruelly claimed that Azaria was offered up for sacrifice (something that has never been a part of SDA beliefs). 

Eventually, the Northern Territory police began to focus on the Chamberlains and they took away various items for testing, plus they tested stains that were found in the Chamberlain's car. The forensic lab technician in charge of the case made a number of errors, and compounding her errors, she threw away vital samples relating to the case. These errors went unchallenged by the press, who were prepared to believe that Lindy Chamberlain had murdered her child, and then cried wolf (make that dingo). A case was built up against Lindy Chamberlain as a result of rather suspect blood test forensic results, and she was charged, tried, and found guilty of a murder she did not commit.

What I find alarming now, is that the Portuguese police have repeated the same kind of reasoning that was used in the now discredited case against Lindy Chamberlain. They are now trying to claim that the McCanns had overdosed their daughter with a sedative, and accidentally killed her, that Kate McCann hid the body, and then removed it several weeks later. The McCanns have now been named as suspects. What is really creepy is that the change has come about as a result of the tests on DNA samples found in the apartment where the McCanns had been staying as well as DNA found in a car that was hired several weeks after Maddie's disappearance.

I am keeping an open mind until Maddie is found, either dead or alive because I question the accuracy of the forensic testing. The blood samples found in the apartment have not been proved to be a complete match with the DNA of Maddie. What is more shocking is that the scientists who developed the test used by the British laboratory have come out stating that there ought to be a caveat upon relying too much on those results:

The scientists warn that where this DNA is being used in a trial, "specific caveats are written into court statements" and they point out that it is not possible to make conclusions about how the tiny traces of DNA are deposited.

They also warn that there is a danger that the DNA can be moved from oneindividual to another and then on to an object.

Experiments showed this transfer could take place weeks or months and, in the case of one item tested, a glove, two years later.

For the McCanns, this leaves open the possibility that Madeleine's DNA was transferred by them or by an item impregnated with her cells, like an item of clothing or her cuddly toy bunny, which Kate McCann has carried constantly since her daughter's disappearance.

The revelation once again puts the spotlight on dangers of overreliance on forensic evidence which has led to a string of miscarriages of justice in the UK and disquiet about the safety of convictions in other high-profile cases.

Recently there have been questions about the guilt of Barry George, serving life for killing the TV presenter Jill Dando, because of doubts over the forensic evidence in the case.

He has been given leave to appeal after a review of the case said "too much significance" was placed on a single, tiny speck of shotgun residue - invisible to the naked eye - found in George's coat, and that there is a "real possibility" his conviction could be quashed.

The House of Commons called for more scepticism about scientific evidence in court after paediatrician Sir Roy Meadows was discredited over evidence he gave in a number of cases involving baby deaths.

His "Meadow's law" on cot deaths "that one in a family is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder" formed part of the case against Angela Cannings, who was wrongly convicted of killing her two sons.

But perhaps the most high-profile case where forensic science has been called into question is the conviction of six men for the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974.

They spent 16 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of 21 people but were released after it was discovered that the forensic evidence used to convict them, which suggested they had handled explosives, was unreliable and gave a false positive result when people touched household items such as playing cards.

The owners of a nursing home in New Orleans, where several residents died during hurricane Katrina have been acquitted of negligent homicide.

On that fateful day, 35 residents at St. Rita's drowned as flood waters inundated the home. The owners of the home were charged with negligent homicide because of their failure to respond in time to the evacuation warnings. A jury took 4 hours of deliberation before acquitting the couple of the charges.

However, I personally cannot understand how these owners, who failed the residents of the nursing home could have been acquitted. I cannot see how justice has been done in this case. There was plenty of warning that Katrina was heading for New Orleans, yet the owners failed in their duty of care to evacuate the residents and ensure their safety. Did the lives lost matter?

"Prosecutors depicted the Manganos as greedy and negligent. One witness suggested that Ms. Mangano was concerned about the cost of an evacuation. Three other nursing homes in the parish evacuated residents, the prosecutors said, but the Manganos ignored urgent warnings broadcast as the storm bore down.

The Manganos, prosecutors said, barely had an evacuation plan — they had only a nine-passenger van that would have been inadequate. It was “reckless disregard,” Assistant Attorney General Paul Knight told the jury in his closing argument."

The defense in this case argued that their clients were innocent because of the failure of the levee banks, and they cited the lawsuit against the authorities on this matter. However, was this sufficient reason to acquit a couple who were so clearly negligent in their failure to remove the residents from the nursing home. How is it that the jury failed to understand that the owners had a duty of care such that they should have commenced the evacuation as soon as the warning was made? Even AMTRAK had come to the party and was willing to assist in taking residents out of New Orleans, but thousands refused to take advantage of the offer. Then there is the failure of the mayor of New Orleans in not ordering the use of the school buses for the purpose of evacuating New Orleans citizens. 

Blame is being placed in the wrong place. People need to recognize that the responsibility for the disaster stops with the mayor of New Orleans, and in this case with the owners of St. Ritas.