The capacity of humans for obscene cruelty never ceases to amaze me. Child sacrifice in early civilisations was all too common. In the Industrial Age the abuse of children in the mines and mills of England was no less savage, as is child labour in the modern age. The latest example is the main news item here in Australia where a radio show strapped a 14 year old to a lie detector to interrogate her about her sexual history. When the teenager admitted to having been raped at the age of 12 the response of the interviewer, one Kyle Sandilands was to ask “Right… is that the only experience you’ve had“. How any mother could volunteer her daughter for such an experience (and it turns out she knew about the rape) beggars belief, that she could do so for the sole purpose of winning a ticket for a concert takes the banality of perversion to a new low. The press were arguing about who was to blame, the mother or the radio show when I got to my hotel earlier, how about blaming both? If you set up a competition of that nature you have to take responsibility for the consequences. That the radio show hosts did not resign is bad enough, that the channel is not even going to discipline them is appalling.
In Aztec times child sacrifice to Tialoc was required in order for the rains to come. Further the tears of the children were required to wet the earth prior to sacrifice, so the priests tore their finger nails out first.. One wonders at times how far we have progressed.
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