Bindi was asked by the U.S. State Department to contribute a short essay on conservation for Hillary Clinton's upcoming e-journal titled "Go Wild Coming Together for Conservation" as part of the former Secretary of State's endangered species initiative.The concept of Go Wild as a private initiative on Hillary's part is reinforced here.
Bindi wrote to Hillary Clinton's organization and said 'what happened to freedom of speech?'Hillary watchers can be forgiven for shaking their heads and asking, "Organization? She has an organization? It has a wildlife eJournal?"
Well, she does have that virtual office we all know about, but this whole Bindi story sits firmly rooted in the past when Hillary was Secretary of State, and Go Wild is now under the auspices of the Kerry State Department, the misleading lexical selections by the iScience writers being the culprit behind misinterpretations. So no, she does not have an organization or an eJournal, and you missed nothing, but Bindi Irwin did.
We do not know whether this particular child celebrity attends a regular school, is home-schooled, or has tutors. Fourteen-year-olds changing topics on school assignments are nothing new and usually have little to do with freedom of speech and more to do with preference or adolescent rebellion. Teachers are accustomed to it and grade accordingly or return the opus requesting a rewrite on the topic assigned. Terri Irwin's position in favor of her daughter's decision to change the subject can be seen as parental defensiveness, but the fact remains that Bindi did go off-topic.
The State Department runs essay, Twitter, and video contests often and assigns topics. Those who remain on-topic have a better chance of winning than those who do not. It should not come as a surprise that the department edited the essay to reflect the assigned topic.
As far as we know, Bindi is an ordinary eighth-grader in an extraordinary situation because of her father's exploits including this one involving her younger brother (one way to curtail excess population growth - yes, my tongue is in my cheek).
Of course it was not Hillary Clinton herself who read and edited the essay, and she might well agree with your stand on burgeoning population growth, but that remains a different essay, not the one requested. Although this statement was made in an entirely different context (in the wake of a North Korean nuclear test in 2009) it is a fitting one to recall here.
"And maybe it's the mother in me or the experience that I've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention -- don't give it to them, they don't deserve it, they are acting out."Key word here: “unruly.”
