Steve Irwin's daughter, 8, to launch show
Undated - The life of wildlife expert Steve Irwin is being remembered through his daughter Bindi, who is about to launch her own wildlife show.

Irwin's 8-year-old daughter Bindi helped honor her dad at a black tie gala in Los Angeles. Watch the video and see her talk about her new show, that will air on the Discovery Kid’s Network. Bindi says her new show will include singing and dancing, and, of course, animals.

Her dad, Steve Irwin, known as the The Crocodile Hunter, died in September when a stingray jabbed him in the heart.

Some rivers run dry
By Kevin Martin, Special to Gulf News
When I was young, growing up through the pain of scraped and badly bruised knees or a thudding fall following a mistimed swing from a game of "monkey up the tree", we were always told, "Wipe your eyes. Big boys don't cry."
The shirtsleeve was often the handy handkerchief. Wipe, wipe, sob! "There," an uncle or aunt used to say, for I was brought up amid several of them, "Doesn't it feel better now?" Nearly half a century later, the true import of that statement is just beginning to dawn on me: They (the uncle or the aunt) were actually addressing themselves!

My tears - any child's tears - made them feel uncomfortable. My crying rendered them helpless. Adults often don't know how to deal with tears. It's like they're suddenly faced with a "crossroads" situation and are terrified of choosing the wrong lane.

My brother, my sisters, my cousins and I, who all grew up together and who all at one time or the other permitted the tear glands to well up and overflow, were all variously asked, cajoled, begged, ordered, even threatened, by the adults around, to "Stop that AT ONCE!"

One of my cousins, who even at that tender stage was more perceptive than most of us, loved taking her sobbing to "the threatening stage" before skidding to a halt at the sight of a strap (which was never used) or a raised hand (which was sometimes brought down with the fluttering grace of a feather on a trembling rear). She still - very dry-eyed these days - enjoys watching adults around her squirm. Another one of us got a thrill out of being pleaded with. "Be a good boy, now. Here, wipe away those tears. Do you realise how close to crying I am as well? Do you think it would look good if I, a grown adult, also begin to weep? I feel the pain too."

Yet another of us showed that a few well-timed, unstoppable tears could be dealt with if it involved an element of bribery: "There, there, you poor, silly thing. Look at that, look, it's not even a scratch, it's hardly visible and here you are weeping an entire river. Sugar is a very good cure, both for a wound and for tears. Fetch me that bottle of sweets from the side table."

Tears simply rattled the adults around me, I realise. But, to hand them all credit, they found a very exact way of dealing with each of our tendencies towards occasional lachrymose behaviour.

Today, I still find myself reaching towards tears sometimes when watching a film, or a video clip of some tragic news event, but I generally do two of two things: I gently (sometimes actively) tickle the roof of my mouth with my tongue, an activity I was told years ago stems the onset of tears; an activity I still am unsure works entirely in the mind or is genuinely physically linked (like pressing the upper lip below the nose when warding off an impending sneeze, especially in a room filled with silent people).

The other thing is to remember the mantra of the five-year-old: "Big boys don't cry." And therein lies another revelation: The ambiguity of the term "big boy"! It's fascinating now to recall how many time I was banished from the presence of elders simply because I was 'too young: "Little years, big ears"!' Then, overnight, it was "Big boys don't cry". The confusion of childhood! Today, in Australia, I see grown men - men as big as bears - weeping openly and unabashedly on the television and I think, "Boy, I wish I could do that. Where have I misplaced that switch that opens the floodgates?"

I was looking for it when big, brave Steve Irwin died, but if anyone had looked into my "big boy" eyes they wouldn't have seen the water.



Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney.