December 31, 2005
Making money from the plague
A couple of niche sex video producers found a new hole (as it were) in the market: barebacking videos. Of course, a stack of very old material has long been available, ever since video was invented and earlier, quaintly dubbed the "pre-condom era". But since covering up against the plague is de rigueur, most recent and contemporary gay video output is rubbered up. Some political queers have started promoting barebacking as a radical statement of autonomy and free will ("gift-giving"). Since the porn industry is the earliest adopter of all, barebacking is back on screen but without any sexual-philosophical or political intent, just to make money. Or as GayPornBlog puts it:
This is a major difference with the pre-condom films where un-rubbered sex was just the norm, and in that sense I was really watching not a porn movie but a slo-mo snuff film.
You could argue that the people involved must have the freedom to put whatever substance into their bodies as they want, but I fail to see what difference there is between this and a (hypothetical) movie where junkies shoot up for real and share the needles, in order to turn on viewers (presumably junkies too if they are susceptible to be turned on by drug taking).
I felt rather sad instead of turned on.
"The bareback studios are financial insurgents, capturing a large segment of the market with the eroticism of danger."We watched two offerings, on loan from friends but you can watch them online, from Sxvideo. The company uses this kink as its main selling tool. The word for the activity depicted is in larger size than any of the video titles, and it shows in the content: the films concentrate on nothing else, as is wont with fetish videos, but "unsafe sex".
This is a major difference with the pre-condom films where un-rubbered sex was just the norm, and in that sense I was really watching not a porn movie but a slo-mo snuff film.
You could argue that the people involved must have the freedom to put whatever substance into their bodies as they want, but I fail to see what difference there is between this and a (hypothetical) movie where junkies shoot up for real and share the needles, in order to turn on viewers (presumably junkies too if they are susceptible to be turned on by drug taking).
I felt rather sad instead of turned on.
December 30, 2005
Nine hours of Lord of the Rings
We sat through all three movies in one go on Boxing Day and it turned out to be less of an ordeal than anticipated. Plenty of pit stops made the nine hours very bearable, but I wish the story line had been too.
Unfortunately, and I may be repeating some criticism from elsewhere on the myriad of LOTR fansites, if only the writer had paid less attention to linguistics and more to economics I would have enjoyed the epic more. As it was, it's fairly standard fantasy fare - I always disliked the books for their over-acting characters, apart from the Ents, the only ones with a sense of humour.
How did those Gondor and Rohan people actually survive in a landscape like that (glorious central Otago and the McKenzie Country) since there were no crops, nor flocks of sheep and other livestock. How did they manage to feed so many people in their cities on the hill - let alone so many horses? Their defence budgets must have been about 100% of taxation looking at the number of knights and fighters they managed to field at short notice, but where did the economic muscle come from?
On the 'other' side, the baddies were all stereotype, not an attractive character among them, except Gollum, who is about the only individual in the whole story who manages to survive on his own wits - almost an archetypal queer character in the endless sea of conformity in Middle Earth.
And Sauron (or the nature of Evil) was far too sketchy, I wanted more about what drove him to wanting to rule the world and how he would have dealt with inevitable social change and evolution - Orcs and other bad characters will need management, social manipulation and motivation if he wanted to stave off future rebellions. It is intriguing to think about what such a society would be like. I mean, there'd only be ugly orc boys without girlfriends, cloning themselves as far as I could figure out the way they reproduced.
The epic story was actually quite small in its scale: a little tussle over who will become the dominant species for another short time in history. And it was quite claustrophobic in atmosphere despite the vast landscapes, I suspect any medieval society with strict social structures and magicians must have been like that.
If the age of man dawned as the age of Elves came to an end, why have another king and not a republic? It was definitely not the age of reason that had come into being. JRR Tolkien was obviously a conservative.
Unfortunately, and I may be repeating some criticism from elsewhere on the myriad of LOTR fansites, if only the writer had paid less attention to linguistics and more to economics I would have enjoyed the epic more. As it was, it's fairly standard fantasy fare - I always disliked the books for their over-acting characters, apart from the Ents, the only ones with a sense of humour.
How did those Gondor and Rohan people actually survive in a landscape like that (glorious central Otago and the McKenzie Country) since there were no crops, nor flocks of sheep and other livestock. How did they manage to feed so many people in their cities on the hill - let alone so many horses? Their defence budgets must have been about 100% of taxation looking at the number of knights and fighters they managed to field at short notice, but where did the economic muscle come from?
On the 'other' side, the baddies were all stereotype, not an attractive character among them, except Gollum, who is about the only individual in the whole story who manages to survive on his own wits - almost an archetypal queer character in the endless sea of conformity in Middle Earth.
And Sauron (or the nature of Evil) was far too sketchy, I wanted more about what drove him to wanting to rule the world and how he would have dealt with inevitable social change and evolution - Orcs and other bad characters will need management, social manipulation and motivation if he wanted to stave off future rebellions. It is intriguing to think about what such a society would be like. I mean, there'd only be ugly orc boys without girlfriends, cloning themselves as far as I could figure out the way they reproduced.
The epic story was actually quite small in its scale: a little tussle over who will become the dominant species for another short time in history. And it was quite claustrophobic in atmosphere despite the vast landscapes, I suspect any medieval society with strict social structures and magicians must have been like that.
If the age of man dawned as the age of Elves came to an end, why have another king and not a republic? It was definitely not the age of reason that had come into being. JRR Tolkien was obviously a conservative.
December 24, 2005
We're all going on a Summer holiday
Everybody is staggering off on their Summer holidays these days, so the chance of actually finding something worth reading on the net is pretty slim.
Our island has been overrun with Xmas corporate functions over the last few weeks, as is usual this time of year when bosses shout their staff a dinner away in one of the vineyard restaurants and cafes our island is famous for. The number of people coming over for the night has been huge, resulting in massively overloaded boats back to New Zealand, full of drunk merry-makers, warranting security guards to be stationed on the ferries. The weather for the trips back hasn't been brilliant so I think the local fish were fed many a gourmet dinner. After all, it's Christmas for the snapper too.
Some of us have to work over the holiday season, the masses need entertaining after all, but I was suprised to hear that staff at the Herald on Sunday newspaper (and, I presume, the other Sunday papers too) have been forced to take time off because their publisher is forbidden by law to bring out a paper on Christmas Day. This, alongside the forced closure of part of the retail sector, is a relic from ancient times when Christians had a firmer grip on the pagan Yuletide season. It's all a bit silly because a Sunday newspaper is produced on a Saturday, and so we have the ironic situation that the Monday newspaper will actually be made by workers on Christmas Day, in whose benefit the supposed benefits of a statutory holiday have been conceived, while the Saturday journalists can't ply their trade. Publish and be damned, I'd paraphrase.
Anyway, I hope you will be having a sane, safe, but pleasurable holiday season, and let me know what you guys are doing.
Present link: Italian rugby player does a Stripping Santa. Great arse, great tattoo. (Thank you, GCSpotlight Magazine, for the link)
Our island has been overrun with Xmas corporate functions over the last few weeks, as is usual this time of year when bosses shout their staff a dinner away in one of the vineyard restaurants and cafes our island is famous for. The number of people coming over for the night has been huge, resulting in massively overloaded boats back to New Zealand, full of drunk merry-makers, warranting security guards to be stationed on the ferries. The weather for the trips back hasn't been brilliant so I think the local fish were fed many a gourmet dinner. After all, it's Christmas for the snapper too.
Some of us have to work over the holiday season, the masses need entertaining after all, but I was suprised to hear that staff at the Herald on Sunday newspaper (and, I presume, the other Sunday papers too) have been forced to take time off because their publisher is forbidden by law to bring out a paper on Christmas Day. This, alongside the forced closure of part of the retail sector, is a relic from ancient times when Christians had a firmer grip on the pagan Yuletide season. It's all a bit silly because a Sunday newspaper is produced on a Saturday, and so we have the ironic situation that the Monday newspaper will actually be made by workers on Christmas Day, in whose benefit the supposed benefits of a statutory holiday have been conceived, while the Saturday journalists can't ply their trade. Publish and be damned, I'd paraphrase.
Anyway, I hope you will be having a sane, safe, but pleasurable holiday season, and let me know what you guys are doing.
Present link: Italian rugby player does a Stripping Santa. Great arse, great tattoo. (Thank you, GCSpotlight Magazine, for the link)
December 20, 2005
DVD at last
We finally joined the 21st century by buying ourselves a Christmas present in the form of a DVD player, nothing flash, nothing fancy, it just does the job. And it didn't need to be able to record anything, when was the last time you actually watched something from TV you had recorded earlier? I bet more material gets recorded over than ever watched.
Naturally we had to leg it to the DVD hire store to test the new machine, but what a depressing lineup there was to choose from. After lots of umm-ing and ahh-ing, we settled on:
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: I'm not normally one for violent films - the only other one I really liked was "Reservoir Dogs" - but this one was such great fun despite the blood-splatter and the overall nastiness meted out to everybody. The story felt a bit like last man standing, and definitely a mythical look at life in the East End ("EastEnders" being another). But hugely enjoyable to watch and I really didn't care which side would come out left standing and alive. I've always had a bit of a crush on Dexter Fletcher when he was in Derek Jarman's Caravaggio as a 20-something but he hasn't aged well 20 years on. Mind you, neither has Sean Bean, who was also in Caravaggio. But I digress. Sting definitely is a great actor and his eye close ups looked scary and creepy. But the real hero of the story is Vinnie Jones, who as a doting father just made me laugh out loud when chiding his son for using bad language while perpetrating the most sickening violence himself.
Totty award: Jason Statham.
Fellini Satyricon: The sumptuous scene setting, riotous, almost psychedelic colours and freeflowing story definitely label it as a 1960s movie, but definitely one that Hollywood could never have made, and still probably can't. Most Fellini films are simply always a joy to watch, and criticising aspects you would change if you were to do a re-make (such as not clothing slaves at all rather than use those ridiculously coloured underpants) is all part of the fun. It definitely shows up how tepid all the recent sandal and sword movies are.
Totty award: Hiram Keller
For the Christmas holidays we're going to watch the full version of Lord of the Rings, all 9 hours of it, in one sitting. I have actually never seen any part of it so it was about time to see what CGI has done to New Zealand.
Naturally we had to leg it to the DVD hire store to test the new machine, but what a depressing lineup there was to choose from. After lots of umm-ing and ahh-ing, we settled on:
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: I'm not normally one for violent films - the only other one I really liked was "Reservoir Dogs" - but this one was such great fun despite the blood-splatter and the overall nastiness meted out to everybody. The story felt a bit like last man standing, and definitely a mythical look at life in the East End ("EastEnders" being another). But hugely enjoyable to watch and I really didn't care which side would come out left standing and alive. I've always had a bit of a crush on Dexter Fletcher when he was in Derek Jarman's Caravaggio as a 20-something but he hasn't aged well 20 years on. Mind you, neither has Sean Bean, who was also in Caravaggio. But I digress. Sting definitely is a great actor and his eye close ups looked scary and creepy. But the real hero of the story is Vinnie Jones, who as a doting father just made me laugh out loud when chiding his son for using bad language while perpetrating the most sickening violence himself.Totty award: Jason Statham.
Fellini Satyricon: The sumptuous scene setting, riotous, almost psychedelic colours and freeflowing story definitely label it as a 1960s movie, but definitely one that Hollywood could never have made, and still probably can't. Most Fellini films are simply always a joy to watch, and criticising aspects you would change if you were to do a re-make (such as not clothing slaves at all rather than use those ridiculously coloured underpants) is all part of the fun. It definitely shows up how tepid all the recent sandal and sword movies are.Totty award: Hiram Keller
For the Christmas holidays we're going to watch the full version of Lord of the Rings, all 9 hours of it, in one sitting. I have actually never seen any part of it so it was about time to see what CGI has done to New Zealand.
December 17, 2005
Did the earth move for you?
We had our third earthquake in a month last Wednesday. It was only 2.4 on the Richter scale but quite shallow (7km deep) so plenty of locals felt or heard it, even though there was no damage.
The earthquake report is here.
It's quite rare to get earthquakes on Waiheke Island, we're not on a major faultline unlike other parts of Auckland or the country. The island itself isn't volcanic but the whole Auckland area is a volcanic field "hotspot".
I have only experienced two earthquakes since I've been here. One was about 10 years ago when a quake under the Hunua Ranges (a formation of hills south east of Auckland, where there are faultlines) rocked the apartment building we were living in at about 4am. The swaying of the bed woke me up and I thought my better half was having a wank before I realised it was the earth that had moved for me.
By coincidence the New Zealand Herald today ran a half page photo montage of what a future volcanic eruption in Auckland may look like:
It's to promote an exhibition at the Auckland Museum on volcanoes and earthquakes, but I suspect it's part of Dr Bollard's plan to bring down Auckland houseprices: if his interest rate hikes don't work, some heavy shaking and fiery brimstone might do the trick instead.
The earthquake report is here.
It's quite rare to get earthquakes on Waiheke Island, we're not on a major faultline unlike other parts of Auckland or the country. The island itself isn't volcanic but the whole Auckland area is a volcanic field "hotspot".
I have only experienced two earthquakes since I've been here. One was about 10 years ago when a quake under the Hunua Ranges (a formation of hills south east of Auckland, where there are faultlines) rocked the apartment building we were living in at about 4am. The swaying of the bed woke me up and I thought my better half was having a wank before I realised it was the earth that had moved for me.
By coincidence the New Zealand Herald today ran a half page photo montage of what a future volcanic eruption in Auckland may look like:
It's to promote an exhibition at the Auckland Museum on volcanoes and earthquakes, but I suspect it's part of Dr Bollard's plan to bring down Auckland houseprices: if his interest rate hikes don't work, some heavy shaking and fiery brimstone might do the trick instead.
December 15, 2005
December 14, 2005
BBC totty
UK TV's Summer Nights of Comedy certainly yields a plethora of eye candy that even manages to be funny.Apart from Bottom and Red Dwarf, which both manage to be side-splittingly funny without the need for eye candy, Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet of Crisps delivers all that, plus Spunk-On-Legs Will Mellor (pictured, more of him, including stills and screenshots here).
He's one of those boys that could spend their lives just being licked.
December 13, 2005
Middle Eastern appearance or Bondi bronzed?
And exactly how do you tell the difference? Here's a photo gallery of the "race riots" in Cronulla. None of the drunken lowlife throwing bottles at the cops or punches at anyone they think looks different, looks "white" to me. The sooner Australia (and New Zealand, for that matter) accepts that it is a mongrel society, the better. Racial tension is always promoted by conservatives in times of national insecurity, whether they be scared of their girlfriends preferring black dick, or cleverer immigrants be taking away "their" jobs.
And par for the course for little Johnnie Howard refusing to call the rioters "racists". Better not upset your core voters with words like that.
And lest those Middle Eastern men with an attitude problem derive any comfort: it's about time you let your girlfriends sunbathe topless and show the world how multicultural you are too.
Would there have been any rioting at all if Cronulla had been a nude beach?
And par for the course for little Johnnie Howard refusing to call the rioters "racists". Better not upset your core voters with words like that.
And lest those Middle Eastern men with an attitude problem derive any comfort: it's about time you let your girlfriends sunbathe topless and show the world how multicultural you are too.
Would there have been any rioting at all if Cronulla had been a nude beach?
Further on the subject of trains
London Underground blog reports:
Getting the sack, of course, was the wrong punishment. Instead the rail company newsletter should have published the pictorial evidence for all to see and judge. It would make train rides in the East Midlands, not the most picturesque of the English countryside, a bit more interesting. And if all flasher train driver pictures could be curated together in an exhibition, would it qualify for the Turner Prize and win?
"Train drivers on Midland Mainline, which operates trains across the East Midlands and into London, have apparently been daring each other to do wacky things on the train. However, the latest escapade involved a pesky driver getting sacked for stripping naked and taking a picture of himself while driving a train at 125mph."If the train going the other way was doing the same speed, the flasher was going past at 250mph. It gives new meaning to "in a blink of a (brown) eye". The news report omits to mention what part of his anatomy was exhibited for photographic evidence. Whether it was willie-waving or bum-flashing we shall never know.
Getting the sack, of course, was the wrong punishment. Instead the rail company newsletter should have published the pictorial evidence for all to see and judge. It would make train rides in the East Midlands, not the most picturesque of the English countryside, a bit more interesting. And if all flasher train driver pictures could be curated together in an exhibition, would it qualify for the Turner Prize and win?
1 in 16.6
UK official figures state that 3.5 million Britons are gay, which is 6 percent of the population. Number of pink pounds in their income: £60 billion, according to Barclays Bank. The economic goodies don't just stop there:
I can attest that the gay staff in our company get paid more than the straight ones, but sexual orientation has no bearing on that fact. (We don't have lesbians to make the other comparison possible) Go figure.
the typical gay man working full-time earns an average £34,168, compared to £24,783 for a lesbian. Both figures, though, are much higher than the salaries earned by the average male and female British worker of £24,236 and £18,531 respectively.There'll be a clamouring for a gay surtax next because the bent ones earn so much more than the average straight guy. And an exemption for equal pay requirements for lesbians because they're already on a par with the average (presumably straight) male.
I can attest that the gay staff in our company get paid more than the straight ones, but sexual orientation has no bearing on that fact. (We don't have lesbians to make the other comparison possible) Go figure.
Call me Totty
On Sunday afternoon we went to the delightful Waiheke Island Cinema - all comfy couches and none of the premium prices - to watch Wallace & Gromit's latest adventure The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. A cinema full of kids, who were thankfully seated far away enough from us to enjoy the movie. The storyline could have been a bit tighter: the previous shortfilms, such as A Close Shave worked much better due to the mad comedy caper character of much of the fun.We've been fans of W&G since their Grand Day Out ("Everybody knows the Moon is made of cheese") and The Wrong Trousers ("It's the wrong trousers, Gromit, and they've gone wrong!")
Our good friends at Dove gave it the thumbs up, as you would expect:
Content Description:
Sex: None
Language: A few mild sexual innuendos
Violence: Action cartoon violence
Drugs: Townsman smokes a pipe.
Nudity: Exposed (clay) butt cheeks by the villain.
Occult: None
Other: It should be noted that this film parodies many things including an Anglican Bishop.
I must say the Dove people missed the cabinet of strange stuff in the the vicar's office (not Anglican bishop, please) including a magazine of nuns doing definitely un-catholic stuff - maybe taking the piss out of Catholics is OK with Baptists but it has a whiff of hypocrisy about it.
It's also remarkable that in all W&G movies there are: no children, no cats, no-one under age 50-ish (apart from the dogs, the sheep, the rabbits and the vegetables).
And I must disagree with Aardman founder Nick Parks who commented on the October fire at Aardman:
"Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies [e.g. the Pakistan earthquake], today isn't a big deal."
It certainly is a big deal because it destroyed a marvellous part of art history, every bit as irreplaceable as the lives shattered by natural disasters.
December 09, 2005
Absolutely fabulous
The new TGV train link has opened between Paris and St Malo. You can now live in one of Bretagne's most picturesque cities, a former pirate's nest and marvellously restored in all its granite glory, and be able to commute to Paris. It would be one place where I would live in France.The TGV trains have interior design by Christian Lacroix (sweetie!).
In the meantime here in New Zealand the Connex cattle trucks will not be able to take straight turns without going backwards before the 2011 World Cup rugby. A metaphor for New Zealand perhaps?
Who drives those seriously uncool cars anyway?
The Ford Motor Company has come to an agreement with the American Family Association to avoid a boycott of its products (a la AFA's attempt to boycott Disneyland due to its gay-days). Ford rolled over (!) and will end its advertising in the gay press to avoid Christian families not buying its crap cars.
WardsAuto says:
Uroskin says: Drive a Mini instead!
WardsAuto says:
"Ford Motor Co.'s decision to cease advertising in gay publications for its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands is part of a truce between the auto maker and the AFA to avert a threatened boycott by the right-wing Christian conservative group. AFA called a boycott in May to protest of what the group called an 'enthusiastic' support of the gay rights agenda. At issue were several ads Ford’s Premier Automotive Group brands were running in gay and lesbian publications in Europe and Ford’s sponsorship of homosexual events. In addition, Ford has agreed not to sponsor any future gay and lesbian events but will continue to maintain its employee policies, such as same-sex partner benefits."
Uroskin says: Drive a Mini instead!
December 07, 2005
Bookmark added
Those Christians never cease to amuse me with their relentless curtain twitching and hypocritical sermonising. Take renting a movie. A fairly straightforward process, you would have thought, but no. It's fraught with hidden and obvious moral pitfalls: what about any sex (or simulation) depicted? Profane language spoken? Drugs imbibed? Unclad male behinds revealed? Non-Christian religions portrayed?
Never fear! A group of concerned citizens is watching all those movies and after editing them for any sins listed above, they are being reviewed for your family's benefit (your kids, that is, not your buddies you go out drinking and clubbing with at Family on K Road) - and possibly still being rejected as suitable viewing. I mean after all that filtering, re-editing, rating and reviewing you'd think there'd be no films left to be watched.
Some reviews and ratings at Dove.org are just hilarious. Take "Jarhead":
But the really funny thing about the Dove site is the way their reviewers reveal their own naive view of the world if you only want to look a it in Christian terms: where soldiers going to war sing hymns rather than whore and cuss (and shower naked together), where American military adventures abroad are seen as Crusades rather than secular imperialism:
Never fear! A group of concerned citizens is watching all those movies and after editing them for any sins listed above, they are being reviewed for your family's benefit (your kids, that is, not your buddies you go out drinking and clubbing with at Family on K Road) - and possibly still being rejected as suitable viewing. I mean after all that filtering, re-editing, rating and reviewing you'd think there'd be no films left to be watched.
Some reviews and ratings at Dove.org are just hilarious. Take "Jarhead":
Content Description:Based on all that information it seems a film worth watching because it certainly pushes all my buttons! Why can't I get content descriptions as succinct, graphic and to the point like that on the IMDB film's content site?
Sex: men mimic having sex; man and women shown in bed together; man and woman graphically shown having sex; man shown masturbating; there is a lot of dialog about masturbation; video graphically showing couple having sex
Language: f-263; slang term for intercourse; s-61; slang for penis-5; b-4; a-10; d*mn-3; J-7; OMG-2; GD-5; slang for woman's vagina-4; slang for men's testicles-2;
Violence: man shot in head; many burned bodies shown; men bombed; man's head is hit against a wall; men are branded; men fight each other.
Drugs: smoking; men drinking;
Nudity: man's bottom shown; men shown naked in shower (front and back); women showed naked during sex scenes.
Occult: None
Other: men shown urinating; men shown throwing up
But the really funny thing about the Dove site is the way their reviewers reveal their own naive view of the world if you only want to look a it in Christian terms: where soldiers going to war sing hymns rather than whore and cuss (and shower naked together), where American military adventures abroad are seen as Crusades rather than secular imperialism:
"When I left the theatre I spoke to a couple of older looking men who were veterans and both of them liked the film. They thought it was realistic and found the acting to be good. They didn't seem bothered by the graphic elements of the film. I asked them if they found the film depressing and they said "yes, its war, but depressing is different than realistic". I found it surprising that older men, especially veterans, would enjoy this film. Jarhead was very unflattering towards our military, but then again maybe that is the reality of life as a Marine. If it is, it is certainly a sad commentary of our armed forces, how they act, speak and what occupies their time and thoughts."Thank god for old soldiers and young jarheads!
NZ Politics 101
The tennis ball in your mouth or the knife in your back? Political decision making has never been easy or straightforward in New Zealand, and the quality level of political discourse here befits a banana republic (even though we have no bananas and this is still a monarchy). But it's on a par of the dud MP who wants you to clarify your gender before getting hitched. He must have had a bad experience in his past sex life.
December 06, 2005
7 December, 1941
Tomorrow is Pearl Harbour Day, surely the 9/11 of its day, and it took the USA, joining in with the Allies, who had been fighting the fascist beast for over two years already, three years and 8 months to bring World War II to an end on 8 August 1945.
It's over four years now since 9/11 and the Allies have managed to get rid of one odious regime and one dictator and is still trying to stabilise an area the size of California.
Is this because privateers with Pentagon contracts want the thing to be drawn out as long as profitably possible, doing things that the armed forces used to do in WW2?
What exactly will V-T Day (Victory over Terrorism Day) look like and how will we know, notice, celebrate: when we get back our human rights that were voted out? When waterboarding is considered a torture method?
It's over four years now since 9/11 and the Allies have managed to get rid of one odious regime and one dictator and is still trying to stabilise an area the size of California.
Is this because privateers with Pentagon contracts want the thing to be drawn out as long as profitably possible, doing things that the armed forces used to do in WW2?
What exactly will V-T Day (Victory over Terrorism Day) look like and how will we know, notice, celebrate: when we get back our human rights that were voted out? When waterboarding is considered a torture method?
December 03, 2005
The Art of Being Belgian
I am still a little bit interested in what happens in the old country, despite having left more than 15 years ago, vowing never to return to live there. Viewed from abroad Belgium is at best baffling but usually completely incomprehensible if you have never lived there for a longer period of time. English journalist Richard Hill wrote a book about it: "The Art of Being Belgian". You miss out on the long regional histories, the fierce parochialism, the national political ideology of compromising but never giving up searching for new ways to quarrel or create political mischief: from collaborating with the Nazis during World War II to uniting unlikely political bedfellows in order to keep fascists out of power.I won't explain here the strange beast that is Belgium, if you want a flavour of that, check the Wikipedia entries for Belgium (there'll be a test afterwards!).
Now comes the news (in Flemish only) of an informal think tank, called "De Warande", which is thinking aloud about the future of country now in its 175th year and still digesting two state reforms that resulted in a "federal kingdom". It is suggesting to go the whole hog and split the country into various new sovereign states, like Czechoslovakia did a few years ago. In the European Union it should be perfectly possible for countries to split up amicably with the new bits still remaining within the EU. It would be a way for smaller communities to get a say at the main table and no longer be ignored by "Brussels" because their current parent state decides in their place. I'm sure the Basqs, Catalans, Bretons, Bavarians and Scots, among many others, would be better served by independence.
In Belgium's case the lack of progress on this front is due to, again, historical, cultural linguistic and economic reasons, as De Warande notes:
- the current federal system is incomplete regards delineation of competencies of the various federal and regional entities
- the national debt still needs to be paid nationally or split up (something Czechoslovakia hasn't managed to solve either)
- economic and monetary transfers between regions precent poorer regions from reforming its economy to catch up
- Brussels is a perennial stumbling bloc due to its geography (a French speaking city surrounded by Flanders)
- dividing Belgium along linguistic borders means they will become international borders and need consent from the population affected on all sides.
So in all plenty of discussion, quarrels, tantrums and compromises ahead. Not much change there then.
December 02, 2005
Sex and hazing in the military
The inquiry report into historical (1949-1991) abuse and manslaughter cases at the Waiouru military cadet school is out and the judge David Morris found that:
At the time plenty of complaints and allegations came out, the usual suspects tried to tut-tut it as just the normal practice of hazing, and the need for it to make a man out of you. Only sissies complain when they get raped by their fellow soldiers, it was said at the time. In my opinion, sissies would be the last to complain and then surely about the inadequate sexual technique applied by the novice buggerers. But of course the crux of the matter is consent. You don't sign up with the army to get buggered or killed by your own side. I thought we left that up to the Americans instead.
And the non-consensual sex in the army antics is not ancient history either.
But of course, the best story in that vein was the British Marines hazing initiation ceremony. Naked guys whacking the shit out of each other before an audience of equally unclad soldiers. Oh happy few!
Patriotboy hailed this continuation of old Spartan traditions and it must have swelled his member with pride!
"mainly senior cadets bullied a limited number of junior cadets at the school, and some were probably guilty of assault. The review also looked into the death of Cadet Grant Bain, who was shot dead in the cadet school barracks in 1981. Another cadet, Andrew Read, subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of discharging a firearm, causing death. In his report, Mr Morris found that Mr Read - who is now dead - should have been charged with manslaughter."Not that anyone was indicted by the report, no, if any individual feels they have case they should take it to court personally.
At the time plenty of complaints and allegations came out, the usual suspects tried to tut-tut it as just the normal practice of hazing, and the need for it to make a man out of you. Only sissies complain when they get raped by their fellow soldiers, it was said at the time. In my opinion, sissies would be the last to complain and then surely about the inadequate sexual technique applied by the novice buggerers. But of course the crux of the matter is consent. You don't sign up with the army to get buggered or killed by your own side. I thought we left that up to the Americans instead.
And the non-consensual sex in the army antics is not ancient history either.
But of course, the best story in that vein was the British Marines hazing initiation ceremony. Naked guys whacking the shit out of each other before an audience of equally unclad soldiers. Oh happy few!Patriotboy hailed this continuation of old Spartan traditions and it must have swelled his member with pride!
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