Damnesty - The Ruminator's Digest

Court rules: Lesbian rape doesn't quite c(o)unt

2006-02-08T19:00:00.000Z

Yesterday Sarah Singley, a 28-year-old substitute teacher pleaded guilty, on the count of reckless endangerment, to having a sexual relationship with a female student she met at school. "A charge of corruption of minors was dropped as part of the plea deal, records say."

"Singley met the 16-year-old girl while working as a substitute teacher at her school in October 2003, records say. The school where Singley met was not specified, but the charges were filed by Bethlehem Township police.
In January 2004, Singley and the girl began a romantic relationship and had sex several times at parks in Bethlehem Township and at motels around the area, records say. The girl contacted police in March 2005, records say."

It's intriguing to see that when a decent lesbian teacher seduces a student of hers, who is in an asymmetrical power relationship with her, she receives a plea deal after the victim approaches the police. If this would have been a man, statutory rape charges would have been raised even without the victim's report. Why this hypocricy favouring same-sex rape over heterosexual rape?

The judge seems to assume that the girl may have been impressionable but that she was not "corrupted". We can only speculate on the nature of their sexual relationship, but why would cunnilingus be less "corrupting" than heterosexual penetration? Is "corruption" measured in the physical penetration as volume filled? Is a big black guy in a romantic relationship with an Asian of petite frame more corrupting than a small asian guy romancing a big-booty black chic? What about sweet, attentive, flowery sex that treats the victim like a delicate rose versus rough, athletic, acts of psychological abreaction?

Or perhaps there actually was penetration but it is considered more consensual since both parties are of the fairer sex, hence there is less of a power differential. Then again, a lot of guys who get jailed for statutory rape go for teenage girls precisely because they are too small in build and lacking in confidence to engage women their own age. I've seen some butch dykes that are pretty intimidating to the average man, let alone to a sixteen year old girl. If they were to use their tongues, hands, or feet, ...I imagine..., it could feel rather intrusive to an untouched archetype of innocence. And a lot of toys on the market, like a cold, 12-inch steel cylinder, must corrupt a young vixen more than a natural penis.

And what about the things that the sixteen year old girl was lured into performing for the teacher? Going down on her is definitely more corrupting, forcing her face into a replica of her own sexuality, than giving a guy a handjob. And what if she was merely acquiescing to same-sex relations because of the asymmetry in power? Her relationships towards men and women might be screwed up for the rest of her life. This could be some kind of early lesbian recruitment method: get them before the men do, indoctrinate them with feminist critique, pop postmodernism and post-colonial theory, and their birkenstocks will never want to step foot in a straight place again. They'll go organic for the rest of their lives. And those aren't the kinds of lesbians we like. They are only cool if we men can live under the impression that they could be converted by the right guy, or, minimally, that we could join the action of two twin-style blondes.

A reflection on: Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

2005-12-08T17:01:00.000Z

Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions asserts a view that many would argue is the prevalent theme of modern times. Kuhn’s depiction of the structure of scientific revolution revolves around the belief that older paradigms are replaced in whole or in part by a new one which is different and incompatible. The book allots a hefty portion of its length to description of a paradigm’s components, how it comes to be, how it relates to “normal science,” why such developments are considered crises in the field, and what implications they have on adherents to previous views in light of new, challenging discoveries. In this mere reflection I have chosen to avoid reiteration, and rather react to what are considered Kuhn’s applications of the theory. While reading I came across instances of comparison by Kuhn, to political as well as academic revolutions.
What surprised me was his suggestion that historically, those who achieve innovative paradigms have generally been very young in age or simply new to the field whose paradigm they changed. This statement is quite crucial, as Kuhn argued that these transitions to new paradigms are, in fact, scientific revolutions in essence. After contemplating this it began to make sense—if the social dynamic within the scientific community is characterized by adherence to norms, and therefore careers are commonly dropped due to intimidation, then it would require a young, fairly unprejudiced, fresh mind to fearlessly propose a contradicting theory. Likewise, the same deed would be contributed by a newcomer to a field. Young or new to the field translates to a lack of restrictions. Such a situation provides channels for creative, innovative paradigms to take place.
The otherwise reluctance to diverge from the common paradigm when a new one topples the old in a time of “tension and crisis,” is apparently reflected in many instances. One of which includes Kuhn’s apparent frustration with academic textbooks and their supposed characterization as normal science; which is "…research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice"(10). Kuhn argues that textbooks report new innovations and give credit to the research’s predecessors as having worked on the data, which in his view, creates the common belief that the innovation has been pieced together through time and the innovation was arrived at through a process of building up. Kuhn argues that this disguises scientific revolution as a function and misleads everyone. This concept is regarded as crucial and disturbing because of the tendency for textbooks to serve as the authoritative sources on scientific history. This reminded me of Feyerabe’s work that we read in class. His argument against traditional forms of science as it is taught in schools seems somewhat similar to Kuhn’s argument regarding textbooks. Feyerabe argued that we are restricted according to the norms imposed by our curriculums. Although he was a proponent of introducing wizardry and mystical science into the classroom (and nonetheless had a grudge against scientists who are “overpaid” and given unwarranted sex appeal), he still rung a bell while reading Kuhn. They both are unhappy with current textbook content and like Kuhn proposed emphasis on scientific revolution as a function, Feyerabe proposed new forms of science be introduced and given more credit—and perhaps this in his view would give way to other scientific revolutions in time to come.
Another application of Kuhn’s theory which sounded interesting was his interpretation of political revolution as very similar to scientific revolution. He asserts that political revolutions begin when people loose confidence in the existing institutions and their ability of such institutions to face the problems posed by society. He adds that these innovative institutions begin to challenge the old ones and during the time of actual revolution, at the peak of the crisis, there is a sense of uncertainty towards any governing institution (in any form) and all is momentarily stagnant. In such a situation the population (actually a small segment of it) is pressed to form a new proposal for government and functioning of society. Soon after, a new form of government—a new paradigm—has been created and essentially, a political revolution has occurred. Perhaps more interesting is his application of the scientific revolution to the political revolution’s struggle to reach this new paradigm. Like scientists, parties form in polarization where one represents the old way and one represents the new. Eventually the new paradigm will have to substitute for the old one. The debate is fierce and requires persuasion and logic, as previous paradigms cannot be used because they rely on paradigms that have been challenged and rendered non-existent.
An interesting branch of this thought that came to mind, and seems hard to tackle, is the application of this to modern times. It was mentioned that Kuhn’s views were not well received then (1950s and 1960s), but have come to be now—assumingly they are more valid. However, in the post 9/11 world this might not be the case. In other words, his claim that scientific revolution is similar, if not reflective of political revolutions is not so clear cut. It is well understood that historically religion often contradicted science and vice-versa. This was exemplified by the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Today the world faces the challenge of theocracies. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and now Iraq are cases where the structure of scientific revolution, in my opinion, cannot apply. A big question looms as to whether or not democracy is compatible with a Muslim theocracy. It does not seem as though people unsatisfied with the institutions of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq will be able to even come close to the point of “momentary stagnation,” where no institutions rules for a period of time. Islamic government does not, to my knowledge, allow for new paradigms as do scientific institutions. Science is debatable, ever-changing, and open to complete contemplation and replacement. Religion on the other hand is not according to proponents of theocracy with a clear agenda. The spoken word of the divine and the ancient texts passed down are non-debatable. The only instance of paradigm collision among the three countries which I mentioned is Iraq—and that situation was created not by the people, but by an outside force. And regardless, the period of stagnation or the pinnacle peak has occurred and remained for over a year now. As for Iran, it was not always a theocracy and true a revolution did in fact occur, producing its current status. But was the revolution process democratic and representative as Kuhn asserts that scientific revolutions are? It is in this sense that I do not think Kuhn’s comparison of the structure of scientific revolution to political science is valid today across the board. Regardless, this part of Kuhn’s work is still quite applicable as a foundation for which to study political science. It provides a clear framework to describe scientific revolution in the classical sense but need to be cross-checked for external validity when applied in such a broad sense.

Capitalism, the globalization of technology, and their role in the spread of democratic principles within oppressive regimes

2005-12-07T08:07:00.000Z

While watching a CNN Special Report on North Korea I was shocked to see secretly-recorded video clips of public executions of “criminals”—people who merely spoke negatively of their leader, Kim Jong Il. The slightest expression of desire to look outside the bounds of a country blockaded by an authoritarian, totalitarian leadership, guided by an acute cult of personality can be met with random, public capital punishment. The report soon developed into a moving documentary, recounting several realities of North Korean dissidents who were quietly assisting an underground movement in opposition of the current leadership. Such opposition included the anonymous posting of signs defacing the leader and mocking state slogans, the underground broadcasting of Western music, news, and ideas through outside mediums, as well as the smuggling of video and audio into and out of the country. There was an apparent, reciprocal flow of information aiming to inform both insiders and outsiders; insiders of the real world of freedom, liberal economies, and democracy, and outsiders of the horrors of the current regime. At the end of the documentary I was intrigued by the use of technology assisting the dissidents. Technology in the form of miniature cameras, compact cellular/satellite phones, and advanced broadcasting systems are helping to spread their voices. All of these developments were implicitly made available through the globalization of technology. I found it ironic that the pro-communist, authoritarian regime is being contested by advancements mainly by democratic, capitalist societies. My goal in this research project is to discover this link in its entirety. I want to find out through interviews the extent to which technology and globalization participate in this movement towards freedom and an end to unnecessary, mass-oppression.

In order to utilize the scientific method in unraveling this social/political phenomenon underlying the situation, the proposed research project will aim to test a specific theory, that “Democratic-Capitalist societies, with their continuous globalization of information and technologies, have inherently spread their ideas and principles to oppressed peoples who are victims of outdated and authoritarian regimes.” In essence, this theory under critical evaluation will possibly uncover whether or not technology is actually playing a role in the growing dissension, and in what ways technology has seeped into the ‘wrong’ hands in the seemingly impermeable North Korean territory.

North Korea was formed soon after World War II, where Korea broke into two countries—North Korea and South Korea. North Korea has been deemed “one of the world's most secretive societies. It is one of the few remaining countries still under communist rule” (Country Profile: North Korea, BBC Online). Its leader, Kim Jong Il, rose to power after the death of his father, Kim Il-Sung and continued the de-facto, totalitarian reign of power, controlling every aspect of common life. The imposed philosophy of self-reliance and the complete centralization of state power have “led to stagnation and a leadership dependent on the cult of personality” (Country Profile: North Korea, BBC Online). Kim Jong Il has isolated the country to such a degree that all media and broadcasting outposts are “pre-tuned” to state-run channels, spewing out constant propaganda about the great leader, while completely disregarding the horrible economic and humanitarian conditions. To the naïve listener, sheltered from outside reality, such lies are easily tolerated, while the older generations who have seen alternative options are silenced by the long hand of the military. In addition to being dubbed the worst violator of press freedom, North Korea has witnessed the deaths of two million citizens in recent years, due to undernutrition and economic mismanagement, and has been accused of numerous human rights violations (including torture and public executions). Furthermore, it is estimated to be holding over 200,000 political prisoners in forced labor camps under execrable conditions. Currently in the diplomatic channel, a nuclear crisis has been unfolding as the leadership plans to jumpstart its nuclear system. Domestically there has been proof of sl sow but consistent dissident formation. Intelligence shows spontaneous backlashes against the people as the regime struggles to tighten its lid. With the help of globalization and technology, perhaps one day a group will be confident enough to start a revolution.

As the theory seeks to evaluate the depth of technology’s role in any fermenting attempts at revolution, a review of contemporary scholarship regarding the issue is necessary. In a TIME Magazine article titled, “Who Mattered and Why,” Walter Isaacson discusses the most influential people, events, and developments as the millennium approached. In one section he refers to the last century as encompassed by specifically one of three main themes: “The explosion of scientific and technical knowledge that unveiled the mysteries of the universe and helped secure the triumph of freedom by unleashing the power of free minds and free markets” (Isaacson, 48). He explains that free minds and free markets triumphed over fascism and communism, and that the globalization of technologies made possibilities of distribution of information infinite and nearly unrestricted. Isaacson used the historical examples of the printing press’ debut and its direct involvement in the Reformation, as well as the Renaissance, with the permitted flow of ideas from one place to another, to highlight the human trend of a slow but continuous struggle for freedom. Isaacson refers to several recent examples of technology’s role in the advancement of the cause of freedom:

In 1989 workers in Warsaw used faxes to spread the word of Solidarity, and school kids in Prague slipped into tourist hotels to watch CNN reports on the upheavals in Berlin. A decade later, dissidents in China set up e-mail chains, and Web-surfing students evaded clueless censors to break the government's monopoly on information (Isaacson, 48).

Portraying the globalization of technology as the “surest foe of totalitarianism in this century,” Isaacson’s studies reflect some promise for people under oppressive rule throughout the world.

In an article in Dialogue & Universalism, Wojtek Lamentowicz predicts that “increasing pressure from without of the nation-state may curtail the state

monopoly of control within the borders of its territory” (Lamentowicz, 5). The writer, addressing ‘rationalism of post-modernity,’ argues that in general, the developing limitations of sovereignty, accountability, and legitimacy of political systems could contribute to a feeling that the civil society and national government are weak—a negative result in the eyes of the author. Yet, the application of this thought to the North Korean narrative could produce the dissidents’ desired results. Nonetheless, he states that “Globalization perceived as an open market offers a bait and switch,” which presumably could mean an outlet for opposition—and perhaps this it has become (Lamentowicz, 75). Similar to Isaacson, Lamentowicz theorizes that the inherent, positive results of globalized technology are linked with pro-market reforms in authoritarian countries, and are motivating such leaders to eventually democratize. This clearly is not the case with Kim Jong-Il, but seems to be the case with the citizens under his rule, taking matters into their own hands. It is also notable that for the outsiders looking into North Korea this same trend is taking place. Lamentowicz suggests that while intellectuals become unbound of their respective backgrounds, lifestyles, and worldviews, they become open to “globality and to unstructured spaces of a new international community” (Lamentowicz, 71). Perhaps this new capability coupled by a heightened sense of togetherness and thus responsibility, outsiders are growing more knowledgeable and concerned with the situations of other peoples.

The idea that technology is also helping outsiders look into these countries with concern offers ‘progressive uses’ of the internet and other communication mediums in terms of discussing infinite topics and the influence it could have on implementing change. In an article in Third World Quarterly, Jason Abbott describes the internet as providing the dissemination of documents, availability of audio and video sources, petitions, software, and as a “medium for organizing more traditional forms of protest” (Abbott, 99). This implies that the web and its globalized access, provides a global forum for political groups and sympathetic audiences to gain momentum in traditional ways but at an accelerated pace. The implications of this snowball effect are summarized in the statement that “New information technologies threaten sovereigns that depend on maximum political, economic, and cultural control over their peoples,” which could suggest in this case that regimes such as Kim Jong-Il’s will eventually cease to ensure their own control by controlling newspapers, radio and television broadcasts (Abbott, 99). Simply put, this is because a global forum reaching endless depths of civilization is naturally out of any one’s control and therefore manipulation becomes unattainable.

Previous literature revolving around or linked to the theory at hand show several examples of interest in the subject. Much hypothesizing, prediction and analyses have been made regarding the issue; the question now is the methodological evaluation of the theory in reality. If implemented, this research project will hopefully test the links, if any, between globalization of technology and the spread of liberal, democratic ideals. If true, then a precedent of acknowledgment will be set that democratic, capitalist societies, through their liberal and naturally open trade are actually making it easier for oppressed people’s opposition to gain momentum. In the case of North Korea this would mean capitalist democracies are helping the self-liberation of an oppressed society, by means of their contribution to the globalization of technology. The idea that the use of technology to fight totalitarianism and further democratization suggests that liberal capitalism serves as a catalyst to begin with.

This research project could quite possibly shed positive light on what seems to be the inescapable, modern phenomenon of globalization. It will determine whether or not its main thrusts, capitalism and democracy, are influencing pro-freedom movements within North Korea and more specifically, lands occupied by totalitarian regimes in general. If the theory holds true, one might be able to infer future methods of spreading democracy. For example: No longer will the risky dispersal of propaganda leaflets from low flying aircraft remain the means to present democratic ideology to a sheltered civilization. Intelligence Agencies’ acquisition of local broadcast systems, deployment of clandestine dissent-instigators, diplomatic and militaristic maneuvers—and even active, offensive warfare can cause not only safety hazards, but put the nation’s world image and reputation in jeopardy as well. The developments of alternative methods of spreading democracy alone could reshape foreign policy and possibly avoid traditional confrontations associated with instigating and forcing regime change. Providing a new means for the people to take control themselves might prove to be a wise option. Short of achieving the aforementioned goal, the project will inevitably uncover the extent to which North Koreans oppose their circumstances. This research project would provide an official report on what the North Korean people feel, judge the enthusiasm for reform, and help provide insight for international institutions as they gauge their options for assistance. Furthermore, this project will also shed more publicity on the issue and thus spread the cause.

This project has already gained a vast supply of necessary support of several interested partners. We have many pro-democracy advocate groups who are willing to donate money and technicalities to our team: The Democracy Center (http://www.democracyctr.org/), The Center for Digital Democracy (http://www.democraticmedia.org/), Reporters Without Borders (http://www.rsf.org/content.php3), as well as CNN, which has offered to grant us communication with those who participated in their documentary.

The research design itself will utilize the aforementioned sponsors to the best of our ability. Understanding that sampling and sample designs are directly related to the concept of research validity, and that one needs valid samples for valid studies; we intend to infer validity for our study by approaching the characteristics of the population—the North Korean people. For statistical purposes, our sample size will have to be more than 36 people, yet depending on financial circumstances we will aim to include many more. Our parameters will include persons throughout the population, while our sample subset will have to be a select few who are willing to participate. At this point our sample population will be finite, as we will have a set sampling frame of individual units. Given this type of probability sampling, it will thus be difficult to avoid biased samples as those willing to participate will likely have a specific agenda. Yet if we can secretly approach random civilians, we will limit the appearance of skewed results.

Many refugees living outside of N. Korea would likely be willing to participate under conditions of anonymity, but people on the inside might be more reluctant. It would be expensive to pay people to sneak into the country and do such testing, but it will still be attempted. The larger the sample the less error the project yields, yet this situation would naturally yield a smaller pool of participants.

The project will involve face to face interviews with North Korean dissidents in private, formal settings. In a formal setting we can interview and question accordingly to get a feel for whether or not people are growing in resistance to Kim Jong Il, and whether or not technology has helped them. If the interviews take place in an informal setting, we would simply observe how much dissent is being practiced—yet this would be impossible considering limitations of access. The actual data collection will thus utilize both survey research and Secondary Data Analysis. Survey research will allow us to personally ask refugees and escapees how much of the dissent they saw as spawned by technological advances, what role technology played, and whether or not they noticed an acceleration of opposition in recent times.

The personal interviews conducted over a period of time will be recorded by sound (as most people will fear having their face on camera). Voices and images will be digitally altered. Questions will be asked that require both little inference and a lot of inference, reflecting the utilization of a mixed form of face-to-face interview. The only aspects requiring more inference will be when people describe their respective stories and examples of using/witnessing people use technology to oppose the leadership. Our team will use a controlled, observational method in order to structure the interviews so that the same information is requested from each participant. Yet, questions will also be posed in a way that will allow an open-ended response from them if necessary.

The actual form of research the team will use is known as the practice of triangulation; the use of two or more methods of observation and data collection, in order to test the same hypothesis. It is agreed that this method will help to reach more accurate statistics. As each method represents its own lens or viewpoint, the more used, the more sound the results. It is acknowledged that the personal interviews to be conducted, which mix various structures and contain non-directive strategies, grant potential for bias, yet we feel that this way we will be able to get the highest response rate, have full control over the environment, and implement greater flexibility with our diverse participants. The second side of our triangulate method will utilize structured surveys. To avoid fallacies commonly attributed to these we will further implement less controlled, direct observation. This will allow our team to note body language, spatial behavior, language and word content, as well as extra-linguistic behavior—emotion through voice. The third side of our method includes Secondary Analysis in order to review what few cases of dissent have been recorded/punished for, in N. Korea, and yield accurate interpretations of the means they used to oppose. The three-sided approach will provide alternative forms of data inputs which can fill in blanks left by the other approaches.

“Democratic-Capitalist societies, with their continuous globalization of information and technologies, have inherently spread their ideas and principles to oppressed peoples who are victims of outdates and authoritarian regimes.” – The various methods used to test this theory will provide an answer, creating a win-win situation regardless of the outcome. Whether it will provide a new means for oppressed people to take control themselves, provide an official report on what the North Korean people feel, judge the enthusiasm for reform, or provide insight for institutions while gauging their options, this project will contribute to the growing quest for democratization and liberalization of endangered societies around the world.

The Ivory Tower

2005-11-17T13:15:00.000Z

Dr. Geoffrey Feldberg’s heart was pounding as he followed the men in suits down the familiar corridor, turning his head once more to check that the cartoonish finger of the clock pinned to his door was pointing to the correct section. The little black and white clock-shaped notice board would have been identical to all of its cousins hanging on the cream-coloured doors next to his if it weren’t marked by the human touch of his individuality. He had covered one of the generic statements with white masking tape, already coiling at its edges, and written a daily reminder of purpose. The six fields that used to display “in”, “be right back”, “out for lunch”, “in a lecture”, and “in a meeting”, now concluded with “in the ivory tower” instead of “busy”. Geoffrey had, in fact, forgotten to switch the dial, leaving it at the only position that differentiated him from the numbers of academics, who were as nameless to the public as they were faceless to the readers of esoteric peer-reviewed journals. He realised that his minor amendment, scribbled with a blue pen whose ink had become blurred and dispersed with humidity and time, had probably constituted the ridiculed centrepiece of more than a few staff lunch meetings. At that moment though, barely jerking his shoulders, he took back-room chatter with sedated equanimity.
Blindly following the suited men slightly his major, he noticed the bare, off-white walls, not affording the comfort of wallpaper, rushing by him as if he were running, only to be interrupted by creamy doors just a tone too yellowish to produce aesthetic hygiene. And on each door hung the same dial with an identical inscription. Geoffrey imagined their backsides reading consecutive manufacturing numbers, as they swept past.
The two men abruptly stopped in front him. They had reached the elevator. The suited men, now turning around, revealed faces hidden behind black hats and sunglasses. He seemed at ease with their pathetic Blues Brothers disguises. Adrenaline suppressed awkwardness. All he could feel was a shiver periodically moving up and down his body, clinging onto his spine, and slowly embracing his scalp, enveloping him like a foil, puncturing his head with a thousand infinitesimal needles. Just a moment ago, feeling as though he had succumbed to sleep for a mere second, he had been awoken by the Blues Brothers men suddenly materialising in his room. He had been about to mindlessly remind them of the dates and times of his office hours, when he was invited to join them.
The threesome stepped inside the elevator. Geoffrey’s heart raced, yet his family history of cardiac arrest had surpassed his mental event horizon as the all-important moment drew to a close. One man reached into his pocket, extracted a key, embellished with an ivory leaf, and inserted it into the “emergency use only” hole. The key smoothly turned and snapped into place. Geoffrey Feldberg felt the increasing force of gravity as the elevator began to push his weight upwards. The screen centred on top of the doors was erratically switching numbers. He stood perfectly motionless in inward anticipation of reaching the 20th, and final, floor. As the screen displayed “20”, the elevator came to a stuttering halt. The perceived stop lasted perhaps the blink of an eye. The elevator gradually resumed its upward journey, stopping at its final destination. A script too long for the electronic display scrolled from right to left. It spelled “Ivory Tower”.
Dr. Feldberg’s otherwise confirmedly lucid mind was suddenly swamped by thoughts beyond his direction. He was perplexed, almost petrified, by the excitement of his dream, the stuff of his unvoiced conspirational fancies, emerging to be true. The ivory tower is material, he verified. The swamp was caused by a confluence of this epiphany with a strand of thought, a mode of thinking, unnatural to him: he questioned the term “ivory tower”, its origin, its meaning. Geoffrey recalled the part of the Odyssey that claimed something approximating to “those that come through the gate of ivory are fatuous, but those from the gate of horn mean something to those that see them”. It was displeasing. He had always thought of the ivory tower as a place of unworldliness, a haven removed from the exigencies of daily life. But his ponderings about the connotations of “fatuous” fell short of conclusion as he noticed that the elevator doors stood ajar.
There was no off-white corridor in sight, and neither were disharmoniously painted doors nor cheaply manufactured announcement dials. Geoffrey saw an open, refreshingly spacious and colourful, expanse unravel outside. The noise of converging conversations was baffling in a building marked by soft voices from the fourth floor upwards. A bar was positioned at centre stage, squarely placed with equidistance to each corner. The barmen were bustling, pouring drinks from expensive bottles and keeping the seated audience in high spirits. The expanse had the feel of an atrium floating on air, endowed as it was with outsized sky lights in the ceiling and an uninterrupted view over half of the metropolis. Scattered low tables and luxurious sofas lining the walls underlined a Roman, otherworldly ambiance. People were engaged in serious, yet civilised, discourse, dispensing their Ancient Greek and Latin phrases liberally as they regrouped into different constellations. Jurgen Habermas was managing the bar, occasionally reading a paper or jotting down notes, but allegedly only relinquishing his rightful place to rest. He was an unmoved mammoth, having watched Adorno and Horkheimer, Foucault and Derrida, Rawls and Nozick, occupy and abandon their bar stools.
Geoffrey had lost sight of the disguised clowns. Two familiar faces he had never set sight on before momentarily surrounded him. At second glance, while shaking hands, he recognized Richard Rorty and Peter Singer from their photos. He supposed that their faces looked more stern but their breath smelled less alcoholic on laminated paper. Geoffrey Feldman received a synchronised “welcome to the ivory tower” greeting. Unleashed to explore the 21st floor unfettered of his daily professional obligations, his selfish genes proceeded to enlist the company of Richard Dawkins. Richard had been a regular in the ivory tower since 1976 and had acquired the honour of being the most familiar with its history since the passing of Jacque (Derrida) – the late, undisputed exile from the world of trivialities. Richard gave a tour of the “the Hollywood Boulevard of minds”, the workplaces of influential intellectuals, culminating in the room in which Samuel P. Huntington supposedly wrote his infamous “Clash of Civilisations”. Sam had, of course, long been disenfranchised from this privileged group. His former computer screen still bore the outline of the crooked chalk line with which he had delineated the border between Islam and the West, as his image-editing software failed him in a moment of drunken stupor. The workstation had been left unused since, for fear of cerebral contagion. Or so the legend went.
Sam’s legend was perhaps only surpassed by that of Noam Chomsky. Noam’s musings on innate linguistic meanings had entertained the motley conglomerate of renegades from society raised on Wittgenstein for several years until, suddenly, he had suffered from an irreversible personality disorder. Geoffrey was astonished to see a public intellectual of high statute blemished in this manner. Richard told the episode when “Dr. Chomsky” transformed into “Mr. Noam”. Noam had an apparent amnesia when one day he took the elevator onto the 21st floor and claimed to be a historian. Eric Hobsbawm felt mocked as the abstract MIT linguist posed as another agnostic, Jewish, Marxist, historian. As everyone reacted to Noam with incredulous irony, he threw an unwarranted temper tantrum climaxing in anti-Semitism. Noam was forcefully and permanently evicted from the ivory tower, to expend his life among oblivious activists and, hopefully, less oblivious psychologists. At least that was Richard’s account of the legendary events.
Geoffrey’s mind had been filled with impressions. He inquired why he was permitted into this select group, aloof from concerns of the earth below. Richard explicated that Geoffrey’s book on international relations had apparently reached the height of metaphysical abstraction, which placed it beyond any debate relevant to the world of the trivial beneath. Geoffrey Feldberg had elevated the discourse to a point where any member of the ivory tower could engage with it, where it was amenable to the type of philosophising only available to those removed from pragmatism.
Geoffrey experienced a déjà vu as his mind was inexplicably sent back to the moment that he reached the 21st floor in the elevator. Richard had vanished but he now understood: only those from the gate of horn mean something to those that see them because the spectators are unsighted to those they cannot comprehend. Hence those from the ivory tower are fatuous only in their elusiveness. A university security guard stepped inside the elevator, staring at Dr. Feldberg – curled into his elbow-padded jacket in fetal position – in blank incomprehension. He turned the key to resume regular operation and asked whether Dr. Feldberg had been trapped inside there all night.
Geoffrey blinked twice to adjust to the brightness of daylight, remembered to finish his book on international relations, and resolved to fix the dissolving masking tape on the black-and-white dial outside his cream-coloured door.

Moral Realism + Infinite Spacetime = Moral Nihilism?

2005-11-08T07:38:00.000Z

Disclaimer: This article includes no nudity or profanity but entails technical philosophical issues.

In line with yesterday's lay scientific musings on our concerns of global warming in a cooling universe, I would like to introduce some moral questions that arise from the recent consensus that both space and time are inifinite in our universe. One of the more mind-boggling ideas in this realm was pioneered in 2003 by almost famous philosopher Quentin Smith. He claims that he believes in objective moral values but the fact that moral values can be aggregated combined with the notion of infinity leads to the conclusion that he (and anyone else who believes in global moral realism) needs to accept moral nihilism. Simply, the realization of infinity of space and time leads to an automatic trade-in of moral realism for moral nihilism, sans Nietzsche or Sartre. Why should you care? Because the notion that the acceptance of a scientific discovery can turn your moral stance 180 degrees should be unsettling.

His essay "MORAL REALISM AND INFINITE SPACETIME IMPLY MORAL NIHILISM", while highly recommended, is already misleading in its title. He advocates a rather idiosyncratic system of morality which he names global moral realism, not any brand of moral realism. Moral realism merely means that true and false moral statements exists and that some actions are truly said to be moral while others are not. However, his global moral realism means that " all organisms, inanimate mass and energy, and space and time, and states of these entities, have value nondependently upon whether conscious organisms believe they have value". Moore's Open Question Argument is disregarded alongside Hume's "is" to "ought" gap laid out in his Treatise Concerning Human Nature. Basically, for Smith toilet paper has moral worth regardless of human acknowledgment. If we chose to reject that toilet paper has any value apart from its utility to us, then his argument falls flat.

Another assumption, enjoying widespread usage in economics, is that values can be aggregated in some ways to represent a meaningful approximation of the aggregate value. He simplifies aggregative value theory this an additive theory, in which values are simply added. Hence, if toilet paper has the value 2 and tooth paste has the value 4, then 2 rolls and one tube are worth 8. Don't be concerned if 8 appears meaningless: it does not allege to be valuable to you but even in the absence of humanity.

Lastly, time and space are infinite. Space at a given time t can be conceptualized as divided into an infinite number of cubes which can all be assigned a value. One would assume that if we received the aggregate value at time t and then look at the difference in value between time t and t+1, we would be able to judge which action would be morally right in terms of consequences. Quentin says no: firstly, because there are infinite cubes to aggregate so both will add up to infinity. Secondly, even if there were finite time-space cubes to aggregate between time t and t+1, when projected into infinity, the difference of scenario would not matter. For every good action there are any number of valuable things in the infinite future which, even if they have very little value (like Helium or a supernova), add up to a higher aggregate value over time than any good action could provide.

It is important to note also that if moral realism were correct, then the only consequence would be an obligation to follow the moral duty discerned.

Hence his argument can be recapitulated as:

1. Particulars possess value independent of whether anyone believes they have value.

2. Units of value can be summed.

3. Nothing has value if actions don't affect values.

4. A person is morally obligated to perform some action if the consequence of that action increases positive value or prevents the decrease of positive value.

5. If the time is infinite, then any net impact on a value is zero.
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Nothing has value in an infinite universe.

There are a number of issues with Quentin Smith's rendition of moral realism in an infinite universe. Firstly, the fact that the third premise contradicts the first premise (commonly referred to as value intrincicism) is rather silly for a philosopher of Quentin Smith's statue. Either things are instrinsically valuable or they are only valuable in conjunction with the notions of agency and action.

But there are also some unstated premises necessary for his argument to work. Infinite spacetime needs to be divisible. According to his usage, it must be doubly divisible: (i) space must be metaphysically discrete in order to be divided into cubes at a given time t and (ii) space must be divisible from time itself, hence not exist on an inseparable time-space continuum. Both assumptions run contrary to the scientific consensus.

The most shocking part, however, is his disregard for the concept of infinity itself. He explains that performing action A, though ostensibly good, would not matter in an infinite universe because all values tend to infinity anyway: "now it follows that I cannot increase the value of the universe at time t1 by performing action A, since aleph-zero + 2 = aleph-zero". Without ever learning calculus, it is easy to see that Quentin Smith commits a logical error. Even if two functions tend towards infinity in mathematics, they are not equivalent. Any function n+2 is greater than n even if they both tend towards infinity. Let's say that the described action A will have a positive effect on the universe from time t1 onwards, without ever incurring any negative effect. Hence, if Smith thinks that time can be stopped and cubes of space analyzed, then at any given moment past time t1, the universe in which action A took place will have a higher value than the one in which action A was omitted. Two parallel slopes tending towards infinity are simply not mathematically congruent.

Lastly, there lingers the problem of valuation. In most moral philosophies, humans are more valuable than plants and plants are more valuable than a grain of sand. Even if we accept that sand has some kind of value in itself, this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the existence of one grain of sand over infinity has a greater value than a human life expended over a life time. It is firstly questionable whether time can be aggregated in the same manner as integers. But more objectionable is the assumption that values can be assigned to various life forms and matters on the same scale. What if we claim that coscious life forms have priority A, sentient life forms priority B, and inert matter has priority C. Given that intert matter is a prerequisite for A and B, it may only enjoy a higher priority if it serves some future higher priority. Hence, it is impossible to equate a 1000 toilet paper rolls (or liters of lithium) over a million years to a single human life. Nor is it reasonable to assume that an infinite number of toilet rolls (C) are more valuable than all of human kind (A) today. If there is no acceptable manner of accounting for various priorities with individual numbers attached to them, then the task is impossible. The objects of global moral realism may very well be incommensurable, so that the functions of the argument are not executable. Moreover, if a finite number of higher priority values can be said to exist (i.e. 6 billion humans and other remote intelligent life forms) at a given period of time and/or for a finite amount of time, then the infinity of the universe containing lower priority values becomes irrelevant to the equation.

The concept of infinity can be overwhelming for the human brain but it should not lead to the acceptance of moral nihilism by conceptualising that the infinity of good and bad actions will all lead to the same result of a mathematically infinite value. Nor should we blindly accept that the existence of a lot of helium out there over an infinite period of time is necessarily commensurable with life. While Quentin Smith's paper is thought-provoking, his thoughts ought to be contextualised as a broadly valid deduction rather than a sound moral framework.

Always look at the bright side of Global Warming

2005-11-07T02:59:00.000Z

Global warming is the buzzword of the year, and quite possibly of the decade. Global warming is depicted as the Jew of the 21st century, with the list of grievances attributed to it constantly growing. The Tsunami, the oddly-christened female hurricanes, the poverty of Bangladesh, the submerging islands, and the carcinogenic sunburn caught comatose on an Aussie holiday drinking binge are all somehow deduced to the unprecedented rate of increase in temperature. These events all provide a strong footing for the anarchistic Friends of the Earth, the pet-lovers of the World Wildlife Fund whose contribution to humanity takes place annually at LiveAid, and the hooligans from the World Social Forum to all join hands with the high-sea pirates from Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior to reprise the mainstream public for its shortsightedness...

The high-pace, low-cost, high-intensity, low-budget lifestyle is under threat. It is beyond doubt that the justified introduction of a carbon-emissions tax would make Ryanair and easyjet weekend getaways considerably more expensive than a return railroad ticket across the country. The comfortable low-budget holiday could be as short-lived of a novelty as gay culture without AIDS. Then again, we are all glad that the days of Boy George and the New Romantics movement - "Am I buysexual? I guess, I have to buy sex, so yeah, hehehe" - of the 80s were counted and the advent of AIDS did carry the progression of 90s music in its trail. But kerosene jets are simply not as environmentally efficient as modern train engines. Perhaps people may also reinvent the joy of exploring the possibilities of their home base - virtually endless in London - or come to understand that Europe's holiday destinations are not limited to Prague, Marbella, and Amsterdam or circumscribed by the availability of a cheap rural airfield. These rather abstruse sociological issues are not, however, at the core of the Environmentalists' concern. Their issue-specific finger pointing seamlessly turns into a holistic critique of the throes of postmodern culture in the West, culminating in a self-congratulatory "You didn't listen" or "I told you so" as if the crew manning the Rainbow Warrior had just saved civilization from demise.

The argument turns into a battle of incommensurable short-term and long-term benefits: the livelihood of millions of Brazilians pitted against the preservation of insect species, the industrialisation of developing nations contrasted to a submerging island paradise, affordable global travel and transport counted against body bags in Louisiana. Environmentalists firmly clasping onto their prerogative on foresight in this discourse, however, refuse to widen their vision beyond of the confines of our planet. Their vision remains steadily myopic. It is a truism to claim that biologists and chemists sporting their Birkenstocks don't mix with physicists and cosmologists designing wasteful machines to accelerate subatomic articles or measure the heat emitted by atmospheric gas light years away.

The former rarely ask how a warming earth ties into our galaxy, let alone our universe. How could they? Their worldview depends on a microscopic interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics (namely that entropy constantly increases), which can actually show the decrease of entropy in a closed system over a given period of time. Macroscopic thermodynamics, of course, makes singular exceptions irrelevant. Their view is atomistic, reducing everything to atoms and disregarding the rest. Interestingly, they not only dismiss the macroscopic view showing changes in Volume, Energy, Density, etc. in a given environment, but they disregard the vast majority of matter in our universe. Only 0.03% of the universe exists of higher-level matter, such as atoms and Birkenstocks, whereas 23% consists of "dark matter" - the stuff that mysteriously emits heat and has the force to expand the boundaries of the universe and overcome the force of gravity within it. The difference between the environmentalist blinded by biology and the cosmologist is significant in so far as the earth does not heat in a vacuum, even if the falsehood that nothing exists between planets is still commonplace.

The earth is situated in the Milky Way galaxy that is constantly undergoing change, like the rest of the universe. The second law claims that entropy will always increase and never decrease; supposedly until the maximum possible entropy level is reached. At that point we will experience a thermal equilibrium. Sounds like Hawaii? Not really. The thermal equilibrium implies that the temperatures throughout the universe are uniform and if that is the case, then all motion - and with it all life - will cease due to the inability of heat to travel from one point to another, which is a necessary precondition for the occurrence of any process. This is commonly referred to as the "heat death", describing the death of heat rather than overheating. Any process can only develop heat or increase entropy but no excessive heat would be produced due to the inability of any process to take place. This appears to be the fate of our world, as presciently and brilliantly chronicled in Isaac Asimov's 1956 classic short story Last Question. Perhaps environmentalists should embrace the science fiction genre.

Moreover, it is most tantalizing to consider that while entropy increases (and increases exponentially), we also know from Hubble's discovery that the universe is constantly and exponentially growing. Thinking about it, the constant growth in entropy may lead to an asymptotic increase towards thermal equilibrium but, as is the nature of the asymptote, never reach the final state. Furthermore, as the universe expands it also cools down. It started off as a hot and dense infinitely small mass of matter and expanded and cooled over the past 13.7 billion years and will continue to cool, maybe forever. And as it cools, the planets that were long thought to be untouched by their hallow surroundings, pitched in black apparent nothingness, will interact with it. They will generally cool down and emit heat or increase disorder. The major patterns of these interactions often take thousands or millions of years to clearly discern.

It does not seem likely that the earth will become uninhabitable over the next centuries, even if Americans continue to drive more wasteful cars than the rest of the world and even if China will continue to use the cheapest carbon filter technology available. But in the long term, the warmer our planet becomes, the more likely it is to overcome its own temperature cycles and the more likely it is to resist a cooling, dying, surrounding and to continue to warm its own proximate environment, including Mars. To what degree the sudden heating of Mars, which may eventually become inhabitable, and other planets in our vicinity has already affected temperatures in the Mexican Gulf is beyond current scientific knowledge. Yet the thought that in the very long term, human life may be preserved for longer due to free market recklessness is somehow comforting. By flying to Spain, by keeping your TV on standby, by washing your clothes at 60 degrees, you are helping to dress the earth for a long, cold winter ahead - far ahead. That's what I call foresight.

Attn: UPD Officer

2005-11-06T22:23:00.000Z

To whom it may concern:

On Thursday, October 6th I returned to The Aston by myself, to go to my girlfriend's room. It must have been between 1:30am and 2am. A UPD jeep was parked out front. As the officer came to the door he noticed I did
not have a key to that particular dorm and mumbled half-heartedly: "You ain't gonna piggy-back off me are ya?" - I immediately figured he was
joking considering there was a CLLC employee working at the front desk,
from where I always have, always will, and had naturally planned on
signing in. However, as I walked in the first set of doors behind the
officer, and as I approached the second set of doors, he turned around
in my face and said sarcastically: "what do you think you're doing? what
you didn't hear me?" - A bit confused I smiled thinking he couldn't
possibly be serious--especially given his nonchalant dimenor. I calmy
said "I thought you meant..." --He interrupted, stepped closer to me
with a more serious look on his face he pointed his finger outside and
over my shoulder in a militaristic position. He then said in a more audible, serious tone: "I told you you ain't gonna piggy back off me"- I began to say "um...ok (startled
and confused) but was cut-off. The officer raised his voice and
threatened to bar me from campus--FOR LIFE: "If you want to cop an attitude I can
simply bar you from campus right now" --he was angry for some unknown
reason. Perhaps childhood aggression. But I don't know. I attempted to answer and say "ok" as I began backing out of the
door but was bombarded once again with the threat of being immediately barred from
"ANY" GWU establishment. I maintained a calm composure and put my hands
up in the air in peace and backed out and let the officer go into the
building without further diologue. I wasn't about to be a victim of an
authority's difficulty in supressing his anger. A young lady and her boyfriend
on the bench adjacent to me witnessed the situation and began laughing
and were shocked. They asked, "what was his deal?". I agree UPD serves
a meaningful purpose on this campus and I appreciate and respect the
work they do--yet I do not pay $40,000 a year, to provide compensation
for UPD officers who embarass and threaten me at their will. There was
no reason for me to be threatened with being barred for life, for simply
following an officer into the lobby to sign in, as students are expected to do. I am sure there was another
way to handle it on his part. I however do not know how I could have
handled it differently myself.

The Naturalness of Homosexuality?

2005-11-04T03:37:00.000Z

Sexuality has often been described as either primitive, to emphasize the superiority of mind over matter, or as natural, to underscore its freedom or disconnection from forms of socialized behaviour that are considered inherently restrictive. In the case of pro-gay activism, it has always embraced the latter connotation: a return to nature, a departure from the Christian slave morality (Nietzsche) or an escape from civilization (Freud), is liberating. "Break through the wooden bonds of the closet, return to green pastures of our true nature!", the motto echoes. But how natural is the type of homosexuality espoused by the gay marriage lobby?

The discoveries of the scientific community, demonstrating the widespread practice of homosexuality in any number of species, have irreversibly transformed the debate about the naturalness of being gay. Some authors have gone so far as to proclaim that “it occurs in every type of animal that has been carefully studied”, yet without giving any proof. Homosexuality is, however, documented in over 450 different species, including a number of primates, among sheep, cows, dolphins, giraffes, insects, elephants, and arguably among certain species of fish.

I do not question the frequency of homosexuality among non-human species. However, it is questionable whether the naturalness of a certain phenomenon, meaning its empirical commonness, provides any compelling indicator for humans to accept or to promote that practice. Certain male spiders get decapitated after sex or, if lucky, their intestines are merely sucked out of their bodies by the outsized female during copulation. Lions are known to kill and eat the babies of a lioness if they are not the fathers, or sometimes even if they do not recognize their young or view them as a threat. Practices combining nutrition and copulation, which prevail throughout species of insects and spiders, may still seem revolting by human standards. Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins are known to copulate with anything that swims, including eels, yet this barely normalizes some well-documented practices of lonely Welshmen. Likewise, it is wrong (and illegal) to kill the babies of your wife if you suspect that you may not be their biological father (or even if a DNA test confirms it). If we chose to reject that view, then infanticide must be categorically accepted along with homosexuality. Empirical frequency in the realm of nature, as such, offers little justification for any human action.

Moreover, occurrences in nature are often explained by way of their evolutionary utility. The propensity of bonobos to engage in homosexual activity is largely explained in social terms. They stimulate each other before meals in order to diffuse tension over food or even use their sexuality to calm the aggression between clans (that are initially always hostile). Perhaps humans are gay for some reason undiscovered? Perhaps not. The behaviour of bottle-nosed dolphins, for instance, is inexplicable in terms of evolutionary value. Any explanation for their indiscriminate sexuality is like explaining why Catherine the Great copulated with horses (presumably to breed the Russian version of a minotaur to fight the French?). Not all oddities of nature are reducible to evolutionary utility.

While this discourse of evolutionary oddities is widely represented throughout the scientific field, another angle on the naturalness of homosexuality has been roundly neglected, namely the correlation between homosexuality and monogamy. Monogamy, like homosexuality, between humans has been justified inter alia by its presence in the animal kingdom. The question arises whether homosexuality in nature can be explicable in terms of evolutionary utility, non-rational and useless lust, or as a sexual orientation. Firstly, it is interesting to consider that the rates of homosexuality as well as sexual behaviour are very uniform within species while immense disparities exist between species (between 90%-below 1%).

It is noteworthy that only a handful of mammals have been defined as monotonous, pardon, monogamous, while over 92% of bird species have been given this classification. Among mammals, most have been disclosed as not being completely faithful to their partners. The sanctity of the lifelong bond of otters, bats, and certain foxes has been called into question while gorillas have been exposed as adulterers. While some primates, such as tamarins and gibbons, are actually monogamous, most only commit to a single partner as long as the novelty effect of fresh flesh lasts. Among the non-monogamous, they range between the long-term relationships of gorillas to the unyielding promiscuity of chimpanzees. Interestingly, the more frequent the change of partner, the more common is homosexuality.

Among the 1000s species of birds, the vast majority are actually only socially monogamous. They tend to stay with one partner throughout several mating seasons or for their entire lives while occasionally copulating with other birds. The female typically enjoys the security of having a nest while diversifying her offspring’s gene pool while the male considers the cost effectiveness of having his offspring reared without paying alimony. Birds even divorce. According to National Geographic, the house martins and greater flamingos are the Elizabeth Taylors of the world, with 100% divorce rates. There are also 130 species of birds (of at least 9700) that are documented as engaging in homosexual activity. While I have been unable to acquire data showing a direct correlation between fidelity and homosexuality, bird species that seek lifelong partners and never sidestep (including geese, albatrosses, and swans) are exclusively heterosexual.

There has been a single case of homosexual couples forming but not performing sexual acts among penguins in the Bremerhaven Zoo, despite the presence of females. Firstly, Penguins chose long-term, but not lifelong, partners. Secondly, the occurrence is significant precisely because it is singular and unkown in penguin wildlife.

While homosexuality is widespread, it occurs mostly and most frequently among the most promiscuous species. On the other hand, gay marriage is nowhere present in nature. Upon closer inspection, it is difficult to understand why the promoters of gay marriage and the advocates of the naturalness of forming close homosexual bonds would point towards the animal kingdom to underpin their claims. If anything, nature shows that homosexuality is generally coupled with more promiscuous and liberal sexual practices than Western societies tend to promote and that the possibility of lifelong loyalty is foreclosed to same-sex partners.

Dennis Prager: Good Jew, Bad Jew

2005-10-23T23:20:00.000+01:00

Dennis Prager, a Jewish conservative radio host and popular author offers us a glimpse of his highly acclaimed wisdom in his latest article "Why Young Jews major in Anti-semitism". His previous books include "Why the Jews", "Think a Second Time", and "Why Happiness is a Serious Problem", which will surely be available in a profoundly moving single volume: "Happiness is a Serious Problem: Why The Jews Think a Second Time."

Prager argues that the temples of higher education cause Jewish students to become anti-Semitic due to the currency of Israel-bashing on campus. "Universities have become society's primary breeding ground for hatred of Israel. This hatred is often so intense that the college campus has become a haven for people who use anti-Zionism to mask their anti-Semitism." So Prager claims that the leading research institutions this side of the milkyway have been transformed into a modern-day Munich Hofbrauhaus, into the type of platform for the uninformed discourse that lend itself to the original anti-semites of 1920. Why the same universities that championed civil liberties, political protest, and non-discrimination in the late 60s and early 70s would turn into the soap boxes of hatemongers remains unexplained. Interestingly, however, the same campuses were also anti-Israel, though largely Muslim-free, back then. As Prager acknowledges, fans of Israel today reap the benefit of an enlarged (chiefly Evangelical) conservative presence in support.

Prager seems to be closely aligned with Alan Dershowitz in his view that anti-Zionism equivalates to anti-Semitism, even when practiced by Jews. Dershowitz, in his Case for Israel, relates this back to some psychological explanation of neurotic self-hatred, as arguably present in Noam Chomsky. True, Chomsky appears to be as misplaced as a brilliant linguist narrating historical accounts only bearable for relentless postmodernists as he is as a self-hating Jew. Whereas Alan Dershowitz's explanation at least finds some resonance with the Woody Allen support base, Dennis Prager's reasoning is rather puzzling.

"Why? Because anti-Zionism is not simply criticism of Israel, which is as legitimate as criticism of any country. Anti-Zionism means that Israel as a Jewish state has no right to exist. And when a person argues that only one country in the world is unworthy of existence — and that happens to be the one Jewish country in the world — one is engaged in anti-Semitism, whether personally anti-Semitic or not."

A number of unnecessary assumptions are accepted from the outset. Who defined anti-Zionism as the call for the destruction of the State of Israel? I know many people opposed to Zionism who do not propose the actual destruction of the state today. At most they question its historical legitimation or adumbrate arguments against the existence in its current form. Anti-Zionism, for lack of a more appropriate vocabulary, need not exceed the ideas connected to Anti-Americanism, for Prager defines Zionism not as the immigration of Jews to a homeland but as the promotion of a country. Critics who challenge the activities of Jews in Palestine, often for good reasons, up to the creation of the state do not claim that it is unworthy of its current existence. And some radicals who would like to see Jews floating somewhere between Tel Aviv and Nicosia would perhaps also question the worthiness of other countries (like the U.S, Lebanon, or the Persian Gulf states) to exist independently.

Anti-Zionism, like Anti-Imperialism and Anti-Americanism, can provide the mask of respectability for critics of a more extremist strand as witnessed by the surge in acrimonious branding behind closed doors in meetings of the Attac or the World Social Forum. The composition of their membership, ranging from the various branches of Marxism to Neo-Nazis and Muslim fundamentalists, already indicates a second-order agenda. But the fequent lapse of reasoning committed by Jewish conservatives which sets a reasoned, informed critique of Israel on par with Anti-Zionism (which inherently harbors Anti-Semitism) does little to improve the standing of Jewish public intellectuals or of Jews on campus.

The question remains why Jews, for whom education is elevated to religious status according to Prager, will turn into anti-Semites under peer pressure rather than consolidate in their Hillel abodes. Prager claims that liberalism is the root of all evil. "Jews for whom liberalism has become a surrogate religion — and who therefore do not wish to acknowledge a god that failed — will not acknowledge the moral failure of the university." He does not specify what he means by liberalism, yet this shortcoming is ubiquitous in our age of contextualization.

If he means classical liberalism, as it is still understood in discourse worldwide, then it must be that current of political though which strives to maximize individual liberty within a pluralistically democratic framework, governed by a system of rights under law, in which a society characterized by free action may flourish. If anything, classical liberalism would encourage Israel's democratic record compared to its neighbors and disregard the moral legitimacy of a state's creation in favor of its legal status acquired through customary international law.

If Prager sees American, or modern, liberalism as the scourge of anti-Semitism then his essay requires an even longer explanation. American liberalism is, in its international affairs connected with Woodrow Wilson and his hopes for international cooperation rather than coercion (and support for the Jewish homeland in Palestine) and domestically attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" that entailed the creation of instituions that promote social and economic equity in favor of the laissez faire economics that had been viewed to be one of the underlying causes of the Great Depression.

Prager must refer to some abboration of liberalism that is neither pluralistic nor holds the entitlements and freedom of people everywhere at its value core. Perhaps he means the liberalism of Amnesty International or Attac. But if that is the case, then Jewish studemts cannot see liberalism as their "surrogate religion" since they would be expected to follow its main doctrine, lest Prager views them as sectarian Jews who have joined a fringe cult on the outskirts of mainstream political thought. The step from a second-level politics, from a meta-framework in which religion and political discourse of all strands are accomodated, to the embrace of a singular dogma remains incoherent. Liberal secular Jews and non-Jews alike would not like to "acknowledge that god failed" if god were liberalism, but this conclusion seems unwarranted too. Firstly, secular liberals do not equate whatever ideology or current of political thought they happen to support most closely at a time as timeless and infallible. At the heart of liberalism stands the need for constant discourse and peaceful change through ever-transforming ideas. Most secularists would otherwise not be discouraged from pronouncing the failure, or even the death, of God.

Prager deduces that if lip-service "liberalism" has produced anti-Semitism, then this proves the "moral failure of the university". There exists a moral failure when there are race riots but hardly when an atmosphere is created in which youngsters (and the vast majority of unnuanced activists are undergraduates) become irrationally passionate for causes which they will deem overstated only years later. That's a part of life and, if anything, that should stimulate the education of young Jews.

The moral to be drawn from Prager's essay is, at its essence, that higher education in the U.S. is bad for Jews. They should be Good Jews and adhere to their traditional religous values and not be turned into anti-Semites by the liberals, whoever they may be. In this Good Jew/Bad Jew dichotomy, I am obliged to announce Prager belonging to the latter.

Someone get those udders off me!

2005-09-09T21:02:00.000+01:00

Sitting under an aircondition, having reached more humane environs than the humid late-summer heat, as I was holding my liter mug of beer after a long day of contemplation to little effect, I noticed my nipples stiffen. I began to muse why Mother Nature had equipped me with nipples.

I could feel no pleasure, no satisfaction, no indicator of sexual arousal. According to some nipple-fetish websites, 1 out of 5 men can be aroused by nipple stimulation. Splendid, they say 1 out of 10 is gay but those can't be congruent although a relationship between these statistics cannot be a priori discarded. The notion of a man's Squirmin' Herman, his One-Eyed German turning skyward due to nipple stimulation makes me feel less than comfortable. There is a portion of perverse eccentricity, some element offensive to my sense of manliness and my innate virility, a feminity unfit for self-respecting males in sharing the same pleasure facilities as the fairer sex. It's somewhere between having your prostate licked by a sorority girl and getting fucked in the ass by Bubba, the truck-driving redneck fag in denial.

My nipples are generally lifeless blobs, sensitive only to the type of pain you feel when the dentist's assistant casually gets her ass squeezed, twitches and scrapes your dental gum with one of her 5000rpm power tools. They are two sloppy mistakes of nature, two evolutionary dead-ends, two cynical stabs at Darwin's corpse to tease him about the imperfections of his endeavour to immortalize himself, stuck as he was in the evolutionary chain of his own conceptualization. Why did we keep them? As a sign of our inferiority to males of other species? Or as a display of our ability to be in touch with our feminine side without actually practicing ass-ramming? Not in my name! The mighty stallion produces sufficient testorone in the first weeks of gestation to prevent the development of nipples. But even the pesky sewer rat, living in my bathroom, exemplar of the lower species, pours salt into my wounds by resisting that telling resemblance to his female counterpart.

Sure, those pink udders could simply be one of the useless annexes that God - blessed be his sense of humor - has bestowed upon us to weed out the weak, the slow, the unperceptive, and the Africans; the tonsils and the appendix always make for a hoot and a holla when the next emergency room is on the other side of the equator. But they are politically correct, non-discriminatory, post-gender. That appendix is gonna burst regardless of you hosting a cabbage field or sporting a corndog. But the nipples work consistenly as pleasure points and S(quirt)-spots for females only.

My nipples are essentially wasted flesh. Like my tonsils and my appendix, they will find their way into a hospital garbage dumpster - sooner or later. Then I will finally feel 100% manly. Or so I claim.

The Anne Frank Redux: Jessica Lynch vs Bethany Hamilton

2005-08-11T14:38:00.000+01:00

The elderly are known to moan about the state of our world, wanting, as it is, the steadfastness of yore, divested of timeless ideals, bereft of genuine heroes and heroines. Yet perhaps the true answer lies not in the depravation of our society, the degeneration of each passing generation, or the warranted pessimism about social progress but in the greatness of the past. During the 80s, Reagan and Thatcher replaced the idols of the past for those mourners of heroism; during the roaring 90s, Bill Gates and his countless imitators and shareholders - overnight millionaires - were too busy trying to follow the upward pace of their bleeping bloomberg screens to notice a lack of idealism.

The 80s and the 90s simply buried the every day heroes, the poor revolutionary idealist placed next to the self-contained, roaming cowboy of modernity. Their offspring were the hard-nosed investment banker and the urban socialite with political leverage. But our generation is not bleakly out of luck. The beginning of the 21st century, injected and infuriarated with the vigor of September 11th, traumatized by the inescapable permanence of actual and media terror, disillusioned by the lingering fiasco in Iraq, marks the rebirth of the everyday hero.

The war in Iraq, like any war, is bound to wash up, on a gloomy tide of despondency, some rejuvenating, inspiring, story of touching individuality; the Remarque or Anne Frank of our times. And over the past two years, we, as members of the drama-hypersensitized CNN generation, have gotten two top candidates for individual inspiration: Jessica Lynch and Bethany Hamilton. I pre-nominate both for the heroines of our time.

Individual tastes may vary widely on those two types of heroines but before the US military disengages from Iraq, one of these two contenders will be crowned triumphant by a storm of media appraisal. Jessica Lynch, declared a heroine in 2003, evidently took an early lead. She was the ordinary girl next door, drafted to go to Iraq, ambushed by some fedayeen fighters who killed the other 9 members of her convoy. She was then brought to a hospital, had her road traffic accident injuries treated by Iraqi doctors, the fedayeen fighters withdrew from the hospital, and the US military stormed the civilian hospital a la Black Hawk Down. Like a Jerry Bruckheimer film, it involved poor camera work and lengthy editing to little effect. Most mainstream media omitted the fact that her doctor tried to drive her to the next army base in an ambulance but had to turn around under heavy American fire. Instead, they included initial rumors of bullet and knife injuries as well as sexual abuse (which all turned out to be falacious). Jessica Lynch was a POW for a couple of days and, with the overwhelming assistance of former NY Times journalist Rick Bragg, decided to publish a book called "I am soldier, too". Sounds like something my cat could have written. In short, she emanates the aura of Athena with the intellect of Sylvester Stallone.

Bethany Hamilton, contender #2, is - to further the analogy - the "beautifully-cheeked" sea nymph goddess named Keto, derived from the greek sea-monster Ketea. She was not only as ripe and perky as that 15-year old beach-babe from Hawaii but also the guardian of whales and large sharks, one of which bit off little Bethany's left arm. Like Jessica's story, Bethany's claim to fame is based on a tale of an immense will not only to survive but to continue living, interwoven with religious and supernatural allusions... Her story is brief. She is 15 years old and aspires to be a professional surfer. Last january she paddled out into the "tunnels", a quite dangerous shark-infested area off Kauai, where some of the biggest waves in the world are to be found. While paddling on her surfboard, a shark bit off almost her entire left arm. Her friend helped her paddle ashore and brought her to a clinic. She was operated and able to stand on a surf board a month later. Then she got a campaign manager who made her into a national hero.

But what makes her the Anne Frank of our age? It was incredible that she survived a shark attack but others have done so before. What qualifies her to go on a motivational tour to inspire the troops in Iraq? Shouldn't she be campaigning in favor of shark nets or more warning signs along the "tunnels"? What could she have told the troops? "I got my arm bitten off by a 14-foot tiger shark and kept on surfing, so when you step on a landmine, private, keep on fighting"?

For Bethany and her family, it's a story about a divine miracle that somehow managed to save her but not Anne Frank. Years ago, she started writing scriptures on her board to ask for God's help. Her first one was "'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.'" Her mother explains her first reaction after hearing of the shark attack: "I called our church and had them start the prayer team. Then, I called The 700 Club and asked them to pray. It was like I just knew that I knew that she was 100 percent God's." Don't forgett 911 next time.

In any case, Bethany's story was spun from a careless surfing accident into a tale of divine intervention and personal perserverance. She would have never been a hero without that shark. The next person to outdo Bethany's heroism will have to have her legs amputated by a hunchback whale and then continue wheelchair-surfing.

Jessica Lynch was, likewise, idolized due to a fortune not of her own making. She was, in some macabre sense, extremely lucky to be on that convoy, not killed, and then rescued. It appears then that these modern heroines are more passive than the Greek goddesses or our active heroes of the past. To be a hero in the 21st century entails neither the activism of Ghandi nor the fervour of Che Guevara. It merely entails being a survivor or a victim of a tragedy. In this race of passive heroism, the stakes are high and the contenders close and I, for one, am curious to see who wins.

Fighting For Peace is Like Fucking for Virginity

2005-07-03T10:15:00.000+01:00

"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity" is one of those commonplace prosaisms that has taken the otherwise promiscuous left by storm. Our parents used to fuck for peace, regardless of the actual connection between dropping acid, playing guitar, putting out like a paedophile on a playground, and world peace. Whats wrong with it now?

People think that this saying is so witty, pointing to the intrinsic paradox in fighting for peace. It really is pathetic, not witty, when your objections to Iraq sneak into your neglected sexual vocabulary. I don't take exception with the analogy but with the assumption that fucking for virginity doesn't work. What are the similarities between fighting and fucking? Well, they are both fun and phallocentric. Kinda like me.

Fighting and fucking are a part of the same type of lifestyle, a male point of view, that includes specious paradoxes unveiled as actually compatible after further contemplation. We booze for sobriety. Sure, Mother Theresa would call that bigotry. But I am more reasonable (and humble) after a couple of beers than she ever was. What is so rewarding about both fighting for peace and fucking for virginity? It works and it provides head relief.

Madonna had been boned more often than your average back-alley labrador bitch by the time she released "Like A Virgin". Hypocrisy? Only to the narrow-minded, close-legged, puritan female. Perhaps Madonna's hymen did not, in fact, rupture - though there may have been some blood - but it felt like she was getting railed for the very first time. This ability for renewal lies at the beautiful core of the human condition.

The left wing has sunk into an insufferable swamp of Quaker-type pacifism, which decries fighting as well as fucking, promotes the prohibition of worldly pleasure and pleasuring. It is possible to abstain, to do the diametrical opposite of what the wisdom of my infallible penis - immensinly refined over 1000s of years of evolution, adaptation, mutation, and selection - unequivocally indicates, but, frankly, I place my trust in the wisdom of age. Irreverence for the lessons of time is not innovation but the folly of arrogance.

Sure, we could try to conscientiously object for war and abstain for sex, but it just doesn't seem like the life that befits a man. Fucking for virginity works. Every time I get busy in the parking lot, it seems like nature is granting me an opportunity to relive a little fraction of the intensity of the first time, the exhilarating nervosity, the pacing heart-beat, the racing, twistedly lewd, flickering thoughts, wondering when the date-rape pill will kick in, trying to get an extra glimpse down her thong to ensure that there's grass on the pitch and its not the flood period.

I fuck for virginity. It is a more logical endeavor than to abstain for future sex. Some guys think that by abstaining they will actually appear like a friendlier, more committed, more serious sex partner and that they will be rewarded by a sex goddess whose tube will be constantly moist by the amount of respect she has for the sacrifices of his past. But really, if you are waiting or "saving" yourself, you should reconsider. When that sex goddess comes along, you would be better off having practiced your positions every Sunday. You can always still pretend you are a natural talent. Sex goddesses, in my experience, lack the acumen to realize that you've been secretly practicing. So she will still be wet with respect and you will know how to use contraception. Lingering around with your own bag of chips, a widescreen TV, and a comfortable sofa won't get you laid. Not even long-term. Well, unless you are Hugh Hefner. The rest of us have to keep fucking for virginity and fighting for peace. And, no doubt, Iraqis are even more frigid and less gullible than sex goddesses.

Boycotting: What Bored Hippies Do.

2005-06-16T09:22:00.000+01:00

Everyone has been bored at one point or another in their life. Some people go grocery shopping in the hope of finding a mini-skirted lady who is in dire need for some strong hands to help her fit a suitcase into the tight space in the middle of her trunk. Others boycott. They are called hippies. They smell bad. They listen to music that pisses people off and creates repercussions like Ozzy Osbourne. They have smoked so much weed that nothing is funny except trying to sink ships on the high seas to prevent them from carrying out nuclear tests. Drowning "little Eichmanns", that hits their funny bone like vandalizing Starbucks on acid.

They join the Socialist Workers Party though they've never worked in their lives. They are like poor people. They tend to live in clusters. They do something called unionizing - getting together with a bunch of like-minded hippies to form some organisation that acts as the hippie megaphone of discontent. They don't unionize to earn minimum wage. Remember, they don't work. So what happens when the last tunes of Yellow Submarine subside, their last weed is consumed including stems and seeds, and nobody knows what day it is? Hippies boycott.

The logic is irresistibly compelling. Hippies know that other people actually do stuff. They loathe the world they live in and have ceased to find anything amusing or worthwhile - except boycotting. Since they hate the world, they hate most of the stuff other people do that comprises this world. Most of us hate some things that other people do. Like not swallowing or terrorist attacks. Hippies are embittered and hide their lack of sprightliness behind a facade of flower power, drum circles, and finger painting. We were all once like that, back in the kindergarten playground. Hippies are basically like four year olds who lost their innocence. So they decide to boycott. They are like toddlers who have learned the word "no" and don't say anything else until they learn a cuss word, like conservative.

The last major display of hippie boredom just ended. Hippies hate success since it reminds them of their own shortcomings. Hippies have hated Israel since it became a successful state following the Six Day War in 1967 and occupied a bunch of poor people called Palestinians. There are hippies in all walks of life but walking with crooked other hippies turns them into a limping horde. There are hippies in academia. They don't actually write many books or publish articles or lecture students. In Britain, they join their own special union called The Association of University Teachers, which has about 50% membership. If you want to make it in academia, you stay away from the AUT. There are barely any professors in this union. Most unionists actually just unionize.

In May, they decided once again (last time was 2002) to boycott Israel. They didn't boycott goods produced in the Occupied Territories. Such a move would have been too moderate, too accomodating, too dull to stir their smoked-out brains, too complicit in the machinery of the evil system. Instead, the AUT proposed to boycott Jewish Israeli academics working in Britain, Israeli universities (Haifa and Bar-Ilan in particular) and to ban any Jewish Israeli from publishing anything in British journals. Apparently the boycott was sparked by Haifa university allegedly persecuting Ilan Pappe, a crazed left-wing Jewish Israeli who claims that ethnic cleansing has been Israel's historical policy all along, equating it with fascism. It turns out that actually this never quite occurred in the alleged way and the AUT faced a libel trial in England from Haifa University. But the hippies were going to have to pay an estimated 1 million pounds, which they calculated to be worth thousands of joints and bean bags. So they backed down.

Since when do hippies love censorship? The leader of the campaign, Sue Blackwell of Birmingham University, a renknown professional activist who has never published a single article in any respectable peer-reviewed journal in her life, is an advocate of Palestinian Lesbian rights. The oppression of Palestinian carpet-munchers in the public sphere does not appear to be the most pressing issue in the Middle East but that is not the point at hand. Why would she defend free speech for the most obscure groups on anyone's radar, and silence the voice of Jewish Israeli academics, most of whom are leftist and outspoken critics of Israel? Well, Hippies get bored and boycotting was the first thing that popped into her devestated mind after the shroom trip wore off.

Funnily, one of the first universities to protest the boycott was al-Qud university, the most prestigious Palestinian university, claiming that Palestine is aided by the internal criticsm practiced by Jewish Israeli academics. Also, its mission is not to silence Israelis but to win more over to their side in an open dialogue. The AUT hippies were displeased with the sell-out Palestinians. Little Eichmanns.

Finally after a month the boycott has ended but, then again, hippies never endure for long and always return like flies to shit.

The Prowling Porter

2005-06-15T18:41:00.000+01:00

En route from my house to the supermarket I had the most bizarre encounter. Leisurely strolling up the street, emitting an air at once carefree and careless, I noticed a woman looking at me. She was trying to fit some suitcases into her car and, while bending down as her activity fortunately necessitated - showing a little more skin than the designer of her mini-skirt intended -, stopped to take a step towards me. She asked "Are you hiding a cobra in your pants or are you just happy to see me?". I countered "A little bit of both. It's a one-eyed cobra that has taking a liking to you". No, she didn't ask that. Instead she proceeded to say "excuse me, may I borrow your prowl?". Confounded by the expression, I replied "Sorry, I didn't catch that." She explained, "You see, I need your strength..."
Rather flattered by the situation, a young man radiating power and energy approached by a vulnerable woman in a mini-skirt requiring his services, I agreed that she was in fact in need of my strong hands. Following my quick appraisal of the situation, she asked once again, this time in a more gentle, endearing voice, "so may I borrow your prowl?". Even though I immediately recognized that she was in good humor and not intending to belittle a stranger, I was not prowling. I had a sense of purpose and direction and was by no means loitering. So perhaps I misunderstood a local idiom, but in any case the manner of her approach left a palatable aftertaste.

Can you borrow someone's prowl? She was asking to borrow my time and make use of my strength and apparently she perceived that something about me gave the impression of prowling. Or, possibly, it was a sort of irony as I was evidently well kempt, sporting khaki shorts, a white polo, and a sweater with my sleeves rolled up. Otherwise, it may have been the London equivalent of asking for a tour of my house or asking me to give her pipes a cleaning or,simply, to fix the cable. In any event, it was less trite than asking me to trim her bushes.

The odd expression injected a greater sense of mystery, sparking an instantaneous curiosity. Putting on my best Sean Connery-on-viagra voice, I replied "you can say that again." And she was compliant, putting on her best Paris Hilton-on-an-ecstasy-overdose voice and repeating the question once more. "Any time" I said, strictly adhering to my part. She gently ran her fingernails over my forearm as she proceeded to softly explain that the suitcase is very heavy. "It needs to fit into that tight space in the middle of the trunk" she explicated the state of affairs.

A deep, calming utterance of the monosyllable "sure" was the last of our words exchanged before I got to work and fit the heavy suitcase, which must have been about 35 kilos, into the tight space in the middle of her trunk. While the space was not unusually tight, the enormous size of the suitcase made some bumping against the rear inevitable,culminating in a perfect fit. After the job was done to her satisfaction, she thanked me and I replied "any time".

"Prowling" really takes off the edge.

Damn, I should work as a porter.

PS: Sorry for the blog burnout over the past days, but I have been busy.

Free Stress Test

2005-05-31T09:45:00.000+01:00

Having finished my last university exams and having put most dipsomaniacs to shame by the adjacent ten-hour drinking binge, I decided to recover over the past days by jogging along Regent Canal. While taking a walk with my girlfriend today, we were approached by an advertiser offering “free stress tests.” With all conscious sources of stress dispelled from our lives, we decided to volunteer as human control variables. I was given two aluminium rods connected to a machine that looked like an East-German voltmeter from the 50s:

Frenchman: “Hi, please get comfortable, my name is Orwellian”
Me: “Orwellian? Sorry, I didn’t catch that”
Frenchman: “It’s a French name, Orwellian”
Me: “I thought that was a literary or cinematographic genre”
Frenchman: “No, it’s a name. So just hold these rods comfortably and rest your hands in your lap. Let’s start by talking about what kind of stress you are experiencing. Do you worry about work?”
Me: “I’m a student. I professionally avoid work.”
Frenchman: “So you worry about your exams?”
Me: “I just finished my last exams and I did fine.”
Frenchman: “Do you worry about the future? This summer? What are you going to do after being a student?”
Me: “I never worry about the summer. Who does? I only completed my undergraduate degree. I am starting my masters degree afterwards and I see this as the point of departure for my succeeding student career.”
Frenchman: “So what would you say you worry about?” [followed by silence]
Me: “I am not sure. Work with me here.”
Frenchman: “See, after I asked you the question, the pointer went up. You were stressed about something.”
Me: “I had to concentrate in order to answer the question. I must have increased the pressure on the rods.”
Frenchman: “So you were worried about something!”
Me: “Yes, about finding an appropriate answer to the question of what I was worried about. But this is a good start. They say that the question-begging approach can actually be therapeutic.”
Frenchman: “Do you worry about your relationship? Are you in a relationship? Are you trying to find a relationship? Are you worried about it?
Me: “I am not worried about it. I am perfectly happy with my relationship. No erectile malfunctions!”
Frenchman: “See, you were calm about your relationship. The pointer remained low.”

Me: “I think I figured out your voltmeter. I just applied a constant light pressure to the rods to disguise any potential subconscious relationship anxieties.”
Frenchman: “So, this book, Dianetics, will help you overcome all stress. It’s only £6.99.”
Me: “Really, that’s more than a Penguin classic. What is it about?”

Frenchman: “Here you go, just read the back-cover.”
Me: “All right, finished.”

Frenchman: “Did you really read it?”

Me: “Yes. Why do you ask, did your voltmeter measure the potential difference in tension between my hands? Is this thing even earthed?”
Frenchman: “No, but did you see that John Travolta endorses it?”

Me: “There was a quote on the back-cover, thanks. But how does it work? I understand that the reactive mind is basically the memory bank of all types of suppressed feelings and negative sentiments that are stored subconsciously. The aim of this book is to help me get rid of it. But why would I want to erase my subconscious desires?
Frenchman: “Because it will relieve all the stress.”

Me: “But Orwellian, wouldn’t I walk around like Winston after an express therapy in Room 101?”
Frenchman: “No, it’s really good. Over 20 million copies have been sold.”
Me: “My grandma could sell 20 million copies of her autobiography - and that’s after a regrettable stroke and a heart attack - with this type of advertising campaign.”

Frenchman: “Yes, but they have already been sold. [Opening the book] Look at how many famous people endorse it, even nurses.”

Me: “Well, it’s funny you mention nurses. If I erase my reactive mind, as you call it, then I will lose my subconscious desire to sexually assault a nurse in forensic pathology. That can’t be healthy. And in any case, Madonna practices kabbalah and I don’t see how admiring Like a Virgin will lead to me accepting that the reverse constellation of my birthday multiplied by the numerical value of Maria Magdalena will predict my fate of irreversibly falling in love with a hopeless nymphomaniac. How is this different?”
Frenchman: “He has sold over 20 million copies.”

Me: “So has Stephen King. Personally, he is not among my favourite authors. Do you buy his books for the same reason?”
Frenchman: “No, I don’t like Stephen King.”
Me: “So you are absolutely convinced that erasing your subconscious mind has no negative repercussions?”
Frenchman: “Yes, it has no negative effects. Here is a map and ticket to our local bookstore.”

Me: “Hmm. It’s on Tottenham Court Road next to the Church of Scientology.”

Frenchman: “No, it’s the Church of Scientology.”
Me: “Wow. Now I know why this all seemed like a pseudoscience. Have a good day.”

Frenchman: “Pseudoscience? No it’s based on facts. Well, good-bye. Next.”

Christian Dior doesn't make ass.

2005-05-19T08:16:00.000+01:00

Girls expend enormous energies on their faces. Hours are spent dully glaring into the looking glass, hours per week that aggregate to days per year. Why? Perhaps because women want to be beautiful - more crudely put, for the purposes of breeding - and since their face is the most frequently exposed part of their body, they feel that a pretty face amounts to the centrepiece of their endearing qualities. In this case, the cliché that Men are from Mars and Jenna is a Venus applies to the extent that we seem to be living in parallel universes, our thoughts passing unnoticed like ships at night. Well, it’s time someone turned on the lights, bitch. Your face, even with five layers of meticulously applied Christian Dior, is gonna have a tough time single-handedly maintaining my erection...

Your posterior cheek blush, anti-aging cream, and particularly the organic moisturiser may be put to better use in the downstairs department. The face mirrors the ultimate crudeness, the imperfection that finally reveals and envelops all that is human. By contrast, the female ass is impressive, awesome, inspiring, a genuinely timeless piece of art. The face is Munch, the ass is Gauguin. From the Callipygian Venus to Jenna Jameson, women have posed for the artists of their times to capture their seductive, enticing qualities by exposing their butts, pointedly accentuating them, while admiring their own stern or gazing rearwards with eyes radiating great expectations.

Yet the unheeding multitude of females has ceaselessly held a steady course in its quest for Callipygian beauty without recognizing any cause for concern - after all, evolution did not punish their brains for picking the wrong tabloids. What does “Callipygian” even mean? Most dictionaries would return something like “Pertaining to or having finely developed buttocks.” Strange that women never care to find out why the ass, not the face, constitutes the centrepiece of extemporal beauty. It’s time Glamour gave away free dictionaries for every 52 issues purchased.

Some readers are likely to be breast men and dissent. I always look at ass first, except in obvious circumstances such as dealing with large-breasted women over a counter. There are some purely tactical reasons. Looking at a woman’s breasts is more likely to be noticed by her or others. She is likely to think that you feel that your mother neglected you when you were young and seek breasts as a compensation for the missed nurturance. Looking at an ass is an easy exercise, it’s mostly practiced when walking behind a woman, and the eyes lowered towards the ground are less likely to arouse suspicion.

But there are more fundamental reasons. Most biologists, for instance, agree that human breasts developed not, as is commonly believed, as an asset during sexual intercourse but as a sign to display fertility. (It’s not that because humans invented missionary position, females grew breasts to entertain the man during his mechanical act of thrusting.) Interestingly, human females are capable of reproducing most of the time. Most mammals are only fertile for a clear minority of the year. Mammals, most importantly primates, use the ass as an indicator for that fertilely. But walking upright made the behind less central in human interaction. As an aside, I firmly support women to generally move around on all fours for a variety of well-founded reasons. So breasts developed on the front of the body to indicate the readiness to reproduce. That explains why we take exceptional pleasure in looking at hard nipples even if it’s only the product of excessive air-conditioning.

Tits are merely the less fortunate step-sisters of the ass, the inferior clone placed in the worse location, the last-minute sketch of a timeless piece of art.

The face, however, is in a league below. It is so detailed that the broad strokes of perfection are lost in the quagmire of asymmetrical particulars. For the purposes of reproduction the female ass rules supreme. So spend your idle time with power lunges, donkey kicks, leg presses, side leg-lifts, butt blasters, pelvic tilts, straddle presses, stationary lunges, static contractions, alternating lunges, freehand jump squats, single leg lifts, kneeling back kicks, hip abducations, hip adductions, walking lunges, and sissy squats! That’s a greater variety than in your Christian Dior make-up set. When you’re done, try that cucumber mask on your cheeks, it will probably soothe that worked-out, doggy-styled ass.

Beauty is nature’s gift. Maintaining it is your duty.

Controversial "Dodgy Dreyfus Jockeys" mix about Aryans in Jew York

2005-05-16T21:30:00.000+01:00

A highly controversial remix of Sting's classic "Englishman in New York" is rumored to be taking the Brooklyn underground music scene by storm and has already swept across the Atlantic to become broadly acclaimed in London. The Dodgy Dreyfus Jockeys, two obscure German Jewish Soho musicians, have disseminated their ambitious pre-release version of their nascent hit "Legal Aryan"... It's available below for your critical review. I hope to be able to offer the musical version shortly. For the sake of comparison, here is the original.

I don’t eat toffee I drink beer my dear
I like to toast to apartheid
And you can hear it in my accent when I talk
I’m a German man in Jew York

See me walking down Fifth Avenue
a flogging cane here at my side
I take it everywhere I walk
I’m a German man in Jew York

I’m an Aryan, I’m a legal Aryan
I’m a German man in Jew York
I’m an Aryan, I’m a legal Aryan
I’m a German man in Jew York

If, "genes maketh man" as Darwin said
Then he's the hero of the day
It takes a man to suffer injustice and die
Be yourself no matter if they pray

I’m an Aryan, I’m a legal Aryan
I’m a German man in Jew York
I’m an Aryan, I’m a legal Aryan
I’m a German man in Jew York

Ideology, autocracy will lead our bureaucracy
You could end up as the only one
Employment, efficiency are rare in a democracy
The Crystal Night is brighter than the sun

Takes more than a Congress bill to make a man
Takes more than a license for a gun
Confront your enemies, exterminate their clan
A German man will march but never run

If "genes maketh man" as Darwin said
Then he's the hero of the day
It takes a man to suffer injustice and die
Be yourself no matter if they pray

I’m an Aryan, I’m a legal Aryan
I’m a German man in Jew York
I’m an Aryan, I’m a legal Aryan
I’m a German man in Jew York

The Viewers' Choice: Blair vs Chirac! Every Kick Counts.

2005-05-09T01:44:00.000+01:00

Unlikely bedfellows.

Tony Blair was reelected as Prime Minister of the U.K. last Thursday, though with a smaller majority in parliament than before. However, now the French have the possibility to kick him out within a year's time. How, you may wonder. With the French referendum on the new EU Constitution. Traditionally, discontent about your own government was expressed by failing a referendum. Today, if the French voters read this, they can give Tony Blair a kicking by approving the Constitution! Many Frenchmen are already rumored to be treading the Champs Elysee with posters advertising to "Kick the Poodle"...

The French-British love affair was first cemented by signing the Entente Cordiale, 101 years ago, a "friendly understanding" or peace-time alliance with the purpose of bandwagoning against and politically isolating an economically superior Germany. Since then, the Brits and the French have engaged in the love-hate relationship of a grumpy, elderly couple, too co-dependent on making the other's life miserable to separate and too cranky to openly recognize their love and mutual necessity.

A lot of European countries are holding referendums in order to adopt the European Constitution, including France and Britain. Right now, it looks as if the French are going to vote "no". However, the Maastricht Treaty gained last-minute support through Mitterand's campaign in 1992 and actually passed with 51%. If France votes against the Constitution, Tony Blair won't need to hold a vote because, as he so eloquently expressed, "there won't be a vote if there is nothing to vote on."

If the French decide to accept the referendum, one would assume, Tony is gonna have to go ahead and hold the vote as planned in 2006. Tony Blair is in favor of accepting the Constitution. The British public is notoriously eurosceptic. The Brits will vote against Europe and Tony Blair will need to accept his failure and step down. His four-year mandate may tragically fall short like his arrow of good intent.

So while Tony Blair is down on his knees, praying that the French do not approve on May 29th, and Jaques Chirac is worried about his own standing, the common Frenchman needs to decide which half of the grumpy, elderly, couple would he enjoy kicking more. It's a question of base satisfactions but it's important nonetheless. Personally, I would take the opportunity to first kick Tony in the nads while he is kneeling down within range (and it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for the common Frenchman to be able to abuse the British Premier) and then drag Jacques through the mud by his few greasy hair. Either way, it's a win-win situation for the easily-amused, sadistic onlooker.

101 Years of intertwining the fates of the British and the French has, alas, produced some real excitement for the viewers. The upcoming French referendum is a lot more like voting off a member of the Big Brother house than selecting a pop idol. And we all take more pleasure in observing the salty tears of defeat watering the eyes of others than in listening to their euphoric, animalistic screams.

US foreign policy rhymes with hypocrisy (again)

2005-05-04T18:00:00.000+01:00

Sometimes foreign policy can be compared to an imaginary two brained organism. The first brain is located in the head of this organism and second in its ass. So when foreign policy bangs its head against a wall (assumedly in an attempt to knock it down) repeatedly it might continue to do so because it has splattered its superior head brains against the said wall and is only using its ass brain. A bit of an elaborate, long winded, and rather zany methaphor but it does somehow make sense, unless you're semi-literate in which case I apologize I could not provide it in comic book form.

The first ever left wing government of Brazil, under the stewdariship of President Lula de Silva, has courageously rejected aid from the US for AIDS. Why, you might ask, would a developing country reject such a generous offer? Because the aid is linked to absentinence, to the Brazillian government formally condemning prostitution and refusing medical assisstance to them, the rejection of abortion, and no sex education in condoms.

Instead, on its own limited funds, the Brazilian government is going to forge ahead with its own initiatives that have been largely effective at reducing infection in the country, which is done by achieving a sort of informal partnership with the country's "sew workers."

OK, so this isn't new? Everyone knows the Bush Administration is only supporting Catholic like AIDS assisstance and cancelled in 2000 over $50million in AIDS funds to Brazil because some of that money was being used for abortions on infected pregnant women. How is it so hypocritical you are asking? Everyone knows Bush is a conservative and that America is amongst the most conservative countries in the West?
That's the rhetoric yes. But when you take into consideration that the USA's porn industry is worth tens of billions of USDollars, that its primary cultural exports (MTV and "teen" television) ruthlessly sexualize children (don't forget Britney Spears was a "child" by US law when she first relased her skimply clad video), and that everywhere the Pentagon builds a base a thriving sex industry pops that is usually followed by a thriving porn industry. Indeed, the fact that I am able to use the internet is in large part due to the fact that the whole "net" is funded by porn; without porn to fill the coffers of the servers they wouldn't be so inclined to host free sites like this one.

Also since the USA has more internet users as a proportion of its population than any other state on the globe and in terms of real numbers that implies that it is Americans that are the primary consumers of this porn. This porn (I shall go into mysongy some other time) probably encourages promiscuity in some women but mostly in men who, upon realizing chicks are harder to get then porns let on, will resort to sleeping with lots prostitutes or even one since catching an STD is just like playing Russian roullette, its all about unluck. And of course how stupid you are since you'd have to be pretty stupid or ineberiated to sleep with a prostitute without a condom.

This article has been a rant so far but I think it's a rant worth ranting about. If the Bush Administration is going to insist on worsening the AIDS pandemic with its Catholic policies then it should implent them with greater zeal in the USA first. It's no good damning prostitutes when innumerable AMERICAN porn websites all run along the theme that its possible to BUY sex from any woman on the street (this is a myth of course, only poor women would do that or nymphomaniacs), which in turn normalizes and encourages the use of prostitution.

Utter hypocrisy. From an ethical point of view the decision of de Silva's government in Brazil is consistent and right because it recognizes that under the current transnational cultural configuration internet prostitution is not going to go away, especially so long as Brazillian women are poor and Western men continue to fly there to pay them for sex. Oh yes, that's right the ultimate hypocrisy in the Bush Admin.'s AIDS offer to Brazil is that owing to geographic proximity and the price of oil it is Americans that frequent Brazil's brothels the most of all the Men of the West.
Here is a link to a BBC article on this issue: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4513805.stm

Oh, I know that the Bush Administration is predominantly Evangelical Protestant but really, what are evangelical and religious Protestants anyway other than confused Reactionary Catholics? Exactly.

UK Campaign Commercials

2005-05-02T02:39:00.000+01:00

I found these amusing campaign commercials for the upcoming UK election...

There is a commercial advertising for Labour, the Tories, and the Liberal Democrats. They are as good as real, available here.

Zogby Poll Reveals: The Invisible Hand is Hypocritical

2005-04-30T21:02:00.000+01:00

The invisible hand gone awry.

U.S. Republicans stand for small government, economic freedom, and non-intervention of the state in economic affairs. They have long argued that the market is efficient, that it provides the most fair outcomes possible because labor, goods, and prices are governed by the eternal laws of supply and demand. Political intervention is unnecessary since the economic sphere provides all the tools necessary for citizens to make their personal choices. A new Zogby Poll has revealed, however, that the same people who argue for economic freedom are also the least likely to use it in order to change the social conditions that result from a free market. Is Adam Smith’s invisible hand not only impracticable but also hypocritical?

The invisible hand that should work its magic to create a completely efficient market has failed to account for natural monopolies, price-setting, insider trading, and Enron. But Republicans argue that nonetheless government should not interfere in the economy for political reasons. This means that if workers want a minimum wage, they would be granted an “efficient”, "natural" minimum wage by their employers through the magical market forces.

And if the public would be unhappy with a specific employer’s policies, they could certainly unionize, strike, or boycott.

The most successful boycott of my lifetime, ironically, was conducted in Western Europe (mainly Germany and France) against Shell’s human rights violations and environmental devastation in Nigeria as well as its oil spills. Most of the boycotters were not exactly “free-marketeers”. Shell’s profits plummeted and the company was forced to try to rebuild its image with environmental programs, charities, and new PR campaign.

U.S. consumers have also boycotted recently but not in reaction to any economic or social conditions in their country. Instead, they boycotted German and French goods because these two countries refused to invade Iraq. Heineken, a Dutch brewery, felt the effects of the declining revenues the strongest. Why? Because most Americans thought “it kinda sounded German”. Hence the new commercial: Heineken, the Dutch beer.

This month Zogby released a poll, available here. Two-Thirds of Americans boycott companies or products, and almost half of them for political reasons.

“Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to boycott a product or company, by a 72% to 58%margin, while two-thirds of independents (68%) say they do so. Political issues are least likely to drive Democrats to boycott- just one-in-three (33%) chose this option, while 63% of Republicans and 41% of independents say that politics is at the core of their boycott. For one-in-four (24%) Democrats, meanwhile, treatment of workers is the chief reason for withholding business - far more than the 2% of Republicans and 13% of independents who say the same.”
The most amazing result is that only 2% of Republicans boycott due to the treatment of workers. According to their theory, shouldn’t they be the ones guiding the invisible hand to punish the employers who mistreat workers?

Yet, while Republicans favor the separation of the economic from the political sphere, they are adamant about privately punishing the economies of “rogue states” such as France and Germany if they refuse to enter a war.

That appears like a reversal of the political and economic roles. If political policies should be decided democratically and the unfettered market forces of the consumers should set the guidelines of the economy, then Republicans would oppose France and Germany in their foreign policy and punish disagreeable companies in their economic choices. Is Adam Smith's notorious hand hypocritical or just out of control?

Poll of the Week Results

2005-04-30T01:14:00.000+01:00

Last week's question was "would you suck a guy's dick if you didn't know it was a guy?"

And the winner is...

Answer 1: "Yes, if I thought it was a two-flavor chupa chup" with 50% of the votes.

Followed by...

Answer 4: "I voted conservative" with 25% of the votes.

My readership must either be gullible, baked, predominantly female, gay or all of the above if half the people could imagine confusing a penis with a lollipop.

And why would a conservative stay long enough at my site to cast a vote? I guess the poll offers more questions than answers.

Was Malcolm X born on the wrong continent?

2005-04-29T18:29:00.000+01:00

The great Fuehrer: too much Denzel Washington, not enough Chris Tucker?

Malcolm X, one of the most heroic figures of black history month, was a perfect example of an African American. He was genuinely American in his ideas about freedom, liberation, and the right to protest. He was African to the darkest roots in his circumvention of the political process, in his self-image as a warlord, and in the justification of any means to rise to power and in the quest to emancipate his people.

“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.” - Malcolm X, 1965.

Of course, this quote could have originated from a sexually frustrated small-town rapist or from a Communist revolutionary like Lenin, but it came from this extraordinary specimen, the paragon of African American synergy, Malcolm X.

But contra to what most M&A bankers would like to believe, not all synergy is desirable.

For instance, my empirical studies have shown that a half Maltese half Greek chic will have more prominent features than pure Maltese or Greek breeds. However, when the added surplus results in disproportionate body and facial hair, oversized noses, greasy curls, topped up with a pear-like bodily disposition, we recognize that two halves don’t make a right.

Malcolm X not always enjoyed the popularity of today. His contemporaries deemed him to be the sub-par outcome of African American synergy. In a 1964 New York Times poll, only 6% named Malcolm as "doing the best work for Negroes.” Over a timeframe of thirty years (and the Reagan administration) Malcolm X became respectable. According to a November, 1992 Newsweek poll, 57% of all blacks regard Malcolm as a "hero." The younger the respondents, the greater the agreement: a respectable 33% among blacks over fifty, but an amazing 84% among blacks between fifteen and twenty-four. This trend has continued ceaselessly with Malcolm X being raised to an icon of resistance and courage for the young grassroots blacks, his heritage idolized in black music and mainstream education (or mainstream music and black education).

South Park’s commentary (during "Operation Human Shield") featured:
Chef: “Have you heard of the Emancipation Proclamation?.”
General: “I never listen to hip hop.”

Over the same period of time we have also witnessed a dramatic increase in blacks voting Republican. Could these two developments be connected?

The American values that Malcolm X upheld were not universally American, they were Republican in nature. Malcolm X prioritized freedom over welfare, equality in legal status over equality of opportunity, and self-help over the political process. In fact, he was negotiating with the Ku Klux Klan in the early 60’s on behalf of the Black Muslims - attempting to find common ground in their pursuit of self-help. If he were alive today, he would support self-sponsored community projects for blacks, not social integration or government aid. And he would keep a well-equipped arsenal anticipating the day that the forces of white tyranny would begin its onslaught on the interests of blacks.

He would be Pat Buchanan, black and Muslim, attempting to conflate church and state, lobbying for group rights and attempting to impose his group’s ideology on all those who dare to differ. He would not scoop to negotiating with dissenters but instead advance his people’s cause until the goal of black Muslim (or white Evangelical) dominance has been achieved. As Pat Buchanan would put it, “he is one of us.”

Nonetheless, Malcolm X never abandoned his true African origins, never misplaced his loyalties in political tradition. His view of self-help as a struggle between whites, blacks, and Asians, in the U.S., his struggle to retain his personal stronghold on power in the black protest movement until his death, were fitting for Nigerian politics. Malcolm X was the leader that the Ibo languished and were never granted in their struggle for independence in the Nigerian Biafra Wars. Unfit for the democratic process, he was a still great leader at the right time on the wrong continent.

His life expended on the wrong continent was terminated in compliance with his wishes.

“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.” And since his assassin deemed himself a manly man, Malcolm X’s life was - not given - but taken by a bullet charging through his skull, tearing asunder the grey matter of this specimen of an African American.

Perpetual Attrition

2005-04-29T00:35:00.000+01:00

Man is constantly at war with his surroundings. This is not a new observation or, perhaps, a particularly radical one either. From early Mesopotamian to Greek philosophers and thinkers to modern men like Hobbes have often used this thought to base entire ontologies upon. Indeed, for much of modern history and even in our post-modern transition the structure of international relations has reflected this idea with all "great powers" at the very least in a posture not of peace but the absence of war. A virtual war of attrition because what a state is spending on weapons it is not spending on its own people. This was the logic with the near suicidal arms races of the 1900's (that actually ended in failure because the war happened anyway) and of the Cold War some 20-years later to sort of beat one's opponent by making sure they spend less on their own people than one does.

But in the vein of several philosophers and political theorists I can't recall the names of I want to reduce that broad definition of the international system down to the individual level. In particular the level of an individual living in the "industrial North", "West", "Developed world", or whatever takes your fancy for that part of the globe I am speaking of. And we shall call him Man and he will be white yet a minority in his society so we will make him 22.

Man is in his kitchen and realizes that there are flies there. In fact they've been buzzing around in there for quite some time but Man is not bothered by their presence, indeed, he feels that it must be a good sign that other organisms are able to survive in there. Woman and Neanderthal disagree with Man.

They curse Man and demand that he rectify the "fly infestation" very rapidly and he should do it because the kitchen had been his responsibility for over two weeks and the flies had also made themselves at home in the lounge. Man felt infestation was a hard condemnation since the flies only numbered between 7-9 at most and he had seen a lot more flies crawling over dying African children on the TV.

Man is now at war with the flies. Swatting them would take too much time and energy that Man needs to expend doing other things like watching pornos on the internet for hours. So being a Western Man and therefore a master of warfare he goes to his chemical weapons arsenel. The war of attrition has begun, although it really began a lot early than that and in certainly he was a victim of it as much as a perpertrator.

Man knows that by covering his kitchen surfaces with the chemical agents he will be damaging himself, although at an acceptable cost. He knows it will have a semi-lethal effect on the flies but largely drive most them away and definetely eradicate all bacterial life.

Of course the fundamental problem with attritional warfare noted on by strategists from Sun Tzu to Clauswitz is that if attritional warfare lasts too long your own forces are as likely to suffer as badly as those you are attempting to destroy.

So over several decades of consuming food sprayed with similar chemical weapons in the agriculturalists war of attrition against field wildlife, to the processing factory in a war of attrition against perishability, and finally to your own war of attrition against lifeforms in your kitchen your body, which is comprised of millions of bacteria and their close cousins cells, begins to suffer as badly as the enemy.

In some people it leads to cancer. In others alzhemeirs (who cares if I can't spell it). And for many people it is just a reduction of at least 8.9 months to a decade in "natural life expectency" (latest EU figures) depending on where you live in the world. In some places the geneva conventions on attritional war against the human body are laxer than other places.

Of course the next level after chemical warfare is biological warfare. So we have GM foods that are resistent to incests or kill them with their special ant mandibles spliced with the eye sight of an eagle onto a potato. The attritional affects of these products on the body of course have been played down. And still the deaf, dumb, and blind march on like the well trained soldiers they are. You see in the 1950's DTT was sprayed everywhere from large farms to backyard vegetable patches with the assurance that spraying litres of posionous to all lifeforms chemical won't harm humans somehow. DTT is now banned except in Africa and South America where, funnily enough, we get a hell of a lot of our food from especially scrumptious DTT coffee. Anyway, the same logic seems to have applied to GM foods where the mantra of "it's not gonna kill you" has gone to its extreme limit in that it is already known that the long term effects of eating too much chicken fed with hormones will result in man titties or giant woman titties. (In Israel a scientific study in breast development found that many Israeli girls, thanks to a nice genetic combination as well, developed titties of such a size out of total proportion to their age and size). So how is that a strawberry spliced with fish genes that are able to cross species, shit no, cross whole biological categories of species cannot have some long term effect on somebody who may consume them for a long time? If growth hormones and Jewish genetics result in a land of milk and titties what kind of horrors await future generations with this new, and its a stretch to call it this, food?

At this moment take a minutes silence for all the unfortuante hundred of millions of people of North America who are the worlds largest pool of lab mice. Thanks to lax regulation other parts of the globe who are able to hold off GM will be able to say thanks to the American people for coming up with the "raw data" needed to prove empirically what was intuitively correct anyway.

Thales speculated in circa 500 BC that all life in the world came from the sea. It took over 3000-years for people to believe what turned out to be something that was intuitively correct. He most likely made that conjecture by observing that everything needs water to drink, animals are divided into those that are marine, amphibious/amphibian, and those who only like their water in sips. He noticed rain, moisture, and fog were all consitutent of a water like substance. He only theorized the theory of evolution without having visited the Galapogos, a carbon dater, or a geonme bank.

With all the attrition around us it seems utterly insane in the West that we would actually eat this Frankenstein Monster's food. But then again it comes down to people not realizing that when they are cleaning their kitchen with super strong bleach and "killer germ 300000!" they are also, in a small way, killing a little of themselves too.

Thus Man is not merely at war with his surroundings he is at war with himself; the Hobbesian "warre of all against all" taken to its absolute extreme.

The analysis could go deeper than that and this article is merely a springboard from which to launch your academic acrobatic diving routine into the shiny pool of chlorine attrition. And a final question; have you ever noticed how you always seem to catch a little cold after the house has been hygenically nuked or that obsessive cleaners always seem to be a little sickly?
My very short answer is that its the bacteria and viruses learning a little bit more about attrition.

"Please Mom.... I already met a nice conservative guy" on J-Date

2005-04-29T00:25:00.000+01:00

Well, well, feminism has reared her ugly head again to allow another sister to besmirch the efforts of good men. I have often tried to discuss with some women the merits of their role in history and the general opinion is that of the adage of antiquity; "Behind every great man is a great woman." So naturally following the logic of the Nuremburg precedent I ask them of their gender's culpability in some of Man's greatest crimes against humanity; doesn't Milosovic's wife bear some responsibility for the behaviour of her husband? Absolutely not is the retort!

In spite of feminism's noble beginnings to emancipate the majority of women who had to live under oafish men (you see in many wealthy families feminism had been achieved long before the 1970's) that made their poverty worse it has turned into a Frankenstein's Monster.

Of course, feminism still made it impossible for a man to pass judgment on a woman's sentiments without being accused of passing judgment on her character. But I will risk the possible maelstrom and pass a few remarks on "Hot Abercrombie Chick" of the University of Washington, St. Louis.

Firstly, that her site has an advertisement that I quoted in the title with a picture of a blonde woman with an expression that looks like something terrifying has crawled up her leg and begun to bite the inside of her ass does not bode well for the content. If she wants to pass comment on the actions of some mildly literate hippies at her University she needs to remove the advertisement that says "I'm only in university to find a husband from whom I can leech off for the rest of my life because I will bear healthy fruit with blonde hair and impress his clan with my quintessential neo-classical economic views."

Of course, I should clarify that is not to say that she is thinking in this manner but she ought to consider the message it sends if she is a thoughtful and reflective individual. Qualities any man of self conservation would like. You see any Jew worth his weight in wisdom knows to stay away from the girls of J-Date; I mean, C'mon. Read a bio of any these girls and its clear what they want is a stereotypical Jewish banker husband that can be whittled away into a shell of a man at a later date. This must be the Protestant Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the same process.

Secondly, her demur on protests on private property is quite misplaced for a young woman who feels it her right to express any kind of opinion at all in a predominantly patriarchal world. I suppose she would also have preferred a century ago that the police had arrested those repugnant suffragette plaguing universities across the Anglo-Saxon world. Then she could attend an all ladies university where she can learn the finer points of cooking and sewing and get married to a nice conservative guy who would periodically perform his matrimonial duty but generally prefer the Hispanic servant women.

Of course, I am being too harsh here and I should generalize this to all women of a such a vein of sentiment. It is just I get so irritated with these kinds of comments from women that automatically forces me to assume that if they had any sense they would always support protest in principle, even when opposed to its issue, or just shut the **** up, like Arnie would say. (See below for more and I don't believe in uttering obscenities in front of good ladies, I am far too conservative.)

Thirdly, to go back to my first point is that some women get away with too much. In terms of political utopian imaginings the man in a marriage represents strength of will, independence, and a little malice in protecting the interests of his family; the woman represents the part that will bring out his compassion, make him reflect upon his actions, and ultimately subdue his malice in magnanimity. However, many women force the opposite affect upon their men forcing them to be immensely cruel in accumulating their acquisitions and in their treatment of the less fortunate, often in the name of the family. Some "traditional" and "conservative" women also seem to wield immense power through their men by virtue of being the keepers of his heart and still, when his Empire falls, and his enemies seek their justice against him she will implore in the name of humanity that she is spared because she is a woman.

Bah! In Romania they demonstrated real feminism when they not only executed their hated tyrant on national TV but also his wife, his partner in life and therefore his partner in crime.

Lastly, I think that "Hot Abercrombie Chick"'s is a reflection of the sad state of our world and civilization today. All the good notions of antiquity are dormant. Instead, you have people acting out poorly improvised versions of the same drama over and over the centuries. We have barely emerged from the twilight of the Dark Ages and already dusk is drawing near; the liberated call out for their slavery. And so confirm to the powers to be that women seek domination and a Fuherer; that men are hapless before women and prefer to be led even when the path is clear before them. The sad truth is that her sentiments are widespread and common amongst those who were born without want and desire to live without care.

I wonder what her viewpoint is on her fellow women that must strip or sell their bodies so that they can get educated and receive job training for their long term? She says she expects people to live on their means, fair enough, but I wonder if she has ever entertained the concept of carrying capacity? Are her means sustainable in the next 10-years in light of data on all usable global resources (that includes the atmosphere)? Or does she think that if you're already poor than being a little more poor will not make that much difference? The Marie Antoinette syndrome. Of course, I think it may not be all well for me to criticise since I too am in a privileged position in life and a white male to boot but at least I am taking a moment to reflect and challenge my mortal coils before accepting them.

My Treatise on Human Nature - A typology of assholes

2005-04-26T20:03:00.000+01:00

Metaphysics has long been proclaimed dead, its claims deemed unscientific, its content not amenable to falsification or informed discourse. And yet we cannot exist in this world without our personal assumptions about what is knowable, what exists, and most importantly, what it means to be human. More interestingly, though, is the question what it means to be an asshole, the type of being others come to dislike over time, how to identify the asshole prototype at an early stage, and what constitutes him as an asshole.

I will list the basic material human needs, show different ways of responding to them, and then clarify the responses that identify the asshole at an early stage. The argument is that assholes are neither completely defined by their innate qualities nor merely designated as such by outside commentators, but that they exhibit asshole-like qualities when they face the obstacle of overcoming dissatisfaction with one of their human needs. The premise is that the obstacle is not impossible to overcome. For instance, a hopeless beggar that turns anti-social due to his inability to acquire food does not qualify as an asshole since no amount of reflection, change, or effort could fulfil his most basic needs.

Drawing on the scholarship of Giddens, Honneth, Wendt and other social theorists, let me present my list of general material (broadley defined) human needs:

1. Physical security: this includes water, food, shelter, and the protection of one's physical protection from harm.

2. Ontological security: humans need stable expectations about the material and, especially, the social world around them. Beyond physical security, this includes a stable place in and recognition from society, driving humans into an inherently conservative and homeostatic direction.

3. Sociation: human beings are social animals who need contact with each other and satisfy their needs for love and group membership trhough sociation.

4. Self-esteem: human beings need to feel good about themselves. This is primarily a function of social relationships , and as such its content can vary hugely, including "needs" for honor, glory, achievement, recognition (again), power, group membership (again), relative wealth, and so on.

5. Transcendence: human beings need to grow, develop, and improve their life condition. This is a source of creativity and innovation, and of efforts to remake their material circumstances.

The energy that human beings expend largely stems from efforts to meet these material conditions, which are in turn constructed by their material, social, and cultural environments. When these efforts are successful - our interests actualized - we feel satisfaction. If conditions 1-4 are met, the basis for a happy human being exists. But only when 5. (Transcendence) is achieved, can we speak of sustainable happiness for the individual and an amiable member of society.

So how do we identify the asshole? The first task is to run through the five material needs. Are any of them unsatisfied?

If those needs are not met and we can suppose that this leads to a lack of satisfaction, we need to analyze the individual's response. The most common reactions are the following:

1. Redoubling of efforts
2. A sudden change in "interests"
3. Using a valve (implicit or explicit unfriendly or aggressive behavior) for discontent
4. Reflection

A simple equation facilitates the understanding of these responses:
Asshole = malice + ignorance.

Malice is defined as the post hoc identification of 3. (using a valve).
Ignorance is defined as the presence of responses 1 or 2 with lack of 4. (reflection).

A lack of reflection is as much a cause as an effect of the lack of satisfaction since it automatically precludes 5.(transcendence) of the material needs.

People who fail to reflect on their unsatisfied needs and their previous course of action can be split into three categories:

A. The Android: the guy who always redoubles his efforts even though they fail, without changing his interests, using valves, or reflecting.

B. The Inconsistent: the guy who changes interests as soon as he fails to succeed without questioning the cause for his lack of satisfaction.

C. The Asshole: a complicated type who changes his interests to make his past failures seem insignificant, readjusting or denying his previous aims to account for his present results, who will use valves (such as moodiness, aggression, pessimism regarding others, or anti-social behavior) to vent his own dissatisfaction, and who will, lastly, redouble his efforts in order to achieve the aims that had, in fact, never genuinely changed. The mix of these three types of responses without reflection forever traps the asshole in a state of dissatisfaction with himself and with the world. Combinations of 1+3 and 2+3 occur frequently but, ultimately, this type will be most likely to express responses 1,2, and 3 (though perhaps over different periods of time).

According to this theory of human nature, what would be some examples of early detection signs?

Fads in interests, such as sudden changes in taste in sports, movies, or music, New Year's resolutions, mid-week resolutions, dieting fads, work-out fads, other new trademarks of vanity, abrupt idolization of individuals or groups, sometimes combined with a purposive change in social surroundings, suddenly redoubled efforts at achievement, whether academic or professoinal, coupled with an apparent lack of self-awareness.

Gay Marriage: Political Right or Societal Choice?

2005-04-24T20:35:00.000+01:00

The decision of all 11 states in the U.S., in which the gay-rights lobby had expected the greatest chances of victory, to ban same-sex marriage, has rekindled the debate about the political rights of homosexuals. This debate has often focused on the recurring, tedious argument neatly summed up by “Nature vs. Nurture”: are people born gay or are people conditioned to be gay by certain social influences? In terms of granting gays political rights, the source of their current condition is irrelevant. Injecting some spice, we may rephrase the question to ask whether people really are gay or whether they are merely interested in experimenting with same gender sex and act out of free choice. If they are born gay, the argument goes, it is not their fault and therefore they should be allowed to be gay, free from discrimination. The scientific community tends to support the view that certain individual desires are, in fact, inborn, while the exposition of those desires is context-dependent.

However, empirical results of the scientific community appear to be a shaky foundation for, what gay-rights supporters claim to be, fundamental political rights. Science – with its progress often dependent on revision – has hardly proven a dependable base for philosophy. And, frankly, I cannot imagine the gay community silenced by future findings in genetics that demonstrate that the human DNA is indifferent to variations in sexual orientation. But this uncertainty is also unnecessary from a philosophical point of view. Some people may be born gay and others may be born as paedophiles but their innate drive does not, in itself, offer justification for their behaviour. A scientifically deterministic stance never justifies specific moral acts. Furthermore, some people like to sexually experiment with members of the same sex although they are otherwise straight and others would try to sexually experiment with a child if the opportunity arises. The differentiation between a biologically-anchored condition and the choice of the opportunist is, in this instance, irrelevant. The response to this analogy is, of course, that consensual homosexuality between two adults, as opposed to paedophilia, causes no harm and that it should therefore be politically accepted.

This line of reasoning has, however, already forced the interlocutor to a shift in argumentation. We shall return to the notion of ‘harm’ later. Liberals frequently claim equal treatment for blacks, women, and homosexuals. Blacks and women were granted political rights on a congenital basis, on the contention that they had, by birth, the potential to be identical in their value to society as white males. Membership rights are attributed to people regardless of gender or skin colour in a society that is genetically inclusive. Similarly, membership rights are granted to persons, of whatever background, who are born with homoerotic, polygamous, or paedophilic desires. People are not only allowed to be gay, i.e. harbour homoerotic desires, but also to act gay in the same way that, by birth, women are allowed to act womanly and blacks to act black. Our innate differences, whatever they may be, are not in question. Women are allowed to concentrate on gossip, tabloids, and mascara. Blacks are allowed to dance, sing, and run. Gays are allowed to wear red belts, tight shiny designer shirts, and excel at hairdressing. In an imaginary society, a woman publishing gossip may constitute libel, a black person running from law enforcement may be illegal, and gay marriage may be outlawed. This example is not used to discredit homosexuality by equating it with crime, but to show the distinction between a congenital condition and an action, and, furthermore, to illustrate that society collectively decides what actions it deems ‘harmful’. Rights are attributed regardless of the hands initially dealt by nature while permissible courses of action are decided by society.

In order to fully justify the political rights of gays, a more philosophically grounded liberalism than congenital equality must be invoked. John Rawls’ first principle of justice, which I subscribe to, offers an option: “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties to others.” Along those lines, I believe in the political equality of gays just as I favour the legalization of suicide. However, modern societies are generally more purposeful in their character than John Rawls’ utopia. They entail some vaguely teleological core, some vision to self-perpetuate coupled with an ideal. Unless gay rights are to be deducible from a greater liberal principle – which would require a major restructuring of any current society – they will need to be the outcome of what I coin “societal choice”, a decision society casts collectively regarding its present and future character. The societal choice before the Californian constituency in November was not quite as obvious as it may have seemed. In the greater realm of a purposeful society, various minorities and members that are considered to be ‘harmful’ to the state are conscientiously disadvantaged by society. ‘Harmful’ is often an overstatement signifying the fact that these members are not furthering the aim, image, or ideal of the given society.

In the U.K., consensual divorces – as opposed to adultery cases – are contingent on a minimum of a two-year separation. In Italy, singles are ineligible to adopt children. Germany has recently imposed a punitive tax for singles as well as a tax raise for childless couples. All these decisions are discriminatory, yet they are founded on the hope of creating a certain type of society. The French decision to ban people from wearing religious symbols on public property may also violate certain notions of liberty. The majority of the French public welcomed the decision because it is definatory of French society to relegate religion to the private sphere. Perhaps California’s decision to ban same-sex marriage, along with the other ten states, is to be understood in a paradigm of societal choice rather than political rights. Californians may hold the preservation of a traditional, well-organized, and labour-divided household as the building block of society – to paraphrase Aristotle – as more essential to their way of life than the extension of marriage rights. The charge of gay-bashing and discrimination is quick to surface but so did the charge of anti-Muslim discrimination in France. Gays have not benefited any more from this stalemate than the French Muslims. It is time for the gay-rights movement to shift the terms of discussion from “political rights” to “societal choice” and engage in the task of articulating the social desirability to their neighbours.

The political rights route has led to little save the Coral Sea Islands, where a dozen disgruntled homosexuals have founded the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom in an attempt to create a society that does not discriminate against gays. Their citizenship policy is based on Israel’s right to return – it seems that they have learned little about the appeal of an inclusivist, liberal, democratic society. The choice is yours: “bon voyage”.

Are you ready for the big day? Convince your neighbours.

Los Mexicanos y Los Perros

2005-04-24T17:35:00.000+01:00

The number of illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico to Arizona has increased dramatically over the past year. Disappointed by the enforcement of the Border Patrol, three weeks ago volunteer citizens established their own observation outposts along the southeastern border in order to halt the hordes of Mexicans overrunning their houses in search for food and water. This has effectively pushed the incoming immigrants westward, where the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma touches the US-Mexico border for 60 km... Yuma is one of the largest training camps and firing ranges in the U.S., where virtually every marine squadron headed towards Iraq or Afghanistan is trained. More than 1,100 immigrants were picked up on the Marine training site last year - causing training to be interrupted 500 times - and 1,500 in the first three months of this year alone.

A Marine officer reported to the Boston Globe:

"Another big concern, he said, is the potential danger to undocumented immigrants: 'We just don't want them to come here, because we're firing lasers, we're shooting machine guns, we're shooting 209-millimeter cannons, and we're dropping practice bombs, and we don't want to hurt anyone.'"

Furthermore, "last summer a Marine pilot dropped a practice bomb on a target and seconds later, a few feet away, a small group of illegal immigrants scrambled from underneath a bush and ran down the range. The near miss was caught on a training tape that Cooney has reviewed."

Los Mexicanos have been crossing with impunity. So if the U.S. wishes to enforce its border policies, how should it proceed?

The first option, quickly disregarded, was to expand the U.S. target practice range across the entire border, posting signs on the fence warning of the machine guns, artillery, and lasers being fired and bombs being dropped. I am sure that the symbols would be self-explanatory even to the Mexicans. However, Mexicans have confirmed that they are more afraid of the volunteer citizens than of the Marines. One illigal immigrant was quoted: "Las bombas de los gringos no son peligroso para el grande Juan, Hijo de Juanita!" He was then reported to start running for his life after spotting a volunteer citizen in the distance.

Everyone knows that Mexicans are not afraid of a bunch of 18 year old inebriated conscripts who are not even combat-trained yet. It is thus necessary to tap into the Mexican subconscious. What scares them more than 209mm cannons, even more than volunteer citizens? Dogs.

They get the diarrea del chilli con carne when they see los perros, hunting them down like prey, longing for sangre like a puta for her pene. So the obvious solution to this mutually detrimental situation is to consolidate all the police and military dog training facilicites in the U.S. into the largest canine rearing and training center in the world, stationed along the Arizona-Mexico border. German Shepherds don't call the Border Patrol to handle trespassers. The force of deterrence may save lives after all.

A board commemorating those Mexicans that have died trying to cross the border. Could the solution be as simple as dogs?

Macroeconomics or Why Girls Suck at Games

2005-04-22T02:01:00.000+01:00

If you have you ever played a real-time strategy game, like Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, or Starcraft, you are bound to understand the world as an increasingly nuanced, intertwined relationship while not shutting yourself off from scrutinizing levels of analysis independently. Girls suck at these games and at explaining economic choice. Why?

Real time strategy games - games in which you play against a computer or human enemy while the clock is ticking - encourage us to think about an issue in a very dynamic way. Surely, certain decisions are made intuitively, based on our experience of the long hours we wasted away in front of a monitor during summer vacations in high school, but whenever we lose, we look back to see at which decision the game play went awry.

I played chess on tournament level for several years and that has helped my understanding of strategy. But how can strategy provide a solution to analyzing yesterday's problematic: if a worker is supposedly not interested in education and choses to clean toilets, can she demand a decent pay? My pawn always moved in expected ways (even sideways while I distracted the opponent by spilling soda) and I decided where to move it. It didn't have a choice.

So your average chess or bridge player couldn't begin the attempt of an explanation, lest they sound like this: "as my rook felt pressured from the doubled bishops, trapped next to its own knight, he decided to make his way across the perilous board in his quest of occupying a horizontal he could dominate and where, eventually, he may lay his nest egg."

And later: "recognizing he wasn't a queen or a pawn that has the potential to convert into one, the rook happily settled with his position in life. But as the game went on and more figures were cleared off the board, the rook demanded a more prominent role, which he would easily be granted due to the need of a concerted offensive." Well, unless you look at Germany post-World War II, not that many figures are ever cleared off the board.

That's the illustrious attempt of explaining every phenomenon in terms of purpose and psychology. It's the female explanation.

Any Starcraft player or economic analyst would cut that blather short. If you want to focus on the details of a (war-like) situation, you look at tactics. If you want to focus on the whole, you look at strategy. Females look at other shit. Starcraft players were the first gamers to use the terms micro-management and macro-management. They realized the constantly interdependent relationship while the best always upheld macro before micro.

A quick clarification (you can skip this if you've taken econ101).

This comes from microeconomics: the study of individual actors (households, firms) in the economy that usually looks at the interaction of several rationally-acting, predictable agents in a given environment that lead to determining the prices, which then determine production, distribution, and use of goods and services. That means you are seeing the world from a very limited perspective with calculable outcomes, only focusing on one or several units in a sheltered environment

Macroeconomics studies the aggregate economy, the way that all those little units interact on the whole, and how productive the system is based on GDP and the like. Macroeconomics focuses on issues like regulation, taxation, inflation, budget deficit, import/export ratio and unemployment.

How does a change in those variables affect the whole and how does it affect the different units?

In real-time strategy games, you first come up with a broad strategy of how to win. Then you manage all types of issues like your miniature economy, your production facilities, your workers and your soldiers. There is a decisive trade-off between those factors at every mouse-click. When you enter a battle you focus on the micro. A lack of micro-management will make you lose even those situations in which the balance heavily weighs in your favor. Too long of a distraction with unimportant tasks, however, causes financial mismanagement, inefficient production, and a lack of growth in your miniature state.

How does this tie into yesterday's scenario of the unskilled worker? The typical neo-con argument put forth by that Hot Abercrombie Chick was that it was the worker's life choices that determined his position and that his current position was a consequence of his free choice.

This is the "callous female explanation". Females are meant to be more empathetic but that's merely a useful myth. Explaining the worker's position as choice, determined by her mental states, goes right in the face of any gamer's or economist's understanding. Your average, pubescent, obese, soda-addicted, social misfit with corn in his braces StarCraft player would describe the worker's dilemma like this:

"Dude, I really gotta focus more on macro next game. I thought I was managing my guys so well, tricking that ZerglingMachine guy at every turn, and yet at the end I lost. I focused so much on always producing soldiers and attacking that I forgot about expanding my economy. And I didn't protect my workers. Clearly, I am the Darth Vader of micro-management but not even the quickest of clicks could have saved my workers or those last combat units once I faced the full force of an overpowering army built up with sensible macro. Due to my surprise and despair, those last units didn't even make the best possible choices, but in the end I could have averted this lose-lose situation by always looking at the big picture."

For those of you who aren't very game-savvy, the economic translation:

The decisions to keep inflation constantly in check, not allowing growth to occur out of paranoia of hyper-inflation, created economic growth without rising employment. The tax cut should have stimulated productivity, but it mostly affected the few rich who are already invested in the economy anyway. They weren't gonna buy more toilet paper cos they didn't have to pay tax on their stock market dividends. The tax cut was financed by cutting social services, which consumers then had to pay for privately - further limiting their consumption and investment capabilities. The budget deficit decreased investor's confidence. Usually you get a deficit through government spending in the economy, which fosters growth, but this time it was through a financially ill-advised war. And now crime is increasing again because we didn't focus on the workers, costing us even more.

Sure the worker had a choice not to take that job. But how many micro choices did she have? Clean toilets, Mop cum from nudy booth windows, manually masturbate wild cats, or let her family impoverish further. Of course, someone needs to clean the toilets and everyone is happy that she is doing it. But is it her choice to earn so little? No, we put her in a lose-lose scenario. Our macroeconomic (mis)management is responsible for forever trapping her in a toilet-cleaning, $5 job. If taxes had been raised to further support the needy, Medicare wasn't cut, no war had been started, she would be earning thrice as much with the opportunity for further education. Basically, she would be Norwegian. So much for free choice.

And that's why girls like Hot Abercrombie Chick suck at strategy games.

Twisting The Workers' Arms

2005-04-20T15:42:00.000+01:00

"Hot Abercrombie Chick", your typical vaguely libertarian, uninformed, philosophy major sophomore, authoring one of the most popular blogs on the net, gives her regurgitated wisdom on workers and their freedom of choice. In her blog entry, discussing students at the University of Washington at St. Louis protesting about the low wages earned by the unskilled university staff, she offers us a crisp depiction of one of the most disturbing yet widely-held beliefs by young Americans: no one twisted the disenfranchised workers' arms to clean toilets, they had the free choice to let their families starve to death.

Thank you for your piercing portrait of the pretty, self-contained, young woman that hopelessely fails to identify with other people:

"For shame. The workers, of course, make the choice to work here - no one is twisting any arms. Let's also remember that no one was twisting any arms when these workers decided to start having children they couldn't support on account of their not having any work skills.

I'm not against the workers. If you aren't interested in education and will be happy doing unskilled labor, that's your choice and I absolutely respect it. Money isn't everything, and it really doesn't take much to get by on if you aren't interested in fancy living"

What a brilliant expose of the fairy tale logic required to live unabashedly in a society that claims at once to offer every member the opportunity to succeed and offers the least support to the marginalized and the poor out of any country in the industrialized world.

Please bear me with my while I rearrange the arguments into a more coherent order:

1. Unskilled workers are unskilled purely based on their lack of interest in education.
2. No one twisted the workers' arms to take their jobs.
3. Therefore unskilled labor was their free life choice.
4. They must be happy doing unskilled labor.
5. Because they chose unskilled labor as their profession, they should not expect to raise children, since they will not be able to support them.
6. Money isn't everything.
7. Therefore they should not expect a high standard of living.

Jim Goad summed this up wonderfully in a short article entitled "silence the women and frighten the workers." Both are important but it scares me when women are able to embrace the concept of sustaining a poor, working-class unable to ever rise out of its position collectively, before we are able to silence these defemenized, android females. Jim Goad, in his casual genius, explicitly made the frightening of the workers contingent upon a previous silencing of the women. Why? So we wouldn't have to read Hot Ambercrombie Chick's mental menstruations.

Anyway, let's run through a little thought experiment presupposing that "Hot Abercrombie Chick" was born to a less fortunate background, with less adequate access to education, and into a less supportive family. She was, let's say, baptized "Hot Amber Chokesondick".

Background: since she was raped by her uncles, she developed a learning disorder, mostly focusing on overcoming her gag reflex to avoid domestic abuse. Her trailer park mom could not afford to provide for her after the age of sixteen, when she began to work as a "fluffer" - maintaining small-time porn-stars' erections between shoots - in order to earn minimum wage.

The life and logic of "Hot Amber Chokesondick":
1. She became "unskilled" in traditional labor due to her lack of interest in education.
2. (Almost) no one literally twisted her arm to suck dick.
3. Therefore sucking dick was her free choice (and I absolutely respect it).
4. She must be happy sucking dick.
5. Since she has no other qualifications, she cannot expect to reproduce. (But unfortunately she got knocked up.)
6. Money isn't everything. (But she found out that money goes a long way when you try to get an abortion.)
7. Therefore she shouldn't expect "fancy living" or a raise in wage because no one twisted her arm to have children.

Cogent argumentation at its finest, Madam philosophy major, I mean Trailer Trash Tramp!

Turned into her muddled narrative style, the life of "Hot Amber Chokesondick" looks like this:

"For shame. You tramp, of course, make the choice to suck dick - no one is twisting your arms. Let's also remember that no one was twisting your arms when you decided to get knocked up and couldn't abort on account of you not having any work skills.

I'm not against the whores. If you aren't interested in education and will be happy sucking dick, that's your choice and I absolutely respect it. Money isn't everything, and it really doesn't take much to get by on if you aren't hooked on methadone."

For an intellectually rigorous discussion of the issue, please refer to the two pages of comments I posted (#68-70) on her weblog.

The alternate reality of "Hot Abercrombie Chick"

Technical stuff

2005-04-20T08:30:00.000+01:00

Added the expandable posts function to the page layout.

I appreciate any comments and suggestions on how to change the layout of the page to make it more user-friendly or easy on the eye. Please let me know whether you like the changes made and anything further you recommend.

General "feedback": (a favorite euphemism among i-bankers)

"If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking" Lyndon B. Johnson once said. Well, I am the one making the thoughtful contributions here. If you can't see where this is going, esteemed reader, then you are advised to not leave any comments in the future either.

Return of the Rat

2005-04-20T00:25:00.000+01:00

Walt Disney Presents: the new super villain
"The Great Mouse Detective" (1986).

Word of mouth has it that the ultimate villain, Ratigan, has returned behooved with the powers of the Holy Spirit in the image of Ratzigan, a hybrid of rodent and Catholic. Anticipating this virtually secured box-office hit, here is a preview of Ratzigan's tune of return.

Return of the Rat

[Ratzigan:]
Now comes the real tour de force
Tricky and wicked, of course
My earlier crimes were fine for their times
But now that I'm at it again
An even grimmer plot has been simmering
In my great criminal brain

[Chorus:]
Even meaner?
You mean it?
Worse than the widows and orphans you drowned?
You're the best of the worst around
Oh, Ratzigan
Oh, Ratzigan
The rest fall behind
To Ratzigan
To Ratzigan
The world's greatest criminal mind

[Ratzigan:]
Thank you, Thank you.
But it hasn't all been champagne and caviar.
I've had my share of adversity,
thanks to that miserable second-rate detective,
Basil of Baker Street.
For years, that insufferable pipsqueak has interfered with my plans.
I haven't had a moment's peace of mind.
But, all that's in the past!
This time, nothing, not even Basil, can stand in my way!
All will bow before me!

[Chorus:]
Oh, Ratzigan
Oh, Ratzigan
You're tops and that's that
To Ratzigan
To Ratzigan

[Bartholomew:]
To Ratzigan, the world's greatest rat!

2005-04-19T18:16:00.000+01:00

Looks like Brown to me, they chose Ratzinger.

A whiter shade of pale

2005-04-19T16:58:00.000+01:00

We live in the heyday of election difficulties, controversies, and conspiracies. After the past two elections abounded with controversial claims and misunderstandings regardings the color of the smoke, what will the Vatican do today to let us know when the Holy Spirit has finally found its way into the new Pope?

One of the most serious causes for consternation in our age has been the confusion about election results. In the 2000 US elections, first Gore had won, then Bush. Questions arose regarding the eligibility of voters, absentee ballots, and spoiled ballots in Florida. Later the Supreme Court was called upon to make a decision on who should win. In the 2004 election, 10,000s of legal "challengers" were dispatched to the swing states to challenge the right to vote of suspicious voters, like Blacks, Mexicans, and stuff.

The Vatican's record looks no more promising although the problem appears to be an antiquated mode of transmitting election results. If the smoke emitted from the Sistene's chapel is white, a new pope has been elected; if the smoke is black, then the long hours of extensive lobbying, caucusing, and back-door dealings have been fruitless in creating a coalition of Cardinals strong enough to win the two-thirds majority requisite for launching the Holy Spirit up its' protege. The first record of confusion goes back to 1958, when the smoke, at first, appeared white to the onlookers - causing a huge spectacle - and then later turned dark.

In 1978, at Pope John Paul II's election, the smoke was first grey, then dark, then a lighter shade of pale. The smoke flares of the Italian army, used to color the smoke appropriately, had produced mixed results. Why entrust such an important task to an army that failed to conquer the Balkans in the 40s??

Properly pissed off at not being celebrated in due manner, John da Paul decided to revise the procedure by introducing the simultaneous ringing of the bells. However, today, once again the crowd was thoroughly discombobulated as a grey smoke emitted from the chimney right before noon, followed by the ringing of the noon bells.

The Vatican of the 21st century faces a couple of tough choices. Firstly, the Cardinals could sell exclusive television rights to Rupert Murdoch, have the election televised and include the entire world in the agony or the ecstasy of the election result live. Secondly, an adjudicating body (like the Supreme court) could be easily created. A dozen of chiefs and tribe elders flown in from reservations across the American mid-west would gladly sit on a panel of experts on smoke-signs.

Or lastly, simply make the smoke more obvious. If the Cardinals couldn't decide, make the smoke black; if they elected a moderate/progressive (like Martini) make it blue; if they settled for a reactionary asshole (like Ratzinger) make it brown; if they appointed a homosexual (like Prince Charles), create a rainbow flare. Seriously, its not that hard: just don't make it a whiter shade of pale.

The microstate outside my doorstep

2005-04-19T14:34:00.000+01:00

Courtesy of mashuga, who takes photos of the homeless around Pennsylvania & NYC)
"It's gonna be all right
On the nightshift
Oh you found another home
I know you're not alone
On the nightshift" ("Night Shift" by Commodores, Motown, 1985)

Meet my local AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) chapter of the homeless, centrally located right outside Angel tube station in North London, where a small community of dysfunctional men (and one elderly red-head woman) has fabricated a micro-state on public property. The “workplace” is Angel station, where the homeless ask underground travellers to donate their day travel passes in order to resell them for a price below the market value of a single journey ticket. Fortunately, in this 21st century interconnected world of a shrinking global village, social mobility has provided for flexible working hours, ad hoc shifts, and the proverbial mixing of business with pleasure.

After a certain amount of money is collected, the homeless individually make their way to the next off-license store to purchase their beverage of choice. The culture of the micro-state is communal in spirit, individualistic in ownership.

During the evening, as most of the men are seated on their “living room” benches outside the station, relaxing with a can of cider or a sprite bottle mostly filled with chemically-produced Polish vodka surrogate, reflections of their lives flowing beyond their watery eyes mirroring the warm light of the sun submerging behind the façade of Georgian architecture, a gentle breeze, caressed by the smouldering warmth of the British Lowland valleys, fondling their bedraggled hair and unkempt countenances, a fight erupts not afar. The vagrants working the night shift, who have been unable to collect the funds necessary to drink themselves into a comatose state, or have entered the belligerent phase succeeding an unintended process of sobering up, are employing all means available to their malnourished figures in order to maximize the damage meted out to their opponent. Offices are, after all, not privileged in their position of fostering fights and intrigues.

After the fight is settled and amends are made - the loser escorted to the “bathroom” at the Burger King across the street - as is necessary in such a small, tightly-knit community, the group slowly begins to shift towards its “bed rooms” next to the subway ventilation shafts. And yet another day draws to a close…

Catholics are Nymphos; Jews Love Juicy Johnsons

2005-04-16T01:16:00.000+01:00

Lubricated Pita: Are YOU ready for the stuffing?

A groundbreaking survey, in the upcoming issue of Esquire magazine, of the sexual sensibilities and behaviour of women around the world confirms many of my long-harboured suspicions. Despite years of denial on my Italian Catholic girlfriend’s part, I have entertained the notion that she is, in fact, a nymphomaniac. My argument had been that Catholic girls accumulate an enormous sexual tension over the years of repressed sexuality until they are finally freed from their vestal bonds, like the Hoover Dam riven asunder by the sublime force of a Ron Jeremy the size of Godzilla, their energy liberated to serve no master beyond their carnal impulses.

Esquire’s empirical study corroborates my account of las chiquitas catolicas by demonstrating that the top 3 countries with the horniest women are all Catholic. When surveyed whether they would rather cuddle or have pure sex, 83% of Italiane said “solo sesso, grazie.” Wait, that sounds strangely familiar… They are followed by the Spanish and, unsurprisingly, by the Brazilians - I mean, who would want to cuddle with a smelly, flabby, sex tourist? Well, then come the Germans, who restrained their awe-inspiring sexual vigour to not be conflated with Southerners in studies of global import (that will remain the official party line). The Swedish wanted the least sex and the most hugs, an obvious decision in the Scandinavian winter months.

Perhaps a more unexpected result is seen in Israel, the biblical Land of Milk and Honey and, apparently, cock-connoisseurs. When polled on how important size is on a scale from 1 to 10, Hebrew Honeys responded with an average of 7.4! The Italians, coming second, only returned an average of a mere 6.3. The stereotype of the greedy, acquisitive Jews certainly holds true in the shelter of their bedrooms once the humus juices start flowing, lubricating their tight pitas to build up an exhilarating expectation at the intromission of the swollen, severe schnitzel. I knew it: Jews LOVE juicy johnsons!

Freedom of the Royal Prerogative, Presidential Decree, and of the Press

2005-04-15T17:09:00.000+01:00

An honest campaign poster.

In the current UK election 'freedom' is playing a prominent role in the manifestos of all the political parties running in the various constituencies around the country whether it is 'freedom from taxation' or 'freedom from poor health services' to 'freedom for schools' all the parties are at it. Marginal, mainstream, or independents this, now unfortunately, nefarious word is everywhere; the second most used word next to it is probably terrorism or immigration, often interlinked in sentences and paragraphs.

These two words are part of a still developing interplay of language or speech acts, that is language understood as the most fundamental component of any physical or political action, which are altering the constitutional fabric of the self-proclaimed two oldest democracies; UK and USA. While these two words featured prominently in the American election (I think "election" is a misnomer) as they are during the current British one actual issues surrounding "freedom" and "terrorism" have been absent from the agenda of debate and manifestos (I have to say I tried to read the Conservative one but it nearly bored me to death and so did the Labour one which except for the differing degrees of targeting immigrants and length are the same; in effect for this election you only need to read one, and not much of them either).

In the Guardian newspaper issue of Tuesday 12 April, 2005 on page 13 there is an article on an issue that has generated no interest from the wider public or political parties:

"Ministers are to press ahead with the mandatory fingerprinting of new passport applicants [and those seeking renewal] using royal prerogative powers to sidestep the loss of their identity card legislation last week. The police are expected to given the authority to carry out checks against this newly created national fingerprint database"

This is to go ahead without public debate and against public opinion but it is unlikely to be brought up during the election because all mainstream parties agree on the fundamental premise of a fingerprint database of the entire population. Indeed, the Home Office Minister Charles Clark MP has even suggested the creation of a national DNA database to, that's right you've guessed it, help fight terrorism and protect our freedom.

Umm, a bit of Orwellian double-speak there but I think the British government over the decades has certainly mastered it along with continually diminishing standards of primary and secondary education since the early 1980's but on with the crux of my argument.

Since the 11th of September, 2001 and other al-Qaida sponsored atrocities in Spain, Indonesia, and Morocco the use of Royal Prerogative and Presidential Decree have been used in an unprecedented amount of times not seen since the Second World War. These have ranged from declarations of 'enemy combatants' in the USA to 'imprisonment without trial' in the UK or that 'two people standing next to each other may now constitute an illegal gathering.' For all this talk of freedom there has certainly been an explosion in the freedom of the executive to issue decrees and instructions without the consultation of the legislature.

But we are told nonetheless all is well in the West (except for terrorism, drugs, youth, crime, immigrants, Muslims, and disease) because we still have freedom of the press. On this I disagree because the Guardian newspaper I just quoted cost me 60p and if I wanted to purchase a news magazine I would have to shell out £2.75; what exactly is so free about this 'free press'?

Of course I will be told I am missing the point but I think profit margins have a circumscribing effect upon the press to be free in its analysis of current situations. For example, they all cite the freedom to support a particular party like the Daily Mail backs the Conservatives as 'free press' but all that is an admission of is freedom to disseminate propaganda by organizations other than the government. Another example is that in unison they all say that Conservative budgetary numbers add up according to economists from the City (the controversy is that that Conservatives want to reduce government borrowing, cut taxes, and raise spending) without any of them mentioning the fact the any economist from the City is going to say that because that's their ideological point of view and have always ideologically supported the Conservatives on their fiscal policies. Another example is that they rarely point to the electorate that this is not really a national general election in that it is not proportional but based upon local constituencies. And the final nail in the coffin of the 'free press' is that they consistently and systematically write within their pages on as many occasions as possible that the electorate is apathetic, or more apathetic than ever! Goebells always said that if you tell someone black is white enough times eventually they will believe you; repetition, repetition, repetition. This is the greatest travesty of the 'free press' in Britain in that they have single handedly convinced a pretty angry and frustrated populace (go out on a Friday night and you'll see what I mean) that they don't really care about politics.

So it seems in our day and age you have the freedom of mass surveillance by government bureaucracy, the freedom to be told that you don't care about anything by the press and shouldn't, the freedom to chose between three political parties that are all the same, and the freedom to blame this all on immigrants or the EU or both. In so doing the British people have handed the incompetent bureaucracy and politicians the freedom to combat terrorism by treating the domestic population as a threat since that is what is implicit in the desire for a mass database of pictures, DNA, and fingerprints; the simplest and crudest solution to combating terrorism.

Sooner or later 'freedom' and 'terrorism' will be interchangeable in public political discourse. It is a terrible shame both of these words have debased and bandied around like 5 dollar hooker and that the 'free press,' masters of speech, have done nothing to remedy this malaise of the English language and instead eat up and use it like six year olds after they've learnt the word "shit."

Having said all this I should point out that I still have the freedom to talk about this until my face turns blue, however, I often wonder how long this right will endure. 1 CCTV camera for 10 persons and rising, and from what I have read most British people say this makes them feel secure; and I have heard the dubious argument that if you're not a criminal, illegal immigrant, or terrorist you have nothing to fear from a national biometric database. What if you don't like the PM is my retort and the answer is, "It's a free country." Perhaps what British people really crave for is the right of freedom from freedom of decision.

Freedom's just another word

2005-04-14T23:06:00.000+01:00

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
Freedom ain't worth not nothing but it's free"

How does Kris Kristofferson's conception of freedom compare to George W Bush's?

When Kris Kristofferson left his professorship at West Point as well as his wife and two kids to head westward, he had the dream of becoming a country song writer. At first he lacked the big breakthroughs and the Oxford Rhodes Scholar and prospective revolutionary lyricist was reduced to washing dishes. Before reaching fame with his hit "Me and Bobby McGee", he was advised to remove a line that sounded excessively philosophical for the genre - the line that innumerable hippies would have floating in their heads during acid trips throughout the 70s:

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
Freedom ain't worth not nothing but it's free

While this definition of freedom inspired a generation of perma-baked students, overindulgent and irresponsible vagabonds, with a horde of otherwise semi-professional vagrants in its trail, a different view of freedom seems to prevail in our young, new century. George W Bush is not only the self-proclaimed "War President", he is also the most outspoken advocate and expounder of freedom. So how does the country President's conception of freedom compare to the country lyricist's?

The most obvious exercise in freedom-definition was probably offered in his second inaugaral address, mentioning the word 43 times. The first difference is the succinctness in Kristofferson's approach versus the muddled, versatile use of freedom in Bush's speech. For Kristofferson, freedom means a liberation from material goods, which lead humans to be bounded in their actions and ideas to a material world. The ability to deliberate and cast decisions based on purely immaterial grounds - removing mundane contingencies from our autonomous mind - is, in the first instance, the benefit of not caring about property or ownership or even mainstream beauty. In the second, more obvious, sense this also means that we are free in our actions in the physical world since we are not restricted in our movement or our opportunities by the things we own.

Kristofferson thus sees freedom in an instrinsically critical theory vein: freedom is not an entitlement, a public good to be regulated and secured, but the freedom from obstruction, from boundedness, from all the material things that distort our ability to think reflexively. Theodor Adorno, a critical theorist, at the beginning of the Cold War forecasted that "people have so manipulated the concept of freedom that it finally boils down to the right of the stronger and richer to take from the weaker and poorer whatever they still have." Freedom can be manipulated to serve material purposes, as we will see shortly, and if that is the case with political and economic freedom, then the only retreat is to create a Bobby McGee type of freedom that is liberating to the human qua human.

But although this conception of freedom appears noble to the stoned of mind, freedom must mean more than just not giving a shit about anything. Having nothing to lose is, sadly, not confined to physical ownership. Even when we feel that we own nothing that is so dear to us as to constrict our possibilities of action, we still have those possibilities because of our political rights. Kristofferson felt free because he was granted a palette of entitlements, from the right to vote and the freedom of speech, to the freedom of passage and the freedom from harm. These entitlements are not naturally maintained once you lose your possessions, they are only upheld today following centuries of struggle to achieve these basic rights. Many people in other parts of the world still don't enjoy these rights in 2005. Kristofferson wasn't aware how much he did, in fact, have yet to lose.

George W Bush, despite frequently being taunted as un-nuanced and extreme, builds a more complex construct of freedom. George II begins his definition with the prospects of building an "ownership society", the precise concept that Kristofferson saw as obstructive to freedom. This foundation is commonly known from John Locke who decided that property is created by mixing labour with goods (if you dig up oil, for instance, and run it through a refinery, it is yours to sell as petrol). The role of the government is then to ensure the independence and freedom of each citizen by maintaining status quo relations of ownership. Beyond this role, government intervention is seen as oppressive and unnecessary. The premise here is that free markets work efficiently and distribute the surplus of economic co-operation in "fair", not even, ways.

However, in order to maintain that system running smoothly, social support must be present somewhere to prevent high crime and incarceration rates - and it's not the government's job to interfere with the freedom of the people to rely on market forces. "By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear", Bush claimed in a shadowy remark referring to the privatization of social security. Freedom from want is not having to fear or experience a lack of financial independence. However, when working citizens are forced to invest parts of their own income to provide for old age - taking far greater risks in the market due to their smaller portfolio that leads to less diversification - their real risk of having financial wants in old age is far greater. Something's fishy.

"Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people."

So people gotta provide for their own pensions and when the shit hits the fan, the religious community is supposed to support them. The brilliant separation of government and state - take one half markets, one half church - voila. If Bush The Bible Buff had gone back to the Sermon on the Mount, he would have known that his recipe was flawed. After all, it was on that occasion that Jesus advised his listeners not to heap up earthly treasure because no one can pursue more than one master: “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Not so fast, we've got the conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute, to confuse us even more. Michael Novak, one of its trophy scholars, demonstrates how free capitalist markets actually reinforce strong, traditional, community structures. By what exactly, increased social mobility, outsourcing, or hire-and-fire?

Freedom appears to be the centrepiece of a certain way of politics for Bush, not an easily defined concept. But, nonetheless, freedom is roughly related to the right to own property and to manage that property free from intervention. But it's also about giving civil society the responsibility (and freedom) to provide for itself. Kristofferson does not acknowledge the frail nature and the significance of our political entitlements in the Western world as well as the need to have enough material things to subsist or to open opportunities. He is unable to think beyond material terms, and even in his materialism, he does not recognize that the bare necessities are a prerequisite for experiencing any type of freedom. Bush, on the other hand, is eternally trapped in his connection of freedom with ownership and independence that - just like Kristofferson's view - fails to account for the social and political freedoms that are just as important for personal fulfilment and the pursuit of happiness.

Edmund Burke, the original conservative, once claimed that Americans "sniff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze”. Well, 200 years down the trail of history, permanent markers and glue seem to be the only things commonly inhaled in the City Upon a Hill.

Kris Kristofferson kissing Barbara Streisand in Rainbow Road (1974): truly nothing left to lose.

The Empire Strikes Back

2005-04-13T01:08:00.000+01:00

So 20th century: Politically Incorrect Ads

While everyone nowadays seems to be preoccupied with Iraq, Islam, terrorism, al-Quaeda, and America's "imperial" or "neo-colonial" politics, the Japanese are slowly positioning themselves for the return of the Empire. If the tone of this log is unusually serious, then only because the subject matter dictates it. For decades, security experts have warned about the "yellow threat" but always with reference to the fact that China seems to be awaking. Napoleon supposedly once said "let China sleep, for when she wakes, the world will tremble." Well, China's flat-faced island neighbors didn't even slumber in the first place.

First, those industrious little Japanese ants used the fog of terrorist threats haunting the world to increase their defense budget for the first time in eight years, with a 35% increase in ballistic missile development. Next, they decided to discuss the revision of the "peace clause" (article 9) in Japan's post-war constitution, which binds them to eternal non-aggression and bans the development of offensive military capabilities. This is bound to be revised in November, though it is not likely to make its way through the legislative labyrinth of Japanese bureaucracy before 2007.

This changing face of Japan appears to be in line with other pro-nationalist developments, especially its historical revisionism. After Japanese officials refused to apologize for the brutal occupation of various regions of China during the 1930s, Manchuria in particular, as well as the infamous "Nanjing Massacre", Chinese protesters last weekend took to the streets for the first time in six years. A new Japanese history textbook also downplays the atrocities committed against its Asian neighbors during WWII.

Against this background of The New Old Japan, JAXA, the japanese space agency, unveleiled plans to compete for the moon, Mars, and other planets in the future. The programme entails the construction of a colony on the moon in order to explore the poles for traces of water that can be converted into hydrogen fuel. It seems that so much and yet so little has changed. While America is planning to create U.S. space marines, forces to be deployed in space in order to dominate communications, travel, and possibly engage in long-distance warfare with earthlings under the loony New American Century project, Japan enters the space race like it's 1957. Makes me wanna watch The Empire Strikes Back.

2005-04-13T00:57:00.000+01:00

But tan lines can be sexy (Igor Prose, oil on paper)

Sun, unusually good weather, and the fairer sex

2005-04-12T00:30:00.000+01:00

Firstly it is certainly in order to give a shout out to the vagrants who have survived the winter and it had never really occurred to me to do so until reading the last entry but it also occurred to me to do so because, at the end of the day, vagrants make everyone else feel so much better about themselves. Without vagrants British people would be even more whinny and depressed but then again some British people would like to deport them to vagrant processing centres outside the UK along with gypsies, refugees, immigrants, and poverty stricken hooligans. Oh yes it is most definitely election time but I am not going to write about that just yet but I will hopefully create a blog called "Super-Liar vs Super-Fascist en Anglais" or "UK election 2005: French Connection" and you can guess what the diatribe will be about.

Today, I am going to talk about sunshine. I love sunshine most of the time especially when it encourages young women to sunbathe topless so that most of their body can feel the fantastic warmth of solar radiation. You see, sunbathing is like irradiating yourself for extended periods of time under a nuclear reactor in the sky. But then again it is fashionable and especially amongst the fairer sex to subject your skin to this kind of solar abuse. I like to do it but only after applying some sun block which I usually hear a comment from some lady when out with a group that I won't "get a good tan." I am so surprised at the number of British people of both sexes who just don't bother with sun block or think that spf .5 is good enough; not only do they look ridiculous when they are burnt into the colour of a lobster but they seem oblivious to the fact that youth is a passing moment and dermatologically an even faster moment when you sit out in the sun like that. Solar radiation ages the skin.

What is even more dumb founding is that many of these people are aware that the ozone around Earth is depleted and that there is a phenomenon called global warming going on but its although they have point to prove to the universe that their skin is cancer resistant when the universe is more than happy to give cancer to anybody stupid enough to lie in the sun for weeks on end.
Indeed, everyone from sunbathers to elderly gardeners are enjoying this sunshine and "unusually good weather" so much so nobody could be arsed to find out why its going except for a few thousand tired scientists and myself who nobody cares to listen to.

But then again I'll be able to know when to build my ark while you're all enjoying the good weather and hopefully you'll know how to swim while I float safely away in my ark which will have two women of every nation aboard to preserve the diversity of humanity once the majority is drowned. Just kidding there won't be a flood, at least not this summer, but more of an accelerating amount of "unusually good" and "unusually bad" weather as our illustrious journalists, weather men and ladies, and other media commentators like to say.

I suppose this has no point other than to say while you're out enjoying the weather and the electioneering just stop to think about it for one moment in your busy lives of iPods, fashionable boots, sunglasses, ignoring the homeless, being rude to strangers, magazines, and the like that keep the multitude happy and content while slowly irridiating their youth away only so that they will end up spending thousands of pounds a year on cream, surgery, and poison (Botox is a kind of poison injected into the skin if you were unaware) later in life to look like those people in the magazines that they hope they look like right now. It is a sort of reverse narcissism isn't it? Funny that the same companies that market all this youth cream and the like also fund the magazines that encourage you, the multitude, to go sit in the sun without sun block so that summer pastel colours won't look drab on your white skin that hopefully should be a tender roast chicken skin colour. Amazing coincidence.

P.S. "multitude" is the now PC way of referring to what was formerly known as the "masses" and hopefully some day this amorphous biomass will once again be referred to as the "myriad" and then back to its traditional categorical noun of "slaves".

Valiant Vagrants and Loutish Lobbyists

2005-04-11T01:57:00.000+01:00

As we finally escape the vagaries of English weather and adjust our libidos to the impending summer, those valiant vagrants who survived this year's hibernation under Waterloo Bridge and around the benches of Hyde Park - just like the squirrels -, too, flock out of their dusky shelters and into the limelight of our high streets. First off, I would like to give a shout out to my local vagrants in the hood of Islington, 286 of you "unintentional homeless with priority need" made it through the winter! So now that the dust has settled, you must feel like you're in the playoffs after a seemingly rough season. We did lose a couple, and though my thoughts and pennies are with you, I told you not to waste MY cash on that foul Burger King coffee. It's worse than Fair Trade coffee, you had been warned.

Frolicking around England's largest playground, sporting our sunglasses to shade us from the uncomely phenomena reappearing in our sight, deafening our sense of sympathy with summerly iPod tunes, we cannot escape noticing that a rather sobering event is coming up - the UK general election. And guess who has enjoyed a head start in publicizing its election manifesto? No, not the Liberal Democrats, they are still hiding in the undergrowth to find their perfect last-minute niche. Amnesty International was the correct answer. Since I last reported on AI issuing credit cards, it has raised over 1 million pounds with its grand scheme of "Ethical Bankruptcy". But I can assure the insolvents that this sacrifice was necessary to fuel the AI campaign with financial impetus. In return we receive the Amnesty International UK Election Manifesto 2005.

One of the clauses reads, "people harmed by UK companies’ operations overseas should be able to seek redress in UK courts, when there is no effective remedy in the country where the damage occurred." Well, I guess those 1 million pounds weren't spent on purchasing an intro to International Law book. If the company is, in fact, registered in the UK, then anyone with a sufficient linking-point or connection will be able to utilize UK jurisdiction in a legal dispute. Personal harm is indubitably sufficient to establish a legal link, especially when local legal remedies have been exhausted to no avail. After all, foreign corporations frequently sue UK companies in UK courts for injustices committed abroad. The present problem is not one of jurisdiction but one of practicality. Most people harmed by UK companies are not able to tour the British scenic spots for a few months while hiring a law firm to restore justice. The average person harmed is some child laborer without the political power to round up support, the legal right to gain entry to the UK, or the financial means to issue high-return credit cards, let alone book the next flight from Yangon, Myanmar to Heathrow. I implore the loutish lobbyists at AI to, at least, use the credit card revenues towards a library membership or a used intro to int'l law book - or even to help the 28,890 homeless in England, AI's largest donor country - before printing out millions of copies of superfluous crap on laminated paper.

"The EU should take a lead internationally in the area of human rights", the election manifesto further proclaims. Since when is an allegedly independent, apolitical non-governmental organization supposed to comment on who should take the lead in which department of foreign policy? Firstly, the EU has just about as many conceptions of foreign policy as member states, so why complicate this intractable political process? Mind you, this is the UK election and although the UK will have the EU presidency in 2005, this does not grant a little non-elected, nepotistic secretariat of a NGO to influence the election outcome in a single country in order to hijack the foreign policy of the other 24 member states. What happened to the human rights, e.g. the right to representation, of the 250 million voters in the EU not participating in this election?

Furthermore, AI vows to support those candidates, parties and MPs that are willing to promote its manifesto. Perchance it's not so bizarre after all. "If McDonald's can sponsor the Olympics", Amnesty executives brainstormed behind closed doors, "why couldn't we sponsor Michael Howard?"

The Inspirational Sponsorship

A late night visitor

2005-04-06T02:23:00.000+01:00

Finding an odd ip address late at night, I stood repeating
'Tis some visitor entreating entrance to my chamber door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance to my chamber door,
This it is and nothing more.
Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,
Stroking keys I never dared to stroke before,

Deep into the network peering, long I searched there, longing, fearing,
Doubting, reading lines no admin ever dared to read before,
Let me see then what thereat is and this mystery explore-
Tell me what thy fishy name is from Japan's benighted shore?
Quoth the Jap, "a weblog whore."

I am famous, I got visitors from Utsunomiya, Japan ^^

Technology and the ever deepening depression of Man

2005-04-06T01:08:00.000+01:00

After having written a long blog about the UK general election on which I have been wanting to share my views with the World Wide Web some stupid Microsoft fucking error erased everything I had written on the subject leaving me feeling utterly dejected and angry. It is at times like these that Rousseau's ideas on the State of Nature come back to chill me. To paraphrase he said that Man's wants led him into an endless cycle of unhappiness because after one want was fulfilled the loss of it would make him miserable but by having it it also made him miserable because he only made him want and more.
Thus at this very moment I am cursed. As much as I wish I could do away with my mobile phone (cell phone in American) because it turns me into a possible blip on a radar screen I couldn't be arsed to carry around a little black book with all my bitches and bros phone numbers. Having said that has anyone ever wondered about the fact that the best precision guided missile can hit a person within two meters of where he stands, sits, or sleeps and that a mobile phone can be traced via satellite within two meters of where it stands, sits, or lays? Usually quite near the owner of said phone. Anyway, I suppose this is way of introducing my own style of writing as opposed to that of Prospective Despot and I will return to write about the UK election of Super-Liar lite vs Super-Fascist lite vs some drunk Scot liberal AND more importantly find a better a name than Neo-Post-Conservative Hippie like, Uber-Bastard for example.

Sexpert bound to be degraded

2005-04-05T15:39:00.000+01:00

Violet Blue: wonder what Manuel Ferrera would do with those fishnets?

Self-proclaimed Sexpert and best-selling author Violet Blue offers us her much-needed guidance in watching our first pornographic video as well as some comments on wise porn selection. Before you start watching that first dirty movie, "be sure to have the following items ready: lube, a dildo, vibrator, and/or towel"!? I don't know about everyone else, but I had seen porn long before owning any sex toys.

If you've got a stash of toys with pumped-up batteries ready to rumble, chances are that Violet Blue doesn't have much useful advice for you in store. She then expounds that "porn comes in so many flavors and viewers bring so many different appetites to the table that the makers of porn try to appeal to as many tastes as possible in a relatively short amount of time." Obviously, everyone has different red buttons or double-key ignition systems. However, she feels the necessity to teach me about healthy sexuality:

"As a general rule, we never carry a film that is demeaning or abusive toward women, or includes any racist or discriminatory content -- of any kind. We make sure our tapes portray healthy sexuality, meaning that they depict positive attitudes about sex (no sexual shame allowed!)"

Say that again? A lot of steaminess and eroticism is produced by the (latent) tension between domination and submission. A mere co-operative effort - as between a dutch village stuffing the holes in their dike (I mean the dam) - is just not very tantalizing, even when translated to full-fledged sex. Neither is Tsunami "relief", as displayed here. Demeaning behavior towards women is one of the cornerstones of good sex. Just because Violet Blue's sexual vocabulary stops with cunnilungus and cow girl, doesn't grant her permission to prescribe to the other 6 billion sexual participants what's healthy.

For instance, "converting" a teenage Neverland Ranch escapee by Barebacking trespasses what most of us consider healthy sexuality, but the type of subtle abuse dealt to Manuel Ferrera's co-stars doesn't. After all, the Dirty Frenchy won Best Foreign Performer of the Year 2004 in the AVN Awards , the Oscars of the Wild. The inability to eroticize certain actions is a common female feature, since women are often too "complex" to translate visual impressions into erogenous images. So don't tell me what's healthy, feminist!

Goin' down with ethics

2005-04-04T21:47:00.000+01:00

The newly-launched Platinum range: for the big ethical spenders.

Following years of paradoxical neologisms linking the moral sphere to the entrepreneurial spirit of investment, Amnesty International has finally landed a breakthrough in interdisciplinary products. The Amnesty International Credit Card. The 90’s made the free-market macroeconomics of development “sustainable“, brought about “business ethics” as guidelines to oil our corporate machinery, and taught us about ways to invest that avoid alcohol, tobacco, energy, defense, and newspaper (?) equities coined “ethical investment”. The principle was, of course, as applied by the Anglican Church, that it is only responsible to join the electronic herd of leveraged short-term investors while adhering to a grand scheme of ethics.

The record today, as expected, shows Wallstreet: 1, Church of England: 0. Tobacco, Alcohol, Energy, and Defense stocks outperformed the market. Fair Trade coffee didn’t. So if you got cash to blast, check out one of the Eastern Europe Convergence funds or indexes and stay the hell away from that Church. I would entrust my portfolio management to my grandmother - even following a regrettable heart-attack and a stroke - before giving it to some theologian who thinks that the spirit of Jesus is going to make those beans any cheaper or tastier. Fair Trade coffee tastes worse than roasted Brazilian butt-crack cream.

Due to sub-par historical returns the Church of England is now revising its policies to discuss the inclusion of economic sectors previously deemed unethical. The Bloomberg consensus indicates that media, alcohol, and energy companies are likely to be included in that new expanded (neo-ethical?) portfolio, Big Tobacco and Pornography being relegated to play second fiddle until historical returns data or ethics change - likely to occur in tandem.

Following the failure of that attempt to couple principles with profits, Amnesty International has now released a promising new product, their own Credit Card range. AI investment strategists have apparently discovered what my Jewish ancestors have known for centuries: it’s easier to make money by forcing other people to pay extortionate rates on debt than to share the profits with the people you invested in. Of course, I suspect that this was one of the last business plans bequeathed to AI by its late Polish Jewish founder turned Catholic, Peter Benenson.

The practicalities of this are simple enough. The NGO issues credit cards with unusually high late fees, penalties, and handling costs. As their clients plunge deeper into the depths of their financial abyss - paying ever higher fees - they start to create the capital necessary for the NGO to publish magazines, erect new headquarter buildings, and recruit employees who are then trained to write heart-wrenching letters to dictators across the globe. Already, the thought of losing one’s financial independence - especially if one is treading a thin line, as are most British citizens - becomes a lot less unsettling once it is established that every 14% paid on short-term debt goes to a cause more noble than one’s mundane livelihood.

I shall coin this principle “Ethical Bankruptcy” - goin’ down with style in the 21st century.

Vatican Vacuum and Bloodbath in Church

2005-04-04T09:36:00.000+01:00

Saturday night, while I was drinking white russians from a pint glass, the first non-Italian pope in a couple hundred of years passed away, clearing the way for posthumous judgement. My tentative balance sheet is, if not showing bankruptcy, then at least pointing to a high probability of ethical Chapter 11 proceedings. The problem is that his over one billion constituents, dependents, and stakeholders will be unable to retrieve any previously invested assets. Chapter 11 works better for the dead than the living, it appears, though the Catholic Church has had very swift guilt-clearing procedures from purchasing indulgences to spending a couple of minutes in a dark booth with a smelly, old man. In any case, good ol' Paul was granted immunity, and thus acted with impunity, while holding office. And if the papacy would grant only temporary immunity, I have feeling that a lot of the contenders for papacy would think twice before risking the possibility of ending up like good ol' Pinochet.

As I have been advised by my Italian Catholic girlfriend, however, it is indecent to judge someone so quickly after his death, before the last drops of infected urine have even dried on his paroxysmal penis. Although I do not count John Paul II as a member of the private sphere of individuals whose life and death is not treated as a public concern - and thus history does not continuously dissect and reconstruct their lives - I respect that general sentiment of sympathy that people felt even as Arafat put his probably AIDS-infected penis to rest for the last time. Having said that, I will wait the necessary four to six days that the Congress of Cardinals takes to bury the pope to dig up some dirt. One feature will be about Paul and Pinochet.

The tough last hours and days of waiting for the biological death to be announced were not only onerous for the two million mourners assembled in Rome. The spiritual vacuum created by the loss of the pope affected people around the world, leading one misguided church-goer to slay a woman and injure three others with a sword in a church in the otherwise uneventful Southern German city of Stuttgart. Of course, the police claimed that personal problems were the cause of that Medieval act. However, not 24 hours had passed since the pope had died. Most likely, the perpetrator had just read the newspaper Sunday morning, acting impulsively and devoid of papal guidance only hours later.

This crazed ethnic Tamil man, like many of us, didn't appreciate what he had before the Lord took it away. "Will you also set aside My judgment; will you condemn Me so that you may be justified?" Job asked Jehova, and if that church-goer had finished reading the Book of Job, he would have known that, even having lost everything, it can be recovered and happiness is possible at last because Jehova would never neglect the rectification of a wrong. Maybe he was more into ancient Greek ethics and saw that, taking Aristotle's example of King Priam of Troy, even when we lose everything, having done the right acts for the right reasons, there is nothing that we ultimately lose that is so dear as to revise our path of action. I'm not sure killing a woman with a sword in a church qualifies but perchance my ethnocentric outlook is too dense to understand ethnic Talims?

Stuttgart: proud home to Mercedes, Porsche, and Bosch.

Kylie Ireland and Female Protean Dexterity

2005-04-03T21:19:00.000+01:00

Paragon of animals: her X chromosomes are tenfold as complex as a Y chromosome.

As this is my first blog, perhaps a sentence about the choice of title would be in order. In case you have not guessed, it is actually not a rambling rant outlet, but a reference to that revered human rights organization whose name shares an uncanny resemblance. And yet, beyond its self-proclaimed impartiality in matters of human rights, this NGO has proven adept at creating its very personal axis of evil, usually related to the tyrannous U.S. and its alleged mini-me called Israel. So you can expect a few postings about AI and the 100,000 NGOs (though I may omit some for brevity's sake) that waste the space and pollute the air of our ecosphere today.

I will update you on any non-compromising progress towards my dream of owning my own little island. And a small but effective ex-Soviet mercenary force to guard its territorial integrity and, more importantly, conquer the hearts and souls of the natives. Furthermore I may update you on other little-known shadowy acts of political maneuvering and, indubitably, on any earth-shattering developments in the beloved adult entertainment industry. Or, sometimes, I may pose a question to stimulate those worn-out neurotransmitters roaming around idly in your brain.

For instance, reviewing a recent release ("Ass Wreckage") of pornstar-cum-director Kylie Ireland, one film critic eloquently mused: "How do you direct a title with a dick in your ass...?" Conflicts of interests, too, arise in the smut business.

Hailed as "one of the adult industry's most versatile performers" by Wicked Pictures, Kylie defies the stereotype of the female multi-tasking superiority as restricted to reading tabloids, catching carcinogenic rays, applying lip gloss, and overhearing the neighbors' conversations simultaneously. Quentin Tarantino can make movies but couldn't act his way out of a nutsack. Clint Eastwood can do both but only in slow motion and with plenty of breaks. Kylie Ireland lets directors from Cannes to Hollywood pale against her inspiring displays of innate protean dexterity - and in real time. Respect.