Saturday night is red wine, low fat rice snack, (the healthy alternative to chips, even though I prefer chips, they make me fat,) and movie night. And around eleven o'clock, when everything all looks a little bit Frank Gallagher blurry, the pinnacle of the night's excitement, (we do have a baby you know, if you think it should be other things,) is Shameless.
We LOVE LOVE LOVE Shameless.
Maybe it's got something to do with the quirky, dysfunctionally obscure characters and their quirky, dysfunctionally obscure relationships and lifestyles. Maybe it's got to do with the fact that all those people live the next suburb down from me. The suburb I lived in in my twenties as a young married born-again Christian, just fresh out from a mentally disturbing experience with, you know, all those things late teens/early twenties people think are cool to do. Then I found God, as you're apt to when the only choice left is between God or the psyche ward of the local hospital. God damn, I even used to try and evangelise those people!
Maybe it's the way the show vacillates between utter hilarity and heartbreaking tragedy with such precise execution of the script, without ever falling into bland sentimentality. And isn't that just like real life? No one's life is a constant. We all find ourselves propelled suddenly and with shocking violence from one to the other at times. Oh the joy of revelling in someone else's dysfunctional lifestyle.
So all those critics of dysfunctional family drama, (I'm talking to you Dr Phil and Rabbi Shmuley,) pull your heads in I say. Shit, life is short, not nearly long enough for every man, woman and child world-wide to discover self-enlightenment and find Shalom in the Home. Can't we just take a little comfort from the fact that we aren't alone in our sordid, fallible human imperfections? I'm sick to death of the New Puritans. Yeah we need to help each other out sometimes, yeah we all desire to strive for those ideals that offer us a better familial, harmonious way of life, and yeah Dr Phil and Rabbi Shumley have tools to offer us in that quest, but let's not get too fundamental here.
Because in the end Dr Phil, what you offer is not just psychological well-being, but in the context of television, you also offer us another consummer commodity. Wholeness. The New Puritans are forever telling us the right things to eat, why we shouldn't smoke, how bad alcohol is for us,(especially when pregnant, but go tell the French that.) This week red meat causes cancer, next month they'll tell us red meat is good for us, in moderation, and that it's chicken pumped with steroids that's bad for us. The New Puritans are busy banning smoking in pubs. They're busy scaring us with television exposure to the new epidemic of crystal meth. The New Puritans are busy scaring us off anything that might kill us, they're even waging war on old age. They're busy fixing all our psychological pains and imperfections so we're happy and industrious. And if the New Puritans have their way, we'll all be shining, almost immortally healthy epitomes, of perfect little corporate worker ants.
Oh little New Puritans, how cute you are in all your American optimism. How truly sincere and compassionate your well meaning little hearts are. We do appreciate you New Puritans. I for one can honestly say that my life has changed for the better from the gleaning of some of your wisdom. I moved out of that Shameless suburb down the road, and now only drink wine in moderation, and don't throw plates at my new boyfriend (as much as I did with my last husband,) and my family's almost normal. (A statement which could almost set off a whole new debate.) But New Puritans, we don't live on the front cover of a cereal box. And you don't have to be afraid that watching a few dysfunctional families on television will glorify the agonising pain of real life relationship problems. And it's ok, we all know that real life families with dads like Frank Gallagher, never actually produce such well balanced children. Please, we're not total idiots!
So tonight, I'm going to give you all the bird, and settle down with a big sigh of relief as the nutcases of Chatsworth Estate grace my screen with their refreshing imperfect humanity, and I'm going to say to myself as I watch them, "thank fucking God for the Gallaghers." And I'll eat my low fat rice snacks instead of my chips, and stay thin and healthy.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Chahinaz: What rights for women?
The night before last, I watched a show on SBS about a young Algerian woman named Chahinaz, was looking for answers in respect to a woman's role and rights in her own culture and in other cultures internationally. She talked to women from many different religious and educational backgrounds, in many different countries, and questioned the oppression of her own culture in regards to women, and in other cultures, and explored the ways in which oppression was instituted, (including traditional religious belief structures as she experienced it through her own culture,) and also ways in which it could be fought, through changing wide-range perceptions, through the law, and in more militant forms of revolutionary ideology.
I don't know a lot about Algeria, but it was confronting to watch the video footage of her and her friend walking down the street while not wearing a veil. The were heckled and verbally abused with comments like: "Hey, where do you think you're going dressed like that?" To my eyes, they were dressed in very demure, respectable and understated clothing. And when you come from a culture like my own, where almost any type of clothing now appears to be permissable, (although this is a complex issue in its own right,) it's hard to imagine how you'd fare in a more restrictive culture.
She was an intelligent, passionate young woman and I had great admiration for her, as she managed to motivate herself to compile such a slick documentary and have it distributed for viewing in enough nations so that I in Australia was sitting there watching it in my lounge room on a Tuesday night. The highlight for me, were the interviews with the two Irish women Nell McCafferty and Mary Robinson. You can watch all episodes of Chahinaz's journey from this web link, if you have broadband:
http://www.madmundo.tv/en/chahinaz/home-page/
Watching Chahinaz's story came at a time for me where I was being posed questions in my Master's writing subject about the nature and importance of cyber-feminism. The first thing I thought as I watched Chahinaz's documentary, was of how little importance the Internet was in terms of changing real-world woman's rights issues, especially in the face of how few women, (and people in general statistical terms,) have access to the Internet. All of a sudden it seemed so impotent and full of nothing more than fancy ideologies.
But after some thought, I came to the conclusion that cyber-feminism is in fact important and for more than just ideological reasons.
One academic whose work we've been looking at is Donna Haraway,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway
Haraway poses theories on the notion of women as cyborgs in the Internet or computing world, and how this concept frees women of the political constructs that reduce them to bodies. I like some of what Donna Haraway talks of, particularly in ideas relating to cyber-feminism as a tool for political action and the positive concept of utilising machines as tools for liberation. I like her critique of capitalism. Although I am adamant that to be accepted equally in a society, I must do it in my own body, in my own skin, and have that also accepted, as it is a large part of who I am.
There's much I admittedly don't understand about Haraway's work, having only briefly skirted over it. But I do agree with her on the point that women have to keep current with technoscience if they are to be included in the discourse of evolving technology, or the gap will widen leaving women behind through lack of knowledge. We always need to be right in the middle of where the argument takes place, and right at the cusp of where the future is being created.
The other thing that struck me, is the ratio of women to men involved in computer programming science technology. Men far dominate this discipline and I wondered on how important it is that women do not just utilise modern technology for discourse or to break traditional modes of thought, but how we also need to contribute directly at a ground roots level in shaping the modern technological culture of our time. Because it's at this level where where major technological issues are raised in regard to managing software, industrial practice, computer science and policy making. And where there is matters of policy making and industrial practice, there are, or should be, matters of ethical and moral substance. Where are the female Bill Gates? And if you find capitalism as abhorent as I do, where are the female Linus Torvald's? (Creator of Linux.)
If someone has more knowledge than I do on this issue, and can offer me some evidence of women out there who are tackling these issues head on, it would be greatly encouraging to learn of them.
I don't know a lot about Algeria, but it was confronting to watch the video footage of her and her friend walking down the street while not wearing a veil. The were heckled and verbally abused with comments like: "Hey, where do you think you're going dressed like that?" To my eyes, they were dressed in very demure, respectable and understated clothing. And when you come from a culture like my own, where almost any type of clothing now appears to be permissable, (although this is a complex issue in its own right,) it's hard to imagine how you'd fare in a more restrictive culture.
She was an intelligent, passionate young woman and I had great admiration for her, as she managed to motivate herself to compile such a slick documentary and have it distributed for viewing in enough nations so that I in Australia was sitting there watching it in my lounge room on a Tuesday night. The highlight for me, were the interviews with the two Irish women Nell McCafferty and Mary Robinson. You can watch all episodes of Chahinaz's journey from this web link, if you have broadband:
http://www.madmundo.tv/en/chahinaz/home-page/
Watching Chahinaz's story came at a time for me where I was being posed questions in my Master's writing subject about the nature and importance of cyber-feminism. The first thing I thought as I watched Chahinaz's documentary, was of how little importance the Internet was in terms of changing real-world woman's rights issues, especially in the face of how few women, (and people in general statistical terms,) have access to the Internet. All of a sudden it seemed so impotent and full of nothing more than fancy ideologies.
But after some thought, I came to the conclusion that cyber-feminism is in fact important and for more than just ideological reasons.
One academic whose work we've been looking at is Donna Haraway,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway
Haraway poses theories on the notion of women as cyborgs in the Internet or computing world, and how this concept frees women of the political constructs that reduce them to bodies. I like some of what Donna Haraway talks of, particularly in ideas relating to cyber-feminism as a tool for political action and the positive concept of utilising machines as tools for liberation. I like her critique of capitalism. Although I am adamant that to be accepted equally in a society, I must do it in my own body, in my own skin, and have that also accepted, as it is a large part of who I am.
There's much I admittedly don't understand about Haraway's work, having only briefly skirted over it. But I do agree with her on the point that women have to keep current with technoscience if they are to be included in the discourse of evolving technology, or the gap will widen leaving women behind through lack of knowledge. We always need to be right in the middle of where the argument takes place, and right at the cusp of where the future is being created.
The other thing that struck me, is the ratio of women to men involved in computer programming science technology. Men far dominate this discipline and I wondered on how important it is that women do not just utilise modern technology for discourse or to break traditional modes of thought, but how we also need to contribute directly at a ground roots level in shaping the modern technological culture of our time. Because it's at this level where where major technological issues are raised in regard to managing software, industrial practice, computer science and policy making. And where there is matters of policy making and industrial practice, there are, or should be, matters of ethical and moral substance. Where are the female Bill Gates? And if you find capitalism as abhorent as I do, where are the female Linus Torvald's? (Creator of Linux.)
If someone has more knowledge than I do on this issue, and can offer me some evidence of women out there who are tackling these issues head on, it would be greatly encouraging to learn of them.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
What on earth...
... what makes you think I dislike your style of politics John Howard?
(OK, so it's a bit juvenile. But we all need a bit of comic relief now and then.)
Fish and Chips or Smoked Trout Risotto?
Again and again I find myself coming back to Channel Nine, like a bad addiction. Always knowing that it's doing strange and disturbing things to my psyche. But I can't help it. I go into denial. I tell myself all sorts of things to seduce myself and put myself to sleep over it. Things like, "it's all just a harmless bit of entertainment." Hey, sometimes it really can be. I make no apologies for that.
But there are undeniably some aspects of Channel Nine that make it the trashiest, (part of its appeal,) most insidious mouthpiece for the rich and powerful, that's around right now. To watch Channel Nine with that in the back of your mind, means one of two things, to put your conscience on the shelf, or to be permamently outraged. I'm the second.
Channel Nine is like Fish and Chips. You see it, or smell it (respectively,) and you start to salivate. It isn't bad for you if you only have it once in a while, just for a treat, you tell yourself. Everyone needs to let loose and relax every now and then, we've all only got one life. Yeah it's all true enough. But you can't help going back for more and more of all those those things you know can't be good for you. And it's never as satisfying as you thought it was going to be before you started. You always end up flaked out on the couch, feeling bloated and saying to yourself, "what just happened there? That was like ingesting cardboard."
Now when you watch SBS, suddenly you realise that there's been this place down the road serving Smoked Trout Risotto for the same price. But wait, there's more. There's Gado Gado, Pupasas, Ciabatta Bread. It's not addictive, it's good for you and it's still surprisingly, really yummy. It takes an acquired taste, it's classy but not snobby and its not as provincial as those country fish and chips. Everytime I go there, I make a promise to myself to go back. I find myself frequenting it more and more often. You've got Big Love, Shameless, Myth Busters, XY Docs, The Eurovision Song Contest, The Roman Empire, World Movies, The Movie Show, RAN, the list goes on and on. But those fish and chips ... I don't know. Can I ever leave them alone?
But there are undeniably some aspects of Channel Nine that make it the trashiest, (part of its appeal,) most insidious mouthpiece for the rich and powerful, that's around right now. To watch Channel Nine with that in the back of your mind, means one of two things, to put your conscience on the shelf, or to be permamently outraged. I'm the second.
Channel Nine is like Fish and Chips. You see it, or smell it (respectively,) and you start to salivate. It isn't bad for you if you only have it once in a while, just for a treat, you tell yourself. Everyone needs to let loose and relax every now and then, we've all only got one life. Yeah it's all true enough. But you can't help going back for more and more of all those those things you know can't be good for you. And it's never as satisfying as you thought it was going to be before you started. You always end up flaked out on the couch, feeling bloated and saying to yourself, "what just happened there? That was like ingesting cardboard."
Now when you watch SBS, suddenly you realise that there's been this place down the road serving Smoked Trout Risotto for the same price. But wait, there's more. There's Gado Gado, Pupasas, Ciabatta Bread. It's not addictive, it's good for you and it's still surprisingly, really yummy. It takes an acquired taste, it's classy but not snobby and its not as provincial as those country fish and chips. Everytime I go there, I make a promise to myself to go back. I find myself frequenting it more and more often. You've got Big Love, Shameless, Myth Busters, XY Docs, The Eurovision Song Contest, The Roman Empire, World Movies, The Movie Show, RAN, the list goes on and on. But those fish and chips ... I don't know. Can I ever leave them alone?
TV homework for the insane or bored.
This is really fun. I do it once a week if I get half the chance. Either on a Saturday morning while I'm still in bed, or during the week while I'm cleaning the house, but bedroom is best if you have a TV in there. If you're in Australia you just tune into SBS. If you're from another country, use whatever your multicultural television station is. It's easy. All you have to do is put the TV on this channel when it's time for the world news. The stipulation is, you aren't allowed to know the language of the country whose news you are watching. Now shut the curtains, and it almost feels as though you're in a hotel room somewhere doesn't it? And it's hot, or cold outside, accordingly, and everything that's happening in the world news is happening right outside that bedroom window, and if you got up and put your coat on, you'd walk out into a long hallway and then into the very streets of the news you're watching. You wouldn't understand a word anyone was saying around you, unless you were carrying your Lonely Planet travellers guide. Isn't this cosy? You're poor but you're still travelling. Couldn't you just jump on the bed and raid the mini bar? Look around you for God's sake - I bet you never thought you'd have enough money to get here! Isn't that unknown language beautiful?
A note on my poem.
It's been pointed out to me. That my poem in the last post, is impossible to understand. So I thought it might be helpful to give people who feel that way a brief run down on the philosophy behind it.
You're not supposed to understand the poem. Very simply put, the poem is a complaint against the ridiculous use of language that post-modernists love to revel in. I don't find this practice half as clever as I do designed to confuse and impress.
I do believe that language needs to lend itself to different disciplines so that people can discuss ideas with each other quickly and more succinctly. (It's easier to speak in language codes for physics, or literary theory or Internet technology etc. The word post-modernism is a good example. Bringing to mind and summing up many ideas that it would take an eternity to explain everytime a literary theorist might otherwise mention it.) Apart from the necessity of different disciplines to apply specific dialects to make life easier though, I feel language is designed to communicate and that language should be accessible and about effective communication.
When those people who love to chatter away in 'po-mo' speak, (and those who love to write inaccessible po-mo poetry,) make their messages impossible to attain for the normal person, then what they essentially do, is isolate those people from what should ideally be the democracy of language, and turns their branch of philosophy or their discipline, into just another elitist one. I think this goes against the very philosophy of a lot of post-modernist thought in the first place. Po-mo is supposed to make meaning in language accessible to any man in the sense that he can intepret these texts for themselves and then create their own truth or meaning from them. This idea hints at a democracy of language, but how can this be done when po-mo theorists are busy isolating large body of readers? All it ends up doing is distancing one reader, and therefore one human being, from another. In my opinion, post-modernism eats itself when its constuct negates its content.
So there you have the idea behind my poem. The fact that it confuses is a proof of point. And it isn't just gobblede gook. If you ever sat down to interpet that long string of unintelligable words, what it basically amounts to is: for all my huffing and puffing and grandstanding, I have really done nothing to further the evolution of human morality.
The idea is that almost anyone can speak that lingo if they really want to, but it's ideas not obtuse application of language, that counts.
Below is a link to a simple definition and explanation of post-modernism for anyone interested.
http://www.toronto-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/postmodernism.htm
Also some might find this interesting: The fictitious and contrived modernist poet who was designed as a literary hoax to demonstrate the unintelligable waffle that posed and still poses as poetry as little more than a joke. His poems made no sense, having been designed not to. He became very famous. You could read this in two ways. A: That meaning and truth really are only in the mind of the reader, which would support post-modernist claims. Or B: That people really are gullible idiots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley
Something a little more in depth - my critical appraisal of the politics of post-modernism in a nutshell.
Now don't get me wrong, I like post-modernism, to a point. I like the general politics behind the school of thought that was born in the Parisian revolution of 1968, which utilised post-modernism to challenge existing ruling class authorities. I like it as a tool to deconstruct litertary texts, and even, as they say, the text of life. But to me it's only half the picture, and I'm a bit of a critic of the school of thought as a whole. My reason for this, is that I don't see in post-modernism (as a political tool, and in many other forms,) as the full picture. Because I don't believe it can be truly revolutionary without a collective notion of truth for people to gather under and strive torward. The notion of many relative truths has the possibility of leaving people fragmented and isolated from one another. And post-modernism denies the possibility of any metaphysical truths.
Although it is argued that post-modenrnism served to critique opppressive structures, such as the years of Hitler, there were also Nazi apologists who utilised the same approach to support it.
It is only valuable as a tool to challenge existing authoritarial schools of thought and political structures, but is not designed, and doesn't accomodate very well, new creations of political and philosophical structures, indeed even designed to ensure no new ones are ever created. Po-mo theory as a political tool, is great if you're an anarchist. But I am not.
But even more than that, it has become a conservative and largely unchallenged school of thought, turning it into little more than a fundamentalism that has lost its potency.
Now let's get back to really important things - WATCHING TELEVISION!
You're not supposed to understand the poem. Very simply put, the poem is a complaint against the ridiculous use of language that post-modernists love to revel in. I don't find this practice half as clever as I do designed to confuse and impress.
I do believe that language needs to lend itself to different disciplines so that people can discuss ideas with each other quickly and more succinctly. (It's easier to speak in language codes for physics, or literary theory or Internet technology etc. The word post-modernism is a good example. Bringing to mind and summing up many ideas that it would take an eternity to explain everytime a literary theorist might otherwise mention it.) Apart from the necessity of different disciplines to apply specific dialects to make life easier though, I feel language is designed to communicate and that language should be accessible and about effective communication.
When those people who love to chatter away in 'po-mo' speak, (and those who love to write inaccessible po-mo poetry,) make their messages impossible to attain for the normal person, then what they essentially do, is isolate those people from what should ideally be the democracy of language, and turns their branch of philosophy or their discipline, into just another elitist one. I think this goes against the very philosophy of a lot of post-modernist thought in the first place. Po-mo is supposed to make meaning in language accessible to any man in the sense that he can intepret these texts for themselves and then create their own truth or meaning from them. This idea hints at a democracy of language, but how can this be done when po-mo theorists are busy isolating large body of readers? All it ends up doing is distancing one reader, and therefore one human being, from another. In my opinion, post-modernism eats itself when its constuct negates its content.
So there you have the idea behind my poem. The fact that it confuses is a proof of point. And it isn't just gobblede gook. If you ever sat down to interpet that long string of unintelligable words, what it basically amounts to is: for all my huffing and puffing and grandstanding, I have really done nothing to further the evolution of human morality.
The idea is that almost anyone can speak that lingo if they really want to, but it's ideas not obtuse application of language, that counts.
Below is a link to a simple definition and explanation of post-modernism for anyone interested.
http://www.toronto-h.schools.nsw.edu.au/postmodernism.htm
Also some might find this interesting: The fictitious and contrived modernist poet who was designed as a literary hoax to demonstrate the unintelligable waffle that posed and still poses as poetry as little more than a joke. His poems made no sense, having been designed not to. He became very famous. You could read this in two ways. A: That meaning and truth really are only in the mind of the reader, which would support post-modernist claims. Or B: That people really are gullible idiots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley
Something a little more in depth - my critical appraisal of the politics of post-modernism in a nutshell.
Now don't get me wrong, I like post-modernism, to a point. I like the general politics behind the school of thought that was born in the Parisian revolution of 1968, which utilised post-modernism to challenge existing ruling class authorities. I like it as a tool to deconstruct litertary texts, and even, as they say, the text of life. But to me it's only half the picture, and I'm a bit of a critic of the school of thought as a whole. My reason for this, is that I don't see in post-modernism (as a political tool, and in many other forms,) as the full picture. Because I don't believe it can be truly revolutionary without a collective notion of truth for people to gather under and strive torward. The notion of many relative truths has the possibility of leaving people fragmented and isolated from one another. And post-modernism denies the possibility of any metaphysical truths.
Although it is argued that post-modenrnism served to critique opppressive structures, such as the years of Hitler, there were also Nazi apologists who utilised the same approach to support it.
It is only valuable as a tool to challenge existing authoritarial schools of thought and political structures, but is not designed, and doesn't accomodate very well, new creations of political and philosophical structures, indeed even designed to ensure no new ones are ever created. Po-mo theory as a political tool, is great if you're an anarchist. But I am not.
But even more than that, it has become a conservative and largely unchallenged school of thought, turning it into little more than a fundamentalism that has lost its potency.
Now let's get back to really important things - WATCHING TELEVISION!
Friday, June 22, 2007
Overland rejection
Overland rejected my poem. I don't know why, I think it was because it wasn't flowery enough, it didn't have enough convoluted language or evasive imagery or something...wasn't lyrical enough? Academic enough? Surely it's political enough! In a sort of philosophically politically inverted, deconstructing the deconstructionist way...Guys, why don't you love me? You're breaking my heart here.
Postmodernism 101
What am I saying?
Well, let me think,
How can I put this so that you
understand?
I’ll just adjust my glasses…
now,
the way I see it, convergence with
supercilious prose, poetry and/or thought,
and the confluent inaction (or torpor,)
of obtuse communication
that declines, even renounces,
the elevated functions of ethical
discourse – that is, the abstract intent of –
meliorating benevolence is,
quite honestly,
above you.
Reality being subjective as such
and
Hitler having been just another
man with only a relative notion
of truth.
After all, common meaning is
only an historical myth,
and now we are ill-fated enough to
spend the rest of our days,
misunderstanding one another
…
does that help any?
Well, let me think,
How can I put this so that you
understand?
I’ll just adjust my glasses…
now,
the way I see it, convergence with
supercilious prose, poetry and/or thought,
and the confluent inaction (or torpor,)
of obtuse communication
that declines, even renounces,
the elevated functions of ethical
discourse – that is, the abstract intent of –
meliorating benevolence is,
quite honestly,
above you.
Reality being subjective as such
and
Hitler having been just another
man with only a relative notion
of truth.
After all, common meaning is
only an historical myth,
and now we are ill-fated enough to
spend the rest of our days,
misunderstanding one another
…
does that help any?
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
"Football Genius." An oxymoron or a new appreciation?
Now I can't talk for other countries, but sports propaganda is big business here in Australia. I don't know what it is about the Australian psyche, but by and large, we're not much one for academics or intellectual pursuits, generally opting for more simple pleasures, chiefly cricket or football. Maybe it's the convict history of the nation, maybe we're all just one collective convict with little education and an unmitigated desire to beat the shit out of something, anything, each other. Maybe we're still trying to offload some of that pent-up anger at being treated like a collective, bread-stealing, penal colony inhabitant, second-class citizen for so long. You'd think that would make for a good bunch of rebelliously well educated post-modernists, but no, it makes for good football players.
Still, all is not lost. Last year I actually heard the term "football genius" uttered by the chairman of the AFL, Rob Evans, in reference to Gary Ablett. (Of Geelong Cats.)
Now, according to The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, Genius refers to:
A natural ability, special mental endowments; exalted intellectual power, instinctive and extraordinary imaginative, creative, or inventive capacity; person having this.
At the risk of incurring a lot of hate mail, let's deconstruct this explanation of a genius and apply it to Gary. (Because I think the term 'genius' is thrown around far too casually these days. )
A natural ability: Well yes, there's no argument that he has a natural ability to play football, maybe this is what they mean when they call him a genius. Yet a lot of people have natural abilities at specific pursuits but that doesn't warrant labelling them all geniuses. If we did we'd have more geniuses in the population than we have average people, so I'm guessing the term 'natural ability' refers specifically to the next line...
Special mental endowments; exalted intellectual power: Although I'm sure it's true that football players need more than just brawn, but also a good intuitive understanding of the field, their opponents and the rules and nature of the game, (which no doubt constitutes some superior grasp of the intricacies of the game of football,) I'm not sure that addresses a human being's general overall intellectual ability as spectacularly brilliant.
For one thing, you'd never pick a footballer as a genius from listening to them talk. This may be a generalisation, but just put your hand over your eyes next time you hear a footballer interviewed on TV. With idiot parrot catch phrases like, "at the end of the day" churned out religiously, you could hardly tell one from the other. Oh and I love this one, "yeah, nah." What the hell is that? ... "Yeah, nah."
"Yeah, nah, we trained hard this season. Gazza's out with a strained hamstring but we have some good players still. Yeah, nah, at the end of the day the best team'll win."
Extraordinary imaginative, creative or inventive capacity: Well this is probably much closer to what they means when they call Gary a genius. After all, it must take some imaginative, creative and inventive ability to come up with spur of the moment ducks and dives around opponents on the field in different weather conditions and the like. And it's no secret just how imaginative, creative and inventive footballers can be when they get together with a group off football groupies. Just think; group gang-bangs, male physical bonding over a generic and faceless woman whose drink has just been spiked...
On second thoughts I take it all back. These are blatant and idiosyncratic character traits of men who can't think for themselves on any level.
But who knows? I could be really wrong. Never say never. There is photographic evidence that he does in fact, have the characteristics of a genius after all.
Albert Einstein: The man who invented the theory of relativity. A man who essentially changed the way we understood physics and therefore the universe.
Vincent Van Gogh: The man who pioneered Expressionist painting and therefore influenced Twentieth Century Art.
Tolstoy: Russian novelist, dramatist, essayist and philosopher whose literary masterpieces are still revered today.
Still, all is not lost. Last year I actually heard the term "football genius" uttered by the chairman of the AFL, Rob Evans, in reference to Gary Ablett. (Of Geelong Cats.)
Now, according to The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, Genius refers to:
A natural ability, special mental endowments; exalted intellectual power, instinctive and extraordinary imaginative, creative, or inventive capacity; person having this.
At the risk of incurring a lot of hate mail, let's deconstruct this explanation of a genius and apply it to Gary. (Because I think the term 'genius' is thrown around far too casually these days. )
A natural ability: Well yes, there's no argument that he has a natural ability to play football, maybe this is what they mean when they call him a genius. Yet a lot of people have natural abilities at specific pursuits but that doesn't warrant labelling them all geniuses. If we did we'd have more geniuses in the population than we have average people, so I'm guessing the term 'natural ability' refers specifically to the next line...
Special mental endowments; exalted intellectual power: Although I'm sure it's true that football players need more than just brawn, but also a good intuitive understanding of the field, their opponents and the rules and nature of the game, (which no doubt constitutes some superior grasp of the intricacies of the game of football,) I'm not sure that addresses a human being's general overall intellectual ability as spectacularly brilliant.
For one thing, you'd never pick a footballer as a genius from listening to them talk. This may be a generalisation, but just put your hand over your eyes next time you hear a footballer interviewed on TV. With idiot parrot catch phrases like, "at the end of the day" churned out religiously, you could hardly tell one from the other. Oh and I love this one, "yeah, nah." What the hell is that? ... "Yeah, nah."
"Yeah, nah, we trained hard this season. Gazza's out with a strained hamstring but we have some good players still. Yeah, nah, at the end of the day the best team'll win."
Extraordinary imaginative, creative or inventive capacity: Well this is probably much closer to what they means when they call Gary a genius. After all, it must take some imaginative, creative and inventive ability to come up with spur of the moment ducks and dives around opponents on the field in different weather conditions and the like. And it's no secret just how imaginative, creative and inventive footballers can be when they get together with a group off football groupies. Just think; group gang-bangs, male physical bonding over a generic and faceless woman whose drink has just been spiked...
On second thoughts I take it all back. These are blatant and idiosyncratic character traits of men who can't think for themselves on any level.
But who knows? I could be really wrong. Never say never. There is photographic evidence that he does in fact, have the characteristics of a genius after all.
Albert Einstein: The man who invented the theory of relativity. A man who essentially changed the way we understood physics and therefore the universe.
Vincent Van Gogh: The man who pioneered Expressionist painting and therefore influenced Twentieth Century Art.
Tolstoy: Russian novelist, dramatist, essayist and philosopher whose literary masterpieces are still revered today.
What is this, Beirut?
The big news item in town recently, is a shooting in Melbourne in Flinders Lane, on the corner of Flinders Street Station. A pivotal, historical cornerstone of the city.
One man died as he intervened trying to help a woman being pulled from a cab by her hair, and two others were critically injured. The gunman is still at large.
Now I'm not saying it's not newsworthy. I think it is, and I think it deserves to be a major headline. These sorts of things don't normally seem to happen in broad daylight, in a city street in the center of Melbourne. It must have been terrifying for those involved and like some sort of streetscape nightmare for those in the center of town that day; realising the gunman could be striding past them at any moment. But let's put it all into perspective here. Does it really warrant whole daytime hours of uninterrupted television coverage to the detriment of our normal scheduled viewing? Does it warrant three or four stories in a row on every evening news show?
Rachel Rollo from Channel Nine News called it, "a city under siege." One man dead and two critically injured people is what Rachel considers a siege? I hate to tell you this Rachel, but what you call a siege, and much, much worse, goes on all over the world in a constant stream of unpublicised horrors.
Here Rachel: Dictionary.Com's definition of the word siege:
1. The act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.
(Other possible interpretations here: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=siege
This is a siege Rachel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Beirut
Then we had a grand romp down memory lane, reflecting over all the horrific shootings and related major crimes in Melbourne - Nov 1996, 1987 in Hoddle Street, March 1986 - the Russell Street bombing. In global perspective these are all pretty minor events. But, our Channel Nine News reporter, (not Rachel,) chose to label them, "the day terror came to town."
Channel Nine, you really do love to whip up a healthy frenzy of fear don't you? All this heavily loaded language designed to induce over reaction and shock. You live ina big city people - these things are bound to happen! What's going on here, is Australia suffering some sort of S 11 envy? What makes us so special that a shooting in our city warrants so much self-pity and constant attention? When we carry on about our traumas in the extreme, (no doubtedly designed by TV execs to up ratings,) we look like spoilt Americanized sooky la-la's. Can't we just address it as a news item of considerable merit and leave it alone a bit?
I noticed that seventy-eight people died in a bombing in Bagdhad today - it flashed across the bottom of the screen in fine print and later came up as a minor news report in the world news section. (Not in all News Channel. Let's say thank God for ABC and SBS.)
One man died as he intervened trying to help a woman being pulled from a cab by her hair, and two others were critically injured. The gunman is still at large.
Now I'm not saying it's not newsworthy. I think it is, and I think it deserves to be a major headline. These sorts of things don't normally seem to happen in broad daylight, in a city street in the center of Melbourne. It must have been terrifying for those involved and like some sort of streetscape nightmare for those in the center of town that day; realising the gunman could be striding past them at any moment. But let's put it all into perspective here. Does it really warrant whole daytime hours of uninterrupted television coverage to the detriment of our normal scheduled viewing? Does it warrant three or four stories in a row on every evening news show?
Rachel Rollo from Channel Nine News called it, "a city under siege." One man dead and two critically injured people is what Rachel considers a siege? I hate to tell you this Rachel, but what you call a siege, and much, much worse, goes on all over the world in a constant stream of unpublicised horrors.
Here Rachel: Dictionary.Com's definition of the word siege:
1. The act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.
(Other possible interpretations here: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=siege
This is a siege Rachel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Beirut
Then we had a grand romp down memory lane, reflecting over all the horrific shootings and related major crimes in Melbourne - Nov 1996, 1987 in Hoddle Street, March 1986 - the Russell Street bombing. In global perspective these are all pretty minor events. But, our Channel Nine News reporter, (not Rachel,) chose to label them, "the day terror came to town."
Channel Nine, you really do love to whip up a healthy frenzy of fear don't you? All this heavily loaded language designed to induce over reaction and shock. You live ina big city people - these things are bound to happen! What's going on here, is Australia suffering some sort of S 11 envy? What makes us so special that a shooting in our city warrants so much self-pity and constant attention? When we carry on about our traumas in the extreme, (no doubtedly designed by TV execs to up ratings,) we look like spoilt Americanized sooky la-la's. Can't we just address it as a news item of considerable merit and leave it alone a bit?
I noticed that seventy-eight people died in a bombing in Bagdhad today - it flashed across the bottom of the screen in fine print and later came up as a minor news report in the world news section. (Not in all News Channel. Let's say thank God for ABC and SBS.)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
RATM
The world is my expense.
The cost of my desire.
Jesus blessed me with its future,
And I protect it with fire.
So raise your fists
And march around,
Just dont take what you need.
I'll jail and bury those committed,
And smother the rest in greed.
Crawl with me into tomorrow,
Or Ill drag you to your grave.
I'm deep inside your children,
They'll betray you in my name.
Sleep now in the fire.
The lie is my expense.
The scope of my desire.
The party blessed me with its future,
And I protect it with fire.
I am the Nina,
The Pinta,
The Santa Maria.
The noose and the rapist.
The field's overseer.
The agents of orange.
The priests of Hiroshima.
The cost of my desire.
Sleep now in the fire. Sleep now in the fire.
For it's the end of history.
It's caged and frozen still.
There is no other pill to take,
So swallow the one
That made you ill.
The Nina,
The Pinta, The Santa Maria.
The noose and the rapist.
The field's overseer.
The agents of orange.
The priests of Hiroshima.
The cost of my desire.
Sleep now in the fire
(There's nothing like a bunch of self-righteously aggrieved and angry young men, or women for that matter. And they're even better when they're Marxists.)
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
A nation of blockheads
Watched The Nation last night. Premier on Channel Nine. (Australian TV.)
I watched it primarily to see if my preconceptions of it, based on it's TV advertisements promotions, would hold vaild ground.
The premise of the show seemed to be that it was a parody of a serious news broadcast, which then inverted news content by taking the piss out of serious newsworthy issues. This naturally lead to the conclusion that there was a bit of a culture jamming element to it. It refers to itself as:
News with a Difference.
Mick Molloy swaps his tracky daks for a snappy suit to sit at a desk and let rip with a topical, news-based program - with an edgy difference.
http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/section.aspx?sectionid=5747§ionname=thenation
I imagined a group of television executives, producers, creative assistances, writers and the like, wracking their collective brains for a winning combination of hit shows, Rove Live with the ABC's The Chaser's War on Everything.
This would mean they could rely on a tried and tested formula, hence determining relative success, (or at least upping the statistical odds of success, and therefore profits,) and all the while pretending to be a contemporary and racy new program.
Er sorry Channel Nine, but you could never culture jam, and it all really looks rather pathetic and sucky-uppy. Why could you never culture jam? Because you've already sold your soul to the establishment, heck you are the establishment. Who else have you got to rebel against? You can hardly incite us to rebel against you now can you? This is why all the targets of your humour were banal and obvious and no real challenge to societal structure, even though they masked themselves as such.
Let's take a look at some of them. This week we had an array of religious leaders to poke fun at. Yawn! All been done before. We had the Dalai Lama, (who's currently in town for a while,) being portrayed as an aggressive and violent rock star persona. Hey, let's make fun of a man who's spent most of his life fighting the moral injustice of Imperialist China invading his homeland. Yeah that should get some laughs!
Yeah sure, religious leaders are often in positions of prominence and power which they abuse, perverting the foundations of their religious belief system to satisfy their own ambitions, or even simply because they try to impose their personal beliefs or lack of understanding of a religious text onto larger social constructs. So come on Mick, surely you guys could have come up with something a little more challenging if you're pupporting to be a news parody show.
There were some quick and forgettable snipes at The Pope, so quick and forgettable that I fail to remember them - (Something about the Pope Mobile.)
And let's not forget the jabs at the predecessor of the recently resigned controversial Mufti, Sheikh Taj el-Din Hamid Hilaly, with the insinuation that the new Mufti will be no improvement on the last. This not only has the potential to send blatant signals of rascism as an acceptable ideology to watching Australians, but easily reinforces the national state of distrust and fear that has ruled the politics of this country lately. Good one Channel Nine, anyone in your exec suite having brunch with John Howard lately? Or maybe you just meet up at the same swinger's night.
While it might be true that the last Mufti was a sexist, arrogant, megalomaniac who loved the notoriety his words afforded him, the actions of the media in using the opportunity to irritate and magnify the widening religious and cultural gap between fellow Australians is not only unwise, but immediately self-serving and a friggin' disgrace.
Then there was an endless parade of Hollywood trollops to scoff and laugh at, including Paris Hilton, naturally enough. But let's face it - the whole world has Paris schadenfreude right now. Religious leaders and celebrities Channel Nine? Tsk, tsk, tsk. When are you going to go after the real Bullies? Like Corporate executives that give themselves pay rises vastly disproportionate to the average Australian wage, and in a world where millions of helpless children die of starvation each year. Or what about the politican who exploits the unfounded fears of his own nation simply to feed his insatiable and endless greed for power and money?
Admittedly there was one skit referring to Guantanamo bay detainees, but this news is hardly challenging or cutting edge anymore. Despite the fact that the whole Guantanamo Bay affair is offensive and an abomination of human rights, now that it's all out in the open, as long as the Australian public are busy watching David Hicks style sagas, then their attention is off
a multitude of other criminal acts being commited by leading Western politicians and secret police organisations. That's my consiparcy theory for the day anyhow.
So Channel Nine, I reckon you should just drop this stupid show and go back to what you do best, confusing and clouding middle-class Australian minds with innane bullshit to stop them thinking about the real social, cultural and political issues at hand. Oh wait - I get it, that's just what you were intending to do with this show in the first place! My mistake.
I watched it primarily to see if my preconceptions of it, based on it's TV advertisements promotions, would hold vaild ground.
The premise of the show seemed to be that it was a parody of a serious news broadcast, which then inverted news content by taking the piss out of serious newsworthy issues. This naturally lead to the conclusion that there was a bit of a culture jamming element to it. It refers to itself as:
News with a Difference.
Mick Molloy swaps his tracky daks for a snappy suit to sit at a desk and let rip with a topical, news-based program - with an edgy difference.
http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/section.aspx?sectionid=5747§ionname=thenation
I imagined a group of television executives, producers, creative assistances, writers and the like, wracking their collective brains for a winning combination of hit shows, Rove Live with the ABC's The Chaser's War on Everything.
This would mean they could rely on a tried and tested formula, hence determining relative success, (or at least upping the statistical odds of success, and therefore profits,) and all the while pretending to be a contemporary and racy new program.
Er sorry Channel Nine, but you could never culture jam, and it all really looks rather pathetic and sucky-uppy. Why could you never culture jam? Because you've already sold your soul to the establishment, heck you are the establishment. Who else have you got to rebel against? You can hardly incite us to rebel against you now can you? This is why all the targets of your humour were banal and obvious and no real challenge to societal structure, even though they masked themselves as such.
Let's take a look at some of them. This week we had an array of religious leaders to poke fun at. Yawn! All been done before. We had the Dalai Lama, (who's currently in town for a while,) being portrayed as an aggressive and violent rock star persona. Hey, let's make fun of a man who's spent most of his life fighting the moral injustice of Imperialist China invading his homeland. Yeah that should get some laughs!
Yeah sure, religious leaders are often in positions of prominence and power which they abuse, perverting the foundations of their religious belief system to satisfy their own ambitions, or even simply because they try to impose their personal beliefs or lack of understanding of a religious text onto larger social constructs. So come on Mick, surely you guys could have come up with something a little more challenging if you're pupporting to be a news parody show.
There were some quick and forgettable snipes at The Pope, so quick and forgettable that I fail to remember them - (Something about the Pope Mobile.)
And let's not forget the jabs at the predecessor of the recently resigned controversial Mufti, Sheikh Taj el-Din Hamid Hilaly, with the insinuation that the new Mufti will be no improvement on the last. This not only has the potential to send blatant signals of rascism as an acceptable ideology to watching Australians, but easily reinforces the national state of distrust and fear that has ruled the politics of this country lately. Good one Channel Nine, anyone in your exec suite having brunch with John Howard lately? Or maybe you just meet up at the same swinger's night.
While it might be true that the last Mufti was a sexist, arrogant, megalomaniac who loved the notoriety his words afforded him, the actions of the media in using the opportunity to irritate and magnify the widening religious and cultural gap between fellow Australians is not only unwise, but immediately self-serving and a friggin' disgrace.
Then there was an endless parade of Hollywood trollops to scoff and laugh at, including Paris Hilton, naturally enough. But let's face it - the whole world has Paris schadenfreude right now. Religious leaders and celebrities Channel Nine? Tsk, tsk, tsk. When are you going to go after the real Bullies? Like Corporate executives that give themselves pay rises vastly disproportionate to the average Australian wage, and in a world where millions of helpless children die of starvation each year. Or what about the politican who exploits the unfounded fears of his own nation simply to feed his insatiable and endless greed for power and money?
Admittedly there was one skit referring to Guantanamo bay detainees, but this news is hardly challenging or cutting edge anymore. Despite the fact that the whole Guantanamo Bay affair is offensive and an abomination of human rights, now that it's all out in the open, as long as the Australian public are busy watching David Hicks style sagas, then their attention is off
a multitude of other criminal acts being commited by leading Western politicians and secret police organisations. That's my consiparcy theory for the day anyhow.
So Channel Nine, I reckon you should just drop this stupid show and go back to what you do best, confusing and clouding middle-class Australian minds with innane bullshit to stop them thinking about the real social, cultural and political issues at hand. Oh wait - I get it, that's just what you were intending to do with this show in the first place! My mistake.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
The tool is not the Tool, but is the sum of the Tools.
Look, I know analysing Television Pop Culture has taken a back seat to analysing Cyber culture, but I've never been one for following trends per say.
And it seems to me that although the technology changes, the arguments don't change as much as we'd like to imagine. It's true that the Internet has opened up that whole 'democratisation of media' debate, and this holds massive implications for the societal structure through new technology, but now it seems to be narrowing again to focus on the dominant elite who always seem to end up monopolizing any new technologcal advance and manipulating it to conform to their own desires.
The Internet is the new battleground, so here I am in true form, acknowledging its uniqueness in allowing almost anybody in a wealthy country to have a voice by exercising my own. But is it really as democratic as we like to believe? Or are the boundaries of the fight between feudal lord and peasant only moving into a global arena as global politics and economics shape the world into one massive village? After all, 649 million people in the 15+ age bracket use the Internet worldwide. That's only 14 percent of people in that age group. (If my interpretation of ComScore Networks stats are right. If you know better I'd be pleased too know about it.) Those people who don't have Internet access are invalid members of global society because they do not constitute consummer power. And those are of course, the poor.
We've seen it all before in many forms. The Victorian ruling class, who found that the loss of religion in mass due to the rise of science and social change, were losing that particular form of control and so employed the use of Literature as a new medium for creating a new social cement.
More recently television has been the chosen form of dominant control over the masses.The big debate today is whether or not the nature of the Internet will ever really allow full dominant control by the priveleged again.
I think we often underestimate the ability of human beings to critique their own culture, particularly when what is in their best collective and personal interest is being challenged and undermined by the establishment. But we also underestimate the determination and lack of social conscience that lives in the minds of the kind of people who feel compelled to rule over others for one reason or another.
So to me, the problem is not within the medium, but within the hearts and minds of our fellow humans. The revolution should not be a technological one, but a social, philosophical and cultural one designed to alter the way humans regard one another. Technology is only a tool and is impartial. It's the people who utilise it that are the problem.
My partner and I are always having an endless debate over this, and no matter how much I despise either the innane rubbish they broadcast on television, or the blatant attempts at force feeding dominant ideologies down my throat, I still can't get enough of television and find myself defending it over and over again.
The idea of creating stories and relaying messages through moving pictures and sound is fantastical and brilliant! Despite the fact it was invented well over 80 years ago, I'm still not over it. It probably has something to do with the fact that my childhood home didn't get a television set until I was nine years old, and then it was only a black and white one, and even then, all television shows that weren't on the ABC, most especially Dallas and Prisoner, were not allowed.
So I want to say, Television I still love you! I just disrespect the 'Tools' that are your Master.
(Definition of a Tool: http://toolshed.down.net/bio/tooldef.html )
I know people who still don't even have a computer, let alone the Internet. I know people who have it, but are frightened to use it and tap away on it with trepidation. I know Luddites and full blown nternet Junkies. But every single one of them still has a television, and every single one of them watches it...
Let the fun begin!
And it seems to me that although the technology changes, the arguments don't change as much as we'd like to imagine. It's true that the Internet has opened up that whole 'democratisation of media' debate, and this holds massive implications for the societal structure through new technology, but now it seems to be narrowing again to focus on the dominant elite who always seem to end up monopolizing any new technologcal advance and manipulating it to conform to their own desires.
The Internet is the new battleground, so here I am in true form, acknowledging its uniqueness in allowing almost anybody in a wealthy country to have a voice by exercising my own. But is it really as democratic as we like to believe? Or are the boundaries of the fight between feudal lord and peasant only moving into a global arena as global politics and economics shape the world into one massive village? After all, 649 million people in the 15+ age bracket use the Internet worldwide. That's only 14 percent of people in that age group. (If my interpretation of ComScore Networks stats are right. If you know better I'd be pleased too know about it.) Those people who don't have Internet access are invalid members of global society because they do not constitute consummer power. And those are of course, the poor.
We've seen it all before in many forms. The Victorian ruling class, who found that the loss of religion in mass due to the rise of science and social change, were losing that particular form of control and so employed the use of Literature as a new medium for creating a new social cement.
More recently television has been the chosen form of dominant control over the masses.The big debate today is whether or not the nature of the Internet will ever really allow full dominant control by the priveleged again.
I think we often underestimate the ability of human beings to critique their own culture, particularly when what is in their best collective and personal interest is being challenged and undermined by the establishment. But we also underestimate the determination and lack of social conscience that lives in the minds of the kind of people who feel compelled to rule over others for one reason or another.
So to me, the problem is not within the medium, but within the hearts and minds of our fellow humans. The revolution should not be a technological one, but a social, philosophical and cultural one designed to alter the way humans regard one another. Technology is only a tool and is impartial. It's the people who utilise it that are the problem.
My partner and I are always having an endless debate over this, and no matter how much I despise either the innane rubbish they broadcast on television, or the blatant attempts at force feeding dominant ideologies down my throat, I still can't get enough of television and find myself defending it over and over again.
The idea of creating stories and relaying messages through moving pictures and sound is fantastical and brilliant! Despite the fact it was invented well over 80 years ago, I'm still not over it. It probably has something to do with the fact that my childhood home didn't get a television set until I was nine years old, and then it was only a black and white one, and even then, all television shows that weren't on the ABC, most especially Dallas and Prisoner, were not allowed.
So I want to say, Television I still love you! I just disrespect the 'Tools' that are your Master.
(Definition of a Tool: http://toolshed.down.net/bio/tooldef.html )
I know people who still don't even have a computer, let alone the Internet. I know people who have it, but are frightened to use it and tap away on it with trepidation. I know Luddites and full blown nternet Junkies. But every single one of them still has a television, and every single one of them watches it...
Let the fun begin!
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