To spin tales and bend truths through the evening

Last post of the day.

And time for another song from Bowerbirds. (Previous song here.)



'Bur Oak'

Good night, friends.

Party on...

The latest from the festival circuit....

From Spain (h/t The Wife):

'If you've ever lived within earshot of a newborn child, it's no stretch to imagine they can have something devilish inside. The inhabitants of the northern Spanish town of Castrillo de Murcia have developed an ingenious technique for exorcising seemingly innocent children. Just spread them on mattresses in the middle of the street, and have a bunch of demons leap over them.'

From Italy:

'Orange fetishists are well advised to visit the northern Italian town of Ivrea, 35 kilometers from Turin, on the Sunday before Lent when the townsfolk stage their annual Battle of the Oranges, the country's largest fruit fight.'

It involves around 3,000 revellers on foot and in carts drawn by decorated horses and lasts for three days, after which everyone is covered in pulp and orange juice, and the streets are slippery with squashed orange peel.'

From America:

'Wild rides, fireworks and letting it all hang out. That's the updated American dream at Burning Man 2008.

The annual desert gathering always celebrates that most-American ideal: freedom. Freedom to ride a giant red, white and blue tricycle across the playa; freedom to blow your mind however you want; freedom to traipse around wearing nothing but body paint.'

Even a hippie's home is his or her castle

Glenn Greenwald reports on what appears to be a series of pre-emptive police raids on homes in Minneapolis in the run-up to the Republican National Convention.

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Greenwald also offers video interviews with people involved, whether residents of what one neighbour refers to as 'hippie houses' ('they're really great' she notes approvingly) or someone in the National Lawyers Guild, Minnesota, which represents at least a few of the people who have been arrested and harassed.

Elsewhere...

Firedoglake offers a phone interview with Mike Whelan, 'waiter and army veteran', (at one point, Whelan identifies himself as a former Military Police officer) whose house was raided by police.

Whelan said he'd invited independent observers from the group LegalWatch stay in one half of his side-by-side duplex while they monitored RNC protests. [...]

When I spoke to him, Whelan was waiting in one half of the duplex with his roommates, Dan and Julian. The three were afraid to go outside because the police were still there. Whelan said he thought that the police were inside the opposite side of the duplex, where the legal observers were staying. "I think they are detaining people," he added.

Whelan, who seemed remarkably calm for a guy whose flower garden had just been trampled by police with drawn automatic weapons, said he'd just returned from a morning of garage sale shopping when the commotion started. That would have been about one o'clock local time. He described what happened:

"About an hour and a half ago 20 to 30 heavily armed police officers surrounded the house," Whelan said. "One of my roommates said 'I want to see a warrant' and she was immediately detained."

"Are they still outside?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, they're still outside," Whelan replied cheerfully, "The streets are blocked off."

"How you did figure out there was a raid going on?" I asked.

"It sounded like people were falling down on my porch," he said, "Cops were running up both sides of the house onto the porch.

Whelan says his roommate, Erin Stalmaker, went out to talk to talk to the police. She asked the officers why they were there. The officers asked why people were running away from them. Erin reportedly told the officers that their drawn automatic weapons probably had something to do with it. She was detained after asking to see a warrant.

As I was taught, growing up, 'asking to see a warrant' is the first thing you should do when the police come knocking at your door. You see, there's a little rule anchored in the constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures.

It's very all-American. I would imagine that even members of the 'party of small government' would agree.

The people reportedly staying with Whelan and Stalmaker? Anarchist rabble-rousers from Legal Watch.

Theoretically, there might be a good reason for these raids.

But I would like to see one that comes with conclusive proof.

Until then, I agree with Greenwald:

This is truly repugnant, extreme police behavior designed to intimidate protesters, police critics and others, and it ought to infuriate anyone and everyone who cares about basic liberties.

Seriously silly art

Like everything else in life, I like my art self-deprecating and silly. For instance, I have a penchant for Claes Oldenburg, who is probably the only artist whose work has ever made me laugh out loud.

In a museum, that is. I do laugh plenty in other contexts and settings.

Which is why an exhibition by the Danish environmentalist and artist (or: artist and environmentalist) Tue Greenfort - who makes sculptures from recycled materials, takes photographs of Italian waste before and after incineration, and breeds a type of South American jellyfish (which has been unsettling the ecosystem of the Bay of Kiel ever since it was accidentally introduced to the Baltic sea by container vessels) in water that is gradually being warmed up - sounds as if it was right up my street. Despite (or is it because of?) the absurdity of his installations and projects, Greenfort seems to bring across a serious message without being dogmatic.

I was also happy to read in this Frieze Magazine article that Greenfort enjoyed watching Jacques Cousteau documentaries as a child. Kindred spirit? I'd like to think that he is also a fan of The Life Aquatic.

Greenfort's exhibition Linear Deflection is on show in Braunschweig until November - too far away for me for a nice afternoon out, I'm afraid (but then we'll be on holiday soon anyway, in search of our own jellyfish).

Home is where the Smart is

I was born and spent a good part of my life in a place with a stupid name. The kind of name that features in silly party games and causes spontaneous, hysterical laughter in those who hear it for the first time ("You are from ... [splutter, splutter] wheeeere? [splutter, splutter, heee .... heee]").

That is not fair. The place where I come from is quite a nice place (though, hell, am I happy to be able to say that I've already spent more time of my life anywhere but there). It brought forth the German B-poet, translator and orientalist Friedrich Rückert, yours truly and, as Der Spiegel kindly informs us, the Smart avant la lettre.

And ain't I proud?

We all deserve better

In a post on John McCain's choice of vice-presidential running mate, Francis helpfully points to the website of the organisation Feminists for Life, of which Sarah Palin is a long-standing member.

I had never heard of them before, but they will no doubt be getting a lot more attention with the nomination of Palin--who, like the organisation, opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

It's worthwhile poking around a bit to see what they have on offer, not least the transparently disingenuous co-opting of modern feminist language (i.e., 'women deserve better'...a phrase they appear to have trademarked...see here...how bizarre is that?) to what is essentially a deeply traditionalist and conservative agenda.

The claims of 'nonpartisanship' are equally bogus, as is the half-hearted effort to depict themselves as largely secular. Their stated opposition to capital punishment has a distinctly tacked-on feel -- how vigorously will they be pushing that issue among Republicans in the upcoming weeks, I wonder.

One might nod at their calls for progressive, family-friendly workplace legislation and efforts to combat violence against women while also wondering exactly which party has a better track record on those fronts. (Hint: it's not the one that has long been seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade.)

However, their ambiguity about contraception -- which is no doubt less ambiguous than they make out in their PR material -- makes their stated commitment to reducing the frequency of abortions laughable.

In the end, FFL -- like the candidate they're so giddy about -- appears to put a friendly face on what is essentially a very nasty agenda. The feel-good rhetoric about offering women more choices conceals a fundamental(ist) goal of limiting those choices. (Moreover, their rhetoric infantilises women by suggesting that those who have abortions are uniformly forced into them.)

More comment on FFL available from Ruth Rosen. At Daily Kos, you can find a long post suggesting that Palin and her church have more than a passing connection to Dominionism or Christian Nationalism. I need to spend some time reading through that and catching up on my knowledge about wacko religious movements, but there's plenty there to keep you busy.

Finally, I was also struck by the letters in large type that are today screaming forth from the FFL website: 'Perception is Reality'.

It's a very odd thing when the fundamentalist right takes over a slogan of the post-structural left.

But it certainly might make a succinct slogan for the McCain-Palin campaign this year.

How else, just to name one example, could two fairly conventional Republicans adopt the 'maverick' label? And why is it that the press is so willing to go along with this?

And it fits right in with their seeking to wish away science (on evolution, say, or global warming, or stem-cell research) in favour of less reality-based thinking.

One thing I do know: reality will become a less pleasant place should these two -- and the folks they'll bring with them -- take office next January.

And that will not just be a perception.

We All Deserve Better®.

[UPDATE]: In 2005, Nation columnist Katha Pollitt wrote an illuminating profile of Feminists for Life, based partly on what sounds like a lengthy conversation with its president, Serrin Foster.

It's worth reading.

From her conclusion:

For FFL there's only one right decision: Have that baby. And since women's moral judgment cannot be trusted, abortion must be outlawed, whatever the consequences for women's lives and health--for rape victims and 12-year-olds and 50-year-olds, women carrying Tay-Sachs fetuses and women at risk of heart attack or stroke, women who have all the children they can handle and women who don't want children at all. FFL argues that abortion harms women--that's why it clings to the outdated cancer claims. But it would oppose abortion just as strongly if it prevented breast cancer, filled every woman's heart with joy, lowered the national deficit and found Jimmy Hoffa. That's because they aren't really feminists--a feminist could not force another woman to bear a child, any more than she could turn a pregnant teenager out into a snowstorm. They are fetalists.

Of course: 'Fetalists for Life' doesn't have quite the ring to it.

[UPDATE] It occurred to me, reading this post by Ezra Klein, that some commentators might be missing something when they focus on Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy experience.

It doesn't seem that she has much in the way of national policy experience either:

As the day wears on, I'm growing ever more convinced this was an insane pick. Palin isn't well vetted. McCain has only met her twice. She's not well briefed -- a month ago she didn't know McCain's position on Iraq. And she doesn't come prepared for the scrutiny. Palin isn't in a political position that exposes her to the full range of issues. She's not been running for president for two years, working with sprawling policy teams and being exposed to every concern of every voter willing to write an e-mail or grab the mic at a townhall. She's not been in office long enough to dig in on many issues, and she's not been in the sort of office where she'd have been exposed to many of them naturally.

In the coming weeks, she's going to get questions on the following topics: Preexisting conditions in health care, anthropogenic global warming, prison reform, NAFTA, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the name of the president of Georgia, the construction of a fence along Mexico border, the struggle in Kadima between Tzipi Livni against Shaul Mofaz, the trade deficit with China, the Social Security trust fund, net neutrality, the correct size and composition of the army.

Conservative, liberal, independent, whatever: I would imagine you'd want the person one heartbeat away (as the evocative and accurate but somewhat overworked phrase goes) from the presidency to have at least some experience with such things...

[UPDATE]

A very relevant and pertinent question is raised (via Last Place for Jakarta).

The choice gets even easier. A lot easier.

There I was contemplating Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech (Andrew has helpfully offered a version that is complete and doesn't necessitate clicking from one segment to another...continuity is important, you know) when some other important news interrupted the news cycle.

I speak, of course, of Liz Hurley's upstaging of Eva Herzigova at the Venice Film Festival.

Yes, like all of you, no doubt, I'm shocked and utterly bewildered, believe me.

Elsewhere of course, John McCain has named the unknown-in-49-states Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential candidate.

But more on that in a moment.

I agree with Andrew and lots of other people that Obama's speech was extremely effective. There were bits that I found a tad cringeworthy--such as the relentless 'only in America' exceptionalism --but these are the same bits that are pretty much standard equipment for any American political speech. And while they're a minor irritant in Obama's speeches, they'll be full-on vomit-inducing at what is likely to be an entertaining right-wing freak-show in Minnesota.

Many things are relative, you know.

I also found the laundry list of policy initiatives to be both welcome and strategically necessary. Nevertheless, I couldn't help thinking that in 4 (or with any luck 8) years they might be replayed as a reminder of what was not accomplished during the Obama presidency.

Still, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and all that.

Thus, despite the above I'm willing to admit that I succumbed to the inspirational qualities of the speech: there are parts of it (the scathing repetition of 'you're on your own' to summarise Republican social policy, that single word 'enough!', the 'America is better than this' trope which, I think, effectively combines critique with optimism) that even made me think this campaign might actually work.

You see, I've been quietly despairing for some time now that Obama has no chance of winning. In some way or another, I think I have internalised the Deleuze-Marvin Spectrum Theory that Andrew so persuasively put forward some time ago and combined it with my sense that any president who might really appeal to me has no chance in most of America.

So, it was great to see Obama come out swinging, whether via sarcasm or direct attacks, against the other guy and to assert--in language that, yes, was somewhat overblown, but this is not a context for intellectual subtlety--that liberal values are American values.

I have known for some time that I would be voting for Obama. But I have to say that after the convention I--for reasons I can't quite articulate at the moment--will do so with far more optimism than hitherto.

The fact that there are indications that the Democratic Party has also learned to play tough in a practical sense is also very encouraging.

I, for one, am tired of seeing the Democrats in the position of the noble losers.

So, now for the Republican newsflash.

I am among those many, many people who have never heard of Sarah Palin. So I have no special insight into her personality or policies.

At LG&M, Alaskan 'davenoon' has a collection of quick thoughts about her that are helpful in thinking about what her selection brings (or doesn't) to the McCain ticket.

She is apparently 'likeable'--an absolutely essential quality for running the world, don'cha know--but that might be the only thing that sane people find to like about her. There are, after all, a few negatives, of which the two most important might be:

She's fanatically anti-choice and believes my wife's colleagues in the public school system should be teaching their kids to doubt the existence of dinosaurs. Which is of course why she's with McCain right now in Ohio. She's not going to yank any women from the Democrats; she's there to mobilize the nutter base of the Republican party. But since the nutter base of the Republican party will be mobilized enough by the knowledge that Barack Obama drinks pureed fetus each morning before throwing himself prostrate to Mecca, I don't see how Palin is going to accomplish anything more along these lines.

And:

Sarah Palin is profoundly, staggeringly ignorant about foreign policy. It's impossible overstate this. When President McCain strokes out over some third-tier international crisis, the erstwhile Mayor of Wasilla will be responsible for bombing Iran, maintaining our century-long imperial project in Mesopotamia, and delivering the severed equine heads to Vladimir Putin's bed.

John Dickerson, at Slate, puts this latter point slightly less vividly but no less succinctly:

But Palin is 44 and has been governor for less than two years. She has no foreign policy experience. For a candidate who turns 72 today, the heartbeat-away question carries weight. It also seems to undercut a key line of attack against Obama. If Sara Palin is ready to be commander in chief, then so is Barack Obama.

Bing points us to some information about Palin's views on abortion and creationism (that first appeared in the Anchorage Daily News):

A significant part of Palin's base of support lies among social and Christian conservatives. Her positions on social issues emerged slowly during the campaign: on abortion (should be banned for anything other than saving the life of the mother), stem cell research (opposed), physician-assisted suicide (opposed), creationism (should be discussed in schools), state health benefits for same-sex partners (opposed, and supports a constitutional amendment to bar them).

As Bing correctly points out:

This seems about as "maverick" as anything George Bush supported. Hell, she's as conventional a Republican as any I have ever heard of. Plus, she is a religious wackaloon, exempting herself from reason and compassion in the name of a parasitic meme.

Of course, I have no idea--pretty much like everyone else--how this is going to play out.

But, while I can appreciate the choice of Palin will generate some short-term buzz as the first female VP candidate chosen by the Republicans (for which they shouldn't necessarily get all that much credit, it being a bit late and all...), I can't see her advantages--which seems to be essentially confined to her sex and appeal to the Christian right--outweighing her shortcomings.

Anti-abortion, creationist true-believers are likely to be thrilled...but I find it hard to believe they weren't going to vote against Barack 'Anti-Christ' Obama in any case. Meanwhile, could it be that more than a few centrist voters might wonder whether taking the risk of handing over the nation to someone with absolutely no foreign policy experience is a Good Idea?

I can't see how this can give the Republicans more than a bit of a brief buzz that will disappear--at the latest--by the time of the first VP debates.

Having watched video of Palin's acceptance speech, I have to say that she comes across as a bit...insipid. A lightweight. And her gushing reliance on the John McCain-as-hero meme suggests that she's representing a party that has run out of ideas.

Put me down with the geeks as cautiously optimistic as of today.

On another issue, Dahlia Lithwick makes a point worth keeping in mind when perusing the rightish sector of the media over the coming weeks:

What would Chris Matthews and Rush Limbaugh be saying about Palin had she been Obama’s veep choice instead of McCain’s? Would we be seeing Sarah Palin nutcrackers by the weekend? Would Fox News be airing a segment next week about her “nagging voice” in which so-called experts opine that ‘“men won’t vote for Sarah Palin because she reminds them of their nagging wives.” Would Chris Matthews liken her not-yet-ready for primetime voice to “fingernails on a blackboard?”

No, I don't think we'll see that, for some strange reason.

But I do think we'll see a lot of not very good-faith right-wing commentary labelling any liberal criticism of Palin as a betrayal of feminism.

And I think this will make me laugh very hard.

Friday Music Blog

I'm really not into World Music or whatever you want to call it, and I think Peter Gabriel has a lot to answer for, but when I heard this on the radio the other day I was sort of intrigued:



Linna Gong, "Ni Zai Nali?"

Glee of the day

I know one shouldn't laugh - we're all human and prone to make mistakes (don't I know it?) - but these exam howlers are very funny indeed.

Evolutionary literary criticism

One of the research interests that I have been pursuing over the past year (time and energy permitting) is what might broadly be called "evolutionary literary criticism".

In other words, what I'm interested in is the question of whether and how insights from the sciences - notably the field of evolutionary psychology - can be fruitfully applied to literary scholarship. Still being a novice in this field - which is not quite as recent a phenomenon as the heated debate currently taking place in the American academic context in particular may suggest - I haven't really produced anything concrete yet. But I'm working on it.

The scope and state of the debate around evo-lit-crit is documented by a Symposium on the topic, to be published in the next issue of the journal Style. PDF's of all articles in this issue can be found at the website of one of the contributor's to this collection: Joseph Carroll, Professor of English Literature at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and one of the famous names associated with this field.

Ferry very good?

After the first, positive reviews of his film Somers Town, which was released last week, Shane Meadows is now beginning to get some stick from the critics. Well, it had to happen, especially as Meadows had never made any bones about the film’s financing by Eurostar.

For David Cox in today’s Guardian, this is unforgivable. Somers Town, he writes, is a terrible precedent in cinema history and a despicable sell-out. Unlike the more benevolent critics writing warmly about the film during the past week, he refuses to see is as anything other than a cheesy ad disguised as art. Which is also why he relentlessly harps on about the film’s oh-so flawed and flimsy plot (Eurostar employees do not get free Eurostar tickets!) – as though a lack in plot had ever kept a Hollywood movie from becoming a blockbuster (quite to the contrary, I would think), or a nouvelle vague flick a cinema classic.

I haven’t seen the film yet – but really, what do you expect from this kind of improvisation filmed in two-weeks on 16mm (and which even with its Eurostar funding hardly went beyond the low budget)?

Or is there summat else involved? From the start, Mr Cox's slightly over the top grudge against all things Eurostar seems to betray a hidden agenda. Halfway through the article, one is suddenly struck by his quaintly phrased praise of “those excellent ferryboats provided by P&O”, which he thinks the film’s protagonists ought to have boarded to get to France.

Now, that would have made the film more convincing! Only on P&O, though. In wellies and flat cap. Plus whippet.

If Somers Town is advertising disguising as art, surely here we have an instance of advertising disguising as journalism (and investigative journalism, too, as Cox apparently had to make a couple of phone calls in the course of writing his piece). The murky waters of the Channel are criss-crossed daily by dozens of ferries from a variety of lines – both British and continental – so there’s no need to be quite so specific. Why not refer to Transmanche Ferries or SeaFrance? This unwarranted foregrounding of the excellence of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. is suspicious to say the least.

It also seems to me that Mr Cox is idealising the pleasures of travel by ferry. I’m sure he’s never spent a cold night in a deep and dark December waiting in Dieppe for a ship that hasn’t even left Newhaven by the time you were meant to board it in France, navigated the pools of vomit on the staircases during a particularly rough crossing (or in the wake of particularly heavy boozing) or tried to doze away the endless hours before you get to Dover or wherever, wedged in a quiet corner between the toilets and the fruit machines.

Knowing full well that you still have several hours on a dodgy train before you get to London!

Believe me, the twenty minute Channel Tunnel ride beats the ferry every single time. Why should such a clean, swift and civilised service not be advertised? No need to be quite so irate, Mr Cox.

The title of this post? There is a Dutch transport firm that uses this slogan. I cringe every time I see one of their lorries on the motorway.

Following the herd down to Greece...

And now, a brief word from Konstantinos Lagoudakis, mayor of Malia on the island of Crete:

'They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit.'

Who might 'they' be?

Bet you'd never guess...

On not broadening your mind

In around 1584, the Elizabethan statesman William Cecil, Lord Burghley, had some sound advice to give to his son regarding travel on the European continent:

Suffer not thy sons to pass the Alps, for they shall learn nothing but pride, blasphemy, and atheism.

Oh glory days when foreign travel was still deemed hazardous enough to incite such heart-felt paternal admonitions! Were Cecil - her Majesty's Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer - to be transported to the 21st century, he would be a happier man forsooth. For in 2008, journeying abroad seems to have exactly the opposite effect than the psychological metamorphosis feared by the Renaissance politician. You need a workout for your petty nationalism and naive xenophobia (aside from some serious exercise for your liver)? Go travel - the further afield the better.

The evidence: Rebecca Adlington, a broad-shouldered lass from marvellous Mansfield, who recently was whisked away to China to win a few gold medals for the UK.

This is what the buxom blonde has to say about Team GB (the term's synecdochic significance is of course unmissable) and its intrinsic superiority to the rest of the world:

For me being British is about politeness, kindness and fair play. You see it in the athletes’ village: people from other countries can be quite aggressive, pushing in queues and not treating each other with respect – but our lot are the complete opposite and I love that.

Er, do the names Tom Daley and Blake Aldridge ring a bell, Miss Adlington, and their rather embarrassing (and far from respectful) post-botched-competition squabbles?

And this in the week that brought us the splendiferous news that the King of London has a German background! Ethnic hybridity, here we come - only not to Mansfield, apparently.

I think I might have to take back my facetious comments from earlier this year and hereby predict that soon more people in Germany will know who Boris Johnson is.

Though we won't take him back, whatever he offers!

Absurdity of the day

I spent a good part of my working day today at the dentist's. Bloody inlay my old quack apparently fucked up needs replacing - and a vicious, painful and time-consuming business this is.

Anyway: they have a new trick at my dentist's. Instead of letting me while away the seven minutes or so until the anaesthetic kicks in (and Doc can start wielding his manifold drill bits) with an extended meditation on the "Doors of Tuscany" poster opposite the torture chair (all German dentists have at least one of those posters in their establishments - it's a law), the assistant firmly pressed a remote control in my hand and told me to watch some TV via the computer.

I was verily flummoxed by this act, especially since as far as I am concerned, there is no need for this kind of, er, service. I can spend five minutes totally unentertained and not feel bored. I could have taken Bill Bryson's book on Shakespeare out of my bag and read a couple of pages. I could have looked at the cherry tree outside the window or watched the cloud formations drift in over the Hunsrück. I could have contemplated the unnatural sensation of feeling half of your face go numb and explored the accompanying sense of unease and latent fear.

Is it safe?

But you know what the worst thing was? I did as I was told! Patient patient that I am I obediently flicked through the channels - because that was what I was asked to do, right? Though I am proud to say that after one round through 24 or so programmes of extortionate tele-shopping and sanctimonious CNN-style reportage I was bored enough to switch back to the silent screen-saver and returned to the blooming Tuscan doors.

Still, what a weird way to start the weekend ....

Just for the record

I hate the whole "Team GB" business.

"Team Zissou" is a far more charming alternative:

A brief note on the generation gap

I spent this afternoon preparing a team-taught seminar with a friend who is an English teacher. Before getting down to the nitty gritty we had a bit of a moan about life, the universe and people in general. Some of her misery related to an apparently failed attempt at teaching the following well-known and characteristically straightforward poem by Philip Larkin:

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

It seems that her pupils - all A-level students of a certain intelligence and enough adolescent experience behind them to have been through a few good tiffs with their producers - couldn't see the point of this poem and found its depiction of family life "too negative."

Houston, I think we have a serious generational problem here. Some of these kids will eventually become university students; in fact, a few of them might end up in one of my classes, where they might be confronted with even "more negative" stuff (Hamlet - William Shakespeare's comforting portrayal of family life in feudal Denmark). How the hell am I going to relate to them if there is no common code between us, no shared store of experience on which we could base our communication?

I don't expect everyone to become a misanthropic cynic like me. But how can anyone read and understand literature without having at least a passive grasp of loneliness, conflict and pain?

But I guess I'm getting old ....

Another orwellian ad

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which" (George Orwell, Animal Farm).

Living in the past

Speaking of which. Yesterday I found this disturbing image at The Institute of Jurassic Technology:





Is this real? Is this recent? Is this some kind of a Boris (he of the bouffant hair) scheme? And is the saucery object above "beneath the" meant to represent a U.F.O.?

Of course, the poster deliberately recalls 1930s advertisements like this one:





Via.

Which in turn are echoed by other posters from the period, even though they have nothing to do with public transport in the narrow sense:

Via.

UPDATE: For more spooky Big Brother stuff, check out this post by Francis Sedgemore.

Suggestive journalism

Just the title ... just the frigging title!

UPDATE: John (who currently is in Blighty on a secret mission but keeps checking what's going on at the homefront) just informs me that the Mail has changed the headline that had enraged me a trifle. The original version can still be found on their homepage, however:

"Father and Daughter, 8, killed in holiday jeep crash after '4x4 driver is blinded by German during water pistol fight."

"Blinded by German", you see. Not "by a German tourist" or just "blinded during water pistol fight". We want to be right specific here, don't we, just to make sure that the bleeding finest hour will never come to an end (even if we have to defend it with ... water pistols!).

Gospel Aerobics

Mens sana in spiritui sancto? Here an article (in German) about American Christians strutting their stuff to beautify their temples of the holy spirit. Might become an olympic discipline - next time the games are in the US.

UPDATE: Oh my ... Gaawddnatural selection! I also found a couple of videos to go with the article!






God will be so damn pleased.