Blogging politics, culture, sociology and life from Brisvegas
The mysterious comments loop phenomenon seems to have struck again - on Kim’s post immediately below this one. Please bear with us as we try to fix it so that you can comment there if you wish.
Update (by Rob): I’ve fixed the problem — unfortunately, it was caused by the referrer spam bouncer plugin. I’ll try to find a new one, but until then Mark will have to sift through the viagra and incest spam when drafting his next “humorous google search terms” post…
This one’s for Kate.
From Mimi Nguyen’s piece Me and My Hair Trauma.
The essay begins -
Hair’s been on my mind.
Earlier today I stood in front of the bathroom cabinet mirror, sewing scissors in hand. I was having hair trauma. (I have hair trauma a lot.) Taking inventory, I glanced down. Sitting on the back of the toilet were the following instruments (of varying degrees) of follicle torture: Royal Crown hair gel. Pantene hair spray. A tortoise shell clip. Ponytail ties. Bobby pins. A year-old plastic container of “Apple Green” Manic Panic hair dye. A blow-dryer/curler. Clippers. Bleach conditioner. A comb.
Standing in my underwear I imagined the possibilities: braids, french twists, a bun, two hair buns (a la anime girlies), the “wet” look, shaved, curled, ponytail, pompadour, mohawk, bihawk, streaks, “Glamour Shots” big hair, gang-girl big hair, buzz cut, mullet, beehive, haute couture. This is the essence of my hair trauma. I got dizzy thinking about it and left well enough alone.
And ends -
Which hair politic do you follow?
I hate the white avant-garde.
I hate my hair trauma, but not nearly as much.
These days I am thinking of chopping off most of my hair and bleaching it white. Again.
I never said my hair would start a revolution.
Can you really grasp my political agenda, my psychological state of mind, from my style choices?
Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
Everyone going home lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven’t come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
There are no barbarians any longer.
Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
These people were a kind of a solution.
- C.P. Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians, 1898
A potted history of the New World Order‚Ѣ:
1989: Velvet Revolutions
Atheistic communism has been defeated. There are no barbarians any longer.
2005: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
Titanic struggles for democracy, civilisations clash, enemies attack us from within, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse stalk the insecure homeland.
————————————————————-
I’m grateful to Tom Nairn for the poem. In his new book with Paul James Global Matrix, he looks at the response of ordinary Americans to s11 (much the same could have been said about Londoners more recently). He finds hope in the determined effort to carry on. His argument differs a little from what he hear most often though. Nairn is suggesting that getting on with our lives, refusing to believe in the crazed and hyperbolic discourses of terror and war and enmity swirling above our heads, is in itself an act of political courage. It’s time, he argues, to put the mad rantings of our masters in perspective, the better to combat them on one hand, and to truly live our freedoms on the other.
A useful reflection perhaps after a week of values talk, and in light of stories like this one.
One time leadership aspirant and singularly unimpressive Minister for Aged Care, Bronwyn Bishop, has jumped on the Costello/Nelson/Panopolous values bandwagon, calling for head scarves to be banned at school:
Ms Bishop backed the view of outspoken Liberal MP Sophie Panopoulos, who last week said she was concerned about Muslim women not showing their faces when they posed for photographic identification.
Ms Bishop today said the issue had been forced upon Australia, which was experiencing a clash of cultures.
“In an ideal society you don’t ban anything,” she told the Seven Network.
“But this has really been forced on us because what we’re really seeing in our country is a clash of cultures and indeed, the headscarf is being used as a sort of iconic item of defiance,” she told Channel Seven.
“I’m talking about in state schools. If people are in Islamic schools and that’s their uniform, that’s fine. In private life, that’s fine.”
These remarks seem telling:
Ms Krayem Abdo said she found it difficult to comprehend the government’s stated support for the freedom of Iraq, yet Ms Bishop’s proposition was to prevent Australian Muslims from exercising freedom of religious rights.
It’ll be interesting to see how the right-wing op/edders react. The Devine Miss M has previously argued that a backdown by the NSW Education Department on banning a student from wearing a mantoo was “common sense” and often praises Islam:
Conservative Christians have much in common with moderate Muslims. Both are under attack by the zealots of secularism. They share a desire to stem the tide of the I Am Charlotte Simmons world created by intolerant anti-religious fundamentalist secularism. It is a world of empty materialism, patois and degrading hooking-up sex, which Tom Wolfe brings to life in his latest novel about university existence.
Does this make Bronwyn Bishop an aggressive secularist?
An alternative hypothesis, bolstered by her recent call for 14 year olds to join the navy, might be that Bishop is a politician on the scrap heap trying to wring the very last bit of media attention out of over the top comments.
Elsewhere: Kate has more commentary.
Cross-posted at Moment to Moment.
When Mysterious Skin was first slated to be shown in Australia, there were cries from the usual suspects that it might be used by paedophiles as a how-to manual or how to groom their victims. Thankfully, the call for a review on the film’s rating saw its original rating maintained.
While I understand that some people may worry about the promotion of paedophilia, after seeing the film I’m sure the censorship board made the right decision. I won’t get into the politics of censorship here, it’s a huge topic and one that deserves a post in its own right.
I believe that honesty about child sexual abuse is the key to reducing it; I also believe there’s any way Gregg Araki’s film can be construed as somehow aiding and abetting paedophiles. It’s too complex and it shows the wounds of child abuse far too clearly.
The film details the lives of two young men who, as children, were molested by their baseball coach; Neil, who is gay, and who has become a teen hustler, and Brian, a buttoned-up naif who has blocked out the abuse and instead believes he has been abducted by aliens. The movie uses flashbacks to the early 80s, but for the most part the narrative takes place in the early 90s.
Neil is played wonderfully by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (best known from Third Rock From The Sun), embodying a starkly believable adolescent nihilism — the world barely seems to touch him, as he holds himself distant from both his experiences and his pain.
Neil describes how he first meets his abuser; the baseball coach, a hearty blonde man sporting one of those horribly creepy late 70s moustaches. The coach sets up an elaborate seduction and his home seems to be a wonderful haven for young Neil; he has a world of junk food, video games and toys around him, and Neil is entranced. And yes, seduced.
An open thread where you can, at your weekend leisure, discuss whatever you like.
The madness apparently consuming all politicians in Australia continues today, this time it’s coming from the backbenches of the Australian Labor Party.
Antony Loewenstein gives the details of Labor MHR Michael Danby’s efforts to have the publishing of his book covering the Australia/Israel relationship quashed with a strongly worded attack on the books publisher, Melbourne University Publishing, within the pages of the Australian Jewish News.
The following letter appears in this week’s Australian Jewish News. It’s written by Federal Labor MP, Michael Danby. Its agenda is clear. Why is a member of parliament trying to stop the publication of my book?
Danby writes.
“However, faint praise for Adler is a sidebar to the substance of the issue. I want the entire Jewish community to know that I absolutely dissociate myself from her decision to publish a book edited by Anthony Loewenstein about the Australian Jewish community………”In preparation for writing his book, Loewenstein sent me a number of questions, based on assumptions, which made his views so blatantly obvious that I refused to answer them or participate in his book.
I understand Danby’s passion and watchfulness given the historical calamities that befell many of the ancestors of the largest Jewish electorate in Australia, an electorate he represents, but it appears that in his overwrought sensitivity, he has gone one step too far in his call for the censoring of a book before its publication based solely on the nature of a series of questions he received, a book he has yet to read.
Now I took the opportunity to e-mail Lowenstein about this, and specifically asked for and about the questions that Danby found so leading and assumptive. The questions posed to Danby were on how the ALP dealt with dissent in its ranks regarding Israel/Palestine, his views on Howard and Israel, and about general attitudes towards Israel and Jews here in Australia.
All appear to be reasonable, and comprise legitimate angles of discussion any journalist would wish to pursue in the normal course of research on a book of this nature.
Which leaves us with what? A silly and hysterical attempt by an elected Australian politician to censor a book about Israel and Australia being written by a fellow Australian and Jew, and a situation where it appears that Danby would like to make it impossible to canvas any issue regarding Israel and it’s relationship with Australia. It’ll be interesting to see how the ALP deals with Danby’s paranoia.
Update
Antony Lowenstein has now posted a couple of updates, one of which includes his specific list of unapproved questions.
Elsewhere
Tim Blair engages is some silliness. And Tim Dunlop has his say.
Well, that’s it, I’m handing back my university degree, donning my apron and getting myself pregnant as soon as possible.
Because, yes, you guessed it, men are smarter than women.
But… wait a minute. Let’s read this story carefully, shall we?
Men are more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average, making them better suited for tasks of high complexity, according to the authors of a paper due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology.
Genetic differences in intelligence between the sexes helped explain why many more men than women won Nobel Prizes or became chess grandmasters, the study by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn concludes.
They showed that men outnumbered women in increasing numbers as intelligence levels rose. There were twice as many with IQ scores of 125, typical for people with first-class degrees.
When scores rose to 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.
So there are more men with higher IQs than women in the sample taken by the study? And that proves, conclusively, that men are smarter than women. And this totally has a biological basis, and this totally explains why men win more Nobel prizes than women.
I would have said all this proves is that some men are better at taking IQ tests than some women, and that IQ tests are only one, very culturally specific way of measuring intelligence. Whatever the hell intelligence is anyway.
But what do I know? I’m only a woman, and therefore, not as smart as a man.
Not only did they invent modern social democracy, the Swedes have continued to innovate in the fight for lefty goodness. The latest Swedish idea?
A Swedish library, realizing that books are not the only things being judged by their covers, will give visitors a different opportunity this weekend—to borrow a Muslim, a lesbian, or a Dane.
The city library in Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city, will let curious visitors check out living people for a 45-minute chat in a project meant to tear down prejudices about different religions, nationalities, or professions. The project, called Living Library, was introduced at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival in 2000, librarian Catharina Noren said. It has since been tried at a Copenhagen library as well as in Norway, Portugal, and Hungary.
The people available to be “borrowed” also include a journalist, a gypsy, a blind man, and an animal rights activist. They will be available Saturday and Sunday in conjunction with a Malmo city festival and are meant to give people “a new perspective on life,” the library said in a statement. “There are prejudices about everything,” Noren said. “This is about fighting those prejudices and promoting coexistence.”
Borrowing a person will be free, and the library will also provide coffee at its cafe where the “living books” will answer questions about their lives, beliefs, or jobs. “It’s supposed to be relaxed and human-to-human,” Noren said.
Will there be a barcode on the living books’ heads in case they’re overdue when returned?
Bookblogger Georg, of Stack, has found a new home courtesy of the kindness of TV’s Mr Flute. Georg, in her various blogging incarnations, has always been a favourite of mine, and good on Flutey for the hosting offer.
And if you were wondering where Margo Kingston had gone, Don Arthur has the good oil.
Fresh from calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Ch√°vez, something that even Republican Senators think is a tad unChristian, televangelist and former Republican presidential candidate Rev. Pat Robertson has made another excursion into foreign policy. God will render judgement on the Israelis for withdrawing settlements from Gaza, the Rev, usually feted by Ariel Sharon, says.
Like many US Christians, the Reverend believes that it’s necessary for the Jews to be in the Holy Land so that the drama of the end times can play out. Never mind that Gaza was never part of biblical Israel (somebody might also like to point this out to ultra-Zionists).
If Rev. Robertson was an Australian, he’d be stripped of his citizenship for advocating the murder of a democratically elected Head of State, wouldn’t he? Or at the very least sent to a Government Preacher Academy for re-education?
Or could there be one rule for Islamic clerics allegedly advocating violence in Mosques, and another for Christian clerics openly advocating violence on national tv?
Pat Robertson has been off message before, most notably when he attributed blame for the September 11 attacks:
I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians . . . . I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen’.
Ps - Lest you were thinking Robertson is an isolated nutzoid, he’s long had close ties to the Republican Party, and his Christian Coalition, with 8 million members, is a strong influence in Republican primaries in many states. Robertson is a Christian Reconstructionist or Dominionist, and believes that a Christian theocracy should be established in the USA - whether or not it is democratically supported - to pave the way for the coming of the Lord.
Pps - There’s an excellent article in The Guardian which gives some insight into why Ch√°vez is not so popular in US right wing circles.
The latest front in the war on terror (please correct me if I’ve missed the most recent rebranding) - the history wars. Fresh from deciding that there is one growth opportunity for publicly funded higher education - Government Imam Academies (is there a system of accreditation for your local Catholic priest or Uniting Church minister?), the ever energetic Dr Brendan Nelson has suggested that terrorism could be stopped if students in Islamic schools were taught about Simpson and his donkey.
“We don’t care where people come from; we don’t mind what religion they’ve got or what their particular view of the world is. But if you want to be in Australia, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs,” he said.
“We want them to understand our history and our culture, the extent to which we believe in mateship and giving another person a hand up and a fair go. And basically, if people don’t want to be Australians and they don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well basically they can clear off.”
Dr Nelson said if the country lost sight of what Simpson and his donkey represented, “then we will lose the direction of the country”. John Simpson Kirkpatrick, carrying wounded soldiers on his donkey, is the iconic image of Gallipoli. “He represents everything at the heart of what it means to be Australian.”
You know, the funny thing is that I don’t recall being taught about Simpson and his donkey at school, and somehow I still support things like democracy and the rule of law. Puzzling.
I also support collective care for other citizens and investment in equality of opportunity as part of mateship and a fair go. I’m not so sure Nelson, Costello and Howard do.
With Marilyn Lake, I hope that this newfound enthusiasm for reviving history teaching in schools will also pay attention to the history of democratic struggles for workers’ rights and social welfare and the ballot in this country. It would seem to me that this history might be better suited to inculcating an understanding of democracy - something that we can never take for granted and something which always has to be fought for - than militaristic myths about mateship.
Part of the problem with Nelson’s hyperactive diktats is that under federalism, he doesn’t actually have to take any responsibility for running schools just funding them (in part). So the mercurial Minister can dash around the country articulating his latest bright sparks, and all of a sudden schools grants are tied to flag flying, report cards, phonics teaching, values and Great War stories. All without any responsibility for a comprehensive and holistic process of thinking about what school education should be, and for actually implementing it on the ground.
In the same article, the PM says:
“It is very hard for a government or any of its agencies to penetrate every aspect of life, and we don’t want to interfere with people’s enjoyment of life,” he said.
“But equally, if people are not willing to give their first loyalty to this country, they obviously must understand that that will arouse enormous concern within the rest of the Australian community.”
Don’t be alarmed, I’m sure he’s working on trying to penetrate every aspect of life. Since when was it part of a liberal society (as opposed to an authoritarian conservative one) for the government to enforce one-sided nationalistic values as ours?
Time again to talk cricket.
Aside from the test, a bit of a discussion starter. Is cricket dying or flourishing?
No word today from Janet Albrechtsen on the white cultural assault on Aboriginal human rights over the past couple of hundred years.
Now consider Martin’s decision in Yarralin. This is not progress. It is further proof that “culture” is fast becoming one of the most pernicious words of our time. The consequences for indigenous people have been, and will continue to be, devastating until we wake up to the noble-savage myth. There is nothing too noble about polygamy and rape and violence. Cultures that embrace those practices are in dire need of a Western takeover………Sure, let’s talk about the nasty parts of sharia law. But let’s also talk about the nasty side to Aboriginal law. And if yesterday’s feminists are wondering why they lack traction with today’s young women, it’s because of their silence on the big issues. Such as this one. Allowing cultural rights to trump human rights is never a good look.
Like Margaret Thatcher’s now famous dictum that there is no such thing as society, Albrechtsen takes a cudgel to the idea of culture, not only drawing silly dots between Aboriginal customary law and Sharia, but practically blaming the blackfellas for any existent cultural tensions in Australia today.
So, let’s repeat that shall we. According to Albrechtsen, “Cultures that embrace those practices are in dire need of a Western takeover”. That folks, is the ugly sound of white Western triumphalism and imperialism, from there it’s a short walk to fascism and the institutionalising of genocide.
Cross-posted at Moment to Moment.
Note: I’ve edited this post in response to Kim’s comments. You can read the original at my blog.
Ages and ages ago, Mark, at the request of a few other women bloggers, asked his readers to send in more links to women’s blogs dealing at least partly with politics.
This created a small controversy; Mark received a few comments from female bloggers taking him to task. They felt his tone was patronising, that women’s blogs were far from invisible, and that even having to ask for linkage to women’s blogs is insulting — like asking where all the great women authors are, for instance. While I disagree with them about the intention of Mark’s post, I can see where the people who posted objections were coming from.
Kim has asked me to clarify this a little and I will.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with asking for more links to female bloggers — Mark’s shout out was an attempt to be more inclusive and to ask his readership to nominate blogs they like.
However, a recurrent theme in the wider blogosphere is that women don’t do blogs, and they don’t do them well.
Commentary like this, as pointed out by Lauren at Feministe is a case in point:
I suggested then that one obvious reason is that most women are too concerned about their own lives and those of the people they care about to bother broadcasting their opinions on events of only marginal relationship to themselves to the world.
An even more more impolite corollary to that is that women tend to be more emotional than men, so a disembodied text-only medium that puts a high emphasis on rationality is not one in which women will tend to equal men in performance.
Goodness me. And I’m supposed to respond to this politely?
Mark’s original post was headed “what women want” and it was about “what women want blog day” — something promoted by female bloggers and designed to celebrate the fact that, you know, women do blog, they blog well, and they blog about political and personal life, in emotional and rational ways. It wasn’t lamenting the lack of female bloggers or wondering why they didn’t blog about politics like the big boys do.
As for what women want? Personally, I only know what I want, and I hate to speak for other women… but I’d say most women would be happier seeing less crap like this on the ‘Net.
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