I’m nothing like a soccer afficionado but …

1. How can it be possible that Thierry Henri was left unmarked to make the hand-assisted pass to the goal scorer without a single one of the six Irish players in the box noticing the foul? What was the goalie doing during this?

2. How come the goalscorer was unmaked at such close range?

The Irish have nobody to blame for this than themselves. If they’d been awake, they’d have prevented Thierry offloading and the scorer receiving AND claimed the penalty.

Of course, there should be a third umpire able to red-flag the goal in such/similar circumstances (eg offside, foul in the box)

That said, it’s only a soccer game. It’s not as if anything important about the world changed as a result.

He still had my chin – his fingers holding too tight, till it hurt – and I saw resolve form abruptly in his eyes.

“N-” I started to object, but it was too late.

His lips crushed mine, stopping my protest. He kissed me angrily, roughly, his other hand gripping tight around the back of my neck, making escape impossible. I shoved against his chest with all my strength, but he didn’t even seem to notice. His mouth was soft, despite the anger, his lips molding to mine in a warm, unfamiliar way.

I grabbed at his face, trying to push it away, failing again.

He seemed to notice this time, though, and it aggravated him. His lips forced mine open, and I could feel his breath in my mouth.

Acting on instinct, I let my hands drop to my side, and shut down. I opened my eyes and didn’t fight, didn’t feel…just waited for him to stop.

It worked. The anger seemed to evaporate, and he pulled back to look at me. He pressed his lips softly to mine again, once, twice, a third time. I pretended I was a statue and waited

Finally he let go of my face and leaned away.

“Are you done now?” I asked in an expressionless voice.

“Yes,” he sighed. He started to smile, closing his eyes.
I pulled my arm back and then let it snap forward, punching him in the mouth with as much power as I could force out of my body.

There was a crunching sound.

“Ow! OW!” I screamed, frantically hopping up and down in agony while I clutched my hand to my chest. It was broken, I could feel it.

Jacob stared at me in shock. “Are you alright?”

“No dammit! You broke my hand!

“Bella, you broke your hand. Now stop dancing round and let me look at it.”

“Don’t touch me! I’m going home right now!”

“I’ll get my car”, he said calmly. He wasn’t even rubbing his jaw like they did in the movies. How pathetic.

Indeed.

You’d be thinking I was quoting the the myoginist vamp idiot boyfriend of the stupidest female character in fictional living memory, but I’m not. This is the moronic Bella’s best friend, Jacob the dog. Which gets me thinking. If Stephanie Meyers had really understood Wuthering Heights, the book which influenced her most in the writing of Twilight and its twisted spawn, she would have known that these poor excuses for Heathcliffe, Cathy and, um, in this instance Cathy’s best friend, the dog Jake, – had to die in order for balance to be restored. But not so. Ms Meyers had a few more squillion to squeeze out of the teen market I suppose. And so a series has been written. There is even a fifth book freely available on her site which is a rewrite of the first book from the vamp’s perspective. As if Bella’s wasn’t bad enough.

The curious thing is, the fact that this a sexual assault passed off as romantic comedy aside, and the fact that the whole series is really bad writing aside, and the fact that Meyer is peddling Mormon nonsense in this series aside, and the fact that it’s teenagers that are reading this aside, – all that aside -it just makes me howl with laughter every time I read more than two paras. This stuff is so bad it’s kind of very funny. Though I do imagine a rewrite where Buffy comes along and stakes em all, even the dog, every time I do.

“Eclipse” is the book. Don’t be all rushing out and getting it. Pace yourselves, there is plenty more where this came from – and remember next time you are getting sexually assaulted by your best friend, even if his mouth is soft despite the anger (eh?) pretend you are a statue and it will all stop. Alright then.

Excuse 1: the handball was inadvertent. WRONG! The first might just possibly have been accidental although given his famed quickness of thought and reflex that seems unlikely. But there’s no possible excuse for the second touch which was a careful guide onto his foot to set up the assist. And of course he had ample opportunity to have set things right by letting the referee know at the time. Instead he led the celebrations.

Excuse 2: it was the referee’s fault for not picking up the handball. WRONG! Are we about to start blaming police for the crimes they fail to prevent.

Excuse 3: he admitted what he had done and had subsequently declared that a replay would be a fair result. WRONG! Ireland needed him to admit what he had done when it could have made a difference. He gets no credit for confessing when the game has been completed. Neither does he get credit for his declaration that a replay would be fair since he waited until FIFA had made a statement that the game would not be replayed.

Excuse 4: it was really the Irish team’s fault for not scoring from previous chances in the game. WRONG! How can not being good enough to overcome a highly skilled opponent that cheats possibly put you in the wrong?
Excuse 5: all of us would have done the same in the circumstances. WRONG! I really object to this comment now being touted by a procession of professional football players. I’ve played plenty of sport and deliberate cheating is the exception, not the rule. And if cheating is such a natural and instinctive reaction, when are we going to do something about retrieving poor Diego’s sullied reputation.

Excuse 6: Thierry Henry is not a cheat – he has always been a fair and honest footballer. WRONG! He cheated in a big way, on a big occasion, with devastating consequences for his opponent. He could have stopped cheating after the first (possibly) inadvertent touch, but chose instead to again use his hand to set up the assist. He could have stopped cheating after the goal by informing the referee. He could have publicly argued for a replay straight after the match but chose to wait until FIFA had said there would be no replay. He could have taken full responsibility for his actions but chose to blame the referee. He’s a cheat of the most loathsome kind. Nothing he’s done before, or does in the future, can ever change that.

My hope is that football still has enough self respect to call out it’s cheats and shame them – not make excuses for them.

Fran, things change. Early-to-mid 20th century communists/extreme leftists were largely in favour of industrialisation.

Not largely Tim, but entirely. Opposition to industrail society within the countries of the west was entirely confined to handfuls of reacxtionaries in the T H Huxley vein plus the occasional liberal. Let’s not forget that this and the period before it is the only period Minchin can have been referring to when he said:

For the extreme Left it provides the opportunity to do what they’ve always wanted to do, to sort of deindustrialise the Western world. You know the collapse of communism was a disaster for the Left …

What they (i.e. extreme leftists) have always wanted to do must describe the historic development period of the “extreme left” which arguably begins in 1844 and goes until now. Marxism started from thje idea that industrialisation was a necessary condition for socialism/communism, which would appear when burdened by the fetters imposed by the relations of production, the working class sought to transcend these and the wage labout system precisely in order to develop the forces of production that capitalism relations of production inhibited.

19th century communists, not so much so – hence the large arts and crafts movement associated with politically active people like William Morris, who advocated a return to a medieval lifestyle.

Firstly, Minchin is not referring to Morris. One doubts he has even heard of Morris, but Morris was no mediaevalist. Certainly, he saw the mechanisation of production dehumanizing, but he put the matter thus, at one point:

I do not [believe] we should aim at abolishing all machinery; I would do some things with machinery which are now done by hand, and other things by hand which are now done by machinery; in short, we would be the masters of our machines and not their slaves, as we are now. It is not this or that…machine which we want to get rid of, but the great intangible machine of commercial tyranny which oppresses the lives of all of us’ (Art and Its Producers, 1881)

Morris was very much from the humanist school of leftist thought, but his argumentation was entirely based on what he took to be the starting points established by Marx and Engels. You refer to his self-description as a communist but that occurs in a passage called Socialism and Anarchism which puts the matter in terms of the end goal or equality and enlightenment. Developing this idea he continues:

The history of “society” since the fall of feudalism has been the gradual freeing of class or slave-society from the fetters of superstition, so that it might develop naturally within its prescribed limits of “exploitation of man by man,” and that stupendous and marvellously rapid growth in power and resources of modern slave-society is due to this shaking off of superstition.

Here and there, Morris’s ideas are a bit woolly, but you will look in vain for a plea to deindustrialise.

Nowadays there is a large group of the extreme left associated with the green movement.

This is wrong on a number of counts. Firstly the extreme left can only dream of being called “large” by anyone in the mainstream. If there are 1000 people in this country who would qualify as extreme leftists, I’d be very much surprised, because over the years, I’ve rubbed shoulders with most of them, at least at the level of organisation, and indeed, I’d count myself under that rubric. None of them has ever suggested deindustrialisation or secretly wished for it, as far as I can tell. Those oriented towards the environmental movement to have a broader agenda than traditional “green” issues, but at no point do they argue for dismantling urban society or its industrial underpinnings. This suggestion is pure fantasy, or an attempt to poison the well. Anyone wanting that would disqualify him or herself from being a leftist since the starting point for leftism, its sine qua non is the triumph of modernity. Celebrating modernity and being critical of its usages are not mututally exclusive.

Minchin’s comments are neither ignorant nor deceptive.

It’s at least one of these.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reached a similar conclusion in a report earlier this year about the rise of right-wing extremism. The report said the nation’s economic downturn and Obama’s race are “unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment.”

The homeland security report added that “disgruntled military veterans” might be vulnerable to recruitment by right-wing extremist groups.

I would go with “deceipt”, Fran. He knows quite well what he is doing. As election season draws near the customary ‘smear the Greens’ campaign begins. It will be played out by Liberal, Labor, Family First and exclusive brethren will be itching to join the fearfest.

There are more ex-commies in the ranks of the neo-cons, who Nick still looks upon so fondly, than than in the green camp. But ultimately, who gives a toss, apart from this opportunistic git, what political games were being played out so long ago. They have no relevance to how best we might save what’s left of the planet, now.

The bloke is just playing out a worn out variant of ‘reds under the beds’ and it’s tiresome that TimT gives this absurd conspiratorial garbage any credence.