Archive for April, 2008
Fucking Censorship
For a large variety of reasons, both personal and practical I hate whenever I see censorship in pretty much any form. Given my own inclinations towards liberalism and what would be called ‘political libertarianism’, and more generally for the practical reason that, in my experience, whenever there is censorship of items, it generally tends to be becuase the people calling for the censorship don’t ‘get’ the item in question I tend to assume that censorship is often a knee-jerk reaction to the unknown or frightening rather than something that’s neccessary.
Two recent news items that I have seen in the last 24 hours have left me feeling rather angry and raging against the stupidity of the so-called ‘moral majority’. The first one is reported here where Joe Duffy (Ireland’s resident fuckwit Jerry Springer) gets himself in a tizzy over the fact that Batman comics aren’t always suitable for children while the second one is about a British law that makes it illegal to view certain kinds of pornography, even if the pornography itself is not illegal.
With regards to the Batman issue in question (its one of the ‘All Star Batman and Robin issues which I’ve talked about before), I find that I can agree to a small extent with the mother who called in, because the issue in question, and the all-star Batman series in general is not suitable for children and Titan books, the comics publisher who is reprinting this material for the UK market should look at the content of the issues more before deciding to advertise the books to children. However, what got me rather annoyed, was the assertion by the guest from the rape crisis centre who blatanly asserted that people like me, who have been reading comics for years, and have been exposed to comics like ‘All-Star Batman’ are dysfunctional rapists waiting to happen. Now obviously, outside factors do play into rapists, and violent or abusive individuals will always find certain materials more stimulating. But, to suggest that because the Joker (in this case) date-raped a woman and kills her after showing misogyny in general, that I, or any other reader of comics, will do so is absurd. And yet, after Joe Duffy talking about this on his show and not finding anybody intelligent from the comics community to defend the books (the guys who were on his show defending comics, to put it mildly, didn’t do a good job), the impression that people have of the books will not exactly be the best. As a friend of mine put it on Gmail Chat today, and I’m quoting here:
yeah, but know in kitchens all across ireland, idiots who actually listen to duffy and value his opinion uncontrollable laughter are thinking that all those who read comic book readers are rapists
Now, this is probably going to go nowhere (I hope) but given the growing interest in Manga and French comics (but Manga especially) here in the English-speaking world,how long will it be before we see some ‘parents group’ jumping on this bandwagon?
But, what can one expect when in the Uk, the government has made it illegal to look at porn of a certain kind, even if that porn is not illegal? It’s that kind of ridiculous double-speak laws that make one fearful of the idea that we are moving to a society where these sort of knee-jerk ‘concerned citizens’ control us all. Whats most insidious about that law is that its going to make people who are perfectly decent individuals criminals in the eyes of the world simply because theire sexual interests diverge from the mainstream. The intellectual coherence of the arguement against ‘extreme pornography’ has all of the mental coherence of the homosexuals = future pedophiles or ‘Goths = future Columbine case’ arguements one hears every so often. Whats also interesting is how around 10 minutes in, the person being interviewed points out that the illegality of these images means that possession of these materials mean that people could be open to ‘legal revenge’ after a break-up in a relationship. Furthermore, they point out that the language used, comparing these people to peadophiles or murderers is grossly over the top. Anyway, have a look or listen to both of the links I provided.
Most Played
In response to Cian’s list - the top ten off the ‘25 most played’ list on my ipod:
1.Le Disko - Shiny Toys Guns
2.Cherry Lips - Garbage
3.The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
4.Lump - Presidents of the USA
5.Dazed, Beautiful and Bruised - Catatonia
6.La Tristesse Durera - Manic Street Preachers
7.The Pop Singer’s Fear of the Pollen Count - The Divine Comedy
8.Under the Gun - Kristin Hersh
9.Black, Red, Yellow - Pearl Jam
10.Twitch - Bif Naked
Stephen Colbert at the White House dinner
I remember this video as being one of the first times I was ever exposed to politics in a meaningful sense. While its probably an odd thing to say, this was one of the first times that politics became ‘real’ for me and remains one of the best ‘take-downs’ of the Bush Administration I have seen. What’s impressive (and kind of horrifying) is that a large number of the comments made by Colbert still apply…
Social development comes from gin and desperate housewives?
From Warren Ellis, a temendously interesting talk on ‘Web 2.0′, time and social development:
‘Grindhouse’ - possibly the best cinema experience?
As I’ve already talked about a bit, I went to see ‘Grindhouse’ last night. Now I know the film didn’t do brilliantly as a double feature, but the only thing that proves is that people are fucking idiots. I cannot remember the last time I was at a movie where the audience burst into applause at various points during the films. Now personally I can’t recommend both films enough, though ‘Planet Terror’ is clearly the better of the two and you really need to watch the whole thing as the single film experience, and preferably in the cinema to get the full value of it. There are a few things that I should mention though:
A question relating to ‘Misogyny’
Is there an equivalent word for that means ‘hatred to men’? It’s just that I’ve met a few ‘feminists’ here and there who have said things that, if said by men would be called ‘misogynstic’ except, well the genders wrong. Any suggestions?
At one stage there were only 2000 human beings on the planet?
I guess logic suggests that it has to be the case but I was still rather surprised to read this:
This suggests the early human population was tiny (so the opportunities for new matrilines to evolve in the first place were limited) and reinforces the idea that Homo sapiens may have come close to extinction (eliminating some matrilines that did previously exist). Indeed, there may, at one point, have been as few as 2,000 people left to carry humanity forward.
The BBC has an article covering a lot of the same things but lacks that rather entertaining statistic. Still though, that’s an idea that will probably keep me entertained for a while to come…
Update: Here’s another BBC article
Battle Pope! Not the Real Pope! Battle Pope!
While this cartoon isn’t quite as funny as the comic, mainly because it’s been toned down a bit, it’s still good for a chuckle:
Cock Load - Cock Load - Battle Pope - In the Beginning
Cock Load - Cock Load - Battle Pope - Genesis of an Ass-Kicking Read the rest of this entry »
John Edwards goes Al Gore route, appears on Colbert Report
I still think he’s better than any of the canidates that are left…
