30 December 2005
Poking Eyes and Turning Cheeks
“An eye for an eye” is the diametric opposite of “turn the other cheek”. Both sayings involve insult to the face. The latter seems like it was deliberately designed as a specific direct challenge to the former.
Diseased Leaders and Impacts on Societal Milieu
Specific emotional problems impact on specific parts of the body and vice versa. If an individual impresses their worldview on a society then the society will have a higher incidence of the health problems that that individual has. If a society suffers from a high incidence of problems with a specific body part it will push people whose types of consciousness relate to problems with that body part into positions of power.
Channel 9 has a distinctive vibe to it. Besides the fact that they butcher scheduling I hate being forced to watch something on it because it feels like you’ve walked into a bitter old couple’s house that smells like boiled cabbage for dinner at 5 in the afternoon and tobacco stuck in the curtains.
I wonder if Australia - or subsets of the Australian population that watch channel 9 - has higher incidences of kidney issues than would otherwise have been the case. I wonder about Latham and his pancreas.
Channel 9 has a distinctive vibe to it. Besides the fact that they butcher scheduling I hate being forced to watch something on it because it feels like you’ve walked into a bitter old couple’s house that smells like boiled cabbage for dinner at 5 in the afternoon and tobacco stuck in the curtains.
I wonder if Australia - or subsets of the Australian population that watch channel 9 - has higher incidences of kidney issues than would otherwise have been the case. I wonder about Latham and his pancreas.
28 December 2005
Kerry Packer’s Cryogenic Kidney Legal Wrangle
Short story idea:
Within days of Kerry Packer’s death, media outlets publish the truth about his dodgy deals and manipulation of Australian democracy. It turns out The Goanna has secretly been cryogenically frozen. James Packer has purported to assume power of attorney and launches defamation proceedings on Kerry Packer’s behalf. In the meantime Nick Ross, the helicopter pilot kidney donor, develops complications in his remaining kidney. He brings an action for recovery of the kidney.
Within days of Kerry Packer’s death, media outlets publish the truth about his dodgy deals and manipulation of Australian democracy. It turns out The Goanna has secretly been cryogenically frozen. James Packer has purported to assume power of attorney and launches defamation proceedings on Kerry Packer’s behalf. In the meantime Nick Ross, the helicopter pilot kidney donor, develops complications in his remaining kidney. He brings an action for recovery of the kidney.
Kerry Packer Euthanasia?
Kerry Packer died four days after he finalised an unbeatable bid for the AFL rights, two days after Christmas.
He died during the Boxing Day Test, creating the perfect stage for a media blitz on his own network about his life and death. The cricketers paid respect before the start of play (an hour after the death was announced), the commentators ranted about him all day and Channel 9 advertised an hour long edition of the news all day through the cricket.
Mitigating arguments: careful planning would not see the announcement fall to Richard Wilkins. And Packer would surely have wanted to watch the whole Test.
He died during the Boxing Day Test, creating the perfect stage for a media blitz on his own network about his life and death. The cricketers paid respect before the start of play (an hour after the death was announced), the commentators ranted about him all day and Channel 9 advertised an hour long edition of the news all day through the cricket.
Mitigating arguments: careful planning would not see the announcement fall to Richard Wilkins. And Packer would surely have wanted to watch the whole Test.
The Union Jack and Racism
Ever since the Cronulla Riots I’ve been doing kind of double-takes whenever I glimpse an Australian flag. A little pang of I don’t know what feeling goes through me. If it’s being worn by someone I look at them to see if I get a white supremacist vibe.
Next time we have the change-the-flag debate the argument that goes “but I fought under it in blah blah blah war” will look even more ridiculous. “My great-grandfather fought under it on the beaches of Gallipoli and I fought under it on the beaches of Cronulla.”
When I got to primary school I used to spread dissent about “house points” because I couldn’t understand why other kids actually gave a shit about their house winning. It turns out it’s not a form of slave-like stupidity that goes away with age. But if the morons want a flag then at least have one that’s not dominated by another country’s flag. The union jack was the thing people on Cronulla were fighting for.
24 December 2005
Negative GDP
It’s unbelievable that anyone should be talking positively about GDP growth deriving from rebuilding things destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. A clear example of specialised knowledge superseding rather than integrating with common sense. If you replace something lost, there is no net gain in wealth. Temporary GDP growth would happen if funds were diverted from savings/investment into rebuilding rather than diverted from other consumption. Hardly a positive. When we suffer losses, including degradation of environment, drops in literacy, epidemics, etc, this should be subtracted from GDP.
Lazy Reprinted Comment
Not many blogworthy thoughts have happened to me lately so I'll cut and paste a comment I left somewhere else in response to a post about people not dressing nicely (I have no idea why that captured my imagination. My IQ is at an ebb right now.)
"It's interesting that some working class people emulate bourgeois fashion and vice versa.
Working class people that do so are often forced to change superficial qualities if they want to engage with or win concessions from the upper class. Not just clothing but also speech and mannerisms. Black American leaders rarely have Black American accents. Mark Latham wrote something in his diaries about how people on the worker/progressive side of politics have to have better manners than the Tories.
I'm not sure why bourgeois people emulate working class fashion (eg jeans in the '60s, hip hop fashion now) but I have a hunch it has to do with both shame at their privilege and secret admiration of people who, by virtue of having to survive in a harsh environment, develop qualities that appeal to all humans on an animal level (eg physical ruggedness, raw gift of the gab).
Another thing: suits and ties are unwearable in parts of Earth where white people didn't evolve. They're a symbol of the fact that people everywhere have to squeeze themselves into the white male mould."
The post mentioned that Martin Luther King exhorted his followers to dress in suits and ties. I decided not to mention (for fear of not being published) that King was also being blackmailed by J Edgar Hoover because of his penchant for group sex with... white girls. Self loathing ahoy.
"It's interesting that some working class people emulate bourgeois fashion and vice versa.
Working class people that do so are often forced to change superficial qualities if they want to engage with or win concessions from the upper class. Not just clothing but also speech and mannerisms. Black American leaders rarely have Black American accents. Mark Latham wrote something in his diaries about how people on the worker/progressive side of politics have to have better manners than the Tories.
I'm not sure why bourgeois people emulate working class fashion (eg jeans in the '60s, hip hop fashion now) but I have a hunch it has to do with both shame at their privilege and secret admiration of people who, by virtue of having to survive in a harsh environment, develop qualities that appeal to all humans on an animal level (eg physical ruggedness, raw gift of the gab).
Another thing: suits and ties are unwearable in parts of Earth where white people didn't evolve. They're a symbol of the fact that people everywhere have to squeeze themselves into the white male mould."
The post mentioned that Martin Luther King exhorted his followers to dress in suits and ties. I decided not to mention (for fear of not being published) that King was also being blackmailed by J Edgar Hoover because of his penchant for group sex with... white girls. Self loathing ahoy.
Hardrightists and Survivalism
For some reason extreme rightists are often survival freaks/bushmen. It has something to do with distrust of other humans and human cooperation. If society breaks down, they’ll look after themselves and withdraw. In fact, they secretly want society to break down. I can understand the bitterness of someone who is in an inferior position in structured society than they’d be in in the state of nature. Plus they like shootin pigs and roos. Gives you a boner.
15 December 2005
Communicating the Meaning of Weddings
People getting married should write out a detailed description in the invitations of what the ceremony means to them and/or what they hope to achieve by getting married. If you go to a wedding you should make sure you know. Otherwise you could be celebrating different things. It’s a matter of respect on both sides unless you’re happy to be a guest making up the numbers or a newlywed happy to have guests there just to make up the numbers. If you’re celebrating the fact that your friend has found monogamous spiritual love but your friend is celebrating emotional security then you’re not at the same wedding.
Sydney Media’s Fear of Alan Jones
Why did the fact that Alan Jones incited violence not get into the press in Sydney? The article I linked to in my Cronulla rant was written by one of the most prominent journalists in the country and was published in The Age, which routinely publishes the same articles in its sister paper the SMH. But not this one.
Correction: It was published in the SMH. Crikey argues that Jones should be tried under the new anti-terrorism laws. Meanwhile people who forwarded the SMSs inciting violence are being charged. Jones read one on air.
Correction: It was published in the SMH. Crikey argues that Jones should be tried under the new anti-terrorism laws. Meanwhile people who forwarded the SMSs inciting violence are being charged. Jones read one on air.
14 December 2005
My Cronulla Refugee
The riots worked OK for me - had a fuckbuddy from Cronulla come and see me while he escaped for the weekend. I like Sutherland boys - fits my thing where I’m sexually attracted to rightwingers, Mormons, rednecks, etc.
Cronulla Riots Rant
Manicboy hereby issues the definitive word on the Cronulla Riots.
Australia is a racist country. We are the only western nation to have mandatory detention for undocumented refugees. We are the only western nation to be subject to an urgent action order from the UN anti-racism committee (1998). Australia had an immigration policy designed to keep Australia Anglo until the ‘70s (White Australia Policy). Aborigines were barred from voting and were officially classified as animals until the late ‘60s. TV, film, ads, etc are 100% Anglo despite the very racially diverse composition of society. At the same time as the riots happened, our most famous non-retired Aboriginal athlete (Anthony Mundine) had bottles thrown at him by the crowd as he left his boxing match.
John Howard and Kim Beazley are apologists for the racism. When you deny that the racism exists, you collude with it. “Racist” is one of those words that have become synonymous with “evil”, like “paedophile”. So racists feel hurt when they’re called racist, and coward politicians tell them what they want to hear. People resented Paul Keating for pushing Australia to be more cosmopolitan and Australians to nurture some of the better parts of their natures. Howard rode to power on the back of this resentment and fatigue with cultural development. One of his mantras was about envisaging a “relaxed and comfortable” Australia. She’ll be right mate. No racists here. No class either. Howard routinely admonishes people for “class envy”. Just relax and cop it. How dare he. Notice that Pauline Hanson has crawled out from under her rock to echo Beazley, Howard and Wayne Swan on this piece of self-delusion.
John Howard is a racist. He advertises it through dog-whistle politics. In the ‘80s he advocated restricting immigration from Asia (why is this not talked about?). I won’t go into other policies but will say that all his little touches like being a cricket fanatic, the “mateship” thing, the monarchist thing, etc, all scream out “I’m one of you!” to Anglophile racists. And commentators that want to be taken seriously can’t talk about it because it sounds like overkill. But next time he’s talking to non-white foreign leaders, watch how he smiles patronisingly. He can’t even relate to non-whites.
The former premier of NSW (Bob Carr) routinely demonised Middle Eastern people. Every time there was a crime committed by an Arab he would emphasise it, rant about needing to fit in, etc. We’ve had 4 years of media hysteria about Middle Eastern terrorism. Women wearing hijabs have been getting spat on. Politicians like Bronwyn Bishop have made offensive comments about banning hijabs and stripping Australian criminals who weren’t born here of their citizenship. People have actually had their “permanent” residence stripped and been deported. Innocent Arabs like Bilal Daye (try searching news sources for that name… things are disappearing from the record already) have been arrested, had homes raided and their children held at gunpoint.
Australians like immigrants who stay in their place. You should be grateful you got let in. Culturally East Asians are less assertive than other groups so whites tolerate them except once a year when they take all the university places. Lebs are less shrinking. Also, some thinking in and surrounding Islam seems to be about not accepting victimhood or conquest.
Like other males in minority lower-status groups, male Lebs hunt like pack animals. They’ll only harass you if they’ve got five against one. This pisses people off. Another routine low-status male group thing to do is to insult a female who is walking with a male of another race as provocation. This also pisses people off. Everyone knows it, all young males experience it, and there’s not a word of it in the public discourse.
In Sydney whites dominate the beach suburbs. There’s a big white arc cleaving to the coastline. The Western suburbs are like a giant pit that all the pollution and heat from the rest of the city rolls into in the summer, and it’s always a few degrees hotter out there. Most beaches are virtually inaccessible by public transport. And people who live there want to keep it that way. A few years ago bourgeois Bondi Beach people blocked a train station from being built there. As it stands now it takes me an hour in a sweltering bus to get to Bondi Beach, but only 10 minutes to get to Bondi Junction station by train. Cronulla is one of the few beaches you can get to by train. People who live near the beach have an insane territorial thing happening.
Sutherland Shire is a mega-white, insular, God-fearing redneck enclave. In other parts of Sydney racists have to deal with everyone else in their everyday lives so it becomes a kind of pragmatic racism.
Sydney’s #1 radio shock-jock Alan Jones dabbled in a bit of incitement, calling for “a rally, a street march, call it what you will. A community show of force.” Incitement is illegal but don’t hold your breath for charges to be laid.
Something really distasteful about the whole thing is how it’s about which group of males can dominate which group of males. Females are a possession that one group can claim from the other. The words “our women” and “their women” are repulsive.
Australia is a racist country. We are the only western nation to have mandatory detention for undocumented refugees. We are the only western nation to be subject to an urgent action order from the UN anti-racism committee (1998). Australia had an immigration policy designed to keep Australia Anglo until the ‘70s (White Australia Policy). Aborigines were barred from voting and were officially classified as animals until the late ‘60s. TV, film, ads, etc are 100% Anglo despite the very racially diverse composition of society. At the same time as the riots happened, our most famous non-retired Aboriginal athlete (Anthony Mundine) had bottles thrown at him by the crowd as he left his boxing match.
John Howard and Kim Beazley are apologists for the racism. When you deny that the racism exists, you collude with it. “Racist” is one of those words that have become synonymous with “evil”, like “paedophile”. So racists feel hurt when they’re called racist, and coward politicians tell them what they want to hear. People resented Paul Keating for pushing Australia to be more cosmopolitan and Australians to nurture some of the better parts of their natures. Howard rode to power on the back of this resentment and fatigue with cultural development. One of his mantras was about envisaging a “relaxed and comfortable” Australia. She’ll be right mate. No racists here. No class either. Howard routinely admonishes people for “class envy”. Just relax and cop it. How dare he. Notice that Pauline Hanson has crawled out from under her rock to echo Beazley, Howard and Wayne Swan on this piece of self-delusion.
John Howard is a racist. He advertises it through dog-whistle politics. In the ‘80s he advocated restricting immigration from Asia (why is this not talked about?). I won’t go into other policies but will say that all his little touches like being a cricket fanatic, the “mateship” thing, the monarchist thing, etc, all scream out “I’m one of you!” to Anglophile racists. And commentators that want to be taken seriously can’t talk about it because it sounds like overkill. But next time he’s talking to non-white foreign leaders, watch how he smiles patronisingly. He can’t even relate to non-whites.
The former premier of NSW (Bob Carr) routinely demonised Middle Eastern people. Every time there was a crime committed by an Arab he would emphasise it, rant about needing to fit in, etc. We’ve had 4 years of media hysteria about Middle Eastern terrorism. Women wearing hijabs have been getting spat on. Politicians like Bronwyn Bishop have made offensive comments about banning hijabs and stripping Australian criminals who weren’t born here of their citizenship. People have actually had their “permanent” residence stripped and been deported. Innocent Arabs like Bilal Daye (try searching news sources for that name… things are disappearing from the record already) have been arrested, had homes raided and their children held at gunpoint.
Australians like immigrants who stay in their place. You should be grateful you got let in. Culturally East Asians are less assertive than other groups so whites tolerate them except once a year when they take all the university places. Lebs are less shrinking. Also, some thinking in and surrounding Islam seems to be about not accepting victimhood or conquest.
Like other males in minority lower-status groups, male Lebs hunt like pack animals. They’ll only harass you if they’ve got five against one. This pisses people off. Another routine low-status male group thing to do is to insult a female who is walking with a male of another race as provocation. This also pisses people off. Everyone knows it, all young males experience it, and there’s not a word of it in the public discourse.
In Sydney whites dominate the beach suburbs. There’s a big white arc cleaving to the coastline. The Western suburbs are like a giant pit that all the pollution and heat from the rest of the city rolls into in the summer, and it’s always a few degrees hotter out there. Most beaches are virtually inaccessible by public transport. And people who live there want to keep it that way. A few years ago bourgeois Bondi Beach people blocked a train station from being built there. As it stands now it takes me an hour in a sweltering bus to get to Bondi Beach, but only 10 minutes to get to Bondi Junction station by train. Cronulla is one of the few beaches you can get to by train. People who live near the beach have an insane territorial thing happening.
Sutherland Shire is a mega-white, insular, God-fearing redneck enclave. In other parts of Sydney racists have to deal with everyone else in their everyday lives so it becomes a kind of pragmatic racism.
Sydney’s #1 radio shock-jock Alan Jones dabbled in a bit of incitement, calling for “a rally, a street march, call it what you will. A community show of force.” Incitement is illegal but don’t hold your breath for charges to be laid.
Something really distasteful about the whole thing is how it’s about which group of males can dominate which group of males. Females are a possession that one group can claim from the other. The words “our women” and “their women” are repulsive.
Jesus and the Death Penalty
Surely death penalty abolition was one of the points of Christianity. The man spent his whole time running around having lunch with hookers and raving about turning the other cheek and not being so presumptuous as to issue judgment on god's behalf. He worked on the Sabbath (punishable by death). And while the logic behind a deity having to die to atone for the sins of humans is inscrutable (and a bit twisted and bloodthirsty), this story seems to imply that no more humans should be put to death for their sins. Putting someone to death must be sacrilegious on two fronts: it demeans the symbolism of Jesus’ execution and it ignores the gift that was given though his execution.
11 December 2005
Evolved Traits: Whole Species vs Individual
Someone else must have written this already but there are two types of characteristics that evolve readily:
1) Those that increase an individual organism’s prospects of procreation relative to other individuals of the same species.
2) Those that increase the long-term viability of a whole species.
Some characteristics that make an individual more likely to survive and breed are detrimental to the chances of the whole species’ survival. Eg humans’ talent for putting up good appearances.
Some characteristics that increase the chances of the whole species’ survival can make an individual organism vulnerable if they inherit or express too many genes relating to them, or even typical individual organisms that find themselves isolated from the rest of the species. Eg some neurodivergents, people who are extremely empathic or co-operative, etc.
1) Those that increase an individual organism’s prospects of procreation relative to other individuals of the same species.
2) Those that increase the long-term viability of a whole species.
Some characteristics that make an individual more likely to survive and breed are detrimental to the chances of the whole species’ survival. Eg humans’ talent for putting up good appearances.
Some characteristics that increase the chances of the whole species’ survival can make an individual organism vulnerable if they inherit or express too many genes relating to them, or even typical individual organisms that find themselves isolated from the rest of the species. Eg some neurodivergents, people who are extremely empathic or co-operative, etc.
Fashion + Evolved Need to Fake Appreciation
A lot of human biology is geared towards putting up a good front. Social species have a higher proportion of resources devoted to appearances, conscious species more so, and species with a high degree of control of their environment even more so. (Actually the environment thing is more about the degree that mortality and propensity to procreate is affected by environment. Species may have their evolutionary paths less affected by environment without actually controlling it.)
This fact is behind the Emperor’s New Clothes phenomenon. In almost all situations, most people don’t understand much about what’s going on. But your appearance takes a hit if you’re the only one not to get something. So you laugh when the canned laughter is rolled out.
When an object of interest goes mainstream / becomes fashionable, what happens is that there is a small core of people that truly appreciate it, a small group of opinion leaders pick it up, and the masses follow. The second two groups don’t get it, just participate as a social thing. Opinion leaders’ motivations for adopting particular objects of interest range from influencing the locus of power to idol worship of an individual putting out an object. The masses’ motivation is pure fear of loss of face. Some people believe there is something in the object that they don’t get, and feel inadequate. Some think it’s a load of bullshit but are too scared to speak up, and just go around being silently cynical about the world.
Eventually things may reverse, leaving only a small core of the truly appreciative. So even when something genuinely worthwhile becomes fashionable, it should be realised that its innate value may not be the reason, and may not be sufficient to keep it from becoming unfashionable again. And the essential features of an object of interest that make it valuable can even be excised from it while the mob continues to worship it. Eg middle class uni kids slumming it as hippie socialists while they wait for their job offers.
This fact is behind the Emperor’s New Clothes phenomenon. In almost all situations, most people don’t understand much about what’s going on. But your appearance takes a hit if you’re the only one not to get something. So you laugh when the canned laughter is rolled out.
When an object of interest goes mainstream / becomes fashionable, what happens is that there is a small core of people that truly appreciate it, a small group of opinion leaders pick it up, and the masses follow. The second two groups don’t get it, just participate as a social thing. Opinion leaders’ motivations for adopting particular objects of interest range from influencing the locus of power to idol worship of an individual putting out an object. The masses’ motivation is pure fear of loss of face. Some people believe there is something in the object that they don’t get, and feel inadequate. Some think it’s a load of bullshit but are too scared to speak up, and just go around being silently cynical about the world.
Eventually things may reverse, leaving only a small core of the truly appreciative. So even when something genuinely worthwhile becomes fashionable, it should be realised that its innate value may not be the reason, and may not be sufficient to keep it from becoming unfashionable again. And the essential features of an object of interest that make it valuable can even be excised from it while the mob continues to worship it. Eg middle class uni kids slumming it as hippie socialists while they wait for their job offers.
8 December 2005
Dead Neurodivergents, Agency and Individualism
The thing today with a US Air Marshall executing a bipolar man (Rigoberto Alpizar) who had an episode and claimed he had a bomb is related to a broader phenomenon in society right now. Which is the same phenomenon responsible for the Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon scandals.
What’s happening is that the ideology of individualism is forcing society to ascribe a radical version of agency to individuals and generate a punitive atmosphere in which individuals who don’t behave in certain ways are not only punished, but punished in a spirit of vindictiveness. It’s got a harsh moral undertone to it. Context, multiple and circular causation is ignored.
There is no single human who has a good idea of exactly how power and economic structures at large play out. Any attempt at explanation is derided as conspiracy theory. People don’t know who to blame for things but still want to blame. It’s not well understood that groupings of individuals can form psychopathic cyranoids, and there are inadequate legal mechanisms to deter people from acting destructively under the guise of a group. Eg the corporate veil. People can’t grasp the fact that stability/unity of personality is an illusion, even for neurotypicals. All people know is that societal structures have to work, and that people should be treated equally. This leads to feelings of hostility to people who don’t toe the line, pull their weight, meld their identity to the system, whatever. Such people are irritating inconveniences who should be dispensed with.
This kind of attitude came out in some of the debate over Van Nguyen. Some people couldn’t get to the question of capital punishment per se or even proportionality for the particular crime committed because they would trip on the question of whether someone who broke a law should face the sentence prescribed by that law. There were comments like “he knew what the penalty was, so he should face it”.
Hopefully next time I go manic I keep my big mouth shut, don’t lose my ID, and leave my backpack at home.
6 December 2005
Alex McTaggart and the NSW Christian Right
Far be it from me to defend a boarding house owner but it’s interesting what’s going on with Alex McTaggart. Within a week of destroying the Liberals in Pittwater (while paralysing Peter Debnam’s leadership and embarrassing the conspirators who put him there) he’s been falsely smeared and then rehabilitated in the Sun Herald/Sydney Morning Herald over allegations about running a drug den. Which served as a smokescreen story for a purging of yet another moderate from the NSW Parliamentary Liberal Party (Patricia Forsythe).
This is instructive on which members of the media establishment may have relationships with the Christian right, or at least be willing to do their dirty work. Glen Milne broke the John Brogden story, and David Penberthy was editor at the Daily Telegraph when they ran their anti-JBro campaign. Eamonn Duff and John Kidman wrote the false story about McTaggart. Philip McLean was editor.
This is instructive on which members of the media establishment may have relationships with the Christian right, or at least be willing to do their dirty work. Glen Milne broke the John Brogden story, and David Penberthy was editor at the Daily Telegraph when they ran their anti-JBro campaign. Eamonn Duff and John Kidman wrote the false story about McTaggart. Philip McLean was editor.
3 December 2005
Two Types of Old People
The amount of time you’ve spent on Earth has a diagenic effect on your humanity. All the bullshit you have to put up with from other humans either makes you close down and become bitter/nasty/narrow-minded/selfish or you develop patience and compassion. Most old people are the former.
Dream: Red Hair Girl With Glasses
Was at a really long counter where you could buy fruit and veges. A girl with long red hair was lining up with heaps of other people. I pushed in. The guy behind the counter was friendly, bald + podgy + retarded or something. The girl made huffy, tongue-clicking, sighing noises as I ordered. I didn’t even really know what I wanted yet and she was irritating me, making it harder to choose. I shouldered her out of the way. She finally said, “Why do you always do that?” I realised I knew her quite well. She gave me a narrow, old-people’s pair of glasses that I had left somewhere and she had kept for me. I felt bad.
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