Discursive terrorism!

I have some sympathy with the lovely British comedian Jason Manford who got caned by Facebook (shame on them) for declaring that these 'idealists'  are in actual fact cowards.
To be fair he said a bit more than that but I don't think his observations were misplaced

To open fire on unarmed civilians, is not bravery and idealism.

It is total and utter cowardice

It is bullying and thuggery.

I imagine the prophet Mohamed, peace be upon him, would be deeply ashamed of the evil that is perpetrated in his name. 

I have been interested about my own reflections, and those who live hand-in-glove with me about what this means.

As I drove into Adelaide yesterday (quietly on Sunday at about 8 a.m.)  I thought about how we might feel about such awfulness. Then cast my mind back 24 hours....the Christmas Pageant.

My granddaughter (10 months old ) was present....and loved it. 

200-300K people present just celebrating their community life....what if a bomb? or a gunman..?  it doesn't bear thinking about.   But my conversations led me to believe I was not the only one who thought this thought!

So I don't emir from J Manford's sentiment

Equally well, as my eldest daughter and I were practising speaking French, we spoke about the Tour Eiffel.   How it had been evacuated; and how easily three or four well-placed bombers could have taken it out.....shudder!

Surely these mad boys ( for such they are...BOYS....will blog about this shortly) don't want to live in a world in which families cannot have lunch together, or friends laugh with each other....

Having been a boy, I know that boys are not that bright!   They get enthused. But we are a bit thick!

Easy targets for unscrupulous propagandists who convert their stupidity to misguided 'enthusiasm'...which is a most dangerous thing!

Compulsory viewing

Took advantage of half-price day and the Oscar victory to go and see "The Hurt Locker". I had suspected this was an important film and it is.

In my opinion compulsory viewing for anyone who thinks they need to join the armed forces, or when we are thinking about invading another country.

My mind went back to the seminal film Full Metal Jacket, but I thought this was much more important than that. Or maybe our world has degenerated between Vietnam and Iraq. Interesting too that Vietnam films were made 20 yeard after that war ended, while Iraq fils are made while war is going on.

Its premise is that war/violence is a drug. And it makes a good case. Its addictive and mind-altering nature is quite alarming, but believable. Too-believable at times.

And amidst all that there is the awful sense of the incredible waste.

To what end

We are all no doubt pleased that State Opposition leader Isabel Redmond has apparently survived being tasered and 'didn't flinch'. She claims this is not a stunt...if it is not then why do it?

But really this sort of approach to policy is ridiculous. The most absurd would be for proponents of the death penalty to submit to injection/electrocution/gassing...or whatever ...in order to prove that it is 'humane'. This sort of example suggests that being tasered proves nothing at all...other than that attempting to prove the 'humanity' of tasering is pretty pointless; just as attempting to prove the humanity of the death sentence, or corporal punishment or water-boarding by actually submitting to it is futile. It only proves that you (the foolish one who so submits) happily survived it.

There needs to be some more serious thought given to what more objective criteria should be adopted. The emotionalism of a politician undertaking the test, is as futile as the child of the 50s who protests "My father strapped me and ti hasn't done me any harm!"

Until such time as we have more objective criteria, then let us be a bit more circumspect about the promotion of state-sanctioned violence.

Tasing the Opposition

Having grown up with a British Police Force who in those days had the proud boast that they did not carry guns, one wonders about the present Taser debate. One wonders even more why the SA Opposition Leader, Isabel Redmond, is doing anything more than attention-seeking when she is offering to be Tasered herself (here) in order (presumably) to show that it's OK!

There is no doubt that we have a real problem about what to do with armed criminals.

Is it too simplistic to say: Get rid of guns!!! Make it illegal to own them, or use them unless you are licensed, trained, and using them in a full-controlled environment.

Is it all too-simplistic to say the same thing abotu knives also?

In the current hysterical discussion in which the hyperbolic "Gang of 49" language is being used we should all be aware that it is bad to make public policy in the heat of the moment.

The Taser (and there are a number of variants) has a basic problem...and that is that you use it like a gun.

It does nothing to diminish gun violence, and may even provoke it, if we say that you point a gun at someone who is pointing a gun at you.

Most of us here are deeply disturbed by what happens in the US. Less guns seems better than more.

This is a bit of a ramble...but you get the point!

Go ahead and smack me

A new corporal punishment debate is started by news (no-doubt jumbled) that one woman has been chatted to by police about smacking her kid with a wooden spoon.

It just seems to me that a wooden spoon is a quite nasty weapon, particularly because it is conveniently to hand. And also because I know that I am one of those people who can too easily go from a tap-to a slap-to a thump.

I determined early on in my time as a parent that I needed to discipline myself to not strike my children. I did not always manage this, and it always said more about my behaviour than theirs.

Critiquing the Crows Spin Machine

I posted back in April about  Crows 'star' Nathan Bock being arrested for striking his beloved.

One thing that intrigued me at the time was that shortly after I posted an Anonymous comment appeared suggesting I had overreacted. The comment said he was "only guilty of handbag violence". I misunderstood the comment at the time thinking it was making the suggestion that a footballer's partner was only just an accessory (like an handbag) and so it didn't matter if you bashed it.

I thought this interpretation pretty offensive and so deleted it! I did wonder where it had come from, and over the next few days was rather drawn to the conclusion that it was probably someone at Football Park who had been designated the task of trying to get erstwhile bloggers to moderate their righteous (or  possibly self-righteous ) anger. This seemed a little paranoid even for me. Though I had been under attack from two other correspondents around that time.

I didn't think much more about it until a couple of weeks later a similar sort of Anonymous comment appeared and it said

Stephen, he damaged her handbag. Spousal violence is indeed deplorable but aren't you over reacting a tad? Check your sources it was nothing more than purse bashing!

This actually gave much more credence to my original paranoid idea. And so the comment was left on there with a further comment by me that I didn't buy this argument....though now it was clear to me that Bock had indeed destroyed her purse!!

Now, for the record , today in court he pleaded guilty to assault

The report says

Prosecutors said Bock slapped his girlfriend, Carlie Matthews, twice on the left side of her face and threw beer in her face during an altercation at the General Havelock Hotel. 

He later damaged Ms Matthews' handbag, mobile phone and bracelet, the court heard, but was too drunk to be interviewed by police at the time. 

                           full report here

This was not merely the destruction of someone's handbag!!

Now while the incident was reprehensible, if my theory about the Adelaide Football Club trying to spin local blogs is even partially true...this would still indicate that they consider this as something needing damage control rather than fundamental change of culture.

Is enough, enough?

Crows player Nathan Bock has declared that he is repentant and ready to play.
He was caught striking his beloved in anger, whilst drunk. Crows management decided he should be (at least) temporarily suspended. And here we are a week or so later, and he declares he is ready to go.
Is it long enough?
We shall see what they decide. Personally I think spousal violence is a bit more serious!

Scary Carey

I rushed home from a rather interesting group last night to not miss Enough Rope  in which Andrew Denton was interviewing Wayne Carey.

S said when I reminded her it was on "I'm not watching that rubbish!". Well after all it takes a lot to compete with Desperate Housewives and Money Lies and sex, or what ever it's called.

I dutifully watched fascinated, becoming increasingly bored by Carey trying to justify himself. It seemed to me that he thought he was going to try to and use this interview to tell a well-rehearsed story.

Since there had been much hype about it beforehand, Denton had had the opportunity to comment that he thought Carey still had serious issues. What was interesting was that although Denton is usually a very interactive interviewer my impression was that he sat back and let Carey hang himself. Not that he let him get away with things. And sometimes he asked questions like "When did you stop beating your wife?"...you can't win. Either you admit you once were a wife beater, or half the people who hear it  think ". He protests too much!"

Certainly his major defence was that the papers and the magazines were just lying through their teeth

Was Denton tendentious? I didn't think so. He seemed just to ask and sometimes push for clarification...So the New Idea didn't offer you $180,000 for your story...there was never any discussion of money...neither you nor your team talked money.

Now, by and large Denton doesn't use the sort of mud slinging tactic, so it makes it seem all the worse because the suggestion certainly was that there was more to this than met the eye.

But one commentator on the ABC website did suggest that Denton should have put or shut up...and he didn't.

It is interesting that on the Enough Rope  Guest book (here) most commentators are sad about Carey, but not negative towards him.

My impression is much more in accord with Denton's that this was a very sinister adn cynbical exercise.

I don't think it worked in Carey's favour, but some of the people have been fooled some of the time.

I have more sympathy with Nick D'Arcy, who like Mr Carey allegedly likes to drink to excess and then punch people's lights out.

The difference, maybe there is no differenece, but it could be that D'Arcy is 20 and at the beginning of a stellar career. Maybe there is some hope that he will learn his lesson. So perhaps it should not be, as St Kieran of the teeth says, "one strike and your out" but I certainly wouldn't be letting him have a second strike. Nor like Mr Carey, a third, fourth and fifth just because he's good at sport.

I want to be the  last to pretend that I am sinless when it comes to drinking too much, and nor do I pretend that I have not done anything that I am profoundly ashamed of. 

I just didn't think there was much that was sincere about what King Carey was offering us last night.

Perspective

I watched 3 minutes of the awful Mel Gibson Passion yesterday.

I don't dispute that there is a point to be made about the violence, but there is somethingbizarre about watching the Lord having his skin ripped off with a cat of nine tails.

Though in the last few months I came across the Coptic (Egyptian) Christian forms of Daily prayers the Agpeya (here)One of the things that each hour contains is the repetition of the Kyria 41 times (Kyrie eleison=Lord have mercy). This is to remind us that Jesus (and many others) was whipped this 39 times...it was the limit that could be undertaken without having to get a judicial order.

So why 41 times....After he is whipped within an inch of his life he is then crowned with the thorns, and then speared in the side. Punishment on punishment.

As I practised this seemingly innocuous prayer trying to pray for victims of violence. I became aware over a number of weeks of how awful it is to just try and imagine the terrific violence of 39 skin ripping whips. And then the two final acts.....40 a head pierced with thorns....41 a side speared.

God what a world we live in still