Bye Bye Baby, Baby Bye Bye....
The last time I listened to that song I was in Dalian, China.
Anyway, I'm done here. I was going to delete the blog but I realised I quite liked looking back through it, like an old diary, but I don't really feel like writing, and haven't, in the same way for a while. Maybe when I go on tour again I'll want to but right now, I've nothing to say that fits here and I'm so busy on other little and not so little projects that I've decided it's time to do something else. If you've been reading, then I thank you.
zaijian.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
"Sporting woman, is she...?"
Quoting form an article in the Metro (2/24/09)
“Rapelay,” a Japanese video game, was recently pulled from Web sites such as Amazon and eBay, but anti-violence advocates are shocked it’s still available for download elsewhere.
As described on mobygames.com, “Rapelay” players take the role of a pervert who, after an arrest for molestation, sexually assaults the young woman he first attacked, along with her mother and younger sister.
“This is not what you want in the world if you want to end sexual violence,” said Harriet Lessel, executive director of New York Alliance Against Sexual Assault. “Does it talk about the seriousness of rape and how it destroys people’s lives?”
Yesterday, she and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn urged video game distributors to pull the game.
Illusion, the Yokohama-based software company that released “Rapelay” in 2006, states on its Web site that the product isn’t available for sale outside Japan.
It was hard to know where to start. It seems the company feels that a game available to (presumably) adolescent Japanese boys is less offensive than a game available internationally, as though that's an excuse (I wonder if there's an argument being prepared that it's culturally acceptable to portray rape as fun in Japan...). Anyway, two simple questions seems to me to clarify why this game isn't harmless fun-or even a good bad-taste joke to be sniggered at when the girls have gone to bed.
1> Why don't they make the game so that the protagonist is raping / sodomizing men?
2> Why wouldn't that game be marketable to its target demographic? What thrill would that game lack that rapelay contains?
Even the title "rapeplay". FFS.
I am ever amazed and appalled in equal measure.
Quoting form an article in the Metro (2/24/09)
“Rapelay,” a Japanese video game, was recently pulled from Web sites such as Amazon and eBay, but anti-violence advocates are shocked it’s still available for download elsewhere.
As described on mobygames.com, “Rapelay” players take the role of a pervert who, after an arrest for molestation, sexually assaults the young woman he first attacked, along with her mother and younger sister.
“This is not what you want in the world if you want to end sexual violence,” said Harriet Lessel, executive director of New York Alliance Against Sexual Assault. “Does it talk about the seriousness of rape and how it destroys people’s lives?”
Yesterday, she and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn urged video game distributors to pull the game.
Illusion, the Yokohama-based software company that released “Rapelay” in 2006, states on its Web site that the product isn’t available for sale outside Japan.
It was hard to know where to start. It seems the company feels that a game available to (presumably) adolescent Japanese boys is less offensive than a game available internationally, as though that's an excuse (I wonder if there's an argument being prepared that it's culturally acceptable to portray rape as fun in Japan...). Anyway, two simple questions seems to me to clarify why this game isn't harmless fun-or even a good bad-taste joke to be sniggered at when the girls have gone to bed.
1> Why don't they make the game so that the protagonist is raping / sodomizing men?
2> Why wouldn't that game be marketable to its target demographic? What thrill would that game lack that rapelay contains?
Even the title "rapeplay". FFS.
I am ever amazed and appalled in equal measure.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Pass The Dutchie by the left-hand side.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/12/far-right-dutch-mp-ban-islam
Erm.... on the one hand this looks like the British Government denying someone their rights of free speech. On the other it's a tepid bureaucracy completely unsure of how to address the issues of religious diversity because, fundamentally, they either don't know how they feel or are afraid to be candid about how they feel. So they panicked. Either way this move was a grand show of moral cowardice.
I don't agree with religious persecution. Nor do I think that any religion and its execution are above scrutiny. The film should have been judged on its (de)merits, not silenced. Censoring the movie only allows the BNP et al to grind an axe, and it demonstrates to any so-minded religious extremists (of any stripe) that the UK, on the whole, is scared by the subject.
Let this asshole show his movie. What's so scary about a movie? (Unless the movie said " take arms, lynch people in the streets, burn down their places of worship, go to this website to learn how to tyranize..." - but we already have laws against doing that, right? so presumably that wasn't the issue). Let the extremists get all animated - surely kow-towing to either one is unacceptable. Would the director of a right-wing movie speaking out against Judaism be denied entry to the UK? Or against Chrisitianity? Scientology? Wicca? Santa Claus...?
I guess a by-product of this decision is a backhanded support of UK Muslims but really, that seems more incidental than intentional to me. Or am I being cynical? Was that really the prime concern here?
I loathe fascists of any creed but I support their right to opine. Just as I have the right to call them ignorant, craven, simpleminded f***wits who might better serve the world by dying and donating their organs so good, useful people can live. This is democracy working, right? Of course, should they decide to oppress or censor anyone then I think it completely acceptable - even compulsory - that they be stopped with force, whatever it takes to put them down.
But preventativly, sunlight's the best disinfectant where any kind of fascism or racism exists.
It would be interesting to know who made the decision. And where their spine is kept.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/12/far-right-dutch-mp-ban-islam
Erm.... on the one hand this looks like the British Government denying someone their rights of free speech. On the other it's a tepid bureaucracy completely unsure of how to address the issues of religious diversity because, fundamentally, they either don't know how they feel or are afraid to be candid about how they feel. So they panicked. Either way this move was a grand show of moral cowardice.
I don't agree with religious persecution. Nor do I think that any religion and its execution are above scrutiny. The film should have been judged on its (de)merits, not silenced. Censoring the movie only allows the BNP et al to grind an axe, and it demonstrates to any so-minded religious extremists (of any stripe) that the UK, on the whole, is scared by the subject.
Let this asshole show his movie. What's so scary about a movie? (Unless the movie said " take arms, lynch people in the streets, burn down their places of worship, go to this website to learn how to tyranize..." - but we already have laws against doing that, right? so presumably that wasn't the issue). Let the extremists get all animated - surely kow-towing to either one is unacceptable. Would the director of a right-wing movie speaking out against Judaism be denied entry to the UK? Or against Chrisitianity? Scientology? Wicca? Santa Claus...?
I guess a by-product of this decision is a backhanded support of UK Muslims but really, that seems more incidental than intentional to me. Or am I being cynical? Was that really the prime concern here?
I loathe fascists of any creed but I support their right to opine. Just as I have the right to call them ignorant, craven, simpleminded f***wits who might better serve the world by dying and donating their organs so good, useful people can live. This is democracy working, right? Of course, should they decide to oppress or censor anyone then I think it completely acceptable - even compulsory - that they be stopped with force, whatever it takes to put them down.
But preventativly, sunlight's the best disinfectant where any kind of fascism or racism exists.
It would be interesting to know who made the decision. And where their spine is kept.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
January, sick and tired you've been hanging on me....
2009 is barely a month old and already...
I am surprised at how happy I am over Barack Obama becoming The President. I liked his speech; I liked that he included atheists in addition to all the supernatural beliefs; I liked that he promised that national security won't be at the expense of personal liberty; I liked it all. Good days. I only the wave of optimism carries us through the tough months coming up before people start bellyaching that they're not getting their share of Constitutionally assured happiness. (I think this is a basic misconception and cause of much distress in American life. I don't think Brit's, for example, expect to be happy. Americans seem to, and seem to feel cheated if they don't get it. I'm just saying...at least they aspire to something rather than settle for it, I guess....).
I especially liked that Dick Cheney was in a wheelchair. Reminded me of Mason Verger...
However, the month started sadly with the death of my old friend Steve Edgson. When I was about 22-25 I was in a band with Steve. We weren't successful - it was a very Coventry, underachieving experience in many respects, although the band did have its moments. Steve was the clarinetist (which says much of the band and the times). What saddened me most about his death was that, at 53, he was so young. Despite my urge to eulogize feels improper to talk about Steve here, it's probably enough to say that I can't think of Steve without smiling. He had a very Coventry sense of humor (the place does have some defining characteristics beyond The Specials, spiteful violence, unemployment and a crappy accent) and he was one of those people for whom a smile was never far from the surface. A true English eccentric; creative, individual, and very very quick-witted, which for me is one of the prime indicators of intelligence (do you know any smart people who aren't funny? Friends and family of Stephen Hawking cannot reply). I hadn't seen him for years and was shocked at how sad I felt knowing I'd never see him again. An ex-girlfriend (doubtless trying to get me off the phone) once said, quite wisely, that missing people is like spending time with them. I guess I've been hanging out with Steve a lot of late. I wish I was as witty as he was, I wish I could make someone laugh like he still makes me laugh, I wish I was as sharp as he was. Life is too short and the people you want to see you should see and the things you want to do you should do an--I suppose--the people; you should do them too. I'd like to think Steve would agree.
2009 is barely a month old and already...
I am surprised at how happy I am over Barack Obama becoming The President. I liked his speech; I liked that he included atheists in addition to all the supernatural beliefs; I liked that he promised that national security won't be at the expense of personal liberty; I liked it all. Good days. I only the wave of optimism carries us through the tough months coming up before people start bellyaching that they're not getting their share of Constitutionally assured happiness. (I think this is a basic misconception and cause of much distress in American life. I don't think Brit's, for example, expect to be happy. Americans seem to, and seem to feel cheated if they don't get it. I'm just saying...at least they aspire to something rather than settle for it, I guess....).
I especially liked that Dick Cheney was in a wheelchair. Reminded me of Mason Verger...
However, the month started sadly with the death of my old friend Steve Edgson. When I was about 22-25 I was in a band with Steve. We weren't successful - it was a very Coventry, underachieving experience in many respects, although the band did have its moments. Steve was the clarinetist (which says much of the band and the times). What saddened me most about his death was that, at 53, he was so young. Despite my urge to eulogize feels improper to talk about Steve here, it's probably enough to say that I can't think of Steve without smiling. He had a very Coventry sense of humor (the place does have some defining characteristics beyond The Specials, spiteful violence, unemployment and a crappy accent) and he was one of those people for whom a smile was never far from the surface. A true English eccentric; creative, individual, and very very quick-witted, which for me is one of the prime indicators of intelligence (do you know any smart people who aren't funny? Friends and family of Stephen Hawking cannot reply). I hadn't seen him for years and was shocked at how sad I felt knowing I'd never see him again. An ex-girlfriend (doubtless trying to get me off the phone) once said, quite wisely, that missing people is like spending time with them. I guess I've been hanging out with Steve a lot of late. I wish I was as witty as he was, I wish I could make someone laugh like he still makes me laugh, I wish I was as sharp as he was. Life is too short and the people you want to see you should see and the things you want to do you should do an--I suppose--the people; you should do them too. I'd like to think Steve would agree.
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