The Dump is:
For posting comments that don’t get up at the Drum, and for having a pleasant, mirthful or enlightening off-topic discussion.
It’s not for personal abuse of other commenters.
Please do that somewhere else if you must.
Play nicely or piss off.
However, why doesn’t a poster add a link for us to read and comment on here, much quicker. Maybe we can do a bit more bagging here, not that I speak for the moderators, yet.
NB: Being tiresome and boring, racist, sexist or just plain creepy is not playing nicely.
———-
The Pig’s Arms exists because a dozen or so years ago our other favourite playpen – the ABC’s Unleashed blogsphere started to go off. Like a sack of prawn heads in the sun. Something had to be done.
Moderation was taking forever. Comments seemed to be rejected randomly – outrageous ones appeared and reasoned ones were pinged. When they released the Drum / Unleashed ….. things actually got worse !
So many pieces from professional writers appear with no obvious merit. And the moderation has become, to put it frankly, appalling.
As a former contributor and a commenter, I was deeply disappointed at the plummeting quality from our pre-eminent media empire. And I resented so many challenging or dare I say, witty or funny posts in which we’ve invested seconds of our precious time – getting the chop.
So here, for all our benefit – is an open slather blog. Copy and paste your best rejected comments here for posterity. Does not matter whether you’re posting on the Guardian, First Dog on the Moon or wherever else.
And sprinkle pointers to the Pig’s Arms amongst your comments. Let’s try to rescue some of the old faithful.
Cheers,
Emm.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
I said to M Ryutin,
Who are you rutin M?
LikeLike
I once blogged on the Dumb, Three days later I got a telegram from Cable and Co.
LikeLike
I just had a jam with Abner last night, Hung… In spite of an injured finger he’s sounding better and keeping better time that he used to (though that could be me having improved my rhythm and timing too…) He has a new girlfriend named Kathryn… Said he might be seeing Mary on Wednesday so I told him to say ‘G’day’ for me…
So when are we going to get together for our next jam? If I knew in advance maybe I could get Abner here too (or to your place; depending on where you plan on having the next practice session!) It may mean bringing Kathryn along though… but she’s okay and seems to like the songs I played for her last night out of the ‘official’ Burnside Refugees songbook… she was actually doing a little dance to some of them and getting quite a ‘groove’ on! (Mind you, it may not mean that at all; they’re at the ‘considering’ to move her in permanently stage… so I’d just have to play it by ear…)
So… wotcha reckon?
🙂
LikeLike
Vectis Lad, I thought that Dianna Rigg’s ‘Cleopatra’ sketch with Morecombe and Wise was funny until I read some of your latest outbursts… now I’m ROTFLOLing all over the place!
I’ve also just been watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ on’t telly… it was a hilarious episode about ‘angry sex’… Seems to me Mrs VL is in for a wild night!
😉
LikeLike
Well, I’m not sure which one’s you’re referring to . I’m currently blogging in about four places. Plus of course they won’t make any sense to you, since you don’t know what the other person wrote.
BUT, I am tired, if’n it’s any consolation. I might take a leaf (from Voix) and have a peppermint tea 🙂
LikeLike
Sounds like a good idea Vectis Lad… You did enjoy the ‘Cleopatra’ sketch though, right? I especially loved the ‘credits’ at the beginning… and normally I don’t even bother to read the credits…
😉
LikeLike
Oh you’re over here now?
LikeLike
No… I’m over there… (Was just watching the Simpsons, but the ads are on now… Bloody Channel 11!)
😉
LikeLike
The Dumb’s even more boring on’t telly…
😐
LikeLike
I remember most of the Morcombe and Wise sketches with their guests – mostly hysterically funny.
LikeLike
Come to think of it, wasn’t it Glenda Jackson who did the Cleopatra sketch. I think I am right.
LikeLike
They may have done another version with her, I suppose, Vivienne, unless I’ve mistaken Rigg for Jackson… but I don’t think so… They certainly did have Glenda Jackson as a guest on more than one occasion. Let’s see what YouTube can dig up… Back in a tick!
🙂
LikeLike
Damn! You’re right, it IS Glenda Jackson! Oh well! Wonder if I can find them with a Diana Rigg clip… Back in a tick!
LikeLike
LikeLike
Hold on… I think this one comes in several parts…
🙂
LikeLike
Here’s part 2:
LikeLike
‘Ere’s part 3:
🙂
LikeLike
Another vowel please.
LikeLike
To make it LoEwenstein?
LikeLike
Whether you believe me or not, let me just say, that I was aware that I may have been spelling his name incorrectly. I deemed it completely unessential to my point. I don’t like his work anyway. He is an unmitigated liar in my book. That thought having nothing to do with the plight of The Palestinians.
It is not his message: it’s the blatant, and deliberate misinterpretation of the facts. So I can’t take him seriously.
LikeLike
It’s traditional that those who correct others’ spelling take a bit of care with their own. But not mandatory. 🙂
So two of those blatant misrepresentations of the facts would be?
LikeLike
I can’t see that. My alert’s not on 😉
LikeLike
Sorry, I was blogging down below, however I dispute his interpration of Hamas being fairly elected.
This is short notice, but my research about a year ago told of beatings, bribes, threats and copious other stuff.
LikeLike
Actually, I just went off to find his article….Even though it takes me 2 minutes to upload. However I have just noticed the gay marriage blog, and Hung, so I’m going to peruse it.
Talk later.
LikeLike
One for the straights! From Lord double eff-unston.
It cannot possibly be the correct thing to do, to school innocent children in homosexual acts, since that is what will happen, unless the bedrooms of these fake husbands and wives are locked.
The whole idea is simply preposterous. It may have been approved in Spain: but ‘now’ look at their economy 😉
LikeLike
BTW, I am having a back and forth on The Independant (an English newspaper) with a guy from Sydney…Ha ha.
Ian C. Purdie – Sydney wrote, in response to vectislad:
“Attack Germany? Why bother blogging?”
Because attacking Germany makes about as much sense as attacking Afghanistan. My whole point. Obviously lost upon you. Sarcasm is not your strong point is it?
BTW I don’t Blog. That’s for ignorant, pimply teenagers. I make considered, [hopefully] educated comments. A universe of difference. I’ve been on the internet for nearly twenty years, not in the last five minutes.
Link to comment
vectislad wrote:
Well, at least you have amplified your profession of ignorance, by yelling out some bizarre assertions. Any thoughts I may have had about your sensibility has been quickly dispelled. Attack Germany? Why bother blogging?
—–
Options: Respond in the body to post a reply comment.
To turn off notifications
LikeLike
I’ll have a dry sherry thanks. (If it hasn’t come back into fashion yet, I Don’t Care.)
LikeLike
Wot’s the Sherry ref? Spain?
BTW, I can’t get another reply up (on the Independent) to that imbecile from Sydney.
I’ll fool them by going back underneath his 1st comment 😉
LikeLike
Sherry ref = In the mood to chill. Not dispute. Then eat dinner and veg out.
LikeLike
That’d be “inessential” then, laddie?
What’s wrong with “homosexual acts?”
And why must it follow that homosexuals will “school” anyone into committing these acts, simply because they, themselves are homosexuals? I don’t remember “schooling” anyone to commit “heterosexual acts.”
And can anyone be “schooled” into a sexual preference?
Hamas was elected fairly. Much, much MUCH more fairly than how Georgie Bush was elected, particularly the second time round. It’s just that the Israelis didn’t like the outcome. Bit like Abbott’s Libs yelling “no mandate” at Gillard.
Have you looked into the Israeli electoral system? If you see anything “fair” in that one, then your eyesight must be a hell of a lot, A HELL OF A LOT better than mine and that of anyone who’s interested in Democratic processes.
Again, it’s “inessential!”
Don’t let the bugs bite you, laddie! (They’re all bloody left wingers!)
LikeLike
Atombum, you’re not serious about very young children watching homosexual activity, are you?
No! I didn’t think so.
You’ve got a larf at the Abbooot situation really. I mean just take off your miner’s light for a second. It’s hilarious. he’s got Gillard and Alberovereasy or whatever completely paralysed. You need this bunch out as much as I do. Then you can get a ‘real’ bunch.
LikeLike
People do unspeakable things with vegetables though. Where does one draw the line? No-one wants to be carroted.
LikeLike
Some of youse, surely have been gerhard?
LikeLike
One can say unessential. Also non-essential, or non essential. Inessential too I s’pose.
LikeLike
Mechanics, please The Comma’s stopped.
LikeLike
Hmmm… I’ll just have some tea milord and then get over there and see what I can do…
😉
LikeLike
Here’s a post I’m trying to get up in response to Anthony Lowenstein’s latest article:
Thank you Anthony for being brave enough, ten years after the event, to still be telling the truth about why 9/11 happened and what it really means, even in the face of an overwhelming barrage of propaganda and misinformation.
You are one of very few people I’ve read who have actually bothered to ask the most pertinent question of all: “Why do people hate the USA so much that they would do such a thing as 9/11 in the first place?” and to properly find the answers to it in the USA’s foreign policies which for decades have been driven by the neo-Cons, who have ruthlessly and relentlessly pursued their own interests regardless of the effect they have on either the economy of the USA, the global economy, or global politics.
Those, whom you rightfully call ‘fascists’, who instigated and benefited from these policies and who still keep promoting them with all the strength of their propaganda machines are traitors not only to their own countries, but to the whole of humanity; as well as traitors to any possibility of a truly democratic or peaceful world; indeed they use the word democracy to deprive the world of any semblance or possibility of it.
Let no-one doubt that the so-called ‘War on Terror’ is nothing other than a ‘War FOR Terror’: Ten years after 9/11, the only real results of this headlong pursuit of this ‘War For Terror’, in complete ignorance of its real causes, are the increasing restriction and loss of those very ‘freedoms’ which the neo-Cons still claim to be ‘protecting’, and an increasingly unsafe world through the inevitable production of more and more terrorists and terrorist acts. “Violence begets violence” and ONLY violence!
Unless the USA and the other ‘western powers’ start first of all to understand their own part in the production of terrorist movements, we will never escape that fascist future our own grandparents fought so hard against.
🙂
LikeLike
I agree, T2. Thanks for the heads-up on Antony’s article. As far as I know he hasn’t appeared over at the ABC for a rather long time. I might even deign to go back and have a look.
LikeLike
Better hurry Emmjay, or it’ll be closed for comment before you get there!
😉
LikeLike
Thoroughly agree with you, asty. But that’s because we’re both… racists and… anti-semites, right?
LikeLike
You forgot bigots 🙂
LikeLike
And I’ve responded to Joe Bloggs who attacked you but I didn’t make a copy of my response. Something like:
“No, I think cynicure means the average person of the planet.
Why is it that when someone points a mirror at the Israeli regime’s brutal face, they turn the mirror towards the face of another brutal regime? Don’t they know that this confirms the view that Israel is a brutal regime?”
LikeLike
Bi Got! I think you’ve god it!
LikeLike
Must be, I suppose, Ato…
😉
LikeLike
Oh, btw, thanks for your defense of me against Joe Bloggs, though I am really perfectly capable of putting trolls like him in their place myself too… (and in fact, assuming they let my response to him through, I think I did so, though in answer to that other troll you defended me against… whose name I’ve already forgotten)
Now, dammit, I’m gonna get something to eat before I waste away to nothing but skin’n’bone!
🙂
LikeLike
asty, I answered on your behalf because I didn’t think they’d leave the blog open long enough for you to do the answering. I didn’t even know if mine would get there before they slammed the padlocks.
LikeLike
One can’t slam padlocks. Pleeeese stop mangling English, or I’l have you suggested by Milne, Convoy, signet and that queer fellow Brun.
LikeLike
I figured that, ato… and I do appreciate it… I just didn’t want anyone to get the idea that I couldn’t defend myself.
🙂
LikeLike
However, I must say, Ato, that I was pleasantly surprised a short while ago when I checked and discovered that my responses to those trolls (x3) have ALL been accepted… which adds further fuel to my suspicion that authors of articles over on the Dumb are allowed to do their own moderating, at least until the ‘head honcho’ moderator over there steps in and closes them for comment… and maybe takes a few comments which have been posted down again… This may also go some way to explain the otherwise ‘haphazard-seeming’ nature of the moderation. Just a hypothesis…
🙂
LikeLike
I blame The Romans, Spaniards and Queen Victoria….You know, those humans.
LikeLike
Don’t forget Tony Abbooot, M’lord. It’s all his fault really. Or Siran-Siran.
LikeLike
Lowenstein, should learn how to spell. Dwarves harrumph.
……….
T2, here’s a good article, open for comment.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2898806.html
LikeLike
Actually, I’ve just noticed that he, the above author, has a blog. I went to it and he has a painting of Thomas Chaterton, depicting his suicide, of laudenam, or arsnic. I’ts strange that he doesn’t offer an explanation., of the painting, although obviously it is linked to his suicide article.
LikeLike
Okay, so I missed an ‘e’… but your own spelling is more often at fault than mine, Lad. Would you like me to pick you up on every spelling mistake you make? This doesn’t make me a ‘dwarf’ either; rather it’s a sign of the paucity of your own arguments, which in fact are so poor that you need to borrow from another author’s article.
I read the article you gave the link to, but saw no need to reply to it; it seemed to me more full of self-hatred than the author claims his earlier political stance was; and just ’cause some wishy-washy dude changes his mind on politics doesn’t prove that his later opinions are ‘right’ or that his former opinions were ‘wrong’… in spite of the fact that he sees it as part of ‘growing up’… How patronising can you get?
I see him as just one of those who, like those who allowed themselves to be persuaded into letting Howard take us into the Iraq war, have been persuaded by a protracted and comprehensive propaganda campaign.
😉
LikeLike
Can I just ask, and please don’t be offended, are you taking LSD T2?
I wrote about Lowenstein’s spelling, in his article–and you write back to me??
I’m completely nonplussed.
LikeLike
In his article he wrote dwarves. He should have written dwarfs. It has nothing to do with you.
LikeLike
Yes, he came up a bit short 🙂
LikeLike
…and here’s my little contribution to Martin’s queer blog.
“With all due respect, Martin, you’re confusing the label ‘politics’ with that of ‘political thought.’
All thought is political (see Aristotle) but politics should not interfere with thought.
I have no idea what to make of your final exhortation.”
LikeLike
Mind you, laddie, ‘dwarves’ is just as correct as ‘dwarfs.’
Quick, laddie, check it out in your OXFORD!
I know, I know, it’s not YOUR English!
LikeLike
NO! NO! AtoNO. Definitely and unequivocally not!
He used the word in the context of belittling, or bigger than.. EG: My intellect dwarfs yours. (Not really of course 🙂 )
LikeLike
Napoleon complex Hung??
LikeLike
No, just a smart arse
LikeLike
Actually I’m with you on this one. Spelling and other grammar issues shouldn’t be seen at this level of writing and it does undermine the author
LikeLike
Quite right. Shoulda bean wardfs.
I hadnt’ notice’d when I red it yestarday. Muster bein a tapo.
But the article was fantastic though. All thoughts logic-perfect.
It’ll do me!
LikeLike
Of course, when you’re grumbling about Loewenstein’s spelling, it always looks better if you don’t attribute the error to Lowenstein.
LikeLike
Sorry if I misunderstood your comment Vectis Lad, but I can assure you my response was not provoked by any drug. I thought you were commenting on my admittedly misspelt version of his surname, which is actually ‘Loewenstein’; so we both got that wrong! And I thought your ‘dwarves’ comment related to that, suggesting that people who can’t spell are ‘intellectual’ dwarves… Apologies for having mistaken your meaning; but you really must try a bit harder to be unambiguous in your comments, Lad, otherwise such misunderstandings are likely to keep on happening…
🙂
PS: Got the motor going over at the Comma; wanna take her for a test-drive now?
LikeLike
T2…!! When one has one’s email alert on, one gets ALL of the comments, ALL of the time, within one minute or so of them being posted.
So of course everyone reads them, but doesn’t necessarily log into the website. The drawback is, I suppose, that you are not aware that readers have seen them, unless’n they write, HOSANNA , that was a good one.
Even Warrigal, scans his emails, I’m guessing, but of course doesn’t need to comment. Especialyy when some of the things that we gossip about are mind numbingly puerile. But hey, it’s just a conversation in a pub. They’re going on everywhere. Even in the cafes in The Yemen, Brazil and Peshwar. it’s just that we’re doing it here: some of the threads are OK and some are silly. So were silly. It’s our business. Shit, I got off the subject then. See?
LikeLike
Excuse me, I changed tense there.
But, that gives me the chance to add, ‘Yes, Diana Rigg’, remember her well.
Alos of course my puter, is on from 6am till I switch it off. So if’n I walk past and look at my mail box I can see comments, but carry on doing something else. Like spreading dirt 😉
LikeLike
No comments showing. Only house rules.
LikeLike
The Dumb, closed for comment 8pm SA time, Jesus wept
LikeLike
Rugby Union is on. Do you watch any of it Hung?
LikeLike
Yes VL, international rugby is fantastic especially the All Blacks who play the game the way it should be played, attack at all costs no matter where you are on the field. Even though I must admit I always want the Aussies to win if the Kiwis win I don’t mind. What about you?
LikeLike
Yes, I love it. My favourite game is soccer (football), but one Headmaster at my boarding school, abolished soccer and union took it’s place.
He was a fanatic and used to play for The Harlequins. I got to like it and became a reasonable scrum-half.
It is a religion to The Kiwis of course. Opening ceremony looked good.
Remind me to recount the time I went to Dublin for one The 5 Nations games. I got alcohol poisoning. I’ll write about the event one day
LikeLike
My father was English so as a kid we watched the football (soccer) together in our lounge room in Wollongong. They were great days and Dad would explain all the rules. We also watched the rugby and Dad would say you only needed two qualities to play rugby, brute strength and bloody ignorance. Then along came AFL and yes neither of us had a clue what they were doing.
LikeLike
And I’ve heard of the Harlequins, do they have a colourful jumper with big patches of colour? Perhaps yellow and maybe green? Scrum half, pretty important position, when I played league I liked playing lock even though I started on the wing.
LikeLike
I don’t remeber the colour of their strip. I could google it I suppose. However, I’m running out of steam. Ive been on the other line to T2. he doesn’t have his email on, so conequently is oblivious. He will no doubt peruse later, when we’ve gone for some shut-eye.
So I’ll catch you soon.
Phew! No politics tonight. What a relief! 🙂 🙂
LikeLike
Where Vee-ell? Having just checked all the most recent posts, I saw no comments from you which were obviously directed at me; surely you didn’t expect me to comment on your ‘horse-manure’ posts?
🙂
LikeLike
IF’N you buy yourself a watch, you would see that post was 3 days ago. I told you to invest in 30 seconds, putting your email alert on. You’re all had 6 & 7s.
Mind you-you probably won’t see this for a few days 😉
LikeLike
Should be: you’re all at sixes and sevens.
LikeLike
I understood your ‘6s and 7s’ comment, Vee-ell, untrue as it is… Now, which of your posts did I miss? 3 days ago, you say? Maybe I saw it and merely refrained from answering out of politeness? Which ‘thread’ was it on?
😉
LikeLike
Sorry T2, I was on the other line to atomou, when you returned my call.
“What was the thread?” Forgotten. Apologies again. it was probably nothing much.
LikeLike
Oops! You meant THAT post… Oh well, I was right; I saw it but refrained from answering out of politeness… I don’t always read the dates on the comments I answer.
😉
LikeLike
I see some wag has started using the names “Viv Algernon” and “Algernon Reeth”.
LikeLike
….over at the drum.
LikeLike
Algy, I noticed those, also one day someone was being Stuffed Olive. Some mean Liberal supporters take on Labor faithfulls pseudos.
I have been safe so far as they all know Helvi is my real name 🙂 It’s so bloody childish, don’t you think?
LikeLike
I think it is Helvi, I thought I was fairly safe with Algernon once. There was a respect of one anothers psueds. At least with registering its obvious who the real one is.
LikeLike
Helvi, my real name Vivienne was misappropriated too. Almost an indirect compliment in some ways. I haven’t been able to comment much lately as been very busy writing contracts and KPIs and position descriptions. When I do get to contemplate a comment I see it is closed for comments. Again, too, my comment has simply not appeared.
LikeLike
Viv, you and Algernon must be seen as formidable opposition, that’s why the Liberal posters want to make it look like you have gone on their side 🙂
LikeLike
A mild reprimand Helvi 🙂
If you go to THE DOT, you will see that I have explained.
YOU must put your post alert on. You’re as bad as T2 🙂
LikeLike
About Ned Kelly:
I believe that he typifies Australasian Larrikinism and should be rewarded with a posthumous honorary ALP portfolio.
LikeLike
Is there any other kind ?
LikeLike
Lord Funston, ‘larrikinism’, I remember that, where have all the larrikins gone..
I lost my dear larrikin friend to throat cancer, still the humour kept him alive up to 84…He was English by the way.
My only remaining Aussie Larrikin is getting on too, but luckily he’s in good health.
LikeLike
This is one of the wittiest replies I’ve heard in ages about Aussie cricket
Paradise :
29 Aug 2011 5:35:50pm
This is one of the weakest teams I’ve seen(since 1947 as a child). There are severe problems with technique and attitude for some, too many to discuss here, and a lack of consistency, experience and concentration. I don’t believe this bowling attack can get out any of the better sides in world cricket. Cricket is a simple game basically. But, the openers may get going, Khawaja may improve, Clarke may develop, the bowlers may become accurate and penetrative, the luck may come our way and pigs may become airborne. Let’s see, hey?
Alert moderator
LikeLike
Hung, I quite like the comments by Paradise, he’s often spot on with observations…
Of course I never go on the sporty blogs.. is cricket sport or just something akin to meditation, you are awake when watching it, but almost not…
LikeLike
By jingo by crikey, I think you have got it H 🙂
LikeLike
I don’t know what’s wrong with the Drum all I said was f#@k off C#$t
LikeLike
Just for the initiated the rest of us can either go to sleep or have a suppository
LikeLike
What? No cannons?
😉
LikeLike
Obviously you didn’t say it nicely, Hungsie!
LikeLike
Yes, must learn to refine the way I say things sometimes 🙂
LikeLike
Maybe it was who you said it to…? Anyway… who DID you say it to?
🙂
LikeLike
They don’t print bad spelling in foreign languages.
LikeLike
I want to know what VL has decided to do about his roots.
LikeLike
I haven’t been able to do much, because of the rain. however, I have excavated around the larger roots, to see whether I should axe them, saw them, or poison them, as you suggested.
Actually the rain has cleared some of the mud away and exposed them more–si I’ll hjave an executive meeting with myself tomorrow morning and decide.
I’ve got my trailer back and in the process managed to purloin a lawn mower.
In fact the mower was my son’s; my son-in-law took it over when they (my son & wife) went back to The UK.
I say went back, which is odd really, since my grandson was born here and my son got his degree at QUT. It’s a topsy turvy world, Viv!
LikeLike
That is the best kind of committee. It’ll be unanimous!
LikeLike
Well… I certainly hope so!
😉
LikeLike
This has to be the best LOL I’ve had all week!
Over on the Drum, there’s a blog with the very high-falutin’ title of ‘The Conversation’…
Supposedly it’s all about what various people think about what Australia will look like in 2050… And guess what? It’s already closed for comment… with a grand total of ONE, repeat, ONE comment!
Some ‘conversation’! Anyway, for the benefit of any piglet who may have missed it, here is that single remark, reproduced in its entirety:
Louise 1 :
26 Aug 2011 5:26:14pm
Can only hope we get some better cooperation by whichever parties are in opposition as we move towards a very challenging scenario. Time for some of our politicians to decide what is most important – their short term personal goals; or the welfare of the Australian community.
Alert moderator
A real ‘barbie stopper’, eh?
🙂
LikeLike
Firstly, to T2.
The reference to a rehearsal, is a line from Midsummer Niht’s Dream, when they are discussing the play.
……………………………
Here’s a feather in the cap for The ALP:
The honourable member for Dobell has destroyed one of the greatest myths about the Labor Party:
” Apparently the ALP ‘can’ organise a root in a Brothel !!” 🙂 ROLFL 🙂
LikeLike
Very funny, VL… now I’ll have to check out the news to see what ALP nonsense you’re referring to now…
And now I see that you haven’t fallen down that trapdoor… I was keeping an eye open further down the page, where you left your ‘rehearsal’ comment, but you’ve transported up here!
Of course I recognised your reference to ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’… I just didn’t know why you were quoting it down there…
🙂
LikeLike
Well…you are referred to as a Troubador, in the credits to the right.
Plus of course we are all amateurs, as were/are Bottom quince % Starveling 😉
I’m up here, because I’m bored with scrolling up (looking for reply) to attach a comment.
VOICE, is there another way?
LikeLike
Accept the ways of others. Respect first your own, grasshopper.
LikeLike
Why can’t the new comments go under the comment that is being replied to?
LikeLike
I see, said the blind man… after he bumped into the wall!
(To VL)
😉
LikeLike
Now I understand your ‘ALP root in a brothel’ comment too VL…
I don’t suppose we’ll ever catch the libs out doing anything similar though, will we? After all, they’re far too savvy about how traceable credit card are; even governement-issued ones; and so would most likely always use cash in such circumstances…
😉
LikeLike
Actually they printed it on Mango Chutney’s blogg..Paul insisted on blanking some of the letters though. Just because of his usual, sense of decorum 😉
LikeLike
Oh well, back yo the garden. I’m digging up old roots that the stump grinder only skimmed over.
If my son-in-law brings my trailer back (I’ve been waiting for two weeks), I can start clearing away some rubbish.
LikeLike
I’d like to give you the answer VL, but in order for you to be able to understand it you’d need to complete a three year Computer Science undergraduate course followed by an Honours thesis in the area of Nonparametric Online Disambiguation.
LikeLike
I thought that once the stump grinder had ground, the problem was done and dusted.
LikeLike
That’s peculiar. Mungo Jerry’s blog has gone from 128 comments to 104..AND mine has disappeared..Maybe there is a trap door at The ABC, for conservatives.
LikeLike
Well, I could just leave the underground limbs to rot–but that would take about 3 years, as some of them are about 150mm in diameter. I’ll just do what I can, then build the soil up over the top of a bed some newspapers and mix in some of atomou’s chicken shit. (I mean the left overs from his chooks.)
LikeLike
They aren’t picking on you VL or conservatives. Your lot get plenty of say and more than enough in the actual article/opinion piece itself. One out of 10 of my last comments appeared. Sometimes it seems I have posted a comment a minute before they close it for comments because I have gone back 10 minutes later and it is closed. The Drum/Unleashed is now pretty well hopeless – half a day, a day if you’re lucky and it is closed.
On gardening VL, I’d leave it to rot and at the right time spray with some suitable poison to ensure it doesn’t shoot again.
LikeLike
What did Abbott have to say to that today?
LikeLike
Newsflash from Rowan Dean on The Drum. Julia Gillard is “fearful of her rivals within the Party, preferring to stay close to her private hairdresser, who travels everywhere with her, and with whom, according to WikiLeaks, she is rumoured to be having an affair.”
Thankyou Rowan.
Heigh ho, on with the day.
LikeLike
So… another ‘no-news’ item from the Drum… Ho hum… yawn… yep… on with the day! Morning Voice!
🙂
LikeLike
Quickly popping back to put up my rejected second comment on “How to Write about Aboriginal Australia”:
The confusion shown in the comments is absolutely priceless!
I too am confused because your bio doesn’t mention ethnicity. How am I supposed to know whether this is a brilliant insight on behalf of all Aboriginal people or a pathetic example of white racism?
Loved your article anyway.
LikeLike
Hmmm… now that’s two ‘Drum’ articles I suppose I’ll have to check out…
🙂
LikeLike
Good morning asty. I enjoyed both, but I’m beginning to suspect I have a fairly irreverent sense of humour it would seem, particularly judging from the oh so earnest comments on the Aboriginal article.
LikeLike
Interesting article, Voice, and your first comment, which was allowed, was also interesting. I agree that although the author’s article was wonderful and deeply ‘insightful’ about the usual stereotypical ‘meeja’ and ‘politickle’ representations of Aboriginal society, lands and living conditions, it does rather make it difficult for anyone with a somewhat paler complexion to write anything at all about Aborines or their culture…
Still, it was a good artlcle; and it was good that many of the respondants actually ‘got’ what Jennifer Mills was ‘getting at’…
For myself, I can’t help thinking that perhaps only Aborigines have the right to tell Aboriginal stories… Very few, if any, of us ‘whiteys’ really understand much at all about them; least of all those who pretend they actually do… (Can’t help thinking of Lao Tzu’s famous quote on the Tao in this connection: “He who speaks does not know; he who knows does not speak…”) Even the well-meaning whites tend to end up with Daisy Bates’ ‘dying pillow’ perception of Aboriginal culture…
Perhaps that’s why I generally stick to the most ancient tales of white (or ‘near-white’) civilizations in order to examine the roots of our own modern, western, post-industrial, capitalist, colonial-imperialist societies… Aboriginal writers like Jennifer Mills and her peers will undoubtedly inform us about their own stories when they are good and ready… if we look like we have an ear to listen with; and a mind to think about them.
I might have posted the above in response to her article, but it is, of course, closed for comment already!
🙂
LikeLike
“Even the well-meaning whites tend to end up with Daisy Bates’ ‘dying pillow’ perception of Aboriginal culture…”
Or, I meant to add, Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’… I’m sure that some of them were indeed quite noble, be we whiteys are far more savage than they’ll ever be!
🙂
LikeLike
Paul’s having another go, but I don’t fancy his chances.
Try, again. Watered down.
Although some counties have, in my view, mistakenly bowed to pressure to allow homosexuals to marry, marriage is not the prerogative of any church. Males were bonding with females, before idolatry disappeared.
It is a union between male & female, to create families. It is for a union between the owners of testes and uteri.
The continual lobbying by homosexuals, is designed to give their proclivities more acceptance.
Why do that──they have acceptance already──in the form of a civil partnership? They can bond-──-but must not be held up as examples.
It is wrong for young children to think that men can have sex together. I understand that is what the gay community want, but we should stand firm and tell them that it is not in children’s interests.
LikeLike
Lad, you’re fusing four human practices into one.
And though they overlap in many aspects, they are, in fact, quite separate: Sex for fun is different to sex for procreation. Bonding for fun is different to bonding for procreation. Marriage for love is different to marriage for procreation. Finally, raising children is different to procreating them.
I don’t think the gays give a toss if you can only “stand firm” in front of a naked person of the opposite gender; nor do they care if you get to have sex with that person, so long as you allow them to “stand firm” in front of a naked person of the same gender. “Standing firm”, you’ll know, is not always a voluntary act and, most often than not, it is a spontaneous one. In other words, you don’t always have control over this phenomenon. You don’t and so, nor do “they.”
It’s a universal thing that does not discriminate between genders.
“Standing firm” with the person you love is also a similar phenomenon. You “fall in love” (or lust) involuntarily. You love humans, not genders. You fall in love and so do they.
Love holds no bias towards genders.
“Standing firm” in the silly ritual of marriage is also a universal phenomenon. You marry someone and you think you’ve done something… what? “powerful?” “meaningful?” “profoundly committed?”
You do the hocus pocus with some witnesses around you and then you consider yourself married to another person.
Witnesses: In come the abrahamic religions and their shamans say that, not only must you have mortal witnesses but also divine ones; and they, the shamans, are the vicars (the vicarious gods, the voices and representatives) of these divinities; and these vicars declare that their holy books, that is to say, the divine demands are that no two persons of the same gender have the right to call their personal divinity to witness their marriage.
Some of these shamans, however, have, in recent times, re-read their holy books and found that, no, in fact, no divinity actually said exactly that, nor did he mean it in that respect. So they marry any two –or three- people who think that a marriage needs some sort of sanctity, some sort of divine approval.
Marriage, too, then, is a universal phenomenon, and its purposes hold no bias towards any genders. Whether the couple think that their marriage needs divine approval or couldn’t give a stuff about it, they should be able to get married.
Politicians will, of course, are, in the main, accountants. They count money and they count votes and they count quanta of power. They will say yeae or nae according to the oracle of numbers, not reason.
Raising children can be done and has been done well in all sorts of permutations of marriage: Heterosexuals, homosexuals, single mothers, single fathers, by no biological parents, and combinations that I can’t even think about. There are children that raise themselves, against all odds and, of those I’ve met and taught many. Too many. Marriage is of no consequence, so far as these kids –who’ll also become adults- are concerned.
Raising children can be done and has been done badly, again in all sorts of permutations of marriage.
Raising children is also a universal thing.
AND, finally,
Raising children, just as raising adults is a village thing. A society thing. A duty of all people on the planet, thing. No gender qualifications should interfere with it.
Marriage, is between a man and a woman, is a propaganda slogan, not a reality.
Hope that helps.
LikeLike
Well, not for the 1st time, will we fundamentally disagree.
The cubs should be taught by parents.
If the parents are queer, it setts a bad (incorrect) example of relationships.
I know the gays want to erode this, however children have to be protected from (even accidentally ) witnessing homosexual activity–at least until a certain age.
It is wrong, wrong, wrong.
In fact it makes me nauseous to think of Penny Wong and her queer partner having children that will witness sexual deviation—–and think it normal behaviour!
LikeLike
Simplistic stuff, as I expected, lad:
“The cubs should be taught by parents.”
Taught what? What sort of parents?
“If the parents are queer, it setts a bad (incorrect) example of relationships.”
You mean that love is only allowed between heteros? Rather limiting in a world of over 6billion people, don’t you think?
“I know the gays want to erode this…”
Erode? Erode? How does one erode love between two people, by limiting their love to heteros?
“…children have to be protected from (even accidentally ) witnessing homosexual activity–at least until a certain age.”
Ah, that “certain age,” again! It’s OK after the age of… what? 12? 13? 71?
Why should they not be similarly “protected from witnessing” heterosexual acts “-at least until a certain age?”
“It is wrong, wrong, wrong.”
No, you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. And just as you’re entitled to be wrong in my opinion, so are the gays entitled to be wrong in your opinion.
“In fact it makes me nauseous…”
She said she feels the same way about you and your hetero partner, though she is quite accepting of all hetero relationships who mind their own business.
“witness sexual deviation—–and think it normal behaviour!”
Deviation, normality! Extremely vague terms. Is the missionary position your only view of “normal behaviour?”
My imagination tells me that, the more variants of love and making love we see, the richer the human psyche will be. The more we try to circumscribe love, the poorer we will be.
In any case, all sorts of love is already out there and flourishing. What we’re talking about is some silly ceremony by shamans and a bit of paper issued by politicians, more interested in numbers than reason.
LikeLike
Well, I’m glad that you wrote that. Not me.
Who’s breast will succour the child?
Well obviously it doesn’t matter. Not in a society where it is a ‘village thing’.
A village thing?
Let us do away with parenting then; that seems to be your ethos.
I understand that humans can be attracted to the same sex. I have known many gay people from all walks of life.
But, my unwavering belief is that the word marriage, should be retained within the devoutness of the union between a mother & father, notwithstanding that sometimes they are barren, either by design or accident.
I will refrain from alloting you terms, such as simple ect.
You did make me chuckle when I read this. ..”I don’t think the gays give a toss”
As John Mcenroe said, “You can’t be serious”, splatamou?
LikeLike
Lad, my sister and I were brought up in a village. Right up until we left for Oz, at the age of 13 for me and 11 for sis.
We walked around that village and the surrounding villages, freely and with an absolute sense of safety. Internecine wars between political factions was raging all around us but all we got was hugs and kisses and food and drink. All the other kids got the same. There must have been at least 2,000 people who knew us and, I daresay, all the other kids around us. We saw our parents regularly but not constantly. They worked in the city (Salonica) and the last two years in Greece, father had left us all for Oz, to check it out.
All we can both remember is the unequivocal and absolute affection and closeness the villagers had afforded us. Affection and closeness which I haven’t seen since.
Even now, whenever I manage to get to Greece I am given the same treatment and see that the current crop of kids also get it. I am also in regular contact with those villagers, through skype and email.
I think I am brought up quite well. An unabashed lefty but a reasonable human being nevertheless. I came out of it convinced that it is the duty of every adult to see that every child is raised well, by which I mean, to be exposed to as rich an environment as possible, in terms of its spiritual, cultural, social, political, economic and environmental needs. An unmitigated duty.
LikeLike
Don’t get obsessed with breasts, lad.
LikeLike
You’re off topic now* atoment.
.
.
.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topics_(Aristotle)
LikeLike
“Who’s (sic) breast will succour the child?”
You wanna argue Aristotle now?
Like Sir Humphrey said to the Rt Hon Jim Hacker, “that’s a very courageous move, sir!” but DO go on, if you wish.
LikeLike
WELL, of course I can argue his legacy. You can only tell me what he was wearing, a-theme-ou
LikeLike
To VL – but they are already doing all this. All they want is the right to have a Marriage Certificate – sort of a legal document that the rest of us can take or leave or just take for granted as their right. They are already having children. It can’t be stopped. Arguing against it is pointless really. Most churches won’t have a bar of it anyway (the same as I won’t have a bar of them). You do know that homosexuality is not contagious or compulsory. Live and let live I say.
LikeLike
Here’s another one I just posted on Tim Napper’s ‘whinging Aussies’ blog… It may even get a guernsey, but I feel I just had to post it here anyway… just in case! Please note that I do not consider anyone here to be so crass as to ever stick labels on people, especially such undeserved ones, as the one I discuss… Such tropes are for politicians and other manipulators! And I known all the piglets are above that kind of deviousness.
“Thanks Tim for perhaps the best rant I think I’ve ever read…
I only wish I’d written it; but as a pom who’s had to wear that ‘whinger’ label for the last thirty years, (regardless of how much I’ve had to whinge about and how little I actually whinge!) I know only too well that I would never get away with it since anything I complain about can so easily be dismissed: ‘Oh, ignore him! He’s just a whinging pom!’; but that’s exactly what this label was designed to do and it works oh so well! No mate, this message had to come from a ‘dinky-die’ Aussie… and I’ve been waiting for it for the past thirty years!
So once again, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
😉
LikeLike
Paul Mylegg, has put a few forward. We’ll see what the mods do?
Oh, on the marriage for queers blogg. Maybe I’m getting homophobic in my old age 🙂
LikeLike
I must say you do have a way of coming up with some wonderful pseuds, VL…
🙂
LikeLike
What I get out of all this–is that ALP members use their funds nefariously and Liberals to create wealth. Nothing much changes. Just as the sun rises & sets.
Paul Mylegg on Hopalong’s whine.
LikeLike
That viewpoint is dependent entirely on one’s social position VL…
That liberals ‘create’ wealth is highly debatable… and even if they do, it is for themselves alone, even though they will rape the country of resources which belong to the whole community to do so; and they don’t work for it either; they get the poor, who are so desperate they’ll work for the merest pittance, to do all the really hard work for them… and what they ‘give’ in ‘wages’ they take away from the poorest section of the community in taxes with the other hand to fund things like a privileged private education system which is designed to make sure that those who have all the power/money keep it… and the whip hand!
Isn’t this ‘nefarious’ too? It is in my book!
As you say, nothing much changes, the strong exploit the vulnerable… Privatised profits and socialized losses… Legalised theft by another name; at least the left want to share at least some of the wealth with the people who really are its creators… you know, the miners, truckies, farmers, workers, laborers, etc… and this is what the right calls ‘nefarious’. Gord forbid that the poor ever get a fair slice of the cake!
😐
LikeLike
Well, according to The RBA, nearly everybody is employed. What they do with their money is their business.
But whoring, with union contributions seems outside of the realms of decency.
There will always be a wealth divide. That’s human nature. Some take risks and others are not prepared to. Some come unstuck and others (Richard Branson & Clive Forefinger), just stick out out through thick and thin, till they get a result.
LikeLike
The poor will never have a fair slice of the cake, asty, because when they do they cease being poor, by definition. However many ex-poor start businesses where they eventually pay other people to do the work they don’t do themselves for significantly less wages (at least that is their aim).
LikeLike
If the wind changes VL you’ll never be able to remove that gloat! 🙂
LikeLike
I can remember going without, when my contemporaries were either on the dole, or in the job of their choosing.
They chose their path.
I put up with being broke and running a business from home, to pursue independence. I was not always successful, but many times I had staff, when I grew my business. They fed their families. I never asked them to pay back the money that I had lost, or the stuff that I had gone without.
LikeLike
Which one 😉
LikeLike
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-25/steve-jobs-resigns-as-apple-ceo/2854950
What about him T2?
LikeLike
What about him, VL?
🙂
LikeLike
Yes! That’s what I said.
He was broke. Suffered. Worked. Made money.
Has he ‘raped the country’?
LikeLike
That bloody trap door has swallowed T2 again.
LikeLike
Okay, I’m back from the Middle Ages again for another brief visit…
Voice, your argument sounds clever but it’s really just sophistry; sure there are VERY occasional individuals who actually are lucky enough to actually pull themselves up by their bootstraps, so to speak, and join the ranks of the wealthy; this does little, however to change either the numbers or the condition of the poor; and for every one who makes it there are a million who don’t…
VL, see the above.
And what about yours truly, I might ask, VL, who suffered, worked and then just suffered some more… Who worked hard trying to establish a professional career and who were then merely sacrificed or scapegoated so that kids from middle class or wealthy families could have the career I was denied? And after all my work, not to mention my sacrifice, I remember reading that in one census about 80% of Australians admitted to having cheated in their exams… and no, I was NOT one of those! Which I suppose just makes me all the more foolish for having actually done the work!
Your example was fortunate enough to have foster parents who were evidently wealthy enough to get him an education which was sufficiently good to enable him to invent the Apple computer… and, though he may have worked hard himself, he most certainly did not do ALL the work himself; no, nor even the ‘lion’s share’ of it! And do you know him sufficiently well to be able to say that every move he made was legal and legitimate? I seem to remember that way back in the dim and distant past of Apple’s history, there were some very questionable moves made by the infant company…
If everyone were to follow the ‘no society’ creed the liberals espouse, VL, then it would simply be a rat-race, with ‘every man for himself’; as it is things are; the result of little Johnnie successfully winding back the progress the unions gained over a century of struggle; we are quite evidently very strongly headed in that direction: And if you want examples of what happens when countries are run by a combination of crooks, thieves and/or the merely self-interested, you might start by looking at France under Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and then look again at the current second round of the GFC and what this is likely to do the the economies of not only the USA, but the whole world.
Now, I agree that people are not all equal, but they ARE all equally human; so, although it is necessary to have some method of recognising social distinctions, these distinctions MUST actually be based on merit; and not merely inherited! It is when differences in social status are so vastly radical, and bear no connection whatsoever to ‘relative merit’, and when the very humanity of the ‘lower orders’ is denied (regardless of the ‘relative merits’ of individual members of said ‘lower orders’); where they are merely seen as a ‘resource’ to be used and exploited; where they are reduced to a commodity as ‘carbon based labour units’, and where the value of their labour is extracted without them even having a share in the profits their labour generates, that the real injustices and atrocities occur, which in turn inevitably, sooner or later, ends up in social movements such as the French Revolution, with all its attendant horrors.
If, on the other hand, leaders actually were to lead with the interests of the ‘people-as-a-whole’ (ie. the whole of society; not merely the ‘upper crust’) at heart, then such differences of status are actually seen as warranted and justified… But again, under such conditions, these differences will not be anywhere so extreme; nor will they be seen as so drastically radical that they are felt to be unjust simply because they DO actually recognise the rights of even the lowest ranks of the social hierarchy to participate, because these REAL leaders will refrain from merely exploiting the poorer sections to feed the wealthy… The latter is, in any case, cannibalistic at best!
🙂
LikeLike
Not clever, asty. Reality. You’re talking North of England in the 1980s and even then the myth of a static layered society with odd exceptions was outdated. Not that Australia is classless, but there’s an awful lot of mobility, and an awful lot of people who might describe themselves as working class with a hell of a lot of money.
Did you get sacrificed, or did you sacrifice yourself?
LikeLike
Where did I say that societies hierarchy had to be ‘static’, Voice? Indeed social movement is implied in the phrase ‘relative merit’…
And yes, I WAS sacrificed (scapegoated, actually) and no, I did NOT ‘sacrifice myself’…
😉
LikeLike
Sacrificed by who? For what? How could they sacrifice you without you being complicit?
As for a layered society with movement based on merit, we have it. Of course luck is always a factor. The thing is, what kind of merit? Intelligence? Looks? Social skills? Hard work? Good health? Sporting ability? Musical ability? Manual dexterity? People with one kind of merit always think that’s the one that should be determinant.
LikeLike
And oddly enough, although not really if you stop to think about it, people with little merit are often keen to rise as well.
LikeLike
Furthermore it was you that said society is static, not me. I quote: “Voice, your argument sounds clever but it’s really just sophistry; sure there are VERY occasional individuals who actually are lucky enough to actually pull themselves up by their bootstraps, so to speak, and join the ranks of the wealthy; this does little, however to change either the numbers or the condition of the poor; and for every one who makes it there are a million who don’t…”
Was true in the North of England decades ago. Just not relevant here and now.
LikeLike
Voice, whether you believe me or not is perhaps quite irrelevant… however, I WAS scapegoated (a particular kind of sacrifice) by those staff-members of the anthropology department in the uni I studied in so that those who were screwing their students could continue to do so with virtual impunity… and so that the university could avoid the shame and embarrassment of having it known by the general public that this practice was so rife in said department that a tenured professor was actually, though very quietly SACKED (an almost unheard of event in any uni!) Remember: a scapegoating ritual is all about laying the blame on the back of the victim so that the real ‘sinners’ can carry on with whatever they were doing in the first place…
Merit of any kind (if it is real merit) is surely worthy of reward, Voice? And, conversely, surely those in elevated positions which perform deeds which are totally lacking in any kind of merit whatsoever, should be ‘demerited’… punished even?
And if what I said implies that society IS static, Voice, where did I EVER suggest that it SHOULD be so?
Gotta fry a couple of eggs and get my ‘oven chips’ (wedges, really) out of the oven now or they’ll be burnt to a frazzle!
🙂
LikeLike
As for how they can ‘sacrifice’ me without my being complicit; complicity can be engineered, Voice, as I’m sure you’re well aware… Indeed, in any ‘scapegoat’ ritual, it is necessary that the victim go willingly to the sacrifice in order to obtain a good ‘omen’ or a ‘favorable’ outcome…
In my case this was done by a certain staff member dobbing me in for the position of student rep during the same year the uni was planning to disestablish the anthropology department… for reasons I’ve already given, though these, like the sacking of a certain professor, were kept very quiet unitl it was all over…
Nuff said!
😐
LikeLike
“Where did I EVER suggest that it SHOULD be so?” Er … nowhere. Where did I ever suggest you suggested that it should be so? Er … nowhere.
It’s not that I don’t believe you asty. It’s just I can’t think how it’s even possible for you or anyone to be scapegoated in such a way so as to allow those who were screwing their students to continue to do so with virtual impunity. The mind boggles. At first take I would have thought that unless you were one of the (presumably) unhappy screwed students, what you said or did or what happened to you would essentially be irrelevant to the outcome.
Also, I can’t match up “screwing continued with virtual impunity”with “a tenured professor was actually, though very quietly SACKED “.
LikeLike
Are you saying that ‘scapegoating’ never happens in this wonderful land of Oz?
Or just that it doesn’t happen in our universities?
Or are you saying it just didn’t happen in MY case and implying that therefore I must be either mentally deficient or a liar?
Perhaps you’re implying that I’m one of those ‘with little or no merit’ you were speaking of, but who ‘wanted to rise’ anyay?
Perhaps you’re implying that I was just no bloody good at anthropology at all? (In spite of an academic record which strongly suggests the contrary?)
Perhaps you’re just trying to infer that I don’t know what the I’m talking about?
I’m sorry Voice… I’ve had enough of this conversation… I don’t think you’re really interested in any case; you just appear to enjoy asking annoying (though far from ‘unanswerable’) questions just for the sake of ‘putting me on the spot’…
I could answer your questions but see little or no point in doing so; your petty amusement is not a sufficient reason! And I can’t be held responsible for your lack of imagination on the possible connection between a sacked professor, a disestablished department and the continuation of anthropologists screwing their students (which happened, incidentally, in that order); and I don’t like being made fun of on such a serious matter.
LikeLike
Answer to all questions: No.
I particularly detest having words put into my mouth. Straw man arguments leave me cold. But if on the other hand you genuinely feel that I was implying either or all of the above, let me assure you that you are mistaken. I have good reason to think you are meritorious. My comment about people of little merit wanting to rise too was along the lines of saying that it was a factor in the practical workability of a merit based system. Nothing whatsoever to do with you, just your idea.
What I had trouble with was how scapegoating someone who was neither department member nor screwed student could allow said screwing to continue. It should be up to the department and the screwed students to follow the official procedure for such an event; one that has occurred before and will again. If not the department, then the university. Whatever happened to you would be outside of that.
You’re under no obligation to expand upon the circumstances.
LikeLike
Okay Voice… to be honest, I really thought you were taking the piss, in which case all the implications I mentioned would have applied; but I’ll accept your assertion that such is not the case and try to answer your questions:
First there was a professor, who was also chairman of the department; a department in which about half of the anthropologists were screwing their students; said prof included… Someone complains and the uni is highly embarrassed (with me so far?)
In order to remedy the situation the uni quietly sacks the prof (VERY quietly, ’cause it doesn’t want to risk the damage to the uni’s reputation which would happen should these facts become general knowledge… still with me?) in the hope that this example would cure the problem…
But it doesn’t… Half the anthros are still screwing their students (who didn’t really mind so much; after all a couple of fucks for an improved mark and perhaps even a shot at a higher degree being seen as ‘worth it’ in many of their eyes; Presumably however, at least one of these students must have complained and that’s why the prof was sacked; though I must say that whoever did the complaining must have had quite some social standing, or they would probably have been ignored, given the runaround and probably scapegoated also). So the situation is embarrassingly ongoing… and remember only half the anthros are culpable… but the rest of the department find their behaviour so offensive that they just can’t work together with them…
Now, during my first year, this prof was actually one of my tutors, but he somehow just ‘disappeared’ in second year and none of us students knew where he’d gone… There was a lot of infighting between the staff, though all we students saw of it was a lot of ‘bad feeling’ between them; when questioned on the matter all we would be told was, “Oh, the anthro dept is like a nursery; a lot of two-year-olds who just can’t work together…” or words to similar effect; no real reasons were given… This ill feeling continued for the next couple of years, but unless the uni were willing to sack half of the staff, which would have been VERY embarrassing for them, as then the truth would most surely have come out, there was little or nothing the uni could do about it… (Still with me?)
Now, as it happened I was student rep in both second and third years; and after completing my undergrad degree I deferred honors for a year… during which time the uni comes up with a plan (which took me quite some time to actually figure out)… if it could make it look like some rabble-rousing student rep was ‘stirring up trouble’ within the department, it could perhaps manipulate the images and information which was released to the press in such a way as to suggest that THIS was the cause for the second stage of its plan: to disestablish the department… (still there?) then it could go ahead with the disestablishment of the department and rather than sacking staff members, they could all be separated from each other by allocation to various other disciplines; and thus the problem (of anthros who couldn’t work together) would be solvered, right?
But of course, this meant that they needed a scapegoat… and that’s where yours truly comes in; I was perfectly qualified to be said scapegoat… simply because I was so completely vulnerable: I had no money and, having separated from my Australian wife during second year, no family or contacts worth speaking of (I’m sure you’re aware of the significance of the chinese phrase, ‘mei you guanxi’; well that was me, “mei you tian; mei you guanxi”) Furthermore, as a blow-in and a pom no-one was going to care about it even if I WAS scapegoated; and even if I finally worked out that I was scapegoated and started to talk about it, whatever I said was easily dismissed, ’cause “Oh, ignore him, he’s just a whinging pom”, or alternatively, a ‘disgruntled student unhappy with his mark”… These are simply tropes, Voice, which suggest that no further thought need be given to the matter, because it’s all the scapegoat’s fault… right? Remember too, that blaming the victim is an essential, indeed a central part, of any scapegoating ritual… And also remember that anthropologists are past-masters at this art!
So, as the perfect victim, I was nominated (by a staff member, not a fellow student) for the role of student rep during my honors year (this, of course, being the year which separates the ‘sheep’ from the ‘goats’; in which, as a result, it is decided who is to go on and have a career; and who is to get the chop).
Now, all the students were anticipating some kind of trouble within the department that year; it had been building for a few years now, remember… So when this staff member (the one who dobbed me in for the student rep pozzie) suggested right at the start of our honors year that we honors students needed to ‘elect’ a representative, one of us (who I well remember, though I will not name here) actually said, “Okay, so who’s to be the scapegoat this year?”
The staff member replied, “Well… I’d suggest that (yours truly) would make a good student rep; he’s already had experience”… and, being nominated to a scapegoat position is much like being nominated as ‘the witch’; once one person is nominated, everyone else goes along with that decision out of relief to escape the position themselves… surely you’ve read Arthur Millar’s ‘The Crucible’?
I tried to refuse, but was told that ‘You can’t do that; you’ve been democratically nominated and elected; that’s democracy’ and ‘In any case, you’re the perfect man for the job, with that working class background…’ (Oh the irony, that I, as a subproletarian troglodyte from the streets of London, should be elected to protect the interests of students who were mostly, if not all, from middle or upper class backgrounds!) Told also that ‘It’s an honor’, I even quoted, “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first raise up!”
And when the planned disestablishment was announced, it was done so, by the same staff member who’d nominated me for the pozzie, in front of all the other students, along with the exhortation that it was my duty to fight the disestablishment… and this same staff member led me along, as if I had a ring through my nose, suggesting various student actions at various times (always in front of the other students mind! Never when I was on my own!), culminating in the invasion of an annual meeting of the University Council… by way of protesting the disestablishment… (Still with me?)
Eventually, about two thirds of the way through the year I had a meeting with a certain Dame who was Vice Chancellor at the time, who ‘capitulated’ to my demands, which now included a) that the dept not be disestalished, and b) that those students who had been disadvantaged by all the politicking we’d been obliged to do by way of fighting the disestablishment, should be allowed to go part-time and finish their honors degrees the next year, in spite of the fact that the ‘cut-off’ date for such a move had already been passed… The Dame promised faithfully that the department would not be disestablished… and so we finished the year, thinking we had something of a small triumph on our hands…
However, when we returned to uni next year we were faced with the plain fact that the dept HAD been disestablished after all… presented with a ‘fait accompli’, there was nothing I nor anyone else could do… And in any case, I was no longer ‘student rep’; and strangely enough, no-one else was elected to that position during our second honors year.
Now when we invaded the Uni Council’s meeting (another suggestion by guess which staff member – and oh, btw, did I mention that this staff member was rumored to have only got her job because she had an affair with the then chairman of the dept? Just another in a long line of coincidences, eh?) there were members of the meeja present, but (and I’m sure favors must have been called in!) they took the lighthearted tack, “Oh, what are those naughty anthropologists up to now?” And for some strange reason none of them ever bothered interviewing the supposed ‘student leader’ (ie, yours truly); not that I could have told them much anyway, at that point.
So, by the start of our second honors year the uni had the disestablishment it wanted, and what looked like a very rabble-rousing student leader to pin impressions of ‘blame’ on… And as for my result: a 2A pass; just a few points short of the first-class pass I needed to even be considered for a grant to go on to a higher degree… I’m sure atomou can tell you all about the Torment of Tantalus, if you don’t know it already: Evidently, knowing my fondness for the classics, those people who were my tutors (all of whom were implicated, mind you, in the student-screwing; and one of whom was yes, the very same one who’d nominated me as student rep! More ‘coincidences’? And why is it that all other honors students had only ONE supervisor; but I had THREE?) had evidently reserved the ‘torment of Tantalus’ for me…
On graduation day, the staff member who nominated me for student rep caught up with me on the balcony of the uni bar and started a conversation which drifed to the subject of the ‘missing prof’… and I asked what had happened to him, remarking that I’d always thought he was very popular with his students (I’d actually quite like him!) “Oh, Professor K…?” she said, “he was sacked!” and when I asked why, she said, “Let’s just say he was just a little too friendly with some of his students…”
As for the anthros who were screwing their students, and those who weren’t, I’ll bet you’ll never guess which ones were promoted, and which ones let go when their contracts came up for renewal… One of them was even awarded a ‘readership’ and the pozzie of editor in chief of Barnes and Noble… (he’s dead now, though, so I suppose it’s safe for me to mention that). As for the ‘missing prof’; he fell on his feet too… he was given a ten million dollar budget by the LSE to start up a school for the study of indigenous healing methodologies… The only one who really lost out was me…
Now tell me that I wasn’t scapegoated!
😐
LikeLike
Postscript:
In 2005, when I was studying for my Grad Dip Ed… (which I would never have done at the same uni had I any choice in the matter! But I was obliged to do so by my then ‘case manager’, having been long-term unemployed’ for longer than I care to remember; the only jobs I could get being casual laboring or cleaning jobs…) I discovered that the department had not only been reinstated, but had in fact now been ‘promoted’ to the level of a ‘faculty’… Evidently the uni felt the need to reward what it saw as ‘good behaviour’… I also met a (female) student who was currently studying within said ‘faculty’, who assured me that the practices which had led to the disestablishment of the original department were indeed still ongoing…
Now do you see the connections, Voice?
🙂
LikeLike
I’ve experienced that kind of environment you get when people are screwing vertically (so to speak) in an organisation. It’s really poisonous for lots of people. For the women who don’t participate and therefore get cut off from what might otherwise be considered normal communication with more senior people if they weren’t weeding out women who wouldn’t screw them. And for the men and women who have to continually crawl to the participating women so they don’t get dumped on from on high.
Sorry I queried you on it. You original characterisation was very dramatic and unfamiliar. 🙂
LikeLike
And I’m sorry if I mistook your queries for a piss-take, Voice…
However, if you have experienced such a poisonous atmosphere, then perhaps you will understand my reasoning in this:
If such things are happening in our universities, which are surely the ‘heart and mind’ of our society, then what does this say about our society?
The answer to this, of course, is that second-rate people who are willing to cheat get promoted, whist those who work hard for promotion get ‘screwed’ (in the non-literal sense of the word!)… So cheats prosper while the honest and truly talented get nowhere…
And what happens if this should go on generation after generation? After all, this happened to me in 1988/89 (I did ‘first year’ in ’84)… which is say, two generations already; and gord alone knows how long it was going on before I got there! And it’s STILL going on… (though in all probability, much more discretely).
You say that we live in a meritocratic society, Voice; and I’d really like to believe it’s so, yet from where I sit, all I can see is that we live in a society in which cheats are promoted and the honest folk are ‘screwed’… (again, in the non-literal sense!)
And now, of course, we find ourselves wondering how things like the collapse of huge organisations (Enron, H&H, State Bank etc…) due to things like ‘false reporting’ can happen? How is the GFC possible in a truly meritocratic society? Perhaps the corruption of the ‘heart and mind’ of our society which is represented by the behaviours I have described (most especially the willingness to use scapegoating as a convenient methodology for overcoming bureaucratic embarrassments!) have something to do with it? And we also wonder why there are those who take guns to our educational institutions and start shooting randomly…
And yet, I wonder if you understand the kind of incredibly negative reactions I get whenever, if ever, I dare even suggest such things, however obliquely…? And I wonder if you can understand what it feels like to have been deprived of a career by people who do not deserve their own! Or the fact that this abuse actually gets worse each year as I grow older and closer to retirement with absolutely no way of providing for myself in my old age; to know that I will be as poor in my old age as I have been for most of my life… Voice, this is a truly terrible form of social abuse, which is worse than any of the forms of abuse that I suffered as a child; which latter forms of abuse I had indeed largely overcome, and indeed, would have overcome, but for this scapegoating ritual.
And the worst part of it is the fact that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it… there’s no remedy, no relief, nor any ‘justice’ whatsoever for scapegoats…
So perhaps you’ll understand and forgive me if I’ve been just a little ‘tetchy’ on this subject; and I’m sure too that you will understand the added poignancy this gives to my comment on Tim Napper’s ‘Drum’ article…
🙂
LikeLike
AND the moral of the story is…?
LikeLike
Screw, or be screwed?
LikeLike
The moral of the story, VL, would at least appear to be, “Whatever you do, if you’re down and out, DON’T try to improve your situation by going to university with the aim of improving your social status through a professional career; the ‘gatekeepers’ won’t let you!”
Of course there are other ‘morals’ too… such as, for example: “Teachers should NEVER screw their students!” What happened to Abelard as a result of his affair with Heloise was perhaps just and fitting… regardless of the fact that theirs was ‘true’ love… (They castrated him, if I remember correctly).
Or how about ‘When cheats are allowed to prosper, the whole world crashes!’
I suppose I could think of a few more, but I’m tired now… so I’ll say ‘Hasta manyana’ to you both…
🙂
LikeLike
Who said money was the ROOT of all evil? 😉
It’s obviously sex.
Are there any jobs going at that place, BTW?
LikeLike
Just caught this last post.
Seriously, your anthropology experience sounds like an unfortunate mess.
On the abstract level, yes our society is meritocratic. No, it’s not purely or truly meritocratic. That’s not possible. In my experience organisations most closely resemble a meritocracy when they are relatively small and survival depends on good performance. It helps when everyone knows everyone else, or at knows someone who knows them; much harder to get away with things.
These days cheating well is considered meritorious by many people. That’s corrosive.
Oh well.
LikeLike
VL: There are student places.
LikeLike
Or join the health union. They hand out corporate cards. Much simpler.
LikeLike
Aaargh! It’s tomorrow.
LikeLike
Good Morrow, all 🙂
And what a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal 😉
LikeLike
Rehearsal, VL? What rehearsal? Oh, and ‘good morning’ to you too!
🙂
LikeLike
Heheheheh… Now it seems that VL is falling through trapdoors!
😉
LikeLike
Here’s one I DID just post, on the ‘pollies attending diggers’ funerals’ blog, that I doubt very much will get up:
“Personally, I think it is more than just a little ghoulish for pollies to be attending funerals of soldiers THEY sent into ‘harm’s way’…
What are they there for? To cry crocodile tears for people they don’t know, never did know; and whom they sent into combat (and sometimes into unecessary conflicts) in the first place?
Or are they there merely to make ‘political capital’ by ‘being seen’ to ‘grieve’…?
Either way it smacks of cannibalism to me…
Perhaps it’ll end when these funerals start to number in the hundreds… or worse! Then perhaps they’ll want to play down such funerals instead of turning them into some kind of jingoistic freak show.
I wonder if the truly grieving rellies of the deceased diggers find any comfort whatsoever in the presence of pollies at the funerals of their loved ones? I do know that if one of my rellies ended up in a flag-draped pine box with a slouch hat on it I’d give any pollie who had the temerity to turn up a very large piece of my mind… preferably while the cameras are rolling!
(The idea that one commenter had about pollies should be there so they can see the results of their own actions has some merit, perhaps; but surely a better way of achieving the same end would be to make the pollies who sent them into combat write the letters notifying rellies of their loved ones’ demise, instead of their officers?)
As I say, it’s a personal opinion; I don’t expect anyone to agree with me… but that’s my two-penn’orth anyway!”
😉
LikeLike
Well, T2, I agree with your opinion.
I am totally unconvinced that Australians are bringing any substantial benefit to what has to be one of history’s enduring basket case countries. I feel sad for every Australian family who has lost a loved one there – and equally those who have had loved ones seriously injured – mentally as well as physically.
You might recall that I have an old friend whose son lost a leg and part of an arm and was badly burnt on the side of his face. He would have died in minutes but for the heat of the blast cauterising his cut femoral artery. His mum told me of their heartbreaking stay in an American military hospital in Germany next to a critically injured young American soldier and his family. That young man died in his mother’s arms.
Last night on Top Gear, we saw a team of British ex-Iraq veterans – all amputees, who had come together with a project to race a rally car to Dakar. The most able – the driver had an artificial foot. One of the mechanics had no legs and only one arm. They were a team who had been through hell and who none-the-less were doing their utmost to keep a stiff upper lip and carry on.
I feel nothing but admiration for their courage, camaraderie and sense of duty. But I feel something quite different about the people who sent them to Iraq and also to Afghanistan.
It will be all over soon. Not even America can afford the cost in blood and treasure.
LikeLike
My sentiments exactly Emm… and although I’ve never met your mates, they have nothing but my admiration and respect… On the blog the above comment probably won’t be posted on, there were some interesting comments from ex-diggers, most of whom seem to feel that the best way pollies could honor the dead diggers (if they really wanted to, that is!) would be to remember the ones who are still living, minus various bits and pieces… like your mates! Instead of which the DVA seems to want to push them all towards suicide… live heroes seem to be too much of an embarassment to them… (not to mention too much of a ‘financial’ embarrassment too!)
How about a little REAL respect for our soldiers? Not politicians ‘crocodile tears’!
🙂
LikeLike
Well whaddaya know? It actually got up after all… Still, it wouldn’t be the first of my comments to be taken down AFTER it has been posted! Let’s see if it’s still there tomorrow!
🙂
LikeLike
I thought it appropriate to add Crumb’s own words, in the Crumb thread on Leashed – but either I’m being targeted by one or more of the mods or they shut me down because of Crumb’s language at the end of his piece. Anyway – I know I can put his PoV here!
Well as it turns out NO, I can’t because I cannot cut n’ paste and I’m damned if I’m going to re-key it all again.
So I’ll just bugger off again and snarl.
LikeLike
Not to worry Tomo… I’m sure Crumb has a fair share of fans here at the Pigs’… myself included. Though I find it’s rare I can be bothered posting any kind of comment on the Drum these days…
🙂
LikeLike
I’ll second that, asty. I was massively disappointed that he didn’t come. I was intending to take FM to see him jam with Captain Matchbox – who have of course appeared in the Nathan Rees Memorial Ballroom at the pub.
Same for the drum.
I’m totally disinclined to give the Drum any of my precious time. Apologies to Gez and Lehan who still gig there occasionally – and who are always most welcome chez maison de porc.
LikeLike
The public hate crimes related to sex. Clinton got off, but Khan’s career is finished.
I’l give Thomson 3 weeks.
LikeLike
What odds and how much? I vaguely recall you owing me a bottle of something alcoholic already, so perhaps it should be some pheasant paté to go with it.
One week at the outside. Or Gillard has no possibility to contain the political damage.
LikeLike
Oh. Bother. I forgot the slim margin by which Labor hold power. It’ll be protracted.
There go my dreams of pheasant paté and white wine!
LikeLike
What’s got into Combet?
I’ve never liked him, but that’s only because he grimaces. I’ve always thought that because posters profess how talented he is, that he is ──even though he is in my opposition.
However his comments today display an ignorance of the use of the English language that I just cannot excuse. He called Abbooot a ‘racist’ for his, admittedly mischievous, comment on possible emissions trading fraud.
It must be the silly season.
What we need is some fun.
If’n youse don’t laugh at this you should see your local cikiatrist 🙂
I bet T2 remembers this one.
LikeLike
Actually I bet someone at the Drum, ( about 3 months ago) that Gaddafi would be gone by August. However I’m not biting my fingernails, because I can’t remember who it was 🙂
LikeLike
Of course I remember the ‘Laughing Policeman’, VL… from my very early childhood.
Who could forget it? (No matter how hard they try!) Is it still raining on the IoW?
😉
LikeLike
What made you ask about the rain?
Here’s a link http://iwcp.co.uk/
You know it’s funny that you mention The Island.
There was a machine on Ryde seafront, with a dummy policeman in it, behind a glass window–and when you put a ha’pny in he started laughing uncontrollably. The song that was played was the one above.
No matter how many times I heard it, I always got a fit of the giggles 🙂
LikeLike
I just checked the link myself 17 deg and drizzle 😦
LikeLike
Thanks for the link, VL…
Interesting lead article: They’re apparently planning to make the Isle’s prisons for sex offenders only… (that should prove an interesting sociological experiment!) Given that the IoW has the largest prison in the UK (which I remembered from your last link to the IoW…) what does this say about the prevalence of sexual offending in the UK? And I simply dread to think about what might happen in terms of the subversion of prison staff…
Why did I ask about the rain? ‘Cause earlier on you said you were bored ’cause you couldn’t get out to do your gardening…
🙂
LikeLike
Whats’s your thoughts on Mary-Jo Fisher Vectis?
LikeLike
Hi Algy.
I can google her, or you can tell me what she is the minister of.
I was just finishing an email to my son, who’s at work, when your name popped up in my Vectis folder.
While you’re replying I’ll google her anyway and see who she is.
LikeLike
From news corp.
The police apprehension report into the incident alleges that Senator Fisher allegedly took foodstuffs valued at $92.92 from a Foodland supermarket in the Adelaide suburb of Frewville.
She is further alleged to have assaulted a female security guard in the supermarket carpark when the guard sought to stop her from leaving.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/liberal-senator-mary-jo-fisher-arrested-for-shoplifting-assault/story-e6frfkvr-1226100027412#ixzz1VqO3tjx6
Well, she sounds like a nasty piece of work to me.
LikeLike
Are you still there?
LikeLike
Hellooo. There’s an echo in here.
OK, I’ll come back when you prompt me.
I’m sure it’s that bloody trap door in the public bar again 😉
LikeLike
Just been out Vectis for a few hours, She’s a Liberal senator, she has actually been charged with offences. Should she resign from the parliament?
LikeLike
She should resign, or be sacked immediately. There should be a by election. Tout de suite.
People like that are not fit to hold office. If she’s exonerated after a trial, then she can be compensated financially.
LikeLike
You see Vectis, as far as I can tell people are entitled to a presuption of innocence until proven otherwise. Fisher has been charged and will have her day in court. Until there is a judgement against her she is innocent.
Thompson on the other hand is suffering trial by media. At this stage no charges have been laid and may never ever be laid. I have no idea if he has done the things he is accused of or not. Now if there is nothing there it this should be dropped, if something is found then let him have his day in court.
You see Vectis this is how the law works. For mine they can stay in the Parliament until things are proven otherwise.
The reality is that this has nothing to do with Thompson, it has to do with somehow forcing him from his seat and calling a by-election. This is a dangerous game, There is more than one Liberal on the front bench with skeletons in their cupboard, where a similar game could be played out against them.
LikeLike
“No, I’m rather proud of it!” she told the French weekly L’Express in a 2006 interview. “It’s important to seduce, for a politician. As long as I seduce him and he seduces me, that’s enough for me.”
That’s Strauss-Khan’s wife responding to the accusation that her husband is a seducer.
But, didn’t we all know it? Limitless mountains of money will see you through any justice system, no matter how horrible your crime and how blatantly it is performed.
Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance dropped the case against him.
The French prosecutors also dropped a couple of other cases.
Vance allowed the prosecutors to delve into Ms Diallo’s past and consider it as a credibility problem but when they delved into Khan’s past, well, that’s just common and admirable even, behaviour of French men!
“Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has denied the right of a woman to get justice in a rape case,” Diallo’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, told reporters after the meeting. (Reuters, today)
LikeLike
That’s probably unfair ato. The justice system is of course massively biased in favour of those with money as they can afford to pay for detectives and for expensive lawyers, who are less likely to cheat them because they know they can afford to pursue them legally if they do.
But Ms Diallo has received the full support of the law. DSK was quite dramatically removed DSK from his plane out of the US just before take-off. The prosecutor backed Diallo all the way, the courts refused DSK bail, UNTIL it came out that she could not be believed beyond reasonable doubt. She had lied about being raped before for personal gain (visa into US), and there were sufficient indications that this case might be about financial gain to introduce reasonable doubt.
She isn’t a victim of the law here, despite being a poor black immigrant chamber maid. She has a high profile expensive lawyer who pulled out all stops, including applying considerable political pressure on the prosecutor to proceed to court whether or not he thought the case was a good one. She is being financed by third parties and money is no object to her with respect to pursuing the case. She’s already taken it to a civil court, which was inevitable if he was found Not Guilty but virtually an admission that they had no criminal case when it was done before that had gone to court.
Of course DSK’s past tells against him, but it isn’t sufficient to convict him in the absence of a credible witness. It was inevitable that detectives would be able to dig up some dirt on her unless she is a saint, and even then that they could twist something around and sully her name and reputation. Standard rape charge defence tactics. But in the end they didn’t need to. Not saying I think she’s lying about it. Just that a jury would have to admit reasonable doubt.
LikeLike
As for the French case of attempted rape of Tristane Bannon several years ago, that will probably not go to trial because attempted rape is too hard to prove under the circumstances, and the lesser charge of sexual aggression lapses after three years.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2011/08/22/97001-20110822FILWWW00405-banondsk-vers-un-classement-sans-suite.php
LikeLike
The figaro article adds nothing.
There is the technicality of a time lapse which, to my way of thinking, is yet another mote before the rich and influential man’s castle. Again, it’s a matter of “keep the beggars outside our institutions!”
LikeLike
It clearly and concisely explains how the system works with respect to laying charges for this incident. There are reasons for time limits on charges and I’m not even going to begin to pretend to have a clue about what the time limit should be.
LikeLike
moat… remember?
LikeLike
Well, yes BUT, Voice!
We don’t know what happened but we don’t know how it happened and for that we need a court with a jury and an impartial judge.
We do know that sex had taken place. There is no doubt about that.
What may we suppose has happened? That Khan had politely asked Diallo for a blow job and she said, “why, of course, sir. That’s part of a hotel maid’s job.”
OR
Did Diallo herself made the request, “Dear sir, may I…?”
And then there’s the bruise. Punched herself, do you think?
NO, I think this sort of case should be dealt with in a court of law. Vance has far too much judicial power. DPPs, to my mind, are placed there to act as motes before the rich and influential man’s castle.
I don’t know what happened that day at the hotel but I’m certainly not going to find out now. And THAT is justice denied, to my way of thinking.
I don’t suppose that if Diallo gets raped again she’ll have any chance at all of entering a court. She has a “past.” Nevermind what he has.
Too smelly. Don’t like it!
LikeLike
Interesting idea that justice is denied if the public does not know what happened. Is that your idea for this specific case or in general? In any case, it’s not the official idea of justice. It’s certainly not the purpose of a criminal court. The case is however being pursued in a civil court so watch that space.
LikeLike
In general, Voice.
My idea of justice goes back to the ancient Greek courts which consisted of 500+ jurors. Peers, in great number. And whilst, I acknowledge this was taking place in a State of no more that, say 50,000 “citizens” only, it is still a logical paradigm of how justice should be served. There are no DPPs. Just complainants, defendants and jurors. Not even lawyers, though speech writers (like Demosthenes, for eg) would be hanging around outside the court to write the speech for whoever needed one. These guys were also well versed with the law and with what the “mood” of the peers was, so they could advise their client…
In any case, the feeling I have is that the more… moats (thank you lad) are placed in front of the courts, the less likely it is that the complainant/claimant will get access to clear and unbiased justice: Blind and with sword ready to strike.
LikeLike
I daresay there are reasons why that system changed, atomou. Perhaps it wasn’t perfect either, or even the best possible.
In the interests of justice Demosthenes no doubt wrote his speeches for rich and poor alike with no consideration of financial recompense?
LikeLike
What was the usual outcome of rape charges back then and there, ato? I suppose a woman had nothing to worry about? Hmmm? And hmmmm again?
Also, according to the first info I looked at, cases didn’t go to trial unless the judge felt there was enough evidence!
http://greece.mrdonn.org/athenscourt.html
Hmmph and humph. It’s all the fault of those blasted ancient Greeks!
——————-
Oh well. I can see you can’t go out in the garden because your miracle worker might feel spied upon. No wonder you’re going stir crazy. Nothing like a good potter about to calm the nerves.
Hey, you could try librivox.org.
LikeLike
Ah, the Greek system of law!
Yes, there was a judge who would judge if the case had any merit.
BUT!
The only reason he was there, was to serve as a moat against the Athenian citizens. That is, that no slave, or foreigner (they used to live outside Athens, called perioikoi) would bring up charges against an Athenian citizen by birth. Women, of course, had their justice meted out by their own individual, domestic judge! No public appearance for the women, thank you very much! The husband did the judging and the punishing. No husband EVER raped his wife… coz she always agreed to… love and obey her hubbie or else the gods would punish her severely!
The other thing about this judge was that, being a judge, he loved courts. He would go out of his way to agree that there’s a case to be heard!
As well, because he would be elected by the majority of citizenry, he’d want to be nice to the jurors (some of whom would have the court’s wages as their only means of income) and make sure he’d give them cases to sit on.
As well, the criteria for yeae or nae were fairly slack and there was no “beyond reasonable doubt” in the determinations. People were ruled guilty or innocent according to the majority of votes.
Demosthenes was good enough to charge a scale of fees that depended on whether or not the person had money. Generally, the poor peasants would pay little if anything; and, just like today’s lawyers would do pro bono work, so would people like Demosthenes, particularly if the case was prominent and would enhance their reputation.
But there were a number of other speech writers around who would unscrupulously charge quite steeply, particularly if the case was a matter of life and death.
LikeLike
So, uh, hidden in all those words about the utopian splendour that was the Athenian justice system, is the information that a woman couldn’t even apply to the court for justice, let alone receive it?
Also, are you saying that the web reference I gave is incorrect? It says:
“FIRST TRIP TO COURT: The judge would ask both sides questions. If the judge felt there was enough evidence to have a trial, a date would be set. ”
You seem to be implying that the first trip was just about weeding out foreigners and slaves from receiving court justice.
But kudos for the (ever so grudging) admission that the presence of unscrupulous operators meant that the rich were favoured.
It seems that Diallo is doing far better in the US system than she ever could have in ancient Greece. Perhaps you should have quit when you were way behind, instead of way, way, behind. A poor hand played well in any case. 🙂
LikeLike
Ma très, très, très chère, Voix!
No, I didn’t want to imply that the Athenian system was IN ALL respects perfect but it was good, in as much as the accused was judged by his co-citizens and so many of them that the process couldn’t be corrupted. No one could buy that many jurors so as to get the verdict he desired.
Quite right about the women, the slaves and the foreigners. So far as the women were concerned, it was a cultural thing. So far as the slaves and the foreigners are concerned, it was a matter of two things: Something that echoed in Pericles’ speech: pride to be an Athenian citizen, with specifically Athenian rights, security (remember, a small population can easily be infiltrated by extraneous forces) and the notion of peerage: only a fellow citizen can be a peer and examine your deeds according to the laws of your city; also the notion espoused by Aristotle that “every being is a politician,” ie, since he is a member of a polis (a city state) he is also responsible for its proper function. Democracy a la the “father of Democracy” Cleisthenes (around 508-7BC). So, he is a politician. An Athenian politician, with duties first and foremost to Athens.
As for the duties of the so called judge, yes, he’d ask “questions”. Example of one: Where (which precinct) were you born? Which is your tribe (called phratries)? Who are your parents? Then, he might feign interest in the matter, not so much as to judge whether the matter had merit worthy of a hearing but so that the law suits and notices were written properly.
Laws were written and amended several times through until the Roman takeover.
They begin with Draco who was the first to take disputes out of private hands and into public courts but his laws were bloody harsh (“draconian”) new laws were written by other lawgivers, the most famous of whom was Solon… loooooong stories!
Athens’ judicial system is best studied in the works of Plato and his student and mate, Aristotle, as well as a guy called Theophrastos… a male Lesbian. 🙂
I’m not able to judge if Diallo is getting a better deal in modern day America, if, in both cases, she is kept away from a court, either directly or indirectly. If she has been raped, then, no, after two and a half thousand years of enlightenment, common women still struggle to be heard or taken seriously by serious institutions. Not much development there, alas!
LikeLike
Why did I feel safer somehow when I was only très chère? 🙂
Except, you DO know because her case was officially investigated and assessed as to its likelihood of success before being turned down for court, while the accused was prevented from leaving the country and then refused bail pending initial investigations.
Plus it will be heard in a civil court where your desire for further public detail may well be satisfied.
LikeLike
Now, I really must go out for a late walk. The dogs are chomping-at-the (imaginary)-bit.
It’s been raining cats & dogs here. However ‘this’ intrepid and indefatigably stalwart pom, will put on his trusty see-through mac and go djalan-djalan. Tout à ‘heur..cheerio, chi-chin. Addios amigos.
LikeLike
Oh… Emmjay… you meant THAT blue… To be honest, I really mistook it for ‘good-natured banter’ between to polically opposed mates, but now it does seem to be getting a little serious. It always saddens me to see two mates of mine having a blue… I don’t like to choose sides between my friends… I only hope it will all blow over soon…
😐
LikeLike
When I can’t even mention Tuscan food without being ridiculed, it’s time to move on.
LikeLike
Helvi, what are you referring to. You make it sound terribly bad…and serious?
LikeLike
It’s all over T2: Balkans nil. Londinium one.
LikeLike
No need to choose “sides,” asty. Choose only the view which most suits your own. To choose a “side” means that you reject one whole being in favour of another whole being. The lad and I have differences of view on many things but not on all things. I don’t believe that there are any two human beings who are in total agreement about everything, all the time. Given the nature of our ever evolving, organic, mindset, it would be impossible for such a thing to occur, though Mrs Ato and I, have a frightening constant coincidence of views! (:))
No need to reject a whole side. And I don’t thing one ought accept a whole side.
HOWEVER!
The very same nature of our mindsets, will allow me to jump into boiling oil to save the lad, if he ever managed to get himself in that sort of situation. Agreeing or disagreeing with him means nothing when his life is in jeopardy and I will put mine in the same jeopardy to save it.
It’s the nature of our ever evolving, organic, mindset!
LikeLike
Actually, I was just testing your powers of discussion–and skill with the English language.
I think that you foodged 🙂
LikeLike
However,
when bullying and tirelss snide remarks are made too often amongst a very small group some might just decide it is too umpleasant.
LikeLike
Very funny, lad!
🙂
LikeLike
gerard, I am just off for a walk, but cannot ignore that.
The discussion between atomou and myself, although carried out on a blog, was just ours. And ours alone.
You have made copious remarks about The English and I have excepted it in good humour. Responding sometimes in the spirit, bringing up Holland & your predilection with curtains.
So I don’t accept your haughty position. 😦
LikeLike
“Think” not “thing!”
Gorrrrd damn it!
LikeLike
You’re quite right about not choosing sides, ato… and that’s why I have not done so and nor will I do so… But what Gerard said about the frequency of snide remarks, and even outright insults, also has merit… I thought the PA was the one place we could go to and have civilized discussions without the need for hurling personal abuse at the opposition just ’cause they disagree.
What you have said about ‘the lad’ and boiling oil, however, was quite reassuring and I’m sure will give him pause for thought…
Maybe I’m just being a bit of an ‘old woman’, but I’m hoping that the tone of your discussions will continue to be passionate, yet will forego the personal abuse to which it has descended recently… after all it’s not as if both of you need insults; you are both far too articulate for such to be necessary; and remember, anyone who actually feels the need to use personal insults in any debate has just lost that debate; it’s a tacit admission that you have no other argument…
Put another way: a bit of stirring is okay, but there’s a point at which it goes beyond a joke; I hope we all have enough sense and sensitivity, not to mention, enough respect for each other, not to go beyond that point…
Okay, that’s my two-penn’orth…
🙂
LikeLike