We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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Melanie McDonagh, ever the dependable voice of anti-idiotarianism and reason, has pointed out the ludicrous thinking behind the latest changes planned regarding laws on domestic violence. The intention is to remove the defence of provocation, whilst at the same time introducing a plea of self-defence for women who kill after years of being abused… or as Melanie sums it up:
a killing that is premeditated for a long time will be treated more lightly; in another, a killing that was not premeditated at all will be treated with the maximum severity.
As one would expect from a socialist collectivist like Solicitor General Harriet Harman, because men tend to kill out of anger and women out of fear, the law will be skewed to in fact make that a presumption. This is not really English law so much as feminist law, treating men and women according to their category rather than as individuals judged on the basis of facts.
But murder, like romance, is unique to the couple concerned. And it doesn’t take much reflection to see that a blanket extenuation of self-defence is quite as likely to lead to miscarriages of justice as the blanket extenuation of provocation.
Quite so! This is a charter for murdering partners with whom a woman has a volatile (but not necessarily violent) relationship. The statue on top of the Old Bailey is ‘blind justice’, but no longer if you are male, it seems.
The stories of how outrageously the anti-war protesters in London dealt with those who will bear the consequences of the West’s actions, whatever they are, reminded us again of the double-standards of the peaceniks and other useful idiots. Blinded by their ideology they let the pleas of those who experienced Saddam’s tyranny fall onto deaf ears.
There is also the now institutionalised double standard for racial relations and the double standard on which the entire debate about ‘white imperialism’ is based. Pondering such inconsistencies in people’s positions, I often attributed them to the lack of intelligent and rational public discourse. The short attention span of mass audiences maintained by the mass media enables them to substitute the rational with the emotional.
Or so I thought. And then I came across this early example of double standard by Western politicians that would score a high political correctness count, even in these affirmative action times:
In the early 19th century slavery was almost ubiquitous in the world but the Barbary Coast, stretching 1,500 miles from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Sirte in Lybia, was unique in being the only area where white men and women were subjected to it in large numbers. The Barbary pirates, using what would now be called a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam as their pretext, regularly kidnapped Christian livestock from Italy, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica and from the ships of all nations sailing the Mediterranean.
Wealth capitves could usually obtain ransom without difficulty. The rest were treated with varying degrees of barbarity. Torture was used to obtain convestions to Islam, “turning Turk”, as Western sailors called it.
The West’s supine attidute towards the horrors of Barbary piracy had long aroused fury in some quarters. Officers of the British navy were particularly incensed since seamen were frequently victims of the trade. They could not understand why the huge resources of the world’s most powerful fleet were not deployed to root out this evil affront to the international law of the sea, once and for all. They could not understand why liberal parliamentarians, who campaigned ceaselessly to outlaw the slave trade by parliamentary statue, took no interest in Christian slavery.
Admiral Nelson wrote in 1799:”My blood boils that I cannot chastise there pirates. They could not show themselves in the Mediterranean did not our country permit. Never let us talk about the cruelty of the African slave-trade while we permit such a horrid war.”
But William Wilberforce, MP, and the other Evangelical liberals, who finally got the slave trade made unlawful in 1807, flatly refused to help. They were concerned with the enslavement of blacks by whites and did not give the predicament of white slaves a high priority on their agenda, an early example of double standards.
So, nothing new under the sun…? History repeats itself…? People don’t change…?
OK, that’ll do.
It appears that we may have underestimated the soaring ambitions of the European Union. Not content with absorbing the ‘Vilnius 10’, they have set their sights on outer space:
“Europe’s first mission to the Moon looks set for a July blast-off.
Scientists and engineers working on the Smart 1 spacecraft are hoping to fly around the 15th of that month – but it all depends on the status of the launcher.”
Doubtless this will be the first of many such missions designed to extend the scope of the European orbit. According to French EU Commissioner Bertrand Maginot:
“At this time, the cosmos is totally unregulated. This is an intolerable situation.”
A Swedish EU representative, Helena Hankårt was prepared to outline the precise aproach:
“It is not so much that we intend to conquer space. It is more a question of bringing space within democratic control.”
The British deputy chair of the Celestial Expansion Committee, Sir Crispin D’oilly-Gitte was rather more forthright in his views:
“Oh but we simply must extend Euwopean influence into space. Otherwise it will be full of those fwightful Amewicans”
The Celestial Expansion Committee has drawn up detailed plans for future ventures and even a broad agreement on contingency operations, as indicated by Dutch Committee member Willy Van Der Pimp:
“There is a draft plan setting out an appropriate response in case of encounters with alien life-forms. However, it is agreed that the aliens must commit themselves to meeting certain minimum regulatory standards before any communication can be approved.”
Members of the committee refused to be drawn on the question of whether space should, indeed, be referred to as the ‘final frontier’.
It may be a response to our inability to halt the ageing process that causes so many of us to plot out our memories with milestones: first day at school, first kiss, first job, marriage, birth of child etc.
I think we mark these milestones because they provide us with a certain comfort. If we cannot go back then at least we can progress. Change is an option and one never knows what tomorrow may bring.
I say this because I think it is time for me to acknowledge another milestone. Truth be told, it was raised a little while ago but it is only now that I am forced to grant it full recognition: pop culture and I have gone our separate ways. It was a passionate and intimate relationship while it lasted, but now the ‘spark’ has gone. We’ve both moved on and changed. I’m not the same, it’s not the same. There’s no communication any more. Time to call it a day. Not only do I no longer know who is topping the charts, I no longer care.
I think the actual epiphany came about two years when I managed to get myself caught up in some sort of street festival on my way home from work one night. Not even for a fleeting second did the idea of joining in occur to me. Finding myself in the midst of a gang of teen-somethings gyrating furiously to some noise or other reminiscent of a car alarm, my overwhelming desire was to be somewhere else. I was tired, I was hungry and I really, really wanted to be home.
Nowadays my internet radio ‘favourites’ list has been stripped of virtually everything except classical stations the hegemony of which is only occasionally broken by a nostalgia trip back to the 80’s. I would rather drop paving stones onto my bare toes than go to a rock concert and, even if that were not so, just how ridiculous would I look leaping up and down, punching the air among a crowd where the next oldest person was still young enough to be my daughter? I find myself examining old T-shirts and thinking they might make useful dusters. → Continue reading: They all look the same to me
The naval might of Switzerland has prevailed. A country with all the maritime traditions of Outer Mongolia, Iowa and Chad has prevailed where 152 years of British endeavour have failed. The America’s Cup, a trophy given by Queen Victoria to promote yachting in the English Channel, and which has never been won by a British team has now changed hands from the USA (1851-1983 [No, that isn’t a typo!], and 1988-1995), Australia (1983-1988), and New Zealand (1995-2003). And now Switzerland.
The main priviledge for the winner, apart from collecting a silver trophy named after its first winner, the schooner America is to get the right to host the next challenge, which is now expected to be in 2007. As this has to be on seawater, there is a little problem. Switzerland is about 450 miles from the nearest coastline. So the defence will probably take place in the Mediterranean or on the Altantic coastline of France.
It’s all very jolly for Ernesto Bertarelli the Swiss owner of the Alinghi team, for Russell Coutts the New Zealander skipper hired to beat his former team mates. So why no British success. Until the 1970s, no one else but the British even challenged the New York Yacht Club. The explanation I offer explains why Italian and now Swiss challengers have emerged, despite no obvious historical tradition for this sort of contest. → Continue reading: “England, a seafaring nation…”
Two delightfully silly things, no doubt with strangely profound cultural over- or do I mean undertones attached to them if only I could think of them, are to be found linked to and exhibited at 2Blowhards today. There are singing horses (be sure, as Michael says, to click on the various horses), and there is the Americanised Mona Lisa.
Alice agrees. (And while you’re there check out her libertarian defence of the Stone Age – press “HOME” on the left if you are doing this so soon that the Blogger archiving idiocy blots it out because it’s the newest posting – google are you listening? I’m bored with libertarian arguing, so I haven’t commented on this, but all those still excited by libertarian arguing should comment away.) Alice and I also seem to agree that the LOTRhymes rappers aren’t so good. Personally I dislike rapping and am also Bored of the Rings, as the pun goes, never having been that excited by them in the first place, so I think it’s a LOT of cRap.
But the horses are great, as is the ML’s new cleavage.
So the ‘heroic’ human shields found Iraq not worth laying down their lives for? I previously asked why they weren’t in Kuwait City when Iraq invaded. David Carr suggested jokingly next year North Korea, but I doubt if they would be welcome. The place that needs defending right now from the threat of massive chemical and possibly nuclear destruction is South Korea.
If the human shields were anything more than stooges for Communist evil, they would be in Seoul, Pusan, or forming a chain across the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ). If it is of any help to the peacenik who may be reading, try this link for info on places to visit along the border.
I’m not holding my breath.
This has been my 100th posting on Samizdata. Thanks to Brian, Adriana and especially Perry for their patient explanations of this medium, and to all the readers and commentators, who make it all worthwhile. Well sort of 
If you have played the computer game America’s Army, now you have the opportunity to try a… different… sort of real-life based first-person-shooter game:
Hizbullah has launched a computer game allowing players to simulate its fighters during military operations on Israeli soldiers prior to the liberation of the South. Special Force, which took two long year s of development by the Hizbullah Central Internet Bureau, hit the market on Feb. 16. The game consists of different stages all inspired by actual Hizbullah operations in the South. Players face the same conditions as Hizbullah fighters, including geographic locations, mines, the number of Israeli troops and even the weather conditions. Special Force also offers a training simulation, where players can practice their shooting skills on targets such as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli political and military figures.
The medium of computer games is neutral… what next? A mod for a civilian airliner flight sim that re-creates some rather well known flights on September 11th? I would not be surprised. After that, maybe a ‘role playing computer game’ set in Poland in 1943 called Einzatsgruppen?
Unfortunately the good guys do not have a monopoly on creativity.
More than half a century of experience shows that the U.N. is a theater of hypocrisy, a sink of corruption, a street market of sordid bargains and a seminary of cynicism. It is a place where mass-murdering heads of state can stand tall and sell their votes to the highest bidder and where crimes against humanity are rewarded.
– Paul Johnson in Five Vital Lessons From Iraq [via Instapundit]
The 13-year-old girl submitted the following essay to a teacher in a state secondary school in the west of Scotland and explained that she found it “easier than standard English”:
My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we usd 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kds FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc.
Translation: My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York, it’s a great place.
Text messaging, or SMS (short message service), has turned into a new mobile phone language and has rapidly become one of Britain’s favourite pastimes. As the keypad of a mobile phone is difficult to navigate, text message groupies, mostly children, have developed a shorthand to make life a bit easier.
But their English teachers don’t like it:
There must be rigorous efforts from all quarters of the education system to stamp out the use of texting as a form of written language so far as English study is concerned.
There has been a trend in recent years to emphasise spoken English. Pupils think orally and write phonetically. You would be shocked at the numbers of senior secondary pupils who cannot distinguish between their and there. The problem is that there is a feeling in some schools that pupils’ freedom of expression should not be inhibited.
However, the decline in literacy has probably more to do with teachers being ‘confused’ about how to teach reading. Another reason why many seven-year-olds cannot write properly is because their teachers do not know enough grammar to teach it effectively.
At the heart of the problem was the education strategy’s “ambiguous guidance” on phonics – a teaching method where children learn how the sounds of words are written instead of trying to memorise their shape. Brian Micklethwait has dealt with this topic on Samizdata.net here and here and I am sure the debate continues on Brian’s education blog. So go and read, if interested. I will just leave you with this txt:
If u wan2 undRst& tXt m$ges thN IMO u nEd a SMS DXNRE or no1 will think ur c%l. nuf Z.
Student Amy Keel in the Harvard Crimson explains why she destroyed a phallic sculpture:
“As a student of Harvard University, neither I, nor any other woman, should have to see this obscene and grossly inappropriate thing on my way to class. No one should have to be subjected to an erect penis without his or her express permission or consent.
Many women and men, including myself, are the victims of sexual assault, child sexual abuse and rape. The unwanted image of an erect penis is an implied threat; it means that we, as women, must be subject to erect penises whether we like it or not. There was nothing “challenging” or “subversive” about the penis. The only thing it did was create an uncomfortable environment for the women of Harvard University.”
Presumably she would not have enjoyed the parties at the very countercultural communal flat of my CMU grad school days. We had wild ones. If you are a true conservative rather than a libertarian, they were everything you feared was going on some where… and more.
There was one Halloween party where a large chunk of the Fine Arts department ended up in our flat. It was a night Fellini could have been proud of.
Some of the costumes were so creative I remember them to this day. There was a gay friend of the household from Globe Players, our Shakespeare company, who came as “The Dope Fairy”. He wore a pink tutu, ballet tights and a Santa’s bag. He moved about the party spreading happiness where ever he went… and then there were the four fellows from Painting and Sculpture. They really put effort into it. It must have taken days to build the chicken wire frames, paper mache them and do the painting. They came as organs. Male and Female.
Have you ever had a 6 foot breast bump into you at the punch bowl? Or seen a face staring out at you from the middle of a hairy…
Perhaps I’ll skip that one.
I urge you to read a post by Stephen Pollard. He links to a Guardian articled headed, breathtakingly, “Welsh pensioner turns freedom fighter”. Why do I say “breathtakingly”? Because the freedom-fighting of the woman profiled by the Guardian, Anne Gwynne, consists of the fact that she went to ‘Occupied Palestine’ the better to be chummy with the families of two suicide bombers who killed twenty-three Israeli civilians. Or who “went on the mission to Tel Aviv” as she winningly puts it, before adding, “They are such lovely families and very proud of their sons.”
The woman herself is of a recurring though despicable type: the White Liberal Murder-Groupie. OK, you’ve seen her like before, swooning over the Khmer Rouge or the Black Panthers. We are up to about Mk VIII by now, with Improved Extra Gush Factor. Let us wash our minds of her and move on.
But the Guardian’s commentary hits a new low, and the Guardian once had some honour to lose. Did you know that it was once the Manchester Guardian, provincial in the best sense, standing for a tradition of Nonconformist self-improvement? Think on that and then re-read that headline describing a woman who pants to to further help the killers in their bloody work: Welsh pensioner turns freedom fighter.
Then look at the first sentence: Anne Gwynne is conducting her own war on terrorism. Mrs Gwynne did not write that, the reporter, Chris McGreal wrote it. Probably didn’t think about it much.
Did I say “the Guardian’s commentary” just then? Silly of me, it isn’t a commentary. The nearest it comes to an effort at any of that “dig deeper, ask the tough questions” stuff reporters and analysts are meant to do is this:
Twenty-three people died in those bombings in Tel Aviv in January, including many poor foreign workers. Was it wrong?
The answer given, pretty quickly, is “Nah, ‘course not.” Note how McGreal had to drag in that fact that many of the victims weren’t Israelis in order to make even a debating-point case for sympathy. Beyond that one limp line there is no justification offered for the term “freedom fighter” or for calling Anne Gwynne’s activities “her own war against terrorism.” In contrast great detail is offered of the sufferings of the Palestinians (which is as it should be) – but not the slightest scepticism as to whether Anne Gwynne is telling the whole truth. Could McGreal not have made some interjection, asked a few challenging supplementary questions, for instance, when confronted with lines like this: “I used to think it was all excuses, but they [Israeli soldiers] actually believe this shit. We have nothing to kill them with, just a few AK-47s.”? Perhaps he was never going to give the answer I would have given, namely, “Your pals with the bomb-belts seem to slaughter well enough, dearie,” but one would think that the traditions of the Guardian would demand some note of distance, of qualification, of un-acceptance?
An apologia, even when desperately, heartbreakingly wrong, is a sort of bridge between evil and good, an acknowledgement that there is something here that needs explaining. But Chris McGreal saw no necessity for any elaboration. Tip-tap-tip went the swiftly typing fingers and out came the words “freedom fighter”, “her own war on terrorism”, praise as easy and insouciant as a local reporter putting in a good word for the latest charitable efforts of the Womens’ Institute or Rotary Club. As Stephen Pollard concludes, “Ms Gwynne’s evil views are not merely presented without criticism or proper questioning; they are endorsed. And that is, in its own way, also evil.”
[This post originally appeared on my own blog. I have also posted it here because of Blogger problems and to make it as widely known as possible what sort of attitudes the Guardian considers acceptable in its reporters.]
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