How the New Zealand parliament celebrates the passing of gay marriage: with a singsong. Also:
I see what you did there
From an otherwise slightly rambling Adam Roberts Guardian article about the two souls of science fiction:
o say that SF has more imaginative and discursive wiggle-room than “realist” art is, while true, also to say that SF has the potential to be a more heterogeneous and inclusive conceptual space. This is something that’s understood by the genre’s greatest writers: Ursula K Le Guin, Octavia Butler, James Tiptree Jr, Margaret Atwood, Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Cadigan, Justina Robson.
Not actually that bad a list of writers to get your teeth in, to be honest…
Now Apple censors French comics
So yeah, remember what I said yesterday? Well, today Apple proved me right:
Izneo, the France digital comics publisher/distributor that represents comic book work from the ten largest comic book publisher in France has found itself forced to pull 1500 of the 4000 titles it currently distributes, after demands from Apple.
So the publisher removed all comics “revealing a breast, causing cleavage, curve, or evoking a suggestive gesture”; as Wim Lockefeer commented, “it’s one more example of an American company imposing its own mores on the rest of the world”. These are not decisions Apple should make in the first place, but the shoddy way in which they are made and enforced is what really grates.
Kiwi music
We’re Still Torturing Prisoners At Guantanamo
Prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay (and wasn’t that supposed to have been clsoed during Obama’s first term) are being tortured through force feeding:
I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.
I know something about what having a feeding tube put into you can feel like, even in the best of circumstances, because Sandra had to had one a couple of times during her long illnesses. She hated those things, had had bad experiences with them before to the point of suffering panic attacks just by the thought she had to have one again. Don’t forget that these are tubes that have to be shoved down your nose, through your throat into your stomach, then have to be kept in there for as long as you need feeding that way. Even when you undergo it voluntarily, knowing why you need it, it’s uncomfortable and painful at best. When it’s done involuntarily, against your wishes? That’s torture.