Wis[s]e Words

Your Happening World (7)

Published on November 20, 2009

Bwahaha! Texan anti-gay marriage legislation may actually outlaw all marriages there. Serves the fuckers right.

When a Canadian diplomate favourably compares the Dutch and English treatment of prisoners in Aghanistan with his own country’s policies, how bad must they be? Answer: quite bad, but the government doesn’t want to know.

Any suggestions for the 10 Popular science books SF writers would benefit from having read?

Thierry Henry audits for the Feench handball team:

You can’t blame the Irish for being livid, nor the French for being disgusted but philosophical. Bad refereeing is an intrinsic part of football and had the shoe been on the other foot (the ball on the other hand) the reactions would have been the exact opposite. But I thought better of Thierry Henry.

Neither Blair nor Balkenende is EU president. Thank ghu, even if it means we have to keep Balkenende longer. Bet the British tabloids are eagerly awaiting any hint of a sex scandal on the part of Herman van Rompuy, if only to be able to pun on rompuy-pompuy…

Lieberman is the Democratic Sarah Palin.

Ideas I wish I’d had: Nobody’s Favorites, a look at comics’ worst characters, the ones that nobody likes. Some I agree with, some not and some are so obscure nobody even knows them.

Ideas I wish I’d had, part II:Thursday WHO’s WHO.

Friday bitchfest: Professionalism.

Bullying is the new freedom of speech

Published on November 18, 2009

Harry’s Place attempts to prove Laurie Penny’s accusation of bullying wrong, by erm trying to bully her into withdrawing the accusation. For such macho culture warriors they have remarkably thin skins. It’s a trait they share with their ideological compatriots over here, as with the backlash against Geert Wilders finally starting, he has shown to be better at dishing it out than taking it as well.

The pattern until recently had been that he would say something incredibly insulting and/or racist (comparing Islamic headscarves to “dishrags” for example), would get widely if ineffectively condemned for it, which he in turn would use to show the political elite in Den Haag didn’t get it. But when in short succesion a government report called the PVV “an extreme rightwing party” and anti-democratic and a popular standup comedian compared it to the WWI Dutch nazi party, Wilders’ fondness for freedom of speech evaporated. While he called these accusations absurd and insane, his followers took more drastic actions and sent various death threats to Wilders’ more vocal critics…

Righwing blowhards can only win the debate when the opposition rolls over. When they themselves are attacked their true, bullying nature appears.

Was a Dutch MEP starting a coup in Nicaragua?

Published on November 16, 2009

That’s the accusation Nicaraguan president Ortega has made against Hans van Baalen, a member of the European Parliament for the VVD, the Dutch liberal party. According to Ortega, van Baalen had talked to senior officers to gauge their willingness to overthrow the Sandinistian government. Van Baalen of course denies this. This accusations comes after van Baalen had already been asked to leave the country, an action for which the Nicaraguan government later apologised and of which van Baalen was again ignorant, as he had already left the country anyway…

How much of all this is true is difficult to say. To be honest I can’t really see van Baalen, even if he’s a rightwing blowhard, as a coupist. What would be in it for him to get himself involved in this way?

authenticity vs gender balance

Published on November 16, 2009

Steve Poole blogs about Publishers Weekly‘s oddly womenless top ten best books of 2009 to note a particular phrase of speech, as is his wont. What niggled at me was his last paragraph:

If you make a list of your favourite books of the year and then notice that they are all written by men, should you remove some of the books and insert some written by women? If you don’t do so, are you “ignoring gender” or “excluding women”?

Then it struck me. What this paragraph does is to create a contrast between the spontaneous act of listing your favourite books of the years and the artificial act of genderbalancing it. It presupposes both that the original list would be the “real” one, reflecting the genuine tastes of the PW editors and unsullied by other concerns, while the adjusted list would have phonies on it, books only chosen because they written by women. Not that Steve meant it that way of course, but it is the sort of assumption that’s always in the background of this kind of gender (or any other kind of) equality discussions. It both ignores the reality of how a list like this is created and denigrates gender balancing such a list as inauthentic.

Whiny fans are whiny

Published on November 14, 20091 Comment

The best reason to celebrate the fact that Dollhouse Joss “feminist” Whedon’s latest crappy science fiction show with dodgy sexual policies was cancelled, is the giant whingefest its fans went on when K. Tempest Bradford voiced her pleasure at its disappearance. Best bit:

It’s a matter of simple courtesy: when someone’s best friend dies, you don’t say, “Well, it’s for the best–he was a real DOUCHE,” even if it’s one-hundred percent true. Show some respect for the recently departed, or at least show some respect for the recently departed’s grieving friends.

Dear oh dear. The crybaby faction in fandom is alive and well. Fair enough that fans of the show will lament its loss, but to demand that everybody validate them in their grief is just toolish. And actually comparing it to the death of a friend is just plain stupid.