My Year in Music

I decided to pick out 12 tracks to describe the last year of my life - one for each month. of course, life doesn't package itself so neatly, and the major event weren't that evenly spaced. Or that different, really. Anyway, the following tracks sum up how I feel about the year all together. I would have liked to include Eddi Reader's "Exception" in here somewhere, but I don't have it on CD or mp3, and it doesn't seem to be anywhere on youTube.

1/. Metallica - No Leaf Clover



I started the year in a very bad place, but with lots of hope. As it turned out, the bleakness of this song proved to be more accurate.

2/. Beth Rowley - Nobody's Fault But Mine



And all my problems were my own fault (despite my desires in video 12 of this list to deny that fact!) I hate most of all the trap that I've dug for myself, but most of the troubles I've had this year have come my own flaws.

3/. R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts



And hurting was the natural consequence of that. All year I have struggled to cope, and some of the songs in this list were a support to me in that. This one just expresses that: "When the day is long, and the night is yours alone; when you're sure you've had enough of this life - hang on".

4/. The Pretenders - I'll Stand By You



I've chosen this one both for the people who supported me through this year, and also for the support that my family and friends have needed. My father, going into hospital. A. who went through GRS last year and has complications ever since. For anyone who listened to me and let me lean on their shoulder, and for everyone who needed my shoulder to lean on, and my listening ears. It is where it is in the list for my father's operation.

5/. The Clash - I Fought The Law



In the summer, the battle against the British Government's "extreme porn" censorship legislation reached its climax, and other battles to prevent New Labour rolling back sexual freedom and autonomy, and other freedoms as well, were joined.

We fought the new law, but as the song says - "the law won".

The next selection is also for being kinky in a world that hates kink (I believe Beth Ditto actually wrote it about the struggle in the USA for gay rights, but the parallels feel strong to me)

6/. The Gossip - Standing In The Way of Control



7/. Mika - Relax (Take It Easy)



After the battles of the summer were lost, and my finances and hopes for finding work seemed to be evaporating like hand-cleansing alcohol, the only way to stay sane was to "relax". The lyrics of this song seem to echo some of my situation quite well. Sometimes us depressives have to acknowledge that we can't fight all the battles at once, and those we can't fight we just concede, and relax and take it easy.

8/. Cerys Matthews - If You're Looking for Love



In the autumn, at least one part of my life took a turn for the better. One "harmonygirl" responded to an email I sent her via the "Informed Consent" website, and we have since been getting to know one another over the internet and telephone. We hope to meet very soon in the new year. This selection is for my search for a partner, and the hope that it may at last have borne fruit.

9/. All About Eve - Martha's Harbour



Another song about my emotional struggles this year. This is a different version from the one I have on iTunes, because the one I have is a recording by a semi-pro band who are great friends of mine. "I've been run aground/ so sad for a sailor/ I felt safe and sound/ but needed the danger."

10/. Crowded House - Four Seasons In One Day



"Wherever there is comfort there is pain/just a step away". This is a good retrospective for the year as a whole, which has been a struggle on so many levels. The lyrics seem to me to be about sticking at it through the pain, and seeing both the summer and the winter of our lives.

11/. Queen - The Show Must Go On



This song is my anthem, the one that has been my greatest musical weapon against the depression, the struggles, the stress, the pain, the worry. I would choose this song just about every year regardless of what happened. "The show must go on! The show must go on! Inside my heart is breaking, my make-up may be flaking, but my smile still stays on." "I guess I'm learning, I must be warmer now/ I'll soon be turning round the corner now/ Outside the dawn is breaking, but inside in the dark I'm aching to be free." "My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies/ fairy tales of yesterday will grow, but never die/ I can fly my friends!"

12/. Rebel Snowdrop - All Your Fault (cover version)



This is a song to describe my year partly just because I recorded it this year, and partly because it's another excellent song for me being defiant and getting shit off my chest by belting out and thrashing my guitar - another perennial release that I've needed over and over in my life!

***

Here's a bonus track - I simply can't let this year go without a comment on the election of Barack Obama as the USA's President. And there is no better musical comment on the election of Barack Obama than

13/. Hannah Friedman - Oh Obama Don't Break My Heart

An Incomplete History of the "No Sex Please, We're British" thing

Silent Porn Star's call for submissions for the 14th Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy got me thinking about the way that sexual censorship, both in the media and in people's lives, have developed in British culture, and how it compares with our near neighbours in geography and in language (that is, Western Europe and the USA in particular). Now, I am a long way from being an expert on any of this, and may very well be talking bollocks for much of it, but these are my impressions based on what I've read:

I don't know much about sexuality in Britain in Celtic or Anglo-Saxon times, I'm not a historian at all. I know that Chaucer was fairly bawdy with his writings in the Middle Ages, but the Middle Ages were also the heyday of the authoritarian Roman Catholic church. I know that gender was always an issue: Joan of Arc was charged with being a crossdresser (in contravention of St. paul's injunctions against wearing the clothes of the opposite sex) and that was one of the charges that led to her being burnt at the stake. However, in Shakespeare's time, no women were allowed to perform on the stage (theatres were deemed to be far too unsavoury for delicate females!); all the female parts would have been played by prepubescent boys (for higher voices) or by small-framed men speaking falsetto. The BBC had a drama or movie based on this fact, in the time when a Royal Decree banned men from playing female roles and allowed women to act instead; the movie's story focused on an actor who had been trained from an early age to mimic femininity (we'll leave aside for the moment Susan Brownmiller's observation that these days all women are trained to do the same...) and consequently found himself unable to work (since he had been trained away from any kind of performative masculinity).

It is interesting to note that in contemporary culture, crossdressing on stage has a very clear role in children's entertainment: in pantomime. It is now traditional that the young hero (e.g. Dick Wittington, Peter Pan, Jack (he of the beanstalk), etc) is played by a woman; equally the Dame (e.g. Widow Twankey) is played by a man dressed in drag. I don't know if these are left over from the 17th Century or not.

My awareness of British folks' relationship to sexuality and to sexual media really only starts to take shape with the arrival of the Victorian era. As I understand it, the term "pornography" was coined when the erotic art of Pompeii was discovered by Victorian archaeologists, who were cshocked by the "lewd" nature of the artwork. As I understand it, erotic art had existed as a sub culture before then, but it was obviously not something that confronted people openly. (Incidentally, this is why I struggle when people try to draw a distinction between 'erotica" as "art" and "pornography" as "pure sexual gratification" - historically, this distinction just doesn't hold up to any type of scrutiny).

In general, my reading is that British attitudes to sexuality have always been of the "don't ask, don't tell" type of approach, where you can get up to what you like, but just don't let anyone else know about it. indeed, one British government minister went so far as to say something along those lines when talking in favour of the proposed "extreme porn" legislation. And this has characterised a lot of what has happened since those Victorian archaeologists were so scandalised by their discoveries. Very often, it has been backed up by a "Think of the children!" plea, from Joynson Hicks' infamous remark in the 1920s, "If it would make the littlest child blush, it should not be fit for publication" to the modern-day attempts to control and censor the internet.

The 1920s, as I understand it, also saw the "Bloomsbury Set" being hauled in front of magistrates on charges of publishing obscene literature, or appearing as witnesses to argue against the censorship of other writers - I am fairly sure that James Joyce's "Ulysses" was one such work (I think an Oxford professor was jailed because he wanted to use it in his classes and ordered copies from mainland Europe for his students to read, but I could be wrong).

In general, it seems to me that censorship was slowly but surely marched backwards during the early-to-mid 20th Century, not just here but in Europe also. Europe was always more relaxed in its attitude to erotic art, and has always been the Britishers' main source of sauce (geddit!!??) that they couldn't get at home. Erotic prints and photographs from Paris in the 19th Century; banned literature from Paris in the early 20th Century, up to hardcore porn movies from Holland and Germany in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century. The attempts by the British government to keep this "tide of filth" from overwhelming us have been spectacularly unsuccessful in the main, and yet, the filth really and truly hasn't overwhelmed anyone.

the 1960s saw the famous trial of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" that pretty much did for censorship of the written word (although modern erotic literature publishers are still cautious about it, and basically have their main protection from the Obscene Publications Act only by the fact that they are well-established and sell quite a lot of books every month, so a prosecution would not stop them anyway). It also saw the first major step in the relaxing of laws that censored human sexual interaction with one another: homosexual sex was decriminalised, so long as it was "between consenting adults in private". The current law still stands that any anal sex where a third person other than the participants is present, is considered illegal because it is not "in private". As I understand it, this was one of the charges involved in the Spanner trial, and it is certainly something that makes it hard to get British porn of a similar type to that which can be imported from mainland Europe, or via the internet from the US. Once again, this "in private" part highlights that British "don't tell!" attitude.

The 1970s were probably the heyday of the "erotic horror" genre, both in Britain and in Europe. We laugh nowadays at the special effects of a Hammer Horror movie, but it was an excellent excuse to show sexualised acts without being classified as "porn". The same goes for the early Jean Rollin and Jess Franco movies from mainland Europe, where despite more relaxed laws, there was still at that time censorship based on sexual content. Rollin, Franco and their contemporaries were largely done out of business when those censorship laws in France, Holland, Spain and the rest were lifted - their films no longer could attract the hungry-for-sex-imagery viewers, because they now turned to full-on pornography instead. As a sadomasochist, I tend to find those "Eurotica" genre erotic horror movies more arousing than the full-on porn, so in a way I am thankful for that past of sexual censorship!

However, in Britain, the tide had turned: when Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party took office in 1979, they commissioned the Williams Report to investigate what measures should be taken to control film media and pornography. The Williams Report concluded that there was no evidence one way or the other as to whether "extreme" pornography could be considered harmful, and recommended that there should be no outright censorship, but that the BBFC classification scheme should remain in place; that is, that no films should be totally banned, but that some should be restricted by age group. This did not match what Thatcher and her ministers wanted to hear, so they ignored these recommendations.

Instead, in 1984, the "Video Nasties" scandal broke, and with it came more rigid control over what films could be made or shown in Britain; as I understand it, some movies were named individually and banned (all of which have since been released with 18 certificate classification from the BBFC).

Culturally, however, talking about sex became a deliberate weapon of "shock", which at once eroded the cultural injunction of "don't ask, don't tell" but at the same time did nothing to undermine the basic inhibitions surrounding sex. instead of making sex a suitable topic for discussion, sex talk became a tool of rebellion and aggression. Essentially, "don't ask, don't tell" remained in force, it was just that transgressing that became a symbol of "cleverness" or coolness. I'm thinking in part of the way some of the comedians in the 1980s used sex, and sexual swear words, in their acts.

We're now getting to the parts where I have personal experience, and not just snippets picked up from reading, seeing repeats on the telly, and so on. I think I have seen in my adult lifetime (just over a decade) a process by which in order to "shock", it has been necessary to go further and further with the types of sex talk one uses; to some extent this has meant that some of the ground behind the "shockers" has been claimed by more measured and reasonable talk about sex and sexuality; but at the same time, it seems to involve normalising an attitude of "needing her to say no", that Figleaf wrote about:

My own feeling is that the increase in violence coincides extremely well with the advent of sexual autonomy in 3rd-wave feminism which autonomy, by the way, was made possible in large measure by Andrea Dworkin's work on consent. The problem being that if, as I contend, the dominant male paradigm is that women are the "no-sex" class.

And if men remain largely unreconstructed and trapped inside the paradigm, then to the extent women find newer and more adventurous ways to enjoy themselves sexually we're going to see men working harder and with greater desperation to extract the "no" their/our paradigm expects and demands of women.

Similarly, if sex is there to shock, and it becomes less shocking, then people have to go further to achieve the same effect. Too often, there is a pull to make some of the less shocking things be more shocking again, rather than an attempt to understand that some people like those things not in order to be shocking, but just because they like it for what it is (hello Ren!)

And that pull backwards is at least a part of what the reactionary movement of the last 10-20 years has been about. While the BBFC has revised its guidelines for 18 and R18 material to be more liberal, the approach to anything without a BBFC certificate has been much more draconian, and any attempt at open discussion of sexuality that doesn't conform to social norms is much more restricted; I'm thinking of the way that "objectionable content" warnings are applied based on someone feeling a bit icky about seeing X, Y, Z on someone's social media (youTube, blogger, whatever); I'm thinking of the way eBay and PayPal have a thing against any business that is overtly sexual; I'm thinking of the way in which Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" resulted in a huge overreaction by the (US) media. These are all in line with the prevailing winds in the UK.

In mainland Europe, there are some whispers (Holland had some legislation concerning bestiality porn that may have wider implications - although I honestly can't complain too much about it because a) I don't know a lot about it and b) I'm not that keen on animals being treated in that way anyway) but in general, there just isn't the same hard-on for censorship as we're seeing from USAian regimes and the British government. We Brits are still expected to think of sex as something that happens, and can be quite a lot of fun, but we really mustn't talk about it without tittering and sniggering and making snide comments about other people's pecadilloes.

Gifts of tunes on 'i'

A friend of mine (well, of my dad really, but he's a very close family friend) always gets me music for Xmas, but this year he's sent me an iTunes card, which works out as about 18 tunes' worth of music.

Rather than take a chance on music I don't know, I figured it would be a good idea to get music that so far I only have on tape or vinyl, so I can play them or add them as part of a video on my 'puter.

I trawled through my tapes and LPs looking for favourites that I don't yet have in digital format, and this is the list I came up with (the last two entries are tracks I didn't have in any format, but I knew are awesome):

Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drum



Stone Roses - Waterfall

Sheryl Crow - Strong Enough

Bjork - Army of Me



Nirvana - Dumb

Nirvana - Drain You

Radiohead - Creep

Allman Brothers Band - Jessica

Queen - The Show Must Go On

Kenickie - Punka



Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Crowded House - Four Seasons In One Day

Ash - Kung Fu



The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon

Echobelly - Great Things



Smetana - Vltava (From "Ma Vlast", track also known as "the Moldau")

Bellowhead - Rigs of the Time



Iron Horse - Wherever I May Roam

UK's Internet censorship continues apace

The ongoing war by the British government against variant sexuality and internet freedom of speech has been stepped up a gear, it seems.

This was always on the cards since the Department of Culture, Media and Sport carried out an investigation of what they called "harmful material on the internet" and published their report on it. But it seems that the Culture Secretary has moved the plans forwards slightly, to apply a cinema-style ratings system to internet websites.

While it is true that, as these censorship-mad Government ministers are fond of saying, "the internet is a dangerous place" - so is the world we live in. As the anti-censorship campaigners so often point out, if you wouldn't let your children wander the streets alone at night, why would you let them wander the internet alone either?

But the other thing that puzzles me is how on Earth they expect to be able to enforce such a thing! I don't know how many movies the BBFC views per year, but I imagine it must be far fewer, by at least 3 orders of 10, than the number of websites there are in the world, and there must surely be hundreds more website starting up each day, it seems to me. How do they imagine they will be able to keep track of all these sites, and apply a rating system to them? We already know that rating systems for movies and video games vary widely even just across Western Europe (in some European countries, there's no equivalent of the banned/rejected category that our BBFC can slap on - as I understand it, the USAian film classification system is essentially voluntary in nature, maybe USA citizen can correct me if I'm wrong?) Japanese cultural norms are very different from ours so images that might be considered totally abhorent and illegal in the UK might be seen as completely tame in Japan, and vice versa.

Andy Burnham (I'm tempted to call him "Burnham at the stake"...) says:

"If you look back at the people who created the internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that Governments couldn’t reach."

Mr. Burnham, there is a very very strong reason for that. Which is that governments cannot be trusted, and censorship is always one of the first weapons that a government uses when it wants to control the populace, and to abuse human rights. Look at how China seeks to control access to the internet (and how Google caved in to them). Look at how Saddam Hussein's Iraq placed elaborate firewalls around its nations' computers. In former times, look at how oppressive regimes clamped down on independent publications and broadcasts. Creating a space that is out of reach of governments is essential to freedom of speech everywhere. Now you want to destroy that safe space, where ideas can be discussed, even when the majority of the population might find them abhorrent (rememebr - once upon a time, homosexuality was deemed abhorrent, and now it is protected in British law - imagine how much quickler that could have happened if they'd had the internet).

I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now. It’s true across the board in terms of content, harmful content, and copyright. Libel is [also] an emerging issue.

Copyright and libel are areas that have been dealt with (albeit rather badly in the case of copyright). The concept of "harmful content" is something with which I struggle. I just don't know how words or pictures can be deemed "harmful" except in the senses that libel or invasion of privacy already cover.

There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical.

You're not the only one who feels that way, Mr. Burnham-at-the-stake. It's just that not everyone agrees with your definition of what should not be allowed to be viewed. Mediawatch-UK want almost everything with the slightest hint of sexuality banned. Islamic "fundamentalists" want anything that they perceive as contrary to Qur'anic law to be banned. I want any derogatory references to sex workers, trans folks, or kinky folks to be banned. Ideally, I'd also have any mention of Manchester United banned from the airwaves and the internet too.

Some people want others' political views to be erased from the airwaves and the internet. Some people want all reference to the Nazi crimes against humanity to be stricken from the record. Some people want all reference to homosexuality to be erased. Others would like to see any information about birth control to be censored.

This is the monumental problem with "Some content should not be available to be viewed". Who gets to decide which content that is? And why the fuck should ANYONE else trust them!? As explained above, it is this fundamental flaw that means that there must always be a space, and the internet provides that space, where discourse is completely free, where governments do not control it. This is the fundamental safeguard against abuse of human rights - it doesn't stop them completely, but at least it means they do not go unnoticed.

This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people

And here we must ask "what constitutes harm?" I have mentioned above "libel" (for instance, false accusations of paedophilia against a teacher) and "invasion of privacy" (for instance, having nude pictures of oneself posted to the internet by someone else). We might add to that "incitement to violence" where there is a clear injunction to commit acts of violence against an individual, or against a certain identifiable group. But laws already cover these, and no amount of "classification systems" are going to make much difference to the ability to prevent such hate crimes happening.

Where crimes against a person have been committed in the creation of internet content (for example where child porn is involved), then again, we already have laws that deal with the perpetrators, and the internet content is often evidence against them. Similarly, where internet content is used in the commission of a crime ("grooming", planning a terrorist attack, or whatever) then we have laws that deal with that.

But "harm" can be open to other interpretations, too. For instance, supposing an internet blogger discovers evidence of a government minister's corruption and posts that evidence online - would that not be "harmful" to the minister, since zie might be in danger of losing hir job? Should it then be censored as "harmful to other people"?

There are people for whom "oh, it made me feel a bit icky" is interpreted as "harm". Should we take their complaints and make them the basis for censorship, also?

"This is not a campaign against free speech" Bollocks. Of course it is. And it has been going on for at least 7 years.

Socialist Sex-Positive Feminism: A Crash Course

The following was posted as a comment on Caroline's piece at Shiraz Socialist. A certain commenter there by the name of Mark P. seemed in need of a little education...

I make no apologies for taking as a starting point the idea that prostitution both flows from and reinforces the oppression of women.

Except that taking that as your starting point begs the question of why you believe it to be self-evident. Sex-positive feminist thought questions that starting point and examines it, and using the tools of feminism demonstrates that this belief is flawed and is in fact based in the pre-existing sexist understanding of a woman’s control over her own body. By taking it as your starting point, you are not following the example of Marx, but are accepting Capitalist/Patriarchal norms as the basis for your argument. Just as Marx demonstrated the fundamental contradictions and flaws in the Capitalist model by examining the assumptions behind it that led the previous generation of economists to seemingly absurd results, so sex-positive feminists have examined the basis of assumptions about women’s sexuality, to demonstrate the absurdities of “radfem” thought.

Thus, sex-positive feminism says, instead of basing our reactions on what “sex work” is like now, in a generally sexist culture anyway, we should look instead at what it could be, and treat that as what sex work fundamentally is. If we do that then we see that drug addiction and coerced service are problems not of sex work itself, but of the relations of these women to the means of production. And we can solve some of those problems by a) decriminalising prostitution, b) making sure there are plenty of escape routes (including drug rehab etc) and so on.

Providing sexual services in exchange for a fee is not by its nature sexist. What is sexist is the assumption that no women want to do it, that providing sexual services is “selling yourself”, or “selling your body”, that selling sex somehow tarnishes a woman, and that only women provide sexual services for a fee. These assumptions are what contribute to the oppression of all “sex workers” (not just prostitutes), and also contribute to the oppression of women who are NOT “sex workers” because of the part they play in making women’s sexuality purely an object of barter or exchange, and NOT a matter of her own choice. In contrast to the examples you use to suggest that “freedom of choice” in the matter of prostitution is a secondary matter, in this case it is precisely the centre of the matter, and only by recognising that a sex worker has a right to choose her career, can we also grant that any woman has the right to choose her sexual partners, for her own reasons.

As things stand, marriage or relationships (as I am sure you are aware from the comments you make above) are just another form of prostitution - indeed, in the standard format, it is expected that a woman must make a man prove himself “worthy” either with expensive gifts or some other token of his value, before she allows him to enjoy her body. She is not expected to take any pleasure from the act itself, but only from whatever it is that she extracts from the man beforehand. Her sexuality is therefore not a part of herself, but something from which she is alienated and which she does not recognise except as something outside of her (there is a different analysis explaining how men’s sexuality is alienated from them, too). Consequences that flow from this are that men expect that as long as they can meet the “asking price” of ANY woman (not just an identified prostitute) then they have a right to have sex with her. This obviously is the assumption behind a great many rapists’ actions. This in turn means that in the current paradigm, all women are essentially viewed as prostitutes (in the famous quotation, “now we are just haggling over the price”). A woman’s value is measured only by how expensive it is to get her to let you fuck her, and by how desirable such a fuck is deemed to be.

Now, sexist advertising (which you mentioned earlier) explicitly or implicitly supports these views and promotes this paradigm. Elsewhere, I have argued strongly that in pornography these assumptions are challenged (and become more challenged the more “extreme” the pornography becomes!) Prostitution, on the other hand, only appears to support this paradigm because it is where that paradigm is most clearly expressed. But if we alter those preconceptions as they apply to prostitutes, then the whole edifice collapses. The thing is, traditional approaches to prostitution (whether it is to engage in it, or seek to control it) have all operated under the same sexist assumptions. What sex-positive feminists, and sex workers’ rights activists, argue is that we should sweep away those assumptions particularly as they appear in law. Once they are gone in the bright light that is prostitution, there is some hope that they will unravel in other pats of life as well. Even if not, then sex-positive feminists continue to campaign on those levels as well as in the arena of sex work, to change perceptions of women’s sexuality. Once it is understood that you cannot buy a woman, or buy her body, except by literally enslaving her - in other words, once it is understood that fucking a woman does not confer ownership of her - then we can hope to progress towards wider liberation.

To put it another way, getting rid of prostitution will change nothing. But “fixing” prostitution by the methods advocated by sex-positive feminists and sex workers rights activists, will give us the tools to fix many other examples of sexist thinking in society; it may even also help undermine some of the flaws within the Capitalist system (the analysis behind that is a bit more in-depth). Sex workers’ rights advocates are most assuredly anti-sexism and have a practical method of attacking some of its underlying assumptions about women. Namely, make it about a woman’s choice, and her sexuality. NOT about “buying” her.

But I make absolutely no apologies for saying that the core of any solution I would support would have to be proposals to help prostitutes out of prostitution.

How many more times do we have to say this? That’s what sex workers’ rights activists say too!

*****

I am probably being too charitable and too patient with this guy, but these are the qualities that I find can make for good "teaching moments". If he doesn't get it from this, though, I think there is little hope. Of course, by writing all this, I may just have exposed my own ignorance, but I hope that isn't so!

Christmas messages: compare and contrast

This year, there were two major Christmas speeches (in addition to dear old Lizzy Windsor's annual burble to the nation). The first, given a little before Christmas Day, has already been covered by other feminist bloggers. Pope Benedict XVI spoke on many subjects, roughly as follows (summarised from the translation posted here):

• The special joy of Christmas as the Grace of God is shown to humanity.
• Remembering St. Paul's message, as the Apostle of the gentiles.
• World Youth Day in Australia and three Papal visits to foreign countries.
• Synod of Bishops, raising issues of the Word of God as "That which in our daily living we have paid attention to, we have cultivated anew in all its sublimity: the fact that God speaks and answers our questions." and the "community of God".
• "The Church today ... speaks in many tongues ... not only in an exterior fashion in the sense of there being represented in it all the major languages of the world, but it a still much more profound sense: in the Church are found all the different experiences of God and of the world, the richness of cultures, and only thus there appears the vastness of human existence and, departing from it, the vastness of the Word of God."
• "...the numerous witnesses of faithful lay people from every part of the world, who not only live the Word of God, but also suffer because of it."
• The World Youth Day as a day of Joy: "Joy as the fruit of the Holy Spirit – with this we come to the central theme of Sydney which, precisely, was the Holy Spirit."
• "Faith in the Creator Spirit is an essential part of the Christian Credo. The fact that matter carries within itself a mathematical structure, is full of spirit, and forms the foundation on which the modern natural sciences rest. Only because is structured in an intelligent fashion is our spirit competent to interpret it and to actively refashion it."
• "The earth is not simply our possession which we can plunder according to our interests and desires. It is rather a gift of the Creator who has designed its intrinsic laws and with this has given us the basic directions for us to adhere as stewards of his creation."
• "Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Credo, the Church cannot and should not confine itself to passing on the message of salvation alone. It has a responsibility for the created order and ought to make this responsibility prevail, even in public."
• "It ought also to protect man against the destruction of himself. What is necessary is a kind of ecology of man, understood in the correct sense... That which is often expressed and understood by the term “gender” [Blogger's note: i.e. "gender variance"], results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Spirit Creator."
• The Holy Spirit operating throughout history
• Unity of Christ and the Holy Spirit
• Connection between Spirit and Church
• Summarising the themes of the speech.

Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also gave a Christmas speech, that British television broadcaster Channel 4 invited him to give as their alternative to the Lizzy Windsor address.

This can be summarised with the following quotations (full text can be found here):

• "Upon the anniversary of the birth of Jesus, Son of Mary, the Word of God, the Messenger of mercy, I would like to congratulate the followers of Abrahamic faiths, especially the followers of Jesus Christ, and the people of Britain."
• "He created every human being with the ability to reach the heights of perfection. He called on man to make every effort to live a good life"
• "On this difficult and challenging journey of man from dust to the divine, He did not leave humanity to its own devices. He chose from those He created ... Prophets to guide humanity."
• "Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the standard-bearer of justice, of love for our fellow human beings, of the fight against tyranny, discrimination and injustice."
• "Now as human society faces a myriad of problems and a succession of complex crises, the root causes can be found in humanity's rejection of that message, in particular the indifference of some governments and powers towards the teachings of the divine Prophets, especially those of Jesus Christ."
• "If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly He would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over."
• "If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly He would fight against the tyrannical policies of prevailing global economic and political systems, as He did in His lifetime."
• "Today, the general will of nations is calling for fundamental change... demands for a return to human values... The response to these demands must be real and true... If tyrannical goals are repackaged in an attractive and deceptive package and imposed on nations again, the people, awakened, will stand up against them."
• "The responsibility of all followers of Christ and Abrahamic faiths is to prepare the way for ... the arrival of [a] joyful, shining and wonderful age."
• "I hope that the collective will of nations will unite in the not too distant future and with the grace of the Almighty Lord, that shining age will come to rule the earth."

Now, of these two messages, which one got headlines along the lines of "X angers campaigners with speech seen as attack on homosexuality ", and which one got headlines along the lines of "Government slams X's Christmas message"?

Apparently, Channel 4's decision to give Armadinejad the airtime was slammed because of the Iranian President's homophobic and anti-Semitic views (which he clearly does hold, but since he hardly mentioned them except with one oblique reference to "crises of the family, morality", it is hard to see why this message should be opposed). I note only the Times Online running a piece complaining that "Armadinejad says Christ would have been on our side" that refers to what he actually said in his speech. But the British Government and MPs have slammed the decision anyway. Perhaps bizarrely, according to the Guardian Unlimited website, Ben Summerskill, the director of the gay rights group Stonewall said "In spite of his ridiculous and often offensive views, it is an important way of reminding him that there are some countries where free speech is not repressed."

However, Pope Benedict XVI has received very little criticism from official quarters for his very clearly anti-gay, anti-transgender, pro- strictly enforced gender roles passage in his speech. All the criticism has come from campaign groups (such as Stonewall) and from other "unofficial" sources (such as the feminist blogosphere).

This double standard makes me furious: Armadinejad may be the President of Iran, and so have some influence over Muslims around the world; and yet, his speech was based entirely in the commonalities of Islam and Christianity - some of the phrasing would be different if the same speech were given as a sermon in a church in the Qur'an, Mary is much more highly revered than in Christian tradition, and of course, while the Qur'an explicitly represents Christ as perhaps the second-highest prophet after Muhammed (Peace be upon Him), it also explicitly does NOT recognise Him as the saviour or as the Son of God. But apart from those minor differences, I could easily imagine a bishop, perhaps even Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu, giving a very similar sermon. Armadinejad did no harm at all with this speech to the rights of anyone, and it was entirely in keeping with our Biblical tradition!

But Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech in which he essentially attempted to use "evolutionary psychology" to justify his Church's hatred and denial of homosexuality, or of intersex, or of transsexuality. And the Pope is the leader, the pinnacle, in fact, of a vast religious community, the Roman Catholic Church. His word is often interpreted as law, and directly indicative of the Will of God upon the Earth. Even if this speech was not given with the full weight of that implication, future generations will certainly see it as indicative. The Pope is not merely influential; he sets the entire tone for his religion. And yet, he goes utterly uncommented on by world governments who are supposed to be progressive about gender issues. There is no talk of denying the Pope airtime on television, or of berating broadcasters who want to give him airtime, but his homophobic views are a matter of record. His anti-choice, anti-women's rights, pro- enforced gender conformity views are a matter of record. not just in this speech, but in many others. Admittedly, the Pope's speech (in parts I didn't quote) are broadly accepting of Jews, and the Jewish faith, but he has made speeches that are damning of the Islamic faith. His history as a member of the Hitler Youth was commented on at the time of his election to his current office. Why doesn't this man warrant the same opprobrium as Mahmoud Armedinejad?

I shall conclude by restating the contrast between these two Christmas messages: one of them spoke of Christ's mission, and of the practical implications that that might have in today's world; the other spoke of high theory and a misappropriation of science to support exclusionary and discriminatory religious doctrine. One spoke of fighting injustice and tyranny; the other spoke of enforcing a single True Way of being. And one was tacitly accepted by the British Government, while the other was slammed by them.

TG Awesomeness

Via Renee @ Womanist Musings:



Renee has posted a transcript, but I'm just going to leave the piece without comment (except that comment which is encompassed in the title of this post!)

More Christmas Cheer!

The Christmas scenes are from past Christmases with my parents - the cat is the Unchanging One, doing her usual thing of hiding in bags, wrapping paper or whatever is handy.

The music is my ukulele arrangement for "Silent Night" - strictly speaking it's more technical than I can manage, so I pieced it together line by line until I had the whole thing, and then strung the lines together to make a single performance for the video!

Yes, I was deliberately being cheeky putting the Unchanging one's picture against the line "Holy infant, so tender and mild".

Smiley Face

This is my smiley face that I posted about the other day.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Christmas Cheer 2008

Some happy thoughts from chez Snowdrop today, to spread a cheery glow across my internety friends and followers!

I looked in the mirror this morning and realised that I have a really nice smile. It's an odd thing to have lived 30 years without really realising, but hey, there it is. I truly saw my face anew. I noticed I have some really charming laughter lines when I smile, and that when I go from a serious or snarly look to a smiley face, my face completely lights up like nobody's business. All of which sounds terribly narcissistic of me, but honestly, it's impossible to describe how much of a difference it made to my day to realise all this for the first time, to see my face so differently from how I did before.

Doing last-minute Christmas shopping in the nearby big town, going through the pedestrianised shopping area, I suddenly heard a lot of loud birdsong, and looking up I saw that the tree was completely crowded with birds that looked to me like pied wagtails (although I'm reliably informed they were more likely to have been long-tailed tits), so much so that they had spilled over into the next tree along as well. I've never seen anything quite like it before in my life. I wished I'd had my camera with me, then I could show you a picture of the sight, but it felt really special and magical.

I started in on the cookies and other seasonal nosh my parents sent me in a "care package", along with some Xmas gifts and useful bits and pieces. I am going to have to post a recipe for "pinwheel biscuits" one day, because they are the yummiest ever, and I always loved baking them with mum when I was a little kid. Yummy cookies in the post, how fantastic!

I also spoke on the telephone with many members of my family, who have all gone off to Wales (of all places!) to a rented cottage for a massive clan gathering. I would have joined them, but I am feeling weak and feeble and certainly not up to the massive crowds of folks who will be there. However, it was great to speak to them all and catch up on the gossip, and pass on my news as well to cousins, aunts, and siblings from whom I haven't heard for a few months. Also, it was Dad's birthday, and this year we created for him a family scrapbook with every member contributing their own page to the overall gift. I quoted from the Tao Te Ching, and created a montage of images of where I live - which used to be where my parents lived until they flew the enst and left me here. Other people added favourite song lyrics, images, poetry, short stories theyd written, and so on. Speaking with Dad, I could tell he was bowled over with the idea and loved the outcome, and he really appreciated the nostalgia of the scenes from round these parts.

I have all my supplies in and am ready to have a wonderful, quiet Christmas; with the "care package" plus the bits and pieces I managed to pick up on special offer at the supermarket, I will actually have a really nice, cosy time. My only real plans from now until the 27th are to go to the Midnight Service at my church on Christmas Eve night, and then to relax and unwind.

When everything has calmed down after the holidays, I'll go up to see my parents (just about in time for Russian Orthodox Christmas!) and have a pleasant time with them. But I am happy to be settled where I am for now.

Depression Tactics

My mother kindly sent me the following as a clipping with this year's Christmas card, after we discussed the article on the phone:

But early in her new book, Julie Fast comes clean: she's sometimes so paralysed by depression, she can barely leave her bed. Her book is called Get It Done When You're Depressed, but since I've never experienced the debilitating extremes she describes, I can't say whether it's useful if you're suffering from depression. What's striking is how useful it is even if you aren't.

Fast's starting assumption is that, like her, her readers are depressed and aren't about to stop being so any time soon - but that, in the meantime, there are a few things they'd like to be getting on with. She thus largely sidesteps the perfectionism implicit in much pop psychology: boundless joy and unlimited achievement are off the table at the start, so the familiar destructive cycle of self-improvement (resolve to become amazing, fail, feel worse, resolve to try harder, fail worse) is less of an issue. Fast offers ways to work around and alongside depression, rather than attacking it directly. Handily, her strategies also work if the mental obstacle you need to work around isn't depression, but an even more commonplace barrier to action: not really feeling like it.

"Don't wait until you want to do something," Fast writes, in possibly the single most useful productivity tip ever (it's a close cousin of "motivation follows action", mentioned here previously.)

(It's worth reading the whole piece, and I'm going to add the book to my Amazon wishlist, if any kind soul wants to buy it for me - hint, hint!)

I'm going to add one other idea/concept that I've been using more and more to help me cope and function: put simply, it is "reward yourself for the little things".

In my experience at least, being depressed leads to situations where I feel like I am failing at things that "normal" people take for granted: when I don't manage to do things that I would find easy when I'm on an upswing in my depression, or that other people seem to find easy as a natural part of life, it reinforces the sensation of being a failure, of being "too ill", of being "unable to get along". In the clipping mentioned above, Julie Fast is quoted as writing, "Many people equate depression with the inability to work. In reality, the problem is often the inability to feel like working."

Fast's answer is, "Don't wait for motivation, just get on with it". My answer to avoid falling into the trap is to change one's conditions for "success".

Depression is an illness, and a debilitating one at that. We just don't expect a guy with a broken leg to be able to get around the house as easily as someone who isn't in a plaster cast.

So, I record even the normal things as successes. At the end of the day, I count up all the little things and for each one give myself a little pat on the back to say "well done!" Even something as simple as having a bath gets a "yay for a shiny new me!" Getting up the energy to go to the shops is a struggle some days - so every time I do the shopping (especially if I get all the things I want and don't overspend on other items - but even if those conditions aren't true) it's counted as a success (in my mind, I go with the old hunter-gatherer thing, and frame the return home from the shops as the mighty hunter dragging an animal carcass back to the cave to be eaten - but that's just because I'm into fantasy fiction and stuff, and a bit weird like that). Writing a post on this blog is an achievement. Talking to friends or family on the phone is an achievement. Getting dinner for myself, having a good night's sleep, all the things that are required for just holding steady, are achievements.

Even with things that don't get done, I reward myself the same way. I no longer look at a half-tidied room as "Bugger, I didn't get the job done!" but instead as, "Hey, I only have half the job to do tomorrow!"

And the result is that these little mental rewards add up over time. I've found that it means that I get more of the little things done, because motivation has followed the reward of the achievements. And that means one or two bigger things can get done, things that instead of just holding steady, actually represent progress. It isn't a cure, and it isn't "overcoming" depression. It's working around it, through it, not treating it as a single block but as something fluid that can flow around you. The other positive consequence is that by not punishing yourself for NOT getting things done, you can conserve your energy for when you can get them done. As my mother explained when dealing with stress-induced problems, sometimes you just have to put up your hands and say, "nope, can't handle that, won't try", and write it off.

I imagine this is probably similar to NLP or CBT (that's "cognitive behavioural therapy", not "cock and ball torture", btw!) in concept, all I know is that it's how I developed it, and it works for me.

Alicia Keys - P.O.W.

(via Caroline)

"A Prisoner of Words Unsaid" - if this resonates so strongly for me, how much more so for those who, as oppressed groups, are taught from the word go, first and foremost, keep your mouth shut? This is an awesome poem performance.



I think it is incumbent upon us all to speak first. Compromise, if it is necessary, can be made later. But if you compromise before you even open your mouth, no one will ever see that you have done so. (And no, I think that this lesson does NOT apply to MRAs, white supremacists or any of the other reactionary movements out there! You have spoken too much and too loudly already.)

Media Meme (via Ren)

Movies:

What are your three favorite movies of all time?

Alien
Batman Returns
Short Circuit

Who are your three favorite movie characters of all time?

Silent Bob
Shrek
Brian (in "Life of Brian")

What are three movies you can watch repeatedly and not get sick of?

Monty Python's Life of Brian
Batman Returns
Flash Gordon (the one with the soundtrack by Queen)

What types of movies do you most enjoy?

Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comedy

What movie character did you most idolize as a child?

Luke Skywalker

Three movies you like but your friends hated?

Can't think of any

Who are three of your favorite actors?

Alec Guinness
Jonathan Pryce
Johnny Depp

Who are three of your favorite actresses?

Diana Rigg
Dame Judi Dench
Susan Sarandon

What are your three favorite “cheesy” movies?

I don't really think of any of the movies I enjoy as being "cheesy", but anyway:

Short Circuit probably counts!
Flash Gordon probably does as well.
Does Jerry McGuire count as cheesy? I'll put that one here too.

Three movie characters you are most often compared to?

I haven't really been compared to any movie characters.

Television

What are your three favorite TV shows?

Doctor Who
Heroes
Countdown

Who are three of your favorite TV Characters?

The Doctor (Dr. Who)
Benton Frazer (Due South)
Rupert Giles (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (tied with Professor Yaffle of Bagpuss)

What shows do you NOT Miss?

I miss most of them at one point or another - TV is not that important to me!

What three television characters are your most often compared to?

Again, not compared to TV characters very often.

All time guilty pleasure TV shows?

Top Gear

Books:

Who are your three favorite authors?

Friedrich Engels
Isaac Asimov
J.R.R. Tolkien

What are your three favorite books?

Lord of the Rings
The Communist Manifesto
Tao Te Ching (tied with The Holy Bible)

Who are three of your favorite fictional characters?

Gandalf/Mithrandir (Lord of the Rings)
Robinton the Masterharper (Anne McCaffery's "Pern" novels)
Spinel (A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski)

Favorite Guilty Pleasure Author?

Tom Clancy

Favorite Fiction Genres?

Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror/thriller

Favorite Non Fiction Genres?

Philosophy, Politics, Science

Music:

Three Favorite Bands?

Queen
Metallica
Steeleye Span

Three favorite songs?

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Who Knows Where The Time Goes? - Sandy Denny
Enter Sandman - Metallica

Favorite types of music?

Baroque
Rock'n'Roll
Folk
Rock

Musicians You Almost Always Like?

Queen
Coope, Boyes & Simpson
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Guilty Pleasure Band?

Too many to choose from! Although definitely can list the Spice Girls in there.

Recommend One Movie, One TV Show, One Book & One Musical Artist/ band to your friends:

Dark Star, Bagpuss, The Cartoon History of Time, My Life Story

The proverbial fiddle

Today I had an exercise ECG at the hospital near here, which involved them taking electrical readings of my heart rate and stuff, and periodically measuring my blood pressure, while they worked me out on a treadmill, walking at ever-greater speeds and inclines. This revealed to them how my heart copes with physical stress.

It turns out that I am a very fit individual, based on this. The nurses who carried out the test were quite impressed.

All of which goes to prove that being a tubby bitch with man boobs doesn't necessarily prove I am unhealthy or unfit.

I also went to find out the results of my blood tests that I had last week.

Apparently, all of them came up normal: cholesterol, thyroid levels, plasma glucose levels, and some others I can't remember - all normal.

Which suggests that whatever caused my chest pains last week, it wasn't any of those things. Because the doctor's comments were "no action" for all of them, I've arranged an appointment on the 6th of January, which would be the right time for my monthly appointment anyway, and no doubt I will find out more about what it all means then.

Anyway, the upshot of it all is that I am apparently fit as a fiddle, and nothing to worry about.

(As I said to the surgery receptionist - "normal is presumably better than abnormal!")

"Eww! That is so cheerful and frolicsome!"

Via Feminist Gal:

A video from the USA pointing out why "that's so gay!" is not a cool thing to say, and is Not Okay:



(I'm reminded of Jimbo's comment to Nelson in the Simpsons: "You kissed a girl - that is so gay!")

It's okay to slap a hooker in Ann Arbor, apparently

If anyone wants to question the idea that criminalising prostitution harms women, they should check out the news story covered here.

A University of Michigan Law School student went to police after being assaulted by Michigan Near Eastern Studies associate professor Yaron Eliav. The student had been advertising sexual services on Craig’s List in order to pay her tuition (which at Michigan is more than $40,000 a year). According to the article, she “reluctantly” consented to allowing him to spank her with a belt, but then he decided to slap her across the face twice, causing her temporary vision problems.

...

The police charged both the student and Eliav with the misdemeanor charge of using a computer to commit a crime. Both have pled no contest. Eliav was not charged with assault, and retains his position at the university.

Now, it is true that under a Swedish Model system, only the professor would have been charged with anything, and that is an improvement. Under the "Finnish Model" currently planned to be adopted by the UK, it is as yet unclear how the British law would work in this case - but since she clearly is not a trafficked woman, it appears that nothing much would be different from what actually happened. Certainly, the same contempt for sex workers who are "breaking the law" is apparent in the attitudes of police.

Only with full decriminalisation can that be changed. And as I argued in a previous post, only with full decriminalisation can sex workers hope to have the full protection of the law; in the Swedish Model, they still have to avoid the law's protection, until after the assault/rape/murder has occurred - and by then, it's too late.

I can haz man boobs (HNT)

This is especially for Livvy at Diary of an English Courtesan, who posted about liking "moobs". I promised that if she asked, I would post a pic of mine, so here they are.

As it happens to be Thursday, I guess this can also qualify as my Half Nekkid Thursday contribution!

Game (Theory) Shows

(To follow this post, the non-mathematically minded need to know that the "median" is the midpoint of a set of numbers - the median of 1, 2, 4, 5, 100 is 4 because out of those five numbers, it is the one in the middle. The median of two numbers is the same as the average of those two numbers)

There seems to be a trend at the moment for game shows on television to include a greater or a lesser element of "game theory", that curious science that forms a blend of mathematics and psychology.

I suppose The Weakest Link was a start of this trend, since contestants have to balance maximising the jackpot versus the possibility of having a stronger player to face at the end (and therefore not winning the jackpot).

Lately, two game shows in particular have attracted my attention and I am addicted to them purely on the grounds of the data they present as experiments in game theory. Both of them are "pure" game theory, in that there is no element of quiz questions or other elements outside of the players' personality. While both depend on an initial random distribution of resources, that is the only other element.

The first of these is Deal or No Deal, which is a fairly simple mathematical game theory conundrum, and is essentially unilateral. The format is that the solo player is randomly assigned one box out of twenty-two. The boxes contain value designations ranging between £0.01 and £250,000. The player must then select boxes other than his own to be opened, and each box opened removes the contents from play. After 5 boxes, 8 boxes, 11 boxes, 14 boxes, 17 boxes and 20 boxes (at which point only two remain, including the player's own box), a "Banker" makes an offer to buy the player's box from him, at which point the experiment ends (the television show then goes on to find out "what you could have won"). The offer amount is based on the amounts still hidden, and the player has the option to accept the offer ("deal") or reject it ("no deal"). In a sense, this makes it a bilateral game theory experiment, with the Banker being the second player. The Banker's object is to minimise the amount won by the player.

In any game, the player can win any amount offered by the Banker, or can win the amount in hir own box if zie continues to the end of the game without accepting an offer from the Banker (occasionally the player will be offered the option to swap his own box for the last remaining box, when zie rejects the final offer form the Banker).

From a pure game theory perspective, the best time to accept the Banker's deal is almost always the penultimate offer (when there are just five boxes unopened). Prior to that stage, the probability of picking boxes holding specific quantities before the next offer is too small to be worth bothering with. They start to become a factor when there are 8 boxes remaining, and I will explain this as I go along.

Before the 8 box stage, the logic runs thus:

If the Banker's offer is higher than the median of remaining values, then the chances are the next offer will be a higher offer than this one. This is because you have a higher probability of eliminating figures lower than the current offer, simply because there are more of them in the game. However, if the Banker's offer is lower than the median of remaining values, then the chances are that the player's own box is a higher value than the banker's offer, and the player should continue with the intention of taking the option of winning that value instead.

At 8 boxes remaining there is a 3/8 chance that, if the Banker's offer is higher than 7 out of the 8 values remaining, that in the next three boxes opened, the one higher value will be removed from play. This will mean that there will never be as high an offer again in the game. However, this is a rare occurrence.

At 5 boxes remaining, the Banker's offer typically is in the range ["median value box" - "median of top two boxes"]. That means there will typically be 1 or 2 values remaining in the game that are higher than the current offer. The probability of taking out one specific box in the next 3 boxes is 1/5 + 1/4 + 1/3 which comes to 6/10 or 60%. That means if you say "no deal" to the Banker's offer, it is a 60% chance that you will definitely win less than the offer you rejected.

If there are 2 boxes higher than the Banker's offer, then the probability of hitting both is (2/5 * 1/4) + (2/5 * 3/4 * 1/3) + (3/5 * 1/2 * 1/3) = 1/10 + 1/10 + 1/10 = 3/10 or 30%. In practice, however, it often only takes losing the highest value to mean that the Banker's offer goes down.

Once there are two boxes left, the decision to deal or not is purely guesswork - either you think your box is the one that is higher than the Banker's offer or you think it's the lower value, which is a simple 50-50 guess.

Through long observation of the game, it appears that the best time to accept the Banker's offer is almost always at the 5 boxes remaining stage. The interesting part, however, is the psychology part of the experiment.

It is well-known that people will adopt apparently sub-optimal patterns to "avoid failing" rather than to maximise success; in Deal or No Deal, this can show up when players bring a set target that they want to achieve; when the Banker's offer is high enough, they will accept the offer rather than gamble that the next offer will be lower - even if there is a high probability that it will be higher. Equally, when the lowest or second-lowest value at the 5 boxes remaining stage is high enough to satisfy them then they will gamble even if it appears to be a losing strategy. Because they are guaranteed a chance at the figure they want, they are willing to go on because in their minds they cannot lose.

The other common occurrence is for players to have a bad series of selections (that is, they eliminate two or three high values in a row). In this instance, players will accept a lower offer than is possible if they go on, because they are afraid that "fate" is against them and they will remove more high values if they go on, even when it is quite unlikely that they will remove the highest values. This fear reaction causes players to take what is certain rather than play for more. Naturally, the Banker uses many tricks to try to induce such reactions and thus minimise the payout.

***

The second game show is called Golden Balls. This show starts with four contestants, and so it is a much more complicated game theory setting.

The concept is simple: each player is given a number of "golden balls", which operate in exactly the same way as the boxes in Deal or No Deal except that the values are not certain beforehand but randomly drawn from a much wider range of values, and that some of them are "killer" balls, meaning that if they appear in the final jackpot, each killer divides the total jackpot by ten. Initially, there are 16 balls in the game, each player having 4. There are also 4 killers in the 16 balls - on average, one per player, but because the balls are assigned randomly, it is entirely possible (roughly 5 chances in 1,000) that one player will end up with all of them.

Each player then reveals two of their balls at random to the other players, before looking secretly at the values of other two. Each player then tries to convince the other players not to eliminate them from the game, based on what they can see, and what they claim are the values of their hidden balls. The players each cast a secret ballot for who should be eliminated. The eliminated player's balls are also eliminated from the game. This means that players must try to determine who is honest, and weigh the value of that honesty against the cash values of the balls on show (and the claimed values).

Round two, with only three players remaining, is much the same as round 1 except that now each player has 3 hidden values and 2 displayed values. At this point, there is also an eye to the final round in players' decisions as to whom they should keep, because the final round is somewhat different.

The final round (after a random selection process to determine what the jackpot will be out of the 10 values brought through - half are binned and the other half totalled up) is a simple variation on the Prisoners Dilemma. In this version, the two remaining players must choose whether they will agree to "split" the jackpot with the other player, or whether they will try to "steal" it.

If both players choose to split, then each player wins 1/2 the jackpot (literally, splitting it between them). If both players try to steal, then neither wins anything. If one player tries to steal, but the other chooses to split, then the splitter wins nothing, and the stealer wins the entire jackpot.


Cosnequently, each player faces the following situation when making hir decision on whetehr to "split" or "steal":That means that whenever the other player "steals", I get nothing. My only decision therefore is whether I want the chance to win 100% of the jackpot, or just 50% of it. Obviously, 100% is better than 50%, so I should choose to "steal". Unfortunately, the other person has exactly the same situation, and exactly the same logic to follow.

In a pure game-theory setting, there are no negative consequences outside of the reward/punishment system. However, in practice the most common reaction when a player successfully "steals" is not joy at winning, but regret! In fact, the best way to describe their facial expression is "appalled". Very often, the players are very apologetic. After all, what we know in practice is that human psychology depends on a sense of community, and very often guilt is more likely to be associated with "betraying" someone when it is found that that someone is honest after all.

The other curious thing is that, even though when you believe the other person will "steal", you cannot in any way punish them for their selfish decision, a lot of times players report choosing to "steal" only because they believe the other player is going to. This is an interesting element of the psychology.

The reason why I love game theory so much is that the mathematics predicts one thing, but human psychology tends to produce a different result, and understanding (or trying to understand) how those differences arise is endlessly fascinating.

(Incidentally, my tactic in the final round of Golden Balls would be to tell the other player I intend to "steal", and then argue that they should act not to try to win money for themselves, but instead to take money from the TV company making the show! In other words, "you can't win, but just don't let them win!")

Such thoughtful spammers, these days...

This one even labelled his email as "spam":

Subject: SPAM: HIGH * FROM OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE
Date: Monday, 8 December, 2008 4:21 PM
From:
"NAMEIN CAPITALLETTERS"

To:
undisclosed-recipients

-----

OFFICE OF THE SENATE HOUSE
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN PAYMENT
(RESOLUTIONPANEL ON CONTRACT PAYMENT)
IKOYI-LAGOS NIGERIA

(etc.)

Well, it amused me, anyway.

Cleanfeed blocks Wikipedia

Anyone who doubts the claim I made last week that New Labour will seek to control the internet, and destroy those parts it can't control, need only type the following search term into Google: [Scorpion wikipedia ban].

The story is that last weekend, some busybody in the UK reported to the Internet Watch Foundation (the censorship body in the UK that sets up the "blacklist" of banned sites) that they had found an "indecent image of a child" on the internet, and gave the web address of the wikipedia entry for rock band Scorpion, and their album "Virgin Killer". The IWF looked at the image and decided that it was an illegal image, and slapped a block on the wikipedia page, which had the consequence that British users of wikipedia were prevented from accessing several parts of the wikipedia site, including logging in to edit or add pages.

The truly comical, or perhaps I should say terrifying, thing is that this supposed example of "child pornography", is freely available to buy in high street stores, and therefore technically - if it really is found to be child pornography - companies such as HMV and Virgin Megastores must be charged with child porn offences; presumably, the record company also needs to be charged with "making indecent images of children". Everyone who bought a copy of the album in the three decades that it has been on sale, could also potentially be charged with simple possession of child pornography.

Normally, the Cleanfeed technology operates out of sight and out of mind, and the IWF can add whatever it likes to the list, and we wouldn't know about it. Now, at last, they have been caught in the act. Will anything change about the way Cleanfeed is used in this country? I very much doubt it, and that is entirely the problem. The IWF is outside of any real means of oversight or accountability.

Doctor, doctor! ...

"... Sometimes I feel like a teepee, and sometimes I feel like a marquee!"

Doctor - "Ah, I know your problem - you're two tents!"

(too tense, geddit!!??)

Ever since I was struck down by severe depression last year, my doctor has bee having me make regular monthly appointments to see him so that he can keep a track of how I'm doing, and renew my prescription for citalopram (the SSRI that he prescribed the first time he saw me for it). yesterday was the latest in these appointments.

This time, I had some new symptoms to report: my sleeping pattern has been all over the place (not so much a "pattern" as a "random scribble") and the last couple of nights I had been having disturbing dreams - not so much nightmares, more "troubling" than "scary" - that were waking me up two or three times a night.

In addition, about half an hour before visiting the doctor, I experienced a tight, sharp pain on the sides of my chest. Now, I have occasionally (like once every 6-12 months!) had such a pain before, and wondered if I was dying, and then I didn't die, so I figured it was okay, and forgot about it again. This time, since I was going to the doctor anyway, I figured I might as well get it checked out at the same time. The exercise of walking to the GP surgery seemed to do me good, because by the time I got there the pain was just a slight echo of what it had been. Still, I told the doctor about it, and he listened to my chest and my back while having me doing breathing exercises ("And in... and out... And in... and out...") and had the nurse do an ECG (all of which turned up just fine).

So he decided that he wanted me to have a "fasting blood test", which means that I have to take in nothing but water from when I wake up until the test itself on the day of the test. They're going to check for a lot of different things (cholesterol being one of them - hmm, I wonder how that's going to come out...! ::looks down at my tubby tum::). One thing he said it might be (and apparently, it would explain the dreams as well!) is my thyroid gland. Which is what overweight people are blaming when they say "it's my glands". Which made me laugh, because I'd always assumed that with me it was purely and simply about food. Too much of it going in here ::points to mouth:: and not enough being done with it here ::mimes running on the spot::. I'd always explained it that the problem was one of comfort-eating in particular, so if it did turn out to be "my glands", it would actually be a bit weird for me. For one thing ::tongue="in cheek":: I missed out on a perfect excuse all these years! Seriously, though, it would be something where I didn't know what to do with the information. Battling the comfort-eating vibe has been an important part of my self-control, and while I guess I would keep up with that control, the idea that it was a medical (i.e. physical) problem, rather than a psychological issue would change a lot of how I see it.

Of course, the chest pain could just as easily have been indigestion, or a more generalised anxiety pain from the crises that I keep on barely scraping through on the financial front. It was just the suggestion that it might be "something else", that would explain my weight gain over the past decade and a half, made me ponder what it would mean.

I shall report back after I have got the results of the test, and found out what it all means!

Does this look familiar?

Then chances are you are or have met, a Nice Guy (tm)

(Link is an XKCD cartoon that captures the "nice guy" mentality perfectly)

I'm Coming To Get You

Via Caroline and Ren:

The rules:

~ Put your iTunes or MP3 player on shuffle.

~ For each question, press the next button to get your answer

~ YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
Presents For The Poison-Hearted - Cradle Of Filth

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
I Wanna Beavis You - Snap‐Her

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
I kissed a girl - Kate Perry

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Dark Wings - Within Temptation

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
La Bayamesa - Buena Vista Social Club

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Maa Durga - Amjad Ali Khan

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Master Of Puppets - Metallica

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Wandering Soul - Alex Parks

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
The Blacksmith - Resolution

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
5 AM - Kenickie

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Oxygene (Part II) - Jean-Michel Jarre

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Hey Good Lookin' - Johnny Cash

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Downtown Lights - Annie Lennox

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Verdidn't - Snuff

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Angels Of The Night - Slaughter & The Dog

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
E-Bow The Letter - R.E.M.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Buggin' - The Flaming Lips

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Helen - Blue Horses

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
The Ewe With the Crooked Horn - Jenny Newman [okay, that sounds quite scary, like a Delphic Oracle answer or something]

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Mr. Sandman - The Puppini Sisters

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Do You Wanna Cuz It's Tricky (Franz Ferdinand vs. Run-DMC vs. The Knack) - Thriftshop XL (Mash-up)

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Liquidator - Harry J Allstars

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Nutshell - Adema

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Why Don't I Miss You? - Bowling For Soup

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Last - Jettison

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Sylvia - Pulp

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
I'm Coming To Get You - Murray Gold (Doctor Who Soundtrack)

Jacqui Smith & the New Prostitution Laws in the UK

Jacqui Smith & the New Prostitution Laws in the UK

The link is to Caroline's collection of resources concerning the proposed changes to prostitution law, that I discussed here.

It is very important. the link is also at the top of my sidebar now, I think it's that important. Whatever Ms. Smith and the rest of New Labour may think, these law changes will harm women.

As soon as the bill is published, I will be perusing it and making specific objections to my MP about it, explaining why it is such a bad idea. I encourage everyone else (with UK voting rights, anyway) to do the same.

Sigh BoreG

Just for fun, and because I was bored:

Get Your Cyborg Name

Destroy what we cannot control...

...and control what we cannot destroy.

This appears to be the motto of the "New Labour" party. Certainly since 2001, but I suspect that this was always their intention from some time before then. The only real evidence to the contrary is the Human Rights Act 1997.

To some extent, I believe that anyone in a position of power has similar urges, at least from time to time: after all, power tends to be addictive, and if there exists something that you do not control, it could be a threat to your power. However, not everyone succumbs to the urge, and not everyone makes it their driving force. Some, even, by virtue of their convictions, will take the painful step of surrendering power downwards to "the people". Mostly, though, when power is devolved downwards it is because somebody has forced the issue.

A true dictator or tyrant has to a great extent succeeded already in destroying what he cannot control - that's how they get to be a dictator, after all. While the maxim certainly still exists, because one must continue to control what one has not yet destroyed in order to retain the absolute power of a dictator, the maxim is something that has been achieved, and one's driving force is what one chooses to do with all that power.

With New Labour, however, it is still a work in progress. It appears that so many new policies aimed at the social side of government, are aimed at achieving a clean, pure, clinical state of everything either being entirely regulated and controlled by the State, or else utterly outlawed and eradicated from society.

Two things in this world (apart from death) are extremely difficult to control or destroy, and consequently it is perhaps in these areas that we see the New Labour government most determined, but also moving more slowly. These are sex and the internet.

Destroying sex is virtually impossible, because it is still the most efficient way of producing new human beings. And the sex drive is something that is pretty difficult to control in other people, as evidenced by the fact that people have been trying for at least 3,000 years, without success. Nevertheless, it appears as though New Labour are determined to achieve it, step by step.

Destroying the internet might have been possible when it first came into being, but nowadays it is relatively untouchable, purely because of the amount by which businesses these days depend upon it. However, again, controlling it is also fairly difficult, because of the way that it has granted freedom of speech to so many individuals without much need for corporate involvement. With peer-to-peer networks as well, everything is that much more open and independent. Nevertheless, the New Labour government have sought to control and limit what people can do with the internet - starting, of course, with sex.

The "extreme porn" law is just one part of this. Very quietly, the New Labour government last year twisted the arms of all the ISPs in the UK to install "cleanfeed", ostensibly to prevent child pornography being downloaded. However, the way it works means that they could just as easily block political material, ordinary (or "extreme") adult pornography, or anything else they choose. And the most insidious thing about it is that there is NO way of knowing that they have done so. The end user will have no way of knowing it has been done. presumably, the site owner will also be unaware. And there is no means or right of protest even if you did figure out that your site (or indeed, someone else's site) had been blocked. Control over the internet is clearly this government's objective, and with the cleanfeed technology now installed, they have come very close to establishing it. The only thing working against them is if the internet is so vast and ever-changing, that they can't keep up with it.

For stuff that does get through, there is a plethora of laws that covers everything from political protest to sexual deviance, from the extreme porn law to the anti-terrorism laws, all of which have been introduced by this government, and all of which are not only open to abuse, but have been abused (with the exception of the extreme porn law, since that one hasn't actually come into effect yet). If you have it on your computer, you committed a crime.

Then there's the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act (RIP Act - as in Rest In Peace, right to privacy). This grants the police, amongst other things, the right to demand any and all passwords or encryption keys on your computer if they think you might be hiding something incriminating. Send or receive an encrypted email and you are liable to a jail sentence unless you cough up the key to decrypt it. The concept in Mirror's Edge of "runners" who deliver packages too sensitive to be sent by email, is (alas) not all that far-fetched (regardless of what some folks over at Feministe seem to think). The only thing working in favour of privacy here is that it takes the say-so of the highest rank in the British Police (Chief Constable) before their full powers of snooping can be used against an individual.

So, what about sex? How has this government set about controlling people's sex drives? As we have seen, they have already taken steps towards outlawing deviant sexualities being expressed in visual art - We already have the most draconian censorship laws in Western Europe when it comes to pornography. Sadomasochism remains against the law since many forms of pain play involve leaving marks that are more than "trifling and transient", and the current case law insists that masochists are as guilty as the ones who beat them, because they are "aiding and abetting" the crime! Technically, anal sex remains illegal if there are more than two people present (that is, the two participants). There is some concern that the "extreme porn" law could be used, particularly in more conservative parts of the country, to target gay porn as well. While in many respects, regulation surrounding "normal" sex have been relaxed, anything deemed outside the norm is coming under greater pressure from the law.

Then there is the sex industry. Jacqui Smith's plans to eradicate somehow the urge to fuck - or at least, the option to answer that urge by paying someone to provide release - are now set to become law in the next year or so. These plans also involve heaping more regulation on lap dancing clubs (but, oddly, not the regulation that would actually do anything to help the dancers - just the sort that will make life harder for everyone involved...). While technically, prostitution is legal in the UK, just about everything that makes it possible to carry out prostitution for profit is currently illegal.

While sex itself is not being banned, fences are being erected between the "acceptable" and the "unacceptable" things that freely consenting adults can do with one another for the purposes of sexual pleasure; and thus is sex being controlled.

It has been a long time since I ever saw this government as being in any way interested in supporting the concepts of freedom or democracy - at least, it seems happy enough to export them, but in doing so is also happy to leave us with much less of our own.

The truly sad thing is that I see no way to reverse, or even stop, this trend. I do not believe the Conservative Party will do anything to change it, and there are no other viable alternatives in our current electoral system. I am left with a sickening, sinking feeling that maybe the only way forward is civil disobedience and, perhaps ultimately, violent uprising. In saying this, technically under the definition of the anti-terror laws, I am already a terrorist. And yet, I say it only as one who stands for democracy and freedom, and fears that they are being destroyed.