Fun and games in Britain

Just thinking out loud here, but if an election is called on 14 October and the pro-Brexit-at-any-cost parties win, couldn't they get Parliament going in time to get any pre-election legislation delaying Brexit revoked?  Does it really take that long to get the Queen to roll up at Parliament?   Couldn't they ask her to just read one statement:  "My government will now ensure Brexit proceeds, and do a lot of other good stuff.  See you next Parliament." 

Someone will know, somewhere...

As I suspected

Slate has an article about the "no shampoo" idea, which has a certain following in Australia, but of which I am rather sceptical.  One quote:

So zero shampoo is not the answer for me—or most people. The idea that your hair will naturally rebalance after a period of not washing is “an old wives’ tale,” noted Joshua Zeichner, the director of cosmetic and clinical research at Mount Sinai Hospital to me via email. Moreover, it’s not good for your scalp, which does need to be cleansed now and then to stay healthy. “This no-shampoo movement has been a problem,” dermatologist Rebecca Baxt told me. She’s seen an uptick of people coming in with dead skin built up on their scalps, which itches and flakes, and ironically looks kind of dry, which can further feed the no-washing cycle. From a doctor’s perspective, the scalp skin is what you’re really caring for when you wash your hair. 

I heard the comedian Dave Hughes on his radio show some time ago say that he doesn't use shampoo very often, and once he got in the shower and was surprised to find that his hair was bubbling under the shower, when he hadn't put anything on it.  Turned out his wife had told one of his kids to secretly drop some shampoo into his hair while playing with him, so that he would finally wash his hair properly. 

Since then, when I have seen him on TV, I have thought "yeah, this guy's hair does look kind of stiff and as if it needs a good wash."  I wonder how many other people who follow this idea I could detect as having not-so-nice looking hair.

David's keeping count

David Neiwert writes on Right wing violence in the USA, and someone re-tweeted this from 2018, in which he lists some prominent Right wing murders (and acknowledges two cases of Left wing motivated killing.)   It is easy to forget these incidents, even if you don't have a political motivation for doing so.

And as it says at the start: 

For some reason, folks on the right have extremely short memories when it comes to acts of right-wing political violence. This is especially the case when they are in the middle of a propaganda campaign to make "the left" look violent. A long thread with lots of pix follows.

Well, made me laugh

In America, it's time to drop the kids off to their college dorm for the first time, I gather.   I thought this was a funny first tweet in response:

Give me some good news

A lot of "downer" news at the moment, no?

Families being thrown out of Australia when there appears to be no real need to; a severe hurricane mashing up the Bahamas; mass shootings in the US with responses in Twitter including a fair swathe of "don't worry, when we get even more guns into the hands of citizens, and they get the right training, things will come good"; (as already noted) a Conservative minister muttering about how governments don't have to follow Parliament, when push comes to shove; and Hong Kong in considerable turmoil.

Cheer me up, someone...

Bad news story from Vietnam

The ABC has a story up about the problem of family breakdown, runaway boys, and their exploitation by sex tourists in Vietnam (it talks about Hanoi in particular.)

I've been wanting to holiday in Vietnam, thinking that there would not be much of the obvious problems of poverty to be seen, particularly in the big cities.   But sounds like there sort of is.

Not a worry at all

Yeah, so Australian pro-Brexit readers (I think I have three):  are you not the teensy weeniest embarrassed that you now have a Conservative Minister saying that the government may not abide by laws passed by Parliament?

I can't see that Helen Dale has tweeted about that remarkable interview, either.


And to pre-empt a response of "but giving the country Brexit is following the democratic will of the people from the referendum" - the referendum was not binding, and it was up to the government to work out how to do it.  Regardless of laws passed previously to get the ball rolling, of course Parliaments can change previous legislation.    

Sorry, but democracy and rule of law is more important that your feelz about how important Brexit is.

What are the chances...

...that I would intensely dislike that Joker film?  

It's just about the safest bet in the world, given that I don't respond to comic book universes that purport to be serious, and have never gone out of my way to view movies in the "lonely, emotionally fragile man goes berserk" genre.  (Yeah, call me a film history philistine, but I still haven't got around to seeing Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, or Falling Down.  Dark themes of that kind have never held much appeal to me - so sue me.) 

What's more, Joker, while getting some ecstatic reviews, has received some pretty solid negative ones too,  most notably from Time's Stephanie Zacharek.   Given the strange world of comic book fandom, what's the bet that she has already received some disturbing threats over the net?  (Which would be kind of ironic, I guess.)

Anyway, the negative reviews have already primed me for the reasons I would dislike it.   Yet my son, being of the age where darker themes appeal, badly wants to see it.  

Perhaps I should deliberately hate view this one, and let out many sighs and mutterings throughout to annoy him?   Don't think I will, as maybe I would get into too much trouble from others in the cinema, too.

Do not wander towards this movie

I tried watching the Chinese science fiction blockbuster (at least in China) The Wandering Earth last night.

It's spectacularly bad - like the worst Michael Bay (or Roland Emmerich)  movie times 10, with even less character development, terrible opaque-to-understanding action editing, very 2001 derivative in one plot element, underwhelming special effects, and an awful,  clunky script.  About the only slightly interesting thing was that there was a light relief character (who didn't have much to do, actually) who was meant to have one parent from China, and one from Melbourne.  I think there was sort of a suggestion that his Australian genes had dumbed him down, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, I put up with its awfulness for about half the way, before speeding up to the end to see what happened.   Yeah, heroic male sacrifice featured, as might be expected.  Chinese audiences must be absolutely desperate for special effects heavy science fiction movies to have seen this one in large numbers, is all I can say.

I see that on Rottentomatoes that there are OK reviews from some American critics in the "just a bit of escapist, science fiction disaster movie fun " variety.  They are wrong.

The gigantic keyhole tombs in Japan

I've never spent much time around Osaka prefecture - is that why I hadn't actually heard of the gigantic "keyhole" tombs near it, which are explained in this BBC video?  Here's a photo:

Pretty interesting - and pretty amazing how Japan doesn't believe in any form of archaeological digging on them.  

All good stuff for a science fiction/fantasy movie, too, I would imagine.  Probably already been done in some anime already, I suspect.

Evidence is optional

I see that James Allan, the conservative blow in legal professor who writes for reliably wingnut Quadrant and Australian Spectator, has a new contribution to the former magazine:  a report on a road trip through America. 

The article is lightweight guff, ending on the note that in all Red states they passed through, conversations with people having breakfast in diners convinced him that Trump will romp it in at the 2020 election, such is the love expressed for the Orange one.   Now, anecdotal evidence is something people like to cite, but I have my suspicion that talking to "locals who eat breakfasts in Red state diners on any regular basis" is not safe sampling - it's going to be selective for the more Right wing type under any President.  I could be wrong - I've never eaten at such establishments - but you would certainly get the impression from their depiction in US media that they would swing that way.

Anyway, that's not really why I am posting about his article.  It was this claim (my bold):

What saves time, and I think I mentioned this in my recounting of the 2013 road trip, is that the US has sane and normal speeding laws.  On interstate highways, the big ones that criss-cross the nation, you can drive at least 80 miles per hour (about 130 kph) before there is the slightest chance of a speeding ticket.  And there are no speed cameras.  Either the police catch you that day, then and there, or you don’t get a ticket.

And you know what?  All that revenuers’ propaganda about Australia’s ridiculously low speed limits promoting safety is guff. Compare deaths over distance travelled and Australia is no bastion of safety. 

Because I had only posted earlier this year about how I didn't realise the American road death rate was so high, I thought this sounded suss.

So, looking up an annual report comparing OECD countries road safety, I find this table:

Um, a rate of .52 is way under .73.

If Allan's throw away line is meant to imply that America's per distance travelled death rate (with its higher speeds and looser enforcement) is not so different to Australia's (and let's be honest, that's his intention), it is flat out wrong.

As with anyone who loves Brexit, sympathises with Trump and his voters, and (I am betting) doesn't believe climate change is a serious issue, James just doesn't care about evidence.

It's the marker for the state of conservative Right wing politics now.

Looking for connections

Science magazine is running a series of reports on suicide, which includes this map for suicide rates in 2017:

On the website version, you can hover over the country and get the exact figure, with Australia showing as 11, the USA as 14, Russia 25, and Greenland at the top of the chart at 51.  (And that's before they heard Trump wanted to buy them.)

What strikes me most is how Muslim countries are all very low.  For example, Pakistan is at 4.44, Bangladesh at 6, but neighbouring India is 15.59.   Saudi Arabia is a startling low 2.9; Indonesia 3.1.

The other consistently low rate countries are those which are very Catholic, particularly those with their own local ethno-Catholicism, like Mexico and the Philippines, as well the European strongholds in Italy and Spain. (France is not so good:  at 12.4 it is close to our rate.)  Mexico surprises me:  for a country so notoriously dangerous for murder, at 5.9, the violence in the form of suicide is about half of ours.

I guess I should note that Buddhist countries are very much a mixed bag - Japan is as high as the US, but other, smaller Buddhist countries are low.  China is quite good at 7.2, too. Not sure what accounts for that.

I have posted before about the pretty well established connection between Protestantism and higher suicide rates, but I don't think I had realised before how being Muslim, or at least, living in a highly Muslim society,  seems to be even more "protective" from suicide than being Catholic.
 

Catholic schism in Italy, too

For once, a useful link from that ugly blog.

An article in Foreign Policy noting that Italian politics is caught up in the Great Schism in Catholicism:

It is a tale of two Catholic churches. One is focused on social justice, welcoming migrants, helping the poor, protecting the environment, defending the virtues of the European Union,  and building bridges rather than walls.  It proudly sports a cosmopolitan identity and talks about diversity and inclusion. It firmly opposes leaders like Salvini and U.S. President Donald Trump, whose ideology is one “that always ends badly—it leads to war,” as Pope Francis said in a recent interview with the daily La Stampa, adding that he’s concerned “because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934.” The poster child of this Catholic Church is Greta Thunberg, the Swedish environmental activist whose initiatives have been blessed by the pope.

The other Catholic Church stresses the importance of tradition and defending the so-called Judeo-Christian West from mass immigration, pledges to protect the traditional family, and fights permissive laws on abortion and LGBT rights. It is skeptical of a bureaucratic, highly secularized EU and believes that Christianity thrives in a world organized around nation-states as opposed to supranational organizations. This faction fears that the current Vatican leadership may eventually turn the church into a progressive NGO.

In this highly polarized ecosystem, both sides claim to represent the true faith. And both sides are struggling to find a political home. Italy’s government crisis reveals a deeper tectonic shift in the Catholic world that has left many devout voters with no political home. In Italy, 74 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, but only 27 percent of those are actively practicing. In the recent election for the European Parliament, more than half of practicing Catholics didn’t vote.

Go watch it

I finished watching Happy Jail on Netflix last night. 

I've already recommended it, but I'm back to say that it is just extraordinarily good as documentary, and I am not sure why it hasn't attracted more media attention.   (My son liked it too, so it's not just my eccentric taste.)

PS:  I think it obvious why so many documentary/local reportage shows look so good these days - everything from Backroads, to Foreign Correspondent, to Happy Jail -  is the invention of the cheap drone with camera.   Beautiful aerial shots are just ubiquitous in these shows now, and we all know why.   But I don't care how many times they are used, really:  getting a God's eye view over settings I just find pleasing every time.   Maybe it subconsciously feels like it is satisfying those "cool! I can fly" dreams?    

What ugliness

When I see a Bunnings ad featuring an ethnically diverse woman, I think "that's good...another sign of successful integration into a typical aspect of the Australian way of life.  Especially good that it's a Muslim woman.  Good on you Bunnings for your diversity in hiring, too."  

But when a poisonous soul who comments at Sinclair's club for ugly conservatism sees the ad, this is what she thinks:

For the millionth time, I honestly don't understand how Sinclair Davidson can feel satisfaction running a blog that lets people display themselves in all their ugliness. 

Saturday photo

Everyone likes the ornate design of this building, surely?  I like to imagine it has a hunchback living secretly in the roof space and spires, or the dark, creepy basement I am told exists too.  

The "I'm only being reasonable - and stop oppressing me" Right has a long, disreputable history

David Roberts tweeted praise for this article in the Washington Post, and it is really good.

The writer, Eve Fairbanks, points out that a great deal of recent conservative rhetoric which claims to the status of "only being reasonable" in reaction to an unreasonable and censoring Left reads exactly as did the pro-Confederacy, pro-slavery commentary before and during the Civil War.  For example:

They stressed the importance of logic, “facts,” “truth,” “science” and “nature” much more than Northern rhetoricians did. They chided their adversaries for being romantic idealists, ignoring the “experience of centuries.” Josiah Nott, a surgeon who laid out the purported science behind black inferiority, held that questions like slavery “should be left open to fair and honest investigation, and made to stand or fall according to the facts.” They claimed that they were the ones who truly had black people’s best interests at heart, thanks to their more realistic understanding of human biology. “No one would be willing to do more for the Negro race than I,” John Wilkes Booth wrote shortly before he assassinated Lincoln. He alleged that any pragmatist could see that freeing black people into a cold, cruel world would actually cause their “annihilation.” Slavery, another Southern thinker argued, was natural, because if whites could work the sweltering South Carolina rice fields, they would. The “constitutions” of black men, on the other hand, were “perfectly adapted.”

They loved hyperbole. Events were “the most extraordinary spectacles” that had “ever challenged the notice of the civilized world,” “too alarming” and threatened “to destroy all that is valuable and beautiful in the institutions of our country.” All over, they saw slippery slopes: Objecting to the extension of slavery into new territories, Lincoln’s longtime position, would lead inexorably to miscegenation.

The most important thing to know about them, they held, was that they were not the oppressors. They were the oppressed. They were driven to feelings of isolation and shame purely on the basis of freely held ideas, the right of every thinking man. Rep. Alexander Sims (D-S.C.) claimed that America’s real problem was the way Southerners were made to suffer under “the sneers and fanatic ebullitions of ignorant and wicked pretenders to philanthropy.” Booth’s complaint, before he shot Lincoln, wasn’t that he could no longer practice slavery, something he’d never done anyway. Instead, he lamented that he no longer felt comfortable expressing “my thoughts or sentiments” on slavery freely in good company.

Now, I think it is probably fair to note that realising this doesn't detract from some ideas of the Left being legitimately bad arguments that ignore the facts of nature - the most obvious modern ones surround the extremes of identity politics,  like the suggestion that sportswomen should not claim unfairness when transexual men start winning all events.   (I'm also sympathetic to the line that a certain basic form of capitalism - whereby people like to organise around, and profit from, things they can do well - is a natural tendency of human society, which explains why far Left attempts to suppress it completely are always doomed to fail.)

But it does tell us to be extremely cautions of the Right wing claims of persecution and to being tied to reason, when they are falling to act on dangers promoted by figures on their own side. 

The absolute worst thing about it is the way the conservative Right has decided  to give, at most, only occasional lip service to objection to the dangerous, authoritarian sympathising stupidity of Trump and his administration, and the global dire dangers of climate change, preferring instead to shrug their shoulders and concentrate on a culture war with the Left as if it was more important.

They only had to read Catallaxy to know this

From an article in The New Republic The Misogyny of Climate Deniers:

In 2014, Jonas Anshelm and Martin Hultman of Chalmers published a paper analyzing the language of a focus group of climate skeptics. The common themes in the group, they said, were striking: “for climate skeptics … it was not the environment that was threatened, it was a certain kind of modern industrial society built and dominated by their form of masculinity.”

The connection has to do with a sense of group identity under threat, Hultman told me—an identity they perceive to be under threat from all sides. Besieged, as they see it, both by developing gender equality—Hultman pointed specifically to the shock some men felt at the #MeToo movement—and now climate activism’s challenge to their way of life, male reactionaries motivated by right-wing nationalism, anti-feminism, and climate denialism increasingly overlap, the three reactions feeding off of one another.

“There is a package of values and behaviors connected to a form of masculinity that I call ‘industrial breadwinner masculinity.’ They see the world as separated between humans and nature. They believe humans are obliged to use nature and its resources to make products out of them. And they have a risk perception that nature will tolerate all types of waste. It’s a risk perception that doesn’t think of nature as vulnerable and as something that is possible to be destroyed. For them, economic growth is more important than the environment” Hultman told Deutsche Welle last year.

 The corollary to this is that climate science, for skeptics, becomes feminized—or viewed as “oppositional to assumed entitlements of masculine primacy,” Hultman and fellow researcher Paul Pulé wrote in another paper.

The deep irony is that the other ideology that bulldozed over nature in the interests of economic growth is the communism that the wingnut Right spend the rest of their limited brain cells panicking about as secretly taking over the world under the guise of "cultural Marxism" and "socialism". 

Foreign Correspondent noted

Been meaning to say:  gee, this current season of ABC's Foreign Correspondent has been good. 

Fake meat in America; Taiwan and its worrying future with China; child surrogacy gone wrong in the Ukraine; and a look at Barcelona and the continuing vexed issue of Catalonian independence.

All well made, informative and engaging shows.

The enemies of the ABC need to exiled to some Survivor Island, and they can make documentaries of themselves getting sunburnt and stupider by the day by making reality TV.    

Stand up comedy is pretty weird

I rarely care for stand up comedy of any variety, but I will still read reviews of it to see what stuff that I wouldn't like is out there.

I note that Dave Chappelle has a Netflix special out which is getting praise from Tim Blair and some people at Catallaxy, and complaints from the likes of The Guardian and Slate.  The criticism from the Left - especially the one at Slate - sounds far, far more compelling a guide to my reaction, should I watch it.   Mind you, The Guardian's review is very similar, really.

There is something a bit weird about stand up, isn't there?, in the way audiences reaction precedes, and is independent from, thought.   Take this, for example, from The Guardian:

Chappelle speaks out against Michael Jackson’s accusers, stating in no uncertain terms that “I do not believe these motherf.......s” to whistles and cheers of approval from the audience. An assortment of his hotter takes plays like an exoneration wishlist: Kevin Hart’s a good guy, Louis CK never did anything wrong, and even if the King of Pop did prey on innocent children, “I mean, it’s Michael Jackson.”

I mean, really?   Surely it is only due to an expectation that the guy on stage is funny that people would find that crack about Jackson's accusers a laugh-out-loud thing?   It's not even a joke, as such.

Have psychologists studied this much?