Course reflection - assignment 4

I will do needful

After giving up blogging a couple of years ago it turns out that I do need somewhere to publish stuff, whether it's for uni assignments or the occasional rant when thumping someone isn't an option so here we are, again.

The title, "I will do needful" comes from an angry email exchange shared on Boing Boing a few years back. It's a shame I can't access the full transcript - it was hilarious and there was something very poignant and breathtaking about it. Something about how malleable and powerful language is, especially when improvised.

In the meantime, it's that time of semester and I, too, am trying to do needful. Wish me luck.

Image: law keven

Wag the doggerel

Did any of you (three faithful readers) happen to catch The Unit last night on telly? I kept on looking up and behind me to make sure I wasn't on Candid Camera.

It's a show about a bunch of special fighters - secret soldiers, whatever - who have Boys' Own adventures each day and then get home in time for dinner. One of the characters last night even said something along the lines of "where else do you get to jump out of planes all day and go home to a warm bed at night?" or something like that - a variation on the classic army poster: Travel the world; Meet interesting people; Kill them...

I only caught bits and pieces while I was channel surfing, landing lightly on each channel for a minute or three until the continual stream of images of forensics, crime, despair, conflict and squalour drove me to the next channel. Honestly, it's gotten to the stage where I'm starting to prefer the ads.

But I did manage to pick up a few things that had me entertained. Firstly the alpha male is a black guy, which sticks out like a dog's proverbial. Then there was the independent 30-something with the lesbian haircut who is married to the young white guy (who has just joined the unit). She's the token rebel, the eduated shrew who could use some taming, demanding to find her own housing until the black guy's (black, Oprah-ish) wife convinces her to join the community - in one fabulous speech she says something about how being a woman, looking after your children, waiting for your maaaan to come home from fighting the enemy is "the history of the wooorld!!" (dramatic music, close-up of chastened young wife looking astonished - I like to think she was thinking "Frickin' Küche, Kirche, Kinder again?!"). Later she passes out or faints (or just isn't wearing makeup - I lost interest regularly, you must remember) when she sees something on the news that makes it apparent what the boys are up to that day. That I managed to make any sense of it at all is just a testament to the relentless crap on the other channels.

Anyway - later in the piece, after they've managed to rescue a bunch of hostages, killing all the "terrorists" and none of the passengers, there's a kind of horizon shot of the three of them walking back along the tarmac - guns tied to their legs with leather holsters, the sillouette reminiscent of those cowboys of old, swaggering towards the camera with their horsey gait, I swear they're chewing wheat, where's my freaking banjo when I need it?

And like all good little soldiers, Whiteboy gets home in one piece, goes to the fridge (as yer do when you're a hungry adolescent), finds a baseball mitt with a note in it saying "It's a boy". I was so overcome by all the testosterone references on the show that I'm having a pregnancy test myself on the weekend just to be on the safe side.

Reflecting on it today I can't help wondering how much of the storyline is influenced by wagging tails - could the universal unconscious be that cliche? Naaa.

And with today's announcement about the changes in Australia's media ownership laws one can only wonder what sorts of local tales will be wagging in the days and years to come.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7-how-7/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Tomorrow's cat litter liner

Pity that crikey.com.au has decided not to allow free access to its story on the quashing of Jack Thomas' conviction. Did The Australian newspaper today really carry the headline
"Legal system releases the enemy" ? Isn't that illegal or something? Can you imagine if one of us took out an advertisement in the paper saying the same thing about any court case where someone was exonerated or found not guilty? Sheesh.

At least they got one thing right with their cartoon about the Centrelink sackings today.

Heartbreak

A bunch of Italians kick a ball into a net and our prime minister is "brokenhearted" yet he "regrets" the friendly fire that killed an Iraqi bodyguard and tugs at his forelock about the hypocrisy of the Japanese who will happily decimate our largest mammals yet become grief-stricken about the fate of a goddam turnip. (Won't even bother digging up the bone with "saying sorry to the Aboriginals" on it...).

I'm feeling pretty heartbroken too. Must be that kind of a day.

Image by PhotoGraham

Snapshot

Reading: Barbie - My Perfect Wardrobe

Praying for: The souls of all miners in third world countries who have been trapped or killed in the two weeks we waited for our own lucky two to be rescued in Tasmania.

Also for the family of that Bosnian guy who mistakenly got sent here instead of our soldier. Only took 3 weeks for someone to name him/seem to remember that he had a family too...

Bewildered about: How Kim Beazley's advisors could let him announce a future policy that aims to put a computer on every child's desk. Hasn't anyone told him the future is mobile?

Sending Mother's Day kisses to: Mums everywhere, including all those wonderful Dads who are doing both jobs.

OK. Back to whatever you were doing. Will blog again soon.

Stone the crow

I'm not sure how long Sharon Stone has been providing unsolicited advice about "safe sex" to adolescents in public changerooms but someone really should lock her up. Especially when she comes out with gems like this:

"Young people talk to me about what to do if they're being pressed for sex? I tell them (what I believe): oral sex is a hundred times safer than vaginal or anal sex. If you're in a situation where you cannot get out of sex, offer a blow job."

Remember that next time you're "pressed" by your boss or best friend's boyfriend, eh? ('Specially if you're a bloke!)