Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Society

  • Child Distress Flares

    Sometimes, I feel I’m on the same wavelength as Charlie Brooker. The good thing about not having children of one’s own is that when one does borrow them to indulge oneself in the role of jolly uncle, one does so safe and secure in the knowledge that one simply returns them if they become tiresome. 🙂

  • Strange Bedfellows

    Reading that Arnie has vetoed the bill reminds me of the US telephone company offering cheap long distance calls to people who oppose same-sex marriages. Feministe has the link here – a recording of Eugene Mirman talking to the operator. Give it a listen – it’s worth it. And if you’ve ever wished that you could combine your hatred of homosexuals with a low-cost long distance calling plan, United American Technologies is the telephone company for you.

  • Bogota Bizarrerie

  • Better Late Than Never

    Dutch Railways has finally got around to issuing an apology over its role in deporting 100,000 Jews from the Netherlands to the Nazi death camps in WWII.

  • Freeze-dry Yer Dead…

    I’ve always planned to be cremated when I go, and have my ashes dumped on some unsuspecting rose bush. But now, from Sweden, comes news of an alternative to cremation: freeze-drying and vibrating the resulting corpsicle into powder. The result is a better form of compost. Good news for rose bushes everywhere…

  • Gerin Oil Addiction

    Richard Dawkins pens an ironical piece on gerin oil addiction in this month’s Prospect magazine. Worth reading.

  • Platform For Change

    Chris Clarke over at Creek Running North reminds us that there are a number of anniversaries associated with September 11. In 1973, September 11 marked the day that President Salvador Allende of Chile was overthrown in a coup backed by the US. Clarke writes movingly in his post of the last days of Victor Jara.
     
    Having read that post, I happened to look up at the bookshelves above my computer monitor, and there in sight is a copy of Platform for Change – a book by the cyberneticist Stafford Beer published in 1975. Beer was invited by Allende to implement his ideas on operational research and cybernetics into a real-time computerised system – Cybersyn – to run the Chilean economy. The coup, led by Pinochet, dismantled the system, "disappeared" 3,000 Chileans and imprisoned and tortured 27,000 more.
     
    Stafford Beer ends his book with an ironic comment on a lecture he gave in February 1973 on the Chilean experiment. He repeats unchanged, apart from the typographic layout on the page, a quotation from that lecture given seven months before the coup:
    It appears to me that the government did not
    anticipate the full vindictiveness with which
    the rich world would react to its actions,
    which I emphasize have – so far – been
    perfectly legal.
     
    At any rate, a true resolution of the very
    potent conflicts in Chilean society is not
    discernible within the mounting instability,
    and may be long postponed.
     
    But I consider that this is largely a phenomenon
    of the cybernetics of international power :
    you could say that the Chilean people have not
    been given a chance.
     
    They are being systematically isolated behind
    those beautiful Andes mountains, and are in a
    state of siege.

  • World Naked Gardening Day

    Dammit – I missed it – it was yesterday! Well, I don’t think the neighbours would have been too impressed had I entered into the spirit of it, anyway.
     
    (hat tip to Orac)

  • Plus ça Change…

    … c’est la même chose.
     
    I grew up in the days of the Little Red Schoolbook – a book originating in Denmark that gave sensible and straightforward advice to teenagers on sex and growing up.  It was roundly castigated when published in English in the 1970s by do-gooders, Bowdlerisers and religious conservatives in the UK, and finally legally suppressed. In America, history is repeating itself 35 years later…

  • Decivilisation

    A pessimistic column from Timothy Garton Ash, writing in today’s Guardian. His thesis is that the veneer of civilisation that we human animals possess is thinner than we think. While recent events in New Orleans may have been the catalyst to his thoughts, recent history has provided plenty of other examples as evidence. He worries that, as we move further into the 21st century, the pressure on the veneer will increase, not decrease. I can’t help feeling that he’s right. As the old saw has it: a pessimist is an optimist who is in full possession of the facts.

  • There Are Rants…

    …and there are screams from souls at the end of their tether. The latter comes closest to describing this posting from Bellatrys…

  • SNAFU

    This is heartrending.

  • Anne Rice on New Orleans

    Anne Rice writes eloquently and passionately about the heart and soul of New Orleans in the New York Times today. Go and read it.

  • Blogging in the Eye of the Storm

    Blogs are a fascinating development, allowing practically anyone the potential of reaching an audience of millions. Throughout the events of the last few days in New Orleans, there’s been a bunch of people holed up on the 10th floor of a building there which houses a computer data centre. They’ve been determined to keep the data centre running. One of them has been keeping a blog of the events. Pretty scary stuff.
     
    The blogger seems to be a survivalist – probably not the type of person you would want to get on the wrong side of, but handy to have around at times like those in New Orleans. Me? I’m a lapdog of civilisation – when it goes, I go – I doubt that I’d survive to see the new world order.

  • GodDitIt – Film at 11

    I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that an evangelical pastor has claimed that God wiped out New Orleans to purge the city of its decadence. Still, one of the comments on the story brought a smile back to my face: Just you wait Rev. Shanks, when the gays come back, we’re going to have a big decorating party…

  • New Orleans and Geopolitics

    Doug Merrill over at A Fistful of Euros points out that New Orleans is the linchpin of the Port of South Louisiana. That is the world’s fifth largest port after Rotterdam, Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It is a vital part of the US’ industrial infrastructure, and it needs a city to power it with a workforce and logistics services. As a result, while some might talk of abandoning New Orleans following the disaster, it is inevitable and imperative that the city rise again from its watery grave. The US cannot afford to abandon the Port for economic reasons.
     
    This reasoning is put forth very cogently and succintly in an article by George Friedman: New Orleans: a Geopolitical Prize. Well worth reading.

  • Hello?

    …I think I’ve fallen asleep and had an epiphany. Why? What’s happened?
     
    Well, first it was the item on BBC News tonight about "Predator Awareness Training" for Great Bustards. I’m sorry, I noticed your capitalisation as an attempt to make this seem more important than it is, but what are you blathering on about?
     
    It was a "Silly Season" filler on the BBC News tonight – apparently the great bustard chicks that are being imported to Britain don’t seem to understand that british foxes find them a delicacy. And?
     
    Well, they get eaten. So someone in the importation programme has come up with the brilliant idea of subjecting the great bustard chicks to "Predator Awareness Training". And this is?
     
    It seems to consist of a rather embarassed-looking alsation, apparently pretending to be a fox, being shoved into a pen of great bustards while volunteers throw water over the birds. And this accomplishes, what exactly?
     
    Well, I think a lot of great bustard chicks getting wet and thinking "what the fuck is going on?" I see.
     
    Wait, there’s more! I was afraid of that.
     
    Yes, researchers at MIT have come up with the Electronic Squirrel. I notice you’re using capitals again. It almost makes me afraid to ask what an electronic squirrel is.
     
    It’s brilliant – it’s an animatronic desktop cuddly toy squirrel that – you’ll like this – answers phone calls, works out if you are busy or asleep, evaluates how important the incoming call is and takes messages. I can’t believe you’ve just said that.
     
    No, really, here’s a spiffing series of photos that try to give you an idea of how cool this cute squirrel is in action… Look, can we just pull the plug on humanity now? I think this experiment has just about run its course…

  • The West Wind

    Phila, over at the Bouphonia blog, writes a brilliant post musing on the connections between bird flu and Dickens’ Bleak House. I’ve never actually read Bleak House, but this post has made me want to.

  • Not All Doom and Gloom

    I commented earlier this week on the story in The Guardian about the witch hunts for gays and lesbians in the British Armed Forces. I see that my friend Ed has got a letter about it in The Guardian today. Since his letter was edited for inclusion, I’m pleased to be able to present the original as a blog exclusive:
    Lest younger readers of your paper should think that all was doom and gloom in the RAF camps of the mid-l950’s (Your article ‘How the air force kept secret watch to track down lesbians’, 22nd August), I can tell them that this was not so for at least one camp which I experienced as an adolescent airman – namely, RAF Ruislip on the outskirts of London.  To say that it was the prototype set for a film yet to be made "Carry on Camping II" would do it less than justice since, as part of the policy adopted by the higher authorities in the RAF to ‘clear out the homosexuals’ many of this robust community were stationed there.  It was argued, I believe, that rather than allowing youths suspected of being homosexual from their behaviour (i.e. being ‘camp’ for men and ‘butch’ for women) to corrupt other airmen/airwomen (there was no need), it would be wiser to have them all together where they could conduct themselves as outrageously as they pleased and with the added bonuses of being both near to central London and adjacent to an American air base.
     
    As now a 70-year old that was privileged to complete 2 years of National service in the mid-1950’s, I am able to say that if not the happiest days of my life those years were amongst the most interesting and informative I have experienced;  they also gave me friends which I am still fortunate enough to have.   Further, my experiences then allowed me to see how bright was the future if one took the initiative and, ‘Carry on’ style, grasped all the opportunities presented to one.
     
    I sign myself a satisfyingly happy homosexual who can look back with affection to those outwardly sexually repressive, but inwardly wildly gay, l950’s.
     
     

  • A New Type of Library

    The library in Almelo will be lending more than books as from next month. You’ll be able to borrow a person – such as a gay man or a Muslim woman – for an hour – to ask him or her the sort of questions that you’ve always wanted to ask. Sounds like a good idea, but do the people get stamped – and what are the fines for overdue loans?