The Football Culture.
It’s really – REALLY – time to stop glorifying footballers in this country. I appreciate that sport is important to a lot of people, and football particularly so. Kids in the playground at school make and break friendships on the basis of which team they follow, workmates bond over the latest win or loss of their team, and footballers are held up as the highest possible order of humanity. They are treated like gods, and it has to stop.
Apparently, there’s a type of woman who makes it her main aim to sleep with as many footballers as she can. If that’s what this sort of woman wants, then sure, more power to her I hope she’s having safe sex every single time. However, there’s a breeding culture in footballers themselves that seems to state that ALL women want to have sex with them at ALL times.
Yet accusations of rape, violence toward women and other men, taking a shit in hotel hallways, binge drinking and god knows what else don’t make a dent in the worship of these sportsmen. No matter what disgrace they bring to themselves or the team, it’s all forgiven when they kick a goal or take a high mark.
And the rot is clearly setting in for suburban clubs. Three members of the Monty (I call it Monty as it’s a local team to me) Footy team have been charged with the gang rape of a woman at Philip Island earlier this month. There were actually two women involved, but one has dropped charges. Add to this $10,000 damage done to the house the young men were renting, and you basically have some honest to god AFL footballers coming up the ranks.
Depending on which source you believe, these three and the other under 20′s out trashing rental houses over a drunken weekend either had or had not attended “education sessions about the proper treatment of women”. I’m sorry, but if as a sports culture you need to be telling 17 year olds it’s NOT okay to rape women, then clearly something is very very wrong.
Which brings me back to hero worship. I really do understand the importance of sport to society, although I don’t watch much of it myself, but this blanket forgiveness and acceptance of what amounts to dickhead behaviour cannot go on if we want young men and little boys to understand it’s not okay to do these things.
I’m not saying these guys should be staying up all night knitting socks for the homeless (though it might help) and i’m not saying they can’t enjoy a night out. They are, despite what the newspapers might tell you, only human. I can understand speeding tickets etc, these are mistakes people make all the time. Rape, violence and basically acting like a shit is not a “mistake” that normal people get away with. If they can’t act like the role models they are supposed to be, then they should be dropped from any team they are involved with. No press coverage, no draft picks, just back to nobody land working for a wage like a normal person.
Blather Blather Blah Blah
Some Viddler rambling about this years Nano.
Clearing the cobwebs
I think we’ve established I have too much yarn, and I tend to buy yarn without any good reason for doing so. However, last night, as I sat in a puddle of self loathing, I suddenly thought “Right! I’ll make myself something” so I zapped over to Spotlight. I was after a kind of lumpy, stringy, handy dyed yarn which is about $20 a pop, but delicious. I’d put off buying it in the past because of the price, but I adore it. Sadly, due to the impending Christmasness, most of the yarn was off the shelves in favour of tinsel and plastic reindeer. I did pick up some utterly delectable cleckheaton (I love cleckheaton) in three tones of orangy red, so I will make myself a wrap out of those.
Since leaving Second Life, I’ve had an utter explosion in creative juices, and I find it’s something I can do that will really lift my mood. Even just crocheting a line of a scarf or something is a wonderful mental break, especially when in the dumps like I get sometimes. I’m trying to something a little bit creative every single day, and for the most part I’m doing that. Not by any means anything huge – I’m not doing a major oil painting every evening, or finishing an afghan every three days, but just a little something or other to keep the brain active and happy.
I do have oil paints I have yet to try, so I may crack those open this weekend. Can i paint? No. I can barely draw, but who cares. Getting over the idea that we need to be perfect at anything before we do it is a hard one, I’ve had many discussions with people about that. For a long time I shied away from doing anything new because I simply couldn’t bear being terrible at something. I think jumping in to painting, crochet or anything else is a good cure for that.
I also love the all absorbing nature of sewing, or sketching, or writing. Losing all sense of place and time as you work on something that fascinates you is a wonderful thing, and a perfect mental break. What you walk with at the end might not even be anything like what you were aiming for, but it’s yours and it’s new and you poured energy and care into it.
For those reading who are not “creative” I urge you to try something. It doesn’t have to be a big investment, a pencil and a small sketchbook should be under $10. Find something that totally absorbs your mind and soul and do it as often as you can. We live in a stupid, fast paced world full of mass production and angry people and bad drivers and god knows what else. Curl up with yourself and create a small something. It’s good for you.
Crappy suck crappyness
I’m having a bad couple of days, emotionally. Well, emotionally I’m alright I think, but my self esteem which is barely there at the best of times has been utterly erased. Utterly. To the point where I can’t bear the thought of walking out the door tomorrow morning to go to work. I have a class to teach in the morning, so I can’t take the day off, but I’m terrified.
At the same time, I’m incredibly annoyed with myself. I’ve been fat since I was about 11, so it’s now 20 years and surely I should have better coping mechanisms by now. I should be used to seeing skinny models and diet ads without feeling like a waste of skin, but I am not. What triggered this plummet? What else – wedding dresses.
When I shop for clothes, which I honestly do try to avoid as much as I possibly can, the first thing I ever look at is the neckline. Anything lower than a shallow scoop neck – say around t-shirt level – is instantly dismissed as unsuitable. This is because I have, thanks to PCOS, hair on my chest. Yup, I’m fuzzy and it’s probably the thing that depresses me most about my appearance. No matter how gorgeous, flattering or amazing a shirt or dress is, I will not buy it if the neckline is wrong. I simply can’t wear it.
Now, logically I know that the chances of anyone even noticing this chest fuzz are very slim, but we live in a society where billions of dollars are spent on hair removal because women who dare to be a bit beardy are subjected to humiliation on a grand scale. I often wish I was a stronger person and able to just say “Fuck you too!” but I cannot. All I can seem to do is crawl into a cave and hope it all goes away. Which it doesn’t.
So poking around for dresses starts as “Don’t any of these have a high neckline” and moves to “God I wish I could look that good” which leads to “I hate how all these women get to show cleavage” which leads to “I’m hideous and cannot have a wedding and I need to tell Matt we’re eloping so no one has to see this mess”. Not logical, and hard to escape.
I don’t actually know how to make it better though. After almost 20 years of being as covered as possible, avoiding hair dressers, dentists and doctors and giving up on swimming and other fun things, it’s difficult to now say “I don’t care any more, I’m fuzzy, YOU deal with it”. Instead I’m going to start the hair removal cycle over again. Because it’s just not okay to be a hairy woman.
Nano… again.
Third time is the charm? I started Nanoing in 2007, with my first attempt reaching around 35,000 words. Last year I did much less good, hitting about 20,000 words. This year? Who knows. I actually have a story I’m plotting in my noggin as we speak, and have been brewing it for some time. I don’t know how sold I am on the idea of the story, but it’s pretty well developed so far, so I might as well start it and see what happens.
For those who do not know, Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month, a month where you throw yourself into writing a terrible novel. The goal? 50,000 words. It’s about 1667 words a day or something like that. It’s held officially in November, which is when the website gets dusted off and wound up again for another spell of what they call Literary Abandon.
To be honest, I really wasn’t planning to do it this year. I had some bad people experiences last year (“I am better than you nyah nyah”) which put me off the community and interaction angle of the whole deal, and forcing another 1600 words out isn’t easy when there’s no support. In fact, I only decided to go ahead about 20 minutes ago. The warming weather, and a glance at the website making me get the bug again.
I’m not a brilliant writer, but I love to do it. Which I suspect is the appeal of Nano. There’s no time to second guess, redraft or otherwise fuss over what you’ve written. Sounds bad? TOO bad! Next chapter please, time is awasting. Decide halfway through everything is crap? Change it, but don’t go back. Those words are precious, and all that word padding you’ve done is going to be wasted if you start over!
So yes, once more unto Nano my friends. Don’t expect blog posts. Or me being in any way nice to you. Just for November, promise.
A changing world.
A heavy snowfall tends to make people say “Bah, global warming my arse!” while unseasonable warm in the winter makes people say “Yay! Global warming makes warms!”. Which is why I prefer the term Climate Change, because it has no implication of warmth.
Nature is a balancing act. The death of one kind of plant can result in a lack of food for a certain animal, or a loss of nesting location for a bird. Those birds or animals die out, and perhaps the trees the birds pollinate begin to die out. One of the major factors in the survival of any plant or animal is climate. Everything has evolved to be exactly where it is, if that makes sense. Animals are designed to live in the conditions they live in, and while some kinds of animals are highly adaptable, others are far more delicate and a simple raise in temperature of even 1° can result in them being wiped out.
Yet while the icecaps melt and weather patterns change, creating floods, droughts and god knows what else, humans are remarkable in their ability to ignore the fact that we, as a species, are at fault.
Far from the delicate balancing act of mother nature, humans are happy to tramp any old place, adapting to conditions as needed and developing ways to make life more comfortable. In the developed world, that tends to be technology and central heating, big cars and disposable everything. There seems to be a mass idea that living in a sustainable, low carbon way involves keeping your own cows, living in a yurt and never washing your armpits.
Bullshit! There’s a million things every single person in the developed world can do to improve their carbon footprint, to create less of a negative impact on the planet and perhaps slow the damage we’re doing to the environment. Here’s some:
- Instead of keeping your house hot hot hot all winter, turn the heat up enough to keep the chill out. Still cold? Try a jumper. It stuns me that people seem to think they should be able to walk around in a t-shirt all year round. A blanket, sweater or robe will warm you just as well as pumping up your heating.
- Buy local produce as much as possible. For a lot of people, this is not an easy option, but if you look around you may find a lot of your diet can be obtained from farms etc that are quite close to you. Less transport = less carbon emissions transporting things to you.
- Cut back on the disposables. Instead of a 10 pack of throw away razors, get a good quality one with replaceable blades. It’ll cost more in the beginning, but eventually you will save money. Spend a little extra on a refillable pen, use tea towels instead of paper towels. Buying quality reusable items costs less long term, and you’ll probably find they perform better too.
- Sell, donate or recycle your old technology. Got a 5 year old computer that no one wants? I’ll bet you’ll find someone through your community house or school that would love that machine. Sure it won’t run the latest games, but for wordprocessing and internet, it’s fine. Call around, or search the net to see if there’s a programme running in your area. If all else fails, send it for recycling. There’s never any call for technology to end up in landfill.
- The Bottled Water Thing. In Australia, tapwater is high quality and drinkable. Plastic bottles of water are a huge impact, with the energy needed to make the bottles, transport them etc. Pick up a sports bottle for cheap and fill it from the tap. In places with less than delicious water, try and invest in a filter.
- Walk it, ride it, share it. Walk more! It’s good for you, by the way. Grab a second hand bike and ride it places. I’m not saying you should walk to work (I know I couldn’t, it’s too far) but if you’re popping down to the corner store, do you NEED to drive? Probably not.
- Buy less shit. Okay so you’re awake at 2am and there’s an advertisement on for a toothpaste squeezer which seems like a grouse idea (esp at 2am). So you buy it. Now, do you NEED a toothpaste squeezer? Probably not. So now you have another plastic thing in your house, made from oils in a big old factory, shipped to your country, driven to your postoffice… it’s a waste of energy and time. I’m the last of the great impulse buyers, but I try to think three times about pointless crapola.
- Reuse. You know the best cleaning cloths? Old cotton underwear. I kid you not. Lint free, soft. They’re awesome on windows. So next time you find a hole in your underdaks, toss them in the wash then toss them in the cleaning rag pile. Same goes for t-shirts, awesome cleaning power in a shirt. Carpet underlay is a great weedmat on the garden. Before you toss stuff out, think about using it for something different. Okay you can’t wear your “Frankie Says Relax” shirt in public anymore, but you can most certainly dust with it.
In short, reducing your impact is not hard, and it’s not something anyone expects you to be 100% dedicated to. You don’t have to live in a tent with 17 dreadlocked people in order to show some kind of compassion for the planet. You can enjoy the same life style you have now, but an awareness of how things end up in your house, how they’re processed, developed, produced and delivered will help you make a choice about what you do or do not buy or take part in. I’m not expecting anyone to change their lives as a result of this post, but I’d appreciate it if you’d give it some thought.
My arm hurts.
I don’t like going to the doctor. I avoid it as much as possible. The only real reason I go these days is because I need a certificate for work. If I didn’t have to prove I was sick, I’d generally not bother. I think it goes back to being fucked around by soooo many doctors over the years trying to get a PCOS diagnosis. Having said that though, I do like my local doctors.
When I was born, in the dim hazy days of 1978 (shut up Matt), Dr Kelly arrived mere moments after the big event. He’s still there, in the clinic, seeing people 32 years after opening his clinic. The clinic itself used to be a house, which you can tell by looking at it really. When I was a mere slip of a child it was a waiting room (the old lounge room, boarded up fireplace and all), two or three consulting rooms and possibly a nurses office. These days, with the extensions and modernizing, there’s a dental clinic, physio and 5 consulting rooms, plus large nurses office for the collection of blood and the small GP procedures, which is why I was there today.
Generally speaking, I’ve had only goodness from the doctors there. I say generally because there’s one or two incidents where things didn’t go to plan, but 2 small things in 31 years is a pretty good record, I reckon. I’ve never felt ridiculed, humiliated or bashed by the doctors there, and I think that’s probably one of the most important things. If you can’t feel that you can present with anything – no matter how small – then you’re going to have stuff missed.
I hadn’t seen Dr Kelly the elder (sorry Paul) for a long time, but I went to see him a while back with my stupid ankle. Being as I was a lady having lady problems in my teens, I switched to the female doctors back then. Still, he remembered stuff about me that I’d forgotten, despite the passage of maybe 10 or 15 years since I’d seen him to talk to. My other usual doctors tend to stop for chats as well, my most common GP – Denise – taking great interest in travel plans and whatnot. It’s good, it’s a personal service and it’s nice to have personable doctors. I dare say in a larger clinic it’d be different, but my town isn’t really a rushed sort of place (yet, they’re working on it).
Today’s visit was to get a lump cut out of my arm. The doctor (daughter of the aforementioned Dr Kelly) is 98% certain it’s nothing troublesome, but I’ll get the results next week. In the meantime I’ll just stagger around and make a big fuss out of a small pain in order to get sympathy.
Actually, it *was* racist.
In 1999 a TV show on Aussie TV limped to a thankful end. That show was Hey Hey it’s Saturday, a show that didn’t so much jump the shark as leap the ocean. Over the past couple of weeks there’s been two reunion specials, which have been amazingly well received. I didn’t watch them, to be honest. I mostly remember the show to be cringe worthy (it did start well, it just lost the plan in later years), and it was on at the same time as Spicks and Specks, so you know, had to watch that instead.
Last night the talent segment of the show featured a parody of the Jackson Five, which involved 5 guys in blackface dancing behind a guy with a white painted face. Harry Connick Jr was a judge for the segment and was incredibly offended by it. This is understandable, I’m incredibly offended by it. However, I’m more offended by the attitudes being sploshed around today, which I will now address.
1. It’s only offensive to Americans.
Um. No. Sorry. Australia also has a long history of racism against black people. The White Australia Policy anyone? Raising aboriginal children to be servants and maids? Ring any bells? Sure, the blackface tradition originated in the US, but that doesn’t mean in any way it’s only offensive to Americans to show this sort of thing as “Entertainment”.
2. The movie Tropic Thunder featured an actor in blackface, and no one complained.
Wrong, people DID complain. Loudly.
3. The guy in whiteface was Indian, so it’s okay.
Sorry, no it isn’t. Someone else made the point (and I don’t recall where, probably online somewhere) that racism is racism, regardless of which direction it travels. I’d go along with that.
4. Harry Connick Jr had no right to impose his culture on ours, and shouldn’t have said anything.
Disagree 100%. I’m GLAD Harry said something, I’m glad he explained why he was offended. It’s sad that people believe blackface is okay in Australia though. “Oh he was only offended because he’s American”. Not so, but why should nationality make a difference? Maybe Americans are more sensitive to blackface as a form of racism, perhaps Aussies aren’t as aware of how and why it’s racist, but even so there should be some understanding from the resulting fall out.
5. It’s okay because Daryl Somers (the host) apologised.
Except that he didn’t. He apologised to Harry, yes, because he understood that people from America find it offensive, but he didn’t give a general apology for allowing the act to air in the first place. Big difference.
6. People just want to be offended these days, and make a fuss about nothing.
I’m actually pretty hard to offend. I may not find all comedy funny, but I find very little of it to be offensive. I actually tend to take the above line myself on a lot of things, but in this case – no, I don’t believe it’s a fuss about nothing.
On an episode of the 1970s British comedy “The Goodies” they end the episode in blackface. On the commentary all three of them draw a sharp breath and say, pretty much in unison “I wish we hadn’t done that”. It’s not the 1970s, it’s the 2000s and we’re supposed to, as a culture, be more advanced than we were then. Even understanding that the episode was made in 1976 or whenever, it’s not comfortable to watch.
A few weeks ago Sam Newman held up a photo of a Malaysian man and called him a monkey, and claimed he wasn’t long out of the jungle. Yet he’s still on air. Daryl Somers is aching to get Hey Hey back on air full time, and this incident won’t damage his chances of doing so. THAT is what’s really wrong here – racism is still apparently mainstream entertainment, to be applauded and enjoyed.