Last night for the sake of doing something new and different I spent Friday night sitting at home watching telly with the aul pair. Well not really. I sat in the room while they watched telly and made use of the ample bandwidth to download stuff while occasionally raising my head to pour scorn over the cast of Coronation street or Pat Kenny. Unfortunately in my own house out in Inverin we still don't have the internet as we have only been in communication with Eircom for about a month or so and common sense when dealing with obstacles isn't exactly their forte.
We also only have two stationsin my own house, RTE 1 and 2. This is quite strange as we are only a few kilometres from TG4, but for some reason we can't pick it up, however I generally reckon we have two stations too many. My parents on the other hand have satellite television and hundreds of stations but mostly just watch the Irish terrestrial stations. So while they were catching up on the goings on in Emmerdale and Coronation street I decided to get a bit hip and download some contemporary music. I first downloaded the Fleet Foxes, which is probably the best Neil Young album I've ever heard that isn't actually a Neil Young album. I then decided to get to the bottom of the whole Vampire weekend thing. You see I have had a bader meinhof phenomenon with Vampire weekend for a while now. In case you don't know what a bader meinhof phenomenon is, it doesn't have anything to do with the Red Army Faction but is when you hear of something for the first time and hear about it repeatedly afterwards. A classic example of the bader meinhof phenomenon is the bader meinhof phenomenon, until I heard the name for it I hadn't realised it existed, now I go through at least one a week.
I first heard of Vampire Weekend (although I had heard a couple of the tunes before) in a terrible free music magazine called Analogue, which I found on Fiona's kitchen table, although she didn't know whose it was. Analogue is home of some of the worst writing I have ever had the misfortune to read and mostly consists of pretentious wankers writing about pretentious wankers. You know the sort of article where writers gush over a boring indie band that has only been around for six months and attempt to sing their praises whole sounding intellectual? It is full of those articles. Well anyhow in reading this article I found out that they were a bunch of well off white boys who went to Columbia University and made music which, apparently, was influenced by African music. Some people were giving them a lot of stick for this and accusing them of exploiting Africa and being contrived and so on and so forth. Next I heard that Peter Gabriel was to cover one of their songs as he was mentioned in it and was to collaborate with Hot Chip on this project. Then I went to see The Wrestler (which is a fucking amazing film and everybody should go see it) and in it Randy's daughter had a Vampire Weekend poster up on her wall. So what the hell, I downloaded the album.
I won't say I was disappointed, it's actually quite a good album, but it isn't at all fucking African! What is all this hype about them exploiting African music about? It was a comparable experience to when I was sixteen and heard about an evil satanic band called Marilyn Manson that would get anybody who listened to them damned to hell. I went out and bought the album and my hands trembled as I placed it in the CD player. I suspected that I was about to sell my soul to Satan in exchange for hearing the most rocking album ever. By the end of the first song I had come to a realisation, 'This is shit! This isn't worth going to hell for! It's not even that evil!' So Vampire Weekend are to African Music what Marilyn Manson are to Satan, no fucking relation or at best very distant cousins. I can sort of see how some of it could be regarded as African influenced, but no more so than Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel and they were doing this shit twenty years ago. It is an Indie rock band who own one or two compilations of 'World' music and harp on about it interviews to seem cooler than they actually are. In fact they probably created all this controversy themselves in order to sell more records. Well tough shit to them because I illegally downloaded their album. Although I think it is a decent enough album but I haven't listened to it much yet.
However on the whole Vampire Weekend/The Wrestler connection there is more than meets the eye. In doing a little research on them I found that the founder of a website called stuffwhitepeoplelike.com called them 'the whitest band'. I checked out the website and was in knots. It pretty much just satirizes middle class, liberal, white Americans but does it in a very witty way. White people it seems like Hummus, frisbee games, facebook and amongst others, pea coats. In The Wrestler Randy buys his daughter a pea coat (which his stripper friend helps him pick) so I guess she is one of those particular breed of white people that stuffwhitepeoplelike.com targets, I am also assuming that the people parodied and the people reading the website are one and the same group of people.
Having felt I had spent enough time getting in touch with things I wasn't familiar with I decided to have a look and see if I could get my hands on the first episode of the second series of Flight of the Conchords, it just aired last week in the US. Low and behold there it was on mininova. I downloaded and watched it and what can I say, the lads have done it again. Absolute fucking genius. I had to be honest been a little worried that the second series wouldn't be on a par with the first but it easily matches it and in points even surpasses it. Bizarrely enough the first song is an operatic number sung by Murray. It seems that while the characters of Brett and Germaine in the series are as poor as ever, in real life the lads have managed to secure a bigger budget for this series. I am positively salivating a the thought of the next eleven episodes.
I pulled my headphones out of the laptop as the show ended just in time to see David Bellamy come on to the Late Late Show. Bet you haven't heard of him in a while? Not seen on our screens since the mid nineties it seems that David B is now a denier of climate change, which nowadays is sort of on a par with being a holocaust denier in terms of what it will do for your public image. He claims to be one of thirty four thousand scientists who now believe that the whole thing is nothing more than a scam that has been used as a way of increasing taxes. Some things he said I do agree with. Climate change is being used as a way of increasing taxes and selling carbon credits is on a par with the indulgences charged by the church in the middle ages. But there was a lot of what he said that I found hard to swallow. He claims to be a victim of a conspiracy that chased him off the airwaves because of his views on climate change. However he was last employed by the BBC in 1994 but he only began denying climate change in 2004, in the Daily Mail of all places. Before that he had been vocal in his views on the damage carbon emissions were doing.
He had however stood in the 1997 British general elections on behalf of the Referendum Party, a fringe party and this had done tremendous damage to his career. For years he had been saying it was this action which had got him booted off the telly (despite the fact he hadn't been with the BBC for three years before the election). He went on to write other articles about climate change using figures which were proved to be false. When he was fired from the boards of two charities he had been involved with for years he then attempted to withdraw his claims but when this failed to have him reinstated he went back to denying that mankind were having an effect on the climate. It seems that David Bellamy is to Botany what David Icke is to snooker. Pat Kenny however failed to raise any of these points with Bellamy and indeed failed to ask him any probing questions of any sort. It was an absolute disgrace. Five minutes of googling would have revealed all sorts of holes in Bellamy's claims but nobody it seems bothered to do even the most minuscule amount of research. RTE it seems fucked up in fine style yet again. Here's an idea, fire Pat Kenny and hire twenty competent people instead of one dull, conservative stick wearing make up who gets paid nearly a million Euro a year.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Black Skin, White Politics
Call me a pessimist if you want but I have been saying for over a year now that Obama won't change a fucking thing. But now at last the test can begin. I hate saying I told you so. I hate being right so often. I hated being right about the collapse of the Irish economy and the inevitable crisis in Global Capitalism. I hated being right about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But you know what I am certainly not the only one who thinks the way I do. There are hundreds of millions, possibly even billions of people on the planet who react with cynicism to the bile churned out by the builders of consensus.
Change and Hope are nothing but words. In themselves they mean nothing. Obama is nothing but a political parrot constantly repeating what he knows people want to hear. Of course people want change! Of course people want to be able to live in hope rather than fear! That's why he says it! Not because he means it but because he knows it's what people want to hear. It is also why he won the election. The establishment had to let the black guy win because otherwise people would have lost faith in the system. After eight years of Bush if another Republican had won people would have realised what is called democracy is nothing more than a sham. So the establishment bought itself another couple of years by slipping on a new mask. Make it look as if the system can change from the inside. People won't feel obliged to organise in their communities and workplaces to agitate for real social change and by the time they see through Obama we'll have conjured up another illusion to trick the people into supporting a system which exists only to exploit them.
Speaking of masks I would suggest that now is an excellent time for people to read Frantz Fanon. His excellent Black Skin, White Masks like most great books has yet to have the impact it should on society. Fanon was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, a French colony. He was indoctrinated from an early age by the French colonisers to believe that he could gain acceptance by imitating their manner of doing things. As a result he eventually went on to become a psychoanalyst, a truly noble and middle class aspiration. However Fanon's experiences inside the French establishment and in France led him to a startling realisation. No matter how hard a black person tried to do the things in the way Whites wanted them to they would always be marginalised and discriminated against.
His activities in psychoanalysis now began to take a new form. He stated that colonised people take on the languages and culture of their colonisers in order to overcome an inferiority complex or a sense of alienation which has arisen as a direct result of being colonised. In essence they slip on a white mask as they see it as the only way to combat the malaise which has arisen out of their experiences as an oppressed people. Nations such as Britain and France always excelled in creating native elites. That is finding a section of the colonised people whom the favoured over others in order to educate and indoctrinate them into doing the bidding of their colonial masters. They create a native middle class, who are to relate more closely to their oppressors than their fellow oppressed. This system has led to the continuation of imperialism long after nations have attained their flag independence as the proteges of the erstwhile colonisers carry on in a business as usual manner and continue to implement the economic and social systems dictated to them by the coloniser. Fanon's experiences eventually led him to Algeria where he became involved with the FLN and their struggle for national liberation. It was in Algeria that he wrote his other great work The Wretched of the Earth.
So how does all this relate to Barak Obama? Well Obama's skin might be black but his politics aren't. It is exceedingly naïve to assume that a change in President will make any difference in the first place but the hype about Obama has reached an unprecedented level. Firstly because of his skin colour and secondly because of his rhetoric which rings hollower than the vaults of Anglo Irish Bank. So everybody else can feel free to wet themselves with excitement if they want but excuse me if I choose not to. I am a Marxist. But do you even know what I mean when I say that? I apply a class analysis to politics. The world is divided into lots of different groups but there is one group that dominates them all, the bourgeoisie. These are the elite businessmen who tell politicians what to do. They have crushed the ability of the people to resist by turning them against each other and brainwashing them. They have made the most effective tool for social change, the Unions their lapdogs and tell us that any time anybody struggles for social justice that it is bad for business and therefore bad for the country.
These are people who wouldn't even have let Obama be nominated if they thought he was actually going to change anything. We live in a world without democracy. We live in a world of smoke and mirrors and media sensationalism where a tiny elite have decided what is to be done before we even knew there was a decision to be made. Just look at the example of the Lisbon treaty here in Europe, living proof that politicians don't feel that people can be trusted to make their own decisions.
The lot of the millions of disadvantaged black people in America has not changed overnight because somebody of mixed race played by all the rules set down by the establishment and was awarded with high office. The primary form of discrimination suffered by African Americans is economic and social and has arisen as a direct result of the experiences which brought them to America in the first place, namely slavery. In the same way a colonised people can behave in the way the oppressor wishes them to and gain the upper hand over their countrymen so too an African American can become middle class or upper middle class, but he is not elevating the lot of his race. He is making a cynical bid for power and represents only self interest.
Obama is nothing more than a poster boy for the establishment, he is as much of a puppet as Bush because fundamentally nothing has changed with the election of Obama and nothing is going to. If we want to see change in the world then we are going to have look wider than the options presented to us by tweedle dum and tweedle dee political parties every few years. Feel free to disagree with me now but lets talk about it in six months or a year and see who was right.
Change and Hope are nothing but words. In themselves they mean nothing. Obama is nothing but a political parrot constantly repeating what he knows people want to hear. Of course people want change! Of course people want to be able to live in hope rather than fear! That's why he says it! Not because he means it but because he knows it's what people want to hear. It is also why he won the election. The establishment had to let the black guy win because otherwise people would have lost faith in the system. After eight years of Bush if another Republican had won people would have realised what is called democracy is nothing more than a sham. So the establishment bought itself another couple of years by slipping on a new mask. Make it look as if the system can change from the inside. People won't feel obliged to organise in their communities and workplaces to agitate for real social change and by the time they see through Obama we'll have conjured up another illusion to trick the people into supporting a system which exists only to exploit them.
Speaking of masks I would suggest that now is an excellent time for people to read Frantz Fanon. His excellent Black Skin, White Masks like most great books has yet to have the impact it should on society. Fanon was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, a French colony. He was indoctrinated from an early age by the French colonisers to believe that he could gain acceptance by imitating their manner of doing things. As a result he eventually went on to become a psychoanalyst, a truly noble and middle class aspiration. However Fanon's experiences inside the French establishment and in France led him to a startling realisation. No matter how hard a black person tried to do the things in the way Whites wanted them to they would always be marginalised and discriminated against.
His activities in psychoanalysis now began to take a new form. He stated that colonised people take on the languages and culture of their colonisers in order to overcome an inferiority complex or a sense of alienation which has arisen as a direct result of being colonised. In essence they slip on a white mask as they see it as the only way to combat the malaise which has arisen out of their experiences as an oppressed people. Nations such as Britain and France always excelled in creating native elites. That is finding a section of the colonised people whom the favoured over others in order to educate and indoctrinate them into doing the bidding of their colonial masters. They create a native middle class, who are to relate more closely to their oppressors than their fellow oppressed. This system has led to the continuation of imperialism long after nations have attained their flag independence as the proteges of the erstwhile colonisers carry on in a business as usual manner and continue to implement the economic and social systems dictated to them by the coloniser. Fanon's experiences eventually led him to Algeria where he became involved with the FLN and their struggle for national liberation. It was in Algeria that he wrote his other great work The Wretched of the Earth.
So how does all this relate to Barak Obama? Well Obama's skin might be black but his politics aren't. It is exceedingly naïve to assume that a change in President will make any difference in the first place but the hype about Obama has reached an unprecedented level. Firstly because of his skin colour and secondly because of his rhetoric which rings hollower than the vaults of Anglo Irish Bank. So everybody else can feel free to wet themselves with excitement if they want but excuse me if I choose not to. I am a Marxist. But do you even know what I mean when I say that? I apply a class analysis to politics. The world is divided into lots of different groups but there is one group that dominates them all, the bourgeoisie. These are the elite businessmen who tell politicians what to do. They have crushed the ability of the people to resist by turning them against each other and brainwashing them. They have made the most effective tool for social change, the Unions their lapdogs and tell us that any time anybody struggles for social justice that it is bad for business and therefore bad for the country.
These are people who wouldn't even have let Obama be nominated if they thought he was actually going to change anything. We live in a world without democracy. We live in a world of smoke and mirrors and media sensationalism where a tiny elite have decided what is to be done before we even knew there was a decision to be made. Just look at the example of the Lisbon treaty here in Europe, living proof that politicians don't feel that people can be trusted to make their own decisions.
The lot of the millions of disadvantaged black people in America has not changed overnight because somebody of mixed race played by all the rules set down by the establishment and was awarded with high office. The primary form of discrimination suffered by African Americans is economic and social and has arisen as a direct result of the experiences which brought them to America in the first place, namely slavery. In the same way a colonised people can behave in the way the oppressor wishes them to and gain the upper hand over their countrymen so too an African American can become middle class or upper middle class, but he is not elevating the lot of his race. He is making a cynical bid for power and represents only self interest.
Obama is nothing more than a poster boy for the establishment, he is as much of a puppet as Bush because fundamentally nothing has changed with the election of Obama and nothing is going to. If we want to see change in the world then we are going to have look wider than the options presented to us by tweedle dum and tweedle dee political parties every few years. Feel free to disagree with me now but lets talk about it in six months or a year and see who was right.
The mumps diaries
These are two entries I wrote while sick with mumps a few months back. I posted them to my facebook page but not here. So hwere they are;
1. The Long Read to Finish
So here I am trying to find an upside to being sick, bearing mind that I'm contagious and nobody wants to see me I pretty much have to amuse myself (no not like that you dirty feckers).
So it really did seem like the ideal time to finish off Nelson Mandela's autobiography, The Long Walk to Freedom. Now this book and I go back a long way. I bought it for two euro in Harambee second hand shop in Galway three years ago. At the time I lived across the road and Hassan, from Somalia, who volunteered there always appreciated my comapny and interest in Africa and would sell me things at extrememly reasonable prices.
As a result I have a few more books I never got a round to reading and cassettes by Cat Stevens, Hank Williams and Handell that I still haven't managed to get onto my MP3 player.
On the basis of its size alone two euro seemed very good value of Mandela's book, so I bought it stuck it on the shelf and thought, 'I'll get around to reading that someday.
It remained there until a few weeks ago. Having just finished Jon Snow's Shooting history I made the mistaken move of following it up with another autobiography. You see I have a problem with books that once I start them I have to finish them even if I don't like them. Otherwise I don't think I've read it and therefore I'm not really in a position to not like it. Of course in this time I could have read five or six books I liked but that's not the point.
Snow's book had dragged on as I find autobiographies usually tend to do and by the time I finished I thought, 'I'll give Mandela a shot, sure isn't his birthday coming up.' Not that I was aware of Mandela reading anything I ever wrote because it was my birthday.
Anyhow that was weeks ago and of course I had convinced myself that the reason it was taking so long was because it was a long book and I didn't have much time etc. But now with time for detailed study I realise the reason the book is actually taking so long is that it is in fact pretty boring.
First I would like to clear one thing up. Mandella did not end apartheid. Millions of ordinary people across South Africa brought apartheid to an end through strikes, civil disobedience and riots and a variety of other means.
However as always happens in any liberation movement (Ireland included) a native elite holds back the people from achieving true economic freedom by retaining power for themselves and ensuring that all that really changes is the flag.
So while the ANC might have been the first black government of South Africa they oversaw the continuation of economic apartheid where the Black elite came to sit at the table with the white elite and very little changed for the millions of people who had suffered the most and continued to suffer. (I would recommend Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, for a detailed discussion on the role of the native elites and James Connolly's Labour and Irish History for an explanation of how Capitalism and Imperialism work hand in hand).
Of course Mandela was in prison while apartheid crumbled. It wasn't a case of him being released and apartheid falling overnight, it was a case of him being released so that when the inevitable collapse of apartheid came South Africa would have a moderate leader who would not pursue Socialist economic policies. It is no coincidence that the West only really pushed for the end of apartheid after the collapse of the Societ Union when they were sure that a non apartheid South Africa would not be Communist.
So Mandela was in prison while millions of others brought about the beginning of the end of apartheid so why is he given all the credit? And also prison is really boring and while the beginning of his book and life was interesting the twenty seven years of his life in prison are extremely boring to read about, extremely boring!
So happy birthday Nelson, sorry I didn't send you a card.
2. The Ramblings of a Delerious Vaccinated but Uncircumcised Man
I would like to point out that as I write this I am delerious from over the counter pain kiillers...
Funny how I've only written one note before and I was extremely accurate. Anyhow I'm here at home in quarantine suffering from mumps (thankfully it hasn't spread to my bollox) and reading up a little on mumps.
It turns out there are anti vaccination activists. That's interesting, I wonder why? I myself recieved the MMR vaccine and numerous others altough my mumps vaccination seems to have done me fuck all good.
By why are people against vaccinations? Are there many of these people and who are they? What are there arguments?
But there are all sorts of activists. I recently discovered that there are people who campaign against male circumcision, who don't have their case highlighted nearly as much as those who campaign against female circumcision. After doing a bit of research on the internet I am glad I'm not circumcised as it does seem to be an arcane practise that serves no purpose but I'm not sure I'd make stamping it out my number one cause. My only grievance with the whole thing is that I once dated an Israeli girl who wouldn't give me head as I wasn't circumcised. My view was that I was suffering because of her prejudices, I felt discriminated against. However given the things she said about Palestinians I think we can just write her off as a right wing lunatic. (I have also dated a non practising Muslim girl who didn't have the same qualms but likewise there are plenty of European girls who won't do it and provide no cultural, religious or social reasons).
Living in Africa is what really exposed me to the whole thing of circumcision as a rite of passage though. Certain tribes circumcise and certain tribes don't, however it seems the ritual is what counts not the actual foreskin but the rite of passage. it seems that the more painful the experience the better and it is tied up with a variety of other rituals.
Things really heated up over circumcision in Kenya when Raila won the election and Kikuyu's said they would not be ruled by him as he was not a man as he had not been circumcised. Now of course there was a lot more to it than this (and yes Raila did when the election. And I have no preference for either Raila or Kibaki as they are both crooks). Surely having male genitalia is what makes one a man, not having it mutilated? The Mungiki (a Kikuyu sect) went out and started carrying out DIY circumcisions on the street on Luo men. Something which seems both nasty and unnecessary. I guess we could class them as circumcision activists then.
It's funny what gets people worked up isn't it? I mean there are lots of causes out there some more worthy than others and I always try to see people's point of view but I always have a look at their motivating factors. Take for example some of the headcases who opposed the Lisbon treaty because they are racist and xenophobic. I opposed the LIsbon treaty but for completely different reasons to them and I wouldn't ever share a platform with them. Like I say you have to look at people's motivating factors.
So I am still not sure why there are people campaigning against vaccination. I must have had vaccinations against over a dozen diseases now and it has done me no real harm and the amazing thing is I can't even say if it has done me good or not, that's the whole point of a vaccine. Perhaps they just aren't getting their message across clearly enough. As for people campaigning against circumcision, well anecdotal evidence suggests uncircumcised men are better in bed and most medical councils are opposed to it but mince their words when saying so (goodness knows why).
1. The Long Read to Finish
So here I am trying to find an upside to being sick, bearing mind that I'm contagious and nobody wants to see me I pretty much have to amuse myself (no not like that you dirty feckers).
So it really did seem like the ideal time to finish off Nelson Mandela's autobiography, The Long Walk to Freedom. Now this book and I go back a long way. I bought it for two euro in Harambee second hand shop in Galway three years ago. At the time I lived across the road and Hassan, from Somalia, who volunteered there always appreciated my comapny and interest in Africa and would sell me things at extrememly reasonable prices.
As a result I have a few more books I never got a round to reading and cassettes by Cat Stevens, Hank Williams and Handell that I still haven't managed to get onto my MP3 player.
On the basis of its size alone two euro seemed very good value of Mandela's book, so I bought it stuck it on the shelf and thought, 'I'll get around to reading that someday.
It remained there until a few weeks ago. Having just finished Jon Snow's Shooting history I made the mistaken move of following it up with another autobiography. You see I have a problem with books that once I start them I have to finish them even if I don't like them. Otherwise I don't think I've read it and therefore I'm not really in a position to not like it. Of course in this time I could have read five or six books I liked but that's not the point.
Snow's book had dragged on as I find autobiographies usually tend to do and by the time I finished I thought, 'I'll give Mandela a shot, sure isn't his birthday coming up.' Not that I was aware of Mandela reading anything I ever wrote because it was my birthday.
Anyhow that was weeks ago and of course I had convinced myself that the reason it was taking so long was because it was a long book and I didn't have much time etc. But now with time for detailed study I realise the reason the book is actually taking so long is that it is in fact pretty boring.
First I would like to clear one thing up. Mandella did not end apartheid. Millions of ordinary people across South Africa brought apartheid to an end through strikes, civil disobedience and riots and a variety of other means.
However as always happens in any liberation movement (Ireland included) a native elite holds back the people from achieving true economic freedom by retaining power for themselves and ensuring that all that really changes is the flag.
So while the ANC might have been the first black government of South Africa they oversaw the continuation of economic apartheid where the Black elite came to sit at the table with the white elite and very little changed for the millions of people who had suffered the most and continued to suffer. (I would recommend Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, for a detailed discussion on the role of the native elites and James Connolly's Labour and Irish History for an explanation of how Capitalism and Imperialism work hand in hand).
Of course Mandela was in prison while apartheid crumbled. It wasn't a case of him being released and apartheid falling overnight, it was a case of him being released so that when the inevitable collapse of apartheid came South Africa would have a moderate leader who would not pursue Socialist economic policies. It is no coincidence that the West only really pushed for the end of apartheid after the collapse of the Societ Union when they were sure that a non apartheid South Africa would not be Communist.
So Mandela was in prison while millions of others brought about the beginning of the end of apartheid so why is he given all the credit? And also prison is really boring and while the beginning of his book and life was interesting the twenty seven years of his life in prison are extremely boring to read about, extremely boring!
So happy birthday Nelson, sorry I didn't send you a card.
2. The Ramblings of a Delerious Vaccinated but Uncircumcised Man
I would like to point out that as I write this I am delerious from over the counter pain kiillers...
Funny how I've only written one note before and I was extremely accurate. Anyhow I'm here at home in quarantine suffering from mumps (thankfully it hasn't spread to my bollox) and reading up a little on mumps.
It turns out there are anti vaccination activists. That's interesting, I wonder why? I myself recieved the MMR vaccine and numerous others altough my mumps vaccination seems to have done me fuck all good.
By why are people against vaccinations? Are there many of these people and who are they? What are there arguments?
But there are all sorts of activists. I recently discovered that there are people who campaign against male circumcision, who don't have their case highlighted nearly as much as those who campaign against female circumcision. After doing a bit of research on the internet I am glad I'm not circumcised as it does seem to be an arcane practise that serves no purpose but I'm not sure I'd make stamping it out my number one cause. My only grievance with the whole thing is that I once dated an Israeli girl who wouldn't give me head as I wasn't circumcised. My view was that I was suffering because of her prejudices, I felt discriminated against. However given the things she said about Palestinians I think we can just write her off as a right wing lunatic. (I have also dated a non practising Muslim girl who didn't have the same qualms but likewise there are plenty of European girls who won't do it and provide no cultural, religious or social reasons).
Living in Africa is what really exposed me to the whole thing of circumcision as a rite of passage though. Certain tribes circumcise and certain tribes don't, however it seems the ritual is what counts not the actual foreskin but the rite of passage. it seems that the more painful the experience the better and it is tied up with a variety of other rituals.
Things really heated up over circumcision in Kenya when Raila won the election and Kikuyu's said they would not be ruled by him as he was not a man as he had not been circumcised. Now of course there was a lot more to it than this (and yes Raila did when the election. And I have no preference for either Raila or Kibaki as they are both crooks). Surely having male genitalia is what makes one a man, not having it mutilated? The Mungiki (a Kikuyu sect) went out and started carrying out DIY circumcisions on the street on Luo men. Something which seems both nasty and unnecessary. I guess we could class them as circumcision activists then.
It's funny what gets people worked up isn't it? I mean there are lots of causes out there some more worthy than others and I always try to see people's point of view but I always have a look at their motivating factors. Take for example some of the headcases who opposed the Lisbon treaty because they are racist and xenophobic. I opposed the LIsbon treaty but for completely different reasons to them and I wouldn't ever share a platform with them. Like I say you have to look at people's motivating factors.
So I am still not sure why there are people campaigning against vaccination. I must have had vaccinations against over a dozen diseases now and it has done me no real harm and the amazing thing is I can't even say if it has done me good or not, that's the whole point of a vaccine. Perhaps they just aren't getting their message across clearly enough. As for people campaigning against circumcision, well anecdotal evidence suggests uncircumcised men are better in bed and most medical councils are opposed to it but mince their words when saying so (goodness knows why).
Sure it's only a bit of craic
What's the difference between a yoghurt and an Australian? A yoghurt has culture. Well it's not very funny I know, but it is a joke I like to tell my Australian friends. All a bit of fun you know. It's not the worst of them though. I mean I know a lot of people who consider themselves left wing or liberal and still like to make racist and xenophobic jokes, but it's all a good laugh you know.
Sure why not show that you are not a politically correct stick in the mud by having a go at blacks or gays. It's all meant in good fun.
So it's all grand we can joke about Poles and Chinks all we like because sure we don't really mean it. Of course we aren't creating a climate of oppression, it's all meant in good fun. We're intelligent and well intentioned people so we can make racist jokes. It's only other people who actually mean it. I mean, the Irish never oppressed anyone did they? God no, we are the most unfortunate shower of potato deprived bastards ever to walk the planet. Sure if somebody doesn't know we're joking when we call them a nigger it's because they have no sense of humour.
Racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, it's all just a bit of craic sure. I mean, if a white European man can't have a bit of a laugh at somebody else's expense then what is the world coming to? Because remember folks, whatever we think about our past, our present as part of the neoimperialist regime that is the European Union sort of eradicates any sense of us being one of the most impressed people on earth.
And sure don't the right thinking and progressive minds scorn when they hear somebody giving out about asylum seekers. They look on the utterer of such comments as nothing but an ignorant racist. But they themselves can have a go at both Jews and Muslims because it's only a bit of craic. I mean what harm is there in it?
We live in the age of post-political correctness. We live in a post age. Everything is post something. It's as if as a species we have given up on progressing any further, as if we have bought into Fukayama's myth about the End of History. Political Correctness itself was a very Orwellian concept from the beginning, the idea that we could eradicate discrimination by eliminating discriminatory language. It was farcical to begin with and only gave more ammunition to bigots. First of all we were faced by the old fashioned sort of stand up comedian giving out about Political Correctness because people criticised him for making jokes about Pakis, Micks and beating his wife. These characters would go on talk shows and lament about how it was all only a bit of fun and people shouldn't take it so seriously.
Then bigots realised something wonderful, political correctness was actual the perfect vehicle for their bigotry. Niggers was substituted for asylum seekers or African and they weren't discriminated against because of the colour of their skin but apparently because the government gave them buggies. It's true, sure we've all heard about how your cousin's, girlfriend's, sister's, friend's, husband's, brother lives next door to a family of them and they all have eight thousand Euro buggies even if they don't have kids. Sure aren't the government only encouraging them to breed by giving them buggies! And then they sell the kids to Angelina Jolie and make a fortune. But it's not that they're black at all, certainly not! No these are the views expressed by well intentioned citizens who are only concerned about how their tax money is spent.
Homophobia is a tricky one. I mean if you speak out against it people think you're gay. If you're against homophobia then everyone assumes that you are a cock jockey. So let me state for the record that I love pussy, mad about it, can't get enough of it. Would it eat if for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So if I stick up for the gays don't get the wrong idea, I'm completely into birds and only birds. I just think about tits and pussy all day long. So now have stated clearly that I love pussy, I now feel confident to take a stand on behalf of the poor marginalised gays. Not of course that anybody discriminates against them any more. No, equal opportunities and all that. Unless of course they want to marry or adopt. Because it's just that you see we hear so much these days about the sanctity of marriage and two men can't adopt a baby because well, you know the family is a the heart of our constitution, don't you know. I mean the government will shit all over the constitution to surrender more and more power to the politburo of the EU but we have to make sure that gays can't have a normal family life because it's enshrined in the constitution. Not, of course, that straight people bother getting married any more. It seems the only ones who want to get married are gay couples. Two other people no matter how unsuitable they are for each other can get married and live miserably ever after but gays can't. Also the level of unplanned pregnancies is through the roof but it is OK for a straight person to have a baby even if they didn't mean to and don't want it but two gay men or women in a loving relationship can't plan to adopt and raise a child. But there are of course plenty of reasonable explanations that all fit inside the realm of political correctness.
And as for the Muslims? Well you know that their culture and ours aren't compatible. I mean nobody ever discriminates against them it seems, in fact I have often been told that it is them who discriminate against us. So once again unrestrained bigotry slips on the veil of political correctness and can freely vent its views in the mainstream media without fear of reprimand. But using all the right words and pressing all the right buttons the modern bigot will find any number of platforms for their message. But you know the media has a responsibility to air all of these views. It's about balance you know. At least that's what they tell us. They don't it seems have any responsibility to ever clear up any of these issues apart from the occasional token effort to present a view from the other side of the fence. They also never attempt to portray such bigotry as anything other than inevitable and not the result of a predatory capitalistic system which aims to create division by turning people on each other like scavenging animals while an elite can carefully control the world while the most of us are so busy venting hate at people who are just as or more marginalised than us.
So why lament the decline of political correctness if it never achieved anything but to encourage discrimination? Well, it is not the decline of political correctness that I am lamenting but rather the fact that those of us who should know better can still make light of the situations of other people while ignoring the challenges they face on a daily basis and think it makes us cool. It's just a bit fucking juvenile really.
Sure why not show that you are not a politically correct stick in the mud by having a go at blacks or gays. It's all meant in good fun.
So it's all grand we can joke about Poles and Chinks all we like because sure we don't really mean it. Of course we aren't creating a climate of oppression, it's all meant in good fun. We're intelligent and well intentioned people so we can make racist jokes. It's only other people who actually mean it. I mean, the Irish never oppressed anyone did they? God no, we are the most unfortunate shower of potato deprived bastards ever to walk the planet. Sure if somebody doesn't know we're joking when we call them a nigger it's because they have no sense of humour.
Racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, it's all just a bit of craic sure. I mean, if a white European man can't have a bit of a laugh at somebody else's expense then what is the world coming to? Because remember folks, whatever we think about our past, our present as part of the neoimperialist regime that is the European Union sort of eradicates any sense of us being one of the most impressed people on earth.
And sure don't the right thinking and progressive minds scorn when they hear somebody giving out about asylum seekers. They look on the utterer of such comments as nothing but an ignorant racist. But they themselves can have a go at both Jews and Muslims because it's only a bit of craic. I mean what harm is there in it?
We live in the age of post-political correctness. We live in a post age. Everything is post something. It's as if as a species we have given up on progressing any further, as if we have bought into Fukayama's myth about the End of History. Political Correctness itself was a very Orwellian concept from the beginning, the idea that we could eradicate discrimination by eliminating discriminatory language. It was farcical to begin with and only gave more ammunition to bigots. First of all we were faced by the old fashioned sort of stand up comedian giving out about Political Correctness because people criticised him for making jokes about Pakis, Micks and beating his wife. These characters would go on talk shows and lament about how it was all only a bit of fun and people shouldn't take it so seriously.
Then bigots realised something wonderful, political correctness was actual the perfect vehicle for their bigotry. Niggers was substituted for asylum seekers or African and they weren't discriminated against because of the colour of their skin but apparently because the government gave them buggies. It's true, sure we've all heard about how your cousin's, girlfriend's, sister's, friend's, husband's, brother lives next door to a family of them and they all have eight thousand Euro buggies even if they don't have kids. Sure aren't the government only encouraging them to breed by giving them buggies! And then they sell the kids to Angelina Jolie and make a fortune. But it's not that they're black at all, certainly not! No these are the views expressed by well intentioned citizens who are only concerned about how their tax money is spent.
Homophobia is a tricky one. I mean if you speak out against it people think you're gay. If you're against homophobia then everyone assumes that you are a cock jockey. So let me state for the record that I love pussy, mad about it, can't get enough of it. Would it eat if for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So if I stick up for the gays don't get the wrong idea, I'm completely into birds and only birds. I just think about tits and pussy all day long. So now have stated clearly that I love pussy, I now feel confident to take a stand on behalf of the poor marginalised gays. Not of course that anybody discriminates against them any more. No, equal opportunities and all that. Unless of course they want to marry or adopt. Because it's just that you see we hear so much these days about the sanctity of marriage and two men can't adopt a baby because well, you know the family is a the heart of our constitution, don't you know. I mean the government will shit all over the constitution to surrender more and more power to the politburo of the EU but we have to make sure that gays can't have a normal family life because it's enshrined in the constitution. Not, of course, that straight people bother getting married any more. It seems the only ones who want to get married are gay couples. Two other people no matter how unsuitable they are for each other can get married and live miserably ever after but gays can't. Also the level of unplanned pregnancies is through the roof but it is OK for a straight person to have a baby even if they didn't mean to and don't want it but two gay men or women in a loving relationship can't plan to adopt and raise a child. But there are of course plenty of reasonable explanations that all fit inside the realm of political correctness.
And as for the Muslims? Well you know that their culture and ours aren't compatible. I mean nobody ever discriminates against them it seems, in fact I have often been told that it is them who discriminate against us. So once again unrestrained bigotry slips on the veil of political correctness and can freely vent its views in the mainstream media without fear of reprimand. But using all the right words and pressing all the right buttons the modern bigot will find any number of platforms for their message. But you know the media has a responsibility to air all of these views. It's about balance you know. At least that's what they tell us. They don't it seems have any responsibility to ever clear up any of these issues apart from the occasional token effort to present a view from the other side of the fence. They also never attempt to portray such bigotry as anything other than inevitable and not the result of a predatory capitalistic system which aims to create division by turning people on each other like scavenging animals while an elite can carefully control the world while the most of us are so busy venting hate at people who are just as or more marginalised than us.
So why lament the decline of political correctness if it never achieved anything but to encourage discrimination? Well, it is not the decline of political correctness that I am lamenting but rather the fact that those of us who should know better can still make light of the situations of other people while ignoring the challenges they face on a daily basis and think it makes us cool. It's just a bit fucking juvenile really.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Recession Obcession
I think it's a bout time that we as a nation owned up tot he fact that we are really enjoying this recession. Possibly not as much as we thought we were going to, but enjoying it none the less. How else can we explain our obsession with talking about it and our nostalgia for all the other recessions we remember. I have just been watching Reeling in the 80s a DVD of clips from the 80s which were part of the Reeling in the Years series. The recurrent themes are strikes and the Eurovision song contest as well as the odd clip of since disgraced politicians. My house-mate Alan got it for Christmas. Over Christmas I also watched the DVD of the best of the Den, from those days in RTE when budgets were small and hair was big. My friend Neil got that one for Christmas.
You see as a nation we like to feel hard done by. We have always liked the idea of 800 years of oppression and having to emigrate because the spuds were rotten in the ground and so on and so forth. Affluence didn't sit very well with us, not that we were all that affluent it turns out, it just so happened that banks were willing to lend people money like there was no tomorrow and people were willing to take it. Sure there were plenty of jobs for a while but were we really any better off? In some regards, yes. If you are the sort of person who judges a society by the prevalence of flat screen TVs and silicone breasts we were doing well. If on the other hand you are the sort of person who judges a society on the access its citizens have to health care and the quality of its rail network we were doing extremely badly.
It turns out that not charging taxes to large corporations who were free to take massive amounts of capital out of the country wasn't the best of ideas. We were told it was the only way and that ultimately it would be good for us but here we are now moving towards the second decade of the twenty first century without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. We were told that privatisation was the way forward but now we don't even have the public services or secure jobs that existed in the eighty's. After over a decade of an abundance of lowly paid, non unionised, insecure jobs we are faced with scenes eerily similar to those of the 80s or at least it's heading that way and Irish people don't really seem to mind all that much. A large section of the population are longing for the days when we win the Eurovision and beat England in soccer on an almost annual basis. It might seem a bit romantic but we are a romantic people, apparently.
The media have been at the for of this nostalgia drive, it was like they were hanging around outside social welfare offices waiting for the queue to grow long enough to make the front page. RTE started churning out the nostalgia DVDs in time for Christmas and Brewing up a Storm by The Stunning started to receive regular airplay. Headlines screamed about a return to the eighties and it seemed that at times they even hoped it could be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Ireland however could never return to the eighties and here is why;
Celebrities
Ireland nowadays has a different class of celebrity. We will no longer be satisfied with celebrities of the calibre of Twink, Maxi and Derek Davis. Nowadays we want celebrities like Katie French, who never did anything of merit in her life and then took a heap of drugs and died. We now expect out celebrities to be young, thin and talentless. The likes of Simon Young wouldn't get a look in any more.
Music
The Irish music scene nowadays is a bleak and soulless place. There was a time when we were blessed with bands like The Sultans of Ping, The Frank and Walters, An Emotional Fish, The Stunning and A House. It sort of ties in with the whole celebrity thing, these were extremely unattractive and very talented people. They could write a decent tune and perform it in a wry and detached manner while getting kids to dance at the same time. It's just not the sort of thing that young lad from up the North who won X Factor could do. But he dresses stylishly and has nice teeth, it's only a matter of time until Louis Walsh buggers him, if he hasn't already.
Clothes and Hair
After over a decade of exposure to BT2 and Toni and Guy I just can't see the Irish returning to to perms and polyester jumpers. There was a time when the average Irish person thought Yves St. Laurent was the French foreign minister and Tommy Hilfiger was a mountaineer. Nowadays however people have haircuts named after characters on TV and there is a special breed of women driving Mini Coopers for whom death would be preferable to wearing something baggy.
Television
Television sets in RTE used to look like they were designed by Samuel Beckett's colour blind cousin. They were minimal and looked like their colours were inspired by something you'd see on a footpath in O'Connell street on a Sunday morning. Most home made shows involved a studio audience packed with unemployed people discussing how listening to The Cure defined them as a person. The presenter always looked as bad as most of the audience and everybody looked as if they had cycled there on a racer. Nowadays RTE has blessed us with Colm and Jim Jim's Home Run which is shit and has a massive and horrendously expensive looking set without going anywhere near the sort of high quality entertainment that Russian Roulette as presented by Maxi brought to us. Also we now have more than two stations and are more likely to be corrupted by outside influences.
Hating Americans
We used to love them. Everybody had relations there and everybody went there to work as a roofer. However eventually they had all the roofs they needed and we started to get annoyed with them and their loud and ignorant ways. Once we were able to afford the haircuts we saw on TV we decided they were no better than us and eventually we started to feel superior to them as they were fat and had no culture and were prone to invading people. In other words we just adopted the French perspective on the Issue.
Talking about the Recession
Back in the 80s we talked about stuff other than recession, back then nobody called it a recession it was just known as Ireland.
You see as a nation we like to feel hard done by. We have always liked the idea of 800 years of oppression and having to emigrate because the spuds were rotten in the ground and so on and so forth. Affluence didn't sit very well with us, not that we were all that affluent it turns out, it just so happened that banks were willing to lend people money like there was no tomorrow and people were willing to take it. Sure there were plenty of jobs for a while but were we really any better off? In some regards, yes. If you are the sort of person who judges a society by the prevalence of flat screen TVs and silicone breasts we were doing well. If on the other hand you are the sort of person who judges a society on the access its citizens have to health care and the quality of its rail network we were doing extremely badly.
It turns out that not charging taxes to large corporations who were free to take massive amounts of capital out of the country wasn't the best of ideas. We were told it was the only way and that ultimately it would be good for us but here we are now moving towards the second decade of the twenty first century without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. We were told that privatisation was the way forward but now we don't even have the public services or secure jobs that existed in the eighty's. After over a decade of an abundance of lowly paid, non unionised, insecure jobs we are faced with scenes eerily similar to those of the 80s or at least it's heading that way and Irish people don't really seem to mind all that much. A large section of the population are longing for the days when we win the Eurovision and beat England in soccer on an almost annual basis. It might seem a bit romantic but we are a romantic people, apparently.
The media have been at the for of this nostalgia drive, it was like they were hanging around outside social welfare offices waiting for the queue to grow long enough to make the front page. RTE started churning out the nostalgia DVDs in time for Christmas and Brewing up a Storm by The Stunning started to receive regular airplay. Headlines screamed about a return to the eighties and it seemed that at times they even hoped it could be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Ireland however could never return to the eighties and here is why;
Celebrities
Ireland nowadays has a different class of celebrity. We will no longer be satisfied with celebrities of the calibre of Twink, Maxi and Derek Davis. Nowadays we want celebrities like Katie French, who never did anything of merit in her life and then took a heap of drugs and died. We now expect out celebrities to be young, thin and talentless. The likes of Simon Young wouldn't get a look in any more.
Music
The Irish music scene nowadays is a bleak and soulless place. There was a time when we were blessed with bands like The Sultans of Ping, The Frank and Walters, An Emotional Fish, The Stunning and A House. It sort of ties in with the whole celebrity thing, these were extremely unattractive and very talented people. They could write a decent tune and perform it in a wry and detached manner while getting kids to dance at the same time. It's just not the sort of thing that young lad from up the North who won X Factor could do. But he dresses stylishly and has nice teeth, it's only a matter of time until Louis Walsh buggers him, if he hasn't already.
Clothes and Hair
After over a decade of exposure to BT2 and Toni and Guy I just can't see the Irish returning to to perms and polyester jumpers. There was a time when the average Irish person thought Yves St. Laurent was the French foreign minister and Tommy Hilfiger was a mountaineer. Nowadays however people have haircuts named after characters on TV and there is a special breed of women driving Mini Coopers for whom death would be preferable to wearing something baggy.
Television
Television sets in RTE used to look like they were designed by Samuel Beckett's colour blind cousin. They were minimal and looked like their colours were inspired by something you'd see on a footpath in O'Connell street on a Sunday morning. Most home made shows involved a studio audience packed with unemployed people discussing how listening to The Cure defined them as a person. The presenter always looked as bad as most of the audience and everybody looked as if they had cycled there on a racer. Nowadays RTE has blessed us with Colm and Jim Jim's Home Run which is shit and has a massive and horrendously expensive looking set without going anywhere near the sort of high quality entertainment that Russian Roulette as presented by Maxi brought to us. Also we now have more than two stations and are more likely to be corrupted by outside influences.
Hating Americans
We used to love them. Everybody had relations there and everybody went there to work as a roofer. However eventually they had all the roofs they needed and we started to get annoyed with them and their loud and ignorant ways. Once we were able to afford the haircuts we saw on TV we decided they were no better than us and eventually we started to feel superior to them as they were fat and had no culture and were prone to invading people. In other words we just adopted the French perspective on the Issue.
Talking about the Recession
Back in the 80s we talked about stuff other than recession, back then nobody called it a recession it was just known as Ireland.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Hard Facts from a minority of one
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Being informed is a funny thing. I mean one can want to know what's going on in the world but any attempts to find out generally end in frustration. Personally any time I watch the news or read a newspaper I usually end up quite annoyed, not so much at the events that are reported but at the way in which they are reported.
While the media like to portray themselves are unbiased purveyors of fact nothing could be further than the truth. Now that is not exactly a new or shocking revelation. Even those of us who trust the general motives and intentions of the media still have journalists who they don't like. Just because somebody reads the Irish independent it doesn't necessarily mean they love Kevin Myers. (It simply means they are either conservative or gullible).
However let's hypothetically take a well intentioned Irish independent reader, who, while they may not question the basis of our society is still offended by the likes of Mr. Myers. They don't like what that fella says because they don't have an irrational hatred of minorities or the disadvantaged people. Yet they will consider what is printed on the other pages of the paper as news.
Where does news become opinion?
Where should this line be drawn?
Obviously everything that is printed in a paper is written by somebody who has their own views and opinions, who works under an editor who has their own views and opinions, who reports to a board of directors who have their own views and opinions, who report to shareholders who have their own views and opinions.
However in theory the views of all of these people don't really matter as the job of the journalist is to report facts. It is merely incidental that the journalist was employed by the editor as their opinions were not out of line with his or hers and the editor in turn was employed by the board of directors as his or her opinions were not out of touch with the board's and the board of directors are appointed by the shareholders because, well you get the point.
Now, all mainstream media is controlled either by business or the State. State Broadcasters such as RTE or the BBC are there, in theory to provide a service, they are however controlled by the State which in reality exists as little more than a facilitator to business and privately owned media is obviously never going to question the motives of its owners. Otherwise those journalists who did would find it difficult to find work.
People such as Rupert Murdoch and Tony O'Reilly (Independent Media) are easy to single out for criticism in the way media is run as they are majority shareholders in large media organisations and as such what they say goes. However in picking such easy targets we are falling victim to the old George Bush syndrome where we blame one easy target for all the ills of the world. The likes of Murdoch and O'Reilly are not solely responsible for all the problems in media, they are merely symptomatic of it. In the same way as George Bush was merely the figure head of an extremely corrupt system, putting all our hopes in a better looking President is not going to do anything to end the problems caused by Capitalism and Imperialism.
In a capitalist society mainstream media is never going to do anything to undermine it's bosses. It would be illogical to expect it to. So we shouldn't be surprised that it simply enforces the status quo, what else would you expect it to do? However it is foolish to look at everything outside of the mainstream media as a minority or fanatical view. It is important to remember that the media is far from democratic and represents only a minority view. While it may purport to give a variety of opinions, they are merely a variety of opinions from within a certain spectrum.
It is easy to slate the Irish Independent (because it is a shit paper) but is the Irish Times really much better? Let's face it is not really more left, liberal or progressive than the Indo, it just likes to think of itself as a bit more high brow. It is a newspaper for senior rather than junior civil servants. It is as much a voice of the establishment as the Indo.
One decent paper we can buy in this country is the Guardian, but let's face that's not exactly the Weekly Worker either. The first thing I don't like about buying the Guardian is that it is all a bit too English. I just don't need to know the internal workings of another country as much as I need to know the workings of my own. So we get a deluge of English news at the expense of national news, although their coverage of world events is far superior to anything in the Irish papers. And while the opinions they publish might be a little closer to my own than those printed in many newspapers they are still far from revolutionary, at best they are left liberal and their features leave us in little doubt that it is the paper of middle class liberals rather than a publication aimed at any sort of meaningful social change.
So what about the internet? These days it seems you're nobody if you don't have a blog and you're really somebody if you have a podcast. And what about Indymedia? Well first of all Indymedia is hardly any sort of a reliable source of news. Its Anarchist and Libretarian editors feel that any sort of editing is oppressive and so we are left with content which is not only not representative of the broader left but generally very badly written. Those who write articles for Indymedia do so with no mandate from anybody but themselves, which doesn't mean they are less entitled to their opinions than a mainstream journalist, it simply means they are representing a different (and often tiny) minority opinion in a less professional manner. Often these articles tend to be more sensationalist than even the worst of the tabloids and can exaggerate so much that they often undermine their own argument.
So what about blogging, the brave new world of self facilitating media nodes? Well let's face it blogging is merely an activity for feckless, opinionated people who really should be doing something else with their time.
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