sexiest woman room

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The Small Picture

I was once at a picnic with otherwise right-thinking people when a fellow there started up with an anecdote about him having rung the local radio station to participate in an on-air discussion about that old chestnut of what's-to-be-done-with-wayward-teens. His gleeful contribution was to demand 'More Whipping!' Seriously. He was convinced that if only children were beaten more often and more harshly, society would be the better for it.


Happily he had never had children. The only person there who had, and whose children were famously trouble with a capital T, agreed. She recounted anecdotes of all the trouble she had made as a child, with the punch-line consisting each time of the hell they copped when their father caught them. Somehow this was evidence of the rightness of 'whipping', never mind her own kids. Sure enough, yours truly spoiled the social harmony by declaring that they had everything arse-about.

For the record, I've never had children. But that being said, my youngest brother was born in my last year of high school, and whilst ultimate responsibility didn't lay with me, I didn't miss much either. (And if I might just take a brief moment to brag - in an age before disposal diapers, my nappies were a triumph of dynamic tension and left everyone else's for dead). But never mind me as a crowing rooster cock-a-doodle-doo - in a discussion about discipline I followed my father's lead, which for the purpose of the argument I shall sum up as 'less is more'.

According to my father, we as children copped a whack on the bum precisely twice. In amongst us throwing anti-social, me-uber-alles tantrums we were told that this was unacceptable and that we might choose to stop it, or cop a smack on the bum. It was up to us. After we chose poorly twice, and copped two smacks, in the face of his unambiguous implacability, from then on we just believed him and chose the option that consisted of not getting whacked. I have no recollection of this you understand, merely his say-so. In fact, until he told us how he'd disciplined us, I'd have declared we'd never been whacked at all. And this is how it went for my youngest brother a decade and a half later. He was smacked precisely twice during that two year old period wherein one's sense of what-I-am expands to include the whole world. I don't know if this will surprise people, but I and my brothers were absurdly well behaved. For us, our greatest horror was that people might be disappointed in us.

This is merely me recounting the past you understand and doesn't necessarily represent me in the present. Meanwhile back at the picnic, I declared that 'whipping' will, in and of itself, in no way instil a sense of right and wrong, nor any other useful thing apart from fear. This fear will ensure nothing more than a variety of cunning that pivots on Not Getting Caught. Honestly how many times have we seen parents, of the variety given to copious physical punishment, variously promise a smack and not deliver it in the face of continued appalling behaviour (indeed with the likelihood of offering some reward-like sop to mollify the child), or otherwise delivering a whack from nowhere for behaviour that, never mind the child, had me stumped as to what they'd done wrong. What's a child to glean from this?


This was perfectly summed up for me when I once lived across the hall from a father who'd terrorise his daughters mercilessly - the screaming was nightmarish. He perfectly nailed his own absurdity when I heard him scream at his daughters, "Listen! Even when Dad is wrong, he's right!" God help those kids, there's only one lesson they'll learn from that, and that is: since there is no right and wrong, everything is arbitrary, with the say-so belonging to whoever has power, and thus the only thing that counts is not getting caught.*

The Big Picture

And from the micro to the macro, everything is like this. In this white man's world with its God who favours 'those who help themselves' (think about that), we extol no 'virtues' apart from those of individuals who excel at amassing things for themselves. Sure enough for yours truly, who puts everything on the selflessness/selfishness continuum, these are not virtues but sins. 'Sins' meanwhile, as defined by society, differ from its 'virtues' by the merest of technicalities. If I was to take $4 from a fellow I would be a criminal. But if I was a member of the Gillette/Schick cartel and charged $4.10 for a razor blade that cost 10c, I would be a feted captain of industry, an example to all.


Society deters people from committing its definitions of sins by way of fear - a fear, not of being seen as selfish (since this is a virtue), but rather of getting caught and thus being on the receiving end of further sins, which is to say, deprivation of liberty. This fear is a 'deterrent' - knowing how harshly we will be treated upon being caught we are thus deterred from committing the crime to begin with. Either that or we will do whatever it takes not to get caught.

You don't hear the word 'deterrence' much anymore - certainly not like you used to back in the seventies and eighties. Back then it was everywhere, what with being the reason why we needed to fork out a bazillion dollars for enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world ten times over. Now it's nowhere on account of it being at odds with Israel's desire to reduce Iran back to a parking lot. Frankly the complete absence of the word deterrence in a discussion of Iran's alleged pursuit of nukes is enough to tell any thinking person that the whole thing is bullshit.

Sure enough, deterrence is bullshit. For every person deterred from committing a crime, is another who is only deterred from being caught - to avoid this, he'll corrupt the judiciary, kill the witnesses, heap crime upon crime, whatever it takes. Which is to say, deterrence is as likely to increase crime as to reduce it. Not forgetting the beyond obvious fact that if deterrence worked, there'd be no one in jail.

I do hope no one starts up with that old chestnut about how if we didn't deter people then it'd be worse than it is now. Not unless they want to buy one of my famous tiger amulets, which will guarantee the wearer protection from tiger attacks. I've worn it for forty years and never been attacked once. Except for that time at Taronga Park zoo... but think how much worse it would have been if I hadn't been wearing it!


I don't know if they have tigers in Bhutan, but they certainly have criminals. Well, they do now anyway - ever since Rupert Murdoch's Sky began broadcasting into every home that is. Suddenly their meagre police force no longer has time to assist grannies cross the street because they're too busy chasing all those people who've taken to robbery and murder. Where's that fellow from the Picnic? He could advise the Bhutan government that what's needed here is more 'whipping'. Yeah well, fuck him and fuck his bullshit.

That aside, if anyone ever wanted proof of the rightness of the continuum, the unasked for social experiment taking place in Bhutan is it - a society that overnight replaced a consensus of selflessness with a shiny media model of selfishness and instantly found itself amongst all the ills of the West. Clearly it's high time we in the West wagged our finger and explained how their newly crime-ridden nation should now join the civilised world in instituting a fear-based model of deterrence, and thus may their society be as free of the depredations of criminals as we are. Or would the abysmal hypocrisy be too much? Ha ha ha ha, "Mr. Prime Minister, the delegation from the Wackenhut corporation is here to see you."

And that's how it goes - the Bhutanese are fuzzy-wuzzy jibber-jabberers and we teach them and not vice versa. The Portuguese on the other hand, whilst they are wogs, and do jibber-jabber, at least they're Christians who occasionally use soap, and thus might have something to say worth listening to. They've de-criminalised drugs it seems. Astoundingly the whole place hasn't turned into predicted den of iniquity. What's going on? It seems that the drug-users who were otherwise undeterred by the fear of punishment, actually benefit from calm and sensible discussions about the rightness of the whole caper and actually take up the government's offers of what I'm going to call redemption.

As if this wasn't completely fucking obvious. As if people like breaking into homes to steal laptops to pay for their addiction. Honestly. Portugal's experiment (in the bleeding obvious) is perfect proof that a fear based system of punishment pushes people further into crime. Now that it's been dispensed with, people finally have an opportunity to return to the embrace of society and are doing so wholeheartedly. Both crime and drug use in Portugal is declining.


The only problem with Portugal's experiment is the narrowness of the vision. Redemption is offered to users but not to sellers. Why is this is an either/or proposition? Rather than get bogged down in finicky arguments, why don't we just say that if fear didn't work for one crime, why do we imagine it will work for another? In the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary? Besides, what sort of person is picky in offering redemption? What is the 'line in the sand' that defines who or what deserves redemption, and who or what deserves fear and loathing, apart from a statement of arbitrary personal prejudice?

Little Picture Us Versus Big Picture Motherfuckers

Here we are, regular folks ever more appalled at monstrous sins of those who rule the world. Between a non-denominational satanist paedohile death cult, and a Jewish banking and warfare death cult, it's perfectly unsurprising that we dream of their righteous demise at the hands of a howling mob - string them up from lamp posts, tear them limb from limb, push stakes up their arse until the blood gurgles out their mouths. I get it. In fact I've brought up lamp posts on more that a few occasions myself.


But honestly, there's no future in it. Were this to happen, nothing would have been learnt (amongst the survivors - and there would be survivors, there always are) apart from that old chestnut 'Don't get caught' and the requisite next thought, 'If only we'd been more vicious'.

There's no either/or for redemption. What works for small scale misdemeanors is every bit as applicable for large scale crimes-against-humanity. Honestly if the Emperor Pu'yi (in Bertolucci's Last Emperor) who was inculcated his entire life can find happiness as a gardener, anyone can.


And yeah, I also get it that what I'm suggesting is an idealistic mad dream that's right up there with pig aviation. But I don't give a fuck. Not that I'm making any pretentious claims to whatever, but did the Jesus in the bible give a fuck? Did he temper his positions on account of fear, realpolitik necessities, or any other thing?

The most absurd thing is that a world without fear, a global societal model based not on proscription of innumerable sins but rather redemption and a single aim of selflessness, is possible. We now have mass communications perfectly capable of bringing about a paradigm shift in how humans regard, and subsequently treat, each other. And in Bhutan, all we'd have to do cut their satellite, ha ha.

I haven't a shred of doubt that this is technically do-able. If anyone doubts this, just consider what would result if all the time and energy currently devoted to turning us into self-obsessed gits striving to outdo our neighbour, was instead spent on the rightness and benefits of selflessness. It's inarguable that this could be done if we wished it.

Instead, the social darwinist motherfuckers who rule this world choose, amongst all the models Darwin offers us, to emulate predators. It should be obvious to anyone of the meanest understanding that they've chosen poorly. It may have made sense once, but now (in this age of dioxins and depleted uranium) it no longer does. We are now perfectly capable of infinitely greater things. That these people have so wildly excelled at mimicking such hateful creatures, does not speak of their greatness, but rather of their prosaic lack of imagination and ultimately their stupidity.


To hell with them and their world of fear, I reject all of it and refuse to participate in any aspect of it, regardless of how much I'd like to see them on the receiving end of their own bullshit. In spite of me mentioning it just now, truth is, hell is none of my business. And quite right too given that redemption is always possible. Just to make things crystal clear, this is not a discussion of probability, but of possibility. If a thing is right and if a thing is possible, then that's where I'm at. Fear, whether received, or inflicted, and with no acknowledgement of redemption, is bullshit. The death cult can bring on their armageddon, whatever they've got - the fear and loathing will all be theirs.

Sometimes the title to a piece comes first. Sometimes it comes last. This one came right at the end. During my week-long Devotion to Aergia what I wanted to write grew and became far more than I expected. And on the last day the goddess smiled and I understood that what I had in mind was science fiction.

Has anyone read Bob Shaw's short story, Light Of Other Days? That story and this one have a lot in common. Shaw's tale pivoted around a material called 'slow glass' that (what with light travelling through it at various 'slow' speeds) functioned as a window to the past. After assorted adventures the story ended with the CIA dusting an unsuspecting world with powdered slow glass. The dust in every room in your house, the dust mixed with the sweat on your brow, all of it, was a recorder visually charting everything everyone did. All the CIA needed to do was put it in a projector and play it back. It was the end of privacy.


Sure enough to slow light down in this fashion isn't physically possible. But this is! This is real and it's happening now. As things stand we're in clunkiness territory. But seriously, can anyone here not imagine how this will end up? The speed of technology is insane now. Record players barely changed for a century and suddenly in a few short years people have a thousand hours of music in their tie clip. So, where will ATR's mind-reading thing go?

With my science-fiction writer's hat firmly clamped on my head here's what I reckon - in the same amount of time it took to travel from the first VCR through to mobile phone cameras and youtube, a machine will exist that will allow a person to wander through another's head more readily than they can now wander through a hard drive. A head already has our operating system and you can talk to it, you see. And never mind those pesky permissions - the head-viewer will be super user. By merely saying a word, like 'murder', the viewer will see everything that person knows about murder. I expect memories will be listed in 'visceral' order. Murders someone has participated in will come first, witnessed - second, saw on tv - third... something like that.

But frankly, murderers will be the least of it. The greatest of them will never be subjected to this machine. Instead it will be for thought crime. It will be for us.

There will be no dissembling. The act of dissembling will be seen too. Whatever thoughts run through your head will be like the ticker tape running along the bottom of the TV screen. Or perhaps the voice-over? Either way there'll be nowhere to hide. Whoever has this machine will have it all.


So I read this article and a switch flipped in my head - "That's Fucking It! Once those fuckers get this machine it's all over. Time to start shooting people. Jesus!" Wait a minute, what about the obvious flipside? Imagine if we laid our hands on one of these machines and plugged one of the Rothschilds into it? Imagine a window into the mind of a fellow who views himself as greater than God? Imagine screening it to the public? Wow. There's the ultimate weapon right there.

---

The beautiful Aergia doesn't care for such riled thoughts. She's down with Buddha in dispelling fear and desire. Under her laid back guidance I realised I had everything wrong. This machine was not a thing to be feared. It's not a terminator robot that we either run from, or use as a weapon against them. It's far bigger than that. In fact, it might just be the biggest thing ever, with history dividing into 'before' and 'after'.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First up we must seize the ownership of this thing. It must be public. All research must be put into public hands with progress charted on the internet. We declare the machine is not a weapon. This is not the Manhattan Project and we are not at war with anyone. The machine is for all.

Initially the machine will simply be the means by which we determine who should hold positions of public trust. No one will be forced to be have their mind searched. But anyone who asserts that they are worthy of the public's trust will have to prove it. If you don't want to be subject to a public search of your mind, fine, no problems. But you're not going to run a child-minding centre. Or a church. Or a bank. Or a police force. Or a government. You'll just have to find some other means of making a living. No biggie.


Sure enough, this machine will be used on criminals who will not be volunteers. Okay, no problems. People may be involuntarily subjected to a machine but only by someone who has undergone it themselves. Using the machine is itself a position of public trust.

Under this rubric of 'public trust' the point isn't to search for saints and bodhisattvas. Mind you, if we find them that will be brilliant, an education for all. But forget them, we don't actually need saints. What we need are people who aren't corrupt, murderous, self-worshipping, paedophile motherfuckers. Is that too much to ask?

And for those out there thinking, 'Fucking hell. Do you know what wicked thoughts run through my head?' - you don't get it. It's you and everybody. Me too, sure. You plug me into it and it's all there - lying, cheating, stealing, committing violence upon people, and yep, even me perving on the endless parade of barely-teen bods hoping someone notices them on their way to the beach. I notice them alright. You would too. And?


And Jimmy Carter 'sinned in his heart' did he? Well shit, eh? Ain't no one who hasn't. Not that that stopped the hypocrites from wagging their fingers at poor old Jimmy. Well, a tuppence for that. The machine will change everything. Anyone who wants to make out that they're free to cast that first stone can prove it. They step up to the plate and plug into the machine. Showing up hypocrites is a thing worth doing sure, but it's nothing compared to the bombshell of seeing that our sins, which we imagined as very terrible, are actually run of the mill.

This fear we have of our innermost thoughts being seen is nothing, a wisp of smoke. We only imagine that no one thinks like we do. Being unmasked is only scary if no one else does it. Sure enough, fear of being nude in public makes no sense if you're in a nudist camp. Only an idiot would be embarrassed when everybody has their yayas out. Not forgetting of course, that no one is forcing anyone to go to this metaphoric nudist camp. If you don't want a position of public trust you don't need to lay yourself open. It's all voluntary.


And so... fuck it - I volunteer to go first. And yep, everyone can go nuts at the filth in my head. And then the next person, and the next, and the next, until eventually the filth in my head is seen for what it is - simple daily grime, ha ha.

MInd you, there'll be people whose disappointment in me will know no bounds. "You never loved me." "How can you think that about my daughter?" "You're just doing this out of politeness." Yep it's all true. But whatever - this blog has already caused some of my friends to disown me. Never mind - eggs is to be broken and fears are to be dispelled. We'll all just have to get used to it. I wonder if it will be cathartic? Confession is, you know. The Catholics haven't used it for centuries for no reason. The machine will be the ultimate version of getting something off your chest.


What tripped me over the line of fear in this matter is the fact that the machine as I imagine it wouldn't be selective. It would not show my sins in isolation. It will necessarily show how I view those things now and why I will never do them again. It will make clear the nature of my relationship with those not me, and what guides my actions. It will all be there.

That's when the beauty struck me - this thing will be the Redemption Machine. It will enable people to confess their sins fully and find complete forgiveness. No one will have anything to fear from it. Even for the most wicked man in the world, redemption will be an undeniable possibility - real, true, honest to God, redemption. Anyone who can display a cannot-be-faked understanding of the wrongness of their previous self-serving mindset will be welcomed by the rest of humanity. Remember, bullshit is impossible. The conversation in your head that says, 'Ha, that should fool them, suckers!' will be publicly broadcast. The wicked will fear this, sure, but the possibility of this as a process of redemption is massive. What are people going to say? 'I don't want to be redeemed'?

---

Eventually the redemption machine will reach a tipping point as it goes beyond a minority and becomes normal. Finally a useful purpose for peer-group pressure! Who knows where this will go? It occurs to me that eventually the redemption machine will be a piece of software on every computer in every home. People will plug in daily to have full honest communication with each other. Parents and children. Husbands and wives. Whomever. Perhaps we will go on the net to share our minds. Would that work?

I can imagine those who refuse to share their minds as eventually being driven into a tiny, shunned and beset minority. I also imagine a daily haemorrhage from the ranks of the wicked as individuals overcome their fear of redemption and join the rest of humanity in acknowledging the obviousness of right behaviour.

Dig it, it will be like Star Trek's Borg but instead of casting off humanity and becoming machine-like, the hive mind would function in the opposite fashion. Joining would be like falling off a stage and being caught - caught in arms of love, understanding, and forgiveness. Participation will be the ultimate declaration of humanity. Everyone who joins will be taking a large individual step (and a small collective one) towards one-with-the-universe.

This collective mind will address problems like poverty, pollution, and population (and alliteration!). Many many things, from technologies such as GMO, to stories and narrative based on us-and-them, will be abandoned as worthless. Me, I'll be pleased because I reckon the rightness of behaviour based on selflessness as the single determinant will become obvious. Complicated proscriptions of sin will fall by the wayside. As will false religions, false isms, hell, falsity in general. The world will never be the same. An extraordinary future is possible with all of man's preceding history being viewed as the Age of the Closed Mind.

Sadly, we're still there. Our minds are still closed and we have to share ideas by way of second-rate things like speech and the written word. Still, it's not too terrible. Words serve a purpose. Why don't we put those words to good use to light a fire in the minds of those head-down, arse-up scientists in at, where was it? Oh yeah, the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Japan. I think we need to blow their minds, to let them know what they're in amongst. I address them -


Boys and Girls, we all know that this thing is coming regardless. Ain't nothing anyone can do to stop it. But you're in amongst something bigger than anyone can imagine. It's possible that you just might be saviours who can deliver the redemption of mankind. And yep, it doesn't get much bigger than that. Get it right and the love and esteem of the world's people will be yours. I wish you well.

When the stock markets crash and the banks fail everything stops working. Factories fall idle, people become unemployed, and families struggle and fail with the three prime necessities of food, shelter, and health. Everyone's behaviour is suddenly transformed into a chaotic, counter-productive, mad scrabble. And all because a tiny percent of humanity conduct an organised arrangement pivoting on numbers and relationships. This being banking and the stockmarket, you understand.

Funnily enough, shortages or collapses of real world products or services (ie. tangible things that actually exist) we seem capable of coping with. With the current collapse in this system of assigning numbers to various people, it is clear that intangibles have got tangibles beat. Money is more important than, I don't know - water. Which is to say an intangible arrangement of thinking controls humans above and beyond pretty much anything. Even other arrangements of thinking, like religion say, cannot compete. This contrived system of numbers being attached to humans rules over all.

A power who possesses oil, or water, or a military power, or a power possessed of tremendous natural defences, or any power at all, must succumb to this ultimate power. That sounds god-like doesn't it? Imagine wielding that power. And wielded it will be. Power of this nature will always be striven for. Ambition exists and amongst those who are ambitious will be those who are ultimately ambitious. Everyone here understands perfectly the ceaseless, unrelenting nature of those who would control the money supply. Andrew Jackson described today's world very eloquently just a few short column inches earlier, which is to say a century and a half ago. But that's time for you - hundreds of years of same-as-it-ever-was.

Back to this god-like thing - if a bum like me gets it, imagine being them. I view it as a complete certainty that they have spent a not inconsiderable amount of time dwelling on it. What god would this controller-of-money imagine himself as? We need a metaphor that involves a god that distributes something amongst his worshippers and thereby controls them. How about Prometheus? He wasn't a god so much as a titan but never mind. He gave man fire. Certainly this was a curse and a blessing. That aside, I don't recall any part of that story that involved wealth, treasure and flesh flowing back to Prometheus. Nor the bit where he controlled the flow of fire to alternatively enrich and starve his minion humans. Okay, so much for that metaphor.

Perhaps this metaphor will never fly because all the gods of myth who distributed things amongst their subjects did so as an act of generosity. And besides, these born-of-women men-who-would-be-gods would have nothing but disdain for these false idols invented by fools. They would view themselves as above and beyond such silly stories. Either way, it's an interesting question. How do these people view themselves?

Caesar had a fellow at his shoulder whose job it was to whisper in his ear, 'Remember you are mortal.' Obviously the Romans spent time thinking about what it meant to possess such power. Well you would wouldn't you? It stands to reason. And I expect that the people who control whether humans live in chaos or harmony do too. Do they employ a fellow to stand behind them and whisper to them that they're human? Somehow I doubt it.

On a daydream now - 'If you could have any superpower what would it be?' Me, I would be that man who whispers in their ear, but unlike the Roman, I couldn't be dismissed. I would be some variety of untouchable apparition. I would dog them and never shut up. I would simply be present and see what they see, hear what they hear, and read what they read. They would have no secrets.

There would be no violence in this superhero mag. My power would merely consist of being beyond harm and confinement. Actually someone beat me to this idea already. He was an obscure fellow name of Bill Shakespeare. Some of you may have heard of him. Anyway his superhero was called Banquo's Ghost™ and he featured in a particularly bloody comic called Macbeth.


Imagine that power. There's our villain, the man who would be God, giving a great banquet and revelling in those who've come to pay homage to him. And there's me as Banquo's Ghost chattering in his ear. "Fraud. Imposter. Self-impressed bullshit artist. If you were truly great you would do good. Good for mankind. You could raise human consciousness, lead people to new heights of peace, love and understanding. Don't smirk you fuckwit. This vaunted power you possess is nothing. You're little more than a sneak-thief. No wonder you lurk in the shadows and nobody knows who you are. If they did they'd spit on you, tear you limb from limb, and piss on your grave. And that is the truth of you. You're merely a sneak writ large. You're a shit who thinks he's clever."

I would be nothing more than the man who'd ruin a fellow's dinner. That dinner and every other one. And that would be enough. As superhero movies go, it would be crummy one, sure. 'Too talky' say the critics. But bugger them and their thirst for violence. In the real world, with real people, the smashing of delusions would suffice. The sin of the villains of this world is that they have abandoned 'to thine own self be true'. Truth cannot be self-serving. If one's starting position is 'I am great' then everything that follows will be corrupt. 'To thine own self distort the facts until 'I am great' is true.' Ha ha ha ha, fuckwits. Self-impressed gits.

And sure, the above is just an adolescent daydream. There are no superheroes. I'm merely a tiny voice in a roaring cacophony. The cacophony of course is created and encouraged by these men who would be gods. Whether consciously or sub-consciously, they know that any voices speaking a counter-proposition would destroy their delusion. The Roman at their shoulder would have to be killed. Not least so that others might know fear. Do we know that fear? Turn on the TV. I could make a case that every goddamn thing on TV pivots around fear - even the sitcoms.

Above and beyond all other mundane concerns, the ultimate reason we are kept fearful is so that those who imagine themselves as gods do not have their delusions punctured. Well I ain't fearful. And yes, my voice (and yours too) amounts to nothing more than a lousy 0.0001% of a decibel. Pathetic. The men who would be gods sneer. Where's our voice who'll fill an opera hall? Where's our booming tenor? Actually we don't need him. Anyone who's ever heard a two hundred voice choir doing Carmina Burana knows that the tenor is superfluous. The choir blows a tenor, regardless of how great he is, to smithereens.

We are that choir. Each of us is a voice adding to the whole. And yes, it's shambolic, but never mind - the decibel count is slowly climbing. Eventually the bullshit cone-of-silence cum echo-chamber that the men who would be gods live in, will eventually start to fail. With enough true notes the glass will break and the delusions of the self-impressed false idols will be smashed.

---

Did anyone notice in the last piece, violent though it was, that I wasn't actually proposing that we smash George Bush's brains all over the walls. It was merely imagery. Imagery as a sideways means of showing the aforementioned sock-puppet who he really is, ie. the fellow in the movie whose death we'd cheer. It was a back-handed means of puncturing delusion. Certainly I understand the appeal of insert-villain-here dangling from a lamp-post. But the truth of the matter is that even a piece of shit like our George could be rehabilitated. Honestly. The fellow that the voting public imagined as 'someone we'd like to have a beer with' could be that fellow. Him and anyone. I will never concede that rehabilitation is impossible. Unlikely, sure - impossible, never. And so it is here.

How to explain the evil fuckers of the world? Over at smokingmirrors there's been talk of a 6% of people as being psychopaths. Apparently there's a book called Ponerology that explains the science of ponerology, which is to say 'evil'. I haven't read it. I've merely read about it. But I have to be honest and say that I have trouble making this concept gel. There's something that's a bit too 'either/or' for mine.

Selfishness_______________________________________Selflessness

This is my continuum. No one cares for it. Never mind - It's as fine a means of judging behaviour as any I've encountered. And you can't say it ain't elegant.

Human behaviour is very messy and many factors come into play. Determining the rightness of one's actions on this continuum is not simple. The middle ground between the extremes is huge and ambiguous. There are no simplistic do's/don't-do's here. Thought is required. But two aspects of it are simple - they being the extremities.


Any person who can perfectly embrace selflessness is Buddha. They become one with the universe. This does happen but it's a tough gig. It's not made any easier with every aspect of our media devoted solely to making the population as selfish and self-indulgent as possible.

The other end of the continuum is less spectacular and far more common. People at this end are what I call anti-buddhas. For the record I shall state that an anti-buddha is not the Antichrist, whatever that is. Anti-buddhas are merely wicked paragons of selfishness. An anti-buddha has the least regard for others and the most regard for himself. An 'us and them' mindset is necessary. Dig it - 'us and them' is the opposite of 'one with the universe'. Interesting, no? Anyway, given that the above continuum goes to the nth degree, this ultimate selfishness would ideally comprise the enslavement of all living creatures to the benefit of the fewest people possible.


An anti-buddha is a psychopath, same-same. Except it's not that simple. An anti-buddha is not an either/or proposition. There is no either/or on a continuum. Between a baby-killer and a baby-beater and a baby-neglecter and someone who just doesn't like kids very much, there's a linear path travelled. At what point does one cross that threshold and become one of the 6%? And is there truly no turning back? And is this alleged either/or psychopath irredeemable? Is there nothing to be done with a psychopath apart from locking him up forever or killing him?

What then to make of this fellow? Have a read but give equal attention to the Chinese. The Japanese soldiers that the Chinese locked up were precisely anti-buddhas. And somehow the Chinese thought them worthy of redemption, and succeeded at it.

It wasn't easy. It took years of unrelenting psychological pressure. No self-serving bullshit was permitted. Nothing short of completely admitting to the full wickedness of their behaviour was accepted. There was no time limit. Whoever it was, was stuck in jail until they made a full confession that the jailers decided wasn't bullshit. I don't believe any human could defeat this process.


Remember the end of 1984? As the bullet entered his brain, Winston Smith loved Big Brother. Smith's understanding of the rightness of 2+2=4 was broken down and rebuilt until he embraced 2+2=5. What I'm suggesting is the inverse of this process. One would take an anti-buddha and give him the opportunity to abandon his delusion of us-and-them, of 2+2=5. He would then be free to embrace the truth of selflessness. Breaking down a false proposition is easier than building one. Even a six year old can learn that 2+2=4. The replacement for delusion requires no fabrication. It exists already as truth and need merely be seen with a mind unclouded.

I have no time for aliens, lizards, or non-humans with a DNA of 'evil'. I view them as metaphors for people who have utterly embraced selfishness. That they should do this is neither unlikely nor difficult. In fact it's a certainty. Of course there are people like this. As sure as there are Buddhas there are anti-buddhas. This state of being, of delusion, is not irremediable. That's not to say that such a remedy is easy, quite the opposite, it's tremendously difficult. But it can be done. If Pu'yi with his life-long inculcation can be rehabilitated, so too can a Rothschild. Lock a Rothschild up in prison and I guarantee you he could be broken.

Denial and resistance. Nervous breakdown. Reconnection with humanity. And, believe it or not, gratitude. Even for the worst of the worst, redemption is possible.


PS. But just to be on the safe side, our Rothschild would be banned from possessing any money, restricted to a cloistered community and (sorry folks) sterilised. After a multi-generational succession of anti-buddhas, it's better safe than sorry.

May we discuss Jewish culture? What is it? Is there such a thing? Why is it that everyone reading that sentence had a small electric shiver run up their spine? How many people, right now, have the words 'anti-semite' on the tip of their tongue? Rather than leap in head first why don't we go sideways. And mix some metaphors whilst we're at it, sure. Let's have a discussion that is permissible. I've actually had this particular discussion many times and didn't spook anyone. We all sat round the dinner table and nobody freaked out.


The discussion is about the film Spirited Away by the Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. It's animated but I hold no brief for animation as such. To that end I'm uninterested in discussing it in those terms. Here I treat it as just another movie, a representation of the-world-is-thus comprised of plot, themes and world-view. When viewed in these terms Spirited Away stands out as being completely at odds with everything I understood, or was familiar with, in cinema - so much so that it left me at a loss when I first viewed it. And yet it was based on a very familiar model. It was a variation of the kind of movie we've all seen many many times, especially if you have kids, ha ha. To wit: a little girl, Chihiro, is separated from her parents and plunged into a world of adventure. Simple stuff. The comparison to Disney is obvious and few who reviewed Spirited Away failed to make it.


Whilst there have been many films following the 'lone child having adventures' model, for the sake of simplicity I'll settle on The Lion King as a useful comparison. Both these films were huge smashes at the box office. Spirited Away broke all records in Japan. Every Japanese kid saw it. The Lion King likewise was watched by just about every kid in America and did such big business it pretty much saved Disney. Kids didn't just see these films once. With the advent of video and then DVD they saw them, in all probability, dozens of times. Anyone who thinks that this doesn't shape a kid is nuts.



I'll do The Lion King first since most people know it better. Loosely, the plot consists of a son failing to heed his father's advice that he not go to a particular dangerous place. Apples anyone? Cue the wicked other, in the role of satan who tempts the son to disobey his father. Our young hero not only succumbs to the temptation but in doing so causes his father's death. Following this, he runs away and effectively leads a life that is a disneyfied version of delinquency. With the father dead and the son absent the wicked other somewhat pointlessly turns paradise into hell. In fact you'd have to wonder why he bothered. If you weren't so distracted by all the singing and dancing that is. Finally, via a requisite plot device, our junior hero returns to do his duty and face down the villain.



The nature of the villain is worth discussing. He is evil - irredeemably so. There is no point coming to a compromise with him. Nor is there any point discussing with him the wrongness of his behaviour. Only a craven fool would even consider it. He is that kind of villain - he who must be killed. Twice. How often must the villain be killed twice in Hollywood? I lost count. And when the villain is dragged screaming down to hell to be tortured and eaten alive, then all is as it should be. Redemption? Never heard of it.



That our villain is limned in such black and white terms is not an accident. His wicked nature did not lead him to his death. Rather, it's the other way around: the screenwriters wanted a fight to the death and to that end depicted him as deserving of it. The final fight to the death was not a result of the plot but rather the purpose of it. Thus it should come as no surprise that after our hero's bloody victory over the devil he is regaled by all of creation. Literally. Not only is he not chastised for any of his previous foolish behaviour but the entire animal kingdom agrees that he is the greatest and most worthy creature there is. Indeed his father appears in an immortal and god-like form and gives our hero a blessing from heaven. Which is to say, the god of the film makers is a god who reserves his blessings for killers.



Wow. So what happened in Spirited Away? Did Chihiro in any way resemble our lion hero? Barely. Chihiro starts the film sooky and self-obsessed but then only briefly - a single minute of screen time. Unwittingly she and her family enter a world of spirits. Her parents, without actually being culpable, are effectively taken and our heroine is lost in a world she doesn't understand. By way of assistance from a sympathetic other she finds herself in, believe it or not, a bath house of animist gods.



Anyone who's seen an unhappy kid on their their first day of school will be perfectly familiar with the nature of her predicament. Indeed she cries precisely in that fashion. Her fear is not of monsters but of an unknown environment that is absent her parents. However unlike the junior lion our heroine has no time for delinquency. She must rescue her mother and father. In fact for the duration of the film she remains selfless, courageous, honest, hardworking, and sympathetic to the plight of others - even those who torment her, if you can believe that.



And who is the villain in this film? Surely there must be one? Perhaps it is Yubaba the witch who runs the bath house? But she takes Chihiro in and treats her exactly as well as everyone else. The bath house is is not a place of suffering. If anything we could declare it a happy place. And what to make of the scene where Yubaba alone recognises the significance of a particular bath house patron (a situation that all had previously misunderstood), rallies the staff of the bath house, and pulls off a tremendous victory that earns the gratitude of a god and ensures the further well-being of the bath house and all whose livelihood depends upon it? What sort of villain is that? Where's the pointless cruelty?



Perhaps the villain is the Kaonashi (No Face in English). He is definitely scary. Wow, he just ate that guy! When he's on a roll, everyone runs for their lives, our heroine included. However, unlike the everyone else she has the presence of mind to plead with him to stop and to consider others. (This is standard in Miyazaki's films. All thoughtless rampagers are asked to see reason and to stop their behaviour). On first viewing of the Kaonashi's rampage any little kid watching will be frankly terrified. But only briefly and only on the first viewing.



On the second inevitable viewing, kids understand that the Kaonashi is not a monster. All he wants is to be friends with Chihiro who was previously kind to him. He is simply confused as to how to go about this. Amazingly, Chihiro refuses to judge him by his early bad behaviour. Here, judgement is entirely absent and forgiveness is s superfluous concept. Indeed upon catching the train to a distant unknown, Chihiro gives the Kaonashi the ticket that would otherwise have enabled her to return. Without moralising, all she asks is that he behave himself. He assents and they peaceably ride the train together.



Extraordinary! When did Hollywood ever have a scene like this? And never was a train ride so beautiful. At the end of the movie we see the Kaonashi happy to farewell Chihiro and sit with Yubaba's sister helping her spin yarn. He wasn't even killed once, let alone twice. Believe it or not, this film has no villain and miraculously it is not dull. Who knew this was possible?



Finally, Chihiro returns to the bath house and by way of forthright wit frees her parents. All rejoice. Yubaba is stumped but receives no comeuppance. That would be pointless. Throughout the story her actions were invariably guided by her responsibilities to those she led and provided for. At no time was she pointlessly vicious or cruel. Compare this to the villains of Disney and Hollywood who are idiotically, even self-defeatingly, vicious. If we weren't watching a movie/tv show and instead encountered such entities in real life we would shake our heads. They'd make no sense.



What's going on here? The most popular movie in Japanese history was completely and utterly at odds with the all-pervasive paradigm of western, which is to say American, which is to say Hollywood story-telling. Unsurprisingly Americans, and those schooled in Hollywoodese, had trouble with this film. Reviewers barely knew what to make of it: Spirited Away was like 'Disney on acid!' and other such idiot descriptions. Nobody said it was 'like Disney except it acknowledged the humanity of all of its protagonists'. Ha ha ha, I crack myself up.

Anyway, in trying to figure out what was 'wrong' with Spirited Away I realised what was 'right' with it and wrong with everything else I watched. And let's not be mistaken. We all watch Hollywood. I'd be prepared to bet that Hollywood product comprises at least 90% of what we watch. Hell, more. And don't think that American TV isn't Hollywood. Of course it is. As for those leaping up in protest - 'But I watch this and that!' - ask yourself if the non-Hollywood product you watch breaks from the Hollywood paradigm, or apes it. We're so used to it we don't even notice. It's like the air that we breathe.



Think about it. How many films or shows have we seen that involved: teenagers knowing better than their idiot parents and being proven right; people heaping insults on and belittling each other and looking cool with it; absurd merciless villains who cannot be reasoned with and must be killed; the righteous smashing of those that would find commonality or seek accord with opponents; a hero who uses lies and other subterfuge to destroy the deserving villain; people for whom co-operation is not an option and must survive by dog eat dog; things such as lying, cheating, stealing portrayed as virtues ...hell, let's just call it 'all that old testament shit'.


Like I said, I've expressed my views on kid's movies at dinner parties, barbecues and other polite venues. Kids are there, they watch DVDs and a discussion ensues. I lived in Japan and China and it suits me to discuss the cultural differences between the Japanese and the Chinese and Westerners. But it's not just me. Everyone grooves on it. Everyone has a story to tell and the conversation goes to and fro. I've stated my take on Spirited Away and The Lion King previously and found people to be fascinated.



Clearly it's permissable to discuss cultural differences by way of cinema. Or is it? May we discuss Jewish culture? Certainly we may discuss other Semites, which is to say Muslims, as long as we all agree how wicked they all are. Does anyone know any Muslims? I do. I found them to be the sweetest, most hospitable people I've ever had the fortune to meet. How is it that the people I've met are so completely at odds with Hollywood Muslims? In Hollywood, Muslims are the very definition of the idiotic villain. They make no sense. They hate us for our freedom, whatever that means. Where in all of the Western Canon was there a villain who hated another man for his freedom? How did Shakespeare miss that one? Um... because there's no such thing?



I digress. May we discuss Jewish culture? Maybe we're not meant to be talking about it at all. So unlikely is this conversation that we don't know where to start. And thus the question - Is there such a thing as Jewish culture? Surely there is. How would we describe it? Don't be scared. We're allowed to speak of the Japanese, the Chinese, and Muslims in this fashion. So. How about Jewish Culture? Oh, and anyone who wants to say that Hollywood isn't Jewish - ha ha ha ha - knock yourselves out. I got no time for such idiot parlour games.



And guess what? I got no time for a discussion of Jewish culture neither. It pivots on an us and them paradigm. Them is the other, the irredeemably evil. Them is those whose humanity is denied. Them can be stolen from, starved, beaten, tortured, killed. And the thing is - if you believe in them you will find them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those of you out there who believe you have impossibly vicious enemies one way or another you, and people like you, imagined them into reality. Dig it, you're living the Hollywood dream.