"we are what we do"

Soap Boxing: ‘Spanking – Part Two’

2007-04-13T04:04:00.000+12:00

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As predicted, the mediated furore has quelled and the talk back lines quietened but no doubt, the agendas’ still seethe ready to rise and shout. My position remains unchanged (see: Soap Boxing: ‘Spanking – Part One’).

http://psychowreckers.blogspot.com/2007/04/soap-boxing-spanking-part-one.html

And for some inexplicable reason the document that follows makes sane and rational sense:

Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline)

Amendment Bill

Member's Bill

Explanatory Note

The purpose of this Bill is to stop force and associated violence and harm under the pretence of domestic discipline, being inflicted on children.

Presently, section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 acts as a justification, excuse, or defence for parents and guardians using force against their children where they are doing so for the purposes of correction and the force used is reasonable in the circumstances. The Bill will repeal that provision.

The effect of this amendment is that the statutory protection for use of force by parents and guardians will be removed. They will now be in the same position as everyone else so far as the use of force against children is concerned.

The use of force on a child may constitute an assault under section 194(a) of the Crimes Act, a comparatively new provision in the criminal law, and the repeal of section 59 ought not revive any old common law justification, excuse or defence that the provision may have codified.

Clause 4 simply repeals section 59.

Clause 5 makes consequential amendments to section 139A of the Education Act 1989 to remove the exemption for guardians in the prohibition on corporal punishment in schools.

Sue Bradford

Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline)

Amendment Bill

Member's Bill

To continue from the previous blog on this subject, I have one further comment to make. One of the right-wing debaters on the ‘Campbell Live’ panel, in an angry and incensed pique and having already implied that the Prime Minister, Helen Clark is a lesbian, went on to state that her childlessness precluded her from offering parental advice: another example of the typically condescending platitudes proffered by these types.

Helen’s an easy target I guess and more so in absentia (they never have the balls to level those kinds of comments to her face!), but I always wonder why she’s so singularly implicated whilst equally strong, clever, career-minded and childless women like say, Theresa Gattung, remain impervious to such allegations.

Above: Theresa Gattung

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10423405

Anyway, who was it invented the rule that the childless are precluded from comment on child-rearing? They’re told ‘you can never understand because you’ve never experienced it’ Again it’s an ignorant misunderstanding of humanness. That ‘sacrosanct’ experience is a biochemical response from the limbic brain, an instinct shared with all mammals: the maternal or paternal instinct to protect ones progeny is not part of the differentiation between a dog and a human, it is emotion more akin to lust than love. And whereas I know many parents who have no problem with their instincts, when it comes to an ability to truly love their children it sometimes seems that they don’t even like them. Perhaps that’s why they hit them (?)

In Eric Fromms’ seminal book “The Art of Loving” (1956) he discusses the potential of real love and human alienation:

“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not towards one 'object' of love. If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.” (Fromm 1957: 36)

“The most fundamental kind of love, which underlies all types of love, is brotherly love. By this, I mean the sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of any other human being, the wish to further his life. This is the kind of love the Bible speaks of when it says: love thy neighbour as thyself. Brotherly love is love for all human beings; it is characterized by its very lack of exclusiveness.” (Fromm 1957: 37)

“Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions.” (Fromm 1957: 67)

And from his book “Having and Being”(1979) the differences between possession and Heidegger’s authentic Dasein:

Above: Martin Heidigger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger

“While the having persons rely on what they have, the being persons rely on the fact that they are, that they are alive and that something new will be born if only they have the courage to let go and respond. They become fully alive in the conversation because they do not stifle themselves by anxious concern with what they have. Their own aliveness is infectious and often helps the other person to transcend his or her egocentricity. Thus the conversation ceases to be an exchange of commodities (information, knowledge, status) and becomes a dialogue in which it does not matter any more who is right.” (Fromm 1979)

Above: ‘The Art of Loving’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm

Someone who expresses their right of ownership and therefore power over their children may choose to inflict violence upon them and yet probably baulks at the idea of inflicting that same brutality on an adult. The violence describes their ownership, just as they might discipline their dog, so they seize their right to discipline their children. This is not the kind of love that Fromm describes.

Ultimately, love is a conscious decision formulated in the part of the brain that makes us human and is therefore accessible to everyone, not just the producers of offspring: people who understand this concept are most able to make comments on the nurturing of children.

Above: “Baby Love” by Nita Springer

www.nspirations.org

Estar

2007-04-06T21:19:00.000+12:00

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"Sovereign goddess, lady of the nether abyss, mother of gods, queen of the earth, queen of fecundity... As the primordial humidity, whence proceeded (sic) all, Belita is Tamti, or the sea, the mother of the city of Erech, therefore, an infernal goddess. In the world of stars and planets she is known as Ishtar or Astoreth."
M. P. Blavatsky, ‘Isis Unveiled’

www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/ishtar.html

Unrelated to the quote above, which, though pertaining to the origin of the word 'Easter', is in any case fairly random , a friend recently asked me where the ‘peace’ poster at the bottom of my blog page comes from. Just in case anyone else is interested, this is the story. Before beginning study for a master’s degree at the start of 2007, I completed a one-year post-graduate diploma in 2006: the AUT’s Graduate Diploma in Computer Publishing and Design.

http://intouch.aut.ac.nz/intouch/CourseInfo/knowledge_base/kb_sub.php?articleid=18§ionid=7

One of the course assignments was to design two magazine advertisements. The magazines had to be actual publications that targeted two specific and dissimilar demographics but we could choose whatever product we liked. I picked these magazines:

‘Pavement’ – a lifestyle/fashion publication for 18 to 35yrs
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/6/story.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10411515
and:
‘The Third Age’ – a lifestyle publication for 50+yrs
http://www.grownups.co.nz/life/music-reviews/

The 'product' I chose was peace and the poster at the bottom of my blog is the one designed for ‘Pavement’ magazine. Josh Crowther, the model appearing in the poster, is the son of a good friend. Josh plays drums for ‘The Twitch’ an Auckland based 'alternative' thrash-rock band who won the ‘NZ 2005 Battle of the Bands’ and went on to take out the number two spot at the ‘2005 World Battle of the Bands’ held in Hong Kong.

Above: ‘The Twitch’s' album "What the F**k is Going On?"

Check out their space at:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=36048258
and:
http://www.muzic.net.nz/artists/1742.html

Above:"Go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be found in silence"

This is the second poster I did, for ‘The Third Age’ magazine. The quote comes from a poem first published in the 1920s called the ‘Desiderata’ (Latin for “things to be desired”), http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/desiderata.html written by Max Erhmann © 1952.

Above: 'The Twitch' rock 'The Dogs' Bollix'

http://www.dogsbollix.co.nz/

Walk with Thee

2007-04-06T00:14:00.000+12:00

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As I mentioned in 'Web's(h)out', I have this tendency to shoot my mouth off, which is never a good idea: I wind up saying things I don’t really mean. I get impassioned on subjects that I think are important and it gets me into trouble. In this situation, as part of an informal media and even though I’m reluctant to self-censor, the act of publishing should include sensitivity towards opposing views and a dedication to be rational and non-judgemental. A succinct expression of views should be able to stand on its own merits and not include personal attacks. In my last entry, my unchecked zeal led me to comment in exactly the way I was denouncing and for this, I apologise. I need to include a moment of reflection before I ‘click’ the publish button to ensure I’m not just venting my spleen (in times of yore regarded as the seat of anger and melancholy), and making statements and judgements that are patently untrue. With these thoughts in mind, I have returned to Soap Boxing: ‘Spanking - Part One’ and removed comments that were offensive and untrue.

I think there is more to say on the issue of spanking children but at this point, I’ll give it some more thought before I launch into another unfair tirade.

People that know me, even close friends will be surprised but most days I wear this around my neck:

It’s not a declaration but a private reminder to try to walk as Christ did: with love, compassion, and tolerance. Some times, I get it right but most often I’m afraid, I fail dismally: big shoes to fill. For nearly two years of my life I lived as ‘a born again Christian’, I immersed myself in the culture, I tried with all my heart to walk that walk but it didn’t work out. Repeatedly confronted with hypocrisy and intolerance by people too quick to judge others, I soon became disillusioned. With a kind of smug superiority, many of the people I associated with at that time, appeared to be looking for a way of appearing better than others, an almost desperate scramble for the moral high ground: the simple psychology of putting others down to make ones self feel better, all the while spouting self-righteous platitudes like “we don’t hate the sinner we hate the sin.”

Furthermore, I had great difficulty with the faith required to believe in a literal translation of the Bible and that everything it contains is a direct message from God which, has remained unaltered by the political agendas of men. For me the processes of the natural world and our existence as explained by our current understanding better indicates a wondrous God than a requirement to believe literal interpretations of ancient historical documents written in a time of less understanding, where a supernatural magician snapped his fingers and ‘presto’ there’s mankind. What about those beautiful dinosaur tracks, I asked, ‘the work of the devil’ was the curt and dismissive reply.

Many Christians quietly go about their days with no big fuss or bother, you meet them, and you think ‘what a nice, or generous, or good or compassionate person’ they give you a candy cane at Christmas and wish you a happy and joyful time. They don’t beat their kids. They don’t knock on your door and harangue or use every opportunity to espouse bigoted views, they walk quietly in the love of Christ and bear true testament, and the way they choose to live their lives is a beautiful ministry in and of itself.

I wish I had their strength...

Above: Try not to get worried...

Soap Boxing: 'Spanking - Part One'

2007-04-04T03:22:00.000+12:00

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When I was 11 years old my father beat me with a belt, I don’t recall what crime I’d committed but it would not have been serious for I was essentially a good, honest and polite child. My oldest brother provided a fine example of the consequences of bad behaviour, it was his forte, and he excelled and consequentially suffered the penalties: I learned, at a very tender age that to avoid my father’s wrath you behaved. Without consciously realising, my good behaviour provided a differentiation as a middle child with three male siblings. I was afraid of my father and his tempestuous nature but like him, I was stubborn. That day I remember making a decision not to cry, not to give him the satisfaction of humiliating me: a decision to be strong. It was a mistake: I didn’t cry but this enraged my Dad and he gave me the best whipping I’d ever had. From that time on and through adolescence, I learned not to cry, not to show that I was hurting, to internalise my pain, to try to be a ‘macho man.’

http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Dad, in many, many ways he is everything a good father should be. In those days violence was regarded as a legitimate form of discipline, even school teachers had the right to met it out: ‘six of the best’ with a strap or cane is excruciating and, depending on the strength of the perpetrator, could leave welts and bruises, but it was all legal and I thought completely normal. I had no idea that other parents chose not to hit their children. Unbeknownst to me our next-door neighbours never hit their brood and I remember an incident when my next older brother who was about 10, whipped one of their kids with a length of cord leaving a welt on her back and creating something of a furore among the local parents: I suspect that even in those days’ parents beating kids was not as common as I assumed.

The problem with violence is where to draw the line: how much is too much? Moreover, who has the right to determine these things? I do not know if it is a reaction to my childhood experiences or a temperament I was born with but I have managed to survive 50 odd years without ever having hit anyone. I can’t imagine intentionally inflicting physical pain on anything (apart from poisonous snakes, spiders and a shark with my arm in its mouth), and yet the psychopath has no such hesitation. From psychopath to pacifist the human spectrums always run the full gamut, for the male of our species, whose customary identity is characterised by his prowess as a hunter, and defender an abandonment of his chemically driven prerogatives is fraught. Generated in the two most primitive parts of our brains, the brain stem and the limbic brain, anger and competitiveness are reactionary impulses that define us as mammals. The neocortex, which provides us with logic and thought, is the seat of processes such as speaking, planning, and writing thus differentiating us as human.

Only overridden by extreme external stimuli, which provide instinctual behaviours such as the ‘flight or fight’ responses, the neocortex provides us with a way of controlling our baser emotions: an ability to modify our animal instincts defines our humanness. The day my father became enraged at my defiance he succumbed to those instincts and yet on other occasions he meted his punishments out in a conscious rational way, “you have done something wrong and this is the consequence”: a thrashing with the belt. It must be a hard decision for a parent to make, to choose to strike their children but the era dictated legitimacy. However, the point is the outcome remained the same: violence. In the final analysis, it is a conscious ethical determination not a choice governed by degrees or morality: either you choose to inflict violence or not.

www.alz.org/brain/overview.asp

I did not intend entering the misinformed hysterical debate currently raging on the issue of smacking children, fanned to fury by the sensation seeking media and the fanatical Christian Right. I have no children and our collective’s tendency to jump on these issues with rampant gusto and ‘do them to death’ until I become inured and sick of hearing about it, usually ensures my taciturn repose. As somewhat of a cynic, I often suspect that once the palaver dies and the media cools, little or no change will occur. However, I watched ‘Campbell Lives’’ broadcast on Monday night, which screened a debate on the subject and, incensed by some of the comments, feel that this is exactly the sort of issue the psychowrecker should tackle.
http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/tabid/67/Default.aspx

Of course, I’m biased: if you hold an opinion on any given subject it is likely (or probable) that someone with an alternative equally biased viewpoint will contest your position, this is politics and human. Thankfully, we have the democratic right to express our beliefs and there is no doubt that this particular subject requires robust and rigorous debate given the horrendous child abuse statistics in this country. We vociferously heard the stereotypical religious agenda from the fanatical Christian Right vehemently espousing the conservative voice with the usual quotes from the Old Testament ironically paired with the Libertine voice, which whined about who was coming into their living room to tell them how to live their lives. They got loud (as fanatics do), and angry and, this is what got me riled, personal. When the basis of your argument is logically flawed, yet you have a need to clutch it fiercely with your fists of faith, the lower orders of your brain engage and, circumvented by the intolerance of reason and rendered useless, the neocortex is then unable to moderate your emotions. For nefarious fun, I engage the religious doorknockers to elicit the same reactions. I am often condemned to hell for my ignorance.

However, the blissfully ignorant faithful fail to realise that much of the Old Testament is a social cultural doctrine whose content, shared with the Torah and Qur’an, contains the conventions for correct social behaviour within these three major monotheistic religions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism ) throughout the millennia. Most of the quotations from the Bible that relate to beating children are from the Old Testament including the oft quoted:

Proverbs 13-24 (King James Version),

“He that spareth his rod hateth his son.”

Bible Bashers are quick to quote these lines to condemn the modern world when it suits. Yet their college cut hair and shaved faces don’t meet the appropriate requirements from the same set of books, they pick and choose to create a false ideologue, which they believe they have the right to insist I adhere to and condemn and judge me if I do not. This, I do believe is ‘hypocrisy’ and is construability used as an insidious vehicle for passing judgement on others and the justification and promulgation of war; for legitimising violence.

www.nls.uk/collections/rarebooks/collections/popup/kjb.html

I could go on but should get back to the point of my annoyance: when your argument is bullshit and you’re up against the wall ATTACK! Get personal! According to our debaters sitting TV stage left but definitely right politically, some of our elected representatives, in particular Sue Bradford (who introduced the Private Members Bill), the kicking, screaming, and biting ex-protester from the 1980s and 90s and our childless (insinuated as lesbian) Prime Minister, Helen Clark are not morally fibrous enough to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act. The anti-smacking rhetoric is nonsense, the section to be repealed reads:

Section 59, Crimes Act 1961

"Every parent or person in place of a parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards a child if that force is reasonable in the circumstances."

http://www.primeminister.govt.nz/

This debate is not about “anti-smacking” it is a demonstration of the Political Right’s continued paranoia at what they regard as social engineering by the Labour Government: a belief that their rights as individuals are being eroded.
My advice: GET OVER YOURSELVES!
In my lifetime I have been: stripped of my ‘right’ not to wear a crash helmet on my motor bike, denied my 'right' to smoke cigarettes where ever I want. In addition, I am forced to acquiesce that homosexuals are human and their perverse bedroom antics are not morally reprehensible and repugnant, and forced to acquiesce that abortion is a legitimate form of birth control. Moreover, my poor old great grandfather had to allow his Missus the vote!

Since the division of church and state and the rise of western democracies, part of their governments’ mandate is to legislate an ethical social doctrine that is as equitable as possible for all the individuals under its governance and, as the society evolves, to modify the legislature to correspond with contemporary social norms. Counterpoint to this model are the theocracies, which insist their populations subscribe to a rigid set of archaic, often repressive and repulsive laws i.e. stoning an adulterous woman to death (as a public spectacle) when the implicated male suffers no consequence. I know where I prefer to live: New Zealand!

I LOVE MY COUNTRY. I AM FREE TO SPEAK. I’M PROUD OF OUR GOVERNMENT & ITS SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. OUR SOCIETY, (though not perfect) IS INCLUSIVE & FORWARD THINKING. I LIVE IN A BEAUTIFUL ENVIRONMENT, WHICH I KNOW OUR GOVERNMENT HELPS PROTECT. I WANT TO BE PART OF A COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS WHERE POWER MAD, KID THRASHING BULLIES ARE OUTLAWED & OSTRACISED.

Above: “God of Nations at thy feet in the bonds of LOVE we meet...”

www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealandInBrief/GovernmentAndNation/9/ENZ-Resources/Standard/2/en

See what ‘Save the Children - New Zealand’ thinks and check out the link on their site to the PDF explaining the intention of the bill:
http://www.savethechildren.org.nz/new_zealand/nz_programme/section_59.html

Quote from an article in the New Zealand Herald about violence at an “Anti-Smacking” demonstration:

“Some of those 30 mingled among those in favour of the law staying as it is and there were angry arguments, but they didn't escalate into anything physical, other than when a man at Civic Square referring repeatedly to Jesus grabbed another man on the leg.
The Bible-carrier had taken offence to a comment from the other man, but it turned out both were from the anti-smacking side of the debate. Police quickly intervened.”

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10431333

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Web’s(h)out!

2007-04-02T13:34:00.000+12:00

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I had perhaps naively presupposed that this blog would remain an amoeba in the primordial swamp of Gondwana Land and could never evolve into a being of substance (with backbone?): plesiomorphic rather than apomorphic, though not to underestimate the relative merits of being a mollusc.

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/PICKOVER/graphcp.html

But the web, with an exponential speed akin to mitosis, evolves daily, voraciously sucking on the information it is fed: inexorable, organic. Its interconnectivity, like a mind where well-trodden links form web memories that the formidably Google, the nascent ego, percolates to the top of its consciousness, expands at a fantastic rate in inexplicable and insuperable ways. Poor old psychowrecker thought he would be buried in the subconscious: part of the dream not the reality. Naïve old psychowrecker!

Above: "Et in Arcadia ego"

http://arthistory.about.com/od/blog_images/ig/April-2006/02_KingsAsCollectors-Poussin-A.htm

Imagine my surprise: my review (?) reviewed already! And here I most profess my innocence and ignorance: innocent of the crime of review and ingenuously ignorant of the possibilities of my comments disclosed. My thoughts on Jack Yan’s and Mark Jackson’s tutorials (see: ‘School’s Out’) were in no way intended as a review in the sense of an examination to ensure there adequacy, accuracy, or correctness, they were I imagined, personal comments and opinions expressed as part of an internal dialogue: therein lies my ingenuousness! There is for me a surreal aspect to the web interface: it is easy to sit at the computer and disconnect from the fact that the web connects (!): a solitary rendition before an unseen audience. The web is a medium and by clicking that ‘publish’ button, I have become part of the media! This, a ridiculous and confounding realisation, is real!

I trust it is clear from my comments in the prior entry ‘School’s Out’ that: I thoroughly enjoyed my participation in both tutorials and that I have nothing but respect and admiration for both the speakers. But it leaves me wondering uneasily, given that it is possible that these entries be read, should I, as an obscure voice in the new media, part of the, as Jack writes on his ‘Persuader’ blog (http://www.jackyan.com/blog/), "democratisation" of the web, start to censor myself? Alas, methinks not. I was born with a voice, I speak (therefore IAM (?)) and I have never been able to shut myself up! If I choose to opine on any topic, that is my right: I am franchised with the freedom of speech; I claim it as an inalienable and innate mandate of my humanity!
Please don’t sue me...

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Above: Freedom of Speech Guatemalan Style

Mediated Idols

2007-04-01T09:35:00.000+12:00

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I love TV and watch way too much of it. Luckily there are only six ‘free to air’ channels available for my obsession and, as a struggling student, I don’t have the wherewithal to indulge in the satellite offerings, which is just as well as I’m sure if I did I wouldn’t get much study done. The irony is that I’m a ‘visual learner’ and would be well served if ‘SKY TV’ http://www.skytv.co.nz/ were to broadcast programming relative to my curricula, instead of the ‘for the short attention span’, watered down to the lowest common denominator, repetitive, docu-mag, conspiracy-theory pap currently broadcast (excluding of course , some of the BBC’s documentaries).

Though, as a plebeian of modest means I count myself lucky: up until a week or so ago, late-night, on three of our ‘free to air’ channels, we were able to flick between BBC World News http://news.bbc.co.uk/ , Fox (mainly the early morning show ‘Fox & Friends’) www.fox.com/home.htm , and Aljazeerah www.jumptv.com/en/channel/aljazeerainternational or http://english.aljazeera.net/English , for a fascinating view of how the world sees itself from three specific political standpoints. If a news story of substance broke while the channels were running the overseas news services you were able to observe the media commentating on unfolding events across the political spectrum (broadly speaking: left, centre and right). If the story was say Eurocentric and in particular British and, was not about the royal family nor a major event like the 7/7 bombings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings , it was likely that the heavily made-up and finely coiffed, rightwing talking heads at Fox would not be expressing their biased opinions at all, which (“with a little bit of fun”) is what they tend to do rather than actually report the news. Meanwhile, it would be all over the BBC (as long as there was no sports program running), reported with an imperceptibly, stiff-upper-lipped-liberal-pinko-lefty condescension. While Aljazeerah would be attempting to just report the events. You might think that my own political tendencies would have me favour the BBC version but you would be wrong! ALL the voices are relevant and together help formulate a better understanding of what ever is going on however, all comment is biased, even that of the participants, thus:
“History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.”
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821).

www.lucidcafe.com/library/95aug/napoleon.html

Different groups of people choose to believe different versions; the truth gets lost in the middle and is only recorded in time by the omniscient universe (who so far never tells). Perhaps a practical car manufacturer’s comments are more relevant:
“History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we made today.” Henry Ford (1863 - 1947), Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916.

www.time.com/time/time100/builder/profile/ford.html

Unfortunately, as mentioned previously, we lost Fox a week or so ago: the local channel that broadcast them late-night has been purchased by (you guessed it!) ‘SKY TV’, which is owned by News Corp. (see: Rupert Murdoch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch) and no doubt in an attempt to have the viewers ‘pay to view’ have discontinued much of its airing. As another interesting aside: since the inception of the English version of Aljazeerah it is remarkable to note how many BBC stalwarts have jumped ship. These include David Frost and Stephen Cole, whose hype delivers the message that they wish to be at the forefront of journalism but, methinks it may have more to do with the (probably) enormous pay checks offered by the rich Arab backers of the channel.

Understanding and observation are always prejudiced by the collective consciousness of the society in which we dwell and for me, a believer in the extrapolation of quantum behaviours into the biochemical/physical realm, the observation of events is likely to alter the outcome i.e. do you think Lt. William Calley would have murdered those twenty-two Vietnamese civilians at My Lai during the Vietnam War if an Aljazeerah film crew had been recording his actions. www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/lai/verdict_12.html
His telling address (quoted from the above link) to the jury after sentencing clearly defines the collective consciousness of those running and participating in the war:
“Nobody in the military system ever described them as anything other than Communism. They didn’t give it a race, they didn’t give it a sex, they didn’t give it an age. They never let me believe it was just a philosophy in a man’s mind. That was my enemy out there. And when it became between me and that enemy, I had to value the lives of my troops, and I feel that was the only crime I have committed.”

Above: NB. The “Gooks’” cleverly concealed weapons

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The American psyche, a notion attempting to encapsulate an essentially fractured and disparate entity, is unintelligible to the psychowrecker. For the past two days I have watched events unfold on Fox’s ‘American Idol’ show http://www.americanidol.com/ with disbelief. Three of the final twelve contestants are black American women with fine voices, any one of them, in my opinion, are candidates for the top spot and yet the American voting public, in this case some 30 million people (though it has to be said probably consisting mainly of adolescent girls), chose to eliminate Stephanie Edwards: one of the three afore mentioned contestants. During the Friday night show she belted out a Shirley Bassey http://www.dameshirleybassey.com/ song with such emotion it bought tears to my eyes and yet on Saturday she was gone, voted out, usurped by some goofy white-boy with a wan and insipid warble of a voice. This is injustice, or worse! Yes, many black American women have fine singing voices and they are represented on this show because of this, but it is, as Simon Cowell keeps re-iterating, fundamentally a singing competition and not a pretty-boy beauty pageant as the majority of the viewers seem to think. The contestants should be voted for on the basis of their vocal abilities and not on their gender or the colour of their skin!

Can I hope that the remaining women of colour: LaKisha Jones, Jordin Sparks and Melinda Doolittle, all with fine voices (not to mention star quality names), remain in the competition and that one of them takes out the top honours? Or is the American public too dumb and biased to recognize a ‘true’ idol when they see one?

Above: Stepahnie Edwards

Ghandi & the Über–Heroes

2007-03-31T10:48:00.000+12:00

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The day to day musings and rants of the psychowrecker: an antipodean “voice in the wilderness”, an anarchistic screech from the last remnants of the primordial forests of Gondwana Land. All voices should be heard, your journey is important. Be the Über–Hero you are capable of becoming. Individuals facilitate change within themselves; like-minded individuals facilitate revolution within society. Start from your centre of peace, good heart and good health and radiate the love.

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing, would suffice to solve most of the world's problems... ”
Mahatma Gandhi http://www.gandhiinstitute.org/

You can be on a quest for truth or for power:

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School's Out

2007-03-30T20:55:00.000+12:00

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I didn’t make it back for a late night rendezvous with the psychowrecker: big day at school. It rained non-stop Thursday and the far north flooded, the media’s hysterical voice screamed “once in a hundred & forty years flood” but I’m thinking, ‘it won’t be the last’ because in case you hadn’t noticed, something’s up with the weather. I mean, it was hot, not tropical hot but like 23˚C and the rain just didn’t let up... all day! The high street was awash and I got wet going to and coming home from school but it was a great day never the less. And the reason it was great? Well, as mentioned in my last blog entry, we had a tutorial with Jack Yan and that was good but, as an added bonus the morning’s tutorial was taken by a guy called Mark Jackson and, simple maths tells us that, good tutorial + good tutorial = great day, regardless of what the weather is doing and how wet your clothes feel: regardless of Climate Change!

If you Google Dr Mark Jackson you realise that there are a few of them spread across the globe but this particular version works in the design department at the university I attend www.aut.ac.nz and he delivered a tutorial entitled “Technology & Culture”. Though he’s a ‘stralian, I soon forgave him when I realised we read out of the same book; only he’s at page 1042 and I’m still struggling with the first chapter. Without specifically mentioning Martin Heidegger, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger he cleverly plotted the link from Immanuel Kant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant through to our present day understanding of culture & technology in a way that I could only describe as “Heideggian”, though apparently it was Post Structuralism. Not once did he stumble into Sartre’s bogged mire of existentialism,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre though we did spend some time discussing the relative merits of French, English and German toilets and how they provide representative metaphors of the cultures that created and use them. Check this out: “I AM THAT DOING. THE SELF IS WHAT WE DO.” This is not the petty self that dwells within the mind: this is the complete self that is observable by others and is responsible for the actions it makes. Or this: “WE ARE WHAT WE DO” and therefore we are underway, partaking of a journey of self discovery: that which we are capable of doing, ever searching for the “horizon of discovery” which, just like the actual horizon, we are never able to reach. I loved it all.

Mr Jack Yan was another kettle of fish and not at all what I expected. It is too easy to pass prior judgement upon our fellows particularly when you think you know more about them than they do about you. Jack had been described to me as shy but if this is the case there were no signs. He is charming and comedic with a voracious mind and astute business acumen and though he professes to be just an ordinary bloke his catalogue of achievements dispel this modesty. As examples check out: www.jyanet.com/consulting , http://lucire.com/ , www.jyanet.com/fonts .
Though still a young man he started his first business at the age of 14 and, as you can discover at the links above, he’s a stone gathering no moss. The online fashion magazine “lucire” has a hardcover sister available internationally (even in Romania) and, as only Midas and his progeny could, the name was chosen prior to the realization that lucire is actually a Romanian word that means ‘to glitter’. Pure serendipity (?), or does God favour the good (?), or serendipity the clever?

Jack is on the Board of Directors for the ‘Medlinge Group’, http://www.medinge.org/ a self described “high-level international think-tank on branding”, which each year for the past four, have released a list of eight names of companies that the group single out as being “brands with a conscience”. The 2007 list is:
Adnams http://www.adnams.co.uk/
Ecover http://www.ecover.com/
Fetzer Vineyards http://www.fetzer.com/
Freeplay http://www.freeplayenergy.com/
IKEA http://www.ikea.com/
RED http://www.joinred.com/
Virgin Group/Virgin Fuels http://www.virginunite.com/
Whole Foods http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

If, like Jack and the Medlinge Group and (ahem) myself, you possess a social conscience all these companies listed above are worth supporting, remember: “WE ARE WHAT WE DO” or to put it another way, your journey counts!
But hey, it’s Friday and school’s out for the weekend!

Wet Train Rides to the City

2007-03-29T07:27:00.001+12:00

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Some introduction, huh! Enough to put you off all ready, Dear Reader? I shall nevertheless persevere, though this morning’s entry is likely to be short given that it is 7:12 a.m. in my neck of the woods and I have a train to catch at 8:33 a.m. It’s ‘raining cats ‘n dogs’ in Aotearoa* and the televised weather report confirms it is likely to be this inclement for the rest of the day, which will make today’s commutes wet and unpleasant.

The journey from my house into University takes about 40 minutes but the train service is notoriously unreliable and it is likely to be a wet rush to my first tutorial at 10 a.m. I am however, very much looking forward to today’s activities. We are to be addressed by the renowned Jack Yan and I am interested to hear what he has to say. I had never heard of him until I started post-graduate studies this year but from all accounts and upon reading his blog http://www.jackyan.com/blog/ he is definitely someone to listen to and take note of. I'll let you know the outcome as I intend to post another entry this evening.

Until then, smile when it rains ‘cause it makes the farmers happy!

*The Maori name for New Zealand, which appropriately, translates into English as "the land of the long white cloud."

Kia ora

2007-03-28T00:38:00.000+12:00

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Welcome. I am the psychowrecker, a name that infers a certain anarchistic nihilism (?). Possibly, but I would describe myself as neither an anarchist nor a nihilist and, though I am of reasonable intelligence, my political leanings (if they lean anywhere), lean in the direction of the “pinko left”. In fact, the name choice is more to do with idea of wrecking the mind: my mind, your mind, making me/you think, or re-think, testing established social, cultural or economic paradigms by proposing alternatives. It’s a play on words: a ‘psycho wrecker’ is somebody to avoid in dark alleys or, it could be someone who is in the habit of wrecking psychos, again, someone to avoid in dark alleys. But am I a psycho or even a wrecker and are my grandiose designs for wrecking minds likely to be consigned to the bottom of a million plus Google search result of a psychopathic neo-Nazi looking for some cheap web thrills or personal validation.

According to the Microsoft behemoth the slang terms ‘psycho’ are: an offensive term for somebody who has a psychiatric or personality disorder or, an offensive term meaning behaving in an uncontrolled and unpredictable way but according to my psychotherapist, I am neither. A psychiatric review established that I am full of internalised rage that expresses itself in bouts of severe and debilitating depression, which is probably too much information for the opening entry on a blog but the realisation that there are now millions of blogs on the web and that only a small percentage of them are actually read by persons other than the people who post them, begets me an uneasy confidence that this sort of personal revelation is likely to go completely unnoticed in the grand scheme of things. These blog entries are most likely to be records of my inner dialogue and will probably remain sacrosanct confessions to my internal god: who is by my reckoning, a woman and therefore, in the Jungian analysis of the psyche, the representative and spokesperson for my ‘anima’: she “talks quietly but carries a big stick” to misquote Teddy.

I’m sure that will do for now, so welcome, welcome me to the wide wonderful world of the blogosphere – that’s www.blogosphere.co.nz.