h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dogster thanks for that reference. Yes I think you are maybe getting to the root of my sense of inner contortions about these things. Although living with inner conflict and beset by a sense of 'contradiction' is a fairly common experience for me. I sometimes worry its a fundamental of my psyche It makes for complex communication, misunderstandings etc. Art is a very good way of dealing with this I find because much of art in all its form, visual literature etc deals with that point of contadiction. That's why I love it so much and it's the main thing, besides gardening that makes me feel most sane.

(And it's good you said he's not a typical Marxist. Atypical Marxists I can handle. )

Still linking to a segment of "comedy" by Chris Rock as if it's funny or makes any kind of useful point when it isn't and doesn't.

What you and it are saying is people who are in a minority should surrender their identity be entirely supine to authrity even when its being abused and just hope to get away with as little abuse of your rights or physical violence as those paid to uphold everyones rights deem necessary.

Who's that post directed at blicky?

Sorry should have name checked SWl in my last post.

Okay. I missed have missed that in the b/l.

Your post about 'breaking in' with something cultural is interesting. I'm going to think about that in terms of art..and I mean all kinds of creative stuff, not just visual art...or anything, like you say on the news

I'll post something about it when I've thought more.

Dogster have just listened to a couple of clips on YouTube of that man. It's great stuff, I love it..I can relate to a lot of what he says, and I love his delivery. He was actually on Newsnight a few weeks ago..and just launched into this labarrhynth of ideas and didn't need any interviewing, it was wonderful. The interviewer clearly loved it as well, and justsaid okay stop, we're out of time..so great to encounter him again. God I must go to bed now and not stop up all night watching more clips of him.

Blicky - are you serious? Are you seriously saying that it is part of a minority's identity to carry guns, knives, drugs and verbally abuse & run from the police?

The point of the clip was to counterpoint Chris's clip with *another* lame racial stereotype.

Mine wasn't lame! I thought it was rather good actually.

What? Another wealthy middle-class guy making money out of racism? No different from Jim Davidson when you get down to it.

Wow

Louis CK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

Jim Davidson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ZufLrNTZ8

I can't tell the difference either!

Let me re-phrase that. Chris Rock makes a living out of racially stereotyping people with the same skin colour as him - in a way that both amuses and offends. Your white comic does exactly the same.

What both of them are actually doing is ignoring the fact that the real advantages in society come from money, not skin colour. Rock is saying in that clip that acting like a poor black criminal will have negative consequences. Well, d'oh!

Your white comic was saying that his skin colour guaranteed him advantages and made reference to "crackers" owning land & slaves. Well, he got that stupendously wrong as "cracker" was a term reserved for poor white people in the American South - "White Trash" who certainly didn't own land or slaves.

So both of them use inaccurate stereotypes as seen from their personal viewpoints of wealth & privilege.

Effers, you do have to be careful, he's quite compulsive viewing - I've lost entire days to watching Zizek YouTube vids! :D

Having looked at the two commedians, I'd have to say that the most in yer face difference between them was in their abilities and talent as commedians. I'm happy to watch any comedian, and don't mind what their angle maybe; but profound lack of talent always offends. But JD making money out of being any good at being funny, is quite an achievement.

I should recommend Louis CK's new show Louie - it's on some obscure cable channel but there are plenty of clips around. There's even a bit with Ricky Gervais in which is tolerable.

Why need basic freedoms be restricted by 'ukish centric' and driven down the path of race discrimination. Surely basic freedoms should have no boundaries. That has to be what basic freedom is all about.
In the UK freedom is basic to our way of life. Our way life has many other freedoms and characteristics, basic understanding being one of them. Along with understanding goes tolerance with an expectation of fair play and acceptable behavior. Chelsea Pensioners, Beef Eaters, the kilt, the flat hat, uniforms, club blazers and ties, the team football shirt, school uniforms, badges and arm bands, to name but a few, are treated in an appropriate way in the situation in which you expect to find them.
Given freedom it is not the UK way to wear the same thing day after day whatever the occasion.

And incidentally, Louis' gay mate is also wrong about the etymology of "faggot". He claims that gay men were called this because they were burned like faggots of wood. I wondered about that. Calling gay men "faggot" has always been an Americanism as I understood it and AFAIK, gay men weren't normally burned alive in the US.

So I found this -

http://rictornorton.co.uk/homopho4.htm

"Some commentators believe that the term "faggot" as applied to homosexuals is derived from the bundles of sticks or "faggots" that were used to burn the heretics. The heretics were easily identified with the fuel used to burn them, for symbolic faggots were in fact embroidered on the garments of those who refused to recant: hence the phrase "to fry a faggot." However, this etymology is probably not correct, because "faggot" as a slang term for a homosexual only occurs in English, and in England homosexuals were never burned at the stake, but hanged, so it is difficult to see how the metaphorical meaning could have arisen. The term is more likely derived from the French and Italian term baggage meaning "slut, whore."


See, this is the problem when comics stray away from knob gags and try to be "edgy". They often don't know what they're talking about. In their attempts to be oh-so urbane and clever (and appeal to an oh-so clever and urbane audience) they just perpetuate stereotypes.

>Why need basic freedoms be restricted by 'ukish centric'<

They don't, but that was the question I was interested in, see OP and the question about attitudes in the new co-alition, although I knew one of the examples given could bring in discussion about what other countries are doing . By all means open things up here, or start your own more general thread.

effers
sexuality,religion,art are all choices that can be made in a free country along with the right to follow your individual whims and fancies. This freedom also creates cliques among people with like views. These cliques can create objections within a free country to the extent that the clique itself can restriction freedom.

So... ten years on and all responsible people are wearing masks. Funny how things change.

Entertainingly, my local petrol station has two signs outside, literlly right next to one another. The first requires motorcyclists to remove their helmets before entering the store (presumably so that they're not effectively wearing a mask that would allow them to maintain anonymity when they potentially rob the place). The second *requires* them to wear a mask. Chucklesome.

I do wonder if this change in national mores is temporary (until we get bored of hearing about Covid, I would estimate within about a year from now) or permanent, and we'll become more like certain oriental countries where surgical masks on the street are a common, unremarkable sight.

I suspect there will be a residue of extra hygiene measures. Perhaps screens at tills will remain and certain situations where people will commonly wear masks. Depends if we manage to eradicate or successfully vaccinate against COVID, or if something else comes along. Or if there is evidence that the incidence of many other illnesses have been reduced by distancing & better hygiene.
But if it's no longer law, there will be plenty who will eschew any such habits.

"if something else comes along"

That's not an if.

There are few certainties in life, but one you can rely on is this: there *is* going to be another pandemic. The last one was a century ago, but there's no guarantee the next one won't be twenty, ten or two years away. But however long it is, it's definitely coming. Given how destructive to society this one has been, imagine how we'd cope with one that actually killed a largish proportion of the people it infected.