Monday Pessimus: Is This The End?

Being a giant shape-changing alien robot doesn't preclude the odd dabble in the beautiful art of haiku.

Slight Return

So I had planned on writing up another ale festival this week, what with there having been one thrown on Warwick campus this week.

Ultimately, though, the booze was by far the least interesting part of the evening.  I can confirm that peach wine does indeed taste of peaches; lemon and lime cider is functionally equivalent of poorly diluted lime cordial, at least until you start having problems moving your eyes in tandem; and chocolate and vanilla ale is not so much less than the sum of its parts than a stinking wasteland in which the parts have slaughtered each other with shit-smeared swords.

Mainly, though, it served as a reminder of why I thought so little of student-run events back when I was an undergrad. These people have no idea how to run a bar.  You don't stand chatting with your punters when they're backed up eight layers deep to buy a drink.  You number your casks so it doesn't take you precious seconds to locate the particular brand of booze one of your umpteen patrons has just asked for. You certainly don't put together a bill of fare that apes the standard ale/cider ratio found at CAMRA festivals and then act surprised when the youngsters all want to try the sweet strong stuff.  One couldn't move in the cramped SU for young gentlemen challenging each other to feats of alcoholic excess that even I thought imprudent. Twenty-five minutes is a long time to wait for a half-pint of mango cider when surrounded by idiot men convinced overindulgence at university is somehow remarkable, and idiot women apparently all too willing to indulge them in their fantasy.

On the other hand, these people know how to book a band.  What says ale-sloshing like rousing shanties belted out by a musical troupe featuring three tambourine players?  What, you think that's too many tambourines? Fuck you, you wretched folk-vacuum!  The only reason these cats didn't employ five tambourines was because two of them had to bank sticks covered in tiny cymbals on the floor.

And the songs.  Not even Metallica dared put so much grinning, bawdy oomph into "Whiskey in the Jar" [1].  Nothing shows dedication to your craft like hiring an actual postman to be on-stage - not doing anything, mind you - during some shambolic ditty about delivering packages to women.  Or waving plastic chickens around during your oh-so-clever song about cocks.  The entendres aren't exactly two-deep here.

Plus, nothing promotes international harmony like your Mexican drinking buddy grabbing your arm and shouting drunkenly "These people are pirates!" at you.  Apparently piracy is second only to football in its universal applications.  Long may that continue.

[1] That's a thought, actually: drunken folk covers of Metallica songs.  Until you've slurred Enter Sandman in a bad Somerset action, you simply have not lived.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill (2014)

It's been a little while since we checked in on the US political scene; I wonder what they're up to?

Oh.  A debt ceiling fight. How quaint.

Let us remind ourselves of the stakes here.  if the US defaults on its debt the global financial consequences will be somewhere between severe and apocalyptic.  There is no-one in this fight who does not know this - though a few of the more eye-swivelling Republicans are pretending not to get it.

So, just like the last debt ceiling crisis - which ended less than 17 weeks ago, if you're counting - the debt limit has to be increased, or 2008 could end up looking like the last scene in Return of the Jedi.  And what was the Republican plan? To reverse a pension cut to former US veterans they themselves forced through previously so that they can look like heroes when the benefits are reinstated.

Read that again.  The Republican leadership is so unhappy with the idea of not destroying the world's economy that they need to cancel out their own fucking over of veterans to make them feel good about it.

Which is both cynical and pathetic, however you slice it.  Apparently it doesn't matter though, since within a day the plans had been scrapped because too many of the rank-and-file Republicans claimed this was a shitty plan because it would make them look heartless when they voted for not helping vets and wrecking the world at the same time.

Every time I see the Telegraph insisting the Tories could learn a lot from the Republicans I start wondering if I'd really find a lobotomy as bad as people say.

On Allenegations

Since people I otherwise very much respect seem to be getting this wrong, a few comments on the Woody Allen/Dylan Farrow story currently in the news.  I'll be steering clear of references to Allen's alleged actions, but even so, those for whom this subject acts as a trigger might want to skip this post.

We'll start off with the obvious: I have absolutely no idea where the truth lies here. I do know that if you assume every accusation of child abuse is true, you'll be far more right than wrong (bastion of dispassionate fact Wikipedia suggests the false accusation rate is under 10%; for example), but that doesn't translate into the suggestion that we should automatically dismiss Allen's claims of innocence.

But it is one thing to privately take an agnostic position on the matter, and another to start pushing that publicly, and lecturing those more inclined to believe Farrow than you are that they are participating in mob justice.

It is a fact somewhere between inarguable and indescribably obvious that our culture does not respond well to those who make allegations of sexual assault against people we happen to find entertaining.  Even for those who aren't fortunate enough to be internationally respected and sitting atop huge piles of cash, the chances the majority will side with your accuser rather than you are pretty damn small. A significant majority of people will either ignore a victim's claims, or actively persecute them for speaking out.

Given that the clear majority of those making accusations are telling the truth, and given that the clear majority of people who hear those accusations do nothing positive with them, why on earth would you want to spend your time haranguing those people who haven't dismissed what they've been told? Why  would you conclude that the biggest problem in sexual abuse cases is that the accusers are given too much support and benefit of the doubt? Why would you spend your time worrying about how the rich and powerful must feel about nasty twitter messages?

If it comes to it, Allen deserves the presumption of innocence in court.  Out of court, that principle no longer applies.  It's fine to remind people that no-one should prepare themselves for a bout of vigilante justice here, but simply beating the shit out of Allen's reputation hardly counts as taking the law into one's own hands. No-one is under any obligation to assume Allen's innocence. Indeed it's ridiculous to expect people to hold to the presumption of innocence in general. If your friend tells you she's sure a garage stiffed him over car repairs, and you take your car to that same garage, guess what? You're a fucking idiot. You don't haughtily tell her she has no proof and so you must assume the garage is run honestly. You go to a different garage.

The same is true here, magnified a thousand fold.  If someone risks social ostracism and vicious attacks (Farrow had to change her name to escape being hounded over her claims) in order to label someone as a predator, the reflexive desire to argue no-one can be sure it's true runs the risk of silencing the voice of genuine victims, and making it easier for predators to pick up their next victim, secure in the knowledge that those who don't ignore the next accusation will actively smear their target.

Yes, Allen might be innocent. Yes, his description of events might be the correct one.  He is managing perfectly well to get that story out without your help. If you're not sure who is offering the true version of events, you're more than welcome to keep your mouth shut. Otherwise you risk making things more difficult for the victims of sexual abuse because you want to make it easier for victims of unpleasant Twitter-storms.  That's a prioritisation you might want to reconsider.

SpaceSquid vs. The X-Men #46: Just Some Streetwalker

The late '90s and early '00s were not an easy time for Marvel.  Titles were hemorrhaging sales in the wake of the great comics crash, and the tricks cynical writers had used to keep superhero stories afloat since the late '80s had finally been mined out. Even if the hyper-violent boobpocalypse hadn't reached their respective reductio ad absurdum endpoints, comics found themselves crowded out by the continuing rise of video games and the arrival of online porn, which both offered more... direct doses to the consumer.

But old habits die hard.  One of the truly remarkable things about the cataracts of blood that stained a decade of comics was how easily people bought into the idea that it somehow represented "maturity".  It was a bizarre form of arguing by inversion: children's literature features very few deaths, therefore bodycounts that would have seemed excessive in the later Rambo films must somehow occupy the other end of the spectrum. The next step in the "maturing" of comics followed the same misguided logic: if children's stories were completely devoid of sex, the most mature angle possible would be to include a character who had as much sex as possible.

It was time to move the conception of super-being sex beyond coy glances thrown at pneumatic-chested models.  It was time for a hooker superhero.

Deep Thought: Comedy Hijinks

The more I watch the later epsiodes of Big Bang Theory - which I find rather sweet, despite understanding why it winds up so many geeks/academics - the more clear it becomes that the only real difference between a lot of US comedy and US drama is that in the latter you're actually aloud to punch someone who's being an intolerable douche, rather than have to play along for the sake of setting up jokes.

How about it, Chuck Lorre?  Dip into the drama pool a little. Consider the conflict-resolution advantages offered by a good sock to the jaw.  If there is any character in modern sitcoms who needs a fist in the face more than Sheldon Cooper, they have managed to avoid showing up on my radar.

For The Record...

... I don't remotely begrudge an American telling the English press what he wants for Scotland, all whilst running a business named after the whole island.  But can we at least all agree that a man who doesn't see the point in guarding against the uncertainty of his oil rigs exploding, he can fuck right off whining how uncertainty in local economics has him worried.

Mind you, momentarily inconveniencing this turdaraptor might just be the best reason to vote "yes" anyone has come up with. In fact, I reckon we could run the rest of the world from this moment on according to what enrages oil barons the most, and be sipping champagne on Mars will all mankind within the decade.