#parochial police

[boneopera]

ABAB

All Beadles Are Bastards

[writers-potion]

When to Use "P" Sounds

to show unbending authority, bureaucracy and the law

for a character who prides himself in his masculinity

for eortic scenes with male action

for a display of power and pompousness

for a firm patriarchal society

"P" for authority and pride:

power, principle, parilament, empire, approve, impose, president, prelate, prefect, emperor, empress, pastor, priest, prince, pontiff, patriarch, parade, palace, portal, pose, display, pomp, peacock, prance, preen, pretend, imposter, importance, impress

"P" sounds for judgement and punishment:

police, penalty, punishment appraisal, probe, oppose, probate, approve, passport, apprehend, appeal, troop, platoon, deploy, poll, parish, population, protocol, parochial, position, plead, process, prison

"P" for stick-like objects:

pole, pile, pillar, pilaster, peak, pike, spear, poke, pierce, prong, push, pin, prick, penetrate, point, penis, patriarchy, paternal, progenitor

Other thematically unrelated words:

apply, park, perk, pug, puppy, posy, plug, apple, pear, grap apricot, peach, painting, portrait, picture, people, ping, peg, gape, lip, ship, pen, pulse, parchment, palaver, ploy, ape, sap, tap, sip, tip, pillow, pirouette, pry, ploy, slip, plant, peek, peer, nape, plate, platinum, planet, ship, rip, spin, wasp, lamp, ample, shape

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[max1461]

Something that I've heard a few times listening to the stories of non-Japanese who grew up in Japan is that those who grew up in small towns experienced less bullying as kids than those who grew up in cities. It's like, in a small town you go to school with basically the same set of kids the whole time, and they get used to having a foreigner around. It stops being "whoa check out the foreign kid, she's weird and different", and just becomes "oh that's Emiri, I've known her forever". Also probably helps that all the kids' parents are more likely to know each other (and to know the only foreign couple in town).

My impression is that in larger schools with more churn, the bullying/exclusion is often worse.

I was going to say that this is a counterpoint to common ideas about rural communities being insular and regressive and urban communities being progressive, but I'm not sure it really is. It's more interesting than that, because it seems more like a virtue in parochialism itself. If you grow up in a small and relatively insular town, your norms are not the norms of "your nation", they are the norms of your town, and if there happens to be a foreign couple there there might as well be a foreign couple in every town in Japan. Naive parochialism can be a safeguard against the more cultivated forms of ingroup policing that emerge in genuinely more diverse environments.

I think there might be something similar going on with, say, the way trans people were sometimes talked about in the media 70 years ago ("young man becomes gorgeous dame with new medical procedure") and the way they're often talked about now.

[psychotrenny]

People should realise that cop refers specifically to "a professional member of a official state law enforcement institution" and not like "guy I don't like". I don't care how terrible someone's takes are or whatever, unless they are like literally on the state payroll they are not "a cop". They may, directly or indirectly, support the same ends that cops do (violently maintaining the interests of the dominant class in a society) and may display a mentality comparable to many police officers. But regardless of how much similarity you can draw between any such individual and the police, they are in a significantly different material position from any actual cop. Even in cases where someone is literally doing the same job as cops, like vigilante groups, their lack of institutional grounding makes them meaningfully distinct from actual professional police.

Not to mention the many ways that cops in a Bourgeoisie state are different from those in a Proletarian one*, but because many people in the Imperial Core parochially focus on their own nations so much of what they call "cop-brain" is more accurately "bourgeoisie-brain". Like using "cop" in that broad colloquial way is an all around useless and stupid thing to do, that only makes sense if you've internalised a very specific form of Left-Liberal nonsense about the nature of the state and class struggle. Stop calling people "cop" when you mean "reactionary", and unless you're undergoing psychic possession you don't need to "kill the cop inside your head"

*not to say that Socialist cops are above any sort of wrongdoing either personally or institutionally, but their class orientation is fundamentally different (just compare what happens in the US when business owners all cops on protestors to what happens in China) and so any worthwhile criticism of them must be grounded in a completely different context

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

2023 Covenant School Shooting

Audrey Hale drove a Honda Fit to The Covenant School, a private Presbyterian Church in America parochial school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, arriving at 9:54 a.m. CDT and parking it in the lot. At 9:57 Hale sent a message to an old friend, saying an earlier message was "basically a suicide note" and that she planned to die today. The friend called a crisis hotline and then contacted the Davidson County Sheriff's Office at 10:13.

At 10:11, Hale shot through a side door to enter the building. She was armed with two rifles and a handgun. At 10:13, police received a call about an active shooter.  Hale walked across the second floor of the school before opening fire. Officers first arrived at the school at 10:24. A teacher told one of the officers that the students were in lockdown and two were missing. 

Officers entered the building at 10:25, began evacuating the first floor, and searched each room for Hale. They heard gunshots coming from the second floor. Five Metro Nashville police officers proceeded upstairs and saw him in a lobby area, firing through a window at arriving police vehicles. Two of the officers fired eight rounds, killing her at 10:27, 14 minutes after the initial 911 call. 

Six people—three children and three staff members—were killed. Five were pronounced dead at a hospital and one at the scene. They were students Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs, all aged 9; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; custodian Mike Hill, 61; and head of school Katherine Koonce, 60. In addition, a police officer cut his hand on shattered glass.

[whatevergreen]

"Like millions around the world, last May the image of the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killing George Floyd sickened and angered me and drove me to the streets to demonstrate in support of Black Lives Matter. It also reminded me of events that occurred in my hometown of San Francisco 42 years ago on Friday.

Many people know who Harvey Milk was, are familiar with his contributions to the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement and remember that he was assassinated on 27 November 1978 after being in office for less than a year. Fewer people are aware that one of the proximate reasons why Milk and San Francisco’s progressive mayor George Moscone were killed was because of their opposition to police violence and abuse.

The line from Derek Chauvin back to Dan White, the former San Francisco supervisor, fireman and policeman who murdered George Moscone and Harvey Milk, may encompass 42 years of urban history, but it is clear and a stark reminder of the persistence of police brutality and the efforts to which some will go to resist any reform.

Dan White was a bigot who, in 1977, had gotten elected on a reactionary platform that included promises to “eradicate malignancies that blight our city”, but his actions were motivated in substantial part by a toxic mix of that bigotry along with anger and loyalty to the parochial interests of the racist factions within the San Francisco police department (SFPD).

White resigned from the board of supervisors, the equivalent of the city council, in early November 1978, citing the need to make more money to support his young family. He then wanted his job back, but when Moscone refused to reappoint him, he killed Moscone and Milk, who he believed had urged Moscone towards his decision.

But there’s another component to Moscone and Milk’s deaths that is directly relevant to the Black Lives Matter movement today. White was being aggressively encouraged to get back on the board by the police unions and others around the SFPD who needed White’s vote to ensure the failure of a federal consent decree order before the board. That decree, if passed, would have accelerated the integration of the force and been a major step toward limiting the ability of the SFPD to abuse racial minority and LGBTQ+ San Franciscans. The vote was deadlocked at five. White’s return to the board would have meant a 6-5 majority against it. If White were replaced by somebody chosen by the progressive mayor George Moscone, the decree would have passed by one vote.

Moscone had been elected in 1975 with huge margins among African Americans and in the neighborhoods with high concentrations of LGBTQ+ voters. Part of his platform was to curtail police brutality and to support civil rights for gay San Franciscans and San Franciscans of color. This made him a radical in the mid-1970s, even in San Francisco.

White’s resignation gave Moscone an opportunity to get a progressive majority on the board for the consent decree and other issues. A smart and experienced politician, the mayor was not going to pass that chance up.

After White assassinated San Francisco’s mayor and the supervisor he believed, falsely, had persuaded the mayor not to reappoint him, much of the city was overcome with shock and grief. But in some parts, the assassinations were celebrated, not least in police headquarters, where police radio channels played the song Danny Boy in honor of their former colleague who had carried out their dirty work. Some took to wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Free Dan White” under their uniforms.

The police unions today that minimize the crimes of police officers like Derek Chauvin and remain opposed to any efforts to reform policing or address longstanding issues of systemic racism in policing are the spiritual and political descendants of Dan White and SFPD officers who supported him.

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues, it is important to make these connections and recognize this history. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, Stephon Clark and too many others are part of the long and brutal history of killings of African Americans by security forces in the US that probably predates the founding of the country.

George Moscone and Harvey Milk were white politicians, whose deaths are usually associated with the LGBTQ+ civil rights movements, but they are also part of the sad story of police violence in America."

Lincoln Mitchell

Two San Francisco police officers brutalise an unidentified AIDS protestor near the Sixth International Conference on AIDS, June 22, 1990 in San Francisco

[dailyanarchistposts]

Let us learn from our past struggles, in the USA and in Malaysia. May Day should be an occasion to reflect not jubilate, to engage not agonize, to demand not relent, and to organise, not complain. We need systemic change that can guarantee equality, fraternity, self-management and socialisation of the commonwealth, guided by a bottom–up approach to decision making. We need a labour movement that is multicultural and international, feminist, active in urban and rural struggles, and that prizes reason over superstition, justice over hierarchy, self-management over state power, international solidarity over nationalism. We need to fight for a universal human community, not parochialism and separatism. The organisational power and strategic location of the Malaysian union movement provides an excellent point of departure for building this counter-movement. This is our appeal and message as we celebrate this May Day, on the eve of dark days in which the storm clouds gather over humanity – but in which the light of hope of a better future can break through, if we arm ourselves with the correct ideas and approaches. May Day began as an example of globalisation-from-below. Let us rally to it. Let us take back its original vision: liberty, equality, unity.

May Day, popularly known as international workers day, started with a historic fight for decent working hours that culminated in the execution of four trade unionists in Chicago, United States, in November 1887. This was a decisive moment in the struggle for a just society through militant trade unionism. May Day was globalised from 1889 by the workers’ movement, being held in China from 1919, and in Malaysia from 1921. Today it remains a key day of reference – but its roots and aims are often forgotten.

May Day commemorations can be a platform to harness the power of the working class and poor into a counter-movement for social protection and changed society. Ordinary people worldwide face ecological problems, economic crisis, massive unemployment, low wages, denials of right to freedom of association, vulnerable, informal work and sub-contracting, suffering as immigrants– all in the context of destructive market competition and the rule of self-serving politicians and bosses.

Solutions do not lie in reformed capitalism or in the free market: the problems humanity faces have gotten worse. Capitalism adversely affects working class communities and their livelihoods; states act to enforce these horrors with laws and guns.

In Malaysia, this destruction is manifested in an ecological crisis expressed in disasters such as flooding that displaces tens of thousands, police brutality against picketing workers (like the National Union of Tobacco Industry), and a massive gap between rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Unions need to be central to the fight to win social protection floors, decent conditions and a better future for the Malaysian working family.

This article draws attention to the alternative: the “anarchist” ethos of firstly, building a working and poor people’s counter-culture to unravel the dominant class culture in society; and secondly, building a counter-power from below, that draws its energy from the trade unions and workers, the unemployed, the poor and the peasantry (small farmers), to fight to change the world for the better.

Let us start by looking at what the “Chicago Martyrs” died for – and then at the historical role and the future potential of Malaysian trade unions in the fight for justice and equality.

[nando161mando]

The former magistrate explains how our state’s unjust cannabis prohibition laws are being used to target and criminalise gay people and sex workers.

[wikiuntamed]

On this day in Wikipedia: Thursday, 4th January

Welcome, welkom, ようこそ (yōkoso), fàilte 🤗 What does @Wikipedia say about 4th January through the years 🏛️📜🗓️?

4th January 2023 🗓️ : Death - Rosi Mittermaier Rosi Mittermaier, German alpine skier and Olympic champion (b. 1950) "Rosa Anna Katharina Mittermaier-Neureuther (German: [ˈʁozi ˈmɪtɐˌmaɪ̯ɐ] ; 5 August 1950 – 4 January 2023) was a German alpine skier. She was the overall World Cup champion in 1976 and a double gold medalist at the 1976 Winter Olympics.Mittermaier competed in alpine skiing from 1967 to 1976, retiring..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0? by blu-news.org

4th January 2019 🗓️ : Death - Harold Brown (Secretary of Defense) Harold Brown, 14th United States Secretary of Defense (b. 1927) "Harold Brown (September 19, 1927 – January 4, 2019) was an American nuclear physicist who served as United States Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981, under President Jimmy Carter. Previously, in the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations, he held the posts of Director of Defense..."

Image by United States Department of Defense

4th January 2013 🗓️ : Event - Kawit shooting A gunman kills eight people in a house-to-house rampage in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines. "The Kawit shooting was a mass murder that occurred in barangay Tabon 1 in Kawit, Philippines, on January 4, 2013. 41-year-old Ronald Baquiran Bae killed at least seven people and a dog and wounded twelve other people with a semiautomatic pistol, before he was shot and killed by police. Another man,..."

4th January 1974 🗓️ : Birth - Danilo Hondo Danilo Hondo, German cyclist "Danilo Hondo (born 4 January 1974) is a German former professional road bicycle racer. He won the German National Road Race in 2002. He competed in the men's team pursuit at the 1996 Summer Olympics.He was banned from professional cycling and then later won his appeal to return to the sport. From..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0? by Rolf Kaiser, Bochum, Germany

4th January 1924 🗓️ : Death - Alfred Grünfeld Alfred Grünfeld, Austrian pianist and composer (b. 1852) "Alfred Grünfeld (4 July 1852 in Prague – 4 January 1924 in Vienna) was an Austrian pianist and composer. ..."

Image by Erwin Raupp

4th January 1821 🗓️ : Death - Elizabeth Ann Seton Elizabeth Ann Seton, American nun and saint (b. 1774) "Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (August 28, 1774 – January 4, 1821) was a Catholic religious sister in the United States and an educator, known as a founder of the country's parochial school system. After her death, she became the first person born in what would become the United States to be canonized..."

Image by Amabilia Filicchi

4th January 🗓️ : Holiday - Christian feast day: Ferréol of Uzès "Saint Ferréol (Ferreolus) of Uzès (530 – January 4, 581 AD) was bishop of Uzès and possibly bishop of Nîmes (Catholic Encyclopedia "Nîmes") (553-581). His Feast Day is January 4. He was born in Narbonne, apparently a grandson of Cloderic of the Ripuarian Franks. Bishops in Merovingian Gaul were..."

[beardedmrbean]

March 9 (UPI) -- The governor of Afghanistan's Balkh province in the north of the country was killed along with two others after a bomb exploded at his office in the capital Mazar-I-Sharif on Thursday, police said.

The early morning attack that killed Mohammad Dawood Muzammil injured at least seven people, according to local hospital officials.

A man wearing a suicide vest blew himself up on the second floor of the building where Muzammil had had his offices, provincial police officials said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, confirming the governor's death in a Twitter post, said it was "with great sadness we received the news that Balkh Governor Alhaji Mullah Mohammad Daud Muzammil was martyred in an explosion by the enemies of Islam."

RELATEDHouse committee told Afghanistan troop withdrawal was 'an organizational failure '

He added that authorities had begun an investigation into the attack.

No group has claimed responsibility but in the 18 months since regaining power following the pullout of U.S.-led NATO forces in 2021, the Taliban has been targeted by Islamic State.

Thursday's deadly attack came 24 hours after the Taliban claimed it had killed eight rebel forces in Mazar-I-Sharif without saying with which group they were affiliated.

Muzammil, the second most senior Taliban figure to be killed since it retook control of Afghanistan, headed a crackdown on IS in the Nangarhar Province in the country's east where he was governor before being appointed governor of Balkh last year.

IS has emerged as the Taliban's biggest security threat launching attacks against Afghans as well as foreign interests.

The group claims it is fighting for a global Islamic "caliphate", as opposed to the Taliban's more parochial ambition for an independent Afghanistan over which it would rule.

RELATEDHuman Rights Watch: Protests show totalitarian regimes losing grip on power

IS claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in January near the foreign ministry in Kabul that killed 10 people as well as attacks in Balkh last year.

[driftwork]

I could easily put a date, a period to the music... part one

Today is my birthday,  I am 63, my 64th year has begun.... How did I end up across the world teaching Hegel? It was a long time ago, I don't actually know how long ago, decades at least. So here I am trying to remember the name of the philosopher hiding out in Europe who produced a a a phrase that defined the major part of our lives since then.  It rapidly became normalized and the words dropped out of the mouths of the publics throughout the world.  So here I am sitting, typing these phrases,  it's a mathematical formula that defined the way in which we live, perhaps though its more precise than the mathematical phrases of 'willing slaves of capital'.  Out there are a few billion willing slaves.  Men and women,  children and geriatrics,  the healthy and the sick, people at keyboards,  cosmonauts, astronauts, mall workers,  teachers and the others who may think in terms of a collapsing evil empire, but we don't live in amongst these remnants for the publics love their enslavement. A long time has passed since then, decades.  Barbarism has become normal,  and we have no idea how to prevent barbarism from growing still further.  How did I end up working and living here? How did it collapse like this?

The story begins with the sea:  After she left our prison I was there another year, still constrained within the 100 metre diameter cell, towards the end all i remembered of her was the feint almost homeopathic scent of honey. For a long time I had to avoid the scent of honey for it made me long for her.    "We should leave now," they told me without taking time to pack things in a thoughtful fashion. Not giving me time to think,  or even to put my  shoes on. I  threw a few things in a bag. I took my notes, the books,  clothes. There was nothing else, a few memories of her, I had missed her for months. They let me out on license when the regime began to change, put a GPS tracker on my wrist, escorted me back to my apartment. A two bedroom living room and kitchen, with a nice shower room close to Little V...  The only thing I did  was to ask them to pause so that I could stand on the concrete promenade looking at the sea.  Long waves beat diagonally, across, the beach, bulge hunchbacked,with cords of muscle, raise quivering ridges that tip over at their very repetition. No wave is unique, each one identical. Their crests stretched tight, already welted white,  around the cavity of air crushed by the clear mass like a secret made and broken...  For the entire time i had been a prisoner here i had only seen it in the distance, Is it the same beach? The same sea? It’s a  year later. The intervening pages scarcely matter, we’ll get to them over the days and weeks of  living. I stick my bookplate on the inside cover: someone sees someone standing. And try to think of the last time i read a book with the sea in it. The coach driver calls me, I board the bus and he carries me and my escort  away.  The old coach took us to the railway station where we caught the slow train to the nearest city, passing through the snow,  and then transferred to the southern express.  We, the escort and I didn't speak.  Shortly after the train began heading south a seller of sweets passed through the carriage. More parochially I arrived back in January, it is a a a a beautiful day before us, its the early morning and we are wondering what we will or should do with it. There is only a single choice really. We travelled in a police car through the city, to my apartment in the block of flats which sits in a side street in the north of ... People looked away to not know who the police were transporting... The apartment had been newly cleaned,  a few meals, handed me keys, pass codes, a document that listed the constraints imposed on a political prisoner life me, and instructions about when to go to the police. I asked my escort about the missing items, things that were listed on the document but not in the apartment. Usually solitary political prisoners like you get burgled, anything valuable gets stolen.  Could have happened anytime over the years you were away. Should I report the burglary?? I asked him. He shook his head, no point you don't have any idea when it happened,  and you won't be able to claim anything on insurance. Do I need to sign anything,  he handed his tablet to me, sign here, and her, and here....then again on this document.  You must live in this place. He instructed.  Where would I go? I have been disowned. I replied. Yes, it's normal.

It took a few weeks for me to get employed as a barista in a quasi-independent coffee store. I  worked 40 or 50 hours a week, 10% over minimum wage,   a hundred and  more espressos and teas a day, I never really counted.  sometimes milk shakes, usually for children. The cafe owners were ex-communists (smiles) after a few weeks of serving people,  the weak sunlight entering the cafe  through the UV filtering glass. Me, eventually,  wearing teeshirts with images of Hegel and others. Ex colleagues from the university appeared.  It's the way of nepotism and political protectionism that I got a temporary assistant teaching post, 12 hours a week in the university. Dividing my time between the cafe and the evening shifts and then into the daytime. After about four months they removed the GPS trackers from my body. Insanely feeling free at last. I lay on my back in the park watching silver airplanes flying overhead in the bright blue sky.  Once the trackers were gone I applied for work at the Black Hotel Gardenia. We have been asked to employ you the Hotel said. I didn't understand what this might mean.  I left the cafe to work in the Hotel cafe and then elsewhere in the Black Hotel.  I began to think I might survive in this newly lonely life.  I didn't dare have friends as I waited for them to arrest me again. In the late autumn the politics stabilized again.  One morning at the Hotel I was taken into the directors office and was told by a dark suited european that they would rearrest me next week and that I should leave.  They gave me an envelope of instructions, tickets, money, credit cards, a new identity and passports.  Let us say a year passed perhaps more perhaps less. And there I was running along a slow line of flight boarding a small ship in winter…  Today is my birthday I am 63,  I have never returned to the country that wants me, a teacher of Hegel to be imprisoned. I am an exile on a small planet.

https://www.driftwork.work/post/684428858721697792/a-village-on-the-coast

[sublimeobservationarcade]

The Bad Cop On The Political Beat Downunder

Queensland is a different state. Peter Dutton, the leader of the Opposition, comes from and represents Queenslanders. The bad cop on the political beat downunder. Many of its sons and daughters are proudly proponents of a white Australia. Especially in regional Queensland, where there is blatant racism expressed by townsfolk toward those not cut from the same cloth. The banana bending state: “Queenslanders voted against the Voice to Parliament — more than any other state or territory in Australia” (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-15/queensland-voice-to-parliament-vote-results/102977008) The rich history of Queensland includes the Frontier Wars: “The Native Police was a body of Aboriginal troopers that operated under the command of white officers on the Queensland frontier from 1849 to the 1920s. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men were often forcefully recruited from communities—already diminished due to colonisation—that were normally a great distance from the region in which they were to work. “ (https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/arts/heritage/archives/collection/war/frontier-wars) Lech Blane has written a Quarterly essay on the bad cop and hardman of Australian politics. “Who is Peter Dutton, and what happened to the Liberal Party? In Bad Cop, Lech Blaine traces the making of a hardman – from Queensland detective to leader of the Opposition, from property investor to minister for Home Affairs. This is a story of ambition, race and power, and a politician with a plan.” (https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2024/03/bad-cop)

the fear monger!

The Bad Cop Essay By Lech Blane

The essay draws parallels with a previous hardman of conservative politics in Australia, Tony Abbott. However, it, also, differentiates clear differences between the two macho Anglo leaders. Abbott was famed as a Rhodes scholar university pugilist, whereas Dutton dropped out of university to become a Queensland cop. There are class and defining motivation distinctions between the two. Abbott being more ideologically inspired whereas Dutton draws more upon his practical experiences as cop and property developer. Both men have sought political support from suburban Australia. There they see themselves as champions of ordinary folk, particularly blokes.

Dutton & The Gender Divide In Oz Politics

A gender divide has widened in the political landscape of Australia. More women are voting Labor and Green in contrast to more men voting conservatively for the LNP Coalition and for the other smaller right wing parties. Thus, the emergence of the archetypal hardman to lead the neocon charge. PM Anthony Albanese is not a guy with a strongman veneer. Consensus and, hopefully, taking people along with him for the ride is more his way of doing things. The contrast with Peter Dutton could not be more acute. Leadership does involve subjects seeing the things that they aspire to within the projected identity of candidates vying for the top job. In the eyes of many men, especially younger guys, Anthony Albanese lacks some innate masculinity. Probably for some women this matters too, particularly if they fit into the trad wife category. “Dutton doesn't need to become prime minister to redraw the battle lines of Australian politics. His fight with Albanese over parochial voters was always going to drag the political conversation rightwards: on race, immigration, gender and the pace of a transition away from fossil fuels … Dutton’s raison d’être? Make Australia Afraid Again. Then he will offer himself as the lesser of two evils. A serious strongman for the age of anxiety.”—Lech Blaine, Bad Cop. Dutton, like all neocon politicians going around at the moment, looks to Trump and the United States for insight and inspiration. Ramping up polarisation, with the help of Murdoch’s News Corp platforms, has been the flavour of his Opposition leadership years. It was very successful during the Voice referendum and, perhaps, not so much over the High Court release of stateless illegal refugees. Drumming up fear and outrage is the name of the game for those right wing strongmen wanting to assume the mantle of power. Australia is, however, not the United States, as Australians are not so extreme and not so willing to go there.

Photo by Shuaizhi Tian on Pexels.com Bad Cop Dutton Drumming Up Fear The bad cop on the political beat downunder. Peter Dutton wants Australians to fear the Chinese, as the LNP federal government took us into blaming them for the pandemic and we were rewarded with multiple trade sanctions costing us billions. The Chinese military buildup offends proponents of a white Australia. The US desperately wants to protects its hegemony because without its military superiority its economic supremacy wont last. Thus, we are committing $366 billion to a nuclear submarine program, which is full of holes and serious tributes of our sovereignty to the Americans in return for no guarantees of any submarines. This was a LNP Coalition defence initiative, which has been carried on by Albanese. This has, then, led Dutton to putting forward a Nuclear Power energy policy proposal. This is another $331 billion costed proposal to build 7 nuclear power reactors around Australia. Australia is in the midst of an energy transformation from fossil fuels to renewables. Dutton and the LNP are ideologically opposed to renewables for political reasons. They are firm friends of the coal and gas industries. Prolonging this business is the main reason for the madcap nuclear power proposal. This is because, like the AUKUS submarine deal, building nuclear reactors will take between 20 and 30 years. Therefore, in the meantime, fossil fuelled power stations will be maintained, probably beyond their planned use by dates. In addition, having uncertainty about Australia’s energy policy direction will damage investment in renewables going forward. Creating uncertainty serves the neocon political strategy.

Photo by Adem Erkoç on Pexels.com Male Thinking Downunder Stereotypical male thinking, the old way of doing things, goes like this. ‘This is the way the real world is and always has been!’ Energy is made by fossil fuels and everything else is a pipe dream. Brute force will get you what you want in the end. Look at Putin. Telling it like it is, is the way to go. Look at Trump. A lot of guys want to be wealthy and they want to be affirmed by those around them. They don’t want to be criticised about putting down women and other minorities. They don’t want to hear politicians telling the world what they are going to do for these minorities. They want to hear what these political leaders are going to be doing for them. Dutton bags Indigenous Australia. Dutton says alarmist things about dark skinned foreigners running around threatening the safety of ordinary folk. Dutton is the bad cop, the former Queensland cop who had to clean up for his white community by locking up Aborigines. The problems in Alice Springs are, in Dutton’s view, a law and order issue. Bring in the army if the local cops cannot deal with it. There are never any deeper solutions put forward. How about understanding why these young people are doing what they are doing and breaking the law. How about putting forward proposals to provide economic opportunities for these people. There is nothing to do and no hope up there. Many of the parents of these kids are already in gaol. Neocons are only interested in appealing to the voters with short term thinking like locking up kids. Every conservative political party in the world runs a get tough on crime campaign. It is not about solving societal problems but getting elected. Adult crime, adult time – the LNP in Queensland just got elected on it. The bad cop on the political beat downunder. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©WordsForWeb Read the full article

[meandmybigmouth]

Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption.[1]

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN A NUTSHELL!

[thegospelhighways2020]

Good Morning My Saints This morning today's Lesson is we're going to talk about School Shootings and Child Safety children that Deserve Safety Should Have Been Brought Out Of the School Shootings Took Place In 1989 or 86 and It still Continues Dunblane Primary School Shooting happened in Dunblane massacre

Start date

March 13, 1996 and not just School Shooting happened but in some Places Shootings Happened and Children Runs Out of the School for Safety Reasons Hungerford massacre

August 19, 1987 Port Arthur massacre

April 28, 1996

Cumbria shootings

June 2, 2010 Plymouth shooting

Incident Start date: August 12, 2021

Deaths: 6 (including the perpetrator)

Injured: 2 disaster

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting Date: December 14, 2012

Location: Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Newtown School District

Injuries (nonfatal): 2

Number of deaths: 28

Deaths: 28 (27 at the school, including the perpetrator; and the perpetrator's mother at home) disaster

Erfurt school massacre Date: April 26, 2002 disaster

Rio de Janeiro school shooting Date: April 7, 2011 Bath School disaster Date: May 18, 1927 Winnenden school shooting

March 11, 2009 disaster

Robb Elementary School shooting

May 24, 2022 at 12:28 PM EDT Virginia Tech shooting

April 16, 2007 disaster

Columbine High School massacre Date: April 20, 1999 disaster

2018 Santa Fe High School shooting

May 18, 2018 Parkland high school shooting

February 14, 2018 Beslan school siege

Sep 1, 2004 – Sep 3, 2004 Amish school shooting

October 2, 2006 2014 Isla Vista massacre

May 23, 2014 2017 Las Vegas shooting

October 1, 2017 University of Texas tower shooting

August 1, 1966 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting

October 1, 2015 École Polytechnique massacre

December 6, 1989 On March 27, 2023, a mass shooting occurred at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian Church in America parochial elementary school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee when 28-year-old Aiden Hale (born Audrey Elizabeth Hale), a transgender man and former student of the school,[4][5][6] killed three nine‑year‑old children and three adults before being shot and killed by two Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) officers.

[webionaire]

is perhaps more useful to see Paglia’s popularity as an expression of frustration. Her unbridled narcissism, her unfiltered tongue and the Trumpian pleasure she takes in riling adversaries appeal to those who resent the shifting moral codes, hypersensitivities and regimented identity brackets that promise liberation but often deliver stultification. As the battle over what comes next commences, the popularity of contrarians who enjoy plunging the knife into liberal sensibilities will surely only grow. Invigorated by liberal censoriousness, and riding high on a promise to say the unsayable, figures like Paglia will continue to become the standard-bearers for a limited vision of cultural freedom that is simply elite-level trolling.

Rosanna McLaughlinOpinion22 January 2024ArtReview

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from 'look at me'

Like all styles of radical will, it eventually got tiresome. “Attacking the stale orthodoxies of both left and right” has itself become a stale intellectual franchise, a contrarian orthodoxy. You can be left, and you can be (I guess) right without being stalely orthodox. The “issues” Paglia was railing against were a lot less well defined beyond the parochial realm in which she debated them. Campus campaigns against free speech, a university’s attempts to police the nebulous zone of sex and dating–such trends seemed sensationally oppressive inside the claustrophobic space of the university, and in the hungry eyes of op-ed page editors, book publishers and television producers.

But...

The irony of Break, Blow, Burn is that Paglia, the great defender of art against ideology and against tendentious multicultural agendas, drags just about every poem in this book–from Shakespeare’s sonnets to Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” a poem of sorts–into the realm of noisy, issue-driven debate... [Lee Siegel]

[antonia-gergely]

Kristin Hayter

Literary Art truly is art.

although that's her real name, ironically Kristin Hayter was raised to be a devout catholic. she studied interdisciplinary creative arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. she earned an MFA in Literary Art from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in 2016. since then she created the persona Lingua Ignota between 2017 and 2021, releasing what she called 'survivor anthems', in an attempt to process abuse using religious imagery and music, often subverting the patriarchal messages embedded within.

t.w. if you do listen to her work as Lingua Ignota, there is mention of s/a, abuse, violence etc.

the below excerpts are from Vice

https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzqzwn/lingua-ignotas-liturgical-noise-is-a-celebration-of-obliteration?callback=in&code=MTNKYTIYMDETMJQ5ZC0ZZWYYLWI4OGITMGY0YJHKMJAXNMY4&state=bd7f92445dcd4b7485e2a217dea600a4

'Raised Catholic, Hayter's religion distinguished her from others and continues to inflect her musical practice. "I was in parochial school until sixth grade. My Catholic upbringing is huge in all the stuff I do, as far as the way liturgical music has influenced me, and the rituals of the church and even that homogeny and having to conform to a very specific mold of existing, of moral existence, of appearance."'

after finding a nevermind casette left behind by her cousin while in high school, hayter became enamoured with the vocal style of kurt cobain and enrolled for classical singing lessons.

'"When we sing classically, we try to create seamlessness between the registers—between the head and the chest voice. What I try to do is play with the spot between them where my voice breaks, and I write most of my songs to have my break be central, so that I move between the registers quickly and it creates this destabilizing sense ... that the voice is in this state of constant flux, dynamic and imperfect, alchemizing itself." In other words, although her music has beautiful passages, it also travels into abject spaces. "There will be half a phrase of straight classical singing and then it will drop down to a weird death growl or ... Bulgarian-like belting and then extended technique, a rush of air. I'm very intentionally manipulating my voice to make these kind of gross glides and transitions between these two registers."' the voice as a tool for art, music as a tool for art has been widely explored, although this strikes me as some uncharted realm of working.

'At Brown, she completed a thesis called Burn Everything Trust No One Kill Yourself, a 10,000-page manuscript composed of appropriated material—"lyrics, message board posts, and liner notes from subgenres of extreme music that mythologize misogyny, […] [and] court papers, audio recordings, and police filings from [her] own experiences of violence"—assembled using a Markov chain. Prior to this, she attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied across disciplines. "I ended up in visual/critical studies and art history. I was really into research and having a research-based practice, and then I got into writing, and then I got into the sonification of the voices I had written."' I read that the thesis was made up of 10,000 pages as it approximated her weight at the time.

'"Not ascribing to traditional models of healing such as gentleness and self-love has allowed me to be very raw and aggressive in my recounting of abuse through art. I think that's the part of it that maybe touches other survivors: mine isn't the way we're accustomed to addressing such things. I was reading several books about surviving abuse and they're basically like, 'be nice and get a hobby.' I feel like this enforces patriarchal models of civilized femininity"'

Her persona Lingua Ignota proved unsustainable, as Hayter found it harmful to dwell and rehatch her past experiences. Now going by Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, her newest release, Saved! is a fascinating blend between literary art, musical experimentation and the avant garde. She takes existing music, hymns, religious songs and motifs and reworks them, the songs have a disconcerting crunch and occasional disconnection and imitation of tape warps. Reminds me of art appropriation and the dada and detournement movements in their reworking and recontextualising of existing imagery and ideas (usually to subvert)

The glossolalia (speaking in tongues) within the album is derived from the practice of Pentecostal and charismatic Christians. i find her work a fascinating blur between performance art and a genuine search for some salvation, which hayter mentioned she felt. I'm not religious, I have nothing much to do with Hayter's music at all, but it resonates with me as a hybrid of performance, fantasy and a desperate desire for faith which I have never seen before.

even her poster contains a persona, her artwork is central to her music. it's all intertwined and lines between writing, performance and visual art are blurred.

the below excerpts are from Kerrang (a more recent interview)

https://www.kerrang.com/reverend-kristin-michael-hayter-kerrang-cover-story-interview-lingua-ignota-new-album-saved

'“I became really interested in the idea of religious transcendence and using that analogy for personal healing ... In Pentecostalism, for instance, you can speak in tongues, you can be healed, and you can utilise extreme, unorthodox methods to develop a relationship between yourself and God. So, I wanted to see if I could develop a direct line between myself and God. I was earnestly attempting to be saved. And to get saved ... I don’t know if it worked or not. I’m not sure." In researching the project, she’d attend a lot of worship services, witnessing people experience “true joy” in tandem with the uglier side of “something really hateful and othering”.'

To prepare her mind and body for the performances, she carefully fasted and engaged in sleep deprivation techniques.

“I wanted to create as raw an emotional state as I could,” she explains of the process. “What you hear on the record is from a 30-minute session when I had not really eaten or slept"'

SIDE NOTE, in her work as Lingua Ignota, Hayter's song 'Do You Doubt Me Traitor?' repeats the phrase 'I don't eat, I don't sleep' harking back to her struggles with anorexia and insomnia in the wake of her abuse. The line reminded me of Marina Abramovic's performance The House with the Ocean View. That calls to mind a thesis I read, available in the college library, about starvation and the ethics implied between using potential disordered eating as a means of spiritual healing, performance art or political activism. Fascinating read, I do recommend. Bit of a pointless tangent but a link nonetheless.

'“I honestly don’t know what I believe. I think my work is trying very hard to engage with that question in a sort of desperate and insane way.” SAVED! may not be literal. But its purpose absolutely is. “In a lot of ways, I wanted to show healing,” Kristin explains of her intentions. “I don’t even like the word ‘healing’ because it’s so pop-psychology ... But I wanted to show the kind of ugly, complicated process that it can be. So, I think that finding this analogy of getting saved and using that to talk about my own experiences is kind of the intellectual fortress that I’ve built to protect myself through that. The attempts to find God have been in absolute earnest. I really was trying. I think out of desperation, to find something to believe in.”

Hayter's work is a testament to the wide ranging and indefinable nature of art, and how it can take many forms. i might do a masters in literary art /hj

Her music is an escape from grounded, faithless reality - someone described it as the sound of praying in a burning church - but it doesn't push faith or religion on anyone. As Hayter said, she herself doesn't know what she believes. It's definitely evocative, sometimes disquieting, and it's been a long time since a musical project has enticed me this much.