Rubbish, perverted footballers in "racist" shock

I've spent a while in Thailand, to put it mildly. Although I live outside Bangkok  (most foreigners seem to think Thailand has only four locations: Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya and Chiang Mai) - I'm used to seeing tourists of all kind on a regular basis.Most of them are families or younger people on a gap year. Both types often fall in love with Thailand and return.

Then we have the sex tourist type, the sort that falls into the lure of what - and this is important - is a very small part of Bangkok and the bigger cities where the type of activity that these three Leicester players got involved in is possible. Sex tourists are usually not particularly nice people. Not just because of what they do but because they often start to believe their own delusions and actually manage to convince themselves they are David Beckham, just without the money, looks, charisma or talent.

That type of delusion is what leads them to behave the way these three young Leicester players did and yet what is so amazing is that nobody on either side seems to care. Of course the three females consented to do whatever they did in the hotel room, but I very much doubt they agreed to be abused about their appearance. For Thai women to be mocked, belittled and engage on video in what is - believe or not - technically still illegal in Thailand is apparently fine to overlook in the diverse and inclusive media of the UK. But make one stupid (and wrong) remark about "slit eyes", and your career is over.

That's right, the opening paragraphs in Sky News or the BBC did not read: "Players engage in private sex show"  or "Leicester reserves mock women's appearance on video". No, both openers included the word "racist" ahead of the word "abuse" or"sex tape"  in their description of the offence. Take note then, that what is important in the eyes of the moral guardians at the BBC is not that these women were verbally abused about their looks, etc. but that they were racially abused. Whichever player is found to have said 'slit eyes'- and rest assured, the BBC will find, name and shame the heretic - can see his career flushed away by his own poor eyesight. Thai people do not have 'slit eyes' , they are mostly rounded.

The good news of sorts for Leicester fans is that you need not worry about this damaging your support in Siam.The club shop is at the airport. I have never, ever seen a shirt being purchased there in all my times travelling in and out of Bangkok. I have never, ever seen a Thai person a Leicester shirt, either. Leicester are a club of loyal fans and a good footballing squad, but they have a long, long way to go before Newin, King Power and co. make inroads back home,

That moment when you're stood in front of the class and have nothing left to say.

There's still fifteen minutes left in the class.

I could talk about the "murderous" anti-austerity (as if anybody wants austerity) mob who decided to attack an MP who was making the pint of using public transport. I could talk about how it's a cheap way for them to release their anger while feeling good about themselves. Oh wait, I've done that already before today's attack on Carswell.

OK, well the FIFA arrests are the big news. I could chat about that, as I did years ago when I publicly called for a World Cup boycott, supported the Worawi Out campaign and spoke to a journalist who was on the corruption trail. Ah,so....that's old blogging, too.

Ok , well what about the news that the BBC spent the equivalent of nine-hundred licence fees per year buying copies of Britain's most left-wing known newspaper, The Guardian? I mean, that could lead into a long talk about the bias of the Beeb....oh, damn.

OK, who's up for a game of Hangman?

Flame Off! Why it's not "creative" to switch superheroes.

Credit to the next 'Human Torch', Michael B. Jordan for his articulate and sensible letter published in Entertainment Weekly. Jordan faced up to the inevitable Twitter storm (pun intended) by comic book nerds like myself who, being the nostalgic and stubborn bunch we are, were always going to cause upset when Josh Trank choose to change a blond-haired, blue-eyed character into an African-American. That's not because of - as some sites so lazily and cheaply called it - "racism" , but simply because we don't like established characters to change. After all, with great power comes great responsibility.

Jordan acknowledged this when he took a light-heated pop at himself for breaking the show-business rule: "Never check the internet after you've been cast as a superhero" before continuing to debate the issue.

http://www.ew.com

 "Some people may look at my casting as political correctness or an attempt to meet a racial quota, or as part of the year of “Black Film.” Or they could look at it as a creative choice by the director, Josh Trank, who is in an interracial relationship himself—a reflection of what a modern family looks like today." 

It's a refreshingly humble and sensible response to what is - in the grand scheme of world issues - hardly a point worth getting too upset over. But Jordan is still wrong.

How much inspiration and modernity is there in simply swapping the race of an established character? Is there a great deal of thought or visionary-genius in saying: "Hey, there's more African-American people these days, let's change this character to a black person!" ? If that's creativity, I'd say creativity has become greatly devalued. The fact is, the real reason Trank and his ilk are desperate to have us believe that 'old is new' is down to the total lack of multi-racial superheroes and villains in the comic world. In an attempt to find a racially-mixed crime-fighter that my son or daughter could relate to, I had to consult Wikipedia and scroll a list of minor, unknown Marvel and DC entities that scarcely figured in any story arc during my son's lifetime. The only exception being the new Spiderman (Miles Morales) who bears a remarkable similarity to Barack Obama.

Here's my best attempt at ingenuity: instead of taking the cheap (in the decision-making sense) choice of swapping the ethnicity of comic book characters, how about inventing exciting, compelling and original new heroes? Wouldn't it be enough to make you shout  "Cowabunga!" to see a new, complex female heroine of any ethnicity burst on to the scene with a new look and new attitude? Or do we just go ahead and change Thor's robes to a dress? How about developing Silk into more than just a hotter version of Spiderwoman instead of trying to get the middle-aged guys living in mom's basement and the "Every body's ready" poster mob excited over Catwoman kissing another feline?

In fairness, both Marvel and DC have tried but the characters have flunked or are yet to become hits, mainly because they are so clearly crafted to fit an agenda of sexuality or some other demographic. Rather than being superheroes who happen to be LGBT, religiously or ethnically diverse, they are superheroes because of it.

In time these new characters will truly arrive and establish their legacy, but it won't happen easily and it won't make quick money. That's why Josh Trank didn't make a creatively-empowered choice at all. He took a very easy choice to try and make the next Fantastic Four film appear superficially different to the previous run, in the same way the most recent reboot of Spiderman films featured tedious repetitive clips of iphones and internet use.

Michael B. Jordan may well make an excellent Human Torch and I'm looking forward to seeing him in the role, but let's not have either side fooled into believing this is either a politically-correct, racial choice or a moment of progressive vision from Josh Trank. In reality, this is the simplest and easiest way to keep money rolling into the film industry that has long since realised that comic book films make quick money. They are the law.

BS on FB - Why it's Dangerous

              
Next Wednesday is Facebook “No Swearing Day” in which any user will be banned from Facebook if they curse. Oh no, wait a minute, sorry, it’s “No Religion Day” , discussing religion gets you banned. I know that because my mate Frank warned me. He also warned me about some guy called Jason that adds you as a friend just to hack your account and put your kids’ pictures on a Facebook group that is secretly run by paedophiles.

I’m so grateful to Frank for all these warnings that I felt I should give something back. I shared the picture of that kid in hospital who was put there for stopping his sister being raped by his stepfather. By sharing this, some money is donated to his charity and I’m showing I’m a good person that raises awareness of child abuse. I’m also tagging my friends in a picture that should get me some free bottles of beer from a local brewery. Hey it might not be true but it’s worth a try! I like beer after all.

By now you’ve probably worked out that I’m not being serious: heck, I don’t even have a friend named Frank. Then again, neither are any of the above hoaxes I referred to, and yet thousands upon thousands of people share them on Facebook every day. How can people who are otherwise sensible and smart - or even less smart people like myself - so readily spread annoying, sometimes even dangerous or distressing bullshit? I'm just as guilty as the next person, by the way.

In the early days of the internet, we could at least plead ignorance. The hoaxes such as hotmail being shut down were relatively new at the time, yet many of the original hoaxes - modern equivalents and sometimes simple remakes of urban myths - now appear on a regular cycle, somehow sucking-in new victims in each time.

Why do people feel compelled to believe, comment and most often share any of the influx of nonsense claims and warnings that infect social media? The most obvious and tempting answer is that they believe it and want to protect their friends. Yet there is rarely a hoax that does not scream out obvious signs of prattle. Let’s think back over some of the frauds I mentioned earlier and run over just a few of the obvious questions that spring to mind....

• The “No Swearing” warning was circulated with a spelling error in its headline. Would Mark Zuckerberg - one of America’s youngest billionaires - be that inefficient?
• Why would Facebook choose to spread a warning by having its users “share” an image rather than placing a big fat notice on its homepage or above every user’s newsfeed?
• Who is Colin? What are the chances of him adding me - one of over a billion users - on Facebook ?
• If he is so dangerous and the word is clearly out, why hasn’t Facebook shut down his account already?
• What is the secret group run by paedophiles? Show it to me so I can report it! Wait, doesn’t that look like any other group of proud mums showing off their kids? That must be part of the scam! But wait, how does a paedophile get any twisted pleasure from this?
• How was the picture of the hurt child taken? Either by a news agency or a hospital, we can presume, so where is the link?
• Why is there not one single, specific verifiable fact in the report?
• In what way does sharing a distressing image of a hurt child raise awareness of child abuse? Wouldn’t it be far more beneficial to link to a site like the NSPCC?
• How would a brewery be able to control the number of people who received their free beer? Too many “likes” and they would clearly go bust.
• How does the brewery check who shared their promotion anyway?  How would they verify the identity of anyone who walked in and claimed their free crate?

We could go on, of course. Almost any hoax flashes up warning signs. But let’s be fair and acknowledge that some don’t, or at least appear with some tiny element of verisimilitude. The common verdict for many users is that if in doubt, we should play safe and spread the alert. That seems a reasonable attitude at first but as Sophos have pointed out, it is not helpful because it reduces genuine alerts to the equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. True cases of potential danger for your child, a chance to do good or a safety warning that may actually save a life one day get lost in the tidal wave of lies.

Consider Hampshire Police Force who take time to issue genuine requests for public help but also have to devote scarce resources to quelling false rumours. Ponder the  point raised to me by my friend of an apparent case of genuine paedophilia on youtube which has received far less attention than hoax cases. The “play it safe” tactic just doesn’t make anyone safer.

There is another way to solve the "Should I share this?" conundrum, an incredibly easy and effective way which none of us can really excuse ourselves from: check the facts. Go to snopes.com ,  hoax-slayer.com or any of these sites and look up any of the hoaxes we’ve already discussed. It usually takes fewer than ten seconds to verify any case. These hoax-checking sites are up to date, simple and interesting. In rare cases where none of them have the answers we seek, let’s use common sense and search other reliable sources. Has Facebook made an official announcement on religion? Does the brewery’s website make any mention of free wine? Has Reuters, CNN or 'The Times' run an article on the boy who saved his sister? (Admittedly hard to check without a single specific fact in the memo itself but that tells its own story). If nothing comes up from a quick search on google, we can either dig deeper still or accept the overwhelmingly likely conclusion: it’s a total lie.

Yet somehow with all the tools of nonsense-detection and our own aptitude for common sense, online hoaxes and lies still flourish, often sweeping networks like cyber-wildfire. They reveal a side to human nature that we might not always want to admit. We all like the idea of something for nothing or very little (that’s how 419 email scammers continue to profit), we all like to believe that we are defending our kids and some people, apparently, like to think that even a movie star would be so messed up and sick as to try and insert a gerbil up his backside.

OK, maybe that last one is ridiculous enough to be funny, but most hoaxes are not. The image of a sick child was not spread to raise awareness of child abuse, it was concocted by someone who abused the image of that poor boy to spread a lie and see how many “shares” it would get. The brewery promotion did not come from a manager or the sales executive, it almost certainly came from someone who wanted to see how many people he could fool. And the warning of secret paedophile groups is 99.99% most likely to be from an asshole who cares for your kids so little that he wants to prey upon your fears and feed you misinformation that makes genuine threats to your children harder to detect.
In spreading these messages, we may tell ourselves that we’re doing good and saving others. Sorry guys, this is called slacktivism: the idea that we can earn good karma with the simple click of a button. Real good deeds require a little more effort than that.

Out there somewhere is a list of helpful tips for recognising signs and first aid for cases of stroke. Wouldn’t it be nice if that memo could replace every single lie and hoax out there in cyberspace today? If just one percent of users who share nonsense could take time to check and send out only truly helpful memos, lives could actually be saved. Something to think about before any of us hit “share” next time.

Ban the BBC or Save it?

Lots of important news broke during and right after the election. UKIP got the 3rd highest number of votes, but won just one seat. Labor lost and went into a self-pitying meltdown, cheered on by the Guardianista, who supported Labor and themselves with articles basically saying voters were too dumb to know what's best. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems stared into oblivion before jumping in.

However, it was the Tories that won, and David Cameron has appointed his new cabinet. One intriguing choice was John Whittingdale as Culture Secretary. John will be responsible for reviewing the BBC's charter when it next year. He has already described the licence fee as "worse than the poll tax". The shockwave of the appointment clearly rattled the arrogant BBC heads who immediately put out this tweet before deleting it again moments later.

By coincidence a Twitter campaign to "Save the BBC" and "encourage it to flourish" appeared shortly after the news. The Twitter account is strong in urging supporters to join up and send out positive message about the BBC service.

I have challenged Peter (the person behind the account) to a formal, public debate. Perhaps on debate.org, perhaps on radio or some other platform. Peter at #saveourbbc has very kindly accepted. More details to come.

School safety: protect your kids from snatchers, molesters and.......paddling pools.

I'm a terrible flyer. Not a nervous flyer, a bloody awful one. I hold my breath and say my prayers during take-off then I sweat at the slightest bit of turbulence. At the most miniscule change of noise or lighting I will check that every single steward shows no signs of concern. In my mind, of course, I'm seeing one of those high-profile, tragic airline crashes happening to me. Then, when the suffering is over and I'm back on firm ground, I happily engage in road travel in Asia, where my statistical chances of meeting sudden death are far higher.

You know where I'm going with this, but if you're a parent without a phobia of flying, you too may getting your sense of risk equally confused when it comes to childcare.

The video you see on the right is a typical example of scaremongering disguised as safety advice. It plays on our correct fear that we cannot control every aspect of our child's behaviour and emits a subliminal message that whatever you do, your child's sense of wonder and trust cannot be erased. Wonder and trust means innocence, innocence means danger, danger is bad. You must stop it.

Closely related to these viral "Fear this!" clips are the guilt messages that circulate social media like clockwork. Often they are simple hoaxes but equally often they're simply a twisted truth designed to distort the proportion of risk and  touch on guilt that we may already feel, such as spending too much time on social media, to the neglect of our offspring.

Let's get a few things clear at this point. Yes, there are risks to our children that we can reduce with due diligence. Yes, of course it's right to worry about abduction. The nightmare scenario of losing a child is healthy to some degree because it reflects our deep need to protect and nurture and I feel it as much as the next parent. But, like my fear of air travel, our sense of terror can be misguided.

The massive, massive majority of the public are not paedophiles waiting to snatch our beloved kids away. The man smiling at your child on the high street is thinking nothing more than how adorable he looks. The lady at the swimming baths taking a photo of two children is recording her own happy memory for Facebook, nothing more. (This is what I explained to the lifeguard at our hotel pool last month after he thunderously blew his whistle, jumped from his ladder and pointed a finger in my wife's face as she took a snap of our own kids.) Best of all, when a toddler is lost in the shopping mall, she is overwhelmingly likely to find an adult to care for her until her parents arrive.

At least, that should be the case unless said adult is too terrified of being accused of sinister motives, thanks to our culture of fear that we are so hell-bent on spreading across social media. When we fall over ourselves in desperation to spread hoaxes, issue warnings and join groups that threaten death on anyone who messes with our kids (which is really just another expression of our fears and maternal instincts), what we're really doing is expressing our own uncertainty about communities, towns and cities that are seeing their demographics changing faster than ever before, thanks to politicians who seek to gain from it.

Fact: drowning is as big a risk to your baby as anything else. God forbid, should anything sinister happen to your child, it's likely to be someone you know responsible. Most of all, your driving is probably the single most controllable variable affecting your offspring's safety, alongside water safety. This is one case where the statistics really don't lie.

So why then, do we not spend more time disseminating information on swimming pool accidents or the risks of incorrectly fitted booster seats to each other? (Although placing your precious one on in the back seat is a far greater contributor to crash survival than fitting a child seat). It's almost certainly related to our sense of control. When we drive with our hands on the wheel, we feel totally empowered. When we watch our child swim, we sense we can intervene at any time. The moment we stop to indulge our habits like chatting or checking our phone messages in either of these situations is when the worse could happen, but we don't register that risk in our thoughts. Habits can be killers, too.


That's not to say threats don't evolve. Communities in certain areas of England can be forgiven if its people respond to alarming sexual abuse and child grooming scandals by being overcautious. The work of online paedophile hunters has highlighted the growing danger of internet child grooming and I dread the day my kids are old enough and stubborn enough to want total internet privacy. The technology is still young enough that norms, consequences and risk levels are still hard to accurately assess. However the principle remains the same: we have to find balance.

Consciously seeking to shut our toddlers away from the wonders of the world and contributing to the sense of a society that treats everyone like a child-killer until proven otherwise could be as damaging to younger generations as anything else. How we deal  with that and work back towards any sense of trust and unity in our western communities is going to be much,much harder than sharing a few warnings on Facebook.

Full review - Authority and the Teacher by William H.Kitchen

 
A review I posted on Goodreads for Teacher Appreciation Week

William H. Kitchen is well-read in philosophy and an experienced teacher. That's all the reader will garner from his book with reading the "About..." section and that's a good thing: the educational battleground is about minds, not egos. And make no mistake, there is a battle.

On one side are the left-wing progressives: holding the media, the state and the majority of schools in their grasp, enforcing "child-centred" education. Their system reduces the teacher to a facilitator (a "cheerleader" as Kitchen once says) of the class, allowing students to discover, learn and decide all by themselves. These same ideologists also push a growing movement against knowledge per se, in favour of "learning skills". This new progressive term describes the theory that knowledge now becomes outdated and obsolete so quickly that it's better to teach students how to learn rather than actually, you know, learn anything.

Kitchen (and I) believe all this to be utterly nonsensical, inoperable and extremely damaging to pupils. In this book, Kitchen articulately eviscerates the progressive arguments step by step. He does so with careful precision across three major sections.

First the author carefully removes ambiguity from the debate by defining the terminology involved. Most importantly he defines "authority"  as "recognisable and dependable", in the sense of: "Professor X is a leading authority on the subject of....." rather than the more common connotations of 'power' or 'punishment' that could misconstrue his entire argument. The author, then, is pushing for a recognition of the teacher as the leading knowledge holder on his or her subject in the classroom and recognition of such from the pupils, rather than the right to bring back the cane.

Kitchen also defines other terms before laying out what he so rightly calls the Teaching Paradox. Simply put, it asks: Why is it that the more money and focus we direct towards education, the less demanding it becomes? In a sense the question is rhetorical, as we already know the reasons for it (see my second paragraph).

The next section of the book is the largest as the writer explores three well-known philosophers (Polyani, Oakeshott and Wittenstein) and examines their arguments as they relate to teaching and authority. The arguments - and their inspection by Kitchen - are rich. The analysis shows that not only is authority crucial, beneficial and wonderful in an educational sense, but also the ideas of Rousseau-style "child-centred learning" or "learning to learn" are not only ineffective ideas, but utterly oxymoronic.

The final section of the book links 'knowledge' and 'certainty' to education and in all honesty it felt like a touch of overkill. However the closure was powerful as the author summarised by reviewing his main arguments and reiterating that far from being restrictive and dull as progressives would have us believe, the traditional system of teacher authority is not only efficient, it is by far the most emancipating and student-rewarding philosophy we have ever known.

It is here and only here I want to take a quick tangent. William H.Kitchen explicitly - and perhaps wisely - sidesteps the bigger political debate on this issue by clarifying that he is not attacking progressivism as a whole or its wider implications on discipline. This is for the best on his part for many reasons. However I will happily say what is actually made self-evident in Kitchen's book anyway: it is the anti-authority and anti-tradition progressive politics that has reaped this destruction of the western educational system and incurred the huge discipline problems that naturally followed it. Their hatred of tradition and values reaches so far they would rather tear down a useful, effective and proud system in favour of the current mess.

Returning to the book review, I have only one real criticism and that is the very high level of repetition of the author's core argument. Barely a page goes by without Kitchen reminding us: "The teacher and the student must trust each other" or "The teacher is working within his authority to emancipate the leaner", etc. The only reason I could imagine for this repetition is the writer wants to remind the reader how each section of the philosophies he analyses relate back to the core argument. Personally I didn't feel it was necessary to do so that often.

To achieve his goals (explained in a moment), Kitchen has eschewed humour and light prose in favour of directness and relevance. Overall though, this book was a highly readable and compelling argument in favour of a system that - if you don't know so already - will be clear common sense by the time you're done. At the outset of his work Kitchen states: "If you're a policymaker, I hope you pay close attention to this book. If you're a parent, I hope this allow you to envision a brighter future for your child. If you're a student, I hope this work will prevent you from being treated like a lab rat".  The book is good enough to achieve those goals.

The real reason the feminist censors hate THAT poster

Well I guess the feminist groups must be happy. A commercial for some kind of protein shake has been suspended by the ASA following complaints.

Its hard to say what is actually wrong with the poster, which features an attractive lady and the slogan: "Are you beach body ready?”. There’s no swearing, no abuse or hate of any kind and no nudity (unless you count a swimsuit as too revealing).

The one and only criticism from the censor brigade is that the poster promotes “poor body images”, or “body shaming”.  This is the kind of lexicon I first encountered in my communication with Endangered Bodies. It’s such a vacuum of logic that it’s hard to know where to start dealing with it. It’s as if I’m a lawyer trying to respond to the Chewbacca defence.

On the one hand, I’m inclined to go down the road of comedian Andrew Lawrence.

'Body confident', 'Plus size' ,'Big & beautiful'- however you choose to celebrate your obesity, you're still a greedy cunt. x

— andrew lawrence (@andrewlawrence) April 28, 2015

'We need to stop all the fat shaming.' You should be ashamed, you ate too much.

— andrew lawrence (@andrewlawrence) April 28, 2015

Time for a ban on public ads showing attractive women, it's making the rough ones feel bad about themselves. In fact, hijabs all round.

— andrew lawrence (@andrewlawrence) April 28, 2015

But to do so plays in to the hands of the zealots who desperately need to feel like they’re disliked and oppressed by prejudice. So from here on I'll at least try to match the logic of the banshees screaming down anything that makes them insecure.

Like most human beings I have my imperfections. In my case, my colleagues and friends will frequently remind me that I’m skinny and/or small. That’s my thing. Now, when I see billboard posters featuring body builders I totally get it. Big muscles (to a limit, maybe) are evolutionarily desirable. That doesn’t mean you have to be that way to look good, but it’s a look most blokes would like to have.

It’s the same thing with women and slim figures. Like it or not it’s human nature that most men generally find slimmer bodies more attractive and most women like to feel attractive. Yes of course there are numerous exceptions, yes of course any female can be beautiful, desirable, charming and inspiring without fitting the stereotype but that doesn’t change the general paradigm. Thats not sexist, prejudice or anything else except realistic. Deal with it.

So why then, could an advert for a body-toning supplement without any form of offence, prejudice or negativity have upset the angry feminist lobby? Simple: the advert achieved its aims. In fact, it achieved them too well.

Many commercials appeal to our insecurities. 'Zit' creams want teenagers to feel insecure about their face. Security products play on our healthy fear of crime. Dietary supplements want to touch our insecurity about our physique. These companies spend millions on market research: I’d be surprised if they ever concluded that focusing on falling rates of burglary,  or the happy, productive lives of overweight people would shift more of their products. Fear sells.

Is it immoral and wrong? Possibly. But as usual when dealing with lefties, we have to separate the professed reason for their behaviour from the truth. The truth here is not righteous indignation about the morality of commercials, as Spiked have pointed out. Their real motivation is actually to be found in Andrew Lawrence’s crude tweets. Because Protein World visibly reminded everyone what an attractive female looks like, the angry minority have – or perhaps are so paranoid they believe they have -  been reminded of their own dark opinion of their own bodies.

It’s equivalent to skinny folk like me saying photos of a body builders “shame wimpy people” or photos of Stephen Hawkins “shame those of us with lower IQs”.  Essentially, it's a system of forbidding anyone else to feel good about themselves. It’s a response so illogical and ridiculous that only those with serious self-esteem issues could do so without seeing how cringe-worthily transparent they are.

When our bodies don’t match the look we want we have two options. Firstly, change it through diet and exercise. Secondly, accept it and move on. A very small number who choose option one will go too far, which is sad. Most will not. The feminist mob will seize on and exploit the tragedy of that small minority as propaganda for their cause.

The idea of laying the blame for insecurities at the feet of a poster model is not only remarkably vicious and dumb, it’s also dangerous. Dangerous because like so much of the left-wing philosophy, it’s an attempt to defeat human nature. That's a battle that can never be won, but can cause untold damage in the process.