Opinion: Much ambivalence on sagging trousers, mini skirts and performance nudity

A lap dancing video

I was in bar one evening where a big screen was playing back MTV videos with no volume and it got me thinking.

A number of chart toppers; if only people were more like me; came on screen and the whole performance looked like a visit to a lap-dancing joint; pouting, wiggling, shaking and flaunting with reckless flirtatious zest. Even if the volume were turned up, it would have made no difference to the distraction of over-sexualising the demonstration that the musical element was completely lost.

Then there was that performance on one of those many reality television embarrassment shows where she appeared with her all her clothes on, surprisingly, well, until she was showered with water on stage – the rest is history.

Abusing the function of apparel

The matter of apparel or the absence of it does excite debate, I am usually befuddled by sagging trousers exposing cack-ridden underwear accentuated by the dawdling like a duck gait that otherwise agile young men adopt to keep the trousers from falling below the knees, you should see them run.

Out in Hungary, a university has enforced a conservative dress code that has created a revolt, as some students attended class literally naked in protest – we risk diving headlong into ignominy the moment we begin to regulate mode of dressing predicated on some conservative viewpoint.

Some societies set out their moral barometer through the strict regulation of women in society paying no regard to the equal responsibility of men to just as well behaved.

Between music and lewdness

Then at the risk of ambivalence losing balance in the discourse, we are presented with the transition of Miley Cyrus into adulthood, a maturity expressed by throwing caution to the winds in sexualising performances as well as some nudity to boot.

However, when she suggested one of her raunchy videos drew inspiration from Sinead O’Connor. The press then assailed Sinead with questions, which led to this open letter to Miley.

Many arguments can be made for the freedom of expression, pride in one’s sexuality, the licence to take licence and not be castigated across the board for sagging trousers, banning mini-skirts or swinging on a wrecking ball in the nude licking a hammer.

Breaking the wrong rules

However, we must be careful that our exuberance does not lead us down the road to ruin, and with that, I pitch my tent with those who suggest a modicum of modesty, moderation and restraint.

It is important that the core talent one has in not overshadowed by tawdry and lewd expression except where one’s stock in trade is the display of such for titillation and suggestiveness.

Whilst rules are sometimes meant to be broken, the ones we choose to break should be done with serious consideration and awareness of consequence.

This is where the advice contained in Sinead O’Connor should not go unheeded, it is really good advice, though it is arguable that it was poorly offered.

Decency is a leveller

Decency becomes the watchword, underwear being under the clothes, skirts long enough to cover the detail even though some might be persuaded of shortening it to keep the interest and let musicians just be musicians – we need to differentiate between selling music as talent and selling sex to push the talent.

I would hate to regulate dressing, it is a free world but if in the performance of high art we need to appeal to the lowest common denominator, maybe it is not high art after all.

England: And the coconut fell on her head

The Police Constable of Political Correctness

Sometimes I wonder where I have been on either side of the politically correct debate and have found that I have been on both sides and sitting on the fence.

In general, I don’t do politically correct, I do polite, I do respectful and sometimes with a tinge of what I would call the gentle English putdown.

A case in Bristol [1] was concluded recently that had a black Liberal Democrat councillor engaged in a heated debate with an Asian Conservative councillor predicated on the latter arguing that spending money today on trying to right the wrongs of slavery was wasteful.

The Liberal Democrat retorted that the Conservative would be termed a coconut, a term, sometimes derogatorily inferring someone who has abandoned one’s roots pandering to the seeming proclivities of another culture.

The myths and expectations

This matter goes deep and it would appear both councillors were somewhat unwise in their choice of words. Asians never really did suffer the ravages and consequences of slavery as much as Blacks did, so in a way her stance regardless of the objectivity of her argument was insensitive at best.

The use of the word “coconut” with the variant of “bounty” or “banana” which infers white on the inside and brown or yellow on the outside is as racist as one can get in jocular or formal council meeting environments, if that is how you want to be affected by it.

I was once called a bounty when a friend wanted me to offer an academic reference in his favour, when all I could do was give a character reference. I responded saying it was not the exclusive prerogative of the white man to be objective.

A broad political church

Furthermore, ethnic minorities cannot be expected to be exclusively left-wing or left-leaning, we are borne of different circumstances and opportunities that it is very possible for us to be right-leaning and conservative with the option to join political parties of that stratum and represent people from that perspective.

The idea that ethnic minorities are trying to be whiter than the whites is sometimes atrocious; as if one can be accused of being blacker than the blacks. If one was born abroad and has spent more than half one’s life in that society one would think that person were fully integrated in the dominant culture rather than be holdouts of a sub-culture which might no more be representative of its origins.

The question then becomes why should I only be defined and identified purely by my racial colour and no inference to the varied cultures in which I have lived and the content of my character which is usually not worn on the face or skin?

Back where we started

We need to move on from race and deprivation politics and accentuate the better parts of our co-existence. The Conservative councillor could well have mollified her argument in favour of cuts in more temperate language not creating the situation where latent grievances of the pasts are allowed to surface with politically damaging consequences.

The sad situation too is evident in the fact that the Conservative councillor had hardly moved out into post-cultural self-assuredness, she took offence where she could have been above the fray. People defined by being unsure of their roots still find that they are easily offended at every seeming slight and hardly possess the wit to deflect the barbs.

I suppose race still holds sway in many matters that affect ethnic minorities regardless of how long they have lived in their host societies where they are probably supposed to be fully integrated, if not assimilated.

The coconut is cracked open

The wider implications of the case, the prosecution and the sentence border on elements of free speech, expression, urban usage and context – in some circles, this is political correctness gone mad but if anything, either coconut or banana must learn the nuances of being politely rude rather than being politically incorrect. It is probable that neither is even whiter on the inside yet, how interesting, that would be to all concerned.

As the saying goes amongst the Yoruba of West Africa who were probably the most decimated and plundered in terms of slavery with outposts of that culture in Cuba and Brazil – he whose head has been used to crack the coconut is not going to partake in the eating of it.

Figuratively, she threw a coconut and it landed on her head – What a pity, as the English smiled wryly at all the fuss.

Source

[1] Councillor found guilty of racial harassment over 'coconut' jibe | UK news | The Guardian

The UK: My thoughts are with David Laws

One revelation and a story

I have just read with sadness the resignation of David Laws the coalition Secretary to the Treasury on the matter of claiming expenses for accommodation on the premises of his partner.

The unfortunate consequence is that Mr. Laws has inadvertently been outed as gay in a long-term relationship with the man purported to have been his landlord.

There are many angles of looking at this story but the one that most draws my sympathy is that Mr. Laws who is just a month older than I am had settled into the convenience of being in the closet as a single man in public office without any of his close relations knowing of this secret affair – however, it is all now exposed and ones thoughts are prayers are with all concerned.

An ambiguous rule of life

Obviously the commons rules about claiming accommodation expenses require that claimants do not do so when with partners, relations or business associates.

Technically, if Mr. Laws had not declared his residence in plush Kensington to the West of London people might have said there are a quid pro quo scenario developing leaving a Member of Parliament open to influence, his claiming expenses however has lead to this rather human tragedy of sorts from which I do hope he does recover well.

The nation has lost a smart and possibly very able minister to scandals and the plural is deliberate – the scandal that prevents people from being confident of acceptance as gay if they should so choose to declare that fact, the scandal of claiming expenses whilst living with one’s partner even though there is no legal or common law basic for same-sex relationships in the UK except where a civil partnership has been entered into and the scandal of newspapers that have no compunction in exposing anything that would help sell their copy.

The Daily Telegraph has averred that it had no intention of outing Mr. Laws but there is no way that story would have made any news without that consequence as part of its sensational import and interest.

Politicians are not saints

I do not believe that our politicians should be subject to the kinds of moral standards we should expect of the clergy, they are not saints, they are people like you and I who have offered to serve our country in whatever capacity they have been elected and selected to serve.

This would obviously not encourage capable and competent but seemingly flawed people to enter politics for the fear of being mauled by the rabid dogs of the press pretending to be cuddly kittens.

It reminds me of the resignation of Lord John Browne from the chairmanship of BP when in trying to conceal the matter of his sexuality he perjured himself and was vilified for perjury despite the more personal issue at stake.

Acceptance is not a given, even in the West

There is no doubt that even though the middle-classes in the general sense might have the liberality of accepting and tolerating homosexuality, those with influence and in authority, politics or even international sports are not that at ease with revealing who they truly are – it leaves them prone to blackmail and possibly ignominy – the saddest case of those consequences of declaring ones sexuality can only have one looking at how that revelation lead to Justin Fashanu’s suicide in an abandoned garage in East London.

The fear of rejection looms large, more so the threat of homophobia which has not been eradicated even from Western societies and the misfortune that might accompany being disowned by loved and trusted ones – it is not an easy life and our humanity is the poorer for how difference stops people from being the best they could ever be by first being truly themselves.

Sources

BBC News - Treasury Minister David Laws resigns over expenses

Other references

Lies - Between human frailty and the law [akin.blog-city.com]

Obituary: Justin Fashanu - Obituaries, News - The Independent

Malawi: Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga are pardoned, but ...

A welcome pardon

I welcome the pardoning [1] of Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, who were given 14-year jail terms after being convicted of gross indecency and unnatural acts in Malawi by President Bingu wa Mutharika.

This was announced during the visit of the Secretary-General Ban ki Moon of the United Nations who probably had this matter on the table for discussion along with other UN matters that he might have discussed with the President.

The President said, “These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws, however, as the head of state I hereby pardon them and therefore ask for their immediate release with no conditions.”

Of culture, religion and laws

One might say that just because a majority follows a particular culture it could not be incumbent on the majority to impose with menace and aggression that culture on others who might not be so persuaded – on that point, the case against the young men was unfair.

We have to come to a point where the use of religion to abridge, abort or proscribe the beliefs or adherences of others must be frowned upon and condemned in the sternest terms, again, I am forced to drag up the ruling that presents that argument in the starkest possible words.

Lord Justice Laws said only a few weeks ago and that is the standard by which every society, community and people would be subjected to as our global village becomes smaller and every activity in the social realm receives global scrutiny.

The state’s thinking

“We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.”

“The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.”

In Malawi, it would appear that the state has thought for itself to have had the law that lead to that judgment imposed on the young men, but one does wonder if certain of our laws now pass the muster of respecting the rights of minorities, the different, the uncommon, the alternative and where they appear to do so, if respect also includes protection from menace meted out by people who have strong views against the liberal stance of living and letting live.

A guarantee of safety too?

This is the new chapter in the young men’s lives; having tasted with great opprobrium the almost martyrdom to a cause and a type of life or lifestyle we pretend does not exist in our midst, their release without conditions hopefully would not mean their release into the hands of the lynch mob.

The President’s humanitarian action would only be fully commendable if these young men can live in Malawi as free Malawians able to pursue their dreams and visions without sanction, discrimination or ill-will.

It is a big ask from a very conservative – and I use that word with reluctance – society, because in the true sense what passes for conservatism these days is really intolerance, bigotry, hatred and persecution of the right to free expression of self and the pursuit of happiness.

No prying on any life or lifestyle

I would that societies, cultures, countries or governments do not have to suffer the duress of global pressure to adopt a more liberal stance to accommodating minorities and difference, more so, the repeal of laws that deny the right to existence of minorities no matter the strength of feeling against such minorities has to be the best and correct direction for humanity and civilisation.

There is a public place for scrutiny and there is a private place for activities that have no victims where adults who have consented to entertain mature, meaningful, fulfilling and honourable lives – no state, no public, no religion, no culture, no tradition, no law or view should have the inalienable right to encroach on that private space for the sake of assuaging the sensibilities of the disgusted – Not in Malawi, not in Africa and not anywhere else where humanity has expression of life and purpose.

Source

[1] BBC News - Malawi pardons jailed gay couple

Other references

Malawi: Free Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga [akin.blog-city.com]

The case for State law over religious guidance [akin.blog-city.com]

Im-Palin-g McCain's picket

Cultivating relationships

I have made many acquaintances but have very few friends, in fact, the people I call my friends, I have known for at least 15 years, putting that in the time frame of my last long-term partner, beyond that, it goes back 24 years.

Some 22 years ago, when I was made the class representative and a good representative I was, we were a noisy class and when someone challenged me about being the ring-leader of the noise-makers, I had to say if I did not represent my class in noise-making I would not be representing them effectively.

The real context of this is I left that school with 3 good friends, one of whom I have lost contact with in Russia, one with whom I have little contact in Nigeria and the other with whom I talk to quite frequently in London.

These along with the other friends are people I can trust with a lot, talk to about much and expect to act in my behalf just as if I were there without any fear for their judgement and whilst being assured of the quality of their person and integrity.

I am proud to say that where I have recommended these people on my own recognisance they have been accepted in my person and proved to be just as recommended and better.

I have also entered into business dealings with people through having first known them, known their judgement, their values and realised how we can work together for a common good, I do not take these issues lightly at all.

My congratulations to Sarah Palin

It is on this note that I first congratulate Sarah Palin [1] on being selected by John McCain as his vice-Presidential running mate. Until she was selected, I did not know anything about this governor of a backwater state called Alaska [2] apart from the bridge to nowhere [3] which has since been abandoned [4] by her and the indictments [5] of Ted Stevens [6], the longest serving GOP Senator.

What we read about Sarah Palin is interesting, a mother of 5 children, the last being born only in April 2008 with Down’s Syndrome, she is a devout Christian, pro-life and pro-gun politician who seems to be working at cleaning up Alaskan politics.

She has been governor for less than 2 years and might be implicated [7] in trying to obtain the sacking of her ex-brother-in-law who was undergoing a messy divorce and child custody batter with her sister as a serious abuse of power.

Gay abortions of gun marriage

On the issues that excite the conservatives about her candidacy, I find myself more pragmatic than fundamentalist and agree more with Senator Obama’s views on abortion, gun-control and gay marriage as he articulated in his acceptance speech [8].

The need to work on preventing unwanted pregnancies than jostling with the issue of abortion could mean condoms and contraceptives have a place in society, if we are less emotive about presumed societal decay. People would always have sex, it is probably better we ensure they have it safely and avoid regrettable situations.

Being painted as an Annie, Get Your Gun figure does nothing for me, it fact that gun use in the country differs from what guns get used for in the inner cities; there is a need for balance in enacting laws with due respect to the 2^nd Amendment to protect rights as well as protect lives.

If people have a right to love regardless of gender pairing, that love-relationship constitutes their family unit for those concerned such that sharing, caring and privileges should by rights and fairness accrue to that relationship.

I still contend that it is only those whose heterosexual marriages and relationships are weak that think gay marriage would impact on marriage as an institution. If same-sex couples had basic rights conferred on their partnerships, there would be no need for the marriage debate, but the absence of such partnership rights makes many want to go the whole hog and I see nothing really wrong with that.

Time for the United States of Americans

America within itself needs conciliation through pragmatic analysis of social issues not the promotion of political figures that accentuate the wedge issues that divide the people, polarise the nation and try to make traitors of people who disagree about these things.

We need the vision of a new president who brings together the whole country in the unity of purpose looking to change and grasping unto the edifying message of hope than one who dwells on the divisions that has turned America into one of the most divided countries on social issues.

Conservatives and liberals alike have to recognise that they are all American first and the politics of being disagreeable because of the difference of opinion has to stop – I must contend the Obama offers the healing balm of reason that John McCain cannot deign to offer to his most beloved country.

This is no great thing

Nevertheless, I am not excited by any stretch of the imagination about McCain’s choice of vice-President. It is amazing that after so many years in Washington, his numbered years and the need to buttress areas where he is weak, he has chosen to lay such a responsibility on someone he has only met once before, with whom he has no particular affinity.

Nobody can convince me that this selection is borne of some deliberate and considered thinking that binds people who have developed a relationship of mutual aims, goals and vision.

The fellowship of minds

I have just started a new job today, the company has in the past employed the best consultants money could buy to solve intractable problems with solutions that sound amazing but yield none of the expected results.

The team has now regrouped into one that seeks shared experiences with others who they have worked with before to address the problems with the fellowship of minds that are geared to succeed rather than push a particular solution provider’s agenda which just accumulates hours of expensive waffle.

I find myself amongst people who I have worked with in different companies over the last 5 years, who I know, who I respect, who have a shared vision and acknowledging each others expertise and who have gathered together to be a winning team – we know we would crack those problems because we have developed a relationship of peers and expertise.

After an exemplary life

The choice that John McCain has made is the most cynical ploy to emotively use gender sympathies and religious adherence to befuddle voters into a false sense of thinking sameness brings comfort, it offers the opportunity for a complacency that imagines things would be done the way we believe we would do things. How further from the truth can we be about judgement and the assessment of character?

It is a presidency not a bishopric that is at stake, it is about human government not church government. I would be fearful of an ultra-religious person who dreams dreams, sees visions and reckons that God commands them to take some action without considering all the consequences for the basis of secular government.

America has been too divided along wedge issues to tolerate more of the same again for 4 more years.

I am surprised that no one sees that after 72 years of a rather distinguished and exemplary life John McCain could find no friend, colleague, confidant, mentor or protégé in his long political, social, business or military life and career to join him in the most important quest of his life but a stranger.

No judgment no story

This man has no judgment; he fails woefully at what should have been the culmination of relationships with other men and women he has met in all walks of life; this should have had a history and story that fills us with awe, but he picks someone he met only six months ago.

He is both a maverick and breathtakingly reckless; the levers of world government must never be within his grasp.

There is no greater poverty of spirit and goodwill than to share your greatest stage with strangers rather than with friends, with people you hardly know, in order to prove you are different.

This is exactly what makes John McCain unworthy of the calling to which he aspires, he has made vain a lifetime of experiences to hug the limelight alone and he has dangled a juicy bait that has everyone whooping too distractedly to realise that they are being patronised by a consummate denier of his legacy and his original platforms for the want of power.

A picket not a ticket

It has left the Economist asking Bring back the real McCain [9] in their leader this week, just as John Kerry compared and contrasted Senator McCain with Candidate McCain in his speech [10] at the Democratic National Convention last week.

The selection of Sarah Palin does not present us with a McCain-Palin ticket, rather it is an appalling McCain picket; it is not revolutionary but reactionary, it not inspired but desperate, it is not conciliatory but anarchist, it not cultured but vulgar, it is not considered but rash, it is maverick in its context and reckless to the extreme.

For a man of John McCain’s stature to impose on a nursing mother he hardly knows regardless of her abilities and suitability a responsibility so large as to create the most exacting pressures on her needs to satisfy motherhood and the call of office is in the least irresponsible and at the most heartless.

If the 3:00AM advertisement [11] would ever question the ability of anyone to meet the demands of a great crisis, just imagine accommodating that under the stress of nursing a child that most definitely needs that extra bit of care and having another child away in harm’s way in a war that should never have been started.

I am sorry, this selection is not gentlemanly at all and it proves once and for all that Senator John McCain is probably better a senator and definitely not material for a president by any stretch of the imagination.

The man is just not the man we used to know.

Sources

[1] Sarah Palin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Alaska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment

[4] 'Bridge to nowhere' abandoned - CNN.com

[5] Nation & World | Ted Stevens indicted, longest-serving GOP senator | Seattle Times Newspaper

[6] Ted Stevens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[7] Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[8] Obama: We are better than these last eight years - CNN.com

[9] The presidential race | Bring back the real McCain | Economist.com

[10] Transcript: Sen. John Kerry On Foreign Policy : NPR

[11] Hillary Clinton, 3am commercial White House Ad - Truveo Video Search

The new uncompassionate, insensitive and heartless conservative

The heart of conservatism

At the back of my mind I have had a question about that great divide in America between the conservatives and the liberals.

I am beginning to come to that conclusion that if these ideologies were part of conjoined Siamese twins the heart of the union would be in the liberal part and probably the brains in the conservative.

I do not mean this in derogatory terms but it feeds into that scriptural saying which questions the value of owning the world and losing your soul.

The conservatives, cultural or religious are supposedly the link with our history and traditions; the liberals keep us up with developments in society as times change and civilization.

Do we need new Jesus Christians?

In America, it is quite difficult to appreciate the Jesus brand of Christianity in relation to the exhibition of their Christian values.

There might be a case for not supporting abortion but that question was settled in John Kerry’s inspired response where he said it should be a matter between the woman, her doctor and her God.

That seems to manage the case of the personal, the medical and the religious – I would think that is what our freedom and democracy is about. Your privacy, your welfare and your faith. Albeit, it is a liberal perspective of a civilized world.

However, when it comes to the death penalty, it appears the liberals have a greater sense of mercy than the conservative fixation on the punishment, even I question why we still do need the death penalty – we have moved on in Europe on the matter.

No love, no evangelism

Beyond this, the greatest enmity of the church does not seem to be directed at the devil but at the homosexuals, the vitriol and vituperation that comes from the pulpit at those humans who I hope are part of the God-man salvation pact is definitely not going to bring them to church.

What is the need for a moral compass if the direction we take loses every sense of humanity? – mercy, justice, fairness, charity, compassion, forbearance and tolerance have been swallowed in a new man-made religion that pretends to serve a higher God.

Uncompassionate and insensitive

Two events over the last few days bring this into focus, first the suicide of three Guantanamo Bay inmates and a book published by Anne Coulter – a controversial conservative pundit.

My concern with Guantanamo Bay stems from the seeming lack of concern, compassion and sympathy for the conditions of despair that might have lead to the death of those people. To have dismissed these events as publicity stunts and acts of asymmetric warfare had me feeling for the thumping sound of my heart – just in case I was losing mine.

Anne Coulter who has been publishing a few books attacking liberalism has a new installment called Godless: The Church of Liberalism. In it there was a vitriolic and insensitive attack on some 9/11 widows whose activities have helped us gain more insight into the Genesis of the 9/11 disaster.

She wrote and I quote – “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.”

Conservative Eugenics

The Cruz of all her arguments being liberals are pushing forward the widows, the bereaved, the disabled, the victims to make political points but by reason of their tragedies are excused from attack and criticism – Balderdash!

The undertone I can read is widows should stay home grieving, poor and helpless, the bereaved already have enough on their hands in bereavement, the disabled have no say on matters that the able-bodied can do better and the victims should be in therapy rather than be caught speaking up for the change that would prevent the creation of new victims.

You will have to scroll down to the quotations of this lady to have a measure of who this personality is.

“It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 — except Goldwater in '64 — the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted.”

“The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet — it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars — that's the Biblical view.”

This is blue conservatism in the deepest shade.

I’ll rather be a Liberal

I can say a lot of good has come out of the activism of people who have had life-changing experiences – in my view Anne Coulter for all her smartness has been a poor standard bearer for an ideology that is finding growing support for selfishness and less application to the humane and kind.

In America, being a Liberal might be the lowest thing to be in political life, but on what the conservatives have done, I’ll rather be a liberal and liberals do go to church.

Conservatism still lives, but the heart is now stone cold.