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Monday, 26 January 2015
French Onion Soup On Free Promo
Friday, 9 January 2015
Roofs in France
It is often said, by the way, that the characteristic curved shape of the tuile romaine was formed by a man wrapping the clay over his bare thigh. This may or may not be true, but it does describe the shape perfectly. Traditional tuiles plats are also, it should be noted, not flat but curved, though in the other direction. This is important as it means that if you mix them with modern flat tiles, which actually are flat, the result will not only look awful, it will leak.
There are many other types of traditional roof in France, these are just the most common. Slate, ardoise, is often found, especially in finer work or on small towers or dormers, and stone tiles called lauzes, or laves, are also common. The difference between lauzes and laves is that laves are made of basaltic, volcanic rock, while lauzes are made of limestone or other sedimentary rock; but everyone will know what you mean if you call them laves.
In some parts of France, thatched roofs are still seen, but these are well outside my ken.
As well as the traditional, hand-made tiles, it is common to see tuiles mecaniques, or factory-made, moulded tiles. These are especially common in the north. They are also frequently mixed with tuiles plats.
Because of the very steep pitch used for tuiles plats, which is in turn forced by their lengthwise curved shape, they have to be hung on tiling battens. They are either nailed on or more commonly hooked on by a moulded projection called an ergot. Note that you can’t easily drill the holes in these tiles; if there are holes they will be cast in from new. Thus the buyer of reclaimed tiles had better check that the ergots have not been knocked off, a very common result of careless stacking, otherwise a bargain may turn out not to be, as he will break at least half drilling them. Traditionally no sarking timber is placed under these, so the tiles can be accessed directly from below, which can be extremely useful.
Tuiles romaines are also placed on battens but are simply laid and then mortared in place, forming a rigid structure.
Slate roofs in France are not normally nailed but instead the tiles are hung on galvanised metal hooks. These can fail through corrosion but at least the tiles are easy to replace until they do.
Stone roofs are not for the amateur to take lightly, if you’ll forgive the pun. Professional help or considerable research will have to be done before repairs can be tackled safely. Working on roofs is always dangerous, but even more so when using stone because of the enormous weight, and scaffolding will be required for quite basic maintenance work. Furthermore while it is relatively simple for an amateur to nail tiling battens at the appropriate intervals and then hang tiles, stone roofs are much more complicated in their structure, involving the need to accurately size the stone and level each course with intermediary smaller stones called cales which prevent the main stones from actually touching. This promotes the circulation of air and prevents a capillary channel for moisture to creep in and rot the roof-timbers.
It really is essential to get professional help if you have a roof like this, but unfortunately the older generation of French tradesmen who had the skills needed to work on these roofs is dieing out and there are very few left. I hope that younger people coming into the industry will realise the value of being one of the few to possess such skills, so that these wonderful roofs can be preserved and maintained; but I am quite sure their services won’t come cheap.
Broken tuiles plats are easily replaced, as the old tile can usually be wiggled out and a new one put in place from inside the roof. If the roof is reasonably small, quite large areas of tile can be repaired using a proper roofer’s ladder, which hooks over the ridge. Note however, that this requires steely nerves at the best of times, and often the roof is so big and steep that it is really not appropriate. For example, the main roof on my home is ten metres from edge to ridge, pitched at 55 degrees from horizontal, and the lowest part is six metres above ground. That’s quite a sensation of altitude.
An important issue with these roofs is the state of the tiling battens, as the failure of these elements requires all the tiles to be removed for their replacement. Tile battens were often made from poplar, which must be like sweeties to woodworm beetles, and is only good for 30 years at most. New pressure-treated pine battens should last much longer. Again, replacing tile battens is a professional job; while the amateur can tackle a small shed or outhouse, the sheer size of most roofs means that professional equipment and skills are a pre-requisite. Unfortunately, as with so many things, the number of French tradesmen prepared or indeed able to work with the old tuiles plats is declining rapidly and many who can, will be very expensive. It will almost always be much cheaper to retile the whole roof with new flat tiles than to carefully remove, stack, and replace the old ones; but the result will look less beautiful.
Tuiles romaines suffer from the same problem in that if the underlying timber fails, replacement also means taking the roof off. Individual tiles are extremely difficult to replace because the structure of the roof means they are all locked together, but it can be done. However, the much less severe pitch on a roof like this is such that it is safe for a man supported by roofing boards to work on, so scaffold is not always required. While I would hesitate to suggest that this would allow the amateur to carry out major works, at least routine maintenance and minor repairs are possible, as long as you have researched the issue thoroughly and are sure you know what you’re doing.
Tuiles mecaniques are prone to breaking, especially if they have not been well laid. Because the tiles interlock and are also quite large, it is essential that adequate space is left at upstands for the tiles to expand and contract, otherwise they will surely crack. A tile has to deal with blazing summer sun when its surface can become hot enough to literally fry eggs, and midwinter nights with air temperatures of minus twenty Celsius or less; expansion and contraction will happen and must be allowed for. These tiles can be awkward to replace either from inside or outside, but at the price of a few choice curses the job can usually be done without the removal of too much skin. The tile you want to repair is always just above a rafter, and so you will need to remove several other tiles to get to it if working from inside, but patience and care are the key. The trouble starts if the roof was originally clad with tuiles plats and subsequently recovered with tuiles mecaniques using the same rafters. This is because the rafters for tuiles plats are closer together because of the much greater weight, and it can be impossible to wiggle the larger tuiles mecaniques up through the gaps from the inside. On moderately-sized roofs with this problem, repairs can be carried out using a proper roof ladder, but again, for larger roofs a professional will probably have to help.
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Thursday, 1 January 2015
Happy New Year!
2014 got off to the worst start imaginable. I broke with my lovely girlfriend, Crissy José, in a stupid disagreement that was entirely my fault. (I mentioned this in an earlier post). I had very little money and I was totally depressed. My world shrank and I turned inwards. I was emotionally gutted and actually in a very vulnerable condition.
Two events saved me. Well, three, but more of that later. In the first, my neighbour, a lovely woman who has always been very kind to me and my family, asked me if I would put some of my house-restoration skills to work on her house. She has a traditional fermette, and like all of these, the original space for humans was tiny. She ha already converted another outbuilding and her a stable into a nice letting apartment, but the barn was very big and as she has got older, it was clearly getting more difficult for her to do these things herself.
I would not usually take work like that, but I needed something. That work not only made me fitter, leaner and stronger, it focussed me again. The project is still unfinished but it looks positive and several others have come into view.
The second event of huge importance was that I met, through a Facebook Group, a person who was to become central to my life. She is known as Karis Burkowski and half in jest I sent her a copy of French Onion Soup . She liked it and made very positive comments, so I asked if she would help with a writing project I was stuck with. I thought she might do some editing and maybe give me some direction.
However, what actually happened was remarkable. After a hesitant beginning, the whole arrangement just clicked into place, and Karis became so much part of the project that she is now the co-author. The book is called Why Men Made God and we are currently working through the last draft (of over 40). This is the best working relationship I have ever had with another professional and I will be forever in Karis’ debt. She has improved Why Men Made God by orders of magnitude, and we are planning future projects together. Not only is she co-author, but she has also become my business partner.
Between these two projects I was really busy, but at the same time rediscovered some of my energy. It’s funny how the more work I have, the stronger and more energetic I become. My daughter Charis came to visit for three weeks and that was lovely, as it always is. I tackled some of the work that needed to be done to my house, including some roof repairs and replacing a rotten lintol over the barn. My next Onion Soup project, while slow, also progressed.
I even managed to find time for romance. I met a few girls online and chatted with them. But each, after a few weeks, just faded. Then I met a girl through Facebook and it seemed more serious. She was very nice, and eventually we decided to meet. This prompted me to book an extended break in the Philippines, where I am now (and where Crissy lives, by the way.) This seemed like a decent plan in any case. I know a lot of people here now so I was pretty relaxed, and it gave me the time to really concentrate on finishing Why Men Made God.
So I rented an apartment in Taguig, Manila. I flew into NAIA (pronounced ‘na-eeyah’) on the 15th and within three days I had broken with the girl. It just was not right. Another Facebook friend contacted me, and I had a couple of dates with her. She is beautiful, charming and affectionate; but I knew it was all wrong, though I could not tell why. I met another and also knew, right away, that this was never going to work. I learned that knowing someone online is not like knowing that person ‘in real’.
I had almost given up when I went back on the site where I first met Crissy. It’s a dating site and I hadn’t used it for ages. She was still on it and was obviously active, since her photo popped up quickly. The funny thing was, I almost didn’t message her. But I did, not really expecting her to reply. That was on Christmas Day.
So I was pretty impressed when, the day after, she replied. She was a little critical but I know her very well, she had been wronged and was not letting me away with it easily. But still, she wanted to meet.
We met on the 30th, four days later. I offered to take her for dinner at the Market! Market! mall near here at 6:30. I wasn’t really apprehensive, though I did ask myself if this was really a good idea. (I’m sure she did too.) I took a jeepney to the mall and reloaded my pocket wi-fi, hit the ATM and then went to the agreed meeting place. Naturally, Crissy was late so I had time to get scared but I didn’t. I just thought it would be two good friends meeting after a long time apart.
Crissy just appeared beside me without a word. She was obviously nervous. She made no display of greeting, just led me towards Giligan’s, a popular restaurant. But it was full, and I suggested another; this was too bright, said she. So we settled on Gerry’s Grill at her suggestion.
Crissy can often be insecure and I have to be gentle with her, and respect her need for space. I am sure meeting me had been stressing for her. Seated, and with the table between us, she was in a space she could control so she relaxed and I saw her for the first time.
She was more beautiful than before, perhaps a little slimmer. She seemed more self-assured and confident in herself, and actually more mature. She had changed, and as far as I could see, in good ways. Still I was not expecting anything. I had broken with her and counted it an honour and a privilege that she had even agreed to meet. This was just friends.
But slowly, as the evening progressed, that changed. Because the music was deafening, I moved to sit behind her, and very soon had my arm round her. She didn’t flinch or move away and even when I asked she just shook her head and said it was fine. But I knew that she knew what was happening, and felt it too. ‘I never expected this,’ she said, several times, without any reproach, just wonder.
Around about then, the door opened, or the lid came off. The lid on the Pandora’s Box that I had locked Crissy into. The door on all my lies and self-deception. The window that showed the truth. I am completely in love with this most beautiful person, and had been all along. Denying it was just stupid and futile. This feeling is just too strong.
The situation I was in became crystal clear. The other girls I dated never had any chance at all. I could chat online, but as soon as they were before me, real, my entire emotional system rejected them the way that white cells reject a virus. There was just no room in my heart for any of them, because Crissy – or at least the ghost of Crissy – was in there already, and that ghost was allowing no competition.
After dinner she wanted to buy a cake, for New Year, so we found a bakery. It was like old times, arm in arm, close, touching. It was absolutely exhilarating and her perfume was actually making me dizzy. I bought the cake, and then we found her a taxi. She had to get it home, she explained, it was an ice-cream cake, and it would melt. Manila in December is not like Paris. I asked for a kiss and she willingly gave one, just a nice friendly kiss.
Then something happened; I opened the taxi door and as she got in I leaned close to her ear and the truth finally came out: ‘I love you’ I breathed. I hadn’t meant to say that, but I was no longer in control. My heart, which had successfully and so loyally defended Crissy’s right to be there, was back in control and it was not about to put up with any more of my crass self-deception.
I was in shock. I came home to the apartment in a jeep – and collapsed on the bed. I don’t know what was worst – the shame at how I had wronged someone so profoundly decent, and whom I love so much, the stupidity of having lied to myself for so long, or the way I had – without meaning to, hurt others during a year of total untruth. Every wrong I had committed against my love I reviewed and every time I felt the agony of recrimination. It was a difficult night and I slept very little.
On the evening, just over two years ago, when Crissy and I fell in love, we were in the Red Coconut Bar in Station Two on Boracay. At one point I looked up and saw a bright green lizard on the wall. I had never seen one like it before, and have not since. Not till that night, after I got back from meeting Crissy, anyway. I went to brush my teeth, and there in front of me was a little bright green lizard on the wall. By the time I got my camera, it had gone. I am pretty hard-boiled, but that shook me; I was wide open to the Universe by then and strange things that only shamans understand happen at times like that.
I didn’t and don’t know what will happen. Crissy and I need to talk, seriously, about us and the future. I don’t know if she will ever trust me as she did before. But what I do know is that I will never, ever, deceive myself as I have again. That is why I am writing this, so that I never forget this lesson.
Never, ever, take anyone for granted. And if you love someone, never, ever, deny it. Make them the centre of your life and meet all challenges together. Love will cure anything. But you have to let it. Remember that you don’t often get second chances. Don’t waste them. Especially in something so important as love. These are the things 2014 taught me.
For 2015 I have very high hopes. I hope that Why Men Made God is as well-received as it deserves to be. I hope my kids do well and are safe and healthy and enjoy their lives. And I hope that I can repair the damage I did and that the most wonderful person in my world will regain her trust and faith in me, and that we can go into the future together.
And I wish anyone reading this all the very best for 2015 and that their dreams come true. Happy New Year!
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Sunday, 16 November 2014
Tell me again how the SNP ‘lost’…
It’s been two months since the Independence Referendum in Scotland, and the results are now becoming clear. The initial analysis, that the SNP ‘lost’, is no longer sustainable.
While the result was a majority in favour of staying within the disUnion, at least for the present, this has not constituted a defeat for the SNP. To understand this, we need to look at the campaign in a broader context.
In the first place, it was never, and will never be ‘one referendum will settle it for good’. The September referendum was one event in a long sequence, all of which, for over a hundred years, have loosened the ties of the disUnion over Scotland. The September vote should be seen in the context of this ongoing journey; it was just another stage in a process and one which shows support for independence to be far higher already than the Westminster political class were suggesting twelve months ago. Like the odious George Robertson’s claim that ‘a Scottish parliament would kill the SNP’, those statements, of how the referendum would put an end to Scotland’s journey to nationhood now look very hollow. Perhaps it is no surprise that the English media and their subsidiaries in Scotland are glossing over those words now, just as they gloss over Robertson’s
Devolution is a process, not an event, and the end-point of that process is independence. The real question the most recent referendum set was not ‘will Scotland be Independent’ but ‘will Scotland be Independent now’.
Many observers saw Cameron’s acceptance of a referendum, formalised as the Edinburgh Agreement, as a canny move by a duplicitous politician to kick the issue into touch. It was too early for a ‘yes’ vote, and Cameron was banking on the ‘no’ vote being overwhelming and the Unionist parties triumphant on the back of that. So he agreed to it – and he did have a choice in this – as a political move against the SNP. Most Unionist commentators believed that Alex Salmond had been outmanoeuvred, and lost no time saying so.
Did Cameron’s tactic have the result he desired? To answer that we need to look at what actually happened and the aftermath.
Roughly 400,000 more Scots voted ‘No’ than voted ‘Yes’. However, a large contingent of these – more than enough to swing the vote – were pensioners. That means that the ‘No’ side depended on a generation born before 1949. These people grew up in the aftermath of the Second World War, when Britishism was rejuvenated and, to be fair, the British State had made an attempt to create a fair and egalitarian society.
This is a perishable resource. Younger people voted overwhelmingly for ‘Yes’ and would do so again. The ‘No’ side has a far worse enemy that Alex Salmond to contend with: time will inexorably thin the rank of this constituency and weaken its power. Young people today – my children, for example – see that war as ancient history; it does not tug on their emotions.
At the same time, the attractiveness of the British State has vanished. From being an inclusive, if often ill-directed, social state, it has now become the epitome of the most rabid form of capitalistic and patriarchal free-for-all, with the weakest and poorest in society punished and the richest and most powerful rewarded. It is a horrible state and naturally repulsive to the Scots. There is no chance of this being changed by Westminster, and the continuing social injustice will go on playing for Scottish nationalism.
The SNP has attracted over 60,000 new members since September, making it not only the largest party by far in Scotland but a major UK party. It now has over 80,000 members while the Labour party, understandably coy about its embarrassing statistics, is estimated to have no more than 13,500 Scottish members.
Repeated polls since September show that this is no hypothetical advantage. Because even the most brain-dead Tory knew that flooding Scotland with their yapping poodles was practically guaranteed to cause huge numbers of Scots to vote ‘yes’, they left the main thrust of campaigning to the Labour Party, which is as a result now known as the ‘Red Tory’ party.
So how has the referendum played for the Tories’ stooges? If voters vote as they say they will, the Labour Party (in Scotland) may be reduced to four Westminster MPs in next year’s UK General Election. One might have thought a party that had ‘won’ a referendum might do a little better than that, and while voting reality probably means that Labour will scrape a few more seats, it may well find itself reduced to a dozen or so Westminster MPs rather than the forty it currently contributes as lobby-fodder. So is that a ‘win’ for Labour?
In terms of personal approval the SNP’s political leaders, principally outgoing leader Alex Salmond and incoming Nicola Sturgeon, have ratings that Westminster politicians can only dream of. They are overwhelmingly seen as doing a good job. On the other hand, the Labour Party (in Scotland) is in leadership meltdown.
Johann Lamont threw in the towel spouting angry and justified rhetoric about how Labour (in Scotland) was a ‘branch office’. To replace her, London Labour has flown in Jim Murphy, a Red Tory of pure crimson hue, who has supported most major Tory (the blue ones with the weird accents) policies including austerity measures, the Iraq invasion, Trident and many others. He will certainly win the leadership position – Labour is not a democratic party and the powers in London will ensure that he does – but he is not ‘evolved’ to be a peacemaker or healer.
The divisions within his own party are huge and are ripping Labour (in Scotland) apart – and Murphy is the very lad to ensure that they complete the task. He is the perfect face of the Red Tory, and encapsulates everything that is hated by legions of solid Scottish left-wingers about the post-Blair party, one which has thrown out all interest in socialism or even social justice.
For a socialist in Scotland, Labour now has no ground. It has been outflanked to the left by both the SNP and the Scottish Socialists and on the environment – never a Labour strong point – by the Greens, which are all feeling the benefit as disaffected former Labour supporters depart. At the same time it has been identified as just another version of Toryism. If this is what they call ‘winning’ we would love to see what ‘losing’ might be – and likely we yet shall.
But enough of the Labour party (in Scotland.) Their woes are grave but they are not alone. What about the rump of Slimy-Say-Anythings? The pollsters predict disaster here too, and Scotland may well soon be a ‘Liberal’-free zone. This is not an unrealistic scenario, nor is it one that could come quickly enough. Their leadership must quake in terror, looking at disaster in the polls and a pledge by many in the SNP to wipe them off the political map – a pledge they are well capable of fulfilling. It really does not look as if the referendum was a ‘win’ for them either.
The Tories (the official blue ones, not the red ones) have neither suffered nor benefited. Otherwise an irrelevancy in Scottish politics, they doubtless represent a solid anti-Independence minority. But their numbers are low and they are pathologically hated by most Scots. In UK terms they cannot muster but one MP and even at Holyrood, were it not for the arcane voting system that favours minorities, the Tory Party would be like Banquo’s ghost – an unwelcome but ineffectual phantom of a long-gone reality. Nope, don’t think it was a ‘win’ for them either.
In terms of the ongoing independence project, the SNP has emerged triumphant from the September referendum. Their party membership has quadrupled, their projected share of the vote has soared and their leaders’ approval ratings are sky high. They now completely dominate the political debate in Scotland, despite the efforts of the Unionist media to pretend otherwise – media which itself has come under heavy fire. One shakeout of the referendum will almost certainly be the closure of some of the Unionist titles.
The fact is that the SNP is well placed to hold another referendum any time it likes and its leaders have now made it clear, officially, that, for example, should England vote to leave the EU, or if Westminster drags its feet in the transfer of power, that is exactly what they will do. At the same time, the now departed leader Alex Salmond has articulated the threat behind that reality – Unilateral Declaration of Independence. In other words, Scotland would just walk away. What would Westminster do? Send in the troops? Refuse to use Scottish electricity? Deploy gunboats to seize oil-rigs? Ban the sale of whisky in England? Send the nearly one million Scots working and living in England and upon whom the English economy depends, back to Scotland?
Tell me again how the SNP ‘lost’…
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Monday, 10 November 2014
Why America is the World’s Rape Capital
The face of an American Hero: Michael L. Stucky Jr, who walked free, having served less than a year in custody, after raping two teenage girls, one 13 and the other 15. Pic courtesy Dakota County jail
It is a perhaps surprising fact that more women are raped in the United States every year than anywhere else in the world, at least on the basis of recorded data.
Even if, as is almost certainly the case, rape is grossly under-reported in countries like Pakistan and India, also rape hotspots, this still leaves the shocking truth that a woman is raped in the US once every six minutes. And this figure is probably low, because under-reporting is also a problem in the US.
How can it be that this capital of Western civilisation, the ‘world’s policeman’, the defender of liberty and justice, is so appallingly hostile to women?
The answer lies in the social structure and history of the US itself and there are three main parts to it.
The first is the sexual objectification of women. Within American culture this is made worse because within it, women are seen not just as sexual objects, but sexual targets. Young men are brought up to believe that the conquest of such targets will establish their ‘manhood’. This is important, because it will allow them to fit into the pack-based society of American males. To make matters worse, men are taught that there are certain types of women whose conquest brings more status than others. Generally speaking, this has to do with stereotypes of female beauty.
American men are frequently seen on the Internet discussing the notion that status in women is marked by their looks, while status in men is marked by their salary level. Thus, less well-off men will have to make do with less (stereotypically) beautiful women while their bosses get the babes. Men who can’t compete in the salary stakes yet who are seen with high-ranking target women, are routinely described as ‘shooting above their level’ – in other words, they are upsetting the system. These men themselves may even become targets, this time of violence, by other males who regard them as acting unfairly.
This sexual competition is massively stressing for American men. One way that this stress may be relieved is through rape. Frequently, stress-relief attacks like this are followed by ‘slut-shaming’ in which the victim is blamed, because of her comportment or attire, for her own rape. ‘Nice girls don’t act like that, because is sends inappropriate signals to men’, this says.
Quite who is deciding what ‘nice girls’ actually do is never quite clear and the object, in any case, is to legitimise the act of rape itself. But this is nonsense: nothing a woman could ever do, including walking down the street stark naked, might ever justify rape – yet this is exactly the argument that is put.
The second parameter is violence itself. Lee Marvin once pointed out that American culture is based on violence and that for Americans, violence is the first response, not the last resort. Perhaps ironically, as one of the screen’s legendary violent heroes, Marvin was well qualified to make this observation. The culture is founded on the violent acquisition of territory and the genocide of those who lived there, the violence of slavery, the shocking violence of the Civil War, the routine racial violence and rape.
Violence is so deeply entrenched in American culture that it becomes insidious. Its acceptance as the background to the culture renders it almost invisible. Indeed, it is promulgated through the cultural concept of the American Hero.
The cinema portrays the American Hero as a violent, reactive man who defeats his enemies to win the girl. This meme is taken up in literature and music, indeed all across the culture. And naturally so; art only reflects culture, and the violence of American culture is an exact metaphor for the reality of American life and reinforces it.
The third element is social conformism. It is easy for the outsider, not experienced in the reality of American culture, to imagine that this is a free and tolerant society where ‘anything goes’. People point to the gay scenes in New York and San Francisco as illustration of this. But these examples totally distort the reality, which is that non-conformists congregate in these cities because if they were to be true to themselves anywhere else they would lose their homes and jobs or be beaten or even killed – just for not being like others.
Ask any gay American and they will support this, and it is true across the board; atheists in much of America live in constant fear and real danger because their neighbours would harm them if they could.
This even happens in so-called ‘liberal’ areas like California, where making statements that criticise the misogynistic cult of Islam, for example, will be met with accusations of racism. If someone like Ben Affleck can demonstrate the level of hostility and repressed violence that he did towards Sam Harris on a television show, where his actual responses were constrained, how do we imagine people like him would behave in real life? That’s right – even being ‘liberal’ is something Americans would beat and kill others in the name of.
This level of violence and total intolerance of any differing point of view is routinely observed in the comments sections of numerous Internet sites. The worst are the most popular, such as YouTube, but even on photography sites I have seen searing and offensive attacks on atheists, for example. There is no doubt what the authors of such comments would do in real life if they could. Even were they to suggest that they only behave so badly in the anonymity that the Internet provides, their contribution adds to the overwhelming, choking atmosphere of violence that is endemic to the culture. It gives sanction to real violence by the violence of its own rhetoric.
At the same time, bullying in American schools persists to a level which would be considered appalling in most European countries but which is thought a normal part of life, a rite of passage, in America. Here is where gays will first be beaten, in order to try to ‘turn them normal’. Here is where atheists will be beaten and ostracised. Here is where transgender children, at a most sensitive stage of their lives, be beaten, made miserable, and taught that they are ‘freaks’ with no place in society. Here is where anyone who challenges the conformist society first be made to suffer pain and humiliation. And all so that they will just stop being themselves and instead, conform.
American culture, then, is one in which women are treated as sexual targets, to be conquered by men; a culture in which violence is actually revered as a heroic quality; and one in which any deviation from the patriarchal social norm is to be suppressed violently.
Even when rapists are reported, caught and brought to trial, their sentences are lenient to the point of the laughable. – witness two cases this year: that of Austin Smith Clem, 25, who repeatedly raped his neighbour’s daughter, beginning when she was 14 and was sentenced to no prison time. Or Michael L. Stucky Jr., who was sentenced to time served after raping two girls, one aged 13 and the other 15. There is no punitive sanction in these sentences and they could hardly be lighter.
Rape is not about sex. It is about the use of violence to dominate and control others. (I discuss this in my forthcoming book, ‘Why Men Made God’, co-written with Karis Burkowski.) It is about status and control, in the first place over the women, but also over other men in the particular, and the domination of society by the patriarchy in general.
The culture uses rape to reinforce its own values, of the celebration of violence and rigid conformity to a patriarchal social code. Rape is so routine in the United States that it is de facto tolerated and even lauded as a natural reaction of a red-blooded young American male exposed to what the patriarchy considers to be the intrinsic immorality of women.
This is why American men rape so many women. Violence – of which rape is an extreme form – is sanctioned by the society they live in, in order to ensure the furtherance of that society and its violent culture. Being a violent hero is a good thing and raping is just a part of that, to by punished by a light rap on the knuckles for the sake of form and so that those pesky feminists don’t complain.
For the patriarchy, all women are rape targets, and worse, they themselves invite their own rapes, just by being women. At the same time, anyone who refuses to conform to the society’s rigid codes of behaviour is a target for violence and invites their own beating and murder, just by showing that they are different.
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Wednesday, 12 March 2014
Wood in Traditional Building 2: Poplar and Pine
Pic: Rod FlemingThe next two timbers to consider are Poplar and Pine.
Poplar.
Everyone will be familiar with the beautiful poplar trees that make valleys in Burgundy and elsewhere so charming to the eye. Poplar produces straight-grained timber of prodigious length. The wood is soft and easy to cut, and it holds nails very well. It resists splitting firmly because is has an interwoven grain, so it is tricky to plane well; better to use a power plane. But poplar is in any case best kept for rough work.
It has two big disadvantages; it can to warp severely as it dries, so great care must be taken in stacking; and insects just love it. Poplar should never be used unless it is treated or painted, or else the woodworm will have a field day. However, it is reasonably resistant to rot, and as long as it is used with care, is a useful timber. It is cheap and plentiful, light and easy to handle.
Unfortunately, poplar is usually grown individually, in long thin avenues, or as windbreaks along the edges of fields, and more rarely in plantations. Its presence in the beautiful valleys of central France is a great asset visually. However, this causes a problem when it is cut for timber.
Monday, 10 March 2014
The Goddess in The Philippines
Pic: Rod Fleming
The Goddess is a big deal in the Philippines and goddesses are out in strength there this week. The occasion is the closing rounds of the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) women’s volleyball tournament, held at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. Teams with names like De La Salle Lady Spikers and Ateneo de Manila Lady Eagles, the Tigresses, the Lady Warriors and the Lady Bulldogs battle it out in front of huge, enthusiastic and thoroughly partisan crowds. And these girls aren’t kidding; this is serious stuff.
The audience is mainly young – but everywhere in the Phils is mainly young. That’s only to be expected in a country where the population has increased by a factor of ten in fifty years. And there are as many men here as women. Filipinos are as passionate about volleyball as Scots are about football.
This is hard sport, and women are seen as true warriors.
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