[blessed are the little people] not ... and other topics

You might like to see this article.

Is this the car of the future?

English singalong [Hat tip UKIP]

[censorship] do community standards exist

Does anyone remember the 1971 Schoolkids Oz pornography trial in the UK? Does anyone remember Judge Alex Kozinski in 2008?

Not only does there seem rampant hypocrisy in the matter of what constitutes community standards and the actions of its supposed defenders but these days, I wager no one really knows what community standards are.

Let's face it, the games kids are playing on the net and using the new technology, the sex, drugs and the instantly clickable gross porn kids can access any time they want on the net has changed the ground rules completely. Parents are either naive, turning a blind eye or throwing up their hands in despair.

What are community standards now?

Censorship classifications are a case in point. Take three films I've seen in the past months - Saw [18], In Bruges [18] and From Russia with Love [12].

Now Saw deserves its classification for gratuitous violence [people hung up with meathooks, limbs being twisted asunder and so on]. So if that constitutes an 18 rating, then what of In Bruges?

It has tame sex [Clemence Poesy even keeps her clothes on], has swearing and one drug scene. There's a point where someone throws himself off a tower and you don't see the splat, you see a closeup of his face, still alive, with some ketchup spread about. Poesy, in an outtake, uses the F-word to describe the F-act.

That's it. So where's the 18 and for what? For swearing?

On the other hand, the re-released Lowry Bond FRWL is tame in itself but the menu and links feature unclad females who are quite clearly unclad and therefore the silhouettes don't work. Let alone the womanizing theme of Bond in the early episodes.

This is rated 12?

So I ask again, what are the community standards which lead the censors to decide on classifications, on what do they base it, who enforces it and is there any need for it at all?

My own view is that what adults watch is their affair but that kids need some form of protection. However, I'm well aware of the obvious flaw in that - where is the line drawn.

[keyes] beautiful

Hat tip Lord T, from here.

Changing the topic, this on privacy and the lack of choice in the UK now:

Just look at what BT does with your phone service now. You don’t even want a BT phone but you need one to get a broadband connection with any ISP so you pay BT £11+ a month even if you don’t need, want or use the phone. OFCOM should fix this but is clearly toothless. It’s effectively a cash cow for BT and an additional cost for subscribers that looks very much like a license fee on broadband. BT marketing did well here. What consent is required for this? If you want broadband by anyone other than Virgin then you need to pay it and sign up to their user agreement. No options.

[pirates] a time for everything

Humorous line of the day:

Is anyone else getting tired of reading about pirates in this day and age?

[closure] and when to call and end to it

Round table discussion yesterday:

A: You remember that woman whose child was killed by Brady fifty odd years ago and she spent the rest of her life seeking justice?

B: Meanwhile, the rest of her kids lost her while she was fixated with the murder.

C: How do you know she didn’t spend part of each evening writing and phoning but the rest of the day she took care of day to day things?

A: But she still had it in the back of her mind the whole time, day in, day out.

D [me]: Mothers do that.

When there hasn’t been any more than the usual trauma of old age, when there was a closure of sorts, then it’s usually only once a year when it becomes difficult. But like Hamlet, when there has been no closure, then perhaps a person can be forgiven for becoming distracted.

However, if the living suffer because of this, then when is enough enough?

[extreme wii] phase two

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