Verifiable Destruction

As baby Jesus awakes to day one on earth apparently the Dickileaks episode has been put to sleep with some good old court ordered mediation and digital destruction. However, how confident can one be that this is the last we shall have to see of naked footballers or, for that matter, irate seventeen year old electronic media tycoons? Learning from the pages of history this is probably only the beginning. I must confess that in those heady days of 1991 as US military supremacy demonstrably was unquestionable I also thought that the end of the first Gulf War spelt a new world order. However, at the time I was too young to understand the concept of verifiable destruction. Oh, how the intervening years have explained it all.

Though history may be a guide (perhaps) it is no rule book. Now the wise men of the AFL are unlikely to feel joy in their hearts on this bright Christmas morn, for they know the challenge that lies ahead. The grim realty of years of sanctions, inspections, new security council resolutions, all in an effort to contain the threat of digital representations of the phallus in the hands of young irresponsible females! Worse still is the persistent threat that such rogue harlots may in fact be sharing such material with other disreputable teeners with the aim of further attacks on the AFL and its interests. An axis of hysterical teener harpies lurking in the shadows capable of launching devastating attacks utilising the AFL’s own penises against them could be forming as you read.

It has to be considered a touch more than ironic that this history repeats itself in such a farcical manner. Not only do we see the scorned partner remerge as the potent though peripheral threat to organizational interest in both the Gulf War and the Dickileaks emergency but more comical still the weapons of concern were in both cases supplied in more friendly times. However, on a note of interesting divergence it is significant that history has marched to the extent that in this digital era any hack can act like a tin pot dictator if they can get there hands on some pilfered data and can find an organisation willing to dance the jig with them. Perhaps more than anything else the deluded notion of trying to delete the digital (who knows and who can possibly know where data goes or does not go) shows that the powers that be are slipping...

the Colonial

True American Values Must Triumph Over Division

“Those who sacrifice basic liberty for security, deserve neither and will lose both”- Benjamin Franklin.

The dust has settled, the victims buried, monuments have been built and two wars started with one coming to an end, however, a strong current of division and fear runs deep within the American empire in a post Sept 11 world. Such themes are to be expected of course. In only the second attack on American soil, over 3000 innocent people were killed and the “land of the free’s” sense of security and duty were immeasurably dented. What followed was a blind search for meaning, identity, for truth, justice and a battle against the unknown threats to the American ideology. Despite some of the military endeavours being proven flawed and quagmires of social uncertainty being created both in the west and in the Middle East, a search for identity and truth is still prevalent. The acknowledgment of such a search surpasses anti-American sentiments, the comfortable fall-back position when discussing anything Uncle Sam. It is an empire looking for composure and reason in a post-empire world. This said, such an emotional and thematic stance raises other problems and questions. True equality, true community and a reinstatement of true American values could be found in their own backyard.

We saw such themes bubble to the proverbial surface when in downtown Manhattan, a community centre was proposed. This community centre, however, was not just any community centre, it was an Islamic one. The proposed building is to be built within a stone’s throw of the Ground Zero site and has attracted the views of politicians, religious leaders, victims’ families and various pundits. The debate has also affected the almost 600 thousand Muslims who live in New York City. Many people are against the buildings construction, citing its offensive physical position and the ideological message that is being communicated by its construction. President Barack Obama, while being fairly reserved on the matter, eventually came out in support of the project saying, “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable”. The problem is that the foundation of American freedom of expression and basic liberties is in fact being severely shaken by this issue and those doing the most damage are those who refuse to acknowledge or even consider the benefits for peace both in America and throughout the world that could be achieved if the project goes ahead.

The use of the noun “Mosque” is one element that clouds the greater debate. The community centre is not in fact a mosque. The centre will contain a gym, art gallery, child care centre, a restaurant and on the 12th storey, a memorial and sanctuary in memory of the events of September 11. All of these elements will be contained within a building with clear allusions to arabesque motifs found in Islamic architecture and are reminiscent of the Institut Du Monde in Paris, which propelled architect Jean Nouvel to fame in the 1980s. All of these elements combine to create a cutting edge design in line with New York’s edgy take on architecture. There is a prayer centre on the bottom two levels of the building, but these levels are not a Mosque. They do not conform to the stringent requirements for a sanctified mosque and so is simply a quiet, tranquil area for people to pray. So in essence what is physically being proposed is a $ 120 m (US) state of the art, cutting edge, beautiful, community centre. Does such a construction sound like a ‘horribly offensive’ endeavour? Or does it sound more like a monument to peace and community strength?

As well as the physical characteristics of the centre, there has been strong debate on the message or ideology that flows from its creation. Is the American population endorsing the religion and people who committed the Sept 11 atrocity and thus spitting in the face of all those affected by the tragedy? As Marty Peretz asked in The Australian newspaper, are we endorsing “the societies across all Islam that cheered the news of the 3000 dead?” Such views are outdated, ill-informed and for the most part, spawn from ignorance.

The faux pa made by Peretz and his sympathisers is the assumption that all Muslims are the same; that the men who carried out the Sept 11 attacks and their colleagues from Al Quaeda and the Taliban are somehow related to those people from the Cordoba Initiative (the company who designed and will build the building). There are over 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe and believe it or not, 99 percent of them are exactly like you or me, with the same ideals, ethics and hatred of violent acts. To let one percent of that entire population taint our view of all Muslims is not dissimilar to letting the terrorist acts of Sinn Féin in the sixties, seventies and eighties cloud our view of all Catholics and Irish people. The facts, if you care to examine them, are that the community centre is multi-faith and secular and will be built for moderate Muslims who are also American Muslims and let us not forget, American citizens.

Instead of seeing such a building as “offensive” or directly at odds with the Ground Zero site, why not see the positive symbolic value involved? Around the world great major cities with divided pasts have monuments and buildings signifying peace, cohesion and a view to the future. Whether it is the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, the Martin Luther King Memorial in Seattle or Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow, all of them make a focal point of acknowledging the past, recognising the strength of peace and stability, and building a better, undivided future. The Muslim community centre has the capacity to be another great, symbolic monument for peace which could strengthen and fortify the American population against what could otherwise be a divisive issue that shakes the very foundations of the American ideology of freedom, liberty and duty.

When Thomas Jefferson drafted and set in law the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. These values were shaken by the Sept 11 attacks and the last decade has been a search for truth and justice driven by a passion and anger similar to that felt by Jefferson and his colleagues as they fought the British for independence. Jefferson went on to write in the Declaration “We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them {The British}, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends”. The construction of the community centre opposite Ground Zero is but a small step in denouncing separation and ensuring the American values of liberty and freedom are fortified within the hearts and minds of the American Population.
Those who oppose the development plant a seed of division that will grow to creep through the foundations of American society and perhaps bring into jeopardy the values fought for over 250 years ago. Perhaps it is fitting to end with the words of another great man of truth and insight who lived through similar hardships, John Donne, “No man is an island, entire of itself; Everyman is a part of the maine”. Let us hope such words ring true and liberty and community triumph over irrational division.
Cocoa

The Return of the Bling

Well it’s been a while but Yacksie is back, seems I buried my head in the sand like a certain type of bird, which is actually a myth by the way.

Coming up, a couple of album reviews including Oust Le Swimming Pool debut album and maybe a youtube channel…….

Yacksie be gone!

Boonie: 52, Ben Cousins: Recount in progress.

Over the two nights last week Australia engaged in one of the most sophisticated brand recovery projects yet seen in Australia’s post-modern era. I am still digesting what I have witnessed. Somehow an “event” of great national and social importance has been conceived, undertaken and seemingly flawlessly pulled off, enchanting a public despite the competing drama of the hung parliament. Leni Riefenstahl: make room in the propaganda pantheon.

The key question here: what the hell is this all about? Ben Cousins likes getting wrecked. His antics caused his family distress and endangered his marketability. Yet only temporarily, it seems he’s certainly making up for it now. This may be negative, but does it really demand national attention? Moreover nothing about this whimsical saga strikes me as particularly strange or extraordinary except that Ben was in the public eye, had a large disposable income to devote to his recreation, and that he chose to use illicit drugs. The obsession with his benders, brought to life through his party videotapes, seems to avoid the fact that the same scene is replicated in bars and house-parties around Australia every weekend, much of it providing an enormous tax stream for the Commonwealth.

Let us change track and consider the ridiculous moralizing that this “documentary” seems to be toying with. How can we contrast Boonie’s status as an Australian sporting icon and VB marketing tool with the picture on offer? Is Boonie’s famous bender any different from what is revealed in Cousins’ tale? Sadly he neglected to tape it for us so we’ll never know. If that’s not failing his responsibility to the Australian public I don’t know what is. The sophisticated strategy employed in Cousins’ marketing/propaganda/documentary exercise plays strongly to deeply held notions of Australian masculinity and social rituals.

Cousins represents the ideal of Australian manhood: fit, skillful, understatedly intelligent, likeable, larrikin, handsome, football god. Had he literally kept his nose clean, or simply stuck to boozing I dare say his story would be remarkably different in a stellar, yet ordinary progression to admired football legend. However, he broke the contract of conservative Australian masculinity. Drugs, unauthorized adultery, homosexuality are not on. (Interestingly common assault, sexual assault, violence against women and questionable sexual practices seem less frowned upon, but that’s another story.)

Having offended against this code Cousins is in damage repair. At the end of his on-field career, he is attempting to ensure his return to the fold and create a lucrative off-field career. His strategy appears to be essentially following the emotional and narrative form of a Christian morality play. He has very successfully created a sense of drama around his human failing, he confesses his sins, repents, cathartic release, rebirth! Good times and a lesson for us all.

The genius of this tack is that it occurs in an environment of complete cynicism, manipulation and corporate sport yet it hides this reality skillfully. The notion that Cousins, a professional sportsperson since seventeen, owes the Australian public anything is an utter delusion. Despite its best efforts to pretend otherwise the AFL is not a national social institution, it is a multimillion dollar entertainment industry. Whilst there can be no doubt that this has been a calamitous experience for Ben and his family, the representation of the calamity should not be mistaken for anything other than a sophisticated revival of the narrative and image of two publicly traded commodities: Ben Cousins and the AFl. Yet going by the ratings over two nights of coverage and the media circus the enterprise seems to be generating many are enjoying the spectacle of this very public and profitable reconciliation.

the Colonial

we are all donkeys now

The United Donkey Party of Australia has just suffered a crippling blow: an endorsement from Mark Latham. Having suffered the Latham kiss we all know what must follow: grim, certain, death. Then again that’s pretty much the same as any other day. I had planned to vote for the Donkey as I have on many previous occasions. However, the thought of hanging out with Latham seems almost worse than legitimizing any of the appalling outfits masquerading as political platforms that have disturbed our peaceful stupor for the last few weeks.

Unlike other observers I will not challenge the ethics of refusal. Just because Latham shows up at your party doesn’t mean it’s not cool, it means you should have hired bouncers. The notion that voting for someone, even in the absence of anything remotely resembling an ethical, worthwhile political activity is upholding a hard won, honourable, amazingly fully sic civil tradition that makes Australia so much better than all those stupid, developing third world outfits which are trying to grip it up and be like us, is completely false. (Not even close poseurs!) Rather such voting is the betrayal of the spirit and act of democracy and it gifts the political process to latter-day Jacobins. So Jacqueline Maley of “The Age”, yes: Mark Latham is an overgrown adolescent, but your grasp of democratic theory is marked by a childlike naïveté. Desperately maintaining that contemporary political parties somehow have strong links to their traditions good or bad is ill-advised. The Liberal party no more reflects the interests of the great white Australian bigot than the Labor party is fighting for the rights of an Australian working class, social justice and all that.

Homogeneity is the new black. Modern politics parallels modern life: all interests, tastes, moral and ethical frameworks must be catered for. This however, is difficult. Much better is simply to grant the appearance of choice. Appearances are what confront the modern consumer at every turn, yet most of what is on offer is actually the same crap with a diverse array of sweeteners, condiments, patterns, colours and meaningless options. In this setting choice is reduced to a momentary delusion that allows one to persist with the series of delusions that facilitate modern life. This is also why appealing to swing voters is now the main game of Australian politics. How can it be surprising that the great unwashed in the western suburbs, reared on diets of takeaway, tied to their cars, seemingly unaware or uninterested in any agenda beyond more material wealth, are bought off with empty contracts come election time? On the flip side perhaps these are actually the smartest of all. Perhaps they have simply cast off any pretentions, lofty ideals, and vain hopes of sophisticated politics. They simply recognise their inner donkey and nose out who has the best carrots.

the Colonial

Review with Cocoa

It seems that Channel Seven has had another attempt at polluting the public sphere and subjecting us to television that is well below standard. Australia’s Strictest Parents is a wild ride through the experience of two rebellious teenagers from the city as they are plunged into the “outback” and made to shovel shit and shear sheep. The narrative structure follows rather a mundane formula; teenager is naughty, said teenager is sent to outback, farmer and wife attempt to reform teenager, teenager is once again naughty, farmer punishes teenager, teenager receives letter from parent, teenager begins to enjoy shovelling shit and shearing sheep and is reformed. On the latest episode, Nathan is described as a ‘17 year old who has lost his way’, he has dropped out of school and been picked up by the police, he also enjoys long walks on the beach and martinis. Adriana, the other juvenile delinquent, is described as “a girl who is used to getting what she wants”, look out Adriana, there aren’t any malls to hang around and shout and spit at strangers in the outback! Both examples look as though they have fallen into a bath of peroxide with some of the blonde bleach obviously leaking onto their brains. Not all is lost however, in the other corner we have the Ironside family, a proud bunch of devout Christians led by dad, Mark. The Ironside’s live on a life with a main of hard work with a side of good morals. Access to music and the internet is restricted and only Christian television is to be watched on the idiot box. If this family can’t set these kids straight, nothing will. What follows is cringe worthy, I will admit for a short period I closed my eyes, blocked my ears and shouted “there’s no place like home” while rocking in a disturbed manner.

The panacea for these children’s’ woes seems to be as follows. If you are a spoilt brat from the suburbs who has everything you could want, including hair dye, and yet still insist on behaving like a baboon with rabies who enjoys smoking and wearing an i-pod, you will be punished by being followed around by a film crew while you inflict further pain by throwing your proverbial baboon poo at an outback, farming family. At one point Nathan, perhaps the worst of the two, steals the family’s car and drives off into the sunset. Mark, a tough farmer, walks about in the dirt, spitting, muttering and finally rings the police. Nathan eventually turns the car around and comes back where the punishment begins, or does it? Nathan’s punishment consists of Mark and his wife explaining to Nathan what stealing is and that in fact, driving off in someone else’s car is just that. Nathan has the very complex argument that his act of defiance was not stealing, but was ‘just taking’. Mark explains that Nathan is lucky that the local police station is manned by a scarecrow in a police uniform and thus cannot pick up a phone. All of this leads to Nathan apologising and then shovelling dog poo from under the cages where the family’s fifteen dogs are kept (animal cruelty? The dogs that is, not Nathan). Nathan is sent back to the city with a new lease on life, he now only listens to his i-pod when he is not yelling at his mother.

In essence such a shoddy show instils the good, wholesome, family values we need in such a topsy turvy world. Here are six lessons Cocoa has learnt from Australia’s Strictest Parents;

1. If you have a naughty child, send them to the outback where someone else can deal with the problem.

2. Punishment is not the answer, simply hug your child until they can no longer breath and they slip into a coma.

3. Driving off in someone else’s car is stealing and not ‘just taking’.

4. If your parents attempt to express how they feel about you in the form of written word, you will break down crying and emerge from a cocoon of obscenity to become a beautiful butterfly of understanding and sensitivity.

5. All naughty teenagers should be kept in cages in a similar vain to those in which Mark kept his fifteen dogs.

6. Mainstream music and the internet are to blame for all our youths’ woes. I have a feeling the Frankfurt School theorists would have something to say about that, however, from now on I am only listening to birds singing and watching panda bears giving birth....just to be sure.

Ciao, Cocoa

Election, where? Quickly, duck, hide and then pounce.

Greetings from the Gillies fraternity,
Long time no speak.. i know, i have been neglecting to post, sometimes life gets in the way of random ramblings and it really shouldn't. A number of key issues will be addressed and analysed within the confines of this piece. Stick with me, allay your preconceptions and float in to a land of candid thought.
It seems our country is in the midst of another election campaign. Three years have already flown by since the last meat market and we have sped through two opposition leaders and a prime minister. We nearly have a worst record than Japan (not quite). Quite seriously though the issues that matter in this battle seem to be; people on boats, not fisherman or the navy but refugees, health, the climate, Speedos, red hair, fashion, Gillard's marital status and in the last 24 hours,a national disability plan. There also seems to be a problem with a cabinet leaking. When my cabinet leaks i call a plumber. Am i right in thinking that our elected representatives are unable to call plumber? Perhaps the cabinet is in the bedroom or the bathroom in which case a witch doctor or a qualified cabinet maker may be needed. Perhaps get rid of the cabinet altogether, renovate and install cupboards, a wardrobe or purchase some Sealy's no leak to stop the leak, perhaps get Scott Cam to look at the cabinet? All of these are simple answers to a simple problem. In 2013 when the budget returns to surplus maybe the government can invest in new cabinets, although as tax payers are we willing to pay for a new renovation for the pollies? Big issues, big questions.
Is has also been suggested in recent days that Kevin Rudd was the cause of the cabinet leaking, but why would Rudd vandalise a cabinet? We all know he has rather a bad temper (calling the Chinese 'rat fornicators') but would he attack an innocent piece of well constructed wood to the point that it would leak? If so, what with? And is there any evidence he vandalised the cabinet? Perhaps he was attempting to install insulation in the cabinet and it all went terribly wrong in which case Garrett could also be involved in making the cabinet leak. These are pertinent questions of the sort Red Kerry should ask next time a government representative is on the 7.30 Report.
In other, non election based news, a nose has been broken,Yacksie returned from up north with a head and leg injury as a result of a tangle with a goon bag, not a Queenslander and it has been discovered that sea horses have similar eyes to humans. Let us all rejoice in this news and hug one another while singing hallelujah. I will write again soon, perhaps in Polish, but since i don't know any Polish it will probably be once again in English. Here are some things Cocoa has learnt in the last week:

• Noses often hurt after they have come in contact with an elbow (usually someone elses elbow)
• Eating Kranskys with sauerkraut is like eating Tinkerbell mixed with gold dust.
• People are often annoying
• Jameson should be drunk cautiously, especially when around people who are annoying.
• Porridge is ten outta ten.
• Nashi fruit, woowowoowowoowow
• Miami Horror mix tape is like, so cool, yeah, cool as. it's like, so cool my fake, thick rimmed glasses nearly fell off (insert appropriate sarcasm and tone of voice).
  
• cool as cool, banana.
  

Ciao for now, Cocoa

Vermin Art

Heine once quipped “Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen”. Clearly he was exaggerating. However, what would he make of this weekends artistic bonfire? One reads in this weekend’s national broadsheets that Saturday witnessed a “Bonfire of the Profanities” as three “artworks” were ceremonially consigned to the flames. The crime: profanity obviously, but profaning against what? Yet more sexualized children? A depiction of Mary Magdalene pissing on Christ? Nay far, far worse. Rather than offend any glimmer of moral order that still shines in this post-(insert preference here) society, the offending works had fallen afoul of a far more odious social order. Art dealers, artists and the judiciary linked hands creating a powerful synergy to smite the dangers posed by forgery to that tender blossom: the fine art market.

While we have been used to both the judiciary and underemployed, village-idiot art critics legitimizing our existence for quite some time now, it is somewhat alarming that they have take to lighting fires again. It seems they are not content simply to hold the bulk of cultural and financial capital, now they must destroy any potential intruder into their lofty realm lest the dementia gets so bad that they increasingly fuck up and buy knock off. That these works were able to get past the gatekeepers and start circulating in the upper echelons belies the obvious: these monkeys can’t tell Krug from Moët let alone begin to conceptualise what art may or may not be.

It also shows all too plainly that this is entirely beside the point. This weekend’s bonfire is simply the upper class equivalent to a steamroller crushing all too many pirated DVDs, although the toffs did serve canapés. Art is no longer of interest as a form of expression to be enjoyed, stimulate thought or constitute some kind of social activity; it is now the preserve of the consumer. Its fundamental interest: certified standing as a tradable commodity. Thus art must be authorized and supervised by an appropriate coterie of legal, professional and economic authorities.

This point couldn’t be made any clearer than in the sentiments offered by one Mr. Lowenstein, whose role in the inferno is unclear, except that he holds power of attorney over the affairs of forgery victim and authorized artist Charles Blackman. Citing a clear win for the forces of order and civilization and channeling Josef Goebbels, Lowenstein claimed “It’s a victory for the artist and it does help to weed out these vermin from our garden”. One wonders what irregularities will captivate their pyromaniac attentions next.

The Colonial