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What happened to you China? You used to be cool
Cross-posted on BPWWOO
“Beijing CBD businesses are reporting increasingly bizarre restrictions on couriers. This includes a ban on transporting CD-ROMs through the city, and mobile phones or GPS devices can only be sent if their batteries are delivered separately. This is on top of postal restrictions on sending liquids and powders.”
That’s not that bizarre. If they were serious about bizarre restrictions on couriers, they would require them all to ride penny farthings and carry everything in their mouths.
“Beijing police have been visiting bar owners in the popular Sanlitun area and asking them to sign pledges agreeing to not serve black people or Mongolians and ban activities including dancing.”
That shouldn’t cause too much of a stir, really - traditionally, black people play very little part in the Olympic Games.
It’s a fairly bigoted article actually, in that the fears of a “no-fun” Olympics really only apply to those who don’t find repression of ethnic minorities fun.
And how many of us can honestly say that?
Tags: china Comments (0)
WYD: Media Finally Learns Good Things Come to Those Who Publish Happy Stories About Happy Shoppers
Simon Canning in the Media section of the Oz today has suggested the atheist mouthpieces, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald have softened their coverage of WYD. Apparently this is ‘in the wake of reader and viewer disapproval of the negative reporting’. I have to say I agree, who wants to read about old wounds anyway?
I’d prefer to read Caroline Overington. Overington is a great journalist but last year wasn’t so good for her. After the Kev07 election she disappeared but as of July 1 she’s back blogging and writing for the Oz. Her World Youth Day coverage has been wonderful. To the point that I actually feel like I’ve been participating in WYD as a pilgrim, except I’m on Xanax. Continue Reading »
Tags: online media , citizen journalism , media , religion , culture wars , youth Comments (0)
WYD: Tempted by Christ? He is sacri-licious
With 250,000 200,000 possibly 150,000 pilgrims, thousands of priests and at least hundreds of nuns in Sydney, what are the chances a miracle will take place during the six days of World Youth Day?
Under Morris Iemma, Sydney has dropped in the popularity stakes from World’s Best City to World Knows It’s Still Real Pretty But What a Chaotic Shambles City. I think we (Catholics and Unbelievers) could all benefit from Sydney being known as the City of Miracles.
Surely with such so much of Sydney’s hard earned money invested in WYD, and the fact that we’ve opened up our streets, transport system, homes and schools - we’ve all earned the right to a bit of God’s glory.
No one does mysticism quite like Catholicism. The Lutherans may have found a tyre marked Jesus in a garage, LDS have witnessed Christ ‘Their’ Saviour appearing in ice cream but only Catholics can arouse such miracles as Holy Mary (the mother of God) appearing by the beach on a fence post.
Mary MacKillop was truly great but she was born in Fitzroy and there wasn’t a lot of razzle dazzle. Sydney loves anything which is bright, shiney, makes noise or appears and then disappears just quick enough for you to be able to say, “I was there!’ So far the pilgrims have been fantastic ambassadors for their faith - though it’s only Day Two and the glowing chirpiness is a little creepy.
To really hit paydirt and fill the Churches post-WYD, George Pell will be praying for God’s power on display, violating at least a handful of the laws of nature. Good for the Church and good for Sydney, I think we deserve it.
Tags: morris iemma , religion , culture wars , youth , Uncategorized Comments (1)
WYD: Catholics Gone Wild!
I know that’s not the current Pope. His Holiness is resting at Opus Dei’s Rancho Relaxo, happily texting pilgrims with his new cat and piano. (Can WYD get any goofier?) The Pontiff’s duties won’t start until Thursday through Sunday for World Youth Day.
In the meantime, as pilgrims continue to arrive for Day 1 of WYD, let’s hope any unmarried pilgrims choose to ignore Cardinal George Pell. Yesterday Pell told a media conference we should be breeding more. Apparently the future of Australian society (and other Western societies - he was unable to just say ‘other white societies like ours’) requires more babies to remain ’stable’. Hopefully this won’t cross the minds of too many pilgrims as they sleep together under the stars (thousands of them) at Randwick Racecourse on Saturday night!
It’s always reassuring to be told by a single, 67 year old male who wears frocks and a red hat such things as, ‘breed more’ or ‘climate change is a symptom of pagan emptiness’.
Hopefully the only thing most visiting pilgrims will have to say about George Pell is, ‘Who was that guy with the miserable sounding voice?’
In other WYD news, Morris Iemma has blamed God for the appalling state of mental health, disability services and housing in NSW.
Tags: environment , health , online media , morris iemma , climate change , religion , youth , culture wars , labor , Uncategorized Comments (2)
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The US financial crisis rolls on and on, with the latest victims being giant mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
These corporations (their weird-sounding names come from the nicknames stock brokers gave them years ago) were created by Roosevelt in the 1930’s (at least Fannie Mae was; Freddie was only created in 1970) to deal with a previous financial mess - the failure of tens of thousands of banks in the Great Depression. For decades, they served out a dull, worthy existence as the guarantors of home mortgages - as Katie Benner at Forbes.com explains:
Their mandate is to maintain a market for mortgages - buying loans from banks, repackaging them as bonds, and selling those securities to investors with a guarantee that they will be paid.
Privatised in the 90’s, the banks became subject to market forces - including greed. But Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not sub-prime lenders: in fact, they were required by law to only guarantee sound mortgages. Unfortunately, as Paul Krugman writes in today’s New Yortk Times, the scale of the American property crash has now caused many “prime” mortgages to fail too. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were left holding the bag.
The scale of the disaster in American property markets is breath-taking. The two corporations together guarantee something like $5 trillion in mortgage debt. They are simply too big to be allowed to fail, something US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknolwedged on Sunday with an announcement that the US taxpayer would bail them out.
It’s another instance of the US economy’s rampant tendency to privatise profits, but socialise losses. As Christopher Whalen tells Forbes, “Nobody every believed that Fannie and Freddie were truly private and they never should have been.”
Tags: economics Comments (1)
Dream It’s Over
Sadly, I can offer you yet no lachrymose crowning. Oh, those Venezuelan girls are so pretty when they cry. Here, however, are Monsieur Trump’s finest reprazenting in Nha Trang City in da swimsuits.
To those shattered many holding hope aloft for our dear little Australian psychology student: my sympathies. It’s over. The little lamb who suggested that ladies use less hair spray in a selfless quest for environmental regeneration has lost.
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Chiffon and Chavez
Well. What does Venezuela have that we don’t? Apart from brio, a jaunty middle finger stuck up at the US and inexpensive fuel?
They’ve got the Miss Universe tiara. Again.
I wonder if daring globalization critic Hugo Chávez will ask the 22 year old beauty from Caracas to shred her sash in homage to the Fifth Republic. Prolly not. How many crowns can a single oil rich country claim.
As Channel Seven will cruelly make me abide until 10 30 PM AEST to watch the event, I cannot yet offer my assessment of Jerry and Mel’s (no doubt stellar) performance. If you see a generous youtuber offer the televised tears of the graceful young commie, let me know.
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Go Little Laura, Go!
As I know you will be SLAVERING for news of Miss Universe, I thought I’d best offer a report.
The curtain has risen to reveal 80 of the cosmos’ most fabulously endowed. As ever, those South Americans with their perfect haunches and candid smiles full with amphetamine-funded teeth are winning. Hmph. Is everyone on that continent beautiful? And, if so, why aren’t they all rolling in mango butter rather than the detritus of US petrochemical and agri- business? However, I digress.
The field has been narrowed to 15. And, yes, gasp, the plucky Australian representative is among them!
More soon!!! And, I promise liberal use of giddy exclamation points!!!
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Thank Christ It’s Not Art, More Objectifying of Teenagers
With Australia still simmering over Art Monthly’s sexualisation of young children, it’s reassuring to know we can trust corporations with the moral code.
Virgin Mobile have come up with a new way to clothe the poor - get teenagers to strip on YouTube. I’d like to think I’m making this up but it’s all here at Strip2Clothe.
It’s unlikely the Virgin site or YouTube account will be online for much longer. Besides, you don’t really need to ’see this’: Strip2clothe is a website featuring fake (more or less) striptease videos made by teens. Virgin is in fact endorsing the videos, and trying to convince more teens to make a striptease and post it on youtube because the more you strip, the more clothes they donate to the poor. Classy.
Tags: online media , media , youtube , culture wars , youth Comments (2)
WYD: Daily Telegraph prays for universal joy and rapture
With the Papal visit to Australia now on, Sydney has commenced the tug-of-war between excitement for His Holiness and frustration at enforced changes to the cities usual routine. These changes include road closures, traffic clear ways, cancellation of elective surgery in public hospitals, removal of civil liberties, government spending on advertising for a religious festival and elected officials looking inordinately gushy next to the Pope.
The problem with World Youth Day - apart from going for six days - is not that it is a Catholic event nor that it will bring ‘chaos’ to Sydney’s normally efficient ‘world class city’. The problem is that people living in Sydney are fed up with the appalling state of it’s public services and resent the fact that the NSW Government (particularly Premier Morris Iemma and the de facto Minister for Catholicism) is able to fund a special event and for the next six days, make the city function properly. The attitude is ‘why them and not us, the people that actually live here?’. Continue Reading »
Tags: online media , morris iemma , religion , labor , kevin rudd , culture wars Comments (0)
