Black steel in the hour of chaos

I got a letter from the government the other day
Opened it and read it
It said they were suckers
They wanted me for their army or whatever
Picture me giving a damn, I said never.
Here is a land that never gave a damn
About a brother like myself
Because I never did
I wasn't with it but just that very minute
It occurred to me the suckers had authority.

**

I did, in fact, get a letter from the government today. In very archaic and plain weird terms, it said they were suckers, but they did have authority. I've been sentenced to 114 days in prison, effective July 3rd, for refusing to complete my "civilian service". Finnish legalese, by the way, is only slightly confusing, but it is very linguistically strange.

So, now it's official: I'm going to prison, most likely around the end of July. Under the Finnish system, 114 days translates to about four months real time, so basically I'll spend the fall of 2009 behind bars.

**

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
You must not act the way you were brought up
Who give you work and why should you do it?

Goodbye MJ.

Wow. I woke up for breakfast at our summer cabin in the Finnish countryside, only to be told that Michael Jackson is dead. Very weird.

He's been all over the music video channels for the last few days, and I can honestly say I never realized how much a part of my life he really was. I grew up during the high times of his career. I was, after all, born in the year that Thriller was released. His music was all around me through my entire life up to now, and it's only now that he's dead that I realize that.

I can truthfully say I always felt a strong sense of sympathy toward him. Sure, at times he seemed to be crazy, and I never could figure out why he started out black and later became white. Apparently he had vitiligo and lupus, but it's not like any of our media ever wanted to tell us that; they had a field day selling us "Wacko Jacko".

Having read about how he was abused as a child by his father, and realizing that the guy started working at the age of eight, you have to figure there's no way he's going to turn out like the rest of us. Behind it all there was a massive talent for music and dance, and watching it, even on just a music video, was a priviledge.

The high point of Jackson's vilification to the world was the child abuse trials. As he was acquited of all charges, I've never seen any reason to believe that the trials were anything but a massive exercise in cynical exploitation and money-grabbing by the kids' parents.

In so many ways his life was a tragedy, from childhood abuse to being turned into a freak by the world's media. That's what makes it all the more moving to watch his videos and listen to his music, and to understand that after and during all that, his music is filled with a positive message about us people getting along with each other. The fact that he went through what he went through and came out of it believing in mankind is testament to a great man.

**

At some point I had the audacity to come up with an epitaph for him.

He was black. He was white. It didn't matter.

We'll miss him.

Ewwwton Hewitt

Hej igen, kära läsare.
Vet ni vad som sker på sommaren, förutom att folk klär av sig till mångas förnöjelse? Ja, just det, Wimbledon är vad som sker (och dessförrinnan Roland Garros, men det är över nu); ett evenemang av stort nöje. Tennis råkar dessutom vara en av de idrotter som tycks vara som skapta för tv-spel, och enär såväl tennis som tv-spel ligger mig varmt om hjärtat torde det vara en lyckad kombination för mig. Under 90-talet stämde det alldeles utmärkt vid namnet Super Tennis till SNES (vad annars, med "Super" i namnet?), men jag kan inte riktigt säga att någon värdig tronföljare har kommit.

Eftersom jag kände mig lite nostalgisk spelade jag några turneringar, men jag upptäckte att mina 1337-skillz hade vuxit sig för stora för Super Tennis. Därför sökte jag lyckan på annat håll, och fann något fruktansvärt:

När spelarna rör på munnen kommer inget ljud, bara en textremsa. Briljant.

Virtua Tennis, med andra ord. Spelarna stönar oerhört fult, och jag kände igen flera av ljuden från den första inkarnationen... som har några år på nacken. Dessutom påminner ljudet från bollträffen påminner mer om en tuggummibubbla som spricker än en tennisboll, vilket inte är lysande med tanke på hur ofta man tvingas höra oväsendet. Publikens reaktioner är gräsliga; fyra, fem personer som ska låta som ett hundratal. Det ger ingen direkt inlevelse, kan jag lova.

Karriärläget är fruktansvärt tråkigt, då man tvingas utföra samma träningsmoment om och om igen för att kunna spela något som inte påminner om tennis i H75-klassen samt att man stöter på samma licensierade spelare om och om igen, oavsett rangen på turneringen. Det blir rätt löjligt när man stöter på Roger Federer (om du är pojk) eller Maria Sharapova (om du är tös) i en Challenger.

Grundspelet är inte lysande heller. Den främsta bristen är vekheten i servarna, som är spelarens främsta vapen, egentligen. I Virtua Tennis, däremot, blir det ofta en svaghet att serva på grund av de knallhårda returerna. Grundslagen slår man genom att stå på samma position och ladda, vilket känns ganska intelligensbefriat. Man slår aldrig ut sig heller, vilket egentligen innebär att det inte blir ett enda Unforced Error. Inte mycket skicklighet som ligger bakom spelet, utan bara att springa från hörn till hörn och slå tills motståndaren inte klarar av att kasta sig längre.

Grafiken har ni fått se prov på i närbild, och det vill ni nog inte göra igen. Musiken behöver jag inte ens nämna, ty så vedervärdig är den.

Uselt, Sega. Sämre än Shadow the Hedgehog.

Doing something with your life

Not really. If there's one thing summer is good for, it's being useless, especially if you have a four-month stint at Her Excellency's pleasure coming up around August. This is how useless I've been:

Man, that round number looks good!

Nicky Shears Singers

Hei! Rad Rat här igen, enär Ab verkar ha tagit tjänstledigt under en obestämd tid. Det här blir Popped Collars nittioförsta inlägg. Jag vill passa på att fira det, samt det fina vädret, med ypperligt vackra och exotiska Nicole Scherzinger. Det blir väl inte mycket bättre än så, misstänker jag!

Ja just det, Michael Jackson är död.

Rape is legal in Finland

As I wrote previously, I'll be going to jail this summer for refusing to serve in the army. There's one kind of criminal I'll be extremely unlikely to meet there: rapists.

Phil, who I stole the title of this post from, quotes Helsingin Sanomat:

According to a news report aired by the commercial television network Nelonen on Sunday, courts in Finland have been handing out relatively lenient sentences in cases of sexual assault - even in some which have led to physical injury.
Nelonen examined all sex crime cases handled by Finnish district courts over the past year and found out that prosecutors and courts have considered acts involving injury to the victim, or in which the woman’s home has been violently broken into, and even in which the victim has been kept a prisoner for several days, to meet the definition of “coercive sexual contact”, a category of sexual assault considered less serious than actual rape.

The new category was introduced to Finnish law in 1999. Opponents of the new definition predicted at the time that the change would lead to more lenient sentences in sex crimes.
The Nelonen report found that more than half of those convicted of actual rape have to serve real prison time. Less than one in ten of those convicted of the lesser crime have had to serve custodial sentences.

The original purpose of the introduction of “coercive sexual contact” as a lesser category of sexual assault was to encourage the prosecution of cases in which one partner was not a fully willing participant of sexual contact, but which are not seen to qualify as full-blown rape.
The Nelonen report suggests that the change has had an opposite effect - that of letting real rapists off with lenient sentences.

My boldface. I apologize for the bad Hesari english, but the point is fairly clear. The original Nelonen story is here. There's some shocking stuff in it, some of which I'll summarize in English here.

**

There are three kinds of rape in Finnish law: rape, aggravated rape and "coercive sexual contact". Here is an example of "coercive sexual contact", a lesser crime than rape, from the Nelonen report:

A man, born in 1977, forced a woman to have sex with him in the disabled persons' bathroom of a restaurant by hitting her head into the wall and twisting her arm behind her. The woman could not call out for help because the man held his other hand over her mouth. Earlier that evening the same man had tried to forcibly kiss her in the restaurant. The state prosecutor demanded a sentence for coercive sexual contact, because the violence used was mild and the act was performed under mitigating circumstances. The public court decision does not set out these circumstances. The man was given a seven-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay 1000e in reparations.

Understand this: in Finland, if you beat a disabled woman's head into the bathroom wall and rape her, you are not going to prison.

The inept HS English tells us that "more than half" of those convicted of rape go to prison. What that actually means is that 54% of rape convictions result in a prison sentence where the convicted person actually goes to jail.

54%. Remember that a case like the one described above is seen, even by the prosecution, as less than rape. A rape must involve serious violence. Even then, only half of those convicted go to prison. Only 10% of those convicted of "coercive sexual contact" actually go to prison.

**

This is sickening. If you refuse to go to the army, the state has no qualms about putting you in jail. I'm receiving a far more severe sentence than the majority of Finnish rapists will ever receive. That's what passes for justice in this country.

Finland prides itself on being a "just state" on the model of the German Rechtsstaat. What this means in practice is that our Parliament passes laws that leave actual decisions on legality and sentencing almost completely up to the courts. In the case of sexual assault, the courts and prosecutors routinely apply the lesser penalties, even in cases where this seems to be bordering on insane.

And that's not all they do. At the end of 2008, public feeling in Finland was inflamed against the Eastern Finland appeals court (HS), because of a case heard in November 2008. There, the appeals court found that five adult men, previously sentenced for the rape of a 15-year old girl, were not, in fact, guilty of rape.

The girl had been given alcohol until she was drunk, tied to a bed and raped by all five men. The Eastern Finland appeals court decided that the men were guilty of sexual abuse and aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, but not rape. According to the court, it could not be proved that the men themselves had gotten the girl drunk and tied her to the bedposts; therefore they could not be found guilty of rape. Their sentences were halved. (HS)

So, to recap: not only is beating a woman's head into the wall and sexually assaulting her not rape, but tying a drunk minor to a bed and gang-raping her isn't rape either.

Iltalehti has summed up several interesting previous decisions of the same appeals court over the 2000's:

* In October 2003, a 33-year-old man's jail sentence for rape was changed to a suspended sentence because of his employment history. He had held a steady job for a long time, and his employer had decided to terminate his employment if he went to jail. He didn't have to!

* In September 2003 a 33-year-old man's prison sentence for attempted rape was commuted to a suspended sentence because he had no previous convictions and had paid a large sum in reparations.

* In September 2002 a 27-year-old man had his prison sentence commuted to a suspended sentence and community service, again because of his job.

**

Finnish courts and prosecutors will, even in cases involving physical violence, not even call for a sentence for rape if the sentence can be handed out as "coercive sexual contact". Of those sentences for rape, barely half actually end up in prison. Of those who do, if they're in Eastern Finland, clearly a trip to the appeals court is worth the trouble, as if you have a good enough job, you won't have to go to prison.

As a feminist and as a human being, I'm disgusted. Overall the Finnish justice system seems dedicated to bending the law in favor of men convicted for sexual assault. Do we really want to live in a society where physically assaulting a disabled person and forcing them to have sex with you is not a serious offense? In a country where an appeals court believes that it's possible that a drunk 15-year-old girl tied herself to a bed in order to be raped by five adult men? I'm sorry, coercively sexually contacted by five men.

I'm not even going to start on the common problems of sexual assaults and domestic violence, like the fact that most go unreported. The way our justice system handles even those that are reported is appalling.

A brief comparison: Finnish internet pundit Seppo Lehto got two years and four months in prison for creating obscene web pages insulting and defaming Finnish politicians and civil servants (HS). The guy who beat a disabled woman's head into a wall and raped her didn't get a prison sentence at all.

From my own perspective as a person actually going to prison in a month or so, this is totally bewildering. I've refused to complete my "civilian service" and because of that, I'm going to jail. If I had, instead, attacked and raped a woman in a bar, I wouldn't be going to jail. I just can't get my head around that.

That's the country I live in. And I'm not proud.

Insert Title Here

Det har varit ont om inlägg den senaste tiden, jag vet. Man kan säga att vi på Pawped C. har tagit semester, eller gått i ide (ute?), under sommaren. Sommaren har hittills präglats av uselt väder, tristess och kanske den sjukaste dygnsrytmförskjutning jag någonsin gjort. Lyckligtvis finns ljus i horisonten, enär slutet av denna usla månad närmar sig, om än långsamt. Pengar kommer återigen finnas på kontot, vilket innebär stora möjligheter att underhålla sig. Bara nu till helgen ska jag spela Battletoads med en kamrat (nej, inte Ab, tyvärr) vilket, efter några linor eller några puffar, är oerhört trevligt!!!!!11

I övrigt har jag tittat på en del film denna månad, och återigen begrundat vilka filmer jag gillar allra mest här i världen. Jag kom fram till att svaret är T2 och Rambo 3. Två filmer som ligger mig varmt om hjärtat och till dags dato fortfarande är så fantastiska att jag blir bindgalen när jag tänker på det. Dylik action görs inte längre. Om en scen i en film innehöll en Hind och en stridsvagn som kolliderar, då använde man helt enkelt en Hind och en stridsvagn som fick köras in i varandra. Om en helikopter skulle flyga genom en tunnel jagandes en fruktpickup, då flög man en djävla helikopter genom tunnelhelvetet. 2000-talets storslagna actionfilmer verkar filmas till 90% på green screen. Många scener har också en tendens att vara extremt överdrivna. Det är faktiskt sorgligt. Tänk om dekapitationsscenerna i Rambo 4 hade filmats på gammalt hederligt vis. Proteser och riktiga stuntmän, och inte en kulspruta med animerad mynningseld och flygande kroppsdelar som ser så datoranimerade ut att jag vill gråta.

Nu gråter jag på riktigt. Det betyder att det är dags för Dödligt Vapen.

Going to jail

I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while this year. Later in June, I'll be receiving a four-month prison sentence from the Porvoo district court for refusing to complete my conscript service.

Finland still has conscription, meaning (nearly) all men have to serve in the army for a period of 6-12 months. Those who refuse armed service must complete 12 months of "civilian service". This civilian service has no function related in any way to the defence forces; it is solely a punishment for those who refuse to serve in the armed forces. Refusal to complete civilian service results in a prison sentence equivalent to half of the remaining service time.

I've refused, and will shortly be receiving a four-month prison sentence.

**

Of course, in Finland, not everyone gets drafted. People living in the demilitarized Ahvenanmaa Islands or belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses religious cult are exempt from service. Similarly, of course, all women are exempt.

Think about that for a moment. If I belonged to a particular religious cult, I wouldn't have to go to prison. Or, indeed, if I had different genitals. This blatant inequality alone is reason enough for me to refuse to participate in the system. It's unbelievable to me that in a 21st century Nordic country, your gender gives you an exemption from service. But this is part of the reality of gender equality in Finland.

**

I'm not refusing service because I'm an antimilitarist as such. I'm a pacifist, yes, and I consider myself an antimilitarist, at least in the sense that I'm strongly opposed to the political ideology of militarism. But I have nothing against the existence of the Finnish army; in fact, I'm positively in favor of it.

I principally oppose conscription because I'm a libertarian. I don't believe the State has any right to force me to serve in the military. Conscription is nothing but forced labor, and that has no place in a free country.

I also oppose conscription because I'm a feminist. I believe firmly in equality in life and especially in equality before the law. However, this summer I'm going to prison because of my gender. If I was a woman and didn't want to serve in the army, I wouldn't have to; because I'm a man and don't want to serve in the army, I'm going to prison.

Also, I'm going to prison because I'm an atheist, more or less. At least in the sense that if I was a Jehovah's Witness, then I wouldn't have to serve. I'm not, so I do.

The blatant inequality of the Finnish conscription system is so abhorrent to me that I can't participate in a system that forces some citizens to serve in the army, but exempts others because of their gender or religion. And for that, I'm going to prison this fall.

**

For additional information, there is a rather poor article on Conscription in Finland on Wikipedia. There's more information at the Union of Conscientious Objectors' website. Note that I'm not a member, nor do I intent to become one.

I'll receive my sentence at the end of June, and will post updates as I know what happens next. Obviously my blog will be on a rather long hiatus this fall because of this. I'll likely be starting my jail term in late June or August, but I don't know that yet.

To be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to four months in prison. Of course, I'm getting off relatively easily; 70 years ago conscientious objectors in Finland were murdered by the Finnish army. But still, it's not a decision I've made lightly.

However, I firmly believe that conscription is one of the most unjust, tyrannical and simply unacceptable human rights violations taking place in Northern Europe today. I'd like to finish off with a quote from the Anti-Conscription Manifesto of 1926, signed by such renowned communists as Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, among others.

(feminists should take especial note of the penultimate sentence)

It is our belief that conscript armies, with their large corps of professional officers, are a grave menace to peace. Conscription involves the degradation of human personality, and the destruction of liberty. Barrack life, military drill, blind obedience to commands, however unjust and foolish they may be, and deliberate training for slaughter undermine respect for the individual, for democracy and human life.

It is debasing human dignity to force men to give up their life, or to inflict death against their will, or without conviction as to the justice of their action. The State which thinks itself entitled to force its citizens to go to war will never pay proper regard to the value and happiness of their lives in peace. Moreover, by conscription the militarist spirit of aggressiveness is implanted in the whole male population at the most impressionable age. By training for war men come to consider war as unavoidable and even desirable.

I will rather go to prison than in any way give my assent to this system.

National fingerprint database for Finland

Hello, Big Brother!

Finland is going to go ahead with the plan to found a national fingerprint database (Helsingin Sanomat). It will eventually have everyone's fingerprints in it. The police have access to the database, but they won't use it. Right? Because the Finnish police never exceeds its authority. Right?

Verkligheten krossas i tusentals skärvor

Jag läste på Aftonbladet att Marcus Nispel ska regissera remaken av Conan Barbaren, en film som symboliserar allt som är härligt med 80-talet på ett alldeles underbart och uselt vis. Dessutom återfanns ingen mindre än Arnold Svartharvare i huvudrollen, och som bekant är han omöjlig att ersätta.

Då är frågan: Varför görs det en remake på en film, vars goda kvaliteter är omöjliga att reproducera i en nyinspelning, och varför är det regissören bakom Pathfinder och dylikt skräp som får äran att kapsejsa filmen (det blev visst två frågor, förlåt.)? Förvisso har det gjorts bra remakes tidigare, såsom För en Handfull Dollar och The Departed, men de var inte heller lika bra som originalen, trots att Sergio Leone och Martin Scorsese stod för regin i de fallen. Och Marcus Nispels kreativa förmåga går nog inte att jämföras med två legender som Leone och Scorsese.

Lyckligtvis kommer inte originalet att försvinna från jordens yta, så Djävulens existens är ännu inte bekräftad.

War Machine: an evil jetski

My close reading of Andy Remic's War Machine continues. The previous part is here, and the introductory post is here. This post covers Chapter 1 of Part 1.

**

I can't get it to work on my browser, but if I recall corectly, if you go to amazon.com and pick "Look inside", you'll find an excerpt from this part.

The first sentence, again, is inimitable.

Kotinevitch exercised naked.

We are treated to a description of a naked woman exercising with a "yukana sword". A Google search for "yukana" turns up a Japanese voice actress; a search for "yukana sword" turns up only that passage from Remic's book. So yet again, he's just using made-up words. A "yukana sword" has "an ugly curved blade formed from a single molecule". I'll leave you to work out the physics of this.

An incredibly tedious scene follows, where we learn that the naked Kotinevitch is a General Kotinevitch, known as Vitch the Bitch. She and some other generals posture to each other in a tiresome scene with awful dialogue. Suddenly in the middle of it, "Vitch" drops her robes and slaughters a cow with her sword. She then kills the generals.

I couldn't make that up if I tried, like I said earlier, and it's a scene one generally has to read several times to understand how much it sucks. It is, however, notable for several reasons. First of all, we'll unfortunately be seeing more of Kotinevitch, by the end of the scene familiarly shortened to Vitch.

Several minor details are also worth noting. When "Vitch" has done her naked swordfighting routine, she puts on a robe. Remic: "The hem fell to the floow in a series of gathered, neatly stitched folds and the garment cooled her superheated skin."

Wikipedia: "In physics, superheating (sometimes referred to as boiling retardation, or boiling delay) is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point, without boiling." Is her skin above its boiling point? I doubt it.

Why do I bring something that minor up? Because the blurb, and the author, say this is science fiction. What with the invented weapons that don't make sense, the totally haphazard use of words like "singular", and now throwing around physics concepts with no understanding of their meaning, this is looking more and more like some of the most inept "science" fiction I've ever read. And I've read some bad stuff.

The laws of physics are also suspended for "Vitch". At the end of the scene, one of the visiting generals is holding a gun to her head. She kills him with her sword. One wonders what the general in question was waving the gun around for if he was incapable of pulling the trigger? None of the action scenes make one iota of sense if you think about them.

**

Finally, a larger point becomes apparent.

So far, we've met two women in Remic's book. Both have instantly been sexually objectified. At this point, we don't even know what Keenan or Franco look like, but we've had both female characters introduced very physically. Immediately on meeting Pippa, we're given Keenan's sex fantasy/reminiscence of her, and Kotinevitch, of course, is naked the first time we see her.

In addition to this, both characters immediately get their putdowns. The naked sword-exercising chick turns out to be a lunatic who is generally known as "the Bitch"; Pippa turns out to be a scared little girl who needs Keenan to protect her because she's a woman. So far, Keenan and Franco have been cool, professional soldiers, but both women are not only crazy but either despised or compared to children.

I know that many people are very leery of feminist literary criticism, but when I read this stuff I can't help myself. I'd say the author is maybe treating the two genders a little differently.

**

In the next scene, Keenan wakes up with a blinding hangover. He staggers to the veranda of his beach house. A tennis-ball -sized robot tells him someone wants to see him at his office, so Keenan takes a shower and goes to work. To get to his office, he rides a jetski, which is described in loving detail. At his PI's office, he smokes a cigarette and drinks coffee during a conversation with a client that's taken straight our of a really bad film noir script. This sets up the story: Keenan's wife and kids have been killed, and he's hired to reform his Combat-K group and find the Fractured Emerald, which can tell him who did it. We learn that Pippa is exiled on a prison planet and Franco is in a mental hospital, but Keenan accepts.

During this sequence, there are several ridiculous details I want to pay attention to. Keenan's jetski is described as follows:

...Keenan strode across the crunching shingle to the edge of the sea, and the TitaniumIII mooring. His black metallic Yamaha SeaWarrior jet ski, 380bhp, three cylinder, two stroke and 1800cc of pure muscle with a 10 blade impeller and Titanium glass-alloy panels, bobbed at its mooring against the warp-planked jetty.

So, the way I understand that is that the mooring, i.e. the cable that holds the jetski to the dock, is made of titanium, but the dock is wood. Okay.

Yamaha has a series of Warrior motorcycles, which I suppose inspired the SeaWarrior. But the larger point is this: isn't this supposed to be the post-Singularity future? If it is, what's he doing riding around in a jetski? If we're supposed to be in the far future of interstellar travel and the Singularity, are we meant to be impressed by a 400-horsepower jet ski? That's ridiculous.

The whole scene reads like a really bad ripoff of Miami Vice, not a sci-fi novel.

During his conversation with his client, Keenan pulls a gun on him at one point. Make a note of this, as Keenan makes a habit of this throughout the book. Apparently Remic's idea of a real badass is someone who points a gun at people when he talks to them. Keenan actually comes off as an idiot, but never mind.

The more important thing is one that me and my co-readers have a philosophical disagreement on. I maintain the most pathetic part of this sequence is the Yamaha jetski. It is maintained by others that the most pathetic part is, in fact, this:

Keenan pulled free a silver case, unhitched the tiny lock and opened the device. He rolled himself a thin cigarette with evil looking Widow Maker tobacco, lit the weed, and breather deep the unfiltered drug.

It has been represented that the height of pathetic is a man who is so badass that he smokes badass cigarettes called Widow Maker without filters. I think that's a fair point.

Over the initial sequence, Remic seems almost desperate to represent Keenan as the baddest motherfucker ever. He smokes "evil tobacco" and he drives a 380-brake-horsepower jetski to his job as a private eye. It all manages to come off as pathetic macho posturing. Let's run through what we know of Keenan.

Previously, he:

* had a wife called Freya and two "young bright stunningly beautiful girls".
* lived on a ranch where he had horses and a dog, and drank beer and ate tortillas.
* was the "protector, brother, father and lover" of his squadmate Pippa.
* was a special forces soldier in an elite unit who was superhumanly cool under fire

Now, he:

* is an alcoholic private investigator
* drives to work in a jetski
* smokes "evil" cigarettes

At both times, he's simultaneously the cool, unflappable über-macho and a tortured, deeply conflicted man. Can you believe this is an actual person? Reading the book, I find it impossible. Keenan comes across as a total caricature.

**

A digression. I don't generally go in for psychological criticism or any kind of author-based criticism. It has its time and place, but I find that both are far more rare than its proponents believe. However, reading Remic, it is simply impossible to avoid asking a question. Is he actually presenting Keenan to us as a protagonist, through whom we're supposed to live out the events of the book, or is Keenan an idealized alter-ego? If you refer back to my introductory post, you'll see the self-descriptions he's given.

I feel that it's impossible to read Remic's War Machine without getting the very powerful impression that Keenan is an idealized projection of the author. Given the way he presents himself and Keenan, I can't help but get the feeling that Mr. Remic's life hasn't quite turned out the way he wanted it to and he's creating Keenan as his larger-than-life alter ego.

It's possible that's totally unfair. In all honesty, I don't know anything about Andy Remic or his life, so I can't say if that's true or not. I feel that saying that is uncharitable, but if I'm going to do a close reading of his book, I feel it would be dishonest not to convey this impression as it's incredibly strong.

**

The rest of the chapter gives a sort of preview of the next one. Franco is locked up in a mental hospital where he's given drugs and for some bizarre reason, his testicles are electrocuted. It doesn't make any sense, and again, physics and anatomy are suspended. He's heavily beated with steel truncheons, including taking "a slam" across the forehead, but he's barely injured. We meet his doctor, Betezh, who administers this torture.

Betezh has a telephone-analogue conversation with Vitch which I quote from to demonstrate the kind of dialogue Remic writes.

"Do you want me to kill Franco? I can do it tonight."
"Not yet. He knows a lot about our operation, if only he could remember it. What you have told me amounts to shit. His recall is as blurred as his history. However, he could still be useful to us."
"We walk a dangerous wire," said Betezh carefully. He did not want to antagonize.
"What is life without a little danger? Without thrill? Without challenge? It becomes nothing more than a stale and second-hand experience; an armchair performance, a fucking banality."
"It's ironic," said Betezh, voice low, "but sometimes I wonder if you should be the one locked away, instead of Franco. I wonder who is the more sane?"
Kotinevitch's brown eyes narrowed. She smiled, showing neat little teeth. "Insanity is my middle name," she said.

Again, it's practically impossible to imagine two actors running through this dialogue. The totally random profanity, the constantly shiting tone and style. All of the conversation in the novel seems to be like this; the author can't decide if he wants his characters to talk in a sophisticated, civilized way, or to swear and posture. So they invariably end up doing both, and the result reads like it was written by an inept 13-year-old.

The most hilarious detail I'll leave to the last. Franco's full name?

Franco Haggis.

**

By the end of the first chapter, I think most of the basic themes of the book have been set. From now on, I think I'll be doing this close reading by themes, but I haven't quite decided yet. The macho posturing is simply hilarious and deserves a good look at; I didn't take those Women's Studies classes for nothing! Also, the rampant misogyny that goes hand in hand with it needs to be looked at as well. On the other hand, the book's constant failures of logic and language are just too much fun to leave untouched. A particular bone to pick is Remic's assertion that he's writing a science-fiction space opera á la Iain Banks, or as he put it, "Space Opera – The Punk Remix", and his ongoing failure to do so. I don't remember Iain Banks devoting particular attention to jetskis.

So far, The Punk Remix, appropriately incorrectly capitalized, sucks. But I think it sucks in interesting and amusing ways.

Lithuania to ban discussing homosexuality

At amnesty.org

The Lithuanian parliament has voted in favour of a measure that would prohibit the discussion of homosexuality in schools and ban any reference to it in public information that can be viewed by children. The Seimas voted by an overwhelming majority on Tuesday to move forward to a final vote on an amendment to the "Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information".

I love the name of that law.

Once again, a legistlature wants to protect the vulnerable from information. I mean, it says so right there in the title. Aren't the Lithuanian people fortunate to have a parliament that protects them from harmful information?

In Finland, censorship is not censorship

The saga of Matti Nikki's anti-child pornography website, http://lapsiporno.info, continues. I wrote about it for the first time last year; to sum up, Nikki runs a website dedicated to criticizing the way the Finnish government and most European countries are handling the problem of child pornography. Nikki's view is that no real action is being taken to stop it, and all anti-child pornography measures being taken here are ineffective.

When Finland enacted a law that permits the police to block access to foreign websites containing child pornography, they blocked access to Nikki's site. It isn't a foreign site and doesn't contain child pornography, but censored it remains.

**

At the end of May, the Finnish courts and justice ombudsman both decided that Nikki has no grounds for complaint and that his case will not be tried in the second tier of Finnish courts. The view of the official bodies involved is that the decision of the Finnish police to censor a website is an administrative decision by the police, and is not subject to judicial review.

The Finnish constitution is generally held to forbid censorship. However, the justice ombudsman has, in his wisdom, ruled that in this case, censorship is not censorship. Therefore the law is not unconstitutional, basically because they say it isn't.

**

Electronic Frontier Finland is taking the case to the Finnish supreme court (their press release, in Finnish, here); I applaud their efforts, but they are in vain. The Finnish courts routinely ignore the Constitution, which quite simply has no force in Finnish law or practice.

As it stands at the moment, the Finnish police can block access to any Internet page on the World Wide Web. We now basically have a court decision that says the police can, under the law that provides for blocking foreign websites that contain child pornography, block a foreign or domestic website that either does or does not contain child pornography. That is to say, any website on the World Wide Web. And anyone whose website is blocked will not even be informed, and cannot file a complaint.

This is not a free country.

Happy birthday Akira Lane!

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Game 5 thoughts

Finally, Detroit showed up! If the Wings play this differently with and without Pavel Datsyuk, give him the Hart Trophy right now.

In the first two games in Pittsburgh, the biggest story in my mind was Detroit's failure on the offensive and the power play. Apparently getting Datsyuk back fixed both of these problems instantly, and Detroit now has a 3-2 lead in the series. Now, for the first time in this series, Detroit looks like the team that beat the Ducks in what I believe was the best playoff series this year. If they can keep it up, they can wrap the series on Tuesday.

However, I wouldn't put money on it. Even Game 5 was a lot closer than it looked. Pittsburgh came out real strong, and had they got the first goal, they might have won the game.

**

On the subject of officiating, maybe it was Rory Boylen's childish blog rant that provoked them, but some of the Hockey News' senior writers have been commenting on the refereeing.

Ken Campbell:

What drives people to distraction is how obstruction can go unpunished by both teams countless times during the game, then get called midway through the third period, the way it was on Jonathan Ericsson, which led to the game-winning goal.

Isn’t it supposed to be different? In the new NHL, wasn’t an infraction in October supposed to be treated the same way as one in the Stanley Cup final?

All the players and the coaches want is consistency because they have a remarkable ability to adapt to any situation. Their attitude is to either call everything or nothing, but be consistent with it.

Senior editor Jason Kay sums it up like this:

Two minutes or not two minutes? That is the question.

There has been much chatter the past week about an obstruction crackdown slip during the Stanley Cup final. After many, many months of vigilance, the referees suddenly decided to let ‘em play.

The short-term, myopic benefits are fewer whistles and power plays. The big picture downsides are stunted skill displays, confusion and a greater potential for huge controversy.

That's very well put. I thought Game 5 was the first game where the referees actually called the game the way it was going on the ice. This time, it meant a big difference in penalties between the Pens and the Wings. The fact was, the Pens fouled much more, so the penalties were deserved. Who knows how they'll call Game 6?

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Under nördfester såsom E3 brukar Neogaf braka samman, och enär denna knytpunkt för allehanda bisarra och intressanta nyheter varit tämligen död. Nu har jag inte hängt med speciellt mycket i spelsvängarna under veckan då det har funnit många andra intressanta saker (åttondelsfinaler, kvartsfinaler etc), men en del ting har jag snappat upp:

• Nya Mario-spel till Wii. Glädjande för min del, då jag har en Wii och Mario brukar vara synonymt med stor underhållning.
• PlayStation Motion Controller. Lamt och fantasilöst att i stort sett apa efter Nintendo, och någon större framgång blir det väl antagligen.
• Microsofts Project Natal. Jag läste det först som Project Nadal och trodde att det var en tröst till den fallna grusspecialisten, men icke; det verkar lovande. Lite Minority Report-vibbar över det, men jag tror att man måste ha någon form av spelkontroll för att ge interaktivitet. Att sparka i luften mot en boll som inte finns låter inte så roligt, men det är en kreativ lösning och känns som ett led framåt i spelutvecklingen.

I övrigt fyller Tetris 25 år på lördag, så när ni super er redlöst berusade kan ni lika gärna skåla för Алексей en gång.

The uneven surface: Game 3 replay

As was predicted on this blog, Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals was nearly a rerun of the third game of the Washington-Pittsburgh series: the referees stepped up. As with that series, the problem is not that the penalties being called on Detroit aren't penalties; it's that Pittsburgh is constantly getting away with the exact same fouls. The crowning irony of the night was that the game-winner was scored on an interference penalty on Detroit to Jonathan Ericsson. Arguably, Ericsson was guilty, but it was a soft call.

What makes it unacceptable is that throughout the finals, Pittsburgh's defensemen have been blatantly interfering with Detroit's forwards every time they chip the puck in, and haven't been called on it once. Hal Gill is apparently allowed to grab passing Wings with both hands, because he keeps doing it and has yet to take a penalty. Pittsburgh's defense is notoriously weak, but they can compensate for it by not playing clean.

If that wasn't enough, CBC showed a replay of an extended offensive zone shift where the Penguins had six players on the ice. Then their announcers praises the referees. It makes me want to throw up.

It's fairly clear that there are two different rulebooks in play, like there were against Washington. These games have all been very close; remember that the game last night was tied 2-2 until the ridiculous penalty on Ericsson was called. In a game like this, when the referees clearly favor one side, it counts for a lot when all the other factors are so even. So far, over three games of the finals, one team has played some of the cleanest playoff hockey ever and the other team constantly fouls them. And yet they're getting the same amount of penalties. That kind of refereeing gives the edge to the team that plays dirty.

Of course, none of the mostly Canadian-run hockey media are going to even notice the six players on the ice or the other liberties the league and referees are constantly giving the Penguins. After all, Sidney Crosby, the anointed messiah of Canadian hockey, is playing against a team that consists mostly of Europeans.

It looks like this year, the league has really decided that the Penguins will win the Cup. If the next game doesn't go Pittsburgh's way from the start, the referees will be stepping up even more.

**

I've recently learned, though, that if you agree with anything I'm saying here, you're not a hockey fan.

Rory Boylen: THN.com Playoff Blog: Shut up and enjoy the games

The way the refs have put their whistles away and not called the chincy little taps by the defender that simply let the attacking player know he’s there – without slowing anything down – has provided us with some great games unimpeded by man-advantages that shouldn’t be a main story in any battle for the glorious Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup.

But, amazingly, there are still complaints. They focus not just on the refereeing, but a range of topics from the instigator rule to conspiracy theories. This really sticks in my craw, because if all you can do is whine and complain while this great display of skill, grit, desire and hunger is going on in front of us, then, I’m sorry, ya just ain’t a hockey fan.

Boylen then goes off on a childish tirade about how everyone except him is ruining hockey. His strawman argument is that anyone who complains about the refereeing or the suspensions wants to destroy hockey and to ban bodychecking. Yes, he actually said that. He makes the most moronic variation yet of the Mike Milbury argument, basically saying that unless you agree with Evgeni Malkin's non-suspension, then you want to remove bodychecking and emotion from the game. Also, he explicitly states that anyone who complains about Malkin not being suspended would also have complained if he had been suspended. That's pretty strange too, but then again, Rory Boylen would know more about me than, well, me.

I don't know how they do things in Canada, but I at least want to see a fair game. I'm not seeing that, and it pisses me off. The great display of hockey that is the Stanley Cup finals just isn't all that great when the ice is tilted one way. Am I supposed to enjoy seeing a team get a free pass from the referees all the way to the Cup final?

The only way I can really reply to this is to say that if Mr. Boylen has watched the same games I have, and calls the fouls Pittsburgh doesn't get penalties on "little taps", then he isn't a hockey fan either, because he can't tell an interference foul from a "tap". That is, hands down, the most idiotic column/blog/excrement I've ever read on the Hockey News.

One of his colleagues, Adam Proteau, said pretty much the same things I did about the Malkin suspension in his column. I guess he isn't a hockey fan either. Funny how restrictive these categories are when you're given the incredible wisdom and insight of Rory Boylen. I sometimes quite violently disagree with what Adam Proteau says, but I've always assumed that we both care a great deal about the game of hockey. Heck, I thought that was the reason we wrote about it. But now that I've experienced the Boylen Revelation, I realize that me and Adam aren't hockey fans at all. After all, we disagree with Rory.

This kind of argumentation belongs in the kindergarten, not The Hockey News. Do they let anybody write on their website? Maybe I should apply. It doesn't look like there are any standards.

The uneven surface: suspension, schmuspension

The Pittsburgh Penguins' star player Evgeni Malkin attacked Detroit's Henrik Zetterberg in frustration in the last minute of play in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals. He was quite properly given a five-minute major penalty for fighting as well as an instigator penalty for basically attacking Zetterberg for no reason.

Taking an instigator penalty during the last five minutes of play results in an automatic one-game suspension, unless you play for Pittsburgh.

NHL.com: NHL's Campbell rescinds Malkin suspension

Following that review, Campbell said: "None of the criteria in this rule applied in this situation. Suspensions are applied under this rule when a team attempts to send a message in the last five minutes by having a player instigate a fight. A suspension could also be applied when a player seeks retribution for a prior incident. Neither was the case here and therefore the one game suspension is rescinded."

It's funny he should say that, as it seems that the entire hockey-watching world, including but not limited to such people as the CBC announcers, thought the entire point of Malkin's outburst was to "send a message", and "seek retribution" for the fact that Zetterberg has been shadowing Pittsburgh's stars for the whole two games and effectively stopped them from scoring anything.

The instigator penalty was created for exactly this kind of situation, where a player just goes out and attacks another player. I'm not aware of the automatic suspension that comes with it ever having been rescinded before, and everyone who follows the NHL knows it wouldn't have been rescinded for a Brooks Orpik or a Craig Adams. But it is for Malkin.

You can bet anything that if a Detroit player drops the gloves during the last five minutes of Game 3, they're getting suspended.

**

Predictably, Pittsburgh found something to whine about despite having practically every call go their way. In the NHL.com game recap, head coach Dan Bylsma:

Marian Hossa took the puck away from Pascal Dupuis on the left side, but the Penguins' cries for a penalty went unheeded and Hossa got the puck on net where Tomas Holmstrom was keeping everyone in a white jersey occupied. The puck popped out to Fleury's left and Filppula was able to get enough on his stick on the puck to backhand the puck over the sea of bodies in front.

"I think the way I saw the replay that our guy was trying to get the puck out," Bylsma said. "Hossa came in and used his stick to lift up the guy's stick. You can make the judgment. The referee made the judgment that it wasn't a hook. I can slow it down and look at it myself and make my own judgment, but that was what happened. We failed to clear it with that hook and it led to the goal."

Maybe someone should try telling Bylsma that if a player lifts another player's stick, it isn't hooking. Basically here Bylsma is admitting that it was a good play and shouldn't have been a penalty. That's how we saw it, and that's how the refs saw it.

It's telling that he still thinks they should have got a call. But then again, he does coach in Pittsburgh.

Another hilarious case of pots and kettles:

TSN.ca:

The Red Wings are a puck possession team, and they displayed that in the faceoff circle in Game 1 where they won 71% of the draws. Penguins captain Sidney Crosby only won 30% of his faceoffs, with Jordan Staal just better than that. Conversely, Henrik Zetterberg won 15-of-20 draws.

I spoke to Crosby after the game, and he believed that the Red Wings took advantage of being on home ice, where the home team player is allowed to come into the face-off second, which allows them to take advantage by timing when the puck is going to be dropped, and cheat on the play to win the draw.

Crosby believes when the series moves back to Pittsburgh that those numbers will shift in favour of the Penguins.

I haven't seen Detroit cheat on the draw. However, through the entire Eastern Conference playoffs, I have seen Crosby cheat on nearly every draw he took, except in these finals where the linesmen haven't let him. I wrote about it earlier. In the first game where they were stopped from constantly breaking the rules on the draw, the faceoffs were 70% Detroit, 30% Pens.

They'll likely be 70-30 Penguins at Pittsburgh, because the linesmen will let Crosy cheat again there.

**

Expect the referees to step up in Game 3 like they did in the Washington-Pittsburgh series. It was the same story there: Washington wins the first two games, and in the third Pittsburgh gets seven power plays to Washington's one. That game was so close it's very possible to argue that disparity in penalties, totally unjustified on the basis of what was happening on the ice, swung the game. The refs are going to try to swing Game 3 of the finals as well if it starts going badly for Pittsburgh; the head office already started with the Malkin suspension. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't suspend Zetterberg.

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Under dessa dagar sker två stora händelser: E3 och Roland Garros. Det är emellertid tennisturneringen som jag följer med ett älskvärt intresse, av flera orsaker:

• Tennis är en nobel idrott. Ett prima exempel är vår mycket döda konung Gustaf V som 1980 blev upptagen i International Tennis Hall of Fame.
• Det är roligt att spela tennis.
• Det är roligt att se på tennis.
• Andelen vackra kvinnliga utövare är skapligt hög.

Olyckligtvis åkte Ana Ivanović ut tidigt (som vanligt, numera), enär hon är en fröjd för ögonen (annars hade hon väl inte blivit fotograferad för FHM, eller?). Dock var det en viss lycka när Jelena Janković åkte ut. "Varför då?!" tjuter ni säkert nu, men lugn, jag har bildbevis som visar att alla borde tycka likadant:

Cirstea till vänster, Janković till höger. Vem skulle du hejat på?

Utseende är onekligen viktigt, synnerligen för damtennisspelare, vilket Anna Kournikova bevisade. Hon vann trots allt inte en enda titel. Anledningen till att jag tar upp det är att tennislöftet Simona Halep - en spelare jag upptäckte när jag såg att de populäraste bilderna på Roland Garros visade just henne - ämnar utföra en bröstförminskning. Orsaken skall tydligen vara att hennes bröstomfång hindrar hennes spel, men då har hon måhända inte hört talas om Serena Williams... som ju har en tagit hem en del Grand Slam-titlar. Dåraktigt beslut, med tanke alla potentiella (manliga) fans hon går miste om (och reklamkontrakt).