Posts by Pharmachick
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Hard News: UPDATED: Media Take: Election…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Hi Russell,
I listened to the song and thought they had the beginnings of something really great… but after the end of the first verse, then the chorus about what he was going to do to that young girl I found myself really angry and sickened and I shut it off.
That young girl did nothing to deserve this, she never stood for office or made herself part of the NZ political conversation/landscape. I appreciate an argument could be made that as an art student in Paris she released some fairly risqué pictures a while back… but that was in the context of her artistic work there (the irony of “artistic license versus this song is not lost on me). Despite that, her pictures etc are not an invitation to rape culture. And, if we are all honest with ourselves, that what these lyrics not only represent, but illustrate beautifully… a callous disregard for a young woman as a sex object for someone else to “make a point” – in this case the really weak “oh, I was looking for attention to “get out the vote”. Sorry the lyricist has had an epic fail there.
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Hard News: UPDATED: Media Take: Election…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Thanks for your reply Tom.
However, I take a wee bit of offense at your conflation of MLK's black civil rights "voiceless" who were the products of slavery and a system as bad, if not worse, than apartheid; with your own situation.
Clearly, you're not voiceless. Publicly funded monies have been used to help support your band (IMHO that's great, artistic expression is to be admired and an expressive society with strong arts is a tolerant and balanced society). I appreciate that maybe your terms of reference for "voiceless" are that you may feel frustrated as if you're yelling into a hurricane to be heard and trying to get a message out there. But that's utterly *not* the same as MLK's "voiceless". I invite you to live in the Deep South of the US (still) if you wish to see it. It is not nice.
If you're the Tom of the song, please - have a think about if that were your daughter, sister or Mum someone else was talking about in such a public way. What you did wasn't protest speech... it was inciting violence. By all means, protest away but try to be better than that.
Cheers
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I think both the left and the right have a broad allowance for strong speech along with their strong beliefs. But this really crosses the line - inciting murder and sexual violence is sickening. It is not edgy. It is not cool. And I absolutely respect the author of this post for calling the band out on this.
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Okay sorry all, I actually replied to B Jones, 30 March 12:10 (page 1) ... errrrmm apologies: seems the "reply" function on this site is not quite how I'm used to it working (see: Huffington Post for an example of what I thought would happen). Newbie error!
Actually while I'm here:
Russell, you're my: Hero Of The Week.
That King Junior - a.k.a. "Derty Sesh" - music video (that I *did* watch before it was taken down from YouTube) is vile, misogynist, triggering crap! And using Dexter/CSI/Grand Theft Auto as an excuse is baseless in the extreme. Scribe got it right too - that exiguous kid is also derivative and uncreative.
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Try Hansard,
if anyone can be bothered searching it (is Hansard online these days and if yes, how far back is it archived?), then they will find out if there is any truth in the (and/or how often it may have been said by more than one person). -
Hello,
I originally arrived here at Mr. Brown's Blog a couple of days ago (via a link from Cactus Kate).Anyhow, in the last 24 hrs or so I have followed this thread and read the posts. This thread caused me to register and to comment.
So I'd like to add the following two statements:
(1) I've been rather disturbed by the Veitch saga on many levels over the last few months including a) the obviously awful domestic abuse , b) the horrible apologists, c) the terrible descent of Mr. Veitch into a suicidal state, d) the venality of the media and its spin doctors e) the manipulation of media coverage (seems both parties might have been a bit calculated here) ... and on and on ... but what prompted me to post tonight (other than my point (2)) is:
I simply cannot abide by the commentary posted by Paul Holmes in the NZ Herald. It was my breaking point on this whole situation ...
That commentary was appalling. It likely did more harm than good for Mr. Veitch. The comments about [paraphrasing] "not messing with a breakfast guy on Sunday night" almost bought me to tears in their callous disregard for, and near condoning of; domestic violence. Mr, Holmes' attempt to invoke God [paraphrase] ."not yet Tony"... seemed somewhat patronising, superfluous and potentially alienating for a large part of NZ's population that are secular. Finally, what on earth does [paraphrase] "lose your freedom from Monday to Friday" mean .... for goodness sake; then so do I (and FWIW I usually put in 60 hrs+/week for my job including being on call 24/7, 362 days/yr for a special medical project I have going) .... its called a full time job! What a ridiculous, unsupportable and frightening column to justify a serious assault conviction.
SIGH. Sorry, long post I guess.
2) I don't pass on jokes, funny stories, warm "fluffies" nor links in e-mails .... BUT... this week I sent an e-mail on Tuesday (past) to several friends with a link to the You Tube clip of Susan Boyle singing in the UK's Got Talent reality show. As a woman who was once described as "not that much to look at but she sure is smart" perhaps I overly identify with Ms. Boyle, however; that voice (acapella!!!) is sincerely amazing, set-up by Simon Cowell or not.