Roland Boer's Blog, page 75

The War on Drugs

In 1969, Tricky Dicky Nixon declared the first war on drugs. His aide, John Ehrlichman, said:

Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalise their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it.

Evangelically Rooted? Another SBL Exhibitor

Another one from the Society of Biblical Literature program book. Inter-Varsity Press (IVP - sounds like some medical procedure) has a lovely double-page spread and claims in bold letters to be evangelically rooted.

An unfortunate choice of words, at least from the perspective of Australian usage. 'Rooted' is another term for 'fucked', but it also means: be be completely knackered and to be done over.

So, the claim to be 'evangelically rooted' has in our part of world the following (not unrelat...

The Sky Has Turned to Blood - Red Desert Dust in Town

This is amazing: a massive dust storm that has lifted dirt from the arid red centre and blown it right across to the east coast and smack bang into Newcastle:

The Best Part of SBL - Wacko Exhibitors

I've been perusing the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) annual meeting handbook - in New Orleans in November. Inevitably I turn to the list of exhibitors, dreaming of those wacko stands somewhere out the back of the exhibitor hall. You know the types: a solitary book in a lurid cover with free exerpts and incense sticks. Or a group offering tours - with a running video and idiot presenter - to religious sites in Kansas. Or free dick-warmers or chastity belts with an appropriate Bible text...

I Want a Volcano to Erupt in Australia Now!

How cool is this? A volcano going off in Australia! Apparently there's about 800 volcanos scattered about the place waiting to pop. In fact they are overdue. So I want to see the fireworks.

According to some dude called Bernie Joyce, who's just won some geological medal:

"We can't say with 100 per cent certainty that a significant volcano will strike tomorrow, next week, next year, or even 100 years down the track."

Professor Joyce says there has been a volcanic eruption about every 2000 years...

Pictures of famous smokers to be banned

Now this is really stupid. Moves are afoot to censor pictures of famous people sucking on a smoke. Jacques Chirac, Rachmaninov, Mikhael Bakhtin, Winston Churchill, Louis Althusser, Marlene Dietrich, Josef Stalin - some of the best shots are of them with a cigarette, pipe or cigar in hand. But now those photographs are under the censor's stern gaze. I'm a smoker who doesn't smoke (I did for many years but sadly gave it up since it's supposed to be bad for you), but I love these pictures. And t...

'A Leading World Authority'

What's with the increasing number of claims by every flee-bitten academic to be a 'leading world authority' on some godforsaken topic? Sometimes it's 'the leading authority' or 'Antarctica's leading thinker' or 'a recognised authority' ... but you get the picture. These phrases are turning up more and more on academic webpages. And what does 'authority' or 'leading' mean anyway? Usually it has something to do with measuring cement, or maybe the prevalence of genital jewellery, or the obscure ...

Stuck in our skins

This one from Ernst Bloch: eventually most of us get used to the skin we're stuck in; worse, into which we've been stuck, professionally or however else.

Spring = magpies and bloody freezing oceans

OK, it's spring here, the sap's rising, sea breeze is getting warmer, but the water isn't. 16 degrees in the water leaves me mottled blue and red, with an hour or three to warm up again and shrivelled family jewels.




But the best part of spring are the magpies. The males get swollen balls (they obviously don't swim), pumped up with testosterone and swoop you when you're on a bicycle.






Apparently, 17% of them swoop cyclists and different percentage of walkers.


I don't really give a shit, since I've...

I'm Gonna Get Me One of Those Mankinis

To get us all excited about the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar in Dunedin in February, Gillian has provided some mouth-watering pictures (here).