The man I worship

 

In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth.

- Jacques Lacan

May contain elements of shameless authoritarianism

So today in my country a woman killed a snatch thief. As expected, there was a token commentator in a paper who stated that instead of lauding such an action, we should stop and pity the snatch thief himself. The thing is, while I definitely agree the existence of a criminal is always indirectly the fault of the society as a whole, I am a massive proponent of the idea that if you do something wrong, you deserve whatever you get. Don't get me wrong, I disagree with those who say that these people are inherently 'evil'.

I just believe in publicized deterrents.

The lack of deterrents was what frustrated me about the British system. It's slightly soul-destroying to know that if someone broke into my house and took my property/threatened me, all they would've gotten was a strong word and a slap on the wrist. Call me an idiot, but I don't think this does anything to deter anyone from doing the same. I'm not saying we should allow people to go on public rampages killing every criminal since they 'deserve' it, I'm saying that while the act is happening the victim should have the priority of action.

In the face of possible comments that I am privileged and thus unable to empathize in any way with the impoverished, I would argue that one of my closest friends used to be in a gang when he was younger. I have no problem with seeing the perpetrator as human, they are. My argument is that though they are, we shouldn't be a fucking soft touch on them. Instead we should look at where the problems really start, and that ultimately lies with society as a whole. We should focus on reducing social inequality, on guaranteeing a good education to people of every background and social status. That is the productive way of reducing crime.

We shouldn't just fucking sit and pity criminals, giving them soft allowances for their actions just because some of us have a guilty conscience. Because at the end of the day that's all pity does; it doesn't alleviate their standard of living, it doesn't make their lives any better, it just enhances our ability to feel good about ourselves because we're able to 'sympathise' with the Other. Bullshit. All this leads to is people thinking they can get away with committing atrocious acts, while leaving their victims to feel helpless and frustrated at their inability to protect their own rights under the eyes of the law.

Get off your fucking high horse I say, and start looking constructively at the situation. 

[picture taken from I'm the Goddamn Batman! or The moral flexibility of the depiction of Batman as defined by the alignment classification of Dungeons and Dragons. Fuckin A.]

Muzak and Sheeeet.

I am a bit ridiculously in love with miss Eliot Sumner. A couple of people have already pointed out that her music sounds very similar to early Police, which isn't too much of a surprise considering she happens to be baby-Sting herself. I've always been an absolute wench for low gravelly voices and if you clickety click on this or this, it's plain to see that this lady fits the bill to a T.

Course it doesn't hurt that she's a little bit stunning really.

Pretty gutted I missed seeing her live while I was in the big smoke... almost as much as I regret missing the XX. I know, I know, they've been touted all over the shop from every publication known to man as "THE NEXT BIG THING", which is vaguely annoying since I'm always wary of bands that are. However just listen to this or this and I'll be surprised if you don't join the herd on this one. Their voices are absolutely stunning, and the stuff they're able to do with such minimal sound is frankly astounding. I've heard a couple of people say they're bland but I'd just argue that their sound system isn't good enough to hear how epic the production is. 

In other news of tune-age, been strongly into techno since the Berlin trip. It's fascinating, if you told me three years ago I'd be in love with dance music I'd have called you fool (this actually happened, cheers Si). After three years in London though, I have been happily proven wrong and now the most played list on my ipod's probably the ostbahnhof podcast. I'm not quite sure what this goes under, progressive techno? Minimal techno? Some shite like that. All I refer to it as is fucking good music.

Berlin was fabulous for that though, we went out most nights and every single time the music was fantastic. One thing that I adored about it was the atmosphere since everyone who went out was there for the music. Not to get laid, not to get wasted and not to be seen. It was heaven.  I miss that dearly about London too, sure you get your typical shite posh places but you also had absolute gems like the Notting Hill Arts Club and Barden's Boudoir. It's just granted that people who frequent places for reasons other than to utilise them as public forums to compare penis sizes are made of WIN.