Mother Nature: Hey, Mama! Look What We Did!

Image via tumblr.

Remember that strange sensation that occasionally overwhelmed you as  a child? The one that, despite being aware of the dire consequences of spraying paint around your parent’s living room, putting all your mother’s make up down the toilet after coating your baby brother in it, or sticking your fingers in your Dad’s can of Swarfega and wiping the gloopy green contents all over your face,  compelled you to do exactly those things?

Well, although the toxic chemical spill in the Ajka forest, Hungary in 2010 that caused this ‘looks totally photoshopped but it isn’tdamage to the area was not my fault, I feel a similar, if vague, sense of culpability. When Mother Nature gets home and sees what we’ve done to her beautiful homestead, she is Going. To. Be. Pissed.

Hunker down, people. We are going to be grounded for, like, ever.

Oak Creek, Aurora, Virginia Tech: And The Hits Just Keep On Coming…

Images: REUTERS/Tom Lynn.

Six people were shot dead yesterday morning at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

This is less than three weeks after 12 people died in Aurora, Colorado, and brings the total number of civilians murdered in spree killings in the US in the last five years to 86. That tallies nicely with the 85 civilians PER DAY killed in incidents involving firearms

I began this post imagining I would round it off by asking how many deaths would have to accrue before gun control reform would be enacted. I’m not going to bother now, because clearly casualties have no influence on a situation with so much power is at stake.

What a dumbass I am.

Dear Mr Maslow: Kristen Stewart Broke Your Pyramid

And the award for the Most Evil Act Committed This Year goes to… wait, what? Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Dear Abraham (can I call you Abe?),

Since I last wrote to you, things have changed a lot and I’m not necessarily sure it’s for the better.

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Joe Paterno: The Memory Lives On Forever

Image: REUTERS/Pat Little.

Nike have decided to drop the name ‘Joe Paterno’ from a child care centre on their campus after it was confirmed by the FBI that he helped cover up Jerry Sandusky’s involvement in a child molestation scandal that has rocked America.

Sandusky was recently found guilty on 45 charges of child sex abuse that took place during his tenure as assistant football coach at Penn State . It is believed that Paterno, who was head coach at the time the offences were committed, was aware of the abuse but failed to report it to the authorities.

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Mount Everest: Money Talks, Everyone & Their Uncle Abner Can Walk

Queueing on the Lhotse face. Image: Ralf Dujmovits via theonlinephotographer.

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

The logical, scientific answer to the age old question is that something has to give, right? Nowhere is this truth more starkly and painfully played out than in the Himalayas, where the irresistible force is money and the immovable object is Mount Everest.

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The Pulitzer Prize: Sipping From The Poisoned Chalice

Image: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images.

No one is more aware of the power a single photograph can wield than Massoud Hossaini. His shot of a twelve year old girl screaming in the immediate aftermath of a Kabul suicide bombing was awarded a Pulitzer Prize yesterday, but while it’s obviously an honour, one wonders whether this particular award might be something of a poisoned chalice too.

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Tibet: The Burning Question

A still of a Tibetan protestor featured on a Students for a Free Tibet leaflet. Not shocking enough, apparently. Image via deccanchronicle.com.

Once the dust of the Twin Towers had settled over Manhattan, the photos of the missing pinned to fences had curled at the corners and the thrill of watching planes repeatedly crashing into buildings had given way to guilt, September 11th became an abstract arena for those of us not directly involved to explore the dark recesses of our minds.

What had it felt like to be in one of the buildings when a plane hit? To realise that the stairwells and elevators were out of service? To unconsciously move closer to windows as wisps of smoke drifted under doors and through ventilation shafts,  while all the time, the concrete and steel structure containing you shifts and moans from it’s fatal wounds?

How awful must it have been in there for jumping to be a better option?

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Houston? By God, Do We Have A Problem

Image: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.

Black-Scholes. Not as you might first think, a hideous pox that caused peoples faces to peel off in the 16th Century, or even a descriptor for the bruising suffered after a (rubbish) tackle from a notorious Manchester United midfielder, but according to mathematician Ian Stewart, one of the possible reasons for the global financial meltdown we are currently experiencing.

I’m not going to even attempt to explain what the damn thing means – Ian can do that – but upon reading his article on Sunday morning in a semi-conscious fugue, I found myself making parallels between that and the death of Whitney Houston.

I know. Saturday night was a hell of a night.

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‘The Artist’: Kind To The Culturally Cretinous?

Liverpool’s Odeon One. A little too quiet for some. Image: multibuild.

Cinema-goers in Liverpool have apparently demanded refunds from their local Odeon after failing to realise that ‘The Artist‘ is a silent film.

I can only assume that these are essentially the same people who enhance my viewing pleasure during movies by discussing their sex lives and chicken dinner plans in graphic detail on their phones.

Surely loud cinema dialogue is a distraction to diarising? You’d imagine they’d be grateful for the peace.

Implausible Deniability: Oh, Lighten Up, Love. It’s Just A Joke.

A selection of ‘lads mags’. Very empowering, apparently

I may be a totally unreliable servant to the feminist ideal, rarely available for campaigning purposes or placard waving due to prior drinking commitments, but I’ve always maintained a belief that equality can and should be achieved without emasculating men. Indeed, the two should be wholly separate, which is why I have no time for ‘girl power’, ‘ladette-ism‘ and women who insist their boob jobs are ‘for them’ and then pop them out all the time for pecuniary gain. All these things create images of women that a majority of men feel comfortable with, which kind of misses the point for me.

However, over the last week I have been forced to reconsider the viability of my views. Maybe empowerment cannot exist without emasculation?

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