Sikamikanico Blogs

(This was posted on Reddit. It's not my work; it says "feel free to copy and paste", so I did for those who aren't on Reddit and/or might find this interesting. Enjoy, if enjoy is the right word.) “I made a comment recently where I claimed that Republican administrations had been much more criminally corrupt over the last 50 plus years than the Democrats. I was challenged (dared actually) to prove it. So I did a bit of research and when I say a bit I mean it didn’t take long and there is no comparison. When comparing criminal indictments of those serving in the executive branch of presidential administrations, it’s so lopsided as to be ridiculous. Yet all I ever hear about is how supposedly “corrupt” the Democrats are. So why don’t we break it down by president and the numbers? Obama (D) – 8 yrs in office. Zero criminal indictments, zero convictions and zero prison sentences. So the next time somebody describes the Obama administration as “scandal free” they aren’t sp

Sydney City Lord Mayor Clover Moore has announced that, if the marriage plebiscite is passed and same sex marriage is legalised, then to celebrate same sex couples wishing to marry in City of Sydney venues, such as parks, could do so free of charge, or at least without paying the usual venue hire. For the first 100 days. You wouldn't think anyone outside of the usual shower of homophobes could be against that, would you? A small gesture towards making up for centuries of abuse towards LGBTQ people? Oh, but they are.  Rather than bothering with screenshots, I'll let you read the howls of unfairness in their own words, almost all of them, I would wager, from people who don't live in the City of Sydney, aren't planning to get married soon, or both:   And in case you missed my reply. If straight couples want to get married they could do so right now anywhere they please without worrying if they'll even have the chance because right now 15 million people they don't

In the wake of revelations that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually abused and assaulted women for decades, women around the world have been bravely revealing their stories as part of the #MeToo campaign. Perhaps especially brave is 1992 Olympic champion gymnast, Tatiana Gutsu, who revealed that fellow Barcelona Olympic champion Vitaly Scherbo raped her 1991 , when they were in Germany to compete. She was fifteen years old at the time. "This is me being brave". Tears for all she has been through. There has been support for Ms Gutsu in the international gymnastics community. American Olympian Aly Raisman tweeted: I support you Tatiana, I am so sorry. I am devastated. Vitaly you disgust me. Those who looked the other way are just as guilty. https://t.co/goaqk3AwgV — Alexandra Raisman (@Aly_Raisman) October 17, 2017 But if you think victim blaming in Western culture is bad - and it is - the attitude towards rape in nations of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) is shocking. Th

Congratulations must go to Australia Post, for managing to get a small parcel from Sydney International Airport to my house 7km away in eight days. What was it doing all that time - admiring the city sights? Goggling at house prices? I can walk faster than that. In fact I thought a snail can probably cover the distance faster than that. So I had a look, and yep: the pace of a garden snail is 0.013 metres a second, which equates to 0.0468 km/hr. Over 8 days, that equates to 7.824km. The snail would even have 800 metres spare to grab a tumeric latte. So if I took a snail to the airport and set it loose...it would probably get lost or squashed, if I didn't get bored and wander off first. But if that snail stayed the course, it would make it from the airport to my house faster than Australia Post seems able to manage. Australia Post literally delivers mail slower than a snail's pace. 

"Triggered" used to be a useful word. It was never a good word. Nothing that painful can be good. But it was useful. It was a useful word to describe exposure to stimulus or reminders so painful that, for survivors of trauma and abuse, it can take them right back to the traumatic incident, back to the feelings of horror, terror, shock and grief they experienced - or suppressed - at the time. We needed that word. When I was first a member then an online counsellor at a forum for survivors of abuse, we used trigger warnings to warn other members that we were about to discuss painful and difficult things that may cause grief, guilt and flashbacks. Letting them know what was up ahead so they could avoid it if they needed to.  And we've had trigger warnings in the media for a long time. Television news bulletins warn viewers that stories up ahead contain disturbing images, content that may upset some viewers, so they can avoid injuries, child abuse, animal abuse. But now, bei

The "No" campaign in the same sex marriage plebiscite, knowing they've lost hearts and minds on the issue of marriage equality itself, are claiming that what's really at stake here are freedom of speech and religion. Their arguments regarding freedom of speech are spurious, as I discussed here ; but they make a rather more important point about freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is a losing battle in Australia. Except it's not them that's losing, it's the rest of us. Even as Australia belatedly catches up to the rest of the world on matters like same sex marriage, the influence of organised religion continues to grow and control every aspect of our lives. The poor old sausages at the Coalition for Marriage worry that if marriage equality becomes law, churches will lose their right to refuse to marry same sex couples. Which is hard to fathom, given that right now churches can refuse to marry anyone they want, for any reason at all. If you're not b

By Tony Shek , CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons With the revelations that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein carried on like a gross misogynist pig for decades, actors and others are lining up to condemn him. Some of them are even sincere. Here's Kate Winslet's statement to Variety  on the issue: “The fact that these women are starting to speak out about the gross misconduct of one of our most important and well regarded film producers, is incredibly brave and has been deeply shocking to hear. The way Harvey Weinstein has treated these vulnerable, talented young women is NOT the way women should ever EVER deem to be acceptable or commonplace in ANY workplace. “I have no doubt that for these women this time has been, and continues to be extremely traumatic. I fully embrace and salute their profound courage, and I unequivocally support this level of very necessary exposure of someone who has behaved in reprehensible and disgusting ways. His behaviour is without question disgracef

Following the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, and the fact that mass shootings are getting more frequent and deadlier, Planet America went to an expert for answers: Professor Adam Lankford, a criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama. Professor Lankford made the fascinating correlation between mass shootings and modern celebrity culture: in an age of instant celebrity and being famous for being famous, carrying out a gun massacre is a way to instant renown. Everybody will be talking about you; the saturation press coverage will assure you, in death, the attention you may have desperately craved in life. You can watch the full interview here: And whilst the Las Vegas killer, at 64 years old, may seem unlikely to be swept up by culture of instant (and unaccomplished) celebrity, of thinking if the Kardashians can be so famous why can't you, no one is immune from feelings of isolation - or entitlement. We know little of his motives at the moment, but the increase in

You could almost feel sorry for the Coalition for Marriage, the self described "movement to defend traditional marriage" in the ongoing (and going and going) debate over the same sex marriage plebiscite. They are so persistently, helplessly wrong that one could describe them as hapless, if they weren't, you know, evil. First, they proclaim they are the silent majority, when they are neither  silent  nor the majority . Then there's their logo, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the logo for bisexual pride:   Whoops. And in the face of overwhelming opposition to their cause, they're more than a tad muddle headed in their approach as well. Knowing that arguments that marriage is between a man and a woman aren't cutting it, they're focusing their efforts on two main areas: the Safe Schools program, and Freedom of Speech (and to a lesser extent religion, which they know Australians don't much care about). But your Free Speech is under attack, they warn.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wants us to know that Hugh Hefner, who died last week, was a pretty seedy creature, a "lecherous, low-brow Peter Pan" : [A] pornographer and chauvinist who got rich on masturbation, consumerism and the exploitation of women, aged into a leering grotesque in a captain's hat, and died a pack rat in a decaying manse where porn blared during his pathetic orgies. But the real problem with Hefner is with the society that took on the values Hefner espoused allowed him to become a cultural icon. We need to take a long hard look at ourselves: Now that death has taken him, we should examine our own sins. Liberals should ask why their crusade for freedom and equality found itself with such a captain, and what his legacy says about their cause. Conservatives should ask how their crusade for faith and family and community ended up so Hefnerian itself - with a conservative news network that seems to have been run on Playboy Mansion principles and