Kerfuffle

A wearisome ancient practice requires the journalist to begin his description of any country or region by describing it as "a land of contradictions".

The charitable view sees this as the journalist's admission that he hasn't comprehended his subject. That he views the disparate facets he'll go on to describe as contradictions, comprehending too little about the country or region to harmonise them.

An uncharitable alternative might take it to show that the journalist holds his reader in such contempt as to suppose him to imagine the region as a monoculture of television caricatures.

Choose a country at random. Now go to Google and search for your country and "land of contradiction".

Among print publications, one finds lands of contradiction such as,

• China ("A land of contradictions", The Guardian, Xinran, March 12, 2004),
• Australia (The Land of the Kangaroo, Thomas Knox, 2008),
• Denmark ("Denmark: land of contradictions", Modern Power Systems, Benjamin Tait, May, 1999),
• Wales (Regional Development in the 1990s: The British Isles in Transition, Peter Townrow and Ron Martin (editors), 2002),
• Turkey ("Talking in Turkey: Dissent in a Land of Contradictions", New York Times, Stephen Kinzer, November 29, 1997),
• Germany (God's Smuggler, Brother Andrew, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill, 2001),
• Italy ("Delving into the Italian psyche", The Sunday Times, Michael Foley, June 25, 2006)
• Florida (Road Biking Florida: A Guide to the Greatest Bike Rides in Florida, Rick Sapp, 2008),
• Myanmar ("Land of contradictions", The Asian Wall Street Journal, Barry Wain, 1999),
• Virginia (The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Paul Boyer et al, 2009),
• Poland ("A Land of Contradictions", San Francisco Chronicle, Les Adler, February 22, 1987),
• Ancient Greece (The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece, Robert Morkot, 1997),
• the West Bank ("Growth in the Palestinian Land of Contradictions", Palestine Monitor, Jonathan Cook, September 1, 2008),
• South Korea (Frommer's South Korea, Celica Hae-Jin Lee, 2008),
• Bolivia ("In the land of contradiction", The Telegram, Martin Lobigs, January 16, 2008),
• the Dungeons and Dragons country of "Vilhon Reach", (Player's Guide to Faerun, Richard Baker, 2004),
• Egypt (Spectacular Egypt, Mohamed El-Dakhakhny (editor), 2002),
• Lebanon ("Dispatches from the Rubble", New York Times, Stewart Kellerman, July 17, 1998),
• Sicily (Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons: Travels in Sicily on a Vespa, Matthew Fort, 2009),
• Morocco (Surfing Europe, Chris Nelson, Demi Taylor, 2008),
• Pakistan ("Land of contradictions", The News International, Ahmad Rafay Alam, December 22, 2009),
• Ireland (On Celtic Tides: One Man's Journey Around Ireland by Sea Kayak, Chris Duff, 200),
• the Balkans (Imagining the Balkans, Maria Todorova, 2009)
• and Japan ("A land of contradictions; less-visited islands of Japan undrape mix of traditional, modern ways", The Washington Times, Mary Calvert, February 25, 2006).

From online magazines and blogs one can add,

• South Central Idaho ("South Central Idaho", Go Northwest, December 3, 2009),
• Cuba ("IT in the Land of Salsa, Rum & Fidel", Revista Inter Forum, Timothy Ashby, July 29, 2001),
• Alaska ("Alaska: Land of Contradictions", Miller-McCone Online Magazine, Lee Drutman, October 2, 2008),
• Venezuela ("Contradictions and Division on Election Eve", Michael Fox, Global Exchange, December 3, 2006),
• Luxembourg ("Luxembourg, Land of Contradiction", Epions.com, lordlucan, November 12, 2001),
• Laos ("Two Victims of the Vietnam War - Laos: Land of Contradictions", World and I)
• Israel ("Israel at 60 - a land of contradictions", World Blog, Martin Fletcher, May 7, 2008)
• Iceland ("Iceland, Land of Contradiction", Weblog, May 18, 2008),
• India ("India, A Land of Contradictions", Weblog, Gireesh George (thrust), February 21, 2007)
• and Thailand ("The Land of Contradictions: Dispatches from Thailand", EdgeWise Magazine Travel Blog)

A parallel practice requires the biographer or eulogist to admit his incomprehension through the phrase "a man of contradictions". One finds men of contradiction such as,

• Joseph Stalin (Stalin: man of contradiction, Kenneth Cameron, 1987),
• James Dean ("James Dean, a man of contradictions", The Age, September 30, 2005),
• John Calvin ("Man of Contradictions, Shaper of Modernity", New York Times, Peter Steinfels, July 3, 2009),
• pirate "Black Bart" Roberts ('Pirate Encyclopedia: John Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts', Age of Pirates, 2006),
• rampage killer Nidal Hasan ("Fort Hood shooting suspect: a man of contradictions", The Christian Science Monitor, Peter Grier, November 6, 2009),
• Charles Darwin ("Man of Contradictions", Heartland, Homily for Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time),
• Buffalo Bill (The American Patriot's Almanac, William Bennet, John Cribb, 2008),
• Pancho Villa (Pancho Villa: Strong Man of the Revolution, Larry Harris, 1996),
• counterfeiter Waterman Ormsby (A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States, Stephen Mihm, 2009),
• fashion designer Nicola Finetti ("Nicola Finetti: Man of Contradictions", Oyster Magazine),
• comic book superhero Wolverine (Wolverine Saga: Book One: Beginnings, Peter Sanderson et al),
• Pope Benedict ("Deciphering Benedict: Catholics puzzle over a man of contradictions", Newsday, Rolando Pujoi, April 15, 2008),
• suspected terrorist Dean Headley ("Terrorism suspect had roots in two cultures", New York Times, November 22, 2009),
• Cornish historian Alfred Rowse (A Man of Contradictions, Richard Ollard, 2001),
• Calvin Klein (The House of Klein: Fashion, Controversy, and a Business Obsession, Lisa Marsh, 2003)
• and Martin Luther ("Man of Contradictions", Christianity Today, Cindy Crosby, May 1, 2004).

Tim

Tim reminds you of The Humungus from Mad Max 2. Of a barbarian born in the last days who hurtles through life in a dune buggy wearing a mixture of bondage gear and sports padding. Of a man who has hooked a public address system up to his dune buggy so he can proclaim himself to the people of the refinery.

He doesn't bend. Either you enjoy his company or you don't; he didn't come here to accommodate you.

At a party, you'll find Tim flirting with a woman on the couch. His T-shirt will have ridden up over his potbelly, but he will not pull it back down. He sits there, in a room of some thirty people, flirting, with a T-shirt rolled up above his potbelly. One cannot help but find this inspiring. He does not care.

Castes

This shows the trails of some globules of colour. Several bodies eject them as they move. Each of these bodies belongs to one of four castes according to the colour of the globules it ejects.

• caste 1 - bodies that eject white globules
• caste 2 - bodies that eject blue globules
• caste 3 - bodies that eject tawny globules
• caste 4 - bodies that ejects greenish globules

Each caste, in turn, belongs to one of two pairs:

• pair 1 - castes 1 and 4 or
• pair 2 - castes 2 and 3.

Each body and each globule targets a particular caste. Bodies target the other member of the pair to which their own caste belongs. Globules target the other member of the pair to which the caste of the body that ejected them belongs. As it moves, each body or globule accelerates with a constant magnitude of acceleration towards the closest body belonging to the caste it targets. Each globule fades as it moves.

http://www.sevenextraeyes.org/andy-social/castes.jpg

Short Story: Free range

A child phones me. She wants to know if she can come in today to visit somebody called 'Rose'.

"Who?" I say.

"Rose," she says.

I start to say that we haven't got anybody here with that name, but it dies in my throat. Something warns me to stop and think.

"Oh," I say, "Do you mean Rose the chicken?"

"Yes!" she says, "Rose my chicken."

I should've seen this coming.

"The chickens roost in the mornings," I say, "but you can come in at three o'clock."

"Can I bring her a biscuit?" she asks.

"Yes," I say, "she likes ginger nuts the best."

I find my partner in the egg room.

"Somebody wants to see their chicken," I say.

"Christ," he says, "why?"

"I said they could come at three o'clock, so we better go buy a chicken."

Our business turned on a mixture of sentimentality and guilt. For twenty bucks a month, we let you adopt a chicken and name it. Each fortnight a bicycle courier would deliver a dozen eggs to your door, laid by your own chicken. On top you found a photograph of your bird, with the name you'd given it, frolicking in the idyllic barnyard you understood to exist just a few kilometres from your home.

Children got a pet they never needed to take care of. Aspiring gourmets got to pretend the eggs tasted better. And guilt-riddled suburbanites everywhere loved our claim of near carbon neutrality.

We bought the eggs for ninety cents a dozen from a battery farm in Blackburn that reminded you of Auschwitz.

Two months in, we had more than two-thousand customers. A café in Mentone adopted twenty chickens, named them all after rugby players and put their pictures up on the wall. No way would I let it fall apart just because some little girl wanted to visit her chicken.

We find a docile-looking chicken at Pets Barn in Cheltenham.

At three o'clock, the child comes with her father. She whoops with joy when she sees the chicken. 'Rose' even lets her pick it up.

Three days later, another child wants to visit its chicken, so we use Rose again. Soon we have some child or some family coming every day. Then it becomes five a day.

Rose gets jittery from having children handle her all the time. She starts pecking at them and twitching. Her feathers start falling out. After she bites a kid's ear we begin feeding her valiums before each visit. They stop her biting, but one of her legs falls asleep and her featherless neck starts to droop sideways.

One day as Rose hops away from a kid, dragging the tranquilised leg behind herself, the parent decides to phone Animal Welfare. When Animal Welfare find just one chicken they phone the Fraud Squad. Before we know it, they've got us in court on fraud charges.

Now let me tell you something about courtrooms: whatever your attorney says, bling always impresses the jurors.

Our trial lasts for less than three hours. In the end, the same sentimentality that drove the business kills us in front of the jury when it comes out that we've eaten Rose. Our free-range days have finished.

Huff

A friend of mine born male started living as a woman around 2001. She retained her surname, but changed one of her given names to 'Ariel'. When she told me, I asked,

"Oh, like Ariel Sharon?"

"No!" she snapped, "Like Ariel the Little Mermaid!"

She seemed furious. I'd committed a faux pas. But since I didn't understand its nature, I didn't know how to apologise.

I later came to understand that Australia's transgender community regards Disney's The Little Mermaid as an icon of personal transformation. That seems reasonable enough, but it still doesn't strike me as the sort of thing that I should have to know to avoid making social errors.

Oakleigh bus stop

This shows one of the inhuman bus stops that I mentioned last month:

http://www.sevenextraeyes.org/andy-social/busstop.jpg