[Insert "ironic" use of offensive term to illustrate edgy-ness]

A tad behind the times on this, but there’s been so much idiocy going about these days one has had trouble keeping up – not to mention that The Christmas is fast approaching.

First things first:  Long story short, Paul Henry added to his incredibly long list of infractions against basic tact/class/decency/empathy by referring to Susan Boyle as “retarded”.

Second thing second:  The bloggers at The Hand Mirror have a post up with some ideas about how to actually do something more than ignore Paul Henry in the vain hope he’ll go away.

Third thing third:  I could go on (and on and on and on) about Paul Henry, but that gets a little dull after a while, and why bother when there’s a much higher calibre of stupidity on the menu?

I speak of an instalment of Moata’s Blog Idle on *shudder* Stuff.

Specifically, a post entitled (because she’s so clever!) Let’s get retarded.

I’m sure we’re all breathless with antici…pation to see where she’s going to go with this one, right?

Well, she’s straight into it with an innovative twist on the old “I’m not racist but …”:

Let me just start by stating quite clearly that I am no great fan, or any sized fan, of Paul Henry.

It’s not just that you can see the apologism bearing down on you from miles away, it’s that there’s also something of an attempt to invoke QoT’s Law Of Strange Bedfellows:  why, if adorable “thirtysomething”* quirky girl-blogger Moata is actually going to agree with crotchety wankstain Paul Henry, surely there must be something in it, right?

And after some meandering through the classic Stuff blogger’s “what I ate for breakfast today” opening paragraphs we’re into the meat of it, the delicious steak of oblivious privilege upon which all future paragraphs will be but an array of experience-enhancing sauces:

But let’s have a little discussion about the use of the word “retard”, shall we, since it seems to be very much a topic of conversation at the moment?  In the past I’ve been taken to task for my use of this word, and I’ve accepted that it’s not to everyone’s liking but I am relatively unapologetic about it.  I’m very much a fan of words and I’m not going to facetiously claim that a word is just a word and it can’t hurt you.  Certainly words do have power, but sometimes only as much power as you are willing to give them.

Talking to readers like they’re schoolchildren and having to type out this post is a chore? Check.

Martyr complex because ZOMG someone has previously expressed displeasure at your use of offensive words? Check.

Brash declaration of refusal to give in to The Soldiers of Political Correctness, buttressed with sanctimonious I LOVE LANGUAGE bullshit? Check.

Statement about not downplaying something’s offensiveness immediately succeeded by downplaying its offensiveness? Check.

Smug implication that it’s actually your fault for feeling offended, you hypersensitive snowflake? Check.

With AMAZING BONUS “oh but I said sometimes I didn’t mean you” weasel-clause? Ladies, gentlemen, small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, we have a winner!

This is a princely piece of work, this.  The word “retarded”, you see, is simply not to everyone’s liking. It’s a matter of personal taste, an aesthetic choice, much like those stimulating “whence” vs. “from whence” debates one might have over a cup of wanker tea.  Nothing serious.

Nothing, for example, like a word with strong negative connotations used as a blanket term for both all mental illness and a lack of intellect, forethought, reason, or rational capabilities.

Nothing that could possibly give any kind of message, like “mentally ill people are all stupid”, certainly nothing that could be used to dehumanize an entire group of people, nothing that could be a part of common usage as a putdown because we view people with mental illness as being lesser beings,  because we [being of course the neurotypical majority who get to decide these things] consider it a bad, awful, horrible thing to be thought of as a retard.

If you’re having a hard time drawing the comparison, consider “throwing like a girl”, which I’ll come back to in a moment – because first, Moata has to let us know just how unwilling she is to acknowledge reality.

My take on the use of the word “retarded” is that it falls into two distinct categories.  You can use it derogatively or jocularly to refer to someone or something that is judged to be stupid or behave stupidly.  For instance, “trying to flirt with a woman by telling her you’re going to kidnap her (I overheard a guy yell this at an attractive female as she walked past a couple of weeks ago) is retarded”.  This is probably the way that the word is used by most people, most of the time (though not on television).

The second use of the term is to refer to someone who has some kind of deficiency of intellect that can accurately be described as a kind of mental retardation.  As best as I can tell this is the origin of the word “retard” which has since acquired a broader usage by being applied to things (or people) who are not, in fact, mentally deficient.

Like an episode of The Simpsons, we’re working on multiple levels here.  So, the first “distinct category” – retarded = stupid (oh but remember, it can be used jocularly!).

The second, retarded = mentally deficient.

First, the junior circuit stupid.  Moata apparently wants us to believe that when people call someone retarded, we just mean “stupid”.  Nothing more.  It’s just a synonym, with no implications or assumptions. No one, hearing a person say “That guy is retarded” (jocularly!), could possibly understand it to mean “that person is mentally deficient the way a generic person with mental illness (but let’s face it, probably someone with visible illness/condition/disability, and let’s face it further, almost certainly down’s syndrome) is mentally deficient”.

No no no, they hear “that guy is retarded” and it magically has no associations with the second “distinct category” at all. Fuck me, I think Moata’s a psychic and hasn’t figured out the rest of us aren’t.

Senior stupid:  if we look very closely in the thick undergrowth of the bloggy rainforest, we may be able to make out some fan-fucking-tastic normative language.

some kind of deficiency of intellect

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?  The way Moata, and a lot of her readers, and certainly all the other people who hit on this particular defence of the word, make nice big bold statements about how there’s obviously a normal level of intellect, and some people just don’t have it, and so they’re deficient.  Not like us normal people who have normal intellects.

And it’s obviously totes cool to refer to these deficient people as retards, because they’re backwards.  You know, like referring to indigenous peoples as primitive or barbaric because they haven’t discovered the joys of urban disease and nuclear warfare.  I mean, it’s a thoroughly objective thing to do, because we’re normal.  Right?  I mean, we must be, because everyone knows that not being normal would be a terrible thing.

But don’t let me get carried away.  Moata continues to impress by finding new and astounding ways to make my jaw drop:

So the irony with regards to the current Paul Henry debacle (there’ll be another one next week) is that he’s got himself into trouble for using the word, not in the derogatory way that it is often used by people like me, but by actually applying it to someone who apparently is a little retarded.

Now, the fact that “Paul smooth-as-a-gravy-sandwich Henry” took a gleeful delight in reading about Susan Boyle’s misfortune in life is an entirely different issue.  He could have used any word to describe her mental condition; what’s really upsetting is the silly, schoolboy laughter that accompanied it.

(emphasis hers)

I mean, shit on a brick.  The irony is that Paul Henry was actually calling a person retarded who IS retarded!  Isn’t life funny that way?  I mean, obviously he went too far with the laughing, the implication in his laughter that being retarded is a bad thing.  Because we all know that it can just be an accurate term for someone who’s mentally deficient.  Right?

And Susan Boyle obviously is retarded, I mean, Moata’s a physician psychic so she knows, it’s not like she, just like Paul Henry, is making assumptions about people based on their appearances or lives or attitudes or anything.

It’s certainly not like she, like Paul Henry, like many other people, feel quite comfortable saying “this woman looks a bit dim and is single and old and sings songs from Les Mis so she must have been brain damaged because no normal person could be dim/single/old/a Les Mis fan”.  It’s not like the continuing casual use of the word retard in any way supports these assumptions.  That would be wrong.

It’s par for the course that, naturally, Moata doesn’t really take these ideas any further.  That would involve her having ideas.  Instead, it’s back to the Stuff blogger’s grab-bag of tricks and making it all about her:

Personally, I’m going to continue to call myself or my nearest and dearest “retarded” when I or they do something stupid.  I’m going to continue to prefer the original version of the Black Eyed Peas song otherwise sanitised-for-our-safety as “Let’s get it started”.  I’m going to continue to think Paul Henry’s a dick, because he kind of is one. What I’m not going to do is taunt someone with an intellectual handicap with the word “retard” or laugh at their misfortune because the thing that I am most grateful for in life is my good mind.

LOOK OUT, WORLD!  We’re dealing with a FREE SPIRIT here who will NOT BE DENIED her right to be a fucking insensitive douchebag of the highest order.

Christ, Moata. Just tattoo “I don’t know anybody with visible disability and I lack the capacity for basic empathy unless something personally affects me” on your forehead while you’re at it.  They can take your original-edit Black Eyed Peas from your cold, dead hands, right?  Because the word “retarded” is just so essential to the subtext of that song, it loses its meaning without it.

And oh good Lords and Ladies, that last sentence.  Let’s see it again for the audience at home:

What I’m not going to do is taunt someone with an intellectual handicap with the word “retard” or laugh at their misfortune because the thing that I am most grateful for in life is my good mind.

So apparently, even though “retarded” is a totally appropriate word to use (jocularly!) to describe people who are “mentally deficient”, Moata … has reservations about using it to a person’s mentally-deficient face.  I guess that’s back to not to everyone’s liking, or maybe it’s just taunting people with it.  Context, tone, these things are all so important when you’re not just taking half a fucking neuron to not be an offensive wanker.

And remember, kiddies, Moata’s most important message: even though there are no bad connotations to a neurotypical person being called a “retard”, because it’s fucking jocular, we should still be mindful of the MISFORTUNES of people with intellectual disabilities.  THOSE POOR FUCKING SOULS, DON’T WE JUST WEEP FOR THEM, THEY’RE LIKE PINOCCHIO ONLY RETARDS INSTEAD OF PUPPETS.  Fucking misfortune, Moata?  You’re going to play the “words only have the power you give them” AND the “it’s technically accurate” cards and then you are going to fucking pity people who have mental disabilities or illness.

Good thing you’ve got a “good mind”, Moata.  That should make up for your complete lack of basic fucking soul.

–

*Personal gripe: OWN YOUR FUCKING AGE, WOMAN.

Minor breakouts of major gripes

I’d long ago realised that part of the reason I post cussy rants about things that seem like just small issues, not a huge deal, isn’t there something more important to worry about – is because those “small issues” just tap into much bigger problems.

Today, two such small issues reared their annoying heads.

The continuing saga of Oh Noes The Brown Man Said A Mean Word broke out on Red Alert, with Hon Trevor insert-duck-to-water-metaphor-here Mallard chipping in to the debate:

If a Pakeha used the term brown mofos it would be racist.  That standard should apply both ways.

Which actually hits several big Pisses Me Right The Fuck Off buttons.  But to summarise:  using the argument of “the same standard” is so close to “one law for all” they couldn’t legally marry in all 50 states of the US.  It’s “special rights”, it’s “level playing field”, and it’s bullshit.

There isn’t a fucking level playing field when one group of people has been historically shat on by another from orbit.  There isn’t a tabula rasa of race relations where such lovely “can’t we all just be equals and ignore skin colour and historical disenfranchisement and oh we tried to destroy your language and culture” ideas can be writ large.

There is a basic reason why a person of Maori descent can refer to “white motherfuckers stealing our land” which does not hold true for a person of European descent saying “brown motherfuckers stealing our car”.  That reason is privilege.  Learn you some.

Second small issue:  in the continuing if-they-wrote-this-for-TV-no-one-would-believe-it tale of Doug Schmuck and some possibly-dodgy legislative drafting, one quote nicely put its thumb directly on my White Middle Class Bastards Who Just Love Law And Order Until It Applies To Them button.

The 15-year fight for the Opua boat ramp had taken “a hell of a lot of time” and cost Mr Schmuck close to $200,000. “A few objectors can run the costs up so high that it makes things like the Resource Management Act untenable,” he said.

Ah, yes.  You can always spot a WMCBWJLL&OUIATT, by the way they seem completely oblivious of the fact that the law still counts even when it might stop them from doing something they want to do.

The classic example is provided every time there’s a Police crackdown on speeding, possibly by, oh the horrors, using hidden speed cameras.  Now, you might think “well if people don’t want to get speeding tickets they could try not speeding”, but such thoughts do not pass through the brains of White Middle-Class Bastards. No no no, this is just a revenue gathering exercise.

It’s not like their own speeding could cause accidents or cost people their lives or anything.  We all know that speed only kills when it’s those bloody Asian homestay students whose rich daddies send them thirty grand a month to buy Ferraris and meth with, obviously.  The laws of physics are very specific on this.

The other classic, of course, is the killing of Pihema Cameron – where the Your Sensible Is Not Like Our Earth Sensible Sentencing Trust decided that actually, that whole “tough punishment for violent crims is the way to save society” line didn’t so much count when the stabber was a rich white guy and the victim was [insert stereotype about Maori teenage boys here].

And so we have (oh Gods it makes me giggle every time) Doug Schmuck.  Who has been nearly bankrupted, dear readers, by busybodies and that bane of the WMCB, the Resource Management Act.  All because he built a private fucking boat ramp on a fucking public reserve.

It’s almost like some people expect Good Hardworking [White Male] Businessmen to obey the law or something.  Don’t they understand the law is for the little people?

NZ has unresolved race issues! OMG WHO KNEW?

Soooooooooo Hone Harawira.  Here’s a Stuff link which vaguely outlines the situation for any non-Kiwi readers, as I can’t imagine there’s a New Zealander with access to the Internet who hasn’t heard about this.

First recommendation: rocky’s two excellent posts at The Standard on the wider foreshore/seabed issue, and ta, rocky, for the link to NZ History Online’s map showing Maori land loss to the present day.  That was a nice sobering hit for a Wednesday evening.

First thought: gee, I wonder if that’s the kind of thing a person, whose ethnic group remains at the bottom of the socio-economic heap, and whose language is apparently so terrifying to the ear that non-Maori will just die if they’re forced to find the mute button hear it, might just be a little pissed off about?  (And see Zetetic’s comment below – of course not!  Nothing to be angry about here!  Just a little diversion from that thing Harawira was totally unapologetic about!)

Second recommendation: the sprout’s post, also at The Standard, on why no, Harawira didn’t actually advocate violence and why yes, this is all just a bunch of privileged white wankers* summoning the spectre of Scary Brown People Who Will Climb In The Windows Of Other New Zealanders At Night**.

Third recommendation: Play bingo with any discussion of this story against the classic Wite-Magik Attax.  It may help, but probably not.

And now, my own little bugbear.

Is truth beauty? Is beauty truth? Does knowing a person’s income tell you a damned thing about them?

There are a lot of different issues bubbling to the surface around Paula Bennett’s decision to crap all over people who point out she’s crapping all over them.

First, and briefly: I do not have time or patience for the argument that Ms Bennett is just so sorry that the two women involved are being castigated up and down the country.  You knew what you were doing, ma’am.  Just like when Farrar posts stories about sickness beneficiaries getting arrested and just happens to include the most unflattering photo.  Oh no no, you both protest, this is about the issues.  How could we possibly have known that there were vicious, small-minded people ready to jump at the first dogwhistle?

Your party ran the “Iwi/Kiwi” billboards.  Shut the fuck up.

Second, the issues I’m not going to talk about:

Implied consent. Kiwipolitico and  The Standard now have an explicit policy on consent by commenters.
Teacher teacher Labour hit me first. Zetetic provides a nice analogy.
How much did Paula Bennett get? Julie explains why this isn’t the issue – hell, on some level, obnoxious and narrow-minded as she is, kudos to Bennett for taking what help she could get and improving her life.  Just wish she wouldn’t turn around (as many, many politicians have before her – tertiary fees, anyone?) and deny others the same help.
Gee I wish I got paid for sitting on my ass raising children on my own. Undomestic Goddess at THM has a few choice words:  do the job.
Well I work hard and I don’t get as much as these business-breeders.  Stargazer points out why you’re probably kinda totally wrong on that one.

Now, stargazer is also totally correct in that post – the amount these women getting? Not the issue. Scrapping the Training Incentive Allowance – limiting it, in fact, only to high-school-level courses (geez, what an amazing foundation for finding a career!  No, this postgrad who did an extra year at uni and still can’t bloody find a job in her chosen field ain’t at all bitter)** is the bloody issue.

4,500 people who were getting an allowance to train in a field (very often those totally-flush-with-job-applicants ones like nursing and ECE), who were working to get off the fucking benefit they are so despised for taking, are getting screwed by this Government.

However, it isn’t what I’m posting about, because something else has really been bugging me.

Well SOMEBODY’S being provoking …

And no, I don’t think it’s Clayton Weatherston’s parents – it’s the anonymous NZPA staffers* who haven’t got the fairly loud “provocation defence NOT COOL, people” message resounding across the country recently.

Let’s play a wee game of spot-the-disparity, shall we?

Headline:

Weatherston was ‘provoked – parents’

Intro:

Convicted murderer Clayton Weatherston should spend the rest of his days behind bars, say his victim’s family, but his parents maintain he was provoked into killing his ex-girlfriend.

Actual quote from Weatherston’s parents?

Mr and Mrs Weatherston acknowledged their son was unpopular but believed he was provoked by Miss Elliott.

“The use of provocation as a defence is a legitimate legal thing to do,” Mr Weatherston said.

“I think provocation was the only thing left to defend him with.”

Hmm. Seems like someone’s sure interested in towing that “Sophie Elliot was horrible catty nagger, sometimes men can’t help it because teh wimminz are MEANIES” line, but it doesn’t appear to be Mr and Mrs Weatherston.

(The line between “use of provocation as defence is legitimate” and “use of provocation as excuse to smear murdered woman and her family” being a rather different matter, of course.)

*Totally off-topic – notice how the people who are always whinging that bloggers are “anonymous” don’t seem to have the same objections to literally anonymous press reports?

We CAN has investigative journalism …

… we just need a pseudonymous part-time blogger to do it.

Skullduggery! It seems that at 2.31pm yesterday, just as the Herald “learned” about Mr Burgess’s burgeoning capitalist empire, David Eames or whoever the malevolent force behind APN is (in my mind’s eye he looks like Dick Dastardly) edited the article to make it very clear that this was not the Herald’s story after all. Hmm. What was the name of that other journalist who quietly changed the past to avoid embarrassment? That’s right: Stalin.

Tip of the hat and a proferring of the poncy crystal decanter to Editing the Herald, our last, best hope for making even portions of the Granny Herald readable.

A referendum I can believe in

Just too funny – and too true – not to post.

Drive-by posting

Because I am sleepy, and this one is for the Aussies out there:

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Men at Work’s Down Under ‘ripped off’ Kookaburra

Now, as unlikely as it seems, the classic children’s ditty Kookaburra and the Men At Work hit Down Under are set to go head-to-head in court amid accusations part of the rock anthem is a rip off.

Apparently this was first posited in 2007. 2000-fucking-SEVEN. Stop me if I’m jumping to conclusions, but I can’t help but think, given the cult-like status of Down Under and the so-common-even-KIWI-schoolkids-sing-it Kookaburra?* SOMEONE WOULD PROBABLY HAVE NOTICED EARLIER.

*It’s in an episode of Doctor Who, for fuck’s sake.

Newsbites

Two articles of vague interest to the Dr Worth story:

Honest John plays strong hand, or How I learned to stop worrying and love my lack of journalistic integrity, by Richard Long.  Two tiny wee points:

For Mr Goff, this saga was a publicity godsend. A real live sex scandal so early in the term.

There seems to be some serious mileage being made out of the idea that it is totally plausible that a politician honouring a person’s confidentiality and taking things to the PM privately is just a cunning tactic to make the PM look even worse.

Perhaps in these fragile economic times, tinfoil stocks are looking surprisingly healthy?

And seriously, Richard, like many other rightwing trolls, it appears you haven’t been informed that Helen Clark isn’t even in the country any more:

We can all recall occasions when Opposition leaders have had to demean themselves to make the news bulletins… Miss Clark, at the margin of error level in the opinion polls, once leaped from a river bank on to inflated rubber tubes and was pictured at impact, legs splayed. Thank goodness she was wearing a wetsuit.

It’s Ms, and it’s a bit rich for a journalist to be complaining about the media’s choice of photograph, and the total obliviousness to just how much it says about Richard Long’s attitude to women that he has to find a sexually-implying phrase to describe her position is at once staggering and hilarious.  Yes, Richard, we get it, if she hadn’t been wearing a wetsuit one might have seen her naughty bits and you’re a proper red-blooded man who shies from such things and anyway she’s ugly, amirite?

Actress in stalker crossbow attack horror:  *Callousness Alert* Tonight, Simon, I’m going to be playing every idiot troll commenter of the last week:

The man had been sending Casanovas love letters and confronted her after her performance in Night of the Iguana.

WHY DIDN’T SHE JUST TELL HIM TO STOP? GEEZ. HE OBVIOUSLY WOULDN’T HAVE KEPT SENDING HER LETTERS UNLESS HE HAD SOME ENCOURAGEMENT, GOD.

He attacked her after she told him she wanted nothing to do with him.

*crickets*

And no, obvious commenters, no I am not saying Richard Worth is a potentially violent stalker. And no, I’m not equating text messages with a physical attack.  And no, “normal harmless guy” and “violent stalker” are, tragically, not mutually-exclusive always-identifiable-in-advance only-options-available.  Not that you care, yes?

Honest John plays strong handHonest John

Oh, *now* we can use the r-word

In case there were lingering doubt in anyone’s mind about the deliberate downplaying of sexual assault that occurs in media reports that commonly use phrases like “began having a sexual relationship with the nine-year-old”, and in case anyone still thinks the “not legally proven to be rape” argument holds water:

Horrified onlookers see daylight sex attack

A woman was abducted from a New Plymouth street and raped in broad daylight yesterday as horrified members of the public looked on.*

The 48-year-old was walking along Breakwater Rd … when she was grabbed by a man who forced her on to a nearby grass area where he sexually violated her in full view of the busy road.

…[Police] were able to arrest the alleged offender, a 29-year-old Taranaki man, soon after.

Look at that! Accurate use of the word “rape” while maintaining legally-mandated presumption of innocence! Who’d'a thunk it?

Unless of course there’s some reason this counts as “real” rape in some mystical way all those other cases don’t.

*In the interests of not confusing the point I am not even going to start on the phrase “looked on”.