On Thursday evening, I went to see Avenue Q at Her Majesty’s Theatre. I enjoyed this experience immensely. Having heard all the music before (courtesy of it being my brother’s WoW soundtrack for a while) I already knew it was amusing, witty, and catchy. What I wasn’t counting on was it being side-splittingly funny and moving, and nor was I counting on being mesmerised by the puppets. By the end of it, I was barely looking at their handlers except for brief facial queues. After the break, the justification for my immense enjoyment of Avenue Q.
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Posted on February 1st, 2010 by Bosun McShiny
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Patriotism (n): devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.
Nationalism (n): excessive patriotism; chauvinism.
Chauvinism (n): zealous and aggressive patriotism or blind enthusiasm for military glory.
It’s that time of year again; the rednecks show up, get shitfaced, loudly proclaim their love of beer, the southern cross, and Sam Kekovich, and then declare that those who don’t share their views can get the f*** out of “their” country. The first three I can live with – I love beer, I don’t really care about the southern cross, and I find the way Sam Kekovich equates patriotism with eating Lamb™ to be hilarious (did you know that if you don’t eat lamb on Australia Day, Kekovich comes around and kicks you in the head?). What I want to know is this: when did patriotism, a love of one’s country, become nationalism? When did it become acceptable to tell people “F*** off, we’re full” and call it patriotic? When did we stop caring about our nation, and everyone in it, and start caring only about the people in our country who act, think, and look the way we think Australians should?
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Posted on January 25th, 2010 by Bosun McShiny
Filed under: Pontificating | 3 Comments »
My name is Emma, and I am a chronic bibliophile. I recently began cataloguing my personal library (after all, what else does one do with a barcode scanner and spare hard drive space?) and have discovered that there are an awful lot of books in this house. It was suggested by someone I was speaking with that maybe I should cull them; that I would be better served by freeing up the shelf space and borrowing books from the library instead. Read more…
Posted on January 25th, 2010 by Bosun McShiny
Filed under: Literature, Pontificating | No Comments »
Following on from my post “Interesting to the Public”, I’m writing today about another topic that has arisen from Rann-gate.
My question is this: Should we hold our leaders to a higher standard of behaviour than that of the general public?
It used to be that what was OK for Uncle Jimmy (shaving a bit off taxes here and there, whistling at the ladies, or getting a bit pissed at Christmas and singing a dirty version of the Twelve Days of Christmas) wasn’t OK for our public officials. We expected those who led us to be of better stuff than uncle Jimmy. Now, though, it seems to be the other way around: things that we wouldn’t accept as OK from our family or friends (sleeping with a married woman, for example) seems to be no more than a blip in the wider world of unsavoury behaviour from our politicians. Two things have stood out from my discussions with coworkers in the last few weeks.
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Posted on January 23rd, 2010 by Bosun McShiny
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EDIT: My family informed me on our holiday (quite forcefully in fact) that this post sounds like I’m saying Mike Rann did it. I am not, in fact, saying this. Really, I don’t think that he did it – the whole thing seems a bit strange (why has she come out with this now? And the chances of a premier having sex on his desk? Puh-lease). This post is, in fact, more concerned with the actions of the media in light of these accusations. I still stand by a secondary point to this article, which is that if it were true it would reflect poorly upon the Premier. I don’t think it is though, so instead it reflects poorly on Ms Chantelois. Further analysis of the “I don’t care so why should you” reaction in a later post.
Mike Rann, Premier of South Australia, has been accused by a married woman he knew through her work at Parliament House of using his position of power to pressure her into a sexual relationship (yeah, I know, it was a while ago: I’m a lazy blogger, so sue me). If true, these accusations are damning and do not cast our Premier’s decision-making capacity into a particularly favourable light.
Ranngate reportability as a Venn Diagram
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Posted on December 2nd, 2009 by Bosun McShiny
Filed under: Ethics, Journalism, Philosophising, Politics | 3 Comments »
There’s a very civilised and mild disagreement on The Punch this week. Tory Maguire (editor) and Kate Ellis (Labour member for Adelaide, and widely regarded as the hottest chick in politics) disagree over comments made by Karl Lagerfeld, German fashion designer.
This all started because a German fashion magazine decided that it would no longer user professional models on its pages over concerns that rake-thin models promoted an unhealthy body image. Hello, captain obvious! Lagerfeld’s reply was that “only fat mummies sitting with their packets of crisps in front of the television” care about the fact that unrealistic rake-thin models are on catwalks. Rowr.
Tory says that fashion is about fantasy, so he’s got a point. Kate says that the fantasy of fashion is what helps fuel a body image crisis and that Lagerfeld should pull his bloody head in.
I think I agree with both Tory and Kate, but not the incredible “I’ll have a side of salad with my foot” Karl Lagerfeld. Hear me out here.
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Posted on October 15th, 2009 by Bosun McShiny
Filed under: Fashion, Pontificating | 1 Comment »
PART 1: Piracy
Before I launch into a rundown on piracy and illegal file sharing, I will let you know right now that my expertise (if you consider an honours thesis to be an area of expertise) is in communication ethics, not law, so if I say things that make you lulz and say “Silly Bosun, why do you suggest this thing that is dumb” then please, by all means, enlighten us as to the legal shenanigans that I have missed out on.
This is my first post in a series about copyright from the perspective of an after-hours ethicist. For those of you who are lazy and don’t want to read the rest of this, my point is that our current copyright system isn’t up to scratch but it still doesn’t justify you, me, or Aunt Martha being a freeloading scab. Read on below the break for the longer and snarky version.
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Posted on September 28th, 2009 by Bosun McShiny
Filed under: Ethics, Philosophising | 2 Comments »
This is a very slight tidy up of the original article on my first blog, “Antique Song” from the 19th of February, 2009. If you want to read the original, go ahead – it’s not going anywhere. It’s the first of a series of posts I intend on writing around the idea of responsibility on the internet. When you do something stupid on the internet, who is held responsible? Who should be held responsible? Whose jurisdiction is it? It’s only fair to warn you that these are long articles: my educational background is as a Philosophy Honours student and with a second major in English, so I tend to develop my arguments (or, as I was accused of in my honours classes, “waffle on a bit”). They’re still shorter than the papers I wrote for Uni. The article is after the break.
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Posted on February 26th, 2009 by Bosun McShiny
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My name is Emma. I have a first class honours degree in Philosophy (although you wouldn’t think it, given my usual standard of argument). I have a second major in English and scream at misplaced apostrophes (but I love lolcats). I have classical voice lessons (but listen to The Who, Deep Purple, and Doris Day). I have performed in amateur theatrics (although in the last one I was nearly a cross-dressing prince). I am married to an engineer (who runs our washing machine off a garden tap), I am a home-owner (although I only get excited about IKEA, rather than House & Garden), and I have a dog (who is neurotic). I sew and crochet (and my last crochet project involved big red star buttons on wrist-warmers).
On paper, I’m a married, mortgage-and-a-dog philosophy and English literature graduate who is crafty, articulate, and artistic. Actual results, as you might have noticed, may vary.
This blog is in the nature of an experiment. My last blog, Antique Song, started as something to do when I was bored and became, well, something to do when I was bored. I’m hoping that this one has a little more purpose than that. I have a brain, and I’ve decided it’s damn well time to use it. This blog is, I hope, going to be a showcase of what I can do.
Wish me luck?
Posted on February 26th, 2009 by Bosun McShiny
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