Jim Andrews
Since the beginning
Works in Victoria Canada

ARTBASE (2)
BIO
Jim Andrews does http://vispo.com . He is a poet-programmer and audio guy. His work explores the new media possibilities of poetry, and seeks to synthesize the poetical with other arts and media.
Discussions (847) Opportunities (2) Events (14) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

from nyrb


Torture and Truth
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17150

Bush and the Lesser Evil
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17111
Reviewed:
The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror
by Michael Ignatieff

DISCUSSION

for people who use Director


Here's a tool for Director developers I wrote that some might find of use:
Windows for Shockwave at http://vispo.com/wfs4

I've just released version 4.8.

It's used by artists and others who develop stuff that needs a Director
version of the Flash Movie Clip idea, among other uses. In other words it
provides a way of aggragating sprites into a coordinated larger entity
(called a multi-sprite). Windows and menus are examples of such coordinated
entities. It also provides tools for creating/destroying sprites and
multi-sprites at run-time.

Developing it has taught me a lot about building larger software systems and
tools that people can use easily. It is also towards being able to build
apps for the Web that run through a browser and are as interesting as exe's
that you install on your system.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: hockey & torture


> "whether a human being is a first-year [hockey]
> junior player or a prisoner of war, there is little difference"
>
> This is so absurd. I have to imagine that hazing in a junior
> hockey camp while perhaps brutal and unpleasant is NOTHING
> like the horror endured by prisoners of war... an exisitence
> lived moment by moment as the possibility of death is real
> and always present.
>
> Given the choice, I'd pick a Canadian hockey camp over Abu Gharib
> anyday!!!
>
> Matthew

I think the point, Matthew, is that the 'initiations' in the military are
very similar to those in the hockey camps, what the soldiers do to each
other is similar to what the hockey players do to one another. And it is
sick and violent. And it breeds sickness and violence toward others. The
problem is not 'a few bad apples'; the problem is the deviant nature of the
subculture...'the energy of slaves'.

ja

DISCUSSION

hockey & torture


Thought I would forward the below, which appeared recently in the Globe and
Mail from Canada. It points out that any subculture which operates by
indoctrination via humiliation and abuse of 'its own' will of course operate
that way on others. It is more or less directed at a Canadian audience to
point out that the sort of behavior of American soldiers toward Iraqis is
not particular to the American army but operates in Canada in the
semi-professional 'junior' leagues of hockey that lead to the NHL. And so it
does. And has for a long time.

ja

Hockey hazing, Iraqi style

By LAURA ROBINSON

Laura Robinson, former national-level skier and cyclist, is author of
Crossing the Line: Violence and Sexual Assault in Canada's National Sport
(1998) and, most recently, Black Tights: Women, Sport and Sexuality.

There is nothing surprising about the charges of prisoner abuse by
American soldiers in Iraq given the hyper-masculine culture of the U.S.
military.

In fact, abuse is predictable in any group that defines masculinity
through power, strength and aggression. That female soldiers took part is
also predictable. To prove they are "one of the boys" in this subculture,
women must push the envelope of disgust further than the men would.

The brutal sadomasochistic acts themselves are hardly original. They are
strongly reminiscent of the initiation rites some soldiers themselves
report taking place at the start of their military service.

The truth is, they also bear a striking resemblance to what junior and NHL
hockey players have told me formed part of their own initiations in
playing hockey in this country.

The photo released this week of stripped prisoners who had been forced to
pile on top of one another as if they were having oral sex shocked most
people.

But it reminded me of the dozens of junior hockey players who told me
about something they all called the sweatbox. This is the tiny washroom at
the back of the bus in which the teams travel. On many teams, it was
required for all rookies, at one time or another, to be stripped and
forced into the sweatbox, only to be taken out one at a time for more
abuse.

One player, who went on to play in the NHL, told me rookies sometimes had
to walk down the aisle of the bus naked, with their hands behind their
heads, while senior players could use any object they wanted -- cassette
cases, coat hangers, whatever -- to beat their genitals.

He said he was a pretty quiet guy, and wasn't beaten badly, but one
player, who was considered rather mouthy, was beaten until he bled. All
the while, the coach sat at the front of the bus and laughed. That coach
is now in the NHL.

Reading of Iraqi prisoners being sodomized with a chemical light stick or
a broomstick reminded me of the countless numbers of junior players who
told me about the favourite instruments in hockey for sodomizing: a tube
of liniment or a hockey stick.

The similarity between military hazing and hockey initiation became clear
to me when I was researching Crossing the Line. It continues to be
supported by further testimony.

At a recent conference on sport, three men described the abuse they had
encountered in the U.S. military. Another disclosed the abuse he suffered
in junior hockey.

There was little difference.

The former hockey player added that his son, who played on a U.S. hockey
scholarship, dealt with the risk of being abused by taking steroids to
become one of the biggest and, he hoped, most feared players on his team.

For me, junior or NHL hockey teams and military units long ago became
interchangeable. The behaviour both exhibit is the logical progression of
an ideology that equates real men with violence. If women want to be real
men, they have to do it, too, and the violence will ultimately turn sexual
because of the gendered nature of defining power through masculinity in
the first place.

No one likes to talk about the brutal hazing that young soldiers endure,
nor about the macho attitudes that gave rise to the abuse of Iraqi
prisoners. Certainly, few people have bothered to investigate the
connection.

Unfortunately, I found the same thing in Canadian hockey. Deeply
entrenched and sick behaviour has gone unchallenged and uninvestigated for
years.

It may be reassuring for Canadians to know that our national symbol is a
hockey player and not a soldier, but whether a human being is a first-year
junior player or a prisoner of war, there is little difference between
hockey sticks and broomsticks.

Laura Robinson, former national-level skier and cyclist,
is author of Crossing the Line: Violence and Sexual Assault in Canada's
National Sport (1998) and, most recently, Black Tights: Women, Sport and
Sexuality.

Globe and Mail
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040510/COLAURA
10/TPComment/TopStories

DISCUSSION

"Torture as pornography" by Joanna Bourke


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1211411,00.html

The last paragraph:

"The display of cruel pleasure taken in punishing Iraqi prisoners has
reverberated throughout the world, confirming in many countries the negative
stereotype of westerners as decadent and sexually obsessed. Many people have
questioned the motives and conduct of the war in Iraq, but these
pornographic images have stripped bare what little force remained in the
humanitarian rhetoric concerning the war. In the Arab world, the damage has
been done, and is irrevocable."

Bombing weddings in Afghanistan, pornographic humiliation in Iraq, murder
and outrage in the name of what? The war against terrorism? The USA is
creating more 'terrorists' and enemies than can be killed by its own
sadistic terrors.

Bush is trying to squirm out of this, but those images are what he stands
for, at home and abroad. Punishment everywhere, to foreigners and american
citizens alike. America you have your Hitler.

ja