A short blurb on the YouTube site for this video says:
A group of archeologists has discovered a large circular pyramid in Bolivian Amazonia, dating back more than 2,000 years. The discovery took place in the fortress of Samaipata, a hill believed to be a ceremonial centre of diverse pre-Hispanic cultures. Local media report that the excavations will not be completed until the end of 2015.
Translation mine.
The fortress is also considered a UNESCO world heritage site.
Three hours of sunlight a day? Yikes. No wonder this guy’s mad at the Aussies. Yes, it does get dark quickly this time of year in the northern latitudes. Especially around and above the Arctic Circle. (How close to it is Iceland, again?)
“Stallone!”
Julien Blanc’s infamous “choking girls” video, in which the PUA “coach”, of the firm RSD, gives racist “advice” on how to pick up women in Japan: Literally grab them by the throat and scare/embarrass the hell out of them, and they’ll supposedly do anything you want. Does it work? Only if your goal is to get arrested…or make an ass of yourself in public, and maybe get your ass kicked out of country, too. Already he’s gotten the boot in Australia; now, two other countries are taking note and locals are formulating plans against him and his ilk. One is my ancestral country; the other, my home and native land. Here’s what’s going on in Germany, according to the Berlin Daily Newspaper (the TAZ):
The video is no longer available. It was taken down by the owner. But when it was still up, it showed a bearded young man in front of an audience of other young men, bragging that he had penetrated a woman who didn’t want him to. They had had sex the night before; the next morning, he wanted to do it again, but she didn’t. But that didn’t matter to him, he says, proudly.
A little belatedly, the US firm, Real Social Dynamics (RSD), for which the young man worked, found out, that someone had confessed to rape on video. Many had seen it already — and RSD, which offers “seminars” for men on how to pick up women, is suddenly a concept. Under the Twitter hashtags, #TakeDownRSD and #TakeDownJulienBlanc, an outraged protest is gathering. “The goal is to shut them down entirely,” the protest’s initiator, Jennifer Li of Washington, told the BBC. And on Change.org, there’s a petition to stop RSD’s seminars.
Who is behind RSD? It’s people like Julien Blanc, whose videos are still to be found on the net. “In Tokyo, if you’re a white male, you can do what you want,” he tells his audience, “I’m just romping through the streets, just grabbing girls’ heads, just like, head, pfft on the dick.” Yes, really. Then there’s a few scenes in a disco, in which he demonstrates the recommended procedures. The women really do giggle. But probably just because he’s acting like an idiot.
Who goes for such racist, sexist baloney? A lot of people. The company offers seminars in 70 countries around the world. RSD claims to be the biggest “dating advice” company in the world. You can book an audio course, an e-course, buy a DVD set, or even attend a multi-day “boot camp”.
Next weekend, one of the “boot camps” is slated to take place in Berlin. Not Julien Blanc, but another trainer is set to lead it: “Ozzie”. He’s written a book about “The Physical Game”. Subtitle: “A Pickup Coach’s Complete Guide to Approach, Physically Lead and Bed Women.”
The seminar is already sold out, according to RSD’s website. It costs $2000 US, and runs for two days, including practice runs in the wild. “Every woman they talk to is attracted instantly, because they understand the subcommunication that women respond to”, says a testimonial by one Joseph G. in Minneapolis on RSD’s homepage. “It’s the kind of thing that’s applicable to any person who takes the program.”
Because this is supposed to be made possible through the grossest harassment of women, and some individual “coaches” speak openly in favor of sexual coercion, a fast-growing community of critics is coming together. Hotels are being asked to cancel the room reservations for the seminars. In Australia, the plan has already borne fruit: Several Australian hotels cancelled the seminars. In the end, even Australia’s ministry of the interior reacted: Last Thursday, it placed Blanc on the list of personae non gratae, and withdrew his visa. He had to leave the country.
In Germany, the women’s rights organization Terre des Femmes reacted as follows: “As far as we can see, in these conferences they’re calling for sexual violence against women,” says Birte Rohles, a spokeswoman for the organization. “That is not covered by freedom of speech [legislation].”
Politicians are also taking notice: “Not only Julien Blanc is intolerable. Hotel owners should think twice about whether they want to rent rooms to these coaches of violence and sexism,” says Left Party delegate Cornelia Möhring. Ulle Schauws, of the Greens, says: “This marketing angle is unsurpassed for open sexism. And towards men as well as women.”
Now RSD is reacting. It’s shut down videos and its co-founder, Owen Cook, who calls himself “Tyler Durden”, after the protagonist of the film Fight Club, has released a statement regarding Blanc’s video: “I think Julien’s video was absolutely stupid”, he wrote, after a report by the Washington Post. “It was totally out of context and he posted it to get shock, not realizing the full outcome. I’m sorry about the video. I would have taken it down if I’d seen it, but don’t monitor all social media postings”, he says. But if you look for that statement on his homepage, you end up in a password-protected area.
It’s doubtful that this will suffice to calm down the protests. Canada is also thinking about barring entry to Blanc and company. And the hotels, in which the events are to take place, are being kept secret by the company. TAZ inquiries to RSD didn’t go through yesterday; the server was down.
Translation mine. Linkage added.
Meanwhile, in Canada, this is happening:
A petition to prevent a man promoting misogynistic approaches to dating from entering Canada may have worked.
Julien Blanc, a 25-year-old man who is often accused of instigating violence against women has already been barred from entering Australia
Blanc offers seminars to men around the world, vowing to make them “pimps” with women and promising to help them get scores of women to sleep with them.
So far the petition to bar his entry, posted at change.org, has received more than 7,000 signatures.
[…]
The petition notes that Blanc is set to tour Canada and asks Federal Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander to bar his entry. It points to a video posted online that shows Blanc instructing a group of men about how to get Japanese women to have sex.
Here’s a screenshot of Chris Alexander’s response to a tweeter bringing the matter to his attention:
And if you’re looking to help out, the petition is here. Please be sure to stick your John Hancock on it.
BTW, if you’re in the mood for a good bellylaugh at the expense of some seriously shitty dudes, by all means, check out RSD’s website. Fair warning: You won’t learn a blessed thing about how to talk to women or get sex out of them, but you’ll see a lot of them (in badly drawn cartoon format) on the site, and you’ll also see “testimonials” from a choice selection of the sad sacks that this company is peddling its crap to.
And yes, the video testimonials attest that these guys really are as pathetic and as yucky as you’d expect. They even dress like over-the-hill low-level mafia douchebags. The reek of cheap cologne practically wafts off the page! So go on, enjoy…and don’t forget your nose plug.
PS: Here’s a German petition on Avaaz to help keep RSD out of Germany. Sign and share!
PPS: Korea has taken note of what RSD did in Japan, and is now barring entry to Julien Blanc (and hopefully his colleagues) as well. Eat your kimchi, fellas.
PPPS: Brazil has just refused entry to Julien Blanc as well. On Wednesday night, the Ministry of Exterior Relations issued a statement saying that “should a visa request be received by any embassy or consulate in the exterior, there exist sufficient elements to recommend a denial.” The move comes in response to another Avaaz petition against Blanc and RSD.
Ahem. Some music, maestro:
Ah, that was lovely. And now, the story:
The executive producer of Q is leaving the CBC Radio show in the aftermath of the scandal involving its former host, Jian Ghomeshi.
A CBC spokesman says Arif Noorani will return to work at the public broadcaster next Monday after his leave of absence.
“In light of all that has happened over the last two weeks and the ongoing investigation, Arif has asked for a reassignment out of the Q unit, and management supports the move,” said Chuck Thompson, head of public affairs for CBC English services. “He will be working on various projects within CBC Radio including the development of a new show.”
That’s good news for Q, I suppose, although it comes too late for the women who suffered the sexualized tyranny of the Shah and his enablers there. Frankly, the CBC needs to clean house in a major way, and not just move chairs around. But we will see what that internal investigation turns up…and if it shows what I anticipate it will, the song I posted will be a lot more than just my ’80s CanCon nostalgia at work.
This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. What better song to commemorate it than this one, which celebrates the Russian glasnost (openness) that helped bring it all about?
Incidentally, this is also the top-selling song ever written by Germans. Klaus Meine, the song’s author and lead singer of the Scorpions, has also performed it with a children’s choir…
…and Morten Harket, of the Norwegian pop group A-ha…
…and even the famous opera tenor, José Carreras:
And finally, if you’re so inclined, you can see him here, talking about the song’s origins on the DW program, Euromaxx. (Sorry, video doesn’t embed.)
Hey! Remember all those useless idiots and their dumb little #SOS Venezuela hashtag from February? Remember how they all thought it was such a “game-changer”, and that the “tyrant” Maduro would go down in defeat because of some stupid tweets, and even stupider violence?
Well, today they got served another big slice of humble pie by none other than Madurito himself:
And here’s the story, from Aporrea:
Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro announced the formation of the Committee of Families of Victims of the Guarimbas to demand justice and punishment for those responsible for staining the streets of the land with blood for months in their attempt to bring down the Bolivarian government.
“Spouses and children of the men and women of our land, civilians and militaries, who were murdered or suffered injuries during the guarimbas”, said the president from Miranda on Thursday, where he took part in another inauguration of public works and housing as part of the Territorial Socialism program.
“I call upon this committee of family members to activate so that there will be justice in the land and in the world, and that fascists will be recognized and denounced,” Maduro added.
Maduro recalled that on February 12, when right-wing militants destroyed the façade of the Public Ministry and the Carabobo Park square in Caracas, it marked the beginning of violence programmed by opposition directors, with international support.
“No one imagined that on that day, five months of violence would begin, with 40-odd dead at the hands of fascist groups who began the destruction with guarimbas,” Maduro said. He recalled the strangulations with wires on the barricades, the murders of members of the Bolivarian National Guard, and of civilians who were cleaning up the streets, and the intemperate threats from politicians who believed themselves to be superior.
“They underestimated the civilian-military power of the Bolivarian Revolution, the power of the conscience of the people. 2014 will be the year we defeated the fascist guarimba that tried to set fire to the land and subjugate the people with violence and foreign interference.”
He commented that the recuperation of Carabobo Park, which the Mayoralty of Caracas opened to the public on Thursday, is a triumph of peace and of the Venezuelan people.
He also recalled that international campaign in which local artists and foreigners screamed and wrote signs with the phrase “SOS VENEZUELA”.
“Where were they, how much were some of them paid for that?” asked Maduro. He contrasted that hypocritical manipulative attempt with the silence those same groups demonstrated when Israel massacred the people of Gaza.
“Why didn’t they say ‘SOS Palestine’? Millions said ‘SOS Palestine’, but not those paid-off groups, some of them deceived, but who later recognized their error.”
Maduro said that the defeated believed that this world-wide manipulative media operation would pay off. He confirmed that all the fighting to confront the lie had been worth it.
“And thank you, a thousand and one times, to the Venezuelan people, their conscience, their gigantic strength, which has passed all the tests we have had to stand, and let us go on overcoming them.”
Translation mine.
You may have noticed that Madurito is wearing a keffiyeh in the video. That’s because something else is happening in Venezuela, something very special: A hundred medical students from Palestine have arrived to begin their studies at the Dr. Salvador Allende School of Medicine. They will be taking home that training to a land that sorely needs it — especially in Gaza, which Madurito referenced in his speech. Here is the Palestinian ambassador to Venezuela, Linda Sabeh Ali, thanking Madurito and Venezuela for the free education they are about to receive:
Great news indeed, and it could not come at a time of greater need.
¡Viva Venezuela!
…courtesy the Angry Aussie, who knows how to say “fuckwit” with the perfect amount of juicy relish:
Yikes, Australia…didn’t you just HAVE a catastrophic fire season? And now you’re having another? And your conservative politicians don’t want to accept it? Yeah, keep trying to deny that global warming exists, you fuckwits. I hope your houses burn first.
On a happier note, one “Julien Blanc”, serial harasser and sex-assault “instructor”, has been turfed from The Land Down Under after video of him putting chokeholds on women in various countries went viral in the worst possible sense. A firsthand account from the scene is here. And here’s a hilarious satirical summation of what didn’t happen (but we all wish did):
The cruise left Melbourne harbour early last evening for a seminar that The Backburner understands was a dedicated homage to The Little Rascals’ He-Man Woman Haters Club. According to initial reports everything was running according to plan with participants receiving top quality lessons on dehumanising women when the unthinkable happened and the boat was able to complete its journey without becoming shipwrecked.
“It’s truly a disaster,” said a representative of the Ports Authority. “We train for nights like this but you hope it never happens. Seeing all those men return to shore without incident just breaks my heart.”
“Obviously there will be an inquiry into safety standards of all boats in the region. This cannot be allowed to happen again.”
The controversial cruise, which set out on an important journey to ‘neg’ the ocean, had been hotly protested by a group of activists who claim that women were human and shouldn’t be treated like the victims of a creepy hypnotist. The Pick Up Artists are contesting this claim.
Negging the ocean. Yeah, that’s what all the Real Men™ are doing these days. “You know, you’d look so much hotter if you were less green and more blue.”
But hey! I suppose that beats trying to strangle it. The worst thing that could happen is the tide could go out and leave these guys high and dry. Oh, if only.
I know I probably shouldn’t pay any more attention to this wanker until he gets perpwalked or something, but Jian Ghomeshi really is the shitshow that keeps on showing. Today, the Toronto Star published a collection of his bons mots regarding life, love and le sexe, and…well, let’s just say the man reveals more about himself that way than he probably intended at the time.
First up, a snippet from his memoir, 1982:
Kim Inglewood and I had stripped naked at her house (in Grade 8), and I had pursued a forensic fascination with her chest. I stared at her breasts with a mixture of excitement and curiosity and then tried to caress them in a seductive way that would turn her on. I had no idea what I was doing. I remember looking up to see a befuddled expression on Kim Inglewood’s face as she stared at me staring at her naked breasts. I had done my best with my caresses. I’m not sure she really enjoyed it.
Poor Kim. I guess having your boobs gawked at and ineptly manipulated by a dorky 13-year-old would be rather confusing, eh?
But hey! Here’s the wisdom that Jian drew from that little bit of early sexual failure:
Without porn, how were we supposed to learn how sex was done? Of course, pornography was often sexist, exploitative, patriarchal, and full of the wrong messages about human relationships and intimacy. But even so, it could have served as a handy tool for seeing how this foreplay and intercourse thing happened.
Sadly, no, it couldn’t. One thing that never ceases to amaze me about studio-made porn (and homemade porn that mimics it, too) is how very much the opposite of erotic it is, never mind instructive. What passes for “foreplay” in it is some truly pathetic dialogue along the general lines of “Hey, wanna fuck?” And what passes for intercourse in it would be at best mechanical and unsatisfying, and at worst, life-threatening and extremely painful. But hey! At least Jian is upfront about the faults of the thing. Just a pity he can’t tie that into the understanding that no, you really can’t learn how to have sex from it.
Of course, if he’d looked hard enough, he’d probably have found something of the porny persuasion anyhow. Was he really that naïve and incurious? It’s not as though Thornhill was the boonies; that would be where I grew up. And even here, it was not hard to get your hands on a stolen Playboy. Or in my case, Cosmopolitan, which was pretty damned explicit in 1982. There was actually a pull-out sex guide in an issue from that year, and yes, I pored over it and learned from it. A LOT. Well in advance of my ever needing it, in fact. But I have a good memory, and let’s just say that when I finally did need that advice, my memory served me very well indeed. Granted, I didn’t fool around at 13, which may have helped some; I was over 20 by the time I finally put that advice to use, and I don’t regret having waited. I was a lot better at reading other people at 23 than at 13. And that, not the mechanics of sex, is really the key to the whole thing. A point which Jian seems to have sadly missed here.
Onwards. Here are some amusing little notes from Jian’s boner to Marlo magazine, in 2003:
1. Good communication. When a woman is gregarious and talking with other men, celebrating her attractiveness to others, but still sending subtle signals that she’s with me … that’s sexy.
2. Taking initiative. Saying, ‘Oh whatever,’ when we’re planning what to do, where to go or what to eat is not attractive.
3. Doesn’t get too dressed up, unless the event is explicitly formal. But I always prefer someone who cares about her appearance and looks great but hasn’t spent three hours pulling it together.
4. Never get too drunk. And yet consuming is good. I like someone who eats and drinks and doesn’t just order a salad.
5. Oh, at the top of the list should actually be, to be honest and real. It’s a cliché, but it’s true and it’s a turn-on.
Every one of these is a study in irony and walking contradictions. Let’s parse this, shall we?
Point #1. From what we now know of Jian’s so-called “consensual” activities, it turns out that he’s not a good communicator of his own intentions. His idea of “obtaining consent”, it seems, was to tell someone he “tend[ed] to get aggressive”. This would be followed up by a nonconsensual, unpredictable punch upside the head, or something equally awful. So to claim he’s attracted to women who communicate well is…well, you know.
Point #2. Again ironic, considering that this dude is a noted control freak and probably wouldn’t care what the woman wanted. All he really cares about is what HE wants. Her initiative would probably be quite an irritant to him.
Point #3. Does Jian have any idea how much time and effort it takes to look pulled-together, but not like one spent a lot of, well, time and effort on it? No, he doesn’t. He’s never apparently been with anyone long enough to have the slightest clue as to what’s entailed here. I reiterate: Dude should have read Cosmo when he was a teenager. If he did, he would know that.
Point #4. Again, very ironic, considering that he’s known for dating women who look like twigs, and unless they’re all blessed with the metabolism of hummingbirds, they are not going to be consuming a whole lot of anything. Even the woman “doesn’t just order a salad” when she’s on a date is bound to be compensating for that, and hard, when she’s not around him. Again, as in #3, he has no clue as to what’s really going on there.
Point #5. Perhaps the most ironic of all, considering how honest and real Jian himself has NOT been for at least two and a half decades now, and maybe ever. And how turned-off we all are now that we know.
And here’s Jian talking about ethnicity to the Toronto Star, in 1998:
(I feel) different around them (Iranian women); I don’t know the protocol and am deathly afraid that I’ll make a mistake.
Uh, dude? You’re Iranian. You could always just have asked your parents, if you were really that concerned about ethnic protocols. Would it have killed you to ask? (One gets the sneaking feeling that Jian really doesn’t know how to carry on a normal conversation with anyone, doesn’t one?)
And finally, here’s Jian, being a “good” feminist guy on Q:
The term most often used to describe that complex of attitudes and behaviour is rape culture. The term has become common in feminist discourse and popular media, but not everyone agrees it is helpful or accurate. The notion of rape culture has been criticized in the pages of national newspapers and even by some advocates for victims of sexual assault. So we’ve decided to convene a Q debate. Do we really live in a so-called rape culture? Is that term accurate or is it alarmist?
Seriously, Jian? You took Women’s Studies at university, and you think that’s a matter of question, and up for debate? Even I, who only majored in English (and, briefly, Life Sciences) know that rape culture is a real thing…but then again, that’s because I was a woman student. I got most of my education in feminism the hard way. I was at Queen’s when male students postered their dorm windows with lovely messages like “No Means Yes”, “No Means More Beer”, “No Means Kick Her in the Teeth”, and so forth. I was also there when the Montréal Massacre went down; I volunteered at the Queen’s Women’s Centre, and spent much of my last semester’s shifts wondering if anyone was going to bust in there and gun me down, too. And yep, I got hit on in some mighty gross ways during those four years, by men who were invariably older and definitely skeevy. Not to mention scared shitless by talk of prowlers in the bushes in Sir John A. Macdonald Park (alias Pervert Park), and paroled rapists from Kingston Pen driving cabs around the city. And outraged by the blatantly sexist, rapey nature of Frosh Week activities. Even before I arrived on campus (where I promptly refused to let guys do pushups over me at Tindall Field), there were lurid signs all over the student ghetto, welcoming me with messages like “Shave yer dotter’s box” [sic] and “Kiss your virginity goodbye”. We got warnings coming and going, all about how not to get raped. Typical advice: Watch what you drink, and don’t dress like a slut.
And all this was after Queen’s had kicked out the fraternities in an effort to clean up its “party school” image. You tell me if that’s just me being “alarmist”.
Oh, but of course. How could I forget? This is the guy who thinks nonconsensual choking actually qualifies as BDSM. And he was well known for being a “bad date”, and handsy even with other men, during his long stint at York.
He might just be tipping his hand a wee bit there.
A photo of “El Colombia”, real name Leiva Padilla Mendoza, is shown on Venezuelan state channel VTV.
A little BIG good news, and a major break in the Robert Serra assassination. Caracol reports that the chief paramilitary suspect has been captured:
Leiva Padilla Mendoza, alias “El Colombia”, was captured in an operation by the Colombian DIJIN (federal police), in Mamonal-Gambote, southeast of Cartagena, inside a commercial building.
The mann is accused of being the suspected organizer of the assassination of Venezuelan parliamentary deputy Robert Serra and his girlfriend, María Herrera, on October 1 in Caracas.
The Colombian paramilitary suspect was wanted under an Interpol “Code Red”, and according to Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, he used false names to evade the authorities.
Also wanted for the crime against the deputy is “El Eme” (“M”), identified as Fariñez Palomino, who allegedly entered the home with Leiva and six other men, and assassinated the deputy with a gunshot to the head.
Translation mine.
Aporrea also reports that the wife of “El Colombia”, Neira Palomino, has been taken into custody by a Caracas control tribunal for her ties to the paramilitary band.
The Moon is full now, and just as Neruda predicted, the cowards’ moon is hanging very low in the sky. There’s just one left to go, and there is no doubt that his days as a free man are numbered.
PS: Well, that was quick. Looks like “El Eme” is also captured, according to Últimas Notícias (via Aporrea). It appears that he and “El Colombia” were captured together. Colombian authorities are trying to determine whether he can be extradited, since there was no Interpol “red alert” on him, but he is wanted by the 9th Control Tribunal of Caracas. With this, the paramilitary band’s criminal career is officially over. Kudos to the authorities of Venezuela and Colombia for mopping up this bloody mess.
