Monday, November 30, 2015

Monday Forum - the Swiss and their horses, Aboriginal occupation, football hooliganism and Miss Bossy Boots

Today's Monday Forum is simply a round-up of items that may or may not trigger discussion.
"This is the acceptable way to ride a horse." Caption
This has to be one of the most bizarre stories that I have ever read, even for News Corporation:  The amount of people having sex with horses is on the rise in Switzerland.Can you match it?

In a more sensible piece in the Australian (Secrets unearthed at Boodie Cave: humankind just got a little older), Victotia Laurie reports on the results of a dig at Boodie Cave on WA's Barrow Island where dating suggests Aboriginal occupation from 50-53,000 years ago.

The heading is quite misleading. Humankind didn't get that little bit older as a consequence of this dig. The explosion of recent evidence shows that humanid occupation of this planet is far older and more complex than any of us realised even 40 years ago.One side effect has been to reduce the relative time space occupied by Australia's Aboriginal peoples.However, I think it remains true (at least for the present) that the Aborigines remain the oldest continuous occupants of a geographic space.

From my viewpoint, the results are interesting because they fit with the hypothesis that Aboriginal occupation spread in two waves, one down the WA coast, the second across Northern Australia and then south. More broadly, and this is where some of my readers may be able to help, with all the discoveries I am struggling to come to grips with the evolving pattern of human occupation of the planet as a whole. Can someone provide an updated summary?

This graphic came via a female friend some time ago. I laughed. At the risk of creating a fire storm, it does seem to me to capture rather well a number of stereotypes Women may laugh, men will smile in private.

 Staying with News Corporation for a moment, this piece from Sydney's Daily Telegraph, Red card: The banned football fans from 10 A-League clubs,
 actually horrified me. This Financial Review piece provides a little more background.

I thought that the Telegraph was very unfair and indeed from fragmentary media reports the piece appears to have had adverse effects on those whose names have appeared. There are at least two difficulties. One is the problem of double jeopardy, being convicted twice. The second and more important one is that the paper had no way of checking nor apparently did it try to check the facts relating to the 198 names revealed.

Am I wrong in being horrified?



5 comments:

2 tanners said...

"I'm not bossy..". I found it amusing enough to smile, but wondered how your female friends would have reacted if the boy was holding the stick. Or if both were boys, or girls. Most incompetent bosses I have know believe that with a big enough stick you don't need anything else, and that they got to where they were through merit, which automatically implied/conferred "leadership skills".

Don't know why you were horrified by a hatchet job in the Tele. That's like walking into a porn store and being horrified by the nudity.

Anonymous said...

Today's Monday Forum is simply a round-up of items that may or may not trigger discussion. Shameful clickbait post Jim. Can I suggest amendment of the above as follows:

Today's Monday Forum is simply a collection of items that may or may not flicka discussion. Open to suggestions on this; maybe Mr Ed, Hidalgo, Bucephalus, Seabiscuit, Bill, or HiHo Silver?.

And on no account search Google for the term "Swiss bareback" - even tho one's immediate thought was that hopefully all participants were adequately protected.

kvd

Jim Belshaw said...

You knew I would, kvd, search that is. I have no further comment. Each of those horses could, of course, provide a story. I could do something with Hi Ho Silver in particular, but heaven forbid.

Now, 2t, you have pointed to an obvious problem. But the image is such that male and females both might smile. On the Telegraph, you are right of course. Which reminds me of the need NOT to use the diminutive in future.

2 tanners said...

kvd

What's wrong with Trigger? Don't you like Roy Rogers?

Anonymous said...

Hi tanners. Nothing against Trigger, altho' prefer Buttermilk. Guess I'm just against the sociological appropriation of his name to refer to that which is thought to be somehow threatening.

kvd