I now pronounce you unsympathetic

The Dutch intimidate me. But, as I've mentioned before, in the sort of way that makes me wish they ran the world. That's on my mind this morning not only because those crazy beautiful fuckers are talking about building islands to make their country bigger, and not only because it looks as though a mate of mine here is moving to Amstelveen, which rocks because then we can crash with him in Amstelveen, and not only because we're going to Amsterdam in a couple of weeks to see the Fleidermaus and some marionettes for my 30th birthday, but also because a high proportion of my acquaintance from the Netherlands are gay men, and I've seldom heard people express themselves so clearly about their animosity with certain kinds of ethnic groups as they do, because those gay men sometimes feel in physical danger from these ethnic groups whilst walking down the street being obviously gay, and now this morning MSNBC is blaming blacks and Latinos for getting rid of same-sex marriage in California.

In terms of those statistics or polling numbers or whatever out of California, it's really interesting, the way it's partly instinctual to think any socially marginalized group is automatically going to feel sympathy for and supportive of other socially marginalized groups. But it's also a completely unreasonable thing to think, because let's face it: if marginalized groups all felt sympathy for each other, they wouldn't fucking be marginalized anymore, would they?

The whole process makes me impatient. I'm a big believer in direct democracy, but I can't help but feel that matters of legal and familial obligations like marriage or adoption should be left for courts and religious groups to decide - it beggars belief that something so civil should be decided by political processes. That's like asking for a referendum on McDonald's being liable if I burn my twat by spilling one of their coffees on her. Marriage is either a legal contract or a religious sacrament with a direct bearing on the contracted parties, and not on the wider community - that's all it fucking well is - it's not stockpiling machine guns, for fuck's sake - and that means either religious figures should decide within their own religious community or that judges should decide for the secular community. Especially in a place like the States, that's blessed with civil law. Maybe I'm full of shit and I'd be cheering on another victory for direct democracy if California had voted the way that I'd sort of wanted it to. I doubt it though. I'm actually not that keen on gay marriage. I think it would strengthen an institution that outlived its usefulness, but not its iniquities, when women were given legal status as humans. Anyways, in this case it really doesn't matter what I think. That's sort of my point.

In a torturous sort of way this all comes back to the Netherlands in my head, where gay marriage has been legal since 2001, and civil unions for some time before that, and adoption laws are more or less straightened out (all through the political process, necessary as they're still having a Napoleonic hangover - but whatever, it seems to work for them), and there are no political parties on either side of the spectrum even mentioning taking these rights away again, and you can have a character like Pim Fortuyn dominate the political landscape for awhile, and then get murdered, apparently partly because of the way he laid into Islam, and whose party can sort of win the election after he dies . . . Super-gay, and not marginalized. Not at all. The splits are different and there are no illusions about mutual support among minority groups.

What's my point? I don't have one. It's just so interesting how things get so different from one democracy to another, from one developed country to another. And now I have to go keep writing about the economic meltdown at work.

No plans to resuscitate the Dixie Lee

I know how to drive stickshift now, and it's even fun. Both phrases need qualifying. I know how to drive stickshift well enough to get you to the hospital whilst breaking several traffic laws, if you went into labour unexpectedly for example. And it's fun in the sense of I like making the car go but it's not fun when I keep stalling when I forget to go back to first gear after coming to a complete stop. But I have to say I'm enjoying it, and despite how fucking expensive the process is here I'm glad I'm going through the 20 hours of lessons. Learning stickshift in such a way that I'll know how not to roll back into people while stopped on hills or totally fuck up my transmission is a real life skill.

So my last lesson is Monday morning and then I'll have my provisional license. After that, it's a three month apprentissage until I can take the exam for the full license. And then, fun as it's all been, I probably won't drive again for a long fucking time. I can't rent cars or participate in car shares here until my full license is two years old, and we sure as shit aren't buying a car. I'm still opposed to their very existence and we're too cheap - I'm blowing enough cash now on the driving school, and will be blowing enough cash from special rental places during the three-month apprentissage, to make myself pretty determined to not spend money on this ridiculous 'driving' shit again until it's absolutely necessary. It is jolly fun though! I'm beginning to see why fatties all over the developed world insist on using cars instead of their feet to get to convenience stores a few blocks from their houses.

And I'm starting to understand that people who say they prefer stickshift to automatic might mean it, and not just be total wankers who like making things more complicated than they need to be. There's more control whilst driving and stopping, like they're always going on about. And then I really like the clutch. It lets you inch, and it makes parallel parking a breeze. Also I like the way the car bounces ever so slightly when you shift in the higher gears whilst going a bit fast. Makes me feel like Daisy Duke. I wonder how she voted in the last election.

For all the American people who want change

So this morning when I checked the news after a lovely night's sleep made visionarily tumultuous by some excellent new grass, I couldn't believe how relieved I felt. As the news page loaded I prepared for the worst, and told myself to enjoy these last few moments of not having to think Americans actively wanted the End Times, and even started wondering if I could persuade the F-word on New Zealand instead of Australia for our future home, because it's that much more isolated from a world I'd want to avoid if Americans did actively want the End Times. And then seeing the 'Historic Victory' headline was like taking a shit. A lovely big shit on a Sunday morning.

But in the spirit of me shitting on things: hey, people who voted Democrat, you won! And you won big. Congratulations! The senate probably won't be filibuster proof but otherwise, by winning 52% of the popular vote, you've precluded the 47% of voters who voted Republican from having any control of your legislative process. After what happened in 2004 and 2000 - you know, when the Democrats lost after getting 48.3% and 48.4% respectively, even winning the popular vote in 2004 - it must feel really good. But you also know that's bullshit, right? You know first hand that that's bullshit. I don't know what would have persuaded someone to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, but millions did, and democracy should be about popular representation, not the nearly complete disenfranchisement of a HUGE (though in this case apparently apocalyptic) minority.

I'm not going to praise the Canadian system, though it's much more representative; it would be hard to be any less representative, so there's no great virtue in that. Any first-past-the-post system is going to end up crap. And as happened a few weeks ago, the Green Party can get 7% of the Canadian vote and lack any seats in Parliament, whereas a regional party like the Bloc Quebecois can get around 10% of the Canadian vote and 49 out of 308 seats. And we still have a fucking Queen, like a bunch of medieval thistle munchers. So no, I'm not going to praise it. But I am going to praise parliamentary systems in general, as something American decision makers should be forced to think about by you, the American People Who Want Change, and mention one that is set up quite well - Australia's. Seriously. Read about it and think about it. Manage that sort of thing without letting the motherfucking Queen step in and slap you down when you're getting too pinkoist, and you would be a proper beacon of democracy throughout the world.

And if you're feeling really ambitious, check out Switzerland. You won't believe your fucking eyes. Nobody ever knows, and then nobody can ever believe that Switzerland does this shit. And nobody can ever believe it works, but it does. You know when you're watching war documentaries, and all the battle lines just sort of stop at the Swiss border while ploughing through other neutral countries? That's why. You know why Swiss people are all fucking rich - even the poor ones? That's why. You know why that country can function as a multi-lingual (4, officially) republican entity, and has done so over centuries despite being located in the thick of the highest, shittiest mountain ranges in Europe with no marketable natural resources besides skihills? That's why. A fundamentally representative political system. And no fucking Queen. Though I bet she keeps a lot of her money there.

Don't get defensive, like this is some sort of commentary about Canada or Australia or Switzerland being better than the US. It's a commentary about their political systems being better than the US's. I've got no personal affinity for the Swiss - full disclosure - Bluebird was Swiss and you know how that went - and some of his more objectionable attitudes to the blacks and the gays were reflected by the other Swiss I met, leaving me with a bad impression overall. And Australians sometimes seem like a bunch of oiks who, like Canadians, still bizarrely tolerate the Queen (though the new leader of the opposition, silver spoon merchant Malcolm Turnbull, used to be the head of the Republican movement, and I believe the ruling Labor party still has republicanism listed as a basic platform, giving me a sliver of hope that by the time we move there that relic of an uglier time will be off the fucking money). And Canadians also shocked me last time I was home by the profligacies of their day-to-day lifestyle. I contemn pretty much everybody, in short. But everybody being contemptible in their own special way should not preclude an examination of that they do right politically, and then ripping off what they do right politically to use in your own country.

So. You want change you can believe in? How about change that's actually change?

Holy shit, am I ever sick of the American election

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Ralph Fiennes Day

Yesterday we went back to Brugge, which the F-word was anxious to do because of its fantastic art gallery with Flemish Primitives, and Bosch, and which I was happy to do because In Bruges had been one of about seven films I'd seen on planes in the past little while (and it was by far the best, though that's not much of a claim considering the other films were Iron Man, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, The Devil Wears Prada, two other completely forgettable ones, and the only other serious contender, Hallam Foe, which wasn't that serious a contender, despite demonstrating that little Billy Elliott has grown himself a really nice ass, because the dialogue was rubbish). And In Bruges, ridiculous though it got as soon as Ralph Fiennes started chewing up the celluloid, made Brugge in the winter (which it now is here, as the markets are selling clementines and it's impossible to venture outside without mulling over how easy a mulled wine would go down) look very, very sweet.

And indeed it is. I don't have much enthusiasm for winter - I've lived all over the place in my thirty years of life, but always all over the place in fucking cold countries, and now I really have had enough. But there's no doubt that a bit of weather is bracing if you wrap up properly, and Brugge braced me, with its fresh air and canals and twee little houses. And romanticization aside, going to an old city like that, a real time warp of a city like Venice or York as well, is such an interesting reminder of a time when people's identities were so much more wrapped up in their cities. It's a sensation that you still feel all over Europe, of course, particularly in southern France or in Italy - people really think of themselves as from a certain town, in a way that looks like patriotism or nationalism. But in a sweet old remainder like Brugge you can see how that would have worked, just a little bit. All the way from the delightful unified architecture to the network of religious sites to the guillotine.

And we went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which has got a bit of Jesus's blood apparently, which I found a little distressing for a couple of reasons. First, the night before we had watched The Baby of Macon (which featured Ralph Fiennes dying spectacularly, as did In Bruges, and In Bruges also featured Jesus's blood from the basilica - it's all a complex tapestry) which was about a Jesus-y type toddler who gets chopped up into little relics at the end. I had found it disturbing, more disturbing for Julia Ormond's ten minute rape than the dismembered toddler actually, and didn't like it in the least - seemed like the sort of film only a big asshole would make. But there's no doubt it disturbed me, and being invited to caress a flask of Jesus's blood by an automated voice in the Basilica while a priest smiled over it didn't help me stop being disturbed. Second, I'm in the middle of The First Crusade by Steven Runciman, which contains nasty historical details of all the people who murdered, cheated, schemed and died over religious relics, and here one was, a big one, and the automated voice was inviting us all to touch it and to give a little donation to the church accordingly . . .