All the way from Pyongyang, where the hep cats of North Korea are at it again. According to Tom G. Palmer — who visited last year – they like accordion playing there, it seems. Everyone who visits gets to see a room full of girls playing the accordion, with a photo of the Maximum leader and Fidel Castro beaming on.
This, in case you hadn’t noticed, is also the Weekend chit-chat thread…
47 Comments
The LDP is contesting two by-elections today. Results should start showing up on the following site after 6:30pm.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/sa/2012/ramsayportadelaide/port.htm
Wow, I’m off to North Korea!
A room full of girls playing the piano accordion? Couldn’t think of anything better.
Though the careful observer will note that of the Five players in that video, only Two are girls.
SATP, going by that comment, you’d enjoy one of our earlier exercises in North Koreaneana
http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2011/12/28/vale-little-kimmie-sick/
$10 says they think it was composed by Kim Il-Jung about the Eternal President, Kil Il-Sung.
That was kinda cool. I just hope no one shares the powers of the rickroll with the North Koreans…
Interesting description of the dilemmas facing the Greens by Sally Neighbour in The Monthly..
You have a party which is founded on, amongst other things, ‘grass roots democracy’. Then you have an ideological cleave between the ‘green’ majority who support this and the ‘red’ minority in NSW who are accused of command and control tactics.
But wait there’s more.
In the interests of fulfilling their stated ambition of winning government the green Greens (eg Bob Brown) want to centralize the various state parties and create a proper Australian Greens whilst at the same time maintaining the grass roots nature of the party.
But the command and control ‘communist’ part of the party are taking a stand against this centralization because it would erode the power of their camp (the existence of which, by the way, is denied by the leader of said camp). At the same time players in the NSW Greens who are actually grass roots (eg Jeremy Buckingham) are being marginalized by ‘grass roots advocates’ because they won’t adhere to the centralizing, commandeering anti-centralists of the non-existent communist camp.
Politics is amusing provided you stay out of it.
Eeee, after that description, Adrien, I am heartily glad that I am out of politics. I had heard similar analyses from other sources. What will happen once Brown leaves, I wonder?
Politics in this country is just farcical at the moment. Let me amend that. Maybe it’s always farcical.
Nope, sorry Jacques but they got it from a CD during a Norwegian cultural exchange. The impresario responsible thinks they’re destined for stardom!
No, no… not the rickroll! Perish the thought, desipis!
In other news, the LDP (tied to Terje’s comment @1) has polled very well (ahead of the Greens) in two South Australian by-elections:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/sa/2012/ramsayportadelaide/port_result.htm
Since this is a chit chat topic I’d like to mention two articles I found interesting. The first is a commentary by Bettina Arndt about the age old difficulty in negotiating the male female ‘divide’. I always find her stuff interesting if only because she is one of the few writers who seem able to address such issues in a no nonsense fashion.
The second may be a press beatup; an article about the Australian importer of PIP implants which suggests a possible attempt to avoid or reduce exposure to litigation. Yet another lawyer fest in the making, about an avoidable human tragedy where the culprits may well end up having to be bailed by ‘the State’.
I love the fake flowers.
SL@3 It will be interesting to see how thoroughly the LDP success gets ignored.
I love the fake flowers.
So the musicians. Their reward for learning “Take On Me” is they get to have one for dinner. Goes well with a little bark. By far the most nutritious thing on a North Korean menu anywhere outside of the politburo dining room.
I’d put the LDP’s success in the by-election down to the absence of a Liberal party candidate from the ballot
Being not unfamiliar with the piano accordion, I couldn’t help noticing – that in addition to having great legs – the lady players have a different sitting posture to the males either side of them.
This is the first time I have ever seen a female player sit this way. Usual posture is the same as the N. Korean males in that video.
North Korea really is different.
Lorenzo @12:
“SL@3 It will be interesting to see how thoroughly the LDP success gets ignored.”
Glibertarians sing songs and dance a jig about the joys of a free market but then piss and groan about our unfair media when our free market press ignore their fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden Ayn Rand meets Ron Pauline Hanson “Hey, what do think about the Gold Standard? Anyhow, how about a Winchester with that Winfield? Can someone please turn up the warming, it’s too cold in here” tinkerbell political party.
And what Movius @14 said.
But that’s just my two cents worth and I may well be missin’ something
SATP, I noticed the knees together posture as well, but didn’t know enough about the instrument to know if that was standard. My experience is all with conventional orchestras, where a female cellist, say, lodges her instrument between her legs just like a man. She just wears a long, flowing skirt or trousers to avoid any underwear flashes.
Curiouser and curiouser, and well-spotted!
M@14 That seems right. My point merely is the tendency to talk up third parties when they are the Greens and down when they are anyone else. (Unless they are One Nation and thus Evil Personified and so threaten The End of Civilisation As We Know It.)
Having had a closer look at the results, the Green performance was remarkably weak. Their vote stagnated in Port Adelaide and they got a comaratively weak swing in Ramsay when the absent of Libs should have puts lot of votes up for grabs in both electorates. Clearly, stronger independents and the LDP were better vehicles for Not Labor.
What about the phone ringing right at the end?
Some things are the same all over the world…
Yes, I like that too, Marcellous – very human.
Skepti #17: As with the cello, the piano accordion is played with the legs splayed for a reason.
You will note in the video the girls’ instruments are at a different angle. This is most noticeable if you look at the keyboard.
This angle puts more stress on the wrist, & changes the way the fingers dance over the keys.
Also one of the blokes is banging on his as if it were a drum. I have never before (crass accordion jokes notwithstanding) seen a piano accordion used as a percussion instrument.
Adrien @6:
Have you read the complete version of Sally Neighbour’s article?
I have and I didn’t think it was particularly balanced – mainly because she’d only really got one side of the story. It is a simplification to call one side grass-roots because the allegedly non-grass-roots side in NSW has its own quite long grass-roots history. It’s a rather odd simplification too when the self-proclaimed “grass-roots” side is the side which apparently wants to centralise (administratively and ideologically) and professionalise.
Marcellous:
“It is a simplification to call one side grass-roots because … ”
The grass roots are the 90% of party members who never turn up to meetings and who have no idea what is going on in the local branch. I imagine this applies to all political parties, not just the two I’ve been involved in, namely the Democrats and the Greens.
SATP, you wonder if North Korea has been isolated for so long that they’ve started to develop/evolve odd and divergent practices, and not just in music. This just happens to be a musical example.
Just had a most disconcerting Valentine’s day present.
Looks like anyone with standing could have our marriage nullified.
In the marriage of C and D (falsely called C) FLC 90-636 (1979)
My medical condition is different – but similar enough in most of the details that the case may well be indistinguishable.
Now if I’d just been Transsexual, it would be fine, I’d be legally male when my marriage took place. From this case, and from the facts… I’d be hard-pressed to argue that.
Certainly, biologically speaking, I’m closer to a female stereotype than the husband ever was or will be. If you count a hysterectomy before marriage as a disqualifier, I’m disqualified. The husband had CAH too, just a different and more common form.
Bleah.
I wonder what situation that would put our son in?
I have enough to worry about getting legal access to necessary hormones not available in Australia without this legal (expletive deleted).
About the only consolation is that the ruling cited was brought down in 1979, over 30 years ago. We were still having ugly fights over the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) back then.
I do think careful drafting of ssm legislation will prevent this kind of crap from happening, as well as allowing indeterminates to marry if they want to.
One thing: we have a lot of evidence that indeterminates in Roman times often liked to be sexually ambiguous, ie, they thought it was cool that people couldn’t tell what they were at first blush. Is that attitude still around, or would we need to be pagan for it still to be around?
Just curious.
The Indeterminates are in a minority, but certainly exist. For them though, it’s not really a choice, the social stigma’s too high for those near the boundary not to be pushed into conformity.
But there are some who cannot, biologically, psychologically, or most often both, be what society expects.
They are vastly outnumbered by those cis-sexual people who see Gender and Gender Outlawry as a performance – an act that they can drop if it ever becomes too inconvenient. Those have no understanding of the first group, and often believe they’re deluded or malicious.
Zoe @ 26: Now I have been inspired to do some research. In re C and D purported to apply an English case called Corbett v Corbett (involving the famous April Ashley as a defendant). At that time, UK law did not recognise mutual consent as a reason to dissolve a marriage. The plaintiff, Arthur Corbett, sought to dissolve his marriage to Ashley without inheritance rights becoming an issue – if it was annulled, it was as if it never was. (Obviously now people can dissolve a marriage on the basis of consent.) It has been argued that In re C and D involves an incorrect application of Corbett v Corbett. In the much later Re Kevin case, Chisholm J noted that Bell J had no medical evidence, and that the husband did not appear, so Bell J did not have the benefit of detailed argument. Chisholm J considered that Bell J’s reasoning was of no assistance on this subject. The law is an ass, but I am glad that In re C and D does not seem to have been taken up. The Full Federal Court resoundingly upheld Chisholm J’s judgment in Re Kevin on appeal, and it has been applied in other countries. So; while stupid prejudice still exists, I do hope that the law is outgrowing it.
Marcellous – I have and I didn’t think it was particularly balanced – mainly because she’d only really got one side of the story.
Well she did cite several players in the story. I tended to think she was of the same opinion as most of the Victorian Greens I’ve met which is that the Socialist Republic of Marrickville are a pack of destructive Trots who need purging stat.
It is a simplification to call one side grass-roots because the allegedly non-grass-roots side in NSW has its own quite long grass-roots history.
It’s actually bullshit to call any significant player in any political party ‘grass roots’. As Mel’s pointed out most party members don’t turn up. Grass roots can be a phrase with some truth in it when it comes to specific events or campaigns but the minute the grass roots campaign has an effect it either becomes part of the Machine and ceases to be grass roots or nullifies its reason to exist and ceases to be.
It’s a rather odd simplification too when the self-proclaimed “grass-roots” side is the side which apparently wants to centralise (administratively and ideologically) and professionalise.
Yeah it’s a multi-layered irony. Bob Brown wants to turn his party into a contender. This is very difficult to do when you have not one but several organizations all with their own policy platforms some of which contradict the platforms of ideological fellow travelers in other states.
On the other hand the NSW Greens contain a faction which is determined to use the party to continue with the class war and I have seen no evidence that they, or any other 4th international type socialist have learned that economic central command creates if not tyranny than at least nothing much more than a surplus of red tape.
It’s moments like these where I wish I’d studied family law in Australia or England. I avoided it in both cases because it just looked horrid – guaranteed to bring the worst out in people.
The Scots system is much more humane, and its Roman law origins will make it easier for them to do ssm. Another oddity: because Scots law builds cohabitation around the law of contract, family law has more economic prestige here for the lawyers who work in it. If the SNP get their way and make marriage contractual as well, then the whole image of ‘family lawyer as quasi-social worker’ will, I suspect, disappear.
Yes SL , 31 and the older you get the more you know, you get brought again to contemplation of the seductive charms of human nature in its cups and the full majesty of abjection.
Not all countries – it’s been rejected in all cases in the USA in the last 10 years, Kantaras vs Kantars (appeal), and recently in re Araguz, voiding the marriage of a widow in Texas.
I personally regard the Re Kevin decisions as legally, morally, and scientifically sound. I’d even go as far as to say the “Brain Sex” theory is not just true on the balance of probabilities now, but proven. All the new experimental data since 2003 supports it.
From the Judgement: regarding medical evidence
I think Bell J considered this documentary evidence in making his decision. This had nothing to do with gender identity, only biological sex.
The Re Kevin decisions don’t avail me. First, they apply to Transsexuals, not necessarily to Intersex people. Secondly, I both present as, and am now regarded as, female. And was under the “Brain Sex” theory at the time. I picked the name “Zoe” at age 10, after all.
So there are 2 alternatives; either (neither M nor F), or (F). In either case, the marriage is voidable. I believe that if the second alternative is adopted, it’s void, so I don’t want to go there.
in re C and D is regarded as bad law as the husband was obviously neurologically male. I’m neurologically female. Mostly. More so than some women, less than others.
The problem with In re C and D is that I think it’s outdated. In other words, a case based on medical information from 1966 is useless, and cannot be applied in the modern day.
Surely there’s degrees of intersexedness (clumsy word, but I’m trying to find something to express what I mean). If you look at the Corbett case, for example, April Ashley had always known she was female and had been very underdeveloped as a male. Surely that’s a form of intersexedness, not just transexualism? Why should the law apply any differently to someone who is more on the intersex end of the spectrum than to someone who is more on the transexual end of the spectrum? I don’t know, I am not as au fait on the medical stuff as you are, Zoe (although I’ve read some of your posts on it and on your own situation). But it seems to me that In re C and D is bad law, and should be distinguished or overruled in light of Re Kevin. (Repeatedly distinguishing a case is what we lawyers do when we want it to moulder away to dust in the corner without actually coming right out and trashing it. It’s a chicken’s way of saying a case is wrong, but if that’s what the court has to do to get rid of this case, then I’m happy for courts to do it.)
Also Zoe, there was an article a couple of days back which you are probably familiar with, but added to my own understanding of the complexities involved in this area.
And the more I read, the more I’m thinking that in light of the mention of ‘marriage’ in our constitution (which itself seems to refer back to a case in England in the 1860s) it might have to be that the way forward is to define a ‘civil union’ as that which is contracted between two humans, carrying the same legal effect and rights and responsibilities as that attaching to ‘marriage’. I only suggest this, because I note that the case cited refers to ‘Christendom’ so…. here we go again?
To expand my previous comment, firstly accept that I have absolutely no moral or religious objection to SSM, and believe if all members of our community are to be treated equally then same sex relationships (scratch that – make that ‘relationships between two humans’) deserve equal-to-marriage treatment and protection under our laws. There’s probably some basic Human Rights violation in where we are at present, anyway.
My comment was directed to the laws. The Marriage Act is Commonwealth legislation, and it only recently introduced a restatement of the definition of marriage which had previously been derived from the Constitution, itself derived from English common law of the mid 1800s.
My understanding is that legislation cannot ‘widen’ a definition of a legal term (can ‘clarify’, but not widen) so for instance if the Australian Constitution defined the colour red, you cannot legislate a wider definition to, say, include blue within that definition WITHOUT direct modification of the Constitution. There’s a term for this; you’re the lawyers – not me. Therefore to widen the existing definition of marriage, you’d need to get into modification of the Constitution – and very good luck with that.
So that leaves a ‘need’ for societal/legal recognition of SSM or other relationships so as to afford them the same/identical protections and recognitions given to ‘marriage’. And I guess I’m saying, suck it up, and go for some sort of adequately worded ‘civil union’ which places that ‘civil union’ in exactly the same position under the laws as that enjoyed by ‘marriage’. Lastly, I am not stuck on the term ‘civil union’, but equally I don’t think proponents of change should be so stuck on the specific term ‘marriage’.
The above commentary is made in good spirit, but now you can shout if you wish.
kvd@36
The counter argument is that you are not widening the definition of marriage, merely extending the range of couples it applies to. If they are using the same marriage contract and plug into all the same rules and regulations, you are clearly not changing the definition of marriage, merely its application.
As for ‘marriage’ or ‘civil unions’, a lot of this turns on notions of being “proper” people and “proper” relationships (or not). No longer being quarantined off is precisely the point.
That makes sense. So where exactly does the Constitution define “marriage”? It must do somewhere, for you’ve said
OK, so where is it, please?
I’m not a lawyer either, but my well-worn copy of the constitution says:
Chapter 1 Part V 51:
“51.The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: –
(xxi.) Marriage:
That’s it, as far as I can see.
Zoe – the definition of marriage is in s 5 of the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth): “marriage” means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Amazingly that was only added in 2004 and marriage was not defined in the act previously.
I must have a look at the case law on s 51(xxi) to unravel the mystery.
L@37 maybe I should leave it to LE but your “The counter argument is that you are not widening the definition of marriage, merely extending the range of couples it applies to” goes against what I understand to be the commonly accepted legal definition of ‘marriage’ as contained in an English case Hyde v.Hyde and Woodmansee.
My point was, if you ‘extend the range’ you ‘widen the definition’. And that is something I understand to involve perhaps an amending of the Australian Constitution.
Zoe@38 I’m leaving it to LE now, but suffice to say you won’t find a definition in the Constitution, so that means courts will go back to common law (i.e. English decisions) and the apparently relevant decision is the one I mentioned in reply to Lorenzo.
Believe me, I ain’t agin you, just trying to sort out the legal ramifications and requirements.
kvd, your arguments remind me of this post from Club Troppo last year.
k v d – you’re not agin me, your argument is agin my argument.
And you know what? Reasonable people can differ.
Marriage was taken out of the purview of common law in the UK hundreds of years ago, by Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act (26 Geo. II. c. 33). (or arguably by the Marriage Duty Act 1689 IIRC). These strictures didn’t apply to Jews or Quakers
Before that, we could go back to the Council of Trent, or the 4th Lateran Council, but that only involved Church rather than State. Hence non-Christians were not affected.
And before THAT… it was necessary in the Codex Theodosianus (enforced in Britannia from 441(?)) that the existing practice of allowing marriage for same-sex partners be prohibited.
What happened after the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came in, I’m not certain – possibly a return to the pre-Christian customs.
It is my view that common law did not explicitly prohibit marriage including same sex partners, though this was highly unusual.
It was so unusual that no-one thought to prohibit it explicitly in Australia, until the Marriage Act. The fact that it had to be defined as not including same-sex relationships strongly implies that before then, it could possibly be interpreted as doing so.
In the US, with a common common-law ancestry, there is now a movement to amend the US Constitution to define marriage as only being mixed-sex. That recognises that currently, common law allows it, though statutory law often does not.
This link will get you to the Re Kevin decision, and if you go to paragraphs [88] to [100] of the decision, there is a very full discussion of the definition of marriage in the Constitution.
The upshot: the High Court has never definitively indicated what the definition of “marriage” in the constitution should be – all we have are single judges who mention it in passing in other cases. These range from those who would have a very narrow definition of marriage (eg, Brennan J) to those who would have a very broad definition of marriage including same sex unions (eg, McHugh J). So what does marriage in the Constitution mean? Your guess is as good as mine!
Money quote:
LE :
Those unions that the Parliament decides are to be recognised as marriages.
Implying that without such a law, they could be. a) reasonably be mistaken for one or b) are not to be counted as one even if they otherwise would be.
Query: Polygamous union contracted overseas? Such as certain Christian marriages in Uganda?
Point is, though, that there is nothing in the Constitutional (lack of) definition of marriage which prevents Parliament from legislating however they darn well want about marriage.
Actually I was reading somewhere that Hyde v.Hyde and Woodmansee did not represent a complete definition of marriage of 1866, and less so now – speech by former CJ of the Family court – I guess he knew what he was saying.
Zoe, LE thank you. I am pleased to be wrong in my understanding.
desipis, I don’t read CT. You can see I’ve enough trouble absorbing what is raised here.