UFS: Varsity workers fed meat with urine (VIDEO)

A video of University of the Free State (UFS) employees on their knees eating meat which had been urinated on was condemned “in the strongest possible terms” by the university yesterday.
The video, made by the Reitz men’s residence, surfaced yesterday morning and follows riots by the students at the campus last week over the university’s hostel integration policy.

“The Executive Management (EM) of the UFS condemns this video in the strongest possible terms as a gross violation of the human dignity of the workers involved,” the university said.

For the rest of this article from Sowetan online, go here.

Volksblad: 'n RASSEBOM het gister op die kampus van die Universiteit van die Vrystaat (UV) in Bloemfontein ontplof. (Click here for Video)

NVDL: Big shit is happening on that campus. I should know, I was there. The Afrikaners feel like they have had to give up everything, all their traditions, even where they live on campus. Lots of angry people.

Coal and the Weather: A Vicious Circle And Not In The Way You Might Think

So we've had problems with our coal in South Africa. Guess what, Australia is having BIG problems too. Is the problem one of supply? No, the problem is unusual unseasonally levels rainfall, flooding - meaning coal piles remain wet and then cannot be used, or cannot be used with effective energy output.

On TV last night a guy was saying an investment in a new power station means a 10 year downtime period, followed by 50 years of operation. Excuse me, we need to be investing elsewhere, but we are just out of RIGHT NOW options aren't we?

Nuclear is an alternative, but you pay a premium upfront for energy that clean. Are we prepared to pay it? Or are we heading back towards the dim ages, to an age when coal was the primary fuel source...a time of pestilence and pollution, steam trains, cars and ships. That's quite a slip backward for an apparently advanced civilisation. But then an advanced civilisation that turns out to use the internet to search Britney, Paris and Pam, perhaps needs to go back to Baby School.

Newcastle Coal Rises to Record on Australian Floods (Update2)

Power-station coal prices at the New South Wales port gained $13.68, or 11 percent, to $139.16 a metric ton in the week ended Feb. 15, according to the globalCOAL NEWC Index. The price rose 73 percent in 2007. The increase comes as mine owners and fuel buyers are set to negotiate annual contract prices to take effect April 1.

Wet coal threatens Eskom power output

Beowulf as a Global Metaphor

Will we reap the dragon as Beowulf did?

In order to transform not only what we do, but also our feelings about something (and thus, our motivations) we can start by changing our metaphors. The cinema version of the 7th century epic poem Beowulf departs in a number of crucial aspects from the original. I believe those changes are spot on, as they say a lot about our contemporary human condition.

The movie Beowulf provides an insightful look at what the human being is; a creature that is compelled by incredibly powerful forces – passions – that drive the fates of entire nations. The primary drivers are greed and lust, though neither are necessarily negative. Greed, tempered a little, can be healthy ambition. Lust, given more time, can soften and deepen to love. Beowulf succumbs initially to both of these positive effects. But when faced with the question: What does a powerful man seek? The answer is invariably the same: More power.

This is true of nations too. This lust for power, beyond what is healthy, beyond what is good, is represented in the cinema version through the introduction of the beautiful, seductive demon, essentially the first monster’s mother (rendered as Angelina Jolie). The demon promises Beowulf greater prosperity, in exchange for a small detail, one that is inevitably difficult to keep an eye on when one’s world and powerbase is expanding. And the consummation of the contract is a metaphor for man’s capacity to give in to the seductions, the trappings of excess.

Initially the dalliances seem harmless enough, but secrets and lies ultimately undermine relationships, causing Beowulf in this case to lose a sense of his own personal dignity (in itself, a redeeming quality, and a heroic trait). In the world, this can be compared to the massive corruption we see, both in corporations (for example the current scandal at VW Germany), and generally, in global politics.

The sum of a lifetime of small deceptions and duplicity is a fire breathing dragon capable of destroying everything that has been built, capable of ruining the castle; and destroying those closest to us. In the same way that Beowulf unwittingly fathers the dragon, there is something of ourselves in that awesomely destructive creature. In this sense, we begin to see the solution: we are connected to both the heroic, and the seeds of our doom. We cannot pretend to disown the dragon; it is simply the bearing out of Absolute Consequence.

Nevertheless, one remembers in the film rendering, that the mythical hero Beowulf seemed not to stand a chance against the amorphous golden ghost. She moved through his sword and turns it to quicksilver. Does this imply that it is inevitable that we succumb to our baser instincts? That we humans are still animal enough not to have the power to control our appetites? This is the question.

But as we move through the next millennium, it is very difficult to conceive of life on Earth 5 years from now, even less 10 years from now. But if we can begin to construct global metaphors, affirming mindsets, we can possibly do a lot to disarm our dark hearts. It is possible to shine a light into our collective aorta, and we do that by first of all seeing ourselves not succumbing to the great demon that we know deceives us. We start by rejecting its beauty as a false beauty. We know what that beauty is. It is the meretricious beauty of a world that does not exist – in movies, magazines, and Celebrity Land. That is not the real world, and if we aspire to live in that place, while neglecting far more urgent relationships – those with our siblings, our sisters, our brothers and neighbors – we bring about our own and worse, their doom.

Life, all life – not just a single person – is sacred. Life is a gift, one that is given to us, and one that we are asked to return to the world. To dwell in profanity – and we all know what those vulgarities are – and to turn the gift of life into a collection of things, is to engineer for ourselves a dragon. We are asked to be respecters of all living things, to share and give the gift of our lives. If we can do that, the world of men can be again heroic and good, and worth saving.

Denial Makes the World Go Round (NYT)

Varieties of denial include inattention, passive acknowledgment, reframing and willful blindness.

For years she hid the credit card bills from her husband: The $2,500 embroidered coat from Neiman Marcus. The $900 beaded scarf from Blake in Chicago. A $600 pair of Dries van Noten boots. All beautiful items, and all perfectly affordable if she had been a hedge fund manager or a Google executive.

Friends at first dropped hints to go easy or rechannel her creative instincts. Her mother grew concerned enough to ask pointed questions. But sales clerks kept calling with early tips on the coming season’s fashions, and the seasons kept changing.

“It got so bad I would sit up suddenly at night and wonder if I was going to slip up and this whole thing would explode,” said the secretive shopper, Katharine Farrington, 46, a freelance film writer living in Washington, who is now free of debt. “I don’t know how I could have been in denial about it for so long. I guess I was optimistic I could pay, and that I wasn’t hurting anyone.
“Well, of course that wasn’t true.”

Everyone is in denial about something; just try denying it and watch friends make a list. For Freud, denial was a defense against external realities that threaten the ego, and many psychologists today would argue that it can be a protective defense in the face of unbearable news, like a cancer diagnosis.

In the modern vernacular, to say someone is “in denial” is to deliver a savage combination punch: one shot to the belly for the cheating or drinking or bad behavior, and another slap to the head for the cowardly self-deception of pretending it’s not a problem.

Denial Good For Relationships

Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others’. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness.

In this emerging view, social scientists see denial on a broader spectrum — from benign inattention to passive acknowledgment to full-blown, willful blindness — on the part of couples, social groups and organizations, as well as individuals. Seeing denial in this way, some scientists argue, helps clarify when it is wise to manage a difficult person or personal situation, and when it threatens to become a kind of infectious silent trance that can make hypocrites of otherwise forthright people.

“The closer you look, the more clearly you see that denial is part of the uneasy bargain we strike to be social creatures,” said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and the author of the coming book “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.” “We really do want to be moral people, but the fact is that we cut corners to get individual advantage, and we rely on the room that denial gives us to get by, to wiggle out of speeding tickets, and to forgive others for doing the same.”

The capacity for denial appears to have evolved in part to offset early humans’ hypersensitivity to violations of trust. In small kin groups, identifying liars and two-faced cheats was a matter of survival. A few bad rumors could mean a loss of status or even expulsion from the group, a death sentence.

In a series of recent studies, a team of researchers led by Peter H. Kim of the University of Southern California and Donald L. Ferrin of the University of Buffalo, now at Singapore Management University, had groups of business students rate the trustworthiness of a job applicant after learning that the person had committed an infraction at a previous job. Participants watched a film of a job interview in which the applicant was confronted with the problem and either denied or apologized for it.

If the infraction was described as a mistake and the applicant apologized, viewers gave him the benefit of the doubt and said they would trust him with job responsibilities. But if the infraction was described as fraud and the person apologized, viewers’ trust evaporated — and even having evidence that he had been cleared of misconduct did not entirely restore that trust.

“We concluded there is this skewed incentive system,” Dr. Kim said. “If you are guilty of an integrity-based violation and you apologize, that hurts you more than if you are dishonest and deny it.”

The system is skewed precisely because the people we rely on and value are imperfect, like everyone else, and not nearly as moral or trustworthy as they expect others to be. If evidence of this weren’t abundant enough in everyday life, it came through sharply in a recent study led by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Ariely and two colleagues, Nina Mazar and On Amir, had 326 students take a multiple-choice general knowledge test, promising them payment for every correct answer. The students were instructed to transfer their answers, for the official tally, onto a form with color-in bubbles for each numbered question. But some of the students had the opportunity to cheat: they received bubble sheets with the correct answers seemingly inadvertently shaded in gray. Compared with the others, they changed about 20 percent of their answers, and a follow-up study demonstrated that they were unaware of the magnitude of their dishonesty.

By BENEDICT CAREY
For the next page of this New York Times article, go here.

NVDL: This why our chronic denial of the Peak Oil issue is in essence related to our ego's. Think of automobile advertising. Your car says a lot about you. Your car is an extension of your image, and by far the most powerful. Our car's give us an identity, they enable us to get ahead, they place us in or out of a particular status quo. And we do tend to deny whatever deflates our ego's. Sometimes that denial is also called lying. But your mother probably told you: lying is bad, but lying to yourself is just plain frickin' dumb! Human beings are in denial about a fuckload of things. South Africans and Americans probably lead the pack.

South Africans are in denial about the following:
- being the world leader for those suffering from a terminal disease called AIDS (people should be walking around with certificates stating whether they are HIV positive or not, to hand out to prospective lovers, but more importantly, for their own perusal. Over 5 million people are presently infected. Meanwhile South Africa is no different from any other sex-crazed, apparently sex starved country.
- being the world leader with regard to crime, and in particular, violent crime. But do our communities get involved, hold Town Hall meetings? Do neighbours even talk to each other about what to do, who to call, how to help if one of them gets attacked?
- being la di dah, blah di blah about environmental issues. South Africa is one of the world's worst polluters per capita. This is thanks to our mining activities, and also our golden saviour: SASOL
- we're in denail about the electricity problem (which will get worse over at least a 7 year period)
- we're in denial about the rest of Africa, particularly Zimbabwe
- we're in denial about our political leaders
- we're in denial about our own inner corruption
- we're in denial about our diets, about exercise, about who we are.
Fundamentally, we're fucked.

The Crying Game

It was strange, a sort of deja vu. In the same way that Jake White had a sense on the field of the hard work, the reward and the relief, mixing together - in an overwhelming albeit momentarily deluge of emotion - I felt something similar, though no doubt on a different scale.

I was watching Matrix Revolutions, alone, on Friday night. I guess the backdrop is just that I have been facing a similar 'lack of belief' from some key decision makers around me; perhaps not for the first time. I guess I'm just more aware of it, and more sick of it now than ever before. I found myself really resonating with Neo's dilemma. Having to really risk all - a lot - for some pretty altruistic motives. No one understands you or what you're doing, although the few that do, those few glimmers of recognition, are what make the difference. It's possibly not worth it, on a calculated mathematic scale. But it's something one feels has to be done, whether people support you, understand what you're doing, or not.

So this endless calling out and reaching out to humanity to be conscious of the extraordinary dilemma we're about to face - a lack of fuel for our populations everywhere... It's a message generally meant to save us from harm, to perhaps mitigate the suffering when the panic, chaos and mayhem sets in. Most though, do not listen.

Interestingly, I learned over the weekend of an experiment conducted to gauge the impact of conformity. They would bring a young person into a room, having rehearsed with 9 other individuals on a scheme where they would agree to vote for a 2nd length of string as the longest. In the experiment 3 lengths of string are displayed, the first the shortest, second the second longest, and the third, the longest. They'd ask the group of 10 which string was the longest. 9 hands would go up to indicate the 2nd string (2nd longest). The 10th individual would look around in disbelief, and then raise his hand. When questioned afterwards, the test individual would invariably say: "I didn't want to make a fool of myself, and I wondered whether I had understood the question correctly." Naturally, by conforming the person does turn out to be behaving very foolishly indeed.

I remember as a young teenager being incredibly aware of the risks for our species where all people start to conventionally believe conventional wisdoms (all people think the same thing, believe the same thing, conforn to the same lifestyle pattern) but are later proved incorrect. History shows this has happened many times, with dire consequences. We've believed the Earth to flat, the centre of the universe, we've described the threat of Communism as imminent (the Vietnam War), an imminent WMD crisis in Iraq (The Current Iraq War), there's been endless talk of the Second Coming of Christ (Armageddon - I heard someone insisting to it was imment yesterday) and so on and so forth.

Our collective lethargy to face climate change and energy depletion - even the reltively simply issue of insufficient electricity capacity, and yet we're so busy and distracted by things that are simply not important. Entertainment now gets priority over issues of survival. Crazy.

But when the experiment was repeated, the same response. In 75% of individuals tested, group behaviour, even totally irrational behaviour, was imputed on the person, despite this person knowing the right thing to do, they chose instead to conform to the group. This is the tragedy of our race. The inability, the lack of courage, to face reality. Instead, we hide in conformity.

This is why, in Revolutions, I found myself with tears dripping down my cheeks as I reflected on this similar capacity in the fictional context - to courageously face reality, to believe in someone, in a course of action despite the odds.

Roland: This is asinine. If you want to kill yourself, go ahead, but do it without wasting one of our ships.
Neo: You have to believe me. I have to go.
Roland: Bullshit. I'm captain of this ship, *I'll* say where it has to go. And believe me, this ship will go to hell long before I let you take it anywhere!
Niobe: He can have mine.
Roland: Niobe! You can't do that!
Niobe: Don't you even begin to tell me what I can and can't do with my ship after your little speech.

Morpheus: You've never believed in The One.
Niobe: I still don't.
Morpheus: Then why are you doing this?
Niobe: [re: Neo] I believe in him.

Breaking News: 14-Year-Old Gunman Shoots Four, Commits Suicide At Cleveland High School

By Gil Kaufman For Think.MTV.com

A 14-year-old student opened fire in the hallways of SuccessTech Academy high school in downtown Cleveland Wednesday afternoon (October 10), injuring five people. The student — who has been identified as Asa H. Coon, according to The Associated Press — then shot and killed himself.


Gunshot Wounds

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson spoke to the media several hours after the incident, saying two teachers — a 57-year-old man who was later identified as David Kachadourian, and a yet-unidentified 42-year-old — were shot and injured in the incident, but that they were in stable condition. He also said that an 18-year-old male, Darnell Rodgers, was treated for a gunshot wound to the elbow and released, and that a 14-year-old male was in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the side. A fifth person, a 14-year-old female student, was also injured when she hurt her knee in the aftermath; she was treated and released.

Dr. Eugene Sanders, CEO of Cleveland's metropolitan school district, said classes would be canceled for the entire district on Thursday and that an already-scheduled day off on Friday would be used to speak to teachers about the incident and come up with strategies to avoid similar situations in the future.

Coon, who had been suspended earlier this week for fighting, entered the school with two handguns and began opening fire in the early afternoon, hitting several students on at least two floors of the school, according to CNN.

While Coon was running through the halls, the principal called out a "code blue" alert, telling students to get to a safe space, with some hiding in closets or on the floors of their classrooms. Police responded to the incident within two minutes and quickly secured the building. A police spokesperson said Coon took his own life before police arrived at the school.

For more click here.
For the CNN story, click here.
For blogs on this story, here.
Asa had a troubled past - click here.

NYT: A Glut of Cinema This October

Did somebody blow a whistle and decide that mid-October should be some kind of ad hoc, free-floating film fest? Not really. Current movie-business dynamics are at work, along with some long-held superstitions.

By DAVID CARR
In certain circles of New York life, cultural cachet does not hinge on possession of the latest gadget or juicy piece of gossip. Instead, when the Saturday dinner party in Williamsburg or on the Upper West Side turns to films, the dedicated savant who has managed to see the just-opened movie gem owns the conversation.

“Control,” at Film Forum, is just one of many fall options for the dedicated cinephile.
This weekend, if you are one of those people — there are worse vices — you will simply have to go see “Lars and the Real Girl,” the comedy starring Ryan Gosling and a blowup doll that was the talk of the Toronto International Film Festival. And then you better drink a few lattes, because “Control,” the black-and-white biopic about the leader of the rock group Joy Division, also opened this week. And start early, because “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” is taking a bow, with Cate Blanchett under all the ferocious makeup again.

Don’t make plans for Saturday, because you’ll need that matinee time to take in Kenneth Branagh’s remake of “Sleuth,” featuring the acting chops of Michael Caine and Jude Law and a screenplay by Harold Pinter. And even after all those wind sprints between theaters, you’ll need a clone to take in James Gray’s New York narco-drama “We Own the Night,” or any of the other 10 new movies that open this week in the city.

Maybe you can bluff your way through the “Have you seen ‘X’?” conversation this weekend and catch a few films in the days following, but next week the onslaught continues. “Gone Baby Gone,” Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, based on a Dennis Lehane novel, piles in. So do “Rendition,” “Reservation Road,” “Things We Lost in the Fire” and “Wristcutters: A Love Story,” all must-sees for dedicated consumers of specialty film. And that’s not even including smaller but still notable projects that will have been released in little more than a week, like “Out of the Blue,” “Terror’s Advocate,” “Black White + Gray” and “King Corn.”

Did somebody blow a whistle and decide that mid-October should be some kind of ad hoc, free-floating film fest? Not really. Current movie-business dynamics are at work, along with some long-held superstitions.

For the rest of this article click here.

Watch Until The Train Leaves (Video)

Watch Until The Train Leaves - Funny blooper videos are here

World's Worst Serial Killer: Richard Kuklinski

Richard Kuklinski was one of the most diabolical self-confessed contract killers in American history, who took credit for over 200 murders, including the murder of Jimmy Hoffa.

From About.com:

Profile of Richard Kuklinski
by Charles Montaldo,
The Iceman

Richard Leonard Kuklinski was born in the projects in Jersey City, New Jersey to Stanley and Anna Kuklinski. Stanley was a severely abusive alcoholic who beat his wife and children. Anna was also abusive to her children, sometimes beating them with broom handles.

In 1940, Stanley's beatings resulted in the death of Kuklinski's old brother, Florian. Stanley and Anna hid the cause of the child's death from the authorities, saying he had fallen down a flight of steps.
By the age of 10, Richard Kuklinski was filled with rage and began acting out. For fun he would torture animals and by the age of 14, he had committed his first murder.

Taking a steel clothing rod from his closet, he ambushed Charlie Lane, a local bully and leader of a small gang who had picked on him. Unintentionally he beat Lane to death. Kuklinski felt remorse for Lane's death for a brief period, but then saw it as a way to feel powerful and in control. He then went on and nearly beat to death the remaining six gang members.

Early Adulthood

By his early twenties Kuklinski had earned the reputation as being an explosive tough street hustler who would beat or kill those who he didn't like or who offended him. According to Kuklinski it was during this time that his association with Roy DeMeo, a member of the Gambino Crime Family, was established.

From Street Punk to Paid Hitman

As his work with DeMeo advanced his ability to be an effective killing machine was recognized. According to Kuklinski, he became a favorite hitman for the mob, resulting in the deaths of at least 200 people. The use of cyanide poison became one of his favorite weapons as well as guns, knives and chainsaws.

Brutality and torture would often precede death for many of his victims. This included his own description of causing his victims to bleed, then tying them up in rat infested areas. The rats, attracted to the smell of blood would eventually eat the men alive.

The Family Man

Barbara Pedrici saw Kuklinski as a sweet giving man and the two married and had three children. Much like his father, Kuklinski, who was 6' 4" and weighing over 300 pounds, began to beat and terrorize Barbara and the children. On the outside, however, the Kuklinski family was admired by neighbors and friends as being a happy and well adjusted.

The Beginning of the End

Eventually Kuklinski started making mistakes and the New Jersey State Police were watching him. When three associates of Kuklinskis turned up dead, a task force was organized with the New Jersey authorities and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Special Agent Dominick Polifrone went undercover and spent a year and a half disguised as a hitman and eventually met and gained Kuklinski's trust. Kuklinski bragged to the agent about his proficiency with cyanide and boasted about freezing a corpse in order to mask his time of death. Afraid Polifrone would soon become another of Kuklinski's victims, the task force moved quickly after taping some of his confessions and getting him to agree to do a hit with Polifrone.

The End of the Iceman

On December 17, 1986, Kuklinski was arrested and charged with five counts of murder which involved two trials. He was found guilty in the first trial and reached an agreement in the second trial and was sentenced to two life sentences. He was sent to Trenton State Prison, where his brother was serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl.

Enjoying the Fame

While in prison he was interviewed by HBO for a documentary called "The Iceman Confesses," then later by author Anthony Bruno, who wrote the book "The Iceman," as a follow-up to the documentary. In 2001, he was interviewed again by HBO for another documentary called, "The Iceman Tapes: Conversations With a Killer."

It was during these interviews that Kuklinski confessed to several cold-blooded murders and spoke of his ability to detach himself emotionally from his own brutality. When on the subject of his family he uncharacteristically showed emotions when describing the love he felt towards them.

Kuklinski Blames Childhood Abuse

When asked why he had become one of the most diabolical mass murderers in history, he cast blame on his father's abuse and admitted the one thing he was sorry for was for not killing him.

Questionable Confessions

Authorities do not buy everything Kuklinski claimed during the interviews. Witnesses for the government who were part of DeMeo's group said Kuklinski was not involved in any murders for DeMeo. They also question the number of murders he claimed to have committed.

His Suspicious Death

On March 5, 2006, Kuklinski, age 70, died of unknown causes. His death came suspiciously around the same time he was scheduled to testify against Sammy Gravano. Kuklinski was going to testify that Gravano hired him to kill a police officer in the 1980s. Charges against Gravano were dropped after Kuklinski's death because of insufficient evidence.

Kuklinski and the Hoffa Confession

In April 2006, it was reported that Kuklinski had confessed to author Philip Carlo that he and four men had kidnapped and murdered union boss Jimmy Hoffa. In an interview aired on CNN's "Larry King Live," Carlo discussed the confession in detail, explaining the Kuklinski was part of a five-member team, who under the direction of Tony Provenzano, a captain in the Genovese crime family, kidnapped and murdered Hoffa in a restaurant parking lot in Detroit.

A Family Consumed by Fear

Also on the program was Barbara Kuklinski and her daughters, who spoke about the abuse and fear they suffered at the hands of Kuklinski.

One telling moment which described the true depth of Kuklinski's sociopathic brutality was when one of the daughters, described as Kuklinski's "favorite" child, told of her father's attempt to get her to understand, when she was 14, why if he killed Barbara during a fit of rage, he would also have to kill her and her brother and sister.

NVDL: This oke is full of kak.

As Bad Deaths Go, It's Hard to Top This

By Tony Long

Oct. 3, 1283: Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last native prince of Wales in a free if turbulent Wales, becomes the first person known to be executed by being hanged, then drawn and quartered.

While the human capacity for cruelty is limitless, it's hard to top the medievals for their sheer inventiveness when it came to executing a criminal -- especially for the crime of high treason.

Captured after attacking Hawarden Castle at Easter during the ultimately unsuccessful Welsh struggle to remain independent of Plantagenet England, Dafydd was imprisoned by an outraged King Edward I, the man given credit for dreaming up Dafydd's grisly fate. The death warrant stipulated Dafydd's demise should be slow and agonizing, and the monarch did not disappoint.

For more, click here.

Regurgitating Rice Crispies

Soundbites from The Breakfast Club

Bender: Remember how you said your parents use you to get back at each other?
Claire Standish: [nods]
Bender: Wouldn't I be OUTSTANDING in that capacity?

Allison Reynolds: You have problems.
Andrew Clark: Oh, I have problems?
Allison Reynolds: You do everything everyone tells you to do and that is a problem.

Allison Reynolds: I'll do anything sexual. I don't need a million dollars to do it either.
Claire Standish: You're lying.
Allison Reynolds: I already have. I've done just about everything there is except a few things that are illegal. I'm a nymphomaniac.
Claire Standish: Lie.
Brian Johnson: Are your parents aware of this?
Allison Reynolds: The only person I told was my shrink.
Andrew Clark: And what did he do when you told him?
Allison Reynolds: He nailed me.
Claire Standish: Very nice.
Allison Reynolds: I don't think that from a legal standpoint what he did can be construed as rape, since I paid him.
Claire Standish: He's an adult.
Allison Reynolds: Yeah, he's married too.
Claire Standish: Do you have any idea how completely gross that is?
Allison Reynolds: Well, the first few times...
Claire Standish: The first few times? You mean you did it more than once?
Allison Reynolds: Sure.
Claire Standish: Are you crazy?
Brian Johnson: Obviously she's crazy if she's screwing a shrink.

Allison Reynolds: Have you ever done it?
Claire Standish: I don't even have a psychiatrist.
Allison Reynolds: Have you ever done it with a normal person?
Claire Standish: Didn't we already cover this?
John Bender: You never answered the question.
Claire Standish: Look, I'm not going to discuss my private life with total strangers.
Allison Reynolds: It's kind of a double edged sword isn't it?
Claire Standish: A what?
Allison Reynolds: Well, if you say you haven't, you're a prude. If you say you have you're a slut. It's a trap. You want to but you can't, and when you do you wish you didn't, right?
Claire Standish: Wrong.
Allison Reynolds: Or are you a tease?
Andrew Clark: She's a tease.
Claire Standish: I'm sure. Why don't you just forget it.
Andrew Clark: Oh, you're a tease and you know it. All girls are teases.

John Bender: She's only a tease if what she does gets you hot.
Claire Standish: I don't do anything.
Allison Reynolds: That's why you're a tease.
Claire Standish: OK, let me ask you a few questions.
Allison Reynolds: I already told you everything.
Claire Standish: No. Doesn't it bother you to sleep around without being in love. I mean, don't you want any respect?
Allison Reynolds: I don't screw to get respect. That's the difference between you and me.
Claire Standish: It's not the only difference I hope.
John Bender: Face it, you're a tease.
Claire Standish: I'm NOT a tease.
John Bender: Sure you are. Sex is your weapon. You said it yourself. You use it to get respect.
Claire Standish: No, I never said that she twisted my words around.
John Bender: What do you use it for then?
Claire Standish: I don't use it period.
John Bender: Oh, are you medically frigid or is it psychological?
Claire Standish: I didn't mean it that way. You guys are putting words into my mouth.
John Bender: Well, if you'd just answer the question.
Brian Johnson: Why don't you just answer the question?
Andrew Clark: Be honest.
John Bender: No big deal.
Brian Johnson: Yeah answer it.
Andrew Clark: Answer the question, Claire.
John Bender: Talk to us.
Everyone: C'mon, answer the question. Come on. Answer it.
John Bender: C'mon, it's easy. It's only one question.
Claire Standish: NO I NEVER DID IT.
Allison Reynolds: I never did it either. I'm not a nymphomaniac. I'm a compulsive liar.

[John Bender is absently tearing up books]
Andrew Clark: That's real intelligent.
John Bender: You're right. It's wrong to destroy literature. It's such fun to read. And
[examines title]
John Bender: Moe-Lay really pumps my nads.
Claire Standish: Moliere.

Claire Standish: What's your name?
John Bender: What's yours?
Claire Standish: Claire.
John Bender: Claire?
Claire Standish: Claire. It's a family name.
John Bender: Oh, it's a fat girl's name.
Claire Standish: Oh, thank you.
John Bender: You're welcome.
Claire Standish: I'm not fat.
John Bender: Well not at present, but I can see you really pushing maximum density. See I'm not sure if you know this, but there are two kinds of fat people: there's fat people that were born to be fat, and there's fat people that were once thin but became fat... so when you look at 'em you can sorta see that thin person inside. You see, you're gonna get married, you're gonna squeeze out a few puppies and then, uh...

John Bender: What's in there?
Claire Standish: Guess? Where's your lunch?
John Bender: You're wearing it.
Claire Standish: You're nauseating.
John Bender: [pointing to Claire's lunch] What's that?
Claire Standish: Sushi.
John Bender: Sushi?
Claire Standish: Rice, raw fish, and seaweed.
John Bender: You won't accept a guy's tongue in your mouth, and you're going to eat that?
Claire Standish: Can I eat?
John Bender: I don't know. Give it a try.

John Bender: Sporto.
Andrew Clark: What?
John Bender: You get along with your parents?
Andrew Clark: Well, if I say yes I'm an idiot, right?
John Bender: You're an idiot anyway. But if you say you get along with your parents, well, you're a liar too.


Brian Johnson: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...
Andrew Clark: ...and an athlete...
Allison Reynolds: ...and a basket case...
Claire Standish: ...a princess...
John Bender: ...and a criminal...
Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question?... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

From IMDB.com
Click here for a review.

Did You know?

From eighty20:
Men Talking the Talk

The average monthly cellphone bill is about R178 for men, almost 46% higher than that of women.

Total population of South Africa

The total population of South Africa at September 2004 was 46.5 million (up from 44.8 million in 2001). 36.8 million are black, 4.4 million white, 4.12 million coloured and 1.2 million Indian/Asian

She's all that

There is no statistically significant difference in happiness between single men and single women, but married women are statistically happier than married men. (Source: The Eighty20 Spring Happiness Checkup)

A woman needs a (jobless) man like a fish needs a bicycle

50% of women in South Africa with babies under the age of 2 are single (never married and not living together) (AMPS 2006 RA)

Today, tomorrow, together

2006 was the first year where there were more South African adults with a bank account than without. (Finscope 2006)

The Porn Myth

NVDL: Someone once said to me: "Life is a porn movie." Porn is about the feel-good-factor, it's the most INSTANT of instant gratifications out there, Porn is seeing-is-beliving (even though we should know it's a con), and at heart (although it really doesn't have one), porn is mean and shallow and dumb. The article below is thankfully written by a woman, and is incredibly astute. You've been warned.

In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing.
By Naomi Wolf

At a benefit the other night, I saw Andrea Dworkin, the anti-porn activist most famous in the eighties for her conviction that opening the floodgates of pornography would lead men to see real women in sexually debased ways. If we did not limit pornography, she argued—before Internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility—most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow.

The feminist warrior looked gentle and almost frail. The world she had, Cassandra-like, warned us about so passionately was truly here: Porn is, as David Amsden says, the “wallpaper” of our lives now. So was she right or wrong?

More on this topic:

Not Tonight, Honey. I'm Logging On.: Internet porn is everywhere; even "nice" guys are hooked. So where does that leave their girlfriends? By David Amsden (October 20, 2003)
The New Position on Casual Sex: The rise of Internet dating has brought a sexual openness (not to mention one-night stands) to the younger generation not seen since the seventies heyday of Maxwell's Plum. But can there be too much of a good thing? By Vanessa Grigoriadis (January 13, 2003)

She was right about the warning, wrong about the outcome. As she foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.
But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.

Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.

For two decades, I have watched young women experience the continual “mission creep” of how pornography—and now Internet pornography—has lowered their sense of their own sexual value and their actual sexual value. When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market.

No Show

If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real. Thirty years ago, simple lovemaking was considered erotic in the pornography that entered mainstream consciousness: When Behind the Green Door first opened, clumsy, earnest, missionary-position intercourse was still considered to be a huge turn-on.

Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene.

What's Enough?

Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices.

For page 2 visit nymag.com

Cycling: Best Training & Racing Mantras

You snooze you lose

Each morning you lie in you miss out on life my man. It's another day of laziness and underachieving. You think it's worth it? And when race day comes, another mediocre performance. So when that alarm goes off, don't think, don't negotiate, JUST GET UP AND GO. Once you're on the road you'll be happy to be where you are.

Real life after all is about the wind moving over your skin, being in the company of other guys (on or off their bikes), moving through the world, watching the sun come up. What we do at work tends to be hamster-on-a-treadmill stuff. So make sure you get the all important real life fixes - like face to face conversation and exercise.

If you go, we go

While it doesn't take a drammatic 'BACKDRAFT' moment to make this sort of commitment, this is a useful mantra to get yourself training. But in the end you shouldn't be out there just to keep your mates happy. The locus should be an internal sense of: I want this because it's good for me. It is.

Now once you're strong and racing (from all those early morning commitments) and you're in a bunch with someone who is doing random breaks, pull up alongside and issue this stern warning:

If you go, we go.

You can also use it with teammates. Just make sure when you use it you'll be able to follow through.

With preparation comes confidence

Enough said.

Creatures that swarm

and multiply...