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Showing posts with the label power

“Generations of men are frustrated, angry and ashamed that, despite following the rules - and despite sacrificing the tender, emotionally connected boys inside of them - they're not getting what was promised to them.”

Ezra up a tree. Binalong Bay, Bay of Fires, Tasmania. July 2021. See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Violence by Jess Hill  A bleak insight into the history, culture and laws around familial violence in Australia. The book offers a broad sweep of the movement Hill identifies as a "historic shift in power and accountability" in which "the Western world [has] finally started taking men’s violence against women seriously". The full truth of the latter half of this statement remains still to be seen. Unlike the dry government reports and inquiries cited throughout the work, Hill gets behind the simple facts and figures (although there are plenty of these too) to give the reader a real visceral sense of the terror, abuse and personal and institutional failures behind the dreadful data. It's not perfect, and I scratched my head at times in which she defers to various authorities and takes assertions at face value (telling rather than showing), but it...

Better break your word than do worse in keeping it.

Power pole. Geilston Bay Road, Geilston Bay. August 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

I have a question for you to consider this morning. Do you think that it is possible for a two year old to stagger the timing of his poos to maximise their impact? I am convinced that Henry is doing so, and what’s more, I suspect that he is engaging in some kind of nefarious activity designed to increase both the concentration and odour of what is dangerously developing into weapons-grade faeces. Advanced satellite imaging suggests that there may be some kind of involvement from North Korea. Or Syria. Or Libya. Or perhaps the neighbour’s cat. Whatever. We’re considering counter strikes as we speak. Ezra, bless him, is still working on a naïve level – typical of babies and despotic tin pot dictators – that more is inexorably better. The little fellow lacks the sophistication of Henry’s innovative and enhanced brand of asymmetrical warfare . Now, while this technique is thoroughly unsuited to poo-related conflict, it is proving wholly successful on the sleep front. Ezra has now taken to ...