Erdogan and his nocturnal ovine pleasuring habits

Like many others who support free speech, I was very disappointed in yesterday's decision by a Hamburg court that it stands by its ban of a satirical poem by German comedian Jan Böhmermann. Herr Böhmermann, not a big fan of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erodgan and his oppression of both people and speech, narrated this poem "Schmägedicht" ("Defamation Poem") on his show on 31st March 2016.

Here's the original reading: if you have any German speakers in the room with you then now would be an excellent time to send them out.

Jan Böhmermann - Erdogan Gedicht (Jan Boehmermann Erdogan poem) (English subtitled) from mjchris on Vimeo.

As a public service, here is my transcription of the original text, plus a translation.

German	English
Sackdoof, feige und verklemmt	Stupid as fuck, cowardly and uptight
Ist Erdogan, der Präsident	is Erdogan, the president.
Sein Gelöt stinkt schlimm nach Döner	His erection reeks of Doner kebab;
selbst ein Schweinefurz riecht schöner	Even a pig fart smells better.
Er ist der Mann, der Mädchen schlägt	He's a man who hits girls
und dabei Gummimasken trägt	while wearing rubber masks.
Am liebsten mag er Ziegen ficken	He loves most to fuck goats
und Minderheiten unterdrücken	and repress minorities.
Kurden treten, Christen hauen	Kicking Kurds, beating Christians
und dabei Kinderpornos schauen	while gazing at kiddie porn.
Und selbst abends heisst’s statt schlafen	And at night, instead of sleep,
Fellatio mit hundert Schafen	Performs fellatio on a hundred sheep.
Ja, Erdogan ist voll and ganz	Yes, Erdogan truly is
ein Präsident mit kleinem Schwanz	A president with a small dick.
Jeden Türken hört man flöten	Every Turk will tell you
die dumme Sau hat Schrumpelklöten	the stupid pig has wrinkled balls.
Von Ankara bis Istanbul	From Ankara to Istanbul
weiss jeder, dieser Mann ist schwul	everyone knows this man's a poof,
pervers, verlaust und zoophil	perverse, lice-ridden, an animal fucker.
Recep “Fritzl Priklopil”	Recep (Josef) Fritzl (Wolfgang) Priklopil [the famous perverts]
Sein Kopf so leer wie seine Eier	His head as empty as his balls,
der Star auf jeder Gangbang-Feier	the star of every gangbang party.
Bis der Schwanz beim Pinkeln brennt	Until his cock burns when he pisses
das is Recep Erdogan, der türkische Präsident	That’s Recep Erdogan, the Turkish president.

The court assessment was that only 6 of the 24 lines were acceptable: you can view their transcript with "unacceptable" lines marked in red. Interestingly they didn't seem to object to the suggestion that Erdogan likes wearing rubber masks while beating girls.

Germany and Turkey, of course, have the right to make whatever laws they desire about the limits on free speech and criticism of women-beating dictators. We in turn have the right to tell them what we think of their laws, and of Recep Tayyip Erdogan - and in the future, whenever we see President Erdogan on screen, hear in our minds the bleating of a hundred happy sheep.

28 hours of racial lies

One of the latest bits of social justice posturing is the play "Every 28 hours", a project produced by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival:

Every 28 Hours is a national partnership focused on the widely shared and contested statistic that every twenty-eight hours a black person is killed by vigilante, security guard, or the police in the United States.

Regular readers will know that a maths-based arse-kicking is coming. But perhaps, disregarding the numbers, this play is still a compelling work? After all, Harold Pinter was a complete arse, but his plays could still pull in the crowds. Might it be the same here?

The Every 28 Hours Plays consist of 72 one-minute plays inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, with participation from artists across the nation.

OK, maybe I'll save myself the price of the ticket and just gently gouge out my eyes with a spoon.

One black person killed every 28 hours is 312 black people murdered a year. This is 312 murders too many, no matter who's doing it - and, let's be clear, I'm not quibbling with this . However, let's put this in some numerical context, shall we? I'm assuming that the "Every 28 Hours" authors are mostly liberal arts majors, so I promise to go slow and show my working. (Which, I'd guess, is a sight more than they do.)

The Facts

I'm using the FBI 2015 crime figures, specifically Expanded Homicide Data Table 6 (Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Victim by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex of Offender, 2015).

Race/Ethnicity of victim	Total	Race of offender
		White	Black / African-American	Other	Unknown
White	3,167	2,574	500	49	44
Black / African-American	2,664	229	2,380	13	42
Other race	222	60	34	126	2
Unknown race	84	34	20	6	24

The other key stat is that, as of 2010, 12.6% of Americans are black or African-American - 1 citizen in 8. I'm making a leap of faith that this fraction has not changed significantly in the past 6 years. Since white people are about 63% of the population, they outnumber black Americans 5 to 1.

The Math(s)

The obvious stat that leaps out - though is hard to state grammatically: white people kill approximately as many white people as black people kill black people. White-on-black and black-on-white killings are actually relatively infrequent. This is also true for the "other" racial category (Asian, mixed-race, Native America etc) which turns out to be a similar fraction of the US population as black / African-American, but only about 7% of the number of racial colleagues killed even if you incorporate the "unknown" category.

So we could produce a companion play "Every 220 Minutes" representing the time interval between one black person killing another black person. We could also write "Every 17 1/2 hours" for a black person killing a white person, and "Every 38 hours" for a white person killing a black person.

But wait! If we have to wait 38 hours for a white person to kill a black person, and a black person is killed by a vigilante / security guard / police officer every 28 hours, doesn't that mean that some of those vigilantes / security guards / police officers must be black (or other ethnic minority)? Why yes, it does. I wonder if "Every 28 Hours" brings out this aspect of the statistics.

The truly terrifying stat is simply that black Americans kill about the same number of people as white Americans despite being outnumbered 5:1. The fear of young black American males held by many white people is visceral rather than statistical - the rate at which black people kill white people is about what you'd expect given the relative proportion of population - but black people in the 20-29 age range should be fucking terrified of black males aged 17 to 24 because they are the ones doing most of the killing of victims in that age range.

Why in the name of all that is holy are the "Every 28 Hours" folks talking about (white) police officers as a deadly influence, when young black men do 10 times more killing?

The Weasels

Let's go back to the Every 28 Hours claim:

...every twenty-eight hours a black person is killed by vigilante, security guard, or the police in the United States [my italics]

Now why, do you think, they added those two extra categories? If they could say:

...every twenty-eight hours a black person is killed by the police in the United States

then wouldn't that be a more powerful message? Perhaps they're not using it because it's not true. The Washington Post reports 258 black people killed by police in 2015. If "Every 28 Hours" used that figure as its basis, it would be called "Every 34 Hours" instead.

The statutory ad hominem

"Every 28 Hours" producer Claudia Alick is big on artistic direction, with a minor in hip-hop coaching, but it seems that her MA from NYU and BA from GWU have not equipped her with the ability to do math. Or perhaps she has the ability, but also gained the power to ignore the figures for the greater good of spreading propaganda. She certainly doesn't seem to be concerned with actually improving the lives of, and reducing the horrific body count in, the black American community in any meaningful way.

The perils of parenting a pseudo-pocket pig

There are times when I wonder why I still bother to read the Guardian, given what it does to my blood pressure; and then there are articles which make it all worth while. This tale of porcine deception is one of the latter.

I can't possibly do Mr. Jenkins' article justice, you should certainly Read The Whole Thing, but a few things stand out. First, Mr. Jenkins plays to any number of stereotypes as a gentleman who likes other gentlemen: pets as substitute for children (check), strong propensity for public exposure(check), leveraging any excuse to promote his domestic arrangements (check). Second, he should have been a little less trusting of an "old school friend" who wanted to get a petite porker off her hands

We trained her like a puppy and took her to the vet after about a month. He took one look at her cropped tail and said, "I think you have a problem on your hands."

It turns out that a small pig is not the same as a miniature pig. A valuable lesson for Mr. Jenkins, and apparently also life-changing:

If you look a pig closely in the eyes, it’s startling; there's something so inexplicably human. When you’re lying next to her and talking, you know she understands. It was emotional realising she was a commercial pig. The more we discovered about what her life could have been, it seemed crazy to us that we ate animals, so we stopped.

Don't be fooled, Steve: if that pig had the chance, she'd eat you and everyone you love. Ask Brick Top Polford:

UC Berkeley is a focus for repression of free speech

Last night, the famed right-wing polemicist Milo Yiannopoulos was intending to speak at the University of California at Berkeley. It turns out that there are some people who would prefer that Milo not speak. Rioting, toppling light poles, beating up and pepper-spraying Milo/Trump supporters

It's a sad statement of today's political environment that I was nearly astounded to see UCB's Chancellor actually defending a decision not to cancel Milo's visit. After a rash of spineless cancellations of speaking invitations for Milo - and also for Ben Shapiro, who is much less provocative than Milo but still apparently prone to trigger mouth-frothing by university faculty - it's nice to see a university chancellor sticking up for the principle of free speech. The "right not to be offended" is a particularly pernicious concept and it was refreshing for it to be given short shrift.

Of course, the "anti-fascist" movement was not keen to let a Milo event pass unremarked, and duly turned up to riot. The violence caused the university to cancel the event, thereby providing a perfect example of the "heckler's veto". If you don't like someone's speech, just protest violently and their event will be cancelled. I can't see any problems arising from the incentives this has provided at all, no...

There was only one arrest as a result of the rioting. This is what worries me the most - that rioters not only get the effect they deserve, but can perpetrate their violence practically free of consequence. There's only one direction for future violence as a result, and it's not "down".