[META] New Site in the Blogroll

SpainMedia.com, edited by John Barrass, is up on the blogroll now. This site looks like it provides a fascinating look inside Spain's electronic media, as the name suggests.

[BRIEF NOTE] More from Pitcairn

Jonathan Edelstein continues to provide excellent coverage of the Pitcairn Island sex-assault case, informing us that one of the seven defendants has plead guilty to three of the four charges, the fourth charge being dropped largely because of the unwillingness of the victim to let her case proceed.

The Head Heeb also links to a revealing article in the Independent by Kathy Marks, looking behind the façade presented of Pitcairn as a South Pacific paradise. Marks concludes that, after just three days of court testimony,

the image of Pitcairn as a South Pacific idyll has been brutally shattered. Alleged victims have painted a picture of widespread abuse in a world in which young girls were treated as no better than playthings.

A woman of 51, who was allegedly raped and abused by several defendants as a young girl, testified that Pitcairn men lived according to laws of their own making. "It just seemed to be the normal way of life back on Pitcairn, how the girls are treated, as though they are a sex thing," she said.

"Men could do what they want with them. They seem to be a rule unto themselves. That's the way it is on Pitcairn. You get abused, you get raped. They just do what they want with you and then leave you in the gutter. It's a normal way of life on Pitcairn."

The woman's own father, a pillar of the community, was a violent man who beat his wife senseless almost nightly. After one alleged rape at the hands of Steve Christian, her father thrashed her with a razor strop because the incident had made her late for church.

For her, growing up on Pitcairn was not the carefree existence that outsiders might have fondly imagined. The woman, now married and living overseas, said: "Everyone thinks Pitcairn is a paradise. But it's sheer hell."

On a futuristic note, as pompe observed, the situation on Pitcairn, where for apparently a long period of time the brutal sexual exploitation of women was taken as a given, doesn't reflect encouragingly upon isolated and independent space colonies established in a hypothetical future.

[META] NaNoWriMo Journal Up

I've set up randynnw2004. Actual content--notes on the background, for the remainder of October--will appear later this week.

[NON BLOG] The Past Weekend's Events

1. I met schillerium and vaneramos for a viewing of the Thomson Collection, which I'd last seen this past January. It was nice to tour it in the company of people who actually knew things about art history, and Ontarian geology and flora. My take? Morrice is easily the most impressionist of the Group of Seven; Thomson's paintings are the most iconic; Milne's paintings, composed either of patches of colour surrounded by white lines or patches of white surrounded by coloured lines, are the most unappealing. vaneramos provides a good synopsis of the visit. Afterwards, we walked up to the Village to enjoy a coffee at the Timothy's on Church Street, meeting a friend of schillerium's and having an interesting conversation about, among other things, the ideological motivations behind the Group of Seven.

2. I subsequently met some friends from grad school dorm for supper at Future's Bakery and Café, and excellent chepa place on Bloor. Much fun was had, and plans made to meet again.

3. Having forgotten to buy a ticket to the night's show at the Horseshoe, I went to snowmit's birthday party. Still more fun was had, and Katamari Damacy proves that surreal Japanese video games are quite, quite fun.

4. The Counterfactual Threats Assessment Group met Sunday afternoon at the usual place and time, with myself, pauldrye, schizmatic, and James B. in attendance. A variety of topics were discussed, including favoured books (science-fiction and otherwise), current affairs, and the real material limits facing transhumanists' dreams.

5. I'd like to thank vaneramos for inviting me to supper Sunday night at the home of his boyfriend, north of Ossington. I met quite a few interesting people, almost all of whom have livejournals; unfortunately, of the attendees' livejournals I know only of schillerium's and vaneramos'. They were interesting people to meet, the food was excellent, and the group viewing of the ST:TNG finale made the whole evening feel oddly like a day spent at my maternal grandmother's when I was younger.