Run, Run, Run

Hippos may look fat and lazy but they are the most dangerous animals in all of Africa.

Happy Birthday Keith Richards

Amazingly enough Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones turned 65 today. What more appropriate way to celebrate this birthday than to play the classic Rolling Stones’ song Happy. Here Keef is joined by Sheryl Crow.

What I have been listening to over the last fortnight!

I know that everyone in the entire hangs onto my every word when I discuss the music that I have been listening to on my iPod. I forgot to put a post about this last week, so to make up for it I will write a list of the songs I have been listening to over the last two weeks.

1. Holiday Road – Lindsey Buckingham
2. Black Magic Woman – Santana
3. Permanent Vacation – Aerosmith
4. Give Me Back My Wig – Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers
5. Cold Shot – Stevie Ray Vaughan
6. Khe Sahn – Cold Chisel
7. Wand Dang Doodle – Koko Taylor
8. The White Room – Cream
9. Shake Your Moneymaker – Fleetwood Mac
10. Ain’t That A Lot Of Love – Taj Mahal
11. Mannish Boy – Muddy Waters
12. Give Me One Reason – Tracy Chapman
13. Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen
14. Faster – George Harrison
15. Have You Ever Loved A Woman – Freddie King
16. The Thrill Is Gone – B.B. King
17. I Ain’t Drunk – Albert Collins
18. Jeff’s Blues – The Yardbirds
19. Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin
20. Heart Of Gold – Neil Young

Sexiest Racing Cars – Le Mans

I don’t feel that much of an explanation is needed for this post as it is just an excuse to post some pretty nice pictures. I may follow this up with the sexiest F1, WRC, Australian Touring Cars, etc in future posts.

1 – Ferrari 330 P4

Only four of these P4s were ever built, including one P3 that was converted to take the P4′s V12 engine. These cars took the first three places at Daytona in 1967, and a second place at Le Mans. While the P4 was fairly successful, it was not very aerodynamically efficient, despite it’s aggressively beautiful looks.

2 – Alfa Romeo 33/2

This Alfa is very beautiful and was quite successful during the 1968 season as it won a number of races in the 2 litre class, and did fairly well against the bigger Fords, Ferraris and Porsches too.

3 – Ford GT40 MkIV

This car was expected to dominate Le Mans in 1967 and while it did eventually win, only a single one of the big Fords finished the race.

4 – Gulf Ford GT40 MKII

The MK II is the classic variant of the GT40, that won Le Mans three times. The Gulf GT40 won twice in a row in 1968 and in a very close race in 1969.

5 – Martini Lancia LC2

I like the Martini livery, even when it adorned Porsche’s in the 70s and the Lancia WRC cars of the 80s and 90s. I am also a sucker for Italian cars and first started watching sports car racing when these LC2s hit the track.

6 – Group 44 Jaguar XJR5

The XJR5 heralded Jaguars come back to Le Mans. These American built cars in their green and white colours look good. I prefer this colour scheme to the later British Tom Walkinshaw Jags.

7 – Porsche 917

Porsches are not normally sexy. They are very fast and very efficient, but there seems to be too much science and not enough emotion when it comes to building Porsches. The 917 was the exception. Porsche were sick of having cars that could take out class wins at Le Mans and wanted an outright winner. They had come close to the outright victory a few times, but in 1969 decided to go all out with their most outrageous car. It dominated Le Mans in 1970 and 1971, as well as most races that it entered.

8 -Panoz LMP1

Lots of times heart over rides head when designing a race car, but not so much in modern times. The Panoz LMP1 roadster is notable for having the engine at the front of the car rather than behind the driver. In the early 2000s this was the only car able to compete with Audi in the ALMS.

9 – Aston Martin DBR9

One of the few modern race cars I think is sexy. The GT class definately has much better looking cars than the LMP class, and the Aston is the best looking of the lot.

10 – Nissan R90C

I don’t know why, I just love the Nissans that competed at Le Mans in the 80s and 90s.

Apologies to the Shelby Cobra, Jaguar D Type, Ferrari 250LM, Ferrari 512S, BMW M1, Porsche 956/962 and Bentley EXP Speed 8.

Betty Boop Model Sheet

Here’s an early Betty Boop model sheet made not long after she transformed from a dog into a human.

Art Spiegelman’s MAUS

Art Spiegelman’s Maus is one of those books that I found quite difficult to critique. It is a terrific and absorbing read that once you start reading you just cannot put down, but I find it almost impossible to summarize in a few short paragraphs because it is so complex and multi-layered. I could just say that this is a survivor’s tale of the events of the Holocaust, but that would be selling this story short. It is so much more than just that.

I feel that the major, underlying theme of this book is of the relationships of the people in it. We see how Vladek, who has survived the horrors of Auschwitz, has had difficulty adjusting to life in America and how he just cannot get along with the people he loves the most. The relationship that is most focused on in the book is that between Vladek and Art, father and son. On the surface these two cannot get along. Art will never live up to his father’s expectations, while Art cannot forgive his dad for the strange way that he behaves which he just cannot explain or understand. Art tries to find an explanation for the weird ways in which Vladek behaves, but just like the horrific ways in which many German people behaved during the Holocaust there is no adequate explanation. Maybe Vladek behaves the way he does because of the terrible things he had to endure at the hands of the Nazis, or perhaps he is just a miserly, bitter, self centred old man and that is the way he always has been.

On the surface Vladek views Art as a failure, as Art can never be Vladek’s first son Richieu, who was another whose life was ended by the Nazi atrocities in the ovens of Auschwitz. Privately Vladek does admire Art, even though Art is just a struggling cartoonist. Vladek even seems at one stage very proud of Art’s work and achievements and he does allow Art to chronicle the terrible events that he had to endure in the 1930s and 40s.

There is also the relationship between Vladek and his second wife Mala. It seems that Vladek cannot forgive Mala for not being his first wife Anja, who committed suicide years earlier. We know that Vladek loves Anja and still has great affection for her, but I am unsure why he ended up marrying Mala after Anja’s death. Perhaps the reason for this is really as Mala speculates; because Vladek is a tight man and that she is the same size as Anja, which means that Vladek doesn’t have to buy her any new clothing because she can wear Anja’s things. In other words the only reason that Vladek married Mala is because she reminds him of Anja, but unfortunately she is not Anja, something that Vladek can never forgive her for.

We also see the events of the Holocaust as recounted by Vladek. We see how the Jewish people were persecuted by the Nazis, and the horrible conditions that they had to face, in the ghettos of Poland and the concentration camps of Auschwitz. We see how resourceful the Jewish people had to be to avoid death, although death could be random and that it did not necessarily matter how resourceful you were, that sometimes you just needed luck to stay alive.

Maus is a brilliant, important book that I feel should be read by anyone who wants to know about the atrocities performed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The book is probably more accessible than a straight out history text book, because it is written in comic strip form. Because of this we can see visually just what lengths the Jews had to go to for survival, as well as the brutality of the Nazis and Poles. Spiegelman’s rightly won a Pulitzer Prize for this work. Even though this is a comic book it is not really suitable for children but it should be used in high schools to show what happened during the Holocaust. I wish that I could articulate my feelings about this a bit better.

Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge

This is cute and it is nice seeing Scroogey being generous for a change.

Of course in 21st century Melbourne the beggar would tell you off because he doesn’t really want the money for a cup of coffee, but to score his next hit.

Police Shooting

Last Thursday police shot dead a fifteen-year-old boy in Northcote. Tyler Cassidy came at four police officers brandishing two large knives. Police had tried to subdue him with capsicum spray and then tried to shoot him in the legs, before they fatally shot him in the torso six times. I do not wish to criticize police, and realize that as I am ignorant of all the facts that I really should not speculate about what should and should not of happened, but that is still what I am going to do.

The decision to fatally shoot Tyler Cassidy would not have been taken lightly. The three officers who delivered the fatal shots would be grief stricken over their actions, and would most likely are wondering what they could have done differently. They would not be rejoicing over taking the life of someone so young and would not be happy at people who have declared them trigger happy, as I feel they are anything but trigger-happy. I do wonder if they had used all the skills that they had available, and if they were trained to deal with this sort of thing.

In the newspapers the last few days, particularly the ever-reliable Herald Sun, there has been a demonizing of Tyler Cassidy. He got in with neo-Nazi, white supremacists and wanted a show down with police. Others have claimed that he was mentally ill and even though he has shown some obvious signs of mental illness with these actions, his parents have denied this. What is known is that he went into K-mart and stole two large knives, he caused a lot of damage in the K-mart store, and then made prank calls to the police to get their attention. When the four police officers arrived he is said to have be very aggressive and taunted them. He approached them brandishing the knives and did not back off, even after they twice sprayed him with capsicum spray. One of the police officers then tried to shoot a warning shot at the ground, and then at Tyler’s legs, but still he kept approaching them. It was then that the decision was made by three of those officers to fatally shoot Tyler in the torso.

Many people, including me, have speculated that since the police outnumbered the boy they should have been able to overpower him without having to kill him. I have heard many police officers criticize and mock those of us who have this view as being ignorant, and wondering what we would do in such a situation. They obviously think that those of us who dare to criticize them have never dealt with a mentally ill person coming at them with a knife, yet I have experienced this thank to my professional work with people with disabilities and the mentally ill, and I can confirm that I did diffuse the situation without having to resort to killing the person who was attacking me. Unlike the police in this situation I did have the advantage that the person who attacked me was not a total stranger, yet I still remembered that I had a duty of care to them as well as myself. I do think that the police do sometimes forget that they have a duty of care to the perpetrators as well as the victims of crime!

I wonder if this all comes down to how well the police are trained. How well are they taught to deal with people with mental illnesses and disabilities? I have dealt with police a couple of times in relation to this and say that 50% of the times the police have been helpful and seemed to be well equipped to deal with the situation, well another 50% of the time they have come across as power hungry cowboys who just want to show who’s the boss. (I’m not saying that this is the case in Tyler’s situation!) Maybe it is not the training but instead it comes down to the individual police officer. I have heard from some members confidentially that there are others on the force that are bullies who seem to just be in the job to satisfy their own ego. I do hope that they are a minority of members of the police but I sometimes wonder.

I have also heard calls from police that they should be able to carry tasers and that this would be the solution to this sort of situation. I sort of agree to this but again wonder if police will use the taser as a way to short cut an incident, rather than as a last resort. I know that in the US there is evidence of police using the taser inappropriately and that it is not always used by them after every other possible avenue to solve a situation has been used first.

I expect comments from angry police to come flooding into to this site after posting these comments. When I critisized tram drivers over their safety record I received a little bit of flack by angry trammies, and I do know that police are just as sensitive over any critisizm of them. I don’t want to critisize the police but want to have faith in them. I don’t want Victorian Police to have a situation like they did in Britain with the de Menezes case.  This is a very complex issue and it should not just be dismissed without a full and frank discussion.

EC Comics – Undercover

Here’s another infamous EC Comics’ story from Shock Suspenstory #6 drawn by Wally Wood. While I think it tries to show how evil the Ku Klux Klan is and was probably wild for an early 50s story, but is probably tame by today’s standards. Even so, it is a rare story (not for EC though) where evil triumphs over good.








One sad thing about the elction of President Barack Obama to the White House is that the membership of the Ku Klux Klan has again been on the rise. It seems that the a lot of scared white folks (not just) in the south, are fearful that a black president will… who knows what these looneys are scared of.

Popeye – The Painless Window Washer

Look at the scan below. If anyone was in doubt that cartoons can be great works of art, hopefully this pic can help to dispel that idea. This is a brilliant painting used to help animators get an idea of what the cartoon that they are animating should feel. (I didn’t really articulate this at all well!)

This is one of my favourite Fleischer Popeye cartoons.