The D.I.Y Rape

Just as one was beginning to think that Japan had progressed from the Shogun era attitudes towards women, on cue: RapeLay. Released on April 21 2006 in Japan, RapeLay is a visually simulated computer game that makes it possible to stalk and rape Yuko and her two daughters Manaka and Aoi from the comfort of your room.
The story goes: you find a girl at the train station, fondle her publicly in the train and take her to the bathroom where you are free to do with her what you will. The next day you do the same with her mother but take her to the park where you publically force her to have sex with you and then do the same with her other daughter. You make them all your sex slaves where they are at your every command with baited breath. Points are awarded for violence, abuse and pretty much anything that makes the women suffer. Along with this you have the choice between sex positions such as reverse cowgirl, blowjobs and threesomes. Gory details include bloody penis and vagina, tears, violent screams and bonus points for forcing the women to get abortions. The option of internal ejaculation adds suspense to the pregnancy front of the game, but your semen landing place is once again, anywhere you please.
With different modes of playing, you can introduce different aspects to the game. For example five players or “5P” mode where you are restricted to one sexual position but share the rape of a girl with three other men. “Shippo” mode is where three or more girls can be forced to fulfil your fantasies at the same time.
While this game raised much controversy and had the US right campaigners up in arms, such complaints will go unheard because what this game is promoting is completely legal in Japan. A spokeswoman for the Japanese government's gender equality bureau said the office "realises the problem is there" and it is working out what can actually be done about it. Of cause we presume this will be done without offending any man in charge and without forcing him to give up his school girl porn.
However, despite this game being an outrage to the status of women in their society and simply being the way I finally lost all faith in humanity, I have to wonder that if murder is considered a higher crime than rape, or even on the same level, then how are so many computer games that encourage the killing of “enemies” deemed ok? We can’t have double standards and yet it seems impossible to remove all the sex and violence from every computer game that is selling and is selling well. A classic case of catch 22. Which leaves the public (me and you) in a position to be filtering systems of what we see and hear, what we watch and play.

The Impact of Television on Young Children.

Hello precious readers!!!

As I have bored you to death many times over telling you that I am indeed a drama student, I shall exclude that detail from my most recent experience from my beloved drama classes. {sarcasm har-har...

Let me first explain the tutorial system in this ever so organised department. We have three lectures a week; one 55 minute voice tutorial a week; one, 1 and a half hour movement tutorial a week and finally one, 1 and a half hour theatre-making tutorial a week. Confusing yes? Anyway...

This semester in voice we are doing a prepared poem and an impromptu speech on a random topic for our exam in two weeks and of course when I learned of the latter element to our exam it took me back down the vista of months to my matric English class and our darling Mr. White who adored his impromptus [oh, what glorious days].

Now on one of these occasions, where Mr. White had decided (or had been persuaded) that poetry and grammar were in dire need of a break, the dreaded F-word had arisen [fun] and out had popped the impromptu idea where topics were thumb-sucked and dished out to willing victims, came the inspiration for this blog post. "Explain the impact of television on young children."

This is what resulted... haha poor Mr. White.
"Good day class, as you can see here on the black board is an illustration of a television and a young child. Now pay attention class, this will be in your exam. Now if a television of about 5 kilograms is dropped from a roof top, 30 meters above the ground then the television will accelerate towards the ground at 9,8 meters per second, which is the gravity constant class. This means, class, that for every meter of that 30 meter fall the television will go 9.8 meters per second faster. Now if there is a child of about 1 meter tall standing in the trajectory of the television, the television will then only have 29 meters to fall, but at it's rate of acceleration and considering the television's weight which, class will be 50 newtons (weight = gravity +/- 10 m.s x mass of object 5 kg), the impact on the child standing under the television by the television could result in hopeless consequences for the poor child..."

This wonderful physics description was courtesy of my lovely little friend Daniele, who, despite the fact that we all knew that Mr. White wanted an oral on violence or sex on television, gave us a dazzling oral about violence through means of a television involved in a science discussion. This speech (or demonstration - call it what you will) has ceased to evacuate my brain and as a result the mere mention of an impromptu speech causes me to mentally beg that I get the same topic just so that I can demonstrate the same wit and ingenuity that she did, um well I beg so that I can copy her and appear witty and imaginative.

So I didn't really have a point, bar wanting to share one of my most precious memories with you and provide an escape for you readers from the droning compulsory blogs our journ department is making us write. So cheerio...
love, peace and vegetables
xx

Allow me to re-introduce myself...

My name is Rose, I am lovable, am a critic and have thorns so don’t mess with me! I can see you reading this and that is an ugly sweat shirt...I told you I’m a critic. I also am a student journalist; I left most important stuff out, simply because right now they are all irrelevant. Let’s get back to journalism, I have never wanted to be a journalist, I never dreamt of it, nor did I tag along with my dad to work all the time. My dad, Phil Molefe, his been in the media for as long as my life history exists, his a veteran in print and broadcast media, I swear he bleeds for the industry.

I hate how people assume that I’m following the ‘big guys’ footsteps... OK maybe I am, but has it ever occurred to anyone that I do have a mind of my own and I did have my own ‘sleep one night and figured out things with my eyes closed’...they’re called dreams. And actually...I did tag along to work with him...only sometimes, when I was bored with watching Generations (popular South African soap opera) at home, why watch it on television when you can go to the SABC and watch it in studio.

I didn’t realize how much I love writing until I started out my journey into becoming Miss Journalist. Maybe I did, I was just not confident enough that I could actually write readable, enjoyable pieces of writing. I have had my fair roller-coaster with journalism. I hated it, then loved it, then I semi-enjoyed it, then back to dreading it again. I was so indecisive, it put me to tears. I wept thinking to myself I never want to do this, I hated the boundaries and disliked the terms and conditions. I hated the department for not selecting me last year, I busted my ass trying to prove a point, little did I know that sometimes your best is someone’s worst. I made the decision to be at it again and pay the price for a serious ass whipping, instead this time I told myself I am going to ‘write what I like’.

I remember when I first started working for newspapers; my editor would always tell me to write how I would want to read it. It occurred to me that we always put on a face for the world and we become surprised when they don’t understand us, it’s only because we don’t understand ourselves either. I learnt to love what I do from the inside out and do not regret the prices I had to pay to be where I am now.

Hi my name is Rose Molefe and I am a journalist.

Do You Have an Apple?

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas” told by George Bernard Shaw to remind us that ideas are not like any other thing we come across. Now imagine a place to share ideas with anyone generous enough to share. An abundance of ideas. That is what I aim to ensure this blog is all about. Tree Pants will “wear the pants” in the relationship between our trees of knowledge and the trees of knowledge you possess. The inquisitive mind will reside here and become exposed to possibly highly offensive criticisms and opinions of an informed calibre.

But why a blog you may ask? There are three reasons. Number 1: My Journalism marks in jeopardy if I did not aid in creating a blog. Number 2: Blogs are a platform from which we can reach all corners of the globe and expand what we know, have the chance to form opinions and to share those opinions. Number 3: Number 2. Number 2 was an important one therefore reiteration was crucial. In the world we wake up to every morning these days, there is so much going on and lots to engulf your mind in to pass it up.

My contribution will be the kind you either enjoy or the kind you despise; no grey areas. I never stand on the fence with my opinion. I find the fence a cop-out and the easy route to take when too lazy to form an opinion of your own. I have the attitude, put quite aptly by the Kings of Leon: “It’s safe to say, if I don’t get this out of me, I might quite easily end up dead.” If I have something to say, it shall be said and, unfortunately for some, I have little remorse. I tell things how I see them and love to know what is thought about what I have to say. Don’t get me wrong however; I am not merely an overly opinionated, seemingly know-it-all ranter. I do make sure my facts are accurate and that the opinion I form and share is educated. As a Journalism student I understand the importance of information and how it is portrayed.

In a nutshell, we criticise the world we witness. A vital ability to have. We have opinions on the world we witness. A vital ability to have. But above all this we want others to be sparked by what we have to say and share their apples with us.

Allow me to elaborate, I said my personal stance is...

William Shakespeare once said, “All the world's a stage and the men and women merely players”. Now you may be wondering what this quote has to do with blogging, and you have every right to ponder so, so allow me to elaborate!

My personal stance on life in general, stems from this profound statement, so if my life 'motto' is that we are merely actors in a great big play called life then this philosophy should somehow end up being reflected in my blogging style.

This blog (www.treepants.blogspot.com – you can never do too much advertising) is a journalism project but I am more a drama student than a journalism student and this is clearly evident in my blogs. Unlike my fellow bloggers on Tree Pants, I am not that concerned with deep and meaningful philosophies and political accomplishments, nor am I concerned with what other people think about what I write, I write what I feel, I write what I see others feeling, I write about what inspires me to write and I do not give a flying monkey if people do not like it. After all the name of this course is “I read what I like, I blog what I like” isn't it?

Tree Pants is a free space and as we have already described, is a general cultural criticism on everything. It allows for bloggers who like to sound intellectual and bloggers like myself to interact in the same space and still attract a wide range of viewers. For example, we have blogs on old school jazz (not what many people feel is 'cool' yet the author makes it attractive even to punk rock fans) and blogs on campaigns about birth control and sex, which, if I don't say so myself, is extremely controversial compared to a review on a 'cool' musician.

I feel that in order to express the true subtext of what you are writing about, you need to write in a suitable tone and in true Stanislavskian method, you need to dig deeper into what you are trying to say than what is actually written in order to present something that is believable to the audience (I told you I was a drama student). Basically what I am trying to get at, is that you can't write in a formal tone if you feel excited about something you watched, the readers will not feel what you felt. Your grammar may be horrendous but your point will come across if you write the way you feel.

So as I have said, I believe that we are all acting our parts in this world and it is the same when I write, I have to re-enact my experiences in order for you, as the reader, to experience my experiences with me.

My Mission

WARNING! This blog came about as part of a journalism course assignment which we had to produce. Now that that is all said and done, Hello hi...Welcome to Tree Pants. My name is Duduzile Nonkululeko Hlatshwayo and i compiled this blog with four other Rhodes University journalism students - we are the new cool kids on the block when it comes to blogging.

Tree Pants is a blog written by smart, fact seekers, and not by conceited Mr and Miss know-it-alls. It's a blog which will uncover everyday stories; most stories will let us say things we cannot say out loud in society. Yes we will be know as critics, but critics who always write posts of unwavering honesty. The key insight to Tree Pants is that our published posts will not be influential on their own; the influence will come from the connections and dialogues from guests which will take the posted stories and make them into usable knowledge.

What i know for sure is that as a blogger i am going to use this space to express myself on all kinds of levels. I will be writing about everything, mostly about what i feel needs to be heard. The big difference between I as a blogger and other bloggers is that I know that sometimes the reader might actually know more than I do, their commentary will be appreciated.

My wish is that this blog becomes a place for conversation and exchange of ideas. I want to hoist the flag up high on our blog, to make unconscious issues and stories into news headlines that bring about consciousness. For people to become more human real news must be made visible. It's about time we removed the masquerade of what people think "real news" is and start talking about REAL news. I plan on doing that on this blog, instead of covering mainstream stories that affect the majority; that's just pure ignorance.

So many captivating people and imperative things are happening in the world. As a student journalist I want to welcome other student journalists, bloggers and any other individuals' world wide, to come and find out more about everyday issues. About people who I have crossed paths with (sometimes even through a book I've read or music I've listened to). Personally I want to see if I have what it takes to be a great writer. What better way is there if it isn't through writing about real stories and inviting all of you to share your opinion and stories which are worthy of being heard. Come with me let's begin our already existing life changing journey, only this time let's blog about it!

Love, Peace and Vegetables

I write probably what you don't like

"Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive."
Friedrich Nietzsche


So I blog what I like and what I like is generally in the context of our postmodern apathetic media saturated lives pretentious stuff like literature, philosophy etc and strangely for a member of my generation I actually am interested in and informed about the world around me. I still care about the politics of both the world and this country. Good journalism is rare especially in this age where journalism has become (partly due to blogs) an exchange of the easiest to digest information possible, to fill up the 30 seconds we have free during work.

What I hope to achieve as a blogger, is generally trying to apply my ideals, belief and general world view to a variety of subjects which affect and interest me from music to politics. In a world where apathy is encouraged by most of the institutions which attempt to control our lives a cynicism is a healthy natural reaction, questioning all the information presented to us is natural and attempting to find some meaning behind the bullshit is the job of a journalist.

Being a cynic in the sense of H.L. Mencken's definition "A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.". I know for a fact that my blog won’t change the world, but I will still write what I like. I don’t want to dumb myself down just to appeal to a wider audience; I am intelligent and proud of it. My goal as a budding intellectual is to improve my writing and try discern any meaning I can from my confused life.

What really interests me is how I can apply as mentioned before my various ideas of aesthetics, ethics, epistemology and political views to real world causes. It might be a hopelessly pretentious task for a first year student, but still it can’t be any worse than the majority of bullshit which saturates the information age. So what if people don’t want to read about Miles Davis, Dostoevsky, the Wire or whether the religious right in South Africa is influencing policy, I want to write about these subjects. Enough blogs waste their time on Paris Hilton, people’s boring everyday problems and general meaningless ranting. I want to be more of H.L. Mencken than a Perez Hilton

In short I want to turn a internet rant into polemics of sort and an opinion on some media into criticism. I want to fight against the apathy prevalent in my generation and attempt to add a bit of interesting pretentiousness back into student issues. Since I am writing on the internet, my fears of social exclusion due to voicing an unpopular opinion are negated. My virile vitriolic attempts at entering the discourses of interest to this blogger will be my posts. In conclusion I hope to be a postmodern blogger for the postmodern age.

My Pink Triangle...

Bent
Written by: Martin Sherman
Directed by: Robert Haxton

As a drama student myself, I am honoured the privilage of signing up for departmental productions for FREE!!!! Yay me... but as we all know, nothing in this world is free and soon I found myself paying for choosing to watch this play.

Alas, if you have already guessed that I am not referring to such trivial monetary matters you are correct dear reader for I instead found myself having to wrench out my heart and give it to those darling characters that demanded it on ransom!!!

Bent is about the persecution of homosexuals during the Nazi regime in Germany, especially during the holocaust of the Second World War. We follow the plight of Max, a homosexual man living in Berlin when the "Pink Triangle" is enforced by the Nazi party. -Just in case you didn't know, the Nazi party made certain groups of people wear different symbols to indicate what group they belonged to. For example homosexuals were pink triangles, Jews were yellow stars and so forth- Now I know we are all sick and tired of hearing about the plight of the oppressed in any situation and even more so by things such as apartheid and the holocaust but we should be made aware of these situations at least once in our lives (naivety sucks) and this play does just that!!! But of course we are not forced to look at another Jewish character but rather a gay one!

In all honesty I expected the production to be good (it is only directed by an honours student for crying out loud!!!) but never, ever did I expect what I got!!! It was amazing... I laughed, I came this close to tears [unlike Erin who just hid her face and wept like a little girl], and after the interval I wore my very own pink triangle with pride - despite the fact that I am very straight and was able to oggle at the all male cast and the lovely full frontal I got in the first 10 minutes!!!
I beg of you to spend the R15 (if you go to Rhodes, R20 if you don't) on a ticket for this play!!! DO IT NOW WHILE STOCKS LAST! and by stocks, I mean the dates of production are today, too late! tomorrow and the 26th of September at 7 pm in the Rhodes drama theatre! please please please go watch it!!! it's just THAT good, like standing ovation good!!!

Peace out
xx

What is cool?

What is cool? We base large segmants of our lives on this question, we urgently have to keep in touch with the s0-called cool gurus to know what to wear, what to say and how to identify yourselves. Well I think this is completely the right direction to find a guru of cool, I just think most of us have deluded interpretations of who these guru's are, I suggest we need to look no further than the great Miles Davis. Anybody who knows anything about Miles, knows this cat was cool, slick, smooth, chilled, beyond out mere mortal limits of cool. He was so cool he created a genre of Jazz known as cool Jazz, you just have to listen to segmants of such masterpieces as 'A Kind of Blue', 'the Birth of Cool' or the anarchic 'Bitches Brew' to understand what cool is.

Music is really impossible to do justice to in words, it conjure up feelings, emotions and thoughts which our very limited language cannot accurately describe and Miles is a prime example of this. You can listen to the opening trumpet sounds of 'All Blues' and be take anywhere from a smokey, sensual, dark and cheap Jazz club in 50's Chicago to a trip across the wave of improvised sound across the oceans of cool which transcend from Mile's trumpet. You don't have to be a fucking degreed critic in Vanity Fair or the New Yorker to label all things Miles as cool.

Jazz is erotic it stands alone from other types of music in the sheer amount of importance it attaches to improvisation, much like sex you provide a basic rhythem and than add in changes from it as you go long and genereally just go with the flow. You only have to listen to some of Mile's epic improv solo's to realise this man is not human he is a Dionysus of music. He is the decadent, animalistic, creative spirit who playfully dances out of the mundane human suffering known as life and in the process creates something higher, more meaningful, pure creativity, something which can really provide meaning.

Contorted lips or Pug nose...

Imagine being asked if your lips are contorted? or if you have a pug nose?... How would you feel if I questioned about twitching features you may have? or Is your mouth distorted during speech or laughter.
These are some of the questions I had to answer on a 'Suspect identification form'. And 'NO' I have no criminal records, nor was I caught jumping out of windows after robbing a bank. It's a form myself and other tutlings had to fill in at our tutorial, Wednesdays at 17H00pm.

After filling in the forms, we were asked to discuss, amongst ourselves, any features we may have discovered about our selves. I'm not sure what I discovered about myself, but I can tell you that, this is the most insensitive piece of paper I have ever had to engage with. I have been called many things in the past but so much belittlement on one piece of paper... question after question... is unacceptable.

Rose: "Why so much detail"?
Cara: "It's because it's to identify criminals"

I concluded that it could mainly be for the drawings that are done and placed on our television screens and newspapers as the "Wanted" people. Regardless of the search of these criminals who are 'such a threat to society', we even tend to think of them as useless and deserving bad treatment, where is a sign of some sort of sensitivity? What does the motion of my lips have to do with my criminal acts? Could they have not used others words to describe this motion? Have you people never heard of synonyms?

It pisses me off that we treat people in accordance to the social doctrine we have placed them in. Where the hell does another human being get off using hurtful words, just because the 'other' is now 'inferior'? We are all equal, regardless of our acts, God created us all with a purpose and this 'box' we place people in interferes with them fulfilling and taking note of their purpose.

I am not one to point fingers, although I already have, because right now I feel like a mother with one hand on the waist and the other pointing with my mouth moving uncontrollably, but I am one to give an opinion...And this, this right here is how I feel.

They tried to sweeten me up by placing sweet and wonderful adjectives on the other side of the questionnaire...I don't care about your knowledge of adjectives. Please educate yourself about synonyms.

Peace, Love and Vegetables.
Rose

Thinking about having SEX?

I visited the Bantu Steven Biko Building computer labs on campus as per usual, and a pamphlet sat on the desk saying: "Thinking about having sex?: Think about contraception. Avoid an unplanned pregnancy and protect yourself against sexuality transmitted diseases".

This caught my attention immediately, my take on it: have as much sex as your hormones desire. However, just under one condition: use contraceptives. LoveLife's take on this: we are educating the youth for tomorrow.

That is so much bullocks!

First it was condoms being publically displayed like birthday balloons and now it's this crap. I have no problem with sexual activities, my problem is with the public display of promoting that it is OK to have as much sex as you want, which is true yes. But what happened to the public display of 'abstinence'. Why are we not fully informed about abstaining instead of giving me permission to reproduce unexpectedly, just under terms and conditions.

This is peoples lives we are informing here. There are many dangers that exist in this world, being informed needs to be done cautiously, these lives don't have warranties...they don't operate with terms and conditions....What's wrong wit y'all? It's confusing enough for youth to decide if they should 'give it up or not', they don't need confusion about all these different types of ways to prevent diseases that are not as major as the notorious HIV/AIDS.

I am in full support of Lovelife: your life, your choice, but I feel the ball is thrown too much in our courts as youth. Too much freedom is overwhelming and misleading. Why do you think most if not all youth spend their time in clinics and delivery wards, not because of voluntary work, but because of the state they 'chose' to put themselves in.

Educate us, don't overwhelm us...Please!

Peace, Love and Vegetables.

Going to Lectures

Lectures: what we as university students are supposed to attend on a daily basis!!

University students response to the above statement: "HAHAHAHA"
Let us not name which lectures we are talking about in fear of offending certain parties (who can probably see through my evasive bullshit anyway by looking at the minimal attendance of their lectures), but seriously would you rather have a good sleep-in ignoring the alarm and hitting the snooze button every 5 minutes than go to a lecture you know is going to be a waste of your time??? If you answer no - YOU'RE A LIAR - don't deny it!
The exact thing happened to me this morning... so where's the critique part of this blog you ask?? well here it is... during the following lecture (which I did attend -10 points for me, yay!) I asked a fellow student, who I knew went to the lecture I had slept through, what the lecture was like - just in case by some miracle I had missed something - she answered (in her exact words) "umm er well" so my conclusion.... Shit I missed some life changing lecture!!! NOT.

So by a critical analysis we can now conclude that if it is available to you, get the notes off the internet and save yourself the uncomfortable sleep-in you'll get anyway if you do attend the lecture instead of taking my advise to stay in bed... warm fuzzy sleep - mmm

xx
Peace, love and vegetables

Why Tree Pants???

What's in a name, would a rose not smell as sweet were it known by any other name?
The spirit of gaia provides us with life, energy and spiritual being, it is a form through which we all connect through the soil and feel the energy of love, peace and vegetables.... Blah blah blah.

Enough of the bullshit!!!
Really now, once upon a time in a town far far faaaaaaaaaar away - really faaaaaaaaaar away - from everything. In a university, during a tutorial, a woman named Rose looked at a tree and exclaimed "let the url be known as Tree". But the others disagreed and politely suggested the name Tree Pants (inspired by the well known South African saying "jean pants"), and so it was and it was good!