Holmes, Cruise initiate free trade agreement

Hollywood can be so loathesome sometimes:

Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are in a relationship, their publicists have confirmed.

I don't care about the age difference that the press is busy salivating over. It's the "their publicists have confirmed" part. It turns a normal relationship into some kind of diplomatic event, as if Cruise and Holmes were two nations signing a treaty or something. It's ridiculous.

Miss France bares some skin, gets her gorgeous ass fired (probably)

I wouldn't have expected this from the French. But then again, what do I know?

Miss France scolded over Playboy

[photo]

Miss France 2004 could be stripped of her title after posing for Playboy, organisers of the pageant have warned.

The head of the committee that runs the contest said she was "dismayed and appalled" by the half-naked photos of Laetitia Bleger in the magazine.

She said Miss France winners were barred from engaging in "licentious" behaviour for six years after winning the title.

Miss France 1983 lost hers after posing as a pin-up for Paris Match magazine.

"We're going to call an emergency meeting of the committee's board," Miss France committee president Genevieve de Fontenay told AFP news agency.

She said a winner could lose her title for improper behaviour - including "licentious photos, even if only partially revealing" - during the year of her reign and for the next five years.

"We can't let this go," Ms de Fontenay added.

"Miss France winners have a status to uphold and they know it."

If stripped of her title, Ms Bleger could be forced to return the gifts she has received.

She was elected at the end of 2003 and was succeeded by the current holder, Cindy Fabre, last December.

Of course, one crucial element in this that has not been revealed are the photos themselves. I mean, what exactly does "half naked" mean? A little bit of nipple? I read one other article about this yesterday that implied that the photos were not all that revealing (certainly not to the extent of the infamous Vanessa Williams photos that appeared in Penthouse magazine back in the mid-80's, which not only cost Williams her crown, but, in the height of irony, indirectly resulted in her becoming the most famous and successful Miss America ever). And why should it matter, anyway, in a country where women are free to go topless on beaches if they want to?

Naturally, The Decadence Report has to take the position that this whole thing is patently ridiculous. But then again, beauty pageants just seem to have a way of being patently ridiculous. If it was up to me, all the hypocrisy would be cast away, and these pageants would be conducted as they ought to be: with all the contestants totally naked. Except for the heels, of course--heels make nice little bondage accessories on an otherwise naked woman. ;)

The link to the Vanessa Williams photos above is what I could find on Google. From what I can remember, the actual photos that appeared in the magazine included several more pictures of Williams and the other female model than what are shown on that site (the full pictorial appears to be un-Googleable). The reality was that Williams had posed in a lesbian sex pictorial, which is, I am reasonably certain, a far cry from what Miss France has done. However, quite frankly, I don't think Williams should have been stripped of her title either, especially since the photos in question were taken years before she ever became Miss America. But such is the idiocy of the world, clinging desperately to the same ridiculous ideal of feminine purity which required Queen Elizabeth I to remain a virgin throughout her life in order to remain monarch. In fact, contestants in the Miss America contest are essentially required to be virgins--they don't put these women up on stirrups and check for an intact hymen, but they do essentially go over their lives with a fine toothed comb. Moreover, the winners of the various state contests are provided with chaperones to protect their chastity. Chaperones for fuck's sake. For grown women! Honestly, that is just insulting, not just to the women themselves, but in a way, to everyone. Seriously, we as a society (and I include the French in this) really, really need to get over this absurd demand for feminine purity. We need to face up to the fact that women like to fuck and that there is nothing wrong with this.

WTF is a "tanga"?

Nice website. Makes me wish I could read Spanish. But the main gist of it seems to be young women in their underwear (or less) snapping pictures of themselves and then posting them.

Fifteen years ago, who could have imagined something like this happening? Ain't progress great? :-)

No Pants Day

May 6th, 2005 has been declared "No Pants Day." Well, at least, by some people.

Check it out.

Natasha Lyonne: Bestiality Babe?

Someone should notify Rick Santorum:
Arrest Warrant for 'American Pie' Actress Lyonne

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York judge issued an arrest warrant on Monday for "American Pie" movie actress Natasha Lyonne, who failed to appear for a court hearing on charges stemming from a rampage during which she was heard threatening to molest a neighbor's dog.

Lyonne, 26, is charged with criminal mischief, harassment and trespass after an unexplained fit of rage last December when authorities said she banged on the door of her neighbor, stormed into the apartment and ripped a mirror from the wall.

Police called to the scene said Lyonne told the neighbor, "I'm going to sexually molest your dog."

Okay, wait a minute here. She's in the midst of "an unexplained fit of rage" and she goes through the trouble of using clinical terminology like "sexually molest?" I don't think so. I'd be willing to bet what she actually said was, "I'm going to fuck your dog!"

Yeah, I'm a perv.

Sin City

"A-ha!" you might say. "I knew this crackpot would mention Sin City."

You'd be right, in that instance. But, in my defense, I feel that I would be remiss in my duty if I failed to mention this movie.

Sin City, the movie, is a gorgeous orgy of decandence. In this instance, it's mostly violence and women in slinky costumes. The women in slinky costumes have an obvious, harmless appeal, which I will skip over for now. However, I don't doubt that the level of violence in this movie will raise some hackles. I saw a review in the "Running the Voodoo Down" weblog earlier today about this movie. I agree with the other blogger's point about the marketing for the movie being dishonest:

There's a difference between splatter and snuff, and this movie goes over the line, whether the blood is red, white or yellow. It's more horror than noir, and I think it's being marketed dishonestly.

Anyone familiar with the previous works of Robert Rodriguez shouldn't be too surprised about all the splattered blood and gore in this movie, but I pity the innocent who goes into this expecting something along the lines of a highly stylized Humphrey Bogart movie.

What I really wanted to talk about, though, was the concept of whether a violent movie like this constitutes legitimate entertainment. There are a lot of people who maintain that it does not, ranging from people who make the highly questionable claim that witnessing violence in a movie will lead to more violence in society, to those who simply feel that decent, well-adjusted people shouldn't have any need to watch stuff like this, and if you actually enjoy it, there must be something wrong with you. Needless to say, I disagree. Not only do I maintain that a work of art (and I do think this movie qualifies as art) or entertainment should not be held responsible if some weirdo decides to go out and hack somebody up, I believe that watching a feature like this, in which the violence is highly stylized and exaggerated, and especially in which the violence exists within a meaningful emotional context (i.e., it's more than just random footage of people being chopped up), can have a highly cathartic value and because of this may actually lower the amount of violence in real life.

If one is seething with frustration on the inside, after working for years at a depressing, degrading job (for example), is it better to pay a few bucks to enjoy a movie like this, grinning with pleasure every time a bad guy gets his just desserts, wincing in sympathy every time a hero or heroine takes a hit, or is it better to hold that frustration inside while seeing the latest PG-rated crock, until, someday, perhaps, the frustration reaches a critical level and you go postal on your co-workers? Of course that is not very common--a more likely scenario is that, one day, the frustration will reach a critical level and you'll simply walk out of your job, or you'll semi-deliberately do something stupid and get your ass fired (and yes, this actually happened to me once). Or maybe you'll start deciding that life is frustrating enough without having to bother with trivialities like respecting all the other idiot drivers on the road, so someday, you'll end up causing an accident somewhere.

An obvious objection that can be raised at this point is, "Well, sure, but aren't there a lot of other methods of working out one's frustrations? How about competitive sports, for example?" Well, as a frustrated guy, all I can say in response to that is that competitive sports are far more likely to piss me off than to help. (Although, truthfully, I'm getting old enough now that the most likely outcome would be to simply land myself in the doctor's office with some kind of injury.) The point is that what works for one person may not work for another, and why should we, as a society, be limiting the avenues that people can use to help themselves?

Well, for now, I am out of time. Perhaps I will have further comment in the near future. In fact, I hope so--I think this is a movie that deserves more attention than I have been able to give it here, thus far.

So what is "decadence" exactly?

Courtesy of the folks at dictionary.com we have two definitions:

1) A process, condition, or period of deterioration or decline, as in morals or art; decay.

This definition, not surprisingly, is not what I'm interested in. Continuing:

2) often Decadence A literary movement especially of late 19th-century France and England characterized by refined aestheticism, artifice, and the quest for new sensations.

This is closer to the mark. Dictionary.com typically includes definitions from more than one dictionary, so there is also this:

n : the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities

Again the implication is negative.

However, this negative implicationa arises from certain assumptions, which I believe are incorrect in the context of a modern, technological society. Allow me to explain:

Thousands of years ago, human beings first started living as nomads and farmers, rather than simply as hunter-gatherers. This was because the hunter-gatherers had been so successful at being fruitful and multipying that there wasn't enough forage to go around anymore. It became necessary for people to take control of their food supplies, with the intent of increasing the amount of food available. Herders fostered their herds, and farmers their crops.

Unfortunately, these types of lifesyles, especially farming, involved a whole shitload of work, compared to the older, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. To quote my college anthropology TA, "Hunter-gatherers have got it easy." And he should know, since he lived with some for a while.

Eventually, farming cultures gave rise to what we commonly call "civilization"--namely, the tendency to live in cities. However, the intensive work required to continually grow food plants has remained necessary up until modern times, since cities require farms to supply their food. In fact, communities who worked harder had a distinct advantage over those who didn't, and thus the work ethic was born. Over thousands of years, this work ethic has evolved into something more and more strict, until reaching the point where work is considered the sole reason for a person's existance. Indeed, a person is now defined by what type of work they do, and is expected to devote the bulk of their time to this work, leaving little time left over for the more pleasurable, less productive aspects of humanness.

It is my contention that, due to the power of modern technology, especially farming technology, it is no longer necessary for all of us to be slaving our asses off for our entire lives. We don't really benefit by it--in fact, the primary benefit goes to whoever we are working for. This is a bullshit system, and it needs to stop. Decadence is the key.

It is common to hear social conservatives making statements decrying the tragic loosening of morals in modern society. The implication of these complaints, which becomes more and more clear over time, is the belief that if decadent behavior is allowed, it will inevitably lead to the downfall of society (which is why definitions of "decadence" inevitably include terms like "decay", "degenerate", and so on).

2000 years ago, or even 200 years ago, this was true. Nowadays, it is not. We have machines now which can do the work formerly done by entire communities of peasants or slaves. But rather than change our precious social system, which in reality is little more than a modified variety of feudalism (in which a small number of landowners get rich off the labor of their social inferiors), we continue to spend the bulk of our lives enriching our betters--people who are fully willing to throw us out on the street as soon as their precious profits dry up. The fact that people not only continue to put up with this, but that the endentured classes will actually argue in favor of this system in exchange for a few shiney baubles (a new car, a big-screen TV, etc.) is surely proof that human beings are not nearly as intelligent as advertised.

People, we shouldn't be working all day, we should be fucking our brains out. We should be frolicking naked in the sun (which would be safe to do, if only the owners hadn't fucked up the ozone layer). Eat, drink and be merry, should be the order of the day. (And I'm pretty sure "be merry" is a euphamism for "fuck.")

Of course, we can't do this all the time--then society really would collapse. But I'd guess we could get by on a fraction of the amount of effort we're currently putting in.

(Disclaimer: I am also well aware that getting from here to there would not be a simple thing. Deliberately trying to re-engineer society is an endeavor frought with risk. But I don't think that's a legitimate reason not to try.)

Some changes...

I guess it's the nature of a new idea to emerge less than fully formed. I've decided to make some changes already.

First, I've changed the title and address. Initially, for the first two hours of its thus-far short life, this blog was known as "The Sleaze Report", and was located at http://sleazereport.blogspot.com. I've changed this to "The Decadence Report", and the URL to http://decadence-report.blogspot.com. (I figured that hyphen in the address would make it a bit easier to read.)

I've also changed the text up at the top. The initial draft version read:

I like sleaze. In fact, not only do I like it, I approve of it. Thus I felt it would be an interesting idea to create this blog to have a place to post stuff about the Nature of Sleaze in the world today.

The reason for these changes is fairly simple--I realized that "sleaze" was not only too limiting a term, but carried an unfortunate negative connotation that I might not be able to get past. "Decadence," on the other hand, while being harder to type, can be easily interpreted as having a feeling of innocent naughtiness to it, rather than instantly conjuring up an image of unpleasant dirtiness. It can also include a wider array of related issues, which I also happen to be interested in: not just sex-related stuff, but a whole gamut of items which generally cause Miss Grundy to get her shit in an uproar.

[edited 19-April-2005]
I guess for now I'm just going to remove the text from the top entirely, and save it here. The Decadence Report is still in such an early, unformed phase that it doesn't really make sense to try to describe or summarize it now. So here it is, for safekeeping:

I like decadence. I also believe that decadence is an important component of a healthy society.

The purpose of this blog is not necessarily to explore this belief. For the most part, I will simply assume its truth. Rather, this blog is for exploring the nature of decadence, and for taking simple pleasure in its existence. And maybe, from time to time, for thumbing my nose at those who disapprove of it.

Introduction, testing, etc.

test test test

[edit] Okay, it works. This all-black layout is kinda cool, too. :)

I'm starting this on April Fools Day, but it's not intended as a joke. More an experiment, actually. I've done some political blogging, mostly last fall prior to the U.S. presidential election, but over a couple of months of doing that, I discovered that, although I genuinely care about politics, I don't really like politics. In fact, politics just tends to raise my blood pressure. Even during the Clinton administration--which perhaps can be considered the most sleaze-friendly administration in my lifetime--I found politics to be a frustrating business. But rather than put the sleaze stuff on that blog, I figured it would be better to have a more topically-based blog. I figure people who read a blog do so because they are interested in the subject matter of the blog, so mixing up the subject matter in a schizophrenic manner would probably be counterproductive. Of course, there are exceptions to this--major blogs devoted to a variety of things, but I guess I don't want to be like that. I'd rather have a seperate blog for each topic. So, so far, I have two: this one and the mostly-dormant politics one.

My first order of business will be to come up with some ideas of what to post here. I'm doubtful if there will be pictures, unfortunately. Not only are copyright issues more sticky-feeling with pictures (is posting them here covered under "fair use" or isn't it?), there is also the issue of where to host them. I would need a convenient webhost that was willing to allow sleaze-type stuff. A lot of the most common places have clauses in their terms of service that preclude anything "pornographic," for example, and this might create difficulties. The other problem is that if there are pictures here, then it becomes necessary to be more discreet as to when I make my posts. No posting at work, for example. That would be a pain.

I guess that's all for now.

[edited 6/30/2005 - I've moved some stuff over here from my original blog, feeling that it's a better fit for this blog. But this is actually the first post--anything older than this was originally on Chunks, Eggs en Prix, before that blog become totally focused on politics.]