REAL MEN II - Treat 'Em Mean

“Man, she’s like a princess or something,” are the first words to emerge, with the two men, from muttering shadows beyond my neighbour’s fence-line. “Guys would treat her like a treasure” (You hear all kinds of poetry sitting on your balcony at three in the morning).

            “Nah, mate, I treat her like shit, bro”. You’ve seen this guy before: body almost square; that awkward steroidal gait, arms stuck out forty-five degrees – the closest his biceps will let them get to his sides; no-neck bucket-head shaved high and tight, fudged up bristle on top; all chin and forehead. “She’s dying inside – she tells me all the time”.

            It’s not a drunken confession. This type of guy doesn’t drink much – too many carbs. No, the behemoth is bragging. He’s proud of himself.

            Why (Not, why is he proud of himself. You can answer that just by looking at him)? The question that screams at many a man and most women is: why would any woman subject herself to that? What’s the attraction?

            My friend, Parkstreet, has touched on this (Go to www.kentparkstreetblog.com and type “The Lovable Rogue” into the search field; highly recommended). Despite his many faults, however, the lovable rogue of my friend’s blog is at least entertaining. I know: my mother married two of them. But what hold does this brute exercise over a woman – let alone one with the choices our culture offers to beauty?

            It’s not a rhetorical question; I really want to know. Parkstreet and I aren’t the only two guys to have racked our brains trying to figure it out. And evidently loverboy’s companion is struggling with the answer too.

            It can’t be that he’s spectacular in bed. Women in a position to know tell me juicing gym junkies soon lose the ability, even if they retain the interest.

            Some would say money, but it’s not that either: he’s on foot. Although Hulk isn’t drunk, his mate obviously is. The only drinking holes within walking distance have been shut for hours, yet they haven’t taken a cab or driven home – whatever money he has left-over after gym fees went on the brand-name shirt stretched across his beefy back.

            So, I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind betting who does, though. It’s the guy whose shoulder the woman probably cries on when He-Man’s not around; maybe the one who, at present, is trying to talk him into behaving like a human being.

            Maybe she’ll run away with him. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Nice Guy gets his treasure; the woman gets someone who’ll treat her like a princess; and knucklehead gets to be with the one he truly loves – his reflection in the gym wall mirror. And they all live happily ever after ...

            ... Nah.

            Laurel and Hardy fade beyond the farther fence-line, voices mingling again with the darkness. I drain my coffee mug and step back into my own shadows. Maybe if I stare at the ceiling and groan long enough I’ll eventually get some sleep.

VILLAGE OF THE SPAMMED

I lost a reader today. No, not that way; he simply decided that social networking is no longer worth the risk to his privacy. You can understand his concern. If this was any other country – the USA or Britain, Russia or China, with an enormous, well-funded state security apparatus – you might share it.

            It wasn’t meant to be this way, was it? We were going to live in a global village. The free exchange of information, we were told, would pave the road to the New Jerusalem.

Right now a monomaniacal antipodean misfit seeks South American asylum, spouting all the while his messianic belief: that absolute freedom of information will absolutely free us all. His acolytes include human-rights lawyers, celebrities, and all manner of academics and idealists. The similarity of his rhetoric to that of John Calvin seems to have escaped them.

Not too long ago social media was going to free the Middle East. Facebook would roar, Twitter would tweet, and tyrannies would topple from Tehran to Tripoli. It's a nice story. Did wonders for share prices and advertising campaigns in New York and Silicon Valley. The reality was different.

Social media didn’t stop Egypt’s President Morsi appointing himself effective Dictator last week. Nor has it prevented his enactment of a new constitution – one heavy with Shari’ah Law. Whether Egypt’s new constitution passes or fails at a referendum, social media will have little hope of averting the likely consequences: either a brutal government crack-down, or a vicious civil war.

We won’t mention Syria. No amount of tweeting can help where China and Russia have money and the US has no interest (or any combination of the above).

 No, Facebook will not free the world any time soon; but what about privacy? At the moment our profiles are used to fashion ads for ourselves and our friends. Social media is a store, and we are the products. In Australia you’re more likely to be spammed than spied on ... for now.

Governments – authoritarian and “democratic” – have been quicker than activists to learn the real lessons of the internet. A century ago, Irish Nationalists feared infiltration of their groups by government agents. Nowadays it’s easier to train a few bloggers. These can then go online, monitor opposition activity, and disseminate propaganda.

 I don’t buy, sell or bank online, so I’m reasonably safe in that sense; but what about personal information? I make no secret of my past: drunk, junkie, and wastrel. In fact, I rather trade upon it – a kind of demented Dylan Moran of the blogosphere. I’m no longer doing anything illegal. My life, as my art, is an open book.

However, my network contains a fair cross section of political activists, artists and drug users. The right kind of government – or corporation – could use my profile to find them, and either arrest them, or follow them to bigger fish.

Conversely, imagine a government using the same techniques as Google and Facebook to create a flexible, intelligent, insidious and effective censorship system.

Freedom of information is a double-edged sword. As anyone knows who watches reality TV, some of the highest-security prisons have cells with transparent walls.