Can I have a Jizz gun for Christmas please?
Bahahaha.
This proberly won't be updated very regularly
Why I'm glad I don't live in the 17th or 18th century.
I spent most of today reading 'Discipline and Punish' by Michel Foucault. I have to read it for a Sociology essay entitled 'How do social norms govern our behaviour?' With part 1 finished, I'm still not 100% how I'm going to write 1500 words on this, but in parts it's a suprisingly good book. So far, the most interesting part is his description of the ideas behind, and the enactment of, justice during this period (mainly France).
For starters, they were mad for torture. This was for a few reasons. First of all, they didn't believe that someone was either innocent or guilty like we do. The thought that if there was partial evidence against someone, than that person was partially guilty! So torturing someone for interrogation was completely justified, because if the suspicion was enough that it warrented torture, than they were guilty enough to warrent torture too.
Second of all was the whole idea of torture as a proof. Torture was considered as an ordeal similar to that of witch hunts. If a person didn't confess under torture, than the belief was that, having passed this ordeal, they couldn't have committed the crime! Or at least, couldn't be punished to the full extent of the law. If they did confess, then that confession immediately validated all of the evidence gathered by the court, even if it was shit, and whoopdedoo they could go and kill the person.
Usually, if they had a really solid case, then they didn't torture the accused, because if he held out than it meant that even if they had really good evidence, he couldn't possibly be guilty because he didn't confess. Oh and while all this was going on, all this evidence gathering and deciding your fate, well, you didn't feature in the proceedings at all. All you got was one day in court, the day on which they decided your fate - you got to be cross examined once. And even then, the judge could use open questions and ambiguity to trick you Yeah...fairness wasn't really their strong point.
But the torture doesn't stop there!
At that time people were ruled by kings. And the King made the laws. So, if you broke a law, you harmed not only the person agains which you acted, but also the king. So even a petty crime took on a more serious note. This meant that the number of crimes for which they could go ahead and kill you was at times over 200. So steal a piece of cloth from your employer and they fucking hung you, and well, do anything pretty much and they hung you. Hung you or, in what is particulaly creppy, killed you in the same way you killed your victim. One girl killed her master with a meat cleaver. So they got the same chair, sat her in it, and killed her in the same way with the same fucking meat cleaver. Fucking hell...imagine doing that now... 'I now sentence you to death by being drowned in a bath and then strangled with a belt and stabbed 58 times'.
Regicide though, well that was a special type of crime. Committing a crime was bad enough, but killing the King pretty much took the biscuit in their eyes. So what they did was to literally think of the worst things they could possibly do to you, the worst imaginable things, and then do them. So, in one guys case, this meant having his calfs, thighs and pecks ripped off with hot pincers. Then having molten sulphur and lead being poured on the wounds. Then having his limbs tied to horses, and having the horses run in opposite directions. In the case of this chap, it took 6 horses, and before they ripped off his limbs the executioner first had to cut his joints down to the bone with a kinfe. Nice. In the case of another guy, they did similar stuff, but kept him alive for 18 days, doing something terrible each day. I suppose in those days, killing the king was the modern equilivant of kidnapping every child in the country, doing sick things to them, and then letting them all starve.
In conclusion, I'm glad that now, if I kill a king, all I'll get is life with the possibility of parole. Wahey!
People With my name
Go take a look in the phone book for people named Linn. Find any? Nope..didn't think so. That because there aren't any other people in Ireland called Linn. Lynn perhaps, and Linnie, but not Linn. This means that I'm the only Andrew Linn in the Country, and I like it that way. So when I go to google.com, and type in 'Andrew Linn' and find other people using my name...I don't like it. Well, what I don't like is that I'm not the first Andrew Linn which comes up. So heres a quick runthrough of the Andrew Linn's that live out there...the Andrew Linn's I'll have to beat to win my name back. The fact that I'm going to mention my name a lot in this post will hopefully help a lot.
Andrew 1:
Prof. Andrew Robert Linn, Director of Research and Innovation
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Sheffield.
Motherfucker.
This guy is gonna be hard to beat. He has a freakin book for fucks sake! It's called 'History of Linguistics, 1996: Selected Papers from the Seventh International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences' and, well, it's probably as intresting as a Sociology book. Which is to say, it's as interesting as looking at a streetlight just as it's getting kinda dark and waiting for it to come on all night because the lamp is actually broken. He also likes Sheffield Utd. and...oh for fuck sake...has a freakin CD out of him playing the organ. Well, so long as he keeps all his stuff strictly Norweigan then I should be fine. But to be honest, it's not like he's had much competition so far. The next guy should be easier to beat.
Andrew 2:
Andrew Linn, boat builder, puddle duck racer and children's book writer extrordinaire.
What is it with Andrew Linn's and books?! This time the subject matter is slightly different though... well I'm assuming it is. 'Uncle Angus' Bedtime Stories' doesn't sound like a Linguistic book. But what do I know, I'm not a freakin Professor. Anyway, this guy owns www.andrewlinn.com and is mad, it seems, for boats and early 90's style web design. They're called 'Puddle Duck Racers' and appear to be freaking tiny boats into which grown men squeeze themselves and race in regattas, vying to become the '2008 Pan-Galactic, Inter-dimensional, World Champion of Puddle Duck Racing.' I'm not kidding btw...that's an actual race, and don't forget "Bring a glad heart, a trophy, and a happy spirit. You will need a life jacket and access to a class-legal Puddle Duck Racer to compete."
Andrew 3:
Andrew Linn 3 writes for The Nation but isn't even important enough to have anyone write his bio. Aww.
Andrew 4:
Number 4 is an award winning real estate agent.
Selected Quotes:
"It was as shocking as it was exciting I've never won an award like that."
"He's been involved with Boy Scouts for years and has achieved the rank of Eagle Scout."
"One thing I have really learned is how to really listen to people in order to help them"
"It's not easy, but if this is what you want to do then the door is open,'"
Sounds like a bender to me.
Andrew 5:
And finally, we have this chap:
Dreams:
I wish to be a Professional Drifter like Sam Hubinette, Ken Gushi, and Ken Nomura.
Riiiight.
Number 1 google resultage here I come!