Friday, May 30, 2008

the culpability of Rosemarie Fritzl

First, I believe that the Fritzls were and are a product of their culture and have to be viewed in that light... I do believe that Rosemarie knew nothing about the dungeon, or her daughter's being a prisoner... that she didn't have access to the basement, whether by real locks or by imposed authority, it doesn't matter... she was programmed not to question... she would accept what her husband told her, and rue the day she questioned it... and now with the truth revealed, she deserves more of our sympathy...
Secondly, now as to the why... I am getting the impression from reading the blogs and commentaries from the news reports, a lot of other comments on Rosemarie Fritzl are looking at it from a filter developed in North America in the last 30-40 years...
The problem is, she has been living on a Continent, that has a long history of THE STRONG FATHER... THE LORD OF THE MANOR... PATRIARCHAL LEADER... influenced culturally by it's literature and history, as well as it's dependence on the Church for it's religious teachings... women raised outside the major cities, in what could be termed the 'rural' areas, did not have the same outlook or freedom that western women have had for the past 40 or so years... there experiences are that men ARE THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD by right of their being males... woman may appear, as does her neighbours, in the recent documentary on Channel 4, to be partners, but if you watch it again, how many of the commentators were women, and who did the majority of the talking during the interviews... women follow where men lead... (1)

Corrected on June 21st as per a comment I recieved on another blog: Anonymous said...
'I think you may have misheard the doctor report. He used the word "CORRECT MAN" not "GREAT MAN". The term 'correct' is often used in Europe to describe someone I guess who appears straight, precise etc.... not loopy, if you know what I mean. anyway thought it was worth pointing out."
by Loopy, I think my Mom's expression Doo-Lali-Tap, may be appropriate ;) I have listened to the doctor again, not the same interview, but another, and he does seem to say either great or correct; I originally thought it was Great... as my hearing is not 100% and the understanding of the Austrian accent is not that great, (no pun intended) must say it is rather ambiguous to my ears... but never the less, it is possible that I am hearing wrong... the police inspector, in his broken English, describes Fritzl as a Powerful man, a man not to be questioned; and one who Rosemarie would not question... his opinion, even early on in the case, was that Rosemarie knew nothing, and that there was no possibility for anyone to hear sounds from the cellar, after having himself spent time examining it, and seen the situation... in a sense it more than corroborates my opinion of Fritzl as a domineering man, who would not take kindly to his directions, authority, or his ways, questioned... that there would be sure retribution if such were to happen...A True Patriarch of the Family... little wonder that the children he had with Rosemarie left as soon as they could... and come to think of it, I am thinking that Alexander's comment in the poster: Freedom, Power and Strength... may be a reaction to his Grandfather's over towering authority... I am beginning to think that this case will have more twists and turns than a bowl of cooked spaghetti
I grew up in a time when we had lots of European Immigrants come here, of the generation born in the post WW I decade... and I can vouch for the fact, that women did not have any say in the running of the household, apart from their obviously female rolls, when they first came here... but like my own mother, that would change a bit over the latter part of the century... however that subservience would never be totally over come by my mother's generation... both Canadian and European men had the same attitudes... what I would term the 50's Father Knows Best syndrome... when the war ended, women who had been liberated and were doing Men's work, had to move aside for the returning military men... going back to their kitchens and female rolls... but the frustrations were felt, and the women of the next generation reacted to it and began the feminist rebellion... in much of Europe, liberated by the war, this was not possible, out side the main cities... men retained their command of the home and work place...
Rosemarie is of my generation, born during the latter part of the war... but still influenced by the culture that existed then... she may have wanted to partake of the feminist revolution, but could not... not with a husband like JF... and it is not likely that she had anywhere to go... or even the skills to do it... the vacations were a loosening of the leash, but the holding of Elisabeth and the other children at home, was a reel to pull her back to 'where she belonged'... she was as controlled as any fish on a line...
The culture of domineering husbands and fathers is not something that is solely Austrian... there is a literary tradition that is Pan European, of fiction and historical accounts of similar treatment of women... I believe that it can be traced for the Germanic countries, through the folk tales collected by the Grimm brothers (their goal was research of the sources of the German language, not the literature itself, which was a side benefit) in the early to middle 1800's and to the ensuing literature and cultural development that sprung up around it in the latter part of the century...so what is that cultural...
The few stories, in English, that we have that come from the Grimm's reflect a culture of child and specifically female subjugation and overt sexual interference... the death of the mother, in most cases, and the replacement by an all powerful stepmother... the imprisoning of the child by some authoritarian monster, who the child must guess his name to win freedom... the grandmother replaced by the big bad wolf... the beauty held in captivity by the beast... these are the sanitized or Christianized versions that my generation grew up on... changed again for film release, for our children's viewing, bringing the fairy tales that much further from the original inspirations... then there are the tales of valour, the sagas of heroism, of battles and wars, that reflect the culture of Honour, Bravery, and Power over the weak... told by returning feudal conscripts... for as in all tales, sagas, and myths there is a true historical precedent behind them...
These were tales spoken in hushed terms, around the cook fire, of what happened in the Lord's manor or castle... changed to protect the teller, who might be a cooks helper, or a servant girl... or in the telling of the histories, to reflect the greatness of the personality of the king, prince... tales told, from the times of upheaval, when king went against king, or nobleman went against nobleman and the peasantry were dragged along, or ridden over, driven like leaves in a fall gale... when women were bartered for dowry, land and prestige, or simply for protection or to curry favour with the mighty or powerful... the feudal lord owned his children and the peasantry, as surely as a southern plantation owner owned his slaves...
the philosophers and politicians of the later part of the 19th century, got hold of the myths and legends and it became the foundation of the cultural revolution that lead to the unification of the Germanic States and the Austrian-Hapsburg Empire... the springing forth of a poetry, literary and musical form, expounded by Nietzsche, Goethe, Beethoven, Lehr and Wagner... (2)that cultural or literary tradition, influenced the German military and government of WWII and it can be no accident that also it affected the people... the music and story lines of Wagner were part and parcel of the philosophy of the Third Reich... and the people ate it up... or a great majority... those that didn't kept their silence or if they did get involved, were hunted for their opposition... (3) the majority did keep silent... they obeyed their leaders, and if they saw anything strange, did not comment... the Government knew what was right... the Father Land was looking after them...
so here we have it, Strong Fathers, heroism, and war... a society of people conditioned not to question, and a literature that promoted the subjugation of women as objects... examples aplenty to influence the depraved or sick amongst us... whether male or female... and I give you JF and Rosemarie, end products of that culture... waning as it was, but still strong enough in the country side...
does it excuse JF... NO, a RESOUNDING NO... but it does excuse Rosemarie, for under the control of such a fiend, she would have had no power... she was as helpless as her daughter...
if the brothers Grimm were to have heard it told after years of retelling, they would make it into a fairy tale, with perhaps a prince to the rescue, or some foul death for the perpetrator... someone would make it a play or a basis of their theories for male superiority over the women... while others might make it an Opera, of the tragic consequences of lust... all to influence a future generation... but the reality we know all too well, there is no fairy tale or legend... only the horror of a dungeon and lives stolen...
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(1) I can well remember in Grade 10, a favourite teacher, giving up her post, to follow her husband to Saudi Arabia, that was in 1966, the year that Elisabeth was born... my own dad, decided he needed to leave England, and choose Canada over, New Zealand, and mom had no say in the matter... she would have had nothing in England...
(2) as an aside, the Hymn, “Deutschland Uber Alles” does not refer to Germany over all the world, but to choosing Germany over all the other states that make up Germany... as in O' Canada... Canada First, over all the other provinces...
(3) yes Virginia, there was a German underground... I have seen the pictures of teenagers hung for distributing newsletters against the government... or as in Denmark, shot by firing squad...
(4) it was only after the First World War, that in England the village life was replaced with a modern outward looking society... the end of the Nobles Oblige and the looking toward the manor for leadership; the last vestiges of feudal England ... it has been said that the invention of the bicycle saved Britain from mass incestuous relationships, by freeing the males to go searching in other villages for marriage partners... the end of the Village led to the creation of the modern new towns and a second shift of population from rural to city life and to the huge housing estates made famous on Coronation Street and coincidentally the cause of so much violence and suffering in Britain today...

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Torrents of Snow Flakes



while we all know that some types of downloading are not acceptable practice in our western culture, due to copy right laws, there is some content out there that does not have copy write, or is permitted by the owners to be downloaded under a user guide line (BBC programs are a case in point)

so with that caveat, I will explain the fundamentals of downloading via Torrents, one of the simplest methods of downloading out there; and the one where you are least likely to download a porno movie rather than that documentary on Anne of Green Gables, you were looking for ;)

NB: left click on image for larger view, use browser back arrow to get back to this page..

First you need a Torrent Client, or simply put, a program that uses Torrents and the most basic one about, and the original one, created in 2002, is at http://www.bittorrent.com/download?csrc=splash. when you get there, click on get Bittorrent.










with each browser (Internet Explorer, Fire Fox, Safari, etc) there will be different screens come up, asking, or sometime assuming the place you want the file to be put on your computer. if you get a choice, place it on the Desktop. easiest way to find it after downloading. if you don't get the choice, then you may have to do a search; the file will be called BitTorrent, with a version number after. you should be able to find it with just the word BitTorrent as your search criteria.

When you find it, click on it to run and follow the prompts, not a difficult set up. I am using FireFox Browser and windows XP and it was pretty much automatic, did all the work, and ran automatically with not set up procedure...









after getting the program installed, go to a Torrent down load site, Mininova being one of the less obnoxious ones about... many have adverts for porn, to help support themselves, so be aware and watch where you click- www.mininova.org

they all have search engines similar to Google, so just type in a name of what you would like to download. it will give you a list of clients. click on one and it will take you to the window for that particular torrent.

the column headings act as sort engines, left click and the column will resort it self, decending order, click again and it will resort to ascending order... of course the Name column works alpha/numerical




if you have a URL already for a torrent, put it in your browser URL window, (cut and paste or if it is active click on it and your browser will open up to the page) and click enter, that will take you directly to the download page. clicking on DOWNLOAD THIS TORRENT under the title of the torrent, and you will engage the program BitTorrent, if it is not already running.






a window will open up, with the files associated with that torrent. (some Torrents
will have multiple files, such as movies with extras or music with multiple tracks) click ok and the download will be entered into the BitTorrent program and begin downloading








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in FireFox, an additional warning window opens, telling you that you are downloading an application file. this is because application files tend to also be viruses, so this is an added level of protection.




from there I will leave you on your own for now... you can play with the preferences if you are comfortable with that, or at the very least, right click and chose to stop or pause some downloads while giving preference to others. just don't have a lot of downloads going at the same time. remember that bandwith is not unlimited, and the more you have downloading the slower your computer, AND the slower your downloads over all. better to not be greedy, and only 1 or two at most, at one time.
so what are these photos here...

well, because I put a lot of pictures on my blogs, (which means that this is not my only one, but the others are for family, sorry) some people ask if it is alright to download them. my comment, is if you can download them, then it is fine by me. legally I still own the copy right, but as John Lennon said, when confronted with a copyright infringement, if he can make a meal off of me then great. loose translation ;) I have some liberal views regarding copy right and intellectual property, which will make for another blog.
These pictures are in various sizes: 800x533 and 1024x682 for screen savers, and a large 12x18 inch one suitable for printing. did one up for my brother's wife and I have a compressed one 12x8 that I did for myself...
I would eventually like to make a few meals myself out of photography, but at the moment just happy to give while finding myself; anyone who lived through the 60's and 70's will remember that phrase, and here I am at 60 still searching ;)
TTFN