I Like Flags

Watching sport where there is more than one country involved gets me a bit excited… sometimes. Moreso when it’s something like the Olympics, or the World Cup (or Eurovison). I love watching sport. I love the excitement, the suspense, the booze and snacks…

I also love the flags.

(and the national anthems, but that’s another story)

Call me strange, but that kind of thing interests me. I like design. After watching yet another multinational tournament, I started to look up a few of the flags and found a whole new world (trying really hard not to burst into song here) of weird and wonderful flags of all nations.

I used to know all the European flags as a kid, after spending a good 6 months travelling around the continent. There isn’t much from Europe in this crop, but I did manage to come up with some of the more interesting, beautiful, ugly and slightly odd flags from around the world.

I’m possibly going to entertain nobody but myself here… but I’m kind of used to that, being an only child and all. If you want to play with me, you can come along. I don’t mind at all. I know I’m not the only geeky geek in the house…

I’ve narrowed it down to my Top 20.

It would be less, but I had enough trouble narrowing it down to this many.

So, without further ado…. and in no particular order….

BELIZE

Aaaand first off the mark we have Belize. That wreath reminds me of one of those optical illusions where if you stare at the dot in the middle the circle starts moving around. Check it out! It’s moving! Except there is no dot in the middle.
What we have here is ebony and ivory working in perfect harmony… yet a bit apart. Or are they side by side? It says something about the country. They work the land. That’s what they do. Anyone got a problem with that? I don’t think you’d wanna fight those guys.. You might end up with a shovel in the head.

This flag also looks a bit like a corporate logo for a Latin American Kibbutz (?) Huhhh.

BAHRAIN

Aww. It looks like the Burger King is having a bit of a nap. Other than that, I guess it’s quite striking, if a bit on the nautical side.

Sweet dreams, Burger King. When you wake, I’ll have a Whopper with cheese, add bacon. Thanks.

GEORGIA

I’d love to live under this flag. It brings to mind all things medieval and knights of old. How wonderful. I also think it says, “Don’t fuck with us!”…and having met a few Georgian rugby players, I wouldn’t be doing anything of the sort.

GIBRALTAR

Speaking of things medieval, come in Wizard of Id!

The King is a fink…!

How cool is that flag?

TUVALU

One of the world’s smallest independant nations. A group of nine islands, smack bang in the middle of the Pacific. About halfway between Hawaii and Australia. So, if you’re ever trying to swim across, remember you have a rest stop. Isn’t that nice to know? I’m sure they have coconuts.

This flag makes me giggle every time I look at it because it looks like a drunk Aussie has tried to draw the Australian flag. Either that, or it’s the end result of a game of ‘Pin The Stars On The Southern Cross’…

ANTARCTICA

Who knew that Antarctica has its own flag?

Part Rorsarch Ink Blot Test, part rhinoceros head…. you figure it out. The penguins must be pleased.

ANDORRA

I like this one because it has moo cows on it. Any flag with moo cows on it is alright with me.

“Hello, we are from Andorra and we have cows”. Fantastic.

SWAZILAND

Ah.. here we have Africa tapping into their rich visual heritage. It makes a strong statement about the country it’s representing. It’s a fine flag all ’round, but really I just like saying SWAZILAND.

Oh, and Richard E. Grant comes from Swaziland and Richard E. Grant rules. The end.

HONG KONG

This flag must always be flown in conjunction with the Chinese flag and it’s not a Hibiscus flower, it’s a Bauhinia Blakensis. Okay? Good. I’m glad we’ve got that sorted. It is rather pretty though, don’t you think?

Can someone email this to Waldeck’s Garden Centre? I think they need a new logo.

LEBANON

Ah, yes. I always think of lush, green trees when I think of Lebanon. Doesn’t everyone? An interesting, paradoxically peaceful symbol in a country that is effectively a bloody mess. I went there as a child and I don’t remember much except a lot of concrete and men with big guns.

I mean, I know the Cedar is native to Lebanon, but who are they trying to fool, exactly? Wishful thinking, perhaps…

GREENLAND

I think this flag is hot. I dig it for it’s retro 60’s/70’s interior design sensibilities. It would make some fabulous wallpaper, no?

NEPAL

Trust Nepal to think outside the square. The only national flag on the planet that isn’t a horizontal rectangle. They’re dancing to their own tune and it shows. Good on ya Nepal!

ISLE OF MAN

Freaky freak show!! Haha! I LOVE this flag. This is my favourite. It has a sense of humour. How good is that? I also love that it’s rich in Anglo/Celtic mythology. Rock on.

TURKMENISTAN

Just like the old Silk Road from Europe to Asia… or possibly a Persian carpet runner I once owned….

MYANMAR

The country formerly known as Burma. They have corn! Is it corn? Does Burma grow a lot of corn? If they don’t grow a lot of corn, you’d have to wonder why the hell they have a head of corn on their flag … What’s all that about?

LESOTHO

Hehe… The national emblem of Lesotho is a finger puppet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I like finger puppets. Finger puppets are fun.

Either that, or the ol’ Rorsach Ink Blot Test is back…

KIRIBATI

What’s this? Kiribati sinking beneath the waves of the Pacific due to the effects of Global Warming?

Oh, well. At least the bird looks like he’s having fun….

SAUDI ARABIA

Does anyone here speak Arabic? So accessible, as you would kind of expect, really.

Oh, oh… I just took a crash course in Arabic. It is apparently the Muslim creed, “There is no god but God; Muhammed is the Messenger of God”. Consider yourself told.

TIBET

I like this one. A little psychedelic, complete with oddly coloured sunbeams, swirls and spooky green monsters… and strangely asymmetrical with the unfinished yellow border…

Tibet’s flag is of course, due to its national state of limbo, unrecognised. I dunno, it looks pretty recognisable to me…

UGANDA

A German (?) cock in Africa, from the country that gave us Idi Amin. There has to be some connection there. 500,000 dead Ugandan’s can’t be wrong…

Interesting that the recent film didn’t depict him feeding homosexual’s their own penises…. Or that he was stark raving bonkers due to a nasty case of Syphillis? Or did it? I didn’t see it..

So, there you have it.

So, go on…. tell me your favourite.

Or… have I just completely out-geeked myself? Hah!

Drugs, guns and the whole bloody mess

I really, really didn’t want to write a blog about the massacre at Virginia Tech. 

However, I have a couple of bees buzzing around in my wee bonnet that need to get out.  I’m allergic to bees.

I’ll try and keep it brief.  Well, kinda.

I found out today that Cho Seung-hui was on antidepressant medication at the time of the massacre.  

Why does that not surprise me?  

It had already occurred to me that he might be.   In fact, I was just waiting for confirmation.

The reason it doesn’t surprise me, is that I am well aware of the statistics regarding violent and suicidal behaviour under the influence of SSRI’s.  (Selective Seretonin Reuptake Inhibitors).  SSRI’s are the most commonly prescribed type of antidepressant.

The following is a sample of school shooters known to have been taking antidepressants:

• May 21, 1998, Springfield, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his own parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been on Prozac and had undergone “anger management” classes.
• April 16, 1999: Notus, Idaho: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school narrowly missing students; he was taking a mix of antidepressants.
• April 20, 1999, Columbine, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox when he and his partner Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and a teacher before taking his own life in the bloodiest school massacre in history. The coroner confirmed that the antidepressant was in his system through toxicology reports. Dylan Klebold’s autopsy was never made public.
• May 20, 1999, Conyers, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with a mix of antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.
• March 7, 2000, Williamsport, Pennsylvania: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was on the antidepressant Prozac when she blasted away at fellow students wounding one.
• March 22, 2001, El Cajon, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman was on two antidepressants, Effexor and Celexa, when he opened fire at his high school, wounding five. Hoffman had also undergone an “anger management” program.

Smells a bit funny, dontcha think?

I have vast personal experience of SSRI’s.  I was on them for five years and they cost me almost everything, including three attempts on my life.  I never would have thought in that entire time I was on them, that it was the prescribed drugs making me ill.   I only stopped taking them because I thought they weren’t working, after my last suicide attempt.  Not for a second did I expect that they were the cause of it all.  

I’m still putting my life and myself back together.  It has been devastating.  I only went to my GP once with a complaint about my arm and I happened to mention I was having a hard time at work and that I was very stressed.  She wrote me a prescription.  Boom.  Hello drugs and hello psych ward!  I had no history of mental illness or depression.  

But enough about me.  I’m just telling you this, to put my passion regarding the subject in context.  I am not in favour of these drugs.  They may work for some, but there is no way to tell what is going to work and how.  There is no way on earth to measure brian chemistry.   It’s all hypothesis and guesswork.  

Would you want people playing with your brain, knowing that they’re just guessing?

If only I had known.  I was so naïve.

There have also been a number of celebrity deaths linked with antidepressants: 

• Phil Hartman’s wife was on them and complaining of adverse side effects just before she shot and killed her husband. There is now a law suit against Pfizer, the makers of Zoloft, claiming it was the cause of her violent rage that induced her to murder her husband, before committing suicide.
• Michael Hutchence was taking antidepressants at the time of his apparent suicide in a hotel room.
• Del Shannon shot and killed himself on Prozac.
• Elliot Smith was on a cocktail of psychiatric drugs, including Avanza when he died from a self inflicted stab wound to the chest.   I mean, who the hell in their right mind does that??

I could go on…

Here are a few  more handy facts:

Dr. John Zajecka reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry that the agitation and irritability experienced by patients withdrawing from one SSRI can cause “aggressiveness and suicidal impulsivity.” In Lancet, the British medical journal, Dr. Miki Bloch reported on patients who became suicidal and homicidal after stopping an antidepressant, with one man having thoughts of harming “his own children.”

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) can cause anxiety and agitation, bizarre dreams, and akathisia. It is estimated that between 10% and 25% of SSRI users experience akathisia, often in conjunction with suicidal thoughts, hostility and violent behavior.

A 1998 British report revealed that at least 5% of SSRI patients suffered “commonly recognized” side effects that include agitation, anxiety and nervousness. Around 5% of the reported side effects include aggression, hallucinations, malaise and depersonalization.

In 1995, nine Australian psychiatrists reported that patients had slashed themselves or become preoccupied with violence while taking SSRIs. “I didn’t want to die, I just felt like tearing my flesh to pieces,” one patient told the psychiatrists.

5% may not seem like many people at first glance, but when you consider that there are approximately 1 million people on Antidepressants in Australia, that’s 50,000 people suffering adverse effects of these drugs.  That’s a LOT of people, and some are going to be worse than others.   Goodness knows what the figures are for America.

So, do ya think prescribed psychiatric drugs might have played a part in sending Cho Seung-hui off the deep end? 

I reckon so. 

At the very least, it’s worth investigating.

I keep reading about the media furore in the US, with everyone looking for someone to blame.  It’s obvious there are too many factors at play to point the finger at one entity, although I am utterly convinced that this would never have happened if it wasn’t for that young man being on antidepressants.

I see American gun laws as the other major player. 

Being an Australian, I find American gun culture a most curious thing.  It’s just so alien to what I know.  We don’t ‘do’ guns here.  After the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 (which is still the world’s worst.  Something to be proud of, eh?) the Australian government spent $500 million on a gun buy-back scheme.  640,381 personal firearms, including semi-automatic .22 rifles and shotguns, were handed in.  Now, some types of guns are banned altogether and you need a strict licence to own one, which involves background checks and giving a bloody good reason for needing a gun.  Such as being a farmer, law-enforcement officer, or sports shooter.

The only other people who have guns in Australia are the occasional well-off criminal, who can afford to buy one on the black market.

I don’t get the impression Cho Seung-hui was terribly well off.

I do understand that the psychology of gun ownership is far more complex in America.   I mean, just look at the Wild West.  The culture is way too ingrained to ever hope of pushing through legislative changes like Australia did after the Port Arthur massacre. 
 
I don’t want to go on and on about this, but I’ll leave you with some brief statistics:

Gun ownership in Australia is 5.2%. 

Gun ownership in the US is soomewhere between 38-50%.

Here is a comparison of US gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 1998 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:

373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States

Note that these numbers account only for HOMICIDES, and do not include suicides, which comprise an even greater number of gun deaths, or unintentional shootings.

Even if you put the population of all the other countries together, which would roughly equate to the population of the United States, the death toll doesn’t even come close. Do you suppose it’s because the other countries have gun control laws?

Just, maybe.

Lastly, a disturbingly humorous video to lighten the mood:

Watch as this DEA agent shoots himself in the foot in front of a class of students.   Literally.  My favourite part is when he pulls out the bigger gun.  Oh, and when he says “I am the only one professional enough in the room to carry one.”   That’s a cracker.  I am however slightly disturbed that there are children in the room.  Check it out:

In other news:  Over 200 people killed by suicide bombers this week in Iraq.  Just thought I ought to mention it….

Other Sources: Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights, ICHV.org

Song Of The Day: Pop Will Eat Itself – Wise Up Sucker!