Cav's Place

I really should start with the good and state that this was the best edition I have ever seen. It started pretty poorly, with a rather weak first semifinal, but the second one was very good and the final was even better. Quite frankly, there was a single song I didn’t like that made it to the final, namely Serbia’s. Then there were two other good songs that were sung poorly, namely those from Belarus and the United Kingdom, and Belgium’s performance, which I really had to place last because I judge the entire act and when you just have a single person who does nothing but sit on stage, and that person is also male and sings a song that I didn’t think was one of the very best either, that performance really can’t get any noticeable amount of points from me.
That leaves 21 good performances during this final, which is probably a number you could only reach by adding together two finals from previous years, and perhaps not even then in certain cases. And I really wouldn’t have minded if any of the top eight out of these 21 would have won, which is absolutely unprecedented as there usually are only two or three songs that I think should fight for first place.
And before I move on to the bad, I should also point out that I really liked the interval act. No longer showcasing only the traditions and culture of the host country, but a piece that made a statement out of the international nature of the show and tried to send a message about bringing people together, all of it doubled by a bold choice of music to say the least. It was an interval act that I was curious enough to watch, which caused some problems as during that time I normally take the opportunity to turn my ratings and notes into a neat classification.

Moving on to the bad, I need to start with the new voting system. It would appear that they completely gave up on even trying to persuade people to vote fairly, as allowing voting all through the show means people are now able to vote for the country they want to vote for without even watching its performance, much less the competition. At least until now voters were more or less forced to at least give everyone a chance before they could vote, which meant that at least a small number of them could be persuaded by a particular performance to change their predetermined “political” vote… Plus that allowing people to vote up to 20 times even for the same song instead of limiting it to a single vote per person for each song makes it a question of whose fans have the most time and, most importantly, money to spare instead of a question of who can get the most fans. And the juries are made of people too, so adding them in doesn’t really mean there will be fewer “political” votes.
The result of all that was that in plenty of cases nothing changed, many countries still giving points as expected, so instead of making the contest fairer the new voting system pretty much removed even the theoretical chance of fairness. Which is why I say don’t forget to flush and use plenty of air freshener if you happen to mention the new voting system, because it’s nothing but a huge pile of shit!
And the bad part from a very personal and subjective point of view was that none of those eight I thought could have won made it even in the top three, four of them actually being in the bottom seven, two of them even in the bottom four!

But let me stop that rant and move on to my classification. (Actual place between parantheses, as always.) The system was the same as always, of course, and it was actually easier to judge based solely on the performance at hand this year than it was in 2008 and 2009 because, while I still knew all songs before the competition, I no longer looked for other information, such as interviews or rehearsals, so there were fewer things I had to ignore in order to be able to focus properly.

1 Ireland (23)
2 Azerbaijan (5)
3 Georgia (9)
4 Denmark (4)
5 Moldova (22)
6 Iceland (19)
7 Russia (11)
8 Norway (20)
9 Albania (16)
10 Armenia (7)
11 Turkey (2)
12 Spain (15)
13 Romania (3)
14 France (12)
15 Greece (8)
16 Germany (1)
17 Bosnia (17)
18 Cyprus (21)
19 Ukraine (10)
20 Israel (14)
21 Portugal (18)
22 Belarus (24)
23 United Kingdom (25)
24 Serbia (13)
25 Belgium (6)

Now I will do something different and, instead of commenting only on the first five songs in the actual classification and the first ten in my classification, I’ll comment on all songs. Or all except the bottom four, as I already explained why I placed those so low.
Ireland was obviously this edition’s ballad and unless there’s something else that somehow blows me away I will always put ballads first when it comes to Eurovision, at least as long as the singers are female. Not much show value to speak of, but at least there was more than one person on stage and they didn’t look like they really had to go to the bathroom, so I was content with a neutral “show” rating, which was good enough to allow this performance to rise above the rest.
Azerbaijan continues the run of good results, entering three times so far and finishing eighth, third and now fifth in the actual contest and being first, second and now second again in my classification. This was one performance that certainly required forgetting what I saw and heard before the actual competition because I initially thought their entry was quite poor… Until I saw how it all worked out on stage and completely changed my mind. I’d have been quite happy if this would have won, but at this rate I’m pretty sure they will win soon enough anyway.
Georgia was yet another entry that required me to forget what I previously knew about it, as it sounded and certainly looked far better during the actual competition. Incredible vocal strength and a basically perfect performance, but there were some bits of the song that bothered me a little and that’s why it’s only third.
Denmark’s entry sounded pretty nice, was very catchy and benefitted from a very good female voice as well. I certainly wouldn’t have minded if it won, but a certain part of it sounded too similar to a certain great song of decades past and that’s why it’s only fourth.
Moldova was bold. This is not the kind of song you expect to see on Eurovision and it impressed me in a good way. At first I thought the male voice wasn’t going to suit the song, but during the final they actually sounded great together. But they’re only fifth because I think you need to really blow everyone away with something if you want to be at the top with a very atypical entry.
Iceland presented something that was somewhere between a ballad and a catchy song. Sure, it was nice enough, it could even have won, as any of my top eight, but it just wasn’t quite good enough to beat the ones I ranked above it, possibly just because it was somewhere in between genres.
The Russian lead vocalist had an absolutely amazing voice. I still wonder if he’s castrated, but that’s not the issue here. The song and the entire performance may have been somewhat strange, and certainly not in the sense of certain past winners we can all remember, and it sounded like they needed a few seconds to warm up at the beginning and were getting a little tired by the end of it, but it was still a very interesting and notable performance.
The Norwegian song was also very good, with the possible exception of the first few seconds, and the guy singing it blew me away with his voice, but I very strongly prefer female vocals so that’s why he’s not up there competing with Ireland for the first position. The neutral show value also meant I had to place Norway lower than Russia, but in the end it was yet another performance I thought could have deserved to win.
Albania came with a performance that struck me as a little bit better than all those ranked below it, but far from the top eight, so it has a pretty firm position in my classification.
Armenia put up a pretty nice show, but unfortunately the song fell just a little bit short when compared to the nine ranked above it, so all that was left for me to do was rank it as tenth. It’s also possible that I penalized this performance a little because the singer looked to be surgically “enhanced” in pretty much every way…
Turkey was also bold, coming up with an atypical entry that was certain to be remembered. Pretty good show value, nice message, but having only male vocals meant I wasn’t going to like it quite that much, plus that there actually was something about the song itself that bothered me a little.
The Spanish entry sounded nice enough, the vocalist did his job well (twice), there was also a pretty good show value, but… It just didn’t stand out, unlike many of those ranked above it. And you can really see this edition’s quality level when I rank a good song that’s also performed well and has a pretty good show value only 12th.
And then we have Romania… I really didn’t find the song to be quite all that when compared to the rest, though of course it was also nice enough and very catchy, and Paula has an absolutely amazing voice. But there are some parts of it that rub me the wrong way, plus that the performance itself was quite static, relying mainly on the pyrotechnics for the show value. I think they could have managed while having only two people to do the backing vocals, allowing for two others to actually play with fire on stage.
The French song would have sounded much better a couple of weeks from now, during the World Cup, but it certainly was catchy and entertaining. It was also yet another pretty bold entry.
Greece’s entry somehow grew on me between the semifinal and the final. Not enough to rank it higher than this, but it’s a pretty bright and happy song that doesn’t sound bad at all. And that’s saying a lot, as I don’t respond all that well to those rhythms…
And then there’s Germany… It is indeed a very complex song that also manages to be pretty catchy as well, and the singer seems extremely charismatic. Sure, I can say I like it, but this year I can say that about nearly all of them, so I really couldn’t rank it higher than this, especially since the show value was only neutral.
Bosnia’s entry was really not bad either and it would have very likely been well in my top ten in pretty much any other year, but this time around there really was no room for it any higher than this. You’d say I could have been drawn to the genre, but that no longer applies when you take the competition into account.
And most of what I just said applies to Cyprus as well. Not a bad performance, but when you compare it to the rest of them this year…
The Ukrainian song was extremely complex and also had pretty deep lyrics, or about as deep as an Eurovision song could hope to have, but complexity doesn’t equate sounding very nice. I believe I can recognize a good song when I hear it, and this was a good song, but it just didn’t have an appealing sound to me and this is, after all, my subjective classification. The barely neutral show rating, as that’s about as much as a single person can get from me no matter how well she’d act her part, or how hot she’d be for that matter, didn’t help at all either.
Israel’s entry actually sounded really well, but once again there simply was no room for it higher than this. The fact that the vocalist was male, sang in that dreadful Hebrew and only had a neutral show value meant this seemed like the proper place for it.
And finally we have Portugal, which featured a good singer singing a decent song, but otherwise really getting lost among the rest as it had nothing to make it stand out in any way. And I really can’t stand Portuguese either.

So I got Bosnia and Denmark right, was two places off for Belarus, France and the United Kingdom and three off for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Portugal and Spain. On the other hand, at least ten places off for Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Moldova, Norway, Romania and Serbia.
As for the semifinals, I’d have picked Macedonia, Malta, Poland and Slovakia instead of Belarus, Belgium, Portugal and Serbia from the first one and Croatia, the Netherlands and Slovenia instead of Cyprus, Israel and Ukraine from the second one. In fact, you can see how the seven I wouldn’t have picked to make it to the final are in the bottom eight in my final classification, with only the United Kingdom, who are automatically qualified to the final and therefore gave me no opportunity to judge their performance sooner, in between them.

So why did Germany win? Well, unlike last year when Norway’s victory came as a complete and unexplainable surprise for me, I believe I have a reasonable explanation this time around. I believe that, while the singer’s charisma also played an important role, this is an excellent example of manipulation of and by the media.
You see, first you had some people very thoroughly making sure that all uploads of Germany’s entry would be quickly deleted for copyright infringement in order to only leave the official video and artificially increase the number of viewers for it in comparison to the rest, as said viewers were all forced to watch the same thing instead of being able to choose and therefore spreading the number of views among multiple videos. The very high number of views drew the attention of some bloggers who proceeded to write about this entry more than about others, while perhaps some others were even encouraged to do so through other means. Then some survey results, which are all too easy to forge, popped up and claimed that this entry was the favorite, which increased the attention it received even more. Shortly, all this on-line attention made its way into more traditional media, and from there to pretty much everyone who was in any way interested in Eurovision. That triggered the herd mentality, as the message sent was that you’d be the odd one out if you had another favorite. And, since most people want to fit in and the new voting system also greatly favors preconceived opinions, that resulted in many more votes for Germany than the performance itself could ever hope to gather.
It’s rotten, it’s dastardly, it’s petty… But it’s also highly effective and therefore utterly brilliant, if this indeed is how it happened. Others should learn from this, and I’m no longer just talking about Eurovision contestants. Politicians certainly try to do the exact same thing whenever elections are coming up. The difference here is that it would appear that Germany was the only country having such a campaign this time around, or at least the only one who managed to get it to work…

The Martian winter solstice was over two weeks ago, yet NASA hasn’t provided any updates about the rovers since, even though those updates should be weekly. Sure, there wouldn’t be much to say about Opportunity, who likely performed nothing other than a couple more short drives, and nothing at all about Spirit, who has been silent for over two months due to the very low energy levels, but they should have at least posted something to let people know that nothing unexpected happened to Opportunity during this time and that solar energy levels should now start to improve.
The lack of posts could, of course, actually mean that something bad did happen to Opportunity and they don’t want to talk about it before figuring out what to do next. But the most likely scenario is that they simply don’t feel like writing these updates when there’s nothing even remotely interesting to say. Though I’d say that making it past yet another winter solstice would be something worthy of being mentioned, and setting a new Martian surface longevity record on May 20, surpassing Viking 1‘s six years and 116 days, even more so, especially since Viking 1 relied on its own nuclear energy generator instead of using solar panels like Spirit and Opportunity do, which makes the twins’ accomplishment even more impressive.

One would assume the twins have proved that solar power is a viable option for Mars rovers and that improving the efficiency of solar panels would allow for long and safe missions which could also achieve many scientific goals, not to mention help all of us back here on Earth with our energy problems. But NASA doesn’t agree with that, as Curiosity will mark the return to nuclear power. And that can never be really safe, despite all the precautions taken, which seems pretty counterproductive when one of Curiosity’s main objectives will be to look for microbial life. If any somehow exists around the landing site, it may easily be destroyed by any leak from the rover’s generator, which would make us the destroyers of life on two planets instead of just one. Then again, the Viking landers also had nuclear generators and they’ve been there for decades, so who knows what kind of contamination we may already be guilty of. The difference, however, is that back when those were launched we really didn’t have any viable alternative, while now we do…
Still, the good news is that, after many delays, the launch window for Curiosity has finally been selected as being between November 25 and December 18, 2011, with landing scheduled to take place between August 6 and August 20, 2012. If all will go according to plan, that’s when Opportunity will finally get her replacement, assuming she’ll survive that long.

I’m only mentioning Opportunity’s survival because there is one more Martian winter the existing rovers will have to get through before Curiosity will join them, and Spirit isn’t too likely to even make it out of this one. As I said, she went silent over two months ago and simple logic would dictate that another two months are likely to pass before solar energy levels will again rise enough to allow her to wake up from hibernation, and that’s a long time for her components to survive the cold Martian winter without any heating whatsoever. And even if she will somehow survive this one, I really don’t see how she could make it past the next one as well. Either way, as she’s stuck in that sand trap, Spirit can no longer be considered a rover, and in fact has been officially designated a stationary research platform earlier this year.
Opportunity, on the other hand, seems to have quite easily made it past the worst of it this time around and, unexpected technical problems aside, is likely to do better and better from now on, at least until the dust storm season. And since she made it past a few such seasons before, there’s a distinct possibility that she will still be operating when Curiosity will touch down in 2012. And I really think the main goal of the current mission should be to ensure her survival at the very least until her replacement will be proven to land and function properly. In addition, if hibernation could be avoided during the next Martian winter as well, that’d provide us with an uninterrupted active presence on Martian soil, which should be a considerable achievement in itself…

But there are bad news coming from Mars as well, though we’re only talking about a confirmation of something we already knew. After a final attempt to communicate with it, the Phoenix lander remained silent and has also likely been destroyed by ice. As I said, none of this is unexpected, as communications ended a year and a half ago and therefore survival wasn’t exactly a possibility, while the lander’s solar panels were not designed to withstand the amount of ice that was likely to build up on them during the harsh Martian winter, considering the landing site.
This only serves to once again prove the harshness of the Martian environment, if anyone needed additional evidence, and likely makes the twins’ survival for well over six years that much more extraordinary.

So we’ll wait and see what the future holds. Hopefully we’ll manage to learn a lot about another planet without damaging it for a change… But that doesn’t seem at all likely, considering we’re talking about humans here and our capacity for destruction, intentional or not, is unmatched.
I think Spirit and Opportunity did a pretty good job of returning scientific data while using a renewable energy source and without causing or even creating the possibility of noticeable damage to any potential Martian forms of life or even the Martian environment itself, as harsh as it is. So I can only hope that our future exploration attempts will use them as an example and not Curiosity, and that we’ll also learn from the environments that force us to come up with sustainable and safe solutions and apply that knowledge here on Earth as well. Sometimes, even a risk of one in a million is one in a million too much.

I’m writing this today because this is when the “diversity march” is taking place in Romania. That’d be how they decided to call the gay march around here, and I’m calling it a march because, save for a few admittedly annoying drag queens, the appearance and behavior of the other participants has always been quite far from what you’re used to seeing in those gay parades that are famous around the world. Which is a good thing, and it’d be even better if they’d get rid of those few as well so the media would no longer be able to portray a wrong image by focusing just on them, as they’re bound to do.

As you can see, I don’t exactly have a good opinion of turning events during which minorities should raise awareness about themselves and demand equal rights into carnivals, at least not in places where said minorities still need to demand those equal rights. (Actually, I don’t have a good opinion of carnivals in general, but that’s not the point here.) In places where equal rights are already offered to the minorities in question, such events can simply be turned into entertainment and I guess anything goes, but elsewhere it’s quite counterproductive to create a potentially shocking display, or to give the media any excuse to make your demonstration appear shocking, when your very existence is bizarre, shocking or even outrageous for a significant part of the population and you’re trying to prove that such a perception is wrong.
At first it may appear strange to see something like this from a person who usually advocates direct action when something needs to be done and shocking displays when awareness needs to be raised. But in fact there’s nothing odd about it. When unfortunately there are still very few parts of the world where non-heterosexual behavior is readily accepted and where non-heterosexuals have the same rights as heterosexuals, the point is not to raise awareness about the existence of different sexual orientations but to prove that all are essentially the same regardless of their sexual orientation.
One way to do that is by organizing such marches, but only as long as the appearance and attitude of the participants sends a message along the lines of “unless you’d follow us around to see who we’re having relationships with, you probably wouldn’t even know we’re different if we wouldn’t tell you”. That doesn’t mean participants should only be those renowned in their fields, as somebody was suggesting, because the point is to prove similarity, not superiority. It means the participants could be from all walks of life, but with emphasis on those who are pretty much average. And those who come with their partners could and likely also should do the nice things that loving couples can do in public, such as holding hands, hugging and kissing, as that would further prove that they’re no different from heterosexuals, but all must do their best to avoid anyone and anything (else) that may be shocking. As I said before, any shock value under these circumstances is highly counterproductive and the media likes nothing more than to portray such events as shocking, so even a single “bad apple” among hundreds of “proper” participants could be enough to spoil the whole message.

Now that I tackled the wrong image that a small number of participants project, I should move on to the significant part of the general population who insist on having a wrong perception about such events. I’m talking about those who claim that such demonstrations are attempts to proselytize, to somehow draw others who would otherwise be heterosexual to these different sexual orientations. Which, of course, is something like saying that you can proselytize being left handed or having green eyes. More to the point, it’s like proselytizing asexuality or heterosexuality.
Oh, wait. That’s exactly what those I’m now talking about are doing: Proselytizing heterosexuality at all times and sometimes also asexuality until marriage. They are, after all, saying that “normal” relationships, not to mention marriages, should always be between one man and one woman, and often that those who are different in this aspect are somehow sick or perhaps influenced by some unholy forces and should either somehow be “cured” or at least keep to themselves and not reveal their orientation among “normal” people. That’s what proselytism looks like: Trying to convert others to a certain belief or way or life by persuading them that it’s the correct or “right” one and that all others are wrong or somehow harmful. Which means that pointing out the differences between what goes on during a gay march or even a gay parade and the actions and attitudes of those who oppose the very concept is enough to prove that the march or parade couldn’t possibly be taken as proselytism.

It’s all too obvious which of the two groups is the most harmful. A proper march of non-heterosexuals could perhaps cause a small number of people to question their own sexuality, but that can only be a good thing, as making an informed decision regarding this important issue, whatever that decision may be, is likely to make them feel better and more confident inside their own bodies than simply assuming they have to be heterosexual because they never thought they could be anything else. As for the few who take part in such a march but look and act as if they were in a parade, those only harm their own cause and nothing else. On the other hand, those who try to force heterosexuality on all and claim that those who have a different orientation are somehow flawed, sick or tainted put a significant amount of negative pressure on those people, potentially making them feel unsafe or insecure and likely even pushing some of them, perhaps even a large part of them, towards somehow forcing themselves into a sham of heterosexuality despite their bodies screaming at them that it’s not what they need, which couldn’t possibly end well.
Still, as I have pointed out, there are some mistakes made by a few of those who march as well and they should be corrected so they’ll no longer give their opponents any arguably acceptable reasons to oppose them. Once that will be done, it should be easier to expose the flawed arguments used against them for what they are. Not that the attitudes of their opponents are likely to change even then, but at least it should help with those whose stance isn’t yet so firm, which most notably includes the future generations.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out a good thing, a bad thing and a call to action on the topic of gay rights. The good news is that Portugal will allow gay marriage. The bad news is that two gay men from Malawi have been sentenced to 14 years of hard labor for, well, being in love. And that bad news is also what the call to action is about.

Excuse me but I need to vent every way I can or I’ll strangle somebody! That’s because last evening dad sent me a recording of a guy’s speech to translate and transcribe, which speech lasted for 29 minutes and was basically nothing but a string of utterly infuriating platitudes about economic growth. Which would have been bad enough in itself, as the entire concept of economics and especially this drive for growth is a terribly infuriating subject, being an useless and ultimately harmful human invention which got us in the crapper we’re now in; and I’m not talking about the economic crisis but about the environmental and social crisis. Still, the real problem was the quality of the recording, which was really poor, with the added issues of a faint trace of the translation and the crowd’s murmur that could also be heard alongside the speaker.
So I kept trying to play with the sound settings in an attempt to make out as much as I possibly could, then trudged along for nearly five hours of actual work, not counting breaks, split between last night and today, and the result can be best described as Swiss cheese, as it was full of question marks where I completely failed to understand words or even entire sentences, plus possibly more assumptions and guesses than words that I’m sure I understood correctly… I’ll call it completely unusable, but it was the best I could do so he, the speaker, whoever requested this piece of work and anyone else involved are very much invited to choke on it!
Of course, when the best I can do is of such poor quality it also makes me feel even more inadequate than I usually do, which at the moment only adds to the anger because I’m set on being angry and find it quite easy to fuel it with these feelings as well. Better than taking it all out on myself as I usually do, I’ll say…

On that issue… Why do people organize such things? Why do they insist on having speeches? Do they like hearing themselves talk so much or do they simply enjoy putting all those who will then be required to transcribe their words, either on paper or on-line, to this crazy amount of pointless work? Because it would seem so much nicer and easier for everyone involved if they’d just post what they have to say on-line and let everyone who’s interested read at their leisure, and perhaps organize conferences through instant messaging, which, if properly done, would also result in much more orderly proceedings.

I seem to be drifting back to writing a lot of personal posts and negating anything I may have accomplished lately regarding the goal of writing significantly more serious non-personal posts than personal ones this year. But that’s how it always is I guess. If I’m not forced to write non-personal posts I often won’t, though at least I am quite a bit less embarrassed by those I do end up writing under such circumstances than by those I write because I have to, in order to stick to the rules I set for this blog, so there’s one positive aspect at least.

My old rule remains valid even when among supposedly like-minded people. If one of my ideas gathers any noticeable support from others I really need to review it, because no truly effective idea is going to gather any significant support from people. Which, of course, doesn’t mean that if everybody opposes an idea it must be good, just that it’s obviously bad if they don’t vehemently oppose it.
Humans will be humans; even the large majority of the small minority who appear intelligent and interested in what’s really going on only appear so. Or at least they’re only interested in feeling good about themselves by having nice little chats about the “pretty” potential solutions, ignoring anything that’d actually be effective if it wouldn’t look particularly nice and especially if it’d require them to no longer look like the dazzling knights in shining armor who save the day and make sure that every single person will live happily ever after.
So I take what I can from these discussions, improve my ideas as much as I can while overestimating my opponents and patching up loopholes they never seem to notice anyway, and get back to work on my own. I may be just an armchair activist, but at least I’m one who wants to get things done efficiently, not look like a hero. So I’ll let them praise each other over the beautiful but ineffective solutions they come up with and get back to coming up with the efficient, albeit harsh and ugly, solutions that’ll get humankind from the current point A to the necessary point B within a reasonable estimate of the amount of time we still have available to make the trip.

In this particular case, I’m certain my solution will achieve the necessary results within the relatively little amount of time we have left while theirs won’t even come close and have numbers to prove this claim. I’m obviously not saying there couldn’t be another, better, solution that’d achieve the same results as mine, and in fact I kept asking for one, but none was provided. They were content to just argue against my efficient proposals because they’d violate their sense of ethics, morality and personal freedom. Which means history will be left to judge which viewpoint was the correct one… If anyone will be left in order to make this judgment, that is.
Sure, it’d be lovely if my diagnosis of the situation would be wrong, but I don’t see how that’d be possible. In fact, those who are interested in the issue generally agree with the diagnosis itself, but then their brains appear to refuse to accept the resulting numbers in order to allow them to keep on believing that harsh and ugly measures aren’t necessary in order to solve the problem. So I can say I tried to work with others and the results only served to once again prove me right when I say there’s absolutely no point in doing so, especially since even the two who initially agreed with me went completely quiet after that first message, running away the moment the challengers rushed forward and leaving me to hold the line all by myself through days of debate. Not that I mind arguing a point alone, quite the contrary, but there’s little point in joining groups if you won’t get any support!

Who knows, maybe these things will eventually get me to seriously start working on something else that’s been on my mind for quite some time. Perhaps I could even finish it… Some 30 years from now… If I’ll somehow live that long and human society wouldn’t be completely turned into a battlefield for every individual’s survival. And since both of these conditions are unlikely to be true… Still, it’s not like I have anything else to do. Just that I lack the skills to accomplish something of such magnitude properly, or even passably…