The PhD writing process is beginning. I can’t tell you how terrifying it is to stare at the glare of the empty screen, the cursor pulsing coldly overhead, and two years of thoughts churning like indigestion in the frontal cortex. Stare long enough and madness descends: one’s hands begin of their own accord to rattle out a frenzy of gibberish, just to stem that arctic gaze.

Having never written anything quite on this scale before, the whole process is really very mystifying to me. I’m experimenting, therefore, with different methods of compiling the thesis, and I’m going to write about them here as I experiment. Those of you who have already done your PhDs may snigger at my ungainly fumblings, and/or share your writerly wisdoms, as you will

So here’s how I’m starting. Having hashed out a skeletal chapter plan and the overarching conceptual framework with my supervisor, I’ve decided to start work on the chapter I have most material for. I’ve broken down this chapter into four ideas – call them thematic modules, four big themes I want to address in this chapter. Then, I’m going to try to continue with this modular approach. Instead of attempting to write the chapter as a whole (beginning with that terrifying cursor), I’m going to write mini-essays around each big theme. I am not, however, treating these mini-essays as sub-chapters — they’re just ways for me to draw the relevant source fragments together and to get my thoughts about them straight in my head. These mini-essays will inform, rather than form, the larger chapter.

The idea is that breaking down the chapter like this allows me to sort my source material in a more focused way: I’m using the four themes like boxes into which I can categorize my sources. The mini-essay will then be a kind of exercise in writing prose-bridges between these sources; it will also give me a non-threatening space in which I can write myself into dead-ends, as I inevitably will. And the exercise will give me the confidence with my material to compose the larger chapter more organically, and more quickly.

That’s the idea anyway. I’ll let you know how it, you know, actually works out. Any other ideas about how to compose an 80,000 word thesis will be most appreciated!

Top search leading to my blog? “Jaym Gates”. Wow. People are actually searching for ME? Nice. I’ll bask in the glow of my ego for a moment. Ok, done now.

Actually, that’s all balanced out by me being an idiot and a pained one at that. My nervous system seems to occasionally just up and rebel, and this last week has been one of those rebellions. Whether it’s the cold weather, not having gotten back to normal from Dragon*Con and being sick before that, I don’t know. But the last week has been a haze of excruciating, random nerve pain. Pain to the point that my ankle will just fold under me.

Of course, this happens about the time it’s cool enough for me to resume the work-outs. Treadmill is on hold till this is over. I had to leave work earlier than planned last night, came home and crashed straight into bed. This is not pleasing to me whatsoever.

The idiot part? I’ve let Inherent sit with almost no attention for over a month now. At best, it’s been token attention. Now that my goal is to have the edits done by Nov. 1, I’m back to being in a time-crunch. It also means I’ll be submitting queries at the same time as the NaNoWriMo crowd. Not good. I need to adjust my novel-writing schedule somehow though, so that I submit in Sept/Oct. rather and Nov/Dec.

On the short-story front… No news. No rejections, no acceptances, just radio silence. However, Prometheus is coming along nicely. Title will most likely be revised to something like Lord of Heaven and Earth though. Currently it sits at 6400 words and about halfway through the first edit.

I have two articles at Fantasy Magazine, waiting for me to format them so they can be published. Both are on forum-based gaming.

Oh! And Tuesday, I go back in to talk to my tattoo artist. Little Tommy of Ace Custom Tattoo is the flat-out most awesome artist ever. I’m really hoping to have new pictures for you by the end of the month.

Monday is horse day again, so probably no blog.

And, that is all. Enjoy your weekend!

A form module is made up of one or more blocks. A data block is based on a databaseobject, such as a table or a view. A data block can contain both data items and controlitems. A frame can be created to arrange data block items. Each item in a block mustappear on a canvas, and each canvas must appear in a window. A form module canhave one or more canvases and windows.

Here’s a tip if you are looking for easy ways to build descriptive link reputation, gain new visitors and traffic that is 100% white hat.

Article Marketing

Article Marketing the correct way it should be done, has huge advantages
over other types of link building because it has full benefit of being seen as 100% white hat, which it is anyways.

Have you ever heard some marketer tell you that articles are  ”duplicate content?”

Articles are NOT duplicate content and the next time someone suggests to you that they are, ask them why Yahoo and Google would have a Creative Commons area where they encourage you to publish other peoples work. Search Engines understand that articles (similar to news) is meant to be syndicated.

So where do your links go? Usually the best place is in the Bio which is a few sentences at the end of the article.

Here is an excellent place to get started: (It’s free)
http://www.evancarmichael.com/Author/partnerLeads.php?l=1425

Just sign up and you can be writing to a huge audience of business  entrepreneurs. The more you write, the higher you will rank and remember to use your all important keyword text within your bio links.

All you have to do to get ideas for articles is be on the lookout for them! The first thing you should do is spend a minimum of 15 minutes a day reading something related to your specialty.

There is one thing that’s not a secret — in today’s world, where “Content is King,” writing is an important aspect of business. It seems like everything that is done online requires some type of writing.

Content is needed for web pages, articles are needed for advertising, blog entries need to be posted daily. Newsletters and ezines have to be mailed to subscriber lists. There’s no limit to the need for content.

The process of writing articles scares some people who don’t consider themselves writers. But the process can be broken into some easy to follow steps.

One of the greatest secrecies of the well visited sites is by writing articles. These articles follow a certain format and have a certain matter which they discuss in this Web site. The search for people a certain thing will find these Web sites as the search engines are often on the monitoring for certain formats of the articles. In order to obtain more viewership on your Web site, you could want to explore the articles of writing which will lead certainly much people to look at your site and to give you more income while thus making. A situation of profit for all it would become because would help them to you in their providing the necessary information while they give you more income.

While starting to write articles, always start with the key words. The key words are one as of the majority of the big parts of writing of article of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Employ the common words that people seek often daily. Then write in an eye the contagious expression. Articles which provide good information outside and captivate assistances are always encouraged. You also ensure that you employ your key words with your title of article. Thus when somebody seeks the key words you employ, there is a great chance that they will stumble on your article. The significant thoughts should populate the article. The worst kind of article that no matter who can find by chance would be the type it of the absurd things of right walks which relates to hardly a matter that one supposed to discuss it. You ensure that your article could oblige the televiewers to still visit the site because your articles are worth the reading. Connect the specific key words in the entire article. You ensure that the key words are seen in the article. This will facilitate it so that the search engines label your articles because one of the sources to reading when a viewer starts to seek articles of a certain matter.

When you are made writing the articles, pass by him once more. It never wounds to check the grammar and the trail of the thought. You ensure that your article shows the cohesive thoughts which aim at answering certain question and discuss a certain matter. It is very frustrating to read an article which is not even related to the title of article. At the beginning people could visit the site. But you can be certain that they will still not visit your Web site because it does not contain the useful information. So much constantly, you ensure that the grammar and the flow of the article are good. Do not fail to also examine your article to ensure unicity. You would not like somebody calling into question the authenticity of your work. Some Web sites give outside freely services of detection of plagiarism. Employ the latter to check and to make sure that work which you pass is hundred percent yours.

This next article will discuss some of the things your article needs to have in order to be accepted to article directories. This is important especially if you are wanting to use your article to promote your product or service. You don’t want it looking like a sales letter or a promotion because it won’t be accepted to most directories, or even ezines. Here are some ways to have our cake and eat it too!

The power of writing an article is to create an interest in your product or service. This form of article marketing is best when your article is in as many places on the web as possible, and that usually includes article directories or published in other people’s newsletters. In order for your article to appear in these places, your article must pass certain requirements these directories and e-zines set.

Most, if not all, article directories and newsletter publishers will not accept glorified sales letters as submissions and they may or may not tell you if your article has been rejected. Many article directories will have submission requirements that don’t allow links in the article body, don’t allow you to promote your product or service directly in the article, don’t accept press releases, or don’t allow affiliate links in the resource box.

With all of these very common restriction, how does one bring attention to their product, service or website? A multi-step marketing process needs to be used. The first step is to create a title that gets people interested in reading the rest of the article. If possible, your title should include a point that showcases your product or service.

The next step is to write a first paragraph that excites the reader while the rest of the article carries them through to the resource box. The rest of the article should get them very interested in, and wanting more of what your article was about.

The last step is guiding the reader to quench their interest. This is done through a call to action in your resource box. Usually this call to action is to have them go to your website to get more information, or to find the complete answer to the question that was answered in the article.

You as the author, need to write an enticing article that promotes your product or service and still stays within the submission terms of most article directories. The best, and easiest way to do that is to answer a question or solve a problem that is common in your area of expertise. You would need to pick a question or solve a problem that really showcases your knowledge, or product in an indirect way. If you focus on a question or problem that specifically relates to your product or service, you can write the article based on what your product or service can do in an indirect way. This is done by providing the solution to a common problem, or answering a popular question, and then leaving them hanging in your concluding paragraph. You would then use your resource box as the follow-up to the last paragraph. IT is in your resource box that you would provide them the place they can receive the solution. It is important that you send them to a website that is related to the article, and not use the links in your resource box for some random link popularity scheme.

It is relatively easy to write articles that promote your product and service and still keep within the submission terms of the article directories and newsletter publishers that you would submit your articles to. When you learn how to write powerful titles, enticing articles, and powerful call to action resource boxes, you will have a persistent traffic machine. If you don’t feel you do that now, you should, your next step should be to beef up your article title writing skills and your resource box call to action.

There are currently many ways to get more traffic to your website and article writing is one of those powerful ways to drive targeted traffic to your website. Most of these article marketing strategies are well known, but there are also some strategies that are just as powerful but less known. These overlooked strategies require quality articles to be written because they usually involve 3rd parties.

Most people write articles and submit them to article directories or other content-based websites. The authors of these articles then get traffic from these websites to their own website when people click on the links in their article resource box. This is the most common way people use article writing in their marketing efforts. However what about the other ways to use your article writing skills to get traffic to your website that doesn’t involve article directories?

One way of getting traffic to your website is to write articles for other people’s websites. Not for blogs or websites where there are already a number of other writers, but a website where you are the only other person to supply content. This technique may not be as difficult as you might think because most website owners are struggling to keep their site fresh and if you provide the solution to their problem of having fresh quality content, many website owners will jump at the offer. This strategy sets you apart because you can now get links back to your website without competing with other web site owners. You also stand out more in the eyes of the visitors to the website you are writing for so when they come to your website, they are more interested in what you have to offer. This strategy does require original articles that are written by you and are of good quality because it will be a tough sell to get someone else to put your crappy spam on their website.

Another uncommon article marketing strategy is to take a collection of your articles and place them in an eBook. You can then offer your eBook for free from your website and encourage others to share your ebook, make it a part of a package, or a bonus added to another person’s product or service. Having your articles in an eBook is a really great way to present your knowledge and showcase your talent. This strategy also requires articles that are well written and useful because no one will take your eBook seriously or share it with others if your articles are spam.

You can also use your articles as part of an auto-responder series to continue to drive traffic back to your website. If you write a series of articles on the same topic or in the same niche, you can put one article per message in the auto-responder series. Your message would include a compelling call to action after the article to send the reader back to your website. This method works very well to build trust with your readers, who will then be more willing to buy from you because they now feel like they can relate to you.

There are many other ways to use article writing as a means of sending targeted traffic back to your website. The methods listed here are just some of the ones that can be implemented with minimal effort and time. Using these additional techniques will build your brand as expert in your field more quickly and will get you more long-term traffic to your website.

Here is another resource that shows you how to write articles that drive traffic to your website and some ways to monetize those articles.

Do you want to learn how to write an article? Writing articles is easier than you may think when you have resources that guide you step by step through the writing process. There is one resource that has helped me to write articles, and that resource is an ebook called Turn Words Into Traffic.

Turn Words Into traffic covers all of the necessary aspects of writing articles and is definitely written for the beginner. It covers the following topics:

The article writing process – this covers everything from targeting your audience, to brainstorming your topics to polishing your article and the parts of any highly effective article – to all of the steps in between.

• The money-making article blueprint – why people will read your articles
• Techniques for promoting with your articles
• Getting your article ready for distribution
• Getting other people to publish your articles
• Promoting your articles in Ezines
• Promoting to article directories
• Promoting your articles in the search engines
• Making your article viral
• How to market with articles when you don’t have the time yourself
• Other creative uses for articles

As you can see with the above this resources covers all of the aspects you would need to not only create an article, because it goes into great detail with each step of the process.. It even preps you for the future for writing follow-up articles, which by the way, is what you need to properly use articles to market you products and services.

I have taken a long running survey on what keeps people from writing articles and

• Almost 40% of the people don’t know what to write about
• Almost 30% of the people don’t know HOW to write an article

Turn words into traffic takes you through the process of writing an article that is of high quality, and also takes you through the process of determining WHAT to write about. This resource is a “must have” for 70% of the people who know about article writing.

The one thing I would like to see in this ebook is because it covers so much, it can be a bit overwhelming to the person who is first starting out. However if you are serious about your internet presence, then it may be required for you to go a bit slower at first if you are just starting out… but it would very well be worth it.

The other thing that would be nice to see is how article writing works in the world of Web 2.0. I have done a lot of Web 2.0 marketing, and it really isn’t a stretch to take what is in this book and use it in the Web 2.0 world. You would not change the way you would write your articles, and

This ebook really covers all that you would need to know to write a powerful article and it does it in a very supportive way. I would recommend this resource to be in the toolbox of anyone who wants to use articles as a form of marketing their products or services.

Get this articles writing ebook, and begin your powerful article marketing.

writing the thesis presents issues of organization — do I approach it thematically, sandwiched between an introductory narrative & conclusion? or do I write chronologically & demonstrate my brilliance by weaving the themes into the narrative? the former is uninteresting; the latter runs the risk of incoherence or unnecessary reiteration.

whatever the case, I am so definitely opening with this paragraph:

In the Hikayat Abdullah, Munshi Abdullah tells a story about twenty-seven beautiful female slaves who fled from Sultan Hussein Shah’s well-stocked harem, materializing at the police office in a flustered and hysterical flock to lodge complaints of cruelty and abuse at the hands of their master. “One opened the clothes on her back to show the marks of the rattan cane, others had marks of having been hung up, others of burnings with pitch, others complained of being punished by fasting and nakedness”. John Crawford, the presiding Resident of Singapore, must have been a picture of incredulity. What did one do with twenty-seven vagrant women? After some deliberation, he made what was probably the only decision he could make in such circumstances: to “allow them to go where they liked: so some went with the policemen, some to the Klings, others to the Chinese, and a few of them to the houses of the Europeans, just wherever they could get food and clothing”.

The British Government, some seventy years later, would face the same dilemma, but this time, without the privilege of nonchalance.

Someone once said to me that there’s nothing more remote than the recent past, and it stuck with me, because I believe it: when we write history floundering knee-deep in the moment and process of history-making, we are trying to discern the oak tree by blinking myopically at the acorn. Perspective makes the historian, and everyone else is a politician, or a newswriter. I like to think of it as the reason why plate tectonics eluded us for so long: we were simply looking at things in an utterly misguided proportion. It took some 8,000 years of world mapping before we could come to terms with continental drift. The same, I believe, applies to the past.

Two quick caveats. Firstly, I don’t believe perspective is necessarily a direct function of time. One can have perspective while still very close to the event being examined; this is called detachment, and it is a cultivated skill (or else a personality defect, as in my case). I also don’t like the implications of the analogy, which suggest that after the lapsing of the requisite 8,000 years we arrive at the Truth of Continental Drift, and thereafter dialogue expires. History is not a dialogue which should expire, whatever Francis Fukuyama might have us think.

But I am somewhat wary about politically engaged historians, including the late but no less formidable Arthur Schlesinger Jr., whom contemporaries accused of writing history to bolster his unabashedly liberal agenda, despite his retort that “you shift gears when you write history”, and that “being a historian does not require one to renounce being a citizen”. Sam Tanenhaus has written a laudatory piece at NYT, arguing that historians today ought to, like Mr Schlesinger, engage more with the present, ought to write histories that shape the way we look at events today. I suppose for me the question implicit throughout the article is: should historians be political activists?

As both a historian and citizen of Malaysia, I can categorically attest to the dangers of history-writing with an agenda, as I and a like-minded historian have written extensively about at OtherMalaysia.org [my article, his article]. Partisan history-writing in Malaysia has led to a profound distrust of alterity; it ousts authentic dialogue and instates unexamined pro-governmental pedagogy. It transpires that historians writing on current events can be just as deeply mired in their present loyalties as historians of the past are mired in the archives, and that this is perhaps not always a good thing, as it largely has been with Mr Schlesinger. Perhaps Mr Tanenhaus might look more globally at the persisting merits of detached, archivally-mired history.

But even if history-writing doesn’t go as far as outright distortion, there is still a tension inherent in the roles of historian and activist, one which historian E. P. Thompson expressed well:

“The historian may tend to be a bit too generous because a historian has to learn to attend and listen to very disparate groups of people and try and understand their value-system and their consciousness. Obviously in a very committed situation [i.e. as an activist] you can’t always afford that sort of generosity. But if you afford it too little then you are impelled into making the kind of sectarian position in which you are repeatedly making errors of judgment in your relations with other people.”

So on one hand lies the historian: empathetic, receptive to the diversity of human experience. And on the other, the polemicist, the activist: the ability to take sides, and to intervene concretely. Mr Thompson, and I would agree, calls the former “listening”, and the latter “speaking”. I believe one cannot listen and speak at the same time; one cannot be detached and attached at the same time; or, when one is making history, one cannot, I think, write it.

But one can skillfully negotiate between the two impulses; instantiate a dialogue between them that allows measure and detachment: or at least, the sort of detachment that enables one to lambast both the right and the left in equal measure (cf. Mr Thompson). I suppose Mr Schlesinger called it “shifting gears”. That takes erudition, great scope, reflection, self-awareness — “reach”, as Mr Tanenhaus correctly puts it. And I think it is hard to have confident reach and knowledge in this anxious age. Unlike Schlesinger’s age of anxiety, we today are anxious both from trauma and disillusion as well as from the dilemma of the infinite archive and information overload. I think today we have to expend comparatively more effort listening before we can speak deeply, or else all become rhetoricians. This is probably why today we have more listeners than speakers: there is just so much more “reach” to have (e.g. my point about a more global perspective on history).

to conclude. Mr Thompson and Mr Schlesinger were particularly exceptional individuals (with, might I add, particularly exceptional fathers), and I think it takes such individuals to ensure that, when conflating the two, political activism does not end up perverting history for its own ends, as has happened in Malaysia, where everyone speaks, few listen, and cacophony transpires. I also don’t think activism can or should be the goal of all history-writing. We should not encourage all historians to be activists unless both the inclination and the (rare) ability are present — as it very clearly was with the late Mr Schlesinger, may he rest in peace.

written in response to Cliopatria’s symposium

[reproduction of an article I wrote, to be published at thecicak.com next week. intended less as an analytical piece than a discussion prompter for theCicak.com's readership]

In 1757, a man named Robert-François Damiens burst out of the shadows of the streets of Paris and plunged a knife into King Louis XV, who, perhaps most unfortunately for Monsieur Damiens, was widely known to his people as le Bien-Aimé, or ‘the Beloved’. The monarch survived, and the sentence was swift: Damiens was condemned to die in a manner that was to gain him eternal historical notoriety. As philosopher Michel Foucault memorably described in his book Discipline and Punish, Damiens was to be carted to the Place de Grève, where,

on a scaffold that will be erected there, the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms, thighs and claves with red-hot pincers; his right hand, holding the knife with which he committed the said parricide, [will be] burnt with sulphur; and, on those places where the flesh will be torn away, [there shall be poured] molten lead, boiling oil, burning resin, wax and sulphur melted together…

and then his body [shall be] drawn and quartered by four horses and his limbs and body consumed by fire, reduced to ashes and his ashes thrown to the winds.[1]

The execution took place largely according to plan — except that the horses proved wholly unqualified for the strenuous task of drawing a man apart, even when two more of the poor beasts were added. Damiens’ limbs finally had to be sawn off manually.

Today, we have come quite a long way from this. The reason historians have such detailed records of ‘The Damiens Affair’, as it is invoked today with a shudder, is because the entire spectacle took place in public. In contrast, state-sponsored deaths today, even though purportedly more “humane”, have been largely squirrelled away from the public eye into the dingy basements of penitentiaries, where a needle might be somewhat abashedly administered while officials look on solemnly from the shadows. State-sponsored corporal punishment — whipping, flogging etc. — takes place within prison walls, where the only other witnesses are the quavering row of people soon to face the same themselves. And there is an increasing amount of moral pressure today to do away with both these “cruel, inhuman and degrading” practices altogether.

Yet, even if it is much less of an obscene public affair than it was 220 years ago, Malaysia is one of sixty-nine countries in the world which retains the death penalty, and one of at least seventeen countries in the world which still widely practices corporal punishment. Caning in Malaysia is a stock penalty for crimes ranging from vandalism, drug violation and overstayed visas to the more heinous infractions, such as rape, assault and homicide. Unlike the Damiens Affair, however, corporal and capital punishment are not conflated (no man who has been sentenced to death can be caned), and corporal punishment is highly regulated in its execution, from the requisite medical examination of “fitness to receive punishment” down to the standardization of the cane’s dimensions (1.09m long and 1.25cm in diameter).

Given these relatively “humane” restrictions, then, it is perhaps understandable that V. K. Chin could opine rather phlegmatically in August 2004 that “the government should speed up cases involving illegal immigrants so that they could be whipped and sent home immediately […] There is really not much point to just round them up and send them home without any meaningful punishment…Holding them for any period before their deportation is an unnecessary drain on our financial resources and so it is better to just whip them and send them home, otherwise they will not learn their lesson”. Rather like a mother who has apprehended a naughty child sticking their fingers into the Nutella jar (come, own up, you have all done this), the government’s role here is to literally spank these denizens and send them on their way.

But is it really so simple an issue? I’ve noticed that corporal punishment is notoriously easy to talk about with great nonchalance, because the sort of corporal punishment that most of us are acquainted with tends towards the odd clobbering, backhand slap or pinch from a parent figure, or at worst, a full-out beating with the dreaded feather-duster. The idea of it is inherently domestic, remedial and generally suffered with an indignity and resentment that mellows over time.

Can the same really be said for this?

[Link to YouTube]
Again, this contains profoundly unpleasant material. View at your own discretion.

TheCicak.com wishes to open a discussion on this video, which was posted on YouTube on 23 January this year. The subject in question was convicted of rape and sentenced to ten years in prison and 20 strokes of the cane (out of a maximum punishment of 24 strokes).

Some points to consider

Do criminals really deserve such torture? There is a kind of cognitive dissonance between vindication and mercy; in the case of caning, we want to punish serial rapists, but we flinch when watching the video (at least, I hope you did). Is it possible to reconcile the two impulses? Is Amnesty International correct in its assessment that caning is “cruel, inhuman and degrading”, and that “such punishment should have no place in the world today”?

Is taking a “hard stand” preferable to “going soft” on criminals? This article contrasts Singapore’s stentorian and punitive attitude to crime with Britain’s “relaxed attitude” and “over-indulgence” of their prisoners (going so far as to award them Christmas presents). Is incarceration and rehabilitation really a better method of crime deterrence than something punitive, like caning? What about people who just don’t learn?

Does caning tarnish Malaysia’s international reputation? There have been several cases of foreigners receiving the Malaysian Caning Experience, and the infamous case of Michael P. Fay just next door in Singapore provoked worldwide controversy when the boy was caned under charges of vandalism in 1994. And one YouTube user’s comment on the video accuses Malaysia and Singapore of being “barbaric fascist dictatorships” and “sick, perverted, Nazi f—s”. Should perceptions like these matter?

Under most countries’ legislation, including Malaysia and Singapore’s, women may not be caned under any circumstances; this derives from Britain’s Whipping of Female Offenders Act of 1805, which exempts women from any form of judicial corporal punishment. (Britain, incidentally, is also responsible for bringing the practice of caning to Malaysia and Singapore). If we cannot stomach corporal punishment for women, how can we countenance it for men? Or vice versa: if we flog criminal men, shouldn’t we flog women guilty of equivalent crimes too?

Should we really demonstrate caning to children to instill fear and deter them from crime when they grow up?

And with videos like this or Saddam’s execution up on YouTube for the world to see, how far have we really come from Damiens and the voyeuristic crowd that followed his cart all the way to the Place de Grève, hooting as the executioner briskly rolled his sleeves up and tore pieces of Damiens’ flesh from his thighs with a pair of custom-made steel pincers?

I’ll give my own answer to this: not very far at all. In my opinion, we are simply squirrelling away an impulse that still persists; today, instead of parading our brutality to the town square, we consign it shamefacedly to the basements of our penitentiaries and psyches alike. And I’d even argue that the same goes for the practice of corporal – and capital – punishment, both of which inhere as much in our world today as in the Paris of 1757, when Damiens’ ragged torso was finally, unceremoniously tossed onto the smouldering woodpile, then as evermore under the mesmerized gaze of this oddly barbarous civilization we call our own.