2 topics; one I don't much care about and one that I very much do. Oh, and with lots of swearing.
Well, after my comments about the army yesterday, the MOD has gifted me a subject today; free breast implants for female soldiers. This is by far and away the most fantastic and forward thinking idea that the modern army has ever conjured up. Firstly, it will help female soldiers become more widely accepted in the army; who but the most boring and crusty old general could object to a battalion of women between the ages of 16 and 25, blondes and brunettes both and every one at least 32C cup?
Secondly, in a week that has seen the first female applicant to the Royal Marine Commandos drop out of the training course, the introduction of free breast implants is a masterstroke of timing. After all, I'm given to believe that it is hard work lugging two bloody great bags of silicon around everywhere you go, so this can only improve the stamina and endurance of the average woman soldier! Coupled with the heavy kit that they need to carry around, I can foresee a time when women become the most respected soldiers in the British army in terms of carrying capacity.
Thirdly, this provides an unparalleled opportunity for providing female soldier extra protection for their torso in a combat situation. Breasts are conveniently placed to provide additional cover for heart and lungs. If implants were given some sort of Kevlar lining, then this would provide further armour in addition to the standard flak jacket and helmet. Female soldiers would be rendered almost impervious to a frontal attack!
Finally, when one considers the massively popular reaction to the last female solider to get her kit off in The Sun, one can quickly see how this new initiative could more than fund itself. If the army were to branch out into the modelling world or even softcore and hardcore pornography (I'm sure that there would be a market for women's army dorm videos....) then they'd easily be able to make up any defence budget cuts that are inflicted on them. More women would be recruited into the army, as they would be recognised as a source of income as well as valuable members of the military. Everyone's a winner!
Still, say what you like about the army but at least they have the right general idea about what guns should be used for (i.e. killing soldiers wearing a different coloured uniform to you) unlike the shower of bastards who make up Safari Club International. This bunch of unreconstructed fuckpigs (members including Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, John boy Walton thinkalike Dan Quayle, and Dubya Snr) are currently lobbying the government of Botswana to lift the ban on the trophy hunting of Lions. Apparently, they think that a lion represents the ultimate kill, and that having a lion’s head on the wall marks them out as a true man. Well, certainly if I visited someone's home and found that they had a lions head nailed to their wall (and of course I'd have to check to see whether the mane was real; there are so few adult male lions left that hunters are having to kill immature males and weave false manes to their heads in order to make them look more impressive) then I would indeed have them marked out as something. I cannot but help think however that putting up a sign in their house stating "I am a massive cunt" would be cheaper and easier all round...
It would appear that these monstrous penis faced fuckheads (Oh, this isn't going to be a balanced argument by the way...) are paying £20,000 a time to kill a lion. This is of course excluding whatever money they hand over to hunt the fearsome giraffe, the deadly zebra, or the lethal gazelle. What is the problem with these people? Is this the only way that they can express their impotent rage and power, by murdering an animal on another continent? Is that what it takes to make them feel better about themselves? If so, could I perhaps recommend maybe...exercise 3 times a week? Maybe a healthier diet? Or a new hobby? Anything in fact that doesn't involve the wanton slaughter of a species fast becoming endangered, purely because it makes their sad underused corporate little dicks hard.
And improving the mystical power of the male genitals seems to be the driving force behind this utter barbarity. There are less than 200 Siberian tigers left in the world. The biggest and most magnificent cat in the world is about to wiped out (And I do accept that I anthromorphosize animals to a huge degree; this doesn't detract from my argument as there are plenty of reasons that we should stop butchering the worlds supply of fauna apart from the fact that I love animals). And why is this? Because about a billion people in the Far East believe that if they eat ground up tiger bones it might make their dick bigger and harder. HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF FUCKING VIAGRA YOU BUNCH OF TOTAL TOSSERS?!?!
And then they hide behind that old favourite line "It's a traditional remedy. It's a part our culture and has been since 3000BC." Okay, well now, here's a thing; until about 100BC, human sacrifice was a part of the culture of the inhabitants of the British Isles. Does that mean I should be fighting for my right to nail some poor bastard to a table and cut their heart out? We used to treat children as homunculi (miniature adults) and so had them working as chimney sweeps and as noose decorations if they were caught thieving, so should we revert to that as well?
We're supposedly a civilised race, and yet we continue to disprove that notion every time we annihilate another species. Not out of malice or the need for our own survival. We do it because it's fun for a privileged few, or because it fits in with outdated and obsolete schools of thought, or even out of sheer carelessness (you disagree with the final point? Check out the number of insect species that have been wiped out by building developments and encroachment into rainforests and then we'll talk further). In the UK we're doing our level best to ban fox hunting, couldn't we feasibly at least try to do the same for wildlife throughout the world? Am I being hopelessly idealistic? Probably, and that in itself is slightly depressing....
Monday 30 April 2001
Sunday 29 April 2001
Bad Old Men
Since writing this, Saddam was deposed, Slobadan has died in prison, and Pinochet's legacy is in tatters. Clearly, it was all done because of wot I dun written.
Do you ever get the feeling that you're wasting your time? I seem to be getting it more and more these days, especially every time I check the news. For example, I like to think of myself as a basically good person. I try to get on with people and if it is within my power to help someone then I will do so without hesitation. This gives me the smug satisfying feeling of wanton self righteousness that makes all of my dear friends want to punch me occasionally (I said I thought of myself as good; I'm realistic enough to realise what an arrogant sod I am!)
But today I find myself thinking, "What is the point?" And what has caused this rethink on my part? Well, it is the overwhelming body of evidence that says the bigger the bastard, the better the time they have, and the higher the chance they have of living out their lives in relative peace. I refer of course to that darling old man, Augusto Pinochet. The man who pleaded ill health throughout his stay at the more exclusive branch of Butlins in this country before getting up from his wheelchair to salute the waiting crowd in Santiago. The man who has fought false tooth and manicured nail against accepting even the tiniest piece of responsibility for any of the quite appalling crimes committed during his dictatorship.
I'm sure you're familiar with the generalities of the brutality during his CIA sponsored coup, but as a quick refresher he executed the Marxist president of Chile, Salvador Allende (because America, being the bastion of democracy that it is, couldn't allow a democratically elected president to be Marxist and therefore minded to be sympathetic to USSR). He organised the Caravan of Death (which to me lends itself to a quite horrific image of being dragged along on camping holidays to the wilds of Scotland, but that's beside the point...) which butchered at least 75 political prisoners in the aftermath of his takeover. And to cap it off, it is thought that at least 3,200 people died during his reign. All in all, not the sort of man one would like as a babysitter ("Now Timmy, do as Uncle Augusto tells you tonight or else he'll have to have to administer electro torture to the genitals before having you thrown into the Atlantic from 20,000 feet.")
Had the above catalogue of Bogminded badness been committed by your average citizen (yes, yes, I know that your average citizen would have a certain amount of difficulty in assassinating the Tony Blair and massacring over 3000 people; I suppose he'd have to take a couple of weeks off work or something. Shall we just assume he/she used a bomb and continue? Good...) then it's a fairly safe bet that the full weight of the law would come crashing down upon them. Had I been responsible for the above, then I wouldn't have expected a number of prominent Lords to campaign passionately for my release. I wouldn't have expected mass demonstrations on my behalf by some of my countrymen.
As it is, our vaunted British justice allowed him to go home and make a mockery of the law on the steps of his airplane. Chilean law is faring slightly better having began proceedings to bring him to book for covering up his crimes and attempting still to charge him for the acts themselves. However, the old bastard still has numerous appeal options open to him and I have my doubts as to whether he will ever stand trial. It has been said that the sullying of his name caused by all of these proceedings is sufficient. Balls say I! If one were able to ask those murdered and disappeared at Pinochet's orders, do you think that a besmirched name would be adequate justice for them?
But this is by no means an exception. Modern history is littered with infamous dictators who committed quite the most disgusting crimes against humanity and who have escaped any form of justice. Oh, they've lost their power and their influence, but they have their lives, liberty, and invariably their money. Idi Amin committed atrocities for fun yet he lives out his peaceful (albeit enforced) retirement in Saudi Arabia with all of the oranges he can eat. Baby Doc Duvalier continued the work of his father (their work being the economic ruin of Haiti in order to line their own pockets) and after he was eventually forced to flee he settled somewhere in France. Other than a halfhearted attempt at arresting him he is still at large to the best of my knowledge. Pol Pot and Stalin were old men when they died in their beds having been responsible for killing millions of their own people. The only one of the bastards who suffered any kind of retribution was Hitler and that was only because he downed a cyanide cocktail with bullet chaser.
Now if you have any sense of justice at all, the above will make you stamp your feet and scream that it is so unfair! Fine, so it's unfair. We seem to be singularly rubbish at actually expressing this in any meaningful way; will anybody change their vote because of the handling of the Pinochet affair, or the Totalitarian tactics used during the visit of the Chinese premier? I think not. Will anyone take issue with the French (not that we need any excuse to take issue with them) about their sheltering of a thug who terrorised his people? Nope. Has the Moslem community any intention of pressing our government to raise the issue about Idi Amin's safe haven? Uh-uh.
We don't like what goes on in the world, but the prevailing attitude is "I'm alright Jack". I don't make any major criticism of that, but it does mean that we allow such realpolitik to take place. By that I mean that no country will condemn or prosecute any of the above unless they have political reasons to do so. In other words, our leaders share our attitude for different reasons. We remain quite willingly blind to the evil of these men because it is easier to do this rather than speak out against it, and frankly most of us (myself included) wouldn't know where to start.
Anyway, that is just my own view and that counts for little. What makes the big picture somewhat more worrying is that we now have countless examples of dictators being beastly and to all intents, getting away with it. Even Saddam Hussein only received the military equivalent of a spanking during the Gulf War. Has he been ousted from power? Has a period of peace and rebuilding been ushered in throughout Iraq? Erm...no.
So then, the point to this little rant (yes, there is a point throughout the endless rambling) is as follows; there are flare-ups and dictatorships in place the world over, and the UN and NATO are sending peacekeeping forces here, there, and everywhere. Why should they be taken seriously when history has shown that the main movers and shakers behind the trouble will stay free whilst the people have to live with whatever indignities their former leaders have heaped upon them. The organisation before the UN was the League of Nations. By the time it was dissolved it was universally regarded as impotent. That was in 1939. I'd say in was in the UN's interests to be seen as strong. That means punishing the people responsible for the brutality and deaths during their rule. There's plenty of the old bastards still around, so why don't we make a start?
Do you ever get the feeling that you're wasting your time? I seem to be getting it more and more these days, especially every time I check the news. For example, I like to think of myself as a basically good person. I try to get on with people and if it is within my power to help someone then I will do so without hesitation. This gives me the smug satisfying feeling of wanton self righteousness that makes all of my dear friends want to punch me occasionally (I said I thought of myself as good; I'm realistic enough to realise what an arrogant sod I am!)
But today I find myself thinking, "What is the point?" And what has caused this rethink on my part? Well, it is the overwhelming body of evidence that says the bigger the bastard, the better the time they have, and the higher the chance they have of living out their lives in relative peace. I refer of course to that darling old man, Augusto Pinochet. The man who pleaded ill health throughout his stay at the more exclusive branch of Butlins in this country before getting up from his wheelchair to salute the waiting crowd in Santiago. The man who has fought false tooth and manicured nail against accepting even the tiniest piece of responsibility for any of the quite appalling crimes committed during his dictatorship.
I'm sure you're familiar with the generalities of the brutality during his CIA sponsored coup, but as a quick refresher he executed the Marxist president of Chile, Salvador Allende (because America, being the bastion of democracy that it is, couldn't allow a democratically elected president to be Marxist and therefore minded to be sympathetic to USSR). He organised the Caravan of Death (which to me lends itself to a quite horrific image of being dragged along on camping holidays to the wilds of Scotland, but that's beside the point...) which butchered at least 75 political prisoners in the aftermath of his takeover. And to cap it off, it is thought that at least 3,200 people died during his reign. All in all, not the sort of man one would like as a babysitter ("Now Timmy, do as Uncle Augusto tells you tonight or else he'll have to have to administer electro torture to the genitals before having you thrown into the Atlantic from 20,000 feet.")
Had the above catalogue of Bogminded badness been committed by your average citizen (yes, yes, I know that your average citizen would have a certain amount of difficulty in assassinating the Tony Blair and massacring over 3000 people; I suppose he'd have to take a couple of weeks off work or something. Shall we just assume he/she used a bomb and continue? Good...) then it's a fairly safe bet that the full weight of the law would come crashing down upon them. Had I been responsible for the above, then I wouldn't have expected a number of prominent Lords to campaign passionately for my release. I wouldn't have expected mass demonstrations on my behalf by some of my countrymen.
As it is, our vaunted British justice allowed him to go home and make a mockery of the law on the steps of his airplane. Chilean law is faring slightly better having began proceedings to bring him to book for covering up his crimes and attempting still to charge him for the acts themselves. However, the old bastard still has numerous appeal options open to him and I have my doubts as to whether he will ever stand trial. It has been said that the sullying of his name caused by all of these proceedings is sufficient. Balls say I! If one were able to ask those murdered and disappeared at Pinochet's orders, do you think that a besmirched name would be adequate justice for them?
But this is by no means an exception. Modern history is littered with infamous dictators who committed quite the most disgusting crimes against humanity and who have escaped any form of justice. Oh, they've lost their power and their influence, but they have their lives, liberty, and invariably their money. Idi Amin committed atrocities for fun yet he lives out his peaceful (albeit enforced) retirement in Saudi Arabia with all of the oranges he can eat. Baby Doc Duvalier continued the work of his father (their work being the economic ruin of Haiti in order to line their own pockets) and after he was eventually forced to flee he settled somewhere in France. Other than a halfhearted attempt at arresting him he is still at large to the best of my knowledge. Pol Pot and Stalin were old men when they died in their beds having been responsible for killing millions of their own people. The only one of the bastards who suffered any kind of retribution was Hitler and that was only because he downed a cyanide cocktail with bullet chaser.
Now if you have any sense of justice at all, the above will make you stamp your feet and scream that it is so unfair! Fine, so it's unfair. We seem to be singularly rubbish at actually expressing this in any meaningful way; will anybody change their vote because of the handling of the Pinochet affair, or the Totalitarian tactics used during the visit of the Chinese premier? I think not. Will anyone take issue with the French (not that we need any excuse to take issue with them) about their sheltering of a thug who terrorised his people? Nope. Has the Moslem community any intention of pressing our government to raise the issue about Idi Amin's safe haven? Uh-uh.
We don't like what goes on in the world, but the prevailing attitude is "I'm alright Jack". I don't make any major criticism of that, but it does mean that we allow such realpolitik to take place. By that I mean that no country will condemn or prosecute any of the above unless they have political reasons to do so. In other words, our leaders share our attitude for different reasons. We remain quite willingly blind to the evil of these men because it is easier to do this rather than speak out against it, and frankly most of us (myself included) wouldn't know where to start.
Anyway, that is just my own view and that counts for little. What makes the big picture somewhat more worrying is that we now have countless examples of dictators being beastly and to all intents, getting away with it. Even Saddam Hussein only received the military equivalent of a spanking during the Gulf War. Has he been ousted from power? Has a period of peace and rebuilding been ushered in throughout Iraq? Erm...no.
So then, the point to this little rant (yes, there is a point throughout the endless rambling) is as follows; there are flare-ups and dictatorships in place the world over, and the UN and NATO are sending peacekeeping forces here, there, and everywhere. Why should they be taken seriously when history has shown that the main movers and shakers behind the trouble will stay free whilst the people have to live with whatever indignities their former leaders have heaped upon them. The organisation before the UN was the League of Nations. By the time it was dissolved it was universally regarded as impotent. That was in 1939. I'd say in was in the UN's interests to be seen as strong. That means punishing the people responsible for the brutality and deaths during their rule. There's plenty of the old bastards still around, so why don't we make a start?
Friday 27 April 2001
Mad Cows and Israelites
A classic example of thinking up a title before thinking up the content.
It's tempting to go off on one about the Foot and Mouth epidemic but I think there are two very good reasons for not doing so; firstly, the epidemic is winding down (so our government assures us) and so it will soon be considered old news. Secondly, I defy anyone to take it seriously after having seen the headline "Slaughtermen terrified of Exploding Cows!"
I mean Jesus Christ! The media have invested time and money whipping us into a frenzy about this non-fatal disease and then they go and ruin it all in one fell swoop. It conjures up images of cows looking up, seeing their would be killers approach, waiting until they're just within range and then...BANG! A cow bravely sacrifices herself for the survival of the herd. Have cows evolved this ability overnight? Or has it always been a part of bovine physiology? Maybe it has and the government has known all along! Maybe there isn't really a foot and mouth epidemic at all; maybe the exploding cows represent a threat to national security and the cull was a pre-emptive strike! After all, why else would perfectly healthy animals need to be slaughtered in their thousands?
Maybe that was why the army was eventually involved. Here was us thinking that they were needed to dispose of the rotting carcasses whereas in fact it was clearly for their bomb disposal expertise! ("Okay Sarge, this baby's got a gutfull of methane and she could blow at any time so we need to be careful. Right, should we cut the blue vein, the red tendon, or the black intestine?")
Actually, we could use this to our advantage. Dubya is busy rattling his sabre at the Chinese again, this time over Taiwan. He's selling all manner of military equipment to the Taiwanese, much to the anger of the Chinese government. Well, if we were to export livestock and agricultural equipment (in much the same way as the US sold "agricultural equipment" to Iraq before the Gulf war kicked off), why then who could object to that? Then, if the Chinese government were ever to invade they would be faced with the first battalion, bovine brigade (Explosives and Artillery division). That way we can further subsidise the farmers by giving them a cut of our defense budget.
But anyway, that is all by the by. What I am finding rather fascinating at the moment are the troubles in Israel (and incidentally, isn't it sweet how we refer to drawn out incidents that involve the casual murder of civilians as "troubles"? Northern Ireland, Indonesia, and now Israel. What next? Tantrums in Algeria? Huffing in the Philippines?)
Currently, Israel is preparing to celebrate their Independence Day and have just conducted a remembrance of their war dead. No one can deny that Israel has had a tough time since it's inception, and most people agree that it was right to give the Jewish people a homeland after the horrors of the Holocaust. After all, the holocaust was a situation where a people who had lived so long in Germany and controlled areas that they considered it their home found themselves persecuted for no other reason than they were Jews. They were oppressed by a militant government who confiscated their land and their property for themselves without any consultation whatsoever. And non-Jews viewed them with hatred and suspicion. Understandably, they wanted to avoid this happening again and so fought for a homeland both diplomatically and by means of guerrilla action. As a result, Israel was created in 1947.
This leads rather neatly on to the reason for all of the troubles in Israel. Currently the Palestinians, who have lived in Gaza and the West Bank for so long that they consider it their homeland, are having their land confiscated by the newly elected hard-line militant government by means of creating new Jewish settlements there. They are also viewed with a certain level of suspicion by non-Palestinians and are certainly hated by swathes of the Israeli populace. Currently they are in the process of fighting for their own homeland by both diplomatic means and guerrilla action. So there situation clearly bears no resemblance to that of the Jews during and after WWII. Erm...
I should of course clarify my position before I'm accused of anti-Semitism. There is no question of Israel slaughtering Palestinians in Death camps, and the Palestinian people have a far more militant wing in the form of Hamas who commit their own acts of brutality against the Israeli's. But if we look at the generalities of the respective situations then there is not much to separate them out.
Is it wrong of me to think of the Israeli security forces in such a light? I don't think so. To stay silent about what is happening to the Palestinians because of what the Jews suffered under the Nazis is rather like ignoring child abuse because the abuser himself was molested in his youth. To take that comparison further, an abused child often becomes an abuser. That cycle is usually broken only with the help of others. Currently pretty much every non Arabic government tends to keep it's eyes downcast and shuffle it's feet until someone changes the subject when it comes to the Human rights abuses committed on the Palestinians and frankly it's about fucking time something was done about it. The wars that they endured in the 60's and 70's (well, perhaps not endured. More accurately the wars that they fought brilliantly and efficiently to ensure minimum loss of Israeli lives) are long since over. Realistically, Israel is not under immediate threat from its neighbours any more. The biggest threat it faces is the internal dissent that it is fomenting by it's continued mistreatment of Palestinians living in Israel. What motivation does it have to change its current stance? The militant minority of Palestinians gain more popular support when the reaction to the small scale carnage caused by a suicide bomber (and no, I'm not trying to cheapen the loss of life in those circumstances; just because only a few people die that doesn't make it any better) is a massive military assault on Palestinian citizens and their homes. Hmm, they're really going for winning the war of hearts of minds there aren't they?
No one in the international community makes any realistic objection to any of this and so it is tacitly condoned, and as such it is unlikely to stop soon unless it is by means of a bloodbath. There are no winners under the current circumstances; Israeli citizens (both Jewish and Palestinian) are afraid to leave their homes due to the fear of suicide bombers and the military respectively. The government makes loud and confrontation noises to appease the hard-liners whose dreams of an Israeli state free of the influence of the Arabic world are about as realistic as a Virgin train timetable. And all the time, people are being killed and the ill feeling in the region multiplies. Maybe it's time for Israel to treat the Palestinians in the way that the world has so shamefully failed to treat the Jews for so long.
It's tempting to go off on one about the Foot and Mouth epidemic but I think there are two very good reasons for not doing so; firstly, the epidemic is winding down (so our government assures us) and so it will soon be considered old news. Secondly, I defy anyone to take it seriously after having seen the headline "Slaughtermen terrified of Exploding Cows!"
I mean Jesus Christ! The media have invested time and money whipping us into a frenzy about this non-fatal disease and then they go and ruin it all in one fell swoop. It conjures up images of cows looking up, seeing their would be killers approach, waiting until they're just within range and then...BANG! A cow bravely sacrifices herself for the survival of the herd. Have cows evolved this ability overnight? Or has it always been a part of bovine physiology? Maybe it has and the government has known all along! Maybe there isn't really a foot and mouth epidemic at all; maybe the exploding cows represent a threat to national security and the cull was a pre-emptive strike! After all, why else would perfectly healthy animals need to be slaughtered in their thousands?
Maybe that was why the army was eventually involved. Here was us thinking that they were needed to dispose of the rotting carcasses whereas in fact it was clearly for their bomb disposal expertise! ("Okay Sarge, this baby's got a gutfull of methane and she could blow at any time so we need to be careful. Right, should we cut the blue vein, the red tendon, or the black intestine?")
Actually, we could use this to our advantage. Dubya is busy rattling his sabre at the Chinese again, this time over Taiwan. He's selling all manner of military equipment to the Taiwanese, much to the anger of the Chinese government. Well, if we were to export livestock and agricultural equipment (in much the same way as the US sold "agricultural equipment" to Iraq before the Gulf war kicked off), why then who could object to that? Then, if the Chinese government were ever to invade they would be faced with the first battalion, bovine brigade (Explosives and Artillery division). That way we can further subsidise the farmers by giving them a cut of our defense budget.
But anyway, that is all by the by. What I am finding rather fascinating at the moment are the troubles in Israel (and incidentally, isn't it sweet how we refer to drawn out incidents that involve the casual murder of civilians as "troubles"? Northern Ireland, Indonesia, and now Israel. What next? Tantrums in Algeria? Huffing in the Philippines?)
Currently, Israel is preparing to celebrate their Independence Day and have just conducted a remembrance of their war dead. No one can deny that Israel has had a tough time since it's inception, and most people agree that it was right to give the Jewish people a homeland after the horrors of the Holocaust. After all, the holocaust was a situation where a people who had lived so long in Germany and controlled areas that they considered it their home found themselves persecuted for no other reason than they were Jews. They were oppressed by a militant government who confiscated their land and their property for themselves without any consultation whatsoever. And non-Jews viewed them with hatred and suspicion. Understandably, they wanted to avoid this happening again and so fought for a homeland both diplomatically and by means of guerrilla action. As a result, Israel was created in 1947.
This leads rather neatly on to the reason for all of the troubles in Israel. Currently the Palestinians, who have lived in Gaza and the West Bank for so long that they consider it their homeland, are having their land confiscated by the newly elected hard-line militant government by means of creating new Jewish settlements there. They are also viewed with a certain level of suspicion by non-Palestinians and are certainly hated by swathes of the Israeli populace. Currently they are in the process of fighting for their own homeland by both diplomatic means and guerrilla action. So there situation clearly bears no resemblance to that of the Jews during and after WWII. Erm...
I should of course clarify my position before I'm accused of anti-Semitism. There is no question of Israel slaughtering Palestinians in Death camps, and the Palestinian people have a far more militant wing in the form of Hamas who commit their own acts of brutality against the Israeli's. But if we look at the generalities of the respective situations then there is not much to separate them out.
Is it wrong of me to think of the Israeli security forces in such a light? I don't think so. To stay silent about what is happening to the Palestinians because of what the Jews suffered under the Nazis is rather like ignoring child abuse because the abuser himself was molested in his youth. To take that comparison further, an abused child often becomes an abuser. That cycle is usually broken only with the help of others. Currently pretty much every non Arabic government tends to keep it's eyes downcast and shuffle it's feet until someone changes the subject when it comes to the Human rights abuses committed on the Palestinians and frankly it's about fucking time something was done about it. The wars that they endured in the 60's and 70's (well, perhaps not endured. More accurately the wars that they fought brilliantly and efficiently to ensure minimum loss of Israeli lives) are long since over. Realistically, Israel is not under immediate threat from its neighbours any more. The biggest threat it faces is the internal dissent that it is fomenting by it's continued mistreatment of Palestinians living in Israel. What motivation does it have to change its current stance? The militant minority of Palestinians gain more popular support when the reaction to the small scale carnage caused by a suicide bomber (and no, I'm not trying to cheapen the loss of life in those circumstances; just because only a few people die that doesn't make it any better) is a massive military assault on Palestinian citizens and their homes. Hmm, they're really going for winning the war of hearts of minds there aren't they?
No one in the international community makes any realistic objection to any of this and so it is tacitly condoned, and as such it is unlikely to stop soon unless it is by means of a bloodbath. There are no winners under the current circumstances; Israeli citizens (both Jewish and Palestinian) are afraid to leave their homes due to the fear of suicide bombers and the military respectively. The government makes loud and confrontation noises to appease the hard-liners whose dreams of an Israeli state free of the influence of the Arabic world are about as realistic as a Virgin train timetable. And all the time, people are being killed and the ill feeling in the region multiplies. Maybe it's time for Israel to treat the Palestinians in the way that the world has so shamefully failed to treat the Jews for so long.
Thursday 26 April 2001
Halo Killed my Hamster
Another aspect of the blameless society which has been commented on often enough before I dragged my gaze over it.
It would appear that we live in a blameless society these days. No more should parents worry about how they raise their children, no more should anyone be concerned about what is taught at school. And certainly, no one should even begin to think that a society in which troubled teens regularly massacre their schoolmates may perhaps have one or two fundamental flaws. And do you know why there is no need to think or to worry in this way? Do you know what the evil and insidious menace is that sweeps across the world like a Mongol horde across the Russian steppe?
Computer games.
Yes, that is correct, computer games are the root of all evil. Well, according to the $3.3 billion lawsuit filed in America on behalf of victims and families they are anyway. The named respondents (Sony, Time Warner, Sega, and Nintendo) are accused of marketing products that "...deliberately influenced Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to murder. Absent the combination of extremely violent video games and these boys' incredibly deep involvement, use of and addiction to these games and the boys' basic personalities, these murders and this massacre would not have occurred."
Umm...did I miss something here? I had no idea that the above named corporations had as their secret agenda the wholesale slaughter of western youth. And so cunningly done as well (What on earth must their board meetings be like? "Okay, our tech division reports that we're way ahead on development of the latest instalment of the Quake series! Graphics are improved by 22%, sound by 30%, gameplay is 10% faster, and most impressively, the projected casualty rate among American youth alone is up 38%!"). It's good to see that the forces of evil are up to date with technology; it doesn't seem that long ago since subliminal messages on records were the bugbear of choice amongst slightly hysterical Americans.
The choice of words in the lawsuit alone should raise a few eyebrows. They seem to be saying that but for the fact that these boys were addicted to playing violent games, oh, and the fact that they were disturbed in the first place, then none of this would ever have happened. Funny how they mention that second point last isn't it? (I can almost imagine the lawyer mumbling it under his breath as he reads out the particulars of the lawsuit)
So then, why is nobody asking the question "What disturbed the personality of these boys so much?" If it was the computer games themselves, why haven't they said as much in the lawsuit? They've quite clearly separated the two elements, so we must assume that it was something else. If that is the case, doesn't it follow that the computer games are only half of the story and, as a mass produced media, why should a company have to modify all of it's outlay to meet the needs of a staggeringly tiny percentage of the world's populace who are so disturbed that they can only deal with their raging hormones and attendant adolescent problems via the use of their parents' extensive arsenal of semi automatic weaponry.
And that leads me onto yet another well travelled road; guns and teenagers do not mix. When I was younger I was what is politely described as a loner, and colloquially known as a weirdo. I showed all of the classic symptoms; long hair, listened to heavy metal, played Dungeons and Dragons, played violent computer games etc, and yet I singularly failed to exterminate my classmates in an orgy of guns and violence (and if you'd seen the way some of them had turned out then you'd possibly be upset about that...) However, if I'm totally honest with myself, if I'd had access to the type of weaponry available in America...well, I still don't think I would have done anything but I can think of a few people who might have.
I do not blame the fact that I played computer games for my banishment from the society of my peers. To an extent it was self imposed (I imagined myself destined for far greater things than mere mortals such as they could comprehend. Yes, I was an insufferably arrogant little toerag!) but mainly, no-one in authority such as parents or teachers really paid attention to the way I was behaving. Yes, I preferred my own company and skulked in my room. That is because I was a teenager. Teenagers do that sort of thing, it's in the contract (just above the clause saying that no-one will ever fancy you as your face resembles a volcanic landscape with yellow lava).
That doesn't mean I had bad parents or ignorant teachers. They just dealt with teenage angst in the normal way; they ignored it and waited for it to go away. I make no criticism of this, it's just that perhaps we need to rethink our attitude as a society toward the way that we raise and treat teenagers. I'd love to argue that gun control is the answer, but although that would stop the killing, it wouldn't change the number of dysfunctional young men and women that are churned out of Western high schools every year. Something needs to be done, or we can look forward to more disgraceful lawsuits like this one.
Personally, the only people I can see making any profit from this are the lawyers. A similar lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year and I see no reason why this one should be any different. Add to this the failed lawsuits against Judas Priest and Ozzy Ozborne for being responsible for the suicides of a number of young men (I sympathise; listening to Judas Priest has much the same effect on me) and we can see that it is a pretty much hopeless case. Except that is for the lawyers who should collect a nice fat fee for taking the case in the first place, and if my some miracle they win then the fee will be bigger still. In the meantime, America (and the rest of the western world) will continue to delude themselves that (insert media of your choice) are responsible for whatever tragedy has robbed families of their loved ones. I wonder if they're at all familiar with the concept of doublethink...
It would appear that we live in a blameless society these days. No more should parents worry about how they raise their children, no more should anyone be concerned about what is taught at school. And certainly, no one should even begin to think that a society in which troubled teens regularly massacre their schoolmates may perhaps have one or two fundamental flaws. And do you know why there is no need to think or to worry in this way? Do you know what the evil and insidious menace is that sweeps across the world like a Mongol horde across the Russian steppe?
Computer games.
Yes, that is correct, computer games are the root of all evil. Well, according to the $3.3 billion lawsuit filed in America on behalf of victims and families they are anyway. The named respondents (Sony, Time Warner, Sega, and Nintendo) are accused of marketing products that "...deliberately influenced Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to murder. Absent the combination of extremely violent video games and these boys' incredibly deep involvement, use of and addiction to these games and the boys' basic personalities, these murders and this massacre would not have occurred."
Umm...did I miss something here? I had no idea that the above named corporations had as their secret agenda the wholesale slaughter of western youth. And so cunningly done as well (What on earth must their board meetings be like? "Okay, our tech division reports that we're way ahead on development of the latest instalment of the Quake series! Graphics are improved by 22%, sound by 30%, gameplay is 10% faster, and most impressively, the projected casualty rate among American youth alone is up 38%!"). It's good to see that the forces of evil are up to date with technology; it doesn't seem that long ago since subliminal messages on records were the bugbear of choice amongst slightly hysterical Americans.
The choice of words in the lawsuit alone should raise a few eyebrows. They seem to be saying that but for the fact that these boys were addicted to playing violent games, oh, and the fact that they were disturbed in the first place, then none of this would ever have happened. Funny how they mention that second point last isn't it? (I can almost imagine the lawyer mumbling it under his breath as he reads out the particulars of the lawsuit)
So then, why is nobody asking the question "What disturbed the personality of these boys so much?" If it was the computer games themselves, why haven't they said as much in the lawsuit? They've quite clearly separated the two elements, so we must assume that it was something else. If that is the case, doesn't it follow that the computer games are only half of the story and, as a mass produced media, why should a company have to modify all of it's outlay to meet the needs of a staggeringly tiny percentage of the world's populace who are so disturbed that they can only deal with their raging hormones and attendant adolescent problems via the use of their parents' extensive arsenal of semi automatic weaponry.
And that leads me onto yet another well travelled road; guns and teenagers do not mix. When I was younger I was what is politely described as a loner, and colloquially known as a weirdo. I showed all of the classic symptoms; long hair, listened to heavy metal, played Dungeons and Dragons, played violent computer games etc, and yet I singularly failed to exterminate my classmates in an orgy of guns and violence (and if you'd seen the way some of them had turned out then you'd possibly be upset about that...) However, if I'm totally honest with myself, if I'd had access to the type of weaponry available in America...well, I still don't think I would have done anything but I can think of a few people who might have.
I do not blame the fact that I played computer games for my banishment from the society of my peers. To an extent it was self imposed (I imagined myself destined for far greater things than mere mortals such as they could comprehend. Yes, I was an insufferably arrogant little toerag!) but mainly, no-one in authority such as parents or teachers really paid attention to the way I was behaving. Yes, I preferred my own company and skulked in my room. That is because I was a teenager. Teenagers do that sort of thing, it's in the contract (just above the clause saying that no-one will ever fancy you as your face resembles a volcanic landscape with yellow lava).
That doesn't mean I had bad parents or ignorant teachers. They just dealt with teenage angst in the normal way; they ignored it and waited for it to go away. I make no criticism of this, it's just that perhaps we need to rethink our attitude as a society toward the way that we raise and treat teenagers. I'd love to argue that gun control is the answer, but although that would stop the killing, it wouldn't change the number of dysfunctional young men and women that are churned out of Western high schools every year. Something needs to be done, or we can look forward to more disgraceful lawsuits like this one.
Personally, the only people I can see making any profit from this are the lawyers. A similar lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year and I see no reason why this one should be any different. Add to this the failed lawsuits against Judas Priest and Ozzy Ozborne for being responsible for the suicides of a number of young men (I sympathise; listening to Judas Priest has much the same effect on me) and we can see that it is a pretty much hopeless case. Except that is for the lawyers who should collect a nice fat fee for taking the case in the first place, and if my some miracle they win then the fee will be bigger still. In the meantime, America (and the rest of the western world) will continue to delude themselves that (insert media of your choice) are responsible for whatever tragedy has robbed families of their loved ones. I wonder if they're at all familiar with the concept of doublethink...
Wednesday 25 April 2001
Compassion Fatigue
Ho-hum...another day, another NHS cock up, another family's grief intruded upon in order to show a "human interest" story. The family of Wayne Jowett arrive at the inquest into their son's death and are immediately surrounded by a forest of microphones, dictaphones, cameras, and reporters. Never mind that their son died because of a tragic error which led to strong anti cancer drugs being injected into his spine. Never mind that his family had the pain of their son's diagnosis, the uplifting of their spirits as he began to recover, and the crushing mix of anguish and rage that they surely must feel at his needless death. No, we have to know how they feel, have to see it on our screens. In close up. With subtitles.
Is it just me who finds this media intrusion incredibly unwelcome? And not just for the fact that I find the sight of a family's private pain being made public distasteful, but because I believe that lowers our own capacity for compassion. "But wait..." I hear you cry "How can the continual bombardment of images of anguish fail to evoke pity? Please explain!" Okay, I will, but brace yourself because you're going to have to bear with me on this one as I'm going to be using some pretty unlikely sources.
Right; firstly I would say that this overuse of real emotion to get better ratings for a particular channels news bulletin has the effect of rendering us numb to the reality of actual emotion. I would say this for a number of reasons. Firstly, I would quote the example of the Marquis de Sade (told you that you'd have to brace yourself) and his works.
The good Marquis is often seen as an example of the most extreme forms of eroticism, his work representing the pinnacle of sado-masochistic fiction. Having made an attempt to read "120 days of Sodom" I can in fact confirm the following; it is very, very dull. Not dull in a dry and dusty academic way (that in itself would be forgivable) or dull because it is not as graphic and obscene as our moral guardians would have you believe. Quite the opposite, it is dull precisely because it delivers on everything it promises and more. But after reading page after page of beatings, degradation, gratification of bestial lusts at the expense of the pain of another, and all round general depravity, one becomes utterly indifferent to the suffering of the characters. I simply stopped caring about the beatings that were handed out, and was indifferent to the fate of all concerned (hence I only made an attempt to read the damn thing; there are few things more disappointing for a teenage boy than getting hold of a copy of what one has been assured is a dirty book and then finding it duller than ditchwater, but that's another matter entirely...).
The Marquis himself said that his fiction was intended to batter away at the morals of the reader until they were numb to the horror and could thus accept what was going. I myself tend to think that he was imprisoned in the Bastille not for depravity but because he was such an appalling writer, but as I'm using him to back up my point I suppose I should leave him alone now.
I sense that perhaps you take still issue with my point; "Too bloody right we do! De Sade was a pervert and his work dealt with all of mankind’s negative emotions. How can you use him as an example of how seeing grief on the news lowers our own compassion?" Well, partly because I'm a smartarse who likes to show off, but mainly because he exemplifies just how a constant bombardment of images of a particular nature will eventually mean that one can accept pretty much anything of that nature, however extreme, without raising an eyebrow. You don't think so? Then for my next trick....
I would point to the various disaster appeals for famine, flood, earthquake, disease, and war that have been started in the last 15 to 20 years. Now please don't get me wrong; anything that involves man helping out his fellow man in any way is a good thing. However, can anyone tell me honestly whether they would have donated quite so generously had these appeals been straightforward requests for cash rather than the huge events that they are? No? I thought not.
Rob Newman hit the nail on the head when he did a stand-up routine about the Michael Buerk report on the Ethiopian famine. The first time I saw that it was one of the most shocking and horrifying things that I'd seen. By the fourth or fifth time it held my attention for a few minutes and made me think vaguely about how sad it all was. The eighth or ninth time it was a case of "Oh for Gods sake, not this again!" It was an overload of human misery, a glut of upset and yet less than 10 viewings had rendered me immune to the heart wrenching scenes.
I don't think I'm alone in this. We now have huge spectacles (Live Aid, Comic Relief etc.) to encourage us to put our hands in our pockets because there is only so much misery we can endure before we simply switch off. There are few among us who can honestly say that they donate money regularly to charities (lottery excepted) for the good of the people who receive the money. The rest of us demand something for our donation, and the spectacle provides it.
So then, I hope I have adequately demonstrated how constant evocation of a particular emotion leads to its atrophy. This is why I so despise the constant intrusion of the media. I felt nothing but sympathy for the family of Wayne Jowett, but will anyone’s compassion be as strong after a few days of being voyeurs to their plight?
Is it just me who finds this media intrusion incredibly unwelcome? And not just for the fact that I find the sight of a family's private pain being made public distasteful, but because I believe that lowers our own capacity for compassion. "But wait..." I hear you cry "How can the continual bombardment of images of anguish fail to evoke pity? Please explain!" Okay, I will, but brace yourself because you're going to have to bear with me on this one as I'm going to be using some pretty unlikely sources.
Right; firstly I would say that this overuse of real emotion to get better ratings for a particular channels news bulletin has the effect of rendering us numb to the reality of actual emotion. I would say this for a number of reasons. Firstly, I would quote the example of the Marquis de Sade (told you that you'd have to brace yourself) and his works.
The good Marquis is often seen as an example of the most extreme forms of eroticism, his work representing the pinnacle of sado-masochistic fiction. Having made an attempt to read "120 days of Sodom" I can in fact confirm the following; it is very, very dull. Not dull in a dry and dusty academic way (that in itself would be forgivable) or dull because it is not as graphic and obscene as our moral guardians would have you believe. Quite the opposite, it is dull precisely because it delivers on everything it promises and more. But after reading page after page of beatings, degradation, gratification of bestial lusts at the expense of the pain of another, and all round general depravity, one becomes utterly indifferent to the suffering of the characters. I simply stopped caring about the beatings that were handed out, and was indifferent to the fate of all concerned (hence I only made an attempt to read the damn thing; there are few things more disappointing for a teenage boy than getting hold of a copy of what one has been assured is a dirty book and then finding it duller than ditchwater, but that's another matter entirely...).
The Marquis himself said that his fiction was intended to batter away at the morals of the reader until they were numb to the horror and could thus accept what was going. I myself tend to think that he was imprisoned in the Bastille not for depravity but because he was such an appalling writer, but as I'm using him to back up my point I suppose I should leave him alone now.
I sense that perhaps you take still issue with my point; "Too bloody right we do! De Sade was a pervert and his work dealt with all of mankind’s negative emotions. How can you use him as an example of how seeing grief on the news lowers our own compassion?" Well, partly because I'm a smartarse who likes to show off, but mainly because he exemplifies just how a constant bombardment of images of a particular nature will eventually mean that one can accept pretty much anything of that nature, however extreme, without raising an eyebrow. You don't think so? Then for my next trick....
I would point to the various disaster appeals for famine, flood, earthquake, disease, and war that have been started in the last 15 to 20 years. Now please don't get me wrong; anything that involves man helping out his fellow man in any way is a good thing. However, can anyone tell me honestly whether they would have donated quite so generously had these appeals been straightforward requests for cash rather than the huge events that they are? No? I thought not.
Rob Newman hit the nail on the head when he did a stand-up routine about the Michael Buerk report on the Ethiopian famine. The first time I saw that it was one of the most shocking and horrifying things that I'd seen. By the fourth or fifth time it held my attention for a few minutes and made me think vaguely about how sad it all was. The eighth or ninth time it was a case of "Oh for Gods sake, not this again!" It was an overload of human misery, a glut of upset and yet less than 10 viewings had rendered me immune to the heart wrenching scenes.
I don't think I'm alone in this. We now have huge spectacles (Live Aid, Comic Relief etc.) to encourage us to put our hands in our pockets because there is only so much misery we can endure before we simply switch off. There are few among us who can honestly say that they donate money regularly to charities (lottery excepted) for the good of the people who receive the money. The rest of us demand something for our donation, and the spectacle provides it.
So then, I hope I have adequately demonstrated how constant evocation of a particular emotion leads to its atrophy. This is why I so despise the constant intrusion of the media. I felt nothing but sympathy for the family of Wayne Jowett, but will anyone’s compassion be as strong after a few days of being voyeurs to their plight?
Sunday 15 April 2001
My first ever rant
The one that started it all. I can't even remember why I wrote it.
Dear Lord! As a former trainee solicitor, I spent years waiting for the judiciary to do something right (apart from booting me out I suppose...) and the bastards come up with 3 good decisions in a day! Now why didn't they do it when I was losing all of my faith in the law?!?! Inconsiderate shits.....
Sorry, you won't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about. 3 high profile cases came to a conclusion (of one sort or another) and in each case the correct decision was made. Well, in my opinion it was anyway. Allow me to elaborate (as frankly, I want to rant at someone about this!)
Firstly, we have the least well known of the cases; The Sunderland trader who sold his fruit in pounds and ounces instead of kilos and grams. This saw the EC baiting and hating camp being pitted against the might of European Law!! Or at least, that's what The Sun would have you believe.
What happened was as follows; Sunderland City Council, for reasons best known to themselves, raided the premises of a grocer after he'd sold a Council employee some fruit by the pound (now there's something you never see on Police!Camera!Action!, "Freeze! Weights and Measures!! Sir, would you step away from the scales please! STEP AWAY!!" but I digress...)
They charged him with breaking the law (recent legislation to bring us in line with Europe states that food must be sold in Kilos and nought else) and he was found guilty but given a 6 month conditional discharge (the legal equivalent of being told that you're a very naughty boy, now don't do it again!).
This in itself is, of course, not very interesting.
What *is* interesting is the confirmation of my deepest held fear that I live on an island of jingoistic, tub thumping, little Englander xenophobes. Good God, some of the headlines and quotes from the great and good were scary. The hate filled shit that people were venting about "Brussels forcing their laws on us against our will!!" and "Good old British Pounds and Ounces" was obscene! That little foetus Hague used it (along with that old favourite scapegoat of immigrants) to try and stir up anti-foreigner feeling and made dark references to England becoming "A foreign land". One of the outgoing Tory M.P.'s also referred to the case when he made his retirement speech (now *that* was special; according to him, the tide of immigrants and European legislation has "diluted and destroyed our homogenous Anglo-Saxon race". The fact that we haven't had one of those since 1066 seems to have entirely passed the doddery old fucker by).
But the main reason I liked the judgement is that it wholeheartedly confirmed English constitutional law does (despite all appearances to the contrary) work. The defence for the case was the old Weights and Measures act which said that it's a matter of choice what measures you use to sell stuff. Fair enough, but then we have a huge long list of legislation (all of which was passed by the Tory party. Funny how they keep that quiet isn't it?) to utterly shaft that argument. Firstly, the EC Law Act gave European Law supremacy in UK courts. That was in 1984 (when Maggie's power was at it's zenith, and if she'd wanted to block that, she most assuredly could have done). That law also survived numerous legal challenges to its validity so it was pretty solid as our laws go.
Then we had the more recent Weights and Measures act which gave kilos as the standard. This was *not* a European law (although it stemmed from an EC directive which, as I've said, takes precedence over our law) but a government piece of legislation. English law in other words. The Constitution (such one as we have) states that parliament cannot bind itself. That means that if they choose to pass a law that supersedes an earlier one (*any* one) then they can do so. This also means (and the tubthumpers kept this quiet as well) that we can pass legislation to supersede the EC Law act. In other words, any government who wants out of the EC has but to pass a law stating that, and it shall be done. So that pretty much pisses on the chips of the anti euro brigade from all angles.
Okay, then we have the case of the Leeds footballers who are accused of thuggery in the first degree. The reason I liked this one is that is essentially no different to cases that I dealt with when I worked in the legal field.
Basically a couple of Leeds footballers (Jon Woodgate and Lee Bowyer) plus a bunch of mates got pissed in a nightclub, got into an argument with a bunch of students, and then beat seven shades of shit out of one of them (allegedly).
There then followed all sorts of shenanigans whereby a team mate (Michael Duberry) concocted an alibi for them which he later retracted, the accuseds clothes were spattered with the victim's blood, and one of the footballers in question carried on playing for Leeds (and playing remarkably well).
Anyway, again this in itself is not very interesting.
The fun began after the trial proper was done. The jury had spent 3 days deliberating their verdicts on the £8 million trial. Friday drew to a close and still no verdict so off the jury went, 12 good men/women and true, for a relaxing weekend. Sunday came around, and at least one of the Jurors strolled along to his local newsagents. With a cry of "Ho shopkeep! Please be so good as to furnish me with that mighty news organ "The Sunday Mirror". Thank you my good man, and here is a pound for your troubles!" he bought his paper.
The shit then hit the fan.
The paper had interviewed the victims Dad and ran a centre page spread on him (no, not of him naked; chide yourself for even thinking that!) In it, he went on at length about the attack on his son, speculating on all manner of motivations, from racism to possession by the devil (well, maybe not the latter but you get the idea). Funnily enough, this prejudiced the good juror (who was actually the foreman) somewhat.
So, the following day saw the Judge discharging the jury on the grounds of them having been irrevocably prejudiced by the story, thus pissing away £8 million of public funds and necessitating a re-trial which will have to take place in October. So everybody loses in this particular case.
This one is fun for the simple reason that it looks like the paper are going to have criminal charges for contempt of court brought against them. The Editor, with his ultimate say over what goes in the paper, is looking at a 6 month stretch and an astronomical fine! I shall be interested to see whether his resignation will provide him with sufficient protection. Huzzah!! God bless the English Judge and his sound grasp of what will please everyone after an unsatisfactory conclusion; a witch hunt against tabloid sensationalism. I'm looking forward to that case....
Finally, we have the third case in the unholy trinity (and the only one that has actually been reported internationally); that of the internet babies. Judith and Alan Kilshaw, a British couple, purchased twins from an American woman over the internet. They did this through a broker (how does one become a baby broker? Is it the same as dealing in Junk Bonds or something?) whom they paid handsomely. It then emerged that this broker had actually already sold said twins to an American couple. In effect, the Americans were gazumped. Added to this rich mix of jollity were the twins' natural parents. The mother was now claiming that she wished she'd never sold them, and the father was demanding custody. All matters were complicated by the fact that the Kilshaws had fled back to Wales with the twins and were harping on about how the kids were legally theirs (in much the same way as one would proudly go on TV to say that one had been shown to be the legal owner of a nice house).
Social services intervened and took the twins away from the Kilshaws whilst the courts in both the UK and US decided what to do. The US court ruled in favour of the natural father and declared the original adoption by the Kilshaws to be invalid. The UK courts ruled that the adoption was invalid and the fate of the twins should be decided in the US. Alls well that ends well.
And once again, this in itself is not hugely interesting.
What *was* interesting was the increasingly erratic behaviour of Judith Kilshaw. Did you see her on TV, but she looked for all the world like a saggy, drink addled, frizzy haired frumpy old witch! She was frequently seen in hotel bars holding court with various journalists until the early hours (" Ahm...ahm..hic..a fuggin great mam, me...here, yer me best mate you are...") before ending the night by hurling abuse at all assembled. This woman single handedly kept me amused until some spoilsport judge felt sufficiently embarrassed on her behalf to issue a gagging order!
In the meantime, some US smear merchants in the Max Clifford vein had persuaded a couple of girls to accuse the American couple who had initially adopted the twins of child abuse. There was no need for a similar mud slinging campaign here; it was becoming increasingly obvious that the good woman Kilshaw shouldn't be allowed to look after a Guinea Pig, let alone children.
But the piece de resistance came when the UK judge delivered his aforementioned verdict. She ran out of the courtroom screaming bitter abuse at the assembled journalists. After a few minutes of the spectacle, a court usher dragged her back in. Not 30 seconds later, she ran back out again. This time she confined her venom to the court usher. The rather embarrassed looking usher (whom I could have swore was stifling a smile) once more dragged her back in. Judith did rather well at this point, managing to stay in the court for up to 5 earth minutes before once more bursting forth to deliver more pearls of wisdom to the throng who, by this point, were quivering with anticipation as to what the old boot would do next.
She delivered a diatribe against the judge, judiciary, and legal system that any Totalitarian would have been proud of. The judge was a bastard and a liar who hadn't heard the truth, and even if he had, the media bastards had so biased everyone against her that she would never have got a fair hearing. Unfortunately, it was marred by the fact that she was slurring and pretty much incoherent, but hey, its the thought that counts!
Right! That's my rant pretty much done with. Sorry if its utterly dull, but I had to get it off my chest!
Dear Lord! As a former trainee solicitor, I spent years waiting for the judiciary to do something right (apart from booting me out I suppose...) and the bastards come up with 3 good decisions in a day! Now why didn't they do it when I was losing all of my faith in the law?!?! Inconsiderate shits.....
Sorry, you won't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about. 3 high profile cases came to a conclusion (of one sort or another) and in each case the correct decision was made. Well, in my opinion it was anyway. Allow me to elaborate (as frankly, I want to rant at someone about this!)
Firstly, we have the least well known of the cases; The Sunderland trader who sold his fruit in pounds and ounces instead of kilos and grams. This saw the EC baiting and hating camp being pitted against the might of European Law!! Or at least, that's what The Sun would have you believe.
What happened was as follows; Sunderland City Council, for reasons best known to themselves, raided the premises of a grocer after he'd sold a Council employee some fruit by the pound (now there's something you never see on Police!Camera!Action!, "Freeze! Weights and Measures!! Sir, would you step away from the scales please! STEP AWAY!!" but I digress...)
They charged him with breaking the law (recent legislation to bring us in line with Europe states that food must be sold in Kilos and nought else) and he was found guilty but given a 6 month conditional discharge (the legal equivalent of being told that you're a very naughty boy, now don't do it again!).
This in itself is, of course, not very interesting.
What *is* interesting is the confirmation of my deepest held fear that I live on an island of jingoistic, tub thumping, little Englander xenophobes. Good God, some of the headlines and quotes from the great and good were scary. The hate filled shit that people were venting about "Brussels forcing their laws on us against our will!!" and "Good old British Pounds and Ounces" was obscene! That little foetus Hague used it (along with that old favourite scapegoat of immigrants) to try and stir up anti-foreigner feeling and made dark references to England becoming "A foreign land". One of the outgoing Tory M.P.'s also referred to the case when he made his retirement speech (now *that* was special; according to him, the tide of immigrants and European legislation has "diluted and destroyed our homogenous Anglo-Saxon race". The fact that we haven't had one of those since 1066 seems to have entirely passed the doddery old fucker by).
But the main reason I liked the judgement is that it wholeheartedly confirmed English constitutional law does (despite all appearances to the contrary) work. The defence for the case was the old Weights and Measures act which said that it's a matter of choice what measures you use to sell stuff. Fair enough, but then we have a huge long list of legislation (all of which was passed by the Tory party. Funny how they keep that quiet isn't it?) to utterly shaft that argument. Firstly, the EC Law Act gave European Law supremacy in UK courts. That was in 1984 (when Maggie's power was at it's zenith, and if she'd wanted to block that, she most assuredly could have done). That law also survived numerous legal challenges to its validity so it was pretty solid as our laws go.
Then we had the more recent Weights and Measures act which gave kilos as the standard. This was *not* a European law (although it stemmed from an EC directive which, as I've said, takes precedence over our law) but a government piece of legislation. English law in other words. The Constitution (such one as we have) states that parliament cannot bind itself. That means that if they choose to pass a law that supersedes an earlier one (*any* one) then they can do so. This also means (and the tubthumpers kept this quiet as well) that we can pass legislation to supersede the EC Law act. In other words, any government who wants out of the EC has but to pass a law stating that, and it shall be done. So that pretty much pisses on the chips of the anti euro brigade from all angles.
Okay, then we have the case of the Leeds footballers who are accused of thuggery in the first degree. The reason I liked this one is that is essentially no different to cases that I dealt with when I worked in the legal field.
Basically a couple of Leeds footballers (Jon Woodgate and Lee Bowyer) plus a bunch of mates got pissed in a nightclub, got into an argument with a bunch of students, and then beat seven shades of shit out of one of them (allegedly).
There then followed all sorts of shenanigans whereby a team mate (Michael Duberry) concocted an alibi for them which he later retracted, the accuseds clothes were spattered with the victim's blood, and one of the footballers in question carried on playing for Leeds (and playing remarkably well).
Anyway, again this in itself is not very interesting.
The fun began after the trial proper was done. The jury had spent 3 days deliberating their verdicts on the £8 million trial. Friday drew to a close and still no verdict so off the jury went, 12 good men/women and true, for a relaxing weekend. Sunday came around, and at least one of the Jurors strolled along to his local newsagents. With a cry of "Ho shopkeep! Please be so good as to furnish me with that mighty news organ "The Sunday Mirror". Thank you my good man, and here is a pound for your troubles!" he bought his paper.
The shit then hit the fan.
The paper had interviewed the victims Dad and ran a centre page spread on him (no, not of him naked; chide yourself for even thinking that!) In it, he went on at length about the attack on his son, speculating on all manner of motivations, from racism to possession by the devil (well, maybe not the latter but you get the idea). Funnily enough, this prejudiced the good juror (who was actually the foreman) somewhat.
So, the following day saw the Judge discharging the jury on the grounds of them having been irrevocably prejudiced by the story, thus pissing away £8 million of public funds and necessitating a re-trial which will have to take place in October. So everybody loses in this particular case.
This one is fun for the simple reason that it looks like the paper are going to have criminal charges for contempt of court brought against them. The Editor, with his ultimate say over what goes in the paper, is looking at a 6 month stretch and an astronomical fine! I shall be interested to see whether his resignation will provide him with sufficient protection. Huzzah!! God bless the English Judge and his sound grasp of what will please everyone after an unsatisfactory conclusion; a witch hunt against tabloid sensationalism. I'm looking forward to that case....
Finally, we have the third case in the unholy trinity (and the only one that has actually been reported internationally); that of the internet babies. Judith and Alan Kilshaw, a British couple, purchased twins from an American woman over the internet. They did this through a broker (how does one become a baby broker? Is it the same as dealing in Junk Bonds or something?) whom they paid handsomely. It then emerged that this broker had actually already sold said twins to an American couple. In effect, the Americans were gazumped. Added to this rich mix of jollity were the twins' natural parents. The mother was now claiming that she wished she'd never sold them, and the father was demanding custody. All matters were complicated by the fact that the Kilshaws had fled back to Wales with the twins and were harping on about how the kids were legally theirs (in much the same way as one would proudly go on TV to say that one had been shown to be the legal owner of a nice house).
Social services intervened and took the twins away from the Kilshaws whilst the courts in both the UK and US decided what to do. The US court ruled in favour of the natural father and declared the original adoption by the Kilshaws to be invalid. The UK courts ruled that the adoption was invalid and the fate of the twins should be decided in the US. Alls well that ends well.
And once again, this in itself is not hugely interesting.
What *was* interesting was the increasingly erratic behaviour of Judith Kilshaw. Did you see her on TV, but she looked for all the world like a saggy, drink addled, frizzy haired frumpy old witch! She was frequently seen in hotel bars holding court with various journalists until the early hours (" Ahm...ahm..hic..a fuggin great mam, me...here, yer me best mate you are...") before ending the night by hurling abuse at all assembled. This woman single handedly kept me amused until some spoilsport judge felt sufficiently embarrassed on her behalf to issue a gagging order!
In the meantime, some US smear merchants in the Max Clifford vein had persuaded a couple of girls to accuse the American couple who had initially adopted the twins of child abuse. There was no need for a similar mud slinging campaign here; it was becoming increasingly obvious that the good woman Kilshaw shouldn't be allowed to look after a Guinea Pig, let alone children.
But the piece de resistance came when the UK judge delivered his aforementioned verdict. She ran out of the courtroom screaming bitter abuse at the assembled journalists. After a few minutes of the spectacle, a court usher dragged her back in. Not 30 seconds later, she ran back out again. This time she confined her venom to the court usher. The rather embarrassed looking usher (whom I could have swore was stifling a smile) once more dragged her back in. Judith did rather well at this point, managing to stay in the court for up to 5 earth minutes before once more bursting forth to deliver more pearls of wisdom to the throng who, by this point, were quivering with anticipation as to what the old boot would do next.
She delivered a diatribe against the judge, judiciary, and legal system that any Totalitarian would have been proud of. The judge was a bastard and a liar who hadn't heard the truth, and even if he had, the media bastards had so biased everyone against her that she would never have got a fair hearing. Unfortunately, it was marred by the fact that she was slurring and pretty much incoherent, but hey, its the thought that counts!
Right! That's my rant pretty much done with. Sorry if its utterly dull, but I had to get it off my chest!
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