A fairly uninspired browse through some of the main news stories of the day.
It occurs to me that I've written very little about the news recently, and that perhaps you may be getting rather sick of hearing tales of woe regarding pets, friends, and girlfriends. And so it was that I planned to sit down and review a few of the meatier items of note from the last few weeks. However I find that I am handicapped by one or two trifling factors. Not least of these is the following; nothing interesting has happened.
Well, that's not entirely true of course. Lots of things have popped up to stimulate my interest in the last month or two. It's just that something seems to have conspired to make them all seem as bowel achingly dull as possible. Lately the papers have been a torturous read, as if every journalist had suddenly and simultaneously decided to write in the style of Charles Dickens (i.e. dull and plodding; Dickens could quite easily take up 5 pages describing the turning of a door handle...). The only thing that was reported on by journalists who didn't seem to be somnambulant was the Amy Gehring trial, and frankly that's only because the whole affair was stage managed to resemble a twisted circus where the editor of the Daily Mail was the ringmaster. And besides which, I've already bleated on about her bouts of frenzied and drunken seduction. Should I be suspicious about this trend towards making important news seem as riveting as a football match involving Middlesbrough FC? And whether I should or not, what does that leave me with to actually talk about?
Well, I suppose one should really start with the aftermath of the Taliban. In Afghanistan itself there are now peacekeeping troops in place. This is of course a good thing. However, the peacekeeping troops are Para’s. This is of course a bad thing. It was the Para’s who were acting as peacekeepers on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. It was also the Para’s who had the lion's share of action in Sierra Leone, and acquitted themselves well. Finally, it was the Para’s who opened fire on a group of Afghanistani civilians last week, reportedly without provocation. In case I'm not making myself clear, Para’s make brilliant soldiers and appalling peacekeepers. From what I understand of Para training, their aggression and killing instinct are encouraged as much as possible within the constraints of military discipline. Asking them to fulfil the role of a peacekeeper is akin to using a starving tiger to guard some sheep.
And then of course we have Camp X-Ray, the holding facility for...well, they're not being called prisoners of war are they? I believe "Illegal combatants" is the current euphemism for the 500 or so men who are currently confined there. Does anybody know what has actually been happening to them, or what the reason for their continued detention is? Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary for Defence and for Americans in Favour of Behaving like a Pissed Up Redneck was adamant that the men held were dangerous and high ranking members of the Al-Quaida terror network. He talked grandly of secret military tribunals to try them (and of course to try Bin Laden and Omar Mohammed, but as they are still at large they remain unmentioned in most of the press; after all, we don't want to be reminded that the entire purpose behind the conflict in Afghanistan hasn't actually been achieved, do we?) Today the Pentagon shuffled it's collective feet like an embarrassed schoolboy as a spokeswoman admitted that none of those held are actually likely to face trial in the US (apart of course from the infamous American Taliban John Walker Lindh, who's committal proceedings occurred a few weeks ago; I won't go into detail about what happened at the committal, but suffice to say the prosecution lawyers seem determined to top the ratings of the OJ Simpson trial, and aren't shy about using pathetic media stunts to do so). Now that this has been admitted, the pressure will surely grow for these men to be sent to face trial in their own countries. Who knows, maybe the supposedly unsophisticated nations of the Middle East will do something that the US has been incapable of doing and actually charge them with a crime. Remember the outcry when the Taliban held those members of a Christian Aid group? At least the Taliban had the sense of due process to actually charge them with a crime pretty much straight away.
I wouldn't object to the cack-handed abuse of power in keeping these men out of sight but not quite out of mind (who would? It's difficult to shed many tears for men who supported a brutal regime or a self-obsessed terror group) were it not for the fact that it has been handled so badly. From the beginning the US has proclaimed that they are fighting in defence of freedom and democracy. Then they enforce it using methods that would not be out of place in a dictator’s paradise. If the west wants the rest of the world to follow the rules of "freedom and democracy" then we're going to have to as well, whether it suits our purpose or not. And if we're not, then we're going to have to learn to present it in a more palatable form to the rest of the world. Anyone who has a mindset of "Fuck them; it's out right as the victor to behave in this way; everyone else is just going to have to deal with it!" can look forward to a world of increasing tensions and further terrorist atrocities. The current methods of stamping out terrorism have the same effect as stamping on jelly; it doesn't get destroyed, it just fragments and spreads further.
Israel is also simmering nicely. After over a year of pretty much continuous pseudo civil war the Israeli people are starting to realise that Ariel Sharon's methods have not led to peace and never will do. I should also make it clear that, despite one or two accusations to the contrary, I do not hate the Israeli's, nor do I excuse the atrocities committed by the Palestinians. Both sides have suffered, both sides have committed terrible crimes, and both sides deserve a lasting peace settlement. Happily, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has provided a plausible plan for peace, which everyone has tentatively welcomed. So now all we have to do is wait for some extremists to do something truly abominable in order to derail any negotiations and we can get back to the daily business of hearing another report of a suicide bomber killing Israeli's followed by the deaths of Palestinian civilians in the retaliatory action taken. Both sides are as bad as each other in that respect. The most worrying thing is that the Israeli extremists number Ariel Sharon and half of his cabinet in their number. I have a sinking feeling that this conflict is similar to a hit West End musical; it will just run and run and run.
The Enron scandal also broke and singularly failed to engulf the governments of the US and UK in an avalanche of accusations concerning corruption and toadying to big business. It would have done so were it not for that fact that it involved economics, which is boring and therefore unimportant. No? Then why has the media simply reported the scandal as is, with no effort to break down the various (frankly baffling) elements of this sorry affair into something that would be understood by the majority of people? And why is it that the tidbits of coherent information that indicate corruption in and collusion between government and big business have been greeted with a "Yeah? And?" reaction by all and sundry?
Once again, it's my favourite scapegoat; apathy. No-one is really surprised to know that our government is corrupt to some degree, and we are happy to accept it as long as tomorrow is much the same as today. Enron got found out and shafted and is now a semi-worthless piece of intellectual property. Are we to believe that all other large companies play by the rules? Or that Enron was the only company with close ties to western governments? Of course not, and by doing nothing about it we are tacitly encouraging this sort of thing to continue. Oh, there have been various people who have said that nothing has been proved conclusively and so on and so forth. Usually these are the same people who are happy to repeat smears and slanders originating from the right wing press, and pass them off as pure fact, unpolluted by the "biased liberal media". Well, just as some of the accusations that have been thrown at the US and UK governments concerning their corruption are rather too rabidly left wing (I'm sorry, but I still don't believe in any governmental master plan to shaft the people of their country in order to line their own pockets; I believe in a series of greedy and rather weak willed individuals who are looking out for themselves), attempts to claim that Dubya and his pals have completely clean consciences show the same detachment from reality. Okay, innocent until proven guilty is one thing, but in burying ones head in the sand against the tide of circumstantial evidence (The vice president refusing to reveal details of meetings between himself and Enron where he is suspected to have offered them the chance to regulate themselves; had this happened then Enron would never have been caught. Not to mention Kenneth Lay's refusal to testify for fear of incriminating himself and a number of people in office, perhaps even Dubya himself) has the effect of making one seem wilfully and selectively ignorant.
The last big (ish) story that I want to look at caught my attention for no other reason than one of the main players is my local MP. I'm talking about the story that has rocked British politics in an extraordinarily boring way; the fall and further fall of the Transport Secretary Stephen Byers MP. Fate really does seem to hate Mr. Byers; not only is he lumbered with trying to sort out numerous problems not of his own making (the railways, the state of our roads, traffic congestion in cities) but he has inherited a government department consumed with a level of infighting and cattiness that has not been seen since the backstage footage of the Pop Idol Final was released. Basically, two senior civil servants in his department had a row. One (Martin Sixsmith) accused the other (Jo Moore) of forcing the civil servants (who do not work for the Labour Party but for the country; civil servants are theoretically apolitical) to do work for the Labour party itself. Both resigned, then Sixsmith declared that he had done no such thing and generally stamped his feet in a way that will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a 4 year old in a huff. Poor old Mr. Byers then found himself having to explain just why the senior members of his department seemed to be a bunch of self aggrandising turds who were happy to use the time that should have been spent doing governmental work composing spiteful emails to undermine their colleagues. In one way this story is reassuring though; it's good to know that anyone in any walk of life is capable of acting in such an immature way. It gives me great comfort to know that if they can behave like that then so can I, and I don't have to grow up quite yet. If only I came away from every news report feeling so positive.
Wednesday 27 February 2002
Thursday 21 February 2002
Animal Nitrate
I'm afraid I'm still guilty of a ridiculous level of love for all things cute and fluffy.
Two things happened that had an effect on me this past weekend. Firstly a friendship that has lasted since childhood ended. Secondly my cat, Ali, died. Who wants to guess which of the two was more upsetting? I’ll give you a clue; I conform to the stereotype of England being a nation of animal lovers.
Many moons ago I wrote about how we seem to be far more horrified at the mistreatment of animals than we are at the mistreatment of people. I’ve seen and heard little or nothing to alter my views regarding this. For example, after the main body of the Afghanistan conflict (it wasn’t a war apparently; to echo a better man, a war is when two armies are fighting...) had ended there was a huge relief effort aimed at improving the lot of the Afghanistani people. And yet donations to charitable causes for the populace were dwarfed by contributions to a charity that concerned itself with the welfare of Marjan. Marjan was the one eyed lion that had eked out a miserable and tortured existence in Kabul zoo for the last 23 years. So in the midst of a sea of human suffering, our heartstrings were plucked and played by the plight of a solitary beast.
I should make it very clear that I am in no way looking down on the huge number of people who find animals more agreeable than people. Whilst scanning through the news yesterday a story broke involving a young boy being battered and burnt to death. Let us be in no doubt at all that this was a truly horrific crime. Just beneath it on the Ananova website was a story of a Czech man who was sentenced to 6 months in prison for kicking a hedgehog to death. Suffice to say that I would have been happy for the former crime to be inflicted on the perpetrator of the latter.
What is it about the human condition that allows us to hear reports of appalling human suffering with something horribly close to tolerance whilst we cannot condemn those who cause pain to animals fast enough? This is even reflected in our charities; the main charity for the protection has a royal charter, which although it counts for little in this day and age does give the RSPCA a certain air of esteem. Contrast this with the leading UK charity concerned with the welfare of children, the NSPCC. They are merely a national society. So our monarchs (Prince Phillip notwithstanding of course; the irony of his being patron of the World Wildlife Fund has been oft commented on) are apparently more concerned with animals than with children (which explains quite a lot, not least of which is the fact that our future king has become an old hippy with spiritualist leanings and one or two pointed views on architecture; if only Phillip had shown as much attention to his son as he has to the various species that he’s been helping become extinct).
It would seem that our attitude toward animals stems from a somewhat unholy alliance of duty to protect those that are weaker than ourselves, compassion for those who have suffered, guilt for the fact that the suffering has invariably been at the hands of man, and selective sentimentality. I name the latter with a certain amount of trepidation and self-disgust, as I am guilty of it myself. This sentimentality comes from our anthropomorphication of cute animals. We are less eager to put our hands in our pockets to save endangered insects (unless they are pretty or fluttery, preferably both), fish (the stocks of cod in the North Sea and Atlantic have plummeted, but as long as we get out fish and chips then everything is ok, right?), or birds and mammals that occupy the less attractive end of the looks spectrum (if every hyena on the face of the planet was to disappear tomorrow I don’t think anyone would mourn too much, do you?).
Of course, all of the above could quite easily be applied to people as well with the exception of sentimentality (except perhaps toward children, but as I am not a parent I find it difficult to relate to that mindset; in my world children are there to cry noisily, make awful smells, and ask banal questions. In all respects they are little different to French tourists...) and it is that final element that makes the crucial difference. I think we find it easier to sympathise with the plight of an animal because we can impriny our own idea’s of it’s characteristic onto it regardless of how close this may be to reality. For instance, let’s return briefly to Marjan. A lion is regarded as a noble beast, the king of the jungle. It simply isn’t right for this regal feline to have suffered so much. Therefore it seemed proper to try and restore it’s sense of dignity in it’s last days.
That all sounds about right, does it not? Yet I have seen footage of these ‘noble beasts’ behaving in a decidedly ignoble way; would we use the same metaphors of royalty if we were more familiar with them as bloody great big pussycats that produce echoing squitty noises when emptying their bowels? Or if we had seen one drag it’s backside along the ground in much the same way that a dog might do (and incidentally, the next time you do see a dog do that, pay close attention to the owner; you will never again see such a look of acute embarrassment in your life...)? Okay, with our Royals it’s not the best comparison but you get the gist.
It’s not so easy to make these simplistic projections of emotion onto people, and if it is tried then it doesn’t sit easy with us. Again, the conflict in Afghanistan provides a recent example of this. I talked to many of my friends about Afghanistan (and doubtless bored them all senseless in doing so) and there was a certain amount of ambivalence about the future of the Afghanistani people. In general, we wondered why they had not done more to rid themselves of the oppressive Taliban government, and why they had tolerated the insidious presence of the terrorists who had brought American retribution upon them all. As to the starvation that they were enduring, many people wondered why they didn’t just leave (because as a man named Sam Kinison once said “You live in the middle of a desert! There wouldn’t be any famine...IF YOU PEOPLE LIVED WHERE THE FOOD IS!!”). We are happy to think such things, yet the people of Afghanistan were just as caged as Marjan. Pakistan, Iran, and the various former Soviet republics are not exactly teeming with opportunities for fleeing Afghanstani’s. The refugee internment camps in Australia and the UK are a fairly clear indication of what the West thinks about anyone who had the courage to flee. And make no mistake about how courageous or desperate they had to be to attempt to leave. They ran the risk of execution at the hands of the Taliban or the Northern Alliance, or being robbed by the various tribesmen on the Pakistani and Iranian borders, not to mention the incredible risks involved in sailing for days to get to Indonesia or Australia. No one expected an animal to have done this, but we believe a person to have been in some way negligent if they didn’t.
In truth, I’m not even sure that valuing animal welfare above that of people is such a bad thing. Obviously if taken to extremes it is (Hitler’s love of his dogs is an established historical fact; his regard for Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and, by the end of the war, people in general is something of an oxymoron) but in general I’m inclined to think that anything that encourages us to feel compassion toward something that is not ourselves can’t really be faulted. I certainly don’t feel guilty about feeling relieved that my former friend is out of my life whilst sobbing at the prospect of never seeing Ali again. Maybe we should stop trying to compare sympathy for animals with sympathy for our fellow man and recognise them as different things. Hopefully we will then stop trying to establish a hierarchy of consideration and get on with the important business of treating every living thing with respect and empathy. And following that we can go on a flying pig hunt because, let’s face it, that is just as realistic a prospect.
Two things happened that had an effect on me this past weekend. Firstly a friendship that has lasted since childhood ended. Secondly my cat, Ali, died. Who wants to guess which of the two was more upsetting? I’ll give you a clue; I conform to the stereotype of England being a nation of animal lovers.
Many moons ago I wrote about how we seem to be far more horrified at the mistreatment of animals than we are at the mistreatment of people. I’ve seen and heard little or nothing to alter my views regarding this. For example, after the main body of the Afghanistan conflict (it wasn’t a war apparently; to echo a better man, a war is when two armies are fighting...) had ended there was a huge relief effort aimed at improving the lot of the Afghanistani people. And yet donations to charitable causes for the populace were dwarfed by contributions to a charity that concerned itself with the welfare of Marjan. Marjan was the one eyed lion that had eked out a miserable and tortured existence in Kabul zoo for the last 23 years. So in the midst of a sea of human suffering, our heartstrings were plucked and played by the plight of a solitary beast.
I should make it very clear that I am in no way looking down on the huge number of people who find animals more agreeable than people. Whilst scanning through the news yesterday a story broke involving a young boy being battered and burnt to death. Let us be in no doubt at all that this was a truly horrific crime. Just beneath it on the Ananova website was a story of a Czech man who was sentenced to 6 months in prison for kicking a hedgehog to death. Suffice to say that I would have been happy for the former crime to be inflicted on the perpetrator of the latter.
What is it about the human condition that allows us to hear reports of appalling human suffering with something horribly close to tolerance whilst we cannot condemn those who cause pain to animals fast enough? This is even reflected in our charities; the main charity for the protection has a royal charter, which although it counts for little in this day and age does give the RSPCA a certain air of esteem. Contrast this with the leading UK charity concerned with the welfare of children, the NSPCC. They are merely a national society. So our monarchs (Prince Phillip notwithstanding of course; the irony of his being patron of the World Wildlife Fund has been oft commented on) are apparently more concerned with animals than with children (which explains quite a lot, not least of which is the fact that our future king has become an old hippy with spiritualist leanings and one or two pointed views on architecture; if only Phillip had shown as much attention to his son as he has to the various species that he’s been helping become extinct).
It would seem that our attitude toward animals stems from a somewhat unholy alliance of duty to protect those that are weaker than ourselves, compassion for those who have suffered, guilt for the fact that the suffering has invariably been at the hands of man, and selective sentimentality. I name the latter with a certain amount of trepidation and self-disgust, as I am guilty of it myself. This sentimentality comes from our anthropomorphication of cute animals. We are less eager to put our hands in our pockets to save endangered insects (unless they are pretty or fluttery, preferably both), fish (the stocks of cod in the North Sea and Atlantic have plummeted, but as long as we get out fish and chips then everything is ok, right?), or birds and mammals that occupy the less attractive end of the looks spectrum (if every hyena on the face of the planet was to disappear tomorrow I don’t think anyone would mourn too much, do you?).
Of course, all of the above could quite easily be applied to people as well with the exception of sentimentality (except perhaps toward children, but as I am not a parent I find it difficult to relate to that mindset; in my world children are there to cry noisily, make awful smells, and ask banal questions. In all respects they are little different to French tourists...) and it is that final element that makes the crucial difference. I think we find it easier to sympathise with the plight of an animal because we can impriny our own idea’s of it’s characteristic onto it regardless of how close this may be to reality. For instance, let’s return briefly to Marjan. A lion is regarded as a noble beast, the king of the jungle. It simply isn’t right for this regal feline to have suffered so much. Therefore it seemed proper to try and restore it’s sense of dignity in it’s last days.
That all sounds about right, does it not? Yet I have seen footage of these ‘noble beasts’ behaving in a decidedly ignoble way; would we use the same metaphors of royalty if we were more familiar with them as bloody great big pussycats that produce echoing squitty noises when emptying their bowels? Or if we had seen one drag it’s backside along the ground in much the same way that a dog might do (and incidentally, the next time you do see a dog do that, pay close attention to the owner; you will never again see such a look of acute embarrassment in your life...)? Okay, with our Royals it’s not the best comparison but you get the gist.
It’s not so easy to make these simplistic projections of emotion onto people, and if it is tried then it doesn’t sit easy with us. Again, the conflict in Afghanistan provides a recent example of this. I talked to many of my friends about Afghanistan (and doubtless bored them all senseless in doing so) and there was a certain amount of ambivalence about the future of the Afghanistani people. In general, we wondered why they had not done more to rid themselves of the oppressive Taliban government, and why they had tolerated the insidious presence of the terrorists who had brought American retribution upon them all. As to the starvation that they were enduring, many people wondered why they didn’t just leave (because as a man named Sam Kinison once said “You live in the middle of a desert! There wouldn’t be any famine...IF YOU PEOPLE LIVED WHERE THE FOOD IS!!”). We are happy to think such things, yet the people of Afghanistan were just as caged as Marjan. Pakistan, Iran, and the various former Soviet republics are not exactly teeming with opportunities for fleeing Afghanstani’s. The refugee internment camps in Australia and the UK are a fairly clear indication of what the West thinks about anyone who had the courage to flee. And make no mistake about how courageous or desperate they had to be to attempt to leave. They ran the risk of execution at the hands of the Taliban or the Northern Alliance, or being robbed by the various tribesmen on the Pakistani and Iranian borders, not to mention the incredible risks involved in sailing for days to get to Indonesia or Australia. No one expected an animal to have done this, but we believe a person to have been in some way negligent if they didn’t.
In truth, I’m not even sure that valuing animal welfare above that of people is such a bad thing. Obviously if taken to extremes it is (Hitler’s love of his dogs is an established historical fact; his regard for Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and, by the end of the war, people in general is something of an oxymoron) but in general I’m inclined to think that anything that encourages us to feel compassion toward something that is not ourselves can’t really be faulted. I certainly don’t feel guilty about feeling relieved that my former friend is out of my life whilst sobbing at the prospect of never seeing Ali again. Maybe we should stop trying to compare sympathy for animals with sympathy for our fellow man and recognise them as different things. Hopefully we will then stop trying to establish a hierarchy of consideration and get on with the important business of treating every living thing with respect and empathy. And following that we can go on a flying pig hunt because, let’s face it, that is just as realistic a prospect.
Friday 15 February 2002
I Know Who My Friends Are
I had just fallen out with one of my oldest friends when I wrote this. By writing it, I managed to piss of most of the rest of my friends. Whoops.
I've always been told that friendship is a good thing, a gift to be valued. Your friends should be the family that you can actually choose. A true friend will always be there to support you, and a group of friends are bound together by ties as strong as blood. History is littered with great and famous friendships that have enriched the world through their strength; Churchill and Roosevelt were good friends. Had they not been, who knows if the US would have entered WWII or if they would have continued their isolationist policies? Coleridge and Wordsworth were good friends. Without the influence of one on the other then generations of people might never have known that a man has wondered lonely as a cloud. The Ancient Mariner might never have troubled us (which if I'm honest is not necessarily a bad thing...).
Yet I've also heard it said that your friends drag you down. That friendship can be a prison and the expectations of your friends are your jailors. Should you ever wish to soar off and explore what you believe to be your full potential your friends will curse your name for abandoning them. The full capacity of friendship becomes the capacity to hate that person. History is again most instructive on this aspect; Julius Caesar was supposedly betrayed by his friend Brutus because of his desire to be King of Rome. In rather more recent and mundane times Tony Blair risks being knocked off the political moral high ground by his continued support and repeated rehabilitation of Peter Mandelson, a man who is gaffe-prone and unpopular. This is to say nothing of the 'Old Boys Network', the main public achievements of which have been to shield certain persons from too much scrutiny only to throw them to the wolves if they become a liability (no doubt Lord Archer and Jonathon Aitkin could explain just how dreadful a thing this is!)
Which of these two statements is true? Is there a grain of truth in both? Or are neither of them particularly relevant, mere idealisations of man's need for companionship? As I have nothing better to do today I'm going to make a (probably vain) effort to decipher this particular mystery.
Before making a start, I'll make a confession of intent. One of my very best friends betrayed me in about as comprehensive a manner as it is possible to do last weekend. He did something that he knew would cause me immense emotional pain and he did so wilfully and deliberately in the full knowledge of what the result would be, and he did so because he wanted to know what it felt like to do so. His behaviour is utterly contemptible by any reasonable standards and I think it's reasonable to say that he is not my favourite person in the world right now. So if by the end of this I have concluded that one's friends are vile and selfish scum who no more deserve compassion than a fat man deserves a girlfriend...well, at least you know of my bias before we get started!
The main example that I intend to use is the friendship between 2 powerful men; George W. Bush (I said powerful, I didn't say anything about being especially bright...) and Kenneth Lay. The former needs no introduction (except possibly to remind his raddled brain of who he is). The latter is the former chairman of Enron, the energy company that has recently been revealed to have done for financial honesty what Enoch Powell did for race relations. Some may question the validity of the friendship between these two; after all, in the murky world of politics friendship comes second to ambition. Yet I believe that there is a strong element of mutual admiration between these two that could be described as friendship, and so it is with these two that I will proceed.
Firstly, if we rewind a few years to when dear old Dubya was running for the governorship of The Lone Star State. Lay (or Kenny Boy as Dubya refers to him) ensured that a lot of money went into Dubya's campaign fund. There is nothing unusual about this in politics of course, but once Bush was elected he returned the favour with bells on. Enron was given pretty much free reign to do what it waned in Texas. In politics, favours are usually given out begrudgingly and are only awarded in the first place because a company has contributed to a campaign fund. Even then, a politician is careful with what he promises because chances are the company or individual will have donated to the opposition as well (as indeed Enron did, though the political party accounts show that the Republicans were the more favoured to the tune of almost $1 million).
The favour that George Bush bestowed was that he trusted Enron to keep their own house in order. When one bears in mind that most politicians are almost porn star-like in their willingness to jump into bed with big business, Dubya's decision to leave Enron to their own devices whilst he got on with the important business of ensuring Texas had the one of the highest execution rates in the world is surprising to say the least. The personal friendship between Lay and Bush seems to provide many of the answers as to why this decision was made.
In a strange sort of way, this shows how friendship between two people can make them greater than the sum of their parts. Without the staunch and unwavering support of the powerful businessman Lay, the political career of Bush (a reformed alcoholic who was even then regarded as something of a simpleton) might have been stillborn. Without the support of Bush, Lay's company might have had to subject itself to greater regulation and control by state and federal government. The one could not have been achieved without the other. The friendship and trust between the two further showed itself by the amount of time the two men spent in each other's company.
Yet things are not quite the same now. The rosy future that the friendship between these men offered seems to have disintegrated for at least one of them. Dubya's trust in Enron to be their own policeman has proved misplaced to say the least. The favour shown to Enron was abused to a frightening degree. As a result of Dubya showing trust and friendship in Lay, a mighty company has been bankrupted by it's own dishonesty. Thousands of people have lost vast amounts of money via their pensions or sharesave scheme. The abuse of friendship has also damaged Bush himself; accusations of cosying up to big business at the expense of the rights of the average man are flying thick and fast at his government, perhaps justifiably so. Yet for all I am a critic of Bush, I don't believe he is an evil man. I don't accept that he extended such trust to Lay knowing full well that Enron would make a mockery of it. I am of the impression that he is genuinely shocked at the extent of Enron's questionable activities and is upset that his friend has betrayed his trust in such a manner and it would seem over such a period of time.
If the relationship between Dubya and Lay was one of convenience then we could be assured that Mr. Lay would be the second Enron executive to commit suicide under the kind of circumstances that keep conspiracy theorists in business. Yet Bush seems to be honouring his friendship with the man who has made his government look like fools, and corrupt fools at that. He was given an easy ride at the inquiry into the collapse of Enron. There is no question that he will suffer any form of censure in terms of criminal or civil actions. Every possible scrap of information that shows Lay as an innocent is being hurled at the media (today the papers make a big deal about the evidence given by Sherren Watkins who was the whistleblower on Enron's financial crisis; she is vociferous in her belief that Kenneth Lay was kept in the dark and was not to blame). Though it is perhaps in Dubya's best interests to abandon Mr. Lay, he is not doing so.
Will the two men still be friends in the future? Probably. I have no doubt that things will be worked out between my friend and I as we have been through a lot together and are simply too fond of each other to allow one incident to make us enemies, and I would expect things to be no different between Lay and Bush. I think what I am saying in all of this is that we should certainly love and cherish our friends, and should always do whatever is within our power to help them. But don't trust them, at least not completely. When someone is faced with a choice of advancement of oneself at the expense of a friend then it would appear we will do so 9 times out of 10.
I've always been told that friendship is a good thing, a gift to be valued. Your friends should be the family that you can actually choose. A true friend will always be there to support you, and a group of friends are bound together by ties as strong as blood. History is littered with great and famous friendships that have enriched the world through their strength; Churchill and Roosevelt were good friends. Had they not been, who knows if the US would have entered WWII or if they would have continued their isolationist policies? Coleridge and Wordsworth were good friends. Without the influence of one on the other then generations of people might never have known that a man has wondered lonely as a cloud. The Ancient Mariner might never have troubled us (which if I'm honest is not necessarily a bad thing...).
Yet I've also heard it said that your friends drag you down. That friendship can be a prison and the expectations of your friends are your jailors. Should you ever wish to soar off and explore what you believe to be your full potential your friends will curse your name for abandoning them. The full capacity of friendship becomes the capacity to hate that person. History is again most instructive on this aspect; Julius Caesar was supposedly betrayed by his friend Brutus because of his desire to be King of Rome. In rather more recent and mundane times Tony Blair risks being knocked off the political moral high ground by his continued support and repeated rehabilitation of Peter Mandelson, a man who is gaffe-prone and unpopular. This is to say nothing of the 'Old Boys Network', the main public achievements of which have been to shield certain persons from too much scrutiny only to throw them to the wolves if they become a liability (no doubt Lord Archer and Jonathon Aitkin could explain just how dreadful a thing this is!)
Which of these two statements is true? Is there a grain of truth in both? Or are neither of them particularly relevant, mere idealisations of man's need for companionship? As I have nothing better to do today I'm going to make a (probably vain) effort to decipher this particular mystery.
Before making a start, I'll make a confession of intent. One of my very best friends betrayed me in about as comprehensive a manner as it is possible to do last weekend. He did something that he knew would cause me immense emotional pain and he did so wilfully and deliberately in the full knowledge of what the result would be, and he did so because he wanted to know what it felt like to do so. His behaviour is utterly contemptible by any reasonable standards and I think it's reasonable to say that he is not my favourite person in the world right now. So if by the end of this I have concluded that one's friends are vile and selfish scum who no more deserve compassion than a fat man deserves a girlfriend...well, at least you know of my bias before we get started!
The main example that I intend to use is the friendship between 2 powerful men; George W. Bush (I said powerful, I didn't say anything about being especially bright...) and Kenneth Lay. The former needs no introduction (except possibly to remind his raddled brain of who he is). The latter is the former chairman of Enron, the energy company that has recently been revealed to have done for financial honesty what Enoch Powell did for race relations. Some may question the validity of the friendship between these two; after all, in the murky world of politics friendship comes second to ambition. Yet I believe that there is a strong element of mutual admiration between these two that could be described as friendship, and so it is with these two that I will proceed.
Firstly, if we rewind a few years to when dear old Dubya was running for the governorship of The Lone Star State. Lay (or Kenny Boy as Dubya refers to him) ensured that a lot of money went into Dubya's campaign fund. There is nothing unusual about this in politics of course, but once Bush was elected he returned the favour with bells on. Enron was given pretty much free reign to do what it waned in Texas. In politics, favours are usually given out begrudgingly and are only awarded in the first place because a company has contributed to a campaign fund. Even then, a politician is careful with what he promises because chances are the company or individual will have donated to the opposition as well (as indeed Enron did, though the political party accounts show that the Republicans were the more favoured to the tune of almost $1 million).
The favour that George Bush bestowed was that he trusted Enron to keep their own house in order. When one bears in mind that most politicians are almost porn star-like in their willingness to jump into bed with big business, Dubya's decision to leave Enron to their own devices whilst he got on with the important business of ensuring Texas had the one of the highest execution rates in the world is surprising to say the least. The personal friendship between Lay and Bush seems to provide many of the answers as to why this decision was made.
In a strange sort of way, this shows how friendship between two people can make them greater than the sum of their parts. Without the staunch and unwavering support of the powerful businessman Lay, the political career of Bush (a reformed alcoholic who was even then regarded as something of a simpleton) might have been stillborn. Without the support of Bush, Lay's company might have had to subject itself to greater regulation and control by state and federal government. The one could not have been achieved without the other. The friendship and trust between the two further showed itself by the amount of time the two men spent in each other's company.
Yet things are not quite the same now. The rosy future that the friendship between these men offered seems to have disintegrated for at least one of them. Dubya's trust in Enron to be their own policeman has proved misplaced to say the least. The favour shown to Enron was abused to a frightening degree. As a result of Dubya showing trust and friendship in Lay, a mighty company has been bankrupted by it's own dishonesty. Thousands of people have lost vast amounts of money via their pensions or sharesave scheme. The abuse of friendship has also damaged Bush himself; accusations of cosying up to big business at the expense of the rights of the average man are flying thick and fast at his government, perhaps justifiably so. Yet for all I am a critic of Bush, I don't believe he is an evil man. I don't accept that he extended such trust to Lay knowing full well that Enron would make a mockery of it. I am of the impression that he is genuinely shocked at the extent of Enron's questionable activities and is upset that his friend has betrayed his trust in such a manner and it would seem over such a period of time.
If the relationship between Dubya and Lay was one of convenience then we could be assured that Mr. Lay would be the second Enron executive to commit suicide under the kind of circumstances that keep conspiracy theorists in business. Yet Bush seems to be honouring his friendship with the man who has made his government look like fools, and corrupt fools at that. He was given an easy ride at the inquiry into the collapse of Enron. There is no question that he will suffer any form of censure in terms of criminal or civil actions. Every possible scrap of information that shows Lay as an innocent is being hurled at the media (today the papers make a big deal about the evidence given by Sherren Watkins who was the whistleblower on Enron's financial crisis; she is vociferous in her belief that Kenneth Lay was kept in the dark and was not to blame). Though it is perhaps in Dubya's best interests to abandon Mr. Lay, he is not doing so.
Will the two men still be friends in the future? Probably. I have no doubt that things will be worked out between my friend and I as we have been through a lot together and are simply too fond of each other to allow one incident to make us enemies, and I would expect things to be no different between Lay and Bush. I think what I am saying in all of this is that we should certainly love and cherish our friends, and should always do whatever is within our power to help them. But don't trust them, at least not completely. When someone is faced with a choice of advancement of oneself at the expense of a friend then it would appear we will do so 9 times out of 10.
Tuesday 5 February 2002
Hey, teacher; Leave them kids alone
I do find I keep commenting on cases where teachers are accused of shagging their pupils. Is this social commentary, or barely disguised frustration that none of my teachers were even remotely fit, let alone promiscuous?
The Amy Gehring case finally reached a climax (if you'll excuse the pun) yesterday. If you are unfamiliar with this lovely little case then I shall briefly recap; a Canadian Supply teacher (the aforementioned Miss Gehring) was accused of seducing 3 teenaged (i.e. 14-15 year old) boys. Various other details fleshed out the trial, such as the salacious reporting of 26 year old Miss Gehring allegedly groping and kissing a young female pupil at the same party that she was supposed to have slept with at least one of the boys (the Daily Mail in particular reported on this bout of bisexuality with a luridity that must have set 50 and 60 year old saliva glands across the country into overdrive...). We were also treated to revelations that Gehring herself could not actually remember if she had slept with one of the boys at a party but had taken the Morning After pill as a precaution because "...I heard a rumour that I had had sex with him". After a trial lasting a few weeks, and after Miss Gehring was shown to be pitiful rather than predatory, she was found Not Guilty on 3 charges of Indecent Assault, with the judge having earlier directed the jury to lodge a Not Guilty verdict on the 4th charge.
The case and it's conduct have raised a few questions about both the law and about morality (as well as leaving me wondering why school parties these days seem to be so much better than they were when I was at school; we were happy with a few awkward sticky fumblings at age 15. Shagging a teacher was never on the cards for most of us, although in fairness most of them were post menopause anyway...). For example, this was not the first time Gehring had faced allegations of this nature. She had been investigated for "inappropriate behaviour" at another school and the agency that employed her, TimePlan, had been warned that she posed a risk to children. Should this have been revealed at the trial? We also have the treatment of the case in the press. It has been marked by a distinct lack of moral outrage. Had Gehring been a man and the accusers been 3 teenaged girls, would the coverage of the trial have been different? Would the verdicts themselves have differed?
First of all, let us look at the press coverage of the case. I always got the feeling that there was a certain amount of sympathy for Gehring being generated by the media. We were told that she grew up in a remote rural hamlet in Canada, thus giving us the implication of a rather sad and lonely young woman. Much was made of her admission in court that she had never really received much attention from her peers, and so the fluttering and flattering of the pupils made her feel wanted and popular. All in all one was left with the impression of an unbalanced and maladjusted lady who was ill equipped to be in a position of authority over young people as she had more in common with them in terms of emotional development than she did with people her own age.
Can anyone see the same sort of coverage happening if a male teacher is accused of sleeping with his pupils? Would anything have been made of his disadvantaged life or emotional well-being? Or is it more likely perhaps that he would be painted in the colours of a monster; a ravening beast whose only thought is for his own gratification and to hell with the consequences? It's not a brilliant comparison, but look at the Jonathon King case and the differences in the language used. King was branded a paedophile. Gehring was cast as a seductress (although frankly it sounded like she practiced the same art of seduction that will be familiar to anyone who has drank far too much on a Friday night and slurred lovingly at the nearest member of the opposite sex until they either respond or someone else catches one's eye...). King lured (only just) underaged boys back to commit sordid acts. Gehring was simply accused of having sex with an (only just) underage boy and his brother. In both cases the boys were, by their own admission, willing partners. It seems that there is a double standard concerning sex and the young.
I suppose there are a number of reasons why this could be. First and foremost let's look at the unspoken reason; no one can realistically picture a 15-year-old boy who has had sex with a 26-year-old female teacher as a victim. Will the young lad be traumatised and have difficulties in forming relationships in later life? Or is it more likely that he will tell every single one of his friends and earn a place in his school folklore? At the school I attended there was a relationship between a female teacher and a boy who had just entered 6th form. Nobody batted an eyelid at this (except of course to congratulate the boy in question; after all, Miss Binks was rather nice...) but had it been a male teacher and female pupil then I have little doubt that reaction would have been different.
It seems that it is all about our different attitudes to the young depending on whether they are male or female. These boys have doubtless been feted by their peers for what they allegedly did (and they will probably still be hailed as heroes; I don't exactly think that a Not Guilty verdict will stem the tide of schoolyard gossip) and they certainly haven't been portrayed as victims in the press. If you cast your mind back 6 months you may or may not remember 15 year old Katherine Baillie from Portsmouth who ran away with her 35 year old maths teacher for almost a year. She was the poor girl who had been duped and seduced by her pervert of a teacher and had lost a year of her life because of his determination to keep her away from those who cared about her. Yet for all we know, the Gehring boys may be traumatised and unsure of themselves whilst Baillie may be entirely comfortable with herself after her year with the teacher. But we don't want to hear that. That would muddy the waters of social morality where men are always the instigators of sex and women are precious little things whose virtue is to be jealously guarded.
I can sense a snigger building at that last sentence and that only goes to show how unrealistic the social conscience that is peddled by the media as an ideal is. That's not to mention how paternalistic and offensive it is to women in general. If we're going to demonise somebody for having sex with a 15 year old, should it matter what sex either party is? I mentioned how difficult it was to see the Gehring boys as victims at any stage of the case. Yet the boys that King seduced were portrayed as poor lost souls who had had their innocence cruelly taken from them. The only major difference that I can see is that the King case involved consensual underage homosexual sex and the Gehring case dealt with consensual underage heterosexual sex (bisexuality is forgivable in a woman apparently...). Not to mention of course the fact that King was found guilty of a crime under British law and Gehring innocent.
Of course, I could just be honest and say that all of the above is a roundabout way of saying that it's not fair that women can sleep with sexually mature young men whilst men are held in contempt for sleeping with sexually mature young women, but that would be frivolous. Society's differing rules for young men and young women are the product of several hundred years of men being on top (figuratively speaking) and 30 years of Women's Lib. is not going to change it for the better (in the case of certain radicals such as Andrea Dworkin I would go so far as to say that they make it worse). We still don't have true equality in our society and as long as cases like this are portrayed in the way that they are then it will continue for many years yet.
The Amy Gehring case finally reached a climax (if you'll excuse the pun) yesterday. If you are unfamiliar with this lovely little case then I shall briefly recap; a Canadian Supply teacher (the aforementioned Miss Gehring) was accused of seducing 3 teenaged (i.e. 14-15 year old) boys. Various other details fleshed out the trial, such as the salacious reporting of 26 year old Miss Gehring allegedly groping and kissing a young female pupil at the same party that she was supposed to have slept with at least one of the boys (the Daily Mail in particular reported on this bout of bisexuality with a luridity that must have set 50 and 60 year old saliva glands across the country into overdrive...). We were also treated to revelations that Gehring herself could not actually remember if she had slept with one of the boys at a party but had taken the Morning After pill as a precaution because "...I heard a rumour that I had had sex with him". After a trial lasting a few weeks, and after Miss Gehring was shown to be pitiful rather than predatory, she was found Not Guilty on 3 charges of Indecent Assault, with the judge having earlier directed the jury to lodge a Not Guilty verdict on the 4th charge.
The case and it's conduct have raised a few questions about both the law and about morality (as well as leaving me wondering why school parties these days seem to be so much better than they were when I was at school; we were happy with a few awkward sticky fumblings at age 15. Shagging a teacher was never on the cards for most of us, although in fairness most of them were post menopause anyway...). For example, this was not the first time Gehring had faced allegations of this nature. She had been investigated for "inappropriate behaviour" at another school and the agency that employed her, TimePlan, had been warned that she posed a risk to children. Should this have been revealed at the trial? We also have the treatment of the case in the press. It has been marked by a distinct lack of moral outrage. Had Gehring been a man and the accusers been 3 teenaged girls, would the coverage of the trial have been different? Would the verdicts themselves have differed?
First of all, let us look at the press coverage of the case. I always got the feeling that there was a certain amount of sympathy for Gehring being generated by the media. We were told that she grew up in a remote rural hamlet in Canada, thus giving us the implication of a rather sad and lonely young woman. Much was made of her admission in court that she had never really received much attention from her peers, and so the fluttering and flattering of the pupils made her feel wanted and popular. All in all one was left with the impression of an unbalanced and maladjusted lady who was ill equipped to be in a position of authority over young people as she had more in common with them in terms of emotional development than she did with people her own age.
Can anyone see the same sort of coverage happening if a male teacher is accused of sleeping with his pupils? Would anything have been made of his disadvantaged life or emotional well-being? Or is it more likely perhaps that he would be painted in the colours of a monster; a ravening beast whose only thought is for his own gratification and to hell with the consequences? It's not a brilliant comparison, but look at the Jonathon King case and the differences in the language used. King was branded a paedophile. Gehring was cast as a seductress (although frankly it sounded like she practiced the same art of seduction that will be familiar to anyone who has drank far too much on a Friday night and slurred lovingly at the nearest member of the opposite sex until they either respond or someone else catches one's eye...). King lured (only just) underaged boys back to commit sordid acts. Gehring was simply accused of having sex with an (only just) underage boy and his brother. In both cases the boys were, by their own admission, willing partners. It seems that there is a double standard concerning sex and the young.
I suppose there are a number of reasons why this could be. First and foremost let's look at the unspoken reason; no one can realistically picture a 15-year-old boy who has had sex with a 26-year-old female teacher as a victim. Will the young lad be traumatised and have difficulties in forming relationships in later life? Or is it more likely that he will tell every single one of his friends and earn a place in his school folklore? At the school I attended there was a relationship between a female teacher and a boy who had just entered 6th form. Nobody batted an eyelid at this (except of course to congratulate the boy in question; after all, Miss Binks was rather nice...) but had it been a male teacher and female pupil then I have little doubt that reaction would have been different.
It seems that it is all about our different attitudes to the young depending on whether they are male or female. These boys have doubtless been feted by their peers for what they allegedly did (and they will probably still be hailed as heroes; I don't exactly think that a Not Guilty verdict will stem the tide of schoolyard gossip) and they certainly haven't been portrayed as victims in the press. If you cast your mind back 6 months you may or may not remember 15 year old Katherine Baillie from Portsmouth who ran away with her 35 year old maths teacher for almost a year. She was the poor girl who had been duped and seduced by her pervert of a teacher and had lost a year of her life because of his determination to keep her away from those who cared about her. Yet for all we know, the Gehring boys may be traumatised and unsure of themselves whilst Baillie may be entirely comfortable with herself after her year with the teacher. But we don't want to hear that. That would muddy the waters of social morality where men are always the instigators of sex and women are precious little things whose virtue is to be jealously guarded.
I can sense a snigger building at that last sentence and that only goes to show how unrealistic the social conscience that is peddled by the media as an ideal is. That's not to mention how paternalistic and offensive it is to women in general. If we're going to demonise somebody for having sex with a 15 year old, should it matter what sex either party is? I mentioned how difficult it was to see the Gehring boys as victims at any stage of the case. Yet the boys that King seduced were portrayed as poor lost souls who had had their innocence cruelly taken from them. The only major difference that I can see is that the King case involved consensual underage homosexual sex and the Gehring case dealt with consensual underage heterosexual sex (bisexuality is forgivable in a woman apparently...). Not to mention of course the fact that King was found guilty of a crime under British law and Gehring innocent.
Of course, I could just be honest and say that all of the above is a roundabout way of saying that it's not fair that women can sleep with sexually mature young men whilst men are held in contempt for sleeping with sexually mature young women, but that would be frivolous. Society's differing rules for young men and young women are the product of several hundred years of men being on top (figuratively speaking) and 30 years of Women's Lib. is not going to change it for the better (in the case of certain radicals such as Andrea Dworkin I would go so far as to say that they make it worse). We still don't have true equality in our society and as long as cases like this are portrayed in the way that they are then it will continue for many years yet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)