9/11 Distractions

A month after 9/11, and the haze of shock was clearing from my mind. A stark and unpleasant reality now had to be faced.




Though I've tried (God knows, I've tried) to find something in the news to talk about, it always comes back to the Big Story. It's not as if I'd be short of material at the moment; Darth Tory's election to the Conservative Party leadership has the promise of being one of the most unintentionally funny moves in political history. Here is a man who physically resembles William Hague's older, less vivacious brother and, judging by some of his initial cabinet appointments, mentally resembles Margaret Thatcher's younger, less stable son. However, I shall hold to my promise to leave him alone for a while. I do so for 3 main reasons;

1: It's impossible to judge a man as a leader when he makes his debut in such interesting times.
2: He may end up driving moderate Tory's out of the Party and into the waiting LibDems and I'm worried that if I start to blather about that at length that I might jinx it.
3: I can't be bothered to talk about such an irrelevance as the Tories when there are things that are far more pertinent going on in the world.

It's not as if I'd just be limited to the political scene. After all, it's not every day that one of our Royals makes a balls up the like of which occurred last week. Okay, that's patently not true, but usually they at least have the benefit of being able to close ranks. After having seen the blatant dishonesty employed by the Production Company owned by the more pointless of his two brothers, Prince Charles is somewhat miffed. And who can blame him when the only media group to break the gentleman’s agreement not to film Prince William at University is the only one owned by a gentleman? It would seem that the upper classes could still teach the "gutter press" a thing or two about corruption and venality.

The secrecy surrounding William's University life also gives me further grounds to suspect that he will be a King whom I can admire. After all, it's only 2 years ago since the young Prince went on a week long cruise accompanied only by a dozen plump chested young lovelies. If his University career continues along the same vein as that, indeed if he just behaves like any normal 18-19 year old who finds himself away from home for the first substantial period of time in his life, then we may have a figurehead who is actually a little more representative of the British People. He already has a couple of bonus'; his Grand-dad is Greek so he'll have no trouble adjusting to the University Male diet of Kebabs. His Auntie Margaret could no doubt teach him a thing or two about binge drinking. And he only need look at his Mum's fate to develop the total mistrust of Moslems that this country will no doubt see over the coming months....

Also, if one were to, for example, wish to talk about Northern Ireland and the imminent end of the Northern Irish Assembly followed closely by the end of the cease-fire, one would have no shortage of reports coming from the province to draw upon. A group known as the Red Hand Defenders over the weekend murdered a journalist. Leaving aside the fact that their name immediately brings to mind the US children’s TV programme "The Red Hand Gang" ( a programme that sticks in my mind for 2 reasons; the theme tune which sort of went La la la la la, La La-la, Lalalalalalalala-La and so on and so forth, and the unfortunately named James Bond III whom if memory serves played the gangly black boy in the show.) this is a very serious and bad thing. The RHD is a cover name for the main Protestant groups the UDA et al. Aside from showcasing their obvious love of acronyms, the incident shows that the loyalists are not willing to stick to the cease-fire when it doesn't suit them. Which tends to suggest that the republicans won't. When coupled with the fact that Sinn Fein are on the cusp of being booted out of the NI assembly (whether it gets suspended or not) one can see that perhaps this New War on Terrorism will not just be confined to distant, mountainous area of land full of bugger all.

I don't have to just look at domestic affairs either. Former US President Clinton has found himself disbarred from the Supreme Court as part of the plea bargain that was struck during the Lewinsky scandal. This allows me to rejoice in the news that I now have something in common with Bill Clinton (apart of course from having gotten a blow job off somebody that he really shouldn't have), and that is information that I intend to use just as soon as I head down to Oxford to "accidentally" bump into his daughter (who I am thankful to say has changed an awful lot since her Dad first took office. She's still not as nice as Dubya's delightful daughters are though...).

Yet such is the level of activity in the news that I would not even need to confine myself to the ruling classes unless I desired to do so. Yesterday saw the father and stepmother of 6 year old Lauren Wright convicted of her manslaughter after having treated her to 18 months of sustained abuse. What is even more horrendous about the case is that it has provided the media with a bona fide Wicked Stepmother. Lauren's father was culpable for her death in that he turned a blind eye to what was going on (and so I now understand just what is meant by "blinded by love"). And what was going on? Oh, the usual sort of things; beating, starvation, neglect, torture. And you know what the worst thing about it is? It really is "the usual sort of thing". I mean for God's sake! I have a healthy attitude to small children in that I hate them and don't want to spend any time in their company. But to systematically beat and torture a child to death...I know I am of a liberal nature and have repeatedly stated that I believe in the benefits of rehabilitation for offenders, but when one hears of cases like this one can see exactly why the hang-em-and-flog-em brigade have such a strong following.

But no, such is the climate of the world that it is not really possible for me to talk about such things, not really. After all, by the time I come to write my next faltering words the world will almost certainly have changed again. We will have changed from a world outraged at the acts of 11th September to a world waging war on those responsible. If I were sure that this would lead to the world becoming lighter by a few thousand fanatical morons then I would rejoice. If it could be further guaranteed that no more innocent people would die because of this, I would rejoice. Funnily enough I'm not rejoicing. Such is war I suppose. Can we get it over with please?