Glob-a-log

Business as usual in the insane world of drugs, and drugs related crimes:

VILLA AHUMADA, Mexico — A massacre here two weeks ago has turned this once sleepy town into a ghostly emblem of the drug violence that has swept Mexico over the last year and a half, gutting local police forces, terrifying citizens and making it almost impossible for the authorities to assert themselves.

On the night of May 17, dozens of men with assault rifles rolled into town in several trucks and shot up the place. They killed the police chief, two officers and three civilians. Then they carried off about 10 people, witnesses said. Only one has been found, dead and wrapped in a carpet in Ciudad Juárez.

Indeed, nothing unusual about this: Just another bit of mayhem - most of which would never happen if all recreational drugs were legal. I’ve been talking about this subject matter, on and off, for years now and, as far as I can tell, nothing much has changed in the way most countries and lawmakers deal with the subject. It’s still conceived as a vote loser to be less than ‘tough’ on these issues.

I wonder if that is still true. It might have been the case for most of of the post world war two decades that the majority of people considered drugs and drugs users as evil - and even more to the point, as alien from them and the lives these regular voters were living. Nowadays, I’m not sure the majority of people in the Western world still feel that way. Drugs and drugs use have become more common. There’s nothing much exotic or alien about these things.

I think it’s mainly the politicians and some special interests groups who are this obsessed with seeing drugs as something you should wage war on. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people these days would say they wished their governments would just try to deal sensibly with these issues instead of talking in these impracticable and unworkable ‘crusade’ terms - if people were asked to give an opinion on these matters, which they are not, of course. When it comes to certain issues our governments are anything but democratic but automatically adopt a ‘Daddy knows best’ stance.

Which truly is a crying shame. So many people all around the world are enslaved, raped, tortured and killed, so that others, mostly Western folks, can snort a little coke over the weekend, or whenever they feel they need a little buzz, to relieve the endless boredom of being rich and well-fed, well-housed and overly secure.

Yes, full disclosure here: I don’t like drugs and I find especially recreational cocaine users despicable. They don’t give a damn about the misery their habit causes to millions of people all over the world. They just want to get high - never mind how many Mexican villages get wiped out in the process of bringing the coke to their suburban dealer. Despicable is probably too kind a word to describe these loathsome, self-indulgent fucks - but this is not about them.

This is about reality. Drugs are real and will be with us as long as there are people who can pay for them - forever, in other words. So, the only thing I would ask our politicians is to deal with facts instead of chimeras. What’s more, I think most people would prefer them to do this - but, as I’ve also often said, I don’t think that will happen in a hurry. The Don Quixotes of this world are too fond of their windmills, and too obsessed with image to ever want to face harsh realities.

Now, this I really don’t understand

Ian Huntley, a former school caretaker who killed two 10-year-old girls in Soham, Cambridgeshire, and was jailed for life in December 2003. is receiving special treatment to stop him attempting suicide. Huntley, 33, has tried to kill himself three times and the prison authorities are reportedly keen to avoid another attempt.

Officers guarding Huntley at maximum-security Frankland Prison in County Durham have been told to play games including Scrabble and chess with him. He is allowed to wear sports clothes – not prison uniform – and has a cell with a television, CD player, and a Nintendo Game Cube console inside.

No, this is not going to be a law & order rant, with a ‘Hanging is too good for him’ theme - and yet, I can’t help thinking that the Frankland Prison staff is going a bit overboard here. Yes, I think that even a useless piece of shit like Ian Huntley deserves to get the kind of care and treatment offered to all other prisoners.

When the state claims the right for itself to incarcerate its citizens, it should follow certain procedures and should be held responsible when it fails to do so. However, there lies the crux. ‘Due care’ should mean just that. Prison staff should not be allowed to get away with given less than that but should also be discouraged to offer more than that.

I don’t think that it’s the prison’s, the state’s or, in fact, anyone’s business to keep people alive at all cost. One could make an exception for hospitals treating people who have not or cannot express their own wishes on this matter: doctors are pledged to save lives after all, and on the whole that’s a good thing but prisons, to put it crudely, are not life-saving devices.

I won’t even go into the sheer cost of keeping a 33-year-old life-without-parole prisoner like Huntley alive, and bending over backwards to provide him with every kind of luxury too, to prevent him from killing himself. On a personal level, the costs involved would disgust me but that aspect, I think, should not be part of a formal consideration.

However, if Huntley, after being treated with due care and as fairly as other prisoners, still finds his surroundings depressing enough to kill himself, I’d say, fair enough and let him do just that. Most people would agree it would be inhuman to force feed people who desperately want to die by sticking tubes in their throats. I would argue it would be equally absurd to go all overboard with the luxury treatment to keep someone from killing himself.

Finally, and this is a matter of principle, Huntley broke the law - and did so in a grotesque and horrible way, killing two 10-year-old girls and lapping up the attention from the media, during the hunt for these girls, offering advice and help. Still, never mind the exact nature of the crime, he did commit it, was found guilty of it in court and then sent to prison.

Prison life is not meant to be a mere continuation of life as we are used to, be it now in a closed environment. Of course, as I said earlier, prisoners should be treated humanely but prison life is not like outside life - and it is not the job of the prison staff to cushion prisoners from the reality of prison life, as they now try to do in the case of Huntley. Because that is exactly what is happening here: they are doing all they can to try and create a life for him inside that resembles life on the outside, in order to keep him happy enough so that he won’t kill himself.

In effect, the prison staff is not only cushioning him from the reality of prison life but also from the consequence of his own actions: the murder of these two girls. In a surreal but no less immoral way they are, in fact, letting him get away with murder.

There’s been a whole lot of noise lately about Bond, James Bond. A new movie coming out, a new Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks and numerous articles about the writer of the original novels, Ian Fleming.

Which must be very gratifying to all of those who are particular about their Martinis, but it left me rather cold, to be honest. I read the books when I was about thirteen years’ old and enjoyed them hugely at that time. The movies never did it for me but then I’ve never been much into movies. I will choose paper over celluloid every time.

Anyway, while all the hoopla over Bond left me slightly bemused and, after a while, mildly irritated, the following bit of news left brought a big smile to my face. So, move over Bond, James bloody Bond and make place for your betters:

Paddington Bear celebrates his 50th anniversary today. To mark the occasion, the author of his books, Michael Bond, 83, has written Paddington Here and Now, which will be published in June. This will be the first book about the marmalade-loving bear to be published since Paddington Takes the Test came out in 1979. His original book, A Bear Called Paddington, came out in 1958.

Mr Bond, who lives near Paddington, in central London, said: “Although the world has changed considerably over the past 30 years, he remains exactly the same - eternally optimistic and ever open to what life has to offer.

Admittedly, I read the Paddington books when I was even younger than when I read the usurper Bond books but I remember them with greater fondness and much more detail. Furthermore, I took one from the shelf earlier and when I’d read a bit I was feeling that big smile moving over my face again, like a randy old spy’s hands moving all over the body of this year’s starlet of choice - and no, I couldn’t do the same experiment with one of That Other Bond’s books, since I can’t even remember when I did away with those. Probably before I turned eighteen…

Anyway, happy birthday, Paddington - and yes, mister Bond, Michael Bond is absolutely right about Paddington’s character. Wish there were more people like him around.

Ah, to live in a world where an old spy walks in to a bar (wearing a mackintosh raincoat) and politely asks for a bit of marmalade - shaken, not stirred, of course. Now, wouldn’t that be something?

Another day, another story about Islam - or a proposed and rejected Islamic school, somewhere in Australia:

A senior member of Australia’s Muslim community has warned that religious education could be forced underground where children are more likely to be targeted by extremists, following the rejection of a proposal to build an Islamic school on the outskirts of Sydney. Islamic schools should be encouraged because teaching would be supervised by state boards of education, he added.

Patel was commenting on a decision by a local council earlier this week to reject a planning application for an Islamic school. Camden Council unanimously rejected the application for the 1,200-pupil school citing planning and environmental reasons, but the decision was widely hailed as a victory for the hundreds of residents who had vehemently opposed the scheme. Tensions within Camden, a semi-rural area, have been building since the school’s backer, the Qur’anic Society, revealed its plans. Two pigs’ heads impaled on stakes were left at the proposed site of the school and riot police had to be called in to break up one meeting of anti-school supporters.

Local people who said they didn’t want an influx of Muslims in their mainly Christian country town outnumbered those who had no objections to the school. Resident Kate McCulloch, draped in an Australian flag, was a cheerleader for the anti-school movement and said Muslims were not welcome. “We don’t want them here. We don’t want them in Australia. They’re an oppressive society,” she said. The inflammatory atmosphere was stoked by members of Australia First, a far-right party, which bussed demonstrators into the area.

It’s not often that I will sympathise more with a Muslim ‘community leader’ than with his opponents - and if I do so now it’s not that I am in favour of Islamic schools per se. In fact, I am against all faith schools, be they Christian, Muslim or what have you. I think schools should teach children about religion - preferably about all the major ones - but not with any particular religious bias. At least in the West, parents are free to take their children to the church of their choice, where the kids can be instructed by whatever member of the clergy is responsible for those things. I see no need for schools to be part of that instruction process.

Having said that, if it is lawful for one religion to have these types of faith schools, it should be lawful for all the other religions as well. You certainly don’t want a situation where one religion becomes, de facto, a state religion. In Europe that led to some very bloody wars in the past - and in the present we see the joys of such a state-church partnership in countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia etcetera.

Furthermore, mister Patel, who spoke in defence of this Islamic school, has a point: It’s better to have these religious lessons in an open session than in some back street and illegal mosque schools. God knows there are enough highly dubious goings-on in official mosques as well but if you do allow these teachings in a normal school setting, chances are you can avoid the more horrible variants of this so famously peaceful religion.

To flag-draped Kate McCulloch and the members of the Australia First party, just this: Thanks for showing the world that it’s not just Muslim fanatics who can behave in a truly repugnant fashion - and I think you will find that most of the Aboriginals will agree that the first, Christian invasion proved to be much more harmful to the original Australians than this Muslim invasion will prove to be to the Christian claimants to that title.

Ah yes, the silly season does seem to start earlier and earlier each year:

I’m sitting in a Chelsea café having coffee with the first horseman of the apocalypse. He’s very pleasant for a harbinger of doom and is not, as the Bible predicts, holding a bow and arrow but a Granny Smith’s apple. The horseman, or as he is known to friends, Gordon Ritchie, 50, latter day prophet and head of the Jehovah’s Witness splinter group The Lords’ Witnesses, is quite sure that the Bible refers to him in Revelation 6 when it predicts that the end of the world will be ushered in by four horsemen representing Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Naturally, such a claim is bound to call forth the Paxman in any journalist and I decide to put it to the test. “Do you ride?” I ask.

“Well, I’ve been pony trekking,” he replies.

Right, as far as these Apocalypse Now types go, this one seems decent - and much more importantly: harmless enough. You can’t really see our Gordon Ritchie suddenly transforming into a Jim Jones type of nut, spiking the Cool-Aid and so an on.

It is strange though that so many people and sects throughout the whole of human history, have heard and then headed this calling of the last trumpet. Of course, humanity has never been known for its humility - or for knowing its place in the greater order of things - so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that quite a few of us have claimed to be on such intimate terms with the great Calculator in Heaven.

I think it was R.A. Lafferty who wrote this great short story about destiny - and humanity’s role in it. One day seven people are called to appear at some meeting; the seven best and brightest of the human race, of course. While they travel to this meeting, they meet all kinds of animals who are also travelling in the same direction. To cut a marvellously funny story short: At the meeting the humans are told that this time round it had been their chance to get things right: to fulfil Creation’s destiny - and they have failed. Like the dinosaur, the elephant, the lions, the dogs, the monkeys etcetera had done before them; and since they failed they would now share the fate of all their predecessors. They will be struck dumb and lose whatever special brain power they were given at the start of their test trial ride - and yet another animal will get elected and be given the chance to get things right this time. So, after much protests by the seven humans and loud and mournful howling of all the others who preceded homo sapiens, the whole of humanity now joins those other animals in dumb animal grief.

On the whole, I think that this is a slightly more likely story than that our pony trekking friend Gordon Ritchie would be, in fact, the First Horseman of the Apocalypse - and one that could, and maybe should teach all of us some humility.

Not that it ever will, of course: humanity is much too fond of the idea that it is the centre of the whole universe. This whole Apocalypse business is just one small manifestation of our usual but not much lesser arrogance. We, who were shaped by some God’s (or Darwin’s) hand from a bit of primeval mud, love to build these thrones and see ourselves as the true Lords of all creation. All hubris, of course but then, most folks would rather see themselves as Horsemen of the Apocalypse than as a bit player in one of Lafferty’s short stories.

“I have a sense of urgency when I work, a drive that’s inside me. Because I don’t know how much time I have,”

That’s William Noguera speaking, who’s been on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison since 1988, after being convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s mother in 1983, when he was 18. During that time he’s become an artist and his drawings are now making between $5,000 and $12,000.

His lawyers are still appealing his conviction. They are not saying he didn’t kill his girlfriend’s mother but Noguera denies he did it for the reason stated by the prosecution, which was that he did it for money. He claims that the woman forced her daughter to have an abortion and that, when he heard about it, he ‘lost it’ and killed her in rage - him being a devout Catholic and all.

It would be vaguely ironic if he was telling the truth: to have someone who is so pro-life that he killed the person he held responsible for having an abortion performed on her daughter - and then for the state to order the death of this anti-abortionist… It is a bit of an unholy mess, to put it mildly.

If his version of the story is true, of course. For all I know he did kill the woman for her money, as the prosecution claimed. It’s one of Hollywood’s favourite themes: the innocent man who’s on Death Row - and I’m quite sure that there are a number of people in that position who wouldn’t be there if all people truly were equal under the law. Nevertheless, it’s probably safe to say that most people who are in prison did, in fact, commit the crimes they were convicted for. (That some things shouldn’t be punishable by law to this extent is another matter, of course.) So, while it’s always tempting to take the side of one man who is set against the system, that may not always be correct.

Anyway, there is something very wrong with a system that makes it possible that a man has to wait a quarter of a century (and counting) after being sentenced to death, before the actual execution takes place. Certainly, the death penalty is such a grave and, of course, irrevocable punishment, that one needs to give the defendant time enough to appeal against it but 25 years is more than pushing it.

Only recently, there was all that hoopla about those lethal injections which might not be as painless as was previously thought. Obviously, it is a good thing that these things are investigated when doubts of this kind are raised: it is one thing for the state to claim the right to kill its citizens, it’s quite another to do so in a shoddy and/or brutal way. The law itself states that a sentence may never be ‘cruel and unusual’.

Which is nice: there is no need to make this whole ugly process any more painful but I would argue that to keep someone waiting on Death Row for a quarter of a century and longer is way more ‘cruel and unusual’ than the alleged few minutes of pain when that damned needle finally will be applied.

(Both pictures from the William Noguera gallery)

The bishop of Rochester is a busy man. Only yesterday he called on the Church of England to do more to try and convert Muslims and other non-Christians, and today he’s at it again. He’s becoming like one of those loud and more than slightly annoying ads for some facial cream or the other. The product may be of no use whatsoever but that won’t stop the advertising people from praising its sheer magical effects at every bloody opportunity:

The decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness and has created a “moral vacuum” which radical Islam is filling, one of the Church of England’s leading bishops has warned. Dr Nazir-Ali faced death threats earlier this year after he said some parts of Britain had become “no-go areas” for non-Muslims. The Bishop of Rochester, claimed the “social and sexual” revolution of the 1960s had led to a steep decline in the influence of Christianity over society which church leaders had failed to resist. He said that in its place, Britain had become gripped by the doctrine of “endless self-indulgence” which had led to the destruction of family life, rising levels of drug abuse and drunkenness and mindless violence on the streets.

While I would agree with the bishop that our Western societies are indeed in the grip of the ‘doctrine of endless self-indulgence’, I feel that his cure would be a bit like that old saw, ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul.’ To claim that one militant belief form is gaining strength because another (formerly militant) one is on the wane, is not of much use to us now - even if it were true, which I seriously doubt.

Furthermore, blaming (almost) all our woes on that famed but seriously overstated ’social and sexual’ revolution in the sixties is almost as lame as claiming Paris Hilton wears no underwear because her parents didn’t force her to go to church more when she was a child. With a bit of effort and some fits-all-sizes statistics one could easily argue that the TV series Dallas has influenced our societies more than those evil hippies and feminists ever did.

Anyway, whatever the causes are behind society’s ills, I am afraid that the good bishop is in the wrong church - or was simply born a few centuries too late. The Church of England will never become (or return to) the kind of church he is dreaming of - and most of those who serve it wouldn’t wish their cosy workplace to be transformed into the kind of power house of the Lord that the bishop would enjoy. In other words, your average curate is quite happy with his humble egg and wouldn’t want to exchange it for a holy hand grenade.

Well, well, some really good news for once:

The government is preparing to scrap Britain’s entire arsenal of cluster bombs in the face of a growing clamour against weapons that have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent civilians. Officials are paving the way for the unexpected and radical step at talks in Dublin on an international treaty aimed at a worldwide ban on the bombs.

Well-placed sources made clear yesterday that despite opposition from the military, the government is prepared to get rid of the cluster munitions in Britain’s armoury: the lsraeli-designed M85 artillery weapon used during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and in attacks on Lebanon two years ago; and the M73, part of a weapons system for Apache helicopters.

Cluster weapons are highly controversial because they scatter small “bomblets” over a wide area. Many of them do not explode on impact and are activated later by civilians. They caused more than 200 civilian casualties in the year after the Lebanon ceasefire, and more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon system.

Of course, this is a story about humans, and the military, so no silver lining ever comes without some serious motherfucker of a storm cloud:

Human rights groups campaigning for a ban on all cluster bombs said yesterday the planned treaty was being threatened by the refusal of the US to remove stocks from its airforce bases on UK territory. Article 1 of the planned treaty, due to be signed in Oslo in early December, prohibits assistance with the use, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions. The US, Israel, Russia, China, India and Pakistan are not taking part in the talks.

So, as predicted, the US don’t want to play - even up to the point of ignoring the wishes of its so-called closest ally. I wonder what would happen if the situation was reversed and England was stocking some stuff that was illegal in the US on British bases over there? Okay, not much to ‘wonder’ really: that would simply never ever happen. In other words, you can only be the ‘bestest friend’ of the US if you do the famous ‘How high?’ routine whenever this big bully of a drill sergeant says ‘Jump!’.

Enough of the US bashing though. Let’s not forget that a few other countries who love to fight very dirty indeed, also didn’t bother to show up at these talks. Russia, which likes to fight its disgusting little wars in privacy, uncensored by the rest of the world; China, with its history of bloody oppression of its own people, and the people of Tibet; Israel, which used these weapons with such enthusiasm when it, once again, invaded Lebanon; India & Pakistan, both countries regularly at war with each other and always ready for some very dirty infighting as well.

As lovely a six pack of bloodthirsty barbarians as you will ever hope not to meet on any battlefield.

Still, it is good news that Great Britain will finally join the civilised world in at least this regard. You can’t change the world overnight (or human nature at all) so we truly have to find every bit of solace wherever we find it - and any reduction in the use of this vile weapon is very good news indeed.

Gods, the woman truly is an imbecile. It was bad enough when she was threatening to kiss everybody in the Middle East in order to get a peace deal but this is even worse:

Sharon Stone is facing a ban on the showing of her films in China after suggesting the recent earthquake that killed up to 67,000 people may have been the result of “bad karma” over the country’s occupation of Tibet. Stone, 50, who was speaking to reporters at the Cannes film festival, criticised the Chinese government’s actions in Tibet and directly linked them to the disaster:

“I’ve been concerned about how should we deal with the Olympics, because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma - when you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?”

Where to begin…?

It is almost never a good idea to let our celebrities speak about anything else than their work. Most of them, especially the film stars and singers, have such a weirdly inflated ego that they see the world & its problems as a minor appendix to their own superior selves - and since their vanity obviously outshines their intellect, very unpalatable things always happen whenever they care to share their views with the common folks.

In Sharon Stone’s case it may even be that her ego has morphed into some Alien-type parasite that, in its monstrous hunger, has devoured what was left of both her soul and her brain.

Anyway, to answer her question: No, Sharon, I think it highly unlikely that whatever forces drive this karma of yours would kill around 67,000 people in Eastern Sichuan, some 1545 km (or 960 miles) from the seat of the Beijing government. Fate, like its cousin Justice, may be blind but it isn’t as geographically challenged as the Bush government, which invades Iraq when it should have been concentrating on the mountain border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Anyway, my dearest Sharon, we all know that you are rather dim but the whole concept of karma should not be linked to an Old Testament type of God Who slays and smites both His own Chosen people and its various enemies whenever He feels He’s not being shown enough respect.

Now please, madame Stone, can you just get lost again and retreat to whichever useless Nirvana fame-junkies go when even the cameras have fallen out of love with them? It would be nice if we wouldn’t hear anything from you again for this, and let’s say, the next five or six decades.

Columnists are weird. Most of the time, they only seem to be happy when they can find fault with something. They love to be angry & disgusted with stuff and at times it looks as if they only live for the moment that they can honestly say that they are truly saddened by this, that or the other.

The really strange thing is that while some columnists are paid rather handsomely to be the paper or online version of the office or party bore, most are quite willing to do it for free. Hence the millions of blogs that now blossom on the WWW - like flies, after a particularly bloody battle on the largest and messiest battlefield imaginable.

Anyway, not everybody has it in him or herself to become a full-blown columnist. Some people just have one or two pet peeves and they will do their swarming only when provoked by these collector’s item issues. They are the specialists of this particular insect world - dung beetles, you could say.

These are the people who write letters to newspapers - or call in or write to the BBC to complain about the programmes:

Kirsty Wark, the BBC’s Newsnight presenter, has prompted complaints to the corporation saying that she showed too much of her legs on screen. Wark, 53, who is married with two children, wore a black dress with a hem that was several inches above her knee, while she was seated. One viewer wrote to the show to complain: “The dress which Kirsty Wark is wearing is far too short for a lady of her age.

It’s sad, isn’t it? Not just the incredible stupidity of the ‘lady of her age’ remark. I know that most of these letter writers would love to turn back the clock to the early fifties, preferably the early fifties of the nineteenth century, when ‘ladies’ of whatever age weren’t even allowed to show a bit of ankle but really - and to use their kind of tired language - in this day and age, when even serious newspapers and news programmes comment upon and at times show the lack of clothes and underwear our celebs aren’t wearing… Well, let’s just be happy the Newsnight presenters don’t flash their lack of knickers at the unsuspecting viewer.

More to the point really, just think about the things on offer on your average news programme, from floods to quakes, from war to famine, from Bush to Putin to Ahmadinejad: each night, in other words, this deluge of bad news and even worse news stories - and in the midst of this, or in between a story about an Austrian cellar and another suicide bombing in Iraq, there are these people who find time to be shocked, angered and/or saddened by a news presenter who shows a bit of leg.

There really are some very sad people on this planet.