Pink Elephants
There is an old joke about four men sitting in a compartment of a train. You can tell how old it is, as when did we last have compartments in a train? Three are just sitting there watching in astonishment as every time the forth man finishes a page of the Daily Telegraph, he shreds it to pieces , opens the window and throws the paper out with a determined throw.
Intrigued one of the others, asks what he is doing?
‘It’s to keep the pink elephants away!’ the paper-shredder replies.
‘But there aren’t any pink elephants!’ was the reply he got from the other three.
‘Effective! Isn’t it?’
It would appear that Dubya’s defence of waterboarding is very much on the same lines. He justifies it because there were no attacks after they tortured Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda mastermind behind the 9/11 attack.
Am I alone in believing that there would have been no 9/11 or at least a much more restricted atrocity, if the United States had employed some basic security at airports in line with what we had in place in the UK and Europe at the time? After all they had had a car bomb atack on the World Trade Centre in 1994 and the bombing in Oklahoma in 1995. So America can’t say it wasn’t warned!
I think Dubya is getting his strike in early with his book, which will go to the bottom of the worst seller lists.
Remember, the Mad Hatters are all for fiscal prudence and which President was not very prudent? Some will say stand up Dubya and be counted!
My Last Visit to Waterloo
Waterloo Station is not a place that I’ve visited much. Admittedly in the first few years after I started as a freelance programmer, I did use it quite a bit for short journeys to places like Epsom, Cobham and Guildford, but once we moved to Suffolk, I rarely needed to use the station. C and I did go to Paris on Eurostar, but even then we parked in the car park undearneath and sneaked in.
My last visit was in 2001, when I took a thousand Al Stewart CD’s from Bury St. Edmunds to his manager, who’d taken the train up from somewhere like Basingstoke. I was to collect a Banker’s Draft in return after our meeting at around twelve.
I had visited a client in Borough High Street and afterwards I was to see another in London’s Chinatown, just north of Leicester Square. I had actually driven, as there was no Congestion Charge and parking was no problem in any of the areas I was to visit, if you stayed less than an hour on a meter.
I was a little early for my meeting at Waterloo, so I parked the car on an empty meter and decided to fill the time by making a few phone calls. For some reason, the radio in the car had been switched off and as the phone was not hands-free, I couldn’t put it on anyway and use the phone. I needed to phone C about something, but try as I might, I couldn’t remember her mobile number. Even now, after the stroke, I can still remember, every phone number, I’ve ever used regularly. I tried other numbers and even they were blank. I just thought I was having some sort of brain problem, but as all my other functions were correct, I felt it was just a function of getting old.
On time, I arrived at the station and swapped the CD’s dor the draft. Al’s manager had to get back, so quickly and surprisingly for me in a silent car, I set off across the river for my next meeting. I parked in the underground car park in Chinatown and walked to the office to have my meeting.
Only then, when I entered the office and saw everyone clustered in earnest fashion around the television sets did I realise that the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York had happened.
You can argue what you like about this, but once I knew of the ghastly attacks, all of the numbers returned to by mind. Rupert Sheldrake and others have argued that a knowledge field exists. Perhaps, it does!
Saturday, when I ook the train to Portsmouth and like that fateful day in 2001, it was September 11th. Nothing happened in the station, but I did read Robert Fisk’s excellent article in The Independent about our woeful, vile and vengeful reaction to the attack. When someone or something hurts you, you have to fight back in a constructive manner, so that it doesn’t happen again. Loose your rag and be vindictive and you loose your one weapon, your sense of thought, reason and intelligence. As an example,my biggest protection against another stroke, is to change things, so that I reduce the risks and also to question everything I do, to make sure it is right.
Blair and Bush failed to do that! This was profoundly stupid, as they had the sympathy of the whole world after the attacks. But what did they do, they attacked Saddam Husein, who a few years before had been their friend.
And what did a crazy American pastor want to do on Saturday? Burn the Koran! As I’ve said many times, you don’t burn books, you read them! And when you’ve read them as many times as you can, you pass them on to someone who might enjoy them or learn something! Failing that, you may recycle them to make more things to read!
Does Government Policy on Terrorism Fuel Mistrust?
The BBC is reporting this morning that DEMOS, a respected and influencial think-tank has said that goverment policy on terrorism is actually fuelling mistrust of the authorites. The BBC says this.
Secrecy surrounding counter-terrorism operations is fuelling mistrust of authorities, a study by independent think tank Demos suggests.
It urges the government and secret services to be more open to stop extremist groups using conspiracy theories to discredit them.
A Demos spokesman said: “Less-secret services could make Britain safer.”
The study calls for greater communication with trusted community leaders and individuals.
The report – entitled the Power of Unreason – says groups use conspiracy theories to recruit and radicalise people to commit acts of violence.
An example of one such theory is that the bombings in New York and London, on 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005 respectively, were “inside jobs” carried out by authorities in the US and UK.Other theories highlighted were that “freemasons control the world economy through manipulation of paper currency”, that the UK government is “consciously seeking to destroy Islam” and that a “conspiracy between the Japanese government, the US, and the Jews existed to gain world domination”.
The study claims such theories are frequently adopted by extremist groups to demonise outsiders, discredit moderates and push them in a more extreme and sometimes violent direction.
As an example, over the last few years we’ve all heard many conspiracy theories about 9/11 from people who believed it was a plot by the US and ISrael against Islam.
But then use of these types of theories are nothing new. You only have to read histories of the Nazis to realise the untruths they pedalled against Jews, homsectuals and anybody else they thought inferior.
We should be more open as DEMOS says and fight these theories with the only weapon we have! The truth!
One of the links on the BBC report is to this page on their web site about a conspiuracy theory about the London bombings. What a load of old twaddle, this guy is saying. The trouble is it’s dangerous old twaddle and the BBC was absolutely right in exposing the twat behind it.
Jim Swire’s Web Site
I’ve just found this site, which has been setup by Dr. Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph.
The material on the site forms the basis of the one man show Lockerbie:Unfinished Business, which I saw at The Gilded Balloon.
An important witness in the trial of Megrahi was Thomas Hayes. Read his Wikipedia entry. I know this can be suspect, but his involvement in other cases; Maguire Seven and Judith Ward, is a matter of public record.
My question about Hayes is why did he not give truthful evidence to the Court? Scientists are brought up to know that in research evrything must be true and able to be shown to be true. Somehow some seem to develop a theory and then prove it to be true. I prefer the different approach of we have a problem and let’s solve it.
The Gilded Balloon
The Gilded Balloon is one of the main venues of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The GIlded Balloon, Edinburgh
I’m not sure, but I think it used to be the Student’s Union at Edinburgh University. It certainly has that feel and is a friendly place. I bought a coffee in the bar and the waitress offered to take it upstairs for me, as the stairs weren’t that easy. Only a small thing, but things like this can make your day when you have problems. I should say that since my return from the North, my arm is a lot better!
I saw two other shows at the Gilded Balloon in addition to Jarlath Regan; Stripped and Lockerbie:Unfinished Business.
As I have said in other posts Jarlath was funny and it cheered me to see someone, who I’d last seen at nine, perform.
Stripped was very much worth seeing and was a one-woman show describing the life of a stripper. It was sad, funny and touching!
Lockerbie was one of the most moving shows I’ve ever seen and it was about Dr. Jim Swire’s search for the truth about the death of his daughter in the Lockerbie Air Disaster. My heart goes out to people like Jim who’ve lost children to violence. I know that I’ve lost my wife and son to cancer, but in some way it’s not so bad for me, as both of them died bravely with the highest personal dignity.
I have always believed that the Pan Am Bombing was revenge for the shooting down by the USS Vincennes of the Iranian Airbus. But that is not to absolve Libya for any of the acts that they committed like the shooting of Yvonne Fletcher. In that case, we should never have lifted the siege on the embassy, without a full investigation into who fired the shot. It could also be argued that because we let diplomats and other foreign nationals act outside of the law, that others follow suit.
Whatever we do with rogue states like Iran and North Korea, we must never go outside of the law and behave such as to give them justification for what they did.
If you do get a chance go to see Lockerbie:Unfinished Business.
Killing the Hand That Supports and Feeds You
Yesterday was a grim day, with four British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, three by their supposed Afghan colleagues. And then we had more rioting in Northern Ireland last night, with shots fired at police.
In these times of severe austerity, we should make sure that the monetary and people costs we spend on these trouble spots are well-spent. If we are not wanted in these places, then the troops, police and monetary support should be withdrawn. At least in Northern Ireland, the politicians seem to be condemning the violence. This is from the BBC’s report.
First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy, Martin McGuinness, said there had been “outright thuggery and vandalism”.
Mr Robinson added: “There is no excuse and no place for violence in civilised society. Both the deputy first minister and I have been, and will continue, to work for a resolution of the difficulties around parading.”
BBC Ireland correspondent Mark Simpson said the violence had brought politicians together, “but the problem was the rioters don’t seem to be listening”.
He said so far police had been unable to stop the violence, but “they had been successful in containing it”.
The problem would seem to be the Orange parades, which give some the excuse for a bit of violence. I can remember these parades in Liverpool, when I was a student. We just used to go out and laugh at them, as to someone brought up in an area, where religious tensions were almost non-existent, they were an alien concept. Incidentally parades still go on in Liverpool, as this report from the BBC shows. But they are very different to those in Northern Ireland. I haven’t heard of any reports of violence for a start.
Five Years On
It is now five years since the London Bombings of the seventh of July in 2005.
On that day, when it became obvious what had happened, I wrote the following :-
Tuesday, I went to the funeral of a friend. Alex died young at 48. Life is cruel. But even the funeral was not a sad affair! Alex wouldn’t have wanted it so and stated it probably many times before she died!
Wednesday, I was in Trafalgar Square, when my fair and beloved city, London, was announced as the winner of the 2012 Olympic Games. Life can be so sweet.
But then we have the bombings of today!
Thousands of times, I’ve travelled through the tunnels under London. Many times, I’ve done the stretch between Kings Cross and Russell Square, where most of the casualties occurred. Occasionally, I’ve used the two parts of the Circle Line, where the other two bombs went off.
Am I bitter? Angry? Sad? Vindictive?
Not sure!
Sad yes! As why would anybody want to do such a thing! How would I feel if one of my sons did that? I would know I had failed. How would I feel if one of my sons had got caught in the blasts. I don’t know! But thankfully they didn’t.
So it has to be sadness at the moment. Vindictiveness only follows the old eye for an eye maxim, which means that we all go blind!
But perhaps, the greatest thing we can do is just carry on, remembering those that died and vowing to be more vigilant so that it won’t happen again.
Fay would have done that. She worked for my father and during the Second World War, the shy girl from North London, worked as a conductor on the buses. One day, the bus she should have been on, was hit directly by a German bomb. Everybody died! She just remembered the tragedy, I suspect she cried long and hard, and then she carried on.
A few crackpots, who take the good name of Islam in vain, should never be able to bring London to its knees, when the evil Hitler and the Luftwaffe failed.
A last point for Bush and all those who think that the death penalty is a deterrent in these sort of cases. I’ll ignore the fact that the London atrocities may well have been suicide bombers, which are usually pretty difficult to execute. But as I am someone who has no belief in any religious being at all, I do believe that we should do all we can to preserve reasonable life here, as there is nothing more to come. So if we ever execute anybody, then we are losing our own humanity and descending below their level.
Carry on London.
Since then London has picked itself up, dusted itself down and started all over again. But it always does and looks forward rather than backward.
I might be in a worse state having lost my wife and son to serious cancer and suffered a couple of strokes.
But I must carry on.
A Courageous Woman
Gill Hicks lost both her legs in the London Tube Bombings of the 7th July 2005. She has not embraced as many would hate but founded M.A.D. for Peace.
She is an example to us all!
We’re Under Control
Last night’s television was frightening.
It wasn’t any old horror story, but two programmes which shared a common theme.
The first was Panorama about the Government’s, Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) which aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults. A laudable idea, but it is being done in such a heavy handed way, that it will end up with large numbers of people being branded unsuitable, despite there being no real evidence.
Here’s what Sir Ian McKellen had to say about the effect on the theatre.
A new vetting scheme is dissuading amateur theatre companies from casting child actors, Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen has said.
The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults.
But some theatres say they do not have resources to carry out the paperwork it entails, and Sir Ian fears child actors will lose important stage experience.
He may be overreacting, but then I always worry about schemes like this, as I have a very common name. As an example I’m in a database in Hong Kong and every time I visit, I’m called aside for special treatment. At least I haven’t ended up in jail, but one day my namesake might have upped his level of crime or annoyance. I also used to live in a small village with a criminal with a similar first name and the same surname. I had great difficulty getting a credit card, as I was thought of as one of his relatives.
I will be very unlikely to have any trouble with the Act, but then I only have about two hours contact alone with children in every year. And that is with my granddaughter, either when I take her to the supermarket or show her something on the computer, with one of her parents in the next room!
However, I’m thinking about volunteering to perhaps provide transport or computer help. Because of this Act, I have said that I don’t want to do anything concerned with children or their parents.
Is that the purpose of the Act? Because if no-one worked with children, then we wouldn’t have any problems would we!
And then I watched Generation Jihad.
This was chilling as young Muslims talked candidly about their outlandish views.
I feel that we may be winning some of the battles against those who feel we should be punished because of our lack of religion. The Police are arresting people before they do any damage, mullahs seem to talk sense in good English, and the tone of Muslims on phone-in programmes seems to be very much more tolerant to others.
But again oppressive legislation has been used against the Muslim extremists, that in the end may prove to be unproductive. How many people have downloaded anti-Western videos? Probably a lot more than you would think. For instance, I’ve been sent links to them in spam, by spammers in the Middle East. I unknowingly downloaded the first bit, but then as my Arabic is a bit rusty, so I deleted it.
If your brother was locked up for doing something like this, would you support the authorities or the brother? I suspect, where no actual threat has been proved you would support him.
So is this legislation actually creating more potential terrorists, rather than reducing them? After all if you’re prepared to be a suicide bomber, then a few years in jail if you get caught preparing, is a small price to pay. You can wait and probably you’ll learn a lot more in prison to help you on your way.
Let’s face it, on a scale of nastiness, terrorists and paedophiles are the lowest of the low. Oppressive agencies feasting on innuendo as well as facts, relying on typical government computing and staffed by people on not the best wages are one way to do it. But is that the best?
No!
These systems only catch those on the radar of the authorities. The London bombers weren’t and neither are most paedophiles.
I also have a big worry about these sort of systems. Supposing one was found to be a complete waste of time. Would it be scrapped? After all, if a government did, they’d be described as pro-paedophile or pro-terrorist. Look at how long it took them to sort out the Child Support Agency and the damage that was done in the interim.
So what should we do?
We should look at what causes people to become paedophiles, terrorists and criminals for that matter. One thing stands out; poverty. There is also the way that the parents treat their children. Many paedophiles were abused by their parents, many criminals take up their parents habits and there are terrorists, who have strained relationships with their family. Obviously, not all, but as the programmes pointed out last night, the seeds of criminality are sown within the family home.
Poverty is a very difficult one. The poor are very little better off after nearly thirteen years of Labour rule. But perhaps we should radically change things like the tax system to make sure that those at the bottom end keep more of what they earn, paying for it with taxes on energy. The tax system should also be seamless with the benefit system, so that part-time work is better and less hassle than no-time work.
I have hopes though about poverty and from a rather surprising person; Iain Duncan Smith.
As to family problems, my late wife spent a lot of her working life dealing with their breakdown. Barristers like her are being squeezed by the Legal Aid Fund and anyone worth his or her salt would not go into that field today. But then government doesn’t properly fund the Social Services, so that we get so many problems there.
But then those at the bottom end of society don’t vote, so looking after them is not on the average politician’s radar. Also horrendous crime plays well in Middle Britain, when the government says that they’ll bring in ASBOs, Super-ASBOs, life for littering etc. etc. I bet some wish capital punishment was still available.
But perhaps something that would help everybody, is that we should look at society and make it all a lot simpler.
Let’s have a Bonfire of the Regulations.
The Anonymous Widower 