Why Dont You Blog?

A policemen got removed from his job because he dressed in a carnival costume. This seems pretty incomprehensible on the face of it. His offence was that he wore an “Osama bin Laden” costume to a village (population: very few) carnival in Cornwall.

Before I go any further with this, it’s clear that the job that he was removed from would count as most people’s definition of “no loss”. In fact most people would sell their homes and families NOT to take the job. He was on secondment to the Foreign Office in Afghanistan. So I shouldn’t think he’s that distressed by this.

The bizarre things about this story are:

• A costume worn in a village carnival might just about make the local press - if there was a local newspaper, and there isn’t for anything on a lesser scale than half a county, as far as I can googlit. How the fuck did this story end up on the BBC news site and in every UK newspaper?
• After dedicated googling, it seems that the “disrespect” that Colin Terry has been accused of showing was not disrepect towards Osama bin Laden - which was a pretty baffling concept - but to the victims of 9/11, according tothe Times.
• Taking that to mean the surviving victims and the families of the dead, do they routinely follow Cornish village news? How do they find it? I can’t even find a local newspaper for that area, online.
• Has their grief been expressed in such bizarre activities as searching the web for any fancy-dress items that might mock Al Qaeda? In that case, I think I can find a few costume shops within a couple of miles of my house that they may need to know about.
• What about the supposed impact on the man’s job in Afghanistan? Given that Danish language cartoons seem to be the must-have media in the most undeveloped Islamic countries, could it be that the ungooglable Cornish village newspapers are being read avidly in Al Qaeda mountain strongholds? Might Osama bin Laden have taken offence at an ungraceful bit of carnival capering by someone dressed as a comic-book version of him and told the mujahideen to step up their attacks on British troops? (Don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question.)

In other words, how did this become a news item?

For the policeman, the loss of the secondment to Afghanistan must surely be a blessing in carnival disguise. (If he’d had any sense, he would have phoned a complaint in himself. But then, who could have predicted this as a major national news item?) But why is he facing investigation by the Police Complaints Commission? Don’t they have enough real police misbehaviour to deal with?

Popularity: 8% [?]

Popularity: 8% [?]

The BBC reports on a WHO report that social factors, rather than genetics, are responsible for the massive disparities in life expectancy across the world.

This is like saying that humans have been found to breathe air rather than treacle. I.e., It should be no surprise to anyone.

The WHO report webpage makes no mention of “genetics” as a possibly valid alternative explanation. Unsurpisingly. Nor does the BBC report, if you read past the headline.

So, why does genetics even get mentioned in the headline, as if there’s a legitimate debate over whether poverty or genetics is the main determinant of health and life expectancy?

Whatever the reason, the effect is that the lazy headline scanner - i.e., pretty well all of us readers - is left with a vague impression that poverty and genetics are almost equally valid explanations for global inequalities.

My today’s-imaginary-friend - the lazy headline scanner (OK, that’s usually me) - is also likely to be misled by the headline Arab warning after racist death. Hmm, doesn’t that sound - in the current climate - as if there has been a racist Arab threat? You can almost picture the people who inspired the twat-o-tron frothing at the mouth at yet another example of “political correctness gone mad” and so on.

However, this story relates to a 16-year-old language student from Qatar who was murdered in Hastings, apparently for being an Arab.

The “warning” is his uncle’s suggestion that he would advise other Arab families not to send their children to language classes in the UK. Which may not be a statistically valid conclusion about relative risk, based as it is on a sample of one, but I’m pretty confident you’d feel the same in his position.

So, no Arab actually made a racist threat. No Arabs even warned that they’d be taking vengeance for a racist death. In fact, the real story is that an Arab teenager was murdered by racists.

Not that you could guess from the headline.

It’s not that these headlines are deliberately targeted at stirring up the bigots. (The Daily Mail et al exist for that purpose and are so successful at doing it.)
But the general effect of such headlines is still misleading. They are just examples of the background noise in which mass stupidity can flourish.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Popularity: 8% [?]

“Canoe man” John Darwin seems to have set a precedent for naming people. At first it seemed as if the new media naming convention involved identifying people by their last known mode of transport. (As in “canoe man”.)

But that principle must have fallen by the wayside when some canny sub-editor realised that “car man” or “train woman” would be used too often to have much explanatory value. So, other objects have had to be mentioned.

In today’s BBC, there are stories headed:

• Walking stick death pair jailed
  (This was a couple who murdered someone by forcing his walking stick down his throat.)
• GCSE girl dies in lorry collision
  (A girl is defined by the last set of public exams she sat.)
• Sand tunnel teenager’s 10 GCSEs (A lad identified by the collapsing sand tunnel that killed him.)
• ‘Stupid’ Vegas plan thief jailed (Man identified by his last failed get-rich-quick idea.)
• Drink-drive mother sent to jail (A woman was so insensibly drunk that her 5-year-old had to beg people to stop her driving.)

(Some of these designations seem insensitive, to put it mildly.)

Plus the traditional “mother”, “father”, “husband” and so on. These designations are so ubiquitous in the headlines, that I can’t link to them, lest this blog lose any residual authority, on the grounds of spam-linking.

There’s something even more pathetic about the relationship identifiers. At least the “canoe man” isn’t just a “son”, which would make him basically indistinguishable from every other male on the planet. (Although, I suspect eh has been “canoe husband” and “canoe dad” a few times. His wife is definitely “canoe wife”.)

However, my all-time favourite is “resident.”

This means more or less anyone. It’s inevitably used gets used in any mention of neighbourhood crime or flooding. It carries a whiff of the twat-o-tron in most cases, with the scent of the “Residents Association” the suggestion of constantly-outraged decency and the subtle implication that inhabiting a property gives you an automatic Lawful Good alignment.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Popularity: 10% [?]

The Guardian seems to have started a Wire discussion group. It would be churlish to suggest that the Guardian, as an entity, never took as much interest in the Wire before it centred round a newspaper office.

(Charlie Brooker and a couple of other Guardian tv reviewers were the honourable exceptions to this.)

I’m going to steal its intro warning to explain why I haven’t been indulging in my customary gushing over the genius of the Wire:

SPOILER ALERT: Usual rules: No giving the game away if you’ve gone further; don’t spoil it for yourself if you are further behind.

Basically, it’s too difficult to remember which Wire events are OK to write about and which aren’t, in case I spoil someone’s enjoyment. Sadly, I’ve already spoilt it for myself by seeing it already. I know what’s going to happen in the wind-up part of the 5-series set, so I don’t want to watch it until I’ve forgotten enough detail to make it watchable again.

There’s an Iraq war short series from “the team who brought you the Wire.” I would be grateful if someone who’s seen it in the US will tell me if it’s good. I’ve decided to wait till it’s on television here, so as not to spoil it, in case it is good.

However, I’m so squeamish that I won’t want to watch it if it’s too distressing. Which, given that it’s about the Iraq war, is probably a certainty. So I’m in two minds about the whole thing and would welcome any guidance.

Otherwise completely unconnected to the above rambling, except for being also interesting in today’s Guardian, there’s an article by Hicham Yezza, the academic who’s waiting to be deported after downloading the al-qaeda manual for a colleague.

The UN’s committee on human rights has just published a report criticising Britain’s anti-terror laws and the resulting curbs on civil liberties. For many commentators the issues raised are mostly a matter of academic abstractions and speculative meanderings. For me, it is anything but. These laws have destroyed my life. (from Hicham Yezza in the Guardian.)

I had lazily assumed that this nonsense was all sorted out months ago. It appears not. Just because the media have lost interest doesn’t mean that this absurdity has been undone. In fact, some inexorable process - that Yezza characterises as Kafkaesque - seems have been set going.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Popularity: 8% [?]

I may have imagined it, but I am sure once upon a time the media reported news that happened rather than created the news all by itself. If they ever did exist, those days are gone now.

This week we saw yet another example of how the public, inspired by various media outlets begging for 24 hour news items, are gullible and (generally) selfish. Part of me honestly wonders if democracy is really the best way for a nation to govern itself - the selfishness of individuals is so strong that, over a nation, it really cant be a good thing.

The latest example is about Petrol (Gasoline) again. Earlier in the week we were fed lurid headlines about the impending Shell delivery drivers strike and how “1 in 10 forecourts would run out of petrol.” Set against this, the government kept saying “there is enough fuel, don’t panic, what ever you do, don’t panic buy.”

Seems fairly reasonable. The drivers have a right to strike (even if I think they are already grossly over paid - they earn twice what a nurse or teacher does) and I wish them all the best at getting a pay rise. Likewise, the government are correct. Four days of no deliveries to Shell garages is not going to impact the average person. If it came close to that, there are measures available to restore the balance (although rationing would be harsh). All in all, it is almost a non-news-event. Yes, there will be a strike but so what?

Now, we factor in the “human” element. By human, I mean ill-informed, fearful, ignorant and selfish. Proper “human” traits (*). As I see it, the thinking goes like this:

The news keeps showing how 1 in 10 forecourts will run out of fuel, so there must be something to worry about. The news keeps interviewing other “average people” who are worried, so I should worry as well. More news items about which petrol stations will be the most affected, so I should be worried. The government keeps telling me nothing bad will happen, now I am really worried. I rush out and panic buy as much fuel as I can get my hands on. I queue up for a while, cos there are lots of other people panic buying today. But I get loads of fuel and drive home.

Relaxing slightly, with my full tank, I turn on the news. After a day of people panic buying, wow, some petrol stations are running out of fuel. The news was right and the government lied to us again. I was right to buy loads of fuel…

Yes, it seems crazy, but this is what has happened in the UK. Despite all the assurances, people panic bought fuel (often despite not having any planned journey to go on…) and, as the media predicted petrol stations ran out.

The lessons I take from this are:

• People are so truly selfish they no longer realise the effects of their actions. Listening to radio news yesterday there were dozens of people interviewed claiming they were filling up their cars and spare jerry cans (despite not planning to go anywhere) just in case. They wanted to make sure if there was a shortage other people suffered not them - no matter who may have greater need.
• People are ignorant. Rather than think about the situation, people allow the 24 hour news outlets to feed them any nonsense and it is taken at face value. This is strange, given the number of times media organisations have been show to have falsified things to make news…
• Which leads me to no one even comes close to trusting an “official” or “government” spokesperson. I actually think this is understandable, given the degree to which we are lied to on a daily basis, however sometimes they are telling the truth. Why the government spin doctors are “less trustworthy” than heavily biased media organisations’ spin doctors is beyond me.

Most frustrating of it all, is that the inevitable chain of events has done nothing but re-inforce people’s crazy ideas. Despite the government’s promises, petrol did run out (albeit hardly anywhere), so people add it to the list of times the government has lied. The media predicted it, so people add it to the list of things the media were correct. The selfish people are reassured that their selfishness was justified.

What is to blame for this? Has a generation been failed by the lack of a “proper” education? (I doubt it), are people inherently lazy and obedient? (again, I doubt it), have two decades of political lies and mismanagement of the public created a wary, scared public who feel they need to look after themselves because no one else will? (hmm).

Answers on a postcard to Number 10 Downing Street….

–

* sometimes I worry I am becoming sociopathic. Then I worry that writing things like that in a blog will count as a pre-crime and have me arrested. Then I relax because that line of crazy thinking means I am as mad, and human, as every one else…….. Wait, is that a helicopter overhead……… Why is it painted black? …….

Popularity: 25% [?]

Popularity: 25% [?]

Well, sadly, the craven government of the United Kingdom has surrendered to terrorism and taken yet another step in dismantling the fundamental liberties we have enjoyed for centuries. A basic principle enshrined in Medieval law was that the State should not deprive a person of their liberty without a trial. In practice this amounted to about 24 hours between detention and charging. In my lifetime this has increased to four weeks and now looks set to become six weeks.

Well done Terrorists.

If you are able, please try to find a clip of the BBC News 24 interview with Tony Benn. What ever your opinions on the man as a politician may be (for example, mine aren’t great), he pretty much summarises what people should be feeling about this travesty of justice.

Sadly, people don’t seem to be feeling this. If the statistics are to be believed 65% of the UK population supports 42 days detention of innocent people (which means the pop-survey I carried out at work this morning massively fails to reflect the UK population). I can only assume they all think the detainees will be some one else so the thought of suffering is alien to them. Even more worryingly, listening to the BBC Radio 1 street interviews in the run up to the vote showed me that 65% of the population do support it - but that is because they are beyond stupid.

One person who called in said 42 wasn’t enough and people should be detained “until they can prove they are not guilty.” Oh sweet Thor. Another said “there is no smoke without fire.” Lots of it was about putting the needs of the many over the needs of the few. Yes, I did just want to cry but I was driving at the time.

It seems we are reaping the rewards of a generation of bad teaching, dishonest politicians, media dominance and uncontrolled spin. People are no longer equipped to see when they are being led down the garden path and a total lack of civic understanding means that when they do suspect it, they no longer care.

If I could find a suitable country, I’d emigrate.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Popularity: 38% [?]

It’s almost a truism that anyone who makes a tear-stained televised appeal for help to solve a murder will probably be arrested within the week. It seems as if the more extravagant the grief that is willingly expressed on camera, the more likely that the person is guilty.

Even the BBC has noticed. Today it published a feature on the phenomenon .

And, now, I’ve stumbled across true-crime-in-the-media. 2.0:
Barbora Skrlova on MySpace Assuming this is an elaborate joke, albeit in poor taste, I am compelled to look for MySpace profiles of other notorious figures.

For instance, Myra Hindley seems to have half a dozen.

I type in Fred West and get a “Server is too busy” message a few times.
(Quick break to panic at the idea that half the global population has been taken with a lunatic desire to see which really evil people have a MySpace profile.) Then I find there’s an ill-starred 13 pages full of Fred Wests. Lose interest when I consider that most of them might indeed be real humans who just happen to be called Fred West. Then again, a fair number have headlines such as “Get a load of my floorboards”

On firmer ground with Rosemary West. After a good few innocently but unluckily named real US females who just happen to be called Rosemary West, I find a MySpace profile purporting to be from Fred West’s soulmate. In fact, there’s a link to a more convincing Fred West impersonator in her friend space..

What about Josef Fritzl? That one is actually quite scary. I can’t even work out if its meant to reference the Austrian maniac or the name is just a coincidence.

Michel Fourniret? The server times out. Then I get a
“We weren’t able to find a ” Michel Fourniret ” on MySpace”
message, which probably won’t be true for long.

(In case this name isn’t familiar to you, he’s the male half of a French version of a Rosemary-and-Fred-West couple. She lured young women for him to rape and murder, in exchange for his promise to murder her ex-husband. The family that slays together, stays together…….)

I can partly understand why sane people might create web pages for the truly evil. (Apart from an adolescent desire to shock people.) These sorts of crimes make most of us so uneasy about the nature of what it means to be human that humour becomes a necessary defence mechanism. Otherwise, it’s impossible to contemplate the things they have done.

All the same, I have to suspect that at least some of these tributes aren’t ironically post-modern comments on the nature of notoriety. Some of them have been put there by the very same sort of unspeakable beings who do such crimes.

It’s usually baffling how these spectacularly homicidal people find each other to begin these partnerships in crime.. Rosemary and Fred West; Michel and Monique Fourniret, the children who killed James Bulger; Myra Hindley and Ian Brady…… Do their eyes meet across the proverbial crowded room and they see the spark of a potential partner in homicide? Does it “take one to know one?”

Blimey, interactive web 2.0 must do away with so much of the uncertainty for such people. They could start by putting up profiles of their psycho role models …

Popularity: 16% [?]

Popularity: 16% [?]

Sometimes I have to (albeit briefly) question the value of having a free press. It seems that the freedoms enjoyed by the press are far from beneficial for the public good. (However, I am aware of the alternatives so I suppose we have to live with it.)

Today, one of the headlines on the radio news was about impending strike action which may close down a fairly crucial power plant. Basically, workers at the Grangemouth refinery are planning a 2-day strike, the closure of the refinery has the knock on effect of cutting power to one of the main Scottish pipelines reducing the flow of oil into the UK by about 1/3. Yes. That is it. Flow will be reduced by 1/3 for two days.

There have been loads of statements from the Scottish executive and various government bodies explaining that there is at least 10 days worth of stock (10 days of no oil coming in) and as long as nobody panics, everything will be fine.

Did you spot the important bit. As long as nobody panics. Sadly, not panicking does not make good news.

Cut to the afternoon news bulletin on the radio. First off, this is not presented in a calm, matter of fact manner. It is read out by an excitable and breathless woman with a lot of emphasis on how prices are going to rise and people may face shortages (less emphasis on the may, than the shortages). One of the radio stations had people call in to “share their experiences of panic on the forecourts.” Nothing like a bit of pre-empting there…

Anyway, there were four callers talking about how it had “gone crazy” today and people were buying fuel much more than normal. Weirdly, one of the callers claimed to be at the same petrol station (gas station for colonials) as I was at, getting fuel for my car. The caller claimed the place was full and had been all day. I sat and listened to her, while I looked around and was the only car there. Hmm.

As I drive about a lot in my job, I have passed a lot of petrol stations today and for most of the day none have been busy. Cut to about 1900hrs onwards and things changed. Lots of people getting lots of fuel. Now the radio stations are exuberantly talking about how the “stay calm” advice has been ignored and “everyone is panic buying fuel” and how “stocks cant be expected to last long at this rate.”

Call me a cynic, but from my take on today the whole un-necessary panic (if it actually exists) is something generated by media reporting. Like all herd problems, once a few people start to run every one else does. In this case, when a few people start to “panic buy” fuel, everyone has to join in and it becomes a bit of an arms race because now stocks will really begin to struggle (especially on a local level). The oil companies must love this - the strikers are actually doing the wrong thing! - because now, as you would imagine crude oil prices are going up even more. The news stations love this because it gives them all the things they like to report on and it hits home to everyone. However, the general public have been somewhat shepherded into buying loads of fuel as the prices rise.

Is this all the fault of the media - no, not at all. That is most certainly not the point I am seeking to make. However, I do think that public “panics” (not just in this case, about everything from MMR to crime) are largely the result of irresponsible and sensationalist reporting.

The media has a unique power to influence the public to a greater extent than any other facet of our society. Is it using this power responsibly?

Popularity: 43% [?]

Popularity: 43% [?]

An Indianopolis teacher faces suspension over a book. She introduced a book (Freedom Writers) containing language that the school board didn’t like.

This incident is obviously not the only instance of book-banning.

The American Library Association says the number of books banned or challenged at public libraries increases every year. Along with titles with obvious references to sexuality, violence and vulgarity, the Harry Potter series and classics like “Of Mice and Men” and “Huckleberry Finn” rank among the most-challenged books.(MSNBC)

What!

I looked at the Freedom Writers site. Well, it’s not “Of Mice and Men” but it seems exactly what you’d expect conscientious English literature teachers to be encouraging kids to read. But, it seems that the conceptual conscientious English literature teacher is facing a threat to her job because she did just that.

There is a strange process at work. Many of us believe that we can deny the existence of disturbing aspects of reality if we can stop children seeing them. This doesn’t actually make the bad things go away. It doesn’t even protect children. It just stops them being able to discuss unpleasant things openly.

The US is a haven for Protect the Children nutters. Black Sun posted an interesting, if chilling, blog about the Parents Television Council last week.

The UK isn’t immune from Ms Lovejoy syndrome. In the past few days, UK newspapers and magazines have been getting exercised over a silly Miss Bimbo game, the object of which is to make your character into the “coolest bimbo.” You do this by making it take diet pills, get plastic surgery and silicon implant its chest. The Times, the Daily Mail, the Metro and the rest all seem to have lost any appreciation of irony. At least they don’t credit any young players with any sense that this is mocking.

All the papers seem to be quoting from the same press release, although they differ about whether the game will be played by girls “as young as” 6 or 9. (Note the non-accidental use of as young as 6 rather than aged 6) I guess that the “as young as” bit also comes from a single press release, from the previously unheard-of parents organisation (”parents’ rights group Parentkind”)* that is complaining about this game.

What a marketing coup for the makers of Miss Bimbo and Parentkind. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the same people.

The true irony is that the papers that are throwing up their arms in disgust that this game promotes dangerous role models for girls are the very same papers that cannot produce a single issue without promoting anorexic, surgically enhanced, shopping-obsessed, intellect-challenged gold-diggers on every page.

* I know every organisation in the world isn’t Googlable but you’d think Parentkind would be, given that they seem to be on every news editors’ quotable list. I found something called The Parent Organisation with a blank web page labeled Parentkind. The page says “The Parentkind Directories are currently under development.” If you are not British and were to visit this site - which I am only assuming to be the source of Parentkind - you may think the address is some obscure joke. I can assure you that the places, at least, are legitimate.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Popularity: 21% [?]

Warning: This is a blog. It is personal opinion. There is no evidence that Kate and Gerry McCann killed their daughter then created a media storm to mask their evil deeds. If you do not wish to read personal opinions please read no further.

Now, generally speaking, I am not the biggest fan of the UK media in general and I am certainly not a fan of tabloid press. I find both the Daily Express and the Daily Star to be offensive, trashy newspapers. Despite this, today I feel sorry for them and, part of me feels there has been an interesting twist in the UK law courts. From the BBC news website:

Madeleine McCann’s parents have welcomed a libel settlement and apology from Express Newspapers for suggesting they were responsible for her death.

In a statement the McCanns said they were pleased that the newspaper group had admitted the “utter falsity” of the “grotesque” stories written about them. [followed by]

The papers said: “We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance. “

OK, on the surface this seems reasonable and for years the tabloid media has been getting away with printing nonsense stories. However, this has normally been seen as just the way the tabloids print “news”. The idea that they can now be taken to court where I think something interesting has happened.

First off, as a sort of position statement, I think that, while there is no evidence Kate and Gerry McCann actually killed Madeleine there are a few issues that strike me as odd. Not least of these is the very fact the McCann’s felt the need, while under so much pressure to find their daughter, to take out a libel action against the newspapers. There was a risk they could have lost, and if so the “find Maddie” fund would have had to cover their expenses. Even though they have won it brings them no closer to a conclusion to the whole sorry deal. All this, coupled with the very existence of a “family spokesperson” leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Compare and contrast this with the behaviour of Shannon Matthews mother when she went missing. In the early days there was no hint of rich benefactors funding a “find Shannon” account, there was no family spokesperson and, with the recent media hints that the mother was in fact to blame, no signs of a libel action. Why is that? Is it because Karen Matthews is pretty much a “working class oik” while the McCanns are upper middle class professionals?

Anyway, before I wander too close to the line at which the McCanns decide to take legal action against this blog (they can have every single penny this blog has earned to date if they really want…), the other ramification of this case is how it may influence others.

Keeping with the topical nature of the McCanns, lets use Robert Murat as an example. Here we have an example of someone who the general media has declared guilty since pretty much day one. In Mr Murat’s case this is not the newspapers making sly allusions that he may be guilty, pretty much everything written about him says he is the “one.” The Daily Mirror even printed an ironic tirade by friends of the McCanns heaping more suspicion on Murat:

Fiona Payne, Russell O’Brien and Rachael Oldfield insisted they saw him outside Kate and Gerry McCann’s flat on the night Madeleine, four, was snatched - despite his denials.

Despite all this, there is not one shred of evidence that Murat was the criminal. Can we expect to see a large scale libel action? (Well no, Murat doesn’t have a huge fund to bankroll such things…).

In fact, pick up any paper any time of the year and you will read articles in which people are made out to be things they are not. Suspects in rape cases are often named (with all the ensuing problems) but I can not recall a single time, when someone was found innocent, a retraction was published.

Using the Mirror as an example, a while ago a children’s TV presenter Mark Speight was implicated in the death of his girlfriend. For the whole time, he was linked in a manner that would make the casual reader assume the weight of evidence was against him, then today they print an article headlined: “Kids’ TV star Mark Speight won’t be charged over girlfriend’s death.” That is it. No huge payout to assist the investigation into her death, no front page apology. Just a short piece to say he wont be charged.

Amazing isn’t it.

At least now, thanks to the McCanns and their tireless crusade for justice, everyone who has a slightly negative mention in the press can use the vast fortunes of rich strangers to fund their legal defence cases…

[Cynical footnote: I sometimes wonder if the legal action was at least partially motivated by the fact the McCanns have pretty much dropped off the media radar, and since the Shannon Matthews case everyone had pretty much moved on - their donations may have even been starting to dry up...]

Popularity: 60% [?]

Popularity: 60% [?]