Journal of the Plague Years

Items added to this page, 12 May 2008

The Adoption of The People's Dear Leader Idi Blair Dada QC as Peace Plenipotentiary in the Middle East represents Post-Modernism at its most glorious.

Perhaps the hope is that the warring factions in the Middle East, along with those who otherwise might feel that they have reason to detest recent Anglo-US interventionalism, will, being post-modernists themselves, embrace this narrative.

Those few dinosaurs among us who still live in the Age of Enlightenment must accept that we are guilty of judgements failing to conform to New Labour Reality when the word that springs into our mind is 'bizarre'.

Now, apparently, the prospect of that man (unindicted but nonetheless possibly guilty of war crimes) becoming first president of the European Union is serious enough that the first British government minister has declared his support of the idea publicly.

Putting the overblown name-calling aside, the message that will given to a vast part of the world if this prospect comes to fruition is that Blair, who sided with Bush against Europe over the defining issue of his premiership and fought the murderous war (against the public wish - and against the vast majority of international and domestic legal opinion), nevertheless represents how the New Order in Europe wants to be seen.

As the empire of Rome is in some sense defined in our minds by Julius Caesar and Octavian, Soviet Russia by Lenin or the US by Washington, New Europe will in part be defined - for as long as history remembers it - by its first president.

The French, having embraced surrealism and post-modernism are, I suppose, the obvious people to suggest Blair for president. Perhaps they're just having a huge joke at the world's expense.

The rest of the items on this page seem rather tame by comparison.

• A free hand for the SA in modern Ingerland.
• How are the mighty fallen, and the symbols of pride perished...
• An awesome experience...
• British Citizen, American Suspicion.
• Fraud and the Inexplicable.
• 1984
• Death sentence was procedurally correct, so innocence is irrelevant.
• Sometimes I think It's Just Me...
• Interesting Use of Words:

A free hand for the SA in modern Ingerland.

27 April 2008 .

It was a single event which started me on writing this journal, the two 'community service officers' who stood by while a boy drowned in a pool last year because they weren't authorised to wade in and help him. Compared to some of what's happening in the world, it may seems an oddly minor episode to choose to react to; but it was the surreal nature of the event, in an increasingly surreal society, which got me going.

So what do I make of the 'punishment' drowning of 16-year-old Shane Owoo for possibly, allegedly, stealing a bicycle? (A barbaric atrocity by three adult men who will be out of jail within a couple of years, to the understandable despair of Shane's family.)

Actually there's nothing new, nor unique to England, about the event itself - although arguably the minimal sentences awarded probably would be regarded as odd in most countries... what winds me up (which came out in court) is that up to twenty passers-by saw - watched - what was happening, and only one, a child, tried to do anything to stop it.

Hitler's lads would have been at home here.

'Shane Owoo' SA drowning

How are the mighty fallen, and the symbols of pride perished...

16 April 2008 .

It's some time since he made it, but it still seems such an odd remark. I refer to the guy who designed the new UK coinage (the jigsaw with bits missing).

'It's meant to be a bit of fun.'

What nation designs its national currency to be 'a bit of fun'?

Mint 'new coinage'

An awesome experience...

16 April 2008 .

I've just been watching a party political broadcast for Labour ahead of the local elections. I think my mouth must have been hanging open... it was a pure post-modern moment...

The message was delusional - and offensively so. Quoting falling crime, interest rates, hospital waiting lists, the new old peoples' bus pass and an old lady who knows she's going to get better in hospital because she feels better just by being better, 'Britain is better under New Labour', it said, 'not just for some people but for everybody.'

Falling crime is not everybody's perception as, for example, the rate of child on child violence is seen to rise inexorably and gangs become uncontrollable; low interest rates, apart from contributing to many of the economic problems of the moment, are meaningless to 150,000 facing repossession this year, or to those who can't borrow at all; waiting times have actually increased since 1997 (and that takes no account of those artificially kept off waiting lists, or who have gone private - or abroad - in desperation) while six million people can't find a dentist...

'The job is just beginning... Vote Labour,' says the burbling message, 'and give us a chance to make things better for Britain.'

11 years... perhaps we haven't really given them a chance, yet!

'local election' 'party political broadcast' 'new labour' 'vote labour' 'better for Britain' 'bus pass'

British Citizen, American Suspicion.

24 January 2008 .

This has to be the surreal tale of the month; apologies if it's been in all the papers.

It seems that a British woman was taking a short holiday in New York with her two daughters (15 and 13) just after Christmas. On the second day the mother was taken ill with pneumonia and was admitted to a Harlem hospital. (Although she was insured, she was in a ward where most of the patients were handcuffed by the police.) The two girls were taken from their mother's bedside by social services and put into a glass-roomed dorm at an orphanage in Manhattan, where they were examined, cross-examined (Had they been raped? Were they members of street gangs? Had they been homicidal? All no doubt routine but horrifying for two sheltered English girls and, I suggest, no more welcoming for an American child) and generally had a very unpleasant time for 36 hours. [American public services are only too often the bleak pits, because, frankly, there's the constituency there which is too selfish to pay the taxes commensurate with having been born in a rich country... just like too many people over here... still, that's only my hobby-horse!]

Social services would only release the children once the mother was well (that part of it, at least, is understandable), so she discharged herself from hospital, collected them and returned them all to England.

Not great fun, and one might wish that social services had been more sensitive, but things do go wrong away from home. It's the twist in the tail that puts a new perspective on the story: the mother has since received advice form the US Administration for Children and Families that, because her children had to be admitted to an orphanage, she is now under investigation.

'US Administration for Children and Families'

Fraud and the Inexplicable.

09 December 2007 .

I've just been looking at 'Watchdog' on the BBC. I don't see it more than once in a blue moon - it would only make me even more apoplectic - I'll stick with politics and the environment.

However. There was an item about ebay (about failures in the approval ratings system). I would sell on ebay, but I never been inclined to buy: the reason is that it seems to me custom made for Long-Firm Fraud (in effect, building up a good reputation before a big con). I admit I'm probably missing something.

Another item concerned towed-away cars being crushed by various councils; the cars they discussed seemed not to have been illegally parked, and/or the cars were crushed before the owners even knew that their cars were gone. The programme dealt with the effect on the owners. The question is, of course: what sort of society do we live in that destroys resources (in the form of evidently perfect sound cars) for... for what reason?

If the councils can legally deprive owners of their cars for parking in a controlled area (which seems a bit OTT by any standards) why not sell the cars and fill the councils' coffers... or give the things to OAPs. I hate all the petrol the monsters use, but I doubt if this crushing reduces the number of vehicles on the roads - or are they crushing millions of them?

'illegal parking' 'tow-away'

1984

23 November 2007 .

I recall this, and report it to you, purely for its entertainment value:

In 1984, when I was teaching at a large comprehensive in north London, we were issued with a Racism Policy Statement by the education authority, which we were to accept as the policy for the school. The requirement was placed upon us to be "colour-blind" (a concept with which I and I think my colleagues were comfortable, although our opinions have no bearing on this tale).

In 1987 a new policy was promulgated which, if I remember correctly, required teachers etc. to be racially sensitive. Times were changing and understanding seemed to be developing, so fair enough.

However... The '87 policy noted that any teachers who were entertaining an attitude of colour-blindness were guilty of institutional racism, and "tokenism" (sic).

'melting pot' colour-blindness 'racial sensitivity' orwellian

Death sentence was procedurally correct, so innocence is irrelevant.

19 November 2007 .

Talking about how surreal our society is becoming (Sometimes I think It's Just Me... 14 November 2007), reminded me of the story which I think (so far) trumps them all. This one is US, not UK (but then, things always happen there first...) You may, like me, have come across this one, raised your eyes to heaven, then forgotten about it. My feeling now is that, although I can't do a damned thing about these people, I should not forget....

Joseph Amrine was sentenced to death in a 1986 Missouri murder trial. Although he had a solid alibi and the case against him (circumstantial at best) fairly rapidly unravelled, he was not released until July 2003. There are several accounts of this on the net; http://www.thejusticeproject.org/problem/cases/joseph-amrine.html seems fairly balanced.

Never mind the circumstances of the killing - nor that Amrine himself does not seem a very appealing character - it was as clear as can be that he was innocent of this offence, and absolutely clear that there was insufficient evidence to execute him.

In 2003, ahead of Amrine's final appeal, Missouri Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung said that, regardless of evidence pointing to Amrine's innocence, the state's Supreme Court had no jurisdiction because there had been no constitutional violations during his original trial. He then urged the Supreme Court to uphold the sentence of death even if they found Amrine to be innocent.

The majority opinion of the judges was that there would be a "manifest injustice" if Amrine were not released, even though the conviction was the product of an otherwise fair trial.

It is extraordinary, to me at least, that the following needed to be written at all: "It is difficult to imagine a more manifestly unjust and unconstitutional result than permitting the execution of an innocent person." (Judge Richard B. Teitelman, writing for the majority.)

What are even more extraordinary are:

1) Only four of the seven Supreme Court judges were of this opinion - as I understand it, three were happy to see Amrine executed even though (if?) innocent;

2) Amrine still wasn't released for another couple of months, and another attempt was made to file charges against him for the same killing, even though no new evidence had come to light.

I have deep and serious connections in the US - actually, I have an honorary commission, of which I am inordinately proud. But nothing will ever induce me to set foot in the state of Missouri.

'Joseph Amrine' 'Frank Jung'

Sometimes I think It's Just Me...

14 November 2007 .

From an item by Mark Steel (another diamond geezer) in today's Independent:

Nurse Karen Reissman, having campaigned against the transfer of patients to the voluntary sector in what seems to have been a budget-cutting exercise by the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, was suspended then fired.

It seems that the charges supporting the sacking were as follows:

1) She was "interviewed for an article opposing the transfer of NHS care... affecting the reputation of the Trust". She mentioned, inter alia, 24 patients being kept in 20 beds.

Well: I find the idea of employers gagging their employees distasteful but, even if she said what needed saying, it is common and cannot be seen as odd.

But what about the rest of the charges?

2) After she had been suspended, "she told people she had been suspended."

3) "She told people she was innocent."

4) "She allowed the press to print misleading statements about her case." (Read that one carefully!)

No... It's not just me... our society has moved into a whole new reality, but Mark Steel (who expands on the above in the Independent) has thankfully been left behind with me. I'm not alone after all.

'Mark Steel' 'Karen Reissman' 'Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust'

Interesting Use of Words:

07 November 2007 .

In terms of production, the major victim of the forthcoming cuts at the BBC will be fact-based programming. What the corporation's Director of Vision actually said was that she pledged that factual programmes would be cut.

That lovely New Labour think-sink that brought us ID cards and bar-coded bins have talked about equal weight with Christian festivals being given to those of other faiths (Diwali, Eid, etc. but for some reason not quite so much emphasis on Roshashannah or Hannukkah). The reasoning behind this has apparently been that it is impossible to 'expunge' Christmas.

'Director of Vision'

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