Freedom only comes if you take it!

Breaking news is that Delroy Smellie, police officer who smacked about a peaceful protestor has been cleared of assault. Video evidence here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8597217.stm

The judge said that Sgt Smellie was acting in self-defence and that he had a 'mere' 7 seconds to act. Time seven seconds on your watch and see if it is enough time to decide whether to smack someone in the face and legs with a baton. It's actually a lot longer than you think.

The judge was "satisfied he honestly believed it was necessary to use force to defend himself". Apparently he feared objects in her hand were weapons. Watch the video. She opens her arms out (in a typical stance that indicates 'I have nothing to hide') fairly early on, displaying a juice carton in her hand.

He blames the woman for his behaviour. The defence claiming that "Sgt Smellie lost composure because of Ms Fisher's aggressive behaviour".

Why is this significant? Well, police already are overly vicious against members of the public who protest or even just take photos or even just walk home from work (see Ian Tomlinson). This sends a number of messages. That police can act violently and not be held accountable. That you must be a violent thug to join the police. And that rather than keep the peace, the police are there to fight down political protest.

There should be a public political and legal outcry. The right to assembly and protest should not be impinged by violence of any kind, least of all by police.

Two ways to make a sub-standard legal high evolve from a poor quality amphetamine imitator to the most widely-used drug and cause of teen deaths:

1. Give it weird, exotic nicknames that absolutely no-one apart from journalists use. Examples include meow meow, drone, M-cat, plant food. Plant food is how it is described to circumvent the law. This does not mean it has become widely used slang terminology.

2. Slather the Daily Mail with coverage of any teen deaths involving the drug/warnings about its use/painting Professor Nutt to live up to his name. Anything the Daily Mail criticises is normally good (political correctness, health and safety, multiculturalism, feminism, socialism, music festivals, binge drinking, taxes) and so its condemnation does not help rationally-minded people stay away from it, even if it is rubbish.

3. Make sure the chair of the government's Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (I'm patiently waiting for an Advisory Council for the Use of Drugs to teach young people how to roll joints and make lines) says things like this:
"I have never experienced such a widespread use in such a short space of time. There is no question this is the drug of the moment." And then make sure they get plenty of media coverage.

The only reason people are taking this drug is because they find out about it, and finding out about its status as the drug of the moment makes it seem even more zeitgeist and exciting, even though it patently isn't. Would be eternally more helpful to say:
"I have never experienced such a widespread use in such a short space of time. I have no idea why this is, considering it has produced so many deaths and there are safer and more interesting drugs available. Maybe if we did more laboratory tests and regulated these drugs then less people would die from consuming dodgy substances."

Reminds me a little of this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwylBRucU7w

British Summer Time

Eastern Standard Time



i found this photo by a scanner in the university library last week. i couldn't resist scanning it in for myself, it looked like a fairly old photo so i left it by the scanner in the hope that someone would remember they'd left it there and reclaim it.


and hilarious spoof richard madeley blog.

Keep up the good work.

We're captive on a carousel of time.
We can't return we can only look behind from where we came.

i was dancing when i was twelve.

weekly installment.

song for sunday III.

Happy International Women's day for tomorrow, March 8th.

WHERE THERE IS POWER, THERE IS RESISTANCE

Twenty-nine years ago today, Bobby Sands first refused food, starting what became a 66-day hunger strike to the death. Another 22 men followed him into hunger strike, 9 of these dying.

As resistance to power, self-starvation is the ultimate protest.

There is currently a hunger strike in Yarl's Wood asylum detention centre in protest at the inhumane conditions and lack of medical attention they receive. The fact they are prepared to starve themselves and ultimately die should speak volumes. The media gave more publicity to the 1981 hunger strike involving an outlawed terrorist organisation than they have given to this strike, involving women who are seeking refuge from violence and persecution.


I am more terrible than armies,
I am more feared than the cannon.

Kings and chancellors give commands;
I give no command to any;

But I am listened to more than kings
And more than passionate orators.

I unswear words, and undo deeds.
Naked things know me.

I am first and last to be felt of the living.
I am Hunger.

-Laurence Binyon

song for sunday II.

To the Birds by Suede live at Brixton Academy 16th May 1993


Hari om tat sat.