Saturday, 13 August 2011
I'm just finding about this FOOL of a man...
hindhassan Hind
David Starkey on #Newsnight: "The whites have become black" - after quoting Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech bbc.in/p2uALKWTF??? Seriously WTF???
gmpolice GM Police
Mum-of-two, not involved in disorder, jailed for FIVE months for accepting shorts looted from shop. There are no excuses!
Mum-of-two, not involved in disorder, jailed for FIVE months for accepting shorts looted from shop. There are no excuses!
Robert Crumb on why he won't be coming to Australia
Weeks ago, I was interviewed by a journalist named Charles Purcell for The Sydney Morning Herald concerning my coming appearance at the Graphic festival. I was pretty open with Purcell over the telephone from my home in France, as I usually am with journalists. I'm not very clever at contriving a media image. I just bare my soul in my compulsive, confessional way.
So, we talked a lot about sex, about my sexual proclivities, and Purcell played up this angle in his article of July 30. There are some very frank quotes in the interview. ''I'm a very eccentric oddball character, weird pervert'', and so forth.
I'm also quoted putting down Karl Rove, and by extension, all right-wing politicians. OK, fine, I have no problem with such a forthright presentation of who I am and what I think.
Little did Purcell or I know who was lurking in the bushes, just waiting to pounce! The very next day, Sunday July 31, the right-wing media sharks at the Sunday Telegraph verily jumped on this juicy morsel. Me, I know nothing of Australian politics. I had no clue that there were such nasty right-wing media manipulators there. Crumb was somebody they could use against the liberals in the City of Sydney . They obviously did a little research, made some calls to the right people, like ''anti-child abuse campaigner'' Hetty Johnston, and got them to rant about what a bad person I am, that ''the Sydney Opera House was endorsing the depraved thought processes of this very warped human being'', ''These cartoons are not funny or artistic - they are just crude and perverted images emanating from what is clearly a sick mind.'' Beautiful. Perfect. Thank you, Ms Johnston, for your input.
After I told a journalist who sent me the article that I might not go to Australia because of this, he took it on himself to call and talk to Hetty Johnston, who told him she was contacted by ''the media'', sent links to some of my more ''offensive'' images, and asked to comment on the fact that the Sydney Opera House was exhibiting my work.
From this it is evident The Sunday Telegraph was looking for ways to discredit me and the City of Sydney by using people like Hetty Johnston. Who's going to put down an anti-child abuse campaigner? If this person hates my work, I must be a child abuser myself. And the Sydney Opera House is condoning child abusers.
The Sunday Telegraph, after contacting these groups and showing them apparently offensive images extracted from my work, can then say, as they did in their article, ''Cartoonist Robert Crumb's visit, funded by the Opera House and endorsed by the City of Sydney, has sparked outrage with sexual assault groups describing the France-based American artist as 'sick and deranged'.''
One can see in this example how skilled media professionals with low standards of integrity are able to mould and manipulate public opinion, popular beliefs and, ultimately, the direction of politics. The majority of the population in most places is not alert to this kind of deceptive manipulation. They are more or less defenceless against such clever ''perception management''.
I was quite alarmed when I read the article in the Sunday Telegraph. I showed it to my wife, Aline, who said, ''That's it, you're not going.'' She got a very bad feeling from the article. She feared I might be attacked physically by some angry, outraged person who simply saw red at the mention of child molesters. She remarked she'd never seen any article about me as nasty as this one.
I emailed the organisers of the Graphic festival and told them I might not come on account of this article. They attempted to reassure me that no one was going to show up and harass me, that most of the media in Sydney was completely positive about my coming there, etc.
Aline and I went round and round about this thing: should I go or not? Ultimately, she could not shake her feeling of ominous dread. I knew that if I went, that she would be in a state of anxiety the whole time I was gone. She'd be praying for me, I know her. I couldn't do it to her.
Finally, I told her I wasn't going. She broke down and wept as I held her. I told the organisers the bad news and apologised profusely. They were quite gracious about it, I must say. I know my decision has caused them great inconvenience as well as disappointment. I'd been rehearsing intensively in preparation for playing music with the local Sydney ''novelty'' band of Mic Conway. I was kind of looking forward to that. Oh well, it's always good to rehearse, come what may.
While I was agonising over whether to go to Australia or not, I tried to imagine how I would react if confronted with a group of angry anti-Crumb protesters, or an angry individual.
I have no defence. I can't explain why I drew all those crazy pictures. I had to do it. Maybe I should have my pencils and pens taken away from me. I don't know. I really have no answer to their argument that I'm a sick, deranged person.
What should I say? No, I'm not? No idea. But I decided I was willing to face the possibility of an unpleasant confrontation, possible insults, even physical assault. I'm rather fatalistic that way. But I couldn't do that to Aline. I had to put her feelings in front of those of the organisers of the festival and Australian fans of my work.
Sorry, folks. I do feel bad, as I hate letting people down. But I decided I'd rather bear the pain of letting people down than subjecting my long-suffering wife to a 10-day period of dread and anxiety for my well-being. She's been awfully nice to me since I told her I wasn't going! She baked a chocolate cake even!
I know, I know, it's galling to give the Sunday Telegraph sleazeballs the satisfaction. ''Ha ha, we scared him off.'' But they have already got what they wanted out of me anyway, which was to use me to make the City of Sydney look bad.
The worst part is the apparent irresponsibility of these cynical media hacks. What if I'd gone there, and what if some Mark Chapman-type person who'd read that article decided the world needed to be cleansed of scum like R. Crumb? (Mark Chapman shot John Lennon.) This possibility worried Aline deeply.
Did it occur to the people at the Sunday Telegraph that they might be stirring up such dangerous passions? Do they care? Their article showed a profound lack of integrity and social responsibility. And unfortunately, I was made the object of their hateful Machiavellian tactics. One wonders if they would have published more such anti-Crumb articles if I'd showed up in Sydney, or possibly even orchestrated some sort of public demonstration against me! Yipe!
Social Media During The Riots - Right or Wrong?
During the riots there have been real time updates and clean ups organised on sites like Twitter and Facebook.
The Prime Minister has also asked for a review into whether social media sites should be shut down during times of unrest to stop looters contacting each other.
Conservative MP Louise Mensch, former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott and Guardian jurnalist Paul Lewis join Sky's Andrew Wilson.
The Prime Minister has also asked for a review into whether social media sites should be shut down during times of unrest to stop looters contacting each other.
Conservative MP Louise Mensch, former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott and Guardian jurnalist Paul Lewis join Sky's Andrew Wilson.
HA!
The Black Panthers And The Right To Bear Arms
The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement? The Black Panthers. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight.Jacob Sloan @'Disinfo'
It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers’ invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement. On the west lawn of the state capitol in Sacramento 30 young black men and women [arrived] carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols. The 24 men and six women climbed the capitol steps, and one man, Bobby Seale, began to read from a prepared statement. “The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.”
Opposition to gun control as what drove the black militants to visit the California capitol with loaded weapons in hand. The Black Panther Party had been formed six months earlier, in Oakland, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Like many young African Americans, Newton and Seale were frustrated with the failed promise of the civil-rights movement. Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were legal landmarks, but they had yet to deliver equal opportunity. In Newton and Seale’s view, the only tangible outcome of the civil-rights movement had been more violence and oppression, much of it committed by the very entity meant to protect and serve the public: the police.
Inspired by the teachings of Malcolm X, Newton and Seale decided to fight back. Before he was assassinated in 1965, Malcolm X had preached against Martin Luther King Jr.’s brand of nonviolent resistance. Because the government was “either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property” of blacks, he said, they had to defend themselves “by whatever means necessary.” Malcolm X illustrated the idea for Ebony magazine by posing for photographs in suit and tie, peering out a window with an M-1 carbine semiautomatic in hand. Malcolm X and the Panthers described their right to use guns in self-defense in constitutional terms. “Article number two of the constitutional amendments,” Malcolm X argued, “provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun.”
The Pathers’ efforts provoked an immediate backlash. Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn’t “know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” The Mulford Act, he said, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.”
Statement on temporary wireless service interruption in select BART stations on Aug. 11
Organizers planning to disrupt BART service on August 11, 2011 stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police. A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators. BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform.
Cell phone service was not interrupted outside BART stations. In addition, numerous BART Police officers and other BART personnel with radios were present during the planned protest, and train intercoms and white courtesy telephones remained available for customers seeking assistance or reporting suspicious activity.
BART’s primary purpose is to provide, safe, secure, efficient, reliable, and clean transportation services. BART accommodates expressive activities that are constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Liberty of Speech Clause of the California Constitution (expressive activity), and has made available certain areas of its property for expressive activity.
Paid areas of BART stations are reserved for ticketed passengers who are boarding, exiting or waiting for BART cars and trains, or for authorized BART personnel. No person shall conduct or participate in assemblies or demonstrations or engage in other expressive activities in the paid areas of BART stations, including BART cars and trains and BART station platforms.
@'Bay Area Rapid Transport'
Cell phone service was not interrupted outside BART stations. In addition, numerous BART Police officers and other BART personnel with radios were present during the planned protest, and train intercoms and white courtesy telephones remained available for customers seeking assistance or reporting suspicious activity.
BART’s primary purpose is to provide, safe, secure, efficient, reliable, and clean transportation services. BART accommodates expressive activities that are constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Liberty of Speech Clause of the California Constitution (expressive activity), and has made available certain areas of its property for expressive activity.
Paid areas of BART stations are reserved for ticketed passengers who are boarding, exiting or waiting for BART cars and trains, or for authorized BART personnel. No person shall conduct or participate in assemblies or demonstrations or engage in other expressive activities in the paid areas of BART stations, including BART cars and trains and BART station platforms.
@'Bay Area Rapid Transport'
Real Scenes: Detroit
You can't talk about electronic music without mentioning Detroit. That's why in the second edition of Real Scenes, RA and Bench went to the city which birthed the genre we now call techno.
Detroit has always had a creative streak, due in large part to the boom and subsequent bust of the auto industry. Quite simply, Detroit is a city of extremes, and its music reflects that. These days, Detroit's importance in the global electronic music scene is often referred to in the past tense. When we visited the city, though, we found a number of artists with their eyes (and ears) firmly set towards the future. After our time in the Motor City, it's clear to us that Detroit will endure and innovate for years to come.
Visit the feature page on RA: residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1382
The Invisible Committee - The Coming Insurrection (2005)
The sphere of political representation has come to a close. From left to right, it’s the same nothingness striking the pose of an emperor or a savior, the same sales assistants adjusting their discourse according to the findings of the latest surveys. Those who still vote seem to have no other intention than to desecrate the ballot box by voting as a pure act of protest. We’re beginning to suspect that it’s only against voting itself that people continue to vote. Nothing we’re being shown is adequate to the situation, not by far. In its very silence, the populace seems infinitely more mature than all these puppets bickering amongst themselves about how to govern it. The ramblings of any Belleville chibani contain more wisdom than all the declarations of our so-called leaders. The lid on the social kettle is shut triple-tight, and the pressure inside continues to build. From out of Argentina, the specter of Que Se Vayan Todos is beginning to seriously haunt the ruling class.
The flames of November 2005 still flicker in everyone’s minds. Those first joyous fires were the baptism of a decade full of promise. The media fable of “banlieue vs. the Republic” may work, but what it gains in effectiveness it loses in truth. Fires were lit in the city centers, but this news was methodically suppressed. Whole streets in Barcelona burned in solidarity, but no one knew about it apart from the people living there. And it’s not even true that the country has stopped burning. Many different profiles can be found among the arrested, with little that unites them besides a hatred for existing society – not class, race, or even neighborhood. What was new wasn’t the “banlieue revolt,” since that was already going on in the 80s, but the break with its established forms. These assailants no longer listen to anybody, neither to their Big Brothers and Big Sisters, nor to the community organizations charged with overseeing the return to normal. No “SOS Racism” could sink its cancerous roots into this event, whose apparent conclusion can be credited only to fatigue, falsification and the media omertà. This whole series of nocturnal vandalisms and anonymous attacks, this wordless destruction, has widened the breach between politics and the political. No one can honestly deny the obvious: this was an assault that made no demands, a threat without a message, and it had nothing to do with “politics.” One would have to be oblivious to the autonomous youth movements of the last 30 years not to see the purely political character of this resolute negation of politics. Like lost children we trashed the prized trinkets of a society that deserves no more respect than the monuments of Paris at the end of the Bloody Week- and knows it.
There will be no social solution to the present situation. First, because the vague aggregate of social milieus, institutions, and individualized bubbles that is called, with a touch of antiphrasis, “society,” has no consistency. Second, because there’s no longer any language for common experience. And we cannot share wealth if we do not share a language. It took half a century of struggle around the Enlightenment to make the French Revolution possible, and a century of struggle around work to give birth to the fearsome “welfare state.” Struggles create the language in which a new order expresses itself. But there is nothing like that today. Europe is now a continent gone broke that shops secretly at discount stores and has to fly budget airlines if it wants to travel at all. No “problems” framed in social terms admit of a solution. The questions of “pensions,” of “job security,” of “young people” and their “violence” can only be held in suspense while the situation these words serve to cover up is continually policed for signs of further unrest. Nothing can make it an attractive prospect to wipe the asses of pensioners for minimum wage. Those who have found less humiliation and more advantage in a life of crime than in sweeping floors will not turn in their weapons, and prison won’t teach them to love society. Cuts to their monthly pensions will undermine the desperate pleasure-seeking of hordes of retirees, making them stew and splutter about the refusal to work among an ever larger section of youth. And finally, no guaranteed income granted the day after a quasi-uprising will be able to lay the foundation of a new New Deal, a new pact, a new peace. The social feeling has already evaporated too much for that...
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Reading The Riots: 5 Books That Told Us What Was Coming
The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world.” - J G Ballard, Kingdom Come (2006)
Many people seem to be struggling to comprehend the UK riots. They gaze at trite aphorisms on Twitter and Facebook, listen to clumsy, inappropriate and leading questions from news reporters, frown at the exasperated cries of shop keepers and wince at the hollow and image-conscious scripts of politicians. None of these sources are providing clear, decisive or useful answers. The message is lost in the medium.
Perhaps we should turn to books instead. There have been many warnings in literature by writers and thinkers who have been aware of, and to some extent predicted, the likelihood of the events of the past few days. On reading these books, the riots are less of a surprise, as all the ingredients that have coalesced to become an insurrection have clearly been fermenting in policy and society for decades.
J G Ballard - Kingdom Come (Penguin Books, 2006)
Ballard was a tireless observer of society and behaviour. He wrote 18 novels and many short stories in response to contemporary culture. Towards the end of his life he became pre-occupied with the underlying collusion between consumerism and fascism. He argued that consumerism creates an insatiable demand that can ultimately only be satisfied by violence. This novel perfectly illustrates how an alienated class can be whipped into a wild frenzy by the relentless advertising and promotion of unattainable consumer products. The novel ends with a local community invading, looting and destroying their only ‘cathedral’, a shopping mall. If all we have to offer today’s young people are relentless instructions to buy consumer goods without providing the means to do so, perhaps the outcome is inevitable...
A great list and particularly good to see Owen Jones' book included...
Many people seem to be struggling to comprehend the UK riots. They gaze at trite aphorisms on Twitter and Facebook, listen to clumsy, inappropriate and leading questions from news reporters, frown at the exasperated cries of shop keepers and wince at the hollow and image-conscious scripts of politicians. None of these sources are providing clear, decisive or useful answers. The message is lost in the medium.
Perhaps we should turn to books instead. There have been many warnings in literature by writers and thinkers who have been aware of, and to some extent predicted, the likelihood of the events of the past few days. On reading these books, the riots are less of a surprise, as all the ingredients that have coalesced to become an insurrection have clearly been fermenting in policy and society for decades.
Ballard was a tireless observer of society and behaviour. He wrote 18 novels and many short stories in response to contemporary culture. Towards the end of his life he became pre-occupied with the underlying collusion between consumerism and fascism. He argued that consumerism creates an insatiable demand that can ultimately only be satisfied by violence. This novel perfectly illustrates how an alienated class can be whipped into a wild frenzy by the relentless advertising and promotion of unattainable consumer products. The novel ends with a local community invading, looting and destroying their only ‘cathedral’, a shopping mall. If all we have to offer today’s young people are relentless instructions to buy consumer goods without providing the means to do so, perhaps the outcome is inevitable...
Murdoch Hacked Us Too
A day or two later, I was walking across the South Street newsroom when I ran into a young Australian reporter on the staff, Jane Perlez. You must know something about Rupert Murdoch, I said, feeling quite upbeat about our white knight from Down Under. Jane would have none of it. “He’s bloody why I left Australia!” she replied...
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Hell in Paradise (1978)
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Pat Ivers @'Stupefaction'
'If you're as much of an ephemera or original source geek as me, you'll be happy to see this photo of the actual tapes from the Nightclubbing collection of that infamous show.'
Chelsea Hotel changes hands, closes for renovations
“The utopia is gone,” said Michele Zalopany — a resident of the Chelsea Hotel for 22 years — as she stood outside its plaque-ridden façade on the afternoon of August 1. Later that evening, the hotel was finally sold (in a deal reportedly worth around $80 million) to real estate mogul Joseph Chetrit.
The hotel currently has a sign on its front door announcing its “temporary” closure (which occurred on August 2, to make way for a year-long series of renovations). While the exterior of the world-famous building at 222 West 23rd Street is officially landmarked by the city — as well as having been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the federal government — Chetrit has the latitude to remodel the interior as he sees fit for future business (a process that began almost immediately after the building changed hands).
With almost no indication of the impending sale (stalled for weeks due to Chetrit’s difficulty in financing his purchase of the building from the previous owner, BD Hotels, LLC) and with no prior warning, management began removing short-term guests from the hotel on July 31. A state of confusion reigned as tenants and union workers watched the mass exodus of first-time tourists and perennial visitors. Some did not go quietly.
Jeffery Stewart, a British actor who had just attended the Manhattan Film Festival (where he won the award for Best Actor) and was scheduled to stay until August 2, felt as if he was being hounded. After being woken at 9a.m. on August 1 by phone calls from the front desk and pounding on the door from security, Stewart called the police for protection — but was forced to leave after a manager read him the fine print in his reservation contract. The fact that he was reimbursed for the cost of two nights in exchange for losing his last was little consolation.
“I’ve been coming to the Chelsea for ten years,” Stewart said as he checked in at the Savoy Hotel down the street. “The word sad gets used for so many things, but honestly, this is just incredibly sad...”
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Sam Spokony @'downtown express'
♪♫ Alejandro Escovedo - Chelsea Hotel '78
Carmine Street Shop Makes Guitars From Hotel Chelsea's 'Bones'
...In (Rick) Kelly's 42 Carmine St. shop, he turned wood from both sites into a guitar for former Chelsea Hotel resident Bob Dylan, he said.
"[Dylan] loved the combination of Chumley's body wood and Chelsea Hotel neck wood," Kelly said.
Mark Duggan death: IPCC 'may have misled journalists'
The police watchdog has admitted it may have misled journalists into believing police shooting victim Mark Duggan fired at officers before he was killed.
Mr Duggan, 29, was shot by officers last Thursday in Tottenham.His death sparked the initial riots in London which were followed by disorder in other English cities.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission later released a statement to make it clear that Mr Duggan did not fire a gun at police.
Ballistic tests found that a bullet which lodged itself in one officer's radio was police issue.
In other developments surrounding the riots in England:
- A 68-year-old man who was critically injured while he tried to stamp out a fire during riots in west London has died. A 22-year-old man has been arrested.
- A clearer picture is emerging of the people who were involved in rioting and looting as magistrates' courts continue to sit throughout the night in London and late into the evening in Birmingham and Manchester. An Olympic Games ambassador and a care worker are among those in the docks
- Association of Chief Police Officers president Sir Hugh Orde has denied a rift with ministers, saying it was the police and not MPs who devised the "more robust" approach that restored calm after four nights of rioting in England
- Ed Miliband has blamed the riots that swept English cities on a "me first" culture and accepted Labour must share the blame for creating it.
- More than 1,000 arrests have now been made in London alone and more than 1,500 across England since the unrest began on Saturday
- An 18-year-old man from Salford is charged with criminal damage, recklessly endangering life after a fire at a Miss Selfridge store in Manchester city centre.
- The inquest into the deaths of Haroon Jahan, 21, Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31, will be opened and adjourned at Birmingham Coroner's Court later
- More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition calling for anyone convicted of taking part in the riots to lose any benefits they receive - becoming the first such petition to be considered for a Commons debate
- The government has launched a website with advice to the public on how to cope with the unrest
Police-issue bullet It said the IPCC's first statement made no reference to shots fired at police.
But it said: "However, having reviewed the information the IPCC received and gave out during the very early hours of the unfolding incident, before any documentation had been received, it seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged, as this was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot and taken to hospital.
"Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident."
Mr Duggan was a passenger in a minicab which was stopped by police near Tottenham Hale Tube station.
A non-police issue handgun, converted from a blank-firing pistol to one that shoots live rounds, was recovered close to the scene of his death.
The bullet lodged in the police radio was a "jacketed round", a police-issue bullet consistent with being fired from a Metropolitan Police Heckler and Koch MP5, the IPCC said.
An inquest into Mr Duggan's death, which opened at North London Coroner's Court in High Barnet on Tuesday, heard the father of four died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.
@'BBC'
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