An investigation into the quality of home care for older people - which led to the brief arrest of its journalist, who went undercover to report the story - was among the winners at a celebration of Scottish TV and film.
At the BAFTA Scotland awards last Saturday night, the News and Current Affairs title went to 'Panorama - Britain's Homecare Scandal', whose reporter, Arifa Farooq was arrested for giving false information about her identity while applying for a job that gave her access to the standards of domiciliary care.
The programme was made by the BBC Scotland Investigations Unit. In the end, the Procurator Fiscal chose not to pursue Farooq, whose efforts led to inquiry being held by the Scottish Parliament into home care contracts.
The producer was Murdoch Rodgers and the assistant producer was ex-Sunday Herald reporter, Liam McDougall.
This is the third year in a row that BBC Scotland has won the News and Current Affairs title at the Scottish BAFTAs.
Disclaimer: Murdoch is my 'brother-in-law'
"Gie him a big kiss frae me sis!"
So there's an overtly political thrust to the mag?
Alan Moore launches his bi-monthly magazine Dodgem Logic in November, featuring articles and artwork by himself and various other contributors, including Mustard magazine. We spoke to him at his Northampton home.
On their debut album, this striking San Francisco quintet explodes in a tight and danceable riot of industrial percussion, vocals and tape manipulations. According to an enclosed booklet ("Aural Instruction Manual"), the word "nig" is defined as "a positive acronym...[it] has taken on a universal meaning in describing all oppressed people who have actively taken a stand against those who perpetuate ethnic notions and discriminate on the basis of them." Assailing "Television" (the medium, not the band), poverty and hunger ("Burritos"), the "CIA" and South Africa ("Control"), the Beatnigs cross Devo, Test Dept. and the Dead Kennedys in a brilliant, original coincidence of extremist musical ideas and radical politics. "Television" was subsequently given a pair of head-spinning remixes by Adrian Sherwood, Gary Clail and Mark Stewart and issued on a four-version 12-inch.
One of Scotland’s most senior former judges has called for the legalisation of heroin and other illicit drugs. Lord McCluskey said government policy had failed to cut the number of drug deaths or level of drug-related crime.
The former solicitor general for Scotland and High Court judge added that he was appalled by the effect that illegal substances were having on Scotland’s communities.
McCluskey, who defended Sir Paul McCartney against drugs charges in 1973, said he believed that heroin should be given to addicts in controlled medical settings to cut off the flow of money to organised crime. “If people are addicted to heroin, give them heroin. I’m not suggesting you sell it at newsagents, but if you were to offer it to addicts in a medically controlled setting, there would be no criminal market,” he said.
McCluskey said treating drugs as a criminal issue was wrong, and they should be regarded as a health problem...
Transform Drug Policy Foundation will launch their internationally groundbreaking book ‘After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation’ on 12th November 2009 at 11.15am, at the House of Commons, London and at 11.00am at the DPA Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The book is also being launched in mainland Europe, South America, Australasia and Asia.
There is a growing recognition around the world that the prohibition of drugs is a counterproductive failure. However, a major barrier to drug law reform has been a widespread fear of the unknown – just what could a post-prohibition regime look like?
For the first time, ‘Blueprint’ answers that question by proposing specific models of regulation for each main type and preparation of prohibited drug, coupled with the principles and rationale for doing so.
Transform demonstrate that moving to the legal regulation of drugs is not an unthinkable, politically impossible step in the dark, but a sensible, pragmatic approach to control drug production, supply and use.
The House of Commons event will include short presentations by Steve Rolles (author of the publication), Dr Ben Goldacre (‘Bad Science’ columnist for the Guardian) and Professor Rod Morgan (Former Chair of the UK Youth Justice Board) followed by a question and answer session and a light lunch.
The Albuquerque launch has a panel including Danny Kushlick (Transform), Sanho Tree (Institute for Policy Studies) and US Rep. Roger Goodman.
If you would like to attend either the House of Commons or Albuquerque events, please contact Jane Slater on +44 (0) 117 941 5810 or email jane@tdpf.org.uk.
Superb album concerning Native American Indian's culture & land rights with the wonderful Jeanette Armstrong, Michael Franti's Beatnigs, The Fire Next Time, Chuck D with Mad Professor and an interview with Che Guevara from 1967 amongst others.
Two weeks after collapsing on stage with breathing difficulties, Morrissey was at the centre of controversy again last night when the former Smiths singer stormed off during a performance in Liverpool after a plastic beer glass was thrown.Scuffles broke out among frustrated fans leaving the Liverpool Echo Arena after they were told that the notoriously temperamental star could not carry on. Eyewitnesses said the singer narrowly avoided being hit during the second song of the night, but was splashed in the face...
My cousin (Hi Adele) was at the gig in Liverpool and was "gutted"! One and a half songs at how much a ticket?
"No shipload of whites fleeing disaster would be treated like this"
"What makes me dance in a club is rhythm, but what makes me really happy while dancing is great sound. I like the experience of being surrounded by a massive wall of sound which at the same time is highly defined and structured." 
From 'William S. Burroughs, Dennis Hopper & Allen Ginsberg at Track 16'
Man this would have been such a great concert...Nidal Malik Hasan may have shouted “Allahu Akbar” before his murderous onslaught at Fort Hood, but his actions were part of an American phenomenon that is a national emergency.
You had barely enough time to grasp what might have happened in the Cleveland home of convicted rapist Anthony Sowell, where police so far have found the remains of 11 women, when news came of Hasan’s massacre. Yet just as that terrible event was starting to sink in, the airwaves were burning up with reports of a shooting rampage in an office building in Orlando, Florida, in which 8 people were said to have been shot, one—as of this writing—fatally.
It's time to start asking ourselves whether our famous American freedom—in both its liberal and conservative formulations—is not actually a subtle form of dehumanizing tyranny.uthority-whether these "freedoms" are actually a tightening dog-collar turning us all into rabid animals.
More than health care, the economy, jobs, Afghanistan, Iraq, public malfeasance, private dishonesty, civil rights, disease or tainted food, mass murder is American’s primary problem and most fundamental shame. No prosperous country not riven by civil conflict has anything like our volume of mass killings. And yet for all of the fascination with mass murder in the media, in Hollywood—and among us--no politician will do more than pay lip service in condemning it. No journalist will crusade against it. No celebrity will take it up as a cause.
Nobody does a damn thing to try to stop it. Conservatives don’t want to make an issue of mass murder because then they would be confronted with the fact that nearly all of the massacres are committed by people using guns. Liberals don’t want to cry out about it because then they would have to address the fact that the violence of our entertainment—TV, movies, videogames, our proliferating apps—makes killing seem like just another strategy for coping with reality. If the utterly immoral legality of handguns and assault weapons puts killing within reach, then vicarious violence, sanctified by every corner of the entertainment culture, makes murder ethically and conceptually possible...
Obama & Michelle Barak during the presidential campaign in 2008, at a Bruce Springsteen-Billy Joel benefit concert in New York. Photo: Callie Shell/Aurora
Untitled 29/77, 1990-91
Objectives
Stunning photographic essay on the first black American biker club.
Yotte, my friend,
