Got this off another blogger, I shouldn't run on the platforms or concourses of the Tube, especially if I'm carrying a rucksack, wearing a big coat or look a bit foreign. We're already tarring the Muslims with the same brush anyways, let's just do a double jeopardy on Muslims (majority of whom are not Caucasian and therefore foreign) and who might just come from a climate where 17 degrees C is indeed cold and therefore warrants a big coat. Let's not forget the backpacker tourists from warmer climates who are visiting London this time of the year too. Stereotyping, gotta love it.
I've already said my piece about Jean Charles. I understand the need for acting in the interest of the safety of the majority but what like the Telegraph opinion piece says,
On the same day, Mr de Menezes's jacket cost him his life, the Telegraph ran a page of portraits showing the dead of July 7. Many were like him: young adults of vaguely foreign extraction for whom English was a second language. Possibly they, too, had suspicious quirks of dress. Certainly, at any moment of the day the Tube's full of foreigners with heavy coats and bulky bags. They're on the Piccadilly line heading to Heathrow, the Victoria line to pick up the Gatwick Express, the Docklands to City Airport, the Northern to Euston. I doubt whether many Bulgars or Croats or Mauritians or Quebeckers or many of the rest of the vast tide of humanity sweeping through London every day would be sufficiently familiar with the Met's new policy to prostrate themselves quickly enough before plain-clothes marksmen.
The more I think of it, the more ridiculous it seems, Menezes was observed from the time he went out of his flat, got on a bus and then into a Tube station, if authorities had suspected him of carrying explosives at that time, why didn't they take him down sooner? Why let him get on a bus in the first place? Isn't that also a target? I know it's not kosher to second guess the coppers, it's a shitty situation, damned if you shoot, damned if you don't. I know I wouldn't want to be in the shooter's shoes right now but the Met apprehended the 4 suspected bombers, alive.
Perhaps the shooting of J.C. was a knee jerk reaction to the events of the previous day but when you see the 4 suspected bombers alive and Menezes dead something does not compute. If authorities can track someone who they think is carrying explosives all the way from his house to a Tube station and then decide to do something about it only when he gets there, something about the whole things is terribly, terribly wrong. Menezes part 2 cannot be allowed to happen again, no matter what Sir Ian Blair says.
Saturday, 30 July 2005
Friday, 29 July 2005
Thursday, 28 July 2005
IRA gives up armed struggle
Hopefully, with this statement more than 30 years of low intensity conflict which saw the deaths of more than 3,500 people all told will be brought to a close. Civilians, royalists, republicans, military and members of the security forces.
Having grown up in a time when the mention of the IRA would strike fear into the hearts of people the end seems like a cop out. This was the organisation that introduced knee capping with a drill to the world. Being a Roman Catholic, I remember being horrified to learn the IRA was born of the Roman Catholic community when I was in Secondary School. What the IRA did flew in the face of everything I had faithfully absorbed about the Church. How could people who professed the same faith as I did turn around and gun down innocents? Like all children and teens, I was an idealist. It was disheartening and left me terribly disillusioned. Just one of the many bitter lessons of the realities (and general wackjobness) of life to come.
Here's hoping this one will finally stick.
A Timeline
Having grown up in a time when the mention of the IRA would strike fear into the hearts of people the end seems like a cop out. This was the organisation that introduced knee capping with a drill to the world. Being a Roman Catholic, I remember being horrified to learn the IRA was born of the Roman Catholic community when I was in Secondary School. What the IRA did flew in the face of everything I had faithfully absorbed about the Church. How could people who professed the same faith as I did turn around and gun down innocents? Like all children and teens, I was an idealist. It was disheartening and left me terribly disillusioned. Just one of the many bitter lessons of the realities (and general wackjobness) of life to come.
Here's hoping this one will finally stick.
A Timeline
Wednesday, 27 July 2005
Jean Charles de Menezes (1978 - 2005)
The shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by plainclothes police officers of the London Metropolitan Police in a Tube station on 22 July was shocking to say the least. Police justified the shooting by saying he had come from a block of flats which was under observation for being a suspected bomber hideout as well as being dressed in a heavy jacket on a warm day, 17°C being the temperature of the day in question. Jumping over the ticket barrier and running for the train didn't help his cause. Coming a day after 4 bombs fizzled in a botched attempt at a second wave of bombings targeting London's transport system it seemed as if the authorities had finally scored one for the good guys when they announced the shooting was "directly linked" to the bombing investigations.
The next day, the Met revealed the identity of Menezes along with the even more shocking revelation that he wasn't remotely linked to the attempted bombings and more damningly, wasn't carrying any explosives at the time of his death. The Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, apologised to the Menezes family and called the death a "tragedy" but maintained the "shoot to kill" policy concerning suspectedsuicidee bombers would stay.
How Jean Charles de Menezes came to die on the floor of a Tube train presents us all with a little problem. An innocent died at the hands of the police. To be sure, he's not the first. Amadou Diallo comes to mind, but we can explain Diallo away as a case of trigger happy policemen who shot first and asked questions later.
But wait, Menezes looked like a bomber, acted like a bomber. He was shot because he looked like a threat to the policemen of an already frazzled city which had suffered two bomb attacks in the space of two weeks. No matter which way you cut it, Menezes was in the wrong place at the wrong time and wearing the wrong thing. Then again, he's Brazilian, where I'm from, 17°C is pretty damn cold to me, I'm sure it was to him. Okay, so why did he run when police told him to stop? Men dressed in plain clothes start waving guns at you. English isn't your first language. Maybe the accent wasn't didn't help. I don't know. Whatever the case is, Menezes was shot in the head because he looked like a suicide bomber, acted like a suicide bomber. Hindsight is 20/20, don't diss the cops for doing their job.
Sir Ian Blair says Menezes may not be the last, the "shoot to kill" policy stays. To put it crudely, the first time was a freebie, but Menezes Part II? A bit much innit? Where does one draw the line? Locking people up without need to show cause is already a bit much, especially if they're innocent. But to shoot me in the head just because I happen to fit the profile of a suicide bomber? Remind me to wear a singlet if I ever manage to get to London and ride the Tube. Some stuff I rather not regurgitate here and here.
And to top things off, just this morning, Brit police apprehended a suspected bomber of the 22/7 bombings, apparently he had on him a backpack with a "device" in it at the time of his arrest. Uniformed officers took him down with a Taser. Food for thought.
Technorati tags: Singapore, Jean Charles de Menezes
The next day, the Met revealed the identity of Menezes along with the even more shocking revelation that he wasn't remotely linked to the attempted bombings and more damningly, wasn't carrying any explosives at the time of his death. The Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, apologised to the Menezes family and called the death a "tragedy" but maintained the "shoot to kill" policy concerning suspectedsuicidee bombers would stay.
How Jean Charles de Menezes came to die on the floor of a Tube train presents us all with a little problem. An innocent died at the hands of the police. To be sure, he's not the first. Amadou Diallo comes to mind, but we can explain Diallo away as a case of trigger happy policemen who shot first and asked questions later.
But wait, Menezes looked like a bomber, acted like a bomber. He was shot because he looked like a threat to the policemen of an already frazzled city which had suffered two bomb attacks in the space of two weeks. No matter which way you cut it, Menezes was in the wrong place at the wrong time and wearing the wrong thing. Then again, he's Brazilian, where I'm from, 17°C is pretty damn cold to me, I'm sure it was to him. Okay, so why did he run when police told him to stop? Men dressed in plain clothes start waving guns at you. English isn't your first language. Maybe the accent wasn't didn't help. I don't know. Whatever the case is, Menezes was shot in the head because he looked like a suicide bomber, acted like a suicide bomber. Hindsight is 20/20, don't diss the cops for doing their job.
Sir Ian Blair says Menezes may not be the last, the "shoot to kill" policy stays. To put it crudely, the first time was a freebie, but Menezes Part II? A bit much innit? Where does one draw the line? Locking people up without need to show cause is already a bit much, especially if they're innocent. But to shoot me in the head just because I happen to fit the profile of a suicide bomber? Remind me to wear a singlet if I ever manage to get to London and ride the Tube. Some stuff I rather not regurgitate here and here.
And to top things off, just this morning, Brit police apprehended a suspected bomber of the 22/7 bombings, apparently he had on him a backpack with a "device" in it at the time of his arrest. Uniformed officers took him down with a Taser. Food for thought.
Technorati tags: Singapore, Jean Charles de Menezes
Monday, 25 July 2005
Nation Kena F***ed
Seeing I'm regurgitating from memory, my apologies if I've gotten anything wrong or misrepresented, always welcome to email me to set the record straight, please don't sue me.
The National Kidney Foundation (NKF), mightiest of the charities in Singapore
1. has $262,000,000 in reserves as of July 2005. Enough for anything from 5 to 30 years of operations depending on how you slice the cake. No, wait, NKF says that's only enough to last 3 years.
2. had a CEO, T.T. Durai, who worked as a volunteer for 21 years before becoming it's CEO in 1992 with a starting salary of $12,000, turning down the initial $20,000 he was offered. Mr. Durai's salary for last year was north of $500,000, his monthly basic of $25,000 and what really pissed people off, a 10-12 month bonus.
3. had a board which approved the above salary package.
4. misrepresented the number of patients under it's care. So is it 2,000 or 3,000 dudes?
5. had a board which included one Ms. Matilda I-can't-remember-the-surname, who was first an NKF employee, left the NKF, started a call centre business with abovementioned CEO and then proceeded to bid for and win a contract to run NKF's call centre.
6. had gold taps which cost $990 before discount installed in the CEO's bathroom before said CEO thought they might be a little too expensive and had them swapped for cheaper alternatives. $990, I could live on that for two months and still have change to buy a bag or two of peanuts.
7. had a patron, Mrs. Goh Chok Tong, wife of the SM, who probably got an earful from the husband when he found out she had justified T.T's salary by saying for someone who managed $262,000,000 his salary was peanuts. Engage brain before mouth Mrs. Goh, if you had just kept it zipped and smiled a sad smile for the cameras and walked away you could have come off smelling like roses but you just had to say something *throws hands in the air*
8. has a new board and Chairman/CEO, Mr. Gerard Ee, I hope he doesn't stop smiling after a couple of weeks of wading in the neck high shithole he's stepped into. Bravo on your decision to not take a cent for your post. Seeing as how the entire nation would have been terribly interested to know your salary you defused that potential bomb with aplomb.
It's 14 days to the day the defamation suit that kicked over this whole anthill started, heads have rolled and people in suits are poring over the nooks and crannys of the NKF. People power came to Singapore 2 weeks ago, it was the first solid expression of the power of the masses and what that power was capable of, gives me the tingles just thinking about it. Just imagine, apathetic Singapore has got a voice and we're not afraid to use it.
Well, not really. The NKF issue was one that united all because it was a victim of it's success. 2 out of 3 Singaporeans donated to it. It galvanised the people in such numbers precisely because so many people were affected by the revelations. Will we see such an awe insipring display of the power of the masses again?
The buck seems to have stopped at the resignation of T.T. and gang, people have gone back to their lives. Wait damnit, where you all going? It's not the end yet, is it?
The National Kidney Foundation (NKF), mightiest of the charities in Singapore
1. has $262,000,000 in reserves as of July 2005. Enough for anything from 5 to 30 years of operations depending on how you slice the cake. No, wait, NKF says that's only enough to last 3 years.
2. had a CEO, T.T. Durai, who worked as a volunteer for 21 years before becoming it's CEO in 1992 with a starting salary of $12,000, turning down the initial $20,000 he was offered. Mr. Durai's salary for last year was north of $500,000, his monthly basic of $25,000 and what really pissed people off, a 10-12 month bonus.
3. had a board which approved the above salary package.
4. misrepresented the number of patients under it's care. So is it 2,000 or 3,000 dudes?
5. had a board which included one Ms. Matilda I-can't-remember-the-surname, who was first an NKF employee, left the NKF, started a call centre business with abovementioned CEO and then proceeded to bid for and win a contract to run NKF's call centre.
6. had gold taps which cost $990 before discount installed in the CEO's bathroom before said CEO thought they might be a little too expensive and had them swapped for cheaper alternatives. $990, I could live on that for two months and still have change to buy a bag or two of peanuts.
7. had a patron, Mrs. Goh Chok Tong, wife of the SM, who probably got an earful from the husband when he found out she had justified T.T's salary by saying for someone who managed $262,000,000 his salary was peanuts. Engage brain before mouth Mrs. Goh, if you had just kept it zipped and smiled a sad smile for the cameras and walked away you could have come off smelling like roses but you just had to say something *throws hands in the air*
8. has a new board and Chairman/CEO, Mr. Gerard Ee, I hope he doesn't stop smiling after a couple of weeks of wading in the neck high shithole he's stepped into. Bravo on your decision to not take a cent for your post. Seeing as how the entire nation would have been terribly interested to know your salary you defused that potential bomb with aplomb.
It's 14 days to the day the defamation suit that kicked over this whole anthill started, heads have rolled and people in suits are poring over the nooks and crannys of the NKF. People power came to Singapore 2 weeks ago, it was the first solid expression of the power of the masses and what that power was capable of, gives me the tingles just thinking about it. Just imagine, apathetic Singapore has got a voice and we're not afraid to use it.
Well, not really. The NKF issue was one that united all because it was a victim of it's success. 2 out of 3 Singaporeans donated to it. It galvanised the people in such numbers precisely because so many people were affected by the revelations. Will we see such an awe insipring display of the power of the masses again?
The buck seems to have stopped at the resignation of T.T. and gang, people have gone back to their lives. Wait damnit, where you all going? It's not the end yet, is it?
Flashbacks
The London bombings of 7th July were quite the nasty epilogue to the city's successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Four bombs, three placed on Tube trains and 1 on a double decker bus, went off within minutes of each other around 0900hrs local time killing 50 odd commuters and wounding over 700. Compared to the Madrid bombings of a year and a half ago the Brits got off pretty lightly. The Spaniards lost more than triple the number in dead and over 900 wounded on an above ground system. Considering the Tube has had several incidents of station fires where there was loss of life due to suffocation and/or smoke inhalation someone must be counting their blessings.
Scenes of streets being filled with emergency services vehicles and personnel dressed in all sorts of bright colours with their job designation spelt out at the back of their jumpsuits was a site to see. No scenes of mass panic, somewhat frazzled commuters being herded away from incident sites by simliarly frazzled police was about as panic stricken as you could get. Some credit the famous stiff upper lip of the Brits, others the wave of bombings by the IRA in the 80's, others still the relatively small impact the bombs made to explain the relative calm exhibited by the majority of Londonors in the immediate aftermath and days following the attack.
For me, the defining scene of this sorry episode was a shot of an ambulance just outside the doors of a hospital ER, a paramedics performing CPR on a stretcher case as they offloaded the poor sod off the vehicle and into the hospital. Someone's life was slipping away as I was sitting down to dinner half a world away. Made me really mad at whoever did it. Made me want to rail at the injustice of it all. But then I got around to reading this a couple of days after.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9422.htm
Quote:
"It is easy for Tony Blair to call yesterdays bombings "barbaric" - of course they were - but what were the civilian deaths of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the children torn apart by cluster bombs, the countless innocent Iraqis gunned down at American military checkpoints? When they die, it is "collateral damage"; when "we" die, it is "barbaric terrorism".
If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us believe insurgency won't come to us? One thing is certain: if Tony Blair really believes that by "fighting terrorism" in Iraq we could more efficiently protect Britain - fight them there rather than let them come here, as Bush constantly says - this argument is no longer valid."
Food for thought. While I don't remember anyone calling Iraqi civilian deaths "collateral damage" I also don't remember hourly coverage of the latest car bomb casualties or if anyone did a story on the survivors of the last family car to get blown away cos they were approaching the American manned checkpoint a little too quickly. In this age of 24/7 coverage, how the media chooses to project a story can greatly influence the perceptions and opinions that people take away from the story. Witness the aftermath of 9/11 and the London bombings, endless coverage, live briefings from authorities. Juxtapose that image with a ten second shaky video shot of the remnants of the latest car bomb to hit Baghdad in the distance and accompanying sound bite, something not right, can't quite figure out what. I know! The danged cameraman! They need to get someone who isn't high on hashish or something when he's filming. Sheesh, shaky video images, you'd think the BBC/CNN could do better.
I also picked up something from the July 12 edition of The Daily Show, well, not the whole show, just the clip on onegoodmove.org. Never really noticed the newscasters on CNN being like that before, or maybe I did but could never really put my finger on it. BBC rocks in any case.
Still, CNN is only guilty of sensationalising or at most, spinning a story so people could point to London and say "See? We got 'em on the run, that's why they're bombing London." Fox News on the other hand.....where in the hell do they get these people?
Footnote, the botched attempts at Wave 2 on July 21st totally blindsided everyone, you'd think lightning never strikes twice, perhaps that's what Wave 2 was all about, a sucker punch from a direction you never expected. ie. the same place. Not that it's any comfort to the poor sod that got shot cos he was wearing a heavy jacket in the middle of summer and refused to stop when plainclothes police officers told him to. More on this when I've had time to organise my simple mind.
Scenes of streets being filled with emergency services vehicles and personnel dressed in all sorts of bright colours with their job designation spelt out at the back of their jumpsuits was a site to see. No scenes of mass panic, somewhat frazzled commuters being herded away from incident sites by simliarly frazzled police was about as panic stricken as you could get. Some credit the famous stiff upper lip of the Brits, others the wave of bombings by the IRA in the 80's, others still the relatively small impact the bombs made to explain the relative calm exhibited by the majority of Londonors in the immediate aftermath and days following the attack.
For me, the defining scene of this sorry episode was a shot of an ambulance just outside the doors of a hospital ER, a paramedics performing CPR on a stretcher case as they offloaded the poor sod off the vehicle and into the hospital. Someone's life was slipping away as I was sitting down to dinner half a world away. Made me really mad at whoever did it. Made me want to rail at the injustice of it all. But then I got around to reading this a couple of days after.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9422.htm
Quote:
"It is easy for Tony Blair to call yesterdays bombings "barbaric" - of course they were - but what were the civilian deaths of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the children torn apart by cluster bombs, the countless innocent Iraqis gunned down at American military checkpoints? When they die, it is "collateral damage"; when "we" die, it is "barbaric terrorism".
If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us believe insurgency won't come to us? One thing is certain: if Tony Blair really believes that by "fighting terrorism" in Iraq we could more efficiently protect Britain - fight them there rather than let them come here, as Bush constantly says - this argument is no longer valid."
Food for thought. While I don't remember anyone calling Iraqi civilian deaths "collateral damage" I also don't remember hourly coverage of the latest car bomb casualties or if anyone did a story on the survivors of the last family car to get blown away cos they were approaching the American manned checkpoint a little too quickly. In this age of 24/7 coverage, how the media chooses to project a story can greatly influence the perceptions and opinions that people take away from the story. Witness the aftermath of 9/11 and the London bombings, endless coverage, live briefings from authorities. Juxtapose that image with a ten second shaky video shot of the remnants of the latest car bomb to hit Baghdad in the distance and accompanying sound bite, something not right, can't quite figure out what. I know! The danged cameraman! They need to get someone who isn't high on hashish or something when he's filming. Sheesh, shaky video images, you'd think the BBC/CNN could do better.
I also picked up something from the July 12 edition of The Daily Show, well, not the whole show, just the clip on onegoodmove.org. Never really noticed the newscasters on CNN being like that before, or maybe I did but could never really put my finger on it. BBC rocks in any case.
Still, CNN is only guilty of sensationalising or at most, spinning a story so people could point to London and say "See? We got 'em on the run, that's why they're bombing London." Fox News on the other hand.....where in the hell do they get these people?
Footnote, the botched attempts at Wave 2 on July 21st totally blindsided everyone, you'd think lightning never strikes twice, perhaps that's what Wave 2 was all about, a sucker punch from a direction you never expected. ie. the same place. Not that it's any comfort to the poor sod that got shot cos he was wearing a heavy jacket in the middle of summer and refused to stop when plainclothes police officers told him to. More on this when I've had time to organise my simple mind.
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