Photo Hunt - Entertainment

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is entertainment. In the absence of new photos here are some concert photos of my favourite musician Robyn Hitchcock



This is Robyn performing Airscape, the nearest thing the not-wife and I have to an "our song"




And this is Madonna of the Wasps (it gets started proper at around 1 minute), The nearest thing I have to a repeatable nickname for the not-wife!



But she calls me Balloon Man.. Damn I need to lose weight!

Ted is not impressed by Scottish comedian

Ted does not find comedy quiz shows to his liking. This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

Comrade Duch and the sailor “spies”

Although the trial of Comrade Duch quite rightly focuses on the many thousands of innocent Cambodians who were tortured and butchered under his auspices at S-21 a small number of foreigners ended up in his evil grasp too.

Next month New Zealander Rob Hamill will testify as a victim at the Cambodian war crimes trial of the Comrade Duch. Mr Hamill’s brother Kerry was murdered by the Khmer Rouge in 1978.

According to the Scoop.NZ article, Mr Hamill’s appearance at the Extraordinary Court of Cambodia trial of Comrade Duch comes almost 31 years to the day after his brother Kerry Hamill and Englishman John Dewhirst were snatched from their yacht which blundered into Cambodian waters. Fellow sailor, Canadian Stuart Glass was killed, on 13 August 1978.

Kerry and John were tortured for two months at S-21 and forced to confess they were CIA spies, before being executed.

“I expect to experience the widest possible range of emotions when I see Duch,” said Mr Hamill who will be one of two Western victims to testify, “a lot of nervous energy will be expended. Duch says he is sorry and wants forgiveness, but I want to find out whether he truly understands the impact of what he did and the damage he caused. I’m not sure that he does comprehend what he and the Khmer Rouge did to the people of Cambodia, let alone to the families of Kerry, John and Stuart.”

The Wikipedia article on John Dewhirst lists other westerners who suffered their same terrible fate at S-21.

Americans James Clark, Lance McNamara, Michael Scott Deeds and Christopher DeLance

Australians Ronald Dean and David Scott

French brothers Rovin and Harad Bernard and Andre Gaston Courtigne

The article also states that several dozen Vietnamese, Thais, Laotians, Indians, Pakistanis and Arabs were detained in the prison at various times. They are not named

None of them fared any differently than the Cambodian prisoners.

Mr Dewhirst was one of two Britons to die in Pol Pot's Cambodia. The other Malcolm Caldwell, an academic and apparently a fervent supporter of the regime. He was assassinated during a visit to Phnom Penh in December 1978. but that is a different story...

Promising Iranian sportsman has hand removed by Iranian authorities....

The World Under-23 Rowing Championships last week provided a well deserved chance to hear the Iranian national anthem after Mohsen Shadi Naghadeh won the Lightweight Men’s Single Sculls event. His victory was a first for an Iranian rower at any world or Olympic rowing final. World Rowing has a photo of him (below) with silver medallist, Brazilian Ailson Silva and Linus Lichtschlag of Germany who won the bronze.



Press TV reports Mohsen’s win but it would seem that by the time it was reported in Iran his hand and upper arm were removed from the photo.


Now I wonder if it had anything to do with him sporting a certain green wristband thingumybob of the sort that caused a number of Iranian footballers so much grief last month...

I look forward to seeing Mohsen competing at Eton in three years time (the site of 2012 Olympic rowing regatta) unless of course the Iranian authorities don’t do more than crop his photo....

James McIntyre - Canada's Bard of Cheese

Hints to Cheese Makers

Addressed to Jonathan Wingle, Esq.

All those who quality do prize
Must study color, taste and size
And keep their dishes clean and sweet,
And all things round their factories neat,
For dairymen insist that these
Are all important points in cheese.

Grant has here a famous work
Devoted to the cause of pork.
For dairymen find that it doth pay
To fatten pigs upon the whey,
For there is money raising grease
As well as in the making cheese.

Silly Week

THe King of the gloriously silly

Who else but the Great McGonagall!

The Great Franchise Demonstration
Dundee, 20th September 1884

Twas in the year of 1884, and on Saturday the 20th of September,
Which the inhabitants of Dundee will long remember
The great Liberal Franchise Demonstration,
Which filled their minds with admiration.

Oh! it was a most magnificent display,
To see about 20 or 30 thousand men all in grand array;
And each man with a medal on his breast;
And every man in the procession dressed in his best.

The banners of the processionists were really grand to see-
The like hasn't been seen for a long time in Dundee;
While sweet music from the bands did rend the skies,
And every processionist was resolved to vote for the Franchise.

And as the procession passed along each street,
The spectators did loudly the processionists greet;
As they viewed their beautiful banners waving in the wind,
They declared such a scene would be ever fresh in their mind.

The mustering of the processionists was very grand,
As along the Esplanade each man took his stand,
And as soon as they were marshalled in grand array,
To the Magdalen Green, in haste, they wended their way.

And when they arrived on the Magdalen Green,
I'm sure it was a very beautiful imposing scene-
While the cheers of that vast multitude ascended to the skies,
For the "Grand Old Man," Gladstone, the Hero of the Franchise,

Who has struggled very hard for the people's rights,
Many long years, and many weary nights;
And I think the "Grand Old Man" will gain the Franchise,
And if he does, the people will laud him to the skies.

And his name should be written in letters of gold :
For he is a wise statesman- true and bold-
Who has advocated the people's rights for many long years;
And when he is dead they will thank him with their tears.

For he is the man for the working man,
And without fear of contradiction, deny it who can;
Because he wishes the working man to have a good coat,
And, both in town and country, to have power to vote.

The reason why the Lords won't pass the Franchise Bill :
They fear that it will do themselves some ill;
That is the reason why they wish to throw it out,
Yes, believe me, fellow citizens, that's the cause without doubt.

The emblems and mottoes in the procession, were really grand,
The like hasn't been seen in broad Scotland;
Especially the picture of Gladstone- the nation's hope,
Who is a much cleverer man than Sir John Cope.

There were masons and ploughmen all in a row,
Also tailors, tenters, and blacksmiths, which made a grand show;
Likewise carters and bakers which was most beautiful to be seen,
To see them marching from the Esplanade to the Magdalen Green.

I'm sure it was a most beautiful sight to see,
The like has never been seen before in Dundee;
Such a body of men, and Gladstone at the helm,
Such a sight, I'm sure, 'twould the Lords o'erwhelm.

Oh! it was grand to see that vast crowd,
And to hear the speeches, most eloquent and loud,
That were made by the speakers, regarding the Franchise;
While the spectators applauded them to the skies.

And for the "Grand Old Man" they gave three cheers,
Hoping he would live for many long years;
And when the speeches were ended, the people's hearts were gay,
And they all dispersed quietly to their homes without delay.

More poetic gems at McGonagall online. Don't forget to sigen up for the gem of the day and vote to have William Topaz on a stamp!



Silly Week

A Day of silly posts - Swami

By William Penn V performed by William Penn and His Pals. A song from the glorious Pebbles Collection, Pebbles 3 - the Acid Gallery. A post for Silly Week.



Silly Week

I'm Allergic to Flowers

By the glorious Jefferson Handkerchief. Another prime cut from Pebbles 3 - The Acid Gallery. Another post for Silly Week



Silly week

WW - Another pigeon

This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of Wordless Wednesday.

Support bands I have seen #1

Icelandic punk band Purrkur Pillnikk who supported the Fall in late 1982 (or was it early 1983 ... one or the other). Not sure why I went to see the Fall as I couldn't stand them

Two poems by Alicia Partnoy

Survivor

I carry my rage like a dead fish,
limp and stinking in my arms.
I press it against my breast,
whisper to it,
people on the streets flee from me …
I don't know: is it the smell of death
that makes them flee
or is it the fear
that my body's warmth
might bring rage back to life?


Testimony

This microphone
with its cable coiling around it,
bows to me.
I walk up to it,
open my eyes
open
my book
open
my mouth.
That’s right, I open my mouth wide
and begin my story.
They say
I speak too softly,
that I am practically mumbling,
that they can’t hear
the screams piercing.
I open
my memory
like a rotten cantaloupe.

They say
I have not managed
to forcefully convey the pitiless rage
of the cattle prod.
They say that in matters such as this
nothing must be left
open
to the imagination or to doubt.
I take out
the Amnesty report
and begin speaking through that ink.
I urge: “Read.”
I, in my turn, coil around
my bowing accomplice,
this microphone.
I urge action as a prescription,
information as an infallible antidote
and, one every knot is untied,
I recite my verses.
I resist. I am whole.

This microphone
with its cable coiling around it,
bows to me.

Activist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Partnoy Alicia Partnoy spent over two years in detention during the Argentinian Dirty War, during which she was beaten, starved and sexually assaulted. Her novel The Little School is based on her experiences.

Pigeons

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Thomas Harriot's Moon drawings

In late 1609 Galileo Galilei made astronomical drawings of the Moon. However it would seem that he was not the first person to do so. 400 years ago today, Englishman Thomas Harriot (above)trained his lens on the Moon and after several hours later he had produced an intricate map of the Moon’s surface, showing craters, mountains and the planet’s empty “seas” (see below).

However, Harriot never saw the need to publish his work. If he had done so, he may well have had fame. “He had a nice annual pension from the Earl of Northumberland and he was just interested in the pursuit of knowledge,” said Alison McCann, assistant county archivist for the Sussex Record Office, which holds all of Harriot’s Moon drawings, made on behalf of Lord Egremont.



Harriot’s very first recording was made using hand-held device, known as the “Dutch trunke” telescope, which was only six times more powerful than the naked eye. It would have shown a small pinpoint of sky and Harriot would have had to inch the telescope across the sky, recording as he went.

By 1613 he had a telescope with a magnification of 36 times, and was able to record some of the most striking features of the solar system including Jupiter’s spot, Saturn’s rings and the dark sunspots that we now know correspond to magnetic activity on the Sun’s surface. He is also credited with the discovery of Snell’s Law, which describes the refraction of light through a lens, 20 years before Willebrord Snellius published his own theory. In addition he made important contributions to the development of algebra and wrote a treatise on navigation.

Harriot's achievements are now being recognised finally. Two of his Moon drawings, along with recordings of Jupiter and sunspots, have been unveiled at the Science Museum. Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, described Harriot as astronomy’s unsung hero. “It is good that his reputation is being restored,” he said.

It does seem that Harriot was a superb scientist but he hid his light under a bushel, so to speak, and so his achievements were never given the credit they were clearly due. Then again theat is nobody’s fault but his own. That Harriot made the first astronomical drawings of the Moon does not reduce Galileo’s achievements one jot.

Ahmadinejad in the doghouse...

According to the Washington Post “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in trouble with key supporters for not bowing immediately to pressure to drop his choice for vice president

Ahmadinejad had chosen Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie as his first vice president, a job with even less power than his own but who does head cabinet meetings in Ahmadinejad’s absence. Mashai, who has been on record as saying “No nation in the world is our enemy, Iran is a friend of the nation in the United States and in Israel, and this is an honor. We view the American nation as one with the greatest nations of the world”. was not a popular choice for this role (heaven forfend that a senior position is not filled by a gimlet eyed anti-semite). It took Ahmadinejad a week to bow to pressure and dismiss him.

The head of the armed forces and an influential member of parliament questioned why it had taken Ahmadinejad so long to heed the supreme leader's instruction. "The Iranian nation didn't expect the ink on the leader's letter to dry out while it was not yet implemented," said Maj. Gen. Seyed Hassan, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the semiofficial Mehr

"The expectation from Ahmadinejad was that he would implement the leader's order immediately after receiving his letter on the 18th of July. Mashaie's appointment should have been revoked and annulled, as the leader said," said Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, who generally supports Ahmadinejad's policies.

Ahmadinejad, whose daughter is married to Mashaie’s son (this probably explains a lot) didn not respond to a Khamaenei edict to sack Mashaie until after it had been read on state television Friday.

Even so it seems that Ahmadinejad is still being at least a little defiant (like the lap dog that takes a shit on its owner’s lap?). According to CNN he has appointed Mashaie as his adviser and head of his bureau (presumably his chef de cabinet), a move that is likely to cause further anger among his supporters.

Hmm... Perhaps Ahmadinejad is up for six of the best off Khamenei and being forced to write “I must not employ a philosemite” a hundred times.

The Final Three Veterans

At the start of the year there were 8 known World War I veterans alive. Today there are just three. This year we have seen the Last four British veterans still living in the UK (including Henry Allingham and Harry Patch who have both died within the last week) and the last Australian.

The Wikipedians tracking the last veterans of WWI count anyone who was in uniform at the time of the armistice even if they were still in training or in support roles. It is as good a cirterion as any. Here are the last three veterans:

Canadian

John Babcock Babcock attempted to enlist in 1915 (aged 15). He was placed in a Young Soldiers Battalion in August 1917 and was then transferred to the UK where he continued training until the end of the war. He therefore never saw active service. He has lived in the US since the 1920s.Tthe Canadian government has authorised a state funeral for him should he accept it.

American

Frank Buckles Buckles enlisted in the US army at the age of 16 and saw service in France as an ambulance driver. He has been approved for burial in Arlington Cemetery. Buckles survived Japanese internment in WWII

British

Claude Choules Now living in Australia, Choules enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1916 and served on the Battleship HMS Revenge. He witnessed the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919. Choules also saw service in WWII in the Royal Australian Navy.

In addition there is one other person who may have served in WWI but their service is unverified:: Briton Doug Terrey claims to have joined up in 1917 serving as a dispatch rider.

Harry Patch RIP

Portrait of Harry Patch by Peter Kuhfield

Last week saw the passing of Henry Allingham. This week it is with great sorrow to note the passing of Harry Patch, the last Tommy, the known WWI living in Britain and the last veteran of any nation to fight in the trenches on the Western Front. He was 111.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown led the tributes to Patch saying: "I had the honour of meeting Harry, and I share his family's grief at the passing of a great man." The prime minister said the sacrifices of Patch's generation would never be forgotten. "We say today with still greater force: 'We will remember them'."

Prince Charles, who is also the Duke of Cornwall, paid tribute to Patch's service during the war. "Harry was involved in numerous bouts of heavy fighting on the frontline but amazingly remained unscathed for a while. Tragically one night in September 1917 when in the morass in the Ypres Salient a German shrapnel shell burst overhead badly wounding Harry and killing three of his closest friends. .In spite of the comparatively short time that he served with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, Harry always cherished the extraordinary camaraderie that the appalling conditions engendered in the battalion and remained loyal to the end."

A close friend Jim Ross said "Harry died peacefully, surrounded by his many friends," he said. "While the country may remember Harry as a soldier, we will remember him as a dear friend. He was a man of peace who used his great age and fame as the last survivor of the trenches to communicate two simple messages: remember with gratitude and respect those who served on all sides; settle disputes by discussion, not war."

Patch was a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. He served in the trenches as a private from June to September 1917. fought in the battle of Passchendaele in 1917 in which more than 70,000 British troops died.
Fletcher House nursing home in Wells, Somerset, where Patch died, said his funeral was being arranged in accordance with his wishes.

There are now just three WWI veterans alive around the world (See post above)

RIP Harry

Photo Hunt - Utensils

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is utensil. A utensil is defined as an instrument or vessel used in everyday life. Given that plant pots and knifey things are everyday implements for gaddeners I suppose they could be defined as horticultural utensils!

The photo was taken in an outhouse of Ingatestone Hall

Robyn and ,,,,3

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

Forough Farrokhzad - The Sin

I sinned, a sin all filled with pleasure
wrapped in an embraced, warm and fiery
I sinned in a pair of arms
that were vibrant, virile, violent.

In that dim and quiet place of seclusion
I looked into his eyes brimming with mystery
my heart throbbed in my chest all too excited
by the desire glowing in his eyes.


In that dim and quiet place of seclusion
as I sat next to him all scattered inside
his lips poured lust on my lips
and I left behind the sorrows of my heart.


I whispered in his ear these words of love:
“I want you, mate of my soul
I want you, life-giving embrace
I want you, lover gone mad”

Desire surged in his eyes
red wine swirled in the cup
my body surfed all over his
in the softness of the downy bed.

I sinned, a sin all filled with pleasure
next to a body now limp and languid
I know not what I did, God
in that dim and quiet place of seclusion.

The first POW camp

I would have thought the first prisoner of war camp would have been built in antiquity. It didn’t occur to me that nobody got around to building on until the Napoleonic wars. I suppose dungeons or no quarter solved the issue previously...

According to the Times Channel 4’s Time Team has excavated what is believed to be the first such camp near Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire.

Between 1797 and 1814 a 9ha (22-acre) site, known as the Norman Cross Depot, held up to 7,000 enemy soldiers for up to ten years, not to mention a large number of guards. Many of the captives came from famous naval battles of the period such as Camperdown and Trafalgar and from captured colonies in Spain and Portugal.

Ben Robinson, an archaeologist at Peterborough Museum said: “This is a fascinating and unique site because the concept of a ‘prisoner of war camp’ did not exist before Norman Cross was built in 1797. It was an inspired experiment in taking huge numbers of enemy troops out of action, but also keeping them in as humane conditions as possible.”

Although the prisoners were generally treated well, more than 1,000 inmates died from typhoid in 1800 and 1801 and a total of 1,770 died during the camp’s 17-year history. The buildings were dismantled and the site cleared after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Part of the camp, the stable block, now houses an art gallery. The gallery’s website has a section on the camp’s history that is well worth visiting

Peter Hammill - The Spirit

Romeo had Juliette - Lour Reed

Enjoy the lack of sync between the music and the lips

Glass Hotel

From the Jonathan Demme film Storefront Hitchcock, in which Robyn Hitchcock performs in a New York storefront..... Really!

WW - Bear's Britches

The Acanthus in our garden. This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of Wordless Wednesday.

Quamoclit

Ipomoea quamoclit aka the Hummingbird vine. Another attractive climber that the not-wife has succeeded in growing. I have no idea whe the plant is called a Quamoclit, but I daresy anyone looking for some free porn in this post is going to be as disappointed as ever

David Shayler gets stranger and stranger

Ten years ago David Shayler was famous for being a former MI5 Agent turned whistleblower. More recently he has proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, preaching a sermon on the mount near Middlesbrough last year.

No it seems that Mr Shayler has gone a step further by declaring himself to be Delores Kane, a very pneumatic transvestite with surprisingly good legs!...

'I know in my heart that I am Christ and I am here to save humanity,' he began. 'I am here to show humanity the way and to show unconditional love and that includes murderers and pederasts.'

The Shayler claimed that his transvestitism was 'part of the prophecy' because 'Jesus was a transvestite', adding: 'It was important to have feminine attributes and the people I live with don't mind at all.'

Shayler says he is on a 'mission' to save the world and this would happen through his growing of hemp, adding: 'We have a plan to save the world in four months by growing hemp. If we all started growing this plant we could be free, which is why they have made it illegal to stop people gaining freedom.'

Shayler now lives with eight other squatters in a farm near Dorking, Surrey He moved there after being evicted from a farm, in Guildford. He has been living with a group who call themselves the 'Rainbow Movement.'

Shayler seems to be getting more and stranger as time goes. It is easy to get a cheap laugh. Despite the nonsense he spouts he’s looks like a rather sad case these days. His former partner Annie Machon is of the opinion that his dealings with the Government pushed him over the edge. Perhaps she’s right....

And yet some brave people are still prepared to pay the price

This article appeared in today’s Telegraph. Despite the clear and present danger to life, some people are still prepared to document human rights abuses in Chechnya.

Tatyana Lokshina has slowly watched her colleagues die. One by one, they have fallen to anonymous assassins protected by powerful forces whose appetite for murder seems to know few bounds.

Last week, in a ritual that has become all too familiar, Mrs Lokshina donned a black head scarf to bid farewell to one of her closest friends. Accompanied by other mourners, she walked in slow procession behind a open-backed lorry carrying the body of Natalya Estemirova, a fellow member of a dwindling group of female human rights campaigners dedicated to exposing the horrors they say the state has sanctioned in one of Russia's darkest corners.

Lokshina and Estemirova had been working jointly to expose the ordeal of a Chechen man who was publicly executed earlier this month by forces loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president who has been accused of presiding over a reign of terror in the republic. The man had been accused of providing rebels lurking in the southern mountains with a sheep, a crime considered sufficient to warrant an extra-judicial execution in Chechnya.

Mrs Estemirova's murder was undoubtedly linked to her work. But according to fellow campaigners, its brazen nature was intended as an unmistakable message to the women who seek to complete her mission."The manner of her death was symbolic," said Allison Gill, the head of Human Rights Watch in Russia. "She worked on hundreds of cases of people who were kidnapped, shot and killed, or disappeared. And here she is, suffering the same fate. They did it to say: 'You could be next'."

Many inheriting Mrs Estemirova's mantle are women. The risks they face are self-evident and some organisations are considering the wisdom of exposing their staff to such danger. Yet the idea of surrender, for all the peril, seems out of the question.

Mrs Lokshina had little interest in Chechnya until she was sent there for a meeting by a US-funded rights organisation."One has to see it with one's own eyes to understand the immensity of the tragedy, the immensity of the injustice," she said. "Once I saw it with my own eyes, I felt on a human level that the only way not to feel complicit, not to be complicit, was to do something to stop them directly."

Like Mrs Estemirova, Tatyana Lokshina has been one of the principal characters who has woven the narrative of the of Chechnya in recent years. Most of the others are dead. One such was the crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya (Below). Who played a pivotal role for foreign correspondents seeking to understand Chechnya. Often, just as she did in print, she would excoriate Vladimir Putin, the man she held responsible for the callous disregard for human life in Chechnya.



One Saturday morning in October 2006, Mr Putin's 54th birthday, she was shot four times as she returned to her flat in Moscow from her local supermarket.

Another was Stanislav Markelov (below), a lawyer, human rights defender and colleague of Mrs Politkovskaya, was felled by an assassin's bullet shortly after speaking at a press conference in January. Known for his sunny disposition and dirty jokes, Mr Markelov was another crucial figure in the Chechnya activist community. Shot with him was Anastasia Barburova, the fourth reporter at Mrs Politkovskaya's Novaya Gazeta newspaper to meet a violent end since Mr Putin came to power in 2000.



Then there was Mrs Estemirova herself. Working from a tiny office off Vladimir Putin Avenue in central Grozny, Natalya investigated and chronicled the parlous state of human rights in Chechnya. Along with a small but dedicated team, it was her work more than anyone's that held the Kremlin-backed regime to some account.

For Mrs Estemirova, the only prominent activist who lived in Grozny full-time, it was far more than just a story. To anyone who saw her in action, it was evident how passionately she cared about every victim whose cause she championed."She completely gave her heart to every person she spoke to," said Mrs Lokshina. "I often saw Natasha crying when interviewing victims."

Mrs Lokshina is aware that, in continuing her friend's crusade, the powers ranged against her and her colleagues is immense. None is more powerful than Ramzan Kadyrov. In a secret affidavit to the European Court of Human Rights, his former bodyguard painted a chilling picture of the Chechen leader. According to Umar Israilov, Mr Kadyrov would wander around a gym that doubled as a secret jail, administering electric shocks to prisoners bound to exercise machines while casually kept up a game of billiards with his friends.

In January, as western reporters were preparing to publish his allegations, Mr Israilov was shot dead on a busy Vienna street as shoppers dived for cover. "I will be killing as long as I live," Mr Kadyrov once boasted to a reporter, although he consistently denied involvement in all the individual murders linked to his name.

Butcher Kadyrov and his puppet master

He is especially indignant about such allegations that he targets female activists. "I do not kill women," he has insisted. Yet women in Chechnya seem increasingly at threat. One of the cases Mrs Estemirova was struggling to expose when she died was the murder of eight women whose bodies were dumped in different parts of Chechnya one day last November.

Mrs Estemirova's death will only increase the fear of ordinary people in Chechnya. Not a single murder of any significant opponent of Mr Kadyrov has ever been solved, a failure critics say suggests the acquiescence – perhaps even the complicity – of Mr Putin, Russia's most powerful man. The Kremlin has consistently denied such allegations, blaming the deaths on Russian exiles intent on besmirching Mr Putin's reputation.

Natalya Estemirova

Since Mrs Estemirova's death, the responsibility for exposing the abuses she dedicated her life to revealing have largely fallen to women like Mrs Lokshina. But in the culture of impunity that reigns unfettered in Chechnya, it has become an almost impossible task.

The cost of truth – Chechnya

Natalya Estemirova

Last Wednesday journalist Natalya Estemirova was murdered. Apparently she had been abducted as she left her home in Chechnya on Wednesday morning, a colleague said. Her body was found in Ingushetia.She had been shot twice in the head at close range.

Mrs Estemirova was the seventh opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president, to have been murdered in the past 10 months

Her colleagues at human rights organisation Memorial alleged that Kadyrov was responsible for the killing. "Ramzan Kadyrov is responsible, not only because he leads Chechnya," alleged Oleg Orlov, Memorial's director. "He threatened Natalya, told her that her hands would be covered in blood and that he destroys bad people. We didn't say this before because we were scared for her safety."

Mrs Estemirova had just published a report that accused members of the Kadyrov administration of carrying out revenge killings.

Memorial called for the removal of Mr Kadyrov, who was appointed deputy prime minister in 2004 and ascended to the presidency in 2007 after reaching the legal age of 30. Accusations of disappearances, revenge killings and other abuses have dogged his regime. Critics accuse the Kremlin of turning a blind eye to the alleged crimes, in exchange for stability brought to a republic that fought two separatist wars with Moscow in the 1990s.

Ramzam Kadyrov, murderer, torturer, human rights abuser and puppet of Putin

Mr Kadyrov has denied accusations that he ordered the killing of Mrs Politkovskaya. However, in the past 10 months many of his rivals have been found dead after killings in Vienna, Istanbul, Dubai and Moscow.

Nobody believes him and the President and erstwhile president of Russia probably don’t really give a damn, if they did not actively, or at least passively sanction her death.

My thank to Sean Jeating Omnium for inspiring me to post this item and the next one

Bee(n) Feast

Bees four up on an Echinops

Henry Allingham RIP

Henry Allingham has died at the age of 113. He was the world’s oldest man,the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, the last surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service and the last surviving founder member of the Royal Air Force.

Tributes were paid to Mr Allingham by the Queen, Prince Charles and The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Mr Allingham served with the Royal Naval Air Service in WWI, later transferring to the Royal Air Force at the time of its creation.

Dennis Goodwin, founder of the First World War Veterans' Association and a friend of Mr Allingham, said: "Henry was truly a gentleman - his strength of character, his purpose.He left quite a legacy to the nation of memories of what it was like to have been in WWI,"

First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band said: "Henry will be remembered with great fondness for his strong sense of humour and joy of life, and he was an inspiration for all those serving in the Royal Navy." Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, Chief of the Air Staff, said his passing was a "milestone in history. Henry was an inspiration to many and his thirst for life, cheery disposition and a desire to help others was his mark," he added.

His nephew Ronald Cator said his uncle looked "very, very frail. He went downhill in the last few months. He used to sleep a lot at the end. He wanted to pass away, poor old boy."

A young Henry Allingham

For decades, like many other war veterans, Mr Allingham buried his memories of the war, avoiding reunions and refusing to tell his family about his experiences. But, in recent years, he started making public appearances to make sure new generations did not forget the toll of war and went on to tell his life story in a book which was published last year.

His death means there are now only four WWI veterans still alive: Britons Harry Patch, 111, and Claude Choules, 108(now living in Australia) American Frank Buckles and Canadian John Babcock, who both live in the USA
RIP Henry

Photo Hunt - Rock

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is rock so here is a photo of a rock! This rock, which is in the Millstreet Country Park, Co Cork, Ireland, was the site of a Hedge School. During the 18th Century catholic schools were banned in Ireland so many catholic pupils were given lesons in clandestine locations (more often indoors than outdoors, despite the name) The schools died out in the 19th century with the introduction of primary (elementary, national) schools..

Alternatively...


Here's Dave Brock, a founder member of my favourite band Hawkwind. He is the only person from the original line up still with the band 40 years on (in August)

Here is Hawkwind with one of their poppier songs Quark, Strangeness and Charm (which, like the Dave Brock photo, I have posted before). The singer is Robert Calvert who, sadly died in 1988, but still serves nobly as my Avatar

Rafsanjani, prayers and protests in Tehran

Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran and one of the nation’s most prominent clerics has finally criticised the Iranian government for its for its handling of the protests that followed the disputed presidential election

Speaking at Friday prayers at Tehran University Rafsanjani said "Today is a bitter day. People have lost their faith in the regime and their trust is damaged. It's necessary that we regain people's consent and their trust in the regime."

The Guardian reported that Rafsanjani criticised the arrest and detention of protesters, and attacked the lack of freedom of expression. He expressed sympathy for the families of dead protesters, and ended his remarks by saying: "I hope this sermon will pave a way out of this current situation. A situation that can be considered a crisis."

Prayers were attended by Mir Hossein Mousavi who sat in the front row. Meanwhile the opposition packed the university prayer hall in a show of strength. They traded slogans with a number of government supporters. The government supporters chanted "death to America" while opposition supporters countered with "death to Russia", referring to the Iranian government's ties to Moscow..

During Rafsanjani's sermon the crowd inside the hall in Tehran University could be heard via state radio chanting, "Mousavi, Mousavi, we support you and "azadi, azadi" — Persian for "freedom"

.... Meanwhile outside...

Basiji militiamen in front of a line of riot police fired tear gas at thousands of protesters who chanted "death to the dictator" and called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to resign. Young protesters with green bandanas over their mouths and noses set a bonfire in the street and kicked away gas canisters, facing off with the security forces while others scattered.

Before the sermon, police fired tear gas at hundreds of Mousavi backers trying to enter the prayer. When Mahdi Karroubi, another pro-reform candidate in the June election, headed for the prayers, plainclothes hard-line supporters attacked him, shoving him and knocking his turban to the ground, witnesses said. "Death to the opponent of Velayat-e-Faqih," the hard-liners chanted as they attacked him, referring to the supreme leader, the witnesses said.

As she headed for the university, a prominent women's rights activist, Shadi Sadr, was beaten by militiamen, pushed into a car and driven away to an unknown location,

After the prayers, some worshippers joined the protests outside, swelling their numbers to thousands. Members of the hard-line Basij militia charged the crowd, firing tear gas to disperse the crowd, witnesses said.

The protests in Iran are not over, not by a long chalk. So much for them fizzling out quickly as George Galloway so smugly predicted last month

Ted

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

Flying hand creatures

Meeting my childhood hero

40 years ago I was just six years old but I was utterly enthralled by the Apollo missions. I remember being utterly disappointed in May 1969 when the Apollo 10 Lunar Module descended to within a few miles of the moon's earth surface. I could not understand why they did not go the whole hog and land the thing. Less than two months later just about the only thing on my mind was the prospect of Apollo 11 being the one where someone actually walked on the Moon's surface.


Although I did not see the landing live on TV I was utterly thrilled that Neil Armstrong and then Buzz Aldrin finally did it! Apollos 12 through 17 were also thrilling but throughout my childhood it was Neil Armstrong who was my absolute hero. Other notables like George Best were all well and good but they just could not measure up to Neil.

HERO!

Buzz Aldrin came a moderately (but not too) distant second. As for Michael Collins I felt sorry that the poor guy remained stuck in orbit!

20 years later, I was working as an Immigration official at Heathrow Airport. Summer was as busy as hell but it was normal for the major ports to send "relief" streams to smaller ports to help them deal with a massive increase in traffic. That year I landed one of the plums, four weeks at Prestwick Airport,near Ayr, in Scotland. The work was easy and I got the chance to do a fair bit of sightseeing.. as well as plenty of drinking with the other relief staff!


One weekday morning just after we had cleared the American and Canadian charter flights (Scottish expatriates coming back to visit friends and family, Canadian and US tourists wishing to see the sights of Scotland or take in a spot of golf). Most of my colleagues had gone off on a late breakfast break so I was holding the fort when a private jet landed. It turned out to be a party of Americans and Britons coming to play golf.

One of the party was Neil Armstrong himself. While it was never the done thing to faun over celebrities, All I could say was WOW! NEIL ARMSTRONG! If I had heard of Wayne's World at the time I might have gotten down on the floor and done the "I'm not worthy" thing.

Not much of a story, I know but he was my childhood hero and for a short moment I was a six year old once again...Such is life

16 July 1969

At this time 40 years ago Apollo 11 blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center.

Iran protestors flex their muscles through boycotts

There are fewer people demonstrating on the streets of Tehran but despite what the likes of idiots like Galloway predicted, the protests haven’t quite fizzled out. According to yesterday’s Guardian It seems that the protestors are using their economic muscle and boycotting companies deemed to be sympathetic to the Iranian regime.

Wholesale vendors in the capital report that demand for Nokia handsets has fallen by as much as half in the wake of calls to boycott Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) for selling communications monitoring systems to Iran.

In addition it seems that consumers are shunning SMS messaging in protest at the perceived complicity with the regime by the state telecoms company, while TCI. Iran's state-run broadcaster has been hit by a collapse in advertising as companies fear being blacklisted. There is also anecdotal evidence that people are moving money out of state banks and into private banks.

Nokia is the most prominent western company to suffer from its dealings with the Iranian authorities. Its NSN joint venture with Siemens provided Iran with a monitoring system as it expanded a mobile network last year. Siemens is also accused of providing Iran with an internet filtering system called Webwasher.

Some Tehran shops have removed Nokia phones from their window displays. Hashem, a mobile phone vendor, said: "I don't like to lose my customers and now people don't feel happy seeing Nokia's products. We even had customers who wanted to refund their new Nokia cell phones or change them with just another cell phone from any other companies. It’s not just a limited case to my shop – I'm also a wholesaler to small shops in provincial markets, and I can say that there is half the demand for Nokia's product these days in comparison with just one month ago, and it's really unprecedented. People feel ashamed of having Nokia cell phones," he added.

The Iranian authorities are believed to have used Nokia's mobile phone monitoring system to target dissidents. One Iranian journalist who has just been released from detention said:

"I always had this impression that monitoring calls is just a rumour for threatening us from continuing our job properly, but the nightmare became real when they had my phone calls – conversations in my case. And the most unbelievable thing for me is that Nokia sold this system to our government. It would be a reasonable excuse for Nokia if they had sold the monitoring technology to a democratic country for controlling child abuse or other uses, but selling it to the Iranian government with a very clear background of human rights violence and suppression of dissent, it's just inexcusable for me. I'd like to tell Nokia that I'm tortured because they had sold this damn technology to our government."

State-run TV has also been targeted by protesters who have listed products advertised on its channels and urged supporters to join a boycott. Companies are running scared, and viewers have noticed the number of commercials plummet.

"We don't have many choices to show and continue our protests. "They don't let us go out, they have killed many, we are threatened to text people or distribute emails, they have summoned people who shout Allahu Akbar ['God is great'] on rooftops at nights, so we need to look for new ways," said Shahla, a 26-year-old Iranian student. "I can obviously see on the TV that they are facing an advertising crisis. This at least shows them how angry people are," she added.

The SMS boycott, meanwhile, has apparently forced TCI into drastic price hikes. The cost of an SMS has doubled in recent days. Protesters view the move as a victory.

The intercept and monitoring technology provided by Nokia is pretty much a worldwide standard. Our mobile systems in the UK have exactly the same facilities which are used by our authorities too. Still the combined economic muscle of the Iranian people may well make companies think twice about getting into bed with the Iranian regime.

Evil Zionist chewing gum conspiracy uncovered

Hamas has unveiled a dark Zionist conspiracy that will rock the state of Israel to the core. It has tangible proof that Israeli intelligence services are supplying the Gaza Strip with chewing gum that boosts the sex drive in order to "corrupt the young,"

"We have discovered two types of stimulants that were introduced into the Gaza Strip from Israeli border crossings," Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP. "The first type is presented in the form of chewing gum and the second in the form of drops," he said.
Mr Shahwan said that it had detained members of a gang that helped to bring in the products."They admitted during the investigation they were linked to the Zionist intelligence services," he said.

One suspect said he had received the products from an Israeli intelligence officer at a cut-rate price "with the officer saying they did not want money, but to distribute the products among the young people of Gaza. The intelligence services are aiming to corrupt the young generation by distributing these products among students."

The story came to light after a Palestinian man filed a complaint that his daughter had experienced "dubious side effects" after chewing the offending gum... (presumably a cessation of periods and a swelling of the abdomen?)

The Israeli military in an official statement admitted that it had indeed been supplying the gum. “It had been our plan to subvert the youth of Gaza by having them spend their time in constant copulation. That way they would be too tired to bother us. Sadly Hamas has caught us red handed. We apologise humbly and will cease distribution forthwith.”

Off the record another IDF source said “At least they didn’t discover the porno ray”

How cats control us

I knew I had to post this when I saw it. According to large swathes of the press , scientists have discovered the means by which cats control us.

Cats have learned that loud miaowing is not an effective strategy for waking us up for an early breakfast at 5am. Any cat trying that will probably find themselves extramuralised velocitatiously be it via the door or via the window.

Some cats (Robyn, Bebe and Ted included) disguise their cries for attention within an otherwise pleasant purr. The result, according to a study in the journal Current Biology, is a complex "solicitation" purr with a high-frequency element that triggers a sense of urgency in the human brain. Owners find it irritating, but not irritating enough to kick the cat out, and feel driven to respond. Which means that it pierces through the highest tog rated duvet and several pillows. It bores into your brain faster than that irritating advert jingle that kept playing in your brain until 4am

Dr Karen McComb, a specialist in mammal vocal communication at the University of Sussex, said that by employing an embedded cry, cats appear to be exploiting innate tendencies that humans have for nurturing offspring."The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response – and solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing," she said.

McComb began the research into domestic cats after noticing the "manipulative" purring of her own cat, Pepo. "I wondered why this purring sounded so annoying and was so difficult to ignore," she said. "Talking with other cat owners, I found that some of them also had cats which showed similar behaviour."

After testing human responses to different purring types, McComb and her team found that even those with no experience of cats judged the "solicitation" purr to be more urgent and less pleasant. On examining the frequency of the special purr, she found a peak similar to that of a baby's cry, which gave it a "noisy, slightly whiny quality".

Asked whether the cat's special purr is more effective than other demands for food, she said: "I think it might be more effective than a dog. If you ask people who own cats what they do when they get up they say they feed their cats. Even before they have a cup of coffee. Cats are very good at getting their own way."

That is so true!

The problem for Dr McComb is now she has revealed the cat’s secret solicitation I fear that she will receive a visit from the Feline mafia. The editor of Current Biology will almost certainly wake up and find a mouse head in their bed

WW [- Echinops ritro

This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of Wordless Wednesday.

Bear's Britches

People of the DPRK commemorate passing of Great Leader, Dear Leader in rude health despite what western lackeys say

Last Wednesday the workers, soldiers and peasants of the indefatigable Democratic People’s Republic of Korea paid tribute to the peerless triumphs of the Great leader Kim il Sung on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of his passing from Great Leader to Eternal Leader.

The Great and then Eternal Leader happy after a successful day of purging imperialist running dogs

According to KCNA:

Senior officials of the party and state, leading officials of the party and power organs, working people's organizations, ministries and national institutions visited the Kumsusan Memorial Palace on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of demise of President Kim Il Sung. Blah, blah’ blah A floral basket in the joint name of Blah, blah, blah

Kimilsungia, a feature of many of the flower baskets

Servicepersons of the Korean People's Army, people from all walks of life and school youth and children blah, blah, blah floral baskets blah, blah, blah .

An endless stream of people visited the statue of the President on Mansu Hill in Pyongyang in boundless reverence and yearning for him, blah, blah blah, floral basket sent by Kim Jong Il, blah, blah, blah.

Kimjongillia, also a featured plant in many of the flower baskets

Blah.. Blah, blah, blah floral baskets in the name of blah, blah, blah. Also placed were floral baskets in the name blah, blah, blah. Overseas Koreans and foreigners. Servicepersons, working people and school youth and children from across the country visited the statues of the President in their residential areas. They laid floral baskets (and WOW), bouquets and flowers before the statues, blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile President Kim Il Sung was lauded in the highest terms by Shawn Pikford, delegate of the British organization for the study of the Juche idea, which claims a membership of over 77 million students in England alone.

“The validity and vitality of the Juche idea blah, blah, blah,” he said. The great Juche idea blah, blah, blah independent life blah, blah, blah world progressives. Blah, blah, blah will shine more brightly blah, blah, blah Juche idea, blah, blah, blah. The President is always alive blah, blah, blah hearts of the Korean people blah, blah, blah immortal exploits blah, blah blahh, revolutionary cause, blah, blah; blah Kim Jong Il.”

But surprisingly not a single mention of floral baskets

As can be seen a lot of flowers sacrificed their lives to pay proper tribute to the colossus of the Songun ideal and enough hot air was generated to heat all of Pyongyang’s schools and hospitals for several months (pity the ceremony did not take place when it was cold...)

But what of General Secretary, the dear leader Kim Jong Il?

As painted just before his run up Mt Baedku

According to KCNA he visited the Kumsusan Memorial Palace at 0:00 on Wednesday accompanied by Vice Marshal of the KPA Kim Yong Chun, minister of the People's Armed Forces, General of the KPA Ri Yong Ho, chief of the General Staff of the KPA, General of the KPA Kim Jong Gak, first vice-director of the General Political Department of the KPA, Vice Marshal of the KPA Kim Il Chol, first vice-minister of the People's Armed Forces, staff members of the Supreme Command of the KPA and other general officers of the KPA.

He together with the above-said commanding officers of the NDC and the KPA paid homage to President Kim Il Sung.

Of course it goes without saying that he was in the peak of health and indeed only the day before ran to the top of Mount Baedku on Tuesday although it must be stressed that it did leave hi a little tired the following day as can be seen in the following picture:

Dear Leader a little tired after running up Mt Baedku

The lackey press of the Capitalist lapdogs have had the temerity to claim that the Dear Leader may have Pancreatic Cancer.

The fascist South Korean government mouthpiece YTN television channel reported that Kim had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, citing unidentified intelligence officials.

It is in fact clear that the Dear Leader is still in charge and taking forward the peeless ideals of Juche, tirelessly working for the benefit of the freedom loving Korean people. The Dear leader has since rested and undertaken an intensive course of rejuvenation the effects of which can clearly be seen in the latest official photograph issued yesterday.

The Dear Leader (left) rejuvenated and ready to rule the DPRK for another 60 years

Long live Juche!

When swearing is not only big and clever, but also downright useful

That muttered curse word (or in my case the several curse words, usually uttered at the top of my voice) that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, according to Live Science

While swearing is a common response to pain, no previous research had connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience. "Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon," said Richard Stephens of Keele. "It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain."

Stephens and fellow researchers John Atkins and Andrew Kingston sought to test how swearing would affect an individual's pain tolerance Because swearing can seem to overstate the severity of pain, the team thought that swearing would lessen a person's tolerance. Actually, the opposite seemed to be true.

The researchers had 64 volunteers submerge their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice. The experiment was then repeated with the volunteer repeating a more common word that they would use to describe a table. Contrary to what the researcher expected, the volunteers kept their hands submerged longer while repeating the swear word.

The researchers think that the increase in pain tolerance occurs because swearing triggers the body's natural “fight or flight” response. "Our research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists," Stephens said.

The results of the study are detailed in the Aug. 5 issue of the journal NeuroReport.

Well there you have it.....Anything that puts swearing in a positive light gets my vote!

Did Galileo beat Le Verrier to the discovery of Neptune?

Science Daily reports that a Melbourne physicist has put forward a theory that Galileo knew he had discovered a new planet in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date.
Professor David Jamieson, Head of the School of Physics, is investigating the Galileo’s notebooks and believes that he discovered a new planet that we now know as Neptune.

Galileo was observing the moons of Jupiter in the years 1612 and 1613 and recorded his observations in his notebooks. Over several nights he also recorded the position of a nearby star which does not appear in any modern star catalogue.

"It has been known for several decades that this unknown star was actually the planet Neptune. Computer simulations show the precision of his observations revealing that Neptune would have looked just like a faint star almost exactly where Galileo observed it," Professor Jamieson says.
But a planet is different to a star because planets orbit the Sun and move through the sky relative to the stars. It is remarkable that on the night of January 28 in 1613 Galileo noted that the "star" we now know is the planet Neptune appeared to have moved relative to an actual nearby star."

There is also a mysterious unlabeled black dot in his earlier observations of January 6, 1613, which is in the right position to be Neptune. "I believe this dot could reveal he went back in his notes to record where he saw Neptune earlier when it was even closer to Jupiter but had not previously attracted his attention because of its unremarkable star-like appearance."

If the mysterious black dot on January 6 was actually recorded on January 28, Professor Jamieson proposes this would prove that Galileo believed he may have discovered a new planet.

"Galileo may indeed have formed the hypothesis that he had seen a new planet which had moved right across the field of view during his observations of Jupiter over the month of January 1613," Professor Jamieson says."If this is correct Galileo observed Neptune 234 years before its official discovery."

But there could be an even more interesting possibility still buried in Galileo's notes and letters."Galileo was in the habit of sending a scrambled sentence, an anagram, to his colleagues to establish his priority for the sensational discoveries he made with his new telescope. He did this when he discovered the phases of Venus and the rings of Saturn. So perhaps somewhere he wrote an as-yet undecoded anagram that reveals he knew he discovered a new planet," Professor Jamieson speculates.

Well there you have it.

Source: University of Melbourne (2009, July 9). Galileo's Notebooks May Reveal Secrets Of New Planet. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 12, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2009/07/090709095427.htm

When not to hyphenate surnames

A bit of light relief courtesy of CBS where you can find more amusing examples

Srebrenica victims buried, sometimes one fragment at a time

Today’s Independent poses a question: How many times can you bury your child without going mad? This is a question that we are unlikely to face but it IS a question that faces hundreds of Bosnian mothers. As researchers identify remains scattered around mass graves from the Srebrenica massacre, what would your choice be? Bury the first few bones or wait potentially years for a skeleton to come together?

Many choose to bury whatever fragments turn up. If another bone is found then they reopen the grave. Perhaps months later another piece is found, and then another – and each time, the women say, it feels like another funeral.

International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) is undertaking the enormous task of identifying the remains of over 8,100 men and boys who were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces when they overran a United Nations-protected enclave in 1995.
Newly identified Srebrenica remains are buried at a memorial centre each year on the 11 July anniversary of the start of the 1995 massacre, Yesterday, the partial remains of 534 victims were buried.

The ICMP was established in 1996. It has collected over 87,000 blood samples from relatives of the missing. The DNA profiles of the relatives are compared with profiles extracted from the bone samples of exhumed victims. So far investigators have helped to identify 12,518 individuals in Bosnia. Out of those, 6,185 are Srebrenica victims. The agency also helped to identify victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks and the remains of those who died in the 2004 Asian tsunami. But Bosnia remains its biggest operation.

Ten years after a DNA lab took a drop of blood from Habiba Masic, researchers called her to say they had made a positive identification. The man at the lab said they had found 90 per cent of her husband's body. His bones had been dispersed among four different mass graves. "And the children?" she recalled asking. "The man went silent, and I knew something was wrong." She was told there was no trace of one of her boys but a small part of the other had been found. The problem was DNA analysis could not determine which one he was. "I couldn't breathe," she said. "I couldn't speak." Now, she cannot bury the precious fragment, for what would the gravestone say: Sadem Masic, 1976-95? Or Sadmir Masic, 1977-95? "Brother is now waiting for brother," she said.

General Mladic, indicted for genocide, is still in hiding, apparently in Serbia. Recently, television channels aired videos confiscated by Serbian police in one of his hideouts. They showed him dancing, singing at parties and cuddling his grandchild. "Mladic is holding his granddaughter in his arm at a birthday party. And how do we feel?" Habiba Masic said bitterly.

It is hard to imagine anybody would envy Madame Masic, but Rufeida Buhic, 68, does. Her husband was killed early in the war. Serbs caught her only son, Razim, 17, when he tried to escape from Potocari. Mrs Buhic returned to her pre-war home near Srebrenica to be where the three had lived together. "That's where they walked, where they worked. That's where I want to walk," she said.

Mrs Buhic can't sleep at night. No medication helps. Often she visits a neighbour's house, where her son's friend lived and where Razim once measured how tall he grew. She goes there just to look at the line carved in the wood of the doorway: 195 centimetres, or nearly 6ft 5ins. Constantly, she checks her mobile phone."Every time it rings, I think they are calling me to say they found him... even one bone," she said.

There is no comment I can add to this that can come close to expressing my sorrow for these women.

A bit of Bulgarian folk music

The beautiful voices of the Bulgarian state tv and radio choir.



Trio Bulgarka - I saw them perform in Brentford 20 years ago.

My thanks to A Doubtful Egg for giving me the notion to see what Youtube had to offer

Crap Michael Jackson simulacrum found in California

CBS reports that a Stockton family are claiming that an image of Michael Jackson appeared on his tree stump on the day he died.

Felix Garcia had never previously noticed any image in the birch tree stump in his front garden.

A neighbour gave a possible reason why the pop Peter Pan would choose to appear in Stockton "Because Michael Jackson was an icon to us," said one neighbor. "To Stockton, Michael Jackson meant more to us than Jesus, to some people. I think they're both about even."

And Jackson did visit the city 20 years ago, following a fatal school shooting.

Both readers of this blog will know I love a good simulacrum or even an outrageously bad one. Sadly, this one is just crap.

My thanks to FeeFiFoto for the link

Photo Hunt - Rubbish

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is garbage. This was an easy one given the thoughtlessness of so many people. This rubbish was photographed in Battis Walk near Romford Station

Our soldiers in Afghanistan are dying for this?

The Times reports that two more British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, bringing the death toll in the last nine days to nine, The Ministry of Defence said that the two soldiers were killed yesterday in separate incidents in Helmand Province. This means that a total of 178 British servicemen and women have now been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Richardson, a spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said: "These fine British soldiers paid the ultimate sacrifice and their memory will live with us forever. We mourn their loss and our thoughts and prayers are with their families and friends at this very sad time. "We know that their deaths were not in vain.”

Or are they?

Today’s Independent report that an Afghan law which legalised rape between husband and wife has been sent back to parliament with a new clause letting husbands starve their wives if they refuse to have sex.

According to civil society groups, the law, which regulates the personal affairs of Afghanistan's Shia community, also includes clauses which allow rapists to marry their victims as a way of absolving their crime and it tacitly approves child marriage. The law sparked demonstrations in Kabul where hundreds of Shia women took to the streets in protest. They were attacked by mobs of angry men who launched counter demonstrations outside the capital's largest Shia madrassa.

The law is due to be ratified by parliament, which first passed the legislation in March with hardly any debate. Critics claim that Mr Karzai signed the law to appease Shia leaders, ahead of presidential polls on 20 August.

Women's rights activist Wazhma Frough, who was involved in the review, said that conservative religious leaders had pressured the Justice Ministry to keep many of the most controversial clauses."There have been a few little changes, but they are not enough," she said. "For example, if the wife doesn't accept her husband's sexual requirements then he can deny her food."

Violence against women is already endemic," said Razia Jan, who is building a women's community centre in Afghanistan's Shia heartland, Bamiyan. "Men pay thousands of dollars for young girls and they are treated like slaves. Women here are already so vulnerable."

Forces went into Afghanistan, inter alia, to rid the country of the Taliban, an evil rabble of misogynists from the 8th Century. it seems that their replacements are little better.. The report states some (unnamed) NATO countries have threatened to withdraw their troops unless the legislation was drastically re-written. Perhaps it is time for them all to leave.

Robyn and Bebe

The tabby twosome on the not-wife's lap. This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

The Virgin Mary tree stump

Ah there’s nothing like reporting on a good simulacrum story be it a nun in a bun or Alahu Akbar spelled out in the seeds of an aubergine, So here’s one from Ireland.

The Irish Times reports that almost 2,000 people have signed a petition seeking to prevent the removal of a tree stump on the grounds of a Co Limerick church. The stump is said to depict the Blessed Virgin Mary.

People from the town organised the petition in an effort to have the stump, which was due to be dug out of the ground yesterday (Wednesday 8 July) , made into a permanent fixture at the church. “We have almost 2,000 signatures on the petition already and we are going to continue getting more,” said shopkeeper Séamus Hogan.

“People have been coming from Kerry and Clare to see this tree, which we believe shows a clear outline of Our Lady,” he continued. Mr Hogan said the discovery was bringing people from all walks of life to Rathkeale to pray.It’s doing no harm and it’s bringing people together from young and old to black and white, Protestant and Catholic, to say a few prayers, so what’s wrong with that? There’s enough violence and intolerance going on in the world,” he said.

Local parish priest Fr Willie Russell said on a Limerick radio station that people should not worship the tree. “There’s nothing there . . . it’s just a tree . . . you can’t worship a tree.” Meanwhile a spokesman for the Limerick diocesan office said the “church’s response to phenomena of this type is one of great scepticism

Well I’m convinced. Those rosary beads around the neck are a dead giveaway

Nick Griffin shows his caring, compassionate side with regard to illegal immigrants

The BBC carries a brief tv interview with Nick Griffin in which he states that EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering .

In an interview with this week's edition of BBC Parliament's The Record Europe, he said:

"If there's measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we'd support that. But the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over.

"Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats. Anyone coming up with measures like that we'll support but anything which is there as a 'oh, we need to do something about it' but in the end doing something about it means bringing them into Europe' we will oppose."

The interviewer, BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler, said: "I don't think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."

Mr Griffin replied: "I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea - I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya. But Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World."

Libya is a staging post for migrants from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa wanting to reach Europe. Nearly 37,000 immigrants landed on Italian shores last year, an increase of about 75% on the year before.

There’s no denying that illegal immigration is a concern and action that targets the vultures that prey on the hopes of desperate people gets my support. After all the traffickers have no concern for their charges except to extort huge sums of cash out of them. That said, what Griffin advocates is a disgrace. How many illegal immigrants will drown if their boats were sunk by some EU backed force? But then I daresay Griffin’s view would centre about omelettes and eggs.

If there is something that should be blown out of the water it’s Griffin’s idiotic suggestion

Porcelain Sky - Rajna

A bit of Boccherini

A piece loved by Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's books



And an extract that appears at teh end of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Iran Solidarity Declaration

iransolidarity.org.uk

In June 2009 millions of people came out on to the streets of Iran for freedom and an end to the Islamic regime. Whilst the June 12 election was a pretext for the protests - elections have never been free or fair in Iran – it has opened the space for people to come to the fore with their own slogans.

The world has been encouraged by the protestors’ bravery and humane demands and horrified by the all-out repression they have faced. It has seen a different image of Iran - one of a population that refuses to kneel even after 30 years of living under Islamic rule.

The dawn that this movement heralds for us across the world is a promising one – one that aims to bring Iran into the 21st century and break the back of the political Islamic movement internationally.

This is a movement that must be supported.

Declaration

We, the undersigned, join Iran Solidarity to declare our unequivocal solidarity with the people of Iran. We hear their call for freedom and stand with them in opposition to the Islamic regime of Iran.

We demand:

1. The immediate release of all those imprisoned during the recent protests and all political prisoners

2. The arrest and public prosecution of those responsible for the current killings and atrocities and for those committed during the last 30 years

3. Proper medical attention to those wounded during the protests and ill-treated and tortured in prison. Information on the status of the dead, wounded and arrested to their families. The wounded and arrested must have access to their family members. Family members must be allowed to bury their loved ones where they choose.

4. A ban on torture

5. The abolition of the death penalty and stoning

6. Unconditional freedom of expression, thought, organisation, demonstration, and strike

7. Unconditional freedom of the press and media and an end to restrictions on
communications, including the internet, telephone, mobiles and satellite television programmes

8. An end to compulsory veiling and gender apartheid

9. The abolition of discriminatory laws against women and the establishment of complete equality between men and women

10. The complete separation of religion from the state, judiciary, education and religious freedom and atheism as a private matter.

Moreover, we call on all governments and international institutions to isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran and break all diplomatic ties with it. We are opposed to military intervention and economic sanctions because of their adverse affects on people’s lives.

The people of Iran have spoken; we stand with them.

Click here if you wish to sign

7/7 Memorial unveiled

Four years ago today four suicide bombers took the lives of 52 people in London. They may have believed that it was some sort of blow a blow for justice against the evils, real or perceived, committed by Britain against fellow Muslims but it was murder, simply murder. The bombers made no attempt to strike against the machinery of state. They chose instead to destroy the lives of ordinary Londoners.

While I was never that keen on Ken Livingstone I think his words after the sickening event struck a chord with many people:

“I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.

That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith - it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved.”

It was a vile and sickening act. Almost as bad in my view were those that saw the attack as some form of justice.

Today Prince Charles dedicated a memorial in Hyde Park to the 52 people killed exactly four years ago, victims of the 7/7 bus and underground bombs.

"The families of the victims, the survivors and the stout hearted emergency services remain very much in our thoughts and prayers.” He said "You are a moving example of holding together bravery in the face of such inhuman and deplorable outrage and you offer us hope for the future,"

The memorial, which consists of 52 steel pillars, each 3.5m tall (11.5 feet) and is located between park's Lover's Walk and Park Lane

Tessa, Jowell, Minister for London, said that each column represented "a unique person and a unique grief. Each one casts a shadow just as they do - each one standing tall and proud just as they did, and each one will in an individual way absorb and reflect light just as they did."

Architects Carmody Groarke said that stainless steel pillars symbolised the random nature of the loss of life - how it could have been anyone travelling in London that day. Director Kevin Carmody said the firm worked closely with the families through monthly liaison meetings to ensure the finished product was what they required."It took a long time to get to the strong ideas like symbolising the single and collective loss of life," he said.

26 of the stelae were grouped to represent those killed on the Underground near King's Cross.Other clusters represented Tube bombing victims at Aldgate and Edgware Road, with the remainder symbolic of those who died on the number 30 bus in Tavistock Square.

"Hopefully people will have an almost magnetic propulsion towards it," said Mr Carmody. He said it could be viewed from afar as a single entity but that as they moved closer, people would discover the significance of the four groupings and individual columns. Though the stelae are anonymous, they are inscribed with the date, time and location of the bombings they represent.

A representative of the bereaved families' group said: "The memorial is a fitting tribute, honouring the 52 lives lost on 7 July 2005, ensuring that the world will never forget them. It represents the enormity of our loss, both on a personal and public level. We hope this memorial will speak to visitors so they can understand the impact of these horrific events."

Saba Mozakka, 28, from Finchley, north London, was one of six family members to sit on a liaison board during the memorial's design. Her mother, Behnaz Mozakka, 47, a biomedical officer, was killed on a Piccadilly line train near King's Cross station while commuting to work.

Ms Mozakka described the memorial as "truly incredible". "I'm very happy. It's very poignant," she said. "It's an amazing tribute to my mum and the 51 others who were so viciously and brutally taken from us."

Grahame Russell, whose 28-year-old son Philip died in the Tavistock Square bus bombing, said the ceremony had been "extremely moving, extremely poignant. The speakers were outstanding. You could see by their faces and the way they spoke that they understood the way we feel."

In addition the prime minister, London Mayor Boris Johnson, Conservative leader David Cameron, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and senior figures from the emergency services were present.

I will have to pay a visit to the memorial shortly. 7 July 2005 was an awful day. I arrived in the City around the time of the bombing and spent several hours hemmed in unable to get out again. On that day I never felt more useless or superfluous in my life.

WW- Cephalaria in decline

. I often find that flowers in their decline are even more interesting than when they are in their full glory. This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of Wordless Wednesday.

Lisa Greenwood sacking - clarification

The Guardian Technology Blog provides a little more information on the actions that led to Miss Greenwood’s dismissal (see my earlier post below). Yesterday’s Telegraph report indicated that she left a comment about Hazel Blears on Theyworkforyou.com. This actually wasn’t the case.

According to Tom Steinberg, the head of MySociety and who spoke to Lisa, what actually happened was :-

• Miss Greenwod She used google and ended up on Hazel Blear's page on TheyWorkForYou.com

• She clicked through from it to Hazel's official site

• She found the 'contact me' page on the official site and then clicked on the email address, which, using a mailto: tag popped up her work email client.

• She wrote and sent her fatal email, which was delivered from her DCSF email account, not her Hotmail which she'd normally use.

It was that use of the DCSF email address, not Hotmail, which was the killer. (she wrote to Blears, via email, "You are only sorry that you have been caught. You are a disgrace (including all the other honourable members). Why haven't you been sacked?")

The actual course of events makes Lisa’s actions seem more foolish than I and others originally thought. That said I still think the action of the department was a overreaction.

In summary:

Lisa Greenwood – Foolish, foolish, foolish

DCSF – OTT. OTT, OTT

And now a reminder to russian artists that Vladimir Putin has no sense of humour

A few months ago I posted a few items regarding Connor Casby and his satirical portraits of BIFFO - not the Beano bear but the Big Ignorant Fucker From Offaly as the Taoiseach Brian Cowan is less that fondly known (see here, here and here).


Mr Casby faced the annoyance of BIFFO and his humourless Fianna Fail cohorts (He is never called the Big Happy Fellow From Offaly) but it was as nothing compared to wrath faced by a Russian artist last month:

A Russian artist was arrested by the secret service after depicting prime minister Vladimir Putin as a woman. Alexander Shednov (also known as Shurik) portrayed the Vladimir Putain in a tight, low-cut dress with long hair and large hoop earrings. The image was a protest against Poontang in trying to return to the Kremlin for a third presidential term.

The artist had attempted to beam the portrait onto the main administrative building in Voronezh, his home city, on Russian Independence Day last Friday. But Shednov's artistic statement did not go down well with the FSB, the Russian state intelligence agency.

He was arrested and, according to claims, he was questioned for seven hours and beaten. Friends said his flat had also been searched and some of his paintings removed. Shednov faces a court charge of inappropriate behaviour.

Personally I think Putain looks good in a dress but the earrings make him look cheap and tarty.


There is a lot of nonsense about Putin being an ultra-manly macho man. Personally I think his publicity photos hint of something a little more flamboyant lurking just beneath the surface...

A sad reminder to civil servants to be careful what you post online at work

Today’s Telegraph carries an item regarding the sacking of Lisa Greenwood, from her £16k a year civil servant at the Department of Children, Schools and Families.

Miss Greenwood, 38, posted an anonymous message on the internet at the height of the furore over abuse of the second home allowances. Rather foolishly she posted the comment from a work computer. Her comment was traced back to her work email account.

Miss Greenwood had been angered by Miss Blears's ability to avoid paying capital gains tax on the sale of her designated second home. On May 13 she posted the following comment anonymously, on a political website: "How dare you wave a cheque about on national TV, saying that you are sorry. You are only sorry that you have been caught. You are a disgrace (including all the other honourable members). Why haven't you been sacked?"

Miss Greenwod, who had worked for the DCSF for seven months, was brought before a disciplinary panel and dismissed on May 22.

"A written warning I could understand, but I was shocked to be sacked," she said. "It has been extremely upsetting that I have been sacked for having an opinion. When the scandal broke we had all been discussing it at work, despite the civil service code. It was just the same in writing that everyone else had been saying at work and discussing openly in the office."

A DCFS spokesman said Miss Greenwood had been found guilty of gross misconduct and had brought the Government department into disrepute. "The civil service has a clear code of conduct for its employees, which states that civil servants should be politically impartial and not act in a way that could damage the reputation of their department."

Even though there was a lot of justifiable anger at the venality of our Members of Parliament, Miss Greenwood was foolish to post the comment from work. Although her comment was anonymous and she did not identify herself as a civil servant, it would have been pretty obvious from her ip address that she was posting from a government department. Had she waited until she got home nobody would have been any the wiser.

That said, I think the DCSF were needlessly heavy handed in their approach. Looking at her salary Miss Greenwood was a probationer in a very junior post (probably an Admin Assistant or maybe an Admin Officer). A verbal or written warning would have ensured that she would have kept her own counsel at work in future.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s 5,000th Days of Detention

Today marks the 5,000th day of incarceration for Nobel Peace Prize Winner (and who should have been the real leader of the Burmese state in 1990) Aung San Suu Kyi, The brutal scum that make up the Burmese junta must have thought that by putting her out of circulation she would have been forgotten by the world. How wrong they were! That said the response of the world could and should have been far more robust than it has been.

We are reminded by Andrew Buncombe in today’s Independent on Sunday that Aung San Suu Kyi will spend the day in detention accompanied by two women. At present she is being held in a "guesthouse" in the grounds of Rangoon's Insein jail. For the six previous years she in a lakeside house with no television, radio or phone.

As is (or should be) well known she has been charged with violating the terms of her house arrest after an American swam to her home and spent the night there. As Andrew Buncombe reminds us her real “crime” was to win an election nearly two decades ago. Moreover, she strikes fear in the heart of the vermin Than Shwe and his junta because even now she can do something they never could for all their brutal force – and that is to unite the Burmese people.
Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, The National League for Democracy (NLD), won a landslide election victory in 1990. But this election was simply ignored by the junta. It was at that time that the opposition leader was first imprisoned, for a period of three years.

She has spent almost 14 of the past 19 years under house arrest. On occasion, the junta has made clear it would release her if she agreed to leave Burma but she has always chosen to remain a part of her country's struggle. In 1999, while temporarily free, she faced the agonising choice of visiting her dying husband, the British academic Michael Aris, who had been refused a visa to enter Burma. Fearful that if she left she would never be allowed to return, she stayed in Burma without seeing her husband again.

Mark Farmaner, of the Burma Campaign UK, said the reason for her continued detention was very simple. In a country that has been brutalised by violence and the fear of violence, ordinary people will still, in private, whisper about the "the lady" and how she could help fix their broken land. "It might be one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world but they are terrified of this one woman," he added. "They hoped by keeping her detained the world would forget about Burma, but the opposite has happened. The fact that she has now spent 5,000 days in detention should shame world leaders who have tolerated this situation."

Ms Suu Kyi is just the best known of an estimated 2,000 or more political prisoners being held by the regime. I hope that the day comes and comes soon that the Junta will be swept away into the sewers of history, stopping first to receive a very long dose of what they have inflicted on these people.

Heidi Berry - Up in the Air

American born (but British raised) singer covers song from Husker Du's Warehouse: Songs and Stories. I have a soft spot for Heidi Berry's music. It is a shame that she hasn't released an album since 1996. I would strongly recommend looking out for Pomegranate, an Anthology that was released in 2001. It can be picked up quite cheaply on Amazon.

Ghost Dances

This version is performed by the Houston Ballet. I saw the Ballet Rambert perform it twice in 1982 and 1983 (The first time in an attempt to impress a girl, the second time because I loved it so much the first time. I didn't go back with the girl...)

UN General Secretary delivers a speech for deaf ears

The Sydney Morning Herald published an extract of a public speech by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon (above) that outlines his vision for a democratic Burma.

Ban told an audience of diplomats, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations at the Drug Elimination Museum in Rangoon that the military regime must free the Aung San Suu Kyi and introduce other reforms for the good of the country's people.

"I am here today to say: Myanmar, you are not alone. We want to work with you for a united, peaceful, prosperous, democratic and modern Myanmar. We want to help you rise from poverty ... work with you so that your country can take its place as a respected and responsible member of the international community, but let me emphasise: neither peace nor development can thrive without democracy and respect for human rights. Myanmar is no exception."

Than Shwe, brutal thug

Junta chief Than Shwe (above) earlier Saturday refused to let Ban visit Aung San Suu Kyi, who is in prison facing trial over an incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside house in May. Ban Than Shwe's snub as "deeply disappointing" and said in his speech that all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, "should be released without delay".

Ban also urged the junta to ensure that elections promised in 2010 should be free and fair. Critics say they will be a sham that will allow the ruling generals to entrench their power."The upcoming election, the first in 20 years, must be inclusive, participatory and transparent if it is to be credible,"

I agree whole heartedly with the words and the sentiments of the General Secretary. Sadly I cannot imagine them cutting any ice with the brutal thugs that run Burma. A case of fine words falling on deaf ears, sadly. There’s a fat chance of the junta giving up the levers of control... Prising the levers out of their cold, dead hands is a thought though

An unpaid advert on behalf of North Korean beer

North Korea has foregone the launch of another missile to launch a tv advert instead for a local brew. .

Extolling the virtues of the product of Taedonggang Beer Factory the advert features young women in traditional Korean dress serving trays of beer to men in Western suits and a thirsty worker holding a mug of frothy beer.

Billed as the "Pride of Pyongyang", the advert promises drinkers that the beer will help ease stress."It represents the new look of Pyongyang," the two-and-a-half minute advert says. "It will be a familiar part of our lives."

The beer has been in production since the Taedonggang Beer Factory bought a British brewery in 2002 and shipped it back to North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, said to have a fondness for fine wines and brandy, has taken a personal interest in the brewery. "Watching good quality beer coming out in an uninterrupted flow for a long while, he noted with great pleasure that it has now become possible to supply more fresh beer to people in all seasons," North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, said after he visited the brewery in 2002."

Comments following the article on the BBC website indicate that is is a bit sour, can be of variable quality, sometimes cloudy, but not bad.

Even if it were to make its way to the UK I'm not sure if it would become my favourite tipple. I'd probably try a bottle out of curiosity though

I would like to thank a visitor from British Columbia who came to look at my most recent photo of Ted a few hours ago. He ior she was visitor 500,000 to the Poor Mouth. Thanks and haste ye back. There's freshn drivel (almost) every day!

Photo Hunt - Pink

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is pink. For once I don't need to do something like a blue work shirt by Thomas Pink. Here are two blooms from a little Sempervivum (house leek) that is growing in a small gap in the wall of our front garden.

Still life with Ted, Corkscew, DVDs and Television

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Henry Mayhew and the word pure

My post below on the likelihood of justice for Neda Agha Soltani featured a quote from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

"The massive propaganda of the foreign media, as well as other evidence, proves the interference of the enemies of the Iranian nation who want to take political advantage and darken the pure face of the Islamic republic."

I am sure, Ahmadinejad probably meant pure in the sense of the face being homogeneous, free from impurities, containing nothing extraneous, faultless or even chaste

The problem for an anal retentive like myself or teh not-wife) is that we tend to think of pure in the sense of one of its older meanings and one that seems to have fallen into disuse in the 20th Century (or we would not have a chaine of tanning salos called Pure Tanning!) and is certinly dead in teh 21st.

The word pure was used as a noun meaning dog dung dog eggs, dog shit or whatever one wishes to call it. Dog shitwas used in the tanning industry and apparently got its name for its cleansing properties.

19th Century social commentator Henry Mayhew had this to say pure and pure finders in his book “London Labour and the London Poor” (I found the online text here).


"The pure finders meet with a ready market for all the dogs'-dung they are able to collect, at the numerous tanyards in Bermondsey, where they sell it by the stable bucket full, and get from 8d. to 10d. per bucket, and sometimes from 1s. to 1s.2d. for it, according to its quality. The 'dry limy–looking sort' fetches the highest price at some yards as it is found to possess more of the alkaline or purifying properties; but others are found to prefer the dark moist quality. Strange as it may appear, the preference for a particular kind has suggested to the finders of Pure the idea of adulterating it to a very considerable extent; this is effected by means of mortar broken away from old walls, and mixed up with the whole mass, which it closely resembles……


...The pure collected is used by leather-dressers and tanners, and more especially by those engaged in the manufacture of morocco and kid leather from the skins of old and young goats…. In the manufacture of moroccos and roans the pure is rubbed by the hands of the workman into the skin he is dressing. This is done to 'purify' the leather, I was told by an intelligent leatherdresser, and from that term the word 'pure' has originated. The dung has astringent as well as highly alkaline, or, to use the expression of my informant, 'scouring,' qualities. When the pure has been rubbed into the flesh and grain of the skin (the 'flesh' being originally the interior, and the 'grain' the exterior part of the cuticle), and the skin, thus purified, has been hung up to be dried, the dung removes, as it were, all such moisture as, if allowed to remain, would tend to make the leather unsound or imperfectly dressed.

The number of pure-finders I heard estimated, by a man well acquainted with the tanning and other departments of the leather trade, at from 200 to 250. The finders, I was informed by the same person, collected about a pail-full a day, clearing 6s. a week in the summer -- 1s. and 1s. 2d. being the charge for a pail-full; in the short days of winter, however, and in bad weather, they could not collect five pail-fulls in a week."

While Ahmadinejad certainly did not mean the "dog shit" face of Islam when he used the word pure. However but he and his puppet master Khamenei certainly among those who tarnish it.

Justice for Neda? Somehow I think not

Hypocrite

On MondayIranian “President” Ahmadinejad called the death of Neda Agha-Soltan "suspicious" and urged the authorities to identify those responsible.

Ahmadinejad told the head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi, to probe the incident and make the results of his investigations public "The massive propaganda of the foreign media, as well as other evidence, proves the interference of the enemies of the Iranian nation who want to take political advantage and darken the pure face of the Islamic republic," he said in a letter to Shahroudi, according to the Fars news agency.

On the same day Press TV said Agha-Soltan did not die the way the opposition claims. Two people told the channel that there were no security forces in the area when she was killed. Also it claimed that the fatal bullet, from a small calibre pistol is not used by Iranian security forces.

According to a report on Press Tv today Iran's Police Chief, Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam, stated that Neda’s murder was a 'prearranged 'premeditated act of murder'. Ahmadi-Mogadam blamed Arash Hejazi (pictured below) who witnessed Neda's final moments, has fanned the flames of the western media hype. He said that the Iranian Intelligence Ministry is making every effort to discover the whereabouts of Hejazi. "He has fled the country and is working against the Iranian government abroad." In fact Arash Hejazi is postgraduate student at Oxford Brookes University rather than a fugitive. AFP also reports that Arash is also now wanted by Interpol

Scape goat?

According to CNN, Iran's ambassador to Mexico, Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, has suggested that U.S. intelligence services could be responsible for her death."This death of Neda is very suspicious "My question is, how is it that this Miss Neda is shot from behind, got shot in front of several cameras, and is shot in an area where no significant demonstration was behind held?...Well, if the CIA wants to kill some people and attribute that to the government elements, then choosing women is an appropriate choice, because the death of a woman draws more sympathy."

In the light of the above I wonder what the chance of Neda’s murder being pinned on the Basij militia? Somewhere between fat and fuck all, methinks. My money would be put on a joint Mossad.MI6/CIA operation carried out by a crack team consisting of the ghost of Ofra Haza, Emo Phillips and Jade Goody’s mum.

Needless to say they will besmirch the name of a young woman who appeared to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Meanwhile a respected author and translator seems to be the object of the regime's bile. No doubt if he was returned to Iran his fate would not be pleasant.

Meanwhile in Phnom Penh Comrade Duch stands trial

Vann Nath, Tuol Sleng survior, now one of Cambodia's foremost artists.

The trial of Kaing Guek Eav (aka comrade Duch) the commandert of the Khmer Rouge murder centre Toul Sleng or S21 is underway in Cambodia (which apparently and appropriately means Hill of poisonous trees in Khmer). On Monday there were numerous reports of the testimony of Vann Nath, one of the seven people believed to have survived imprisonment inside that evil place.

Vann Nath described how hunger had driven him to eat insects, and said he had also eaten the food beside corpses of starved fellow prisoners. "The conditions were so inhumane and the food was so little," he told the tribunal, as he broke down in tears. "I even thought eating human flesh would be a good meal."

He said he was fed twice a day, but each meal only consisted of three teaspoons of rice porridge. "We were so hungry, we would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling," he said. "We ate our meals next to dead bodies, and we didn't care because we were like animals."

He described how prisoners were kept shackled - 20 or 30 of them together - and ordered not to speak or move.

Vann Nath survived due to his skills as a painter. He was forced to produce portraits of Khmer Rouge leaders - on pain of death. "I thought that if I could do good pictures and they were satisfied with what I painted, they would be happy and I would survive,"

Van Nath's portraits passed muster - and he has since become one of Cambodia's most famous artists, and his work often depicts scenes from Tuol Sleng.

Comrade Duch has admitted responsibility for his role as governor of the jail, and begged forgiveness from his victims. At least his long overdue punishment, when it comes, will have some meaning.

Le Sacre du Printemps

Choreography by Pina Bausch who died yesterday