Escalation

List of placards seen in London:

ANNIHILATE THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM
AS MUSLIMS WE ARE PREPARED TO FIGHT
BBC BRITISH BROADCASTING CRUSADERS
BBC GO TO HELL!
BE PREPARED FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST [real is underlined]
BEHEAD THE ONE WHO INSULTS THE PROPHET.
BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM
BUTCHER THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM
EUROPE YOU WILL PAY FANTASTIC 4 ARE ON THEIR WAY YOU
EUROPE YOU WILL PAY. DEMOLITION IS ON THE WAY
EUROPE YOU WILL PAY. YOUR 9/11 IS ON IT'S WAY
EUROPE YOU WILL PAY. YOUR EXTERMINATION IS ON IT'S WAY
EUROPE YOU'LL COME CRAWLING WHEN THE MUJAHIDEEN COME ROARING
EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM
EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO SLANDER ISLAM
FREE SPEECH GO TO HELL
FREEDOM GO TO HELL
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION GO TO HELL
JIHAD AGAINST EUROPEAN CRUSADERS
MASSACRE THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM
SLAY THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM

Nice, eh? And no arrests for incitement! Apparently the Met had been told from on high that no arrests were to be made...

Escalation

Blogger seems to be having a dizzy blond spell. It refused to let me load a image from the dashboard saying that technicians were working on it. I got the Escalation image through Picasa but that does not show up on dashboard so I can add the text.
So, this is what should go with the cartoon.
I think this is indicative of what happens when sensible people are confronted with reaction such as we have been seeing in respect of the Danish-originated cartoons. A first, we are prepared to laugh at the mobs and their unrealistic demands for the violent death of those involved. Then, as that gets worse or continues with little call for moderation from the reasonable Islamists, we lose our patience and sense of humour. Things get to the stage where people start to think "If they did not like that - look at this"
Where I find difficulty with the demonbstrators is the Rent-A-Mob attitude. There can be very few individuals amongst the violent crowd who have seen the original cartoons published in a small country in a obscure language. They have gone onto the streets - with their banners calling for death - on the words of a few people. The police have chosen to maintain a low profile but it is quite clear what would have happened had they tried to disperse the mobs. Mr Clark knows just how soon it could turn into another Grosvenor Square and doubtless has given the necessary 'play cool' orders.
What if - just if mind you - something happens in the days ahead where it suits those who control and mobilise the crowds we have seen to tell their hotheads that - just imagine - blue-eyed children are the spawn of The Devil and should be burned and thrown into the Thames? Over the top assumption you say? Who would have forecast what we now see following some not very funny drawings in a far away place.

Call THAT a cartoon!!

The ‘outrage’ at the Islamic cartoons is not all one-way. Without too much of a Google-sort of search, I managed to find this,

In September of last year, a Danish writer bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t get anyone to illustrate a book he had written about the prophet Mohammed. The reason for this of course is because in the Muslim faith, pictorial representations of the prophet are strictly forbidden. This means that although you are more than welcome to picture Mohammed pleasuring a pot-bellied pig in your mind's eye - if that’s what floats your blasphemous boat - you could never actually draw a picture of it, or at least not without incurring a fair bit of wrath.

It then goes on a bit and then says this,

There is of course, luscious ripe irony at work here. A cartoonist draws a picture of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in
his turban, the implication being that Islam, far from a religion of tolerance and peace, is actually a religion of violence and
murder. Many Muslims are offended by this, and so, by way of response, threaten to murder the cartoonists responsible. You
have to smile. ‘How dare you call us murdering bastards?! We ’ll kill you! We’ll kill the lot of you!’

Before a final sally.

In a rather sweet coincidence, this was also the week that the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was defeated in the British
parliament. This means that when the much-diluted bill eventually becomes law, we will still be legally allowed to say or write that which is critical, abusive or insulting to religion and the religious. However, depending on how this cartoon controversy pans out, we may not dare.

We’ll probably just leave it to Nick Griffin.

All of this is a fair way out of the mainstream comment that one gets back via the ‘meedja’ but I suggest it strikes a note in the pubs and clubs – and not only in the working mens’ bars. I’ve included it here as it chimes with my feelings but expresses it in a way that is much better than I would produce. So, as the aim of communication is to communicate (shades of long-passed lectures), I nicked it!

Where did I ......?

The way ahead

Digital cameras have a lot to answer for. Just a few years back this sort of thing would have gone int one of those Quickprint shops. The assistant would have seen it and the taste police summoned.

Advice for the day ahead

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow-creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of these things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids or like the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature’s Law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction”

So, a little maxim to improve the shining hour. I can think of any number of days when recitation of this recommendation would have made my day go easier.
Is it something new that I have not heard of it before? Well – no. Not exactly. The author was about some while ago. I had not realised that his day could be so complicated that it required these attitudes.

Prejudice

Saw Julian Clary TV programme where they have celebrities research their ancestry. He discovered a number of Germans in his mother's lineage and thought this funny as she has strong anti-German prejudices. He met with mother (nice old lady) and tried to soften blow by using word Prussian instead of German. She would have none of this and immediately referred to them as German. Not at all happy and was obviously anti-German as Julian described.
What I found interesting was that she, who as Clary's mum must have attracted considerable prejudice and bigotry, retained it for Germans.
He made a amusing remark whilst en-route to give her the 'good' news. He admitted certain amount of fear at her reaction. However, he said, "It's not as if I'm going to tell her I'm hetero-sexual"
I like the guy. He did a lot to open a number of closet doors by thrusting his sexuality in our faces in an amusing way so that we could examine our individual attitudes with no question as to our possible susceptibility. Just compare his approach with Buggermore; I know whom I'd rather swim with!

Some room for improvement yet then?

"The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things-- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit."

-Samuel Johnson, British author and lexicographer (1709-1784)

Thoughts

Maybe need to click on this to enlarge.

Truth will out - somehow.

Another triumph for the Met. police! Vast step forward in the war on drugs!
Yes, you have guessed it. They have finally managed to interview Kate Moss about her alleged drug taking habit. So that's all right. Armed with her information to destroy the underground, we can be sure that no 11 year old will again collapse at their desks.
Yes - I am being unfair and cynical. Yes - it is all a media thing. However, I am not the only one to have doubts about this sort of them and us circus when a celebrity gets dragged in. I was around the Drug Squad when they went after the Rolling Stones. The policy was that every time one of the group even so much as suggested the word d-r-u-g-s, they would be turned over with the maximum severity and publicity. It got so obvious that a member of the House of Lords protested at breaking a moth under the wheels of justice. The only thing their tactics achieved was an increase in the sales of Mars bars. And that was based upon the inventive brain of a detective sergeant anyway. Other than a personal confession from Ms Moss, the police can have learnt nothing new. Shame on them for their investigative prowess if she was able to tell them something they should have found out for themselves since the photographs appeared.
For a force lead by a man with such respect for ultra-p.c. attention, it seems strange that they have made such a fuss over the Moss-Docherty event. They most assuredly were not the only couple treating their noses to a chill that evening. It is likely - given the popularity of marching powder amongst the hi-born and others in the spotlight in some way or another - that they were not the only famous individuals indulging. So, why the discrimination given to their supposed offences?
I would be really cynical and twisted were I to go too far with the article's suggestion that, right now, the Met. needs to draw attention away from a number of things and a hi-profile event is just the thing. "Look - we cannot control our trigger-fingers but we are tough on people outed by the press"

Can we believe this?

The Times has learnt that Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, is to produce detailed codes of conduct telling pet owners how to feed their animals and where they should go to the toilet, (for instance the cat code says "Ensure that cats’ preference for privacy is met by giving them a hidden away place with cat litter to relieve themselves. This advice forms part of a nine-point guide for “going to the toilet”.
Every domesticated animal will have a code of conduct tailored to their species, each of which is expected to run into dozens of pages. This will form part of the Animal Welfare Bill, expected to clear Parliament in the next few months.

My dog and I cannot wait to get our copy of the Code........

Good use of scarce resources - my ass! 18 pages on what to do for a cat. Me and pointy nose have got it down to five lines.

Move right down the bus please

Serious drama today! The World is nigh at an end.
My iPod is full and will not accept any more Tunes. I suppose I should have realised this earlier when I saw that they were marketing one with higher capacity.
Oh well – not much in the general drama that is in the world.

Met police goes nuts

My thought at the time was that no good would come of the police action.
It just gets worse the more that escapes from the inquiry

Sun 29 Jan 2006

Family speaks out over 'cover-up'

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes called on Britain's top policeman to "consider his position" after reports that officers covered up their part in the Brazilian's death.

Undercover police changed a surveillance log to hide the fact they had mistakenly identified the 27-year-old electrician as a suspected suicide bomber, it was claimed.

Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head by anti-terror officers as he tried to board a train at Stockwell tube station in south London the day after the abortive July 21 attacks.

The alleged cover-up meant blame for the tragedy would have been shifted to senior Scotland Yard commanders or the armed police who pulled the trigger, the News of the World reported.

Asad Rehman, spokesman for the innocent Brazilian's family, said the allegations had "severely dented" confidence in Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and his force.

He added: "Sir Ian Blair does need to seriously consider his own position today.

"It seems that Sir Ian Blair was not aware of any of this information for quite a while following Jean's death, which does raise certain questions about how in touch he was with the operation.

"Both then and today Sir Ian Blair is ultimately responsible for the safety of people in London and this country. It seems he didn't have his eye on the ball.

"We will ask him to examine his own conscience today. We believe this issue hasn't gone away."

The News of the World claimed a "Whitehall source" had leaked details from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report into Mr de Menezes's death, which was handed over to the Crown Prosecution Service 10 days ago.

© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=146992006

Last updated: 29-Jan-06 20:55 GMT

Roots! Respect!

Those in the loop will know that I was born in a town called Romford. At that time, it was within the county of Essex but has since been swallowed up by Greater London and is now in a borough called Havering. From country bumpkin to semi-Cockney cheeky-chappy in one lifetime.
I came across a group that deals with Romford history. I laughed at that; history in this case seems to be as recent as 1960. There was some interesting material on the forum so I signed up and contributed a small "this is me" posting. That was about 10 pm last night.
On checking my emails this morning, I found a reply from someone who had lived not more than 8 houses away from the Wood baronial mansions only slightly after we got there and is seeking information for a book and historical research. Small world indeed. It will be interesting to see if this guy's questions and responses spark anything off in my brain.