think that the story of the bunch of (neo-)Nazi thugs who murdered at least 11 immigrants (mainly serving in kebab houses! Note they were working people!) over the past few years is typical.
But I would simply comment that they were a brutal minority who were not representative of what Germany is and stands for now, and the number of people opposing them is many times greater than its supporters. That the security authorities took so long to find out is though a sad comment.
To get an amusing opposing take on the current Nazi hostilities, I would recommend the following YouTube clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaBUZA6GLK4&feature=relmfu
If youtube ever take it down, it may still be available on:
www.lautgegennazis.de/blog/
or almost certainly:
http://www.myspace.com/nosliw
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Friday, 25 November 2011
Retrospective
It is 40 years and 5 months now since I walked out of university with my degree wrapped proverbially under my arm, and the sense that I had achieved almost everything that I would ever want to do with my life.
Apart from getting regular sex, which I wasn't getting then, and has only really ever been available on a periodical basis since (even in marriage it has been sporadic, but I will not ditch my wife because she has a low sex drive) - nothing else really seemed important.
To have achieved everything that you ever wanted by the time you are 22? That sounds ridiculous? Nonetheless, true. The last 40 years and 5 months have been more about survival than owt else.
And getting older is a pain with absolutely nothing going for it. When you physically fit, strong, healthy and your sex drive is in really great shape - what could be better? Losing all that is painful, and while your brain remains fully engaged and in gear, that actually only leads to frustration, particularly as the world seems to be in an even worse mess than it was in 1971, and much of humanity seems to walking down the wrong proverbial road, listening to the tune of the wrong proverbial piper!
Apart from getting regular sex, which I wasn't getting then, and has only really ever been available on a periodical basis since (even in marriage it has been sporadic, but I will not ditch my wife because she has a low sex drive) - nothing else really seemed important.
To have achieved everything that you ever wanted by the time you are 22? That sounds ridiculous? Nonetheless, true. The last 40 years and 5 months have been more about survival than owt else.
And getting older is a pain with absolutely nothing going for it. When you physically fit, strong, healthy and your sex drive is in really great shape - what could be better? Losing all that is painful, and while your brain remains fully engaged and in gear, that actually only leads to frustration, particularly as the world seems to be in an even worse mess than it was in 1971, and much of humanity seems to walking down the wrong proverbial road, listening to the tune of the wrong proverbial piper!
Monday, 21 November 2011
Barbaric and pre-medieval
As the days pass and I get increasingly depressed and cynical about the way the world is going, it is rare to have anything to even slightly enthuse over.
I had though yesterday one brief cheering moment.
There was an item on yahoo.com about Israel doing the usual scare-mongering regarding the alleged Iranian nuclear missile. The article was not particularly fascinating but a lot of the hundreds of replies were. Apparently a lot of Americans think that if Israel has a problem, it is for the Israelis to sort it out, not for the United States in particular and the international community in general.
If it had been just one or two responses upon those lines, then I would have shrugged my shoulders and muttered a small word of encouragement. The volume though was what impressed me. Maybe there is hope for the future. Some anyway.
The criticism from those lacking any objectivity (and with little grasp of logic) will now of course use the shallow argument that if I oppose an invasion of Iran (by the West at least), I must be pro the Iranian regime.
Wrong on all counts! I do not know how many times that I have to tell people that because you oppose one thing, you are NOT obliged to take the second alternative. Both can be equally wrong. As here!
IMHO Iran represents just about everything that happens when you trust to the worst instincts of yourself. A theocratic culture based upon the fear drenched myths of generations ago, which should have been proverbially blown out of the water well before now. Power invested in the advocates of that extremist theological belief system and a legal system invested totally and brutally in it. And not to be challenged or questioned?
Sorry, no!
Regime change is desirable, but for that it would require the people as a whole to reject the barbarism and pre-medieval culture associated with it, and, outside the intelligentsia at least, I do not gain the impression that the desire is there.
The other day I picked up a video on the web. A woman and two men were having nooses fitted round their necks and were about to be hanged from a crane in public. Iran. 2007. I could have actually watched this to the bitter end, I chose not to - far too gruesome for my tastes.
Checking the story further, I discovered that the individuals were hardly worthy of a great deal of sympathy - the wife had conspired with the men to murder her husband. A common nasty enough event in the West. In the US, all might have faced the Death Penalty for the offence, in Europe they would have been jailed for a long time.
The only thing that really comes to mind here is that the event was held in a public square, and you could observe the large crowd there to jeer the criminals getting their "just desserts". Not unlike in England in the 18th century in fact!
The thought went through my mind as to with regard to this event, we have moved on that much. If the Death Penalty had been restored in the UK (as many want) and the English murderer, Ian Huntley, had been executed for killing the two young girls in Cambridgeshire a few years ago - and if they had decided to hold the event in a public square, how many people would have turned up to jeer?
Maybe I underestimate people, but I expect that a large number would have done. The appeal to our own worst instincts may still lead us down a road where the barbaric and pre-medieval instincts take hold. The major danger though is that we may allow some political regime that works on those instincts to take power - as sadly is the case in Iran.
I had though yesterday one brief cheering moment.
There was an item on yahoo.com about Israel doing the usual scare-mongering regarding the alleged Iranian nuclear missile. The article was not particularly fascinating but a lot of the hundreds of replies were. Apparently a lot of Americans think that if Israel has a problem, it is for the Israelis to sort it out, not for the United States in particular and the international community in general.
If it had been just one or two responses upon those lines, then I would have shrugged my shoulders and muttered a small word of encouragement. The volume though was what impressed me. Maybe there is hope for the future. Some anyway.
The criticism from those lacking any objectivity (and with little grasp of logic) will now of course use the shallow argument that if I oppose an invasion of Iran (by the West at least), I must be pro the Iranian regime.
Wrong on all counts! I do not know how many times that I have to tell people that because you oppose one thing, you are NOT obliged to take the second alternative. Both can be equally wrong. As here!
IMHO Iran represents just about everything that happens when you trust to the worst instincts of yourself. A theocratic culture based upon the fear drenched myths of generations ago, which should have been proverbially blown out of the water well before now. Power invested in the advocates of that extremist theological belief system and a legal system invested totally and brutally in it. And not to be challenged or questioned?
Sorry, no!
Regime change is desirable, but for that it would require the people as a whole to reject the barbarism and pre-medieval culture associated with it, and, outside the intelligentsia at least, I do not gain the impression that the desire is there.
The other day I picked up a video on the web. A woman and two men were having nooses fitted round their necks and were about to be hanged from a crane in public. Iran. 2007. I could have actually watched this to the bitter end, I chose not to - far too gruesome for my tastes.
Checking the story further, I discovered that the individuals were hardly worthy of a great deal of sympathy - the wife had conspired with the men to murder her husband. A common nasty enough event in the West. In the US, all might have faced the Death Penalty for the offence, in Europe they would have been jailed for a long time.
The only thing that really comes to mind here is that the event was held in a public square, and you could observe the large crowd there to jeer the criminals getting their "just desserts". Not unlike in England in the 18th century in fact!
The thought went through my mind as to with regard to this event, we have moved on that much. If the Death Penalty had been restored in the UK (as many want) and the English murderer, Ian Huntley, had been executed for killing the two young girls in Cambridgeshire a few years ago - and if they had decided to hold the event in a public square, how many people would have turned up to jeer?
Maybe I underestimate people, but I expect that a large number would have done. The appeal to our own worst instincts may still lead us down a road where the barbaric and pre-medieval instincts take hold. The major danger though is that we may allow some political regime that works on those instincts to take power - as sadly is the case in Iran.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
The trouble with you atheists ....
It was one of those generalised comments, how evil we all are, how dare we not believe the Wrath of God (or Allah or Jehovah or wharrever) mythology. usw usw .....
The curious thing was the generalisation. A lot of people lay into all Muslims without even understanding the difference between Shia and Sunni, so this I sort of get. After all, the teachings of Mahomet are at times extremely bloodthirsty, and most of the rabid hoodlums (a small minority of Muslims incidentally) who misuse these mythical texts cannot understand that 1500 years have passed and things are different now.
I mean it may well have been the done thing in Arabia at the time for 52 year old men to take 9 year old girls to bed with them, and while that may be out of order today (actually IMHO it is totally out of order, but I digress), so maybe we have to make allowances for the evils of the time. And then again ....
But back to the generalisations about atheists. I have no problems with my views on the subject, and I am not aggressive in respect of people who prefer to stick to their mythical views of the world (though see also above). But occasionally it is fun to hear an erudite Richard Dawkins dissect opposing arguments, or Bill Maher point his telling sense of humour in the direction of believers, or hear the likes of Pat Condell absolutely shred religious beliefs.
But Pat Condell - now there is an interesting example of why generalisations about atheists simply do not work.
I have one thing in common with Pat Condell - we are both atheists. For the rest, we are like chalk and cheese. He supports the UKIP for one thing (the posh man's version of the guttersnipe neo-Fascist BNP), while I remain a totally committed pan-European (not the time for me to get into why the Euro for all its weaknesses is still eminently preferable to national currencies and the re-entrenchment into the myopic thinking and the banking ripoffs involved, and handing over individual countries to the whims of speculators. Well the UK has been run for the benefit of speculators and not for its people for longer than I can remember, so point proved!).
Another point about Pat Condell (along with Bill Maher for that matter) is that he is a strong supporter of Israel. All well and good hating fundamentalist Islam usw (see also above), but let us quickly revert to Israel. Israel was founded as a Jewish state - Judaism is a religion, and a pretty nasty one at that if you study the Old Testament closely enough. Fortunately the excesses of the teaching are mainly ignored these days, but the tenets for becoming an Israeli still have this religious undercurrent to it.
There were in 1938, 300,000 Jews in the area that is now their country. Which means that some 6 million plus have been added to their population by immigration, based on the fact that they follow or followed a religious creed that said that they had a divine right to live in that place and the others who lived there should clear off out.
Fine - several generations after Jehovah's original divine gift to "his chosen people", my ancestors were still based in Denmark (before some of them eventually set out in longboats and headed off for reasons best known to themselves to England - they must have had something wrong in their heads to even want to do that, but anyway). Maybe now is the time for me and a few others to reassert our right to land in Denmark that Odin and Thor offered us as their "chosen people" centuries ago.
It is exactly the same principle!
So when Pat Condell says that the Israelis have the right to the land and Palestinians have none, he is, curiously, reinforcing a religious principle.
Strange for an atheist to take sides on behalf of any religious thinking, even if the adamant supporters of Sunni Islam - namely Hamas - are hardly people whom you would want to support, even on a bad day (the same can be said of the Shia fanatics in Iran and Lebanon incidentally).
The atheist pragmatist that I am would not ask the Israelis to leave their land now (at least the land that they were awarded in 1948) - the status quo is always more important than any antiquated myth or silly idealistic solution that merely serves one side in a dispute. For my views on a solution, see previous pieces on here.
Anyway to reinforce my point, the fact that I am an atheist does not mean that I agree on everything with other atheists. As we have just seen, this not at all the case. So there is no point generalising about us. There may be trouble with us as individuals, but those are to be taken up individually (and any problem that you have with me, please take up politely with me - not with someone else), not in a fundamentalist rage that covers all eventualities.
The curious thing was the generalisation. A lot of people lay into all Muslims without even understanding the difference between Shia and Sunni, so this I sort of get. After all, the teachings of Mahomet are at times extremely bloodthirsty, and most of the rabid hoodlums (a small minority of Muslims incidentally) who misuse these mythical texts cannot understand that 1500 years have passed and things are different now.
I mean it may well have been the done thing in Arabia at the time for 52 year old men to take 9 year old girls to bed with them, and while that may be out of order today (actually IMHO it is totally out of order, but I digress), so maybe we have to make allowances for the evils of the time. And then again ....
But back to the generalisations about atheists. I have no problems with my views on the subject, and I am not aggressive in respect of people who prefer to stick to their mythical views of the world (though see also above). But occasionally it is fun to hear an erudite Richard Dawkins dissect opposing arguments, or Bill Maher point his telling sense of humour in the direction of believers, or hear the likes of Pat Condell absolutely shred religious beliefs.
But Pat Condell - now there is an interesting example of why generalisations about atheists simply do not work.
I have one thing in common with Pat Condell - we are both atheists. For the rest, we are like chalk and cheese. He supports the UKIP for one thing (the posh man's version of the guttersnipe neo-Fascist BNP), while I remain a totally committed pan-European (not the time for me to get into why the Euro for all its weaknesses is still eminently preferable to national currencies and the re-entrenchment into the myopic thinking and the banking ripoffs involved, and handing over individual countries to the whims of speculators. Well the UK has been run for the benefit of speculators and not for its people for longer than I can remember, so point proved!).
Another point about Pat Condell (along with Bill Maher for that matter) is that he is a strong supporter of Israel. All well and good hating fundamentalist Islam usw (see also above), but let us quickly revert to Israel. Israel was founded as a Jewish state - Judaism is a religion, and a pretty nasty one at that if you study the Old Testament closely enough. Fortunately the excesses of the teaching are mainly ignored these days, but the tenets for becoming an Israeli still have this religious undercurrent to it.
There were in 1938, 300,000 Jews in the area that is now their country. Which means that some 6 million plus have been added to their population by immigration, based on the fact that they follow or followed a religious creed that said that they had a divine right to live in that place and the others who lived there should clear off out.
Fine - several generations after Jehovah's original divine gift to "his chosen people", my ancestors were still based in Denmark (before some of them eventually set out in longboats and headed off for reasons best known to themselves to England - they must have had something wrong in their heads to even want to do that, but anyway). Maybe now is the time for me and a few others to reassert our right to land in Denmark that Odin and Thor offered us as their "chosen people" centuries ago.
It is exactly the same principle!
So when Pat Condell says that the Israelis have the right to the land and Palestinians have none, he is, curiously, reinforcing a religious principle.
Strange for an atheist to take sides on behalf of any religious thinking, even if the adamant supporters of Sunni Islam - namely Hamas - are hardly people whom you would want to support, even on a bad day (the same can be said of the Shia fanatics in Iran and Lebanon incidentally).
The atheist pragmatist that I am would not ask the Israelis to leave their land now (at least the land that they were awarded in 1948) - the status quo is always more important than any antiquated myth or silly idealistic solution that merely serves one side in a dispute. For my views on a solution, see previous pieces on here.
Anyway to reinforce my point, the fact that I am an atheist does not mean that I agree on everything with other atheists. As we have just seen, this not at all the case. So there is no point generalising about us. There may be trouble with us as individuals, but those are to be taken up individually (and any problem that you have with me, please take up politely with me - not with someone else), not in a fundamentalist rage that covers all eventualities.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Iraq War Mark 2 - or what to expect from a US Republican President in 2013
Author's note (December 5th, 2021). This may no longer seem relevant and I considered deleting it. But some of the content still applies to the reasons for any invasion even now and the logic about the potential problems on the ground if an invasion did ever take place is absolutely relevant. And as for the comment about Israel - not so noticeable when the Democrats are in power, maybe, but .... Meanwhile I remain as neutral as ever about the Middle East. A two secular (moderate) state solution is what is needed. Given the Israeli hawks on the one hand and The Hamas extremists' influence on a large number of the Palestinians on the other .... no, I won't side with either of them.
Gingrich quickly agreed with Romney, saying that if all other steps failed, "you have to take whatever steps are necessary" to prevent the Islamic regime from gaining a nuclear weapon".
Apart from this rhetoric sounding exactly like what we heard from Bush and company before the now discredited invasion of Iraq, has anybody worked out what this involves? Try the following:
1. Another instance of the United States Conservative establishment wishing to start an unnecessary war to satisfy its own agenda.
2. Invading a country that is three times the size of Iraq, has three times the population, and is far less ethnically divided than Iraq (it is a fundamentalist Shia Islamic state with only small Sunni and Kurdish populations).
3. If David Petraeus's estimates upon a required invasion force required for any successful invasion are correct, this will need something in the region of 2 to 3 million troops. This will almost certainly mean that the US will have to reintroduce conscription.
4. There will not be much by way of allied support - even the UK will be lukewarm (though it depends how poodle-like the leadership in London is before they provide the support - expect it to happen, do not expect guts from a British government on issues like this).
5. Iran is a divided country, the government is not popular. There is nothing like a foreign invasion (which is exactly what this will be) to unite a people.
6. In Iraq there were 2 million refugees as a result of the invasion. Are there plans to deal with the 6 million Iranian refugees resulting from this? Or does that not matter?
Also to bear in mind:
If Iran does have a nuclear weapon (not guaranteed), which they can fire accurately (even less guaranteed), do they have the technology to launch it some 10,000 miles so it will land anywhere near the United States? Answer - absolutely not!
So what is the justification for this? The Israeli tail waving the American dog? Again????
The answer to that should be - if the Israelis have a problem, let them sort it out for themselves! If they wish to invade Iran, let them get on with it!
But it certainly should not be the business of anyone in the West to resume the playing of the ridiculous script that was first played out in 2003.
There are US Republican candidates like Ron Paul, and commentators like Pat Buchanan, who are intelligent enough to realise this. The rest are not, and in my book are dangerous people who are not intelligent enough to deserve to be elected!
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Well if you want to know where the British neo-fascist fringe
entertains itself on the Internet, apart obviously from Facebook, try Yahoo Answers some time.
The thing to do is invent some statistics, present them as "facts", and given the lack of any critical answering device, nobody can challenge them.
There was one ludicrous comment on there today that "coloured" immigrants are breeding like flies, that thousands were getting into the country illegally usw usw.
The same garbage that has been emanating from these individuals for over 40 years now.
Yahoo Answers also has a facility where you can approve or disapprove of the comment. Six to nil in favour of this (inaccurate) blurb. Which indicates that this BNP clone has a lot of supporters out there, people who are convinced of this nonsense.
If you actually had a forum where you could place detailed facts before them .... But that would be asking for the moon, wouldn't it? After all never let the facts get in the way of a good story, or a piece of updated Goebbels-style propaganda.
You are prone to wonder from this how far we are from a British Anders Breivik emanating from the gutter, or a David Copeland imitator. I have to admit more than ever that I am happy to be living in a country where such morons invariably find themselves heavily outnumbered wherever and whenever they appear. Which seems to be more than you can, sadly, say for the UK.
The thing to do is invent some statistics, present them as "facts", and given the lack of any critical answering device, nobody can challenge them.
There was one ludicrous comment on there today that "coloured" immigrants are breeding like flies, that thousands were getting into the country illegally usw usw.
The same garbage that has been emanating from these individuals for over 40 years now.
Yahoo Answers also has a facility where you can approve or disapprove of the comment. Six to nil in favour of this (inaccurate) blurb. Which indicates that this BNP clone has a lot of supporters out there, people who are convinced of this nonsense.
If you actually had a forum where you could place detailed facts before them .... But that would be asking for the moon, wouldn't it? After all never let the facts get in the way of a good story, or a piece of updated Goebbels-style propaganda.
You are prone to wonder from this how far we are from a British Anders Breivik emanating from the gutter, or a David Copeland imitator. I have to admit more than ever that I am happy to be living in a country where such morons invariably find themselves heavily outnumbered wherever and whenever they appear. Which seems to be more than you can, sadly, say for the UK.
Update 25/8/2025.
Those were the days when you could write this sort of thing.
As of now a neo-Fascist political party, which spends nearly all its time ranting on about illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and hardly ever discusses the economy - their approach would make Liz Truss's experiment a couple of years ago seem a mild disaster in comparison - for fairly obvious reasons.
Despite the fact that 68% of people in the UK in a recent opinion poll indicated that they want the return of the freedom of movement in the EU which they previously had, the EU is an ogre to be avoided at all costs apparently - and if you can win a landslide majority with 30% of the vote thanks to the first past the post system while the opposition remains divided ....
And given the likely prospect of a neo-Fascist President of France in 2027 ..... Not a time to be optimistic at all, is it?
Monday, 7 November 2011
Can you blame the people of Greece for being angry?
I have a longstanding opinion that most people do not care whether they are working in the private sector or the public sector.
What they want is a job that pays the bills and maybe one that they also enjoy.
After that whether it is in a government office or the office of a commercial company, does it matter that much?
As long as they are earning, and as long as they can afford to live.
So when a crisis comes along and someone informs you that despite the fact that you have turned up every day, done the job to the best of your ability, but due to circumstances beyond your control you are being fired? What is your reaction?
This has happened to loads of people in both the private and public sector in recent years.
And now if you live in Greece, you are well nigh likely being told that if you work in a government office, your job is very likely not needed any more - even if you have carried it out with 100% commitment, competence and efficiency for years.
And do not expect to be alone, and do not expect to find anything else very easily either! And do not expect to be able to live off government benefits for very long either - they are being cut as well!
Of course there may be the odd training course out them as a plaster to cover the wound, but the wound is likely to be far larger than the plaster, and the plaster will probably offer little by way of comfort.
The fact remains that the majority of people of Greece have been sold down the river - by incompetent politicians, by crooked business people and by their own foolishness in believing that working hard and doing a great job would count for anything is this cynical world!
What they want is a job that pays the bills and maybe one that they also enjoy.
After that whether it is in a government office or the office of a commercial company, does it matter that much?
As long as they are earning, and as long as they can afford to live.
So when a crisis comes along and someone informs you that despite the fact that you have turned up every day, done the job to the best of your ability, but due to circumstances beyond your control you are being fired? What is your reaction?
This has happened to loads of people in both the private and public sector in recent years.
And now if you live in Greece, you are well nigh likely being told that if you work in a government office, your job is very likely not needed any more - even if you have carried it out with 100% commitment, competence and efficiency for years.
And do not expect to be alone, and do not expect to find anything else very easily either! And do not expect to be able to live off government benefits for very long either - they are being cut as well!
Of course there may be the odd training course out them as a plaster to cover the wound, but the wound is likely to be far larger than the plaster, and the plaster will probably offer little by way of comfort.
The fact remains that the majority of people of Greece have been sold down the river - by incompetent politicians, by crooked business people and by their own foolishness in believing that working hard and doing a great job would count for anything is this cynical world!
So what drives mature grown men to molest children?
Imagine you are suffering stress at work (those of you who are fortunate enough to be working).
Stress can be overpowering, it can upset your life balance, it can build up an extraordinary sense of despair inside you.
But could you seriously believe that it would drive a 45-year-old married man with his own children to kidnap, rape and kill a 10-year-old boy? Particularly if you have no history of being a child predator?
Such unbelievable and unacceptable logic though was apparently what drove a German murderer (called Olaf H - surname not issued in the German press as is the standard practice here) to abduct and kill a boy called Mirco in Nordrhein-Westfalen in September 2010 in what has possibly been the most infamous murder case here in the past few years.
Described invariably as a "monster" in the media, this guy had reached the age of 45 without ever appearing above the public parapet for anything, and then .... Why suddenly did this happen? On the surface the whole series of events has no apparent logic, nor is there any satisfactory explanation. Had this guy kept a secret life (or at least desire) hidden for years? And surely he would have been aware of the consequences of any such action.
Not dissimilar (except for the fact that the victims survived) are the cases of Wolfgang Priklopil in Vienna and Michael Devlin in Missouri in the USA, who were both 26 and 39 respectively when they kidnapped their victims (Natascha Kampusch and Shawn Hornbeck respectively). Both reasonably mature men with no reported history of being child predators (although after his suicide, Priklopil was mentioned by potential victims as someone who did try to abduct them).
Why would you get to that age and suddenly .... It makes no sense, on the surface at least. The desires are hidden and suddenly become uncontrollable and emerge in a macabre daylight? Better frankly that the desires stay hidden, and never emerge - but anyway!
In the case of the Californian girl, Jaycee Dugard, her abductor, Phillip Garrido, had a criminal record (and someone in California still bears the responsibility for allowing this individual to be released from jail after serving only 11 years of a 50-year sentence).
You might at least in his case understand the concept of "motive", even if his conduct was abhorrent in the extreme.
In my attempts to understand humanity though, this is one of the most difficult things to accept. Predators are usually serial recidivists who start really quite young (check out the notorious Russell Bishop in the UK for example). That suddenly some repressed fantasy would turn into a grotesque reality? Sad, depressing and almost inexplicable.
Postscript. For those of you who can read German, I would recommend Natascha Kampusch's Website (natascha-kampusch.at). Don't expect gaudy details of her captivity though - it involves her humanitarian work and her attempts to help women and children in need wherever in the world. Highly laudable and (to repeat the word) highly recommended!
Stress can be overpowering, it can upset your life balance, it can build up an extraordinary sense of despair inside you.
But could you seriously believe that it would drive a 45-year-old married man with his own children to kidnap, rape and kill a 10-year-old boy? Particularly if you have no history of being a child predator?
Such unbelievable and unacceptable logic though was apparently what drove a German murderer (called Olaf H - surname not issued in the German press as is the standard practice here) to abduct and kill a boy called Mirco in Nordrhein-Westfalen in September 2010 in what has possibly been the most infamous murder case here in the past few years.
Described invariably as a "monster" in the media, this guy had reached the age of 45 without ever appearing above the public parapet for anything, and then .... Why suddenly did this happen? On the surface the whole series of events has no apparent logic, nor is there any satisfactory explanation. Had this guy kept a secret life (or at least desire) hidden for years? And surely he would have been aware of the consequences of any such action.
Not dissimilar (except for the fact that the victims survived) are the cases of Wolfgang Priklopil in Vienna and Michael Devlin in Missouri in the USA, who were both 26 and 39 respectively when they kidnapped their victims (Natascha Kampusch and Shawn Hornbeck respectively). Both reasonably mature men with no reported history of being child predators (although after his suicide, Priklopil was mentioned by potential victims as someone who did try to abduct them).
Why would you get to that age and suddenly .... It makes no sense, on the surface at least. The desires are hidden and suddenly become uncontrollable and emerge in a macabre daylight? Better frankly that the desires stay hidden, and never emerge - but anyway!
In the case of the Californian girl, Jaycee Dugard, her abductor, Phillip Garrido, had a criminal record (and someone in California still bears the responsibility for allowing this individual to be released from jail after serving only 11 years of a 50-year sentence).
You might at least in his case understand the concept of "motive", even if his conduct was abhorrent in the extreme.
In my attempts to understand humanity though, this is one of the most difficult things to accept. Predators are usually serial recidivists who start really quite young (check out the notorious Russell Bishop in the UK for example). That suddenly some repressed fantasy would turn into a grotesque reality? Sad, depressing and almost inexplicable.
Postscript. For those of you who can read German, I would recommend Natascha Kampusch's Website (natascha-kampusch.at). Don't expect gaudy details of her captivity though - it involves her humanitarian work and her attempts to help women and children in need wherever in the world. Highly laudable and (to repeat the word) highly recommended!
Sunday, 6 November 2011
The glories of war, or was this really worth it?
I was checking up on the battle of Passchendaele today. 1917, the First World War. Taken from Wikipedia (not always a good source of information, but this comment if anything understates the actual situation):
"After 16 weeks of bitter fighting in appalling conditions of rain, mud and slime, about one-sixth of the initial objective had been gained at a cost of nearly 400,000 British casualties (17,000 officers), leveling the entire town. Nearly 400,000 German soldiers gave their lives defending it".
800,000 casualties for what? Look at those numbers. For one moment think about the suffering ON BOTH SIDES? And for what?
War is so glorious (in appalling conditions of rain, mud and slime - see again), thousands died or were maimed, and for what end?
Erich Maria Remarque in his brilliant pacifist novel "Im Westen Nichts Neues" ("All Quiet on the Western Front" in English) debunks the glories of war and all the propaganda that accompanies it.
In my view the propaganda on both sides in the First World War was equally bad, the war was kept going because compromise was simply "not acceptable", and you couldn't let the other side seem to win. Both sides needed their proverbial heads banging together, and the whole thing stopping as early as 1915. Of course we cannot change history.
There are times when war is unfortunately necessary. Fascists of various description (Hitler, bin Laden, Milosevic and the like) have to be stopped. If they start something (as all of them did) they have to be resisted.
But let us not consider that war is in any way glorious. Much of it is dirty, disgusting and given to moments of inhumanity that would leave any of us totally and completely cold. And threatening to start something on the pre-emptive basis is as phoney a concept as there is out there. Often the basis is simply political anyway, and often is the result of phoney propaganda for which facts are evident by their absence (see Iraq now, and Iran in the next couple of years).
"After 16 weeks of bitter fighting in appalling conditions of rain, mud and slime, about one-sixth of the initial objective had been gained at a cost of nearly 400,000 British casualties (17,000 officers), leveling the entire town. Nearly 400,000 German soldiers gave their lives defending it".
800,000 casualties for what? Look at those numbers. For one moment think about the suffering ON BOTH SIDES? And for what?
War is so glorious (in appalling conditions of rain, mud and slime - see again), thousands died or were maimed, and for what end?
Erich Maria Remarque in his brilliant pacifist novel "Im Westen Nichts Neues" ("All Quiet on the Western Front" in English) debunks the glories of war and all the propaganda that accompanies it.
In my view the propaganda on both sides in the First World War was equally bad, the war was kept going because compromise was simply "not acceptable", and you couldn't let the other side seem to win. Both sides needed their proverbial heads banging together, and the whole thing stopping as early as 1915. Of course we cannot change history.
There are times when war is unfortunately necessary. Fascists of various description (Hitler, bin Laden, Milosevic and the like) have to be stopped. If they start something (as all of them did) they have to be resisted.
But let us not consider that war is in any way glorious. Much of it is dirty, disgusting and given to moments of inhumanity that would leave any of us totally and completely cold. And threatening to start something on the pre-emptive basis is as phoney a concept as there is out there. Often the basis is simply political anyway, and often is the result of phoney propaganda for which facts are evident by their absence (see Iraq now, and Iran in the next couple of years).
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Some people can simply not get enough of you
Today, after 2 years and 5 months, I finally decided to close my MyLot account.
Several reasons exist for this decision, but the departure of a number of good electronic friends from the site, and their move to my email account instead, means that I have lost my enthusiasm for the site. And the number of old topics being constantly repeated, the limited jaded (invariably failed Conservative) political thinking and the lack of fresh ideas appearing - no, I do not really belong any more.
Meanwhile my mail queue gets filled with tons of uninteresting notifications, which I do not really need any more. Life will be quieter.
Of course I may miss the 7 or 8 Euro every third month (where is my laughing hysterically smiley?) ....
Problem is - I have three times pressed the link that is supposed to generate the email where I can find out what to do to quit the site. Nothing works. No email arrives. I cannot leave - they love me too much!
I wish I had an employer who was paying me €45,000 p/a who thought the same!
Several reasons exist for this decision, but the departure of a number of good electronic friends from the site, and their move to my email account instead, means that I have lost my enthusiasm for the site. And the number of old topics being constantly repeated, the limited jaded (invariably failed Conservative) political thinking and the lack of fresh ideas appearing - no, I do not really belong any more.
Meanwhile my mail queue gets filled with tons of uninteresting notifications, which I do not really need any more. Life will be quieter.
Of course I may miss the 7 or 8 Euro every third month (where is my laughing hysterically smiley?) ....
Problem is - I have three times pressed the link that is supposed to generate the email where I can find out what to do to quit the site. Nothing works. No email arrives. I cannot leave - they love me too much!
I wish I had an employer who was paying me €45,000 p/a who thought the same!
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Ageism - an update
Every so often I get telephone calls from IT recruitment agents.
Most seem impressed with my CV and start talking about positions as one does.
The thoughts in my mind run approximately along the lines:
Am I interested? Yes.
Could I do it? Yes, probably extremely well.
Do you have all the necessary skills? Maybe not, but what I do not know, I will pick up. Fairly quickly knowing me.
Would I enjoy doing it? Probably (you have to allow for the fact that the occasional manager is incompetent and impossible to work for).
How much would I want to do it? Adequate (not massive) recompensation.
Do I have a chance of even being considered? NO!
Age is one factor, probably the most significant factor. Then there are all sorts of niceties that they introduce. But anyone who turns me down on the grounds that it would be an insult to offer the position to someone so experienced and obviously talented? Spare me - that might apply with McScheisse jobs, in IT I have no axe to grind about what I have to do.
Most seem impressed with my CV and start talking about positions as one does.
The thoughts in my mind run approximately along the lines:
Am I interested? Yes.
Could I do it? Yes, probably extremely well.
Do you have all the necessary skills? Maybe not, but what I do not know, I will pick up. Fairly quickly knowing me.
Would I enjoy doing it? Probably (you have to allow for the fact that the occasional manager is incompetent and impossible to work for).
How much would I want to do it? Adequate (not massive) recompensation.
Do I have a chance of even being considered? NO!
Age is one factor, probably the most significant factor. Then there are all sorts of niceties that they introduce. But anyone who turns me down on the grounds that it would be an insult to offer the position to someone so experienced and obviously talented? Spare me - that might apply with McScheisse jobs, in IT I have no axe to grind about what I have to do.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)