Due to pressure of work and tonight's school play.
Just a couple of BBC snippets. I haven't followed events in Sydney closely (try Tim Blair) but I caught a BBC TV news report last night which described the beach bums as 'neo-Nazis and white supremacists'. I wouldn't have thought there were that many such in the whole of Oz - they looked pretty ordinary youth to me. Looked like the sort of thing that in India or Aston would be called 'intercommunal' - with the big difference that nobody's dead.
The execution of Tookie Williams (loads of commentary at Cobb) has been all over the BBC - where murders of Britons rarely make the headlines. I'm still waiting for any of the BBC descriptions ('reformed gang leader and author' seems to be the favourite) to mention the four dead people of whose murders he was convicted.
UPDATE - sorry - he's a 'former gang member' i.e. ever since his arrest, and a 'peace campaigner'. Main item on R5 news.
UPDATE 2 - when the sentence was carried out, Radio Five news did actually mention the people he'd killed. Not their names or anything like that - just the number four.
UPDATE 3 - I see from the Englishman that the Royal Marine who got kicked in the head during their attempt to win the Turner prize has said his assailant is a 'good mate'.
Well, Of Course We Will, Emma…
14 hours ago
7 comments:
Some presenter on Radio 5 Live (Otun Odebayo or something like that -- you can tell it was late at night because that's where they shove all their ethnic quota) was actually *tearful* about the execution of this guy.
I also love the way the Beeb continually say that he is "nobel peace prize nominated" as if that actually means something (other than the fact that he is a popular anti-establishment figure for the left).
Yep - here exactly is what the Nobel Peace Prize means:
http://patterico.com/2005/11/21/3979/nominate-patterico-for-a-nobel-peace-prize/
Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologise or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case. Without apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption.
Governor Schwarzenegger
Well, it is so often the way, sir, too late one thinks of what one *should* have said. Sir Thomas More, for instance -- burned alive for refusing to recant his Catholicism -- must have been kicking himself, as the flames licked higher, that it never occurred to him to say, "I recant my Catholicism."
Edmund Blackadder, servant to George, Prince of Wales.
Just goes to show really, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee does actually have standards. Two bit gangland murderers don't make the cut, no matter how many people they shoot in 7-Eleven.
If only he had used a few bombs, then he might have been in with a chance.
The BBC's coverage has been very strange. Before the execution they alternated between repeating his assertion of innocence with the dire threats his fellow gang members were making against prison staff (of the "if he dies, then they die" variety).
As Gary Younge says:
"Riots are a class act - and often they're the only alternative."
"Condemning the rioters is easy. ... But shield your ears from the awful roaring waters for a moment and take a look at the ocean."
"their aim has been simply to get their plight acknowledged. And they succeeded."
"And the reality is that none of this would have happened without riots. There was no petition these young people could have signed, no peaceful march they could have held, no letter they could have written to their MPs that would have produced these results."
"in certain conditions rioting is not just justified but may also be necessary, and effective.
" When all non-violent, democratic means of achieving a just end are unavailable, redundant or exhausted, rioting is justifiable. When state agencies charged with protecting communities fail to do so or actually attack them, it may be necessary in self-defence."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1641907,00.html
Okay he wasn't talking about this particular riot, but I can't think of any obvious reason he would regard this one differently.
Ian, you may have solved a problem, namely, whence comes the belief that protestants burned catholics at the reformation, when it was the other way round? (More was, of course, beheaded.) It comes from Blackadder, perhaps. Well, well.
Post a Comment