The media will tell you when to care...

Hello again dear reader...Recently in the British news media we have yet again been bombarded by the tragic and unfortunate death of a child... Baby "P"... I use the term bombarded due to the fact that the news media are using this childs untimely death (seventeen months) as a "tool" of news management...Why?... The media in general use the death's of children as a sick and often used tool to disgust and heighten a sense of revulsion deep within the reader or listeners human psyche when concerning the loss of a childs life. Take for instance the use of the lifeless and flat photographs of the "famous" child murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady used by the print and televisual media, ad infinitum, to get their "point" across...

His mother, stepfather, and lodger have been arrested in connection with his death, and subsequently have been found guilty by the jury presided over by Judge Stephen Kramer. They await sentence on the 15th of December. Baby "P" was discovered with over 50 seperate injuries to his body. Haringay children's services in North London have been accused with failing to protect the child despite numerous visits by the authorities.

The most disturbing aspect of this dreadful case of child neglect is that this infant died in AUGUST of last year. So why NOW is it being highlighted in the news today over a year later...

The injuries suffered by the child included a broken back, 8 broken ribs, numerous bruises, cuts, and abrasions, a ripped earlobe, severe lacerations to the head caused by a dog bite ( the family "pet", a rottweiller), a missing tooth was also found in the childs stomach...He swallowed it. A short life of pain and misery.
Newspaper, television, and radio news editors are the ones who sit with selected journalists at their daily meetings around their desks to pick and choose a story to cover, and, a story that will always hit pay dirt is the death of children at the hands of neglectful parents. Sales rocket, and the ultimate conclusion of this strategy is increased profit for the shareholders of the newspaper. The journalists who broke the story of Baby "P" reported the story on the evening of the 11th of November 2008 due to the fact that reporting restrictions were lifted that day...Fine, we understand that, it is news after all. The day before all hell was breaking loose on the economic front, the "credit crunch", the ineffective policies of politicians to get us out of it, job losses, sales at Christmas, "celebrity" gossip, the usual doom and gloom. Then, Baby "P" rocketed to the fore of the news agenda... And, in doing so it takes the heat away from the politicians for a few days aided by the media on all fronts. Knowing full well they will both USE this child for their own ends...OBSCENE...SHAMEFUL...DISGUSTING...

Why do we as citizens not have the same shared anger for the innocent men, women, and children who are running for their lives from despotic maniacs such as the regimes in Somalia, Zimbabwe, and the Congo, to name but a few who are hacked to death on a daily basis? Is it because they are to far away for YOU to care? Or, is it because we are told not to ask those bigger questions? The media's job is to dictate their policy, their stategy, and your job is to care when they (the media) tell you to "CARE"...Oh, and don't worry dear reader, there WILL be a paedophile along in a minute...

Music is not ART.

Hello again dear reader. Now, I'm sure that if you love music as much as I do there is nothing, and I MEAN nothing more irritating and annoying to my ears than so called pop "star's" that use the noun ARTIST...(cue ear bleeding scream.) to describe themselves and in particular their "music". This cuts me to the bone with anger. Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana, (www. Youtube.com) Michael Skinner from the band The Streets, ( MySpace Blogs) Cristina Milian, (MySpace pop-up page header) to name a recent few, and as recently as last night on the television (12/11/2008 Channel 4) there is a trailer for a programme on the life of the late Kurt Cobain from the band Nirvana...The trailer in rather hushed and somber reverential tone's speak's of the singer as the "ARTIST" Kurt Cobain. These people are "Recording artiste's" and NOTHING more than that...

They are "singer's and "dancer's", and how they can compare themselves to the likes of Rembrandt, Piccaso or Van Goch makes my blood boil...There is no question these individual's were true artist's, and the fact that they could create and compose and capture an emotional intense perspective on human experience is, shall we say, peerless. You can include your own choice here at this juncture, dear reader. I myself do not, and will not say, that this artist is better than that one, far from it. If we cannot appreciate someone's obvious skill (even if you lay brick's, or, if you are a plumber) and talent, then you are truly are a snob! This is not a new phenomena, far from it. Madonna, Sting, even Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin call themselves an artist when the obviously are not. As for Hirst and Emin they are nothing more than thieves in the house of love. Throughout the centuries charlatans have done as they do and history, either today or the next would be nothing without their existence after all...

Music as art? I don't think so. If anything, all that is required from music is to make human beings Dream. Imagine, if you will, a titan of music such as Mozart sitting at his desk composing his phrases and delicate structures, all he wanted to do was transport a series of musical picture's with his chosen keys and chords and deliver the said pictures to the mind of the listener, to deliver... THE DREAM OF IMAGINATION nothing more. He did not possess the skills of a painter, or, the hands of a sculpture, or, for that matter a state of the art recording studio, much like the studios at Industrial Light And Magic owned by George Lucas at Marin County in San Francisco. (imagine this GENIUS there today...Wonderful) The invention of the film camera at its conception made it far easier for THE DREAM OF IMAGINATION to become a reality on the screen. One of the human senses heightened at the expense of another, But, as I have said music is not art, it does not possess the solidity of marble or bronze or wood that a piece of sculpture contains. The materials one uses as a painter, the brush, the ink, the fingers, the rag, the oils, are REAL. These are the tools to capture and contain the true emotional power that only real art can deliver. Music is not art...How can a dream become so..?

This SHAME! Is not a legacy to be proud of...

Let me firstly say a big thank you for taking the time dear reader for your visit to my new blog space. I have never attempted anything like this before as I usually have a daily diary I write my thought's and feelings into, but, I have wanted to give it a try on the web for sometime... So here goes... Let me just say right away that if you are unfortunately INFECTED by right-wing politic's, or, RACIST viewpoint's, this really isn't the spot for you, so keep moving along and do what ever it is that you do, as you will NEVER have a seat at my table. YOU ARE NOT ON MY GUESTLIST...If you judge people by the colour of their skin you really have to understand you would not exist on a daily basis without the kindness (or otherwise) from a stranger, you know, the daily mundane task's of existence, shopping, the bookshop, the office,you name it...Anyway. My city (Glasgow) was built on the misery and suffering from the blood and sweat from slavery, and my city has many many example's of this, park's, librarie's, and museum's, universitie's The Smiths of Jordanhill, the Glassfords of Dougalston,the Stirlings of Keir, the Speirs of Elderslie. These families exploited the tobacco farm's in Virginia and the slave owning sugar plantation's of the West Indies and Jamaica. These individual's have a long and shameful past and their legacy still resonate's to this day...Incidently, these families were bankrolled by the very bank's that you see collapse before all our eyes today. The Bank Of Scotland and The"ROYAL"Bank Of Scotland. As well as today and yesterday they knew a good "INVESTMENT" when they saw it...The misery and suffering of other's...Evil? Yes they are evil...They profit from CHAOS, and that is how I would define...EVIL.