Turning a crisis into a cash cow

This (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/jeremy-clarkson-loses-fight-over-langness-1-4490271 ) was sad news.

Stripped of legalese, what it means is that the daughter of the only Manxman ever to win a Victoria Cross cannot prevent rubbernecking ‘nature lovers’ pressing their noses up against her windows under the pretext of observing local wildlife. This is really a bad joke, considering such peeping toms are more of a freak of nature than any known wildlife, and get way more public subsidy than the endangered species that dwell in Sites of Specific Scientific Interest around Langness. Bit of a mystery how these freaks breed in the first place really, given that most seem to be of indeterminable gender or age (though all are startlingly bearded and/or otherwise hirsute) and with drab plumage which biologists would agree should repel rather than attract a mate.

As I have mentioned before, I once worked down the road from the cottages, and two workmates were sons of the last lighthouse-keeper, so I know the inside of the cottages, the footpaths and the Bennies (as we nicknamed them) who troll there quite well. So, I have no doubt that (a) there is no need for walkers to go so close to the window (b) the action of the Bennies is deliberately intrusive (c) many are so trapped in a deluded little bubble that they are mentally incapable of understanding that they have duties or that others have rights (in fact there are valid arguments as to why they should not be allowed in a public place without competent adult supervision) but (d) that any court or legal proceeding staffed by objective, capable professionals would be able to find a way through this which allowed decently minded nature lovers to wander around enjoying themselves without the Clarksons having to sit at home with drawn curtains all day. Sadly, the Manx legal system is the last refuge (outside politics and the civil service) of rich, self-serving thickos who would otherwise be begging in the streets, so common sense or justice were never options open to the Clarksons.

Which leaves them with a dilemma – what to do next?

If I was them I would consider turning the tables on the Bennies.

The thing is, when I first encountered examples of this species in the early 1980’s, it struck me I had not seen any offshoot of Homo Sapiens so odd since nursing patients stricken with GPI (General Paralysis of the Insane) in Devon back in the last decade of the Victorian asylums.

GPI was not, strictly speaking, a medical analysis. It was a polite term for the feeble-minded offspring of Plymouth prostitutes born in the days when that city was still a major military port, syphilis was rife and penicillin not widely available. As the poor creatures were inevitably institutionalized once diagnosed the last of them were dying out even as I worked there. Granted, rumour had it that 10p and a Mars bar still bought patients the favours their mothers once sold for slightly more, but in reality once confined to asylums for life they could not have children, and as anti-biotics and the downfall of Empire ended both the oldest profession and its side-effects outside asylum walls GPI ended too.

When you see horror films featuring old school mental hospitals, the wild-eyed stereotype of the patient in the straitjacket is the nearest you will see to the GPI sufferer. Needless to say, it has not been seen in a real mental hospital in decades. In the early 1990’s, while at college, I did a few night shifts at the last ‘old style’ Yorkshire asylum. Staff close to retirement vaguely recalled the name GPI, but no-one younger had seen a living example, which makes the Benny even more of an Object of Interest.

Who can account for it? More importantly, how much cash would you part with to see one?

So, instead of being trapped at home by slack-jawed yokels, why not turn Benny-watching into a business opportunity? If wealthy Brit tourists will pay a fortune to look at lions and tigers in Africa, they would surely shell out for a weekend break watching equally exotic wildlife closer to home? It would be far cheaper, far funnier and less dangerous. While getting the wrong side of a lion gets you half-eaten, the worst a Benny can do is drool on your sleeve – and if the glass between the two parties is thick enough, it need not even come to that.

Forget the heritage-themed loser scripts on which the Manx tourist industry has bet our future. Forget scraping the barrel to try and find even one viable example of Manx life in past times which would interest more than half a dozen anoraks on limited incomes.

We have a real life freak show to sell the world, the Clarksons may own the theatre and they should clean up, if only to get compensation for the injustice and blinkered attitudes they have to put up with from the Manx government.

Who guards the guards, or judges the judges?

This story (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/union_backs_prison_work_parties_1_4113520 ) nicely illustrates why I have given up on the pathetic right wing farce that passes these days as trade unionism.
If the paid full time ‘area manager’ of a large trade union doesn’t know that the sole punishment of a convict is to be imprisoned, and that prisoners should not be subject to a 'punishment' (even passed off as 'therapy' or 'rehabilitation') that has not been specifically laid down by the judge, then he is unfit for the job. And any trade unionist who supports a practice which abuses the basic rights of another human being deserves to be treated by other working class people with every bit as much contempt as those who run immigrant labour scams in the UK or child labour factories in poorer countries.
Because prison work parties are a modern form of slavery, often directly for large corporations with a poor record of human rights or indirectly with the ‘supervision’ costs passing to such pond life. And whatever public statement is made by the DHA the truth is that prisoners who refuse to be slaves will be marked down as ‘difficult’, find themselves unable to be considered for parole, or even to get proper access to their legal counsel or families as the law is supposed to ensure because the screws keep ‘losing the paperwork’.
But of course, Salter doesn’t give a monkeys about that. His sole interest is in ensuring that any of his members who might be called upon to assist in such disregard for the law and human rights get a handsome kickback for…well, basically for sitting about watching someone else do the actual work.
I suppose the minister in charge of the DHA who thought up this scheme (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/on_the_chain_gang_1_3976309 ) is only the latest in a line of inadequates with a government portfolio. For as long as I can remember we have only had one Education Minister who could spell his own name without assistance, and we currently have a Health Minister who prefers prayer and other voodoo to science, so a Minister for Home Afairs who does not know how courts operate, or that judges determine the punishment of offenders (and not friends of politicians wanting cheap labour for government underwritten sweatshops and scams) is just par for the course in Manx politics.
But we cannot depend on the Manx courts for justice either, or for the judiciary to stay independent when government is riddled with such idiocy.
For example, when that minister, just a few hours after warning the public not to get drunk at Christmas, got so rat-arsed at public expense at his own department’s Christmas party that he puked up on the bus home (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/no_police_action_over_juan_s_drunken_shame_1_4093699 for more) he paid just £60 to clean up the bus – and even that was only because the press, for once, ran a story on it instead of looking the other way.
By comparison, a mere member of the Manx public this week got a £150 fine for being so drunk he threw up in a police cell. As the prosecution only asked for a £50 fine plus £50 costs the new deemster yet again demonstrated why Manx justice is such an oxymoron.
But is the Manx justice system as hypocritical and moronic as those who run the DHA itself? Better judge for yourselves, because the judiciary seem either unwilling to judge or incapable of judging anything.

Child Safety 1, Bigotry -1

I wasn’t going to blog today, then I read this (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8648317/The-Right-Reverend-Michael-Evans.html ), laughed at the pathetic lies in the intro and opening paragraphs and cheered.
For the record, Amnesty did not, as the poorly informed or dishonest tool who wrote it insists, “come out in favour of abortion” in 2007. Amnesty had (and still has after extensive , separate and independent debates in every national section), a neutral stance on the topic.
In fact, what happened was that the Vatican led an attempt to replace neutrality and allowing individuals and local groups to make up their own minds on individual cases with a blanket anti-abortion stance. If the theo-fascists had been successful anyone imprisoned for helping women procure abortions – or even just giving sex education which included contraception advice in a conservative country – could not have been adopted as an Amnesty ‘prisoner of conscience’.
Thankfully, common decency prevailed. The Catholics lost – badly - in every vote in every debate in every country where Amnesty has a national network, and so the international secretariat did not change the policy.
The Vatican (and conservative factions of the church in particular) reacted by causing Catholic churches, schools and buildings to withdraw any facility used by local Amnesty groups, to close Amnesty groups in Catholic schools and colleges, and not to allow Amnesty workers to talk to kids in citizenship lessons or Amnesty materials to be used in any relevant course.
In doing so they added to a situation where bogus ‘human rights groups’ and ‘religious charities’ have open access to British schools, but genuine human rights material is blocked on school computer networks and informed discussion of human rights cannot take place. A situation which, ironically, has always existed on the Isle of Man anyway, making it the last part of the British Isles where young people only gain a basic knowledge of human rights, social and political activism and democracy in general by emigrating.
As for a Catholic bishop wittering about the UN convention on the rights of the child while he knows his church used the Vatican’s diplomatic immunity to block all police attempts to investigate the widespread sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests…..
Sick, sick, sick!
Still, look on the bright side. One less over-privileged professional hypocrite to worry about.
A nation’s parents and children can sleep a little easier tonight.

Of bigotry, class struggle and counter-insurgency

Here’s a tale of two shops which explores social attitudes in the Isle of Man, and also gives evidence that even the dispossessed can hit back from time to time.


Tale 1 – a customer in one of the island’s most decrepit charity shops approaches the counter with some items, none priced above 50p. In an obvious foreign accent she asks the bored pearl and twin-set volunteer cashier to wait a moment while she checks she has enough change to pay. The cashier ignores her to carry on conversing with another chinless wonder, punches in the numbers and rings up the total. The customer, having now sorted her change, finds she’s about 10p short.
BP&TS snaps “Well, you’ll have to put something back then”, folds her arms and sticks her nose in the air for all the world as if the innocent customer had loudly farted. The customer scans through all her potential purchases, rejects a 30p child’s T-shirt, places it carefully back on the rack, pays for the rest and puts the extra 20p in the charity tin anyway. All this while both damish dullards watch her as if to check no major shoplifting was going on.
I’m tempted to name the shop but I won’t. Suffice to say that as the charity has a royal patron it attracts the island’s most vacuous social climbers, none of whom have held down paid employment or would know enough about retail to cover the back of a matchbox. This might explain why (a) their shops are too untidy and poorly stocked to attract even the most desperate council estate pensioner and (b) the ‘charity balls’ where their supporters pat each other’s backs make no serious cash.

Tale 2 – five minutes before closing time today in one of the island’s most customer-friendly businesses, and the tannoy announces the store is closing so please make your way to the exit. This place is famously open seven days a week, every day of the year except Christmas Day, and if the staff don’t have the very thing you want they’ll not only get it but ring you to say it’s in and, if you can’t collect, have someone drop it round when it suits you. Me and Her Indoors are at the counter, paying off just such a special order.
An Afrikaner, dressed in the kind of over-priced tat no self-respecting benefit-fraudster would be seen dead in, decides to inform its equally hideous rugrat and spouse that this is a major inconvenience and it really can’t understand why a store would close at the very time on the very day when customers like it choose to visit.
After announcing this at foghorn volume it reaches for the door handle. At the same second the index finger of the shop manager’s hand slides under the counter. Mysteriously, the shop door will not open and so the Afrikaner looks increasingly vexed.
“Don’t worry, Madam, my colleague will be along to let you out just as soon as he is free”, calls the shop manager, soothingly.
‘MC’, hidden safely from sight in an office behind the counter, raises an eyebrow to us, carries on reading his paper and refills his mug with coffee. After about another minute, as we at the counter turn our back to the irate woman in a struggle to hold back our giggles, he saunters out with a large key, with which he pretends to open the door as the manager’s finger releases the security button.
“Thank you for waiting, Madam, do please come and see us again at a more convenient time” calls ‘MC’ to the three vanishing atrocities. As the door clicks shut all of us explode with suppressed laughter.
For obvious reasons I would not identify the store. Just thank the staff for proving to downtrodden decent folk that, even on the Isle of Man, from time to time we can always cut the great and the good who misrule this place down to size.

Imagine

If you follow other atheist or secularist websites you may have picked up the story of Harry Taylor, who’s facing seven years in jail.
For those who haven’t, Harry decided to leave a few cartoons mocking religious figures in the prayer room at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport. You can get a taste of what happened next at http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/03/03/atheist-accused-of-leaving-insulting-religious-images-in-liverpool-s-john-lennon-airport-prayer-room-100252-25948815/.
Unbelievable!
Now the first funny thing is that this place actually warrants a chaplain. The second is that at an airport named after a guy who had a few run-ins with fundies himself (e.g. that “Beatles are bigger than Jesus” row in the 1960’s), which features lines from Lennon songs in the décor (including “Imagine no religion” in large letters in the reception lounge), located in a city famed for black humour…..this cleric has no sense of humour, and no common sense.
Neither, it appears, do the management or the police.
The average chaplain in such a Micky Mouse church might have quietly binned the cartoons. A more enlightened and open one might even have left some in place.
This one chose to be offended, chose to involve several levels of airport management and police, and as far as I can see to go absolutely out of her way to make sure that (a)the world and its dog knew how upset she was because someone had the temerity to mock her delusions and that (b) Harry ended up in a court.
…and someone gives this muppet a salary? How sad is that?
Only one answer to such lunacy.
More and funnier lunacy.
I’m calling for John Lennon Airport to be renamed Ayatollah Khomeini Airport if it can’t see a joke, and at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=353720796197#!/group.php?gid=353720796197&ref=nf you will find the first Facebook site I’ve ever tried to set up, in order that the world can join in.

Rug-butting bastards do it again

Niusha Boghrati sent the message below to supporters of No More Executions at 11.55 AM today.

'Behnoud Shojaee was executed in the early morning of Sunday, Oct, 11th in Tehran's Evin prison, while tens of human rights defenders were protesting the verdict outside.
Behnoud Shojaee was sentenced to qesas (retribution) by Branch 74 of the Criminal Court in Tehran on 2 October 2006, after he was found guilty of killing a boy called Omid the previous year, when he was 17. Behnoud Shojaee had no legal representation at his trial. This was the sixth time his execution had been scheduled.
Executions of those under 18 at the time of their alleged offence is strictly prohibited under international law.
Iran is the only country in the world that has carried out such sentences within past year.
More than 70 minors are currently awaiting their execution. Safar Angooti, accused of a murder when he was 16 is scheduled to be hanged next week.'

No Manx justice, just this mess

At long last someone is taking a proper look at our rotten island prison. Sadly, still not the Department of Home Affairs.
Positive Action Group brought over a speaker from the Howard League recently. Predictably he wasn’t impressed at a set-up which involved handing far too much public money over to a bunch of cowboy contractors for a jerry-built slum. He was even less impressed at a justice system which fills 40% of said overpriced slum with folk who haven’t even been to court yet – and that’s only judging from official figures!
You can read about that at http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Paying-a-high-price-for.5700108.jp. And then one of the few local advocates interested in justice had his say at http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=39310.
All in all, not very impressive, and that isn’t even half the story. For example, can anyone explain why the only folk arrested to get bail are those prepared to sit through a daily prayer meeting at the island’s only bail hostel? In short, if you’re of any religious persuasion except an evangelical Christian one, or have no interest in the supernatural, bail is not available. Neither is a balanced probation report when or if you finally get to court.
And it gets worse. At some point a story will appear in the local press, probably under a byline, which suggests our youth justice system has impressed the experts.
It hasn’t, and if you want the untainted original DHA press release (written by a moonlighting Johnston Press hack if their previous stuff is any guide) you can find it at http://www.gov.im/fsc/ViewNews.gov?page=lib/news/dha/probation/workofyouthjusti.xml&menuid=11570.
Cut through the gloss and spin at the beginning and go straight to the bad news tucked away ‘incidentally’ towards the end.
What the inspectors actually said was that our youth justice system is run by a bunch of unco-ordinated amateurs and doesn’t work. In effect, what they were saying is it’s time the island actually got a youth justice system.

Will Iran try Delara Darabi's executioners?

Stop Child Executions (see sidebar) has written a letter to the head of judiciary in Iran challenging him to put those who executed Delara Darabi on trial. It may not achieve anything, but is such an obvious strategy I don’t know why nobody else has tried it.

The letter in full reads:

"Your Excellency Ayatollah Shahrudi, the head of Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

The unexpected news of the execution of Ms. Delara Darabi in the prison of city of Rasht has raised many questions in the minds of the caring citizens of Iran and the world.
Despite your official order for a two month stay of the execution and without any prior notice to her family or attorneys, in the early morning hours of Friday May 1, 2009 Delara Darabi was hanged.

According to official laws of the Islamic Republic, Iranian juveniles convicted to death sentence only after 48 hours official notice to the family and attorneys and only in their presence can be executed; however neither of these requirements was met in the case of Delara Darabi.

Your Excellency Ayatollah Shahrudi:

Presuming that the Islamic Republic despite its official ratifications of the both UN Conventions of the Rights of the Child and the Rights of Prisoners which had also been approved by Iran’s Guardian Council has no obligation in their implementations and can execute those juveniles who have committed a crime before the age of 18:

Presuming that the Islamic Republic of Iran has no obligation to respect the international laws as its own after they have already been approved by the Iranian parliament:

Presuming that it was legal and just that the initial court hearing of Delara Darabi continued its session without the presence of her first attorney:

Presuming that a few hours of court time were sufficient enough to decide the life or death of a young girl:

Presuming that the initial confession that was taken from Delara Darabi was true and a scared 17 year old minor should not have been made aware of her self-incrimination rights and consequences of such confession before obtaining it:

Presuming that the five years that Delara languished in prison, claiming her innocence until the end had no weighted significance:

Presuming that Delara Darabi had no legal appeal rights for reconstruction of the murder scene to establish whether or not this small framed left-handed girl committed the offence or not:

Presuming that Delara Darabi was guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt and her 17 years of age had no bearing on the death penalty verdict:

Presuming that your official order as the head of the judiciary to grant a two month stay of execution for Delara Darabi had no significance to the lower judges, prison officials and the executioner in the city of Rasht:

Presuming that the victim’s family insisted on Delara Darabi’s immediate execution the day before she was hung:

Presuming that the numerously repeated words of "merciful and compassionate” in the very beginning of every chapter of the Muslim holy book Quran had no relevance to Delara Darabi’s fate:

Presuming all of the above 11 points:

- In accordance to the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran was it not Delara Darabi’s right, for her family and attorney to be given 48 hours official notice before her execution?
- And at the very least as a human, a Muslim and an Iranian and according to the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran did Delara Darabi have the right to have her family and attorney present at the time of hanging?
- On the day of the hanging of Delara Darabi were the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran violated or not?
- Why is one like Delara held responsible before the law for murder while the others responsible for her illegal execution are not?
- Should the written laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran be implemented or are they simply written words that can be violated by anyone with an official title or clothing?
Your Excellency, as the head of the judiciary if you expect Iranians to respect and act according to the written laws and be held responsible when the laws are broken, then also those who were responsible for the illegal execution of Delara Darabi should be brought to justice."

SCE also say that, according to Iranian newspapers, an unidentified 20 year old boy convicted of a murder in August of 2006 was hanged in the central city of Shiraz. He was probably 17 at the time of the alleged murder. SCE will be investigating his age and identity. If a juvenile, this would be the third known child execution in 2009.