London Burning

Lots of people are going to say their part about this, and so far I've heard everything from the 'shame' crowd to the 'let's go and riot' crowd. Plenty of riots this year and lots of people complaining and wondering why. Well, in London's case a black man who was young, poor, and a father was shot by police, then a vigil type of demonstration occurred and then violent elements started the riot. Why was violence answered with violence? Ask your local philosopher.

I was following the Twitter feeds and I must say I have absolutely nothing to say on this matter. It's, well, bloody when looting happens but then again it's also pretty bloody when someone is summarily shot without explanation. Also I've seen some comparisons to the Vancouver riots, which were puerile tantrums compared to this - don't mix apples and oranges people, or we'll make you drink the juice. Dumb fucks.

It's a bad situation and I hope it gets better. Personally I don't know why people are talking about an event which will happen in one year's time in relation to the current riots. I guess it's the same kind of muckraking China had to deal with a year before its Olympics which went very well, I might add. In any case this has nothing to do with the Olympics and everything to do with poor neighbourhoods and police actions and criminality. There is no reason to conflate this story with anything else when there are larger news stories going on.

And lets not forget what the News of the World might have said about this event: "Nazi Orgy involving Royals leads to Cold-Blooded Police Murder, Communists and Ultra-violence Droogs Riot in Response" except, well, they're out of business for being a third-rate opiate rag.......

Oh and the question I'd ask the experts is Where is the justice in all this? They're going to have a deuce of a time finding it.

One Year Later

The sheen which developed on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico is nothing compared to the one Charlie Sheen, recent activist for mental illness, has managed to create for himself lately. Obviously the timing is off. Charlie Sheen is already in BP Oil Spill Month 5 mode, when people just sort of shrugged and the damage control had shut everyone up about talking about anything. The two situations are similar in this way.

Charlie Sheen has spilled all over pop culture while his true problems lurked under the surface of the water, disrupted by dispersants, and this has gone on for years. Then suddenly we see the pathological outbreak in a series of almost unbelievable news stories – crashed cars, threatened ex wives, domestic allegations, alleged use of substances – and it is capitalized on.

With BP and other corporate hijackers of democracy and ecology, we see the pathological behavior and wait until the moment of infamy, and then let them get away with it (since we are disenfranchised, our outrage counts for nothing anyway). One year later and the outcry is buried in new outcries. No anti-worldrapists got offended when plutocracy and capitalism eroded another massive chunk of the world. Not even Charlie had it so easy.

If only an oil spill were as profitable and easy to manage as a fame spill.