Reviews Category
We don’t just report off-beat news, breaking news and digest the best and worst of the news media analysis and commentary. We give an original take on what happened and why. We add lols, satire, news photos and original content.
In this March 4, 2014 photo, a man who goes by the name of D cooks lunch from a makeshift tent where he lives in the Jungle, a homeless encampment in San Jose, Calif.
No Home: How Silicon Valley Created America’s Largest Homeless Camp.
Feid, an unemployed union carpenter, lives in a fortress of netting and plastic tarp with a cat named Baby. He’s one of the 278 people who’ve claimed a spot in the thicket of cottonwood trees along Coyote Creek. He first moved here four years ago when he ran out of work…
The 53-year-old carpenter made good money at the height of the Silicon Valley construction boom in the 1980s and ’90s. He built movie theaters and installed ceilings in the new offices of high-tech companies that put San Jose and the rest of Santa Clara County on the map.
“All the buildings around here, you know, I probably worked on them,” said Feid, who was making up to $35 an hour in those days. Then came the dot-com crash in 2000, bankrupting dozens of Internet companies and drying up construction work. Feid lost his apartment and bounced around for years, living in people’s garages as he remodeled their homes. In 2009, a friend kicked him out and Feid found himself on the streets. All he had was his motorcycle and a few tarps.
“You build everything up … then you lose your job and then everything falls apart again,” Feid said. “At least here in the creek you know what your status is.”
The number of people living in the camp has tripled since Feid first moved in. The Jungle now has a Spanish-speaking section, and up the creek is the Vietnamese enclave known as Little Saigon. The explosive growth has led to more violence and filth. Dogs rummage through heaps of garbage and human waste. . . .
The current tech boom has made Silicon Valley one of the wealthiest and fastest-growing regions of the country. That has created one of the country’s most expensive rental markets, pushing low-wage workers out of Santa Clara County or onto the streets.
“You need to work five minimum-wage jobs to afford to live here,” said Jennifer Loving, executive director of Destination: Home, the public-private partnership to end homelessness in Santa Clara County. “No one can do that. That right there creates a huge income disparity.”
This year, San Jose and the surrounding county surpassed Los Angeles as having the country’s highest rate of homeless people living on the streets, according to the annual homelessness assessment report from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. Three-quarters of the area’s 7,567 homeless residents are from Santa Clara County. Most of them live in one of San Jose’s 247 tent cities, just miles from the sprawling headquarters of Google and Apple.
This year, San Jose and the surrounding county surpassed Los Angeles as having the country’s highest rate of homeless people living on the streets, according to the annual homelessness assessment report from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. Three-quarters of the area’s 7,567 homeless residents are from Santa Clara County. Most of them live in one of San Jose’s 247 tent cities, just miles from the sprawling headquarters of Google and Apple.
The right get richer…
Anorak
Posted: 1st, December 2014 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comment
How football reporting works in the Daily Express. The paper of record has been writing on Manchester United.
Today the paper tells Manchester United fans that with Angel Di Maria injured, Wayne Rooney and Radamel Falcao are to start agaisnt Stoke City.
But hold on moment. The Daily Express also tells its readers that Wayne Rooney is injured and out of the Stoke City match:
Can it be that – and note the time stamps by those stories – Rooney was “crocked” for 40 minutes?
Such are the facts…
Anorak
Posted: 1st, December 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Westminster peadophiles: Anorak’s look at reporting on the story of politicians absurd children in the 1970s and 1980s.
Libby Purves in The Times: “Yes, there really are virtuous paedophiles”
Shall we try a calm discussion about paedophiles? Not easy. Last week, a Channel 4 documentary rife with nervous caveats pushed the door ajar and peered bravely round. The film, The Paedophile next door, covered well-trodden ground: crime statistics, awful porn, scarred survivors. “The problem is out of control . . . paedophiles are all around us.” So far, so familiar. But it did one brave thing. It found a distressful man called Eddie, who in full vision admitted sexual attraction to young children. He hated his feelings, had never acted on them: “I don’t feel I’m capable of doing that kind of thing . . . don’t want to.” But the feelings were there. He considered suicide. “But it was my life, I wanted it to mean something.”
There was predictable outrage from one victims’ group, though the NSPCC bravely spoke in favour. The reason Eddie talked is that he is seeking treatment and getting it — abroad. Despite the man’s innocence, the reporter darkly said how “uncomfortable” it was meeting him: “Most of us would never dream of talking to a paedophile.” The impression was that, like another interviewee, Dr Sarah Goode, the journalist was “baffled” that there are men who have such impulses yet are committed to controlling them. Dr Goode says wonderingly: “We didn’t know that before! It’s a hidden population . . . the virtuous paedophile.”
Do we need a celebrity to come out and says ‘Yes, I fancy children’ to make the condition acceptable and more openly treatable? The media loves to talk of taboos, so how about the open peadphile? One paper could create the Peado Power 100 – The Top People Who Fancy Kids.
Purves makes a sound point:
It’s not baffling. It’s screamingly obvious. It’s human nature. Everyone fights temptations, whether to cheat on their partner, steal or just rant at a cabby. Why would this particularly awful orientation be different? Nobody knows why it occurs (contrary to cliché, not all abusers were abused children). But it exists, so there must be people fighting it. Out of prudence the documentary repeatedly stressed the horrors, but the pity is that this left little time for the really useful point: that there must be plenty of Eddies out there, struggling to be decent men in a pornified society. If they could be helped, not as criminals but before the offence, prison cell and blighted future, everyone would win.
It might have helped one man. The Mail reports:
Pensioner, 77, stabbed to death in his home ‘by woman who accused him of molesting her son’
A mother was being questioned last night on suspicion of killing a pensioner she accused of molesting her son. Mike Pleasted, 77, was knifed in the chest during a frenzied attack at his home. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him but he died at the scene. The attack – in the early hours of Saturday – followed rumours that a boy who lives in nearby flats was molested by a suspected paedophile.
Paedo! The accusation sticks:
Another neighbour said Mr Pleasted had told her that he had been warned by police not to approach children.
She added: ‘He had an ongoing dispute with a woman from a separate block of flats, apparently about him and little boys. I don’t know if it’s her that’s been arrested. I was told by one of my neighbours he was well known as a bit of a paedophile.
A bit of a paedo?
Asked about the allegations that the victim was a suspected paedophile, the Yard spokesman added: ‘We are retaining an open mind.’
Call a man a paedophile and open minds soon close. It’s not always the single man in the flats you need to watch.
Take the case of Myles Bradbury.
A perverted children’s doctor has been jailed for 22 years after admitting he abused 18 boys in his care. Warped Dr Myles Bradbury, a consultant paediatric haematologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, was handed the jail term when he appeared at the city’s Crown Court today.
The Cambridge News reports:
The family of one of Bradbury’s young victims are moving 200 miles away so then can start a new life for their son. The youngster was just seven years old when he was diagnosed with leukemia and Bradbury oversaw his regular bouts of chemotherapy.
The doctor was so trusted and admired by the family they saw him as ‘a god’ who would cure their son – and even sent him Christmas cards for two years with the boy’s picture.
They were devastated when the young boy, now 10, revealed what Bradbury had done to him.
The pervert would pretend to be carrying out examinations as he quietly abused the boy behind a curtain with his mother in the same room.
Bradbury was charged with repeatedly abusing the boy for nearly two years between January 2012 and November 2013.
He did not enter a plea to the charge and the judge ordered it to remain on file.
Bradbury was jailed at Cambridge Crown Court today 22 years.
And:
The mother said: “When it came out that he had the spy pens it was just shocking. I can’t believe it. You think how many horrible things are going to come out next, it makes you feel sick. He was always writing, always had a pen in his hand. He would do the examinations and then write notes straight after. It’s more than likely there would be videos of my son filmed on those pens. It’s obvious he used them on all the children.”
People knew:
The mother also sent Bradbury a Christmas card with a picture of her three sons when the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre had already been warned he was a paedophile. CEOP were told that Bradbury had been identified as someone who had purchased child abuse material online.
They reviewed screen shots of the child porn he had viewed and his purchase history but graded the offences as level 1 – described as ‘depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity’ – or lower and did not pursue the matter.
The material was finally reviewed following the takeover of the CEOP by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in October 2013.
Guilt depends on whose looking at the lookers.
Bradbury went on a Church mission to help orphans in Swaziland.
Should he have seeked help?
And so to today’s Westminster peadophiles story in the Times:
Paedophile who ran care homes ‘supplied boys’ for abuse ring
A convicted paedophile who ran a string of care homes has been accused of supplying children to a Westminster sex abuse ring.
Accused. But no prooof.
John Allen, 73, will be sentenced today after he was found guilty of 33 offences against children last week. After the jury’s guilty verdict, Dennis Parry, a former leader of Clwyd county council, said that Allen was suspected of supplying boys to establishment figures at Dolphin Square in central London.
“My information was that not only was he an abuser, he was a supplier,” Mr Parry told The Sunday Times. “There was movement between Holland and this country, and Dolphin Square was part of the set-up.”
Dolphin Square has been at the centre of the alleged Westminster paedophile ring. Earlier this month the Metropolitan police announced that they were looking into three murders after a witness named Nick said he had seen a boy strangled to death by a Conservative MP.
Mr Parry, who commissioned a report look into abuse allegations at care homes in north Wales in the 1990s, said: “There was a guy — whose name hasn’t come up so far — and he was working within that Dolphin Square system. “My information was he was the one who collected the young people and took them to Dolphin Square . . . . His links were with our part of north Wales and others. When this information was given to the police they never believed that there was any sort of connection up and down the country.”
More on the revolting John Allen here.
Anorak
Posted: 1st, December 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
The Sun has news of “Banker Rurik Jutting”, the British man accused of murdering two women in Hong Kong.
Or as the Sun puts it:
British Banker Rurik Jutting sat like a fat emperor with harem but he had violent sex fetish
Read the rest of this entry »
Anorak
Posted: 1st, December 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
Westminster paedophiles: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at the story of politicians abusing children in the 1970s and 1980s.
Express: “SNP activist ‘killed over child sex files’
Wow!
A FIREBRAND SNP activist who died in mysterious circumstances was to expose a paedophile ring that would have brought down the Government, it was claimed last night”
Paul Murray writes:
Willie McRae was said to have discovered child abuse by cabinet ministers and other leading members of the establishment on both sides of the Border. Shortly before his death he was seen photocopying a dossier of names in case something should happen to him.
The copies are understood to have been posted to a number of close associates. Despite a lengthy inquiry, the Sunday Express has been unable to establish whether any copies of the alleged dossier are still in existence.
Read the rest of this entry »
Anorak
Posted: 30th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
Ferguson, USA, is not all about division. After the grand jury decided against trying white officer Darren Wilson for any crime relating to his fatal shooting of unarmed black man Michael Brown, emotions ran high:
A group of black Ferguson residents armed with high-powered rifles stood outside a white-owned business in the city during recent riots, protecting it from rioters that looted and burned other businesses… Several buildings were set ablaze, but a group of heavily armed black men stood outside a Conoco gas station.
One of the residents, a 6-foot-8 man named Derrick Johnson, held an AR-15 assault rifle as he stood in a pickup truck near that store’s entrance. Three other black Ferguson residents joined Johnson in front of the store, each of them armed with pistols.
In a city torn apart by racial tensions, the fact that black residents took up arms to defend a white-owned store made headlines.
The men said they felt indebted to the store’s owner, Doug Merello, who employed them over the course of several years.
The men said Merello always treated them with respect.
“He’s a nice dude, he’s helped us a lot,” said a man identified himself as R.J. The 29-year-old R.J. said the group chased away several groups of teenagers who wanted to loot the store, but also nearly got into a brush with soldiers from the Missouri National Guard, who initially mistook them for looters.
Guns, eh. Turns out they can be useful…
Anorak
Posted: 29th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
To Colchester Magistrates’ Cour, where Neil Lewis, 72, is accused of holding his lodger’s cat under water in a pet carrier. The cat drowned. Mr Lewis is accuded of killing the cat in revenge for said feline knocking over his model plane
Mr Lewis was given an 18-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, and” made subject to a lifetime order banning him from having animals.”
But he never owned the cat in the first place. He hated the thing.
Banning him from owning animals is like banning a rhino from mating with a budgie…
Anorak
Posted: 29th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
Jane Collins, a UKIP MEP (@JaneCollinsMEP), has added her intellect to the debate on a photograph of Westminster MPs at work. She notes:
“One is a debate on children being raped & murdered & one is a debate on payrise – can you guess which is which”
Her tweet gets appoving replies:
Only, a few words are required.
Andrew Whickey writes them:
The debate on welfare reform was a pro forma one because of an epetition, with no prospect of actually causing action to be taken, so a waste of the time of everyone there.
Most MPs, most of the time, aren’t in the chamber, but are still listening to the debates in their offices (which have a live feed), This is because a lot of the time MPs have to fit in the correspondence from their constituents (who are more concerned, in a lot of cases, that MPs act like supercouncillors than that they scrutinise legislation) into the same time as their legislative work, as they’re often working sixty or seventy hour weeks.
Most MPs were actually against the 11% pay-rise, which was awarded against the wishes of most MPs and the leaders of all three main parties, by the independent commission which took control of MPs’ pay after the expenses scandal.
The pay rise in question was actually revenue-neutral, as it involved less money going to various other benefits, such as pensions, that MPs receive.
And finally, that photo isn’t actually from the debate over the pay-rise, because there was no such debate, because MPs don’t get to set their own pay any more. In fact it’s a stock photo of PM’s question time.
Yes, there are bad MPs, MPs who only want to line their own pockets, and all the rest, but this photo plays into the hands of the stupid anti-politics “they’re all the same” nonsense, which is fundamentally against the idea of government at all — and not in a good way, but in a right-wing Grover Norquist kind of way.
Don’t fall for their lies.
Less than 1000 words and the UKIP expert might be better informed.
The UKIP MEP’s haste to damn the MPs can be linked to memes, such as this photo posted on Facebook:
Isabel Hardman has few words to add:
The bottom image claims to be from 11 July 2013. There was no debate on pay that day, which was a Thursday. There are often fewer MPs in the House on a Thursday. So this image is from the wrong day. I’ve combed the PA images archive and, surprise, surprise, it’s not from a debate about pay in 2013. It’s from Prime Minister’s Questions on 5 September 2012. Here’s that picture in slightly better quality…
Good, grief, look at how many MPs are debating their expenses! That image on the bottom left struck me as a bit strange when I zoomed in. When you’re used to looking down on the tops of MPs’ heads from the Commons press gallery, you get quite used to what Parliament looks like from above. And I didn’t recognise that Parliament. The hair looked different, frankly. I was right not to recognise it: when this debate took place, I was preparing to take my A-levels. It was 27 January 2004, when MPs voted on the Second Reading of the Higher Education Bill to introduce top-up fees.
You believe what you want to believe.
Anorak
Posted: 29th, November 2014 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)
Westminster peadophiles: A look at the story of politicians abusing children in the 1970s and 1980s. The Morning Star: “Covering Up Murder By A Paedophile Politician” Intoxicating stuff. What news?
As the former head of a children’s home at the centre of the MPs’ child abuse scandal is jailed, evidence emerges that children may have been murdered by paedophile politicians. Steven Walker reports
Evidence…may. What facts?
This article is brought to you by Steven Walker, who is “a Unicef Children’s Champion”. Sounds important. Is it? Unicef tells us it’s a voluntary role open to anyone who applies.
So much for the title. What about the story?
On Wednesday the first conviction under the Operation Pallial investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at the Bryn Alyn Community in Wrexham saw John Allen, the former head of the children’s homes, jailed for 26 offences committed over several decades against children placed in his care. Wrexham is the area where local MP and paedophile Peter Morrison, a former top aide to Margaret Thatcher, preyed on vulnerable children. It seems that the testimony of historic victims of child sexual abuse, the various campaigns to obtain evidence and other efforts to force the government to act, have begun to take effect.
Read the rest of this entry »
Anorak
Posted: 29th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
Leicester city’s Labour controlled council has placed a ban on Israeli goods.
The resolution calling for a ban on Israeli goods was proposed by Councilor Mohammed Dawood and was passed by the city council on November 13.
The motion’s preamble said that Leicester was “renowned for its tolerance, diversity, unity and its strong stance against all forms of discrimination,” which it stated “enables different communities to live together.”
So. In the inteersts of tolerance is bans Israel. Wow.
Justifying the motion, Dawood added that was important that “when there is oppression and injustices, that Leicester City Council takes up a position to support communities experiencing such inequalities and in this instance it is the plight of the Palestinian people.”
Labout leader Ed Miliband spoke out against boycotts:
“Don’t vote for a boycott,” was his message to delegates. “My general position is against boycotts. Anyone looking also at the sensitive stage we’ve reached in the negotiations would even additionally to that general principle would realise it’s so not the solution. You’re in a very sensitive moment when you’re wanting to encourage both sides not to try to isolate one or the other.”
The boycott is divisive, censorious and illiberal.
Anorak
Posted: 28th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
How football journalism works, with Robbie Savage, of the Daily Mirror. This week, Savage is tlaking about Liverpool:
Take away Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Steven Gerrard from the side who almost won the title, and what did Liverpool have last season? They would not have finished in the top four. Probably seventh or eighth.
Got that? Savage says remove the three best players from the team that finished second in the Premier League and they would have finished lower in the table. Probably.
In his next column, Savage argues that without Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore and Gordon Banks, England might not have won the 1966 World Cup. Probably.
Anorak
Posted: 28th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
It’s Black Friday, the day when shops seduce shoppers with bargains.
Two faces of the show:
1. Cheerleaders at the Asda store in Wembley, north west London during Black Friday.
2. Victoria’s Secret, Liverpool.
The morgue:
Anorak
Posted: 28th, November 2014 | In: Money, Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Free speech is being banned on university campuses.
Brendan O’Neill writes:
So now a talk I was due to give to the Israel Society at King’s College London next Tuesday has been postponed because the Society is fighting for its survival, including against motions to have it shut down. Universities are now the hardest places in Britain at which to discuss ideas.
responds:
I’m the president of said society, and yes, we are currently facing motions trying to ban us from hosting events. Certain students have said that it’s inappropriate to allow Israelis to speak on campus, because it “normalises occupying forces”, and any Pro-Israel speaker is protested on the grounds of being inherently controversial and threatening to every student’s right to feel safe on campus.
The Society should be supported by anoyone who values free speech and abhors censorship.
In June the Society hosted its first event last week, when Father Gabriel Nadaf visited campus.
The Greek Orthodox priest, who encourages Arab Christians to participate in military and national service, is a leading and sometime controversial voice in Israeli politics. He spoke to 40 students on the night, which was held in partnership with The Face of Israel and StandWithUs UK – with an audience of all faiths, from Buddhists to Alawites.
With a growing membership of 150 people, the society’s treasurer Josh Boyle urged more members to sign up: “Whether you’re from Hendon or Hebron, Taunton or Tel Aviv, if you believe in a strong Israeli state, then this is the society for you,” he said.
The Isreal Society was set up to counter an iliberal movement. In March 2014, the college’s Student Union voted to ban Israelis.
The students’ union of King’s College London has voted to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign at its Student General Meeting.
The motion adopted by the union states that “BDS is an effective tactic, which educates society about these issues, economically pressures companies/institutions to change their practices, and politically pressures the global community.”
In addition, the union voted in favor of carrying out research into King’s College London (KCL) investments, partnerships and contracted companies “that may be implicated in violating Palestinian human rights.”
Union members also resolved to pressure KCL to divest from Israel and from companies that support “the Israeli occupation and apartheid policies,” either directly or indirectly.
The union determined to raise awareness of Israel’s “apartheid policies and its illegal occupation” by helping the college’s Action Palestine Society with printing materials and supporting events like the International “Israeli Apartheid Week.”
The motion was proposed to be debated three months ago, however was delayed after a threat of legal action. The motion reappeared after the union’s Board of Trustees gave the green light for it to debated at the Student General Meeting.
As a reaction to the BDS campaign, pro-Israel students formed the KCL Israel Society.
King’s was unimpressed with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign:
King’s College London is proud of its diverse and inclusive community, which comprises students and staff from more than 140 countries. Members of the College community encompass a very wide range of political, religious and other points of view. As knowledge is worldwide, King’s College London does not support or engage in boycotts of academic institutions. Universities depend on freedom of speech and freedom of enquiry, which are fundamental to both teaching and research.
King’s College London Students’ Union (KCLSU) is constitutionally separate from, and independent of, King’s College London. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) motion passed at the Student General Meeting on 25 March 2014 is a matter for KCLSU, an independent registered charity and membership organisation, governed by its own Board of Trustees.
The students are cowards, or worse.
Stand With Us, a pro-Israel group, responded:
Last night, King’s College London Student Union voted for a BDS (Boycott Israel) motion: 58% for and 42% against. Some 350 of a student body of over 25,000 voted. In reality it will have no effect at all, though it is shameful that it was passed.
KCL – which stresses it is constitutionally separate from the Student Union – has made a statement today condemning boycotts.
We congratulate all the students who stood up to fight it, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. We will support them and the newly-formed Israel Society at KCL to educate about Israel, reach out to others and expose BDS for the divisive and hateful campaign that it is.
Jonathan Hunter, StandWithUs UK Campus Director, added:
‘‘This is the latest petty assault on Israel and its supporters on campus. We will fight no end to overturn and ultimately defeat this divisive and one-sided motion. It is telling that the motion’s supporters celebrated the result by chanting ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, demonstrating their real aim of wanting rid of the Jewish State. The BDS movement seeks to delegitimise and ultimately dismantle the State of Israel. It is imperative that students join us to fight this.’’
The Society’s president, Sami Steinbock, told The Tab:
“The Israel society was founded in order to improve the framework at KCL for an open and two-sided debate on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The society aims to provide a more rounded education to students who are eager to learn more about the situation in order to challenge the continued delegitimisation of Israel”.
The censors are scared of an exchange of ideas.
Boris Johnson, Mayor, put it well:
“London is a wonderfully diverse city and I am committed to tackling discrimination in London. Universities have clear legal obligations under the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to prevent activities that could potentially discriminate against, harass or victimise others. Israel remains a vibrant, democratic economy and a great source of academic research and knowledge and I condemn any one-sided boycott”.
Agreed.
Read the rest of this entry »
Anorak
Posted: 28th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
The Times has a story on alleged rapes at Repton School in Derbyshire. A teenager has been arrested.
But that’s not enough. This story of sex crimes needs the vital angle: the celebrity.
A boy of 17 has been arrested on suspicion of committing two rapes at Jeremy Clarkson’s former 16th century boarding school.
Jeremy Clarkson is not helping the police with their enquiries…
Other notable Repton old boys with nothing to do with the allegations are: Roadl Dahl, C.B. Fry, Nick Raynsford…
Anorak
Posted: 28th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
Westminster paedophiles: A look at the story of politicians abusing child in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Daily Mail has a question:
Did PM’s adviser try to stop MP linking Brittan to claims of child sex abuse?
Anorak ‘s rule is that when a headline is phrased as a question the answer is always ‘no’.
Read the rest of this entry »
Anorak
Posted: 28th, November 2014 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
The students’ union of the University of East Anglia in the UK says UKIP MP Douglas Carswell to too far-out to address the place. Scheduled to speak at the university’s Political, Social and International Studies (PSI) society, Carswell was cancelled. He was likly to breach the college’s ‘Equal Opportunities Policy’.
What censorious, cowardly knobs. The statement on Facebook reads:
The Union has reviewed the arrangements in relation to tonight’s PSI society event with speakers from UKIP attending. A procedure governing the approval and handling of events with external speakers was approved by the Trustee Board last year. In this case an internal investigation has revealed that the Union has not followed the procedure as it should have, and as such the event cannot go ahead at this moment in time. We will review internal compliance with our procedures to ensure that all staff, officers and clubs/socs are fully aware of these procedures in the future.
We will now meet with the PSI society to discuss the postponement of this event and whether we will be able to allow the event to go ahead in the future. In doing so we will be required to consider the potential for any decision to limit freedom of speech as per the university’s code of practice in pursuance of the 1986 Education Act; the potential for the event going ahead to cause the union to be in breach of its equal opportunities policy; the potential for the event going ahead to cause the union to fail in its wider legal duties; the potential for the event going ahead to cause reputational risk to the Union; the potential for the speaker’s presence on campus to cause fear or alarm to members of the student body; and the potential for the speakers presence on campus to give rise to breach of peace. Consultation with interested parties will be carried out.
Students are a cowardly lot. They’re afraid to hear a UKIP MP. His mere words will cause alarm. And these comfortable students must not be alarmed.
Hush, children. Hush…
PS: The local newspaper calls it a “Controversial UKIP event”. FFS.
Anorak
Posted: 27th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
To Canada, where an anti-racism march is being planned in reaction to the troubles in Ferguson, USA.
Bilan Arte, one of the Ottawa event organizers, says on the vigil’s Facebook page that “white/non black allies” should “refrain from taking up space” and “never be the centre of anything.” The same message appeared verbatim on the Facebook page for the Toronto rally, asking whites and non-blacks to not speak to the media, saying “black voices are crucial to this.”
You can’t have racism if you keep the races apart. Brilliant.
And Bilan Arte is deputy chair of the Canadian Federation of Students.
She is beyond parody.
Anorak
Posted: 27th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
When Cleveland police shot dead 12-year-old Tamir Rice – crime: being black whilst in possession of a toy gun – we wondered what had happened.
Well, here’s the video:
There could be more than 300 million (real) guns in America, and an infinitesimally small proportion are used to commit crimes. Politically expedient fearmongering over guns, however, can lead to frivolous 911 calls that, in combination with trigger-happy yet largely immune cops, can be fatal.
Fear and idocy are killers.
Anorak
Posted: 27th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Are you a happy vegetarian? This research says you are not alone:
Australian vegetarians might be healthier than meat-eaters but they are unhappier and more prone to mental health disorders, new research suggests …
Dr John Lang, who developed the wellness index for preventive healthcare company Alere, says the adoption of a vegetarian diet can sometimes follow the onset of mental disorders.
Obvious, really…
Spotter: Tim Blair
Anorak
Posted: 27th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
El Salvador hs banned abortion. Amnesty has distilled the effects of this horror into an animated video:
Any woman seeking an abortion is now a criminal.
Open Democracy has more:
Read the rest of this entry »
Anorak
Posted: 27th, November 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Westminster paedophiles: Anorak’s look at the story of politicians abusing children in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Richmond & Twickenham Times: “Former Surrey Comet news editor gagged over reporting of alleged paedophile ring”
A former Surrey Comet news editor was gagged by the Government over the reporting of an alleged Westminster paedophile ring operating out of Elm Guest House in Barnes. Hilton Tims, 82, the paper’s news editor between 1980 and 1988, revealed at the weekend he had been handed a D-notice preventing the reporting of sex allegations in 1984.
Elm Guest House, in Rocks Lane, is at the centre of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Fernbridge, which is investigating claims of sexual abuse and grooming of children by Government ministers, MPs and senior police officers in the late 1970s and early 80s.
Read the rest of this entry »
Anorak
Posted: 27th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
Cambridge University The Tab’s Best Bums contest is attracting admiring glances. James Dellingpole is well impressed:
I believe that news features like this, run in Britain’s most popular online student newspaper The Tab, may be all that stands between today’s student generation and the eradication of the Western intellectual tradition by the kill-joy forces of cultural Marxism. Already, I’ve no doubt, bitter groupuscules of angry, left-wing inadequates with unformed frontal lobes are preparing their hashtag campaigns against Tab features like this one, presumably on the grounds that they are degrading and demeaning or some such nonsense. But so long as there are Cambridge undergraduates prepared to throw caution and political correctness to the wind by baring their buttocks in this way, and so long as there is a ready market of Tab readers who think that this photo feature is a great idea and that there should be more please, this time involving photos from Oxford so we can see how the Dark Blue arses compare, then there remains hope for Western civilisation yet.
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Anorak
Posted: 26th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
Don’t the police deal with crimes? The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors on Tuesday is adopting a “zero-tolerance policy toward sexual assault”.
What does that mean? Sexual assault is a crime. Call the police. Is the University of Virginia saying it used to tolerate crime?
“The Board of Visitors adopted a zero-tolerance approach toward sexual assault at the university today,” Anthony de Bruyn, a university spokesman, said. “The details of the approach and how it is articulated and implemented will be refined in the near term in collaboration with the university adiminstration.”
Jake New:
The decision came during a three-hour emergency board meeting held about a week after the publication of a Rolling Stone article that detailed a gang rape at a U.Va. fraternity in 2012. While the meeting’s focus was ostensibly on how to change the campus culture surrounding sexual assault, much of the afternoon was spent specifically discussing alcohol abuse.
“We have to address the issue of alcohol consumption,” George Keith Martin, the board’s rector (or board chair), said at the meeting’s start. “There’s a clear correlation between alcohol consumption and sexual conduct.”..
“Sexual assault is a serious cultural problem within fraternities,” Reid said. “It’s a product of attitudes, an unawareness of gender norms, and a lack of safety in our environment that we as students must commit to changing. Our university is in the wilderness right now. It’s students on the ground level, not hiding from our inadequacies but confronting them, that will lead us out of this wilderness.”
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Anorak
Posted: 26th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
For a small fee this man will enliven your Thanksgiving Dinner.
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Anorak
Posted: 26th, November 2014 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
The Results Are In – An Open Letter from Protestors On The Grand Jury Decision (11.24.14)
In Ferguson, a wound bleeds. For 108 days, we have been in a state of prolonged and protracted grief. In that time, we have found community with one another, bonding together as family around the simple notion that our love for our community compels us to fight for our community. We have had no choice but to cling together in hope, faith, love, and indomitable determination to capture that ever-escaping reality of justice. After 108 days, that bleeding wound has been reopened, salt poured in, insult added to the deepest of injury.
On August 9th, we found ourselves pushed into unknown territory, learning day by day, minute by minute, to lead and support a movement bigger than ourselves, the most important of our lifetime. We were indeed unprepared to begin with, and even in our maturation through these 108 days, we find ourselves reinjured, continually heartbroken, and robbed of even the remote possibility of judicial resolution. A life has been violently taken before it could barely begin. In this moment, we know, beyond any doubt, that no one will be held accountable within the confines of a system to which we were taught to pledge allegiance. The very hands with which we pledged that allegiance were not enough to save Mike in surrender. Once again, in our community, in our country, that pledge has returned to us void.
For 108 days, we have continuously been admonished that we should “let the system work,” and wait to
see what the results are.
The results are in.
And we still don’t have justice.
This fight for the dignity of our people, for the importance of our lives, for the protection of our children, is one that did not begin Michael’s murder and will not end with this announcement. The ‘system’ you
have told us to rely on has kept us on the margins of society. This system has housed us in her worst homes, educated our children in her worst schools, locked up our men at disproportionate rates and shamed our women for receiving the support they need to be our mothers. This system you have admonished us to believe in has consistently, unfailingly, and unabashedly let us down and kicked us out, time and time again.
This same system in which you’ve told us to trust –this same system meant to serve and protect citizens– has once again killed two more of our unarmed brothers: Walking up a staircase and shot down in cold blood, we fight for Akai Gurley; Playing with a toy after police had been warned that he held a bb gun and not a real gun at only twelve years old, we fight for Tamir Rice.
So you will likely ask yourself, now that the announcement has been made, why we will still take to the streets? Why we will still raise our voices to protect our community? Why will still cry tears of heartbreak and sing songs of determination? We will continue to struggle because without struggle, there is no progress. We will continue to disrupt life, because without disruption we fear for our lives.
We will continue because Assata reminds us daily that “it is our duty to fight for freedom. It is our duty
to win. We must love and suppor t one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Those chains have bound us-all of us- up for too long. And do not be mistaken- if one of us is bound, we all are. We are, altogether, bound up in a system that continues to treat some men better than others. A system that preserves some and disregards others. A system that protects the rights of some and does not guard the rights of all. And until this system is dismantled, until the status quo that deems us less valuable than others is no longer acceptable or profitable, we will struggle. We will fight. We will protest. Grief, even in its most righteous state, cannot last forever. No community can sustain itself this way. So we still continue to stand for progress, and stand alongside anyone who will make a personal investment in ending our grief and will take a personal stake in achieving justice. We march on with purpose. The work continues. This is not a moment but a movement. The movement lives.
Anorak
Posted: 26th, November 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment
