Beers & Books (395) – José Carrasco

Chile, my martyred land

José Carrasco (24 August 1943 – 8 September 1986)

Beers & Books CCXXIV – Nell McCafferty

...

Nell McCafferty * 28 March 1944

Beers & Books CCXVIII – Studs Terkel

We are living in the United States of Alzheimer's.
A whole country has lost its memory.
When it can't remember yesterday,
a country forgets what it once wanted to be.

Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008)

Beers & Books CXXXIX – Anna Politkovskaya

We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss,
into an information vacuum
that spells death from our own ignorance.
All we have left is the internet,
where information is still freely available.
For the rest,
if you want to go on working as a journalist,
it's total servility to Putin.
Otherwise, it can be death,
the bullet, poison, or trial
– whatever our special services,
Putin's guard dogs, see fit.*

 
Anna Politkovskaya (30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006)

*Today 15 years ago, Anna Politkovskaya got murdered. Vladimir Putin celebrated his 54th birthday.

Beers & Books LXXIX – Egon Erwin Kisch

...

Egon Erwin Kisch (29 April 1885 – 31 March 1948)

 

Face to Face

Evelyn Waugh (28 October 1903 - 10.April 1966)

Laughing Lhursday

According to the Guardian Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's hardline ultra-nationalist ambassador to Nato, also today voiced his support for the embattled Assange. He tweeted that Assange's arrest and incarceration on Monday at the City of Westminster magistrates' court demonstrated that there was "no media freedom" in the west. Assange's "fate" amounted to "political persecution" and a lack of human rights, the ambassador said.

Go, Icelanders, go!

"I am proud to advise the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative's proposal to create a global safe haven for investigative journalism. I believe this proposal is a strong way of encouraging integrity and responsive government around the world, including in Iceland. In my work investigating corruption I have seen how important it is to have have robust mechanisms to get information out to the public. Iceland, with its fresh perspectives and courageous, independent people seems to be the perfect place to initiate such an effort towards global transparency and justice."

- Eva Joly MEP

ICELAND TO BECOME INTERNATIONAL TRANSPARENCY HAVEN

On June 16th the Icelandic Parliament unanimously passed a proposal tasking the government to intoduce a new legislative regime to protect and strengthen modern freedom of expression, and the free flow of information in Iceland and around the world. The unanimous vote included all government members.
Birgitta Jonsdottir, the chief sponsor in parliament of the IMMI proposal said: "Iceland will become the inverse of a tax haven; by offering journalists and publishers some of the most powerful protections for free speech and investigative journalism in the world. Tax havens aim is to make everything opaque. Our aim it to make everything transparent." she said.

Highlights from the proposal:
* the Icelandic Prize for Freedom of Expression
* Protection from "libel tourism" and other extrajudicial abuses
* Protection of intermediaries (internet service providers)
* Statute of limitations on publishing liabilities
* Virtual limited liability companies
* Whistle-blower protections
* Source protection
* Source-journalist communications protection
* Limiting prior restraint
* Process protections
* Ultra-modern Freedom of Information Act

Continue here .

Afghan War Diary

[...] close to 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan have been leaked. SPIEGEL, the New York Times and the Guardian have analyzed the raft of mostly classified documents. The war logs expose the true scale of the Western military deployment [...]
Continue

http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/afghanistan-the-war-logs

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,708314,00.html

I see no need to add any personal note - at this point ...

Killing ... their power

“ ‘Gao Zhisheng! You mother****er! Your date with death is today! Brothers! Let’s show the bastard how brutal we can get. Kill the bastard.’ A leader of the group screamed. Then, four men with electric batons started to beat my head and body with ferocity. Nothing but the noise of the beating and my moaning could be heard in the room. I was beaten so severely that my whole body began shaking uncontrollably on the floor.

But one example. But one example.

How many journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 2000?

But one example. But some examples.

But one ... day ...

Forget it!!

There won't be the day that a (wo)man will not be bullied, imprisoned, tortured or killed by those who have not much more than their power.

Tell my ashes if I were wrong.

Who will be the next?

Wednesday morning:
During my four hours writing, I suddenly think of Anna Mikhalchuk / Anna Alchuck (scroll down til 'In the burning house'). Did any journalist / media investigate her death?
Scribbling her name.

***

No surprise that when about two hours later I type her name to find that after her death (obviously) she was immediately ... forgotten.

* * *

At the same time a satphone might have rung. Someone in Moscow calling someone in Grosny.

- [...] Officially Dmitry will, of course, condemn this very sad event, Ramzan. However: well done.

- Ha ha, I love your humor, Vladimir. Glad you enjoyed it. We'll have a big party tonight, anyway. [...]

* * *

The laughing idiot (not only in the classical sense) wouldn't - also, of course - not know about the 'u' in humour. In so far he's as intelligent as f.e. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co., and - let's say the criminal Peace-Nobelprize winner Kissinger.

They would never spell humour h-u-m-o-u-r.

As for Putin & Kadyrov.
Kadyrov for Putin is somehow what Margaret Thatcher's "dear friend" Augusto (amongst others) was for (criminals like) Kissinger (scroll to Intervention in Chile / Argentina), Nixon et al - a useful idiot.

* * *

To cut an otherwise long post short:
I am sad. I do feel enraged. And helpless. Could I kill that bastard Kadyrov? Would I do it, if I had the chance?

Hm ...

Is the ruthless criminal Kadyrov - I repeat: the ruthless criminal Kadyrov [a: Come on, sue me, Mr Kadyrov! [Just to make sure: Sue* me, I wrote; I did not ask you (or the "flawless democrat Vladimir Putin" (quoting here a certain Gerhard Schröder); to send one of your assassins ; b) sorry, dear readers, that I would let sink myself on such a low level, but I see no reason to doubt that Mr Kadyrov is what his master Putin (in another context) would call a 'vermin' - and RRP / Russia's real President (sometimes) wouldn't err, hm?]

I do, f.e. remember Vladimir 'Ras' Putin once saying (to alleged Chechen 'terrorists'): 'We shall squelch these animals/critters/vermin'.

* * *

Why would people like Gandhi, King, Dink, Politkovskaya get murdered, and such an evil creature enjoy life?!

:) ... because people like me would not kill the bastards! Helplessness. Bloody helplessness.

Long live the evil! ?

Or, in other words: Well ... that's politics.

Ha ha ha ... what a post! What a silly post. What a fucking silly post.

A post to honour Natasha (sic) Estemirova.

To honour her with all my heart.

And to type (mind you: not to google): List of murdered Russian journalists.

to be continued ...

The peace of the night.


* :) with thanks to Bertus (see comment section)

Gap is widening

Well, actually it's no news that the gap between rich and poor is widening. Those who have eyes to read, ears to hear and a tiny bit capacity for remembering will know that this 'metapher' in 25 years has become a set phrase, being repeated every now and then.
In so far it's one of those 'news' of which I think with Thoreau a ready wit might have written it a twelve months or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.

Anyway, for those few on this planet who still consider Germany a land where milk and honey flows.

A new study by a German welfare organization shows that the gap between rich and poor is widening in the country, with the east and northwest lagging clearly behind the south.

Full article here.

Physiognomy of fine gentlemen

Following what some Irish would call picturegate, this afternoon a thought crossed my mind: This could become Usmanov-esque dimensions*.

Could have something to do with physiognomy.

Judge yourself.

Alisher Usmanov

Brian Cowen

Amazing, hm?


* And here's Omnium about the Usmanov saga (in chronological order):

Audiatur et altera pars

The Impossible Fact

Not about Mr. Usmanov

Above Mr. Usmanov's dignity

A diamond of altruism


Omnium about Picturegate:

The Taoiseach's New Clothes

The Taoiseach's New Clothes II

Brian, Borges & Bioy

Want a T(aoiseach)-Shirt?

Lord of the Flies

Coincidence? One would find impertinent idiots [in the classic sense, mind you] not only in Germany, but everywhere else, f.e. in England.

Beginning with the Netherlands, though.

You might have heard of that peroxide blonde gentleman who, as my friend Tetrapilotomos recently murmured, is looking like a sunlamp-tanned songster-queen and would obviously do all to attract attention and endear himself to certain folks of another wilde faculty.
Thus he let produce a lousy little film called 'Fitna', and called it a 'documentation'.

Now would some folks not like this lousy film (no matter if they've been wasting their precious time with watching it, or not); moreover, it became a political issue, and unlike the cleric cretin who recently talked as if he was an admirer of the 'great scientist' Fred Leuchter who once stated he had gone to Ausschwitz to prove the holocaust but after about 40 years just could not find any gas and 'Eureka! no gas, no holocaust'. (Mr. Leuchter, by the way, enjoyed close business connection with several US-states who use lethal injection machine designed by him. Official sides prefered to deny this, but Tetrapilotomos still has an interesting video in his cupboard, and would certainly be delighted to jog the memory of anybody who kindly asked. You could, of course, also just have a look at the small medal on the machine whilst you are executing the next death penalty. It reads: Fred Leuchter, Boston, Massachusetts), and still earned a 'welcome back within the pales of the Catholic Church', (which is why the Central Council of the Jews in Germany ... guess! ... right: ... publicly announced they will not speak with the Pope for a while) our blonde philanthropistic would-be saviour of the western word earned severe critics. Political correct politicians behaved as if they were disgusted, and as valiant defenders of democracy and free speech demanded to censor the lousy film.

End of the beforegoing.

Now, while the plebs, i.e. the ordinary stupid voting-cattle (German: Stimmvieh) ought not to be allowed to decide themselves to watch this lousy film or not, those who consider themselves a bit more equal than others, 'of course' are not only allowed to watch the lousy film, it's even their duty, one should think, hm?

I mean, unlike those privileged people who'd not need to watch a lousy film or a mediocre book, 'spontaneously' and with burning enthusiasm to support the flags-producing industry, politicians should at least watch respectively read it.
After all, they might come to the wise conclusion that censoring a lousy film or a mediocre book does not solve any problem.

And herewith we jump across the Channel, reach London and enter the House of Lords.

Now don't you need to know each Lord and Baroness, but you should know Lord Ahmed. So let me introduce His Extraordinary Magnificence to those amongst you who up til now had the great pleasure to never ever come across his name.

With thanks to 'His Grace'
where I pinched this pic.

For the beginning it's enough that you know the Lord loves to send text messages while driving.

Alright? Fine then. Here we go:

Lord Ahmed, the Muslim Peer, has admitted dangerous driving after sending text messages while driving on a motorway just before a crash in which a father-of-two died. Full article here.

Well, and what would do who wantonly negligent killed another person?
He'd at least feel miserable and hide himself in a mouse-hole, if only he could, you say?

Right.

And what did 'our good Lord' do, when a lordly collegue invited the producer of said lousy film in order to together with him and her esteemed colleagues watch and afterwards discuss it?

According to what I learned at Cranmer's, the Lord by grace of a certain Tony Blair reportedly 'threatened to mobilise 10,000 Muslims to prevent Mr Wilders [that's the blondie that let produce said lousy film; sj] from entering the house and threatened to take the colleague who was organising the event to court'.

And what did the honourable Lordships do?

Giving Mr Ahmed a democracy-lesson, you guess?

Nah! Showing him the white feather.

And the Lord announced via BBC, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Times etc ... err ... via Associated Press of Pakistan "a victory for the Muslim community".

And here the words almost fail me.
Imagine, next time the Lord of the Flies cometh and demands: 'Eat shit, Mylords! 100 trillion flies can't err.'

Apropos 'Lord of the (F)lies': Is it possible that Lord Ahmed on this very day sent one text message to Fethullah Gülen and four to the most intellectual mastermind's - Ha ha ha ha ... - intelligently designed mouthpieces?

Oops. Never ever heard such names in Merry Old England?
Now, that's surprising, hm?

Perhaps, after having read this and followed the links some English(wo)man feels fancy of investigating a bit on Lord Ahmed's connection with this self-styled elite and their common purpose?

Well, good luck, enjoy and let me know the results of your research.

* Title of a book written by William Golding. What did you think? :)

Murderous

Today 200 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe was born.

A short story he wrote: The Murders of Rue Morgue.

Two novels he did not write:

The murder in Istiklal Caddesi

Today two years ago, Hrant Dink was murdered.
The mills of justice are still grinding. Or not.

The murder in 8 Lesnaya Ulitsa

104 days before Hrant Dink got murdered,
on October 7th, 2006 Vladimir Putin celebrated his birthday,
and perhaps some gentlemen intended to surprise (?)
their beloved President with a very very special present,
Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated.

Well, and I'd not be surprised when in 365 days the 'patriotic gentleman' who today killed Staneslav Markelov and Anastasiya Baburova , will also be not behind bars.

CPJ's 2008 prison census

Reflecting the rising influence of online reporting and commentary, more Internet journalists are jailed worldwide today than journalists working in any other medium. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, released today*, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that 45 percent of all media workers jailed worldwide are bloggers, Web-based reporters, or online editors. Online journalists represent the largest professional category for the first time in CPJ's prison census. Full article here.

* tomorrow this 'today' will have become the day before yesterday. :)

As for Nietzsche's skeleton

Friedrich Nietzsche declared famously that “God is dead!” so it is probably safe to assume that he did not much care what happened to his skeleton.

Thus Mr. Boyes decided to start his article, published March 26th.

Good news for the gentleman:

Nietzsche's birthplace, baptistry and grave will persist.

Bad news for the gentleman: His inference (above) does not lack of illogicality.

Advice: It's probably (sic! - not: perhaps) safer to think before mauling the keyboard.

The advisor knows this from own experience. :)

A journalistic Hiroshima

What is another's accident, is the other's catastrophe.

No problem with this.

No problems either when people who would not care about (catch-)words, do call an accident 'catastrophe'.
Let alone they have not been taught/told: Very often such 'uneducated' persons are wiser than those who think they got the best education one could get under the sun.

But when journalists who - in my (in this case not) humble opinion - should know better, do call an explosion the Albanian Hiroshima and an Apocalyptic tragedy, they should give up their profession.

Mind: Those who lost beloved, may call what happened whatever comes to their mind. But journalists who would dare to write such rubbish are poor idiots*.

* not in the classical sense. May any idiot sue me. It will be my pleasure.

And be sure, I could give you thousands of examples for (embedded*) idiocy.
But please don't ask me to give them.. I am tired. Really tired.
On the other hand: As long as millions of those who are allowed to vote - come on, here's a chance to severely attack me :))) -, would spoil money to buy such excellent papers / to watch such super mega TV-channels, it's a market, would you agree?

* here I am not refering to those journalists who'd go in bed with the 'devil' for what they - or rather their masters call a good story, but to something general: education.

Ah, another trap I digged for myself. Okay: education is a 'hot field'. Who would set the canon? What if the pupil does not wish to listen to the teacher(s); to the parents (who may have had good or bad teachers)? Who defines what's a bad teacher?
Should teachers teach what has been thought, or should they teach inspire thinking?

Rhetoric question. Yes. Sorry about such a simplicity.

Anybody who thinks s(h)e has a simple / the one and only answer to the problem: Very welcome!

Malta, media & malheurs

“As a result of new corporate policy, di-ve.com will not, for the foreseeable future, cover political activities and statements as part of its day-to-day operations.”

Nothing wrong with it, so far. They could also have announced that in order to increase their readership from now on to change from English to a rarely spoken Hindu dialect. That's freedom of enterprise.

So why would quite a few people be not amused? Well, on the same day the Maltese news web portal published this notice (February 4th), in Malta parliamentary election was scheduled to be held on March 8th.

Thus, an act of self-censorship? A ban on politics? Yes, says the European Federation of Journalist. EFJ General Secretary Aidan White calls it

"a craven act of self-censorship at a critical time when the public needs reliable political coverage to be able to make informed decisions on the elections. Cutting political news is a shocking violation of responsibility."

Are these indeed the words of the EFJ General Secretary? Or have these lines been written by someone who recently jubilated, 'In November I'd not know how to write shornalist, and only three month later I happen to be one!'?
Apart from that the adjectives craven and shocking in this context are pretty redundant, does Mr Aidan think that the public does not need reliable political coverage as long as the times are not critical?
Well, and what evidence does Mr. Aidan have to call the decision (whose?!) an act of self-censorship? Perhaps it was just a 'gentlemen's agreement'? Or why would the notice be published on the same day the election date is being announced, and presumably only a couple of hours after one could have read within this article:

A democratic Malta must realise the media scenario is changing and evolving, even with the general aspirations of the rest of the country which are increasing. Readers and our audiences are ever more demanding for more news and better quality, and they are giving every indication of a society that is maturing and expecting more. Our society is becoming ever more discerning when it comes to the media, and yet the exigencies such a role brings for the media is not being properly recognised by the parties and institutions.

There are quite a few questions one could ask.

But the EFD, the Journalists’ Committee and the Institute of Maltese Journalists needed obviously all resources to write a 'joint letter' to the company's chairman:

“We hope you realise your company’s decision is a disservice to your own customers, to the Maltese public in general and to political parties that need journalists to disseminate and analyse their programmes before our country is called to vote.”

Oh dear. Does the public need journalists 'to disseminate and analyse the programmes of political parties' who'd write such sentences on their own behalf? Do political parties need them? Journalist's who seem not even able to investigate on their own behalf?
Apropos, 'our country'. Our? Whose? The journalists' country?

Nitpicking aside. What happens to the political editors who are not political editors anymore? Filling the space by writing articles about the open days at car dealers etc. without which those would not take out an ad?

What, by the way, if di-ve.com's advertising partners took political responsibility? They could f.e. publicly declare:

“As a result of new corporate policy, we will cancel our ads for the foreseeable future, in which di-ve.com does not cover political activities and statements as part of its day-to-day operations.”

Said Adlai Stevenson:
'Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from chaff, and then print the chaff. '

'And the best of these would become General Secretaries', he did not say. Perhaps a craven act of self-censorship?

Justice à la Turkiye

Not that I were surprised.

Observers voiced disappointment with the conduct of the trial of 19 persons for the January 2007 murder of Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor Hrant Dink after a third hearing was held yesterday [February 11th] in the Istanbul suburb of Besikta. The press is not being allowed to attend the trial. Full article at Reporters without Borders.

I am not even surprised that while millions would demonstrate either for or against a headscarve ban, 500 people demonstrated in a square to demand justice.