As of 16 February 2009 police in England and Wales can arrest anybody who photographs them on the grounds that the footage is ‘likely to be useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism’ under Section 76 of the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act and section 58a of the 2000 Terrorism Act.
If similar laws were enforced in California, the world would never have witnessed this month’s infamous pepper spray incident at UC Davis on November 18th.
Grateful acknowledgement for original footage to: James Newman, NufffRespect, The Guardian, TriWooOx, Tricky20001, Ltroonster1, Hauerbach1992, LeakSourceArchive, AggieTV, JMackFaragher and others.
We know who the killers are,
We have watched them strut before us
As proud as sick Mussolinis’,
We have watched them strut before us
Compassionless and arrogant,
They paraded before us,
Like angels of death
Protected by the law.
It is now an open secret
Black people do not have
Chips on their shoulders,
They just have injustice on their backs
And justice on their minds,
And now we know that the road to liberty
Is as long as the road from slavery.
The death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us to love each other
And never to take the tedious task
Of waiting for a bus for granted.
Watching his parents watching the cover-up
Begs the question
What are the trading standards here?
Why are we paying for a police force
That will not work for us?
The death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us
That we cannot let the illusion of freedom
Endow us with a false sense of security as we walk the streets,
The whole world can now watch
The academics and the super cops
Struggling to define institutionalised racism
As we continue to die in custody
As we continue emptying our pockets on the pavements,
And we continue to ask ourselves
Why is it so official
That black people are so often killed
Without killers?
We are not talking about war or revenge
We are not talking about hypothetics or possibilities,
We are talking about where we are now
We are talking about how we live now
In dis state
Under dis flag, (God Save the Queen),
And God save all those black children who want to grow up
And God save all the brothers and sisters
Who like raving,
Because the death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us that racism is easy when
You have friends in high places.
And friends in high places
Have no use whatsoever
When they are not your friends.
Dear Mr Condon,
Pop out of Teletubby land,
And visit reality,
Come to an honest place
And get some advice from your neighbours,
Be enlightened by our community,
Neglect your well-paid ignorance
Because
We know who the killers are.
A few years ago Child A and I became intrigued by a monochrome canvas we saw at the Tate Modern gallery in London by the French artist Yves Klein.
The name meant nothing to me at the time, but according to c4gallery.com “he is generally considered the progenitor of Minimalism and Conceptual Art. In Klein’s short life he singlehandedly managed to redefine the foundation on which the entire generation of the 1960s avant-garde stood…” [read full article here ]
In 1958 he developed his trademark, patented, colour International Klein Blue which he claimed had a quality “close to pure space – a Blue in itself, disengaged from all functional justification”. Conveniently for dealers in fine art, the colour allegedly lies outside the gamut of computer displays, and can therefore not be accurately portrayed on webpages. That said, international-klein-blue.com gives it a shot anyway. View the page in fullscreen mode on your browser and you’ve got yourself a DIY 20th Century modernist masterpiece right there on your desktop.
According to Tate Modern Klein made around 200 untitled monochrome paintings using IKB and, after his early death at the age of 34, his widow assigned a number to each of them. The one my son and I saw was IKB 79 painted in 1959. [More]
A handcoloured statuette of Garibaldi that my dad treasured all his life. He always said Garibaldi had been his hero as a young man, though I never thought to ask him why. Wikipedia describes the extraordinary life and exploits of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) in considerable detail – and credits him with making possible the unification of Italy – among much else.
But what probably appealed most to Dad was Garibaldi’s anti-clericalism. “He did much,” says Wikipedia, to “circumscribe the temporal power of the Papacy” and Dad hated religion with all the fervour of a repented believer. It was always faintly baffling when he went off on one of his tirades about the irrationality of religious belief. Neither Mum nor any of his children had any particular opinion about it, whereas he himself once planned to take Holy Orders. At Cambridge in his late teens he abruptly lost his faith and almost overnight swithced to the opposite extreme.
Dad’s been dead for 18 months now, and his beloved Garibaldi now lives – dusty and neglected – on a shelf in our front room. Behind him are the children’s encyclopedias he bought for us at eyewatering expense back in 1955. Sometimes it seems like forever since we last saw him, at other time like today I still can’t quite believe he’s gone.
Nina Simone’s version of Please Don’t Let Me Be Mistunderstood is being used by the BBC in a trailer for their cop drama Luther. It’s a powerful reminder of her importance as an artist. Have put together a few other favourite tracks to remember her importance as an advocate for Afro American rights.
In her songs you can hear Simone’s massive talent suffused with simmering rage. “You don’t have to live next to me – just give me my equality” (Mississippi Goddamn) “Hard times in the city… in a hard town by the sea” (Baltimore) “You better stop the things you do… I ain’t lyin” (I Put A Spell On You) “Shall we kill them now – or later?” (Pirate Jenny).
Having been born in 1933 and grown up in North Carolina she had plenty to be angry about. See her biography on Wikipedia. Meanwhile here’s that TV trailer…
“Dear friends and family, this is one of the most powerful interviews I have ever heard in my life. Minister Louis Farrakhan gives the real implications of the US/ British/ French/ Italian/ Canadian invasion of Libya: Farrakhan Warns Obama About The CIA Plants In Libya”
It only lasts nine minutes – hear for yourself.
On his last visit my brother startled us by announcing that the CIA had deliberately caused Japan’s earthquake and nuclear disaster in order to further US commercial and political interests. And sure enough, if you care to look for it, the evidence is right there on the internet:
Back in 1964 the Warren Commission was able to convince most of the world that JFK was assasinated by a lone sniper with a single gun.
Nowadays the unbelievable outrages committed by the CIA – from 9/11 to the Japanese earthquake – can be explained to the world within hours by some of the finest minds on the planet. Thank God for the internet.
Used to listen to Still Crazy in the mid seventies late at night in my room on repeat – Paul Simon at his most sublime and melancholy. Thinking about it after actually meeting my old lover on the street last night. Sure enough we talked about some old times and we drank ourselves some beers too. Still crazy ? Probably. But alive – a lot of our other friends from GLF London of 1974 didn’t make it.
To tell you the truth he was there with me when I came a cropper on the street yesterday. Only then did he admit he’d just taken a tumble himself an hour earlier – measured his length down a flight of hotel stairs in Kings Cross. Thankfully he escaped pretty much unscathed. After a fifteen minute lie-down to get over the shock he’d been fine.
Listening to Still Crazy After All These Years three and a half decades later the daft thing is how young we actually all still were. Along with Neil Young, James Taylor, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell etc Rhymin’ Simon provided a soundtrack for our generation to mourn the passing of our youth even while we still had it. “Time, time, time see what’s become of me” he wrote on Hazy Shade Of Winter at the age of – what – 26 or 27.
What we should have said to ourselves at that age was: this is the youngest you’re ever going to be for the rest of your life – better make the most of it. Bit then of course exactly the same thing applies now.
