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I’m in Marquette, on the Upper Peninsular of Michigan. It’s wonderful. If you don’t turn on the TV it’s possible to get through a whole day without hearing the name, Michael Jackson. Bliss!

The weather is terrific. While central Illinois steams in ninety degree heat, here the sun beams down generating a balmy seventy Fahrenheit, with nighttime temperatures dipping to a deliciously cool fifty degrees.

It was our intention to return home Saturday, but on Wednesday the car decided to shed its hydraulic clutch fluid everywhere and the garage can’t get the parts till next Monday, so we’re stranded with only a hastily-acquired rental car for company.

Darn it, I was so looking forward to that stifling Illinois heat again. Now, we’ll have to languish on the banks of Lake Superior, suffer sand in our chicken sandwiches, and quaff Chateauneuf-Du-Pape for a further three days.

Still, hopefully, by the time we do get back they’ll have buried Michael Jackson, in more ways than one.

Filed under: Wish you were here

No-one would suggest Bernie Madoff’s crime wasn’t serious. It was stealing, pure and simple. Probably the greatest ‘heist’ of all time. It was hardly on par with the crimes of a serial killer, though.

Or, was it?

There was a time when human life was the most precious thing. To take it away warranted the full penalty of the law. A life sentence, with no time off for good behavior, was the only suitable punishment for cold-blooded murder.

(NOTE: the all-embracing preciousness of human life rules out any mention here of the death penalty, which negates that preciousness and is no more than legalized revenge killing).

Yet, Madoff received a cold-blooded murderer’s sentence, simply for stealing.

Does this mean money has now become more important to society than human life? Is the greenback dollar the ultimate symbol of everything we hold precious?

Does anyone out there remember “Charlie’s Angels”?

“Charlie’s Angels” was a long running TV show from the seventies. Farrah Fawcett-Majors played the character, Jill Munroe, one of ‘The Angels’ in the first series, then returned for a number of episodes in series three and four.

This poster of Farrah Fawcett just happens to be the best selling pin-up poster of all time. It sold over twelve million copies.

Farrah Fawcett died on June 25th, from cancer, at the age of sixty-two years.

While cable TV aired the usual re-runs to mark her passing, and Larry King managed a mention on his CNN evening show, in the news bulletins Fawcett’s death was hardly mentioned.

Why? Because a little runt of a guy whose only claim to fame was his ability to sing and dance, behave like a spoiled kid throughout his fifty year life, and surround himself with vulnerable under-age children, chose that same day – June 25th – to expire on the floor of his California mansion, from years of drug abuse and unnecessary cosmetic surgeries.

The only surprise about Michael Jackson’s demise was how long it took to happen.

Both Fawcett and Jackson narrowly beat another fifty year old to the mythical ‘Pearly Gates’.

King of the pitchmen, Billy Mays, was found dead in the early hours of June 28th, from what appears to have been heart failure.

Mays’s claim to fame was his ability to sell useless products to brain dead housewives, who’d buy anything waved at them from a TV screen if it meant they could cease the vacuuming for ten minutes.

Death is no joke. Invariably, someone is broken by grief at the loss of even the most dastardly and worthless of individuals.

Life, however, is a huge comedy. At least, that part of life involving human beings. Surely there must be gods somewhere rolling helplessly, clutching their sides with mirth, as they watch we mortals constantly manifest our abundant inanity?

A mere four years ago, the media circus rallied in pursuit of a pedophile charged with preforming acts of gross indecency on minors. Shortly before that event this same individual was filmed dangling a newborn baby over a third floor balcony. The heinous nature of his crimes was discussed and dissected in a media bloodfest, the accused viciously slandered, tried, found guilty before even entering a courthouse.

Now he’s dead, that same media is moving, with all the precision of a great computerized monster, to turn him into a god.

If the deities on Mount Olympus could rein in their mirth for just a moment they might pause to ask themselves why mankind’s behavior is so fickle. Yet, they don’t have to, for the reason’s plain to see. It manifests in the form of a green-backed dollar bill.

The longer Michael Jackson’s memory is kept alive the more records and memorabilia will be sold. Already his sagging record sales have rocketed skywards. Keeping public interest in the Jackson story alive is the media’s responsibility. It means higher ratings, and that in turn produces greater advertising revenue. The inevitable squabbles over his possessions will likely rumble on for years, causing corporate executives to rub their hands with glee. It’s likely Jackson will be worth much more to them dead, than he ever was while alive.

There’s nothing to be gained from keeping the memory of Farrah Fawcett alive. No hit records, just a few long-binned TV shows and Hollywood movies.

As for old Billy Mays – well, I turned on the TV this morning and there he was, grinning back at me with a bottle of domestic cleaner clutched in his hairy fist.

After all, it’s not in the make-up of advertising executives to pull those adverts for a while, spare a thought for Billy’s wife and family, or those of us who might just consider it a mark of respect.

Not when there’s a greenback, or two, at stake.

Filed under: Rich man’s world

In America today, it would seem that any semblance of humility, acquired as a result of the disastrous George W Bush era, has evaporated away. The one thing we can rely on about this nation is its infamous short-term memory loss.

Interference in Iraq brought about a world disaster of catastrophic proportions. The effects will likely reverberate around that country for a generation, or longer. Burned fingers nursed by United States’ citizens over the Iraq debacle appear to have ceased smarting, at least sufficient for their owners to begin seeking somewhere else to go a-meddling.

When the Founding Fathers drew up their list of do’s and don’t’s for the new Republic way back in the 1700’s, one stipulation was to keep sticky fingers out of the business of other nations. Let the rest of the world tear itself apart with wars and strife, America would remain aloof and never be persuaded into meddling.

Like so much cherished by the Founders, that objective fell by the wayside as power and money vied to reproduce. Acquiring wealth also meant acquiring markets. The means to achievement was empire-building. After all, hadn’t the British been overly successful at just such a ruse?

Unfortunately, by the time America rose to the lofty heights of world domination, most nations had had enough of someone else’s jackboot stamping on their throats. In particular, Middle Eastern nations like Iran, Iraq, and Palestine were sick to death of subjugation by Western military might. When those same Western governments stole Palestinian land and gifted it to the Jews as Holocaust appeasement, the Arabs rightly labeled the West as public enemy number two, second only to the newly-formed Israel.

American foreign policy has always been disastrous and seems doomed to continue in a similar manner. Happily indoctrinated with the idea they’re loved by everyone, Americans shoot and bomb indiscriminately, then suffer hurt and upset when the locals, whose relatives have just been slaughtered, don’t greet them with flowers and kisses.

Any nation not falling at the feet of the Great United States is immediately labeled, ‘evil’. After all, not recognizing the Divine Goodness of America has surely to be evil of itself?

Behind it all is corporate pressure. The Middle East is the last great, relatively untapped, marketplace. Opening it to US corporate control was the primary reason for the invasion of Iraq. Iraq was ‘doable’, said Rumsfeld and Co.. Once ‘done’, it would place US troops on the border with Iran, and provide a launching pad for the invasion of that last major bastion against US corporate might.

The other reason was Israel. Israel is behind most of US foreign policy in the area. Israel has flouted every UN resolution placed on it since 1948, yet the US and its Western satellites still support the atrocities committed against Arabs in the name of Israeli defense.

Israel developed nuclear weapons years ago. It began in 1948, seeking out uranium deposits in the Negev desert. The Israeli Nuclear Energy Commission was set up in 1952. With the covert assistance of France, Norway, and the United States, Israel was able to manufacture nuclear weapons by the late 1960’s. This, in direct contravention of United Nation’s agreements and nuclear arms treaties.

Ignoring this Israeli precedent, during the recent Iraq war certain US politicians went to great lengths, whipping up western hysteria over Iran’s nuclear program. At the time, it was part of the build up to a strike against that nation, already planned long before March 2003, but it soon became evident the debacle in Iraq was pinning down too many troops. Any attack on Iran must be postponed.

The plan was shelved, but not torn up. Meanwhile, a change of president and the economic collapse resulting from internal greed among the higher echelons of corporate power, seemed likely to scupper the plan indefinitely. But there are many on the right of American politics still waiting their opportunity.

As the elections in Iran spawned discontent on its streets last week, the American president wisely refused to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs. It was, after all, nothing to do with America or the West. Nevertheless, the right wing media had other ideas, and pushed the Iran situation to the forefront of every news program, interspersing with commentary from right-wing senators and congressmen urging interference – though most stopped short of defining what that ‘interference’ should be.

By the end of last week the phrase ‘US troops’ was being bandied about the media, and that senile old warhorse, John McCain, was demanding President Obama threaten the Iranian government with ‘repercussions’ if matters weren’t resolved.

People are being killed and beaten in the streets of Tehran and all over Iran, and we should stand up for them……”

…… he told Fox News.

Mister McCain is sadly suffering from the infamous US short-term memory loss. It prevents him from remembering May 4th 1970, when major civil disturbances in Kent City, Ohio, (among others) resulting from the just announced US invasion of Cambodia, were brutally broken up by the Ohio National Guard and resulted in the shooting dead of four students, and the wounding of nine others.

Thirty-nine years is a long time, so perhaps Mister McCain can be forgiven for his amnesia. The Republican National Convention of 2008 was less than one year ago. During that convention peaceful protesters were manhandled by police, beaten, handcuffed, and arrested. Footage of this event was not dissimilar to that broadcast this week by the US media covering Iran.

It seems Mister McCain and his sidekicks have forgotten all about that as well.

The great mass of American public opinion is easily swayed. While a minority choose to utilize their own braincells when determining the validity, or not, of media output, most prefer to absorb willy-nilly the McCains or Limboughs of this continent. They love the upwelling of egotistical power that accompanies such militaristic prose.

Already, the greatly exaggerated threat that is Iran, blasted out of its TV screens daily, is erasing any memory of America’s record in Iraq and its consequences for the American people. Public opinion fails to compare the protests in Iran with many similar happenings on the streets of American cities over the years.

America has to be perfect in order to criticize and make demands of other nations. To be perfect means conveniently blanking out the im-perfections.

At the beginning of last week, President Obama stated he would not interfere in the internal affairs of another nation.

At the end of last week President Obama stated:

“We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.”

America’s infamous short-term memory loss is taking hold once more.

Filed under: Something about stones and glasshouses