When smugglers are the good guys

Whilst recently reading an article on the activist website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS)  I came to the conclusion that smugglers are not always the bad guys.

We – as in, Westerners – mostly associate people smuggling as a horrible profit making activity. Our exposure to it is mostly through stories and articles about women being trafficked from Eastern Europe or migrants dying of suffocation in sealed lorries when crossing from France and into the UK.

But, surely there must be times when smuggling is justified and somewhat of a honourable activity.

A good example is the dire situation in Raqqa, Syria, and is the subject of the article linked above. Islamic State (ISIS) have been imposing restrictions on Raqqa citizens leaving the city. Citizens want to flee because of the brutal living conditions: fundamentalists imposing the strict rule of Sharia isn’t paradise (just read RIBSS). Exits from the city are being closed off and ISIS are investing in propaganda to try and persuade refugees that they are indeed mistaken, living under the ISIS caliphate is  actually lovely!

So, enter the smugglers. Whilst I haven’t read too deeply into who they might be, how they do it, or how those being smuggled are treated. Nonetheless, they must be putting their safety at risk in doing so and they are assisting citizens who want to escape. I say, good on them.

 

Cycling in London

I have been a cyclist in London now since last May (May 2014) and I do not miss taking public transport one bit.

Yes, vehicles can become irate with us, and yes, in a collision we will always come off worse. But these risks offset by the pleasures and benefits of cycling. I am, or at least feel, healthier – bar breathing in all that smog… -, I get around town quicker than I would otherwise by tube, and as strange as it sounds, I feel more relaxed.

An added bonus is getting to know the city better. One starts to own the spaces between the tube stations rather than being a passive commuter.

I thought I would share my favourite routes, both for leisure and getting that heart rate going and legs burning:

• Regent’s Park – For a good tear around, Regent’s Park before work (7am onwards) is great. There is normally a good community of cyclists who you can draft behind, that is as long as you return the favour!
• Hill circuit around Swain’s Lane, Highgate West Hill and Dartmouth Park Hill – combine these three hills and you’re in for a good workout. From memory, Swain’s Lane starts at 9% gradient and rears its head at 14% towards the top before decreasing again. It is only a short climb (around 0.3 miles) but combined with the other two hills in that areas makes for an excellent hill circuit.
• Richmond Park – it almost goes without saying that having a park like Richmond Park on your doorstep is a London cyclist’s dream. There are a few good climbs and flat sections, with bonus deer spotting.
• Embankment – if followed from Westminster to just after Battersea Bridge, the road provides a good opportunity for some full throttle cycling on a relatively smooth surface. If you’re cycling with some mates at a good time of the day – early morning on a weekend – then it’s a good opportunity for some drafting and high speeds.
• Wapping – maybe not the most obvious of locations to cycle, but I enjoy going round St Katharine Docks and the small roads around that area. The Town of Ramsgate pub is a homely venue and worth a visit.
• London parks – goes without saying, and it’s rather obvious, that Hyde Park, Hampstead Heath, Battersea Park, Clapham and other green areas, are fun to cycle round although I would classify these as all leisure rides rather than anything serious.
• Epping Forest – a bit like Richmond Park, Epping Forest is a great place for London cyclists to exit the smog and cycle around what feels like countryside. There are some great routes with some killer climbs (can’t remember any names at the moment, but will update at a later time).

I cannot recommend cycling in London enough!

[VIDEO] Blind Trust Project – would you hug a blindfolded Muslim?

Interesting ‘social experiment’ (I am really starting to find this term increasingly frustrating). I’m not particularly fond of the ‘free hugs’ movement, but I’m glad a group of young adults got together to create a moment of unity in Toronto, Canada.

A Huffington Post article quotes filmmaker AsoOmii Jay as saying: “We wish to break down barriers and spread awareness about Islamophobia, encourage Muslims to behave as the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught us in kindness and good manners, to teach both extremist muslims and non muslims that violence and terrorism is NOT islam, and we urge non-Muslims to learn about the true Islam.”

She continues, “Pick up a Quran and learn for yourselves the truth. People may interpret any faith in how they choose to perceive it, but the Quran is the only unaltered message/scripture.”

And I find this is where the religious fall. The violence may not be an accepted part of Islam, but it is part of it nonetheless. A fanatic’s interpretations of the text might be perverse but it is is still an interpretation and part of the Islamic faith. The same goes for fundamentalist Christians who firebomb abortion clinics or priest sexual abusers. These people are a product of their faith one way or another. There might not be a direct correlation, but to deny a link would be to deny the facets of the relationship between humanity and religion.

Secondly, ‘the Quran is the only unaltered message/scripture’. Anyone reading the Quran hoping to find the truth will interpret it differently. This is due to our lack of objectivity. It isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that the ‘true’ message of the Quran – whatever that might – will never be fulfilled.

I commend them for their public acts. I would like to see more of this. Maybe in a less hippy way, but anything that creates community and provides an antidote to violence and segregation should be welcomed. But maybe one step would also be for the religious to accept that because of the antiquity of the texts you hold so dearly, when translated literally in our current age some people will do some kooky stuff.

Maybe let an atheist edit your text.

🙂

The [pick a number] day working week

We’ve all experienced this

Most have been there. The 5 day cycle. The slog of another working week. 40 hours in the office, with hobbies and socialising squeezed into the evenings and weekends. Work envelops you.

You close your eyes on a Friday night and then open them again on a Monday morning. Where did Saturday and Sunday go?

You close your eyes after celebrating your 22nd birthday and you open them again when you’re 32. Where did the last 10 years go? You remember that you had good times, although memories are blurred, exact dates of events are hard to remember. Was that quick trip to Italy 3 years ago? Or did I do that for my birthday last year?

Here are a few interesting articles about working weeks, 4 day weeks and the ever elusive work-life balance:

– Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (The Real Reason For The Forty-Hour Workweek) (True Activist)

– UK needs four-day week to combat stress, says top doctor (The Guardian)

– Calculating your body clock (BBC)

How do you deal with a busy working week?

[Catholic Online article] – How to stop worrying, the Catholic way…unintended satire at its best

A recent article on the Catholic Online titled ‘STOP WORRYING! Does life seem unbearable lately? Here are 8 important things to remember when life is beating you down‘ is pure satire and total garbage.

Please do give it a read. I’ll summarise – with a light sprinkling of deviation – the salient points here though.

1) If you’ve made a mistake, meh, who cares right? In a year’s time the mistake would have happened a year ago, and no one gives a damn about mistakes that happen a long time ago. Right?!

2) If Britney Spears survived her totally catholic meltdown in 2007, so can you!

3) You’re alive…yes.

4) Spoil yourself, just not too much as you might be sinning if you’re gluttonous, greedy or slothful. But still, spoil yourself.

5) Take comfort in the knowledge that millions of others are having a shit day as well.

6) Remember that you – sort of – have control over your emotions. But if it’s your fate to have a meltdown and a crappy day, or part of God’s plan that you stubbed your toe yesterday morning, then how much control do you actually have? Or does God not deal with trivial matters such as toe stubbing, but instead totally gives a damn about whether or not you wear a condom or eat shrimp.

7) Your birthday sucks and Christmas was a totally disaster…but not to worry! You can celebrate them again in 12 months! And if they’re bad, well, just wait another 12 months!

8) Life is short, so enjoy it…with the security that you’ll actually be chilling in heaven for eternity anyway. Unlike all those unbelievers who will be ROTTING IN HELL! Mega LOLZ.

Cancun – the land of debauchery and good ol’ Western values

Cancun in 1980 was in idyllic location. White beaches. Deserted. Ideal weather.

Fast forward to 2014 and unfortunately the city is tantamount to entering Dante’s Inferno. Horrible hotels line the beaches as developers scramble to compete with resorts in the Caribbean.

The key to the success of these resorts resembles refined chicken farming. The chickens come off their planes and are then herded to their cages on the beaches. Everything is included: chicken feed aplenty, water, enough limited space to ensure bodies are rubbing and any other substance from the local neighborhoods as the chickens require. Once the farmers have extracted what they require, the chickens board their planes, exhausted and weary, and fly home.

But why does the idea of this type of holiday particularly peeve me off?

It is primarily that the sole reason and experience of going to resorts in Cancun is to get shitfaced, act like an arse, and fuck. These three reasons aren’t in and of themselves bad. The need to let go and act upon baser instincts is healthy. But at least do it in an imaginative manner. Don’t go on a shitty package holiday and waste money.

Furthermore, Westerners love their drugs. When browsing the internet forums about this subject, I felt that the overarching sentiment was that it wasn’t worth buying drugs in Cancun because:

a) be careful/avoid as the police might catch you; and

b) it’s not good quality drugs.

It doesn’t wholly surprise me that the impact of the drugs trade on the local culture isn’t a consideration for not taking the drugs. But you’d have to have abstained from reading any news to be aware that drug cartels in Mexico are ruining the Mexican society. Funding this market with fresh cash isn’t sensible.

I’m not against tourism, and package holidays provide an opportunity for the not-so-wealthy to enjoy themselves. But when the by-product leads to ruining local wildlife, supporting drug cartels and instilling a culture of superficial short-term fun ‘for the sake it’, it leaves a rather bad taste.

[VIDEO] Sarah Palin – Iowa Freedom Summit, 2015 – Incoherence at its finest

Wow.

I don’t wish it upon anyone to have the task of transcribing Palin’s recent speech. What a disaster. Well, in Palin terms, it’s not drastically different. But there was something rather unsettling about her performance. And Palin is a performer; she isn’t a politician, she isn’t an intellectual, she’s a performer.

I’m not the first person to point out that the speech was disjointed, confused, rambling and rather sad. Sad on two levels.

1) Seen the craziness in her eyes, staring into the stage lights…it’s unsettling. Rather like Howard Beale delivering his “mad as hell” speech in the film Network. Like an evangelist preaching the ‘truth’: her speech stumbled between nonsensical sentences leading to keyword crowd pleasers about terrorists, immigrants, and a tirade about left vs. right politics that wasn’t too dissimilar to Harold Camping predicting the end of the world (and failing).

2) People clapped. The crowd clapped throughout. Members of the audience agreed with this ignorance. I find that most demoralising. They applauded and gave her a standing ovation. This leads me to conclude that a certain section of the Iowa population have less cumulative intelligence than fast growing moss.

Oh Sarah. I’ve enjoyed watching your political performances but I think it’s time to stop. The ridiculous voice, mannerisms, and hair mask a sinister character. Her speeches encourage distrust, greed, and hate towards the ‘other’ that doesn’t conform.

Please stop.

[EDIT – 27 January 2015]

I have had a look through the other attendees at the Iowa Freedom Summit. Pail was the Queen of Crazy, but damn… Trump & Co successfully bringing up the rear. What with Trump declaring that he would build a big wall to stop immigrants entering America and Mike Huckabee’s rather awkward rant about pig killing and sausages.

Double-U, Tee, Ef. What The Fuck. 

Now, I can’t vote in the American election as I’m a British citizen and currently live in the UK, but I am rather glad that the craziest we get here is Nick Farage’s anti-EU rants!

The Pope: The ignorance…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30838667

….is strong with this one.

This has set him squarely on the side of the intolerant. If he was a CEO we would be calling for his resignation. What an awful precedence he has set and an insight into the mindset of this apparent liberal Pope.

[VIDEO] “Slap her”: children’s reactions – Comment

After watching the above video I scrolled down the page. YouTube comments section really can be a cesspool of pessimism and critique for the sake of it.

The video is an imperfect way of providing commentary on a valid message. Before criticising the video, understand the context. Italy has a serious issue with ‘femicide’, that is, violence against women, especially those who are lovers or former lovers. In 2012 a United Nations’ report labelled domestic abuse in Italy as the “most pervasive form of violence” in the country, affecting over 30 percent of Italian women. Over a hundred women die each year and sexism is rampant. In this context the video hits the nail on the head. Being violent towards women is not an inherent urge but rather a trait ‘learnt’ socially. Therefore, this is something that with education can be combated.
The video is not a scientific experiment, the children might all be actors and they might have even chosen kids who are most ‘media friendly’. This does not detract from the message being conveyed. When watching The Pianist or The Titanic I’m sure you weren’t picking the film apart for all the historical inaccuracies. You watched realising it was edited media with a message and a script. This is no different and I don’t see why the underlying important message cannot be appreciated by some.

Bringing Art To The Masses: new kid on the block ‘GuessWho’

The superheroes and Shikari Shambu with Appi Hippi (a character from a cartoon strip) pieces were done in response to the Kiss of Love campaign that has been going on in India.

Art equates ‘high culture’, ergo, only the ‘educated’ – whatever that means – can enjoy and understand it.

Wrong.

Street artists – mural painters in South America or Northern Ireland, infamous Blu, Ericailcane or Banksy – prove otherwise. Whether you agree with the legalities of painting on another’s property, the manner in which the general public interact with their complex and abstract concepts successfully challenges the snobbery of ‘high culture’ associated with art.

I was therefore interested to read an article by the BBC detailing an interview with a new kid on the ‘street art’ block in India – Guesswho. Street art democratises expression, and Guesswho is another shining example of this. As quoted by a local newspaper, Guesswho explains:

“Street art is the best way to [engage those otherwise not interested in art]. The viewer is forced to engage with it, knowingly or unknowingly . We have a lot of good artists but we don’t have an art culture here. We don’t teach our kids about art in our schools. We don’t have a Tate Modern or MOMA or Center Pompidou. There now have been efforts like the Biennale. But it will take time. The best way to reach out is to drag them into it. And street art is the way.“

And I couldn’t agree more.

I also found myself agreeing with Guesswho’s take on the temporary nature of street art. Street art by de facto is transient: whitewashed by the authorities, flacking material, at mercy to the weather or being painted over by other graffiti artists. Asked about the fragile technique used in his/her/their art, Guesswho explains “it may not stay forever. It is not supposed to.“ This is refreshing.

The wealthy have monopolised the enjoyment of art. They hoard masses of art, driving up the price as it becomes rarer and rarer and therefore restricting access to the few. Art is a currency, an investment, a status symbol and the majority of world’s population is marginalised. Public displays in art galleries allow for brief and controlled access to art in the ‘correct context’ and environment, out of harms way from our grubby mitts. Street art can, and has, challenged this. I hope it continues to do so.

On a lighter note, check out this stop motion video by street artist Blu.