Grace the Cat

My friend Andrew who works at The Blue Cross alerted me to this story.  He said ‘people suck’ and he’s right.  That is why I sometimes get more distressed by harm inflicted on animals than I do when I hear about harm inflicted on people.  I knew someone in hospital who was a vet who treated abused horses.  She felt exactly the same way because eventually people are able to express and deal with the emotional consequences of abuse in therapy.  Animals can’t do that.

A couple of years before Bella the Cat’s death Nobby and I found a kitten, terrified and shivering outside his flat.  I picked him up and held him while Nobby called Andrew.  He was taken to the Blue Cross.  Later the vet who examined him said his injuries were consistent with a fall.  They suspected, but could not prove, that he had been thrown from one of the flats. Andrew asked me if Bella ‘would like a little brother’.  But Bella was a bully cat and did not get along terribly well with other members of her species* so I had to refuse. They found him a home eventually.

Some chick called ‘dog ree’ (or maybe it was ‘dog breath’.  I can’t be bothered to go back and check.) called me ‘catty’ on a rather unpleasant blog.  Given that one of the definitions of ‘catty’ is ‘Catlike’ ‘Stealthy’ I’ll take that as a compliment. Oh, and the person who called me that is a mangey old dog.**

(Ouch, think I touched a nerve there.)

Lost a bunch of weight recently.  Still more rotund than I would like to be though.

*we had so much in common.

**I offer the most profound apologies to dogs.

Currently listening to

The machine guns are roaring
The puppets heave rocks
The fiends nail time bombs
To the hands of the clocks
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it
Farewell Angelina
The sky is erupting
I must go where it’s quiet.

Farewell Angelina, Joan Baez

And this is how it begins.  They push you away and then they build walls around themselves. Anything to stop the deluge, the rising tide, the rot.  I am so afraid.

Bella’s ghost has departed.

Je Ne Regrette Rien

I don’t know why I chose to pin
My colours to your mast
For this was a war I could not win
A river in which I could not swim
Your reputation is destroyed
The dogs of vengeance are deployed
The newspapers snoop and vultures swoop
Picking over your remains, saying,
‘Go on defend her if you must
But be assured we’ll grind you into dust’
Yet I did not elect to join the winning side
I did not elect to be swept away by the tide
But still I was sucked in and swallowed whole
I dutifully played my allotted role

They say you hated her
I disagree. I saw you
Foraging for affection
On the day of my defection
You did not ask for much
But she was far too delicate to touch
As incorruptible
As a wedding dress
As pure as an ivory rose
With bright, white petals
Defying the darkness
But she was so hard to impress
Enmeshed in the webbing
Of purity, of perennial insecurity

She is somehow seductive
Gentle, subdued and soft-hued
She was the stone wall you clung to
Like creeping ivy and wandering
Through the wilderness you needed to be close
To the stillness at the centre of the whirlwind
She has never sinned
Ambivalence made no sense
And this was the consequence
The two of you are dissected, then polarised
And you are transformed in their eyes
Reduced to the status of saint and sinner
One spoilt, the other serene
One corpulent, the other lean

You are despised, she is idolised
You are sour as curdled cream
She epitomises youth and truth
A sycophant’s wet dream
She is so easy to adore
This is all that remains
A drowned world
A planet aflame
Much has been lost,
And little has been gained
But I do not regret a thing and if I had to
I would do it all again because even the devil,
Yes, even the devil
Deserves an advocate

The Chattering Classes Go On…Well, Chattering

Another gem from the hideously parochial ‘British Blogosphere’:

The actor put in jail for downloading pornography has had his sentence cut and will be out later today. As Rachel has said just being in possession of things doesn’t necessarily mean that you are wicked and vile and I would agree with her here.

http://henrynorthlondon.blogspot.com/2007/11/langham-freed.html

Mr. Langham’s release will create an extra place in our prison system for that most dreaded of criminals: the Cyberstalker. Are these people for real? It works like this: without the demand there is less incentive to supply. It’s not exactly rocket science and it certainly shouldn’t be beyond the intellectual grasp of a former doctor.

Burying Someone is One Thing…

Dancing on their grave is quite another: http://streamsofutternonsense.blogspot.com/

And, yes, I’m posting on this issue again. So, sue me. (Oops maybe I shouldn’t have said that. They probably will.)

In response to this, from Wombat Blogger:

‘Although few have any sympathy with a seriously ill person at the centre of events, the fact is that the pattern of harassment and abuse that is much more serious than some realise, is likely to continue until proper medical help is offered and accepted.’

So, you acknowledge that she is ill? How very charitable of you. Please tell me how all this is supposed to help. I know of no doctor who would reccommend this course of action.

Just one more thing. This little nugget of wisdom was left on Ms. Lowde’s blog by an individual known as ‘Jailhouse Lawyer’. (respected and admired by some of you – I’m told I shouldn’t judge you collectively but I can do little else as I don’t know who you are.):

”Glad to hear that you are homeless. I am sure that men will give you a bed for the night in return for your sexual favours.’

‘So, not only have you lost your head you have lost your house. LOL.’

Do you condemn it?

A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will suffice.

____________

The middle class liberal elite, just as vicious and merciless in their way as their working class counterparts who persecute paediatricians because their favourite newspaper tells them to hunt down paedophiles, only worse, much worse because they think they are superior.

Have You Ever Noticed…

…how middle class ‘liberals’ cease to be quite so ‘liberal’ when their own interests are threatened?

The Queen and the Great Revolution

Little empires crumbled
Miniature kingdoms toppled
As the princess became a queen
And men knelt, grovelling
At the feet of this new matriarch
She loved no one but herself
The peasants that lined the roads
Were but money-making machines
Fairy tale figures – Snow White,
Rose Red and Little Red Riding Hood
So pure, so soft, so good
To be trodden underfoot

They threw flowers at the motorcade
A rainstorm of roses aimed at that princess
Her feelings were suppressed
By vodka, vodka, vodka
‘She is an angel,’ they said
But that was long before
The Great Revolution
When this new Queen dreamed
Of cutting out the tongues
Of rabid republicans
Now she is still the centre of attention
She is still the star of the show.

But she is not adored anymore
And up in that dock she can smell
Her own blood, her own death
And those who once revelled in her grace
Will dance jubilantly,
Madly, on her grave.

It’s not the band we hate…

It’s their fans.

In response to this:

Don’t get too complacent. I’ve seen exactly the same behaviour by your compatriots on Usenet. But yes – these people are slightly deranged. Some of them actually believe that denigrating someone over the internet is more reprehensible than battering an old lady to death with an axe. Strange days indeed.

I recall one particular case in which the ‘culprit’ was a guy from Madison County, Wisconsin. However, I do not remember anyone criticising his physical appearance or suggesting that part of his rehabilitation should consist of performing sexual favours for the opposite sex.

I can’t imagine why that could be.

Can you?

Publish and Be Damned

Just another point. Ms North, you asserted: ‘As to whether she is mentally ill, I just don’t know. The court didn’t seem to think so.’ The Courts? You mean the District Judge. Well, this may astound you but district judges are neither omniscient nor infallible, nor are they mental health professionals. Neither, for that matter, are the prison officers whose job it was to observe Lowde. Many mentally ill women are left to languish in gaol because the system simply is not equipped to deal with them. The ‘special hospitals’ are designed to deal primarily with male offenders. The fact that the District Judge chose not to take psychiatric reports into account says more about the lack of care available for mentally ill women than it does about the state of Ms Lowde’s mental health. See, the personal really *is* political, even more often than *you’d* think.

BTW, if Ms Lowde doesn’t suffer from any kind of mental illness does that mean she has been libelled by the many bloggers who asserted that she was? And do you condone or condemn the prejudice they exhibited towards the mentally ill during the course of their ‘battle’ to bring Ms Lowde to ‘justice’. You may detach yourself from such comments but the fact that you failed to condemn them speaks volumes.

I am the Witch

I am the witch
You all want to burn
For it is in me
You see your impurity
I am the mirror
That reflects you
You smash me to pieces
Into inconsequential parts
You tell me I have no soul
You tell me I have no heart

Once the stars were just eyes
Blinking in the blackest of skies
I revered those magnificent
Celestial bodies. Their positions fixed
So rigidly and, like the magpie
I was drawn to glittering things
They gazed upon me so smugly
Yet still I yearned to be
One of them, part of that posse
Partying up there in space

Among those two-dimensional
Paper-thin women, sneering
Rouged lips curving upwards
Dressed in fox-fur stoles
And silently, they mocked me
Until earthly gurus transformed me
Into a most alluring commodity
I became a supernova, untouchable
Slaying those silver stars
I became one of the higher angels

But I was only a puppet
They tugged on my strings
I did not feel those threads unravelling
Until I was falling, falling
This was my spectacular death
‘The Diva is dead,’ they said
As they danced on my remains
The hierarchy reasserts itself
‘We nuked her. Didn’t we, didn’t we?
She is gone, Hasn’t she, hasn’t she?

I did not ask for this
But once I had it I could not
Relinquish it. I am their enemy
And they annihilate me
But I only played the role
Assigned to me. I am lost
Devoid of energy. I am eclipsed
I cannot recreate myself
They strip me of the skin I’m in
And I am truly untouchable now.

This Too Shall Pass

‘There’s your hopes and your dreams you embrace
Then there’s what’s staring you in the face
Sorrowful times are here but they won’t last
This too shall pass’

Bruce Hornsby

In response to this

Dear Ms. Alibhai-Brown,

I read your column with interest. I also listened to what you had to say on the BBC’s News Twenty Four and frankly I found it rather amusing. I really don’t think a country that treats a sixth of its population as subhuman (the lowest caste – the ‘untouchables’) has the right to lecture any other country on bigotry. This kind of discrimination occupies no column inches in our newspapers. No one takes to the streets and burns effigies of upper caste Indians on their behalf. But then they’re not spoilt Bollywood actresses.

I am from a working class background so I’m probably not as intelligent and sophisticated as you are but there are a couple of things I just don’t ‘get’:

1. Why do you consider racism wrong while endorsing other forms of bigotry such as class-based prejudice and misogyny? (You accused Jade Goody of being motivated by envy in her treatment of Ms. Shetty because the former is ‘ugly’ and the latter is ‘beautiful’ – because that is all woman is, right? Her packaging? The irony is that Ms. Shetty probably comes closer to Western ideals of beauty than Jade Goody who has West Indian features.) It seems like an illogical position to hold.

2. How is a programme watched by a minority of the population any more representative of the UK than the way in which some Indians treat their lower caste citizens? (They are exploited, mistreated, raped, tortured, immolated but that’s clearly something that doesn’t interest you. The next time you’re at the BBC take a trip over to Radio Four’s studios and listen to the episode of ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ that was broadcast on the Saturday before Christmas – it includes a particularly harrowing account of caste-based violence in rural India. That didn’t make it into our newspapers – probably because it didn’t involve any celebrities.)

Make no mistake, bigotry is wrong. All kinds of bigotry. Exhibiting a different kind of bigotry to Ms. Goody does not make you superior to her, it makes you the same as her. If you disapprove of someone’s behaviour it’s best to avoid emulating them.

And finally, could you please justify this:
http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/23825.pdf

yours sincerely,