Guarding the Palace

Right—there’ll be no shirking here. Previously, I had the doubtful responsibility of buffing up the English language skills of 500 Wal-Mart associates. Before that I was a nurse. Then there was the cello, to which I’ve recently returned. And now?

Defender of Buckingham Palace!

It seems that The Queen’s Guard—the one that gets changed every day, you remember—is completely slipping up. Because take a look at the picture below!

Yup—it’s a firework exploding against Buckingham Palace.

OK, having taken on Putin (see here and here) and won, a few days ago—he now assures us that he’ll welcome LGBT folk with open arms and vodka bottles—I was all in the mood for a nice quiet time. But no, with the slackers apparently overtaking the Guard, somebody has to step up to the plate. What if the queen had been strolling on her balcony?

So I turned to The Guardian for the dope, and discovered that the protest was part of a worldwide demonstration against austerity cuts; here’s what they had to say on the topic:

Similar events were staged in cities in Japan, Australia and New Zealand in opposition to austerity cuts, corruption and an increase in state surveillance.

Well, the event attracted hundreds of people, of whom 11 were arrested. In addition to the fireworks directed at the palace, a fire was started near the gates of the building, and the Lord Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square sustained damage. And apparently things got a bit heated—here’s more from the Guardian:

Ceylan Hassan, 24, a university graduate, who was among the protesters in London, said: "They started shouting 'move back, move back', but we had nowhere to go. The police started pushing us, screaming 'move back, move back'.

"There was a fire on the right hand side of the monument and people started throwing things."

OK, so I absorbed that, but then the question became: who was Anonymous, apparently the group behind the protest? And what were they all about?

In fact I don’t know—or rather, they don’t. But here’s what Trent Peacock (love the name, by the way), an Anon (as they call themselves) had to say, as cited in Wikipedia:

We [Anonymous] just happen to be a group of people on the internet who need—just kind of an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society. ...That's more or less the point of it. Do as you wish. ... There's a common phrase: 'we are doing it for the lulz.'

Lulz, according to that Wikipedia entry, is “entertainment.” But the group’s idea of entertainment includes hacking—for some of its members—and they’ve gone after some really worthy targets, including Scientology and the Westboro Baptist “Church.” Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

Several attacks by Anons have targeted organizations accused of homophobia. In February 2011, an open letter was published on AnonNews.org threatening the Westboro Baptist Church, an organization based in Kansas in the US known for picketing funerals with signs reading "God Hates Fags".[83] During a live radio current affairs program in which Topiary debated church member Shirley Phelps-Roper, Anons hacked one of the organization's websites.[84] After the church announced its intentions in December 2012 to picket the funerals of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, Anons published the names, phone numbers, and e-mail and home addresses of church members and brought down GodHatesFags.com with a DDoS attack.[85] Hacktivists also circulated petitions to have the church's tax-exempt status investigated.[86] In August 2012, Anons hacked the site of Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi in retaliation for the Parliament of Uganda's consideration of an anti-homosexuality law permitting capital punishment.[87] 

Good work, guys!

Anons also supported the Occupy movement in its early days, and have protested stock exchanges and major corporations; they also were active in the Arab Spring.

For all this, the group attracts attention, if not notoriety. In 2012, Time Magazine named them on the 100 most influential people; according to Wikipedia, the NSA agreed. Here’s what it says:

In 2012, Public Radio International reported that the US National Security Agency considered Anonymous a potential national security threat and had warned the president that it could develop the capability to disable parts of the US power grid.

I report all of this dispassionately—it’s hard to get a finger on this group’s pulse. But one thing I’ll say: we’re skating quite rashly on the thinnest of ice. The 1% is getting unimaginably rich, and worse, frightenly isolated. The rest of us are forming a collective time bomb of unemployment, poverty, and disenfranchisement.

Anybody remember the French Revolution?

Brian, the Blogging Pigeon

Well, I’m happy to report that on November 28, 2005, while I was celebrating my 49^th birthday, across the world Brian Pigeon was starting his blogging career. Here’s a picture of him:

And here’s his introduction:

My name is Brian Pigeon, and I am London’s premier blogging pigeon.

Pigeon Blog is my online diary.

A bona fide urban pigeon telling it how it is for the pigeons of London.

You can also follow me on Twitter – @brianpigeon

And, if you’re interested, I got me a Facebook page too – Brian Pigeon.

Make sure you get the right one tho coz the other one’s an impostor.

I’m the one who looks like this:

And here he posts the picture above. Well, I can tell you all about this because while munching a tuna sandwich, yesterday, I was watching a documentary about the wildlife in London. I can now tell you that there is a seal in the lower Thames, and that the normally gruff fishermen are improbably throwing their inventory to the seal in the river, as opposed to putting it on ice and selling it. There’s a lady who throws chicken sausages to five foxes—and she’s trained them to sit, too! Hedgehogs are having a hard time of it—they’re sticking the heads into thrown-away coffee cups, lured presumably by that sugar—and then dying. Londoners! Please tear your coffee cups in two!

Then there are the bird people. Oh, and did you know that the British government ordered the peregrine falcons to be killed in World War II? Apparently, the War Office was still using carrier pigeons, and the falcons were eating them….

Now where was I?

Ah, yes—the blogging pigeon. It seems that there’s a London woman—was her name Lisa? Think so—who goes about photographing pigeons; she reports that she been in virtually every neighborhood in the city. And she knows about as much about pigeons as I do about iguanas. And if I may say so, I was considerably more reticent about the sex life of iguanas than is Lisa about the pigeon equivalent. Really, Lisa, I was eating at the time!

Well, I obviously had to check in on Brian Pigeon’s blog—and well worth it. I happened on the page entitled “Press” and discovered that The Guardian, Time Out, and The Times have all reviewed it favorably—wow, and now comes Iguanas! The capping on the cake, or whatever the expression is….

Wow—and Brian has a good head for business, as well as a fine design sense. Look, who could resist the tote bag below?

Or what about the Brian Pigeon Classic Thong?

A bargain at just under twelve buck. Not only made in the USA—thanks, Brian!—but absolutely guaranteed to drive your lover, or even your husband, into the extremes of lascivious lust at the very sight of it. Be prepared—you won’t have a minute’s peace while wearing it.

But enough rank materialism. Brian tells a remarkable story of a common bird: here’s his very first blog post, on that late November day in 2005:

Welcome to the first ever online diary of a London pigeon. Well, in all fairness I come from Hayes which is not strictly speaking London. It’s close enough and, let’s face it, it’s as good as you’re gonna get coz not many of us pigeons have mastered the art of blogging! Mores the pity. You never know though, if enough of them can be arsed to read this – it might just catch on! Pigeon-friendly Cyber Caffs are, as a result, hard to come by so posting may be a little irregular (although I heard there’s quite a good one in Slough? Anyone know it? Let me know in the comments…).

This is a picture of mum. I think she sent it to me so I won’t forget her birthday.

And guess what! Brian has 2859 followers! Wow—wonder how many followers Iguanas will have after eight years!

I bring you the story of Brian as recompense for the video below. And please, call Wisconsin Capitol Police Chief David Erwin at (608) 266-8797, and give him a piece of your mind.

Oh, and Brian? You got any friends on the Capitol Square? Friends who could do what you guys do so well?

Call me….

Bucky to the Rescue!

No, no, no, no, no—I had intended to take the weekend off. I had met, you see, my goal—or very nearly so. It had taken a year for this blog to reach 10,000 hits. It had taken six months to reach (almost) 20,000 hits. Given that there are no busty blondes with bouncing boobies in this respectable venture, that’s not bad.

Well, there’s no rest for the weary, as the adage has it. Susan dropped in, electronically, to tell me that my blog is being reposted in Democratic Underground. Great—checked that out, came back negative, but did come upon the following headline:

Far-Right Extremists Chased Through London by Women Dressed as Badgers

OK, as much as some part of my brain screamed ‘NO,’ another part was reflexively hitting whatever nerve rules the right index finger, which responded with a click. So here, Dear Readers, are the comely but still respectable women dressed as badgers….

Well, I’m from Wisconsin, which is, as you know, the Badger State. In fact, we even have a song about it, called “If you want to be a Badger, just come along with me.” I give you the video below, for anyone unfamiliar with the song, and for anyone who wants to be nostalgic for student days long past….



OK, let’s be orderly. First question: why are women dressed as badgers (not Badgers) chasing far-right extremists down the street? Well, reading the article gave me the first clue—the women were protesting the badger cull planned by the British government to reduce the incidence of bovine tuberculosis.

Badger cull?

Badgers, Wikipedia informed me, spread widely at night, and their urine contains high concentrations of the bacteria that cause tuberculosis…but wait, I give you Wikipedia itself:

Once an animal has contracted bTB, the disease spreads to other animals in the same group or herd when healthy animals come into contact with exhalations or excretions from infected ones. Modern cow housing arrangements, which have good ventilation, make this a relatively slow process in cattle but in older-style cow housing or in badger setts, it can spread more rapidly. Badgers range widely at night and one infected badger can spread bTB over a long distance. Badgers mark their territory with urine, which can contain a very high proportion of bTB bacteria. According to the RSPCA, the infection rate among badgers is 4-6%.

Wow—this is turning into an interesting Sunday morning. Who knew that cows abide in “modern cow housing arrangements?” My impression, from a childhood very dimly visible in the rearview mirror, is that they lived in pens—or was it stalls? Anyway, modern cows are apparently living in arrangements with infinity pools and wood cabinets and stainless-steel countered kitchens. (Perhaps more precisely termed “food preparation activity centers….”) Great to know….

Moving digressively forward, the British government is intending to go and cull—which I presume means kill—badgers. But the British—perhaps being pre-Wisconsinites, or maybe even latent Wisconsinites—have a special love of badgers. In fact, well, here’s Wikipedia again on the subject:

Parliament responded by passing the Badgers Act 1973, which made it an offence to attempt to kill, take, injure badgers or interfere with their setts without a licence. These laws are now enshrined in the Protection of Badgers Act 1992.

Right—trust the British to act firmly and timely (sorry, but isn’t “timely” already an adverb? Why do I have to say, “in a timely manner?”) in an emergency. And also, of course, to take to the streets in defense of their badgers. Anyone can see that. As can you, by watching the second video.

OK—so we’ve got that taken care off. Now why were the badger protesters chasing right-wing extremists down the streets?

The badger protesters had encountered another group of protesters, from the British National Party and the English Defence League—do I need to tell who those guys are? So the good British ladies, their blood boiling on benefit of badgers, gave chase—their second finest hour!

Well, this Badger (not badger) has the answer, which I derived from reading Wikipedia….

Although vaccination is a recognised means to prevent the spread of the disease without killing wildlife, cattle that had been vaccinated would technically fail legally mandatory tuberculin tests, and therefore could not be declared officially tuberculosis-free, which is required by a 1964 European Economic Community directive.[7] Given that there is as yet no bovine tuberculosis vaccine for cattle that does not interfere with the tuberculin tests, such vaccination is prohibited under EU law.

Guys? There’s a vaccine for cattle against tuberculosis, but giving it would mean that the cows would violate a “directive” meant to achieve the same thing as the vaccine? So now you’re gonna kill a third of the badgers? Go to the damn European  Economic Community and get the “directive” redirected, or dedirected / undirected / disdirected.

Well, I started out laughing at the wonderful inanity of it all, but now I’m mad. Dammed mad. Arise, Badgers, badgerphiliacs, animals lovers everywhere! Send this post everywhere! Spread the news. Get Bucky’s message out!

Hands off my bros, boys!

The Killer in Your Kitchen

It was the alert doña Taí who advised me of it.

“You ever heard of the Boston Molasses Disaster?”

Sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? And if it weren’t, why, having lived in Boston for a year, had I never heard of it? Definitely something to check out.

It seems that on 15 January 1919, a huge vat of molasses exploded in the North End of Boston, creating a 40-foot wave that rushed through the city. Killed 21 people and several horses; 150 people were injured. And it did some serious damage to infrastructure. Take a look below….

Well, in my zeal to alert the international readership of this blog, I checked all this out in Wikipedia. Only to discover that there was a reference to another disaster.

The London Beer Flood.

Jump back a century or so, to 1814, in the St. Giles section of London. A vat of beer explodes, and causes other vats to explode in a domino effect. All in all, 323,000 imperial gallons (no idea what that is, but it sounds impressive…) of beer flood the city. St. Giles is an area of poor houses, with many families living in basements. These flood, and the death toll is eight.

Well, it seems that nothing is safe anymore. There are killers in the schools. Molasses can kill. Beer as well, in a way I had never thought.

With all the mayhem afoot, I’m happy to report that a great bunch of kids from Ponce, Puerto Rico, decided to cheer up a food court in their hometown. Here they are, in full swing!

So maybe it's time to grow up?

That’s my first reaction, on hearing the news.

A couple kids in Australia decide to have some fun. Call up a hospital in London, imitate—apparently atrociously—the Queen and Prince Phillip and see if they can get through. Fun, hunh? Hey, cool, let’s try that.

You know how it played out. The call was transferred by a nurse—and no, I think I won’t give her name. She’s suffered enough. Why, even in a blog post that perhaps only a hundred people will read, should I drag her further down?

She’s dead, you see, and apparently by her own hand. She leaves behind a husband and two young children. She was, apparently, an excellent nurse. The court at Saint James insists they had put no pressure on the hospital, which says there was no disciplinary action taking place or planned at the time of her death. She had, as well, the complete support of her colleagues.

The radio station says that the two kids have voluntarily taken themselves off the air, and they express, of course, deep regret.

I believe that.

And when I say that it’s maybe to grow up, I don’t necessarily refer to the kids.

They’re kids—right?

What about the rest of us?

Down here in the island surrounded by mirrors, I was busy with a more grisly affair—the story of a publicist and his horrific death. And a scandalmonger in the form of a transvestite with a foam head who repeated all of the worst gossip about his death.

Today, the widow appears in the newspaper and says no. My husband was NOT on that nice-by-day-vice-in-the-night street after dark. It was a carjacking, that and nothing more—except for a vile, vicious, horrendous crime (I quote her directly, though her words were horrendo, vil y vicioso crímen).

A carjacking is a federal offense. Thus, they are being investigated by the FBI, and may be subject to the death penalty. There is therefore every reason for them to paint the picture of a man in search of illicit and paid pleasure, rather than a man standing at an ATM who feels a gun poked in his lower back.

Oh, and by the way, who might be the more credible witness—the wife-now-widow who has a job like the rest of us (well, most of us) or these four people, two of whom—I believe—are kids turned in by their parents, the other two who are low-lifes?

The widow is asking space for the family to grieve—certainly a reasonable request.

Though it may be a bit difficult on the day of the planned march, when the Todos Somos José Enrique group urges all Puerto Ricans to take to the streets and protest the tsunami of violence that has devastated the island.

Or when the boicotalacomay group continues its pressure to rip corporate sponsors from the transvestite’s show.

May I say something?

Corporations act—in general—on strictly economic principles. If there were a show on TV that everybody in Puerto Rico watched that was devoted to ornithology, guess what? Wal-Mart would sponsor it, and have an aisle full of binoculars in every store.

Jump to another island. If everybody in London / Great Britain read only The Economist, would the nurse have killed herself? There being no tabloids to play the story up?

And no, living as I am right here in my own little left field, I probably won’t march. What will it do? Will people—being generous here—who value human life at 400$ say, ‘wow, gee, maybe I should get an MBA!’

Let me propose something instead: the social contract. Let’s set up a booth along the way of the march, and get people to sign it.

Here goes….

I, a proud Puerto Rican, commit to the following:

1. I will say about people only things that I would say to their face. I will only listen to the same—no bochinche.
2. I will drive courteously and safely.
3. I will park legally.
4. I will clean up the island and keep it free of trash
5. I will behave in a way in public that draws no attention to myself—no loud music, loud voices. Oh, and I won’t be drunk in public.
6. I will greet people, even strangers, who are near me, and offer help when needed.
7. I will do my job fully, and give full value for what I am paid for.
8. I will assume that my politicians, my government, and my police are honest and hard working, and I will expect and demand courtesy and efficiency in return.
9. I will raise my children to respect authority, teachers, policemen, and adults in general, being always vigilant for the rare person who does not deserve this trust.
10. I will assume that everyone is operating on these principles, again being alert for those who are not.

I suggest these simple rules, because I have an answer to who killed José Enrique, and who killed the nurse.

We did.

We have blood on our hands, those of us who watch La Comay or read the tabloids. Or dish up a bit of chisme—that’s gossip for you guys up there—or refuse to stop when a cop flags us down. Or park on the sidewalk so that a pedestrian—his name would be Marc Newhouse—has to walk in the street. Oh, and it’s 5PM, and the sun is right in my eyes….

They’re little things, these ten things that I cooked up this Saturday afternoon. Little until the drunk gets in the car that careens out of the blazing sun and hurtles itself onto the pedestrian. Little until a nurse makes a simple mistake and cannot walk to buy milk for her children without seeing her shame screamed out at her.

Little things. But I’ll spend an afternoon under the sun, passing out the social contract, asking everybody to read and sign.

Anybody want to join me?