When do you know when to draw the line? Is there a line to draw? When do you make the decision to discard, to abandon? Do you have to continually tell yourself that you are responsible for your children, even when they are no longer children but of an age that they can have children of their own?
Sam got another call. Three weeks from the time we received the first, telling us that 'all was not well.' Ragesh had sent a text to James, a friend common to both Zach and Sam. A producer who had worked extensively with Zach; who had visited him on psychiatric wards and who had once taken him in a child's plastic ukele. 'Anything,' he said, 'that will give Zach some kind of focus...' It was a charming gesture. I wonder what happened to that ukele.
How on earth did James get this text? Obviously in some kind of 'sane' moment Zach imparted this bit of knowledge. 'Zach's literally living on the streets,' Ragesh told Sam in heavily accented English. 'I've been giving him food. He's got nothing. No belongings. No food. No water. No phone, nothing... He's very bad.'
Zach's been arrested three times and released. The police still have his passport but Zach's inaccessible, in a kingdom somewhere in the Himalayas. It takes five days by bus or jeep to get to Delhi. Sam arranged to send some money to Ragesh, to pay for the food that he's been supplying but the money hasn't been collected yet. Ragesh sent an email. No one is interested in allowing Zach comfort he said. They won't open their doors to him. He's far too grandiosely manic for them.
Now the Embassy are on to it. For a change. 'Your son has had an interesting life,' mentioned the High Commissioner in New Delhi. I told him in a further email that yes, that's quite true, but that I had already written the book. They're trying to work out how to get him to Dehli to a psychiatric hospital. Five days by road but an hour by plane. However, no plane will want to take him. Rickey has offered his services again.
Ragesh was pretty plain in what he feels should happen. ' You must come and take your son, otherwise you will 'lose' him...' So where do we go from here? Is he not lost already?
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
'The Times' Dear Tanya and monumental hubris
'The Times' has a piece in today, 'Dear Tanya, My son is dealing drugs...' The usual stuff. Sixteen year old, started smoking skunk, personality changed, parents are divorced, don't know how to deal with him. You know, all the stuff you've heard of from me. Father tries to be tough. Mother unravels and enables the son because she's unable to be tough with him. It's nothing new. The kid's also started to deal at school. It's a pattern.
So I wrote a comment at the end of the piece, as others have done too. Only theirs have been published, mine hasn't. In mine I wrote that the kid resembles mine. He also started smoking but that his personality changed and then he developed Bipolar disorder. Because of that I wrote my book and, as a result, I've been going into schools and other venues and talking about it.
I wrote that most sixteen year olds don't have the insight into the consequences of their behaviour; that although they use, they couldn't possibly develop mental health problems as a result. I wrote that when I speak in schools and, especially, read out the chapters from the book about Glastonbury and bringing Zach back from filthy pscyhiatric wards half way around the globe that they do sit up and, to some extent, take it in. I wrote that shock value, talking about someone like them, does have an impact.
The Times, in its judgement decided not to publish my post. Why, I ask, is that, or am I simply being naive, that the piece was simply to fill in space because, as we know, drugs are the topic of conversation this week. That the 'comments' left at the space below the article aren't really 'comments' at all, but all part and parcel of the article, written by the same person in order to give the impression that there is some input from us poor morons because isn't it true that the media believe us all to be morons?
This is not the first time that this has happened. Countless 'articles' in countless columns have been written about drug abuse and mental health problems and I have contributed to many in the comments' sections and only once has one been published. I think that this is a serious question and has to be asked on many levels. This presumably happens on every subject. The perception that it's a free press. Oh, no it isn't!
Back to Leh: Zach's latest three lines of email tell us that he's 'been in the trenches... but that I'm fine and there's no money problems...' Right. Okay. Fine. How, exactly? As of today, he's making his way towards Israel. 'I'll surprise you, he writes. Um. Again, how exactly? From skunk to gear to mania and dirty, nasty wards and even worse medication but no one's allowed to read about that. Hubris.
So I wrote a comment at the end of the piece, as others have done too. Only theirs have been published, mine hasn't. In mine I wrote that the kid resembles mine. He also started smoking but that his personality changed and then he developed Bipolar disorder. Because of that I wrote my book and, as a result, I've been going into schools and other venues and talking about it.
I wrote that most sixteen year olds don't have the insight into the consequences of their behaviour; that although they use, they couldn't possibly develop mental health problems as a result. I wrote that when I speak in schools and, especially, read out the chapters from the book about Glastonbury and bringing Zach back from filthy pscyhiatric wards half way around the globe that they do sit up and, to some extent, take it in. I wrote that shock value, talking about someone like them, does have an impact.
The Times, in its judgement decided not to publish my post. Why, I ask, is that, or am I simply being naive, that the piece was simply to fill in space because, as we know, drugs are the topic of conversation this week. That the 'comments' left at the space below the article aren't really 'comments' at all, but all part and parcel of the article, written by the same person in order to give the impression that there is some input from us poor morons because isn't it true that the media believe us all to be morons?
This is not the first time that this has happened. Countless 'articles' in countless columns have been written about drug abuse and mental health problems and I have contributed to many in the comments' sections and only once has one been published. I think that this is a serious question and has to be asked on many levels. This presumably happens on every subject. The perception that it's a free press. Oh, no it isn't!
Back to Leh: Zach's latest three lines of email tell us that he's 'been in the trenches... but that I'm fine and there's no money problems...' Right. Okay. Fine. How, exactly? As of today, he's making his way towards Israel. 'I'll surprise you, he writes. Um. Again, how exactly? From skunk to gear to mania and dirty, nasty wards and even worse medication but no one's allowed to read about that. Hubris.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Is Elvis the new flavour in Leh?
Maybe the boats don't go often enough or maybe you actually need some kind of identification. The latest slurring message on voicemail gave the impression that Zach is still in Leh, not having moved too far towards the icy lake further north. Just another one of those unrealistic ideas he has of moving on to other things. I suppose that it's a case of not having a passport.
The garbled message included news that he was 'heading in the direction of Japan.' He has 'meetings with record producers and publishers...' You have to wonder how he's managing at all. That money is still sitting with Western Union. Pity, because it's not even making any interest while it's there. At least that could have been a good outcome. As it is, what's he doing for money?
What can Leh be like? It's a huge area of land, although the town itself is quite small, I've been told. My impression is that Zach is going from guest house to guest house. Is he paying? Does someone else? Is he playing in the town square like a country roustabout, guitar in hand, chippy scarf around his, probably now, scrawny neck. From the voice, it didn't sound as though he was in the right frame of mind to be giving concerts but what do they know in Leh? Maybe they think he's the best thing since Elvis?
So we're waiting again for another phone call to tell us something else that will, inevitably, have happened to him. As of lunchtime today he was still breathing. That's something...
The garbled message included news that he was 'heading in the direction of Japan.' He has 'meetings with record producers and publishers...' You have to wonder how he's managing at all. That money is still sitting with Western Union. Pity, because it's not even making any interest while it's there. At least that could have been a good outcome. As it is, what's he doing for money?
What can Leh be like? It's a huge area of land, although the town itself is quite small, I've been told. My impression is that Zach is going from guest house to guest house. Is he paying? Does someone else? Is he playing in the town square like a country roustabout, guitar in hand, chippy scarf around his, probably now, scrawny neck. From the voice, it didn't sound as though he was in the right frame of mind to be giving concerts but what do they know in Leh? Maybe they think he's the best thing since Elvis?
So we're waiting again for another phone call to tell us something else that will, inevitably, have happened to him. As of lunchtime today he was still breathing. That's something...
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
German heiresses, Western Union and Indian authorities
A story appeared on my Google alerts about a German woman who had recently inherited wealth. What was interesting was, that apart from her being Bipolar and an addict, she had been thrown out by her mother some years ago because her mother couldn't deal with all the problems associated with her daughter's illness. Now, because the girl has inherited some money, the mother is desperately searching for her. The last time that the girl was seen was on the streets, covered in newspapers and blankets, begging for food. Why do you think the mother is searching for her daughter now? To tell her that she's got money and will therefore live her future life in mad luxury, or could it be more sinister, that she wants to find the girl in order for her to sign over the money to her mother as she's obviously non compos mentis? We don't know. We only know that she's still looking.
I'm writing about this because, notwithstanding Zach asking us to wire him some money as he was 'stony broke', he hasn't collected it. It was £50.00 that can be deducted from the money he owes us when he comes back. I had a short call from him two days ago, when he told me that 'the banks were playing around with him' and that he couldn't collect the dosh. Seems that his passport was still with the authorities. They were 'looking after it for me' he explained. Without proof of identification he couldn't collect the money.
It's worrying that Zach hasn't collected the funds, for all sorts of reasons. He's usually adept, even in the height of insanity, to collect money from Western Union. He's even able to conrol himself to make reverse charge calls. He's not reading my emails and I don't know from where he made the call earlier this week. In any event, from my understanding and reading between all sorts of lines, he's broke. So where is he, without money and what is he doing to survive? Did he lose it with the Indian police and, if so, are there repercussions? I can't believe that he's on a slow boat to China without money, passport or mind.
I think that it would be rather nice if Zach were to inherit some wealth from somewhere but what would I do if he did while he is in the outposts of India or on a rowing boat along the Indus? Would I go out there and search for him and if I did, would I bring him back here and esconce him into rehab or would I leave him to it and see if he would surface and repeat all the patterns ad infinitum? It's a conundrum.
To be continued...
I'm writing about this because, notwithstanding Zach asking us to wire him some money as he was 'stony broke', he hasn't collected it. It was £50.00 that can be deducted from the money he owes us when he comes back. I had a short call from him two days ago, when he told me that 'the banks were playing around with him' and that he couldn't collect the dosh. Seems that his passport was still with the authorities. They were 'looking after it for me' he explained. Without proof of identification he couldn't collect the money.
It's worrying that Zach hasn't collected the funds, for all sorts of reasons. He's usually adept, even in the height of insanity, to collect money from Western Union. He's even able to conrol himself to make reverse charge calls. He's not reading my emails and I don't know from where he made the call earlier this week. In any event, from my understanding and reading between all sorts of lines, he's broke. So where is he, without money and what is he doing to survive? Did he lose it with the Indian police and, if so, are there repercussions? I can't believe that he's on a slow boat to China without money, passport or mind.
I think that it would be rather nice if Zach were to inherit some wealth from somewhere but what would I do if he did while he is in the outposts of India or on a rowing boat along the Indus? Would I go out there and search for him and if I did, would I bring him back here and esconce him into rehab or would I leave him to it and see if he would surface and repeat all the patterns ad infinitum? It's a conundrum.
To be continued...
Sunday, 19 July 2009
A Slow Boat to China
Pangong Lake is 13,900 feet up in the Himalayas. It's 83 kilometers long and a raggedy five hour drive from Leh. They say that it's the place to 'see before you die.' You drive through spectacular valleys towards the disputed border between India and Tibet, now China. The Chinese, always in for a bit more territory, incorporated Tibet and now Tibet is China. Pangong Lake is patrolled by the Chinese navy and the Indian navy and you need a special permit to visit it. Not the sort of place to go to if you have any kind of health problem.
Of course, being Zach, is exactly the place that he has had to go to. 'I've organised a visa for a week for China,' he told us in a later email, when he wasn't sounding too bad. I mean, I guess that you have to have some kind of reasonable mental health to organise a visa to anywhere. But in these nether regions, maybe it's easy to deal with officials.
Pangong Lake and the whole of this area of northern Ladakh is remote. So remote that there's just the one road that curls around the mountains and sometimes into the mountains in order that another car can snake around. Apparently it's an area for those of us who are the real adventurers. Consider the thinness of the air and the sparkling quality of the sunlight and the lack of comfort. There's the hippy trail of travellers and the locals who visit the lake but not much else apart from soldiers.
Zach said that he had 'visited a psychiatrist' and 'has medication.' I doubt that there are too many English speaking psychiatrists in the locale, although I do know that he has some medication. The last email isn't much of a testament to that. He doesn't respond to questions. He jumbles off a stream of consciousness of what he says is happening but who knows?
Whatever... So now we have to extend our imagination to a slow boat trip to China and whether or not he makes it back and how and when or what they do with Englishmen who display erratic behaviours in Tibet.
Of course, being Zach, is exactly the place that he has had to go to. 'I've organised a visa for a week for China,' he told us in a later email, when he wasn't sounding too bad. I mean, I guess that you have to have some kind of reasonable mental health to organise a visa to anywhere. But in these nether regions, maybe it's easy to deal with officials.
Pangong Lake and the whole of this area of northern Ladakh is remote. So remote that there's just the one road that curls around the mountains and sometimes into the mountains in order that another car can snake around. Apparently it's an area for those of us who are the real adventurers. Consider the thinness of the air and the sparkling quality of the sunlight and the lack of comfort. There's the hippy trail of travellers and the locals who visit the lake but not much else apart from soldiers.
Zach said that he had 'visited a psychiatrist' and 'has medication.' I doubt that there are too many English speaking psychiatrists in the locale, although I do know that he has some medication. The last email isn't much of a testament to that. He doesn't respond to questions. He jumbles off a stream of consciousness of what he says is happening but who knows?
Whatever... So now we have to extend our imagination to a slow boat trip to China and whether or not he makes it back and how and when or what they do with Englishmen who display erratic behaviours in Tibet.
Friday, 17 July 2009
Twenty Quid and a laptop to Ladakh
So yesterday morning the phone went and it was Zach. That's after a manic message left on Sam's mobile. 'I'm great. Everything's great. Yesterday was great. I did a thirty fucking mile walk to China...' etc. You get my drift. When Sam spoke with Zach he could hear from his voice that although he didn't appear to be grandiosely manic, he was levelling up to a good seven or eight on the scale.
There were things he wanted, he said. Stuff to be sent out. His laptop for one and twenty quid too. 'Yeah, we're going to send you a laptop to Ladakh...' Sam, 'How are you doing for money?' Eyebrows raised, for a change. 'Don't worry about me,' Zach's retort. 'I know the meaning of finances. But twenty quid will be fine...' We know it's still cheaper in India than here but twenty pounds will not go very far.
Zach intends to stay there until the 'end of August and then go on travelling.' On twenty quid? Show's where his head is at. There was other nutty stuff too but it was typical. It still comes down to the fact that he was meant to come back home this Tuesday and he didn't. He made the choice to use all over again and lose his mind again. This is where we are at once more. I've really no ideas this time. I'm not going over to bring him back, nor do we intend getting involved with other options over there but I don't know how he's going to get back here or when and if. It's all rather peculiar.
There were things he wanted, he said. Stuff to be sent out. His laptop for one and twenty quid too. 'Yeah, we're going to send you a laptop to Ladakh...' Sam, 'How are you doing for money?' Eyebrows raised, for a change. 'Don't worry about me,' Zach's retort. 'I know the meaning of finances. But twenty quid will be fine...' We know it's still cheaper in India than here but twenty pounds will not go very far.
Zach intends to stay there until the 'end of August and then go on travelling.' On twenty quid? Show's where his head is at. There was other nutty stuff too but it was typical. It still comes down to the fact that he was meant to come back home this Tuesday and he didn't. He made the choice to use all over again and lose his mind again. This is where we are at once more. I've really no ideas this time. I'm not going over to bring him back, nor do we intend getting involved with other options over there but I don't know how he's going to get back here or when and if. It's all rather peculiar.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
'Mainly ok' means what in Ladakh?
So what does 'mainly ok' mean when you don't really know the person you are talking about? This was Jonathan's answer when Sam asked him if he had seen Zach and, if so, how was he? It was a rough line. There were shouts and laughter and the sound of traffic in the distance and Jonathan sounded as though he was doing four things at once. Difficult for anyone. Especially difficult for a man (sorry, men...) We couldn't really hear him and, I think, he's probably already at patience's end for dealing with Zach. Just like we all are. Now more than ever. 'He's mainly ok...' he responded.
For someone who's 'mainly ok', he hasn't checked his email and he hasn't written any more asking for money and he hasn't made the usual reverse phone call requesting same. So for once the pattern has changed. At least he's still in Leh, wandering the streets, so far as we've been told.
He has no money. We don't know whether he still has his belongings or his passport. The passport was supposed to have been retained by the police until he left. It's unlikely that he will leave now. I can't see him getting on a bus and spending 17 hours travelling to Kashmir. Previous episodes have painted a picture of him becoming more and more disorganised and irritable and impossible to be around with for any period of time. I can't see the so-called 'friends', a bunch of low-lives from Sweden and Italy, continuing to pay for his food and accommodation and drugs - even though they've used him as entertainment to see just how much stuff they can enable him to smoke and choke.
He's probably skinny and dirty and wild-eyed and hungry and desperately tired and if anyone gets on the wrong side, quite likely to hit out and eventually be arrested. That would be the best outcome - yet again.
He was supposed to have flown back from New Dehli yesterday. The plane flew, one seat empty. How on earth does he intend to get back here? Is there the usual subconscious knowledge that whatever happens we will make sure that he does? The way it always happens?
For someone who's 'mainly ok', he hasn't checked his email and he hasn't written any more asking for money and he hasn't made the usual reverse phone call requesting same. So for once the pattern has changed. At least he's still in Leh, wandering the streets, so far as we've been told.
He has no money. We don't know whether he still has his belongings or his passport. The passport was supposed to have been retained by the police until he left. It's unlikely that he will leave now. I can't see him getting on a bus and spending 17 hours travelling to Kashmir. Previous episodes have painted a picture of him becoming more and more disorganised and irritable and impossible to be around with for any period of time. I can't see the so-called 'friends', a bunch of low-lives from Sweden and Italy, continuing to pay for his food and accommodation and drugs - even though they've used him as entertainment to see just how much stuff they can enable him to smoke and choke.
He's probably skinny and dirty and wild-eyed and hungry and desperately tired and if anyone gets on the wrong side, quite likely to hit out and eventually be arrested. That would be the best outcome - yet again.
He was supposed to have flown back from New Dehli yesterday. The plane flew, one seat empty. How on earth does he intend to get back here? Is there the usual subconscious knowledge that whatever happens we will make sure that he does? The way it always happens?
Monday, 13 July 2009
Amy Winehouse: Eat your Heart Out. Ladakh, China, Pills and Smokes
Well, it had to happen, didn't it? Firstly the SIM card. That's gone. The phone? Who knows. The phone call on Thursday night, 'call me back'. Then nothing. Friday no news at all. The phone appeared to be switched off. Then an email, 'the SIM card's disappeared. No worries...' Yup.
Just a manic spread of words. The air is thin, the altitude high, the weed strong. There's no insight and his judgment is severely impaired. His judgment of the humans he's involved himself with. Nothing for two days, then yesterday afternoon at a party the phone call came. We'd been laughing, 'How long do you give it?' I asked Sam. 'Shall we make a bet at a betting office?' Here the sun shone and white wine and salmon and good conversation. I saw Sam at the doorway, gesturing to me, his eyebrows raised. 'It's India,' he said, my heart leaped. Ohhh, not again!
Jonathan in Leh. The police have Zach's passport. Three days of ketamin and no sleep and no food and he's with a bunch of people who think it's fun being with a loony. They're feeding him drugs and watching what happens to him. No responsibility on their part. Zach had gotten into a fight in a restaurant and the police took him to hospital. Wise police. There's no psychiatric ward there, so they gave him some medication and Jonathan, who works for an Israeli outreach programme that repatriate young Israelis who get into trouble, gave him soup and a hammock and Zach slept in his garden overnight. They were going to somehow get him onto a flight back to Dehli and into a psychiatric hospital but, as usual where Zach's involved, it's not going to end like that.
Zach was supposed to be flying back to London tomorrow. How likely is that! He's completely manic. While Jonathan was asleep this morning, Zach's 'friends' came to the garden and gave him two joints that he smoked with abandon. He's still got some medication but, as of 8.00am our time, was intending to go with his pals onto Srinigar in Kashmir. A really poor choice of location, for all sorts of reasons, one of which is Zach's propensity to discuss the Israel/Palestine issue to all and sundry and get into fights about it. The fact that Kashmir is mostly Muslim doesn't bode well. Zach's out of control.
Sam received an email that shows just where Zach's head now is: "before the 7 helicopters that i saw on their runs, ladak was just like another indian town with indian police... now... all the top ranking ones have chinese stars... i would say that the chinese took ladak 2 or 3 days ago... there has been a lot of chaos... either way ... this is as far away from a manic episode as..." Yes, as? And this was after he'd said that he was going to be staying in asia for the next few months and then going to China and now learning Han from his 'friends' the Chinese. Who knows? Has there been a coup in Ladakh? Have the Chinese extended their control to India? What is he putting into his mouth? What is he smoking, popping, snorting...?
The tale continues.
Just a manic spread of words. The air is thin, the altitude high, the weed strong. There's no insight and his judgment is severely impaired. His judgment of the humans he's involved himself with. Nothing for two days, then yesterday afternoon at a party the phone call came. We'd been laughing, 'How long do you give it?' I asked Sam. 'Shall we make a bet at a betting office?' Here the sun shone and white wine and salmon and good conversation. I saw Sam at the doorway, gesturing to me, his eyebrows raised. 'It's India,' he said, my heart leaped. Ohhh, not again!
Jonathan in Leh. The police have Zach's passport. Three days of ketamin and no sleep and no food and he's with a bunch of people who think it's fun being with a loony. They're feeding him drugs and watching what happens to him. No responsibility on their part. Zach had gotten into a fight in a restaurant and the police took him to hospital. Wise police. There's no psychiatric ward there, so they gave him some medication and Jonathan, who works for an Israeli outreach programme that repatriate young Israelis who get into trouble, gave him soup and a hammock and Zach slept in his garden overnight. They were going to somehow get him onto a flight back to Dehli and into a psychiatric hospital but, as usual where Zach's involved, it's not going to end like that.
Zach was supposed to be flying back to London tomorrow. How likely is that! He's completely manic. While Jonathan was asleep this morning, Zach's 'friends' came to the garden and gave him two joints that he smoked with abandon. He's still got some medication but, as of 8.00am our time, was intending to go with his pals onto Srinigar in Kashmir. A really poor choice of location, for all sorts of reasons, one of which is Zach's propensity to discuss the Israel/Palestine issue to all and sundry and get into fights about it. The fact that Kashmir is mostly Muslim doesn't bode well. Zach's out of control.
Sam received an email that shows just where Zach's head now is: "before the 7 helicopters that i saw on their runs, ladak was just like another indian town with indian police... now... all the top ranking ones have chinese stars... i would say that the chinese took ladak 2 or 3 days ago... there has been a lot of chaos... either way ... this is as far away from a manic episode as..." Yes, as? And this was after he'd said that he was going to be staying in asia for the next few months and then going to China and now learning Han from his 'friends' the Chinese. Who knows? Has there been a coup in Ladakh? Have the Chinese extended their control to India? What is he putting into his mouth? What is he smoking, popping, snorting...?
The tale continues.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
In Residence. Diabolus. For how long?
'I'm on the back of a motor bike. I can't talk now...' No stigmata as yet.
Nothing changes except the scenery. You could almost write the script. I'm waiting for the phone call at 2.00am detailing the injuries. Generally nothing more than bloodied skin. Sometimes a twisted limb. More often than not generalised bruising and deep gashes. Into ditches, on-coming traffic. He's on the side of a mountain. Maybe into a gorge? Over the edge? How deep are those valleys?
Still, he continues to maintain a vigil over his phone. That's a first abroad. But it's the response to intelligent questioning that demonstrates the mania. 'When will you make your way back to New Dehli?' from Sam. 'I think I'll stay here for some time....' As if India needs another passenger. 'What about money?' Again from Sam. 'Don't worry.' How can we not worry?
So he intends staying there or travelling on or making his way - to where...?
You can hear the mania in the voice, even in two or three sentences. The pressurised speech. The grandiose ideas. 'I'm organising the music festival here...' The instant vilification of me, as if it was my fault that he's now manic. But, then, it always is. Has to be someone's and I'm easy prey.
I don't care about the mouthfuls of invective. The blaming. The apportioning of responsibility to someone else so that he doesn't have to take any himself. It's boring. I know that the incubus - let's call him Diabolus - is now in residence. He'll stay there until he's burned out again. But how does that leave Zach? And, more pertinently, where?
Nothing changes except the scenery. You could almost write the script. I'm waiting for the phone call at 2.00am detailing the injuries. Generally nothing more than bloodied skin. Sometimes a twisted limb. More often than not generalised bruising and deep gashes. Into ditches, on-coming traffic. He's on the side of a mountain. Maybe into a gorge? Over the edge? How deep are those valleys?
Still, he continues to maintain a vigil over his phone. That's a first abroad. But it's the response to intelligent questioning that demonstrates the mania. 'When will you make your way back to New Dehli?' from Sam. 'I think I'll stay here for some time....' As if India needs another passenger. 'What about money?' Again from Sam. 'Don't worry.' How can we not worry?
So he intends staying there or travelling on or making his way - to where...?
You can hear the mania in the voice, even in two or three sentences. The pressurised speech. The grandiose ideas. 'I'm organising the music festival here...' The instant vilification of me, as if it was my fault that he's now manic. But, then, it always is. Has to be someone's and I'm easy prey.
I don't care about the mouthfuls of invective. The blaming. The apportioning of responsibility to someone else so that he doesn't have to take any himself. It's boring. I know that the incubus - let's call him Diabolus - is now in residence. He'll stay there until he's burned out again. But how does that leave Zach? And, more pertinently, where?
Monday, 6 July 2009
Is No News Good News and Richard Bentall's Doctoring the Mind
Monday morning, London. After the sickly heat of the last two weeks, it's now a breezy, showery city. There's no news though. The manic phone calls of Saturday have left a void of nothingness over the weekend. I sent a text. 'How are things today?' No response. I'm perturbed and anxious. Don't know whether to call for the fear that a)I'll just get a mouthful of invective; b)someone I don't know will answer the phone because it will have gone the way of all the others - lost, stolen, bartered; or c)someone from a jail or a hospital will answer...
Whatever I do will be wrong. If I try to ignore what's going on in the mountains of Tibet, because, after all, he is an adult and should be left to do what he wants - irrespective of his mental health issues - then is it irresponsible of me as a parent. Conversely, should I try and find out where he is and how he is AND if he really IS as bad as I think he is, should I contact some kind of authority that will apprehend him and help him? Is there such a body or person there in the foothills of the Himalayas, among the monks and the travellers and the mountain goats?
In the past Chabad have helped. In Ecuador and Thailand - twice. If I were to contact them in Manali, will they have an archive of those foolish tourists who come to these areas highlighted with the dangers that they present and then, through invariably their own fault, get into the most grotesque scrapes? If they did, then their dossiers on 'Zach' will be immense.
However, who's to know whether should Zach be assisted medically in Tibet or India that it wouldn't be better than here in the UK? In 'Doctoring the Mind: Why Psychiatric Treatments Fail'. Richard Bentall, a professor of clinical psychiatry, argues that one's chances of recovering from an episode of psychosis are worse in a western hospital than in the Third World. From my own experience, I can concur. I believe that in the UK we just don't have a handle on the mentally ill.
When we were so desperate to get Zach into hospital during his last acute episode two years ago now, the local mental health services were irresponsibly unhelpful. The consequence of this was that Zach was eventually arrested and taken to jail. The fact that the police were involved instead of mental health 'professionals' is testament to the unwillingness of these 'professionals' to carry out their remit and actually help.
Two years ago, Sam and I should have left Zach in Thailand in the hospital where he was being cared for on a 24/7 basis. There he was given no choice but to take the medication. He was safe and secure and he had no availability to drugs. He would have come out of the episode well and, no doubt, drug free. What happened was that we were leaned on and we had to bring him back to London where he almost died. So, yes, who says that there's decent medical provision in the west?
Meantime who knows what the sprite is up to in the valley of the white tipped peaks?
Whatever I do will be wrong. If I try to ignore what's going on in the mountains of Tibet, because, after all, he is an adult and should be left to do what he wants - irrespective of his mental health issues - then is it irresponsible of me as a parent. Conversely, should I try and find out where he is and how he is AND if he really IS as bad as I think he is, should I contact some kind of authority that will apprehend him and help him? Is there such a body or person there in the foothills of the Himalayas, among the monks and the travellers and the mountain goats?
In the past Chabad have helped. In Ecuador and Thailand - twice. If I were to contact them in Manali, will they have an archive of those foolish tourists who come to these areas highlighted with the dangers that they present and then, through invariably their own fault, get into the most grotesque scrapes? If they did, then their dossiers on 'Zach' will be immense.
However, who's to know whether should Zach be assisted medically in Tibet or India that it wouldn't be better than here in the UK? In 'Doctoring the Mind: Why Psychiatric Treatments Fail'. Richard Bentall, a professor of clinical psychiatry, argues that one's chances of recovering from an episode of psychosis are worse in a western hospital than in the Third World. From my own experience, I can concur. I believe that in the UK we just don't have a handle on the mentally ill.
When we were so desperate to get Zach into hospital during his last acute episode two years ago now, the local mental health services were irresponsibly unhelpful. The consequence of this was that Zach was eventually arrested and taken to jail. The fact that the police were involved instead of mental health 'professionals' is testament to the unwillingness of these 'professionals' to carry out their remit and actually help.
Two years ago, Sam and I should have left Zach in Thailand in the hospital where he was being cared for on a 24/7 basis. There he was given no choice but to take the medication. He was safe and secure and he had no availability to drugs. He would have come out of the episode well and, no doubt, drug free. What happened was that we were leaned on and we had to bring him back to London where he almost died. So, yes, who says that there's decent medical provision in the west?
Meantime who knows what the sprite is up to in the valley of the white tipped peaks?
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Five on the insanity scale - deliver me from heroin
We had two years. Two years while things have been quiet. No madness. No sections. No irate phone calls. Just a semblance of calm. How deluded we become. We believe that the heroin keeps him sane. It does, in that the opiate effect is the same as a mood balancer. The problem is that it's addictive and the problem is that it is hugely expensive. It is because of this that he decided to take himself off to 'somewhere hot' and go 'cold turkey' and come off it because, frankly he said, 'it's just a waste of money. God knows how much I've spent on 'gear' over the last twelve years.' Well, actually, he told me but it's so astounding that I can't physically write it.
So off he went to 'hot India' while we've had the hottest weather here for decades. He could've done it here of course. For the first week it appeared as though he could manage it. The flight. The different time zone. The lack of sleep while travelling. And unravelling because he no longer took his 'meds' - the hyper-expensive, addict craving heroin.
The first emails were ok. Then they became more noticably strange. Sam picked up on it initially. I noticed but pretended they were alright. Beth did too. Then another one and it was the collective sigh. The deep groan of groundhog day. He kept it together for the first phone calls but we knew it was only time. On Thursday he was a five on the insanity scale. Friday was almost a six. Today, after the phone calls, we realise that he's closing in on an eight. Where do we go from here?
Dateline July 2009. He's catching a flight from India on the 14th. Will he? What will happen between today - after he's ridden his mountain bike in the hills above Ladakh and said a blessing for the Sabbath and eaten the chicken soup? 'I've met so many great people - we're organising festivals...' - and tomorrow. Interested? Then keep reading.
So off he went to 'hot India' while we've had the hottest weather here for decades. He could've done it here of course. For the first week it appeared as though he could manage it. The flight. The different time zone. The lack of sleep while travelling. And unravelling because he no longer took his 'meds' - the hyper-expensive, addict craving heroin.
The first emails were ok. Then they became more noticably strange. Sam picked up on it initially. I noticed but pretended they were alright. Beth did too. Then another one and it was the collective sigh. The deep groan of groundhog day. He kept it together for the first phone calls but we knew it was only time. On Thursday he was a five on the insanity scale. Friday was almost a six. Today, after the phone calls, we realise that he's closing in on an eight. Where do we go from here?
Dateline July 2009. He's catching a flight from India on the 14th. Will he? What will happen between today - after he's ridden his mountain bike in the hills above Ladakh and said a blessing for the Sabbath and eaten the chicken soup? 'I've met so many great people - we're organising festivals...' - and tomorrow. Interested? Then keep reading.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Poor Daniel Gonzalez, let down by our 'caring society'
Another day, another tragedy. Another young man, seriously, terminally ill with schizophrenia is callously let down by our 'caring community.'
How many more times am I going to write these lines? How many more investigations will there be into our mental health services? How many more times will the various heads of various trusts piously write: "We offer our profound condolences to..."
I'm actually pretty sick of it. Daniel Gonzalez, whose mother wrote to the Surrey mental health trust 'responsible' for him over 100 times. Yes, ONE HUNDRED times. She knew he was ill. HE tried to get himself sectioned. His case worker described him as being "like a wild animal in a cage" and no one, NO ONE was willing to take responsibility for helping him.
So, of course, the corollory was that Daniel, in a fevered state of mind, murdered four people. Then, while he was at Broadmoor, he slashed his wrists with a CD and killed himself.
It made me want to cry. Cry with the most profound pity for this poor boy. For the frustration his mother must have felt and, of course, for the innocent victims caught up in the horror because of the sheer inadequacy of the NHS.
It's a disgrace and it's one that will be repeated ad infinitum until someone takes the initiative and decides that the money that is discarded by this government on so many irrelvant projects is spent on the most needy of society. They can't do it themselves.
How many more deaths? How many more investigations? How many more tears will be shed by parents, patients and victims until something is done here to rectify these preventable killings?
I only wish I knew.
How many more times am I going to write these lines? How many more investigations will there be into our mental health services? How many more times will the various heads of various trusts piously write: "We offer our profound condolences to..."
I'm actually pretty sick of it. Daniel Gonzalez, whose mother wrote to the Surrey mental health trust 'responsible' for him over 100 times. Yes, ONE HUNDRED times. She knew he was ill. HE tried to get himself sectioned. His case worker described him as being "like a wild animal in a cage" and no one, NO ONE was willing to take responsibility for helping him.
So, of course, the corollory was that Daniel, in a fevered state of mind, murdered four people. Then, while he was at Broadmoor, he slashed his wrists with a CD and killed himself.
It made me want to cry. Cry with the most profound pity for this poor boy. For the frustration his mother must have felt and, of course, for the innocent victims caught up in the horror because of the sheer inadequacy of the NHS.
It's a disgrace and it's one that will be repeated ad infinitum until someone takes the initiative and decides that the money that is discarded by this government on so many irrelvant projects is spent on the most needy of society. They can't do it themselves.
How many more deaths? How many more investigations? How many more tears will be shed by parents, patients and victims until something is done here to rectify these preventable killings?
I only wish I knew.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Of Slumdogs, squalor and Julie Myerson's 'unoriginal' memoir
Gosh, it's March already. Where does the time fly to? You'll look around and it will be summer (we hope) again and then the Christmas decorations will be in the shops.
Just a couple of things that took my attention recently.
The first thing was Slumdog Millionaire. When they were embarking on this film and seeking out the actors, did it never occur to the producers that life would be just a little easier if they acquired them from an acting school? How could they possibly have been so callous as to take children literally from the slums, use them in the film and then return them to the filth and squalor from whence they came?
I ask this because of the reports that have come to life after the two small stars, Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali, who were feted, flown, wined (well, maybe not) and dined (I'm sure that they were, quite lavishly) in Hollywood, and then returned to their families. Obviously, having seen that life outside of their slum bears no resemblence to their daily grind, they no longer wish to remain under a corrugated metal roofs among the rats and dog droppings. Who, in their right mind (and having been paid) would?
It's a simply appalling lack of judgement and one which will, I am sure, come back to haunt Danny Boyle and his band of blind idiots over the years to come. At least, I HOPE it will...
And another thing: Julie Myerson as just written a book about her son, Jake. It's called, not very originally, 'The Lost Son' and it's about his problems with drugs and behaviour, so she threw him out of the house. She describes her time with him as being 'absolutely awful'. She says that "I still suspect that a lot of parents who haven't had the experience of drugs will find it hard to read that part and sympathise with us. People need to know this happens to families like ours."
Hardly groundbreaking stuff, when you consider that I've already done that! Of course she'll get pages and pages of newspaper coverage and will sell thousands of copies. That's life...
However, what really startled me was the fact that Jake was not consulted. He's livid, apparently. He's labelled his mother 'insane for saying he's a drug addict.' Is it really possible that she could have written a book about him and that her publishers would not have asked for his permission? When you consider the hoops that I had to jump through when editing my book so that no one would have any capacity for suing me, especially 'Zach', then this is preposperous and I quite understand how livid he is. But his mother is famous, so presumably she feels that she can ride roughshod over everyone in order to bring her 'story' to the fore. More fool her.
Just a couple of things that took my attention recently.
The first thing was Slumdog Millionaire. When they were embarking on this film and seeking out the actors, did it never occur to the producers that life would be just a little easier if they acquired them from an acting school? How could they possibly have been so callous as to take children literally from the slums, use them in the film and then return them to the filth and squalor from whence they came?
I ask this because of the reports that have come to life after the two small stars, Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali, who were feted, flown, wined (well, maybe not) and dined (I'm sure that they were, quite lavishly) in Hollywood, and then returned to their families. Obviously, having seen that life outside of their slum bears no resemblence to their daily grind, they no longer wish to remain under a corrugated metal roofs among the rats and dog droppings. Who, in their right mind (and having been paid) would?
It's a simply appalling lack of judgement and one which will, I am sure, come back to haunt Danny Boyle and his band of blind idiots over the years to come. At least, I HOPE it will...
And another thing: Julie Myerson as just written a book about her son, Jake. It's called, not very originally, 'The Lost Son' and it's about his problems with drugs and behaviour, so she threw him out of the house. She describes her time with him as being 'absolutely awful'. She says that "I still suspect that a lot of parents who haven't had the experience of drugs will find it hard to read that part and sympathise with us. People need to know this happens to families like ours."
Hardly groundbreaking stuff, when you consider that I've already done that! Of course she'll get pages and pages of newspaper coverage and will sell thousands of copies. That's life...
However, what really startled me was the fact that Jake was not consulted. He's livid, apparently. He's labelled his mother 'insane for saying he's a drug addict.' Is it really possible that she could have written a book about him and that her publishers would not have asked for his permission? When you consider the hoops that I had to jump through when editing my book so that no one would have any capacity for suing me, especially 'Zach', then this is preposperous and I quite understand how livid he is. But his mother is famous, so presumably she feels that she can ride roughshod over everyone in order to bring her 'story' to the fore. More fool her.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Scandals, Sadness and Zach's Thirtieth
Yesterday 'Zach' was 30. Unbelievable. I remember it all so well. Some things never leave you. You forget the pain but you don't forget the months while your body no longer belongs to you and a strange morphology takes over. Growing a child. How bizarre. Anyway, he's well and we all went out, with new girlfriend, and had a jolly evening. He didn't think that he would make it past 27, so this is all good.
Tomorrow I'm on BBC Radio Humberside. I was meant to be on it two weeks ago but for some reason - age, idiocy - I put the wrong date in the diary and completely missed it! What a chump... So I'm off to Western House tomorrow morning. I keep pinching myself. 'Don't forget to go to the BBC on...', just so's I don't forget.
Every day seems to bring another scandal and sadness. The sadness is David Cameron losing his poor boy. Parents aren't supposed to lose their children. Children are supposed to outlast us. I believe that the Camerons would have reconciled themselves to losing Ivan because he was so terribly ill but the time is never right.
The scandal is the president of Sudan. There he was in Egypt, seeking help so that he isn't issued with a warrant for his arrest in 'suppressing the Darfur rebellion,' ie actively participating in a real genocide. You know, one where over 300,000 people have lost their lives. Will he succeed? Most likely. The UN Court of Human Rights have issued 80% of their declarations against Israel. Not one over the Sudan. Now the new Pres. (POTUS as I see is the nomenclature) is giving almost $1 billion to Hamas, while the USA is on a downward spiral financially. Does this make any sense? What did they do with the other billions?
Scandals. All too heavy for some.
Tomorrow I'm on BBC Radio Humberside. I was meant to be on it two weeks ago but for some reason - age, idiocy - I put the wrong date in the diary and completely missed it! What a chump... So I'm off to Western House tomorrow morning. I keep pinching myself. 'Don't forget to go to the BBC on...', just so's I don't forget.
Every day seems to bring another scandal and sadness. The sadness is David Cameron losing his poor boy. Parents aren't supposed to lose their children. Children are supposed to outlast us. I believe that the Camerons would have reconciled themselves to losing Ivan because he was so terribly ill but the time is never right.
The scandal is the president of Sudan. There he was in Egypt, seeking help so that he isn't issued with a warrant for his arrest in 'suppressing the Darfur rebellion,' ie actively participating in a real genocide. You know, one where over 300,000 people have lost their lives. Will he succeed? Most likely. The UN Court of Human Rights have issued 80% of their declarations against Israel. Not one over the Sudan. Now the new Pres. (POTUS as I see is the nomenclature) is giving almost $1 billion to Hamas, while the USA is on a downward spiral financially. Does this make any sense? What did they do with the other billions?
Scandals. All too heavy for some.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
The Maudsley, schizophrenia and the £400,000 shortfall
There's a new advert that highlights the dangers of cannabis and mental health problems. Over the last week there's been an absolute plethora of articles in the newspapers about families with children who have mental health problems; a boy on a secure ward at the age of 16 and a piece in The Guardian about families who live with their children and/or siblings who suffer a range of mental illnesses.
Today I read that The Maudsley, one of the most renowned psychiatric hospitals in the UK, is cutting beds in order to save £400,000 from their costs. They're going to send even more schizophrenics and Bipolar patients into 'care in the community', as if it had worked before.
£400,000 is a paltry amount when one considers the sums each individual health area commands. The boss of The Royal Free in Hampstead last week complained that their new computer system was costing them an extra £10 million! Maybe The Maudsley should ask for funding from The Big Lottery.
I see that Friends, Familes and Travellers, Brighton [gipsy and travellers' rights group] have been awarded £414,017; Race on the Agenda, London [think-tank focusing on issues that affect ethnic communities], £483,824. Indeed, if you add another two: Friends of Birzeit University, London [supports Palestinian students at the West Bank university] £241,621 and the Greenwich Action Committee against Racist Attacks £269,795, then you'd have enough to replenish the shortfall.
Isn't it absolutely absurd? Why is it that mental health funding is treated so absymally in this country? If the government is running a campaign to promote the link between the increase of mental health problems because of the exponential use of cannabis and the implication that these will lead to more hospital stays, then why isn't there more funding available?
If it is the case that there is not enough money in the government's coffers (it's all presumably going to shore up the banks), then maybe The National Lottery should get involved. It's prepared to waste enough resources on specious PC groups. Why should the Bosnia Hercogovina Community Advice Centre, Brent, North London be awarded £438,117?
I'm appalled to think that people will be excluded from a hospital bed because The Maudsley is either unable to balance the books or because there simply isn't sufficient cash to maintain care for the most vulnerable patients in the country. It's a disgrace and there should be questions in Parliament about it.
Today I read that The Maudsley, one of the most renowned psychiatric hospitals in the UK, is cutting beds in order to save £400,000 from their costs. They're going to send even more schizophrenics and Bipolar patients into 'care in the community', as if it had worked before.
£400,000 is a paltry amount when one considers the sums each individual health area commands. The boss of The Royal Free in Hampstead last week complained that their new computer system was costing them an extra £10 million! Maybe The Maudsley should ask for funding from The Big Lottery.
I see that Friends, Familes and Travellers, Brighton [gipsy and travellers' rights group] have been awarded £414,017; Race on the Agenda, London [think-tank focusing on issues that affect ethnic communities], £483,824. Indeed, if you add another two: Friends of Birzeit University, London [supports Palestinian students at the West Bank university] £241,621 and the Greenwich Action Committee against Racist Attacks £269,795, then you'd have enough to replenish the shortfall.
Isn't it absolutely absurd? Why is it that mental health funding is treated so absymally in this country? If the government is running a campaign to promote the link between the increase of mental health problems because of the exponential use of cannabis and the implication that these will lead to more hospital stays, then why isn't there more funding available?
If it is the case that there is not enough money in the government's coffers (it's all presumably going to shore up the banks), then maybe The National Lottery should get involved. It's prepared to waste enough resources on specious PC groups. Why should the Bosnia Hercogovina Community Advice Centre, Brent, North London be awarded £438,117?
I'm appalled to think that people will be excluded from a hospital bed because The Maudsley is either unable to balance the books or because there simply isn't sufficient cash to maintain care for the most vulnerable patients in the country. It's a disgrace and there should be questions in Parliament about it.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Florence Nightingale, Bipolar disorder and Ketamine
Gosh, what a week - or two. I dunno. This country is in some kind of turmoil. Every day another scandal. Maybe it's all being done so that we don't actually consider what's happening to our economy. But then of course we now have some kind of 'hearings' where the recalcitrant bankers are hanging their heads 'in shame' and saying 'sorry.' As if they were. Seen any flying pigs recently? No? Neither have I. 'Yes, we earned far too much...' they now say. What a surprise. I could never understand how 28 year olds could be earning £150,000 bonuses. It didn't make sense to me. If it didn't make sense to ME who has the numerical understanding of a six year old, one would have thought that there would have been even more whistleblowers out there making the point that, hey, there's something wrong here...
Then we had silly Carole Thatcher and her 'gollywog' disgrace. I didn't have a gollywog when I was a kid. I was deprived. I had a bald teddy (handed down) and a panda with one eye. I loved them both. If I had been given a gollywog, I'm sure that I would have loved it too. Weren't there gollywogs in Enid Blyton? There were gollywog brooches that I collected from Robertson's (Robinson's?) jam. Very proud of those I was. It certainly didn't make me think anything sinister about black people. I don't think that I even made the connection between the two.
This week the ultra-silly Professor Nutt(?) posited the view in his review of whether to make Ecstasy a Class B drug that taking Es was no more dangerous than horse riding. Tell that to the millions of 20 year olds who now have long-term short term memory loss. And the others who suffer from mental illness because of their over use of same drug. I read a report yesterday that there's another view that LSD should be downclassed. What next?
This leads me on to a piece I saw yesterday. A teenager killed his friend in a row about the fare in the back of a taxi. Both high on Ketamine, Louis Chambers (18) killed Dylan Bates-Fox (21). As I have said on so many occasions - and especially so in the context of my book - Ketamine is toxic, lethal and far more dangerous than it is given credence for. Of all the drugs that Zach used, it was the one that posed the greatest danger to his mental health. Whenever we brought it up with 'Dr. Goode' the foolish doctor fobbed us off. How many more kids are going to be completely 'fried' as a consequence of sniffing Ketamine?
Oh, and before I forget, a new report suggests that Florence Nightingale was Bipolar. This I had never heard of before. I guess that she must have been on somewhat of a 'high' all the time that she was in the Crimea. How else could she have worked those hours in those conditions? The sad thing is that if she were around today and having to notify her employers that she suffered a severe mental health condition, would she have been allowed to set foot in Turkey with her blue lamp?
Then we had silly Carole Thatcher and her 'gollywog' disgrace. I didn't have a gollywog when I was a kid. I was deprived. I had a bald teddy (handed down) and a panda with one eye. I loved them both. If I had been given a gollywog, I'm sure that I would have loved it too. Weren't there gollywogs in Enid Blyton? There were gollywog brooches that I collected from Robertson's (Robinson's?) jam. Very proud of those I was. It certainly didn't make me think anything sinister about black people. I don't think that I even made the connection between the two.
This week the ultra-silly Professor Nutt(?) posited the view in his review of whether to make Ecstasy a Class B drug that taking Es was no more dangerous than horse riding. Tell that to the millions of 20 year olds who now have long-term short term memory loss. And the others who suffer from mental illness because of their over use of same drug. I read a report yesterday that there's another view that LSD should be downclassed. What next?
This leads me on to a piece I saw yesterday. A teenager killed his friend in a row about the fare in the back of a taxi. Both high on Ketamine, Louis Chambers (18) killed Dylan Bates-Fox (21). As I have said on so many occasions - and especially so in the context of my book - Ketamine is toxic, lethal and far more dangerous than it is given credence for. Of all the drugs that Zach used, it was the one that posed the greatest danger to his mental health. Whenever we brought it up with 'Dr. Goode' the foolish doctor fobbed us off. How many more kids are going to be completely 'fried' as a consequence of sniffing Ketamine?
Oh, and before I forget, a new report suggests that Florence Nightingale was Bipolar. This I had never heard of before. I guess that she must have been on somewhat of a 'high' all the time that she was in the Crimea. How else could she have worked those hours in those conditions? The sad thing is that if she were around today and having to notify her employers that she suffered a severe mental health condition, would she have been allowed to set foot in Turkey with her blue lamp?
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
It's February. London snow and nasty conflict
Wow, it's February and I have a new computer. Still can't work out how to use Word. Don't think it has it. Will have to try some new fandangled way of writing on it. Chris will have to show me...
A lot has happened and I've not really had much of a head for writing. My irritation and frustration has meant that I've been writing to comments pages and newspapers and being more irritated by other responses that I've found on them. Is this being opaque? Only to those who don't know...
Last week I travelled up to Grimsby. I've never been there before. Two lovely trains. One very cold. It wasn't heated and I wrapped my coat around me, trying to keep out the draughts. Still, by comparison to the snow we've just had, at least I had a train to keep me going.
Once outside of London, travelling along the countryside, watching the cows in the fields and the triffidous electricity pilons stacking the distance, it meant for a relaxation. I took books and newspapers but was happy to look out of the windows, into the distance.
The reason that I travelled to Grimsby was that I had been invited to give the 'key note' address to Workwise Women, an organisation started by the effervescent Lindsay and the more calming Sarah. It's a networking group of women in business, law, writing, the media and designers. I really enjoyed it. Don't think that my address was really the best but I read the first chapter of my book and sold a good many copies. Fifty ladies who sat silent and still while I read to them.
Otherwise all that's been newsworthy is the snow that has crippled London and the rest of the country. I'm baffled by our authorities here. They don't grit the pavements and the paths, so that we're all at liberty to break our necks but close the parks and playgrounds, on health and safety reasons, so that the kids can't throw snowballs at each other. The buses stopped - so that the drivers could also throw snowballs at one another - and the trains didn't budge out of their sidings, presumably because they might get wet! Was it the wrong snow, for a change? No, just too much of it! They only knew about if for a good week beforehand. This country is slowly, silently, going down the loo.
Zach took the dog for a walk this afternoon. They both came back with icy feet. Zach's still good. He has his first gig with his new band this week. I'll keep you posted.
UNWRA finally admitted today that Israel didn't attack the school in Gaza where they said that forty-three children died.
Hamas has executed over 150 Fatah members for 'collaboration.'
750 of the so-called 'civilians' were Hamas members. Children as young as twelve with missiles and RPGs strapped to their backs.
Women wearing 'suicide' belts who ran at soldiers.
Children armed with detonators.
Old people mined to bombs.
Just thought that I would keep you up to scratch.
A lot has happened and I've not really had much of a head for writing. My irritation and frustration has meant that I've been writing to comments pages and newspapers and being more irritated by other responses that I've found on them. Is this being opaque? Only to those who don't know...
Last week I travelled up to Grimsby. I've never been there before. Two lovely trains. One very cold. It wasn't heated and I wrapped my coat around me, trying to keep out the draughts. Still, by comparison to the snow we've just had, at least I had a train to keep me going.
Once outside of London, travelling along the countryside, watching the cows in the fields and the triffidous electricity pilons stacking the distance, it meant for a relaxation. I took books and newspapers but was happy to look out of the windows, into the distance.
The reason that I travelled to Grimsby was that I had been invited to give the 'key note' address to Workwise Women, an organisation started by the effervescent Lindsay and the more calming Sarah. It's a networking group of women in business, law, writing, the media and designers. I really enjoyed it. Don't think that my address was really the best but I read the first chapter of my book and sold a good many copies. Fifty ladies who sat silent and still while I read to them.
Otherwise all that's been newsworthy is the snow that has crippled London and the rest of the country. I'm baffled by our authorities here. They don't grit the pavements and the paths, so that we're all at liberty to break our necks but close the parks and playgrounds, on health and safety reasons, so that the kids can't throw snowballs at each other. The buses stopped - so that the drivers could also throw snowballs at one another - and the trains didn't budge out of their sidings, presumably because they might get wet! Was it the wrong snow, for a change? No, just too much of it! They only knew about if for a good week beforehand. This country is slowly, silently, going down the loo.
Zach took the dog for a walk this afternoon. They both came back with icy feet. Zach's still good. He has his first gig with his new band this week. I'll keep you posted.
UNWRA finally admitted today that Israel didn't attack the school in Gaza where they said that forty-three children died.
Hamas has executed over 150 Fatah members for 'collaboration.'
750 of the so-called 'civilians' were Hamas members. Children as young as twelve with missiles and RPGs strapped to their backs.
Women wearing 'suicide' belts who ran at soldiers.
Children armed with detonators.
Old people mined to bombs.
Just thought that I would keep you up to scratch.
Friday, 23 January 2009
The Spineless Spanish and The Holocaust
Looks like there's a kitten among the pigeons. Glad to see that some people read this blog and that those who do have an opinion. It's a democracy. You're entitled to believe what you do but it would be nice if there was balance.
Balance. That's a good word. Don't see much of it in the media here, do we? Don't see much comprehension of facts and history and we certainly don't see an understanding of words. Semantics? Maybe not semantics, per se.
So many words have been thrown around recently. Like genocide and holocaust. It made me think. So far as I know, teaching The Holocaust is compulsory in this country. It has been for a number of years now. Children are taken on fact finding missions to Holocaust museums. They have Holocaust survivors come in and talk with them, explaining to them what it was like during The Holocaust. Movies have been made: 'Schindler's List', 'Life is Beautiful', 'Sophie's Choice', 'The Pianist.' Coincidentally, the BBC just ran a new dramatisation of 'The Diary of Anne Frank.' Indeed, that very same book is among the highest selling books in the world.
So if all the above is true and people are being educated, why is it that they don't really know what genocide means and, more specifically, what The Holocaust entailed? Can Gaza really be described as being analogous to the Warsaw Ghetto? Let me just give you an idea what Polish ghettos were really about:
"During Spring 1940, the Nazis plundered and isolated the 1.5 million Jews they ruled over, before herding them into 'ghettos'. The method was always the same. Jews were registered and their property was confiscated and the Jews were forced into Jewish designated areas. Crammed into these specially designated ghettos, the Jews were prey to disease and starvation. The old, sick and poor were hit first. From January 1941 to July 1942 about 500,000 Jews died of sickness or malnutrition in the Polish ghettos." [David Ceserani. 'The Holocaust']
Having been privy, therefore, to all this so-called education, many movies and copious television productions, why is it that no-one understands what a genocide really is? Or is it that they really do understand but that they have deluded themselves to these facts? Why is it that when the Sudanese blast the hell out of Darfur and kill hundreds and thousands of people, that everyone isn't out in the streets calling for the Sudanese government to do something? Or that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where men, women and children are being burned alive, that no one at the UN calls this a 'crime against humanity.'? Why these double-standards? It can only ever lead to one thing. And we all know what that is, don't we?
Yesterday, the Catalan government in Barcelona decided to cancel Holocaust Memorial Day. They felt, they said, that while a holocaust was taking place in Gaza, they could not commemorate the deaths of six million Jews. In Gaza there is now a dispute as to how many people - mostly gallant terrorists in their jeans and t-shirts, and the wretched women and children human shields - lost their lives in this latest conflict. The number has now been downsized to about five to six hundred. It's a bit different to six million. Isn't it?
Balance. That's a good word. Don't see much of it in the media here, do we? Don't see much comprehension of facts and history and we certainly don't see an understanding of words. Semantics? Maybe not semantics, per se.
So many words have been thrown around recently. Like genocide and holocaust. It made me think. So far as I know, teaching The Holocaust is compulsory in this country. It has been for a number of years now. Children are taken on fact finding missions to Holocaust museums. They have Holocaust survivors come in and talk with them, explaining to them what it was like during The Holocaust. Movies have been made: 'Schindler's List', 'Life is Beautiful', 'Sophie's Choice', 'The Pianist.' Coincidentally, the BBC just ran a new dramatisation of 'The Diary of Anne Frank.' Indeed, that very same book is among the highest selling books in the world.
So if all the above is true and people are being educated, why is it that they don't really know what genocide means and, more specifically, what The Holocaust entailed? Can Gaza really be described as being analogous to the Warsaw Ghetto? Let me just give you an idea what Polish ghettos were really about:
"During Spring 1940, the Nazis plundered and isolated the 1.5 million Jews they ruled over, before herding them into 'ghettos'. The method was always the same. Jews were registered and their property was confiscated and the Jews were forced into Jewish designated areas. Crammed into these specially designated ghettos, the Jews were prey to disease and starvation. The old, sick and poor were hit first. From January 1941 to July 1942 about 500,000 Jews died of sickness or malnutrition in the Polish ghettos." [David Ceserani. 'The Holocaust']
Having been privy, therefore, to all this so-called education, many movies and copious television productions, why is it that no-one understands what a genocide really is? Or is it that they really do understand but that they have deluded themselves to these facts? Why is it that when the Sudanese blast the hell out of Darfur and kill hundreds and thousands of people, that everyone isn't out in the streets calling for the Sudanese government to do something? Or that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where men, women and children are being burned alive, that no one at the UN calls this a 'crime against humanity.'? Why these double-standards? It can only ever lead to one thing. And we all know what that is, don't we?
Yesterday, the Catalan government in Barcelona decided to cancel Holocaust Memorial Day. They felt, they said, that while a holocaust was taking place in Gaza, they could not commemorate the deaths of six million Jews. In Gaza there is now a dispute as to how many people - mostly gallant terrorists in their jeans and t-shirts, and the wretched women and children human shields - lost their lives in this latest conflict. The number has now been downsized to about five to six hundred. It's a bit different to six million. Isn't it?
Monday, 12 January 2009
ISRAEL'S INSANE VILIFICATION BY THE SO-CALLED 'PRO-ISRAEL ' MEDIA
Isn't it weird? The Jews, according to so many enlightened souls, 'run' the media. Really? One wouldn't have thought so over the last three weeks. If anyone would have said that during these hysterical times, then you would have thought that they were deluded. But they still promote those views. You only have to read the comments on the BBC Have Your Say website. Still, if you read what's actually called 'comment' you can only be aghast at the sheer ignorance and bias of most of the posters. What's the BBC's machiavellian pursuit in this? And The Independent and The Guardian and, let's be honest here, most of the other 'free' press here in the West. To promote anti-Semitism?
The insanity of the commentary within media circles has now encompassed what I thought that I would never, in my lifetime, have to experience: Jews are the new Nazis. Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto. There is a 'genocide'; a 'holocaust'. (I won't even put that in capitals). Apart from being the gravest of insults to those Jews and non-Jews extant who experienced the Holocaust, it just demonstrates the on-going hatred towards Jews from the liberal Left as well as extremist (and not so extremist) Muslims.
I was going to write more of this and then I was sent the following essay. It's written by Professor Chaim Harari, former President of the Weizmann Instititue of Science. Maybe one day the Palestinians will consider the value of life, create something that is not a cult of death and as wonderous as the Weizmann Institute.
The insanity of the commentary within media circles has now encompassed what I thought that I would never, in my lifetime, have to experience: Jews are the new Nazis. Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto. There is a 'genocide'; a 'holocaust'. (I won't even put that in capitals). Apart from being the gravest of insults to those Jews and non-Jews extant who experienced the Holocaust, it just demonstrates the on-going hatred towards Jews from the liberal Left as well as extremist (and not so extremist) Muslims.
I was going to write more of this and then I was sent the following essay. It's written by Professor Chaim Harari, former President of the Weizmann Instititue of Science. Maybe one day the Palestinians will consider the value of life, create something that is not a cult of death and as wonderous as the Weizmann Institute.
A View from the Target Zone
Haim Harari
January 2009
These words are written a short distance away from the most northern hit, so far, of the Hamas missiles, which are methodically aimed only at civilian population in Israel. You may refer to this message as "A View from the Target Zone".
For eight years, approximately 5000 rockets have been sent deliberately into Israeli population centers, by the Hamas terrorists. The rockets are extremely inaccurate. The good news is that they often hit an empty field. The bad news is that, when they do hit buildings and people, they kill, maim and destroy. It is a very ugly game of Iranian Roulette.
But the most significant fact is that the undisputed purpose of the rockets is to kill civilians in a random manner. Since they miss entire towns, they could not possibly be aimed at military or strategic targets. No claim is made by the Hamas of anything other than a deliberate attempt to kill civilians within Israel. The world knows about the rockets but rarely mentions that they are aimed only at the civilian population and at nothing else.
The Hamas consistently refers to Israel itself as "the occupied territory". It refers to any town in Israel as an "illegal settlement". Its declared aim is to destroy Israel. It has proudly endorsed, initiated and sent numerous suicide murderers into Israeli buses, supermarkets, shopping malls, weddings and other crowded places. It explicitly states that it will continue to do so. Since Israel succeeded in preventing the suicide murders by a combination of the protective wall, other defensive measures and good intelligence penetration, the missiles became the preferred way of killing Israeli civilians.
Hamas is declared to be a terrorist organization, not only by Israel, not only by the US, but also by the European Union, who is not suspected of being pro-Israeli. This is the same European Union that refuses to label the Hizbullah as a terror organization, but repeatedly and officially declares the Hamas as such. Hamas is fully funded and largely controlled by Iran, a country openly and totally committed to the destruction of Israel, while continuing to enjoy trade with much of the western world.
The Hamas media, and especially its independent TV station, carry daily children programs (including programs for kindergarten age) depicting the Jews (and not only the Israelis) as pigs, dogs, scum of the earth and creatures that must be killed. One of these program features a rabbit which eats Jews. There is plenty of documentation of these programs, including animations and programs with child presenters. Major western news media never report on this phenomenon, while some of them publish op-ed pieces by declared Hamas leaders.
The favorite hour of launching the daily Hamas rockets during the last eight years was 7:45 in the morning, but only on weekdays. Why? Because this is the time in which the streets are full of Israeli children, on their way to school. No one wants to waste rockets when no children are in the streets, during the weekend.
Eight year old children in the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles from the Gaza border, live, since they were born, with these rockets. They know no other life. When the alarm sounds, they have exactly 15 seconds to reach an improvised cover. Eighth grade children, age 13, have never gone to school, since kindergarten, without the real threat of having a rocket hit them on the way. Their parents have never felt safe about sending their child to school. It is very difficult for anyone living in a normal safe place, to imagine what it means to send your child to school, every single day, for eight years, with the fear that he or she may never reach school because of a missile attack, aimed at killing the children. The world seems to accept this.
Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip in 2005. Not one Israeli soldier or civilian remained there. Everything was ready for the people of Gaza to start a new life and economic development. There was no blockade, border crossings were open. Instead came increased shooting of rockets into Israel, a Hamas coup, throwing Fatah Palestinians from roofs of buildings to their death and torturing their own people in their prisons. It is regrettable that Israel did not react with full force to the very first rockets after its withdrawal from Gaza, but there was always the naïve illusion that perhaps talks, discussions, verbal threats and temporary closings of the border crossings, might do the job. What Israel did not take into account was that Iran, directly or through Hizbullah, was paying the Hamas operatives, per rocket launch.
Through the elaborate system of tunnels dug by the Hamas under the Gaza-Egypt border, thousands of tons of explosives and larger and better Iranian missiles have been continuously smuggled into Gaza. The Israeli Government stupidly agreed in mid 2008, to a six-month cease fire. During the "mock cease fire", many rockets were launched into Israel by a variety of real and fictitious Palestinian organizations, with a clear Hamas sub-license, pretending that the Hamas itself is observing the cease fire.
In the meantime, the Hamas could successfully prepare for the next round. It acquired Iranian rockets that were equally inaccurate, but carried larger warheads, had a longer range and contained numerous tiny still balls, in order to increase the civilian casualties over a larger radius. Again, the inaccuracy of the rockets guaranteed that they could only be sent into random civilian targets. But now the rocket range covered a population of close to one million Israelis and the damage is much more significant.
Larger and better rockets were now stored in mosques, schools, hospitals and normal apartment buildings. Mortars were added to the menu of shooting at Israeli civilians. Schools financed by the UN were used in order to launch mortar shells and missiles. The greenhouses left intact by the withdrawing Israelis were destroyed, their metal parts were converted to primitive rockets and their locations became favorite launching areas. Launching rockets at the Israeli population brings a much better income than growing strawberries and flowers in greenhouses.
Whenever Israel opened the border crossings to supply Gaza with basic food and fuel, the Hamas was attempting to blow up the crossing points. Providing too much food and fuel would disturb the flourishing black market totally controlled by the Hamas chiefs and their allies. It would also spoil their propaganda machine. Most supplies were transported through the tunnels from Egypt, under Hamas auspices, creating a lucrative business for the Hamas "families".
The absurd notion that Israel must supply fuel, electricity, food and medication to an outlaw region controlled by a terror organization, became a permanent mantra in the western media. Israel was supposed to provide the Hamas with raw materials for the rockets launched at its citizens, with electricity for the machinery used to produce these rockets, with food for its designers and manufacturers, and with building materials in order to construct safe bunkers for the Hamas leadership under schools and hospitals. On one hand the Hamas was claimed to have been the legitimate democratically elected government of the majority of the population and on the other hand the population, that allegedly elected these thugs, was declared innocent and suffering. The inconsistency was never pointed out.
Once the border crossing was closed, as a result of the repeated Hamas attacks, the international game of a "humanitarian crisis" was successfully played, with full cooperation of the western media. Famous incidents included photographs of poor Gaza residents with candles and (allegedly) no electricity, staged behind black curtains in full outside daylight (visible through cracks between the curtains). Most western media happily used these fake pictures and, when the lie was exposed, never mentioned it. Hamas leaders were never lacking food, fuel, electricity, luxurious private vehicles and all amenities of well to do black market profiteers.
Very few western journalists remained in Gaza, after several were kidnapped by the Hamas. Almost all reports to western media come from Palestinians, who are either sympathetic to Hamas, or afraid of it, or openly active in its ranks, or all of the above. The reader of the New York Times, or the viewer of a European TV network, never notices who provides him or her with the news. All photographs, both stills and videos, are provided by Palestinian operatives, who would stop at nothing in order to support the propaganda machine. On western TV, Hamas rockets are launched only from empty fields, never from a school or a crowded neighborhood, as it is in real life.
United Nation sources in Gaza are often quoted, condemning Israel for the "Humanitarian Crisis". But these sources are normally employees of UNRWA, the UN agency that, since 1948, makes every effort to perpetuate the "refugee" status of the great-grandchildren of the 1948 refugees. The grandparents of these "refugees" were displaced 60 years ago by a distance of a 20 minute drive and were never resettled because they were receiving free food from the UN. The UN objected vehemently to any attempt at settling the refugees, their children and grandchildren. The few real refugees, who remain alive today, and are 80 year old, were 18 year old when they were displaced. All the terrorists are third or fourth generation "refugees" held as such, courtesy of UNRWA.
These UN organizations employ, by their own admission, numerous active Hamas members. When the latter make statements on behalf of "UN sources in Gaza", the Palestinian journalists never mention to us who these "UN sources" are. The public gets the impression that these are truthful objective sources, while being fed with standard Hamas lies. Western media never disclose to us that the jobs of these people depend on perpetuating the misery of the so-called "refugees".
A Headmaster and science teacher of one of the UNRWA schools in Gaza was a leader in the rocket industry of the Islamic Jihad, a satellite terror organization in Gaza, collaborating with Hamas. The UN strongly denied the Israeli accusations that they are employing such a person, until the man was killed by Israel and was eulogized by his friends as a leader of the Islamic Jihad and a designer of rockets.
When Israeli truck drivers were bringing the humanitarian supplies to Gaza, during the period of Hamas rocket fire, they were frequently attacked by Hamas. At least one Israeli truck driver, supplying the Palestinians, was deliberately murdered. No protest was launched by the UN. But, when during the current fighting, an Arab truck driver, employed by the UN, was accidentally killed, the UN became indignant and stopped all its "humanitarian" activity in protest, to the tune of loud denunciations from all "UN sources".
The Israeli defense forces monitor every detail of this fantasyland by using airborne drones and by a very successful intelligence penetration of the Hamas ranks. They know which apartment building serves as a missile storage place, the addresses and phone numbers of Hamas leaders, which school serves as an ammunition depot, etc.
When the six-month "ceasefire" ended, in mid December, Hamas refused to continue it, launching 90 rockets into Israeli towns and villages in one day. In retrospect, this has prevented a much more dangerous future situation. Had there been an additional "ceasefire", Hamas would have acquired rockets covering all of Israel and possibly much more accurate Iranian missiles. The Iranian supply line of explosives and weapons, together with the flourishing business of smuggled goods, went through the tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border with efficiency and regularity. Had such efficiency been attempted in improving the lives of the Palestinians in Gaza, the entire Middle East would have been an entirely different place. But, coupled with the weapon smuggling, it was essential to create the charade of the "Humanitarian Crisis".
During the current operation, when the Israeli Air Force wants to blow up a house which serves as a missile storage, Israel phones every family in the house and gives them 15 minutes to evacuate. The Hamas is then sending the women and children to the roof of the building in order to prevent the Israeli aircraft from making the kill. Israel has now developed a tiny arrow-like missile which can be sent to the corner of the roof, making a loud noise and harming no one, in order to scare away the women and children on the roof, before the real bomb destroys the missile collection or the explosive storage place. Often, the women and children used by the Hamas as a human shield, escape and the house is then blown up, with a spectacular secondary explosion of the stored missiles or other war materials. On other occasions, a Hamas person gets to the roof and prevents the women and children from leaving. In those cases, the operation is not completed by the Israeli Air Force, in order to spare civilian lives, at the risk of having the rockets launched into Israel on the following day.
Never in history, has any country made such an enormous effort to avoid civilian casualties, in fighting against murderers who target only civilians and never anything else. No one in Kosovo, Serbia, Georgia or Iraq, was offered such a courtesy by the bombing and attacking powers. This fact is never mentioned by the western media.
Many of the heroic commanders of the Hamas are hiding in the central hospital of Gaza, in an elaborate network of bunkers, trusting that Israel will not attack the hospital. Hamas spokesmen issue proclamations from the maternity ward of the same hospital, knowing that Israel will not hit them there. Ironically, of all non-Israelis, the Hamas leaders are the only ones who know for sure that Israel never deliberately hurts civilians. They exploit this fact. The rest of the world buys the Hamas lies and blames Israel for hurting civilians.
Repeated claims of "humanitarian crisis" are made from the same hospital. The doctors in charge never tell us that the hiding leaders of the Hamas are using them and the patients as human shields. Whether the doctors are only scared or are deliberate accomplices, we do not know. Probably some are active Hamas members and others are justifiably scared to speak up. We never hear a word from the International Red Cross regarding the use of the hospitals as the headquarters of terror leaders.
One of the most horrible "impartial" testimonies on the humanitarian situation, in the hospital, is delivered repeatedly to the western media by a "Norwegian Doctor" serving there. The man is well known from his 2001 interviews with Norwegian TV, in which he explicitly supported and justified the 9/11 attacks. Needless to say, none of the networks who bring us the righteous doctor, mention this. He is just "A Norwegian Doctor" attending to the wounded.
Palestinian ambulances are routinely used to move terrorists around. This has also been the Palestinian practice in the West Bank during the terror wave in 2001-2002. An ambulance is an ideal method of transporting a suicide murderer across check points. In the unlucky case that the criminal is caught, there is at least a good press photograph of the ugly Israelis attacking or stopping an ambulance. It is a win-win situation. If an ambulance full of healthy Hamas terrorists and explosives is hit from the air, the pictures are even better for the western media and for Al Jazeera.
Several Hamas leaders are moving around Gaza surrounded by children, and often holding a child on their arms. There are well documented cases in which Hamas terrorists were pulling reluctant children by their ears to accompany them when they move from one building to another. None of this is mentioned by the western media.
Several Mosques, which were used as ammunition dumps, were destroyed by Israel. In every one of these cases, the air photographs showed a primary explosion, from the air missile or bomb, and a much bigger secondary explosion, from the stored missiles or other explosives in the mosque. The secondary explosion is an absolute clear proof of what was hidden at the mosque. The normal beautiful carpets in a mosque would not create a secondary explosion. Western media have these videos, but rarely show them or mention their existence.
But the same western media repeatedly show the pictures of injured or dead children, some of whom were indeed accidentally injured or killed by the Israeli attacks on military and terror targets, and some are obviously fake pictures with red paint smeared on children faces. At least in one case, the same child, obviously painted and not injured, has been paraded in front of various TV cameras by several different men, each declared to be his father by a different network.
Children and innocent civilians are, indeed, killed and injured, in spite of all the enormous precautions and efforts of the Israeli forces. This is truly tragic. But the only alternative for Israel is to sit still, absorb the thousands of missiles on its civilian population and wait for bigger, deadlier and longer range missiles to start destroying everything in Israel. Israel is offered a choice between a complete national suicide, on one hand, and an attack on the terrorists, with extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties, but with the knowledge that such casualties must occur when the other side is using children as human shields, storing explosives in mosques, shooting mortars from schools and hiding the perpetrators in hospitals.
Most Hamas terrorists hide in safe bunkers, leaving their families in the war zone. They are happy to fight to the last Palestinian civilian, not to the last Hamas terrorist. Women and children are moving within the battlegrounds, with Hamas snipers shooting, using them as cover. The women and children are not allowed into the limited space of the Hamas bunkers. More than once, a woman is observed carrying a suicide belt. Israeli soldiers, who are trying to help these women to move safely away from the fighting area, are at a very serious risk of a suicide murder.
When the Hamas terrorists are killed, they are counted by the "UN Sources" as civilians. That is how the "UN sources" reach the huge numbers of dead civilians they are reporting. Interestingly, Al Jazeera almost never shows dead bodies of young males, and the western media, being fed by Palestinian stringers, follow suit.
The Hamas TV ("Al Aksa TV") and Al Jazeera show, 24 hours a day, repeated video clips with loud music, showing injured bloody children, including some body parts. Some injuries are real, some are not, but the videos are shown nonstop between every two news items. The news items themselves are often lies, but that really does not matter. What do matter are the video clips, edited like commercials, brainwashing a worldwide audience and a new generation of future terror sympathizers.
A video taken several years ago in Gaza, surfaced. The video documents an accidental explosion of a Hamas truck, carrying a large number of missiles, among celebrating Palestinians somewhere in Gaza. Many were killed and injured in this accident, and the pictures were devastating. There is no Israeli involvement whatsoever, and the event happened a few years ago. European networks, including France 2, are showing it now as evidence for the current "criminal" behavior of Israel. The French channel apologized later, but the number of people who heard the apology is significantly fewer than those who saw the horrible pictures and believed the lies. In this case, at least, the hoax was delivered by the Hamas and France 2 was apparently the victim, not the perpetrator, as it definitely was in well known previous cases.
Israel opens the border crossings daily, during the fighting, in order to provide basic food ingredients and medication to the civilian population. No one can remember such a gesture in any other war in history, certainly not toward the side that attacks only civilians and repeatedly announces that its only aim is to totally annihilate its opponent. Most of the supplies are captured by the Hamas terrorists and used for their own troops and their flourishing black market, never providing them in an organized way to the population. "UN sources" claim that not enough food is transmitted.
That the Hamas murderers use these tactics, lies and methods, is not at all surprising. That the international community, with all its investigative reporters, swallows these lies so eagerly, without exposing them, is something which demands an explanation.
Friday, 9 January 2009
THE MADNESS OF HAMAS: 'ALL HAMAS CREATED OF HUMAN SHIELD OF WOMEN, CHILDREN AND ELDERLY.' Fathi Hamad
'WE DESIRE DEATH, YOU DESIRE LIFE' Hamas
Has the world gone mad? What hysteria has grasped nations over the last twelve days that such things should come to pass? Nothing like this has been seen since the Dreyfus trial. For the last eight years, and on a daily basis, southern Israel has been attacked by Hamas terrorists. Israel did nothing. Israel waited while Hamas armed themselves – not stealthily, because both Israel and Egypt knew about it. They knew that the tunnels built under the Rafah border reached into Egypt, so rockets and launchers and mortars and guns and ammunition have been smuggled throughout the entire tunnel system since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Once the ‘ceasefire’ was pulled by Hamas in December, their militants then indiscriminately fired yet more and more missiles and Israel finally decided that enough was enough. Enough of Israelis living in bunkers. Enough of children traumatised. Enough of animals being slaughtered. Hamas and the rocket launches had to be stopped. Logical, one would think. For any other country, this patience would have been deemed to be commendable. The international community would have agreed. Yes, you have to act now!
But having gone into Gaza, where Hamas terrorists blatantly make it their policy to hide behind women and children, who then get caught – intentionally by Hamas – in the crossfire, the world weeps bitter tears at the ‘civilian casualties’ and the ‘disproportionate’ response of the Israelis. Why is it always Israel that the world claims uses ‘disproportionate’ response? What would another country have done?
Now the voices are clamouring. The websites are buzzing. The newspapers are braying. A ‘genocide’; a Palestinian ‘holocaust’; the Israelis are 'brutes'. Hitler should have finished them off say the placards. Jews are beaten up in the streets of London; Synagogues are set alight in Britain and France; pro-Israeli supporters are attacked in Belgium and Norway.
Who is doing the attacking? Why are they attacking? Why is the media so vitriolic towards Israel? Why are the UN, UNWRA, the ICRC and all and every NGO so passionately against Israel? Of course you’re not allowed to explain why. It’s all so un-PC. The liberals mouth it. The Guardianistas sneer it: ‘Don’t call it anti-Semitism. It’s just the Zionists we hate. Not Jews. Some of our best friends are Jews…’ ‘Pity the poor Palestinians…’
Israel is now going to be forced into a ceasefire with a terrorist organisation, not a member of any government and the UN is going to give Hamas credence as if it were. Why? Why are the UK and France and the EU so intent on Israel being subjugated by a murderous, nihilistic entity bent on the destruction of Israel? Because 700 people have died as a result of the very same murderous, nihilistic Hamas using its civilians as cannon fodder? Because Palestinian lives are worth more than Israeli ones?
The paradox is that having voted for this murderous creed, the world doesn’t believe that the Palestinians should be the ones to bear the blame for the war that they have brought upon themselves. For this, Jews are being attacked worldwide and Israel will stymied in its pursuit of the aggressors in these hostilities. It goes without saying, therefore, that the next time that rockets are fired from Gaza, they will hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa and the anti-Semitic world will stand on their roofs, shouting in glee, and throw sweets at one another.
Has the world gone mad? What hysteria has grasped nations over the last twelve days that such things should come to pass? Nothing like this has been seen since the Dreyfus trial. For the last eight years, and on a daily basis, southern Israel has been attacked by Hamas terrorists. Israel did nothing. Israel waited while Hamas armed themselves – not stealthily, because both Israel and Egypt knew about it. They knew that the tunnels built under the Rafah border reached into Egypt, so rockets and launchers and mortars and guns and ammunition have been smuggled throughout the entire tunnel system since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Once the ‘ceasefire’ was pulled by Hamas in December, their militants then indiscriminately fired yet more and more missiles and Israel finally decided that enough was enough. Enough of Israelis living in bunkers. Enough of children traumatised. Enough of animals being slaughtered. Hamas and the rocket launches had to be stopped. Logical, one would think. For any other country, this patience would have been deemed to be commendable. The international community would have agreed. Yes, you have to act now!
But having gone into Gaza, where Hamas terrorists blatantly make it their policy to hide behind women and children, who then get caught – intentionally by Hamas – in the crossfire, the world weeps bitter tears at the ‘civilian casualties’ and the ‘disproportionate’ response of the Israelis. Why is it always Israel that the world claims uses ‘disproportionate’ response? What would another country have done?
Now the voices are clamouring. The websites are buzzing. The newspapers are braying. A ‘genocide’; a Palestinian ‘holocaust’; the Israelis are 'brutes'. Hitler should have finished them off say the placards. Jews are beaten up in the streets of London; Synagogues are set alight in Britain and France; pro-Israeli supporters are attacked in Belgium and Norway.
Who is doing the attacking? Why are they attacking? Why is the media so vitriolic towards Israel? Why are the UN, UNWRA, the ICRC and all and every NGO so passionately against Israel? Of course you’re not allowed to explain why. It’s all so un-PC. The liberals mouth it. The Guardianistas sneer it: ‘Don’t call it anti-Semitism. It’s just the Zionists we hate. Not Jews. Some of our best friends are Jews…’ ‘Pity the poor Palestinians…’
Israel is now going to be forced into a ceasefire with a terrorist organisation, not a member of any government and the UN is going to give Hamas credence as if it were. Why? Why are the UK and France and the EU so intent on Israel being subjugated by a murderous, nihilistic entity bent on the destruction of Israel? Because 700 people have died as a result of the very same murderous, nihilistic Hamas using its civilians as cannon fodder? Because Palestinian lives are worth more than Israeli ones?
The paradox is that having voted for this murderous creed, the world doesn’t believe that the Palestinians should be the ones to bear the blame for the war that they have brought upon themselves. For this, Jews are being attacked worldwide and Israel will stymied in its pursuit of the aggressors in these hostilities. It goes without saying, therefore, that the next time that rockets are fired from Gaza, they will hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa and the anti-Semitic world will stand on their roofs, shouting in glee, and throw sweets at one another.
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