the postal service - 'the district sleeps alone tonight'



this song makes me cry

The only answer is to prevent those who are simply economic migrants from coming here in the first place.

from a Daily Express editorial, 23rd February 2005

Cabrera Infante, that anti-Castro, poet with Villon, tough as fuck stream of, walk among elegants and hoods, did pass recently.
didn’t know/hadn’t heard – woeful ignorance – but what landfall, a flower.
here’s to those holding up the sky

I ran the paper purely for propaganda and with no other purpose.

Lord Beaverbrook

saw a couple of exhibitions at a couple of local galleries the other day, the first being this one.
it was hugely enjoyable and had me smiling like a small child.

the second was this, a quite remarkable and sometimes complex show.

most of the critics seemed to like it, except for the man from the Independent. his lukewarm reception seemed to miss the point in attacking the obscure messages of some of the artists that he thought wouldn't trouble the regime.
with some artists facing censorship in Zimbabwe, there was nothing timid about the wall of letters to the editor that made their point from Berry Bickle, the wedding dress adorned with condoms, the photojournalism.

the world knows about Mugabe's response to the AIDS crisis in his country, that govt's take on food security, the torture camps, etcetc (apart from, seemingly, the Source magazine: the last time that rag was mouthing off about Zimbabwe, it seems that Benzino is content to sanction pieces that are so ambivalent as to be basically apologies for Zanu-PF!) and other critics who started off attacking the windy "when words fail..." line of the curator ended up in a more nuanced and appreciative position.

i suppose it's easy to be cynical.
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it's a week old but Oliver deserves a link, so too does erase with its twists, and there's Sasha with a photo of an attractive woman with fine pink hair {if not quite Carla in the Italian Vogue}.

The first forty-eight hours decide whether a minister is going to run his office or whether his office is going to run him.

Arthur Henderson.

a mate is having a do in London Town tonight that - after it has hit a pub and before it has hit a club - alights at this diner ap west {unfortunately i can't make it as i'll be spending the evening over the mid-atlantic though we did have food court falafel yesterday}.

i would say, however, to reviewer Lucy Carlyle
SORT IT OUT,
I'm confused by the presence of Sake based cocktails – what relevance to the diner thing exactly?

sake has been pretty much one of the hot drinks in the USA for ages now.
there's, like, what, about, 75 hundred different ways.
guh!
i know that...
P.S.
Pearsall on anti-Americanism in Leiden. is this a joke? sadly it seems not. man o man.
P.P.S.
yesterday in a 'hip' clothing store (all your street/edgy/urbane labels &c.) i spotted - guess what? oh you'll love this - shirts with the words 'IRA' emblazoned on the chest.
dude
it was so sweet

alas they must have been out of al-Qaeda and Eta tees but they promised to RUSH me my skinny Tawhid and Jihad ringer.
needless, i am excited.
P.P.P.S.
yes that's right
P.P.P.P.S.
NO NEVER DO THAT

It's perverse for a man who allegedly participated in horrible atrocities to come to our shores under the guise of seeking refuge in our willingness to shelter the victims of his own horrific conduct

-U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

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it was a couple of weeks ago, a Tuesday, on which Jean-Marie Vianney Mudahinyuka - also Thierry Rugamba - fired his lawyer (who had been appointed to him).
he was in court because of American immigration charges.

Mudahinyuka lives in the Chicago suburb of Romeoville and entered the USA in 2000.

Mudahinyuka might be concealing a terrible secret from his neighbours,
which is that, over ten years ago in Rwanda, he might just have been the notorious leader of a Hutu militia that participated in genocide.

prosecutors contend that Mudahinyuka used a false name when arriving in the USA and made false statements, under oath, in order to obtain refugee status.

now the USA want to come after him because of this.

the prosecution believe Mudahinyuka - who has already pleaded guilty to assaulting immigration officers when arrested at his Romeoville home and is now awaiting a February 22nd hearing to see if he can revoke his guilty plea on federal immigration charges [he claims to have misunderstood the severity of the charge brought against him] - to be a perpetrator of atrocities, including murders and rapes.
he is wanted internationally for crimes against humanity and it is expected the Americans would turn him over to Rwanda after any prison time he did in the USA.

the prosecution have six witnesses against this possible genocidaire, including one person who allegedly saw him participate in rapes and killings in Rwanda in 1994.

it's not quite Sousa Jamba or Howard W. French {probably rightly, let's say} criticising Philip Gourevitch, but it seems that in this instance attorney Patrick Fitzgerald could be the best hope for a sort of truth right now.

---

meanwhile, a week or so later in Illinois, Democrat State Representative John Fritchey and his Republican colleague Paul Froehlich were in the news due to their House Bill 312, proposed legislation that - if successful - would require schoolkids across the state to learn about instances of genocide other than the Holocaust.
the bill has a long way to go yet before it might become law, if at all. the leaders and speakers of the House will need to consult it and there have been, improbably, voices raised in protest.

A student walks away with one understanding if they think (genocide) is an isolated incident....They have quite a different one once they see that it's happened with a sense of disturbing regularity Fritchey is quoted as saying.
one local newspaper wrote that "Citing modern-day atrocities committed in places like Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia, Fritchey said it's important to teach kids that genocide didn't end for good in 1945."

some Jewish groups have raised doubts about the plan, saying it could minimise the Holocaust and suffering of Holocaust victims.

the director of the local Holocaust Memorial Foundation has said The Holocaust - that's capital-letter-H Holocaust - stands as a singularly unique tragedy in the course of human history.

it's to the immense credit of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation that their lobbying managed, in 1990, to introduce into Illinois a law ensuring all state schools taught their pupils about the Holocaust but, here, in this case, in wrongly spotlighting the Holocaust (can't everyone at least settle on three instances of genocide, three singular though equally monstrous tragedies in the last century, namely against the Armenians, the Holocaust, and in Rwanda? your list may be longer) they're frustrating what sounds like an extremely admirable piece of bipartisan legislation.

opposition from Jewish groups is not against the idea or spirit of the proposal itself - Fritchey wants language inserted in state law that makes a point about the recurring nature of genocide - but rather against the watering down of any Holocaust studies.
all the same, the Democrat Fritchey can surely be forgiven for his sincere surprise at the opposition.

would any sidelining of Holocaust suffering really occur?
that seems doubtful.

in any event let's hope Fritchey's proposal wins out in the end.

if it does, i suppose it's up for debate as to how much - in the Rwandan lessons - the roles of France and the USA in that country's calamity would be studied, a factor which is certainly difficult to ignore if you're reading the best book in English to date (afaik - although the recent Dallaire account may prove similarly shattering) on that genocide.

Bill has got a mobile and has sent some rather unusual texts. He claims to be involved in a neighbourly dispute and calls them shitmouths. He was asking after strip clubs in Manchester and informed that his brother has started frequenting the only brothel in Leigh (imagine that). Blow job for 20 quid apparently.

must admit am partial to the German version but persuasive call i spose

given i'm in particularly self-absorbed mood here's a link to my other blog, which is just genuinely very boring and a list of what booze i've had of late, that's it, very dry and solipsistic and as if written by a dull 16 y/o, but hey i started it so there we go.

Laura Cumming on actual, you know, painting, at the Saatchi Gallery.

i think Cumming is a fabulous journalist, one of my fave art hacks, yet

But it still seems a bathetic end for the old death threat, to be installed in Manhattan's Moma and inspected as an English eccentricity by the lizards of Fifth Avenue between a spot of brunch and some light shopping at Barney's

seems a bit snobbish, and i slag off Americans all the time!

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oh, and a couple of smackdowns that are genuinely deserved to graun arts correspondents if you haven't already.

firstly, The Rambler corrects Martin Kettle "on the dea(r)th of new composed music" [easy and TROOFUL conclusion: Tim Rutherford-Johnson knows more about new music/classical than Martin Kettle].

plus, there's Joe on the absurd Rap Editorial Policy of that paper.
*sigh*

the wisest and sanest thing i've read so far this year was in a recent issue of WSC [thank the gods that Britannia exports her finest football magazine] the other day.

a press review of the British back pages showed up from the time of the now notorious Spain-England friendly last year, discussing the despicable behaviour of thousands of cosmopolitan Madrilenos constantly booing some of England's black players and the pathetically limited response from the clearly spineless Spanish media.

anyway, here's a (v. rough, i can't remember) paraphrase of one bit:

'The Daily Express rightly condemned as "disgusting" the monkey noises.

However, this from a paper that the previous week had splashed the headline A GYPSY CAMP IN EVERY TOWN across its front.'

white rabbits and all that.

I'm glad Bam crashed the wedding

Love the Rooney stuff, DT will be v interested to know there was a whole double page spread of anti-Rooney chants in the last issue of City fanzine "City til I cry" which I shall of course bring to Cardiff.

As for the directional fliddery Tom, Withington NOT Wythenshawe you daft cunt. Even I would struggle to get you to Wythenshawe after 5pints, in a hour from Didsbury, as I'm sure Scott may have suspected. Tho yes was a good pub, I like Clare shouting the odds, well she'll face a good test early doors when I give her a fiver and dispatch her for the porn, we shall see.

The only chant I'll be hearing this weekend is
"Blue is the colour
Football is the game
We are the Chelsea
and winning is our aim"

Wankahs. I'm glad Martin's not getting any of this, I can see his reaction now. Windhoek if on is a defo. QPR John is man about town in ale terms.