Blacklists that should be permanent?

I had to laugh at the story today in The Guardian of the UK. Priceless! Absolutely priceless! Apparently, Google accidentally blacklisted a whole tranche of websites, some even paying customers to Google's own advertising business!

As Caroline Davies says,

'Google placed the internet on a blacklist today after a mistake caused every site in the search engine's result pages to be marked as potentially harmful and dangerous.'

Google said after an investigation of the 'Reliability' department that an engineer tried to add just one web address to the list of those deemed suspicious, and mistakenly added them all. Umm...never mind the lost revenue from advertisements, the embarrassment for such a company to bear is too much! And the fact that they even have a 'Reliability' department is somewhat amusing, too.

Personally, what I'd like to do is place all those greedy bankers and hedge fund managers on a blacklist of my own. What could I call it? The Urban Crazy Man's blacklist of greed, lovers of Mammon? But unlike Google, I'd like to keep them on the list permanently!

A response to - The Dilemma of Covering Trauma

Shaun,

many thanks for the interesting piece. You raise many important questions about the role of journalists, not just in war zones and conflict, but in life in general.

You may have read my piece earlier in the week asking the question as to whether we can trust our journalists nowadays or not, and I offered some evidence that today’s journalists are not always centered on getting at the truth, more like acting as a mouthpiece for corporations e.g. CNN and the BBC.

I often see an ad on the former, CNN, that always irritates me. It involves the senior reporter, Nick Robertson, saying, ‘As a reporter, I value nothing more than the truth ‘. I am quoting from memory here, but it irritates me because with the world changing as fast as it is, and the corporate world controlling so many news agencies and media outlets in general, truth has become a commodity’ to be bought and sold; it has been hijacked by the business elite to promote their own agenda. Read my post (’Can we trust our journalists? to see what I mean.)

You said, ‘I believe, as a journalist, that I should report the story at nearly any cost and not involve myself in any way. However, others in my class believed that there is a time where you have to throw down your pen and paper and help those in need. It is a very tough topic, especially when you apply them to real life situations.’

Do you remember some of the more famous photojournalism of war? What about the most famous ones like the photo taken by Kevin Carter in 1994? A South African photojournalist, Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer prize for his haunting photograph of a Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture. That same year, he committed suicide. You can read about it here - http://www.fanpop.com/spots/photography/articles/2845

This was immortalised in the Manic Street Preachers song, ‘Kevin Carter’, 1996.

‘Hi Time magazine, hi Pulitzer Prize
Vulture stalked white piped lie forever
Wasted your life in black and white.’

What would you have done in this situation? Would you have helped the girl first and chased off the bird? Or would you have done the same as Nick? It is a difficult question to answer as we all feel that we would have done the right thing in the same situation but know that life is not as simple as that when decisions have to be made quickly in the fast paced world that we live in. I’ll let someone else tell the story of what happened.

‘It didn’t take long for Carter to get the notorious shot for which he is remembered. Landing near the village of Ayod, Carter and Silva began work at an overwhelmed feeding centre. Carter found the scene distressing and took a stroll in the bush to calm his nerves. A soft whimpering sound caught his attention. It was a pitiful, animal-like sound. He moved towards it until he found the source. A young African girl was crawling weakly towards the centre of a clearing. She didn’t have the energy to stand and, emaciated, stood little chance of survival. If the plight of this little girl couldn’t stir the world into action nothing would, as Carter knew instinctively and immediately. He crouched with his camera, ready to frame an eye-level shot.

As he did so, a vulture landed behind her, obviously awaiting the moment of death. He carefully framed the photograph, being careful not to disturb the bird, and clicked. He waited about 20 minutes, waiting for the bird to fly off, and when it didn’t, he chased it away. Carter sat under a tree, watched her struggle for a while, smoked a cigarette and ‘talked to God’. He did not help the girl. Utterly depressed, he went back to Silva and explained what had happened, wiping his eyes and saying ‘I see all this, and all I can think of is Megan. I can’t wait to hug her when I get home. ‘ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A22083301

You can feel the man’s distress in those unforgettable words and it forces you to evaluate your own moral code. The point I’m trying to make is that, in life, we are all faced with stark choices and sometimes we become immune to the constant suffering around us; we become desensitized like the cops that you often see in US drama who are often as bad as the so-called ‘baddies’. If you’ve seen Scorcese’s ‘Bringing out the Dead’ you’ll know what I mean about how urban life drains you of all feeling and compassion. And you are right when you say, ‘I do not know if everyone knows how competitive this field is but it is a dog eat dog field.’ Trust me, most people do know and it guides them to make whatever decisions they do whether good ones or bad.

One last point you make,

‘Without people like me, who are willing to risk their lives and mental health, how would you know what is going on in the world or nation? There needs to be people out there that can report awful situations in order for there to be progress. Our nation needs to know what is going on inside as well as outside of our borders, and if that means certain people have to be a fly on the wall rather than an active member then so be it.’

This raises the question - what is progress? Are we enriched or made better as a race when we report the atrocities of life instead of actively trying to change what’s happening? I guess it’s one of those questions that, at some point in our lives, we’ll have to ask ourselves. I just hope we can come up with an answer we can live with, unlike Kevin Carter.

'After you dear boy...'

I read with interest the story on the BBC News site. It refers to the behaviour between two major western cultures whilst the Titanic was going down after hitting that huge iceberg. I think this is very instructive of cultures in general as it shows how people really are when 'the chips are down'.

On the one hand you had the Americans: always known to be confident, loud, individualistic, not frightened to do what's best for themselves; and then you had the Brits, more known for their respect for gentlemanly values, the 'old school', and 'do your duty', genteel, 'women and children must come first' type of living.

As it says in the article, it now appears to be that - '... Britons in that era were more inclined to be "gentlemanly" while Americans were more "individualist", and because of this, according to the article, many more of the Brits perished in the Titanic disaster - 'More British passengers died on the Titanic because they queued politely for lifeboats, researchers believe.' Whilst this isn't very Darwinian, ('Natural Selection' and only 'the strongest survive') it does shed considerable light on the times and on the two cultures.

According to the article, many of the British men, whether rich or poor, put their wives into the lifeboats and then went to the back of the boat to have a cigar - this is shorthand for went back to await their deaths. 'They then "went to the back of the boat to have a cigar, to stand around and be chummy, while basically the boat went down.'

Many of you may remember the Cameron Macintosh movie version where Rose's fiance, an American cad, who tried several times to get into a boat when it had been expressly stated that only women and children were allowed. At one point, he even grabs a new born baby in order to pretend that he's looking after it so he can gain access to a lifeboat. This behaviour exemplifies American's need to put themselves first and for me shows clearly how Americans have always seen themselves in the world e.g. as special and that the rules don't apply to them.



The world doesn't have to look to far back to see what has been done in the name of America - eight years of a leader like Bush, who refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol while his country was the major polluter in the industrialized world. It would be all too easy to see the greed and selfishness inherent in the Wall Street brokers who indulged in extremely ungentlemanly conduct and routinely gave themselves huge payouts irrespective of whether the company was doing well in the long term or not. When money and power are the currency of a nation, it's not long before its ignorance of problems around the world shows itself, and when the only thing it had to export was 'war', you could have been forgive for thinking the 'real' America has gone about as low as a nation can go - not only financially bankrupt, but more importantly, morally bankrupt, which is far worse.

As Will Durant said,

“A great nation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”

Whilst it has lost its place as the world's policeman, I doubt it will be long before America raises again like a serpent from the ashes - like a Phoenix, rejuvenated but unbowed - ready again to lead the world. With Obama, anything is possible because he has given everyone some magic like a genie - hope. We will now all have to see if we can 'dare to hope.'

The Man from Del Monte...he say 'yes'

Those of you who are of a similar age will remember the advertisement for tinned pineapples (or was it oranges?) It figured a man dressed like Colonel Sanders complete with white suit and black southern style tie, who went from fruit farm to fruit farm, on an unending quest for the juiciest oranges or pineapples he could find so that you the consumer would be treated to the best his company could supply.

Unless you've been living in a tent or hiding your light under a bushel for the last two years, it will not have escaped your notice that we now have a new 'yes man' and his name is Barak Obama. He has promised a lot. Here's just a brief list of some of the things he has promised courtesy of http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

No. 1: Increase the capital gains and dividends taxes for higher-income taxpayers
No. 2: Eliminate all oil and gas tax loopholes
No. 3: Eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups
No. 4: Extend child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixes
No. 5: Expand the earned income tax credit
No. 8: Include environmental and labor standards in trade agreements
No. 9: Oppose agreements like CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) unless it has environmental and labor protections
No. 12: Create an international tax haven watch list
No. 24: End income tax for seniors making less than $50,000
No. 26: Implement "Women Owned Business" contracting program
No. 27: Change standards for determining broadband access
No. 38: Repeal the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes

In addition to those above, he has also promised to open dialogue with the remaining so-called 'Axis of Evil' countries like North Korea and Iran, to restore the good name of America that was desecrated under the Bush Administration, and to make greater opportunities available to minority groups.

Can he do all that? It does seem like an insurmountable task, and the weight of expectation is carried heavily upon his broad shoulders. So far, he is enjoying the 'Honeymoon Period' (what was called 'Camelot' during the JFK presidency) and the largely liberal media of the world supports him along with the millions who voted for him up and down America. As that left wing bastion of The Guardian, Polly Toynbee says,

'So here comes the man who says he can. It's an American mystery that this great pool of genius has usually thrown such minnows into the White House. But the monumental present danger has summoned forth a man who promises the intellect, character and power of persuasion to match the hour.'

If there's one central message Obama has brought back to America, it's the concept of hope, that we should 'dare to hope' again. Remember that story you read about when you studied Greek Mythology at school? The one about Pandora's Box?

After Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create the woman Pandora as part of the punishment for mankind. Pandora had been given a large jar and instruction by Zeus to keep it closed, but she had also been given the gift of curiosity, and ultimately opened it. When she opened it, all of the evils, ills, diseases, and burdensome labor that mankind had not known previously, escaped from the jar, but the one thing that was good that came out of the jar was hope.


Whatever your political persuasion, it's difficult to ignore the tidal wave of optimism and hope that Obama has brought back to the American political system after the disaster that was the Bush years. And undoubtedly, because of that, one can be forgiven for the rampant cynicism that has resulted.


Let's hope that he doesn't become like that movie with Jim Carrey. The story centers on a man who decides to change his life by saying yes to everything that comes his way. "Yes Man" stars Jim Carrey as Carl Allen, a guy whose life is going nowhere - the operative word being "no" - until he signs up for a self-help program based on one simple covenant: say "yes" to everything and anything. Unleashing the power of "YES" begins to transform Carl's life in amazing and unexpected ways, getting him promoted at work and opening the door to a new romance. But his willingness to embrace every opportunity might just become too much of a good thing.

Hello mate...

We all know what weird and wacky extent some people will go to in order to get in the mood for loooove! Some women like to dress up in sexy undies, prepare a candlelit dinner for two, while the man buys his lady some erotic underwear and brings home flowers, chocolate, and some wine. But compared to the animal kingdom, this is all very tame indeed!

Today we learn that mosquitoes have an elaborate courtship that involves singing sexy songs to each other. In fact, unbeknown to scientists, mosquitoes have their own individual flight tone. This is a bit like an aircraft shooting by and before the sonic boom hits your ears, you can tell that it's (a) a helicopter, (b) jumbo jet, or (c) the miniature toy remote controlled aircraft your brother got for Christmas!

According to an article on today's BBC News website, 'This love song is a "harmonic", or multiple, of their individual frequencies - 400 Hz for the female and 600 Hz for the male.' In other words, when the two mosquitoes finally get close enough to each other which signals that they are potential love partners, their wings flap together in synchronicity and as the old saying goes they 'make music together!'

Whilst this is intriguing in that it helps us humans better understand our malaria spreading friends, it spells disaster for the species, especially the dengue fever and malaria carrying variety, Aedes Aegypti and Anopheles Gambiae. The reason for this is simple. If we know how they mate, we can develop ways to interfere with that mating process and ultimately either destroy the species altogether, or at least help introduce a new strain of mosquitoes that would be relatively benign towards us humans.

One way to do that is the following, as James Morgan, Science reporter for the BBC News says, 'By creating sterile males, and releasing them into the wild, females can be tricked into mating with a partner who will bear them no offspring. If enough of these sterile insects are released over a long enough period, then in theory, the target population would decline.'

Another way to lessen the negative impact of mosquitoes is to release a large amount of those which have been genetically engineered into the wild so that they cannot transmit dengue virus. However this presents a problem in that the females will probably notice that the strapping hunk of a mozzy before her, the 'creme de la creme' of his species is not quite 'firing on all cylinders'; does not quite have as much 'lead in his pencil' as first imagined. As Professor Harrington of Cornell University, a co-author on the paper says, 'Oh, they know. Believe me, they know "We see the female kicking out at the altered male, and after a while, he loses interest.'

Here's a list of my other favourite mating rituals that deserve a 'mention in despatches':

Flying straight in at number 5 in this week's charts is...

5. Sea Hares- Three’s company
Sea hares (or sea slugs) are hermaphrodites; they have a penis on one side of the head, a vagina on the other. That said, threesomes, and even chains of more, are quite common. In a threesome, a “male” would attach his penis to the vagina of the middle hare, and a “female” would attach with the middle hare’s penis. The middle one is simply the go-between, passing the sperm through to the other. (wikipedia.com)

Moving up to 4th place in this week's charts is...

4. Patient Penguins
According to canongate.net, penguins are quite monogamous. When penguins fall in love, the ‘tuxedo-clad’ couple stand breast to breast with their heads thrown back, singing loudly with outstretched, trembling flippers. Two weeks later, the male shows his urge by laying his head upon his partner's stomach. The two then find a secluded spot for an actual intercourse process of three minutes. One and done, neither penguin will mate again that year. (Must be a north pole thing. Just like Santa- only comes once a year!)

Moving down to 11th place in this week's charts is...

11. Praying Mantis- Getting Head. Literally.
The female praying mantis not only will rip the head off her mate after sex, but sometimes she will eat it during the act. Despite losing his head, he is usually able to finish the deed. I‘d assume this is why the mantis pray, at least the males anyway! (dribbleglass.com)

And my favourite...entering (sorry 'coming in') at number...1

1. Hippos- Taking care of business
Homemade aromatherapy? Hippos attract mates by marking territory - urinating and defecating simultaneously. Then, states canongate.net, the hippo twirls its tail like a propeller, spreading his mess everywhere - irresistible to the opposite sex. Once a mate is found, the pair begin foreplay, consisting of splashing around in the water (there's nothing like taking a a quick shower together before getting down to 'business'). Remember this next time your significant other knocks on the bathroom door while you are letting off a few rounds: he she may not be intent on having a Number Two; rather, they could just be turned on.

A Bailout for the USA Sex Industry...whooa...

Has the world gone mad with all these bailouts? Or is it just America? There was a time when if you wanted something you had to work hard to get it but since the Credit Crunch and the downturn in the world economy everybody seems to be turning up to Washington with their own begging bowls.

The latest is Hustler publisher, Larry Flynt, the character played by Woody Harrelson in the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and Girls Gone Wild CEO, Joe Francis who both said on Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry. They are asking for $5 billion because as he says, 'With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It's time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.'



Will they get it? Will congress think this is a serious request or a quick way to get free publicity, something both men are past masters at. "People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in the statement. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex." He may have a point here, but are people really going to be happy that their tax dollars are being spent on producing porn movies and pin up spreads of semi-clad, eighteen year old wannabes? Somehow I doubt it!

All Fired Up...

Photo credit @ The Sun

Most of you will have seen or heard about the fire that engulfed a nightclub called Santika in Bangkok over the new year. Since then there have been conflicting reports about what exactly happened that night and in particular how the fire started. One interesting individual even had the gall to suggest that the fire was largely responsible because of the drinkers having alcohol on their tables. Here's my reply to that individual which was printed in the Bangkok Post (see above for the link).

Dear sir,

thanks for your interesting article. By the tenor of your comments, one assumes you are one of the shareholders of White & Co right? The owners of Santika? I think as you have expressly alligned yourself with the owners this looks remarkably like a damage limitation exercise so nobody is going to take you seriously till you make clear your stake in all of this.

I'm afraid I find your presentation of the events of that night embarrassingly inaccurate. Exploding whisky bottles? As the main cause of injuries? You also said that there are three exits which is simply not true. To blame the patrons of the club for doing what all drinkers do (drink alcohol) is quite reprehensible, too. Are they supposed to be responsible for their own safety too while they are drinking there? Isn't that the responsibility of the management? Like Plato asks in 'The Republic' - 'Who will guard the guardians?'

For me the main cause of this tragedy is the lack of a sprinkler system, lack of emergency training for staff, poor coordination of the emergency services, overcrowding, and inflammable furnishings inside. (And yes, as you rightly mentioned yourself, people standing by taking pics that they could sell when they could have been helping people escape.)

Photo credit @ Herald Sun

It reminds me of what the accident investigators often say when a plane goes down e.g. that it was not one 'single event' to blame, but a series of tandem events that all happened together resulting in the final calamity e.g. the plane coming down.

However, in this case it is quite different in that those who knew about all the potential (probable?) problems: the lack of insurance, sprinklers, fire exits etc., had a duty to fix them, but for 4 years stood by and did nothing. As the great statesman and orator Edmund Burke is purported to have said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to stand by and do nothing". That is a completely different ball game and for me makes them utterly culpable, not just in the eyes of the law, but also culpable morally and economically e.g. for compensation purposes.

I know it won't happen till I see pigs flying across Siam BTS station, but those people should all go to a police station hand themselves in, raise their right hands and say collectively, like a Baptist choir - Mea culpa' (we are responsible for this tragedy!)

27/01/2009 - An update on this story:

It now turns out that the building was never inspected after a high ranking Thai policeman became an investor. Read the full story here - http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/10472/santika-left-alone-after-csd-officer-bought-a-stake

Bring out the tiger in you...

'Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night' are the opening lines to William Blake's famous immortal poem about the fear and absolute dread people have of that most beautiful of wild animals. This weekend I checked out an amazing tiger sanctuary in the dusty hillside of Kanchanaburi, Thailand, where one enterprising abbot called Abbot Phra Phusit or 'Chan' to his friends started a tiger sanctuary.

Chan was so worried with so much illegal poaching in the area that he knew something had to be done to protect these beautiful creatures along with many others. As he says, ‘why can't we live together...after all we all have the same blood...and it's red'...A reflection by the Abbot-Pra Acharn Phusit (Chan).


For 1,000 baht (approx. 20 GBP) you can go down to the Tiger Canyon, a strange cavernous, almost subterranean area and have your picture taken with these magical beasts of the jungle, and see the ''distant deeps or skies the burn the fire of thine eyes'.

As it says in the guide brochure,

'Since its opening, Wat Pa Luangta Bua gained a reputation as a wildlife sanctuary. It started with an injured wild fowl given to the monk by the villagers, then peacocks came attracted by the calls of by then rather large colony of wild fowl. An injured wild boar stumbled in to the monastery and the monks cared for him until he could be released back into the forest. The next day he came back followed by his family group of about 10 animals. By now a countless number of boar find shelter in the monastery. Villagers also started to bring in unwanted pets: four species of deer moved in, followed by buffalo, cows, horses, wild goats and gibbons. All these animals are roaming the grounds of the monastery freely.'

It was in February 1999 that the first tiger cub arrived at the monastery . The condition of the female cub of Indochinese subspecies (Tigris corbetti) was very poor. It was only a few months old her mother was killed by poachers near the border between Thailand and Burma. After selling the cub, the new owner ordered a full taxidermy of the animal and had her stuffed. A local was hired to do the job, which luckily for the cub he did not finish. Although he injected her in the neck with the preservative formalin, the cub survived.



But if you think that's all you can see at this amazing sanctuary, you'd be wrong. There are peacocks, wild boars, horses, camels, buffalo, deer, and even a solitary leopard.



But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this place is the fact that you can actually interact with these animals on a one-to-one level. The experience is probably on a par with swimming with dolphins or riding an elephant for the first time. It's something sadly needed not like the wrestling with alligators kind of experience that Australian croc hunter, Steve Irwin, did in his TV show and who met an untimely death by forgetting the first law of nature - don't mess with wild animals in their own habitat or they are at some point likely to jump up and bite you as that stingray did with fatal consequences.



There is definitely something magical about looking at these creatures straight in the eye and even after many of them have been mistreated by humans they are still able to let you get close to them which shows a remarkable level of reciprocal trust not often seen in our harsh world of 'work produce consume'.


It makes you realise that we have lost something vital to ourselves as a species: that union with the animals that share our planet and it's only when we pay a few dollars to go to a zoo or a park or sanctuary such as the one in Kanchanburi, that we begin to realise this.