Zombie apocalyptic, villains and a good clap

In these odd days of a pandemic, it feels as if after watching scores of the zombie apocalyptic movies we all woke to find ourselves in one. There are no aliens scouring the landscape to find human victims to enslave, torture, inhabit or exterminate but there are hundreds of thousands of us dying due to an invader nonetheless.  Those who have never had it dread catching it. Those who survive feel as if they have the mark of Job upon them. Many thousands and thousands more are alone and isolated wondering what terrible deed they’ve done to justify this dreadful visitation.

The elderly, who have lived through a World war and brought up children to adulthood, perhaps lost a partner and already cope with deteriorating health now have a new foe to face. They must isolate from the remaining ones they love. Already outcast because of the lack of access to social media connections they must feel that the curtain has fallen on any resemblance of quality of life in their final days, months or years. Elderly relatives used to put into words the challenges by pointing out “this getting old is not for quitters!” But this present landscape was never dreamt of. The newspapers, radio and TV are like sirens of disaster breeding fear and anxiety. Everything and everyone is felt at fault. Even family out of love put the fear of God in their elderly relatives instructing them to see no one and stay indoors. Everyone knows the reasons; this virus kills the elderly in abundance but I wonder for some of those frail figures hiding behind curtains in their own home or in nursing home bedrooms this present condition must seem a fate worse than death. To be isolated, alone and safe but passing one’s last hours far from all you love feels like living an unspoken tragedy. However, there is the cruel possibility that the one you love and who has loved you deeply and consistently over decades could end up alone in a hospital dying with no loving hand to hold them and that quite freezes the heart. 

There are many lessons we are all learning as we endure this present situation. Perhaps the most foul is the extremes of wealth and poverty that blight mankind. Meaning that those with money can afford PPE, clean water, soap and are able to socially isolate and have shelter, food and resources. Those who don’t find suddenly that they are uniquely vulnerable to disease, hunger and worsening conditions. Wealthier nations buy up medicine and stockpile vaccines for their own population and can view others as inconvenient or even invaders. If it was a movie we would now have identified the villains of the piece. We would loathe their selfish agenda, “Me, Me, save me!” at all costs. The mean-spirited coward who throws others at the feet of the approaching alien to enable their own escape. But we are not watching a movie we are in it and part of the cast. As usual, there are very few heroes, many villains and a huge crew of extras standing around.

So today, when the news is full of how international businesses are suing governments around the world because they have lost income during the pandemic, I suspect that some of the biggest villains have now entered stage left. No matter what the loss of life, the economic collapse, the social instability these bloodsucking entities can focus only on their bottom-line, money. While many countries are facing debt burdens that will take decades or more to diminish these selfish corporations plan to line their pockets and those of their lawyers. Their agenda is clear. It has ever been so. But in these days of a pandemic, they may have overplayed their hand. 

Do you not feel, like me, sick to the stomach that while lives are ending, families are devastated, jobs lost and recession strikes these people care not one jot? Making money is their very reason for existence and every opportunity to do so whatever the cost to humanity is justified. In the 2008 economic crash, selfish reckless behaviour in terms of investment almost brought the world to its knees. Mostly, those responsible as usual strutted away with considerable financial gain and little consequence for their actions. The world is struggling, burying its dead, while fighting to maintain health care systems around the world besieged by the numbers needing assistance. Do these corporations really think they will again be allowed to milk this nightmare for their own greedy ends? There comes a point in every movie where suddenly you see clearly everyone’s intent. You’ve grasped the storyline.  You recognise the total lack of integrity or empathy in the darkness of the villain compared to the heroic brightness of the actions of those trying to save the day. For me, today’s news made that crystal clear. The despicable selfish actions of such entities are now blindingly evident and clear.

This week 600 civil society groups in over 90 countries have written an open letter calling attention to what is now happening. Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), SumOfUs and Global Justice Now and many others have warned, at a

 “time when government resources are stretched to the limit in responding to the crisis, public money should not be diverted from saving lives, jobs and livelihoods into paying ISDS awards or legal fees to fight a claim”.

Others have pointed out that

“Public money should go towards protecting public health and people’s livelihoods, not towards lining the pockets of greedy multinational corporations and their lawyers.”

“Use of investor-state lawsuits is an attack on democracy in any circumstance. But the fact that corporations are considering suing governments over measures taken to protect human health, in the midst of a pandemic, is truly appalling.”

In case you are wondering exactly what ISDS is, The Economist in 2014 put it in a nutshell,

“If you wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Yet that is precisely what thousands of trade and investment treaties over the past half-century have done, through a process known as ‘investor-state dispute settlement,’ or ISDS.”

This is nothing new and here are a few past examples of this process in action. The Swedish energy giant Vattenfall sued Germany for €6.1 billion in damages when the country decided to phase out nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster, and tobacco company Philip Morris sued both Uruguay and Australia over government health warnings on cigarette packs and other measures to reduce smoking.  Yes, you read that right a cigarette company sued whole nations for attempting to reducing smoking! 

And who exactly benefits from these ISDS payouts? That would be large corporations and rich individuals: 94.5 per cent of these awards went to companies with annual revenue of at least US$1 billion or to individuals with over US$100 million in net wealth. No wonder then that the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz described ISDS as “litigation terrorism”.

There are other ways to handle injustice. If we look at the 2008 global financial crisis there was a nation that reacted differently to what happened.  Iceland was hit particularly hard its currency crashed, unemployment soared and the stock market was more or less wiped out.   However, unlike other Western economies, the Icelandic government let its three major banks - Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbankinn fail.  There was no buy out to support these banks. Instead, Iceland went after reckless bankers and many senior executives were jailed. 

Descent into madness and avoiding rabbit holes

Lockdown felt, at times, like a rabbit hole down which one sinks with remorseless ease.  Its progress or regress could be expressed most simply in terms of television viewing habits.  But I feared that under the surface, far more insidious changes are happening. 

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”        Khalil Gibran

It started with "Say, yes to the dress" a programme where women young and old come to find their bridal outfit in a plush shop in New York City.  There, they spend small fortunes to find that mystical dress that will transform their wedding into a fantasy story.  In the plush, spoiled environment they prance and complain and demand still more.  After a while one grows tired of their demands and expectations.  You simply become bored with their selfish absorption of how they want to look on the big day.  It is no coincidence that even the most expensive extreme dress is not quite enough and disappointment is often clear on their cosmetically enhanced features. 

Beauty and folly are often companions.                                    French Proverb

So I turned to another type of wedding outfitters.  Nazranaa Diaries offered a much more extreme range of dresses in terms of colour and richness both for brides and bridegrooms.  The vivid colours and range of styles make the ordinary bride wear very humdrum indeed.

An extra component is that the men are regaled in outfits just as over the top as the women.  It is refreshing to see men decide what suits them.

However, it is the young brides who usually dictate the colour and design of both bridal outfits.  Remonstrating with their groom-to-be about the colours of the wedding venue, their chosen colour palette and how the groom's outfit has to fit with her dress.    Her bridesmaids often have strong opinions too and the grooms are commonly paraded in increasingly bizarre clothes that are chosen for them whatever their own wishes.  It suddenly occurs to the viewer that this does not bode well for the future of the marriage.  Just once a groom held firm to his favourite outfit and his bride sulked and threatened him.  Her bridesmaid told him it made him look ridiculous.  He decided he wanted it anyway.  After a hundred episodes of hen picked grooms it was a wonder to behold.  "But it clashes with my dress!" His bride cried real tears to get her way. In the awkward moments that followed of his weeping tear-stained bride,  he fixed her with a steely glare and said: "I want this one!" I wanted to stand and clap in satisfaction.  But there are only so many Asian outfits despite the wider range of colours and shapes and sizes one can watch.  I grew weary of the expense and the shallowness of all it portrayed.

After that, I turned to the series on Big Fat Gipsy Weddings where the wedding dresses are so extreme and over the top that after only a few episodes I wearied of the excesses.  Somehow the outfits remind me of the tackiness and creepiness of Punch and Judy puppets.  I don't know why?

“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”                         Confucius

By this stage, I was sickening of the self-obsessed prancing of brides-to-be in front of mirrors and screams of "Oh how beautiful I look!"  Quite frankly their happiness neither pleased nor entertained but merely bored me.  I needed something more hard-hitting, more emotion-inducing.  I found it in the series Curvy Brides Boutique.  Here very fat brides go to a wedding dress shop in the countryside designed for the larger woman.  Instead of being disappointed at finding one or no dresses to fit them, they are delighted to find an entire shop full of wedding dresses that actually fit them.  Nearly all these fat woman hate their image in the mirror so much that they don't like looking at themselves at all.  Their humility and lack of pride are refreshing.  They come across as so much nicer people.  Modest and self-effacing.  Prepared to laugh at themselves and with the very lowest of expectations regarding their wedding dress.  They just want to find a dress that fits, that will do.  So watching them get perfect makeup and hair then being given a dress that, with corsets, creates a waist was like watching Cinderella being transformed for the ball.  A kindly, fat, lacking in confidence Cinderella that deserved to have her big moment.  The look on their faces when the right dress is found is not triumphant but emotional and tearful.  They look genuinely surprised at their reflection in the mirror and say things like "I cannot believe I look alright in this dress".  As if being hideous was their birthright.  Their happiness makes them beautiful and you suddenly see that too.  All have stories and many touch your heart.  So many have been bullied because of their weight throughout school and they speak of the unkindness of others.  One feels ashamed at the cruelty of humankind and how much damage is inflicted to sweet souls every single day because of how they look.  A large young twenty-four-year-old had donated one kidney to her Mum and had put on a lot of weight since the operation.  Her bravery and act of selflessness which saved her mother's life spoke of the quality of this young lady and suddenly you realised what a lucky man her groom was.  The compassion and kindness of these self-deprecating ladies was the perfect antidote to the self-absorption of those earlier skinny brides.

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”              Rumi

Then, I grew tired of this rabbit hole entirely and saught the light.  Watching TV is such a degrading sedentary practice in so many ways.  You spend so much time digesting stuff that is unwholesome searching for more extreme versions of what you have already seen.  Your taste becomes odder and quirkier and jaded.    I call it a descent into madness and I tell the tale as a warning.  Avoid this particular rabbit hole and choose a healthier and more productive path.  WE are what we Do.

The kernel of things

Was given a lovely quote by a friend recently.  It came at a time when illness and loss seemed to linger like Ireland’s persistent cloud cover.  I had never heard of the author a Norwegian writer, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times.  His name was Arne Garborg (1851-1924).  Here are some selections from his writings.  The first really struck home when visiting a confused relative in a nursing home.

“To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and to sing it to them when they have forgotten”

His second quote seemed to highlight fundamental truths that we all know but need to be reminded of from time to time.

“For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honour; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money.”

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times but the fact that he wrote in Norwegian and was so passionate about his local language might have played against his ever actually winning it.

I sometimes wish that nationalism did not shape our education system as much as it does.  Then, perhaps we would all be able to get to know more about the brilliant writers/poets/artists in all cultures that should be allowed to enrich our education system.  Our education would no longer be limited to geographical or national boundaries but would give our children a wider experience of this world’s true riches.


“If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?”


(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 351)

Why are the Wealthy buying all the Water?

Sometimes the immediate problem is so overwhelming that it does not allow a broader perspective. Scenes of thousands or tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe has tested the heart and integrity of many institutions. Since so many European leaders were elected to reduce newcomers to their borders, there was a major landslide of right wing groups to positions of power. Contrast that, with the overwhelming humanitarian response engendered in so many European citizens at the obvious helplessness of refugees fleeing war.  That photograph of a tiny drowned three year old on a beach in Turkey hit home. 

The media shows its ingrained amoral approach with headlines screaming, “Build a bigger wall to keep the hoards out!” or “Our Culture under threat!” The next day they proclaim self righteously, “How many more must die getting to Europe?”  Our frenetic bipolar media is driven by circulation figures and set their moral compass by the prevailing wind direction. It seems our politicians, institutions or media are not to be trusted. So perhaps a clearer perspective can be gained by examining not what they are saying but what they are doing? 

George Bush (net worth $20 million) is busy buying huge qualities of land, 300,000 acres in the sparsely populated wastes of Paraguay, in South America. His land, though not impressive in appearance, rests atop one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world: Acuifero Guarani.

Acuifero Guarani covers roughly 460,000 square miles under parts of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina and is estimated to contain about 8,900 cubic miles of water.  Other major companies are following his path, as water has been identified as a critical commodity. Wall Street banks and multibillionaires are acquiring water assets as fast as they possibly can. Philippine’s Manuel V. Pangilinan (net worth $508 million), Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing (net worth $26.6 billion) and T. Boone Pickens (net worth US$1.2 billion) are racing to get their hands on this newest commodity, more precious and vital than oil.  Legal structures are already strengthening their strangle hold on water rights. Gary Harrington’s case in Oregon is an example. He tried to use rain water collected in  three ponds on his own land ended up in prison for 30 days. Contrast this with Boone Pickens draining 65,000,000 gallons of water a year from the Ogallala Aquifer.  Note: Once depleted, the aquifer will take over 6,000 years to replenish naturally through rainfall

Those of you experiencing an endless downpour (as in N. Ireland!), are probably asking what is so special about water? Well, like most things such as mobility, health and security  it is not until you lose something that you begin to appreciate how important it is. In the case of water, man-made climate change has altered our world. To get a broader perspective we have to look at our world and understand where droughts have been happening.

East Africa has suffered from the worst drought in 60 years.  Somalia. Dibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya are suffering and the resulting disastrous harvests mean starvation is not far behind these droughts.  In Afghanistan, as a result of droughts, 60-80% of their livestock has died.  In India 130 million people have been affected by water shortages.  Iran has just had their worst drought in a hundred years.  Morocco’s worst drought in a decade has affected 70% of its arable land.  Three million people in Pakistan face starvation due to drought devastated crops.  Brazil has faced its worst drought in 80 years and São Paulo with a population11.8 million (a megacity) is dealing with a nasty water crisis.   South Africa has had their worst drought since 1992 (twenty three years ago).  Syria, from 2006 to 2011 suffered their worst drought and crop failure in recorded history.  Is the picture becoming clear?  Climate change is happening and the resulting water shortages with crop failures are destabilising, creating wars and millions of refugees.

How does the world respond?  Will nationalism, xenophobia and chaos do anything other than empower the really rich and really powerful to proceed with an agenda that beggars belief.  The gap between rich and poor has never been greater.  “Billionaires and politicians gathering in Switzerland this week will come under pressure to tackle rising inequality after a study found that – on current trends – by next year, 1% of the world’s population will own more wealth than the other 99%.” Don’t expect those without water, food or security to stay and die at home quietly.  They cannot be the price the rich are willing to pay for their bottom line.  Ask yourself, if it was your family what would you do?  Would staying put even be an option?

By not standing back to see the broader picture we can waste so many valuable resources.  When Southern and Central Somalia’s acute malnutrition rose from 16.4% to 36.4% in 2011 the world was having to spend three million dollars over five months to truck in water.  Spending only 900,000 dollars to mitigate the drought and build up water resources beforehand would have saved money and more lives.

We have an obligation to ask the larger questions.  Why, when the earth is facing global challenges  that are frankly more scary than anyone wants to admit (climate predictions) are we allowing the flames of nationalism and economic greed prevent us from finding a sensible and sustainable way forward. When people get annoyed at an influx of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia at least let us be armed with the facts behind their heartache and suffering.


1. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-new-water-barons-wall-street-mega-banks-are-buying-up-the-worlds-water/5383274
2.  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/corporations-grabbing-land-and-water-overseas/
3.  http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/drought-megacity-sao-paulo-withering-after-dry-wet-season-1244
4. http://agorafinancial.com/2015/04/24/why-did-george-bush-buy-nearly-300000-acres-in-paraguay/
5.  http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/06/global-tour-7-recent-droughts

Pills, payment and poor judgment

Clinical studies are a very important step in bringing any drug to the market. However, there are ethical considerations to such studies that have all too often been ignored. The Tuskegee syphilis experimental study was conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the US Public Health Service. Its purpose was to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African Americans in Alabama. These men were told that they would get free healthcare from the US government, they would have meals paid for and in addition to their free medical care they would also get free burial insurance. Following the Great Depression of the 1930s this was an enticing offer and 600 impoverished sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama signed up. 399 had syphilis while 201 didn't have the disease.  None of the men were told that they had the disease syphilis and none were given treatment instead they were told “they had bad blood”. In 1940 penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis but the scientist prevented participants in the study from accessing syphilis treatments available to others living locally. The study continued for 40 years and only ended on November 16, 1972 when the study was leaked to the press. By then 28 men had died, 40 wives contracted syphilis and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis. During the start of World War II, 250 of the participants registered for the draft. During their medical inspection syphilis was detected and they were ordered to take treatment before reapplying. The scientists, even then, tried to stop them from getting treatment for their syphilis. On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton formally apologized and held a ceremony at the White House for surviving Tuskegee study participants. He said:

"What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry ... To our African American citizens, I am sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist."

Five of the eight study survivors attended the White House ceremony.

Meanwhile, syphilis was also being given deliberately to some people by the US government.  In 1946, under the guise of public health, hundreds of Guatemalan prison inmates were deliberately infected with syphilis. Male prisoners were sometimes infected via direct injection—including right to the penis. Still other prisoners got sick after visits from prostitutes who were often also purposely infected. None of the research subjects were asked for their consent.  Up to the 1970’s, 85% of stage 1 clinical trials were carried out on prisoners.  This ranged from studying chemical warfare agents to testing dandruff treatments.

Some six decades later Pres. Barack Obama called Álvaro Colom, Guatemala’s president, to personally apologize for the abhorrent U.S. government–led research.

During the 1950s and 1970s at the Willowbrook state school in Staten Island, New York there were 6000 children with mental disabilities. They were intentionally given hepatitis A to try and understand development of viral infection. Consent was given by the authorities in charge of the institution. It was the biggest state run institution for children with mental disability in the United States. Hepatitis A was deliberately given to these vulnerable children without their knowledge or consent.

Senator Robert Kennedy toured Willowbrook State School in 1965 and proclaimed that individuals in the overcrowded facility were "living in filth and dirt, their clothing in rags, in rooms less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in a zoo" 

In 1996 Pfizer was sued for unethical clinical trials. During a meningitis outbreak in Africa the company treated 100 Nigerian children with the antibiotic Trovan in order to test its effectiveness.  Of the hundred children treated 11 children died, others were brain-damaged. Some were partially paralyzed or left deaf. Dr Juan Walterspiel, a Pfizer infectious disease specialist was assigned to the Trovan test and repeatedly flagged up, to management, that the company was violating international law federal regulations and medical ethical standards. 

Dr. Walterspiel’s letter to Steere, dated Dec. 18, 1997, was not well received. Among the points he made: 

“Some of the children were in critical condition and most of them malnourished, which made oral absorption even more unpredictable. At least one died after a single oral dose; such a patient should never have received an experimental antibiotic orally.”

Shortly after publishing his thoughts Dr Walterpiel was dismissed by Pfizer.

Between 1997 and 2002 clinical trials were conducted on HIV infected children and infants who were under the guardianship of New York City Agency for Children Services. The children were living in a foster care centre in Harlem and were forced to take medication that made them severely ill and had potentially lethal side-effects. New York City agency for children services provided consent for this clinical trial themselves.

In 1997 unethical clinical trials aimed at preventing the spread of HIV infection were targeting pregnant women in Africa Asia and the Caribbean. This clinical study was funded by the US government. People were randomly given placebo rather than the drug.  It was pointed out that such actions would have been deemed totally unacceptable within the US but for some reason were seemed fine for the developing world.

In case one feels that the situation today is free of such unethical practices you need only look at an article in the Lancet in June 2014 to find quite the contrary. At a clinical trial in India they were evaluating an experimental vaccine for preventing a life-threatening viral infection, rotavirus. 2000 children received instead placebos of salt water. It should be noted that two rotavirus vaccines had already been available for 10 years when this clinical research took place. In 2013 The World Health organisation published findings, which showed that 450,000 children died from rotavirus infection globally in one year. 90% of these deaths occurred in Africa and Asia.

Sometimes it is not even the drug company’s fault.  A medical trial began in 2003, when a dozen researchers at Imperial College London began trialing a new drug on 38 asthma sufferers at St Mary’s Hospital, London. Unknown to the others working on the clinical study, one of the staff, Dr Edward Erin was falsifying his data and had been doing so for years. The search for a cure for asthma left one man dead, 20 seriously ill with pneumonia and eight with cancer.

Worryingly in this world where doctors change data, pharmaceutical companies set aside ethics and governments experiment on the poor, disabled and vulnerable there is a new change in direction.  Now, that prisoners are no longer available for clinical trials, due to changes in legislation, others are being targeted.  Volunteering to undertake phase 1 clinical studies can bring you as much as 3000 dollars for a few weeks of injections and medical procedures.  In these harsh economic conditions more and more are stepping forward as drug trial guinea pigs.  Many have not thought through the dangers they may face.  In 2006 in a London hospital six healthy young men were treated for organ failure after experiencing a serious reaction within hours of taking the drug TGN1412 in a clinical trial.

‘After they were all admitted to intensive care, two became critically ill, the worst affected lost his fingers and toes, and all the men were subsequently told they would be likely to develop cancers or auto-immune diseases as a result of their exposure to the drug.’

It seems drugs can be dangerous while you design them, when you test them, after you use them and even after you’ve stopped using them! 

Hounded to death by the corrupt - Aaron Swartz a warning to future coders

The government has decided to re-haul our education system and as well as banning a lot of US authors from the English syllabus (what the hell?) they have also decreed that all school kids should be able to write computer code.  This, of course, is in the hope that, like Estonia, a bunch of these youngsters will come up with something like Skype and bring riches to the nation’s coffers.  Their present attempts to get their hands on the pensions of so many workers (See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2326105/Teachers-NHS-staff-pension-income-slashed-third.html) continues unabated but such tinkering with the education system has not a good history.  Educational reforms usually end badly.  Throwing away phonetics eventually spelt illiteracy (forgive my pun), not requiring times tables left innumeracy in its wake.  So what about code writing?  Would creating a generation of programming geniuses end well? 

Jonathan James was an exceptional programmer and became a hacker.  He was caught up in a raid by the US secret service involved in an identity theft scam of TJX.  It is unsure if he had any involvement but probably, some of his older acquaintances did.  Being raided was a big thing, as was the threat of prosecution.  Suddenly, the cool skills he’d cultivated got him in deep trouble.  It seems, behind a console, hackers like so many of us, feel that the boundaries between make believe and real life blur.  Most of us would never dream of stealing but a high percentage of us will happily download a favourite series/film and feel secretly smug and not as guilty as we should.  This weird virtual world of the web has its own laws but the general public has yet to register that this ‘anything goes’ frontier has no go areas.  Downloading the wrong images can lead to imprisonment at a time when most of the public has a naïve attitude to kids and friends using their computers, fail to install effective firewalls and have loads of unsolicited files on their hard drives they are totally unaware of.

Back to Jonathan, two weeks after that raid by the secret service, he took his own life and left a suicide note which read,

“I honestly, honestly had nothing to do with TJX.  I have no faith in the justice system.  Perhaps my actions today will send a stronger message to the public.  Either way, I have lost control over this situation and this is my only way to gain control.”

Of course Massachusetts Assistant US Attorney Stephan Heyman, who pursued Jonathan, was also the one who hounded Aaron Swartz until he too took his own life on Jan 11 in 2013.

Aaron, like Jonathan, was a technological genius.  At the age of 14 he authored the RSS web syndication, at 19 he co programmed the social news and entertainment website Reddit.  He founded Demand Progress, a group advocating against Internet censorship bills.  By the age of 24, Swartz was a Harvard research fellow conducting studies on political corruption.  One colleague spoke of Aaron’s motivation,

“What kind of millionaire founder of a tech website chooses to spend time sitting in a congressional office (as Aaron did) to really understand the work flow?  No one.  That doesn't happen.  He was a basic technocratic liberal who thought that if you worked really hard and approached a problem with openness and curiosity, then it was possible you could make life better for people.”

It was in pursuance of that goal that he downloaded academic journals from a JSTOR database in MIT.  This crime, and it is undoubtedly a crime, did not justify the 35 years and 1 million dollar fine that the US Attorney Stephen Heyman sought.

Aaron Swartz once he knew imprisonment was inevitable took his own life.  To be frank MIT/JSTOR are left tainted along with the US Justice system.  Another young coder dead, at the hands of a system that needs honest self-examination.  As long as governments enthuse about the possibility of young coders they should also be honest about the deadly big stick awaiting brilliant nerds that step out of line.  The ‘over the top’ reaction becomes even more obscene when one realises, in hindsight, that these institutions are often frighteningly more corrupt than those they hound to death. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/gallery/massachusetts_indicted_politicians/

In a bit of a sushi pickle

Was a little cruel.  Yesterday evening Daniel and I went for a walk along the sea front towards St Jullian’s Bay from Sliema.  Feeling a bit peckish we decided to get a take out from a Japanese sushi restaurant.  I knew I had 13 euros but the cheapest selection on offer was 17 euros.  So I told Daniel to go ahead and order while I walked to the nearest cash dispenser along the road to get some more money.  It was his anxious, “Don’t be too long” as I left that gave me the idea.  The walk to get the money took longer than I expected and when I returned to the restaurant Daniel looked relieved to see me come through the door.  But, his face fell when I told him,

“The hole in the wall machine took my card!”

Daniel was panicked, “What! I don’t have my wallet with me”

I complained bitterly about losing my card and Daniel pointed out,

“They have already started preparing the food, what shall we do?”

I told him,

“Look we’ll explain the situation and they’ll understand, I can come back tomorrow and pay them then.”

Daniel looked at me as if I was crazy, “They won’t let us take the food without paying!”

There was a whole table of men dressed in posh suits eating at a long table next to us so we had to whisper to keep our situation to ourselves.

We argued to and fro and he was getting annoyed with the whole mortification of the situation.  I suggested we offer to wash dishes to pay for the meal.  He said angrily that would not work.  I came up with a whole string of equally useless suggestions (including running for the door) and he held his head in his hands in despair telling me to be quiet so he could think.

When, I eventually told him that I had actually got the money from the cash dispenser the look he gave me was priceless.  Don’t even ask why I do such things.  I have completely no idea!  I laughed all the way home delighted with the entertainment and the sushi.

We are not rich by what we possess

Went for a long walk along Manoel Island in Malta and inspected the massive super yachts moored there.  As you walk along the peer the absolute luxury of these boats fuels a rage deep within.  It has to do with that excess display of wealth that is just plain annoying and obscene.  I know you are probably asking why I do this to myself or you?    But there is a masochistic compulsion to view how the other half lives in all of us.  So join me on the peer.

One of the largest is the Indian Empress, owned by Vijay Mallya it is massive and he earned his money in creating Kingfisher airlines.  

The sun deck is particularly expansive.

Walking on a little we come to the boat My Amore which you can buy for a mere million I think. 

It has a lovely broad body but the ugliest cut off nose.  When you look side on you would see what I mean.  But who cares about noses when you can have this sort of space in your life?

Moving on quickly I come to the Zarina.  It makes its neighbour seem shoddy/cheap coming in at around 7 million.  It is a different world out here on the peer.  After all even wealth is relative.

It is spacious inside too.  But the deck has that extra luxury factor that just is unfair.  It reminds you that  these people have time to eat on their deck and sit in their Jacuzzi - dam them! 

Inside the opulence continues.

I could go on and on but I have had enough of this torture.  It is comforting to think that I could not afford to fill the fuel tanks of these monsters never mind mooring fees/crew salaries.  I walk away comforted that all these monsters bleed their owners of cash and not me.  After all, in the words of  Immanuel Kant

“We are not rich by what we possess but by what

we can do without.” 

―

Money laundering - my style

Last night I was ironing and discovered a note of money in a pair of trousers, not mine, but one of my son's.  I remember my mother saying that it was dishonest to take money from your husband’s pockets.   However, she elaborated, if you happened to gave them a good shake and something fell out, then that was fair pickings!  The logic seemed sound if slightly morally flawed.  The note was crumpled into a tiny ball, deep in a pocket, and I straightened it on the ironing board.  Then used the iron to flatten it and was impressed how new it looked.  I suddenly decided to iron all the paper money I could find.  With what satisfaction I returned the crisp flat hot notes to my purse.  The thing is today, it strikes me as more than a little odd to iron one’s money.  Is this the first sign of madness or the last action of an anal retentive individual?  As I use the bills in public I’m careful to crumple the notes a little.  After all, no one needs to advertise how strange one has become to the whole world!