Archive for the ‘Crime’ Category

Tony Hayward and his sailing trip

I have been reading a lot of comments in European media about how the Media in the US is supposed to be biased about the British origine of BP by publically calling them ‘British patrol’ which is nothing less than their real name. Hell, if they ruined one of the most beautiful sites in my country you can bet your ass I would call them by their real name and a lot more. I find it weird that the government by definition seems to think that BP had the experise to solve this problem. Isn’t deep sea drilling a relatively new technique? If so, how can you say that a company has ‘expertise’ when they just started doing so, apparantly without the necissary safety standards?

To make matters far worse, Tony Hayward, amidst all criticism of handling this oil disaster in an absolutely incompetent way, decides to go on a sailing trip. A sailing trip? Yes, this ocean lover goes on a beautiful sailing trip with his son to the Isle of Wright, a very very British island with very very British people on it.

The isle of wight

Are British guys all named Tony? And do they all exhibit this sort of inexcusable level of indifference to public sentiment? If I would be an American I’d be pretty close to the ‘rabies point’, I can tell you that. This guy thinks he can go sailing on unspoiled waters on his yacht in the midst of the greatest oil disaster of all time caused by his company? Is he even sane? Is there a more typical example of the absolute carelessness of our political elites, of the absolute contempt they feel for, well, reality? These people live in a dream world at the expense of mankind. It’s about time we, the public, make companies and their leaders accountable for their actions.

Maybe its also that Europeans are horribly insensitive to propaganda in general. I dont even think it’s possible an American CEO would even consider going on a yacht trip under these conditions.

On the other hand, it raises questions about these ‘guilt trials’ in the American senate that clearly only serve the function of smoothing the public anger. It all seems to be puppet guilt – how can we take such confessions serious under these conditions? The show must go on. I just had the idea to revise the logo of BP. I will post that revision later on.

A construction worker from California has been caught in the forest of Pakistan with a sword, a gun and nightvision equipment, on his alleged seventh hunt for Osama Bin Laden. He was planning to decapitate Bin Laden once he’d manage to find him.

A newsitem that makes us laugh, perhaps. This sort of local folklore always does well in the media. But think about it: if the same guy would have been captured in the forests outside of washington on a hunt for George Bush our media would have obsessed for weeks how it was possible that this ‘terrorist’ entered the country. Airports would have been shut down, security would have been on debates for weeks.

Gary Brooks Faulkner was caught wearing several christian religious regalia in a foreign muslim country. How would you feel if a pakistani was caught in the forest of Washington, hunting for someone the Pakistani governement had declared a criminal, covered in religious koran texts? Right.

As long as we apply these double standards to our media coverage there simply isnt anything ethical about our approach of the world or the news.

As an original dutch native I am often quite flabbergasted about how our media is treating the Van der Sloot phenomenon. Here we have a guy that obviously had a lot up his sleeve in the murder of Nathalie Holloway, as dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries has eloquently pointed out in many occasions. But instead of arresting the guy or at least putting him in quarantaine somehow the guy was simply allowed to roam around. Now he has killed at least one other girl, Stephany Flores. He was arrested in Chili, on the run, and God knows what other girls he has killed or molested last years.

What surprises me, though, is the sort of media attention he gets in his native country, the Netherlands. It’s kind of the ‘our serial killer’ show, any sort of news no matter how small makes the headlines. What shaving cream does van der Sloot use. Van der Sloot was hit on his head with a plastic bag when he left the police car. Van der Sloot doesnt want a dutch lawyer. Van der Sloot wants a dutch lawyer. He seems the obnoxious central star in some entertaining soap opera for the media.

Frankly, if people would have paid attention to the ideas of Peter R de Vries none of this would have happened. But you know, this is a country that has 10 advisors for every journalist. 10 spindoctors for everyone who wants to ask questions. There is no way you can conduct a serious investigation in such a climate of denial and media entertainment.

Now at this moment all sort of obnoxious lies are smeared over the Dutch media, allegedly vented by van der Sloot himself. Stephany Flores supposedly hit him first, because he saw secrets about his past on his laptop.
Say what? He had secrets about his past on his laptop and the police didnt bother to check these out?

As Peter R de Vries wrote on his weblog: the guy just wanted money, that’s all.