All the world's a stage

Unless you have been on a visit to another planet or stuck somewhere in the the outback without a 3G connection you will know that the London Olympics has been underway for the past 2 and a bit weeks.

What would be amazing is if the athletes told the corporations where to go

From the moment Danny Boyle's opening ceremony finished until the final curtain today, August 12th, the majority of the UK has remained transfixed by the drama unfolding in the Olympic theatre of dreams. 

What awaits everyone the day after is a more sombre affair: the recession or as some are now calling it, the 21st century depression.

The Olympics has been something I have pretty much boycotted since Sydney 2000; Athens 2004 was tainted for me by drugs offenders, Beijing 2008 by human rights oppression by the Chinese authorities and their refusal to accept Tibet as a sovereign state and London 2012, a chance in a life time to witness an event this big at home marred by a terror state military presence and surface to air missiles being placed on peoples apartments in the name of safety and security. 

Despite all this, during London 2012 I have still found the earth minutes to sit down and watch David Rudisha, the 800m legend, Usain Bolt and his meteoric brilliance and Mo Farah. What it has reinforced in my mind however is the power of distraction that is television, the social conditioning box. This happened coincide with a period of time flying a desk at work, working 9-5. It has dawned on me just how well the system works for everyone except us.

This is my first blog since July 22nd, in that time plenty has happened both to me and around me to write or type until my fingers bled. War criminal Tony Blair is back working for Labour, no doubt hoping the majority of the country have forgotten about his blood thirsty ways (not me Tone). Israel continue to apply pressure on the 'good people of free nations' to side with them in a war against Iran and Syria is a basket case of civil unrest and blood shed that has led to the UK government handing the unknown rebels funding, but not arms. In the actual Olympics themselves there was of course Danny Boyle's much divisive opening ceremony and of course there was the shameless plug by the BBC during the sprint finals on Nazi eugenics, the legacy of 'super slaves' from Jamaica and why black people dominate sprinting, but that however is a story for another day, and lets not talk about the Euro Millions lottery that just so happened to roll over every week the Olympics were happening. Who runs the lottery anyway? 

Tomorrow will see us awaken to the chorus of 'Olympic Legacy' where Cameron has pledged to fund athletes up until Rio 2016 with the same backing that they have received since securing the London 2012 bid in 2005. This will be led by Lord Sebastien Coe, who has been dodging the question about removing Dow Chemicals from the Olympic Sponsor list following their involvement in the Bhopal disaster 27 years ago, in the build up to the games this year. I for one tried to email him regarding this only to find his email was bouncing back the thousands of people bombarding him on behalf of Amnesty International. 

Tomorrow however is still several hours away and the social conditioning box cannot let us go too long without being distracted in case we start to work out how badly the system has thrown us overboard. 

So it was to my shock and horror that on the radio this afternoon on the way home I heard the first football result of the season; the final scores of the Community Shield. This must also mean that X-factor cannot be far away with yet another insipid Christmas number one that has no heart, soul or meaning and more young girls will be flaunting flesh or advocating being beaten by their boyfriends. 

The power of the social conditioning box should not be underestimated; it is hopes and dreams that they sell to us through the television, that we will all one day be movie gods or rock stars, but we won't.

#BeatMe

Two young rising stars, apparently in love, and then it all goes horribly wrong for them both.

Welcome to the circus that is Chris Brown and Rihanna.

I am sure plenty of words have been spilt over the two former love birds (and it has) in the last 3 years since Brown was charged and found guilty of assault on Rihanna but the one thing that cannot, or should not, be ignored by anyone is the message (or lack of) that these two ego driven maniacs, their fans, the media and the music industry continue to undermine... violence or abuse towards women.

Is this love, that I'm feeling?

Brown has made the headlines frequently in recent weeks following his performances at the Grammy awards 2012. The only question that should be asked is 'what was a convicted woman beater doing performing at a prestigious awards ceremony such as this?'
I guess it may be difficult to come down too hard on the Grammy organisers for scheduling him when the courts saw fit to only sentence him with 180hrs community service as punishment for his assault. 180 earth hours.

It is refreshing to know that you can thrash the woman you supposedly love and still pick up a six figure pay packet at the end of the day but I am pretty sure if his woman beating shoe was on my foot then I would be facing some jail time and lose my job in the process.

After the ceremony the world of twitter was awash with tweets from both camps, but more worrying were the tweets from the Brown bandwagon with gems such as;

 "@BeatMeSenseless I'd let Chris Brown beat me up anytime ;) #womanbeater" or;

 "@Muffin5685 Chris Brown u can punch me in the face any time u want!!!! #facialsweats"
These were two of the best that I could find that could be printed in a family edition, of course there have been those who have dared to speak out against the issue, notably actor Seth Rogan who had this to say;
"You say a few hateful things (about the gay community), they don't let you within a few hundred yards of the Oscars," adding, "You can literally beat the shit out of a nominee and they'll ask you to perform twice at the Grammys.”  Rogan is hitting the nail on the head and more power to him for doing so. 


It would appear that beating women in the music industry or Hollywood is fair game but mention sexuality or Jews and you can effectively kiss your career goodbye. Just ask Mel Gibson.


This sickness in our society is not restricted to State side, it has in the past, reared its ugly head on UK shores too. Cast your minds back to the late 90's and you may recall a certain footballer and weather girl that famously hit the front page of every tabloid and magazine stand from John O'Groats to Land's End. Stan Collymore and Ulrika Johnson. 
Whilst Collymore fell off the planet for a few years only to re-emerge as a footie pundit, ironically criticising players and pundits every week on their tactics and ethics, Johnson wound her way into the bed of former England Manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson. 


The failure here is on all parties involving the Brown/Rihanna fiasco of the people that really matter; their young fans, our children. These young girls and boys see these adults conducting themselves in such ways and go on to think it is O.K. to beat each other to a bloody pulp because nothing happens? At worst you will get 180 earth hours, a pat on the back and a Grammy in your back pocket to go with the adulation of millions of young girls the world over. 
What kind of message are we sending them? What future are we creating for them?


It is never O.K. for a man to hit a woman, nor is it O.K. for a woman to hit a man. 


This is the message that we should be reinforcing to our young, especially at a time when our governments are busy watering down our human rights and tearing up women's rights. As I have written about numerous times now, domestic violence in the UK is not a violation of a woman's human rights, unless it occurs during a period of peace time, according to Theresa May. 
You may want to take a look around you if you are a woman reading this because we have not been at peace since World War II ended.


Ultimately we are all products of our environment and if our environments are going to be that of tolerating the physical abuse towards women and then glorifying it by rewarding the perpetrators with tea and medals then what hope for our young?

#BeatMe

In the past few days I have seen an increasing number of Rihanna t-shirts showing up for sale on clothing racks around the country. Someone in her position should be using the platform to do more and tell young girls, or any woman for that matter, that they do not have to be a victim of violence and that they do have a choice. As a result of this silence I have since decided to hijack these shirts and rebrand them. The above picture, #BeatMe, was taken from a shirt I purchased in Topshop of all places and has a Chris Brown signature on the side. 


Maybe someone will stop and ask me what it is about, maybe they won't, either way the message is simple; no one should have to suffer at the hands of another.






http://thisorthat.com/blog/the-fall-of-celebrity-will-chris-brown-ever-learn
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/chris-brown-can-beat-me-tweets_n_1273605.html#s692327&title=Vinci_Jacopelle