The Bleeding Heart Show

A jury can only determine someone’s guilt if the accused is defended as vigorously as they are prosecuted, and so as gruesome as the job is, people accused of child abuse, terrorism or rape all need smart lawyers to defend them. Even so, there is a pretty thick line between simply representing your client and trying to shave some time off their sentence by attacking the victim.

I was going to write that Colin McCarraher crossed that line, but I’m not sure he’s even aware it exists:

A barrister has caused outrage by suggesting a rape victim could not have been upset by her ordeal because there were photos of her on Facebook looking happy.

[...]

Colin McCarraher, defending, told Reading Crown Court last week: ‘What we have is a person who has post traumatic stress but is quite capable of going out and having a good time at a fancy dress party.’

Mr McCarraher told the court that although he did not know when the images had been taken, they did not tally entirely with someone struggling to rebuild their life.

Leaving aside his laughably pathetic attempt at amateur psychology (since when was Facebook a window into a woman’s soul?), what exactly is McCarraher implying here? That some rapes are better than others? That if a woman somehow rebuilds her life after the attack, the rapist should get rewarded with a lighter sentence? Was he aware, when making this defence, of how far removed he was from the rest of humanity?

The image on the left shows the singer Beyonce Knowles as she normally appears in public. The image on the right is from a L’Oréal ad campaign. Spot the difference.

Now, the company insists they didn’t digitally alter Ms Knowles complexion in order to make her look more white, and while this stretches the limits of credibility I suppose it’s possible that they achieved it through the use of make-up and clever lighting. Either way, the image on the right is vastly different to what Ms Knowles actually looks like; she appears far more light-skinned and the only way they could’ve done this is through some sort of manipulation. Since the ‘natural’ Beyonce is no slouch in the looks department, it’s natural to suspect sinister intent.

Of course, no one who appears in beauty advertisements looks natural; they’re all caked in make-up and lavished with the kind of Hollywood Superstar Sheen that apparently makes women of the world buy their products. But the problem with altering Beyonce in such a way is that hit hits a raw nerve in racial politics that effects a lot of people very personally.

It’s widely accepted that African Americans with lighter skin have had an easier ride over the past century than those with darker skin. They’ve generally suffered less discrimination and found it easier to advance in American society. To put it crudely, light-skinned blacks scare white people less.

This fact has some pretty ugly consequences. In 2006 the Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr was running for the Senate seat and doing extraordinarily well considering he’s a Democrat in a heavily Republican state. Since he had to be stopped, his enemies tried to play on the fear of miscegenation and digitally manipulate his skin colour so he appeared more black. By looking ‘blacker’ than he actually is, they tried to make him look less trustworthy, more threatening to the half-witted racists who still think that kind of thing.

The implications of this ad are slightly different, but no less offensive. By depicting Ms Knowles in skin that isn’t hers, L’Oréal have managed to imply that darker skinned women are less attractive and therefore less profitable. For a firm supposedly in the image industry, this is an astoundingly stupid thing to do, and any negative effects on their brand would be richly deserved.

You’ll all know by now that policies are complicated things. They use Big Words and Complicated Jargon. They come in large PDFs, and not only do you have to read the whole thing, but you’ll need access to other reading materials to make sure you understand context, history and competing points of view. Phew, that’s enough to work anyone into a sweat - thank God no one actually writes about policy anymore!

Well, one brave woman still does. Ever the wonk, Melanie Phillips has forensically studied the details of the proposed changes in murder law and, for her policy-averse readers, managed to summarise it in just 34 words. To quote The Knowing One, the proposals:

as far as I can see, will mean that if a woman kills her husband she will get away with it whereas if a man kills his wife he will be convicted of murder.

See, before I read this, I was just being spoon-fed lies by demonic feminists who had me thinking the aim was - among other things - to remove the provocation defense so you couldn’t claim ’she made me go to Matalan! And my mother-in-law’s such a bitch!’ as an excuse for murdering your partner. But no, apparently that’s just a smokescreen to allow more women psychopaths to roam the streets.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, there are lots of well-educated people who disagree with her - Harriet Harman, Baroness Scotland, Geoffrey Robertson QC and the solicitor who founded Justice for Women - and all of these people have a considerable amount of experience in practicing law, whilst Mel is but a meagre journalist who studied English at Oxford. But you, dear reader, would be forgetting Law of Melanie # 49: Just like with that MMR thing, if lots of well-qualified experts disagree with you, that simply means they’re all wrong.

Update: Turns out it’s also possible for very smart people to disagree with these proposals and still stop short of saying it’ll allow women to murder with impunity. Perhaps he just didn’t read the fine print as clearly as our Mel.

So why did the Mail print an article on stalking a 17-year-old which featured such a BASIC SPELLING ERROR?

As a journal of investigative journalism, The Daily Mail should ‘no’ better than to commit such an orthographical faux pas.

Someone’s ignorance is showing…

For pretty much his entire career, John Lydon’s personified the very worst side of punk: the arrogance, the petulance, the needless, unthinking aggression. All of which you can get away with, I suppose, when you’re on the sunny side of 30. But when you carry this behaviour on to the age where your bus pass is but a few years away, you just seem like a twat who’s a bit short on class, manners and dignity.

I haven’t a clue whether Lydon racially abused Kelle Okereke, but I’d bet a large sum of money that he abused him. It’s just his way. Check out the astonishing self-regard in this statement:

Lydon responded: “We are in the middle of a wonderful tour. After 30 years we are achieving a true unity in our audience. They are multi-varied, all ages, all races, creeds and colours. When you are at a festival with bands who are jealous fools, lies and confusion usually follow.”

[...]

He added: “Grow up and learn to be a true man. When you have achieved as much as I have, come back and talk to me.

*Whispers*

Pssst, Mr Rotten!! You’re a has-been punk on the wrong side of 50 who’s fluffing-up his retirement fund by touring that one successful record you made in the 70’s! At this point, you’re not in any position to lecture someone on either maturity or achievement…

…is really just like any other day:

A TERRIFIED woman fled from her violent boyfriend by climbing between the balconies of a Huddersfield block of flats, a court heard yesterday.

Steven Davies, 34, was seen on CCTV equipment hitting Fiona Murphy in a lift as they made their way back to the fifth-floor flat they shared at Holme Park Court, Berry Brow, last August.

[...]

“Shortly after that the woman saw the complainant drop down on to her balcony from the flat above,” said Mr Newman. “When she was first seen, the complainant had blood on her clothing and her hands and was visibly distressed.”

In a later statement the complainant described how Davies had attacked her with a piece of wood in the flat and had threatened her with a knife. Mr Newman said: “In fear she had run on to the balcony and had attempted to climb down to escape from him.

“She said as she was just climbing down the defendant struck her left hand with a hammer.”

The court heard that the hammer had struck the complainant on the little finger, but as a result of the attack she had also suffered fractures to her left wrist and a small bone in her left hand. She also had a cut to her head, black eyes and other cuts, abrasions and swellings.

That’s not an easy climb at the best of times, and I don’t suppose being beaten, threatened with a knife and hit with a hammer would really qualify as ‘the best of times’. Get that descent wrong and you’ll fall & break something. If you’re lucky.

Irony alert: an affiliate of Hamas sues Harry’s Place for implying that he is ‘anti-semitic and hateful’. This is just bad etiquette; what you’re meant to do when dissed online is start your own blog and devote all your time and energy to fighting one almighty blogwar. Suing is just so… old media.

This, from the Hamas covenant, is quite amusing. It helps if you read it whilst putting on a sinister voice:

For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others.

[...]

And now, in their greatest-ever victory, these evil-doers even control the blogosphere! We must respond by sending an army of keyboard warriors to leave troll comments on their blogs!*

You can read up on the whole sorry saga here and show some love if you’re so minded. I’d be fibbing if I said it was one of my favourite places on’t interwebs, but this Sawalha character sounds like he’s trying to bully his way out of scrutiny and such behaviour should be deplored.

*Yeah, I might have invented that last part. Still, Hamas is going to need to update this piece of paper one day, and it’s only right that they mention the harm done by Zionist bloggers, what with all those devastating words, pictures & hyperlinks.

Or why it’s never a good idea to manipulate news feeds to fuel your readers’ bigotry.

If you ever meet an anti-gay Christian who insists they’re not obsessed with The Gays, you’d do well to show them this.

We have the answer:

Setting outrage aside for a moment - when an ex-lobbyist who’s previously worked for dictators remarks that a terrorist attack might be really good for the guy he wants to be president, you really do wonder whether we’re now living in an extended episode of 24.

Update: Matthew Yglesias:

Charlie Black’s statement that “certainly it would be a big advantage to” John McCain for American civilians to be slaughtered by international terrorists helps bring to the surface the central paradox of our times. How reasonable is it to trust that a political movement will bring safety to the country when they themselves believe that doing so would ill-serve their interests? Insofar as representative democracy works as a system of government, the general idea is that politicians expect to be rewarded for good stuff happening and punished for bad stuff happening, and thus make some effort to try to see that good stuff rather than bad stuff happens. The post-9/11 GOP upends that relationship, and you repeatedly see instances of conservatives openly yearning for disaster to strike on the theory that that’ll show the liberals or boost Republican electoral fortunes.

More here

I know it doesn’t reflect well on me, but every once in a while I come across a story and think “oh, just pass me a musket and let me put ‘em out of their misery’.* Of what injustice do I speak? Follow the link. I’ll still be here when you get back.

Now, there could be any number of reasons why Ms Witkowski went on a violent rampage punched a fellow student in the face, but it’s not unreasonable to interpret that she might’ve been pissed at seeing her more slender, more conventionally attractive opponent being crowned the winner despite having been - to use the appropriate jargon - roundly whooped. At this stage we could easily reach into our directory of feminisms and condemn this boorish, male-heavy crowd for judging women on their attractiveness rather than their prowess at jelly-based wrestling.

Sure, we could say that, and we’d probably be right. But a little context is always handy:

Last Sunday’s jelly wrestling was part of a garden party organised by the Wyverns, an all-male Magdalene College drinking society, and part of a bigger tradition known as Suicide Sunday.

This year there was a blazers and bikini theme (that’s men in blazers, women in bikinis) and a jelly-filled paddling pool.

So if you’re going to attend an event organised by an all-boys club where the dress code is designed solely for these well-fed, leacherous little creeps to leer at bikini-clad undergrads, you’re not really in any position to feign outrage when the all-girl wrestling contest is judged on the basis of which competitor most successfully stirs their loins.

Sure, this might not have been the reason for Ms Witkowski’s punch-fest, but that’s beside the point. The point is that a ‘blazers and bikinis’ party which culminates in an all-girl wrestling competition epitomises the kind of cringeworthy sexism that’s still widespread at one of the ‘best universities in the world’ and that everyone who organised it, everyone who attended it and everyone who wanted to attend is a retrograde imbecile who should be barred from ever holding a position of power.

Of course, in 30 years time one of these tossers will probably become a Cabinet Minister, and give us many more reasons to want to reach for the musket.

*Disclaimer: The Bleeding Heart Show is a strictly non-violent blog and condemns the use of violence, particularly when using an inefficient rifle that became obselete in the late 19th century.

Guess we won’t have Kelvin MacKenzie to kick around for the next few weeks:

The Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie is now not expected to stand against David Davis in next month’s byelection over the issue of 42-day terror suspect detention, with News International executives understood to be wary of such a move.

[...]

In today’s Sun, the assistant editor, Trevor Kavanagh, moderated the paper’s criticism of Davis, the Conservative MP who has resigned in protest at the government’s proposed introduction of 42-day detention for terror suspects.

“David Davis is an ego-driven maverick,” said Kavanagh, the Sun’s former political editor, wrote on the paper’s op-ed pages. “But he has struck a nerve with voters of all parties who are fed up with acting as bit-part players in a real-life Big Brother.”

News International executives are understood to be wary of fielding a candidate against the Conservative party, which could interfere with the Sun’s policy to always back the winner of election campaigns.

Wow, Murdoch really does hate to back a loser, doesn’t he? So much for crusading on behalf of a noble cause…

Whilst on the subject of Melanie Phillips’ rather flagrant race-baiting, I made a claim that some might see as a little too polite. A reader sets me straight:

Oh, come on. She is a racist. If we had a writer, whose newspaper columns were almost entirely devoted to poorly argued rants about the danger posed by Jews, and who had published a book titled ‘Jew York’, and was describing politicians that he disapproved of secrect Jews, then we would call that writer a racist.

Such a writer would never be published in a national newspaper.

Of course, Melanie Phillips writes newspaper columns that are almost entirely devoted to poorly argued rants about the danger posed by Muslims, and who has written a book titled ‘Londonistan’, and has described politicians that she disapproves of as secrect Muslims.

But, she is published in a mainstream national paper, is invited onto Question Time and regularly appears on the Moral Maze. Therefore, it follows, that she cannot be racist.

In other news, Anton Vowl catches Mel making even crazier claims than usual.

Feel the love:

A Tory candidate at the next general election has apologised after he likened Italians to “greasy wops” during a live radio show.

Alun Cairns, a Welsh assembly member, made the gaffe while taking part on Radio Cymru’s weekly discussion show Dau o’r Bae on Friday lunchtime.

Towards the end of the show, contributors were asked to say who they would be supporting in the Euro 2008 tournament.

One mentioned that she had written a note saying “boring” next to Sweden, and “nice flag” next to Portugal on a list of teams.

When she said she had written “nice food” next to Italy on the list, Cairns said: “I’ve written greasy wops.”

[...]

A spokesman for the Welsh Conservative party said: “Alun apologised on air. He very much regrets making these comments and apologises to anyone who may have taken offence.

“The comments do not reflect his views on Italy or Italian people.”

But it presumably does reflect his views on Italian footballers, right? Well, I don’t suppose there’s any chance of Del Piero seeking to play for one of Wales’ ‘top teams’ any time soon.

We have a winner:

Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: “Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects”.

Or an ally of racists? Or merely a discredited hack who’s spent so long slurping at the septic tank of the far right that everything she says, everything she writes and everything she thinks is a slush of gangrenous bile?

Enquiring minds have a right to know!

Under the banner of Truth! Justice! and The Endless Pursuit of Fear-mongering Smears!, Ms Phillips reheats the old lie that a certain candidate for President of the United States of America is/was a Muslim. Uncritically citing one source that’s been debunked and dumped, and another by a blogger whose greatest hits include - get this - advocating bombing the US State Department, Ms Phillips suggests that Obama has been less than truthful about his filthy Muslim past and that his ‘conversion’ to Christianity over two decades ago might have been nothing but a ploy to help get himself elected:

We are entitled therefore to ask whether the Muslim world supports him because it believes he is still a Muslim. We are entitled to ask precisely when he stopped being a Muslim, and why. Did Obama embrace Christianity as a tactical manoeuvre to get himself elected?

Yep, she’s asking you to believe that Obama was planning a run for President 20 years ago!

Now, I’m not going to waste my time debunking that which has already been discredited over and over again, but if anyone’s still anxious about it, the truth is no more than eight clicks away. What I will say, however, is that it’s astonishing that a mainstream British commentator is uncritically parroting a smear that’s only being made by people on the outermost fringes of American politics.

Let’s return to our questions.

Is Melanie Phillips a racist? No. She may sensationalise the scale of the threat from radical Islam, and her work may be quoted by people who are racist, but that doesn’t mean she shares their views.

Is she an ally of racists? Not intentionally, but by spreading such smears under the guise of ‘I’m just asking in the public interest’, she inevitably helps reinforce a narrative being framed by bigots.

Is she “a discredited hack who’s spent so long slurping at the septic tank of the far right that everything she says, everything she writes and everything she thinks is a slush of gangrenous bile?”

Well, I’ll let you make up your own minds.