War Never Changes

In case you've missed the news over the past 2 days, I just thought I'd remind you that we're technically at war with Libya now. 

Yep, we're being dragged into a 'coalition' (once again) which aims to stop Col Gadaffi's reign of terror. Deja-vu, anyone? 

I was watching This Morning today (it was on in the gym, I had no choice), and they had a rather interesting debate going on about this. I forget the name of the man on there, but he raised the point that Gaddaffi has been in power for 42 years, and has been just as crazy as he is now and yet all of a sudden, he kills 1,000 of his own people and we can't accept him anymore. Didn't he kill 270 people from other places when he ordered theLockerbie Bombing in 1988? A further 230 people during theBerlin Diskotheque Bombing in 1986 and 170 during theUTA Flight 772 bombing in 1989 (both of which he was directly linked to)? He has supported and actively encouraged acts of terrorism made by a number of different militant groups around the world, has allied himself with political groups and individuals responsible for atrocities and war crimes (such as Slobodan Milošević), and has been responsible for attempts to radicalise Maories and Australian Aboriginals. To top it all off, he's also paid for meetings with the BNP. So now we have a problem with this guy?

It's a massive tragedy, what is happening to innocent Libyans- don't get me wrong. Everyone should have the right to protest against their government- especially one as corrupt and downright nasty as the Gadaffi regime, and I hope they get the fair and democratic government they so obviously deserve. My problem here is why other countries have to be dragged in. I suppose for the US and UK it's long overdue retribution for Lockerbie, Berlin Diskotheque and Flight 772, but again, as I said earlier they've had almost 30 years when they could have done this. Our forces are arguably stretched enough as it is, being still placed in Afghanistan- do we really have the resources to engage in another potential long-term conflict? Let's face it, Gadaffi isn't going to move unless he's killed - a action that the UN are not actually allowed to suggest, as today's decision has revealed. It took 3 years until Saddam Hussein was captured and excecuted. How long will it take with Gadaffi? If we get dragged into Libya, we can probably expect to be there for a while.

Also, why Libya? Egypt overthrew it's government recently, and 384 people died and 6,000 were injured. Did we at any point intervene? No. Yemen is also having an attempt at a revolution that is proving to be just as violent as Egypt, but again, we're not involving ourselves too much apart from suggesting British nationals should leave. Is there some other reason why we're there? Isn't it funny how we're still running out of oil and Libya relies on it for exports? 

A happy coincidence? Maybe. I can't help thinking, though, that nobody has learned anything from Iraq, and that we're going to end up being in there for longer than we intend, all because of a coalition and the UN. It's amazing how world leaders seem to develop amnesia whenever the price of oil is at risk. How many more Middle Eastern crises will it take before we learn to keep our nose out of other country's politics.

Just goes to show, war never changes.

High School Stars (or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Decide Which Seat to Take)

The internet is a frightening, desolate place.
It has spawned many horrible things over the past 20 years of public availability- 4chan, Chris Crocker, Rick Rolling and the Meme (to name a few). For all of it's achievements, there are at least a million things the internet is responsible for that you probably wish you could un-see.
The newest of these abominations is Rebecca Black, and her song 'Friday'.


Recently declared by Newsbeat's Technology Reporter as the "Worst Song Ever" (and I guess Radio 1 has the most experience of bad songs to be able to say this), Friday is an attempt by Rebecca Black to gain worldwide fame as an 13 year old internet musician. Some may argue that this has worked, as her official video on Youtube now has over 25 million views (as of time of writing).The reason, however, for her fame, is the ridiculously poor quality of the song- as you will have just seen. The lyrics are of particular interest, as they appear to make no sense at all;

"Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?"

"Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes afterwards"

According to some information released about the video, it was made by a record company in Los Angeles called Ark Music Factory - a company that apparently deals with unsigned 'talent'. Now, terrible lyrics aside, that means that someone must have forked over a lot of money to make that deal happen. My bets are that Rebecca didn't pay for it with her pocket money. Mummy and Daddy Black did. For what reason?

Currently, another child star is dominating the hearts and minds of young impressionable boys and girls everywhere. He's Canadian, he's produced a film called 'Never Say Never', and his name rhymes with Hustin Nieber. I'm talking of course about 15 year old Justin "I don't know what German means" Bieber, who is probably making more money after less than 2 years of his career than John Lennon made over 20 years. It's no surprise, then, that there are some parents out there who want to make a quick buck out of their children in the hope that they may get as lucky as Bieber.

It is a terrible thing to see, children as young as 8 or 9 being thrust into the limelight by overbearing and pushy parents who want their slice of the fame that others have seen before them. It's not new- how could we forget Lindsay Lohan, who has probably made more of a name for herself since she started hanging around with Paris Hilton than she ever did when she was in the Parent Trap. Michael Jackson is perhaps the number 1 example of what happens to child stars, having been pushed into the business at just 6. There are many other examples, but you don't need me to tell you that they very often end the same way - drugs, sexual abuse or suicide. Except for maybe Wil Wheaton, of Star Trek fame, who still appears to be normal and drug-free more than 20 years after his fame died.

In my opinion, child stars are not really children at all, merely under-developed adults- forced prematurely into the adult world by popularity. They will never be able to experience the innocence of childhood because they are placed high on a pedestal in the public eye at an age when they should be out grazing their knees and picking their noses. They cannot act as a child should because everyone is watching them. Therefore, despite them MAYBE having some talent, like being able to sing really well or act, they shouldn't be exposed to fame. Huge amounts of fame will no doubt make the kid in question feel like they can do anything and they will be loved for it. When it's over, and their fame declines, it could be hard to accept that people don't think they're awesome anymore, maybe for no apparent reason. How is a child supposed to understand the fickleness of the public? It's a concept that could drive anyone to depression, drink and drugs, let alone a child. In my opinion, encouraging a child to become famous is nothing more than a indirect form of child abuse.

Relating back to our friend Rebecca Black, she has tasted fame not because of her talents, but because of the cruelty of the internet. We watch her video because it's bad - so bad it's funny. In her case, she might well believe that we like her because she has talent, but this would be a lie. She could well go though life thinking that her fame is deserved, and try and get even bigger. When she discovers the root of her fame is based on ridicule, imagine the damage this could cause and could already be causing. Has she recognised that she is being made a fool of, or does she think we like her because she's a good singer/songwriter? I'll leave you to decide that.

Job Hunting

I'm having a really hard time finding work experience at the moment. Thanks to the school only deciding to tell us about us needing work experience a couple of weeks ago, I've been trying to track down journalistic work experience for about 2 weeks now, with no sucess. Because of my lack of Dutch, I can't simply walk into the Wassenaarse Krant office and say "Hey, I can make you coffee for free for a week (as long as you let me stare over your shoulders)!", because there'd be a obvious language barrier. My dad DID have a plan for me to work at a trading magazine he does business with- that is, until he found out it was located on the Dutch/German border.
So now I'm left with 2 options. Work for a expat magazine, or work at my mum's school. I've been furiously searching for a expat magazine to email, but they're all online newspapers, and therefore aren't likely to have a head office. The only one I have found is based in Scheveningen (good), publishes weekly newspapers in English (good), but it also appears to have a workforce of 3 people (bad).
So it's starting to look as if I'll end up helping with Year 1 reading groups. Work experience, yes, but not one that will help me show my enthusiasm for journalism.

Just a short, self-centred post today, it seems.

Clockwork Monkey

Ho-Hum

So yes, here I am with my own shiny new blog.

...It's very empty at the moment, hopefully I'll fill it with all my stray thoughts and ramblings and rants (a lot of those, yes).

Just to give you an idea as to why I have decided to publish my ramblings on the internets, it's mainly because I hope to become a journalist in the future, and I thought that because of the seeming lack of work experience that doesn't involve advertising coffee mornings and self-help for expats who can't seem to handle living somewhere without Cadbury's and PG-Tips, I'd explore and exhibit my writing technique by doing weekly (or daily, depending on how addicted to this I become) bllog posts. How I'm going to eventually show this to my future university to prove I'm not a idiot is beyond me, but it's good for the practice, eh?

Yeah, I can just imagine myself in 10 years time writing snappy and cutting editorials for The Times, grilling the odd politician about the government's recent blunders, commenting on the current state of the nation, that sort of thing. Could also end up working for Private Eye, writing utter nonsense about something or other. Now that would be good, I like Private Eye.

You'll never find me working for a tabloid, though. Never. My brain would melt if I was exposed to the pathetic goo that is celebrity worship (unless people were worshipping me, of course). I find people who constantly need to know about how many face-lifts Sharon Osbourne has had, or how many african children Madonna has adopted incredibly annoying. As if it matters... the whole point of being a human being is to be unique and induvidual, rather than hanging on the every word of a blonde, big-breasted bimbo who's only claim to fame is said big-breasts. If it really matters what celebrities are eating, wearing or thinking, why don't you just become one of those celebrity look-a-like people? That way you can be like them without bothering any of us real people.


...oh dear... I did warn you about the rants.