The de-evolution of music

Saw this cartoon on SlipperyBrick and thought it captures my love of vinyl and my enjoyment but annoyance with MP3/digital formats perfectly.

Slippery Brick - Brick Pic - I love my records...

What price anonymity?

I’m feeling confused, I’ve just read two newspaper articles regarding legal proceedings and both had issues with the anonymity or the lack thereof for the criminals involved.  Before I move on I’ll let you see the quotes and link to the articles.

The first quotation is:

Mr Justice Keith handed down an indeterminate sentence on both boys in the Edlington case — ordering them to serve a minimum of five years in custody — but ruled that they should be granted anonymity for life and given new identities when they are freed, at a cost of around £2million a year.

The Telegraph – Edlington attacks: Parents of sadistic brothers may face inquiry

In this second article, the quotes are:

An employee at Blenheim Palace, Anita Donaldson, stole almost £150,000 pounds from the stately home to fund her lavish lifestyle, a court heard.

…

So far Donaldson has sold her house, her car and all of her valuables, as well as accepting money from family and friends to pay back £95,000 of the total £146,707 after reaching a civil agreement with Blenheim Estates.

…

Peter Lownds, Donaldson’s counsel, said: “She feels great remorse and regret.

“Her professional reputation is destroyed and she will never obtain work in that field for which she has qualified again. Her career is at an end.

“She has been doing some work, dog walking and cleaning, to get some money.”

He also said that during the time she was stealing, from November 2007 until July 2009, she was suffering from a depressive illness and had been receiving treatment.

The Telegraph – Blenheim Palace employee stole £150,000 from estate, court told

Now I fully understand that there are monumental differences between the severity of these two cases. I also understand the differences in the eyes of the law between children and adults. However, I am confused that a criminal who admits their crime, shows immediate remorse, seeks medical help for an underlying condition, and makes efforts to return the money which she stole (returning over 50% prior to the court appearance) can have her photograph and name published in the paper and on its website when at the same time a judge can grant £2million a year for life to ensure the anonymity, upon their eventual release, of the two young thugs who sadistically and perversely attempted to murder two young boys in a prolonged and sustained attack of violence and sexual assault, showed no remorse, and did not even try to lead the search efforts to the most seriously injured of their two victims.

I’m confused because one can be very certain that the two victims of the evil brothers will not receive £2million a year for life from the tax payer, unlike their attackers.  They will not receive state funded care and education valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.  They will have to study, work, and get jobs with the terrible knowledge of what they suffered, and on top of that the more frightening knowledge that one day their attackers could be free, and protected by the state that failed to prevent the incident from happening.   Free, and given anonymity, new names, and the potential to meet their victims without their victims knowing who they are!

I’m confused because the second case is almost comical in comparison.  A sum of money is stolen and the criminal confesses when confronted.  She makes efforts to return what she can, raising funds by selling her own home, and car, and yet she still has her name widely publicised, her career ruined, and her future life forever marked by what when compared to the exploits of Wall Street bankers is the theft of a comparatively small sum of money.

So what price anonymity? Show no remorse, act as depraved as you can beneath a certain legal age limit and walk away from responsibility at the tax payers expense?  Commit fraud, do no direct physical harm, make efforts to set things right, and be damned forever? I don’t know about you but that doesn’t exactly sound like “justice”.

As I said at the start, I know these are two very different cases, but you cannot say the bullies of the first article didn’t know what they were doing was wrong, and if by some strange chance they did not I hope they are never released because they will be a serious threat to the general public.  While bullying of any nature is treated with kid gloves and the attackers right to anonymity continues to outway the victims right to not be forced to relive their experiences be having them published in every media outlet, then the victims are the only ones who will continue to suffer, and nothing will change.

—UPDATE—

Unfortunately my thoughts from yesterday have been reflected in the news today:

Their younger victim, aged 10, has told his mother: “I’m frightened they are going to get out and come and find me. They’re not going away for very long. They might want to finish it.”

His 12-year-old friend said: “Five years? Is that all? What will happen to us then?”

The Telegraph – Edlington torture attack victims live in fear

Bullying, too shocking for TV?

In a world where children’s television is awash with violent cartoons and karate chopping super heros, and where news reports frequently talk about children pushed to commit suicide by persistent bullies, it surprise me that this very simple, and direct advert is considered “too shocking for television”.

Reporting bullies to a responsible adult, or a group like Cybermentors.org.uk is the first step towards freedom from bullying.

Don’t be a silent victim, speak out against bullying.

Snow in Great Britain

I saw the following image in several news articles, but decided to go direct to the source to get a clearer image.  So if you click on the picture below the image will load to a resolution of  1 pixel being equal to 250 metres, courtesy of NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response.

Taken by the Terra satellite - January 8, 2010 - NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response.

It is a truly amazing sight, the image is mesmerising and the fact that NASA provides this data freely to the public domain is brilliant.  Click the picture and enjoy the image!

A few firsts

Continuing the musical theme from my last post we’re onto another music list.  In the last days of the naughties my MP3 player died, so while waiting for the replacement to arrive I’ve been listening to a variety of old tapes on my daily commute (The car was built in 1989 and still has the original radio/cassette deck in good working order).  Listening to mix-tapes painstakingly recorded from the radio in 1991 made me think about the various firsts in music I’ve experienced over the years… so for your entertainment, and potentially my own humiliation.

• First Music Purchase – The Smurf Song – Father Abraham and the Smurfs
  • What can I say, it was 1977 and I was young!  I’ve still got the single though, and it is still playable.
• First Cassette – Kings of the Wild Frontier – Adam & The Ants
  • There were possibly others before this, but this is the first one I really remember buying. It was post punk new romantics with huge drum beats and screamed lyrics so what more could you ask for?  Stand & Deliver is still one of my all time favourite songs.
• First CD  – Unforgettable…with love – Natalie Cole
  • I’d heard about this album on the radio, and wanted it enough that I bought the CD 3  days before I bought a CD player.
• First Dodgy Download – 6 Underground – The Sneaker Pimps
  • Trip hop and the Bristol sound appealed to me as I entered my twenties, the realisation I could try out a song before buying it appealed to my fickle tastes then as now, and after a few days of listening I went and bought a legitimate copy of this track.
• First Online Purchase – Reasons to be Cheerful (The best of) – Ian Dury and the Blockheads
  • Ian Dury had lost his battle with liver cancer 27 March 2000.  I’d heard his music throughout my childhood and had bought  Mr Lovepants after seeing him with The Blockheads on Jools Holland’s “Later…”.  Having watched a retrospective of his life I wanted some of the earlier works and Amazon.co.uk was there to deliver.
• First payed for MP3 Download – Godfodder – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
  • Early 2008 and I’m living in the US of A.  I’ve been going through my musical youth and revisiting artists I’d liked on the radio but never purchased a whole lot of.  Having rediscovered my love for Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, and Blur, I came across The Wonderstuff and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.  I’d got an MP3 player for playing tunes (via cassette adapter) in the car, so why not buy the MP3.  My dislike of Apple’s monopoly steered me clear of iTunes, and so AmazonMP3.com gave me my first two purchases, the first was GodFodder and the second was the ‘Stuffies “What if the Beatles had read Hunter…The Singles”