I could submerge ever so casually in this feeling right now. Send shivers down my spine, intoxicate me with your presence.
I am your fool.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Harrow People Say Police Racist (my first ever voxpop story)
Yesterday afternoon in the streets of Harrow, people’s opinions mostly supported the claim of The Metropolitan Police being racist, after a recent scandal breaking out about institutional racism within the police force. The problem seems not only to exist within the police, but also in the contact between civilians of ethnic minorities and the police.
Remigius, a 33-year-old student from Tanzania said he hasn’t had any experiences with the racist policemen, but his friends have. “Blacks are more likely to be randomly stopped and searched. If it’s random, let it be random,” he says. He commented on those searches, which have become more frequent lately: “I suspect that a lot of what they’re searching for goes through different channels [that] they think are safe.”
Mary Hale, 79, from Harrow, finds the question hard to answer, but she has not noticed any racism from the police. “I respect the police, they are the ones to turn to for help.” On young black men being randomly searched often, she comments: “But young black males do get in trouble, so stopping them more often is justified.”
Dillon, 24, a devoted Muslim, thinks racism is both institutional and civilian-based. He said the top end of the police hierarchy is racist: “They’re of certain backgrounds, drive certain cars, and went to certain schools. I would never join the police force, look what happened to Tarique Ghaffur.” He adds: “The only way it would change is when politicians change.”
Recently there has been much public talk about racial issues within the Metropolitan Police, and also towards civilians. Dillon from Harrow brought up the topic of a Pakistani police officer not getting promoted because of his ethnicity, proves there is racism within the institution. Fran, 18-year-old student from Cambridge comments also on more elaborate forms of discrimination: “There probably is racism, but I can’t bring any examples. The closest I could get is tattooed people being looked at suspiciously.”
There is a lot of discrimination and injustice to fight within the Metropolitan Police, and the whole society. The clash has gone even so far that the National Black Police Association is considering publicly discouraging people of ethnic minorities joining the police, because they would not be treated fairly.Lela, a 56-year-old Hindu, and Sadia, a 45-year-old Muslim, from Harrow agree: “No matter what you say, racism exists.”
Remigius, a 33-year-old student from Tanzania said he hasn’t had any experiences with the racist policemen, but his friends have. “Blacks are more likely to be randomly stopped and searched. If it’s random, let it be random,” he says. He commented on those searches, which have become more frequent lately: “I suspect that a lot of what they’re searching for goes through different channels [that] they think are safe.”
Mary Hale, 79, from Harrow, finds the question hard to answer, but she has not noticed any racism from the police. “I respect the police, they are the ones to turn to for help.” On young black men being randomly searched often, she comments: “But young black males do get in trouble, so stopping them more often is justified.”
Dillon, 24, a devoted Muslim, thinks racism is both institutional and civilian-based. He said the top end of the police hierarchy is racist: “They’re of certain backgrounds, drive certain cars, and went to certain schools. I would never join the police force, look what happened to Tarique Ghaffur.” He adds: “The only way it would change is when politicians change.”
Recently there has been much public talk about racial issues within the Metropolitan Police, and also towards civilians. Dillon from Harrow brought up the topic of a Pakistani police officer not getting promoted because of his ethnicity, proves there is racism within the institution. Fran, 18-year-old student from Cambridge comments also on more elaborate forms of discrimination: “There probably is racism, but I can’t bring any examples. The closest I could get is tattooed people being looked at suspiciously.”
There is a lot of discrimination and injustice to fight within the Metropolitan Police, and the whole society. The clash has gone even so far that the National Black Police Association is considering publicly discouraging people of ethnic minorities joining the police, because they would not be treated fairly.Lela, a 56-year-old Hindu, and Sadia, a 45-year-old Muslim, from Harrow agree: “No matter what you say, racism exists.”
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The New Beginning
From now on I will not be writing here that much any more. I've started a new phase in my life which I absolutely love, and I'm trying to revive my Estonian now. You can check out what's going on in London from HERE.
I will not abandon this one completely, but just.. we shall see.
Lots of love.
I will not abandon this one completely, but just.. we shall see.
Lots of love.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
And so it is
Hando told me he picked up a good piece of thought from some film..
It's good to be scared, that means you have something left to lose.
And it's so true.
It's good to be scared, that means you have something left to lose.
And it's so true.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
El camino de los ingleses
I would have wanted to put Summer Rain for the title, but then I remembered something. I went to see a film some time ago with Hando.
It was El camino de los ingleses (2006), directed by Antonio Banderas, based on a novel by Antonio Soler; with young, beautiful, talented Spanish actors like Alberto Amarillo, Maria Ruiz and Félix Gómez playing the leading roles. The typical raw intensity of young love al estilo español, careless and free summer living, and the survival in the regime of el presidente Franco are delivered to the spectators with exquisite style, and superb harmony with the very minimalistic sountrack (rather typical to señor Banderas). The music is carefully chosen, never smothers the effect of action in the film. They complete each other. The film could easily be mistaken for a simple story about the social, and personal lives of those kids. They are on the threshold of the independent life, full of aspirations and dreams. Miguelito, the main character, is everything but a simple kid. He has a kidney operation, and after that something in his head changes. His dream is to become a poet, and through the whole film, we get insights to Miguelito's head through the poems he writes. This is what makes the film not that easy to crack. When you watch it, you follow everything, understand, think along. When you walk out of the cinema, you're left with a bundle of thoughts, and a feeling that you need to see it once more to understand everything said. The ending is not a cliché happy ending, which also brings the inglorious reality a step closer. Not everything goes the way intended, our lives and journeys are intruded by strangers in different ways. Some of those ways enable, others disable.
All in all a great film, definitely worth seeing, even more than once. Definite suggestion to those who enjoy pondering.
But this is not what I really wanted to say with the heading. The direct translation would be The road of the English, but the translation to both English and Estonian is Summer rain. See the film to compare relevance.
Pero la lluvia del verano es realmente bonita.
It was El camino de los ingleses (2006), directed by Antonio Banderas, based on a novel by Antonio Soler; with young, beautiful, talented Spanish actors like Alberto Amarillo, Maria Ruiz and Félix Gómez playing the leading roles. The typical raw intensity of young love al estilo español, careless and free summer living, and the survival in the regime of el presidente Franco are delivered to the spectators with exquisite style, and superb harmony with the very minimalistic sountrack (rather typical to señor Banderas). The music is carefully chosen, never smothers the effect of action in the film. They complete each other. The film could easily be mistaken for a simple story about the social, and personal lives of those kids. They are on the threshold of the independent life, full of aspirations and dreams. Miguelito, the main character, is everything but a simple kid. He has a kidney operation, and after that something in his head changes. His dream is to become a poet, and through the whole film, we get insights to Miguelito's head through the poems he writes. This is what makes the film not that easy to crack. When you watch it, you follow everything, understand, think along. When you walk out of the cinema, you're left with a bundle of thoughts, and a feeling that you need to see it once more to understand everything said. The ending is not a cliché happy ending, which also brings the inglorious reality a step closer. Not everything goes the way intended, our lives and journeys are intruded by strangers in different ways. Some of those ways enable, others disable.
All in all a great film, definitely worth seeing, even more than once. Definite suggestion to those who enjoy pondering.
But this is not what I really wanted to say with the heading. The direct translation would be The road of the English, but the translation to both English and Estonian is Summer rain. See the film to compare relevance.
Pero la lluvia del verano es realmente bonita.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Mortalism
I got myself up from the bed. Ate. Drank two cups of tea (one black, one green). Wrote in my paper diary. Stole a blanket from my cat. Napped for about half an hour. Woke up. Found my heart pounding at an alarming pace. Conclusion: it doesn't really matter if you don't sleep properly, might as well stay up the whole night, because this is what the feeling is like. And my eyes are as red, or even worse.
Sleep, sleep, where'd you go?
Sleep, sleep, where'd you go?
Sleeplessness
It's 6:42 am and I'm wide awake. Some thoughts (and an increasingly empty stomach) keep bugging me, and just won't seem to give me peace. The real title of this post should be Lack of Information[/Communication], which is a line from a song by a band I have much affection for. And it is also something that has been quite an actual issue. First, whenever my parents have some little issues, stupid insignificant fights, I've always reminded them that Talk, Talk, Talk is what is needed to avoid those misunderstandings - just say 2 more sentences what you would keep in just to defy the other. Easy to say for a bystander. Sounds so stupidly simple, but works with the same fool-proof simplicity. Every time.
The second aspect is misjudging people. Happens every day, with everyone of us. In reality I suspect it cannot even Ever be completely avoided. It's just the way us humans are built. We already have a filter called mouth/verbal expression that sifts the information coming from our brains. The second filter in between is time. The third one would be the intake-formation of the receptor, ears or eyes mostly. The fourth, and also the most important filter, is the preset tune of who takes in what we give out. All those filters add to what causes all the misjudges, misunderstandings, misgodknowswhatmores.. They are impossible to eliminate, but could be diminished to almost zero, through experience. This last filter (and probably partially the first one for not picking the words used carefully enough) makes a compliment coming from one brain look like a breach of sacredness, attack, or just simple picking a fight to the other part. This is an overdoing of an example, but still illustrates what I mean the best.
The cool thing about friends is that you can let your guard down with them. You don't need to think through every single word you use, or the intonation, there's usually enough wordless communication to catch the thought from the air, so to say. Recently I've learnt with quite a bit of negative surprise that this is not how it really works. The more unexpected the blow comes, the more painful. Don't want to sound extra feeble, but when you realise how wrong the person you thought knew from half way, without words, what you meant, it's quite a stab in the back by unceremonious reality. You don't know why it really has gone wrong, but as time passes it leaves an eerie feeling that it will not go away any more. No matter how or what you'd say. Anything and everything can be easily turned against anyone, and once it unleashes, it doesn't seem to be undoable. Makes you think that maybe it was there from the very beginning - just a volcano erupting you once thought was a harmless mountain.
Crazy how people complicate their lives. Such simple things are twisted and turned, and who eventually suffers, are the twisters and turners. I guess it's a thing coded in us long ago - just can't have it (= life) easy.
I see the third, and perhaps the most raw occurrence of miscommunication, in our own heads. It's a one-to-one battle with your own brain. The hardest nut to crack. Self-deception happens all the time, we filter reality to ourselves, or just comfortably ignore some thought. Later on, when the thing comes up, we're in quite a bundle with our own thoughts, not that easy to disentangle. Some of us end up in mad-houses, the others cry their eyes out before going to bed, and wake up with a clear head. The most fucked up scenario is having conflicting things in your head. It's usually reason fighting emotion. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance, and suggest several techniques for getting over it, but practice has shown that no other technique than time really helps. Maybe something else would work for people with lower levels of incapability.
But wouldn't it be nice if everything comes out the way intended? Not in the course of our lives, no, that would be plain boring (everything you do comes out nice? naaah.. I'll rather take some detours). But looking back at history, I suspect that so many big conflicts, maybe even the World Wars, have been a result of a petty little friction caused by miscommunication, and too little information..
And despite the world seemingly being aware of those issues, they are virtually impossible to avoid in reality. Or is it unwillingness instead of frecklessness? Makes me really damn sad when I realise once again how much is wrong. (But then the beauty smacks you in the face, and the perfect balance is back. That's how it goes - everyfuckingthing is in balance. Empty spaces are not tolerated. Action - reaction. )
It's 7:29am now, and I'm still not sleepy. Maybe it's better to wake up?
The second aspect is misjudging people. Happens every day, with everyone of us. In reality I suspect it cannot even Ever be completely avoided. It's just the way us humans are built. We already have a filter called mouth/verbal expression that sifts the information coming from our brains. The second filter in between is time. The third one would be the intake-formation of the receptor, ears or eyes mostly. The fourth, and also the most important filter, is the preset tune of who takes in what we give out. All those filters add to what causes all the misjudges, misunderstandings, misgodknowswhatmores.. They are impossible to eliminate, but could be diminished to almost zero, through experience. This last filter (and probably partially the first one for not picking the words used carefully enough) makes a compliment coming from one brain look like a breach of sacredness, attack, or just simple picking a fight to the other part. This is an overdoing of an example, but still illustrates what I mean the best.
The cool thing about friends is that you can let your guard down with them. You don't need to think through every single word you use, or the intonation, there's usually enough wordless communication to catch the thought from the air, so to say. Recently I've learnt with quite a bit of negative surprise that this is not how it really works. The more unexpected the blow comes, the more painful. Don't want to sound extra feeble, but when you realise how wrong the person you thought knew from half way, without words, what you meant, it's quite a stab in the back by unceremonious reality. You don't know why it really has gone wrong, but as time passes it leaves an eerie feeling that it will not go away any more. No matter how or what you'd say. Anything and everything can be easily turned against anyone, and once it unleashes, it doesn't seem to be undoable. Makes you think that maybe it was there from the very beginning - just a volcano erupting you once thought was a harmless mountain.
Crazy how people complicate their lives. Such simple things are twisted and turned, and who eventually suffers, are the twisters and turners. I guess it's a thing coded in us long ago - just can't have it (= life) easy.
I see the third, and perhaps the most raw occurrence of miscommunication, in our own heads. It's a one-to-one battle with your own brain. The hardest nut to crack. Self-deception happens all the time, we filter reality to ourselves, or just comfortably ignore some thought. Later on, when the thing comes up, we're in quite a bundle with our own thoughts, not that easy to disentangle. Some of us end up in mad-houses, the others cry their eyes out before going to bed, and wake up with a clear head. The most fucked up scenario is having conflicting things in your head. It's usually reason fighting emotion. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance, and suggest several techniques for getting over it, but practice has shown that no other technique than time really helps. Maybe something else would work for people with lower levels of incapability.
But wouldn't it be nice if everything comes out the way intended? Not in the course of our lives, no, that would be plain boring (everything you do comes out nice? naaah.. I'll rather take some detours). But looking back at history, I suspect that so many big conflicts, maybe even the World Wars, have been a result of a petty little friction caused by miscommunication, and too little information..
And despite the world seemingly being aware of those issues, they are virtually impossible to avoid in reality. Or is it unwillingness instead of frecklessness? Makes me really damn sad when I realise once again how much is wrong. (But then the beauty smacks you in the face, and the perfect balance is back. That's how it goes - everyfuckingthing is in balance. Empty spaces are not tolerated. Action - reaction. )
It's 7:29am now, and I'm still not sleepy. Maybe it's better to wake up?
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