British royal jubilee and Sex Pistols

This music video is called Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen.

By Solomon Hughes in Britain:

Frills, fops and fascists

Thursday 31 May 2012

The royal jubilee weekend brings me warm memories of the last jubilee in 1977.

Back then we celebrated how long the Queen had been getting on our nerves with a trip to Woolworth’s to look at the Singles Chart board.

The Sex Pistols single God Save the Queen, an anti-royal mix of buzz-saw guitar and vigorous taunting, was the number-two top selling single.

But Woolworth’s wouldn’t stock it. In fact they wouldn’t even mention it – the Woolies chart board was made up of those individual stick-on letters. A shop assistant laboriously spelled out Rod Stewart and Kenny Roger’s hits at numbers one and three. But number two was unnamed. The Sex Pistols getting so high in the charts was a triumph. The way they were left blank on the Woolies chart board seemed a bonus, an extra piece of pop-Dadaist street theatre in a plastic alphabet that reached even the provincial Yorkshire of my teens.

The Sex Pistols’ unpatriotic intervention wasn’t just absent from Woolies – the BBC banned all play of the single on its stations.

The Independent Broadcasting Authority demonstrated its complete lack of independence by joining the ban.

Johnny Rotten sneered/sang his apparently unbroadcastable – unmentionable even – sneering/singing lyrics, “God save your mad parade” years ago. Unfortunately, the words still fit.

The prospect of Britain’s most boring pensioners, Ms E Windsor and Mr P Mountbatten, being chugged down the Thames in a massive gold barge is mad enough.

They will be accompanied by all kinds of ludicrous claims. On Radio 4′s Today programme I heard Ms Windsor described as a “spiritual leader” like a “shaman” – so presumably she will be wearing stag antlers, chanting away while off her royal head on magic mushrooms at the weekend.

For another mad parade, see Ms Windsor’s widely publicised lunch.

The royal family gathered together relics of royalty from round the world for a jubilee “sovereign monarchs” lamb dinner, followed by a photo shoot that made the shifty bunch look like the Addams Family.

Much criticism was rightly made of Ms Windsor welcoming murderous heads of state like the king of Bahrain, who loves his subjects so much that he wants them shot in the street when they protest for democracy.

But the weirdest thing about the Windsor’s big day in was how many impostors she invited.

In the official photo the Queen sat between the king of Bulgaria and the king of Romania. The king of Greece was in the next seat.

This is odd, because all three countries are republics.

Bulgaria and Romania became republics over half a century ago. When their communist governments fell, neither Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha of Bulgaria nor Michael of Romania asked for their crowns back.

Simeon did lead a somewhat right-wing privatising party in his native land, but in fairness he did so by winning votes, not crazy ideas about bloodlines.

Even the Queen’s lie about the king of Bulgaria contained another lie – if she had to give him a royal title, he should have been called Tsar Boris. Pretending he’s a king when he isn’t was OK, but using his official monarchic moniker was apparently too ridiculous.

While the artist-formerly-known-as-Tsar Boris and Romanian Mike went along with the Queen’s deluded fantasy they were “sovereign monarchs,” at least they don’t make any such pretence to Romanians and Bulgarians.

The same cannot be said for the “king” of Greece, who regularly hangs out with our Queen.

Known as “Constantine the Little” in Greece, he is a truly pathetic figure – king Constantine swore in the fascist Greek colonels after their 1967 coup.

When the uppity fascists refused to be nice to their king, he tried to launch his own feeble counter-coup, which was a laughable failure.

Since Greeks rose up in 1973-4 and brought back democracy the people have utterly rejected Constantine because he helped the fascist colonels. Constantine then made himself even more unpopular by suing Greece for millions of euros of “reparations” for losing his throne.

Constantine isn’t even a Greek citizen, let alone a Greek king – the Greeks said he can only have a passport if he puts his surname on the application.

They won’t accept “king” in the space marked “occupation” either.

He has refused to comply, preferring to swan about with a Danish passport identifying him as “Constantine of Greece.”

In the Sex Pistols song, Rotten sings “God save the Queen / the fascist regime.”

With Eurotrash like Constantine and dictators like the king of Bahrain, those lyrics are also still pretty accurate.

But sadly I will be visiting my in-laws so will miss the protest this Sunday from 12-5.30pm on Westminster Bridge held by anti-royal group Republic.

We are also invited to celebrate the divine right of Queens with street parties.

If people want to enjoy barbecued sausages and beer in public, good for them. But this supposedly spontaneous public eating is also backed by government cash.

“The Big Lunch” charity is helping to organise many jubilee street parties. As the name suggests, The Big Lunch is a brainchild of one of Cameron’s Big Society thinkers, Paul Twivy.

He was also a founder member of the government backed Big Society Network.

When Cameron was claiming charities would spontaneously make up for cuts, the Big Society Network argued that people shouldn’t “always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face.”

But the Big Lunch got £295,000 from the Department for Communities between 2008 and 2010.

Government funding seems to have gone down, but this year the Department still gave the Big Lunch another £35,000.

In fairness to Twivy, he seems to have become disillusioned with Cameron, and has since criticised cuts to charities.

So official backing for the jubilee includes sending pensioners down the river in golden boats, forcing everyone to take a day off work, wall-to-wall balls from the BBC and money to tthe Big Lunch.

If anyone talks about jubilee celebrations being all about spontaneous royalist celebrations from the little people, remember that it’s more big fib than Big Lunch.

New Raphael drawings discovered

Translated from Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands:

Teylers Museum does not own 9 drawings by Raphael, but 12. These drawings are Portrait of a Young Man (1515-17), Flying Putto (1518) and Joshua speaks to the Israelite tribal chiefs in Shechem (1516-1518). Earlier, these drawings had been attributed to his pupils. Raphael had a workshop with many students with whom he worked closely for his major contracts, including the world famous “Stanze” in the Vatican.

…

The three discoveries will be exhibited during the first exhibition in the Netherlands about this star artist of the Italian Renaissance (28 September to 6 January).

Sesame Street music abused for Guantanamo torture

This video says about itself:

30 May 2012 by Al Jazeera English

The film, Songs of War, explores the relationship between music and violence.

The film’s main protagonist is Christopher Cerf. The award-winning musician is a composer for Sesame Street, a popular American children’s educational series.

By Clare Richardson in the USA:

Torture By Sesame Street At Guantanamo Bay: Al Jazeera Reports (VIDEO)

05/31/2012 12:07 pm

In 2008, reports surfaced that detainees at Guantanamo Bay had been tortured by songs such as Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and Drowning Pool’s “Bodies.”

Now, a new documentary from Al Jazeera shows that detainees may also have been subjected to musical torture of a softer variety.

According to the report, prisoners at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were forced to wear headphones blasting music from Sesame Street on repeat for hours or days on end.

Christopher Cerf, the award-winning composer of Sesame Street, was stunned to learn how his music was being exploited.

“My first reaction was this just can’t possibly be true,” he told Al Jazeera. “…Of course I didn’t really like the idea that I was helping break down prisoners, but it was much worse when I heard later that they were actually using the music in Guantanamo to actually do deep, long-term interrogations and obviously to inflict enough pain on prisoners so they would talk.”

This isn’t the first time that music from Sesame Street has been used to break the will of prisoners. In 2003, the U.S. reportedly used the soundtrack to soften up Iraqi POWs.

Sesame Street, an educational children’s television series, has been on the air since 1969.

Watch the full report from Al Jazeera in the video above. Below, check out some of the tunes reportedly used at Gitmo.

Günter Grass’ poem on Greece in context

This is a video about a solidarity demonstration with the Greek people, in France.

By Christoph Dreier in Germany:

Germany: Günter Grass criticizes EU’s treatment of Greece

31 May 2012

The German author and Nobel Literature prize-holder Günter Grass has published a withering critique of the policy of Germany and the European Union towards Greece. In his latest poem published in the Saturday edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Grass draws parallels with the NATO-backed junta of the colonels and the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War. He also responds to critics of his last poem, which warned of the dangers of an Israeli war against Iran.

Under the title “Europe’s Shame,” the 84-year-old author devotes twelve stanzas, each with two verses, to castigating the European elites for their treatment of Greece. Written in ancient Greek metrics, the poem portrays the manner in which the finance markets and European governments are destroying the country and its rich history. The first verse accuses the EU of bringing the country: “Close to chaos, because the market is not just, you’re far removed from the country which was your cradle.”

In this connection Grass refers to the austerity measures dictated by the EU which have resulted in wage cuts of up to 60 percent, an official youth unemployment rate of over 50 percent, mass starvation, and social despair. The social rights of workers have been systematically destroyed in order to rescue the loans of the international banks and increase corporate profits.

Meanwhile, there is a debate in broad circles of the European political elite about excluding Greece from the euro zone and forcing a return to the drachma. This would lead to hyperinflation and a corresponding devaluation of wages, pensions and social benefits, transforming the country into a low-wage haven for European corporations. The chancellery in Berlin has circulated a six-point plan, which calls for the selling off of state assets to the highest bidder and establishing special economic zones, where workers are paid rock bottom wages and deprived of all their rights.

Given this development, Grass quite correctly draws parallels in his poem to the occupation of Greece by the German Wehrmacht, which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Greeks. The German Reich plundered the country economically. It acquired from Italy and Bulgaria the contractual right to exclusively exploit all the zones in Greece it had occupied.

Grass’s reference to the dictatorship of the colonels, who took power in a coup in 1967 coup in order to prevent a victory of left parties, is also an entirely legitimate analogy. The undemocratic character of the EU austerity program was demonstrated last December when, following pressure from Brussels, the elected government was replaced by an unelected technocratic administration. Now the Greek electorate is being blackmailed by the international banks and institutions and pressured not to vote for parties which oppose the austerity measures. Behind the scenes a military solution to the crisis is being discussed.

Grass’s poem also notes that not all Greeks are equally affected by the austerity measures of the EU. The elite of the country, which he calls … “the Croesus-resembling followers” have long since deposited their money in “safe havens” abroad.

Finally, Grass notes that the Greek population decisively rejected the austerity measures in the last election. Socrates, he writes, returns the cup, full to the brim, which the EU commissioners had sought to force down the throat of the Greek electorate. Socrates drained the deadly hemlock out of respect for the law, but Grass allows the Greeks to return it. In so doing he alludes to the social consequences of austerity for the whole of Europe.

Throughout the poem Grass seeks to make analogies with Greek history and mythology. He writes that the defiant Antigone wears black while the European elite seek to steal Mount Olympus. He evidently wants to show how in response to the growing aggressiveness of finance capital intellectuals and the educated elite have peremptorily ditched their former humanistic ideals drawn on the great thinkers of ancient Greece. “What was searched and found with one’s soul, is now considered to be as worthless as scrap metal,” he writes, in reference to Goethe’s Iphigenia.

Here Grass hits his target. Only a handful of intellectuals and artists have taken a serious stand against the barbaric measures used to drive the Greek population into poverty and despair. Instead, there is a massive chauvinist campaign launched by the German media against “lazy Greeks” or the “corrupt structures” of the country.

The reactions to Grass’s last poem two months ago had already made clear that sections of the German middle class are turning sharply to the right as German militarism raises its head and class tensions grow across Europe. …

“Europe’s Shame” is not only an indictment of the barbarous policy of the German government and the EU, but also all those writers, journalists and authors who have lined up with German imperialism and seek to silence its critics. They have lost any right to appeal to humanistic ideals and are nothing less than apologists for a barbaric policy.

The host of defamatory responses to his latest courageous poem only serves to confirm Grass’s thesis. His criticism “misses reality,” declared the chairman of the European Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, Gunther Krichbaum (Christian Democratic Union). “On the whole one should not take Günter Grass so seriously,” he added. …

In “Europe’s Shame” Grass once again speaks for the majority of the European population. It is commendable that he has refused to be intimidated, and has courageously faced up to his attackers to reveal their utter intellectual bankruptcy.

Europeans’ Economic Future Has Been Hijacked by Dangerous Ideologues: here.

Britain: SEP (UK) public meetings. Defend the Greek working class: here.

Punk rock on British TV

This music video, recorded live in 1977 in Britain, is called The Clash – Capital Radio & Janie Jones.

From Socialist Worker weekly in Britain:

Punk Britannia shows a ‘two-pronged insurgency’ against the establishment

The BBC’s Punk Britannia sheds light on some of the unlikely influences behind the explosion of punk in the 1970s, writes Anindya Bhattacharyya

The current onslaught of jubilee propaganda has gone hand in hand with nostalgia for Britain during the Silver Jubilee celebrations of 1977.

Culturally 1977 was a year to remember for other reasons. It saw the high point of the punk rock explosion.

The Clash released “White Riot” in March while the Sex Pistols put out their anti-royal anthem “God Save the Queen” a few months later.

Punk Britannia, a new three-part documentary from the BBC, looks at punk and its cultural impact. Its first episode, broadcast on Friday of this week, focuses on the early 1970s.

Any artistic revolution tends to present itself as a year zero that blots out its influences and precursors—punk is no different.

The BBC has done a valuable job in looking at what fed into the extra­ordinary outbreak of musical and political radicalism of the late 1970s.

Some of these influences were unlikely. Much of the episode focuses on the pub rock scene of the early 1970s.

This saw bands such as Dr Feelgood, Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe and The 101ers play speeded up rhythm-and-blues classics in small, intimate venues.

The network of managers, promoters, venues and record labels around the pub rock scene would later provide much of the infrastructure for punk.

Crossovers

There were direct crossovers too. New Rose by The Damned, arguably the first punk single, was released on pub rock label Stiff Records. Woody Mellor, lead singer of The 101ers, was shortly to reinvent himself as Joe Strummer of The Clash.

But Punk Britannia makes clear that there was also an abyss separating punk from pub rock’s fixation on “beery blokes playing Chuck Berry”.

The other side of early 1970s subculture was found in glam rock and the shockingly camp theatrics of bands like the New York Dolls.

Punk somehow managed to combine the transgressive sexuality of glam with the energy and no-frills aesthetic of pub rock.

Nobody embodied this contradiction more than Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols.

Tymon Dogg of The 101ers describes the electrifying effect of seeing the Pistols for the first time. He turned to Joe Strummer, also in the audience, and said, “Can you feel that? There’s something different in the air.”

The documentary is narrated by Peter Capaldi, better known as Malcolm Tucker from The Thick Of It. He describes the “two-pronged insurgency” against the musical establishment led by The Clash and the Sex Pistols.

But none of this took place in a vacuum. Capaldi notes that punk “tapped the mood of violence simmering under the surface of boring 1970s Britain. Without this conflict at its heart, punk would be little more than noisy pop music.”

Alas, Punk Britannia is weak about the political and economic crisis of the early 1970s.

We hear the odd mention of unemployment, or of clashes between black youth and the police. But these are nods to a wider context rather than a systematic analysis.

Hopefully this will change with later episodes, which look at the 1976-78 heyday of punk and its “postpunk” aftermath.

Nevertheless Punk Britannia is a solid documentary that casts a thought-provoking light on the cultural turmoil of the 1970s.

Punk Britannia starts on Friday 1 June at 9pm on BBC Four. For more details go to www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00s81jw

Bee-eaters win photography prize

From Der Spiegel weekly in Germany:

05/30/2012

Wild Wonders of Europe Photo Prize Goes to Cuddling Bee-Eaters

More than 10,000 images were submitted for the annual Wild Wonders of Europe photography competition last year. Now the judges have made their selections. The winners offer a spectacular glimpse at Europe’s wild beauty.

In the tradition of one of the largest nature photo contests ever undertaken, more than 10,000 images were submitted for the “Wild Wonders of Europe” competition, but only two won the grand prize.

Hobbyists, semi-pro and professional photographers from 27 countries captured pictures of European animals in the wild between August 2010 and November 2011, and the jury chose their favorites this month.

The first-place image in the adult category came from Spaniard José Luis Rodríguez, who managed to photograph nine European Bee-eaters nestled onto a single branch together on a rainy May day. First place in the “Young Crew” youth category, went to 17-year-old Frenchman Quentin Martinez, who went underwater for a unique perspective of a marsh frog paddling along the surface.

“Both images are so colorful and have such an exotic look to them — they could have been taken in Africa or Asia. But no, they are shining examples of the beauty of our natural heritage here in Europe,” said the project’s Media Director Bridget Wijnberg in a statement.

Both have been awarded a trip to the Norway’s Svalbard archipelago this August, where they will be able to photograph polar bears, walrus, seals and birds in their native Arctic habitat.

The Wild Wonders of Europe project claims to be the world’s biggest nature photography-based conservation initiative. It began with sending 69 of Europe’s best wildlife photographers to all of Europe’s 48 countries between May 2008 and 2009 to capture images of its diverse natural beauty. It has been followed by annual online photography competitions focused on nature, plants and wildlife since then.

More bee-eater photos (not by José Luis Rodríguez, not entered for the Wild Wonders of Europe competition, not from Spain, but from Portugal) are here; along with other bird photos.

Nikon cancels World War II sex slavery photo exhibition

This video is called JAPAN’S SEX SLAVERY (comfort women?).

From the Japan Times:

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

‘Various reasons’ halted sex slave exhibit: Nikon

By MINORU MATSUTANI
Staff writer

Nikon Corp. canceled its planned photo exhibition of wartime sex slaves for “various reasons,” the major camera maker has announced.

Although Nikon declined to state the specific reasons for the cancellation, a company spokesman admitted it received a number of complaints about the event, which was to be held from June 26 to July 9 at Shinjuku Nikon Salon in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward. The photos were taken by South Korean photographer Ahn Sehong.

“We received complaints by mail and telephone, but we cannot comment on how many complaints we got or the nature of the complaints,” said the spokesman, who asked not to be named.

Euphemistically known in Japan as the “comfort women,” the young women and girls, in large part of Korean origin, were forced into sexual slavery for the Imperial armed forces during the war.

The atrocity has been a major source of diplomatic friction in Asia, especially between South Korea and Japan.

In 1993, Yohei Kono, then chief Cabinet secretary, issued a statement acknowledging the state played a role in the wartime brothel program and offered an apology. But the government has refused to pay individual redress.

The Japan Visual Journalist Association is preparing a statement slamming Nikon for violating freedom of expression, said Takeharu Watai, one of the three representatives of the group.

“This is basically Nikon’s self-censorship. Is it all right for a large corporation like Nikon to permit such a wimpy reaction?” Takei asked.

Nikon called on the public for photos to display at the Shinjuku salon late last year and decided to hold the exhibition of Ahn’s comfort women photos earlier this year, the spokesman said.

On May 21, Internet bulletin boards 2channel and Yahoo Chiebukuro Q&A forum had postings on the event, which had the obvious intention of soliciting protests. The 2channel posts have a phone number and detailed information on Ahn, an Aichi Prefecture resident, and called on others to lodge protests targeting the photographer.

Nikon decided to cancel the photo exhibition the following day, the spokesman said.

Military Sexual Slavery by Japan During the Second World War, a group seeking to raise awareness of the sex slaves, released a statement May 24 that said: “Ahn Sehong does not accept the cancellation of the photo exhibition, which (Nikon) cannot explain the reasons for. The world-renowned Nikon’s reaction damages one photographer’s honor and will be known by the global media.”

In contrast to Nikon’s decision, the city of Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, will stick to its plan to hold an exhibition of Ahn’s comfort women photos at a community hall from 2 to 4:30 p.m. on June 10.

“We have received some complaints. But (Ahn) asked to use the hall and we confirmed there is no violation of city ordinances. Thus there is no reason to reject his request,” Yokkaichi official Takuya Sugawa said.

Spanish artist’s religious persecution for 34-year-old film

This video says about itself:

In this video, musician Fermin Muguruza sings in the Basque language — a language which was forbidden in Spain during Franco’s regime. In this interview Fermin Muguruza speaks about his personal experiences with music censorship in Spain: Its mechanisms, its impact on the artist, and the authorities’ fear of what music can do.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Spanish artist faces prison over ‘how to cook Christ’ film

Javier Krahe prosecuted for ‘offending religious feelings’ after 1978 short film was broadcast on Spanish TV

A leading Spanish artist faces up to a year in prison after being prosecuted for “offending religious feelings” in relation to a short film he made more than 30 years ago that claimed to show “how to cook Jesus Christ”.

Javier Krahe, who has been a popular and provocative figure in Spain for nearly half a century, made the film in 1978 but it was only shown on Spanish TV in 2004 as a backdrop to an interview with its creator. The little-known charge – comparable with but not identical to Britain’s blasphemy law, remains part of the penal code despite never having been applied before in Spanish legal history.

Krahe’s 54-second film uses the tone of a cooking programme, with chefs advised to remove Jesus’ nails and separate him from his crucifix, which should be left to one side. Christ’s tiny white body – a small figurine is used – is then shown being washed, lightly smothered in butter, placed on a bed of aromatic herbs in a glass tray and popped into an oven. “One gaunt Christ” is apparently enough to feed two, and when the dish is ready (after three days) it miraculously emerges from the oven without assistance.

There have been two previous failed attempts to prosecute Krahe, who is currently on bail for €192,000 (£153,000). The latest prosecution is the result of a court action by the Catholic legal association the Centro Juridico Tomas Moro.

That Roman Catholic center, now persecuting an artist because of free speech, should think more about the Roman Catholic saint, Sir Thomas More from whom they derive their name. Thomas More (like in his famous book Utopia) criticized absolute monarchy, the death penalty, etc. Because of that free speech, the would-be absolute monarch of England persecuted him, and ultimately had him beheaded.

“How do you show that someone’s religious feelings have been hurt?” Krahe told El Pais newspaper, adding that he considers the prosecution to be absurd. “I’m accused of a series of things that I haven’t done. I don’t appear on television cooking Christ, and I haven’t ever used these images [in a performance].” His supporters say freedom of speech laws should be changed to allow room for blasphemy.

Krahe is due to appear in Madrid’s regional court, where statements from witnesses in the case are due to be heard on Monday.

See also here.

From Iberosphere:

Spain still doesn’t understand the separation of Church and State

Comedian Leo Bassi is facing legal charges for performing a show that made fun of the Pope and Catholic Church. His provocative pranks have once again brought out the ugly side of Spanish justice and the wrath of the far right.

By Nick Lyne

Pedophile priests who will never see the inside of a court, child robbers at large, unpunished crimes from the Franco era, corrupt politicians at all levels and in most parties, a banking system in cahoots with construction companies that has dragged the economy into ruin… Meanwhile a provincial court in Valladolid, seemingly unaware of the Spanish Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of expression nearly four decades after the death of the dictator, has hauled comedian Leo Bassi up before a judge to answer charges of “offending religious feelings, slander, and libel.”

Eyewitness Spain: Bank crisis fuels the rage against a rotten system: here.

Austerity drives Greeks to suicide

This video is called Austerity Suicides: Debt the Ripper stalks Europe.

By Robert Stevens:

Double suicide underscores Greece’s deepening health crisis

29 May 2012

The appalling suicide of a mother and son in Athens again underscores the social nightmare being visited on Greece by the troika—the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The tragedy occurred May 24. The mother, aged 90, and her son, aged 60, leapt hand in hand from the roof of their apartment building in the capital shortly after 8 a.m.

The son was identified as Antonis Perris, an unemployed musician. Since Antonis had been unable to find work, the pair had been forced to survive on the mother’s pension of just €340 (US$427) a month.

The joint suicide occurred only days before IMF head Christine Lagarde dismissed reports that people were dying in the country due to the savage austerity measures being imposed, callously claiming that it was “payback” time for Greek workers.

The night before their deaths, Perris described their deteriorating economic situation and suffering on a well-known blog site.

He wrote, “I have been taking care of my 90-year-old mother for 20 years. In the last 3-4 years she has developed Alzheimer’s, recently she also has been having Schizophrenic fits amongst her other grave health problems, so nursing homes won’t accept her.

“The problem is that I hadn’t foreseen the crisis so I don’t have enough cash in my account, although I have real estate assets I sell from time to time, I’m left without cash and we can no longer eat. I borrow money from my credit card with 22% interest even though the banks themselves borrow with 1%. I have other running costs.

“Unfortunately, I have also developed serious health problems lately. I have no solution in front of me. I can no longer live this drama. There’s no solution. Does anyone have a solution?”

Perris published some recent poetry he had written in which he denounced a ruling elite made up of “crooks, bankers, swindlers and their lackeys”. Clearly intending to use his fate to encourage opposition to the Greek ruling elite, his poem included the lines:

If this world you want to fix

You have to change its structure

Before decadence wipes us all out

And:

Without mercy then, without compassion,

Strike them before you’re wiped out

Or else you’ll live in misery and injustice.

This is only the latest in a spate of suicides. Two days before, a man slashed his wrists in a well-populated square in the capital. Last month, 77-year-old Dimitris Christoulas killed himself with a handgun in Athens’ central Syntagma Square, in front of the Greek parliament. In his suicide note, Christoulas said he was taking his own life in order to forgo the indignity of scavenging through garbage looking for food. His suicide note too urged a revolt, stating, “I believe that young people with no future will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945.”

Earlier in the month, a 36-year-old woman jumped from a height of 80 metres into the Corinth Canal, killing herself. After her body was recovered, she was confirmed dead upon arrival at hospital. One week before, a 26-year-old man leapt to his death in the same way.

According to the most recent statistics, suicides increased by 22 percent between 2009 (when the austerity measures began under the previous social democratic PASOK government) and 2011. According to police figures, 1,727 committed suicide over that period, with 598 people taking their own lives in 2011. This is without precedent in Greece, a country that had previously recorded one of the lowest suicide rates in the world.

Two weeks ago, Eleftherios Lykouras, the head of the Attikon Hospital’s Psychiatric Department, told a press conference that the rise in suicides was intrinsically connected to economic insecurity and uncertainty over the future. According to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, Lykouras said, “The reduction in incomes, unemployment and financial difficulties are risk factors for the occurrence of depression symptoms, while the debt is proving to be a critical factor in the link between financial difficulty and depression.”

In his blog posting, Perris cited the lack of vitally needed medical services available to his mother as well as his inability to get the necessary remedies for his own developing medical problems. This is a direct result of the austerity measures imposed by PASOK and New Democracy, which are following the dictates of the EU and the IMF.

Bailout funds, destined for Greek banks, have been tied to the gutting of health care provision. Under the terms of the first bailout, health care spending was gutted by more than 10 percent. Under the second €174 billion agreed in March, another €1 billion cut in health care spending was made. This is equal to 0.5 percentage points of GDP. Its impact has been devastating under conditions in which many Greek workers have seen their wages reduced by up to 50 percent while unemployment has skyrocketed. Millions of people are now being forced to pay the full price for essential, life-saving medicines.

In April, the government suspended payments into the National Organisation for Health Care Provision (EOPPY), on which pharmacists rely for funding to prescribe drugs. According to officials last week, the state health system in Greece no longer has any funds to pay pharmacies for supplying their prescriptions.

People who used to pay prescription charges of between 10 and 25 percent for drugs, including those for treating heart conditions and cancer, now have to pay the full price. They can apply for a refund from social insurance funds that are members of EOPPY, but the likelihood of them ever getting the money back is slim. EOPPY was created last year on the direction of the troika and is now in a state of collapse. Pharmacies are owed a total of €520 million by EOPPY and other social insurance funds for prescriptions already supplied.

Following the breakdown in talks between the pharmacy owners and caretaker prime minister Pikrammenos, pharmacists held a 24-hour nationwide strike last Wednesday. An official from the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association told the Financial Times, “There is a cash crunch…. The state has stopped funding EOPPY, and they have stopped paying us. We cannot continue to subsidise the health service out of our pockets.”

Patients in state hospitals are also being forced to go without basic medicines. One hospital administrator told the Financial Times, “We used to provide drugs for all patients receiving treatment, but we’re so squeezed now that we ask them to bring their own supplies of prescription drugs.”

There are warnings that Greece could rapidly run out of medicine. Dimitris Karageorgiou, secretary general of the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association, warned, “Already we have cancer sufferers going from hospital to hospital to try and find drugs because no one can afford to stock them.

“If the shortages get worse, God knows what we will see.”

Run-off elections are set for June 17, after the first round saw a collapse in support for PASOK and New Democracy. In response, the troika, working in tandem with the Greek bourgeoisie, are letting it be known that further funds may be held up and the country even evicted from the euro if working people continue to resist the austerity measures.

Lagarde is one of the architects of the misery being inflicted on the Greek working class. Her interview made clear that, irrespective of the electoral outcome, workers in Greece can expect only greater suffering at the hands of the troika and Europe’s ruling elite.

Asked specifically about the fate of patients denied “life-saving drugs” and the elderly dying “alone for lack of care”, she responded with contempt, asserting that their plight was as nothing compared to “the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day.”

Leaving aside the naked cynicism of her remarks, the fact that the IMF director can argue that only when conditions in Europe are comparable to Africa are they worthy of attention, let alone sympathy, speaks volumes.

By the way, Ms Lagarde should remember the causes of bad conditions in Niger and other African countries: the history of French slave trade and colonialism; and of (uranium and oil) neo-colonialism by Lagarde’s boss Nicolas Sarkozy, who made her IMF director.

Ancient Egypt, first domestic cats

This video is called Ancient Egyptian Cats.

From ANI news agency:

Mummies reveal Egyptians were original cat breeders

Monday 28th May, 2012

The mystery about how cats went from running in the wild to becoming our domesticated furry friend may have been solved after analysing the genetic makeup of Egyptian cat mummies.

The results of a study of DNA from the remains of ritually slaughtered animals found in tombs have suggested that Ancient Egyptians were the first to breed the domestic cats, according to The Sunday Times.

In a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, scientists at the University of California Davis claimed that in order to keep up with the demand of cats as sacrifices to the gods, the Egyptians had large catteries where felines were bred for slaughter, the Daily Mail reported.

The research project, headed by Jennifer Kurushima, a scientist at the University of California Davis, said: “Modern cats can trace their genealogy to the time of the pharaohs. The Egyptians may well have been the first cat breeders, an important step in the domestication process of cats.”

The Egyptians revered cats and it is heavily featured in Ancient Egyptian art as early as 4,000 BC.

They worshiped feline goddesses like Mafdet, the goddess for protection of dangerous animals, who was most commonly depicted as a woman with a lion or cat-head, and more famously Bastet, the cat goddess of beauty, women and fertility.

It was to these two goddesses that the Egyptians sacrificed the ancestors of the modern domesticated cat more than 2,200 years ago.

The aim of the study was to find genetic similarities between the mummified cats and modern cats and wild cats, to work out how long ago humans turned them into pets.

Kurushima and team extracted mitochondrial DNA from three mummified cats found in tombs and compared it with samples from modern wild cats and domestic cats.

“Millions of cat mummies were offered and buried in areas throughout Egypt. To supply the demand for votive offerings, catteries were established to raise large numbers of felines for slaughte,” Kurushima said.

Cats have long been popular household pets not only for their cuddly fur and great companionship.

Their vermin hunting skills led to cats becoming popular as pets in North Africa nearly 4,000 years ago, apart from a period of time in the Middle Ages when they were hunted alongside ‘witches’ and accused of being associated with the devil.