E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Recently, a well-known literary journal in Canada, PRISM International , issued an apology for publishing a few poems by one Stephen Brown , after an editor of his was accused of insensitivity for supporting the ex-convict. It turns out, so said the apology, the magazine did not know, when they published his poetry, that he had been convicted of a vile murder years before; that he had done his time, and, released, started a new life, writing under a pseudonym, in Mexico. Once they had realised they had published a criminal, they apologised; and soon, the cancellers had Brown's poems removed from the national Parliamentary website set up to showcase Canadian poems. Stephen Brown was found guilty of having beaten a woman to death with another man - she was an Indigenous woman, Pamela George , and it was of course deeply painful to this decent community in Saskatchewan to know the killer was now free and apparently being feted by the great and good (the local university in Regi...

Britons may be forgiven for waking up this morning thinking they are in a staging of Les Mis .  For today the news is this: benefit cheats can be imprisoned for up to ten years.  Now, I don't know about you, but that's the definition of draconian.  It may be morally repugnant to cheat the state of some money, but very few crimes legitimately warrant doing serious time in the klink.  Hard time is a serious thing to inflict on anyone - and it is likely to make a soft criminal a hardened one on release.  Rather than impose longer sentences for victimless crimes (the state is not a person), the state should find alternatives to cells, bars and Wormwood.

On Thursday, July 25 th at noon, within seconds, I went from being a middle-aged slightly chubby university lecturer and poet, to a man bizarrely christened into the world of Boy Band mega-celebrity.   For, as the police report confirms, I was assaulted, that moment, by several members of The Wanted , famous bad boy antagonists to One Direction – and, as linked to manager Scooter Braun , tied into the heady milieu that also includes Justin Bieber , and his balcony-spitting entourage.   Cue their hit song “All Time Low”. What I don’t want to do here is go over old, and stained ground, but to express my astonishment at just how privileged and above-it-all (literally) this celebrity culture is.   For, in a sort of grotesque re-run of Marie Antoinette , the “boys” seem to have decided to drench me with a bucket load of champagne as I nonchalantly passed beneath their window. The undisputed facts of the case are this, according to the police report.   I...

Last night I watched a young woman be bound and gagged provocatively, then suffocated to death, after her boyfriend was stabbed to a bloody pulp with long scissors, by a serial killer obsessed with "making his own pornography".  No, this wasn't some sick Internet site, nor was it a DVD or movie for adults.  It was a BBC 2 TV show, on Monday night, at 9 pm, with strong violence and language from the start. This after several weeks of hand wringing about banning violent and degrading porn sites, as it may have led to the escalating sadism of a child killer in Britain recently convicted. The Fall , a highly-rated, expertly filmed and acted five part thriller series, starring X-Files hero Gillian Anderson , is by far the most unsettling terrestrial TV I have ever seen, in how it fetishes the abuse and slow murder of young attractive women, in a context that involves scared children, and very horrific images and concepts.  It also graphically shows how to stalk and break in...

Have you seen many murderers in public?  I hadn't, until I saw Oscar Pistorius run, at the 2012 Summer Olympics, in London.  At the time, like almost everyone else in the stadium and by extension the world, I stood and cheered, marvelling at his speed, grace, courage and physical charisma.  He was the great blade runner, a hero to children and adults, and one of the major sporting figures of the age.  That was then - six months ago more or less.  Half a year makes a big difference. Now, the day after Valentine's Day, and the cruel irony is not lost on anyone, at only 26 years of age, he stands accused of murdering his girlfriend.  Given that she was a beautiful swimwear model and covergirl, and he a millionaire icon of the new South Africa, it is hard to imagine a more swift or cruel fall from national and international grace in terms of celebrity infamy - the fall is truly Olympian.  With four shots to the head and body, Oscar has go ne from a grea...

In Britain, a man is currently pleading manslaughter after strangling a woman he alleges screamed after he kissed her.  This is a tragic crime.  In Libya, the streets are gleeful with the death of a man, pulled, terrified and pleading, from a storm drain.  Once a powerful tyrant, he was now weak, humbled.  So they shot him in the head, pulled his body about, and cheered and jeered.  Obama, and Cameron, have claimed this as a great day for that nation.  Actually, it is a barbaric day.  A tragedy.  Each human death is terrible.  Each life should be guarded, and nurtured.  No one is too wicked to deserve a fair trial, or humane treatment.  We deride the law in Iran that calls for cruel punishments that fit the crime, and yet applaud mob justice when it suits our ends.  As in Iraq, this assassination has silenced an inconvenient maverick, who dared to challenge the hegemony of the oil-starved nations of the West.  Is it good h...

Excuse me for thinking we are in a different century - one where witches are burnt.   The Italian retrial of Amanda Knox (who may or may not be guilty of a sex murder with a partner or two, or alone) has been facing eyebrow-raising praise and blame the last few days, on the basis of her looks.  Simple as that.  The prosecutor in the case has claimed that she is "diabolical" and that her fresh-faced innocence masks someone dedicated to drugs, drink and "lust", a modern female Dorian Gray.  Meanwhile, the defence claims she is like "Jessica Rabbit" - "not bad, just drawn that way". Medieval, or simply Berlusconian, this may be - but also, in the age of Facebook, it speaks to a disturbing and eternal truth of the human condition: good-looking people are thought of differently.  Unfortunately, sexism comes with this.  Knox's eyebrows, heart-shaped face and full mouth, her clean-cut beauty, speak to certain fantasies surrounding all-American ...

There has never been an act like it.  Though the cruelly-executed mass-murder in Oslo is not numerically the worst terrorist outrage in human history, it is hard to think it is not the worst single-person act of murder, barring mad dictators.  The individual in question seems to have acted alone, stepping out of central casting as half Nazi-arch-villain, half Scandinavian lone wolf, a Kierkegaard with bullets. Too often the phrase cinematic is used for these insane projects, but this one was timed with the grandiose perfection of a brilliant engineer, and has the hallmarks of a barely-plausible  Stieg Larsson   thriller.  It is unbelievable to think one man could set off destruction at the heart of a nation's political centre only to use that as a diversion to strike at the heart of its youth, miles away, on a pleasant summer island, dressed as an officer of the law. It is ironic, and demonic.  It is made worse when one realises the killer surrendered c...

Is this  David Cameron 's Watergate?  Probably not.  But the Murdoch brand is becoming surprisingly toxic just as it is on the verge of monopolising the mediascape in the UK.  The news that the News of the World hacked into the phones of victims of terrible crimes, such as child murder, and terrorist bombings, is so unwholesome and upsetting that it is amazing the grubby little people responsible have not hung themselves in shame.  But no, this is the brash, empty selfish world of London journalism, filled with massive egos suffering from personality disorders one normally finds in insane empires.  Something needs to be done. Little will be.

According to the latest polls, a majority of the French think Mr. Strauss-Kahn is innocent, stitched up by some sort of elaborate conspiracy.  That's ironic, since under French law, the arrested do not get the assumption of innocence.  However, and noting that this is still only an alleged series of crimes, it doesn't look good for someone once one of the ten most powerful men in the world.  As more emerges about his victim, a widowed mother apparently with AIDS or HIV, an immigrant to America from Africa without any sense of who her attacker was, a brave but scared woman, it is hard not to side with her David to his Goliath. It is true that the crimes are not those usually associated with busy serious people on the verge of running for office - though politicians are known to have large sexual appetites from time to time - but the accused has, unfortunately, a track record of allegedly aggressive dealings with numerous women previously.  The term sexual predator ...

The execution of Teresa Lewis diminishes the humanity of us all.  It has also seriously damaged America's moral position vis a vis Iran.  It seems hard to see how America can critique Iran for executing women, when it does the same itself.  Particularly sad, even tragic, in this case, were the circumstances: Lewis had a low IQ (whatever that means these days) of 72 - 70 would have made her ineligible for being executed; she hired the two hit-men (who testified against her), who both received life sentences without the death penalty.  Therefore, while she has died for the murders, the physical killers remain alive.  There was the strong possibility that Lewis had been manipulated by one of the killers, who was her lover; and while her crime was dispassionately planned, it was not the work of a mastermind, but a clumsy grab for insurance money: shabby but all-too-human.  In short, Teresa Lewis was a simple person who made a series of profoundly wrong choice...

BBC Radio 4 has just now been debating whether Raoul Moat is a worthy folk-hero - as Eyewear predicted might happen, a bandit hero cult has developed around the tragic man.  It seems a bad idea to have Tasered a man with a shotgun to his head (the jolts caused can lead to involuntary spasms and hence pulling of a trigger) - or to have kept his family members away, when they wanted to tell him he was loved (he was bemoaning his lonely state).  Meanwhile, the police office who he shot point blank has forgiven him, though he may now be blind.  In another case of miscarried justice - and deranged men - Roman Polanski has been freed from his luxurious house arrest.  This is a pity.  Although a brilliant film director, he also seems to be something of a sexual predator.  There is of course one law for dirt poor fugitives like Moat, and another law for suave rich abusers like Polanski. Will the director become a folk-hero too?  Finally, speaking of violent ...

Sadly, the fugitive Raoul Moat has killed himself rather than go peacefully into police custody, on the bank of a river in an area he loved as a child.  He was heard to say "I don't have a dad"... and that no one cared for him.  Poignant words, that remind us how often the roots of crime and violence are a wounded heart, a lonely soul.  May he rest in peace.  May his victims, also, find peace.

Raoul Moat - as everyone in England knows - is on the run.  He is a big man - a body builder - and he has allegedly shot and killed his ex-girlfriend's new lover, thinking him a police office, and also seriously wounded her, and another man, a police officer.  He is currently on the run in a remote part of North-Eastern England, in territory he "knows like the back of his hand" since camping there as a child, armed with shotguns.  Today his camp was found, with a letter to his wounded ex-partner.  His previous letter had taunted the police, and claimed he would kill more of them.  That this situation is not going to end well seems unfortunately certain - Moat apparently seeks suicide by cop - but then again, forensic pyschologists now claim he is measured - and, to a degree, appears intelligent enough to elude a small army of helicopters and searchers.  If guilty as charged, then Moat is a villain - but his behaviour has uncomortable echoes of murder balla...

Free at last! In England, people may be bemoaning the 4-1 loss.  But in America, liberals are faced with a more serious 5-4 decision.   The Supreme Court's conservative decision to throw out all state and local laws aimed at gun control as unconstitutional hands the NRA and gun makers an almost unlimited victory over those who have sought to keep gun violence at bay in the States.  Sadly, according to some estimates, 30,000 (!) people die by gun every year in America - a health risk that is almost totally preventable.  Of course, far fewer people would also die if cars, alcohol, and tobacco were limited or banned.  Is the price of freedom the risk of a bullet?  One thing is for sure, there's never likely to be an army that takes total control of the US.  Or, for that matter, a police force.  Some would want to say, or a government.

The scrapping of the vetting for people who work with children in the UK is a tragic mistake, Eyewear feels. While authors, like Phillip Pullman , claimed lofty indignation, the Soham murders established that the person next door can be - and sometimes is - a dangerous, even murderous, predator. To deny otherwise is not very literary - writers and poets, of all people, should be aware of the depths of human behaviour, and especially sensitive to the risks of child abuse. Many poets and writers I know have had such abuse experiences themselves. What would have been a cautious, but sensible, tracking of all those who sought to work closely with children in positions of trust has now been removed - and while civil libertarians can rejoice, sadly, and ominously, so will those with more sinister interests. The recent history of priests, and boy scout leaders, established, I think, that society needs to guard against institutional laziness around child abuse and predation. This gov...

Very terrible news - a taxi drive r has gone on a killing spree in the Lake District region of England, on a lovely June day, killing at least 12 people, and wounding dozens more.  GPs on the scene are shaken, and no one was prepared for this.

Pope or Pilate ? Washing one's hands may be a Christian trope, but it shouldn't be a guiding principle. The latest revelations concerning the former Cardinal Ratzinger's reluctance to prosecute or defrock child-molesting priests, for the claimed sake of a larger purpose (presumably protecting the name of the Church) is chilling, and more Machiavellian than even we might have expected emanating from an Italian city-state with subtle leanings. The Pope is leader of a Church with about a billion followers (communicants) and he shouldn't be collared like a common criminal when he visits the UK soon, as Dr Dawkins and Mr Hitchens now propose; but he is an uncommon figure, and if found responsible, or irresponsible, in such serious matters, his judgement, and moral fibre will have been called into more than just question - they may be dragged into the mire, and sullied beyond normal repair. Forgiveness for sins is a major aspect of Christianity. But so is obedience to ...