Amnesty International: Stop Child Executions
Ending The Death Penalty For Child Offenders

September 5, 2004PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Napoleon Beazley was executed in
2002 in Texas for a murder committed
8 years earlier when he was 17 years old.
At the trial the white prosecutor described
him as an ‘animal’ to an all-white jury.
Trial witnesses cited his potential for
rehabilitation. He was a model prisoner.

Amnesty International and medical experts from seven countries have sent an open letter to the heads of government in China, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Iran, Sudan and the USA urging
them to stop using the death penalty against children.
The letter has been signed by 17 medical experts with outstanding credentials in the field of child and adolescent psychology, psychiatry and social development.
International standards prohibit the execution of child offenders — people who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime. These standards include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the American Convention on Human Rights and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The relevant standards are respected by the overwhelming majority of the 80 countries which still retain and use the death penalty.

“Although adolescents generally know the difference between right and wrong, they can suffer from diminished capacities to reason logically, to control their impulses, to think through the future consequences of their actions, and to resist the negative influences and persuasion of others,” says the letter.
“They should face punishment for criminal actions, but the sanctions which can be imposed on mentally competent adolescent offenders should not be the same as those faced by adults found guilty of the same offences.”

Since 1990, Amnesty International has documented 38 executions of child offenders in eight countries: China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the USA and Yemen.
Endorsing the call of the world community to abolish child executions, Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said, “Child offenders should not be punished as if they were adults. Governments must amend their laws and practices to conform with international human rights standards and end the death penalty for offenders under the age of 18.”

Making its inauspicious return

September 4, 2004Unbelievable TruthRaymond Tomlin

Making its inauspicious return after an almost month-long summer break, The Unbelievable Truth is back once again to beguile you with tales of the down and dirty, the almost sleazy but not quite, and the kind of gossipy, scandal-mongering information that you could certainly live without, but would you want to? Welcome back constant reader, because here we go:
BRITNEY’S BITS!

We won’t keep you in suspense one moment longer. To kick off the glorious return of The Unbelievable Truth, VanRamblings is proud (well, maybe not proud) to present you with Britney’s bits, a risqué summary of the shenanigans to which every pre-teen girl (and dirty old men in raincoats) once turned their thoughtful attention.
And just what has Britney been up to this summer? According to the New York Post Britney’s going retro with her Greatest Hits album, recording a remake of Bobby Brown’s 80s hit My Prerogative. According to Access Hollywood, in the video for the song, Britney will ‘marry’ a Kevin Federline look-alike. US Weekly reports the two are in talks to become MTV’s new Newlyweds. Says Britney, “I want Kevin to be just as famous as I am.”
JOHN ASHCROFT’S BITS!

John Ashcroft is the Attorney General of the United States. Born in Chicago, Illinois, where his family had moved in order to be nearer to the headquarters of the Assemblies of God church (where he is still active), John Ashcroft was educated in Springfield, Missouri, and at Yale University, where he graduated in 1964.
From 1985 to 1993, he was the pro-death penalty, anti-abortion, anti gay rights, and opponent to gun control Governor of Missouri. In 1994 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Missouri, where he became a leading opponent of the Clinton Administration. He ran for re-election in 2000 against then-Governor Mel Carnahan, who died in an airplane crash about two weeks before the election. Due to Missouri state election laws, Carnahan’ s name could not be removed from the ballot, and his wife, Jean Carnahan, announced that she would serve in her husband’ s place should he be elected. Carnahan won the election. Poor John Ashcroft left Missouri with his tail between his legs, only to emerge as a key member of the Bush administration.
In tribute to the fine work undertaken by Mr. Ashcroft to limit the liberty of the people of the U.S., VanRamblings presents you with insight into the inner workings of John Ashcroft’s mind. Just what goes on inside the head of John Ashcroft, what makes him tick? To discover the measure of the man, VanRamblings would direct you to click on the picture above.
GRAY LADY POP CRITIC GHOSTWRITES PORN STAR CHRONICLES

Media gossip emanating from the New York Times headquarters on 43rd Street is always bound to set tongues wagging, but the only news this year to set other body parts wagging (fingers, we mean!) was the news that pop music critic Neil Strauss was leaving to ghostwrite adult-film star Jenna Jameson’s memoir, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star (which, according to Publisher’s Weekly is due to become ‘a low-brow classic’). Strauss maintains that it was his decision to leave, but fellow journos had a hard time believing that The Times would tolerate such deviant extracurricular activity from its staffers.
AND OTHER STUFF

For all you budding ornithologists out there, VanRamblings is pleased to aid the cause by directing you to Nice-Tits.org, offering a compendium of T-shirts, coffee-mugs, knick-knacks and other collectibles, presented by the Royal Tit-Watching (Ornithological) Society of Britain. And here we thought the British were so staid. Guess not. How wrong VanRamblings seems to be.

VanRamblings would direct your attention to this very important message from Pleasure Boat Captains For Truth. The truth has been revealed.

Don’t know what to do with the useless, old broken down Pentium II or III computer that’s gathering dust in the basement or the garage? The folks (or should be say psychos) at WeBlowITup.com have an idea.

Unemployment and Debt Up: Who Says B.C.’s Economy is Sizzling?

September 3, 2004BC PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

With only 256 days to go until the next provincial election on May 17th, 2005, VanRamblings continues in its efforts to bring you real information on the British Columbia economy, not the claptrap that you read in the CanWest Global newspapers.
Because this proved to be an unusually busy summer for the administrator of this site, we’ve not only failed to publish daily on occasion, but have been somewhat lax in keeping up with our regular perusal of favourite websites. As such, VanRamblings has missed a couple of important stories, one of which we’ll bring to your attention below.
The catchphrase currently in vogue with the right in British Columbia (it apparently tested well with the public in focus groups paid for by the provincial Liberal party and their supporters) is: “The B.C. economy is turning the corner.” Not has turned the corner, but “is turning the corner.”
Not so, according to the Columbia Journal’s Marco Procaccini, writing in The Tyee. According to a recent report issued by Statistics Canada, B.C.’s economy continues to fall behind the rest of the country.

The report says the unemployment rate in B.C. kept rising to 7.8 per cent in May, up from 7.7 per cent in April — an overall continued increase since 2002. In the spring, when summer hiring often causes a brief jump in new jobs, it says B.C. suffered a net loss of over 15,000 jobs.
Statscan also says while consumer spending, which dropped substantially in 2003, has improved slightly since the beginning of the year, the increase is minimal and the economy remains, overall, stagnant. It also reports that overall consumer savings in B.C. have now dropped to the lowest in the country.

In 2003, B.C.’s personal savings rate as a percentage of disposable income was the worst in the country at negative 8.2 percent.
Meanwhile, with nary a peep from the media, the Liberal government continues to increase B.C.’s long-term debt, soon to hit $40 billion.
Apart from the government’s declaration of a fatwa on the province’s economy, the Gordon Campbell Liberal administration has devastated the social infrastructure of our province, as they set about to pay off their rich friends. Seven Oaks magazine offers a partial list of legislation enacted by the government as part of their regressive class war agenda. Worth a read.

New On Video: A Bit of a Departure This Week

September 2, 2004Video & DVDRaymond Tomlin

In something of a departure, rather than announce and review the new DVD releases for the week, VanRamblings will point you towards a couple of new documentaries just out (or due out next week) on DVD, a DVD re-issue, plus a couple more interesting DVDs worth considering as potential rentals.
If you live in Vancouver, the place you’ll likely have to travel to in order to gain access to many of the DVDs below will be Videomatica, British Columbia’s première nostalgia, art, foreign and independent DVD rental and retail outlet. If Videomatica doesn’t have the DVD you want in their collection, then it isn’t on DVD — but, in all likelihood co-owner Graham Peat, or one of his staff, will probably be able to tell you when the DVD you’re requesting will become available, or how the store might go about ordering for you from the obscure rights holder to the DVD title.

You either love Swedish director Lars von Trier or the whole idea of Dogme has become just a bit too passé for you. However you feel about von Trier, if you love film, he’s one director who cannot be ignored, and as such Dogville will be a must rental for you this week. Be warned: for many viewers, Dogville will likely prove a polarizing, love-it-or-hate-it experience. That said, the best way to see the DVD is to know nothing about it, to trust it and have faith that it will deliver. And it does. The equal of Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, for its poetry, stridency and passion, Dogville may prove just as lasting. The first must rental of the week.

As Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore’s powerful indictment of the Bush Administration, is influencing millions of Americans in the heartland of the country to the south, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, a devastating new documentary that exposes Bush’s biggest cheerleader — the FOX television network — demonstrates in painful detail how one media empire, making full use of the public airwaves, can reject any semblance of fairness or perspective, and serve as the mouthpiece of right-wing conservatives (in Canada, think CanWest Global). An important, timely film, now on DVD. An absolute must rental.

Providing compelling arguments that even those on the right wing of the political spectrum will be hard pressed to refute, Uncovered: The War on Iraq is the second Robert Greenwald documentary reviewed this week on VanRamblings. Essentially a series of filmed testimonies from a broad range of commentators representing the military, diplomatic and intelligence communities — interspersed with news footage recapping the Bush administration’s buildup to the war — Uncovered delivers damning refutations of the Bush administration’s rationale for going to war with Iraq, and American conduct since becoming an occupying force. Due on DVD next week.

When Prince’s dazzling and dynamic Purple Rain, and the hypnotic hit single When Doves Cry, exploded onto the pop-culture scene in 1984, a star was born. In essence a feature-length music video, Purple Rain offered a showcase for one of the great musical artists of the last half-century. The plot (about the son of an abusive father struggling not to continue the pattern) proved to be surprisingly compelling; when complemented by a surfeit of dazzling songs (including Let’s Go Crazy and the title tune) performed in sizzling live-concert mode, there was little doubt that Purple Rain would become an essential artifact of the mid 80s pop Zeitgeist.