Ken Bigley

[Izzy HaveMercy]

As always and in general....


When the 9-11 thing happens (or is remembered, for that matter), most Americans feel very grieved and upset and expect the world to do the same.

When a German guy is beheaded, all of Germany cries with rage and expects Europe to do something about it.

The UK normally does not bother much with all this. Up until the moment one of 'their kind' comes home headless. Then THEY cry with rage and expect the whole world to mourn with them.

Here in Belgium, a guy called Jos Geysen (sp?) once had a radioshow called 'De Ver Van Mijn Bed'-show, literally translated the 'Far from my Bed'-show (wow).

And that's exactly the feeling everyone on this bloody earth has every time something happens, not only Americans, Europeans or Youkayans.

TOO MUCH of this is happening, so we have to be 'selective'. Every day we see Palestinians getting killed, Iraqi's blown up and Ossetian children getting shot.

We are becoming lethargic to that, coz we see it every day. It's only when it happens very close to us, that we have the slightest hint of actually 'giving a s h i t '.

Try this: look at the news (any news, BBC, CNN, local...) and write down the topics. Then afterwards look which topics were mostly BAD and TRAGIC news and which were mostly GOOD and HAPPY news. Do this for a month. Then look at the result.

Here in Belgium, they have a special two-minute moment at the end of the news. It is the short timespan where you see something odd but happy or cute has happened, for instance an little baby kangaroo is born in the zoo or someone broke the record eating pies or something.

Most of the time that is the only two minutes something HAPPY is said in the news. And they always put it at the end, so you feel happy after watching the whole bunch of misery. If they would put it in first, you'd prolly KILL yourself after the news bulletin....

Stop watching the news. You'll end up a happier person

IZ (neutral bastard overfiend)

[Francis]

... Americans feel very grieved and upset and expect the world to do the same.

...

The UK ... cry with rage and expect the whole world to mourn with them.

...

I don't think this is true. CNN reports news which it thinks matters to the US. Similarly the BBC for the UK. It's only natural a death of a compatriot is considered more newsworthy than that of another. Just because much of the world seems to watch CNN and BBC, doesn't mean they're addressing them.

[boudicca]

This morning - my mum pops into Tesco's - they had a one-mintute silence.

That is pushing it IMHO.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

... Americans feel very grieved and upset and expect the world to do the same.

...

The UK ... cry with rage and expect the whole world to mourn with them.

...

I don't think this is true. CNN reports news which it thinks matters to the US. Similarly the BBC for the UK. It's only natural a death of a compatriot is considered more newsworthy than that of another. Just because much of the world seems to watch CNN and BBC, doesn't mean they're addressing them.

I'm not talking about the news exclusively.
I mean EVERYONE thinks someone from their own nationality is more important than others.

And BTW, CNN and BBC do not report for the US or the UK exclusively either.

I watch more BBC and CNN news than Belgian news. For one reason or another, it sounds even more 'news' when it's in English


IZ.

[andymackem]

This morning - my mum pops into Tesco's - they had a one-mintute silence.

That is pushing it IMHO.

Exactly. And why have a minute's silence before the England v Wales game for him? Was he a football fan? Did he have any sort of involvement in the game? He wasn't from Manchester, so it wasn't part of the "Liverpool - a city in mourning" thing that got a reference on the news tonight.

Whatever the reason, the shoddy behaviour of a section of the crowd (not sure whether English, Welsh or both) suggests that it wasn't a sensible thing to do. And that football fans, sadly, are cunts.

As for respect, I'd always assumed the respecting the dead was shorthand for respecting the feelings of the bereaved. After all, whatever kind of afterlife you believe in I'm unaware of one where your fate is determined by some kind posthumous court of public opinion ... though the notion of the Big Brother Afterlife has a certain twisted appeal.

Does it really help Ken Bigley's family to have had this turned into "the people's murder"? Going back a couple of years, did it really help the Soham girls' families when that became "the people's murder"?

It may or may not be post-Diana, but there seems to be a ghoulish desire on behalf of a large swathe of the population to "belong" when some kind of tragedy or disaster falls. The other week I heard people on phone-ins saying that when Brian Clough died they felt like they'd lost a member of their family. These weren't people who had played with Clough, or worked with him, or even met him in some cases. They were just spouting attention-seeking platitudes, or suffer from a severe lack of understanding about appropriate grief.

Random piece of unsubstantiated sociology: as a society we have witnessed a (perceived?) breakdown in community ties, close-knit family groups etc. Aside from the decay of the nuclear family unit, look at the ever-growing number of people who move from their family homes to find work, or who base a large chunk of their work and/or social life outside of their place of residence. Witness the decline in sales of local newspapers, the falling off in votes at local elections. It's argued that even little things like digital TV mean the days of "water-cooler" programmes universally discussed in the office or the pub next day are dying out.

Is this "me too" emotional knee-jerk to any identifiably "bad thing" simply a desperate effort to rekindle a sense of community with our neighbours?

[andymackem]

Try this: look at the news (any news, BBC, CNN, local...) and write down the topics. Then afterwards look which topics were mostly BAD and TRAGIC news and which were mostly GOOD and HAPPY news. Do this for a month. Then look at the result.

Here in Belgium, they have a special two-minute moment at the end of the news. It is the short timespan where you see something odd but happy or cute has happened, for instance an little baby kangaroo is born in the zoo or someone broke the record eating pies or something.

Most of the time that is the only two minutes something HAPPY is said in the news. And they always put it at the end, so you feel happy after watching the whole bunch of misery. If they would put it in first, you'd prolly KILL yourself after the news bulletin....

Stop watching the news. You'll end up a happier person

IZ (neutral bastard overfiend)

Probably true all over the place. Almost every news show tries to get something into the "... and finally" slot that will send its viewers off to bed with a smile on their faces. It's usually something utterly trite and dull, but it leavens the gloom somewhat. It's the same reason that sport is usually put at the end of bulletins, though in Scotland that just means more doom and gloom

There have been a couple of experiments in the UK with papers printing nothing but good news. One series, in West London, focuses on quasi-religious scientologist garbage, routinely flies into a storm of controversy about its, shall we say, monocultural world view, and is largely ignored.

The others were launched with great fanfare in the Wigan area of Lancashire (NW England, for those from more interesting parts) and have, to the best of my knowledge, sunk without trace. Good news is only interesting to the beneficiaries. Authorities as diverse as Tolstoy and Morrissey would back me up. Shakespeare's tragedies are better known than his comedies. Etc.

People like reading and hearing about bad news. September 11 prompted a huge upsurge in newspaper sales and news TV viewing figures. For the first time in the UK the 24-hour news channels got something approaching a sustained audience over the course of the afternoon as the issue developed. Evening newspapers up and down the country turned out special editions (mostly using _that_ photo as a full page splash) which sold like hot cakes from Inverness to Plymouth.

On a far more local level, working for a weekly title in West London (not the one mentioned above, honest!) it was a known fact that a murder on the front page meant we sold more copies. Out on patch to cover the story of a man stabbed to death in a pub in Brentford (oh, how I loved that job), I popped into the newsagents round the corner to get some local reaction. After chatting to the owner, and suggesting that it was a likely lead story that week he phoned the office to ask for extra copies, knowing that he would sell them to people who saw police tape outside their local on the front page.

I don't know why we think this way, but undoubtedly we do. Strange old world, isn't it?

[Quiff Boy]

"Random piece of unsubstantiated sociology"? spot on if you ask me...

i've had very similar thoughs myself

[Francis]

@MrMackem: Do you have a point to make or just a vocabulary to display?

[boudicca]

Does it really help Ken Bigley's family to have had this turned into "the people's murder"? Going back a couple of years, did it really help the Soham girls' families when that became "the people's murder"?

I draw a distinction there. I think the murder of those two girls was, statistically, so rare and so terrifying and impossible to understand to anyone who had (or for that matter knew or even just cared two hoots about) children, that I can fully understand the reaction - I shared it myself. That plus what happened to the family with that "family liason" officer...
On the other hand, Bigley was a man in a lawless warzone which attracts extremists - I would imagine the chances of being kidnapped and killed there are far higher. Deaths occur daily in these places by their very nature, what happened in Soham was a very unusual example of human cruelty.
I'm not saying, believe it or not, that the more common a crime is, the worse it is - not necessarily. But I think if you rounded up the people on this earth who could get their heads around what that terrorist group did, and then rounded up the folk who could get their heads around what Ian Huntley did, the latter group would be much smaller. People just found the Soham case so utterly horrific in it's distortion (or complete abandonment) of natural human impulses. Killing or at least harming"enemies" is part of our most primitive nature, and the nature of many animals. Abusing and killing our young is not.

Random piece of unsubstantiated sociology: as a society we have witnessed a (perceived?) breakdown in community ties, close-knit family groups etc. Aside from the decay of the nuclear family unit, look at the ever-growing number of people who move from their family homes to find work, or who base a large chunk of their work and/or social life outside of their place of residence. Witness the decline in sales of local newspapers, the falling off in votes at local elections. It's argued that even little things like digital TV mean the days of "water-cooler" programmes universally discussed in the office or the pub next day are dying out.

Is this "me too" emotional knee-jerk to any identifiably "bad thing" simply a desperate effort to rekindle a sense of community with our neighbours?

I think you're right. I remember on Sept. 11th, coming home from college, and some random people on the train talking to me. Now, I am not the kind of person who invites that! However, I think there's another element. The complete and utter cushy-ness of our modern lives means we rarely endure any kind of crisis - we construct emotional ones, but life-or-death ones are few and far between. And at the risk of starting to sound like Robert Winston or something, I think we probably evolved with dangerous situations threatening our very existence quite often. Before we got the hang of like, spears and guns and s**t. I wouldn't be surprised if we still have some kind of residual need for that - maybe that's why some people 'enjoy' jumping out of planes. These dramas that we really only hear of through the media might not genuinely affect us in that life-or-death sense, but I think a nagging, guilt-ridden part of our minds still lives vicariously through the tragedies of others.

This has really gone OT, hasn't it? Sorry.

[CtrlAltDelete]

maybe that's why some people 'enjoy' jumping out of planes.
This has really gone OT, hasn't it? Sorry.

Speaking of going off topic...

Recent research has shown that people who regularly participate in "extreme" (i.e. potentially life-threatening) activities such as skydiving and bungee jumping are lacking the chemical that sends the fear signal to the brain. In a controlled study, people who were deficient in that chemical were given a synthetic version of it and every one of them lost the urge to participate in those activities.

Way, way off topic.

[boudicca]

maybe that's why some people 'enjoy' jumping out of planes.
This has really gone OT, hasn't it? Sorry.

Speaking of going off topic...

Recent research has shown that people who regularly participate in "extreme" (i.e. potentially life-threatening) activities such as skydiving and bungee jumping are lacking the chemical that sends the fear signal to the brain. In a controlled study, people who were deficient in that chemical were given a synthetic version of it and every one of them lost the urge to participate in those activities.

Way, way off topic.

Nice to know I've got that chemical, then. I scrambled over a 6-foot fence when I chickened out of going on Nemesis at Alton Towers.
Then again I go rock climbing. Go figure.

[andymackem]

Nice to know I've got that chemical, then. I scrambled over a 6-foot fence when I chickened out of going on Nemesis at Alton Towers.
Then again I go rock climbing. Go figure.

Simple. It's all about control.

[boudicca]

Nice to know I've got that chemical, then. I scrambled over a 6-foot fence when I chickened out of going on Nemesis at Alton Towers.
Then again I go rock climbing. Go figure.

Simple. It's all about control.

Do elaborate.

[andymackem]

Nice to know I've got that chemical, then. I scrambled over a 6-foot fence when I chickened out of going on Nemesis at Alton Towers.
Then again I go rock climbing. Go figure.

Simple. It's all about control.

Do elaborate.

When you're climbing your rocks you are in control of your situation. It's difficult, it's dangerous, but it's a measured risk and if you cock things up it's pretty much your own problem.

When you're on a roller-coaster you have no control over what happens. It's probably entirely sanitised and safe, but you are reliant on someone else's safety checks and the discipline of the ride operator keeping awake and responding adequately to any problem. If he cocks it up it's still pretty much your problem, but you've done nothing to get yourself in trouble which seems a bit unfair.

Effectively you're happy to trust yourself with a risk, but reluctant to entrust yourself to others. It's the same reason why I'm happy enough to drive but can't stand being a passenger, even with a much safer driver than me (and there are many of them!).

Possibly.

[Black Shuck]

I'm sorry, but I'm getting really bored of the Iraq war.

In fact, I lost interest about six months ago.


I don't understand why people consistently get themselves so worked up about this one small country a squillion miles away.

in short :

Ken Bigley - Every Western contractor who goes to Iraq knows there is a genuine risk of this happening. It is just an occupational hazard, nothing more. That's why these people are so ridiculously well paid.
If you don't wanna get beheaded by a load of evil nutters, then DON'T SODDING WELL GO TO IRAQ!
Frankly I don't see why we should be holding a minutes silence at a football match.

Car bombers / general evil Muslim nutters: If they wanna go around Iraq blowing people up, there's not a lot we can do about it; certainly, we shouldn't feel bad or guilty about it.
It ain't MY fault! the only ones to blame are the nutters themselves.
I didn't feel guilty when I learnt that my old family doctor, Harold Shipman, had offed a couple of hundred old biddies, so why shoud i mourn every time some maniac kills a load of innocent bystanders in the middle east?

it don't make no sense.

anyway, that's just my two penneth worth.

[markfiend]

The old "compassion fatigue" setting in there BS?

I do understand what people are saying about the fact that the UK seems far more upset about one of "our own" dying than about thousands of Iraqis, Palestinians, etc.

Wasn't it Stalin who said, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."

[Mrs. Snowey]

But are we as a nation more upset about one of our nationals getting offed, or are we being manipulated into becoming more upset?

There's a great big telly thing outside St. John's shopping precinct in Liverpool. At one point it was exhorting people to join in with a 2-minute silence. And I think it was the BBC doing the exhorting, (but I could be wrong)

[Debaser]

http://www.channel4.com/news/news_story ... yId=125683

Now for her, I'd stand in silence. So much life ahead of her, she hadn't even thought about earning tax free mega bucks...

I am sad Mr Bigley died...but I'm not over-wrought and refuse to feel intimidated by those who feel I should be.

[boudicca]

But are we as a nation more upset about one of our nationals getting offed, or are we being manipulated into becoming more upset?

I think it's the latter. You're obliged to grieve in these situations as though you knew the person concerned, it seems.

As for the Iraq war, you may or may not care about people dying thousands of miles away. But a prime minister who's doing the classic "skimp on basic freedoms in the name of security" and "keep your eye on the outside enemy and you won't notice what a s**t government you have" stuff... does that not affect every ordinary person in Britain today?

[randdebiel²]

But are we as a nation more upset about one of our nationals getting offed, or are we being manipulated into becoming more upset?

There's a great big telly thing outside St. John's shopping precinct in Liverpool. At one point it was exhorting people to join in with a 2-minute silence. And I think it was the BBC doing the exhorting, (but I could be wrong)

you don't need to be manipulated to...it has a lot to do about chances someone you know knowing someone that's close enough I think...

[Mrs RicheyJames]

http://www.channel4.com/news/news_story ... yId=125683

Now for her, I'd stand in silence. So much life ahead of her, she hadn't even thought about earning tax free mega bucks...

I am sad Mr Bigley died...but I'm not over-wrought and refuse to feel intimidated by those who feel I should be.

Agreed! That's just fu*ked up.