07 July 2009

In memory

James Adams, Samantha Badham, Lee Harris, Phil Beer, Anna Brandt, Ciaran Cassidy, Elizabeth Daplyn, Arthur Frederick, Karolina Gluck, Gamze Günoral, Ojara Ikeagwu, Emily Jenkins, Adrian Johnson, Helen Jones, Susan Levy, Shelley Mather, Michael Matsushita, James Mayes, Behnaz Mozakka, Mihaela Otto, Atique Sharifi, Ihab Slimane, Christian Small, Monika Suchoka, Mala Trivedi, Rachelle Chung For Yuen, Michael Stanley Brewster, Jonathan Downey, David Foulkes, Colin Morley, Jenny Nicholson, Laura Webb, Lee Baisden, Benedetta Ciaccia, Richard Ellery, Richard Grey, Anne Moffat, Fiona Stevenson, Carrie Taylor, Anthony Fatayi-Williams, Jamie Gordon, Giles Hart, Marie Hartley, Miriam Hyman, Shahara Islam, Neetu Jain, Sam Ly, Shyanuja Parathasangary, Anat Rosenberg, Phillip Russell, William Wise, Gladys Wundowa

31 comments:

  1. Thanks Montana. I’d forgotten the significance of today’s date.

    I’m not sure if I’ve even seen all those names simply written down like that before. The actual reality of those fifty plus lives somehow got lost, along with them, in the media storm that followed their deaths. Every one a personal tragedy for someone, and all equally mourned.

    And I’d just like to suggest that the best memorial for them all would be for us to continue to speak out against hateful extremism, in all forms, and also against attempts by the state to use it as an excuse to curtail our hard-won rights and freedoms, imperfect though those are.

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  2. Thankyou Montana

    Andy you've said all I would have said so thanks to you too.

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  3. I had forgotten the date - so thanks Montana.

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  4. As above, i didnt twig the date, good effort Wildhack.

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  5. What andy said goes for me too.

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  6. and me.......

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  7. elementary_watson07 July, 2009 11:38

    and me

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  8. and on the topic of andy's last point, did anyone else see panorama last night? I only caught the end, and it still made me feel physically sick...............

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  9. NO what was it about?

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  10. Police surveillance of environmental protestors

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  11. Just watched it on iplayer very disturbing.

    The police spokesman was a git - justified everything simply by implying that that wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been doing something. He kept saying this is legal if susch and such was happening.

    A lady of my age had her walking stick removed, they justified it because they had just seen her walking without it.

    I don't need a stick on paved surfaces or even on a lawn. On tussoky grass I get stuck.

    She was about to enter a field!

    She looked just like any ordinary pensioner. they were protestingagainst a power company(EON) dumping rubbish in a lake that had wildfowl on it. Can see that making you mad dot!

    And they go on about how green they are and bully us into washing our recycled plastic!

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  12. I agree with you anne: very disturbing, and not just because they were environmental protesters. I can't stand the old "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" defence!

    Last night I was not in a pleasant mood, watching that, whilst trying to stop the cat sticking herself to my chest waders while I repaired them!

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  13. @anne/dot:

    I watched it. Every time you think Plod has hit the bottom in terms of stupidity, bang, he falls through it and finds a new one.

    @dot:

    Was Mrs Dot warming up the Swarfega while you got to work with the puncture repair kit on the old rubber waders? Kinky devil, you.

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  15. Swifty,

    Don't jump to the conclusion that there's a "Mrs Dot" or that it would be/is "Mrs"! (or that I'm "Mr" for that matter!)

    I will however confess that the waders needed repair because of something I sat on........

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  16. elementary_watson07 July, 2009 15:24

    Even though this is not the daily talk thread: What were kiz and Jay writing on the suffragette thread that got deleted?

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  17. Kiz warned someone not to make jokes or the mods may delete them. I responded in the same vein, essentially "dont make jokes, ironic comments or anythign tongue in cheek, the mods dont like frivolity." And then right on cue they deleted that very comment. So i told them to calm down. Then they deleted that.

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  18. elementary_watson07 July, 2009 15:45

    Thanks, Jay. Weird.

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  19. Not especially, articles which could conceivably be considered to have a 'feminist' slant are regularly subject to more deletions that most others (although those put up by nulab MPs also take a bit of a pasting)....

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  20. Won't ever forget that day. Thanks, Montana. At risk of being a copy cat, what Andy said too...

    Panorama was good last night but, as I said in the thread yesterday, if you really really want to be hacked off by what the police get up to, Taking Liberties is a brilliant film to watch.

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  21. The significance of the date hit me as I started to type in the normal 'Daily Chat 07/07/09' headline and when I did, I felt like the usual fluff just wouldn't be appropriate. Simple list of the names of those who died seemed best. I'm glad that that seems to have hit the right note for the rest of you.

    As for the police brutality -- I live in a country where most people, let alone police, believe the old "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" business. And most people seem to think that protesters have it coming to them. Seattle hosted a WTO summit while I lived there. My son was only a few months old, so I didn't take part in the protests myself, out of fear of what would happen to him if things did get ugly. (There were several signs in advance that the SPD intended to be pretty heavy-handed in their tactics.) Quite a few of my friends took part. It was really disturbing to listen to the reaction to the violence of so many people who only knew from the news what had happened. Prevailing thought was that the protesters deserved what they'd gotten, the police were just doing their jobs. Even people who were suspicious of the WTO went along with that! What was really sickening was watching the disparity between what I knew to be true from first-hand reports and the way the media portrayed those events.

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  22. Thanks for the reminder, I had no idea.

    Is it being marked in the UK in any way? Not a peep from the Polish media, while CNN have been following the Michael Jackson memorial non-stop since who knows when.

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  23. Czarny Knot

    not a a thing that I've seen - all is MJ and golden coffins. thats meeja priorities for you.

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  24. They had a fair bit about it on the Breakfast news and the Today programme this morning. There is a memorial that has been unveiled in Hyde Park. They interviewed a father of one of the girls killed, and a survivor of Tavistock Square - I have to say I was a tad disenchanted with the latter. She was going on about how the memorial should remind people to be vigilant because terrorists were everywhere and had to be stopped. Fair enough. She has been through a truly horrible ordeal and there but for the grace of god, etc. But it seemed out of tune with the times somehow...

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  25. They're upping the ante on far right terror now according to the Graun today
    Police fear far right will stage terror attack

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  26. Montana: That list of names reminds me of what my friend Bonnie (originally from NYC, now living in Tottenham) told me about the recent(ish?) memorial to the Vietnam dead in Washington DC. Just a simple list of names, but really moving in its simplicity.

    If it was really a spur of the moment thing on your part, it was truly inspired.

    And the variety of the names says something quite important about the city London is. All those names were just ordinary people travelling to their normal day on public transport.

    I’ll go out on a limb here (possibly) and say their deaths were/are more important to me and to the world than (here it comes…) Michael bloody Jackson. Not surprised it’s his gold coffin all over the news today, though.

    BB: I hope you’re right that that statement/interview (I didn’t see it) was out of tune with the times, but I fear we may be mistaken. Any excuse for a crackdown…

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  27. The Viet Nam Memorial in DC was quite controversial when the design was unveiled. Many vets wanted the more traditional representational sculpture-type memorial. As with many things, the stark beauty of the design seems to have won people over.

    "Those who would give up some little freedoms for a little increased security are deserving of neither."

    ----Benjamin Franklin

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  28. @MW:

    I've been to the Memorial Wall. I was with a good American friend who cried when she saw her uncle's name up there. She'd never known him, his name was just something the family talked about from time to time, but it's a powerful place alright.

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  29. Many thanks Montana. Good to have the names, so resonant in many ways.

    I was down in London for a funeral last week and on my way to the BM stopped in Tavistock Square for a bite and a ponder.

    It's an old cliche - as old as Dunbar's poem - but London is the flower of cities of all, not because it is pretty but because you find the people of the world there.

    ed (oldbaggie)

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