The Raoul Moat Saga

Ever since the tragic events of the 3rd and 10th of July, newspapers, politicians and all entities that one could ascribe the "establishment" label to in any regard have been scathing in their vilification of Raoul Moat. In fairness, as far as anyone can be called a villian; he can. However, the lack of sympathy being shown and the lack of understanding of those who show sympathy is appalling.

To quote the most establishment figure one can find, the Rt. Hon. David Cameron

“I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community.” 

So, David, let me try to enlighten you why some people feel sympathy for a killer. There are a few reasons why people do this.

First of all, we must remember that Moat's life story covered miles of news pages and the story had twenty four hour coverage on television. It pervaded the everyday lives of people. Once people saw his background, his breakdown and his kids it became a whole lot easier to humanise him. The word "monster" is used too often by the media to label people, and people readily latch onto it for paedophiles. It's easy to call up images of trolls or other hideous beasts and put paedophiles in the same category as them. In fact it's easy to put any group of people in that category as long as you don't know them. That's basically where racism comes from. Knowing people doesn't necessarily lead to complete understanding, but it does lead to a little understanding and a little sympathy.

Secondly, people are conditioned to root for the underdog. Whether in sports or in life; when someone is facing nigh impossible odds, ninety-nice times out of a hundred the neutral spectator wants the underdog to win for it to be dramatic. Such conditioning has been achieved through years of Hollywood movies where the hero overcomes the forces of the entire universe to rescue the treasure and/or girl. There's a plethora of glorified convicts on the the run from the law in our collective psyche; Ned Kelly, Butch Cassidy, even Robin Hood for crying out loud. Regardless of his crimes, when the faceless state brings all of its draconian powers to bear on one individual, the natural inclination of people is to cheer for the little guy.

Thirdly, the manner of his death. It was a tragedy. Any death is. Worse than that, it was a tragedy which many see as have being preventable. The police had Moat surrounded for over five hours before he shot himself. I'm going to bet I'm not the only one thinking that some form of tranquillizer or something could have been used to bring him in peacefully. I'm sure the police officers did the best they could, but the feeling still remains.

Lastly, someone died. It is perfectly natural to feel sympathy when someone dies, regardless of whether you know the person or not. People should be celebrating the fact that we are able to feel sympathy for killers. Empathising and sympathising with other people is what gels society. A lack of empathy and sympathy is what makes it possible for people to commit violent crime. We feel sympathy, thus we have not turned into the animal during the hunt.

So rather than condemning the sympathy, we should try to understand it and focus it on the positives. The messages being sent out by the Prime Minister and the rest of the establishment only serves to divide the state further from people and hardly serves the purpose of building Mr. Cameron's "Big Society".

You Know What? We're Pretty Awesome

So there I was, hurtling along in the sky at about 500km per hour, around five km above the ground in long rather heavy metal cylinder. The thought struck me; how is it that such an incredible feat of human engineering and genius that is powered flight does not inspire awe in all who see it let alone use it.

It seems rather incredulous, but we've become normalised to the thought of air travel. It has become common to the point of boredom as evidenced the fact that the time spent on safety instructions by the cabin crew is usually spent by the passengers sleeping or reading or listening to an ipod or some combination thereof. I have flown approximately 66,510km in my life, and I would not consider myself a prolific traveller. My elder sister puts her mileage in the 100,000km area. At least.

It's the same with other engineering marvels. We have had images from all over the world beamed into our homes for decades now. We can converse instantaneously with friends on the other side of the world. We use a series of giant explosions to land an object accurately on a planet over 50 MILLION kilometres away, AND then we able to land that object carefully enough that it's able to drive over the alien landscape AND collect samples and data AND transmit that data back to us. When you sit back and think about how a little while, the breath and depth of human advancements are simply mind boggling. We adapt to using new technology astoundingly quickly and integrate it into our lives. Can you imagine now a world without mobile phones, without the internet? We now have robotic limbs for paraplegics; the only limit on what's next is our imagination (and the laws of physics I suppose).

Despite this ability to adapt, I do worry at times how we'd cope with disaster, and I mean society ending disaster. I've just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy which is a masterpiece showing man's struggle in a post-apocalyptic state. It also shows how woefully under prepared the world is for that sort of disaster. Think about how long you could survive on the food in your house right now. I'm guessing a week at most. Without a shop to buy your food from, what would you do? Could people adapt quickly enough to that? It's a fascinating question. All I know is having done scouts as a kid would suddenly become useful at last.

So the next time a telemarketer phones you, take some time to remember how amazing it is that they are able to harass you like that. Take the time to enlighten them to the majesty of technology. Not only would it educate them, you'd be guaranteed not to get any more calls from that company again.

Gamesmanship or Cheating?

Last week, Ghana were knocked out of the World Cup owing chiefly to Luis Suárez handling the ball on the line preventing a last minute Ghananian(?) goal. The aftermath featured much gnashing of teeth, much lamenting the lack of some sort of penalty goal system and of course, much vilification of FIFA and Sepp Blater. Suarez himself seems to have gotten off lightly much to the chagrin of the internet (or at least the small part of the internet I observe).
Professional fouls such as that one have been around forever and permeate all levels of every sport. I remember being coached at age twelve to "take out" any players that were one-on-one with me when I was playing in goal. I have a particularly clear memory of tripping a player through on goal in a Cork County Under 16 Hurling Quarter Final, and I mean I just swung my hurley at the guys heels. I got away with that one, but even had I been sent off, it would have been an acceptable loss. In any sport, what counts is winning. In team sports, it's the team's results that count. Players are always taught to play selflessly; to pass to the player in a better position, to take the hits in the tackle, to run yourself into the ground in the name of the jersey. Add to this conditioning, the pride involved in playing for your country on the biggest stage in the world. Given these combination of factors, is it any surprise that Suarez did what he did?

There is a huge difference here between what happened here and Henry's handball and Maradonna's Hand of God. This is very evident in the popular psyche. Henry was vilified in his own national media following the game. The Hand of God follows Maradonna around to this day, and has firmly embedded itself in English football folklore. Suarez was treated like a hero; a modern day knight who sacrificed himself for the good of the country. In my view, rightly so. The guy didn't try to hide what he did. He shamelessly took the bullet for the team. It was the last minute of the game, there was literally nothing left to lose. Even if there was a penalty goal rule like that in rugby, I can guarantee you that he would have still done it. It was an instinctive reaction, borne out of those years of indoctrination into a team playing psyche. In those micro seconds all a player cares about is stopping a ball going into the goal.

The mental process involved with the Hand of God or the Hand of Frog is different. Those were calculated efforts to direct the ball in a specific direction. This may sound like something I'm asserting, and essentially it is. It's borne from personal experience. It just makes more sense. Unfortunately I can't seem to ba bale to explain it in any more precise fashion.

Despite this and all the other controversies that have dodged this World Cup, I can guarantee that there will be no goal-line technology, no video referees and no penalty goal rule. Why? Not just because Sepp Blater is as stubborn as a particularly bitter mule, but I get this feeling that FIFA want the controversy. They look at the way these injustices are manipulated by the national media in the affected nations, and notice how these are used as fuel to fire interest when those two sides next meet. This means huge interest in the sport, and in turn huge advertising revenues for the national FAs and FIFA. If you doubt me, just imagine what would have happened if France and Ireland were in the same group for the forthcoming European Championships Qualifying campaign; the tabloids would be frothing at the mouth, the Joe Duffy public would be baying for blood and the viewing audience would be HUGE.

Also, screw it. In sport, like in life, shit happens.