terça-feira, 27 de outubro de 2009

Frustrations



Here is a photo from the Telegraph UK and shows the lack of horror on these young faces, the title given was 'body trolley'.
There are so many small frustrations at the moment, ranging from the lack of information fed back to me by the Notaire in France, the misdirection of where I should have gone to sort out the last piece in my long attempt to get the house and apartment separated for sale, the still ongoing court cases that are so close to me getting my money refunded but still they seem just out of reach, the next door neighbours semi wild dogs that are ferrel bound in the road outside to copulate for most of the day and with lack of any romance, the TV never seems to give a good picture when I would like to whatch it, the struggle to get any contact with my optician to arrange an appointment to get my eye pressures tested and along with that the new lens have given me eye sight between one metre and infinity and the reading glasses only are good at a set thirty centimetres distance, so I have a distance without good focus and unfortunately that is the distance that I am most needing for general work and painting.
Now I am sure that I do not understand the fine points of why any one wants to take drugs in order to end up robbing and killing. I have some small knowledge of drugs in that my ex girlfriend at school, when I was sixteen years old, had a desire to fit in with some friends who where much older and whom took drugs. To keep as close to her as I wished I also started to take some drugs, but for me the loss of control was not good and I found that the negative effect on her behaviour was too much for me. Her friend was also an invalid and I am sure that this fed is sense of resentment and the desire to opt out, I did feel that he was wishing to thumb his nose at the society he felt did not give enough to him, my ex started a similar path but also tried several times to commit suicide, it was after two of these attempts that I gave up on the relationship, much to my parents and teachers relief, especially as I was in the middle of exams and was not spending time at home or studying, for me my ex was my passion but for her the drug circle was the centre of her life.
Now on the television in Brazil it is overwhelming the amount of sadness and distress that drugs are causing, it is bad enough with alcolhol but even there it is hard to think of a person killing or robbing another to get another beer. I cannot see how it is possible for the public and the government here to just accept this situation, for they certainly do. The highlighted police raids and shootings are for me a consequence of work on both sides, these are jobs for the police and the drug dealers and not a desire to eliminate the problem. It would be unthinkable in Europe to go into an area of population and start shooting at will without removing civilians first, it would also be unthinkable to not have surveillance sufficient to monitor all the city if this was your major problem. London as more cameras than almost any city I know and if it wished the police can view most streets at almost a 24 hour cycle.
The ever growing divide of parental responsibility and the general apathy of the public to any violence must all contribute to the growing drugs problem, it is so easy for dealers to intimidate, move freely and bribe authorities. For me a serious approach from the government would indeed help as it would with hunger and deforestation.
The next door neighbours are invaders of the house, it is not theirs but they have taken over it some two years ago, I guess there is a problem with the original deeds and that is why the owners cannot get the swatters out. This large family may well not let their daughters out onto the street, as some families do, but they do not feel the need to have their animals castrated, so there is an ever growing number of cats and dogs as well as a growing collection of ferrel dogs that are attracted to the house by the other dogs, for me there is a parallel with Brazilian life. The bureaucracy and its desire to keep everything floating in air for as long as possible, since it does not have the staff or time to resolve the current back log, which is why it is impossible to bet a direct and correct answer over house documents or to resolve a court case quickly, is also to my mind part of the problem that allows for drugs to be a major industry. The other day a small factory was discovered producing cocaine, the amount seized was nearly ten tons, this is one small outlet, and yesterday, in Bahia there was a chap arrested for an infringement but found to have a huge amount of drugs on him as well as armour, the one gun that he had was an army sized piece, and similar to the one that must have been uesd in Rio de Janeiro last week, to bring down the police helicopter. These people do not value any thing or any one, how on Earth they have been reared by a mother and father and ended up with this attitude I am at a loss to see. The latest television reports have mentioned the mayor and justice of the peace of a town, being arrested for drug taking, this is middle class cocaine use, for what ! surely it is so much better to help others than to slide into this personal gutter, especially when you have funds that allow for good food and entertainment.
I am not sure if the past is an example to follow but it is certain that the fuure needs to be looked at with very different objectives. If the lack of work is the problem then this should be the priority of the government, it is not good enough to help the rich get richer on the basis of annual turnover, when the poor see very little returning to them, it can not be good to feel that when you are poor you will not get medical treatment or good education, these things need to be addressed far more swiftly than they are at present, even worse if if you are in a country that boosts that it as everything that anyone needs and more.
The other irritant is the amount of times my keyboard does not put up a capital "I"....
Notice how carefully the drugs are packed, this quantity and type of drug is daily seized by police in Brazil. Again a photo from the Telegraph.UK