Jon Venables: Better a Monster than a No Mark? By Christopher Skolik

Thompson and Venables where already 'monsters' when they met James Bulger. That much is clear. Everyone is agreed on that. Circumstances had left the two 10 year olds so numb that self induced trauma was all they had left. After the events on the railway track the nation was shocked - but we could have started screening for similar kids. We know the signs, but we howled, and baptised those kids as monsters - now it comes to pass, allegedly. And every day such cases of kids torturing and killing are viewed without comment. The sad truth is that on the estates of this nation NO ONE is worse than being a monster - celebrity at street level - be a bad lad.

An identity, where the alternative is worse than death; existential oblivion! Crime has changed, filling a similar place as sport and entertainment. Getting caught is not a disincentive; its almost like applause - fame realised. Could Venables have survived the case?

Thompson, the harder, less emotional of the two seems to have faired better. A stronger sense of self maybe. He fought against the tabloid appointed destiny of his evil, at least thus far. But Venables' need to please was evident in the interview footage. Maybe his need to fill expectations has led here, after all, he was famous but no one knew it. The only thing that gave him an edge was that damp dark little day... Let's hope Thompson has more success escaping his 10 year old self. Creativity seems to have played a part if indications are to be believed (the notion that art and crime are drawn from similar psychopathic roots is pretty old!).

I avoided the punishment question. It is not my place, and nothing will make the Bulger family feel better. Capital crimes haven't stemmed the blood flow across America...

My concern is how we screen for such kids before they go too far. Maybe primary school should teach forms of psychological and philosophical exercises, giving them tools that will help them navigate this strange world we are making. It does seem, allegedly, that Venables has blown his cover to embrace his dark celebrity next to Nilsen, West, Brady, and Huntley... Murder is suicide by proxy. Maybe becoming psychopathic is the psychic price for outliving the victim, but I suspect Jon has never left that railway track either, and maybe he has stopped trying to...

Opinions - East Riding Writers By Jan Mc Geachie
	Perhaps you can solve the mystery of why there is little here to help promote writers here in East Riding? To enter the New Writing North awards you have to live in Tyne and Wear, the Tees Valley, County Durham or Northumberland. Signposts only have Writers Resource Centres in Sheffield Barnsley and Rotherham. NAWG lists nine writers clubs in Yorkshire, the largest county in England - yet the Wolds remains a literary wilderness. Read more...

Opinions - An Ordinary Blokes Blog By Gary Clark
	Why am I worried at my age in life? I've been quite successful so far, for an Endike lad. I say that because nothing much was expected of us when were turfed out of school at 15 with a limited education under our belts. Although we did not realise it at the time, until it was too late. You see we were all in the same boat. No-one knew any better, that's what we did; suffered the boringness of a Secondary school education, then followed our older brother's footsteps. Read more...

Opinions - The Green Electrek Power Company By David Sloan
	A radical answer to mass unemployment, endemic obesity and the clean energy crisis.Benefits Full employment. Cheap green electricity. Reduced oil and gas imports. Higher government tax revenues. Income for all people, regardless of educational skills. Healthier people, fitter people, less overweight people. Less social destitution, less heart disease, less mental health problems, less diabetes. The NHS now spends £3000 a second on people Read more...

Opinions - Wacko Jacko RIP By Christopher Skolik
	Since the death of Michael Jackson there has been much chatter about how we should forget the more troubling aspects and focus on the music. To me that seems wrong headed and a waste! His life may arguably prove the real art of this individual; he had the means and the psychology to change reality, and his physicality. Like a Batman villain, living in a fun house as though a Scooby Doo phantom, drawing on the collective unconscious and its pop culture references, Read more...

Opinions - Hull City Council and the Concrete Jungle
	Thought I'd share my thoughts with you over the council putting a car park where LAs is/was. Glad to see our creative and pro-active council always thinking of exciting new ways to develop the city. Another car park will be great for the city: with more cars coming into the city centre we could employ some more traffic wardens creating more jobs and more revenue for the council. Please don't pretend that Read more...

Opinions - Was Bob Quick 'Blunder' A Deliberate Smokescreen? By Michelle Dee
	By now we will all have seen the disturbing images of Ian Tomlinson, the victim of an unprovoked assault by a police officer at the G20 Protest last weekend. Unlucky for the Metropolitan Police Force, news crews were filming at the time and caught the incident on camera. Watching the Guardian's footage you can clearly see the officer stepping forward and the moment when the unsuspecting Ian Tomlinson Read more...

Opinions - COOL ! By Andrew Wastling
	I woke up feeling optimistic about the future of the planet for the first time in many years After eight wasted years of what amounts to government by a fascist junta of gangsters, crooks and warmongers - perhaps we can all hope that the US under Obama will now take a more progressive road and a lead on the environment for a change? Read more...

Opinions - Barack Obama By Lee Cassanell

Civilisations rise and fall. People live and people die but sometimes we are lucky enough to bear witness to moments of great historical significance, moments of pure hope and optimism for a better world and a better tomorrow. The election of Senator Barack Obama has renewed my belief in the American public and the American ideal. It has renewed my belief that no matter who you are or were you come from, Read more...

Opinions - Dating Nightmare Part 2 By Leah Scarpati
	I'm pleased to say that I have a different slant on the subject now. I'm so fickle...all it takes is a month of dating with a TDH rugby playing fireman and the dating garden's all rosy! All the time I was complaining about the crap first dates with guys I very easily found something wrong with (often when there probably wasn't actually anything wrong with them); I wasn't really thinking too far ahead. Read more...

Opinions - Dating Nightmare Part 1 By Leah Scarpati
	Why is dating such a nightmare?! I must admit I haven't really been on that many successful dates; I've only had 2 long-term relationships and 3 half-arsed attempts at them that didn't last more than five minutes. So in between those I've been on enough dates to be suitably apprehensive about how they'll turn out. I've found that in my experience they go Read more...

Opinions - USA Neocon Maniacs are at it again, duping the lying western media propaganda machine with lies by Mo.
	US backed ( 1000 marines advising, commandos and mercenaries)forces of Georgia ( birthplace of Stalin), sneak attacked Russian Peace Keeping Troops Thursday evening killing thousands of civilians (Over 2000 civilians are reported killed ). Under distraction of Beijing Olympics, Dick Cheney may well be heading the Neocon maniacs into new war fronts setting up for another cold war, diverting media attention from the disastrous economic situation in the USA. Read more...

Opinions - Mary Poppins, I Ain't! By Leah Scarpati
	I may sound like an old spinster woman but I'm convinced I can drum up a following on this one. I was at the gym tonight (trying to work out) and I'll admit, was bloody knackered by the time I got to the changing rooms. I'd had a crap day at work and all I wanted to do was chill out. Cue - screaming kids in the changing room. So I decided to escape Read more...

Opinions - David Icke blows away 400 people at a Free Public Meeting on Sunday, July 6th By Mo
	Believe him or not David Icke is one of very few people who can hold an audience in the palm of his hand for many hours, well beyond the one and a half hours reported on the internet. His three and a half hour talk enthralled the audience with revelations beyond the scheming Big Brother drones in the Tory and Labour parties to the fact that Neocons' behind the Big Brother State Read more...

Opinions - The BBC Dipping into Youtube for Viewers By Mo UPDATED BBC's BBC Phil Hayton Denies All knowlege
	The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known simply as the BBC, is the world's largest broadcasting corporation. It has 28,000 employees in the United Kingdom alone and an annual budget of more than £4 billion. Founded on 18 October 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, it was subsequently granted a Royal Charter and Read more...

Opinions - Response to The BBC Dipping into YouTube for Viewers By Martin Deane
	Fire away Mo! Seconds out, round two. I actually have a soft spot for the Beeb but no, it's not my unrequited love for Neighbours or the Archers. Forgive me for lumping them together, apparently they're different despite hugely annoying theme tunes, but you may not know where I'm coming from yet. This is despite not having a TV licence which is how the BBC funds itself Read more...

Opinions - Lies And War Crimes By Michelle Dee
	The words "weapons of mass destruction" were noticeably absent from the speech by George W. Bush on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. The apocalyptic rhetoric used to firstly motivate the political will then move the might of the military forces was replaced by talk of regime change and removing Saddam Hussein from power. It is illegal to go to war in order to Read more...

Opinions - Censored By D R Callaghan
	A few minutes ago I used the readers comments facility in the online Hull Daily Mail to comment on the main story about the killing of Simon Murden. My comment: Ironic is it not? that the police are unable to crack down on the alcohol-fuelled yobs terrorising families, shopkeepers and the elderly, yet when faced with a young man who needs medical attention they can pump six bullets into him Read more...

Opinions - The Sexuality of the 9/11 Attacks By Christopher Skolik
	The Pentagon is itself a potent symbol of manhood and military virility. It goes without saying that was an act of violent homoerotic self extinction and assault-as if the terrorists could not survive such an act of homoerotic penetration, their out dated belief system and self ideation would not allow it-no matter how metaphorical the act. Only the unification of sex and death could breach that gap. Read more...

Opinions - Iraq War Theme Park By Christopher Skolik
	War seems to be a human necessity, a requirement on some basic level. To counteract the dangers of random disorganised war springing up I suggest we turn Iraq into a fully functioning war zone theme park -all the benefits of paint balling but with the relief of tension that only live ammunition and Read more...

Opinions - Notes Toward a Chavology By Christopher Skolik
	The local Hull 'chav' lad needs profiling and placing in his rightful context. Fiercely proud of his 'thickness'- intelligence is not to be trusted, it might unleash all kinds of awful weirdness upon his world, a world he clings to with the whitened knuckles of the drowning man, the perennial cry of 'Don't get clever with me' echoes across council estates of the north ... Read more...

Opinions - Maureen Lipman at Pave By Sean
	Just saw Maureen Lipman at a reading at the Pave. It took two attempts to gain entrance. At the first attempt i was turned away on the grounds that it was a private function - apparently i didn't look 'Avenues' enough. I'm Avenues enough to have my taxes pay for it, mind. I just got in in time to catch a couple of 'anecdotes' which mocked the poverty of working Read more...

Opinions - All At Sea Or Way Out West? (Orwellian Nightmare Or Whitehall Farce?) By D R Callaghan
	Admiral Sir Alan West wants us to 'snitch' on our neighbours, friends and even on our own family. Who's he? I hear you ask. He's none other than the Government's new 'Security Minister'. Isn't it comforting to know that we now have a 'Security Minister' (Big Brother?) looking after our 'way of life'? The former First Sea Lord also warned that Britain faces a 15-year battle Read more...

Opinions - Candle In The Wind By Jim Higo
	Who'd want to be a Bosnian landmine victim? Terrible injuries, lost limbs, scarred for life and then to cap it all, when you thought it couldn't get any worse, you get a visit from Princess Diana. Just when it seemed your life had reached its absolute nadir, you see her coming at you with those big eyes, like a spaced out Desert Orchid. Read more...

Opinions - Depart For New Earth By David Sloan
	Depart for new earth AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Professor Stephen Hawking said recently that for the human race to survive we must gain a foothold on another planet, and as if by divine intervention our astronomers soon found another earth-like planet in the heavens. It has a mass five times that of earth and is probably made of the same sort of rock with Read more...

Opinions - Trees Are Bastards By Sally Satan
	Now amidst all the current chatter of climate change inevitably being a Bad Thing, the still small voice of calm must be heard. How many people do you know who have died recently as a direct result of climate change? Exactly. None. And yet we go on, beating ourselves up for being human and not animal or mineral, and for ruining the planet. But we should Read more...

Opinions - The Reception of Wisdom By Kenton Hall
	There is a story that I tell. I likely tell it far too often and one of these days, a friend or family member is going to sneak up behind me and garrotte me with a length of fishing line. No, it's not the one about that. Or that one, either. Now that I think about it, there are many stories that I tell too often. However, the story I am referring to today recalls the moment Read more...