Week in Review:20/3/11

Chris Huw Williams, watching the news so you don’t have to.

This week’s seen the violence in Libya increase. It seems almost as if Gaddafi wasn’t happy with Japan taking over the news and decided that something had to be done. So, he decided to step up the violence in his country, forcing a UN resolution to be passed ensuring a no-fly zone. Thank God we’re acting. We spent a few weeks just watching and allowing Gaddafi to get away with murdering his own civilians with us just sitting by and watching him do it.

The annoying and frustrating thing about all of this, though, is one statement from Obama: “We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy”. It’s an interesting statement from Obama, particularly when we look at all of the other places and times when America, and the rest of the UN, has just sat by and watched as slaughters took place.

Take Rwanda, for example. Did we do anything there when a tyrant told his people there’d be no mercy and murdered an estimated 800,000 people? No, we just sat by and watched them die at the hands of a tyrant. Then, only a few years later, we have Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe – again we did nothing about it. So what makes Libya so special then?! I don’t even think I can answer that, it doesn’t make sense to me that we can claim that one place deserves international attention and international action, whereas others do not.

For the UN, however, this looks like a great success. It looks incredible for them that, finally, a resolution which involved action with a country. Yet, even there it wasn’t a success at all – Russia and China decided to abstain: hardly a resounding victory. In fact, had China or Russia voted we’d probably be in a different situation than the one we’re in now. One of them could, by all means, use their veto power to stop the events currently unfolding (as I write this the USA and UK have fired over 110 missiles).

It’s been a frustrating week politically and, in fact, it’s been an even more frustrating one musically. There’s apparently a 13 year old girl who’s decided to become an internet sensation by singing what’s being described as the worst song ever. In a way, I’m impressed – to be 13 and to have destroyed her music career already. The songs lyrics are a revelation:

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?

….yes, this is the actual lyric to the pre-chorus, before she launches into a lengthy discussion on what days make up the weekend and what will happen (Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)Fun, fun, fun, fun). No I’m not making this up – those are her lyrics and for some reason their label is backing her – even so far as moving to take down her video from YouTube after people claimed it was some of the worst music ever. A very fair point.

Annoyingly, the 13 year old was ‘shocked’ by comments that her song was one of the worst songs ever. If I wrote a song in which I was auto-tuned to hell with lyrics that belittle even 10 year olds (!) I’d expect to get attacked verbally and physically for creating such incredible drivel. I would expect people to hate it and I wouldn’t be surprised if people on the internet were abusing me for it.

I get the feeling the next week is going to be a long one until……. It’s Friday, Friday / Gotta get down on Friday / Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend.