12 December 2010
 
The Wiki Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest


(Her Majesty’s Class-B Prison Wandsworth in SW London. Panoramic photo courtesy Wiki Commons.)

I haven’t heard a single revelation this morning from Julian Assange, who remains on remand at Wandsworth Prison, the Category B Men’s holding facility in London’s sprawling southwest. He must be bumming this morning, as any of us would be, under the same circumstances.
 
One of the many problems I have with this affair is that Julian and his merry band of cyber-punks released the trove of messages stolen by Private Manning without much thought, or editing. Included in some cables are our priority problem infrastructure targets- the places where my kids, friends or me might actually be working.
 
Accordingly, I take it all a bit personally. Assange told der Speigle magazine last July that “I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work.”
 
There are things to enjoy, of course, like the cable that archly noted Muhamar Khadaffy’s preference for buxom Ukranian blondes, or that the Saudis want us to kick Iranian butt, or the revelation that the Canadians are close allies, though they do have a bit of a chip on their shoulder, eh?
 
There are others that point out specific vulnerabilities and provide target templates for the assholes.
 
So I am not sad that Mr. Assange is at least getting a taste of what his arrogance has brought, even if he may not be there long. Her Majesty’s prison is purposefully grim in presentation. Wandsworth was built in 1851 as an institution called the “Surrey House of Correction.”

Its design was intended to promote a humane separate holding system, similar to the earlier (and now abandoned) Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.
 
The principle, inspired by Quaker thought, suggested that isolation would inspire penitence in the convicted, and hence the term “penitentiary.”  Wandsworth had individual toilet facilities, as did Eastern State. The inspiring notion of isolation imposing reflection was abandoned, and the toilets were removed. Corporal punishment was reinstated there, with flogging of recalcitrant inmates as late as 1954.
 
They do not do that now, and I believe that Mr. Assange has his own toilet and an impenitent attitude. He wound up in the slammer because he essentially told the Judge to piss off when asked for his legal address.
 
When asked for it, He replied: "PO Box 4080." When the Judge put the question to him again, Mr. Assange responded: "Do you want it for correspondence or for some other reason?"
As if the Court wanted to send him a postcard!
 
Nobody likes a smart ass, as I have discovered on numerous occasions. Since the Wikileaks founder is a peripatetic traveler in addition to being a wisenheimer, the Judge decided he was a flight risk and locked him up.
 
There naturally is some controversy over the charges against him, which devolves to a he-said-she-said triangle with two Swedish women in a romantic hot-house air that unfolded over a long weekend during a visit to Stockholm last August, when there was still daylight in the far north.
 
I have to conjure the image of Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy in terms of outraged women. The story in fact could have been the fourth book in what Larrson had envisioned as a ten-book saga of a crusading journalist in a progressive society.
 
Certainly the plot is as ridiculous as the delightful ones that Larrson gave us.

I have been thinking about Scandinavian society a lot this year, between the hundreds of pages of Larrson I consumed at poolside this year. I also have a correspondent in Stockholm, a transplanted Yank who has been there long enough to speak with a hint of a Swedish accent.
 
I am concerned about safety in that placid country, since another crusading artist apparently provided the target for two of the comic bombers who blew themselves up last night in central Stockholm, attempting to attack throngs of Christmas shoppers.
 
I find grim humor in the litany of failed terror attacks, the ones featuring the spectacularly inept bombers who manage only to blow up their underwear and private parts or themselves. Last night’s attacks consisted of a car bomb  detonated near the bustling Drottninggatan shopping area, just at the cocktail hour, followed by a second explosion a few minutes later, apparently by a man carrying pipe-bombs and a backpack filled with nails intended to produce deadly shrapnel.

The bombers apparently only managed to kill themselves, or that is the report at this early hour.

The attacks were preceded by email notifications to the media, warning that the cartoons of Lars Vilk satirizing the Prophet and Sweden’s modest support to the war against the Taliban were the justification for the bombings.
 
I have to think of Mr. Vilk as being a real life version of Larrson’s fictional journalist Mikael Blomquist. And Julian Assange, for that matter, as all three have a fierce commitment to personal liberty and exposure of what they consider to be wrong-doing.
 
Vilks was invited by an art school to participate in an exhibit with the theme, of all things, of dogs. Like Blomquist and Assange, Vilks is an artistic provocateur, and the image that so offends is actually in connection with something quite innocent, which is the “Roundabout Dog” craze that started in 2006. In Swedish, the term is ‘Rondellhund,’ which is akin to the strange donkey and elephant statues that popped up all over Washington a few years ago.
 
Mr. Vilk has been targeted before, notably by an American convert to Islam who the media made famous as Jihad Jane. I would run a copy of his childish cartoon that featuring the head of the Prophet grafted onto the body of a dog, but I have no interest this morning in declaring war on the Islamic world.
 
Vilk is an equal opportunity satirist; one of his latest productions is an image of the Prophet delivering Christmas presents, and another presented a member of the third Great Faith that isn’t Christianity or Islam to the body of a pig.
 
To the best of my knowledge, neither the Southern Baptist Convention nor Mossad have commenced planning to take Vilk out.
 
It is really not that complicated to figure out who the idiots are in this movie. The Jihadis will inevitably get it right in attacks here in America, or Sweden, or a place where there is freedom, just as they have before.
 
I would think that even an arrogant punk like Julian Assange might get it.
 

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
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