two days ago, a convicted drug trafficker was hanged in this country. as it always happens with such "barbaric acts", the western media descended upon our tiny island, broadcasting emotive scenes of a mother weeping and resigned to her son's fate, and the numerous vigils held in the condemned man's adopted country. a well-known opposition party leader (introduced as a lawmaker) was given the honour of an interview with an american news channel, and proceeded to spew forth comments intended to contradict every single statement made by the government, and even claimed that we happy islanders are aware only of what the government said and nothing else.

is the death penalty barbaric? i honestly have no idea, but i do know that it's very odd that a country can weep and pray and hold vigils and have minutes of silences for a man who had enough dope to destroy the lives of twenty four thousand people and their families. are they saying it's all right to supply your countrymen with heroin? talk to any smoker and he can tell you how hard it is to quit. drug addicts sell their bodies and their souls to feed the habit, and you can find them slumped on the streets with respri rates as low was four/min (no kidding) and you're saying that's a lifestyle worth defending? to think he would probably sell the heroin to the country who took him in when his country of birth was unable to give him the life he wanted. talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

the media isn't helping at all, what with the cover up of his brother's previous and numerous past convictions and interviewing experts who predict that people are going to boycott our goods etc. but at least they are foreigners. what i heard on the news was nothing short of comical. i mean, sure of course we're entitled to our own views and in any case, who said everyone on this tiny island agrees with capital punishment? but going out and talking to the foreign media who like to lap up such comments is kinda unnecessary, isn't it?

oh well, another of my humble opnions. on a lighter note, i saw chicken little last night. it's a funny show really, with lots of potential, but with pixar out, disney is obviously struggling to put up a decent animated movie. the alien/war of the worlds part is so tacky that you wonder what happened to the great disney legacy. zach braff was a good choice for the lead, but having to repeat the show's motto of "today is a new day" several times was too much for me and by the end of the movie, i felt sick hearing it. there were weak attempts at satire, for instance the puritan turkey who's the mayor, as well as the parody on hollywood's 'ability' to blow things out of proportion and the casting of gorgoues actors to play simple folk. there were all these snatches of brilliance that were never fully developed, which is a pity, because the disney of my childhood was that of beauty and the beast and the little mermaid.