At some point yesterday there were reports of 200 people arrested at the protest in London against the banning of Palestine Action. Later it was up to 365. One for every day of the year. This morning it was over 400. Somewhere I read that the police have never arrested so many people at a single event. How many of them, I wonder, are pensioners? Then there is this:
“Officers searched the bags of those arrested. In one backpack handled with blue forensic gloves, they uncovered some bread and a milk carton filled with water.”
Did they really expect peaceful protestors to be carrying dangerous stuff with them? And surely the police have better things to do with their time!
In Tel Aviv meanwhile, it seems that tens of thousands of Israelis have been demonstrating against the latest proposals to continue and intensify the attacks on Gaza.
Here are some photos of women protesting outside Greenham Common back in the early 1980s. Some of the elderly ladies being arrested at present might well be those same women.
I’m reading quite a lot of stuff about Artificial Intelligence and how it is being used at the moment. Apparently fans at a Rod Stewart concert were divided in their feelings about his using digital reincarnations of recently deceased Ozzy Osborne, reunited with Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and Bob Marley. Abba concerts have taken place using avatars but the real Abba members declined to appear on Eurovision, even in digital form I understand.
Jim Acosta, a former CNN White House correspondent, interviewed a digital recreation of Joaquin Oliver who was killed at the age of 17 in a 2018 high school shooting in Florida. The avatar of the teenager was created by his parents, as part of a campaign to change the gun control laws in the USA. They said it was a blessing to hear his voice again.
Ii’s understandable that people want to hear the voice of loved ones who have died. I have heard of people phoning them just to hear their voice telling them to leave a message, just Jesse calling his girlfriend in Breaking Bad. And I suppose that it’s a logical extension of looking at lots of old photos or film clips. And yet I still find it rather disturbing that possible digital recreations could become a regular thing. Even more disturbing is labelling such recreations “griefbots” or “deathbots”. Here’s a link to an article.
But is it any more disturbing than making death-masks, which apparently used to be something that happened before photography was available? Or the strange picture being constructed out of the hair of dead relatives as described in the opening chapter of the novel La de Bringas by Galdós.
However, AI should not be allowed to take over our lives.
On a less serious note, here’s some rather odd footwear. How difficult must it be to put such shoes on?
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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