Half empty and leaking

Well, this just makes me sad and sick.

Boxing champion shot in the face after asking men to stop smoking

James Oyebola, 46, a former British heavyweight champion, was on a life-support machine in hospital. He had politely asked the men to stop smoking at the Chateau 6 club in Fulham, West London, shortly before 1am on Monday. One of the men produced a handgun and fired four shots, hitting Mr Oyebola in the face and leg at point-blank range.

A witness said: “Three young guys were smoking in the club and James asked them to put out their cigarettes. He wasn’t aggressive. He pointed out that smoking was against the law. But the three saw it as a sign of disrespect. On their way out one pulled out a gun and began firing at James.”

The shooting is being investigated by detectives from Scotland Yard’s Operation Trident unit, which investigates gun crime involving young black men.

Detective Chief Inspector Scott Wilson said: “It is a horrible crime to happen anywhere, but over nothing – an incident such as smoking – these people need to be caught. The altercation takes place, someone pulled out a gun and shots are fired. I can imagine it was over in 20 seconds.”

The American gun culture is spreading. England was once a place where you were pretty much guaranteed to be free of gun violence. Now the sickening culture of so-called "respect" and retaliation has spread there. Yes, we live in a world where young people believe that being asked politely to be considerate of others and to obey the law is grounds for a cowardly, last-minute ambush that leaves a good man for dead. You get these youths all over: hoodies, frat boys, guidos and other idiotic pack animals, so wrapped up in their own absurdly inflated sense of entitlement that anyone who in any way implies that they can't do anything they want is seen as an enemy to be destroyed.

What is this mania for "respect," and where did it come from? Gangster movies, as filtered through hip-hip? And why do they bandy about a term which they obviously don't understand? There's no give and take in this culture, no sense of respect based on merit, just the philosophy of might makes right. And yet it's not even that, for these kids saw that the six-foot-nine Oyebola could have beaten all three of them easily in a fist fight, so they had to bring a gun into the equation, and even then fire only as they were fleeing. Deep down, even those worthless pieces of human shit know that they're not manly or courageous enough to engage in a fair fight. So it's not even "might makes right." It's just an infantile, brainless lashing out based on misplaced monomania and lack of empathy.

Isn't it sickening that the western world is raising teenagers who function, quite literally, at the moral and emotional level of infants? And isn't it scary that they all have guns in their hands? And isn't it sad that our justice system only reinforces the cycle of chaotic retaliation rather than inculcating logical consequences, empathy and accountability?