welcome to anything anything, I’m rich russo,
this is your weekly two hour, ass kicking band breaking, genre busting, multi station eargasmic free form radio extravanganza broadcasting in New jersey,
and two sides of the female coin, begin us off, Helen gurley brown, obviously an influence to the women of the world with cosmopolitian magazine, which of course led to sex and the city, she passed away this week at age 90, we heard from her 1963 album, a spoken word masterpiece of sorts, yet a somewhat disturbing view of that time in our country regarding women, as she talks about affairs, secretaries, some brute force amongst other things and later on we’ll hear an even more baffling and disturbing segment from the album..
and then pussy riot from Russia with putin lights the fires, there has been endless coverage of their plight, and social media is abuzz with the perceived injustice to them. And here’s where I stand on this, and it’s not the same belief as many of those who feel these girls were wronged
and as usual, I will step in and be the voice of logic. And let’s be perfectly clear, regardless of how we feel about the laws of another country, their laws are their laws, and do I believe they got these girls on a technicality,
yes,
but it’s just like catching Al Capone on tax evasion to a degree. They broke a law and regardless of whether that law is inane or not, it’s still on the books there. I’m not quite sure if a bunch of people in ski masks walked up the the altar at st patrick’s. or at temple or a mosque, would be received very well, or how about in an airport or on a plane.
This is from legal expert peter maggs: Russian legal code identifies two types of hooliganism: petty and criminal. Petty hooliganism is more or less like disorderly conduct —90% of those convicted for this offense are “obnoxious drunks.” The punishment is usually a fine or brief imprisonment
Criminal hooliganism is more serious. It has to be “a gross violation of public order, showing a disrespect for society.” It must involve weapons or objects used as weapons,
OR
be done for motives of political, ideological, racial, national, or religious hatred, or hatred toward a social group. It can carry a sentence of up to 5 years if committed by an individual, or 7 years if committed by an organized group.
The band was convicted of criminal hooliganism because their performance in a church “disrupted the peace of a religious institution.”
And yes it did, that’s the law, the band knew exactly what they were doing, they premeditated it, they had film crews on hand, and even released that song we just heard by them the day they were sentenced. Kim Kardashian would be proud of their PR prowess coming from being a no talent nobody to becoming a world wide buzz celebrity…sadly in pussy riot’s case there was no sex tape.
The band easily could have done their thing elsewhere but a church,
withOUT breaking a law that they were admittedly aware of ,
one of the members even said she didn’t think the sentence would be this harsh, therefore knowing it was a crime. And by the way they have small children, and what mother knowing commits a crime they are planning on publicizing, which has the possibility of separating them from their children? This isn’t a welfare mom stealing food from a market to put food on the table for her children, this was a premediated crime, with video shot, a PR firm lined up, and a song ready to release…
laws and sentencing are deterrents, or at least supposed to be, and yes as inane as this is to us, there will not be many other Russian protests like this, the precedent has been set, it’s jail. Unlike here where we are spoiled by high powered lawyers and the more affluent you are, the better you are treated in the legal system, which is why Paris Hilton can get busted for possession of Cocaine and not get any jailtime and it becomes a late night tv joke, but the guy on the gritty streets of low income urban area will get jailtime for possessing less coke than paris did..
that is an injustice.
And with twitter etc with it’s retweet after retweet free pussy riot, it’s just a lazy way of piling on,
but if this is such a grave inhumane justice that a country has a law that someone intentionally broke as a publicity stunt, yes if you film a crime and circulate it yourself, it’s a pr stunt.
So Where’s the kickstarter campaign to raise money for a planeful of people to fly to Russia, don ski masks, and replicate what the band did, come on put your money where your mouth is, celebs, go to Russia and do it,
well we know that ain’t happening… so there you have it, it’s not very punk at all…
Tuesday is the birthday of one of the most important punk rockers of all time, Joe Strummer, and he let his songs do the talking, and in this case we’ll let one of his cover versions with the clash doing the talking about pussy riot..
This is the clash covering a song made famous first by the bobby fuller 4, I fought the law on anything anything…
