Galloway: the madness continues

It's getting a bit like Elephant Man or something; it's probably wrong to stare but a sort of horrified fascination compels you. His latest recorded outburst of insanity is unworthy of rational disagreement but I was thinking about one of his vintage lunacies the other day, for some reason.

Remember when he spoke of Saddam having a "Zen-like calm"? I was thinking about how unstreetwise this shows the 'streetfighter' to be. I've met a few people who have this 'Zen-like calm' in Glasgow. It's always been a chilling experience because the calm stems from the fact that they're complete and utter fucking psychos: they have this eerie stillness because they know their willingness to use extreme violence outstrips their opponents to such a degree as to render them insignificant and therefore harmless. They're not so calm in the small hours when the demons come, but that's another story.

It's a commonplace observation here in the second city of the Empire, and was captured well in this otherwise only fair book by William McIlvanney (ach, buy a copy why don't you? It's only a penny.) It seems 'Zen-like' simply because the almost imperceptible indicators of social awkwardness, apprehension, feeling for one's status within the group that most people give off are completely absent with these.

You'd think Galloway would know this having been an MP for Glasgow for so long. But he wasn't born here, he's no streetfighter and he sure ain't no Glasgow-boy. The man's a pussy - that's a fact.

On the psycho theme, I'm beginning to wonder what the point of the trials of people like Saddam Hussein and Milosevic is. Don't they just show this kind are absolutely incapable of functioning in any social environment where they don't get to be little gods? That might be worthwhile in itself, were it not for the fact that some people just don't seem to be able to recognise what they are seeing.