Saturday 11 May 2013

The Tour Break: Day 4.

Despite delaying the sentencing portion of the Jodie Arias trial the US is still continuing with the political aspect of Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour albeit more discreetly. Yesterday (10/5/13) all the action centred around the Boston marathon bombings.

Firstly the location of the Muslim cemetery in Virginia where Tarmalan Tsarnaev has been buried was made public. As Tarmalan Tsarnaev is really not popular in the US this has prompted a lot of anger against the cemetery with local officials said to be examining their legal options to have the body moved. This obviously reignites the argument about what to do with Tarmalan Tsarnaev's body. The obvious answer would to have the body cremated and the ashes discreetly disposed of. This though is forbidden by Islamic law. However Islamic law is also very strict that those who kill innocents should burn in the fires of hell. As one of the victims of the Boston marathon bombings was an 8 year old boy there is actually a very good argument that Islamic law does permit cremation in Tarmalan Tsarnaev's case. This argument of course will be best debated by Muslims living in Islamic societies such as Morocco and Turkey. It will also be particularly inflammatory in Islamic societies in which terrorism is prevalent such as Iraq and Pakistan.

Secondly the Massachusetts attorneys office announced that a probable cause hearing in the cases of Dias Kadyrbaev and Azamat Tazhayakov who along with Robel Phillipos were arrested for assisting the Tsarnaev brothers after the bombings will not be held. This is unusual because the US Constitution stops the government arbitrarily detaining people. Therefore if the government wants to imprison someone they have to prove they have probable cause to do so. However unlike Phillipos Kadyrbaev and Tazhayakov are not US citizens so there is an argument that they are not protected by the US Constitution. This argument has particular relevance to the current debate about immigration reform in the US which directly affects Rihanna and the CIA drone program especially when it targets US citizens in places like Yemen. Also the notion that governments can't just lock people up on a whim will sound completely alien to people who live under repressive regimes which exist across the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region in particular Morocco. Admittedly though the cancellation of the hearing does go some way to making the issue go away.

This wide range of issues affected by Rihanna's tour highlights why her CIA handlers are afraid to even entertain the idea that the operation has failed and needs to be shut down. Put simply the Rihanna operation is the US' big play for 2013 so without it the US can't achieve any of it's objectives. As I've been telling the handlers for months that I know all this and I'm simply not going to allow it to happen this seems like incredibly bad planning on their part. However rather than accepting their mistake they are instead blaming me with a story of a man who went on a rampage in a bulldozer destroying homes and parts of the electricity grid near Seattle in Washington state. Meanwhile in the US capital of Washington DC the White House was briefly evacuated today after people reported seeing smoke coming out of a machine room. This is part of the long running global effort to stop people smoking tobacco. A large part of the reason is that being a neuro-stimulant tobacco smoking gives people pause to stop and think. Authoritarian governments don't like this because people who stop and think are much harder to control. The White House was chosen partly because the incident would be noticed but also to accuse President Obama of dithering by so far failing to give an order to either cancel the Rihanna operation or to let it proceed. The argument being that Obama's tobacco smoking is causing him to spend to long stopping and thinking rather than acting. Personally I think it's more of an inbuilt personality trait rather than the result of tobacco smoking.

Also the US has responded to the consensus that it was responsible for the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh that has so far killed 1053 people. This response came in the form of the start of a criminal investigation into the explosion at the West fertiliser factory in West in Texas and the arrest of one of the first responders to that explosion on unrelated possession of explosives offences. The first responder is expected to plead not guilty at the first part of his trial. However I should point out that this seems to be something the US has been forced into after the UK raised the issue through the credit rating agency Moodys' downgrade to junk status the Co-Operative (Co-Op) bank whose plan to by branches from Lloyds bank collapsed on the same day as the garment factory. This is actually a very complicated discussion that I will cover in more detail tomorrow when I can keep my eyes open. However the main motivation behind the move was the UK attempting to exert even more pressure on Bangladesh especially ahead of today's Pakistani election. Formally known as East-Pakistan Bangladesh clearly has an opinion about it. The dramatic rescue of Reshma Begum yesterday was obviously Bangladesh's coping strategy.

As for Rihanna herself she is still on the east coast of the US in New York City while Chris Brown is on the west coast of the US in California. However they have apparently been rowing through a series of private telephone calls and cryptic Twitter/Instagram postings. Although this does prompt a lot of discussion about Rihanna and Chris Brown's relationship or lack thereof and has clearly been triggered by the Andrew 'Bart' Simpson incident this strikes me as genuine. After all Rihanna and Chris Brown's renewed relationship has always been fake. Now the artificial influences holding the relationship together have been removed things have returned to their natural state. The natural state of most romantic (engineered or not) relationships ending is generally people yelling at each other. Although I'm never happy about Instagram I don't have a problem with this continuing during the tour break but it must stop before the tour resumes.

Also yesterday Rihanna was shown to be in a recording studio working with another Roc Nation artist. This was an attempt to promote discussion about what happens to Rihanna after this current tour ends. This tour and the Unapologetic album are being very damaging to Rihanna's reputation putting huge pressure on her to release another album to sort of clean the slate. However Rihanna also needs time off. Therefore the logical solution would be to end the tour after the Helsinki (28/7/13) to allow Rihanna to have time off and work on her comeback album.

The rows and arguments with Chris Brown are of course causing some tension within Rihanna's core tour/social group with some members being happy about the break-up and others being sad. The other big division within the core group is over me. Firstly this is because I pointed out that if I was travelling as part of the tour I would spend this break away from the group doing my own thing in order to let things calm down before the really stressful two month European leg begins. That's why I think Rihanna should have been given the home advantage of either California or even Barbados during the break. Obviously some within the group disagree with me but I should point out I haven't actually met any of these people.

The main tension I'm creating though is through my suggestion that Rihanna follows me on Twitter so we can send each other more discreet direct messages. Obviously some members of the group are hugely opposed to this. Therefore I should point out that while I won't be fooling anyone by claiming I'm not attracted to Rihanna with 40 people killed in car bombings in Turkey today my main priority is that there is a job of work to be done. If Rihanna could send me direct messages I could answer any questions she has about things like the Amanda Berry/Cleveland kidnapping case and the Andrew 'Bart' Simpson incident as soon as she asks them. Also she would be able to inform me straight away of when she's successfully passed through border controls or encountered problems. The main objection to this at the moment seems to be the fact that most people in the business have access to my Blackberry so although discreet direct messages wouldn't be secret. On the last point this would actually work to Rihanna's advantage because by informing me she would be informing everyone in the business with her location and travels without having to inform the whole wide world. Therefore Rihanna's handlers agreeing to this compromise would be a firm indicator that their Rihanna operation has been cancelled.

20:00 on 11/5/13.

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