The Ochil hills have stood for centuries as benevolent guardians to one of the smallest and most picturesque villages in Clackmannanshire.
Now, however, they are providing an ominous backdrop to a drama unfolding in Menstrie, a community boasting its own historic castle and spectacular baronial mansion.
With a population of just 2000, it is a village at war with itself - and it is a battle many locals claim that police, despite strong denials, are ignoring.
Raging teenage gangs - the village's "untouchable generation" - are allegedly blighting the area to such a degree that vigilantes are threatening to patrol its small streets in a van and inflict punishment beatings on perpetrators.
While rumours abound that the questionable action has already begun, it is a retaliation borne out of pure frustration, say villagers.
In an anonymous letter to police, warning of action, they say the teenagers fuelled by drink and drugs are wreaking havoc in the area.
Tales are told of intimidation, arson attacks, beatings, as well as vandalism of the local church and businesses.
One of the only two general convenience shops, which both serve as off-licences, in the community's Main Street is Windmill Stores.
As soon as the nearby schools close their gates, a gang of around 20 mixed sex teenagers - some as young as 12 - congregate yards from the store every evening.
The shop's entrance door, patched together with plywood, is testimony to the problems played out there. Since buying the shop in October, Baber Ali has had its door kicked in several times by gangs intent on vandalism and robbery.
Young relatives and staff have also been assaulted, he said. "It has just been horrendous. My shop has been trashed and the gangs stand there and intimidate and shout abuse at people," he said.
While Central Scotland police warn that anyone taking the law into their own hands faces arrest, Mr Ali said he could see why some could be driven to desperate measures. "If someone is going to keep spitting at your door and the police don't do anything about it then, sooner or later, even the most tolerant person will retaliate."
Gwen Davidson, 54, who manages the store, has been in the retail trade for 16 years. She said: "I thought I would be working in a lovely quiet wee place, but I've really had my eyes opened. It's been a shock.
"The gangs come in and just throw stock around the shop, shoplift and intimidate people. They have even set fire to a garage filled with vintage cars. We bar them from the shop, but they still come in. When they are told to get out, they just look at you and say make me'. The younger ones in particular know they can't be touched."
Although she said she did not condone vigilante behaviour, she added: "I can see why people are at the end of their tether. They're just fed up with the whole thing."
Aileen Taylor, 25, a mother-of-two, originally from Alloa, has lived in the village for six years. She said: "I've never lived in a place where the young people have such a problem with alcohol. I'm not even talking about weekends, this is every night they are out in force.
"They don't cause me a problem because I know many of them. They also know they'd get a good slap if they tried anything. But I can understand older people being intimidated."
A disabled pensioner, who has lived in the area for 50 years, recently had her car vandalised.
The 62-year-old said: "I take my car everywhere. I would never be out on the main street on my own at night. People talk about how Menstrie must be a lovely quiet place to live, but they really should try it. The only good thing about the village these days is the road out."
One young woman claimed one of the gang members received two years' probation for a sexual assault on her last year.
The 18-year-old said: "After he was charged, the rest of the gang would shout abuse in the street, even though he was in the wrong. The whole incident shattered my confidence, I'll never be the same again. But they won't win."
However, not everyone feels the same. Helen Harrison, 83, lives near to where the gangs gather. She said: "I haven't seen any problems and feel perfectly safe here."
New housing developments have been popular, so there is an appeal to the place, despite claims of rampant out-of-control behaviour.
A father-of-two, 28, who moved to one of the developments a year ago, said the behaviour displayed was just "everyday youth culture".
"They're not doing anything that youngsters in any other community haven't done over the years. As a teenager, myself and my mates hung around outside chip shops and places like that. But it was only because there was nowhere to go and we just wanted to keep warm. Older people just see teenage gangs and assume they're up to no good."
But drinkers in the Burnside Inn, which has itself apparently been targeted by gangs, claimed there was a core of around seven "hardcore troublemakers" known to villagers and the police, intent on causing mayhem.
One group of men called for a greater police presence in the area.
One man, calling himself "English Dave", said: "People are just sickened. Nothing is getting done, even though everyone knows who is causing the trouble."
Describing the perpetrators as "bullies", Ged MacKenzie, 49, a factory worker, said: "These people are up in court week in, week out.
"I moved here 30 years ago from an area that was so rough you wouldn't walk your dog there. I thought I could settle down and be safe here. Menstrie should be an idyllic village."
Central Scotland Police insisted it had increased patrols in the village, as well as a dedicated disorder unit to crack down on troublemakers across Clackmannanshire.
#1
Soooo... can we see local people (in Scotland and other parts of the British Isles) being a little bit less snotty about American frontier vigilantes? Considering that such vigilante groups arose out of a local situation where law enforcement was either ineffectual or non-existant? A nice warm cup of schadenfreude, anyone?
ATMORE, Ala. -- Police said an Alabama man shot a friend Monday when the two got into a heated argument over the height of recently deceased soul singer James Brown. Officers said Bubba David James Brooks Jr. walked into the police station Monday and said he'd been shot. Paramedics took Brooks to Atmore Community Hospital. He was later taken by helicopter to Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida where he underwent stomach surgery Tuesday. A few minutes later, Cooter Dan Gulley Jr. entered the police station and told officers he shot Bubba Brooks.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Read on the Net that "the Godfather of Soul" isn't even buried yet due to loud interfamilial arguments over his estate.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/11/2007 12:49 Comments ||
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#8
You must be this tall to get in a shootout over James Brown's height.
Coming up next: Two fat guys shoot each other in argument over James Brown's weight...
Members of a close-harmony group from Yale University are recovering after being ambushed and beaten up while on tour in California.
Members of the a cappella Baker's Dozen were performing at a party in San Francisco at the new year when their rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" apparently sparked taunts and threats from fellow partygoers.
As the group left the house, they were attacked by dozens of assailants, suffering scrapes, black eyes and concussions, said Connecticut's News Channel 8.
"Besides any bruising or scrapes to the face, the main injury I suffered was I broke my jaw in two places," one of the singers, 18-year-old Sharyar Aziz, was quoted as saying.
#2
Yeah, I read a much more in depth article.
It seems the black instigator was a member of a very influencial Pacific Heights family. So he's a liberal aristocrat/gangsta or something. He got on his cellphone and called a van full of friends to help him attack the Yale kids.
#4
Yeah, I though San Fran was all about diversity, peace, pacifism and multiculturalism. Ah well, who knew?
Posted by: BA ||
01/11/2007 10:45 Comments ||
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#5
Hot Air has more links. There's also a video, which I haven't watched.
What's even juicier is that the party in question was held at the home of two San Francisco police officers, and was given by their daughter. Here's an SF Chronicle article, which notes that some of the attackers allegedly were graduates of Sacred Heart Cathedral, "one of the city's oldest and best-known private schools."
Hmmm, private school. Parents send their kids to private schools so they'll get into good universities. Ivy League universities. Like, oh, Yale.
Good luck getting into Yale from now on, me Hearties.
#7
Not sure about the "liberal attitudes:" not enough evidence yet. Lots of influence, though--don't want the son of an important figure to get arrested, right? Have a look at the comments at Gates of Vienna.
Posted by: James ||
01/11/2007 16:39 Comments ||
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Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments" but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters," has died. She was 84.
De Carlo died of natural causes Monday at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said Wednesday.
De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and Westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s. Later, she had a key role in a landmark Broadway musical, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies."
Continued on Page 49
King William's College - which was founded in 1833 - is situated at Castletown on the Isle of Man. Once a year they produce the brain-busting General Knowledge Paper (Exam), whose 100 or so questions are astoundingly difficult. Most educated people can find answers to fewer than 10 of the hundred.
It helps to be very familiar with Britain, British history and literature.
The GKP can be downloaded in .pdf format at this link, and the answers will be published, to great excitement, in The Guardian newspaper, on or about the end of January.
So buckle your seatbelts, give it a go, and let us know how you did when the answers come out.
If you can score an 11, you get serious bragging rights.
#1
Wow... first glance at that thing tells me I'd score a ZERO with out serious library time.
What's frustating is that I saw about 5 that are tantalizing (I know I read this somewhere) but I have absolutely no clue where to begin.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/11/2007 14:29 Comments ||
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#2
Geebus! Most of the questions considered important? Minute trivia from obscure works of literature or history... that is ... some of it.
Not sure, but from that test I would surmise that the college's main goal is to keep one an erudite idiot. ;-)
There was, some time ago, published a test for an 8th graders from 1899. A different scope, from grammar to arithmetic and geometry, sciences to history. More dependent on reasoning and logic than erudition. Very good, most fairly college educated people would be lucky to score 45%, nowadays. If you were educated between 50's and end of 60's, you'd be probably better off, scoring well above 60%.
I've got 89% on that damn test for 8th graders. That's not bragging, I was quite put off that I did not make 100% as I expected I would. Sheesh! For 8th graders...
#3
These are supposed to be hard? I've already got at least seven of them, and I'm only at the third section. Are we supposed to do these without looking it up?
#5
Of course, I hope that you won't interpret the gist of my post in the sense that I presume you to be an erudite idiot!
Hey, I resemble that remark! Except for the "erudite" part.
I admit, the astronomy stuff was a gift. I didn't get any of the botany off the top of my head, but it probably wouldn't be too hard to find a couple of them.
#8
Lots of the Lit'rachaw questions appear to be from period public schoolboy adventure stories, full of period public schoolboy slang. I've read a bit in the genre, and it's just as uninteresting as you'd think. I got bored at that point.
ROME (AP) - The U.S. ambassador to Italy faced loud protests when he traveled to Vicenza to discuss a planned expansion of the American military base there, police said Wednesday. Ambassador Ronald P. Spogli was meeting with the city's mayor Tuesday when about 20 protesters surrounded his car in an attempt to prevent him from leaving. Police intervened and the protesters were forced to leave.
``We had to lift them and carry them out of the way,'' said Eduardo Cuozzo, a deputy police chief in Vicenza.
The planned expansion at a nearby civilian and military airport has fueled several protests. Last month, thousands of people marched through Vicenza.
Sounds like the local moonbats were on parade. But if the Euros don't want our military there, no problem with me.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/11/2007 00:00 ||
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Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday directed the Womens Development Ministry to prepare a draft law to regulate the sale of acids and punish those who burn women with acid.
Presiding over a meeting here on Wednesday to review the ministrys targets, Aziz asked Womens Development Minister Sumaira Malik to coordinate with the Law and Justice Ministry for the preparation of the draft law. He said the government believed in gender equality, which was necessary for a just and democratic society. He asked the ministry to create more economic opportunities for women.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
It's only a start, but perhaps the camel is getting its nose into the tent.
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British history sleuths say they have uncovered new geological evidence to solve one of the great riddles of ancient Greece -- pinpointing the ancient island of Ithaca, home of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus.
"We are one step closer to solving the age-old mystery," said management consultant Robert Bittlestone who has worked with professors of classics and geology to piece together an intriguing archaeological jigsaw puzzle.
Finding Ithaca could rival the discovery of ancient Troy on the Turkish coast in the 1870s.
No one can be certain whether Odysseus or his city really existed. But the discovery of the ruins of Troy, where Odysseus and other legendary Greek heroes did battle, has led scholars to believe there is more to Homer's tales than just legend.
Until now, the kingdom of Ithaca was thought to have been on the Ionian island of Ithaki.
But Bittlestone's team say they believe it is on Paliki, a peninsula on the island of Kefalonia, west of Ithaki.
Bittlestone, who became intrigued by the riddle while on holiday in Greece, enlisted the help of Cambridge classicist James Diggle and Edinburgh geologist John Underhill to drill a 122 meter (400 ft) bore hole on the isthmus joining Paliki to the rest of Kefalonia.
It met with no solid limestone bedrock, suggesting Paliki could once have been an island in itself.
The team say rockfalls and landslides triggered by earthquakes may have filled in an ancient sea channel.
Bittlestone said further tests would have to be made along the length of the isthmus to prove their island theory.
"There is every evidence we are on the right track," he said. "For thousands of years people thought Homer was wrong in how he described the location of Ithaca. I believe Homer was right but we didn't see it because the landscape has changed."
#3
"For thousands of years people thought Homer was wrong in how he described the location of Ithaca. I believe Homer was right but we didn't see it because the landscape has changed."
what Simpson's episode was this?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/11/2007 12:48 Comments ||
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#4
Spoken like a true student of the classics. LOL
#8
The Trojan War was very much a war for control of the then-perceived Greek World/Universe, between mainland Greeks vs. "Mongrelized/Asianized" Greeks + Allies in Asia Minor. By stealing the
"Helen" = Elene/Eleni symbol, TROY was basically unilaterally claiming by force the singular leadership of all the Greek World without heed of consent by the other major Greek City-States. By building the TROJAN HORSE, Odyseus = mainland Greeks basically wanted the Trojans to believe that mainland Greece would now acccept bastard Troy as Leader of the Greek World, i.e. TO ACCEPT NON-GREEK CONTROL + INFLUENCES ON THEIR SOCIETIES, INCLUDING THOSE UNILATERALLY AND NON-CONSENSUALLY IMPOSED BY FORCE.
Can somebody jump in their time machine and go back and ask Jefferson if there's anything in his Koran about this?
RICHMOND, Va. A high school art teacher who sparked controversy after his off-hours work as a butt-printing artist became known has been fired. Back off, man, I'm an artist...
The Chesterfield County School Board, in a unanimous voice vote, terminated Stephen Murmer at a meeting last night, school spokeswoman Debra Marlow said. Get your painted ass OUT!
The vote came after Chesterfield Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome recommended that Murmer be fired. Murmer and his lawyer, Jason Anthony, also had an opportunity to present their case in a closed session of the 3-hour meeting, Marlow said. The vote came after the meeting was opened to the public. I'm sure the debate was right up there with the Scopes Monkey Trial...
In its decision, the board reasoned that students have a right to receive their education in a positive learning environment free from distractions and disruptions, Marlow said. The decision also is in keeping with court rulings that hold that teachers are expected to lead by example, be role models and honor core values, she said. The teachers union shall hear of this!
After the boards vote, Anthony said it was a bad day for the First Amendment. And for butt painting artists everywhere. You can almost feel the cold wind of the blacklist on their painted asses. Or McCarthyism. Or...something.
Chesterfield lost a tremendous asset today, he said. Ya spelled it wrong, counselor.
Murmer, a teacher at Monacan High School, was suspended in December after objections were raised about his private abstract artwork, much of which includes smearing his posterior and genitals with paint and pressing them against canvas. His paintings sell for as much as $900 each on his Web site. Why, yes, it is an original Murmer...
The unique approach to art became a topic when a clip showing Murmer, wearing a fake nose and glasses, a towel on his head and black thong, turned up on YouTube.com. That video inevitably made its way to the high school. Like, wow, man. Is that, like, Mr. Murmer? Wow. Dood...
Murmer contacted the American Civil Liberties Union after he was suspended, and ACLU executive director Kent Willis said last night that the case is far from simple. Oh, God. Everybody hates us, every friggin whackjob on this planet calls us, and they all think the ACLU will make everything all better. I really hate this job...
A public employee such as a school teacher has a right to free expression outside the workplace so long as that free expression doesnt go beyond his ability to do his job, Willis said after learning of the boards vote to dismiss Murmer. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....
The question is, Does his art interfere with his ability to teach? Would I want him teaching my kid? Are you fuckin crazy...
Willis noted that it wasnt until the county decided to suspend Murmer a month ago that the video illustrating his unusual approach to art became a topic of discussion. He said the county had overreacted with its decision to fire Murmer. Four years of college, law school, pass the bar and they're asking me about some guy's painted ass...
#2
I agree with Seafarious. He ought to be able to have his little hobbies, but...ick.
Turns out this guy paints under the name of "Stan Murmur". He was disguised in the video, so I wonder how he was recognized. Anyhow, here's his gallery.
There's a link for "The amazing story of an artist and his butt," but it took too long to load.
If you've ever heard the expression, "Pretty good, for painting with your butt," well, now you know exactly what that means.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
ATMORE, Ala. -- Police said an Alabama man shot a friend Monday when the two got into a heated argument over the height of recently deceased soul singer James Brown. Officers said 
Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments" but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters," has died. She was 84.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday directed the Womens Development Ministry to prepare a draft law to regulate the sale of acids and punish those who burn women with acid. 
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British history sleuths say they have uncovered new geological evidence to solve one of the great riddles of ancient Greece -- pinpointing the ancient island of Ithaca, home of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus.
