John Simpson is my new hero

For the past few weeks I've been reading the BBC correspondent John Simpson's 2nd autobiographical book, 'A Mad World, My Masters', and I've been _thoroughly_ impressed by the man's outlook. To me, Simpson represents a nobility and integrity that are missing from so much of the news media (print or broadcast) and from the wider world, for that matter. Unfortunately I'm not the world's quickest reader, but I've slowly digested a number of the thoughts from the book over the period of reading it on my recent journeys on public transport, and will be reproducing some short excerpts here on my blog.

I thought that a short section on the First World/Third World narcotics relationship manifest in Peruvian cocaine farmers was particularly succinct:

"They were coca's slaves, condemned to a life of fear and criminality by the habit of Western counties - in this case the United States, but it could equally well have been the European Union - of dumping their surplus produce on the undefended markets of the Third World. This in turn stimulates the drug industry, and Western countries are obliged to tax their citizens more in order to pay the high social costs of addiction and crime. Could anything be more absurd?"

More excerpts from Simpson soon.