I was so busy being a cleverpants yesterday evening that I forgot to congratulate my sister publicly on her real cleverness in getting a promotion at work. Congratulations, Clare!
She teaches law, adminsters a school, and still finds the time to raise “her” baby daughter, despite the lack of any obvious genetic connection. What’s Clare going to do when the real mother turns up, her blue eyes glinting and blonde afro quivering with rage?
There are scarcely enough quotation marks available for this entry.
Edward Said, Palestinian “intellectual”, has published his latest “book”. It is 84 pages long. It costs £13.
I am not suspicious of Said’s status as a Palestinian victim of Zionism*—he seems to be honest—but I become ever more suspicious of his supposed talents—how many ways can one man be wrong?
In his latest work, according to A. C. Grayling, writing in the Financial Times, Said hopes to draw the attention of the Jews to their mongrel heritage that they might better recognise their common humanity with, for example, the Arabs. To do this he openly recycles theories about Jewish history and identity hacked together by Sigmund Freud, founder of “psychology†“. Freud selectively quotes that still-more-reliable source of historical data, the Old Testament.
I threatened a fisking earlier on, but do I begin with the old lies or the new lies, the old fraud or the new fraud? Do I attack the point-missing or the pointlessness? Once again I find myself dealing with something that appears to be so stupid in so many ways that I can scarcely bring myself to engage with it. Grayling shows the typical restraint of an English academic, merely dismissing the writing as “unquestioning”, “obscure” and “tendentious”. At 15p a page he missed out “overpriced”.
[Slap me with a spoon and hurry on down to Amazon! There the book’s £10.87 and 96 pages long. Bargain!]
* A clarification: for me “Zionism” is not a dirty word, but I believe it has been a force for both good and ill.
† Oxford, Cambridge and various other serious universities use the phrase “experimental psychology” mainly to distance their own teaching and research in the sciences of the mind from the comprehensively discredited work of Freud and his acolytes. Whatever psychoanalytical studies are, they are not in any sense scientific.
The gang had some fun yesterday and today trying to make some sense out of this development in U.S. foreign policy. (It’s an example of the short attention spans of the Western media that this news seems to have been all but buried, by the way.)
We had a little online debate and the three of us hawks: Claire on the Right, Judith in the Middle and Damian on the Left didn’t even respond according to our broad political tendencies.
Such are the times: Christopher Hitchens supported war in Iraq; Pat Buchanan was against it. I was going to summarize our own positions, but I’m knackered. Even though I finally have Movable Type running to manage this thing it’s no cure for ‘Blog fatigue. Talking of which, give some money to these people so they can get MTied too. I don’t agree with them, but I love their “no tree hugging” logo.
The Today Programme this morning broadcast a classic debate of its kind: ignorant rich-boy activist “Zac” Goldsmith argued for immediate restrictions on nanotechnology while northern working-class Nobel Laureate Prof Harry Kroto, patiently explained that it’s just chemistry. “Zac” buttressed his case with the support of speculation by experts in the field like Michael Crichton.
If you have RealPlayer, you too can find out “why [Brenda's son] Prince Charles thinks tiny robots threaten the world” [scroll down to the relevant link].
The Eurovision Song Contest is beyond comment, parody, understanding. This year ‘s Austrian entry extends the scope of the event still further, by offering an extraordinary perspective on man’s place in the natural world. I can only urge you to read about it. In particular I draw your attention to the lyrics.
Whatever happened to that Benicio Del Toro movie they trailed last year? You know, the one about the guy under investigation because of his impossibly good luck on the markets and at the gaming tables.
A year later than everyone else I have found the answer. Nothing happened. There was no film. But there was an advertisement for a very expensive car.
After this announcement by Sinead O’Connor, I myself have also made a personal decision to step out of the spotlight. Fame has been good to me, but from now on I’d just like to ask that people everywhere please respect my wish for privacy and stop reading my Weblog. Additionally, I request that they stop buying my recordings and asking me to sleep with them. It really has been too much for one person to bear. I just don’t think I can give any more. Thank you.
If you like baby pics and/or the Grassly-Khalifehs, have a look at the photos from Maryam’s 1st birthday party.
Madonna's new album is released today. I have always believed that she has at least four talents.
There are two obvious ones [shut up at the back!]: she can dance in time and she can sing in tune—albeit in a voice that induces stomach cramps in Tibetan voles.
There are two important ones: she wants to be famous more than anyone else in the World, and she has a superb instinct for choosing the people who can help her achieve that goal.
Close to her 80s peak, I vaguely remember she got herself in trouble with at least one of those gifted people downstairs by commenting that she wasn't really bothered with the music herself much; she preferred to concentrate on more important things instead (like being famous).
Yesterday I heard her latest single in the shower: not good. Lately she's been making that classic error of the 80s’ superstar: assuming greater artistic control. I am not exactly sure what contribution to a song "earns" a writing credit these days, but her latest "composition" has the same tell-tale clumsiness that marked the random insertion of the phrase "Sigmund Freud" into her Bond theme
It's ominous; look at what happened to Michael Jackson when he convinced himself that owning a large chunk of The Beatles' publishing qualified him to start writing his own songs
American rock journalists usually review popular music rather more smartly than British ones. The Americans often know one end of a musical instrument from the other and/or are familiar with words like "scansion" and "meter". Without getting too serious about the music, Time seems to have skewered Madonna's latest album well.
One of Hollywood's great traditions is to make the same sub-sub-genre of film three times in the space of five years. For example: The Sixth Sense, The Others, and What Lies Beneath.
The Recruit is the first of what will inevitably be a bunch of post 9/11 CIA movies. It won't be the best—especially if justice is done to Claire's novel.
They've given it that grainy documentary look and put a couple of big names in the leads, but, as hard as it tries, you can't take it seriously because it has the most worst failing a movie can have: a bad script. It wasn't written by the famous Robert Towne, but his rather less famous brother Roger. (Even Robert has been coasting on his work on Chinatown for some time now. The last decent thing he wrote was Frantic.)
I just hate watching a thriller full of clunking implausibilities. There are holes so big in this one you could fly a passenger jet through them. Whoops, I mentioned the unmentionable. Yes, that's right: they keep referencing The Company's "biggest mistake" ("they let us down when we needed them most") without ever actually discussing it. Gawd.
Oh yes, and:
I don't mind Hollywood making stupid films. I just hate them being packaged as intelligent ones. It's insulting.
(Did I mention that the music is derivative, Hans-Zimmer-by-numbers crap?)
Here's a picture of my friends Hind and Nicholas's baby daughter Maryam, munching the cake at her first birthday party—for no better reason than that I am particularly proud of the photograph.
Also earlier this week, when I asked them, Claire and Judith Wrubel Levy kindly recommended books on the American Civil War to me. Claire suggested Eric Foner's Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men and Judith suggested James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom.
An article from the mostly-subscription FT site, summarized in the Business Standard, argues that The War on Terrorism is really yet another mutated descendant of the American Civil War. It's by MacGregor Knox of the London School of Economics.
Holy Moly. Two amazing searches brought punters to counsell.com yesterday evening.
Perverts first. Someone was looking for "pictures of English women shitting" via search.yahoo.com. Fortunately this site is only referenced by the second page of results.
Idiots second. Someone was looking for "why Chirac opposes war" via search.msn.com. The number one hit on the entire Web is Claire Berlinski's argument for war.
Try it, Claire; it'll make your head spin.
Earlier this week Microsoft (in the form of msn.com) said they aimed to outdo Google with their new search engine technology. Looks like they have their work cut out.
You can Enhance Your Browsing Experience by installing something called the Google toolbar into your copy of Netscape, Mozilla or [spit!] Internet Explorer.
As well has providing a built-in search facility, the bar has an indicator which tells you, on a scale of one to ten, how "important" the Google database thinks the currrent page you are browsing is; this factor approximates to the page's pagerank.
Last week, counsell.com climbed from four to five.
My academic homepage remains stuck on a measly three. This is not necessarily a bad thing. If the notorious Stanley Pons had a homepage it would probably score a nine just because his work has been so controversial. Rather like that supposed Chinese curse it is possible for something to be too interesting.
Yesterday Claire sent me a link to an article so interesting that I am afraid I can't tell you about it. If I did I would have to bore you senseless with the many things I would like to write in response. Unlike so much of that tiresome anti-globalization, anti-American drivel we are surrounded by today it gets very close to one of the central problems of the New World Order.
Close, but no cigar.
Before the popularity of moral relativism and other post-modern fashions in thinking, reasoning about right and wrong was less complicated. For example, tens of thousands of people dying unnecessarily every year for decades was considered worse than tens of people dying over the same time span.
Scholars have since identified the fundamental flaws in this utitilitarian approach and it is frowned upon by sophisticated political theorists.
Now the formula is this: if someone I disapprove of kills a few people unintentionally, this is far, far worse than anyone else killing a lot of people intentionally, especially if the latter kills in the name of struggling against the former.
This is why, to paraphrase an American stand-up comedian, Tony Blair and George Bush are Hitler and the man with the moustache feeding people to the wood-chipper is the rightful leader of a sovereign state.
Lacking a formal education in the humanities, I have to resort to blunt scientific instruments when making choices about big issues: statistics, falsifiability, logical consistency. I blush to admit I don't even have an ideological stance or a body of doctrine against which to test my beliefs. Oh, for faith in the Invisible Hand of the Market or the reassurance of Historical Inevitability!
So, when it comes to choosing between spontaneous petty crime and organized state terror, articles like this by Johann Hari in The Independent, with the politically radical title "Looting is ugly, but it’s better than torture" are immensely helpful.
In the days when they could take shorthand, construct a grammatical sentence, type 40 words a minute, and were bothered with little things like checking facts, journalists were viewed with contempt. Now journalist characters are frequently the heroes of Hollywood movies and university graduates fall over themselves to do unpaid work for grotty trade mags so they can gain media experience.
It's harder to get into the business (I hesitate at the word "profession"), but, once you're in, I imagine being a journalist is easier than being a soldier or a pilot. This hasn't stopped journos from making ill-informed criticisms of the conduct of British and American troops throughout the Iraq war. Strange, since, during the same brief period, members of the fourth estate have been involved in things like this and this.
Today the doorway to the Co-op supermarket was guarded by a six-foot pig and a six-foot bumblebee. They were collecting for a children's charity.
To their credit (and in typically ethical Co-op style) they made no attempt to press me for money; as if their looming blank stares weren't intimidating enough. I wonder how many small children burst into tears at the sight? I bet there was a lot less shop-lifting than usual, though.
On the same page ("Special Report: France") of The Guardian online these two headlines are neighbours:
"Chirac Put on Nobel Prize List"
"Paris Shrine of Surrealism Dismantled"
Reminiscent of the famous Tom Lehrer quote, wouldn't you say?
I know I've been quiet lately. Mainly, when I've been online, I've been reading other Weblogs.
There's been a lot of good news from Iraq about liberation and bloodless battles. Even the anti-war lobby is behaving as though the war is over, bar the vicious, ignorant, trivial griping of so-called peace-lovers.
There's been bad news about looting and violence. Surely the Americans realise that it's crucial to manage any unpleasantness that takes place within sniping distance of journalists in Baghdad's city centre hotels?
Anyway, I'm not going to gloat—not until Iraq is a country where they tolerate wilfully irrational, childish, bitter, incoherent bollocks like this from graceless loser Julian Barnes [thanks to Claire] and this from David Hare, who manages to combine the roles of armchair shrink, armchair general and armchair within one article.
I was going to dissect the myriad inanities of these "contributions" to the debate from our nation's literary giants, but I can't be bothered. They're not worth my contempt.
Once upon a time, large numbers of Europeans hated Jews more than they loved freedom. Now they hate Americans and Jews, and they perceive all reality through that red mist.
In three hours this week, more people died in The Democratic Republic of Congo than even the highest estimates of civilian casualties in the whole Iraq "war". Luckily for the Congolese, the United Nations and not the United States is there to manage their crisis. Just as the UN was there for the people of Srebrenica.
I thought that was worth recording. Do I care whether or not our "men of letters" did?
David Hare is a playwright.
Next, a quote from a talking head on BBC Radio 4 this morning:
"You see the painstaking care the archaeologists use when they dig up these relics and now there is all this bombing. It's the history being destroyed, not just the people. The history is being shot at—and for what?"
How about the removal of a murderous fascist dictator? "Okay, Mohammed, John here is going to ask you a few more questions so we can process your asylum request, but, before he does: artefacts or liberation? Wow. Whaddya know? John, put another one down for ‘liberation’".
Incidentally, not that I think the latter is important, but the coalition are not only going to amazing lengths to avoid "destroying the people" of Iraq, they are doing their best to avoid trashing historical sites. They are taking so much care in this that Saddam's forces are exploiting it and hiding arms in them.
Of course, Saddam's been trashing his country's "heritage" for ages, but I can't remember hearing a BBC report about that recently…
I'll say one thing for visits to the Grassly-Khalifehs: they always give me something to put in my 'Blog.
It was a baby-packed party to celebrate Maryam's first birthday—and excellent fun it was too, hanging out in a sunny Hampstead garden with a crowd of well-behaved children of ages up ten (I think). Maryam is so entertaining these days—mind you, I don't have to live with her full time.
On the way there I read a flyer from (the supposedly politically neutral) Amnesty International: a shopping list of "The Human Cost" of war in Iraq. I only got as far as the first item.
Apparently, 50 000 Iraqis are going to die. The U.S. and British forces will really have to go some if they are to meet the ambitious target Amnesty has set for them. Even the anti-war iraqbodycount.net, considered to be systematically overestimating the numbers, has the civilian deaths at somewhere between 900 and 1 000. We could add in the horrifying speed and scale of Iraqi military deaths and still keep the figure well under 10 000, never mind 50 000. That's still grim, but let's not allow the facts or any sense of perspective to interfere with such a compelling and detailed argument.
Perhaps the "Coalition" could get back on track by gassing civilians or depriving the vulnerable of essential medicines. Maybe they could kill political dissidents and their families. How about starting a war with Iran or invading Kuwait?
(If wildly exaggerated predictions of death and destruction are your bag you can always visit Cambridge's very own Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. They've got them all. I wonder what CASI are going to do with themselves once the war's over—campaign for sanctions on Iraq?)
Crying wolf doesn't exactly help your credibility as an independent campaigning organisation—especially when your agenda is dictated by reflex anti-Americanism. Amnesty's professed policy:
"is never to comment on whether the use of military force is justified or appropriate."
That particular print run must have been an administrative error then. Ironic that it reads rather like the propaganda of some of the governments it chooses to point its nicely-manicured finger at.
I am a user of Amnesty's Website (Britain's bombing in Iraq at the top; Cuba's simultaneous round up of dissidents at the bottom). I have even tried to join the organisation on two or three occasions, but they screwed up my application. Perhaps if they contracted their membership services out to some faceless multinational with a clue about customer service they might generate some less biased supporters…
Anyway, at the party itself, an Englishman told me that entering into Baghdad would be long and bloody. Meanwhile, around the planet, the Americans had taken a little trip into the city, to within gobbing distance of Saddam's command bunker.
Then I struck up a conversation with Moussa, one of Hind's many cousins. Here's where the layers of irony start piling up. Moussa is a thoughtful, educated Palestinian who moved from Jordan a few months ago. He now lives in Tunbridge Wells, working as a civil engineer for, none other than Halliburton. He had plenty of interesting things to say about the war. He also explained how much better he was treated by the British than the Jordanians and how much more equal British society was.
You can't appreciate how precious these simple things are until you understand what it is to do without them.
Do you think "Blood For Hope" is glib, shallow and simplistic enough a slogan for unreflective "anti-war" types to understand?
Hostilities have broken out on a noticeboard at work.
Just before the outbreak of the real war, there was a pre-emptive strike: someone posted an emotional article by Ann Clywd, a Left-wing Labour MP and long-time campaigner on behalf of Iraqi exiles, justifying military intervention by describing atrocities committed in Iraq under Saddam.
This was followed by a word-processed reply. Its author complained of the crudity and lies of the pro-war lobby, then referred to Bush as a "certified chimpanzee" and signed himself/herself "Donald Bumsfeld". Devastating stuff.
Since they appeared I have been asked by various co-workers at the HGMP whether I posted the first piece of paper or the second.
I don't know if I should be proud that I am so difficult to pin down or ashamed that I am considered so crass.
Tuned into Radio Bloke expecting the England football team to get "lost in a thicket of mediocrity" against Turkey—because the front page of today's Telegraph today told me so. In fact England won 2–0. Wow, surely it couldn't have been another example of British journo hyperbole at its hysterical best?—and with our newspapers being so restrained about the war in Iraq as well!
Of course, according to the same paper, England's Rugby Union team are, by comparison, "a beaming advertisement not just for themselves but the game they play so well".
Knowing the politics of the "Torygraph", it shouldn't be too difficult for the casual reader to work out that rugby is played by public (that is, "private") school boys (plus boys from grammar schools, and nice state schools, and whatever other islands of financially privileged education are available to the lucky).
English Association Football is played by comprehensive school kids who mostly have had the opportunity for a proper education denied them by Thatcherism—specifically by her abolition of selection on ability (she closed more grammar schools than any other minister in history) in favour of selection by parental income (or rather house price, which is a reasonable proxy). Her demolition of British manufacturing industry and her cunning appeal to the baser instincts of "the workers" didn't do much for working-class solidarity, morality or culture either.
It's funny how, in this country, school selection on the basis of sporting ability is just dandy, but selection on the basis of intellectual ability is "elitist".
This suits both middle-class Right-wingers and middle-class Left-wingers—and I'm not referring to positions on the soccer field. The Right-wingers can buy their children an advantage, the Left-wingers can play the system to their children's advantage—even down to "discovering God". The Right use the excuse of "freedom"; the Left "equality". Either way they win by keeping the oiks in their place, no matter how much cleverer they are than Hannah and Sebastian.
This is all academic to the hard-working, clever and poor. They, like Turkey, are comprehensively stuffed by mediocrities.
This 'Blog is a year old today. Yes, I know I was late to that particular party, but don't sneer: I was on the Web when it was competing with Gopher; my dotcom had dotgone before most people had heard of one; and my Slashdot user number has only four digits.
So I suppose it's about time I fixed the rest of the Weblog archive pages.
I came across SaveTheHumans.com today. It's a satirical Website with a promising front page manifesto
Welcome to savethehumans.com, a magazine of humor, satire, and commentary for people who prefer thinking over screaming for "peace", stripping for "peace", puking for "peace", cross-dressing for "peace", or otherwise rallying in favor of brutal, Middle-Eastern dictatorships.
The site then goes on to explain that we should read the works of Ayn Rand to appreciate where it's "coming from". Oh well.
I once went out with a believer in Randian ideas. She was mad as cheese too.
Is there a place where I can go to hide from the loopy libertarians and the warmed-over-Marx-ists and the religious fundamentalists and the New-Age nutters and all those other global constituencies cursed with frayed string for brains?
…that leads to my sister's place has a number of distracting branches. I usually manage to take a couple of them on my way to visit her and her family. Today was no exception.
My sister is darker than me; my niece is a scarily pale, blue-eyed, blonde six-month-old. I watched her squeal and blow raspberries all afternoon, but her drooling made more sense than almost any aspect of the hugely entertaining and completely implausible film I saw in the evening.
Yes, I know, I still haven't put up my "Scientific Myths" page. Looking for a quick-and-dirty approach to the problem?
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