Oct 20 2005
Last Wednesday a fiery and passionate race row took place on BBC Radio 4’s Midweek radio broadcast presented by Libby Purves. Joan Rivers became furiously enraged when Darcus Howe announced that the term “black” offended her; Rivers let loose, frenziedly exclaiming, “How dare you call me a racist! How dare you!”
In less dramatic circumstances, my housemate explained to us in a car journey this morning that she found a particular lecture problematic. Not because the content was uninteresting but because she found it difficult to understand the deeply-accented words of her world-renowned Spanish lecturer. As she elucidated her reasoning she profusely and repeatedly said, “I don’t want to sound racist but?” My level-headed friend was afraid to express her feelings and thoughts about communication difficulties in lecture theatres for fear of being branded a racist.
We live in a world where we are increasingly told that racism is evil, and that we should continue to fight the causes of and stamp out racism within our society. Each of us is handed a civil responsibility to prevent racially-motivated oppression at all costs. Yet as this responsibility is increasingly forced upon us, we are finding it ever more difficult to speak our minds. We keep our thoughts to ourselves, for heaven forbid we should say something politically incorrect. Describing someone as ‘black’ has become a political minefield. When pointing out a friend to another we pause to consider our description; should he be identified as Black, African, African-Caribbean, African-American? Who are we to make assumptions about his origins?
This kind of anxiety is all too common in our politically-paranoid society, and is often counter-productive. How can we ever escape racism if we fear the repercussions of calling a black person black?
The situation is not helped by overbearing black anti-racism establishments, which report every potentially racial misdemeanour and specialise in exactly the kind of antagonism that fuels such insecurities. Publications such as weekly newspaper The Voice, billed as ‘Britain’s Best Black Newspaper’ provide an outlet for black communities to express their concerns. Yet in a world of globalisation where cultures have become intertwined, and a society which continually strives to prevent its own segregation, the concept of publications aimed at a singular race appear entirely hypocritical, and fundamentally at odds with such social aspirations. Communities facing racial oppression should have a public outlet to voice their concerns, yet is a newspaper, read solely by a black ‘partition’, the best medium for this? Imagine the outrage if a service or publication were aimed exclusively at white people. “White News” would be a national scandal, assuredly denounced by the government as racial slur.
It is my belief that different cultural backgrounds provide for multivariate skills and talents. Africans are different to Indians in the same way that East Asians are different to Western Europeans. It is entirely possible that these races of people have disproportionate abilities in an assortment of activities. To ignore such fundamental differences between people is sheer ignorance, for we are each individuals and we are all very different. To use these differences against each other is real racism. Contrary to the common misconception; the practice of racism lies not in acknowledging these differences, but in using them in a demeaning and inhumane manner. To announce that somebody is black is not insulting and it is not racist. Similarly, finding an accented Spaniard’s English difficult to interpret is also understandable.
Should you now discover that the author of this piece is indeed black, consider how it would effect your opinion of it. It is the white fear of and the black obsession with the recognition of difference that will forever allow racism to haunt us, even when those who are truly racist are long gone. As Joan Rivers argued, “It is not about black or white, it is about people.”
Sep 4 2005
I have found the response to this hurricane truly despicable considering the notice given and the expected devastation. Surely someone should have planned a comprehensive relief effort should the worst happen.
I agree with these statements and couldn’t word them any better, so here is a quote from Something Awful:
Rich, myself, Livestock, and probably some of the other writers have been watching the hurricane aftermath with nothing short of dumb shock. There is a disaster going on right now and it is manmade. The disaster is three strangers in Mississippi, together because they’re all that’s left and alone in a town without buildings, drinking floodwater polluted by corpses, shit and gasoline. The disaster is a woman wading through waist deep streets holding her daughter and wondering why the trucks won’t stop to get her out of the city. The disaster is ICU patients dying one after another because diesel didn’t flow and order couldn’t be kept. It’s an uninterrupted chain of personal disasters. It’s inept triage on a national scale. It’s unbelievable that this is America.
It’s hard to comprehend that these repeating images of herds of people without food or water or medical treatment after nearly a week are happening on our soil. They’re our fellow citizens and while the politicians, directors, planners and generals congratulate each other at press conferences they are suffering and dying. I have seen some efforts in the media to pressure officials to accept responsibility. None have, because in public office the buck stops nowhere. The only person I have really seen come close to capturing the raw fury of the people trapped in New Orleans or forgotten in Mississippi and Alabama is CNN’s Anderson Cooper. He confronted Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu on live TV, chiding her with a voice cracking with emotion that he couldn’t believe the politicians were patting each other on the back over a job well done when he just saw rats eating a woman’s body in the street of Biloxi. On the Internet I’ve seen people blatantly placing blame on Bush, FEMA, Congress, the National Guard, and even Homeland Security.
Who is responsible? Who should be blamed? All of them. This is a colossal failure of our government to care for and protect its citizenry on every conceivable level. The heroes are the men and women on the scene doing their utmost to help those in need. Coast Guard rescue workers plucking people to safety and Red Cross workers feeding people from emergency kitchens are heroes. The man who commandeered a bus and got people out of New Orleans when the government was woefully impotent is a hero. The woman who smashed the glass on a convenience store to loot bottled water for fifteen kids who should have been absolutely inundated with supplies by then is a hero. The doctors and nurses hand-bagging ventilator patients 24 hours a day in dark hospitals are heroes. In the ineloquent but true words of the Mayor of New Orleans: “Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.” CNN was better prepared to deal with this disaster than FEMA was.
I am ashamed of my country’s government in a universal way right now. Republicans, democrats, opportunists, it doesn’t matter; they’re all guilty in this situation. In a magical world where justice is actually served most of these people would not have jobs in a month or two. Instead the people without jobs will be the millions who have lost everything and found their government with its back turned. Remember that people are still dying because of this incompetence. Remember that when each and every one of these fools appears on TV for a photo op or complains about “placing blame later,” because placing blame now is the only hope America has to change the situation.
In the United Kingdom somebody’s head would be taken for this. A great number of politicians would have accepted some ounce of responsibility and in hindsight resigned. It disgusts me that no one can step up and say “I was wrong” or “I should have done more”, “It is my fault”. The most powerful country in the world is doomed if its leaders and officials are only going to cover their own asses and not solve the nation’s problems.
From the BBC:
New Orleans crisis shames Americans
At the end of an unforgettable week, one broadcaster on Friday bitterly encapsulated the sense of burning shame and anger that many American citizens are feeling.
The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better.
It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream.
The party in power in Washington is always happy to convey the impression of 50 states moving forward together in social and economic harmony towards a bigger and better America.
That is what presidential campaigning is all about.
But what the devastating consequences of Katrina have shown — along with the response to it — is that for too long now, the fabric of this complex and overstretched country, especially in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, has been neglected and ignored.
Borrowed time
The fitting metaphors relating to the New Orleans debacle are almost too numerous to mention.
First there was an extraordinary complacency, mixed together with what seemed like over-reaction, before the storm.
A genuinely heroic mayor orders a total evacuation of the city the day before Katrina arrives, knowing that for decades now, New Orleans has been living on borrowed time.
The National Guard and federal emergency personnel stay tucked up at home.
The havoc of Katrina had been predicted countless times on a local and federal level — even to the point where it was acknowledged that tens of thousands of the poorest residents would not be able to leave the city in advance.
No official plan was ever put in place for them.
Abandoned to the elements
The famous levees that were breached could have been strengthened and raised at what now seems like a trifling cost of a few billion dollars.
The Bush administration, together with Congress, cut the budgets for flood protection and army engineers, while local politicians failed to generate any enthusiasm for local tax increases.
New Orleans partied-on just hoping for the best, abandoned by anyone in national authority who could have put the money into really protecting the city.
Meanwhile, the poorest were similarly abandoned, as the horrifying images and stories from the Superdome and Convention Center prove.
The truth was simple and apparent to all. If journalists were there with cameras beaming the suffering live across America, where were the officers and troops?
The neglect that meant it took five days to get water, food, and medical care to thousands of mainly orderly African-American citizens desperately sheltering in huge downtown buildings of their native city, has been going on historically, for as long as the inadequate levees have been there.
Divided city
I should make a confession at this point: I have been to New Orleans on assignment three times in as many years, and I was smitten by the Big Easy, with its unique charms and temperament.
But behind the elegant intoxicants of the French Quarter, it was clearly a city grotesquely divided on several levels. It has twice the national average poverty rate.
The government approach to such deprivation looked more like thoughtless containment than anything else.
The nightly shootings and drugs-related homicides of recent years pointed to a small but vicious culture of largely black-on-black crime that everyone knew existed, but no-one seemed to have any real answers for.
Again, no-one wanted to pick up the bill or deal with the realities of race relations in the 21st Century.
Too often in the so-called “New South”, they still look positively 19th Century.
“Shoot the looters” is good rhetoric, but no lasting solution.
Uneasy paradox
It is astonishing to me that so many Americans seem shocked by the existence of such concentrated poverty and social neglect in their own country.
In the workout room of the condo where I am currently staying in the affluent LA neighbourhood of Santa Monica, an executive and his personal trainer ignored the anguished television reports blaring above their heads on Friday evening.
Either they did not care, or it was somehow too painful to discuss.
When President Bush told “Good Morning America” on Thursday morning that nobody could have “anticipated” the breach of the New Orleans levees, it pointed to not only a remote leader in denial, but a whole political class.
The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country — of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society — has reached a crisis point this week.
Will there be real investment, or just more buck-passing between federal agencies and states?
The country has to choose whether it wants to rebuild the levees and destroyed communities, with no expense spared for the future — or once again brush off that responsibility, and blame the other guy.
Aug 21 2005
Revoked American Independance
Declaration of Revocation
To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.
Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium.” Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour’; skipping the letter ‘U’ is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters.
You will end your love affair with the letter ‘Z’ (pronounced ‘zed’ not ‘zee’) and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise.”
You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh’ is pronounced ‘burra’ e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you can’t cope with correct pronunciation.
Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary.” Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “uhh”, “like”, and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
Look up “interspersed.”
There will be no more ‘bleeps’ in the Jerry Springer show. If you’re not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn’t have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won’t have to use bad language as often.
2. There is no such thing as “US English.” We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize.”
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).
You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents — Scottish dramas such as “Taggart” will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.
While we’re talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is “Devon.” If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become “shires” e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.
British sit-coms such as “Men Behaving Badly” or “Red Dwarf” will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can’t cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American “football.” There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American “football” is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays “American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).
We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005.
You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the ‘World Series’ for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls’ game called “rounders,” which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don’t believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called “Indecisive Day.”
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call ‘French fries’ are not real chips. Fries aren’t even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps.” Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.
12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling “beer” is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer,” and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager.” The substances formerly known as “American Beer” will henceforth be referred to as “Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine,” with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as “Weak Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine.” This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or “gasoline,” as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon — get used to it).
14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by
adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.
15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.
16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
Aug 4 2005
Saw this on InsideGoogle,
quote:
Yahoo has apparently decided that, now that they have an ad network targeted at bloggers, it is time for them to release all of their blog-related services in development. As a result, here is Yahoo Audio Search, which can find you podcasts. According to The New York Times, Yahoo claims to have indexed 50 million music, voice and other audio files.
The service will also display links to the online sites where users can pay to download a song. Most major music sites have agreed to send Yahoo lists of their songs and pay a commission on every song sold. The current version of the service has no advertising, but Mr. Horowitz said ads might be added later.
You can refine your searches by music, podcasts or other audio, by song, artist or album, by format (RAM, MP3, MIDI, WMA or AAC) by duration (more or less than a minute), by web & audio services or audio services only, and by major releases or to include alternates, imports, EPs, etc.. Smartly, the podcast results have links to the RSS feeds.
http://audio.search.yahoo.com/
This is an extremely nifty release. Take these example searches and results:
(Purposely testing with lesser known artists)
Venetian Snares: Search
Clicking the artist brings up a discography and list of albums.
Clicking the song gives a list of legal locations for download, cost, quality, format, ability to burn to cd,
Quick links include Y! music link to artist, biographys and reviews.
There is also a matching artists page on the right hand side to give quick access to discographies of searched terms.
From the discography page:
Format: Album Cover, Title (Record Label, Year of Release)
Sort releases by popularity, date and title.
On the right Yahoo automatically searches images, the web and video and displays the first results from each in a single column.
Find CD link under each album links to Yahoo shopping and gives a list of online outlets to purchase the cd.
For more well known artists there are “Similar artist” links also.
Clicking an album cover takes you to the ” album browser”:
This lets you quickly browse an artists albums. On clicking from the browser you are presented with a tracklisting and all the available legal online download locations for that song.
You can also select your preferred audio service from one of these:
quote:
None
ArtistDirect
AudioLunchbox
BuyMusic.com
dMusic
eMusic
Epitonic
GarageBand
iTunes
Livedownloads
MP34U
MSN Music
Musicmatch
Napster
PassAlong
RealPlayer Music Store
Rhapsody
SoundClick
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
Moving on to Podcasts:
Search for engadget: Engadget Podcast
Notice the last published date and direct link to the RSS feeds.
Here’s another podcast search: BBC
There’s also an “other audio” option which I have yet to try.
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