Natalie Solent |
|
|
Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.) Kids, cats, rabbit and goldfish to support. More instructions here. 
Jane's Blogosphere: blogtrack for Natalie Solent. 
Links (I sometimes write for Samizdata and Biased BBC.) The Old Comrades:
visitors since 21st Nov 2001 ["X" was chugging towards eighty thousand until 26th August, when BeSeen pulled the plug on their free counters. I just know I've had zillions of visitors since then. I just know.] visitors since 5th September 2002. This is my nice new Bravenet counter. It counts unique visits. This one counts every hit.
Archives
|
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Get working on audience research. Radio 4's "Today" programme is the world epicentre for snobby progressivism, right? Maybe, maybe not. In some poll or other where Today listeners voted to choose the new law they would most like to see enacted, the favourite was a law allowing householders to use any means to defend their home against burglars. Or if you think that ecologically sound bio-fuel belongs back in the horse, you could read Tim Blair on why Test cricket is like the free market. And a Happy New Yea... on second thoughts, let us challenge the surrender to capitalist consumer-culture assumptions implicit in that wish. Quite apart from the ethno-centric and patriarchal Christian overtones implicit in the designation "2004", why does one have to have a new year every year? No doubt multi-national corporations are very happy with this planned obsolescence! But if you want to conserve the planet's dwindling stock of years, why not join with committed friends all over the world and recycle an old year? Many activists find it very satisfying to keep lovely vintage old years such as 1972 or 1968 running on ecologically sound bio-fuel rather than add to the profits of fat-cat Big Calendar shareholders. Happy old year. Thursday, December 25, 2003
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
"My first ever Instalanche - and it's about my dress sense. " First there was this. Then there was this. Michael Jennings talks about it here and Brian Micklethwait talks about it here, and down in Brian's comments Michael utters the lament that makes the title of this post. Got all that? Joking apart, I was there and I can testify they were both wearing perfectly nice guy clothes from reputable shops. Both signaled "intellectual sort of chap" with admirable efficiency. Since the photo was posted and the caption written - or at least approved - by Michael Jennings himself, it's safe to assume that he was successfully signalling, "I have self-confidence enough to not bother slavishly following fashion because I know damn well I am an intellectual." Indeed (as he might say himself), Glenn Reynolds wasn't just signalling an explicit compliment ("you have substance") but also an implied one ("it is safe for me to joke about your style because you know and I know that you are intellectuals.") I know I've been claiming lately that it's becoming harder to tell what class people are from their clothes; in other words that nearly all of us now send out the message "I am not out to dominate you" or, perhaps "I'm not out to stand out from the crowd." Even so, within this large message of democratic sameness most of us are very good at reading and sending out minor differentiating messages by details of dress - even if the signal is, "My mind is on higher things." We are so habituated to self-revelation by clothing that any attempt at re-branding dare not go too far from the original. I have seen some makeover TV programs where the made-over person looks not so much dressed up as lost in their new togs. Random thought: has human evolution still been going on since most of the species took to covering themselves with skins or cloths? I suppose it could, proceeding by differential reproductive success rather than deaths. All very interesting, this style versus substance stuff. Probably Virginia Postrel has dealt with everything I've said by page four. Incidentally, at the same gathering, Brian asked me "how are you?" then answered himself, "I know how you are. I read your blog." Is this true? Discuss. Weather Report. The winds of the blogosphere have blown the much-missed It Can't Rain All The Time to a new location. After a long break from blogging, made necessary for sad reasons, Myria is back. And like many people she is wondering why they even bother with these Bin Laden audio tapes. Bin Laden is like a UFO. UFO fans never can give a really convincing explanation as to why their little green friends choose to make themselves known in Lesser Pifflington-in-the-Bog or Dead Sheep Gulch, Arizona. Don't these people have publicists? What's actually stopping them from landing on the White House lawn, or on the helipad of the United Nations building if you insist, and saying, "take me to your leader" in the traditional manner? (And don't say the United States Air Force: aliens who can cross interstellar space are not bothered by F-16s, not even when they have a spiffy new mux loadable data entry display set, whatever that may be. ) Yup. The UFOs and Osama share a common problem, namely existence-deficiency syndrome. But I must disagree with Myria when she says his legend will grow without proof of death or capture. I say, let the audio tapes keep coming. A few little disputes between Arab TV stations as to authenticity are joy to my ears. (Hey, maybe the CIA could make a few deliberately unconvincing tapes of their own, if they haven't already.) Let the realisation that they were duped grow in the minds of his followers, all the stronger for its slow genesis. The knowledge that they fell for one specific deception will carry with it the seeds of a greater doubt. Monday, December 22, 2003
Peter Cuthbertson has gone postal. I've always wanted to do that. I wonder how he'd get on with his colleague from across the pond who wrote this? The writer, an American postal worker, has eleven suggestions to defeat the dreaded neocons, whom he appears to think are likely to be religious fundamentalists. (And there I was thinking they were all recovering Trots.) The best parts, however, are not divulged for "political security reasons". 11th. Sex. .The 2000-pound gorilla. Once again, too important to post online or in hard copy. I have a few good suggestions; if you want to know more, contact me. Serious inquires only.You heard the man. Instaconspiracy theory. This photoshopped image of Saddam Hussein, created by a guy called "happydogdesign" in the Free Republic, was praised by Glenn Reynolds. Is that why it appeared uncredited in the Saturday 20th December 2003 edition of the Scottish tabloid the Daily Record? It's on page 21 of the print version, illustrating this Bob Shields column. Unfortunately the online version doesn't show the picture, but I've kept the clipping. Do you think we should tell someone? Saturday, December 20, 2003
Don't push your luck, health-wowsers. Is it usual to publish private correspondence supplied as evidence to House of Commons Select Committees? The reason I ask is that the BBC gleefully reports that derogatory comments about smokers made in internal memos by the staff of advertising agencies working for tobacco companies have been published on the internet under the title "tobaccopapers.com". What surprised me was the source of the evidence: the "tobaccopapers.com" press release says that "The Committee [referring to the Health Select Committee - NS] demanded that the tobacco industry's top five UK advertising agencies release all relevant internal documentation relating to their advertising and marketing activities on tobacco accounts." So far as I know Select Committees have always had and used wide powers to demand evidence. But the publication of that evidence for propaganda purposes seems to be new. If I am wrong, and this is all quite usual, what does that do to the incentives for honesty on the part of those who submit evidence? I hope the law on privacy and breach of confidence was followed. Or don't those who make the law have to follow it? Somehow I'm not convinced that Simon North, contemptuously quoted (and quite possibly quoted out of context - his remark could well refer to an ordinary workplace crisis) here, gave his full informed consent. It seems something of an abuse of position that Her Majesty's Government as represented by the National Health Service should jeer at the inflecities of expression of one of the citizens it is meant to serve. Does Mr North get a right of reply, I wonder? The "Tobacco papers" website was funded by NHS Scotland and the charity Cancer Research UK. Next time either body earnestly laments how desperately short of vital funds it is, remember what it did have the money for. As it happens, I see what the scornful ad-men meant. My apologies to all the cultured smokers I know are out there, but in my brain the neural pathways linking the concept "smoker" and the concept "downmarket" are pretty well-worn, particularly if I picture the smoker as a woman. Those who wish to discourage women from smoking should accept with gratitude the tremendous help given to their cause by the low social status of the habit and stop there. If they carry on pushing they may find that nicotine re-acquires the rebellious glamour that helped popularise it among women in the first place. This may already be happening: did you know that the number of young women smokers is going up? There's yet another update, or a clarification at any rate, to the 'More on cakes and famines post' below. In the land of Mordor, where the lawyers lie... Even the Dark Lord is subject to legal scrutiny. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.) Thursday, December 18, 2003
Nothing to see here, move along. The chalk outline you see on this space marks the place where I killed a post linking to Chris Bertram talking about the Irish Famine. Don't be sad for it, it was resuscitated and reincarnated as an update to my "More on cakes and famines" post yesterday. Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Poison is worse than a big stick. I can't get my head round the latest proposals from the Home Secretary. He wants to remove social security benefits from asylum seekers. In some cases that would have the effect of putting the children of failed asylum seekers into care. I can't quite figure out whether Blunkett sees the bit about putting children into care as a problem his policy must and shall deal with or as a desirable part of the policy, the part that gives it teeth. Probably Mr Blunkett has his own reasons for being unclear on this point. For the moment, let's forget all my wild see-saws on the subject of immigration. Let's also forget that I support the removal of social security benefits from everybody in the country. Can we just assume for this post that the consensus view, "welfare OK - legal immigration OK - illegal immigration not OK", is the correct one. Then it's the job of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to decide who stays and the responsibility of the courts and the rozzers to throw out those refused entry, if they won't go of their own accord. Full stop. That's it. Do your job. Meanwhile it is the job of the social workers to decide which children go into care. (Again, I leave aside all consideration of whether this is an ideal state of affairs.) Proper grounds for putting children into care are such things as cruelty, neglect or incapacity on the part of the parents, or because the children are orphans. Full stop. That's it. Do your job. The fact that the parents are in breach of the Immigration Act should have nothing to do with it. Thousands of parents all over the country are in breach of thousands of our many laws. Their children aren't taken. (The criminals may be taken from their children and put in prison, but that's another matter.) Never before have I heard a minister defend the idea that children who were not at risk should be taken into care merely because having them there might be a useful tool to get the desired behaviour from their parents. As I said, my own opinions on immigration are divided. But Mr Blunkett's aren't. If he's going to eject someone, better that he send men with truncheons and get on with it. Almost anything is preferable to stooping to make the poisonous threat "we can take your children, you know." It is typical of the way one failed part of the system tries to pass the buck to another part that hasn't failed yet. A 'Lunch On Shoes' Moment From Cherie. Scott Burgess of The Daily Ablution comments on the way Cherie Booth (Mrs Tony Blair) is sucking up to the Saudis. She tells the Saudi Ambassador that it's sad that so many Westerners have got it into their silly little heads that Saudi women are not treated as equals. Maybe she doesn't see it as a problem that Saudi women are not pemitted to drive cars because she and her female peers don't drive their own cars either. "Qu'elles emploient des chauffeurs." Jackie D doesn't fisk often. She has to be in the right mood for it to work properly. She was in the right mood. More on cakes and famines. Peter Cuthbertson of Conservative Commentary suggests two more links, both from National Review: this one by Jonah Goldberg on Marie Antoinette (it's very funny, contains some good points, but is so bitchy that it actually had me feeling that Goldberg had been unfair to liberal movie stars) and this much more serious one on the Irish Famine. Also, there are some updates to my earlier posts. Scroll down. UPDATE, Thursday 18th: More on the Irish famine from Chris Bertram in Crooked Timber. This is really a separate subject, but you may notice that Chris Bertram deleted some of a comment by Dan Hardie referring to the views on World War II held by Paul Dunne of the Shamrockshire Eagle. I'm not arguing with his editorial decision that going so far off-topic is not allowed in Crooked Timber comments - but I am under no such restriction. If you are curious, "The Shamrockshire Eagle" is the same pro-IRA blog that Oliver Kamm had an argument about with Ryan in Manchester, as a side issue to the well known debate about the Red Army Fraction. Dunne's opinions float somewhere in the space where anti-imperialism of the Chomskyite sort stretches out tendrils to the extreme right. He isn't a Nazi. He just doesn't think the Nazis were strikingly worse than the Allies. For instance he says that "Hitler's economic policies (or more accurately those of Schacht) were classic Keynesianism, and quite similar to those pursued by Roosevelt in the same period, up to and including agressive war as a means of curing domestic problems." He also holds that being in the German sphere of influence following a Nazi victory would have been no worse than being in the British sphere of influence. He regrets that so many Irishmen volunteered for the British army in WWII, saying "This is shown by the tens of thousands of Irish volunteers who fought for the crown (including, I am sorry to say, members of my own family)". He praises Seán Russell and Frank Ryan, two IRA men who joined forces with the Nazis, on the grounds that at least they fought the English. Does all this make his other opinions, about the Irish famine, for instance, wrong? No. But it is relevant to assessing them. FINAL UPDATE/CLARIFICATION, Saturday 20th Dec. I had an email from Paul Dunne. It was private, so I won't quote from it or argue with it. However I think I can legitimately correct two misunderstandings that stemmed from my own lack of clarity in Thursday's post, since others may also have been misled. 1) In "...not strikingly worse than the Allies" I should have said Western Allies. I had in mind the quote about Roosevelt immediately following, as well as the mention of British vs German spheres of influence. 2) Regarding the same Roosevelt quote, I should have made clear that to me the damning part came after the second comma. I only quoted the earlier part about economic policies so that the whole sentence would make sense to the reader. I don't think Mr Dunne necessarily expected a reply to his email, but in case he did, I had better state that, having limited time and energy, I don't often get into private debates at all, and when I do it is with those with whom I share some common ground. Given the bitterness towards the IRA which I have inherited from my Irish Catholic family the necessary common ground is not present in this case. |