Christmas wishes

I got these from a befriended attorney at law:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make Europe great, (not to imply that Europe is necessarily greater than any other continent) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee.

21:12

permalink comment(s) (1) trackback(s) (0)

Uh

What he said.

(No, I'm not turning this into the Dutchapundit.)

10:03

permalink comment(s) (0) trackback(s) (0)

Britain compared to Iraq under Saddam

Another gem from the journalism textbook I have to plough through. The following snippets are from an article written by Justin Lewis and Rod Brookes, on British reporting on the war against Iraq:

'A number of reports (19 per cent) referred to the decadent nature of the regime (...). While most of these reports contained evidence that was unremarkable for a dictatorial regime (indeed, since Britain has one of the wealthiest monarchies and one of the highest levels of inequality in Europe, the charges of decadence were particularly curious), we found no reports that made this point, or put them in an international context.'

But wait, it gets better. From one of the final paragraphs:

'Our research suggests that the (UK, ed.) wartime coverage was generally sympathetic to the government's case. This manifested itself in various ways, notably: (...) the focus on the brutality or decadence of the regime without putting this evidence in context.'

I've got your context right here.

Update 14.11:

Further on in the textbook, there's an article by Teun van Dijk. Who, you say? Well, his website not only gives some insight into his outlook on the world, but also proudly displays this picture:

Granted, not a Ché T-shirt in sight.

11:35

permalink comment(s) (0) trackback(s) (0)

My Christmas card

Is rude, in Dutch, and downloadable here.

12:52

permalink comment(s) (9) trackback(s) (0)

Life imitates Monty Python

From the journalism textbook I have to read for next week's exam:

'A strong tradition in the sociology of journalism has emphasised the controlling, socially reproductive functions of news - its role in the ideological appartus of capitalist societies, binding together an unequal and exploitative social system through the promulgation of a world-view which is consistent with the maintenance of dominant class interests.'

From Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail's dialogue between King Arthur and Dennis the Peasant:

DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers -- by hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress--

11:58

permalink comment(s) (0) trackback(s) (0)

No, I am not dead

But thanks for asking.

I am, however, extremely busy, because my company has to meet deadlines, I have to take exams between now and Christmas to get my MA degree, I've got a publisher breathing down my neck about a deadline for the revised edition of my book on internet research, and on top of that, I got infected with a nasty virus about two weeks ago which resulted in rather annoying problems with my left arm (I'll spare you the details; suffice it to say it's finally healing now - thank you, pharmaceutical companies and Dr. Boyraz - yes, I've got a Turkish GP and she rules). The latter wasn't just highly unpleasant in terms of pain, it also took up a lot of time I didn't have to begin with.

I'll stop my whining now. But if you were wondering why I've been a tad quiet, this is why.

Update 22.37: I'm not too busy though to express my happiness about three things: the way president Bush has been straightforward about mistakes that have been made; the very likely adoption of the McCain Amendment, and the extremely high turnout in today's elections in Iraq. Today was a good day for freedom.

9:33

permalink comment(s) (2) trackback(s) (0)

It's about freedom

Hate speech laws, torture, religious intolerance: they all destroy what we are fighting for, according to Pieter. And I am inclined to agree:

Of course the left never subscribed to the classical liberal values of individualism and freedom and the right - while in theory the port of call for these values - will only protect these fundamental values to a limited extent. If the right accepts torture and resurrects demagogues, we are in deep trouble.

It’s time to really understand what we’re fighting for, as there is indeed a war going on. No one is disputing that. It’s how we fight it, that is what's important. If we let the hate-speech law proponents frame the way forward, we lose. If we adopt the new right's approach of tearing apart our enemy, we lose too. That is what is at stake.

Indeed. Respect for freedom is the essential distinction between us and the enemy.

15:27

permalink comment(s) (3) trackback(s) (0)