Friday, February 29, 2008

Hoisting St. George's Cross

'Hoisting' a flag? Me? Never!

One should never say never (and, actually, I am mostly - noticed I did not write ' always'? :) - trying to avoid superlatives).

Today I am 'hoisting' a flag.
No, not the Irish. The English. The Cross of St. George.




Why?

By visiting James at nourishing obscurity you will understand.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A fine excuse

During the past decades, whenever it happens - and I got the feeling it does happen quite frequently - I do wonder what Mrs. J. could mean by stating I know why the devil beat his mother-in-law.*

Anyway, why would I not write at least ten or twenty posts these days, why not even visiting regularly my 'seldom borings', let alone leaving comments?

I suppose it's just due to that my brain's not (yet) able to perform around 167 trillion calculations per second.



* She'd not find a proper excuse, you know. :)

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Devils in disguise

A German designer has debuted a digitally-enabled burqa that can broadcast a photo of the wearer to nearby mobile phones. Markus Kison calls it the "CharmingBurka," and says it isn't forbidden by Islamic law.
Ha ha, ha! Oh, what did I laugh. And immediately I intended to share my laughter with you.

So far, so funny.

Not that I changed my mind, but after - indeed, even while - reading the article I asked myself yesterday night:
How many 'modern muslim women' wearing a burqa would wish to 'lifting the veil using a bluetooth-burqa'; and how many would be able to afford it?

Quite.

So what is the marketing masters' mission?
Kison's broadcast technology started as a marketing tool; the so-called "Bluebot" system is meant to send digital advertisements to passing phones.
Ah yes. So what can we learn from this both clever and cynic advertising stunt?

One does not need wearing a burqa to be a devil in disguise.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Peace be upon them

Well, what would a most pious and peaceful Muslim do as soon as he has left the mosque after his Friday prayers?

Yes.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Le petit verbicide struck again

Julian Le Grand has struck again. This time the 'leading Government adviser', i.e. without being elected being paid by the United (?) Kingdom's taxpayers calls for alcohol ban in supermarkets.

Surely le petit verbicide will call his latest effusions again "libertarian paternalism".

And what would I do? Sentencing the 'nasty little control freak' to severest swearboarding in the devil's kitchen?

No. Variatio delectat. Longrider, take over.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Malta, media & malheurs

“As a result of new corporate policy, di-ve.com will not, for the foreseeable future, cover political activities and statements as part of its day-to-day operations.”
Nothing wrong with it, so far. They could also have announced that in order to increase their readership from now on to change from English to a rarely spoken Hindu dialect. That's freedom of enterprise.

So why would quite a few people be not amused?
Well, on the same day the Maltese news web portal published this notice (February 4th), in Malta parliamentary election was scheduled to be held on March 8th.

Thus, an act of self-censorship? A ban on politics?
Yes, says the European Federation of Journalist. EFJ General Secretary Aidan White calls it
"a craven act of self-censorship at a critical time when the public needs reliable political coverage to be able to make informed decisions on the elections. Cutting political news is a shocking violation of responsibility."
Are these indeed the words of the EFJ General Secretary? Or have these lines been written by someone who recently jubilated, 'In November I'd not know how to write shornalist, and only three month later I happen to be one!'?
Apart from that the adjectives craven and shocking in this context are pretty redundant, does Mr Aidan think that the public does not need reliable political coverage as long as the times are not critical?
Well, and what evidence does Mr. Aidan have to call the decision (whose?!) an act of self-censorship?
Perhaps it was just a 'gentlemen's agreement'? Or why would the notice be published on the same day the election date is being announced, and presumably only a couple of hours after one could have read within this article:
A democratic Malta must realise the media scenario is changing and evolving, even with the general aspirations of the rest of the country which are increasing. Readers and our audiences are ever more demanding for more news and better quality, and they are giving every indication of a society that is maturing and expecting more. Our society is becoming ever more discerning when it comes to the media, and yet the exigencies such a role brings for the media is not being properly recognised by the parties and institutions.
There are quite a few questions one could ask.

But the EFD, the Journalists’ Committee and the Institute of Maltese Journalists needed obviously all resources to write a 'joint letter' to the company's chairman:
“We hope you realise your company’s decision is a disservice to your own customers, to the Maltese public in general and to political parties that need journalists to disseminate and analyse their programmes before our country is called to vote.”
Oh dear. Does the public need journalists 'to disseminate and analyse the programmes of political parties' who'd write such sentences on their own behalf? Do political parties need them? Journalist's who seem not even able to investigate on their own behalf?
Apropos, 'our country'. Our? Whose? The journalists' country?

Nitpicking aside.
What happens to the political editors who are not political editors anymore? Filling the space by writing articles about the open days at car dealers etc. without which those would not take out an ad?

What, by the way, if
di-ve.com's advertising partners took political responsibility? They could f.e. publicly declare:
“As a result of new corporate policy, we will cancel our ads for the foreseeable future, in which di-ve.com does not cover political activities and statements as part of its day-to-day operations.”



Said Adlai Stevenson:
'Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from chaff, and then print the chaff. '

'And the best of these would become General Secretaries', he did not say. Perhaps a craven act of self-censorship?