Following the fuss over Salman Rushdie’s knighthood here is my nomination for a person to be stripped of her peerage: Baroness Williams of Crosby.
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Monthly Archives: June 2007
Sirena Huang at TED
I think I remember my great-uncle playing the 2nd piece the 11-year old Sirena Huang plays here - but watch it all:
21 June
The Lights Out London campaign aimed to have all non-essential lighting turned off between 2100 and 2200 BST
- on the 21st of June, the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. How stupid.
No regret for call to murder Rushdie
Assistant Secretary-General at the Muslim Council of Britain, Inayat Bunglawala, on not expressing regret for murderous threats:
So on February 14 1989, when the Iranian Islamic leader, Imam Khomeini delivered his fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie’s death, I was truly elated. It was a very welcome reminder that British Muslims did not have to regard themselves just as a small, vulnerable minority…
Looking back now on those events I will readily acknowledge that we were wrong to have called for the book to be banned.
Inayat Bunglawala on Comment Is FreeI used to be a book burner
Satanic Verses Death Timeline
- February 12, 1989: Six people are killed and 100 injured during anti-Rushdie protests in Islamabad, Pakistan.
- February 13, 1989: One person is killed and 60 injured in anti-Rushdie riots in Srinagar, India.
- February 24, 1989: Twelve people die in anti-Rushdie rioting in Bombay, India.
- 1990: Five bombings target bookstores in England.
July 1991: Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, is stabbed to death - July 1991: Ettore Capriolo, its Italian translator, is seriously wounded.
- July 2, 1993: Thirty-seven Turkish intellectuals and locals participating in the Pir Sultan Abdal Literary Festival, die when their hotel in Sivas, Turkey, namely the Madimak Hotel, is burnt down by 2000 members of various anti-democratic, pro-sharia radical islamist groups protesting against Aziz Nesin, Rushdie’s Turkish translator.
- October 1993: The novel’s Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, is shot and seriously injured
BBC - gathering intelligence for Al-Qaeda
“Politicians reacted in disbelief to the revelation that for over two hours yesterday, the BBC News website carried a request for people in Iraq to report on troop movements. The request was removed from the website after it sparked furious protests that the corporation was endangering the lives of British servicemen and women. But according to accounts last night, a story on a major operation by US and Iraqi troops against al-Qa’eda somewhere north of Baghdad contained an extraordinary request for information about the movement of troops. Last night the BBC confirmed the wording of the request was: “Are you in Iraq? Have you seen any troop movements? If you have any information you would like to share with the BBC, you can do so using the form below.” The BBC confirmed last night that this form of words had appeared on the website from “late morning” until early afternoon.”
Telegraph, BBC ‘risked safety of troops’
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said,
We would take this incredibly seriously if it’s true. We are checking this with our guys out in Iraq.
The BBC’s response is ridiculous:
However, yesterday we used the phrase “have you seen any troop movements” in this request for information. The Telegraph and some others wrongly interpreted this as an attempt on our part to seek out military detail.
The BBC, Bad Phrase
How could asking for details of troop movements - Are you in Iraq? Have you seen any troop movements? not be seeking out military detail?
Jeremy Bowen on the T-word
The BBC’s Middle East editor on why he doesn’t use the word ‘terrorist’ to describe people who do this:
Most Palestinians regard violence directed against Israel as legitimate resistance. Most Israelis regard it as terrorism.
If the BBC backed either definition we would no longer be impartial.
The BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, Q&A: Your Gaza questions answered
Perhaps Bowen should read his own employer’s most recent research:
it cannot be assumed that all criticisms have equal validity…
Impartiality … It is not necessarily to be found on the centre ground … The centre is often the wrong place to be…programme-makers who favour the centre can be just as partial as if they were out on a wing.
An open-minded search for completeness does not entail equal space for every shade of argument or attitude
From the BBC’s own report, ‘BBC Trust’ From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel Safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century
Or listen to Andrew Marr:
The BBC is a publicly-funded urban organisation with an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities and almost certainly of gay people, compared with the population at large…[this] creates an innate liberal bias inside the BBC
Andrew Marr,
Does the BBC have a bias problem?
BBC Radio 4 Comedy Explained
Finally, I know what the BBC Radio 4 comedy shows are all about:
My guess is that it’s serving the same social function as used to be perfomed by parcelling out curacies and livings to the sons who wouldn’t inherit. It saves us from the unedifying spectacle of educated people starving in the gutter.
Pootergeek, The Decline And Fall Of Radio 4 Comedy: Part XXV
Wine terroir terror
The Languedoc region of France is producing much more wine than it can sell in a competitive global market. The radical winemakers, the Comité Régional d’Action Viticole (CRAV) has threatened violent action which extends to more than stamping on grapes crossly.