Monthly Archive

Daily they’re out to get us Mail headline:

Immigration has ‘no positive effect’ on Britain, finds landmark report

It is rare you see even a Mail article that is such a mess. Someone needs to sit down and carefully explain the difference between “migrants” and “immigrants” to both the Mail and the “landmark report” panel. Examples of their mixing them up, and therefore confusing matters, pops up all through the piece. Here are just a few samples:

…Despite the huge influx of more than 700,000 workers from Eastern Europe since May 2004, the number of vacancies has remained at between 600,000 and 700,000. The peers said that allowing more and more migrants to flood into the country created the need for ever more jobs, as they consume as well as provide services.

They called for the Government to set an “explicit target range” for immigration and set the rules to keep within that limit - effectively a cap…

…committee member Lord Layard, a Labour peer and globally-respected economist, said the population would increase by around 190,000 a year for the next 50 years without a limit…

…”We are suggesting that the Government should set a target range for net immigration and then the rules should depend on the target range, rather than the numbers following from the rules as at present.”…

A “target range” (what others would term a “limit”), including other EU states? Impossible, while Britain is in the EU.

In case the “globally-respected economist” Lord Layard is unaware about the EU political arrangement, eastern European origin EU citizens may be termed “migrants” (although what that word means legally seems pretty much anyone’s guess), but they are not “immigrants”. That’s because, under the EU, citizens of any other member state are as entitled to reside in Britain on a whim as Brits are to retire “no questions asked” to “villas in France or apartments on the Costas.” Simply put, EU citizens cannot be refused entry clearance to Britain, because they don’t need to apply for it.

It is only near its conclusion that the piece wobbles over to discover non-EU passport holders. Their numbers are (and can be) far more tightly controlled because they are in a very different category than someone from, say, EU state Poland. That’s because non-EU passport holders can be barred from remaining in Britain (or not allowed to enter, period).

In short, only those holding non-EU passports, and seek to or have had residence granted, technically are immigrants.  Meaning, uh, I suppose people like myself.  And a certain Mrs Crozier, who as anyone can see clearly plots to have “no positive effect” on British society . . . other than to be married to, and have the children of, a serving British soldier.

Just when you thought “cooking” programs had tried about everything, the BBC’s found another angle. And given it’s the BBC one can’t say one’s too surprised by this one. From a recent outing of BBC 2’s “Cooking in the Danger Zone” (yes, that’s really its title):

Food writer Stefan Gates continues to explore how ordinary people survive in some of the world’s most dangerous and difficult places…

…In Mexico, Stefan discovers that free trade with the US means Mexico is importing corn and exporting people. Vast numbers of Mexicans are leaving the countryside where agriculture has collapsed and jumping the US border…

U.S. consumers of late, as we know, find the price of corn soaring at least partly because so much now seems to be grown in the U.S. not to feed anyone, or any animal, but to add to car gas tanks. (The BBC knows one reason why: to fight “climate change“.) While U.S. farmers are clearly better subsidised, one might think there is room to explore how the rising price of staples like corn may, under free trade, have assisted Mexican farmers? No, it’s far more interesting obviously to listen raptly to balaclava-wearing Zapatista rebels, as they spell out their revolutionary agenda.

Noting also that “After two dictatorships and several military coups, Haiti is struggling to get back on its feet…”, Mr Gates’ had also informed us how Haiti’s troubles have much to do with recent U.S. agricultural policies. A blinkered penetrating observation, although one might just as well also ask when was it exactly that Haiti was ever on its feet in the first place? Prior to those two dictatorships? Certainly Haiti’s poverty would seem to have a bit to do with the fact that that country has been an economic basket case since even before a Napoleonic army was decimated trying to end a slave rebellion on the island over 200 years ago?

No, it couldn’t be the likes of its entire history: it must be about the 1980s, “the International Monetary Fund and World Bank” and “cheap and heavily subsidised US food.”  And as we have seen, Mr Gates eagerly also embraces the notion of a low/medium income Mexico somehow also being a currently impoverished, economic basket case.

…in Tijuana Stefan meets former farmers about to jump the border and are angry that US trade has forced them off the land, but then refuses to give them work permits.

In doing so, however, he supplies no suggestion as to why there had been massive illegal immigration from Mexico into the U.S. long before the corn-farming destroying (in Mexico only) NAFTA agreement came into force in the middle 1990s, but that perhaps modest oversight on his part is hardly surprising. For Mr Gates actually stands on the 104 million population (and growing) Mexico side just below San Diego with one man who had failed repeatedly to get across the border into the 300 million person U.S. There, deflatedly, Mr Gates gazes upon the high metal fencing and ponders aloud of how it reminded him . . . of “the Iron Curtain”.

Interesting, but most of us viewers also seem to recall “the Iron Curtain” being an horrific attempt not to deter economic migrants from trying to enter, but instead to keep populations imprisoned on the inside — particularly, from leaving then East in order to enter the then West Germany. That being so, in accidentally misappropriating that expression, Mr Gates must simply have been thinking of another “iron curtain”.

Most troubling is Mr Gates’ apparent incredulity as to the plain reality of every state having to have an actual frontier situated someplace. Even an island state does. But his possessing that geographic blind spot is not really shocking if one considers also how it comes from he as a food writer employed by a state TV broadcaster located on an almost entirely island country.

Meaning this beautiful United Kingdom, naturally. It is a country that, also, although Mr Gates has nothing to say about this either, remains remarkably unable somehow to forge a totally relaxed relationship even along a far shorter land frontier with a relatively much smaller neighbor. And it is a neighbor which speaks mostly the same language and possesses a similar standard of living. It is a UK that seems also about to — appallingly — rethink the indefensible idea of NOT granting voting rights to that same foreign country’s foreign nationals domciled in the U.K.

Heinous that, because why shouldn’t foreign nationals get to vote in UK elections, right? While surveying others’ border issues, such domestic blindness could be overlooked had Mr Gates at least seized this golden opportunity, but which he sadly did not. Americans actually would be sincerely thrilled if someone (anyone!) would offer them a serious, workable, reasonable prescription as to how to develop an untroubled relationship with their southern land neighbor — a relationship that would also assume what would follow would not be up to some 40 million of that neighbor’s 100 million population opting to relocate to north of the border.

He almost gets there. As we are shown footage of Mexicans desperate to cross into the U.S., Mr Gates’ voiceover compares the NAFTA which doesn’t give free movement to people across frontiers, to an EU that allows freedom of movement for EU citizens (and only EU citizens, by the way) within that trade bloc. Yet there he stops, short of delivering “a recipe”.

One wonders why? For developmentally akin to Mexico, but with only a very small land border along the southeastern fringe of the 320 million population EU is another low/medium income country: Turkey, which despite being a third smaller population-wise than Mexico and having desired EU membership for 20 years now, remains firmly kept on the outside. There but for the grace of Allah God Mr Gates undoubtedly must have thought as he peered into the U.S. from Tijuana. But yet, amazingly, EU countries do not appear comfortable with the notion of even just 72 million Turks suddenly becoming EU citizens and enjoying free movement throughout the entire EU.

Overall, Mr Gates clearly finds it is intellectually less troublesome to focus entirely on treating the U.S. as nastily exceptionalist in actually deigning to attempt to police a frontier. Such is borne out by another non-comparison: he doesn’t even so much as try to favor Americans with a brief take on how his U.K. would obviously far better cope if that same Turkey were a non-EU land neighbor, bordering England uninterrupted from, say, Land’s End to Portsmouth? Although, what might seem to be that final startling oversight on Mr Gates’ part may also only be because all would undoubtedly be blissful co-existence, without the slightest human of hitches.

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In the final episode, he visits Israel:

…Stefan gets his first taste of tear gas when a protest against Israel’s security barrier turns violent. The Israelis say it is essential to keep suicide bombers out, but it cuts some villagers off from a large proportion of their land, and it has been declared illegal in a ruling by the International Court of Justice…

Notice the by now tiresome and typical BBC values juxtaposition there: those Israelis say suicide bombers are an issue, but inconvenienced villagers and an ICJ ruling certainly trumps that.

Got indigestion yet?

CNN:

…Two of Obama’s leading supporters, Sens. Christopher Dodd and Patrick Leahy, said Friday that Clinton should rethink her chances of overcoming that deficit and consider folding her campaign.

Leahy, of Vermont, said Clinton “has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to.”…

…Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen on Sunday said he thinks the prolonged Democratic race is hurting his party “tremendously.”…

One might well ask whatever happened to “count every vote“? Apparently, in this still close contest, “coronation” rules apply. Sen Clinton is supposed simply to drop out and hand Sen Obama the nomination.

However, should she choose to do that now, those Democrats calling for her to do so perhaps also need to be aware that Sen McCain seems rather unlikely to “drop out” before November and just hand the presidency to Sen Obama.

Independent headline:

Leading article: The world cannot stand by while Mr Mugabe steals another election

Thus The Independent squares up. In the obviously unlikely event s**t such happens, let’s see what are some of the paper’s presumably weighty suggestions:

…The international community needs a co-ordinated reaction to a rigged vote. Members of the African Union must take the lead in issuing, along with the European Union and United States, a joint statement withholding recognition of the results. They then need to crank up the kind of concerted intervention, fronted by a high-level African Union mediation mission, as happened in Kenya. Its aim must be to assist the negotiation of a power-sharing agreement to set up a transitional government in advance of new elections. Rich nations must outline a package of economic and political assistance which would be made available to any government of national unity from which Mr Mugabe is excluded.

Keeping this together will be difficult. It was tricky in Kenya, taking many weeks for Kofi Annan to negotiate, and it will be even trickier in Zimbabwe. But there are reasons for optimism. South Africa may well take a harder line; last year’s long mediation attempt by Thabo Mbeki failed, and the new chairman of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, has been more critical of Mr Mugabe than Mr Mbeki was in the past; members of his trade union power base picket the Zimbabwean embassy in Pretoria every day.

If such tactics fail, then the only option will be to intensify targeted sanctions against Mr Mugabe and those of his cronies blocking a political settlement.

Whoa there!, especially with that last option. Let’s not get too reckless.

However, in its liberation zeal, The Independent must simply have forgotten that Mr Mugabe and his cronies have been under “targeted sanctions” by the EU and the US since 2002. Just how they might be intensified goes un-elaborated upon by the paper. Also the Indy appears not to have noticed that Britain, the EU, the Commonwealth, and the US did not recognize that 2002 presidential “election” result either.

Yet he’s still in power. The Indy, though, seems to think it has found a different tack to address another electoral theft: it tries hard to compare Zimbabwe with Kenya. However, Kenya’s recent — literal — electoral battles did not then include an entrenched, long-time dictator possessing a near total monopoly on state power; nor was its “election” held amidst a decade-long total economic collapse.

But, as we know, a stopped clock is also right twice daily. The Indy has actually hit on a new argument. Vital this time is getting African states not to recognize a rigged vote. (Which they did in 2002.) But the real key is not just any African country: it must be South Africa.

Geography and economic influence remains unchanged: South Africa held the keys to the end of Rhodesia in 1979-1980, and it is now all that’s keeping Mugabe’s regime afloat. But, unlike in the case of Rhodesia, South Africa now is under no pressure itself to turn the screws hard on the Mugabe regime. After all, the democratic South African government not being the pariah craving international approval in the manner of the then apartheid one, it doesn’t have to.

Not as bad as usual, but still not much of pay-off. Once more an Indy wind up leads us poor readers into sincerely believing some dramatic revelation will be found by the bottom of a major editorial effort, only for it mostly to evaporate by the time crunch time arrives. Although they don’t want to say so clearly, between the wasted verbiage what the Indy is really admitting is that — short of an invasion — there is nothing really new that can be done from the distant outside.

In the end, no matter what, eventually, he will also simply drop dead. But if perhaps praying for an early death is inappropriate, let’s pray that this time, somehow, this vote ends with him out of power.

ITN:

Britain should try to win over Taliban fighters to democracy, the Defence Secretary [Des Browne] has said…

Geez, why didn’t anyone think of that before?!

…The minister said: “What you need to do in conflict resolution is to bring the people who believe that the answer to their political ambitions will be achieved through violence into a frame of mind that they accept that their political ambitions will be delivered by politics.”…

Far be it for this humble observer to question a minister of the Crown, but has Sec Browne perchance not realized yet that this war is a result of those two outcomes he frames being mutually exclusive? For the reason there is conflict in Afghanistan is because the Taliban’s “political ambitions” — meaning, re-creating their pre-9/11 “pure” Islamic state — are such that they cannot implement them within the normal give and take of democratic politics. That being so, and since the other side (generally considered to include us) do not wish to live under conditions whereby their “political ambitions” have been “delivered”, there cannot be anything but conflict until one view, or the other, in the end, prevails.

…He added: “But the Taliban is a collective noun. There are some people who are driven by their own self interest rather than ideology.

“There’s no question that we should try to reach them. People have been switched…

There’s also “no question” that’s reasonable enough to assert, but the attempted “peeling off” of some of the “non-ideological” and “collective noun” Taliban is perhaps one thing.  However, it’s definitely something else insisting Taliban “political ambitions” are achievable by non-violence, when clearly they are not.  All told, the defence secretary should probably spend more time procuring helicopters and supplies for the troops, and leave the “conflict resolution” workshop lessons to another department.

The Telegraph:

A man who caught a burglar was forced to release him after police failed to respond to a 999 call.

Gary Hall, 43, sat on the intruder after wrestling him to the ground when the boy came through the door of his home.

His wife, Jackie, telephoned police but, after waiting almost 20 minutes, Mr Hall had to let the teenager go when a gang of five youths began pelting his house with stones…

…Mr Hall, the director of a firm of electricians and a 15st former body-building champion, said: “The police response was disappointing to say the least.

“I don’t know what kind of incident it takes to get a response.

“Obviously they didn’t think this was high priority. They always seem efficient when it comes to sending out speeding tickets…

...A spokesman for Lincolnshire police said: “It was a very busy night. We were dealing with 10 high priority cases. The call was unfortunately misdirected to Humberside police. We called back later to apologise.”

Yes, you just read that. All kidding aside, it begs a serious question of priorities: if a “hot” burglary (meaning one in which victims are at home) doesn’t rate an immediate police response (especially considering one risks prison for harming any intruder oneself) even on “a very busy night” . . . what exactly do the British have police for?

Apparently, primarily for “road safety.“

As we know, much is said also that adults in Britain are afraid of “their young people”. That’s not quite on target. Leaving aside a teen who pulls a knife or a gun, most adults here (like adults anywhere) would not be unduly afraid physically of any unarmed child, even a teenager wearing a proverbial “hoodie”.

Rather, what adults are actually most fearful of are their own police. For in any situation that could be deemed even slightly confrontational and involves a “young person” as half of it (including one in which the adult is the victim), police are likely in the first instance to look askance at the involved adult.

That might possibly lead to that adult getting hauled off. And who wants to have to face that? Therefore, over time, it has come to be believed generally that any adult who gets involved in even the most passive of correctional exchanges of words with a minor (”Why are you littering? The bin is over there?”) is almost asking for legal trouble if police somehow ultimately get involved.

So, for legal self-preservation purposes, adults have chosen to adopt what might be seen as a more sensible “It’s better to walk on quickly and not say a word” attitude. Best to avoid interacting at all with unfamiliar teens, wherever you stumble across them. Because you never know.

Therefore, Mr Hall is probably luckier police didn’t turn up . . . to find him sitting on the youth, just inside his front door. For even though it was the teenager who had tried the door, it was Mr Hall who had opened it, dragged him down, and then physically sat on the youth. And once the young thug had started with the expected torrent of excuses (”Uh, I just, like, made a mistake, and he grabbed me…”) to police arriving at the scene, given the magnificent track record of investigative follow-up in such situations involving minors, Mr Hall would have been lucky not to have found himself the one arrested.

Much is being made of Time magazine international’s piece on Britain’s “out of control” young. However, while it is surprising at least to learn that anyone actually reads Time international (aside from when looking to kill time at Heathrow, that is), no one argues that there is a problem. But Time is far behind the curve, if one considers this other “news report” on crisis management steps already in the pipeline:

World News Network (WNN)

“If those other news providers didn’t get you to throw something through your screen, we will.”

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March 28, 2008 Top Story/ Europe/ United Kingdom

Children increasingly endangered by a 1970s TV documentary, David Niven and sweet shops

(WNN) A new study recommending the banning of historical documentaries has been published.

The new research by “Academics Who Will Research Anything Anyone Will Fund” says that children should be stopped from watching especially “The World at War.”

Their findings point out that the so-called “well-regarded documentary” carries numerous hidden dangers. Its musical score gives children nightmares, and as the lead researcher told WNN, “Sir Laurence Olivier’s voice is so authoritative that children are being misled into believing violence begets good narration.”

There is also a growing consensus on the need to tackle sports hooliganism in film, a previously under-appreciated issue. The research revealed also that the skiing in “The Pink Panther” could create copy-cat recklessness.

“David Niven speeds down a slope in one scene,” the same researcher said, “as part of a scheme to kidnap a canine companion. His crash is then portrayed humorously. Later he is even shown drinking alcohol. What sorts of messages does all that send?”

Other research released this morning also states children should not be allowed to leave their school grounds at lunch time. In this case, researchers see the battle against drugs as providing a model. A spokesman said the Government should set aside “at least a 5 kilometer junk-food exclusion zone” around all schools.

The response to the reports has been favourable. A spokeswoman for the National Union of Teachers (NUTs) went even further, telling WNN: “We suggest the Government need to do far more. Parents should be fined if their children listen to music which encourages them to hum, and they should be allowed to watch only BBC documentaries on melting Antarctic ice.”

When asked what role schools themselves might play to address the crisis, she said, “Schools need to step up too, of course. For example, not only should dangerous Cadbury Cream Eggs be confiscated on sight, even located with the help of specially trained sniffer dogs if need be, but special time should be set aside for in-class Friday prayers.”

c., 2008. Absolutely no rights at all reserved whatsoever.

Humanity spent untold centuries unable to do much to illuminate the darkness and warm the cold. Life was lived mostly sunrise ’till sunset. In colder latitudes especially, most huddled in their huts homes after night settled, trying to stay warm.

Unsurprisingly, leave it to members of our generation to take completely for granted the little more than 100 year old abilities to light and warm a house. Instead, some of us argue that, as Agence France-Presse tells us, sitting in darkness for an hour actually constitutes a profound moral statement:

Twenty-six major cities around the world are expected to turn off the lights on major landmarks, plunging millions of people into darkness to raise awareness about global warming, organisers said.

‘Earth Hour’ founder Andy Ridley said 371 cities, towns or local governments from Australia to Canada and even Fiji had signed up for the 60-minute shutdown at 0900 GMT on March 29….

…Cities officially signed on … will switch off lights on major landmarks and encourage businesses and homeowners to follow suit.

Samantha Burns asks: “Has the world gone mad?” One can only but wonder. Also, notice the major cities listed as officially taking part:

…Aalborg, Aarhus, Adelaide, Atlanta, Bangkok, Brisbane, Canberra, Chicago, Christchurch, Copenhagen, Darwin, Dublin, Hobart, Manila, Melbourne, Montreal, Odense, Ottawa, Perth, Phoenix, San Francisco, Suva, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Vancouver…

Interestingly, none are locales known for being places where electricity is available daily often only for an hour.

What’s next on the “moral” agenda? Well, it’s hard to know. Maybe shutting down modern hospitals and bringing back “natural” medicine? . . .

. . . But, presumably, only for an hour, of course.

[*From "Romeo and Juliet".]

The BBC reports:

British Airways has cancelled 34 more flights from Heathrow’s Terminal 5 the day after it opened but says passengers will be able to check in hold luggage.

Hold luggage services were suspended as a result of a baggage backlog and 34 flights were cancelled at the £4.3bn T5 on its first day of operation.

Some stranded travellers spent the night on the floor of the new building.

BA, which has sole use of T5, said: “We sincerely apologise to those customers who have suffered disrupted journeys.”…

I know I’m glad I’m not flying today. Yet most of us adults also suspect the first day (and likely second day) problems at the terminal will undoubtedly be sorted out as staff adapt to what seems a very new routine. We are seeing that what goes on behind the scenes is extremely complicated, and we take it for granted. There is just no substitute for volume of passengers and their myriad of issues; all the practice runs in the world and theoretical understandings as to what goes where, etc., aren’t the same.  Which is why they probably opted to open it fully on a Thursday rather than a Friday: they have time to try to sort out troubles before a weekend crush.

What’s far more interesting is watching the media barrage: just how many reporters are currently in Terminal 5?

Especially, it’s fascinating seeing bunches of on air personalities with lit and communications degrees, who themselves daily produce nothing but a steady stream of “blah, blah, blah” while trying to sit up straight on a sofa and look good on camera, sneering at the troubles besetting people who, day in and day out, actually have to work hard for a living. I know I’m very impressed.

Next up, GMTV reports:

Hey, well, and whaddya know? Sometimes they can’t even themselves manage to get their own “blah, blah, blah” working properly. But, then again, Terminal 5 is actually important. In contrast, who cares really if the “GMTV Today” homepage is down at 6:50 AM, right?

. . . I know, I know.  There are no words, really.

The Press Association:

A 15-year-old boy has been convicted of kicking and stamping to death a young woman in a park because she was dressed as a Goth.

Brendan Harris attacked Sophie Lancaster, 20, as she begged him and four other youths to stop beating her boyfriend, art student Robert Maltby.

Preston Crown Court heard the assault was totally unprovoked and the two victims from Bacup, Lancashire, were singled out because they looked different to their attackers…

While she’s met her end at his “child’s” hands, as a “child” he’s far from finished. Remember, as a 15 year old killer, he won’t be in state custody for very long. Her murder (or anyone’s, for that matter) isn’t viewed by British law currently as being worth as much as his life.

“Goths”. Indeed, given our embarrassing inability to deal with the “barbarians”, ever feel sometimes like you are living the last days of ancient Rome?

My new French dentist did an excellent job. Any pain is all but gone this morning, as promised. So, naturally, my mood is considerably more upbeat than it was yesterday.

And even though England lost to France last night in Paris, in a dull game, that hardly matters. It was a “friendly”, and all is very “friendly” currently. Indeed, here in Britain, be it left, right or hysterical tabloid, major media has evidently awoken this morning, in love:

• French premier Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife Carla wows the royals

Actually, he is president, not premier/prime minister. Obviously, she so dazzled the Mirror that they couldn’t care less what job he holds.

The Independent tries to be witty, while looking her up and down in a proper, “restrained” Indy manner:

• French dressing: France’s first lady arrives in Britain

The Daily Mail initially produced a thoughtful header:

• All eyes on Carla, France’s First Lady of Chic

. . . and then within hours, predictably went downhill. That link immediately above . . .

. . . now has a different title. Leave to the Hysteria Mail to concoct this replacement: “The day Carla remembered to put her clothes on to meet the Queen”.

The World’s Greatest Newspaper Daily Express feels the need to shout:

• CARLA SHOWS BRITAIN HOW TO DO IT IN STYLE

In The (normally is not exactly Francophile) Telegraph, it’s all Carla:

• Nicolas Sarkozy arrives in the UK but we all love Carla Bruni
• Carla Bruni is diplomatic with the stamp of Dior
• Is Carla Bruni the new Princess Diana?

Although, The Times and The Guardian, respectively, seem somewhat under-impressed, at least in a strictly fashion-sense:

• The verdict: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s air hostess chic
• The demure Carla: two parts Jackie O, one part lycée girl

As to the French president’s somewhat important part in his new wife’s visit, the Guardian’s Simon Hoggart pulls the two together, neatly:

He loves us. He adores us. He reveres us! Listening to Nicolas Sarkozy address Parliament yesterday was like being underneath a torrent of crème Chantilly sprayed from a high-pressure hose.

He actually said “thank you” for the liberation! Previous French presidents have implied that events in Normandy were mere skirmishes while the French got on with the job of throwing off the German yoke.

But Mr Sarkozy could not thank us enough. Grateful? It was surprising that he didn’t grab the Speaker round his legs to thank him personally for everything his forebears had done. France would never forget - never! She would never forget the English blood, Scottish blood, Welsh blood, not forgetting the Irish blood. They would never forget the welcome given in London to General de Gaulle (something which seemed to slip the General’s own mind quite quickly). “France will never forget because it has no right to forget!”

(Compare and contrast with the General, who ordered all US troops out of France. One diplomat asked: “does that include the ones under the ground?”)…

_____________________________

Meaning, these ones, of course:

Part of the U.S. military cemetery at Colleville-sur-mer. (Photo by yours truly.)

A section of “Omaha” Beach. Owing to the Allies having bulldozed a great deal of it, the beach is now substantially different than it was at 6:30 AM on June 6, 1944. (Photo by yours truly.)

The grave of General Lesley McNair, chief of the Army Ground Forces. He was killed in July (among 111 U.S. soldiers) accidently, when Army Air Corps bombs were dropped just short of the German lines. (Photo by yours truly.)

_____________________________

It’s a shame it took such overt statements by Mr Sarkozy to try to make the point. For no one ever previously really demanded such. Indeed, previous French leaderships’ attitudes were likely always rooted in the half-understandable: who likes to feel they owe someone anything?

What Britain and America had only ever wanted was a sense that we had been all in it together. That he has conveyed . . . and more. The more only became perceived to be necessary because of the “so little” that had always been the norm for decades. What a shame that it took so many decades, and such an overt commentary in this president’s part, to point out something of what should always have been obvious.

Mr Hoggart, of course, couldn’t also avoid mentioning what everyone else had noticed:

…Ah, Carla. She entered, cool, calm and poised, as if nude pictures in the tabloids hadn’t greeted her arrival on our shores. (Why do I suspect Sarko doesn’t care?) She sat at the back of the stage and her audience seemed transfixed. Crusty old codgers who spend their lives steeped in policy documents smiled for the first time in years…

Not that Mr Sarkozy needed any help, given his statements; they themselves would have been enough, but might have gotten somewhat lost among other news. She got the front pages, thus probably helping his statements get wider coverage. As anyone can tell from this morning’s British reporting, in a PR sense she helped him immensely.

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UPDATE: Now that today is upon is, the BBC reported just a few minutes ago:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni have been welcomed to Downing Street by Gordon and Sarah Brown, ahead of bilateral talks.

The two leaders are travelling to Arsenal’s football stadium for talks on issues including nuclear power, Afghanistan and global finance.

They will agree joint measures against illegal immigration - but Mr Sarkozy wants an EU-wide policy.

Ms Bruni will be taken to lunch by Mrs Brown during the summit…

And at which two-some do we think media would prefer to be?

The Press Association:

Hundreds of demonstrators are expected to stage a “flash mob” protest against airport expansion to mark the opening for business of Heathrow’s £4.3 billion Terminal 5 (T5).

Formed by local residents and what are described as “environmental activists”, the protest at T5 will, according to organisers, be a “peaceful and legal event”.

The demonstrators will gather at the international arrivals area at the new terminal at 11am…

The first BA flight — from Hong Kong — landed at Terminal 5 before 6 AM.  The first departure was to Paris at 6:20 AM.  In contrast, for these “activists”, 11 AM apparently rates as the “opening” for business.

Reuters:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he wanted to build a stronger alliance with Britain and improve cooperation on illegal immigration, defence and the economy during a two-day visit starting on Wednesday.

Sarkozy, accompanied by his new wife Carla Bruni, will be a guest of the Queen, address parliament and hold talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown during the first state visit by a French president in more than a decade.

“I want a new Franco-British brotherhood,” Sarkozy told the BBC in an interview…

Interestingly, today of all days, I had my first visit to our new dentist. Turns out he’s a Frenchman, married to an English woman.

Upon my telling her that, my wife responded, “Yes, we English women catch them from all over.”

The “nuts” are out again . . . and this time, they even proudly term themselves that. The Telegraph:

Schools should refuse to circulate Army recruitment “propaganda” to impressionable young people, teachers have said.

They said schools were being “asked to play a partisan role in war” because some recruitment material targeted at children presented a skewed vision of life in the Armed Forces.

The National Union of Teachers said schools should have no part in recruiting troops unless lesson plans were more balanced…

Do the British forces recruit 11 year olds? We must have missed that lowering of the age. Yet while one type of “propaganda” is patently unacceptable, what might be termed another apparently is most welcome:

Muslim clerics and other faith leaders should be sent into state schools to teach children about religion, according to a teachers’ union.

Pupils should also be given the time and facilities to pray during the school day, it said.

The system drawn up by the National Union of Teachers would replace traditional religious assemblies - which must be broadly Christian - as part of a radical overhaul of faith-based education in England…

…Steve Sinnott, the NUT’s general secretary, said: “You could have imams coming in, you could have the local rabbi coming in and the local Roman Catholic priest. If there were opportunities where they all talked together to the youngsters, what a fantastic example that would be.”…

It’s bad enough that they actually think they also merit a ridiculous 10 percent pay rise, when as the immediately above shows us, they are clearly looking to pawn off some of their work on others.

That aside, it’s hard to believe Muslims might not overwhelmingly concur with the idea of their clerics being sent into classrooms in what are almost entirely non-Muslim schools where even the term “Christmas” creates terrible anxiety for administrators and teachers, and the Bible is considered a work of pure fantasy. For while Christians increasingly shrink from the public square, fearful of even being perceived as making non-believers momentarily uncomfortable, Muslims are more than happy to spread their word at any available opportunity. The latter seem far more likely to assert that non-believers simply should come to believe . . . and that is how they then won’t feel uncomfortable.

And that’s entirely Muslims’ right, of course. However, this is also the likes of what Mr Sinnott feels, if discussed by under 18s in mostly non-Muslim majority classrooms, would be “fantastic” and bound to build bridges:

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

“47.1″: (As for) those who disbelieve and turn away from Allah’s way, He shall render their works ineffective.

“47.2″: And (as for) those who believe and do good, and believe in what has been revealed to Muhammad, and it is the very truth from their Lord, He will remove their evil from them and improve their condition.

“47.3″: That is because those who disbelieve follow falsehood, and those who believe follow the truth from their Lord; thus does Allah set forth to men their examples.

“47.4″: So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until when you have overcome them, then make (them) prisoners, and afterwards either set them free as a favor or let them ransom (themselves) until the war terminates. That (shall be so); and if Allah had pleased He would certainly have exacted what is due from them, but that He may try some of you by means of others; and (as for) those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will by no means allow their deeds to perish…

Among those NUTs (the National Union of Teachers: never did a teachers’ union have a more apt acronym), one has to wonder how many have actually read any of the Koran? Military career information aimed at young adults is a supposedly moral “no-no”. However, “impressionable“, intellectually far more vulnerable 11 year olds discussing the Koran is apparently just terrific, even if it might well in its own realm also be considered rather “forceful” at times.

Comparative religious study is, overall, best handled at university-level and beyond. Under 18s belong only in religious settings vetted by their parents. If I had a young child in a purportedly non-denominational school who came home to tell of the wonderful imam (and who might well be a very nice man, seriously) who will regularly be visiting with their class, she would be moved to a Catholic school so quickly it would make administrators’ heads spin.

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If you want to really allow yourself to be made “angry”, read the World’s Greatest Newspaper Daily Express version. But remember also, anger is not a good thing.

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UPDATE: March 26: Pub Philosopher:

…On Easter Sunday, Channel 4 showed a programme which questioned some of the New Testament and many of the church traditions about the events which followed the death of Jesus. It was an interesting film and, although it upset some Christians, the questions it asked were reasonable. But would such a programme have been made about the Koran, asking similar questions about who actually wrote it and when?…

Apparently, some NUTs must think so.

As we know, the BBC is increasingly renowned for its assiduous soundings out of “world opinion”. For instance, are you keen to learn what “the world” thinks of “press freedom”? Well, the BBC is the place to go. (Incidentally, we are told “the world” is “divided” over it.)

Yet despite its obvious timeliness, newsworthiness and, especially, the interpretative possibilities — for it is the reporting of any so-called “world opinion” which makes for the amusing aspect of the pollings — remarkably, here’s one BBC poll that, inexplicably, apparently didn’t take place in time to get reported over this Easter weekend:

(BBC satire)

Yes, satire of course. Still, one cannot but suspect that precisely that sort of “world poll” might well be in the BBC pipeline, as we joke . . .

. . . Easter is tomorrow, and, of course . . .

. . .  right now it’s snowing very heavily here in north London.

It seems those “early UK springs” are not quite “normal”, just yet.

Yesterday, during the (slow) drive up to London, for Easter, prompted by hearing on the radio of Sen McCain’s visit to Britain:

• The wife:  “Did you see in the Telegraph?  John McCain’s hero is Churchill.  Is Churchill every American man’s hero?”
• Myself:  “Yeh, pretty much.  Especially in a certain age group.”

Incidentally, what traffic management genius thought a way to address congestion on the M25 near Heathrow is to lower and raise and lower and to raise speeds — “…Uh, it’s 40…now it’s 50…oh, it’s 60… wait, wait, up ahead it’s 40 again…” — at unpredictable, various intervals?

No one seriously argues there is loads to criticize about the conduct of the campaign in Iraq. But the BBC goes kilometers miles beyond such in one of the most remarkable BBC single “news” pieces one is likely ever to come across on the subject. There’s no point trying to break it down, just suffice it to say that nearly every paragraph is chock full of the mischaracterization, half-truths and selective innuendo quality reportage we’ve come to rely on for blogging content enjoy, starting with the very headline itself:

Bush speech hails Iraq ‘victory’

Even if one utterly disagrees with the basis for the conflict, the battle once joined makes arguing about whether it should have been fought one argument that will never be resolved. What we do know is that Saddam Hussein’s regime was swept away within weeks in the spring of 2003; Saddam Hussein himself is now in his grave, and his two most likely “successors” are also dead. Despite its travails in trying to sort itself out following decades of some of the most horrendous misrule ever catalogued nearly anywhere, Iraq is no longer a Stalinist-like terror state playing “cat and mouse” with international “inspectors”. Most vitally, it has a reasonably representative government and a population that appears to support that government genuinely, or doesn’t — but neither out of fear.

Yet the BBC is unsure it was a “victory”.

Separately, the BBC’s John Simpson unsurprisingly supplies us with these observations:

…It has lasted almost as long as World War II and cost almost as much…

First, does Mr Simpson know precisely how long WWII actually went on? Did it really start on September 3, 1939 and end cleanly on May 7, or May 9, or September 2, 1945? Or are those (and others) just convenient dates based on signatures affixed to pieces of paper? For millions, the conflict had opened (and for untold numbers ended, with their deaths) in the early-middle 1930s; and the Western Allies only got heavily involved years into it, and the U.S. even later than most. And for millions of others, WWII didn’t really end until 1989-1991.

Secondly, and incidentally, Mr Simpson likely recalls also that Britain’s participation in WWII actually bankrupted — and not in the descriptive sense, but in the financial — the country. It wasn’t until well into the 1950s that Britain began to recover economically. In contrast, the U.S. came out of WWII far stronger than it went into it.

Totalling up a true balance sheet cost of WWII had it not been fought is, even for just Britons and Americans, close to impossible. But if Mr Simpson can authoritatively inform us now how much WWII actually cost not only would he be pretty unique, but we’d all love to see his figure and particularly from whom he’d gotten it. So flippantly, and yet emphatically, to compare one phantom figure to another phantom figure — the true cost of the war in Iraq — is journalistically ludicrous.

…More importantly, the war has shown the limits of American power. It is clear the United States can only manage to fight two small wars at a time.

It might also be said that what has been demonstrated is how the U.S. can fight “two small wars” without the overwhelming mass of its population having much personally to endure that daily fact. For if they don’t watch BBC World, or pay a great deal of attention to news generally, people go about their daily business largely unaffected; there are not too many other countries powerful enough to fight “two small wars” and require almost no sacrifices from its population. Indeed, one can only but wonder what the U.S. could do today militarily if it mobilized most of its population — just as it had done during, say, Mr Simpson’s WWII example.

Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the US armed forces almost to breaking point. America after the invasion of Iraq is no longer the superpower it was before…

Yes, obviously there’s always that presumably welcome Chinese communist hegemony out there on the horizon, to give one global hope. But despite the U.S. “stretch”, new enemies don’t seem to be lining up just yet, eagerly awaiting their chance to take their best shot.

…Germany’s 19th-Century Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, said that great powers had to be very careful when they put their military strength to the test. Unless they are overwhelmingly successful, he meant, the perception will be that they have been defeated…

That’s astounding. According to Mr Simpson, the U.S. evidently should have pursued its tactics in Iraq according to precepts laid down by a 19th century Prussian martinet, whose goals for German unification and hegemony in central Europe helped eventually to bring on WWI, and then WWII. But perhaps Mr Simpson actually truly does believe it would have been better morally if the U.S. had chosen to have fought these “two small wars” as it actually had had to fight WWII? However, one can only also just imagine what Mr Simpson would be deftly observing now if the U.S. had opted to have firebombed every major Iraqi city, in order to avoid any “perception” that it had “been defeated“.

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UPDATE, March 27: Oh, yes, this state was no threat whatsoever.

The other day, in a piece by a “freelance writer” on a site called “Media With Conscience,” we were told:

…Pastor John Hagee, televangelist to 99 million viewers and pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, established the [Christians United for Israel] CUFI in 2005 following the publication of his book, “The Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World.” Hagee envisions CUFI as the Christian version the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby whose political clout has a significant influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

The late Molly Ivins, a Texas political commentator and author, described Hagee as a “pre-millennial dispensationalist, whose theology focuses on selected apocalyptic passages of the Book of Revelation.”…

…According to Judaism, the Mount is where the final Third Temple will be rebuilt before the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Unfortunately for CUFI, the Second Coming of Jesus is on hold until the temple’s completion, and that cannot happen until Islam is destroyed—Hagee’s holy grail

Predictably then, the good pastor opposes any peace plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, supports Israel’s persecution and “imprisonment” of 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and advocates pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Iran. John Hagee lives, and CUFI exists, to light the fires of the Apocalypse using Israel as the match…

So we are now to tie the thousands’ year old conflict in the Middle East to a Texas-based congregation’s interpretations of the Book of Revelation? And that writer believes Pastor Hagee’s off the theological beam?

And maybe he is. And maybe what had gone on also from the time Roman legions under Titus and later Severus crushed Jewish nationalist rebellions and the emperor Hadrian expelled the Jews from Jerusalem in AD 135, until our very recent AD 2005 — including all that had also taken place owing to the introduction of still another “element” into the mix, around 622 — has had precious little to do with the current conflict also? Clearly, it is now centered ’round the founding of that Pastor Hagee’s CUFI, three years ago.

Yes, please, God, do spare us.

And lots of energy has been wasted of late also going on about that pastor’s purported “anti-Catholicism”. However, now he says he has been mischaracterized by media:

…Many in the media have mistakenly accepted characterizations of my statements which simply are not true. I never called the Catholic Church the “anti-Christ” a “false cult system” “the apostate church” or the “great whore” of Revelations. This is a serious misinterpretation of my words. When I use these terms, I am referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels and embrace the false doctrines of Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism…

Media mischaracterizing quotes? Media engaging in libel? — “The Daily Express today takes the unprecedented step of making a front-page apology to Kate and Gerry McCann.” I know, you too are probably stunned to discover that such happens.

However, even assuming the pastor meant precisely what is asserted, this blog’s attitude is a [shrug] “So what?” Oh, we should all be concerned because he endorsed Sen McCain for the presidency? Yet is that actually a surprise? Does one think that by a process of elimination he could have possibly endorsed either Sen Obama or Sen Clinton?

“If I valued the honourable gentleman’s opinion,” Mr Churchill once said, “I might get angry.” So whatever it really is, Pastor Hagee’s entitled to his. And he’s entitled to his ministry — as espoused from his pulpit in his church based in a city (San Antonio) which is, interestingly, named after a saint.

Yet there is no point (nor does this blog have the time or inclination) in arguing fine points of ultimately unprovable, belief-rooted Christian doctrine. Indeed, in our dangerous world today, in which Western civilization is under such pressure, one would have thought any sort of “hair-splitting” over Christian doctrinal interpretations would hardly have to be necessary.

But speaking only for myself, of course, I find that I much prefer the 2,000 year old tradition — which created our Western civilization; and helped pass down to us “American” words of today like “senate” and “capitol” — convened by Peter and those who actually walked this earth with Jesus Christ. Its belief was first summarized as succinctly as possible in the reign of Constantine — and is now offered in languages no one then could have imagined would have ever existed, and in places on this planet no one then ever could have dreamed of — in phrasing still used in Christian churches (because not all are Roman Catholic) in our present:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen…

Obviously terrifying, that Catholic Christianity.

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P.S. Btw, this Roman Catholic also often finds “The Catholic League’s” Bill Donohue’s flailings incredibly trying. It is not that Sen McCain might not have some questions to answer; but by the same token in accepting an endorsement it is hard