Eligibility for Voting in a Referendum on Scottish Independence
Should Scottish expatriates – and others with Scottish roots, family and or jobs be eligible to vote in a referendum on Scottish independence? What about the other inhabitants of the United Kingdom who live outside Scotland, whose Union will be affected? Should they all be entitled to vote?
The refurbished National Museum in Edinburgh has an installation which tells visitors that there are five million people in Scotland, but also 25 million of Scottish descent in other countries. One such person is David Cameron, whose father is from Aberdeen and who would prefer the Union to stay. Another is Sir Sean Connery, who says he will remain outside Scotland until it achieves independence.
There is much to be said for both parties having a say – in this case, Scottish and non-Scottish members of the United Kingdom. As a Londoner with two Scottish grandchildren and family in Glasgow, I wonder if I might claim entitlement to vote.
Scope for an “International Yad VaShem” to honour those who opposed genocide
An elderly woman had written to the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/opinion/honoring-all-who-saved-jews.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
that a heroic Tunisian man had saved her and many of her family from Nazi threats (elsewhere leading to extinction). Her plea to Yad VaShem the Israeli institution which decides on a definitive honured status of “Righteous Gentile” for those who saved Jews from the Nazis, had her request for recognition for Khaled Abdul Wahab.
This led me to think of a need for an inistitution of wider application, rejected:
Is there an internationalised (or even, heaven help us on a smaller scale a Euro) version of Yad VaShem which would honour those who acted in this way anywhere else? No shortage of heroes and heroines of such episodes since WWII – including those who saved gypsies, gays, who knows what others from systematic attempts to erase their group...?
the Nobel outfit with money attached seems the wrong base ...
There must be many unsung hero(in)es to be recognised – in Tibet, Burma, the Balkans, Cambodia ...?? even shias rescuing sunnis and vice versa ...(in the face of lethal inter-communal aggression ...) and there are certainly many instances in "the Indian subcontinent" (including Sri Lanka).
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Dengl 42 Lord Melvyn Bragg Speaks About the King James Bible
I was lucky to have been sent a ticket to attend a talk by Lord (Melvyn) Bragg - novelist and well known broadcaster on cultural matters, over several decades; the event took place in the Nave of Westminster Abbey and one could reflect on (or absorb) one's surroundings if all else failed. Behind Bragg was a reredos (Victorian?) with a memorial to Isaac Newton amongst others.
Unfortunately, for a famous and highly feted talker, Bragg left me behind on much of what he had to say. He was near a mike, and I was even nearer a small loudspeaker AND wore my hearing aids. Volume was not the difficulty; diction was.
Bragg was so enthusiastic about his topic that he talked fast; and not just fast at an even speed - interspersing fast and slow as his whim required - but not the whim of the listener. On three occasions he took a swig of water - bending down (out of mike range) talking into a large tumbler - before resuming refreshed. Important observations missed - and attention transferred to irrelevancies.
I have asked speakers at courses I run (including student questioners) many times to try and help - all to no avail.
That is perhaps because most people I ask are still lucky enough to hear well.
but wait -
thanks to the blessings of walkmen and ipods, a wide age band will arrive sooner at the situation I am now describing. I wont be there to savour their feelings - but I can imagine them.
Now - what did Bragg SAY - since I did hear about 40% of what he said?
He spent a good time on the antecedents of KJB - particularly the great figure of William Tyndale. Tyndale produced the right words - many or most of which are monosyllables - which Bragg said contributed to the rhythm,, comprehensibility and impact of Tyndale's English. Presently, England was blessed with Shakespeare - who thrived in the rhetorical culture so enriched by Tyndale. Soon after, when Elizabeth died the Scottish King James VIth became King in London and set up the great project of creating a definitive translation of the Bible into English.
Bragg is a man of the book (perhaps more so than of the microphone) and spoke of the literary qualities of the KJB. There were statistics - so many phrases introduced into the language - but though he is a fellow of the Royal Society (a scientific institution) - he did not approach the text and its influences in a scientific manner. By this I suggest that he could ask certain questions and look for evidence with which to answer them; some such questions are 'positive' ones - does KJB DO X,Y,Z; others are negative ones - does KJB NOT achieve a,b,c, or some other translation achieve it better?
For example - were there translations into other European vernaculars and if so, did they weave together with their countries' histories in ways which were more, equally or less potent than did the KJB in English (for the Anglophone world)?
When the KJB was followed by a Revised version in 1880 did that renew the mission of those who worked with the KJB - or did that mission miss the strength of the now challenged edition? Lord Bragg spoke a good deal about the long campaigns to eradicate slavery and argued (I think, persuasively) that the KJB gave particular strength to the campaigners (and, to the slaves some of whom came across the text)? But would this impact have been greater with a different translation from King James's committee? Or with one of those to come, subsequently?
There is no way to answer that directly - but there may have been certain passages which impeded the great thrust of moral rectitude that came to the fore in Anglophone society - how may KJB have influenced attitudes towards minorities - such as witches, homosexuals, Jews? Lord Bragg did not (I think) have much if anything to say about any 'downside' to the KJB.
This was, after all, an occasion to celebrate its strengths - but one final assertion of Bragg's remains to be worked out: he pointed out that James' son Charles, like his father, believed in what was called the Divine Right of Kings - a doctrine that authority passed directly into the earthly sovereign (at coronation) from the Divinity; Lord Bragg seemed to indicate that this view was reinforced by a reading of texts in KJB. A powerful text, however, is found in First Chronicles Chapter 29 v 11 onwards in which the young King David explicitly disavows a human refraction of Divine authority - the spectacular difference from the behaviour of Pharaohs and Ceasars (and in a small version, of early Stuart Kings) is surely not supported, but repudiated in a KJB text (which is, incidentally, more resonant and moving than are later translations). Not that it can be diluted either, in later texts - but KJB was probably not a thoroughgoing support for quasi-divine regal behaviour.
One can remember these things when walking down Whitehall, past where Charles I had his head cut off, and past Westminster Hall, fronted with the statue of the regicide Cromwell (who also used the KJB).
Unfortunately, for a famous and highly feted talker, Bragg left me behind on much of what he had to say. He was near a mike, and I was even nearer a small loudspeaker AND wore my hearing aids. Volume was not the difficulty; diction was.
Bragg was so enthusiastic about his topic that he talked fast; and not just fast at an even speed - interspersing fast and slow as his whim required - but not the whim of the listener. On three occasions he took a swig of water - bending down (out of mike range) talking into a large tumbler - before resuming refreshed. Important observations missed - and attention transferred to irrelevancies.
I have asked speakers at courses I run (including student questioners) many times to try and help - all to no avail.
That is perhaps because most people I ask are still lucky enough to hear well.
but wait -
thanks to the blessings of walkmen and ipods, a wide age band will arrive sooner at the situation I am now describing. I wont be there to savour their feelings - but I can imagine them.
Now - what did Bragg SAY - since I did hear about 40% of what he said?
He spent a good time on the antecedents of KJB - particularly the great figure of William Tyndale. Tyndale produced the right words - many or most of which are monosyllables - which Bragg said contributed to the rhythm,, comprehensibility and impact of Tyndale's English. Presently, England was blessed with Shakespeare - who thrived in the rhetorical culture so enriched by Tyndale. Soon after, when Elizabeth died the Scottish King James VIth became King in London and set up the great project of creating a definitive translation of the Bible into English.
Bragg is a man of the book (perhaps more so than of the microphone) and spoke of the literary qualities of the KJB. There were statistics - so many phrases introduced into the language - but though he is a fellow of the Royal Society (a scientific institution) - he did not approach the text and its influences in a scientific manner. By this I suggest that he could ask certain questions and look for evidence with which to answer them; some such questions are 'positive' ones - does KJB DO X,Y,Z; others are negative ones - does KJB NOT achieve a,b,c, or some other translation achieve it better?
For example - were there translations into other European vernaculars and if so, did they weave together with their countries' histories in ways which were more, equally or less potent than did the KJB in English (for the Anglophone world)?
When the KJB was followed by a Revised version in 1880 did that renew the mission of those who worked with the KJB - or did that mission miss the strength of the now challenged edition? Lord Bragg spoke a good deal about the long campaigns to eradicate slavery and argued (I think, persuasively) that the KJB gave particular strength to the campaigners (and, to the slaves some of whom came across the text)? But would this impact have been greater with a different translation from King James's committee? Or with one of those to come, subsequently?
There is no way to answer that directly - but there may have been certain passages which impeded the great thrust of moral rectitude that came to the fore in Anglophone society - how may KJB have influenced attitudes towards minorities - such as witches, homosexuals, Jews? Lord Bragg did not (I think) have much if anything to say about any 'downside' to the KJB.
This was, after all, an occasion to celebrate its strengths - but one final assertion of Bragg's remains to be worked out: he pointed out that James' son Charles, like his father, believed in what was called the Divine Right of Kings - a doctrine that authority passed directly into the earthly sovereign (at coronation) from the Divinity; Lord Bragg seemed to indicate that this view was reinforced by a reading of texts in KJB. A powerful text, however, is found in First Chronicles Chapter 29 v 11 onwards in which the young King David explicitly disavows a human refraction of Divine authority - the spectacular difference from the behaviour of Pharaohs and Ceasars (and in a small version, of early Stuart Kings) is surely not supported, but repudiated in a KJB text (which is, incidentally, more resonant and moving than are later translations). Not that it can be diluted either, in later texts - but KJB was probably not a thoroughgoing support for quasi-divine regal behaviour.
One can remember these things when walking down Whitehall, past where Charles I had his head cut off, and past Westminster Hall, fronted with the statue of the regicide Cromwell (who also used the KJB).
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Dengl 41 Decarboning Scotland?
I went (26 Sept 2011) to a meeting at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, addressed by a very clear and skilful speaker - Lord Adair Turner - whose report has just been published, on how to achieve a carbon minimised Scotland.
The study shows a very impressive chart consisting of three graphs, one labelled CO2 going zig zag - over 500,000 YEARS, next one, shows Methane zig zags - exactly parallel over the same time span; and the third one shows temperatures (as best estimated - thereby hangs a tale, surely, in this day of hyperactive neutrons - but I was a good boy and didnt ask a question about that) with zig zags exactly parallel. With due deference to the correlation-is-not-causation (BUT...) proviso, the rest of the talk went on about how to cut CO2 emissions.
In question time I asked - what about methane - might a campaign against that prove equally effective, and if so, how? Might it take the pressures off trying to reduce various accustomed carbon uses that produce CO2? He replied that the methane problem is still, currently, smaller; However, landflll has been reduced by half over the last few years (without explaining what happens to the displaced substances, elsewhere - our London "compostable waste" goes to council silos where no doubt it rots to methane - unanswered questions there ...) and he suggested we (the globe - that's you, and us) are not in disaster mode on that score, yet. But it was the beasties and their digestions that are a particular problem. USA, Argentina, even Scotland, all far away. He didn't think that experiments dosing cattle diets with something, yet, promised much. Best not to raise too much dairy.
In answering someone else's question "what about China" he suggested that on his visits there he had been impressed by their conscientious awareness of the problem and intention to do something about it. However, on his visits to the US he was horrified at the substantial 'denialist' camp (threatening to swamp the AlGoreniks). He said the commercial lobbies had made this headway, and it was harmful.
HOWEVER
He said that the US is still the world's great powerhouse of ideas and invention, emerging from the nexus of business/universities, and he hoped that something miraculous would emerge therefrom.
I think a further question, nobody had time to ask - is: are not the Chinese officials just more successful dissemblers? - the US more open and candid?
The Noble Lord closed with the famous "Layard graph" showing how when a certain GNP level has been reached, per country, there is not much if any gain in well-being. Therefore, as we (UK) have reached that point, it wont hurt us to cut back on (carbon costly) growth mania.
The flipside of that, which I put to him in chat at the reception afterwards, was to focus on those clusters of countries as yet UNDER the magical layard cusp - might they not prefer to pump themselves up any which way, likely to be quite carbon-careless.. .?.. he admitted - yes.
Finally, I also asked him why the cinderella in the evening's story had been nuclear - virtually unmentioned - and what about Thorium? He was good enough to say straight away that he didnt know about thorium.
Well now ...
Fore someone chairing a project of this sort, and saying he had 'read all the papers' (about some other technical question) - is this slightly worrying?
A tall man at his right elbow began to explain ....but too late to affect the published report ...
... woven through all this are questions of "how do you persuade the public" and "with WHAT story do you set out to persuade the public?"
also, interesting questions emerged, of how one gets the 'administrative machine' to think and act with its focus on the future rather than the past; sadly no time to discuss those matters.
time for me to go home and I left on my carbon clean bicycle....
The study shows a very impressive chart consisting of three graphs, one labelled CO2 going zig zag - over 500,000 YEARS, next one, shows Methane zig zags - exactly parallel over the same time span; and the third one shows temperatures (as best estimated - thereby hangs a tale, surely, in this day of hyperactive neutrons - but I was a good boy and didnt ask a question about that) with zig zags exactly parallel. With due deference to the correlation-is-not-causation (BUT...) proviso, the rest of the talk went on about how to cut CO2 emissions.
In question time I asked - what about methane - might a campaign against that prove equally effective, and if so, how? Might it take the pressures off trying to reduce various accustomed carbon uses that produce CO2? He replied that the methane problem is still, currently, smaller; However, landflll has been reduced by half over the last few years (without explaining what happens to the displaced substances, elsewhere - our London "compostable waste" goes to council silos where no doubt it rots to methane - unanswered questions there ...) and he suggested we (the globe - that's you, and us) are not in disaster mode on that score, yet. But it was the beasties and their digestions that are a particular problem. USA, Argentina, even Scotland, all far away. He didn't think that experiments dosing cattle diets with something, yet, promised much. Best not to raise too much dairy.
In answering someone else's question "what about China" he suggested that on his visits there he had been impressed by their conscientious awareness of the problem and intention to do something about it. However, on his visits to the US he was horrified at the substantial 'denialist' camp (threatening to swamp the AlGoreniks). He said the commercial lobbies had made this headway, and it was harmful.
HOWEVER
He said that the US is still the world's great powerhouse of ideas and invention, emerging from the nexus of business/universities, and he hoped that something miraculous would emerge therefrom.
I think a further question, nobody had time to ask - is: are not the Chinese officials just more successful dissemblers? - the US more open and candid?
The Noble Lord closed with the famous "Layard graph" showing how when a certain GNP level has been reached, per country, there is not much if any gain in well-being. Therefore, as we (UK) have reached that point, it wont hurt us to cut back on (carbon costly) growth mania.
The flipside of that, which I put to him in chat at the reception afterwards, was to focus on those clusters of countries as yet UNDER the magical layard cusp - might they not prefer to pump themselves up any which way, likely to be quite carbon-careless.. .?.. he admitted - yes.
Finally, I also asked him why the cinderella in the evening's story had been nuclear - virtually unmentioned - and what about Thorium? He was good enough to say straight away that he didnt know about thorium.
Well now ...
Fore someone chairing a project of this sort, and saying he had 'read all the papers' (about some other technical question) - is this slightly worrying?
A tall man at his right elbow began to explain ....but too late to affect the published report ...
... woven through all this are questions of "how do you persuade the public" and "with WHAT story do you set out to persuade the public?"
also, interesting questions emerged, of how one gets the 'administrative machine' to think and act with its focus on the future rather than the past; sadly no time to discuss those matters.
time for me to go home and I left on my carbon clean bicycle....
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Dengl 34 FairTube - GO!
By the way - what IS a dengl - this is; and to see a bit more, see Dengl No 1 - which I repeated at Dengl No 12 ...)
so - here is Dengl 34 ....
Here's how someone becomes a zillionaire
Remember – you heard it here, first (written from Hong Kong, to a friend, 27 July 2011)
It's to do with replacing YouTube - that works on some hairshirt freeby model that the internet is g-ds gift to society and all the world’s best minds will freely contribute unlimited content and ... (basically,
providence will pay for pie in the sky …)
But then, Wikipaedia started advertising and begging for money donations and ...
why not "get real" - take a leaf out of the banana (and coffee etc) world - and go fairtrade?
Thus FAIRTUBE
FAIRTUBE (copyright JMW etc all that codswallop) works like iTunes etc and collects a negligible payment for each click-in.
It pays a rewarding proportion to the uploader of original material (nothing to pirated videos of commercial concerts etc).
This way genuine uploaders get some pocket money (in extreme cases, a good deal more) - all the elephants painting pictures, crazy kids and animals, domestic performances of music etc . In fact, look at example 3 in the linked website ….
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_youtube_videos_of_all_time.php
… downloaders have to pay - but given the mega-mass scale of the overall operation, relatively very little indeed - eg I would pay 10p to see a Korean kid genius playing Recuerdos de El Alhambra on the guitar - you give the kid 6 p and keep 4 p ...(to run and develop the operation)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKB694kYtI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKB694kYtI
no adverts pop ups etc - just plain product; fortunately Murdoch - and others - have been slowly persuading the public that one should indeed pay for product - albeit not the amounts copied from a past technomeny - we knew why we had to pay $1 for a paper when it was paper - but that's no reason why one should be screwed for $1 when it is digital and much more cheaply distributed ...
still, people are learning that it is honest - FAIR - to pay creators for content.
So – why not harvest all round – with the organiser and distributor of FAIRTUBE making a perfectly reasonable reward for their trouble
so - here is Dengl 34 ....
Here's how someone becomes a zillionaire
Remember – you heard it here, first (written from Hong Kong, to a friend, 27 July 2011)
It's to do with replacing YouTube - that works on some hairshirt freeby model that the internet is g-ds gift to society and all the world’s best minds will freely contribute unlimited content and ... (basically,
providence will pay for pie in the sky …)
But then, Wikipaedia started advertising and begging for money donations and ...
why not "get real" - take a leaf out of the banana (and coffee etc) world - and go fairtrade?
Thus FAIRTUBE
FAIRTUBE (copyright JMW etc all that codswallop) works like iTunes etc and collects a negligible payment for each click-in.
It pays a rewarding proportion to the uploader of original material (nothing to pirated videos of commercial concerts etc).
This way genuine uploaders get some pocket money (in extreme cases, a good deal more) - all the elephants painting pictures, crazy kids and animals, domestic performances of music etc . In fact, look at example 3 in the linked website ….
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_youtube_videos_of_all_time.php
… downloaders have to pay - but given the mega-mass scale of the overall operation, relatively very little indeed - eg I would pay 10p to see a Korean kid genius playing Recuerdos de El Alhambra on the guitar - you give the kid 6 p and keep 4 p ...(to run and develop the operation)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKB694kYtI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKB694kYtI
no adverts pop ups etc - just plain product; fortunately Murdoch - and others - have been slowly persuading the public that one should indeed pay for product - albeit not the amounts copied from a past technomeny - we knew why we had to pay $1 for a paper when it was paper - but that's no reason why one should be screwed for $1 when it is digital and much more cheaply distributed ...
still, people are learning that it is honest - FAIR - to pay creators for content.
So – why not harvest all round – with the organiser and distributor of FAIRTUBE making a perfectly reasonable reward for their trouble
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Dengl 33 Thoughts on The Sins or Dangers of Information Greed
Dengl 33 Thoughts on The Sins or Dangers of Information Greed
Travelling in Hong Kong I read a piece from the Guardian, on the Murdochs' performance at the Commons, which appeared in the South China Morning Post. The Public Relations advisors did a skilful job of positioning the Murdochs between the Scylla of incompetence and the Charybdis of sentient guilt; and even Prime Minister David Cameron hopes to have slithered off the former hook with a quasi-apology in the Commons. Since the misdemeanours for which News International is responsible and which are now being redressed go back several years, it becomes a time for a wider and deeper refurbishment of practices in print (in the UK, at least, there are supposed to be institutions that discourage malpractice in broadcasting – and nobody knows clearly who might be able to keep noses clean on the internet; some do not want to try, others, do). We want to be clearer about how and what information may be properly obtained, and then published.
Whatever mechanisms arise to take stock and re-set the compass, in the UK – or even elsewhere, they may well look further than merely at News International. Time magazine reports: “As part of the public inquiry into the News of the World scandal, Lord Justice Levenson has the authority to call media editors, proprietors and politicians to give evidence under oath. The terms of reference call on him to examine the "culture, practices and ethics of the press," including their relationship with police and the contacts between national newspapers and politicians”.
There is said to be one other ex-tabloid editor, who escaped a charge of profitable insider dealing by claiming a similarly narrow middle ground of ignorance, whose behaviour should also be judged. (I gather, since writing this, that an article on this has appeared in the UK press).
The safety of landlines compared with the internet: just a technical question?
At least two further questions arise that insightful reporting should now explore: first, what proportion of hacked calls were on landlines, and thus are these more secure than mobiles? and: should we usefully find a new label by which to refer to what was done to the inbox of the murdered Millie Dowler; we need to recognise and label such "active eavesdropping" an 'active hacking', or 're-stacking' perhaps, to distinguish a more intense from a lesser crime (as murder exceeds manslaughter).
On the first point, above, are mobiles particularly hackable? This seems to be implied in at least one report - and that also gives links to several previous ones. It has evidently been acknowledged over two or three years, that mobiles are particularly hackable. Look at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13013577
It is clear that "hacking" (eavesdropping) has been widespread in the UK, and only the most negligent business and/or public person or body worldwide would assume that such misdemeanour was merely a British failing. It is possible though, that in certain circumstances (such as where the security services would be helped in crime detection or prevention) the public would accept, even welcome hacking. What are such circumstances and where are the lines to be drawn?
A longer-shot conjecture - if it is the case that hordes of people have been sold mobiles which are highly hackable (but were not told that this MAY happen by crooks, or journalists (not the same thing?) and certainly, systematically by the ISPs on behalf of advertisers – are there grounds for a truly massive class action, brought by hackees - and indeed anyone who has a non-secure mobile - against the manufacturers or the vendors?
Scope and (in)acceptability of Hacking and some consequences
A teenager hacks the computer systems of the Pentagon. This is a threat to security (and a disgrace, for those who set up the internal data systems) and the teenager is punished. A newspaper approves the actions of a few people who leak the internal affairs of political institutions, defence organizations and the like; other newspapers do not challenge the one that has given a platform to such leaks – they all enjoy discussing the ‘secrets’. The same newspaper runs a moral crusade against its larger rival, which hacks the instruments of celebrities – right up to the members of the Royal Family in the UK. Where are lines to be drawn, how and why, over what sort of hacking is a good or a bad thing in society?
If celebrities try to suppress press intrusion, by legal injunctions, once they have thus called upon the legal system to act not only on their behalf, but as an example of desirable restraint, should they then be required to go through with their move to have the law act on their behalf, with whatever its mechanisms are, and somehow be discouraged from being bought out by the alleged miscreant, who thus short circuits the Law, with the power of money (and greed on the part of allegedly injured parties) in a way that is not available to poorer people?
Finally, where a celebrity who has tried to avoid publicity through injunctions (to prevent information acquired by hacking, being published) is then by-passed by an avalanche of disclosure, how can third parties (usually children of the celebrity) be protected from the distress and even damage produced by the publicity? Might it be necessary to enforce injunctions – with considerable penalties for infraction – allowing celebrities to “get away with it” if they do have vulnerable children (or other such “third parties”) first in the firing line, to protect them?
Hong Kong 21 July 2011
Travelling in Hong Kong I read a piece from the Guardian, on the Murdochs' performance at the Commons, which appeared in the South China Morning Post. The Public Relations advisors did a skilful job of positioning the Murdochs between the Scylla of incompetence and the Charybdis of sentient guilt; and even Prime Minister David Cameron hopes to have slithered off the former hook with a quasi-apology in the Commons. Since the misdemeanours for which News International is responsible and which are now being redressed go back several years, it becomes a time for a wider and deeper refurbishment of practices in print (in the UK, at least, there are supposed to be institutions that discourage malpractice in broadcasting – and nobody knows clearly who might be able to keep noses clean on the internet; some do not want to try, others, do). We want to be clearer about how and what information may be properly obtained, and then published.
Whatever mechanisms arise to take stock and re-set the compass, in the UK – or even elsewhere, they may well look further than merely at News International. Time magazine reports: “As part of the public inquiry into the News of the World scandal, Lord Justice Levenson has the authority to call media editors, proprietors and politicians to give evidence under oath. The terms of reference call on him to examine the "culture, practices and ethics of the press," including their relationship with police and the contacts between national newspapers and politicians”.
There is said to be one other ex-tabloid editor, who escaped a charge of profitable insider dealing by claiming a similarly narrow middle ground of ignorance, whose behaviour should also be judged. (I gather, since writing this, that an article on this has appeared in the UK press).
The safety of landlines compared with the internet: just a technical question?
At least two further questions arise that insightful reporting should now explore: first, what proportion of hacked calls were on landlines, and thus are these more secure than mobiles? and: should we usefully find a new label by which to refer to what was done to the inbox of the murdered Millie Dowler; we need to recognise and label such "active eavesdropping" an 'active hacking', or 're-stacking' perhaps, to distinguish a more intense from a lesser crime (as murder exceeds manslaughter).
On the first point, above, are mobiles particularly hackable? This seems to be implied in at least one report - and that also gives links to several previous ones. It has evidently been acknowledged over two or three years, that mobiles are particularly hackable. Look at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13013577
It is clear that "hacking" (eavesdropping) has been widespread in the UK, and only the most negligent business and/or public person or body worldwide would assume that such misdemeanour was merely a British failing. It is possible though, that in certain circumstances (such as where the security services would be helped in crime detection or prevention) the public would accept, even welcome hacking. What are such circumstances and where are the lines to be drawn?
A longer-shot conjecture - if it is the case that hordes of people have been sold mobiles which are highly hackable (but were not told that this MAY happen by crooks, or journalists (not the same thing?) and certainly, systematically by the ISPs on behalf of advertisers – are there grounds for a truly massive class action, brought by hackees - and indeed anyone who has a non-secure mobile - against the manufacturers or the vendors?
Scope and (in)acceptability of Hacking and some consequences
A teenager hacks the computer systems of the Pentagon. This is a threat to security (and a disgrace, for those who set up the internal data systems) and the teenager is punished. A newspaper approves the actions of a few people who leak the internal affairs of political institutions, defence organizations and the like; other newspapers do not challenge the one that has given a platform to such leaks – they all enjoy discussing the ‘secrets’. The same newspaper runs a moral crusade against its larger rival, which hacks the instruments of celebrities – right up to the members of the Royal Family in the UK. Where are lines to be drawn, how and why, over what sort of hacking is a good or a bad thing in society?
If celebrities try to suppress press intrusion, by legal injunctions, once they have thus called upon the legal system to act not only on their behalf, but as an example of desirable restraint, should they then be required to go through with their move to have the law act on their behalf, with whatever its mechanisms are, and somehow be discouraged from being bought out by the alleged miscreant, who thus short circuits the Law, with the power of money (and greed on the part of allegedly injured parties) in a way that is not available to poorer people?
Finally, where a celebrity who has tried to avoid publicity through injunctions (to prevent information acquired by hacking, being published) is then by-passed by an avalanche of disclosure, how can third parties (usually children of the celebrity) be protected from the distress and even damage produced by the publicity? Might it be necessary to enforce injunctions – with considerable penalties for infraction – allowing celebrities to “get away with it” if they do have vulnerable children (or other such “third parties”) first in the firing line, to protect them?
Hong Kong 21 July 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
DENGL 32 BEWARE TRASHICACY
Trashicacy Ahoy!
I have come across the exquisite pleonasm ‘competency’; I can’t say where, I can’t say when, I hadn’t the presence of mind to note it down. It joins pomposities such as ‘residency’ (something that geniuses take up) and ‘presidency’ (something from which incompetents are torn down). Such are the verbal treasures we are enjoined to tolerate, even enjoy, by those who celebrate the evolution of language along with the erosion of quality in the accessible English educational system. Luckily, we are told (and see, those of us who live in North West London
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/7027768/england-their-england.thtml) that rich Russians are riding to the rescue, buying into the model of Wodehousian culture which will need but a small cadre of professionals to sustain. Thus far (I presume) the preparatory school teachers who still know their whos from their whoms, remain mostly English; one can imagine the day, though, when they will no longer be available but have to be replaced by experts trained in elite Chinese colleges. This picture of (upper) middle class England maintained as a theme park has been drawn by the author Julian Barnes (England,England).
Not only are Russians (and other oil drenched Midases) drawn to enjoy the island they see as safe, and intriguingly quixotic, but in one tiny instance Americans come to experience “study abroad” in a context that is historically distinguished, sufficiently different from what they know (?) at home, without being too threatening, and possibly worth storing on the mantelshelf of memory. One such course is “Media in UK” during which some effort is made to disentangle what may be meant by various deployments of the word “media” – which proves to be an extraordinarily plastic term. This course has been told that the European Union (or experts who serve it, who have survived numerous planning meetings in agreeable locations – carbonoxious plane flights, lavish dinners after the deadly business sessions – I know, I used to attend such things) has decided that all member nations should deliver, by December 2011, an audit of the degree in their country of something they call “media literacy”. This has been labelled in various ways,
( the most widely adopted definition of media literacy is “… the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms (Livingstone, 2004, p.5).
Already in 1992 US media educators and activists established a definition for the media literate person as one who should be able to access, analyze, evaluate and produce print and electronic media ( Kubey, 2005) and the UK’s OFCOM uses the same definition )
though it may be challenged that the term “media” has not itself been defined, and ‘literacy’ has been deployed in way that can be called metaphorically illiterate. All this might be discounted as a mere piece of academic entertainment – except that the jamboree is to be paid for by “EU funds” (that is, taxes drawn from those EU countries who can afford them).
Moreover, the audit is to be repeated in 2014 and every three years thereafter.
I have offered suggestions on sensible ways in which to deploy the terms media and literacy);
(I confess I can not see how to insert a link to my paper which is available from me on request - mallory.wober@gmail.com)
but here I alert my friends to a danger I can foresee – which is that a new category of “competency” will presently be devised which may be called “trashicacy”. I realised this last night as I strove to put the remains of a large cardboard box into an outdoor container intended to accommodate paper and card, only to find there plastic bags full of plastic bottles and drinks cans. In the borough where I live this is not (yet) a punishable offence – but one reads that elsewhere it is, so the sanctions may soon ‘come home’. The competent citizen will in future have to analyse and dispose of rubbish of a variety of forms, in prescribed ways. Rubbish is too English a word to live as a metaphor in a bureologism, so trash will have to do the job. The -acy ending is parallel in a thoughtless kind of way with its appearance in (media liter)acy and I have proposed an intermediate –ic- not because it scans better, but for the overtones of tragedy it introduces.
So – I give to the world, a new word – and to the Eurocrats, a new ticket to conferential holidays justified under the banner of promoting the environment and better citizenship in a glorious future – trashicacy. You have been warned.
I have come across the exquisite pleonasm ‘competency’; I can’t say where, I can’t say when, I hadn’t the presence of mind to note it down. It joins pomposities such as ‘residency’ (something that geniuses take up) and ‘presidency’ (something from which incompetents are torn down). Such are the verbal treasures we are enjoined to tolerate, even enjoy, by those who celebrate the evolution of language along with the erosion of quality in the accessible English educational system. Luckily, we are told (and see, those of us who live in North West London
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/7027768/england-their-england.thtml) that rich Russians are riding to the rescue, buying into the model of Wodehousian culture which will need but a small cadre of professionals to sustain. Thus far (I presume) the preparatory school teachers who still know their whos from their whoms, remain mostly English; one can imagine the day, though, when they will no longer be available but have to be replaced by experts trained in elite Chinese colleges. This picture of (upper) middle class England maintained as a theme park has been drawn by the author Julian Barnes (England,England).
Not only are Russians (and other oil drenched Midases) drawn to enjoy the island they see as safe, and intriguingly quixotic, but in one tiny instance Americans come to experience “study abroad” in a context that is historically distinguished, sufficiently different from what they know (?) at home, without being too threatening, and possibly worth storing on the mantelshelf of memory. One such course is “Media in UK” during which some effort is made to disentangle what may be meant by various deployments of the word “media” – which proves to be an extraordinarily plastic term. This course has been told that the European Union (or experts who serve it, who have survived numerous planning meetings in agreeable locations – carbonoxious plane flights, lavish dinners after the deadly business sessions – I know, I used to attend such things) has decided that all member nations should deliver, by December 2011, an audit of the degree in their country of something they call “media literacy”. This has been labelled in various ways,
( the most widely adopted definition of media literacy is “… the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms (Livingstone, 2004, p.5).
Already in 1992 US media educators and activists established a definition for the media literate person as one who should be able to access, analyze, evaluate and produce print and electronic media ( Kubey, 2005) and the UK’s OFCOM uses the same definition )
though it may be challenged that the term “media” has not itself been defined, and ‘literacy’ has been deployed in way that can be called metaphorically illiterate. All this might be discounted as a mere piece of academic entertainment – except that the jamboree is to be paid for by “EU funds” (that is, taxes drawn from those EU countries who can afford them).
Moreover, the audit is to be repeated in 2014 and every three years thereafter.
I have offered suggestions on sensible ways in which to deploy the terms media and literacy);
(I confess I can not see how to insert a link to my paper which is available from me on request - mallory.wober@gmail.com)
but here I alert my friends to a danger I can foresee – which is that a new category of “competency” will presently be devised which may be called “trashicacy”. I realised this last night as I strove to put the remains of a large cardboard box into an outdoor container intended to accommodate paper and card, only to find there plastic bags full of plastic bottles and drinks cans. In the borough where I live this is not (yet) a punishable offence – but one reads that elsewhere it is, so the sanctions may soon ‘come home’. The competent citizen will in future have to analyse and dispose of rubbish of a variety of forms, in prescribed ways. Rubbish is too English a word to live as a metaphor in a bureologism, so trash will have to do the job. The -acy ending is parallel in a thoughtless kind of way with its appearance in (media liter)acy and I have proposed an intermediate –ic- not because it scans better, but for the overtones of tragedy it introduces.
So – I give to the world, a new word – and to the Eurocrats, a new ticket to conferential holidays justified under the banner of promoting the environment and better citizenship in a glorious future – trashicacy. You have been warned.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Dengl 31 Olympics Logo 2011
I have been alerted to a rumpus in Logistan - and it takes a form I had not suspected would arise ....
Zionism, or Nazism in symbols and the new Olympic Logo
A site offering anti-zionist sentiments suggests that the olympic logo evokes the word ZION;
the argument is ad hominem and if one prefers, racist, suggesting that the company which made this glaring error, Wolff Olins, is operated by Jews, who have hijacked the occasion.
I say that the logo offered (and which should have been turned down by the non-Jewish Lord Coe) more resembles the jagged SS emblem - in effect it is NAZI rather than zionist.
Whatever was in (what passes for) the minds of Wolff and Olins, they have certainly pulled a nasty, fast and costly one on the organisers;
but that is not because they are Jews - I suggest that had they been more centrally guided by Jewish principles they would NOT have offered this design - they have offered it because they are not sufficiently Jewish - ie prudent and conscientious. However, look at:
http://engforum.pravda.ru/index.php?/topic/178188-london-olympics-2012-or-zion-logo-controversy-explained/
and from a website based, I believe, in New Delhi ...
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8331041-london-2012-olympics-logo-controversy
Psychological Conjectures on the Connotations of the 2012 Olympics Logo
When this logo was first aired, I thought this it was ripe for trouble.
I focused on the plenitude of CORNERS throughout the diagram and the corresponding banishment of CURVES =
and, I bore in mind notions I had had published long ago, suggesting that curves connect better with or even lead to a (musical) rhythmic structure of 3 x time - even engaging different parts of the brain than are engaged when the visual designation is jagged and conjures a musical rhythmic structure of 2 or of 4 time - and these are experienceable without engaging any "higher centres", with reference to the two-time body motions of breathing (in-out), walking (left right) and marching ....
in effect, a curvaceous logo aspires (neurologically, even) "higher" while a jagged logo operates below this level;
I am not in a position to generate survey data on the current Olympics logo (and or though it is noteworthy that a google search does not readily point to
data-based assessments of its "meaning").
It may not be too late, even close as we are to the event itself, to inform ourselves better as to how (and if possible, why) people perceive the logo in the way they do, and if and whether their perceptions of the Olympics themselves are coloured at all by the "flavour" of the logo. One might even hope that the designers themselves had even a modicum of empirical data to show that their logo was "creatively" perceived by those who see it.
(my experience in the story of the iTC logo (see the attachment) - also sold by Wolff Olins in the early 1990s - suggests that they can or do do without empirical underpinning of their design(s). I therefore guess that they may not have any such evidence on the Olympic design).
A new study might show that the logo is benign - even positive. One would then withdraw one's concerns, above.
I would be willing to bet on something less simply positive, however.
Zionism, or Nazism in symbols and the new Olympic Logo
A site offering anti-zionist sentiments suggests that the olympic logo evokes the word ZION;
the argument is ad hominem and if one prefers, racist, suggesting that the company which made this glaring error, Wolff Olins, is operated by Jews, who have hijacked the occasion.
I say that the logo offered (and which should have been turned down by the non-Jewish Lord Coe) more resembles the jagged SS emblem - in effect it is NAZI rather than zionist.
Whatever was in (what passes for) the minds of Wolff and Olins, they have certainly pulled a nasty, fast and costly one on the organisers;
but that is not because they are Jews - I suggest that had they been more centrally guided by Jewish principles they would NOT have offered this design - they have offered it because they are not sufficiently Jewish - ie prudent and conscientious. However, look at:
http://engforum.pravda.ru/index.php?/topic/178188-london-olympics-2012-or-zion-logo-controversy-explained/
and from a website based, I believe, in New Delhi ...
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8331041-london-2012-olympics-logo-controversy
Psychological Conjectures on the Connotations of the 2012 Olympics Logo
When this logo was first aired, I thought this it was ripe for trouble.
I focused on the plenitude of CORNERS throughout the diagram and the corresponding banishment of CURVES =
and, I bore in mind notions I had had published long ago, suggesting that curves connect better with or even lead to a (musical) rhythmic structure of 3 x time - even engaging different parts of the brain than are engaged when the visual designation is jagged and conjures a musical rhythmic structure of 2 or of 4 time - and these are experienceable without engaging any "higher centres", with reference to the two-time body motions of breathing (in-out), walking (left right) and marching ....
in effect, a curvaceous logo aspires (neurologically, even) "higher" while a jagged logo operates below this level;
I am not in a position to generate survey data on the current Olympics logo (and or though it is noteworthy that a google search does not readily point to
data-based assessments of its "meaning").
It may not be too late, even close as we are to the event itself, to inform ourselves better as to how (and if possible, why) people perceive the logo in the way they do, and if and whether their perceptions of the Olympics themselves are coloured at all by the "flavour" of the logo. One might even hope that the designers themselves had even a modicum of empirical data to show that their logo was "creatively" perceived by those who see it.
(my experience in the story of the iTC logo (see the attachment) - also sold by Wolff Olins in the early 1990s - suggests that they can or do do without empirical underpinning of their design(s). I therefore guess that they may not have any such evidence on the Olympic design).
A new study might show that the logo is benign - even positive. One would then withdraw one's concerns, above.
I would be willing to bet on something less simply positive, however.
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