Preoccupations

America

A lot for the Democrats to do now, but, for the moment, relief:

This was a resounding and emphatic rejection of the core, defining premises of the so-called "conservative" movement and what has morphed into the grotesque Republican Party. Nobody doubts that Americans vigorously rejected George Bush and his signature policy -- the invasion of Iraq. But it wasn't only Bush and Iraq.

Democratic candidates won -- in every part of the country and regardless of their ideology -- by committing themselves to one basic platform. They vigorously opposed what have become the defining attributes of the Republican Party and they pledged to put a stop to them: unchecked Presidential power, mindless warmongering, a refusal to accept or acknowledge realities (both in Iraq and generally), and the deep-seated, fundamental corruption fueling the Bush movement and sustaining their power.

Virtually every Democratic winner, from the most conservative to the most liberal, in the reddest and bluest states, have that in common. They all ran on a platform of putting a stop to the radicalism, deceit and corruption that drives the so-called "conservative" political movement.

… yesterday's results should galvanize everyone who recognizes the danger this country has been placed in by the radical, hate-mongering, deeply corrupt authoritarians who have been controlling (and destroying) it. That movement has been severely wounded, but not yet killed. Glenn Greenwald (Unclaimed Territory)

*

I was beginning to wonder if America had the ability to see. I don't now. I stayed up until 2pm eastern last night just to make sure. The american public has seen what's really going on and they have sent a message to washington.

Democrats + 27 (maybe more) in the House and take control
Democrats + 6 (I know VA is a recount) in the Senate and take control
Democrats +6 in statehouses and set the stage for 2008

But more importantly, we have a new kind of Democrat emerging. Jim Webb, former Secretary of the Navy. Claire McCaskill, tough pragmatic midwestern woman. Bob Casey and Joe Lieberman.

The Democrats are moving to the center, occupying the vacuum left by the disappearance of the moderate Republican. … america has woken up from it's tilt right. We are back in centerville. Thank God. Fred Wilson (A VC)

Technorati tags: USA, America, Democrats, Democratic Party

Newspapers: proprietary readers and the future

I Want Media:

The New York Times Co. last week announced the appointment of Michael Rogers as "futurist-in-residence," a first for the newspaper industry. The Times describes the new position as a one-year consultant appointment to work with the company's research and development unit. …

IWM: Will newspapers on paper disappear eventually? 

Rogers: Not for a very long time. Paper is a high-resolution, high-contrast, unbreakable and extremely inexpensive display device. As the years go on, though, I think we may see more newspaper content delivered electronically and printed locally. However, we're within a few years of seeing some very effective electronic reading devices that finally do begin to challenge paper. 

The new Times Reader, on a tablet PC, is already a pretty good experience. Spin that forward five years and you're starting to have a compelling alternative. Finally, in another decade, a substantial part of our audience will have grown up already doing much more of their reading on screen, and they're not likely to have the same emotional attachment to paper as does much of the current readership.

I don't need the NYT Reader — but I can see that if I were reading the NYT often enough, and it were a major source of news, analysis and opinion for me, then it could well be a different story. Would I use it if it were the Guardian Reader? Yes, I probably would: I'm hugely indebted to the Guardian for news, views and links and I feel a great allegiance to the brand. Put the current digital Guardian alongside the NYT Reader and that version of the online Guardian looks old and passé. Of course, it is a very different beast, and Guardian Unlimited NewsPoint is no equivalent, either. That leaves Guardian Unlimited news for mobiles (read about it here; more on Guardian mobile services here) — which doesn't run on an E70, yet. (In fact, I've recently unsubscribed from the digital Guardian: using it conveys the feel of being embroiled in something more like a library archival programme than of being at one of the online coalfaces of an exciting, national newspaper that is also read and followed internationally.)

But there's an interesting issue here. On if:book, Christine Boese writes:

You know, for the money the Times spent on this (and the experienced journalists the Times Group laid off this past year), I'd have thought the best use of resources for a big media company would be to develop a really KILLER RSS feed reader, one that finally gets over the usability threshold that keeps feed readers in "Blinking 12-land" for most casual Internet users.

I mean, I know there are a lot of good feed readers out there (I favor Bloglines myself), but have any of you tried to convert non-techie co-workers into using a feed reader lately? I can't for the LIFE of me figure out why there's so much resistance to something so purely wonderful and empowering, something I believe is clearly the killer app on par with the first Mosaic browser in 1993.

'Kevin' comments:

The Times Reader smartly (it’s a brand after all) incorporates the branding, styling of the print edition (e.g. typography, colors, overall look and feel). But that’s about the extent of it. Sections and articles are in columns and pages using new layout technology that scale and adapt to screen size and resolution – but that’s more about usability and making use of the entire screen rather than trying to replicate the paper medium. …

Usability and Design. This reader provides a much more usable and readable experience than today's alternatives. It’s a big claim but it’s backed up by usability studies. Users strongly prefer this model to the text presentation found in the current browsers for example. Users also retain more information and read for longer periods. Columns, ClearType, Pagination, Hyphenation, Seamless navigation, Zoomable layouts, etc all contribute to a highly readable, easy-to-use experience. 

Interactivity. The app is still in beta and many more features are planned before its release but you can find a number of interactive features already. For example, you can comment (with ink or text) on text and share that with friends. The highlighted text is captured and the comment is recreated and rendered for others exactly as it was written. You can click on “topics” for any article and find related articles via the Search feature and “Topic Explorer”. You can peruse the news via Pictures /Photos or via the “What’s Read” feature. Stay tuned for more features. Feel free to make feature suggestions to the Times as well.

Also on if:book, in a post following Christine Boese's and picking up on her argument that re-creating a facsimile of a print newspaper online is 'just a kind of "horseless carriage" retrenchment', Ben Vershbow wonders, too, if this isn't to go backwards into the future. Most interesting bit in his post? This:

… are these proprietary, bound devices really going to replace newspapers? It seems doubtful when news consumption is such a multi-sourced affair these days (though to some extent that's an illusion). A device that allows readers to design their news menu seems more the ticket. Maybe the Times should be thinking more in terms of branded software than proprietary hardware. Make the best news reader on the web, prominently featuring Times content, but allowing users to customize their reading experience. Keep it open and plugged in. Let the Times be your gateway to more than just the Times.

Full info about the NYT Reader is available here. Currently, NYT Reader is Windows-only ('can be installed on any laptop, desktop, or tablet PC running Windows XP') and requires .NET 3.0. All OK for me, but … Mac users will want to read this post by Nick Bilton, Art Director at the NYT.

Finally, here's a quotation from Michael Rogers (IWM article) which I liked:

I think that being a futurist is in a way the last refuge of the generalist. You need to pull together all kinds of sociological, economic, technologic, anthropologic information into some kind of coherent whole. And finally, I'm not sure that the real value of a futurist is to predict the future -- the future is always going to surprise us in one way or another -- but rather to get others thinking about it in a creative and flexible way.

Technorati tags: NYT, New York Times, newspapers, walled gardens, futurists

Journalism and accuracy: Reuters and Adnan Hajj

From Journalism.co.uk:

• Reuters has suspended a photojournalist covering the Israeli assault on Lebanon after an investigation by bloggers revealed an image had been digitally manipulated to increase the apparent severity of a bombing raid. 6 August
  

• Reuters has dropped a long-serving Lebanese photojournalist covering the Israeli assault on the country after an investigation by bloggers revealed an image had been digitally manipulated to increase the apparent severity of a bombing raid. 7 August


• A second allegation of altering war zone photos - made against a photojournalist by bloggers - has led to over 900 of his pictures being removed from Reuters' database. Adnan Hajj, who had contributed to Reuters on a freelance basis since 1993, was axed by the agency after an investigation by bloggers, last week, claimed an image showing bomb damage in Beirut had been digitally manipulated to increase the apparent severity of the raid.

After right wing bloggers made further allegations of alterations to a second image - supposedly showing an Israeli F-16 firing missiles on Lebanon - Reuters withdrew all his photographs from its database. … The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj had filed directly to the global pictures desk since the start of the conflict on July 12. Reuters said it had now put in place a tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict. "There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image," said Tom Szlukovenyi, Reuters global picture editor. 7 August

Mitch Ratcliffe: 'Where Nicholas Lemann's critique of citizen journalism falls down is his lack of critical reflection on journalism itself.'

I've been pondering Nicholas Lemann's New Yorker article. More about that soon.

Technorati tags: journalism, media, citizen journalism, Reuters, Adnan Hajj

Stephen Colbert, satirist supreme

I remember Ian Hislop once saying how he had tried to take a satirical programme (a version of Spitting Image?) to the States, only to be met there with disbelief: 'You mean you want to make fun of the President?'. Which makes the performance of Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner the more remarkable.

Thanks to Tom Coates (del.icio.us) for these links: a clip of some highlights (this may have been taken down; at least, it's not running right now — has CSPAN paid them a YouTube visit?); a BitTorrent link to a movie of the evening; an Editor & Publisher piece about the speech.

Botherer covered it well:

… what wasn’t reported in the UK and elsewhere, disturbingly including the USA, was the main speaker for the evening, Stephen Colbert. Currently riding high with the success of his excellent Daily Show spin-off, The Colbert Report (pronounced “Colbert Report”), the honour of giving the main speech at the dinner, which is intended to poke fun at the president, was his. From the reaction it seems no one was quite expecting what Colbert had to say.

In character, he addressed the audience from the perspective of his programme, ironically adopting a Fox News-like stance in order to make a mockery of it. Throughout, Bush was sat two chairs to his right.

“Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in “reality.” And reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Salon, too:

Make no mistake, Stephen Colbert is a dangerous man -- a bomb thrower, an assassin, a terrorist with boring hair and rimless glasses. It's a wonder the secret service let him so close to the President of the United States.

But there he was Saturday night, keynoting the year's most fawning celebration of the self-importance of the DC press corps, the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Before he took the podium, the master of ceremonies ominously announced, "Tonight, no one is safe."

To my friends and colleagues teaching satire: teach this! There's a transcript of Colbert's speech at Daily Kos (excerpt below) and, in addition to the Torrent link above, you can download the full video at these links: Part 1, Part 2. It is compelling, very sharp and very funny.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world. …

And I just like the guy. He's a good Joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am.

I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I'm sorry, I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American! I'm with the President, let history decide what did or did not happen.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will. As excited as I am to be here with the President, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the President's side, and the Vice-President's side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the President makes decisions. He's the decider. The Press Secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the Press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

You can leave a thank-you-Stephen-Colbert message here. There's a good Flickr photo from the evening here. And if you use Firefox and haven't yet got the Video Downloader extension, it's here.

Update! Inside Google reports:

The Google Video blog posts on how they’ve come to an agreement with C-SPAN to show the content, and agreement YouTube apparently failed (or never tried) to make. You have three options: You can watch the entire 1 hour, 35 minute video of the dinner, or stick to an 11 minute excerpt of President Bush and Bush impersonator Steve Bridges, or go for the 25 minute excerpt of Steven Colbert’s speech. Of course, if you want to enjoy Colbert’s biting remarks, make sure you quit about 16:45 in, because the press conference/chase segment is as tragically unfunny as it gets.

Technorati tags: Stephen Colbert, George Bush, White House, journalism

Ridicule, Machiavelli and political life

How much derision can a national political figure take and remain a "viable political entity"? According to Michael Heseltine this morning (Today, Radio 4), John Prescott has gone beyond the point of no return.

The strong media and popular response to Blair letting Prescott keep the perks and salary of office without (most of) the responsibilities was not hard to foresee and the attacks came very soon after the news broke (my last post). Was retaining the pay and perks the price of ensuring Prescott's cooperation? Was there a deeper plot, in effect to put Prescott out to die in the amphitheatre of public opinion? Far too popular and important a figure within the Labour Party for Number 10 to decapitate completely, this halfway house might have seemed attractive yesterday to John Prescott but now (it must have dawned on him) makes him look at best contemptibly absurd, at worst indulged and rewarded beyond what any possible responsibility still remaining to him might justify. Prescott will emerge (at least for the all important short- to mid-term) as an utterly diminished figure.

Last month (30 April), Andrew Rawnsley wrote (Observer):

Even before we were treated to pictures of the Deputy Prime Minister pressing the flesh with his office squeeze, he was widely mocked as an absurd figure. Buffoonish though he might have appeared to many outside government, inside Number 10, he was still taken quite seriously as a potential menace to Tony Blair who could deliver the final, fatal blow to the Prime Minister. His allies were becoming increasingly nervous that Mr Prescott was intent on bringing on the reign of Gordon Brown, especially since he so flagrantly fanned the rebellion against the education reforms. It was in the power of Prescott to pull the trigger on the Prime Minister by making a public declaration demanding an early date from Mr Blair for his departure.

The one solace for the Prime Minister in a sea of troubles is that this threat has evaporated. The debagging of the Deputy Prime Minister contributes to the impression of a government that is simultaneously arrogant, ridiculous and reckless. But it does have this consolation for Number 10. John Prescott is now a much weakened figure whose residual credibility is threatened with more demolition from further revelation. Instead of John Prescott being in a position to tell Tony Blair how long he has left in Number 10, it is now John Prescott who is fighting to save his own job and what shreds remain of his dignity.

Prescott's Parliamentary job has gone in almost all but name. Now he's doomed to be roundly and totally derided.

There's a good BBC piece by Roger Preston on the implications of the Cabinet reshuffle in the context of Blair/Brown ambitions and "relations":

Tony Blair has no desire to quit any time soon. And when he does resign, it will be in his own time and his own way. Those were the conspicuous messages he sent out today in his sweeping reorganisation of the Cabinet.

Technorati tags: John Prescott, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, New Labour, Labour

Whither Labour?

The BBC reports that 'John Prescott has sparked anger by keeping his job as deputy prime minister despite being stripped of his government responsibilities. Mr Prescott's local government brief will pass to Ruth Kelly. But Downing Street insisted Mr Prescott was not being demoted and would keep his salary and grace and favour homes.'

This is a great line of attack, whatever your political allegiance(s):

The Tories branded Mr Prescott a waste of public money and Labour's Kate Hoey said people would wonder "what on earth he's going to get paid for".  Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "John Prescott loses his department but keeps the trappings of office - including the car, the salary, and the two grace and favour homes.  "Add it all up, and the taxpayer is going to be paying more than a quarter of a million pounds a year. If you're looking for ways to cut waste in government, you can start with John Prescott."

There's a cut-out-and-keep guide to New Labour, 'a handy guide to the last nine days and the last nine years (an amalgamation of this
list and this list plus a few choice bonus items)', over on Chicken Yoghurt. Designed for yesterday and the local council elections, it's not going to stop being apposite any time soon. A sample (I've cut some items and un-numbered the list — please go read it over on Chicken Yoghurt):

• The Ricin ring that never was

• "Blair saw legal caveats a year before invasion"

• "Tony Blair privately committed Britain to war with Iraq and then set out to lure Saddam Hussein into providing the legal justification"

• "Blair broke code to keep war advice from Cabinet"

• "Almost a third of the government’s arms sales machine is dedicated to selling to a single regime, Saudi Arabia."

• "Several hundred people plotting"

• MRSA deaths double in four years

• 700 hours to ban fox hunting, 2 days to ban habeas corpus

• Outflanked on the left by Michael Howard

• "Hard choices"

• "It makes you wonder what the other ministers are hiding."

• 700 hours on foxhunting, 7 hours on Iraq

 
In the full post: 120 numbered items … Brilliant stuff.

Technorati tags: New Labour, Labour, Tony Blair

Blair & ID cards

With news that Blair is now set to miss today's vote on ID cards (see here), there's also this — from the Guardian:

A British Nato and defence specialist today undermines Tony Blair and Charles Clarke's claims that the new identity cards database for 60 million British citizens is safe and secure. … Brian Gladwin, from Worcester, now a security consultant to US government agencies, said Mr Blair and the home secretary had got it wrong when they accused critics of producing "a technically incompetent report" on ID cards. They had accused the report's main author, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, Simon Davies, of bias because he is also a director of Privacy International, a human rights group that opposes ID cards.  Now Dr Gladwin, who led research into protecting foreign spies from compromising the country's most secure communciations system, has written to Mr Blair saying he was the author of the sections of the report dealing with safety and security. He pointed out that the "technically incompetent" data was subject to review by the LSE before publication by two "independent information security experts, both of whom are internationally recognised for their expertise".  He warns the new database will "create safety and security risks for all those whose details are entered on the system".

In a damning blow to ministers' claims of bias, he tells Mr Blair "in case you think that I am an opponent of ID cards, I should point out that I support an irrevocably voluntary, self-funded ID card scheme". He reveals he would rather pay fines than join a compulsory scheme, saying "it is shameful that those who are less well-off will be forced to put themselves at serious risk for a system that serves no purpose that cannot be achieved in other, more effective and less costly ways".

Ministers had sought to undermine the report's findings because it has been a key issue in fuelling the rebellion among Labour MPs on ID cards, which halved the government's majority and led to a string of defeats in the Lords.

Technorati tags: ID cards, identity cards, Blair, security, privacy

Falling out over satire

BBC News:

Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage. France Soir, Germany's Die Welt, La Stampa in Italy and El Periodico in Spain all carried some of the drawings. Their publication in Denmark has led to protests in Arab nations, diplomatic sanctions and death threats. Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet, but media watchdogs defend press freedom to publish the images. Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Arab world "betrays a lack of understanding" of press freedom as "an essential accomplishment of democracy."

In Berlin, the prominent daily Die Welt ran a front-page caricature of the prophet wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb. The paper argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.  "The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical," it wrote in an editorial.

Also from the BBC, further details of the Die Welt commentary:

The paper points out that the issue has nothing to do with "a battle between cultures" as there are "thresholds of consideration" which cannot be crossed when it comes to making fun of religion. "But the standards that Muslims require are overtaxing for open societies," the paper believes.

The daily points out that in the West there is no right of exemption from satire. "Christianity itself has become a subject of pitiless criticism, an object of satirical analysis, which marks the triumph of humour over religious worship", it argues.

It points out that there was no protest when a primetime programme on Syrian TV portrayed a rabbi as a cannibal.

And from the same BBC site:

Sweden's Expressen says the front-page letter published in Danish, English and Arabic by Jyllands-Posten in which it apologizes for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad "sends out unpleasant signals that threats work".

"How Jyllands-Posten thinks - or rather does not think - plays less of a role after the flag burnings, threats and diplomatic pressure from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries over the last few days", the paper says. Jyllands-Posten's "retreat-like humming and hawing is simply an unpleasant confirmation that fundamentalist threats - against individuals, against economic and political interests - win through", it goes on.

"Defending freedom of expression against fundamentalist threats is a cause. It is a matter of principle, whether it involves Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses', a film about veils and the oppression of women or some clumsy drawings in a Danish newspaper."

Technorati tags: Islam, fundamentalism, press freedom, freedom of expression

The Tom ap Rhys Pryce Memorial Trust

The killing of Tom on 12 January has affected many people, as Alex said in his comment to my post of 14 January.

The absence of hatred and anger in Tom's parents, as reported today in The Times, and their determination that out of this immense loss will come good, alike deserve all our respect and support:

THE parents of the murdered lawyer Tom ap Rhys Pryce said yesterday that they pitied and forgave his killers.

John and Estella ap Rhys Pryce, who are devout Christians, said that they believed their son’s murderers were “not intrinsically evil”.

The couple have set up a trust as a memorial to their son, a high-flying lawyer with the City firm Linklaters. It is hoped that the charity, which has already received £350,000, will raise more than £1 million to help to educate impoverished children.

Details about The Tom ap Rhys Pryce Memorial Trust can be found here. Linklaters has a page about Tom here.

Thomas ap Rhys Pryce

The news of the brutal, gratuitous killing of Tom has shocked and upset me greatly. (News reached me via The Times — here and here; the Telegraph — here and here, the BBC and Life Style Extra.)

I knew him during my long period of teaching at Marlborough College, where Tom was a boy in the boarding house where I first tutored (B1). He was a gentle, clever, thoughtful student — someone already forever in my memory as a person of great gifts who carried them with a modesty and shyness that won the love of those around him.

I cannot imagine how devastated his fiancée and family must be. The thoughts of all at Marlborough who knew Tom will be with them.

RIAA & Russia

I missed this from ars technica last month:

… certain regions remain outside the RIAA's and IFPI's sphere of influence. One of those is Russia. A number of music download services operate out of that country, including the well-known allofmp3.com. … Now the RIAA is attempting to gain the support of the US government in its fight against the Russian music download services. A resolution passed shortly before the Senate recessed for the holidays mirrors an earlier House resolution calling for the Russian Federation to "provide adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights, or it risks losing its eligibility to participate in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program." The GSP allows products from favored countries to be imported into the US duty-free.

In a statement, RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol hailed the resolution, which lacks the force of law: 

The U.S.-Russia relationship must be built upon a mutual understanding of shared obligations and the application of the rule of law. The effective protection of American intellectual property has been sorely lacking in Russia. This resolution is significant because it expresses the will of the U.S. Congress that Russia must take effective action against those who would steal America’s knowledge-intensive intellectual property-based goods and services. We must not enter into political arrangements with countries ill-prepared to adequately protect our greatest economic assets. 

… While it's true that Russian services such as Allofmp3.com operate without the approval of the RIAA and IFPI, the fact that they are apparently thriving should be telling the recording industry something about the market. Allofmp3.com offers consumers an almost endless array of inexpensive choices when it comes to buying music. Customers can choose their preferred file format, bit rate, and a very extensive catalog of artists and recordings, all without DRM restrictions. Imagine that ... giving consumers what they want instead of forcing low bitrates and restrictions on where and how the music can be played back. If US and Western European music stores offered the same amount of flexibility on bitrates and formats, chances are good that consumers wouldn't bother with Russian services, even if it cost a bit more.

Technorati tags: AllofMP3, AllofMP3.com, RIAA

DC Confidential

Sir Christopher Meyer has been defending his book. I for one am glad to have more insight into the run up to the Iraq War. This titbit puzzles me, however:

The Cabinet Office had approved the manuscript for publication, after consulting the Foreign Office. However, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has been among senior officials to criticise its publication - a stance that has caused Sir Christopher some concern.

"[It was] cleared to be published - what exactly is going on here? I write a book, I made a judgement between what I think is right to keep confidential and what it is right to bring out into the public gaze. It goes into the Cabinet Office, it pops out a couple of weeks later, and I am told they wish to make no changes to the text and then we publish." BBC

Tariq Ramadan

Just heard Tariq Ramadan on Channel 4 News, talking about the very much continuing "problems" in France.  Brilliant.  Spoke about the deep, disturbing deafness of the French government and the immensity of the problem of the marginalised. No comfort here for the UK (contra some of the British press): ghettoising is as much a reality in Bradford as in any of the Parisian banlieues.

Tariq Ramadan has the measured delivery of an academic, which is no more than you would expect from a man who used to be a high school principal and wrote his doctoral thesis on Nietzsche. But as the leading Islamic thinker among Europe's second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants, the Geneva-based university lecturer also inspires a good deal of mistrust—from both Arab Muslims for his Western sensibility and Westerners for his controversial Islamic roots. Ramadan, 38, is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder, in 1928, of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic revival movement that spread from Egypt throughout the Arab world, criticizing Western decadence and advocating a return to Muslim values. Yet Ramadan says, "I'm a European who has grown up here. I don't deny my Muslim roots, but I don't vilify Europe either." Time.com

And from the man himself:

For almost two weeks now, violence had raged nightly in the suburbs of France’s cities. In response, the country has, for the first time in half a century, invoked a state of emergency. Its police are now armed with broad new powers; even as they try to calm rioters with promises of jobs and social programs, they are enforcing curfews, conducting raids without warrants, restricting media. The riots have destabilized the very heart of the Republic and raised a series of questions that must be faced head-on. The entire political class in France has got it wrong. … Left and Right are struggling to grasp the scope of a phenomenon that will requires a veritable intellectual revolution in the way the terms of the debate are now posited.

There can be no doubt that violence is no solution, that the destruction of public property, buses and cars must stop and wrongdoers punished. Nor is there any doubt that some young people are indulging in pure vandalism. Restoration of law and order is a priority, especially for residents of the suburbs - the first victims of the violence. The fact remains, however, that such measures will be ineffective if France fails to grasp the nature of the message that this orgy of violence is sending. Continuation of a head-in-the-sand policy toward the suburbs will ultimately have devastating consequences for social peace. France urgently needs rigorous criticism of the way in which its political and intellectual classes have for the last 15 years considered questions of the unity of the Republic, and how immigrants and their children are integrated. We have witnessed passionate (and repetitive) debates about secularism, schools, and the compatibility of Islam with republican values. French politicians and intellectuals have a surprising capacity to sustain these deafening debates for months about questions that are poorly expressed and/or have in fact already been resolved. The upshot is an unhealthy climate of general confusion concerning ways to deal with substantive questions - starting with this one: Will France finally realize that Islam is a French religion? …

France urgently needs a revolution in thinking. The nation has changed and its education programs must express this. Those who make up France today are entitled to official recognition in the nation’s collective memory. History, far from being an unhealthy competition of memories, must involve objectivity and respectful understanding. A new breath of creativity is needed in educational policy, a new focus on teacher training and school administration. To truly create equality of opportunity will require a tripling of investment in those areas that are educationally disadvantaged.

And let us recognize that it is counterproductive to send in the police following a political speech mixing insult and disrespect. Little will change until the residents of the suburbs are not merely seen as problems but are respected as full French citizens, listened to and allowed to be involved in devising solutions.

France

I've learned some important things about the neighbour whose cities, literature, music, art, food and wine I love so much (not to mention the land itself). I had no idea that France's policy of assimilation (contrasted yesterday on Today by Labour MEP, Claude Moraes, with the UK's 'over-arching strategy of integration') means no public or private data on race or religion is published — ram recording here. (Indeed, I think it's correct to say that no census date on race or religion is collected.) As ethnic minorities are effectively not seen, unemployment in areas where they live is four or five times the national average and, on the other hand, word-of-mouth recruitment for jobs means very little social mobility (Claude Moraes).

From Signal vs Noise (Jason), this map:

Dominique de Villepin (BBC):

The republic is at a moment of truth," he said. "What is being questioned is the effectiveness of our integration model."

The Sixth Republic?

What is happening in France? A friend of mine who lives in Paris emails me:

Just got back to Paris here from Siberia and I'm astonished to find myself in the midst of mounting political violence, whose peak it seems is as yet some way off. For eleven nights in a row ever increasing numbers of cars have been torched in the suburbs of major French cities — and most spectacularly among these, Paris — in eloquent and photogenic protest at the appalling lives these suburbs generate for their almost exclusively immigrant populations. The French philosophy of excluding any but the monied and native, or very monied and foreign, from the centre of their lovely towns has an obvious British counterpart in Oxford. [We both know Oxford.] What is exciting about the present riots is:

a) that they are genuinely political and, so far as I can see, legitimate: the inhabitants of these suburbs are burning their own cars, schools and possessions (and not, so far, people) because they (rightly) believe them to be emblematic of all that their situations trap them to: crime, joblessness, helplessness, voicelessness, boredom, alienation and the awful horror of grotesque concrete tower-blocks. They are political in Plato's sense: of ceasing to fight for space within a pre-existing and deviant order, and instead going to the outside and forcing that order to reform.

b) they are well organised: the targets are apposite, and discipline among the activists remarkably strong (witness 5000 car burnings and just one or two isolated, and possibly unconnected, personal attacks).

c) they are going to continue, one suspects, for as long as the political establishment presumes to deliberately and systematically misunderstand why they are occurring. At the moment, the governmental call is for 'above all, the return of good order'; scant mention is yet to be made of even the possibility of making some effort to correct the absurd embedded racism of France's so-called meritocratic power-structures, whose professed egalitarian ethic could not be further from practical truth. Headlines moronically blurt out: 'how long will this go on?' as if it is the temper tantrum of an infant, not the organised scream for help of an entire and dismembered portion of society. Senior ministers have been threatening longer jail-terms of all things, in blackly comic, American justice style.

d) the immigrants may soon be joined in the pillage by a host of left-wing organisations. Since the riots of 1968 made the error of not going far enough and thus resulting in minimal long-term change, there is implicit consensus that for this action to be justified it must be pursued to its natural extreme: all-out civil disobedience, until the government falls. While official opinion seems to be that this political activity will quickly run its course, there is evidence that it is steadily mounting and indeed heading from outside the city into the centre. I have noticed in my very central quartier here that there has been a steady and ominous thickening on street corners and among shadows of determined looking folk from the banlieues (it reminds me a little of Hitchcock's The Birds). I look forward to their expressing themselves, with appropriate respect for human life, through the media of bonfires and chaos.

So anyhow, this is just to let you know that France is much closer to gaining its sixth republic than anything in the western media is likely to have you think. The unrest may indeed go international (Denmark has already seen the first glimmerings of revolt). I just hope it doesn't lose its focus and political rigour as the coming weeks unfold, for its efficacy relies on the precision of its message: we will no longer tolerate living in a political and economic concentration camp.

I had thought to quote from Ed's email more selectively, but there's too much food for thought in what he says — and I share his reactions to the French Establishment's stance. In another email, Ed adds, 'It seems to me to be bad journalistic practice to emphasise isolated incidents of personal attacks when it is by no means clear that these attacks show any signs of having intensified with this wave of social protest in which attacks on vehicles and so on have clearly gone up by several orders of magnitude …'

So, he'll be resigning then …

Charles Clarke has vowed to "eliminate" anti-social behaviour and disrespect in society by the time of the next general election "whenever it comes". BBC News

New Orleans: V

Jeremy Paxman (Newsnight) suggested last week that George Bush's misjudged comments about, and reactions to, Katrina might be considered political autism.

Andrew Sullivan:

" 'The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.' (Laughter)." - president George W. Bush, today [2 September]. Just think of that quote for a minute; and the laughter that followed. The poor and the black are dying, dead, drowned and desperate in New Orleans and elsewhere. But the president manages to talk about the future "fantastic" porch of a rich, powerful white man who only recently resigned his position because he regretted the failure of Strom Thurmond to hold back the tide of racial desegregation.

Now, Philip has drawn together three of the most notorious, recent comments made in the wake of Katrina by other Republican figures:

Barbara Bush: 'Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.'

Tom DeLay, US House Majority Leader, visiting the Houston Astrodome and meeting some child evacuees: 'Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?'

Republican Congressman Richard Baker: 'We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.'

John Naughton quotes Rupert Cornwell from Saturday's Independent:

On their visits to the stricken region, [Bush] and Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld the Defence Secretary, have given the impression of corporate bosses inspecting damaged plant at a poorly performing subsidiary.

'Political autism' is surely far too kind a witty phrase to describe this dislocation of empathy and understanding.

New Orleans: IV

Quite extraordinary interview (WWL-AM) with Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans. Such anger and weariness — and right on target.

New Orleans: III

Clive Stafford Smith is, I am very proud to say, a former pupil of the school at which I now teach.

Clive Stafford Smith spent more than twenty-five years representing people on death row. He's saved hundreds of lives and counts his clients among his friends.  He says his work is his calling - one he was drawn to after writing an essay on capital punishment while at school. Initially he thought it was a history essay and was appalled to find the death sentence was still in use. He planned to become a campaigning journalist, but a summer spent meeting prisoners on death row inmates convinced him that he would be able to achieve more by representing them directly. So he trained in law and set up his own legal practice to enable him to do so. BBC

In today's Guardian, he writes:

I have spent much of the last three days sifting through photographs on the internet of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, looking for clues as to what has happened to the Justice Center at 636 Baronne Street, New Orleans. This was the home of the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center (LCAC), the charity I founded in 1993, and that I left behind, thriving, when I returned to England almost a year to the day before Katrina struck. The LCAC, which provided legal representation to poor people facing the death penalty, was the last hope for scores of people facing the death penalty in the Deep South, including Britons such as Nicky Ingram, Krishna Maharaj, Kenny Richey and Jackie Elliot. … No 636 was an incubator of dreams, acronyms and abbreviations of civil-rights offices that gave prisoners hope. We began with the LCAC. Then the Capital Appeals Project (Cap) became the first resort of those sentenced to death. A Fighting Chance (AFC) was a team of young and intrepid investigators who give capital lawyers the facts that they need to defend their cases. Finally, Innocence Project New Orleans (Ipno) became the closest thing that Louisiana and Mississippi had to a Criminal Cases Review Commission, with its six staff seeking out the wrongful convictions in a prison population the size of Britain's. These offices promised many of the South's most vulnerable prisoners the first light of dawn. It makes me sad to use the past tense, but these brilliant people with their huge hearts are now scattered all over the US, finding refuge with friends and family, clutching what they could save. …

Life as I knew it New Orleans has been smudged out by Katrina. There are many needy causes in the city now, but 636 will find it harder to rebuild than most. President Bush is unlikely to put it at the top of his list for reconstruction. It will be weeks before the true damage is known. We don't know what we will find when we are allowed back there. The ground floor of 636 was the storage area: boxes and boxes of papers, some kept as memorials for the dead, but most a potential life raft for the living. In 2003, it took one single document identifying the true killer to rescue Dan Bright after nine years' wrongful conviction. The DNA test results that freed Ryan Matthews from death row are probably disintegrating into mulch, along with his chances of receiving compensation.

In the depths of 636 there are probably a million pages of ink that we gathered over 20 years, now swimming off the page. Whose hopes are dissolving in these flood waters? When will the tide recede? And where will the building's inhabitants find the strength to face the wreckage of so many years of their work, the despoilment of their clients' best hopes?

At the foot of the Guardian piece, this:

Clive Stafford Smith is now the legal director of Reprieve (www.reprieve.org.uk), a UK charity fighting for the lives of people facing the death penalty. Reprieve is taking up a special collection to help the offices of 636 Baronne Street get back on their feet. If you would like to help, please call 020-7353 4640, or send your cheque made out to Reprieve, marked "The 636 Fund", to Reprieve, PO Box 52742, London EC4P 4WS, or email: info@reprieve.org.uk

New Orleans: II

The Interdictor is a LiveJournal blog now given over entirely to news coming out of New Orleans. Some postings are very distressing and disturbing. This is from yesterday:

The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:

"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some questions:

Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.

It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.

Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.

There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.

Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.

The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.

The buses never stop.

Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.

He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."

He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.

Don Park put me on to GlobeXplorer: 'I couldn't quite grasp the magnitude of the disaster at New Orleans so I searched for satellite pictures and found them at GlobeXplorer. I couldn't believe what I saw: an entire city flooded. You have to compare the two in detailed image … for the full impact. All those houses, block after block, across the entire city, every each one of them some family's home.'