Monthly Archives: January 2004

Really.

(Hat tip to Rich.)

Foreign Policy is a highly regarded US publication with a wide and important international readership.

From the current edition, this quote:

‘With varying degrees of delicacy, everyone from fringe U.S. presidential candidates Lyndon LaRouche and Patrick Buchanan to European news outlets such as the BBC and Le Monde have used neocon as a synonym for Jew, focusing on Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen, and others with obvious Jewish names. Trying to resurrect the old dual-loyalties canard, they cite links between some neocons and the Likud Party to argue that neocons wanted to invade Iraq because they were doing Israel’s bidding.

Yes, neocons have links to the Likud Party, but they also have links to the British Tories and other conservative parties around the world, just as some in the Democratic Party have ties to the left-leaning Labour Party in Great Britain and the Labor Party in Israel. These connections reflect ideological, not ethnic, affinity. And while many neocons are Jewish, many are not. Former drug czar Bill Bennett, ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, social scientist James Q. Wilson, theologian Michael Novak, and Jeane Kirkpatrick aren’t exactly synagogue-goers. Yet they are as committed to Israel’s defense as Jewish neocons are—a commitment based not on shared religion or ethnicity but on shared liberal democratic values. Israel has won the support of most Americans, of all faiths, because it is the only democracy in the Middle East, and because its enemies (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and Syria) also proclaim themselves to be the enemies of the United States.

The charge that neocons are concerned above all with the welfare of Israel is patently false. In the 1980s, they were the leading proponents of democratization in places as disparate as Nicaragua, Poland, and South Korea. In the 1990s, they were the most ardent champions of interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo—missions designed to rescue Muslims, not Jews. Today neocons agitate for democracy in China (even as Israel has sold arms to Beijing!) and against the abuse of Christians in Sudan. Their advocacy of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is entirely consistent with this long track record. If neocons were agents of Likud, they would have advocated an invasion not of Iraq or Afghanistan but of Iran, which Israel considers to be the biggest threat to its own security.’

The BBC used to be an authoritative, non-biased, reference news-source for the world. Now it is merely a European news outlet broadcasting anti-Semitism.

: one of the saddest sights for an opponent of deceit is to see politically-correct bias managing to deceive someone who is not its natural or willing dupe. Jeremy Clarkson, though he jokes about his anti-U.S. bias, is not the most natural target of left-wing propaganda. Most of his programme on the gun (‘Inventions that changed the world’, shown this evening on BBC 2) was, by BBC standards, a watchable and by no means intemperate view of the topic.

Then he got onto relative statistics on gun-related killings: 1994 was the stated year. Suddenly the figures he was saying started to remind me of something. Although I have a passable memory for figures, I was not videoing the program and can only say that I think they were US: 11,127, Germany: 381, etc; the figures from Michael Moore’s notorious ‘Bowling for Columbine’.

David Hardy’s detailed analysis of Bowling has some useful discussion of how Moore may have acquired these dubious figures (and much else that was not just dubious) for the film. Jeremy Clarkson is not an obvious victim of a man like Moore. Perhaps he spends too much time with BBC colleagues who are. Perhaps he simply doesn’t realize how far the politically correct will go. After all, Columbine won an Oscar for ‘best documentary’; people could think that meant it was fact, not fiction.

I am annoyed by deliberate BBC bias. I am depressed by this very minor and probably quite innocent repetition of Moore’s bias. Meanwhile, one can but hope that Jeremy will put his anti-American bias to more productive use; Moore is one after all.

. Scott Burgess has the shocking truth.

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but BBC’s website seems to have an insatiable desire to fill up bandwidth.

The front page of the New York Times on 11 January had an interesting piece about the lengths of film credits – http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/movies/11CRED.html.

Surprisingly, the BBC news website had an interesting article bylined Michael Osborn ‘Last Updated: Tuesday, 13 January, 2004, 17:41 GMT ‘ on:

BBC: ‘The Lord of the Rings trilogy has reached its climax by setting a new record for having the longest closing credits in Hollywood history…’

NYT: ‘They are known as closing credits, but the other day at a movie theater in Times Square, after three and a half epic hours of “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” the credits did not seem to want to close’

BBC: ‘This is in stark contrast to the dawn of Hollywood, when silent horror flick Nosferatu mentioned just 16 names in a mere ninety seconds.’

NYT: ‘The 1922 vampire classic “Nosferatu,” a kind of special-effects vehicle of its day, credited only 11 cast members and 5 others, including the director and cinematographer, and the credits lasted 1 minute 35 seconds’

BBC: ‘The Return Of The King lists oddities such as “compositing inferno artist” on its epic credits, while Mr Fay’s personal favourite is “cockroach wrangler”.

NYT: ‘At eight minutes, the moviegoers still in the theater were watching a scroll of completely inscrutable titles like “wrangler manager” and “compositing inferno artist.” Of course, the caterer had to be immortalized, too.’

BBC: ‘Big name stars often like their vast entourages to be mentioned – Russell Crowe boasted a 17-strong team on the credits of Master and Commander.’

NYT: ‘And in big-budget movies with powerful stars, the stars often succeed in winning screen credit for anyone who has anything to do with their performances. In “Master and Commander,” the list of attendants to Russell Crowe alone reads like the staff list at a small company: his costumer, two hairstylists, a makeup artist, two special makeup artists, a stunt double, a stand-in, a trainer, a dialect coach, a swordmaster, three violin coaches, two assistants and the name of the company that provided his personal security.’

BBC: ‘While a film credit name-check can be an important career boost to someone in the business, …’

NYT: ‘In some movies with limited budgets, travel agencies and other companies are sometimes given credit – in essence free advertising in a prestigious format – if they agree to work for less.’

BBC side bar: ‘NUMBER OF CREDITED NAMES

1922 Nosferatu – 16

1977 Star Wars – 143

1999 The Matrix – 151

2003 LOTR II – 559

2003 Matrix III – 701

Source: Baseline Hollywood ‘

NYT: ‘According to Baseline, which compiles information about movies, the original “Star Wars” in 1977 listed 143 people in its credits. In 1999, “The Matrix” listed 551, including Longy Nguyin, a sports masseuse. Last year, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” listed 559 names, “Finding Nemo” listed 642, and the third installment of the “Matrix” series had 701.’

Curiouser and curiouser.

Mr Osborn – did you really contact Baseline Hollywood, or is the NYT article the source of the figures?

Stephen Pollard in the Evening Standard and Fiona Govan and Chris Hastings in the Telegraph have both written on the Kilroy-Silk affair.

Apologies for repeating myself, but I say again: the BBC’s offence in withdrawing ‘Kilroy’ was not that it exceeded its rights but that it was demonstrably biased and hypocritical given its tolerance of Paulin and many other commentators who have made less murderous but still vituperative blanket condemnations of Israel, the US or Britain.

The average viewer of ‘Kilroy’ doesn’t give a stuff about the issues that engage the average visitor to this blog, but does get annoyed when his or her favourite show is canned at the PC establishment’s say-so. Kilroy will become a hero to many. He’s not quite the hero I would have nominated for popular veneration, but it ain’t me that chooses. That the BBC is biased has been made clear to a previously apolitical segment of its audience.

UPDATE: A couple of Kilroy-related posts from Public Interest round-up this roundup nicely. To start with he lambasts the Guardian for claiming that Paulin’s case is different from Kilroy’s because, like, Paulin is a proper critic but Kilroy is merely a talkshow host.

Making up the rules as they go along, ain’t it? The Guardian’s own Aaro hosted a radio show on Radio 2 last week – called David Aaronovitch, no less – John Humphreys and Libby Purves of the Sunday Times and the Times regularly host shows on Radio 4, and they all opinionate like it’s going out of fashion. Come on Guardian! You can do better than that.

There’s more. You know I said how as the ‘Kilroy’ fans and our own wonderful selves were quite separate groups? Er, actually, not quite.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Steyn also comments. That Paulin meme gets around, doesn’t it?

for Beebwatcher of the week, then Scott Burgess would have won it on the basis of recent postings. He put together a pretty much purple patch of posts, giving the Beeb (and us) the special honour of sharing in his Daily Ablutions. So go and wash your ears out with this excellent addition to the Blogosphere, if you haven’t already followed Glenn Reynold’s recent tip that is. There’s plenty about the Kilroy-Silk affair, and a few nice lines on Andrew ‘ninety percent right’ Gilligan. This is my favourite post, where you will find out how the BBC [Licensers] are making unusual use of condoms, among other things. I look forward to other intimate ablutionary revelations about the Beeb from Scott in the future.

Tonight’s hourly Radio 4 news summaries are carrying a story from Iran about how a few hundred political candidates have been stopped from electoral participation by Iran’s Guardian Council. This Guardian Council is a part of the theocratic political system in Iran.

Fair enough. Except that the newsreader adds

“…the Guardian Council is dominated by right-wingers”.

So the Guardian Council believe in individual liberty and responsibility, free markets, and a smaller state? Somehow I don’t think so. I would advise the BBC that applying the terms left-wing and right-wing to the complex political system in Iran is misleading.

While I’m on this subject, BBC2 has recently run a tedious series starring arch-lefty Stephen Fry called ‘Absolute Power’. One of the episodes featured another bunch of ‘right-wingers’ – a group of Countryside Alliance types who wanted to start their own political party.

Within two seconds of them appearing on screen, I turned to my wife & said ‘they’ll either be Nazis or repressed homosexuals – or both’. Sure enough, it transpires they really are Nazis, complete with swastikas.

Thanks BBC as always for your sensitive portrayal of non-left views.

.

As you probably know, Robert Kilroy-Silk’s talk show has been taken off the air following outrage against an anti-Arab article he wrote for the Sunday Express.

You can see what I think about his article in this Samizdata post here. You can see more about the case in this BBC article here including a quote from Perry de Havilland, of Samizdata and Libertarian Alliance fame.

The CRE threatening the police to prosecute Mr Kilroy-Silk is an outrageous assault on his free speech rights. However the BBC cancelling his show is not a violation of his free speech. The BBC are not obliged to buy anyone’s show, particularly if they think it will bring them into disrepute.

That said, the BBC are obliged by charter to be even handed. So why, as an anonymous commenter to this blog asked, is Tom Paulin still regularly appearing? Paulin specifically said that Jewish settlers should be shot. If Robert Kilroy-Silk’s comments were incitement to racial hatred, Paulin’s were incitement to murder.

UPDATE: Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum… I have criticised the BBC before now for not including both sides of the story in the external links offered with their reports. I must do so now, painful though it be. The BBC only includes two links to the report linked to above, one to the Sunday Express and one to the Libertarian Alliance (of which I have the honour to be a member)… would it have been so hard to also include one to F.A.I.R. or the Muslim Council of Britain, just for balance?

, LGF are running a Robert Fisk Idiotarian of the Year Award, and the good news is that the BBC have made the cut for nominations! The bad news is that they are trailing rather shamefully in the voting. There is still time though, and if you feel like it you can go along and vote here if you haven’t already. Thanks to ‘Opinions are like’ for pointing this out. I also like this little poem I found at LGF by Humbert Wolfe which applies almost as neatly to the BBC as to Robert Fisk:

You cannot hope

to bribe or twist,

Thank God! the British journalist.

But, seeing what

the man will do

unbribed, there’s no occasion to.

Update. Tim Blair is rounding up the Kilroy-Silk affair which Natalie discusses above- giving yet more reasons to vote for the Beeb at LGF, where time is running out and, although gaining ground, we haven’t yet put the BBC in any kind of respectable finishing place.