“John”notes It’s My Story, 9 minutes in*:
“It’s My Story : The Vietnamese Buddha
Documentary about a Buddhist master returning to Vietnam for the first time since the war. Discussing the Buddhist monks who immolated themselves in protest at the Vietnam war the presenter drops in this staggering bit of amoral relativism:
‘I kind of think about what happened at 9/11 and I suppose I’m trying to figure out how that’s kind of different’
What kind of question is that to ask for anyone with any moral sense whatsoever?
Though I suppose both the Buddhist monks and the 9/11 hijackers committed suicide protesting the Imperialism of the evil Americans so it IS a tricky conundrum in the mind of a presenter impregnated with the BBC/Guardian/Independent worldview to say who’s better or worse.”
I suppose we should be thankful the presenter is at least aware that there may actually be a difference…
*Not double-checked by B-BBC
“disillusioned_german” complains to the BBC about The Christmas Resistance. Yesterday, this was hyperlinked from the news front page with the heading “Bah humbug!” (from memory – gone now).
Although every news organisation peddles these sorts of Christmas stories every year (in the US under the “War on Christmas” palaver, whereas in the UK and Australia it is more normally with an amused “human interest”/eccentricity angle), I think the broader point might be fair. Eid and Diwali etc etc never get subjected to this sort of questioning. When the BBC starts giving equal time to people like the brilliant Irshad Manji (BBC treatment here), who represents an important reforming strain in Islam (like The Times does with Salman Rushdie, for example), then pieces like this and the Whine about Christmas would be OK.*
*This is hardly some world service issue irrelevant to BBC UK programming – although Muslims only make up 3.1% of the E&W population, the issue is well covered by White City. (Then again, UK government institutions have always had a thing for romantic Arabism, and pro-Islam-ism may seep out from there).
I think the deeper issue is not that there is some lapidary, monolithic “Let’s attack whitey” stance in the BBC, but more that the “institutionalised multi-culturalism” is so pervasive that the “oh so clever” 20 year-old baby Beeboid just out of university who is assigned to write this Christmas dross lives in a world that can’t possibly contemplate that some might wonder why his cynicism over a Christian religious festival shouldn’t equally be applied to a festival celebrated by a religion whose adherents have more melanin in their skin than Pat Robertson.
On the issue of Islam, “the_camp_commandant” notes the confusion when two PC shibboleths collide. Same sex domestic partnerships in the UK are truly newsworthy. In coverage of the Belfast ceremonies, the BBC had quotations from Christians protesting about hellfire etc etc, and a Catholic cardinal about the Catholic view of the issue. I have never seen a quotation from an imam on Islam’s view. I wonder why?
USS Neverdock on more BB Blankety Blanks.
“Ritter” notes Christians accused of homophobia which seems to be a local news beat-up about police harrassment of two old people for breaching groupthink rules (this is becoming a pattern), while a perfunctory search about those executions of young gay men in Islamic Iran was pretty uninformative.
“Ritter” links to Ray Snoddy on the changing media landscape.
“Rob White” and “Lizzie” think Christmas after Katrina: Part One and Christmas after Katrina: Part two are worse respectively.
“Steve” notes 262 BBC Execs earn over £100,000.
“Rob White” looks forward to 2006:
“Starting on 4 January, 2006, Matt Frei will be writing a fortnightly diary from Washington for the BBC News website.”
“Roy” notes:
“Seems that Frei is joined by BBC’s Daniela Relph in Washington who provided this article on the renewal of the Patriot Act.
The American Expatriate explains that the BBC are calling the result after 90 minutes, when the match is going into extra time, with more support for Bush’s position than the BBC will credit.”
The Expat discussses BBC reporting on ID. To be fair, the US is an exremely complex country, where you can find whatever you are looking for (the cleverest people, the dumbest people, the fattest/most health-freaky people, the most Christian/most depraved people etc). However, a basic knowledge of the US system ought to cover things like federal/state/county/parish devolution of power and the consitutional structure. Why is it OK for the BBC and other PC lefties to generalise about the US, but not, for example, about Muslims or black people? Like Jews, the US and Americans are fast becoming the blank slate upon which the rest of the world unfairly, illogically and irrationally projects its own prejudices and nightmares.
“Rob Read” plays BB Blankety Blanks with this article about those postal workers – I wonder why the scare quotes:
‘Up to £5m was pilfered from 1,300 “mainly Jewish” residents in Golders Green, north London, alone.
Because of the large number of victims, both they and police initially feared the community was being “targeted because of religion”, but that concern was “misplaced”.’
The scare quotes are unnecessary and cause the cynical to assume something worse – replace “Jewish” with “black” or “Muslim” (mutatis mutandis).
disillusioned_german, that programme I did not see, but it was followed by one titled “Digging for Jesus”, in which an academic went “searching” for historical evidence of Jesus.
He started by commenting on the security surrounding Bethlehem. All semingly down to the bloody-mindedness of the Israelis. Terrorist threats & actions did not warrant a single word.
Having hacked me off with that, the off switch was hit after he claimed that Herod had ordered the murder of the first born. He obviously didn’t know his Herod from his Pharoah.
As all this guff was on ITV it really outside the scope of this blog. However it served to show the cosy views of the bien pensants of the media & academic world.
The BBC story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4555298.stm
and what the BBC Co**Suc***s wont tell you about galileo
http://search.blogger.com/?as_q=galileo&ie=UTF-8&ui=blg&bl_url=eureferendum.blogspot.com&x=41&y=9
Denise,
Didn’t some US evangelist nutcase (Pat Robertson??) say that Katrina was down to God punishing people for their sins? Apart from a brief chuckle we seem to have heard the end of it.
I am not suprised that the bbc are banging on about this non stop…
“Inmates die in Iraq jail shooting”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/default.stm
(both online and on the radio)
While this – “Mass graves unearthed in Iraq city”
AND! they couldnt resist could they!
“Other charges are expected, including ones relating to the suppression of the 1991 uprisings, which were encouraged by the United States following the liberation of Kuwait, but not supported by coalition forces.”
Bad bad Americans!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4561872.stm
Was very quickly relegated to sub news after an hour or so on the 27th.
Sorry, the above quote should be at the end of the comment. Cut and paste issue in my anger!
TV on mobile phones.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4529116.stm
“The BBC plans to make TV programmes available for free on the internet for up to seven days after they are broadcast
But independent producers such as Endemol are looking for ways to make money out of new services.”
Ah – good old beeb. That “Free TV” line again. Priceless.
I must be dim, I thought Newsnight was about politics?….”Pete Doherty has spoken candidly about his turbulent life in a BBC interview.
The Babyshambles frontman appeared on BBC2’s Newsnight on Friday night, talking about his relationship with Kate Moss, his music and his ongoing-drug problems.”
http://www.volume10.com/news.php?extend.1038
Don’t you just love the Gallic hand waving of BBC News reporters. David Shukman reporting on the European challenge to American dominance of satellite technology was positively flapping his arms up and down enough to take off himself. Most other times the BBC staff just go in for Euro hand gestures around the region of the navel.
While watching the weather presenter on the roof of BBC House I observed the large number of windows and the comments of the anchor man, “Come inside, it’s lovely and warm”. No doubt it is with all that electrical equipment humming away and the central heating on. The BBC lectures all on wasting natural resources especially the USA, but what exactly are the BBC’s green credentials?.
Meanwhile the Beeb have a forum going re Geldof advising the Tories. Did we see such when Birt et al went off to advise and be paid by NuLabour? Answer please?….chirping crickets….
Former BBC man Tim Luckhurst takes a swipe at his former employer in The Times.
Roger Wright, Controller of Radio 3. His objection to proposals to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart combines pomposity with a startling contempt for self-interest.
Apparently broadcasting all of Mozart’s work in one go would be “detrimental to the music”. Poor Mozart might come across as too “chocolate boxy” for Radio 3.
Radio 3 needs popularity a lot more than Mozart does. In August it sunk to its lowest audience share of only 1.91 million listeners or 1.1 per cent.
At this nadir of popularity the station budget of £32 million represented a cost of £16.75 per listener per year. The traditional joke that it would be cheaper to send a CD to each aficionado is out of date. Despatching tickets for the concert of their choice would be more economical
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1960906,00.html
I too find BBC political correspondents’ semaphores ridiculous. What do all these gestures mean? Are the signing for the deaf? When they wave one arm, does it means something different from when they semi-spread both arms out? Then sometimes they bend their elbows, which they hold close to their ribs, and move their forearms up and down a few inches. What does that mean?
These people are absolutely ridiculous in their pomposity.
In fact, regarding Bob Geldof as mentioned above, we have “Geldof defends Tory adviser role”:
http://tinyurl.com/bbtuz
“Bob Geldof has promised to remain politically “non-partisan” after agreeing to advise the Conservative Party on global poverty.
The singer, who had a key role in the Make Poverty History campaign, told BBC News 24: “I don’t care who I have to go to to try to make this agenda work.””
In other words he is defending himself from BBC News 24! Nowhere in the report is anyone said to have attacked Geldof, and a more accurate headline would be “Geldof talks about Tory adviser role”. A boring headline but an accurate one.
HYS on this must have broken the Beeb’s heart. The first few, most recommended, comments all say they don’t care about poverty in Africa. They also wonder what Geldof, being neither a farmer nor an economist, is actually going to “advise” on. One highly recommended comment said the poster was quitting the Conservative Party in the light of this emphasis on foreign poverty while Britain’s infrastructure crumbles around its ears.
Bitter disappointment to the Beeb. I’m guessing this will have been removed by tomorrow.
6/7/2005
the cruel remarks made by the bbc in response to blasphemous words uttered by lord wakeham should not be forgotten.
lord wakeham chaired a lords committee on global warming.predictably and reasonably the lords said that nothing can be done about global warming if it does indeed exist.
the bbc then proceeded to tell readers about lord wakeham’s enron past.they asked an insulting question.can we take him at his word as an ex-enron official?
i was a little upset by remarks and the questions.has the bbc no shame?
What the BBC fail to mention about Galileo Part II
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
The (Socialism) Today Program
0632 The Conservatives have persuaded Bob Geldof to be a consultant to David Cameron’s inquiry into globalisation and global poverty.
Alternative headline:
Geldof Given New Lease of Life by Resurgent Conservative Party
Socialism is Necrotizing – V good!
Cockney
On Pat Robertson, he probably did say that. But since he was talking about Katrina, that would explain hearing the end of it. Had he or someone else said that about the tsunami, I’m sure it would have been a different story.
I wonder if the BBC will be examining the possibility that homosexual civil partnership ceremonies may contribute to further muslim dissaffection with Britain, and become a “root cause” of future terrorism.
A lot of people said that Katrina was a punishment for sins and stuff, but they didn’t then go around parading “sinners” in the back of pickups and listing their sins in public. The day you see Christian “morality enforcers” patrolling the streets is the day I hand in my jesus badge.
It ain’t gonna happen.
Archonix,
However we do now seem to have PC-Morality enforcers “patrolling the streets”(well driving from police station to thought-crime perp) and “interviewing” people who have done nothing illegal.
Cockney,
The point I made about the tsunami and Katrina is this. Ignorance blames the tsunami on God’s punishment while the BBC appears to view Katrina as payback for Bush for global warming.
Not convinced about that. There were a couple of minor articles speculating as to whether there might be a link between the increasing frequence of extreme hurricanes and global warming.
Fair enough as far as I’m concerned as long as no ‘proof’ is concluded where none exists (it’s easy to forget whilst on these sort of sites that the vast majority of the scientific community regards global warming as a ‘fact’).
The ‘BBC blames Bush for hurricane angle’ though was just wild extrapolation from the sort of people who suspected that that would be what Beeboids were probably thinking.
The problem with the BBC reporting of Katrina was pinning all the blame for the delays in response (obviously a separate issue) on Bush when some or most were down to local government, and in giving airtime to the racism rubbish.
Cockney,
How would the BBC report a Hurricane hitting the slums of Brazil?
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/26D270E3-9AE8-435F-A135-160C9828EEBA.htm
Cockney
Ah Global warming, now there’s a worry.
ANALYSIS: Ruse of Gigantic Proportions
The Calgary Sun, December 11, 2005
During the 10-day United Nations Climate Change Conference that wrapped up on Friday in Montreal, a Greenpeace staffer said something so idiotic and implausible that not one of the 10,000 delegates called him on. “Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that’s what we’re dealing with,” said Steven Guilbeault, the director of the Greenpeace movement for Quebec. So now that colder means warmer basically, anything goes.
http://www.globalwarming.org/
When you say the “majority” of scientists, do you mean greenpeace, friends of the earth etc or rational people. Some people say the UK is buried under concrete, apparently at a stretch maybe 1% of our green and pleasant land is.
mrdgriff,
Unfortunatly, due to the policy of subsidised immigration we are covering a lot of that just 1%.
mrdgriff
There’s a million and one questions about man made global warming/climate change i.e. whether it’s absolutely a bad thing, whether a reasonable CBA might conclude that its better off not trying to do anything, whether Kyoto specifically is a crock of sh*t etc etc etc.
What is undoubtedly true however is that the vast majority of the rational scientific community (not just nutcase environmentalist groups) believes it exists. Sure there’s those but don’t but unless you get your news exclusively from a bubble of right wing blogs you’ll surely acknowledge that these are in the minority.
Thus it’s hardly evidence of limp wristed, anti capitalist, envirow*nk bias if the media reports on this??
Re: your quote – the assumption is that climatic conditions will become more extreme, not necessarily warmer. Presumably this was what the greenpeace staffer was not unreasonably getting at, although his ability to get his point across was presumably hindered by the beard and abysmal dress sense.
Cockney,
I get your drift but “bubble of right wing blogs” for not proven global warming. If this same attitude is prevalent in the BBC we can see why they so enthusiastically promote the theory.
” Media’s Propensity For Gloomy Eco-Stories
BBC News, November 30, 2005
The world’s media has been criticised for being too negative in its reporting of environmental issues. Continual coverage of destruction was making people switch off, delegates at the International Media and Environment Summit (Imes) in Kuching, Malaysia, were told. “We keep crying wolf and we keep overstating the doomsday scenario,” said Ong Keng Yong, the Secretary General of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean).”
One might even come to the conclusion that “the bigger the doomsday, the bigger the research grant” might possibly be motivating some…
Rob Read,
Indeed, it’s the global warming industry, must employ thousands generating a lot of hot air.
Meanwhile the Earth is slowing down:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1960844,00.html
Since 1967 a second has been defined by the vibration of the caesium-133 atom. One second equals 9,192,631,770 periods of the chosen vibration
Although this was chosen to be as near as possible to Earth seconds, the Earth’s rotation is not as regular as the caesium atom
World Updates
December 30, 2005
Ten die as Egyptian police break up Sudan protest
By Samer Elatrash
CAIRO (Reuters) – At least 10 Sudanese refugees died and around 50 were injured on Friday when Egyptian police dispersed a three-month sit-in by thousands of Sudanese demanding to be moved to another country, officials said.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/12/31/worldupdates/2005-12-30T215159Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-229867-2&sec=Worldupdates
Makes you wonder how much heat this would generate, IF, it happened in the US or UK.
mrdgriff,
I’m sure the UK will be seeing them. My normally PC friend who has run into Sudanese immigrants as part of their job said (rather shockingly) “they(Sudanese) are all lazy” so God knows how bad they really are.
Here we go again. On their site, in an article posted at 19:30 GMT on 31 December 2005, reporting on the Sydney Harbour fireworks spectacular, the Beeb has this little trick “reporting” buried in the body copy:
“But security was high, with some 1,700 police patrolling streets and beaches to prevent a repeat of the race-related violence earlier in the month.”
“race-related violence” is a lie. They know they are lying. They are using licence payers’ money to promote this lie. They are lying to further their agenda, which is not the agenda of the vast majority of people who are paying to be force-fed the propaganda. The riots were nothing to do with race. How is it that not a single Lebanese Christian was harmed or attacked in any way? They are the same race, I believe, as Lebanese Muslims?