Expat Yank: One American living in the south of England

RELOCATED

2006-10-19T06:46:00.000+01:00

I've decided to relocate the blog completely, but I will keep this "archive" up. The current blog is now at: http://expatyank.wordpress.com.

Hope to see you (and hear from you) at the new site!

BATTLE OF THE TEMPLATE

2006-10-18T18:55:00.000+01:00

New posts appear below this one. This is on top for the next few days, so you have some idea what on earth is going on with the potential mess you may be seeing at any given time. The reason I'm changing the template is it just seemed like a good idea; I'd had the same one for nearly 4 years. And we are going to be moving house shortly too, leaving London and relocating to Christchurch, Dorset. So change being "in the air", now's felt like as good a time as any to "freshen" the blog's "look".

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4th UPDATE (October 18): For the moment, I'm reverting to the old . . .

3rd UPDATE (October 18): I have again turned off the comments. If it comes down to a choice between Blogger and losing all the accumulated wisdom of all the nice people who've commented over the years thanks to Haloscan, that is no choice. There may be a very radical change made shortly. Stay tuned.

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2nd UPDATE (of the update): I've turned off the comments for tonight. I have been trying to get both all the old Haloscan and Blogger on the same template. I've had enough, for now. It obviously isn't meant to be simple; someone doesn't want us to have both.

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UPDATE (of the update): I've enabled Blogger's comments for now. I might go back to Haloscan's. Or I'll keep both sets. I'm so confuuuuuuused.

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I am going to be doing some template messing about. (And hopefully, not end up trying to recover from a disaster!) So if for the next couple of days (hopefully) the page looks, well . . . funnier than usual, my apologies.

Comments will be down for the moment -- at least until I can figure how to get them into the template.

ANOTHER FREEDOM VANISHES

2006-10-18T08:06:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I stumbled on the Charleston Daily Mail purely by accident (typed in .com rather than .co.uk.) and found this story:

The West Virginia moonshiner is a vanishing breed made all but extinct by economics and modern law enforcement techniques, experts say.
Moonshine is not profitable to make for widespread sale anymore.

And in the modern era of ATVs and helicopter aerial searches, it's harder for a moonshiner to hide.

But moonshine hasn't gone away entirely.

An elderly Roane County man was recently arrested for allegedly shooting his nephew after a night of drinking moonshine. When police found Wayne Howard Mallory passed out in his trailer, they roused him and asked him about the shooting. Mallory couldn't remember anything about it...

Another example of the relentless march of the police state. What's becoming of true freedom these days?

"ANGER" OF A DIFFERENT SORT

2006-10-18T08:02:00.000+01:00

With the type of post we have missed sorely since the blogosphere passings of The Diplomad and The Daily Demarche, Consul-at-Arms:

...It succeeded in pissing me off. He frankly and unvarnishedly lays out facts and chains of events that, taken together, can not but make any decent American steaming mad...

He then goes on to share with us the conflict inherent in being an F.S.O., but manages to finish on an "up note":

...the [State] Department along with DHS does a much better job than perhaps we used to do in scrutinizing travelers and visa applicants from that part of the world. Still this great increase is a little worrisome. I'm greatly heartened by the recent stories about the Egyptian students who decided to strike out on their own rather than go the school which was sponsoring their student visa. Within a very short time they were missed, reported missing, and being sought nation-wide. That tells me something's working.

It's worth reading from the very top . . .

BREAKING THE HABIT

2006-10-17T11:09:00.000+01:00

Sky News:

Britain has to curb its approach to air travel if it is serious about tackling climate change, a report claims. A hard-hitting document, by Oxford University researchers, seeks to make clear the case for urgent Government action on the aviation industry. It says Britain is becoming "air dependent", putting at risk the Government's target of a 60% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050...

As we know, breaking the habit of "dependency" is likely to prove "very challenging" indeed:

...The Beit Fund is used for any purpose that will promote the study of the History of the British Empire and Commonwealth in the University of Oxford...

...Grants to examine archives in this country or abroad are available to cover the cost of travel and, where this is not already covered from existing sources, the cost of subsistence and accommodation... Applicants should obtain several competitive quotations for airfares...

And, as we can see, air travel is obviously supposedly okay for some . . .

MACSHANE WAFFLED!

2006-10-17T10:39:00.000+01:00

It is said that the General's candor is refreshing. So too is this, from Labour's Denis MacShane, in The Telegraph (via my wife):

...The Home Office, in addition to allowing Hamza to poison the minds of a generation, refused to return to France Rashid Ramda, who was wanted for questioning in connection with the 1995 Paris Metro bombings – a foretaste of our own 7/7. I hated having to go on French television and waffle defensively at a policy of not extraditing this evil man. But the prevailing culture was to deal with religious leaders, not elected politicians. Whitehall sought the advice of friendly theologians from Cairo, or Muslim ideologues such as Tariq Ramadan. This denied political space to British citizens of Muslim faith, women as well as men...

WE THOUGHT THAT NEED HAD BEEN ELIMINATED?

2006-10-17T07:45:00.000+01:00

The BBC reports:

Sweden's culture minister has become the second minister to resign over financial irregularities, only days since the new government took office.

Cecilia Stego Chilo admitted she had not paid her television licence fee for 16 years, and had not paid employer taxes when taking on a nanny.

On Saturday Trade Minister Maria Borelius resigned for similar reasons...

...Ms Borelius quit after admitting hiring nannies without paying taxes and employer's fees...

The licence fee is one issue. What caught my eye was that they employed private nannies? IN Sweden?

One understands that they must have had their personal reasons for doing so. But, still, we all thought Sweden was the ultimate "nanny state"?:

...Sweden has very generous welfare provision - for instance, every Swede whether they have worked or not is entitled to a generous state pension. And every Swedish child is entitled to state-funded child care...

So even in the ultimate nanny state, people still feel a need to "go private" at times?

FAMILY GUYS

2006-10-17T06:29:00.000+01:00

Adolf Hitler, from his Last Will, April 1945:

...As I did not consider that I could take responsibility, during the years of struggle, of contracting a marriage, I have now decided, before the closing of my earthly career, to take as my wife that girl who, after many years of faithful friendship, entered, of her own free will, the practically besieged town in order to share her destiny with me.

At her own desire she goes as my wife with me into death. It will compensate us for what we both lost through my work in the service of my people...

Saddam Hussein, from his recent "open letter", quoted by the A.P., October 16, 2006:

...you must show genuine forgiveness and put aside revenge over the spilled blood of your sons and brothers, including the sons of Saddam Hussein...

Both such caring, considerate, humane and misunderstood family men. . .

OUT OF CONTROL

2006-10-16T20:50:00.000+01:00

The BBC reports:

A terror suspect under a control order has escaped from a mental health unit and is on the run, the BBC has learned...

If he is indeed "on the run", it doesn't seem he is particularly "under control" then, does it?

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UPDATE, October 17. Bringing out she who is apparently on permanent BBC consultative retainer, the BBC reports:

...Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said control orders did not work.

"This confirms our worst fears about the farce that is the control orders regime. They are both unsafe and fundamentally unfair," she said.

"If someone is truly a dangerous terror suspect, why would you leave them at large?

"On the other hand it is completely cruel and unfair to label someone a terrorist and to subject them to a range of punishments for years on end without ever charging them or putting them on trial."...

All perfectly valid points. But naturally in her criticisms, Ms Chakrabarti claims no role for herself or for her organization in helping push this government into creating this "farce". For it is the likes of "Liberty" (alongside many others) who, for one thing, have demanded this government's evidentiary/trial policy towards any terror suspect be essentially the same as it is towards someone arrested for, say, holding up a petrol station.

"WHYS" THAT AREN'T ALL THEY SEEM

2006-10-16T19:32:00.000+01:00

Her personal regrets regarding her personal opinions of her own personal reactions personally to seeing the current U.S. president on TV notwithstanding, The Times' Alice Miles presents to us several "explanations" of "whys" that . . . well, aren't really "whys", but make good "whys"-reading, one supposes:

...the whole administration is portrayed as dysfunctional, fragile, unable to admit or unwilling even to see, let alone correct, possible mistakes such as the dismantling of the Iraqi military...

That's one that no one can seem to put a stake through. Again, "the administration" dismantled nothing. Paul Bremer, in the NRO, January 10, 2006:

...The facts are these: There was not a single Iraqi army unit intact in the country at Liberation. There was no army to “disband.” It had “self-demobilized,” in the Pentagon’s phrase. Hundreds of thousand of Shia draftees, seeing which way the war was going, had simply gone home. They were not going to come back into a hated army.

The army and intelligence services had been vital instruments of Saddam’s brutal regime. He had used the army in a years’ long campaign against the Kurds, killing tens of thousands of them, culminating in the use of chemical weapons against men, women, and children in 1988. The army had brutally suppressed the Shia uprising after the first Gulf war, machine gunning tens of thousands of Shia civilians into mass graves in the south. Together these two groups make up about 80 percent of the population.

So recalling the Iraqi army (which would have meant sending American soldiers into Shia homes, farms, and villages and forcing them back into the army under their Sunni officers) would have had dire political consequences. The Kurds told me clearly that they would not have accepted it, and would have seceded from Iraq. Such a move would probably have ended Shia cooperation with the Coalition and perhaps even led to a Shia uprising, initially against such an Iraqi army, and eventually against the Coalition.

But we knew we had to find a place in Iraqi society for the former army men. So we welcomed them back into the new army, including officers up to the level of colonel. And we started paying the other officers a monthly stipend, which continued right to the end of the occupation...

Next, another of Ms Miles' "whys":

...it is clear that the US cannot respond as it once might have to the test conducted in North Korea. Because of the muck it has made in Iraq, it lacks the political and moral authority to do so

So what exactly would the U.S. have done differently regarding North Korea had the U.S. not destroyed the Hussein regime? Let's think. Attacked North Korea? Or yelled at it with greater nodding "world approval" than the U.S. supposedly gets currently?

What is now is much as what had been the case, indeed had been long before there was ever a Saddam ruling Iraq: South Korea did not, and does not, desire to bring on a military confrontation with the North; it is, in fact, hard to conceive of a situation in which it would offensively. And without the South's approval, there was, and is, no way the U.S. would undertake such action. (Remember, the horrific Korean War from 1950-1953 began when the North invaded the South; the South has since possessed an almost entirely "defensive" view of the North.)

All that's left is what has been the norm since 1953: "Negotiation". In short, "the muck" the U.S. has supposedly made of Iraq since 2003 has nothing substantive to do with its response to North Korea's nuclear test.

And another:

Were it to have wanted to address North Korea’s nuclear pretensions, it should have prioritised it over Iraq; the world knew Kim was a brutal tyrant with a nuclear weapon within his reach...

Finally, if the U.S. had indeed "prioritised" North Korea over Iraq, "the world" and Ms Miles would not now be wondering aloud on TV and in editorial pages, why, oh why the U.S. is seemingly "hypnotised" by the weak, little dictator starving his people on the north of the Korean peninsula, ignoring other, more vital issues, all while of course the South, Japan and China could better handle the situation?

And "the world" and Ms Miles certainly would not now also be demanding why, oh why the U.S. were not paying much closer attention to the danger a potentially WMD and nuclear armed, oil-financed Saddam presents to the wider Middle East, especially given that his brutal regime remains a tremendous obstacle to achieving "real peace" between Israel and the Palestinians (which is, as we all "know", the "real cause" of every single problem befalling "the Muslim world")?

"The world" would also not now be crying out that the U.S. refuses obstinately to do anything about Saddam because Saddam has oil and therefore the U.S. wishes to "do a deal" with him, while, on the other hand, the U.S. chooses (for no good reason anyone can ascertain) to "take its eye off the ball" and "pick on" the obviously hapless North Korea?

No, no, of course, none of that would be the case. Right?

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Relatedly, also in The Times, William Rees-Moog:

...The President gave the post-war responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq to the Pentagon under Mr Rumsfeld rather than the State Department under Colin Powell. He preferred the unqualified and, in this respect, the incompetent department...

Hmmmmm. However, also worth bearing in mind, this, from The Wall Street Journal, November 2003:

...No one outside the Council on Foreign Relations ever imagined the plan was for even a semi-permanent U.S. occupation. The idea was to liberate the country from Saddam, then establish a political process in which Iraqis could compete and govern themselves. If the Bush Administration has made a mistake in Iraq, it was in not beginning that process well before the war, with a government-in-exile and a large Iraqi security force. President Bush came down on the side of the State Department and CIA officials who opposed such an effort...

"CONTENT" PROVIDED FOREVER

2006-10-16T10:36:00.000+01:00

Reuters tells us today in this headline:

Reuters opens virtual news bureau in Second Life

That's strange. For one thing, we had thought Reuters had been producing what at best could be considered "virtual news" for some time already? But even worse, now, we are told, death will provide no escape; we will all be subjected to Reuters "news" for all eternity, too?

"SPYING" WITHOUT EVEN USING A TELEPHONE?

2006-10-16T06:59:00.000+01:00

The Guardian:

Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on "Asian-looking" and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence, the Guardian has learned.

The document, which has been obtained by the Guardian, was sent within the last month to selected official bodies for consultation and reveals the full extent of what the authorities fear is happening in universities.

Sounds pretty scary. . .

The Department for Education has drawn up a series of proposals which are to be sent to universities and other centres of higher education before the end of the year. The 18-page document acknowledges that universities will be anxious about passing information to special branch, for fear it amounts to "collaborating with the 'secret police'". It says there will be "concerns about police targeting certain sections of the student population (eg Muslims)"...

...It claims that Islamic societies at universities have become increasingly political in recent years and discusses monitoring their leaflets and speakers. The document warns of talent-spotting by terrorists on campuses and of students being "groomed" for extremism...

So the Department of Education is debating over how possibly to react (or not) to what . . . is distributed publicly? THAT The Guardian classifies as "spying"?

An example of how the Guardian is just as bad as Reuters. Hang on, check that: Reuters is still worse. For at least the Guardian makes no pretense about being "objective" and reporting just "facts".

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UPDATE: Agence France-Presse obviously also considers the description apt:

Lecturers and staff at British universities will be asked to spy on "Asian-looking" and Muslim students they suspect of supporting terrorist acts and involvement in Islamic extremism, The Guardian reported...

ONE PERSON'S "SPY" IS ANOTHER'S "CAREFUL LISTENER"

2006-10-15T10:10:00.000+01:00

Honest Reporting, quoting Reuters global managing editor, as reported in the New York Times, September 2004:

"Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor...

..."My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity," he said...

Curiously, the "news" service has no problem using "emotive words", nor with its "editorial integrity", when it comes to U.S. War on Terror issues. Here's another Reuters example of what makes for supposedly reporting "facts" and not using an "emotive term":

The Bush administration on Friday appealed a federal judge's ruling this summer that a controversial post-September 11, 2001, domestic spying program was illegal...

"Spying" is a deadly serious term, and Americans have always had great worries over any possibility of their government spying on themselves. But is "spying on Americans" really the case here? It doesn't even appear so.

Yet Reuters obviously wants to portray it in that manner . . . given that they didn't phrase that opening accurately to reflect the "facts" as to what constitutes the actual program. You know, as in the following:

The Bush administration on Friday appealed a federal judge's ruling this summer that the post-September 11, 2001 program of targeted eavesdropping of suspected jihadists' international telephone calls was illegal...

One wonders why Reuters might choose not to phrase such a report more in that manner? Perhaps because such truth in advertising might not actually get most people all riled up? Could Reuters' willingness to use a hot-button term like "spying" be because Reuters knows full well that there is no reason to be concerned about its reporters' safety in the U.S.? And not even from the evil Bush administration? And as The National Review told us in September 2001:

...Steven Jukes, Reuter's global head of news, wrote in a memo to his staff in an internal memo (made available to the world by media critic Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post): "We all know," he wrote, "that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist . . ."

In an interview Jukes explained this ruling on the grounds that "We're trying to treat everyone on a level playing field, however tragic it's been and however awful and cataclysmic for the American people . . ."

And he added that "we don't want to jeopardize the safety of our staff . . . in Gaza, the West Bank and Afghanistan . . ."'

Remember that? If it can so willingly play down "terror" in the interest of "non-emotionalism", it should logically also not use a word like "spying" in the above context. For in not doing both, one is left only with the reasonable assumption that Reuters' casual use of words like "domestic spying", while recoiling from using a word like "terrorist", demonstrates a determination to play down jihadism while portraying U.S. government policies in the worst possible light. Why? Maybe because Reuters is sympathetic to the jihadists?

Not true that, you say? Well, if not, Reuters is doing absolutely nothing to allay that impression.

Reuters' odd reporting methods aside. Listening in to international phone calls of suspected jihadists in a targeted manner hardly seems a problem considering that those so upset over such "international privacy" don't seem to have the slightest reservations over U.S. Customs and immigration having long had the right for any reason to question and even strip search anyone they wish (even U.S. citizens -- no warrant necessary) upon their arrival at a U.S. port of entry . . . except, ahem, Mexicans crossing illegally by land from Mexico, of course.

BLACKPOOL OR CHAMP DE MARS

2006-10-15T09:10:00.000+01:00

This story earlier in the week isn't important. But, still, it's worth reflecting upon -- for a Sunday semi-laugh or two at least. (I suspect we all could use one.) ITN tells us:

One in five Britons would prefer to have been born French thanks to the "Thierry Factor", according to a new report.

British residents are said to have been charmed by the rise of French celebrities such as Arsenal footballer Thierry Henry in the UK.

The love of French culture was revealed after more than 1,000 people were asked for their views on Europe, as part of the French Wines Week Report...

This (if we might say) apparently "veiled" attempt to market France by Wines of France of course has nothing to do with any desire to improve wine sales? For as Scotland on Sunday told us back in May:

WE HAVE been sozzled but now we may be saturated. After a spectacular 25 years of rising wine consumption in Britain, sales have now gone into decline...

Okay, we'll assume that, errr, nothing so capitalist could possibly be a motivation. Back to ITN:

...Nick Wall, editor of France magazine, said the "Thierry Factor" was a major influence in how Britons viewed the French.

Films such as The Da Vinci Code, starring Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno, as well as Russell Crowe's A Good Year, are said to have had an impact on the way we regard the country.

Why not? All after, those are as good as any other perceived reasons. One can say whatever one likes. (And like lots of people, I happened to have liked "The Da Vinci Code", but certainly don't want to be French. Indeed, I think most of us like lots of films about non-American or non-British places, but that doesn't mean we want to be the nationality depicted in that film of the moment, or to live in whatever is its portrayed location.)

The report, which polled 1,010 adults across the UK this summer, showed Brits seemed to be more aware of French cultural and historic icons than their own ones.

While 93 per cent of British people could name the Eiffel Tower, only 83 per cent could identify Blackpool's equivalent.

Actually, what that 83 percent who could name the Blackpool Tower really demonstrates is not ignorance, but actually how self-aware the British are. For even though Blackpool Tower is not so much an "international icon" as a British one (for example, most Americans would have heard of the various sights of London, but far fewer would ever have heard of Blackpool), it is supposed to be considered an equivalent to the Eiffel Tower?

And presumably the poll asked people within the UK who might never have been to Blackpool, but who might well have been to Paris? Similarly, how many Americans have been to Paris but never been to, say, Sioux Falls, South Dakota? And how many Brits might have been to Paris but never been to, say, Cardiff? (And let's just say that the 7 percent who'd apparently never heard even of the Eiffel Tower are probably not exactly . . . uh, well, to put it this way, the only views that might really matter are the other 7 percent, who'd at least heard of the Eiffel Tower but NOT of Blackpool's.) But, unsurprisingly, ITN doesn't see such as relevant.

So, making a comparison between the regional Blackpool Tower (height, 519 ft) and the Eiffel Tower (height 324 m, or 1062 ft, which makes the Eiffel twice the height of the Blackpool) strikes me as a lot like asking Americans in Illinois, Montana, Texas and Virginia this: What's the name of the eastern American structural bridge icon that is -- to stretch matters somewhat, but not that much -- the equivalent to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge? Answer: Of course, as everyone knows, it's the Throgs Neck Bridge.

And more people could name Paris' Arc de Triomphe (69 per cent) than London's Marble Arch (40 per cent).

Again, the UK is far less influenced by London than the more centralized France is by Paris. And the Arc is a far more "internationally renowned" symbol than is Marble Arch. Yes, Londoners would surely have heard of it, but someone in Blackpool who might have never been to London, much less to Marble Arch itself?

Bottom line: if some broadcaster is going to use "a report" (in most other contexts, such "reports" are usually called advertising) to slam Britain, at least they ought to try to do so using honestly like for like comparisons.

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Speaking of "like for like" comparisons. Willing to share with us the British equivalents to a French tower and arch, ITN for some reason did not offer a suggestion of Ms Tautou's female British equivalent.

However, this blog, and, especially, its vast number of sharp-minded readers, does not simply make demands without offering suggestions. That being the case, in the spirit of Sky's picture gallery on the story, so, Ms Tautou . . .

. . . is the French equivalent to __________________ of Britain? Feel free in the comments to nominate your choice. (Brave enough on many another front perhaps, on this serious issue I'm not willing to identify one without some support!)

NOT A VEIL FOR ALL OCCASIONS

2006-10-15T09:00:00.000+01:00

The BBC reports:

...Kirklees Council said she was asked to take off her veil in class at Headfield Church of England Junior School because the children had difficulty understanding her in English lessons.

It may sound as if she were teaching in a Christian school. She wasn't. C of E schools are essentially English versions of US public schools; Christianity plays little to no role in C of E schools. And a "junior school" is for ages 7-11.

After she refused to remove the veil, it was decided to suspend her pending an employment tribunal.

Ms Azmi told the BBC her veil had not caused problems with the children, with whom she had a "brilliant relationship".

"The children are aware of my body language, my eye expressions, the way I'm saying things.

"If people think it is a problem, what about blind children? They can't see anything but they have a brilliant education, so I don't think my wearing the veil affects the children at all."

So she is willing to teach a classroom solely of blind children? That despite the fact that the point raised is that children did not understand her lessons as well as they might have.

In any event, that very young, non-Muslim children unused to seeing that outfit might have been too frightened to say anything in class to her directly is apparently not worth considering. But given that we know now how it is an arrestable offense for children to question anything in a classroom, it is probably for the best that none did . . . or we might have come to this issue first via another story on how some 8 year old was tossed into a lock-up for espousing "racism".

But Ms Azmi later admitted she had taken the veil off to be interviewed for the job by a male governor...

Very interesting that admission from her. So what she claims is a required religious duty in all situations adult and male oriented, wasn't so important to observe that she was unwilling to "unveil" herself in front of the male from whom she got the job.

SO A CRUCIFIX HEADSCARF WOULD BE OK?

2006-10-14T22:24:00.000+01:00

Sky News:

A committed Christian plans legal action against her employers British Airways after the airline ruled that displaying a cross breached uniform rules.

Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida claims she was effectively "forced" to take unpaid leave after refusing to remove the Christian symbol.

She told Sky News: "To me, this is horrendous. Words fail me. I feel very strongly about it."...

Here is yet another case of "they should have left well enough alone" . . . but have instead opened a can of worms.

...A BA spokeswoman emphasised that Miss Eweida has not been suspended from work, but chose to take unpaid leave.

She added: "British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols.

"Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn, underneath the uniform. There is no ban.

"This rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross.

"Other items such as turbans, hijabs and bangles can be worn as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms."

I asked the wife, and we thought about it for a moment. Over the years, we might have seen men wearing Sikh turbans. But as regular BA customers, we don't think we've ever seen a BA flight attendant or ground employee (even at Heathrow) wearing a hijab. (That doesn't mean none do anywhere, of course; we have not flown BA in the Middle East.)

That seems to make sense. BA in Britain would probably attract women employees who, naturally, want to travel widely (and their families have no objection):

On May 4, 2000, Lucie Blackman, wearing high heels and a silver and black ensemble coordinated to match her Samsonite luggage, disembarked from a 13-hour Virgin Atlantic flight from London ... A former British Airways stewardess who prided herself on being, "chic, sophisticated and smart," Lucie sometimes did her hair even before going to the gym for a workout. So it made sense she would have her hair freshly coiffed now, the natural blond mane cut straight and falling across her striking, almost patrician English features like a curtain of glass beads. Concealing her blue eyes were a pair of oversize, Gucci-style sunglasses. Her nails were perfect little half-ellipses, the cuticles neatly trimmed...

. . . or those who live near the airport and it is simply a convenient employer (and again, their families do not object at their working such a job). All in all, it wouldn't seem likely that any large numbers of hijab wearing British Muslim women would seek BA employment. (Again, that doesn't mean that none are BA employees, of course.)

That said, the BA rule as stated has impacted Ms Eweida badly. It is unclear what a "bangle" specifically is, but we know pretty much what constitutes a turban and a hijab. So essentially, if one's symbol is so conveniently large as to make it impossible to wear hidden, one can wear it openly. However, a small cross, which can be worn naturally either inside (although anyone who has ever worn a crucifix on a small chain around the neck can tell you all you need to do is bend over -- which a check-in worker does all shift, repeatedly -- or unbutton a collar, and suddenly it is dangling quite visibly) or outside the uniform, is off-limits if outside . . . even though that crucifix is far smaller and more discrete than either a turban or a hijab.

BA is gonna be in PR trouble on this one. Advice from a BA customer: Beat a hasty retreat . . . and quickly.

(UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: The wife pointed out to me that the Lucie reference above might be deemed in bad taste, given her subsequent murder. Looking at the post again, I could see her point. And I always know that if the wife notices something, readers will.

So please let me explain further here that my focus is to note what Lucie herself -- whose killing has since, sadly, made her perhaps the most famous BA flight attendant ever -- in life appeared to consider herself. Her ultimate, and hardly routine, demise as a result of being killed by a slimeball is not meant to be part of this BA "cross" discussion; nor should that heinous murder be allowed to "crowd out" and somehow invalidate or indict all that she was before. Hence why I avoided including any of the rest of the Time story; the rest of it simply wasn't relevant.

We can and do discuss the likes of Lincoln, JFK and Martin Luther King without discussing the murder and murderer. And that's just as it should be. Having taken the life, no murderer should then be granted the power to wipe out the memory of the murdered also.)

SUPPOSE IT WERE THE OTHER WAY AROUND?

2006-10-14T09:45:00.000+01:00

The Daily Mail:

A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English.

Codie Stott's family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers...

...According to Codie, the five - four boys and a girl - ... began talking in a language she didn't understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher.

"I said 'I'm not being funny, but can I change groups because I can't understand them?' But she started shouting and screaming, saying 'It's racist, you're going to get done by the police'."...

You've probably heard about this. My question is: Suppose the situation were reversed, with a 14 year old non-English speaking "Asian" student doing the same exact thing owing to being placed in a group with English speakers? Would her entreaty to the teacher have been received the same way, leading to police actually arresting her "for racism"? Somehow, one thinks not.

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Semi-relatedly, the BBC reports:

Education Secretary Alan Johnson wants more schools to run Saturday classes...

All that the Johnson piece really shows is there always can be found "reasons" to open schools on Saturdays, too. (And why not seven days a week? Why not remove children from parents entirely?) But given the idiots -- and I do not believe that is too strong a word -- who run and teach in far too many schools, if we had children I'd be worried sick about having to send them to one for even a single day each week.

HOW ABOUT A "HEALTH AND SAFETY" PROSECUTION?

2006-10-14T09:30:00.000+01:00

Mr Lloyd's widow, October 13, 2006:

..."This was a very serious war crime, how else can firing on a vehicle in these circumstances be interpreted?...

..."US forces appear to have allowed their soldiers to behave like trigger happy cowboys in an area where civilians were moving around."...

The Telegraph:

...Mr Lloyd was shot in the back after his vehicle - clearly marked "Press" - was caught up in US and Iraqi crossfire, then shot in the head by American forces as he was taken away in a minibus for medical treatment.

Mr [Andrew] Walker, [the assistant deputy Oxfordshire coroner] said: "I have no doubt that it was an unlawful act to fire on this minibus."...

We were also told:

[Lloyd family solicitor] Mr Hudson told Andrew Walker ... that he could be "satisfied" on the evidence that whoever opened fire on Mr Lloyd did so with the intention of "killing him or causing serious injury"...

But of course they were trying to destroy the vehicle. After all, they were shooting at the vehicle! The relevant question actually is did they know that they should not have been firing at it because it contained Mr Lloyd and was no threat?

Overall, those of us interested want to know. And once again, media is letting us down -- badly: Did the U.S. troops understand they were targeting a press vehicle and then an ambulance containing non-combatants? Given their training and rules of engagement, it is hard to believe that they did. Yet, as we might expect, most reporting on the coroner's "verdict" provides us no insight into such. One of the few exceptions has been The Times:

...Mr Walker said it was his view that the American tanks had been first to open fire on the two TV trucks and an Iraqi pick-up vehicle with mounted machine gun that had intercepted them.

He added that had Mr Lloyd died following a shot fired in the first stage of fighting, even though he was travelling in a clearly-marked TV vehicle, he would have conceded that the American act was one of "self-defence" and would not consider it an unlawful act.

But he said that the first wound Mr Lloyd received "was, with appropriate skilled medical attention, survivable" - and in fact the Americans had opened fire on the minibus even though it "presented no threat to American forces" since it was a civilian vehicle, had stopped and turned around to pick up survivors, and was facing away from the US tanks.

This is where it gets very difficult, and becomes a question of inches, or who saw what and when, so to speak:

Mr Walker added: "If the vehicle was perceived as a threat, it would have been fired on before it did a U-turn. This would have resulted in damage to the front of the vehicle. "I have no doubt it was the fact that the vehicle stopped to pick up survivors that prompted the Americans to fire on that vehicle."...

"If" "was perceived" "would have"? All vital words. Mr Walker was apparently capable of getting inside the thought processes of those soldiers. Of course it did not figure into Mr Walker's calculations that either they couldn't fire quickly enough as it approached, or hesitated, or simply chose to aim at what they thought was a greater danger first and by the time they swung 'round to aim at the "minibus", it had turned around? Or maybe its having stopped and then turned to leave (without "surrendering") was cause enough in the confusion for them to fear it was actually up to no good? Or perhaps they simply did not see the vehicle as part of the same "chain of action" as Mr Walker has cobbled together? (For example, how many of us have -- in a decidedly non-combat situation -- not seen, say, an oncoming car that only a totally blind person reasonably could have missed?)

So, what we seem to have had here were U.S. soldiers in a combat zone, where there were clearly enemy nearby and action was unpredictably unfolding, and they were acting as they thought they had to. However, in acting, they fired at people mistakenly and killed them. That action on their parts, we are told, constituted an "unlawful killing" and a "war crime" by "trigger happy cowboys". (Unwittingly providing corroborating evidence on the well-known "wild west" mentality pervading U.S. soldiers, Consul-at-Arms posts an example of one obviously permitted freedom to do whatever he damn well pleases. Scary, isn't it?)

In contrast, when British police in central London also had thought there were clearly enemy nearby and action was unpredictably unfolding, they also acted as they thought they had to. Where "civilians were moving around" in a cramped train, unprovoked officers simply ran up to a man and shot him eight times, killing him. Yet, as we learned afterwards, a suicide bomber that man was not; he was a Brazilian electrician.

A "trigger happy" action that? A "war crime"? It was certainly those things in the opinion of the dead Mr Menezes' family. However, his killing rated only an institutional "health and safety" prosecution, and the officers' commander subsequently got an unrelated promotion.

_____________________________

Unlike most in the media, for whom U.S. soldiers can do no right, but "reasonable" explanations exist for everyone else's mistakes, I happen to think both shootings were understandable accidents. On Terry Lloyd's, Kevin Dunn, ITV Defence Correspondent, told us on CNN, March 31, 2003:

...It is a very sad incident. We know it was an accident,...

I'll leave the last word on this here to the BBC's Kenneth Payne, from his article in Parameters, Spring 2005:

...As to whether the international media have ever deliberately been violently attacked by Western forces, it is impossible for an outsider to provide a definitive answer, but it seems improbable in most conceivable circumstances. There were several episodes during the invasion of Iraq in which international media were hit by fire from coalition troops. In April 2003, a BBC team led by veteran correspondent John Simpson and traveling south toward Baghdad from Kurdish-controlled territory was hit by a bomb apparently dropped from a coalition aircraft, despite the presence nearby of US Special Forces. Earlier in the conflict, the ITN reporter Terry Lloyd was killed in uncertain circumstances while driving in southern Iraq. In the most controversial incident, US forces apparently fired on the offices of Al-Jazeera in Baghdad.

In all three cases, there is no evidence of deliberate forethought. Furthermore, there was little incentive for the coalition to target the media during the invasion, even when they did not appreciate the reporting. Coalition forces were easily achieving their military objectives in Iraq and enjoying a broadly sympathetic press, at least in the United States. Lloyd and Simpson were both well-schooled in the principles of impartial and objective reporting and had chosen to operate as “independents,” outside the embedding program, partly in an effort to maximize their autonomy. And even in the case of Al-Jazeera, which was broadcasting material in the Middle East that could readily be construed as damaging to US objectives, the lasting opprobrium consequent on attacking the office easily outweighed the temporary advantage from interrupting Al-Jazeera operations in Baghdad.

Journalists have, however, become targets of one of the combatants in post-invasion Iraq, with a number of reporters having been kidnapped by insurgents, and some later executed...

A SERVING GENERAL SPEAKS

2006-10-13T08:40:00.000+01:00

Sky reports:

The head of the Army will meet the Defence Secretary this morning to explain why he believes the presence of British troops are making worse the security problems in Iraq.

General Sir Richard Dannatt calls for the troops to be withdrawn from the country "sometime soon" - and suggests the Government's aim of creating a liberal democracy there is "naive".

His comments, in the Daily Mail, have been welcomed by anti-war campaigners and opposition politicians...

Whatever his views, all people should be concerned about a serving general critiquing government policy. For now, this one is suggesting withdrawal, which satisfies many greatly. But, perhaps, next time, "opposition politicians" and "anti-war campaigners" won't be quite as pleased to hear a top general's wide-ranging opinions so freely offered?

_____________________________

This observation on this issue also seems worth noting:

...He told the paper: "We are in a Muslim country and Muslims' views of foreigners in their country are quite clear.

"As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited in a country, but we weren't invited certainly by those in Iraq at the time...

Although, we are clearly wanted now by their elected government. Anyway, interesting that apparent "veto" we are told Muslims have over foreigners who enter Muslim countries. We've heard that elsewhere, for example:

...In Saudi Arabia, churches and other places of non-Muslim worship are banned, and foreign workers who try to hold secret Christian services are jailed, flogged and often deported....

On the other hand, non-Muslim peoples asserting a similar "veto" on who enters their countries never quite seems considered nearly as culturally-morally acceptable. Indeed, we are lectured that every effort at complete accommodation must be made. For instance, as we were told back in 2002:

Athens is to have its first official mosque by the 2004 Olympics, the Greek government has announced.

The city is still the only capital city in the European Union (EU) without an official place of worship for Muslims, who make up over 100,000 of its inhabitants.

But Muslims in the city say the location of the mosque, 20 kilometres east of Athens in the suburb of Peania, will make it unusable for most of them...

...Ghulam Maula, president of the Bangladeshi Community of Athens, said: "The new mosque will be too far out. We pray five times a day, and we need a central mosque near to where we live."...

...The project will be funded by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, responsible for the building of 200 Islamic centres and 1,500 mosques worldwide...

In contrast, if unfortunate enough to be in Saudi Arabia, a Christian faces not merely a longish walk to a church; he needs an airline ticket. Never seems part of "the dialogue" that.

UPDATE, October 17: Here is the full piece at the Daily Mail. The general's points are usually perfectly reasonable. (At times, so reasonable one has a tough time disagreeing with them.) However, it is hard also not to reflect upon the fact that, given his role, rather than confining such suggestions regarding Iraq and other issues to a more appropriate venue (meaning sharing them in private, with his political masters), he gave an interview to the Daily Mail? Try to imagine the serving U.S. army chief of staff giving a similar one to, say, the Newsday?

"TO IMPROVE THE DIALOGUE"

2006-10-13T08:01:00.000+01:00

Pope Benedict XVI, quoted by Reuters, October 12:

..."In our world today, religious, political, academic and economic leaders are being seriously challenged to improve the level of dialogue between peoples and between cultures,"...

Not good. We don't know if even referring to a need "to improve the dialogue" might make . . . oh, no. . .

"You have made me very angry. Very angry indeed."

. . . one never knows what suggestions or notions might well create "anger".

LOW FLYING PLANES

2006-10-12T22:05:00.000+01:00

Oh sure. Give 'em a few free moments . . .

SATSUMA WATCH III

2006-10-12T17:45:00.000+01:00

Reuters:

The government faced fresh criticism of its Middle East policies on Thursday after publishing a human rights report that highlighted Hezbollah attacks on Israel but did not mention Israel's military response in Lebanon...

..."If they had time to include Hezbollah and the 40 victims of Hezbollah rockets -- which Human Rights Watch thinks should have been in the report and we welcome that -- they had time to do something on what the Israelis did in Lebanon, especially given the disproportionate number of casualties," said Tom Porteous, London director of Human Rights Watch...

Mr Porteous: satsuma.

"BRITON" ADMITS GUILT

2006-10-12T15:20:00.000+01:00

Reuters:

A Briton arrested amid a massive U.S. security alert two years ago admitted in a London court on Thursday to plotting to blow up the New York Stock Exchange and carry out "dirty bomb" attacks in Britain.

"A Briton"?

Dhiren Barot, a Muslim convert, admitted to plotting to blow up the stock exchange and other U.S. financial hubs including the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund,...

Okay, not exactly. Let's move on:

...The very public U.S. response to the case in 2004 -- just weeks before a presidential election -- attracted criticism.

Because three years had passed since Barot had visited his potential targets, and he was under tight British surveillance at the time, some Democrats accused the Republican-led administration of overstating the immediacy of the threat.

"I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for U.S. President George W. Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism," Howard Dean, now chairman of the Democratic party, said at the time...

That comment was a perfect example of why those of us who understand this conflict as non-partisan (the enemy wants us all dead; whether we are Democrats or Republicans or "independents" is irrelevant) believe most in the current Democratic party cannot yet be trusted entirely on U.S. national security. Most of the party leadership does appear really to believe that the jihadists act only according to the script they as Democrats would like to see acted out. Yet that stance from Democrats like Dean does make weird sense also, if one considers how so many actors, producers and "fantasists" are so fond of him and similar Democrats.

Essentially, to such Democrats, remember, this conflict is supposed to be an eminently predictable, B-movie "screenplay". And life in general? Well, it is just as in a production of "Hair".

It will be interesting if someone now asks Mr Dean if he still feels this was one of those "Bush trump cards"? Because, after all, the case was "invented", and the guy was innocent? Right?

IN SEARCH OF "BALANCE"

2006-10-12T13:23:00.000+01:00

The UK Press Association:

Ethnic quotas should be introduced to the admissions criteria of state schools, according to the head of the Local Government Association.

The Times reports Lord Bruce-Lockhart as saying that Britain would never achieve integration and full social cohesion while neighbouring schools were divided along ethnic lines.

He described it as unacceptable that non-white pupils should form 90% of the population of one school, when white pupils formed 90% of a neighbouring school.

He suggests one solution would be for schools in areas with high concentrations of minority ethnic groups to incorporate some kind of ethnicity quota into admissions policies...

Hmmm. Now, of course, the crux of the matter:

...Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that ethnic quotas had been shown to be unworkable in the US, where the problem of pupil segregation was far more extreme.

There Mr Alam is, at best, partly correct; but one suspects purely by accident. Indeed, he appears to be taking a swipe at the U.S. (Well, there's a surprise.)

Some facts. "Quotas" did prove unworkable in the U.S. for a vital reason he doesn't seem to grasp. Aside from blatant, legal segregation, which after being declared unconstitutional in 1954 in practical terms was ended over the following decade and a half (all much longer ago, actually, than the vast majority of today's "ethnic minorities" have even been living in Britain), U.S. "segregation" now tends to be a result of often very large, local geographical catchment areas, particularly in rural and suburban school districts.

There's a clear reason for that. Mr Alam apparently missed this in his own schooling, but the U.S. population is not just far larger than Britain's. (Indeed, the sheer size of the U.S. perpetually gets lost in such "arguments"; at some 90 million, or about 30% of the U.S. population, there are a third more U.S. "ethnic minorities" than there are people living in the United Kingdom.) The total U.S. population is actually equal to that of the U.K., France, Italy, Germany and Spain combined, while the geographical area it covers is nearly 5 times greater than all of those European states put together:

United Kingdom: 244,820 sq km; population 60 million.
France: 547,030 sq km; population 60 million.
Italy: 301,230 sq km; population 60 million.
Germany: 357,021 sq km; population 80 million.
Spain: 504,782 sq km; population 40 million.
total: 1,954,883 (or about 2,000,000) sq km; total population, 300 million.

United States: 9,631,420 (or nearly 10,000,000) sq km; population 300 million.

Here's a laugher: given the similar (even though much smaller) geography, just imagine trying to provide "ethnic balance" throughout just those five EU states? No one would even suggest it, for the concept would be viewed as utterly non-sensical. So a measure of "regional/ethnic segregation" in the U.S. is part of the norm. Until "beaming" is perfected (and they are apparently working on it), it is no more likely any time soon that Mexican-Americans living in Arizona will be in Minnesota schools daily sitting alongside Scandinavian-Americans than Spanish children living in Valencia will find themselves daily sitting in classrooms besides Germans in Munich.

On a more "realistic" level, demanding an "ethnicity quota" in admissions ONLY works if there are students of different (enough) "ethnicities" dwelling in near enough promixity so as to be able to go to THAT school. And, on the whole, people do live "tightly packed" geographically in Britain. So "admissions quotas" might well be effective in some localities within Britain.

But owing to often large travel distances, trying to create so-called "ethnically balanced" schools in the U.S. too often required, and requires, busing students upwards of sometimes an hour or more each way. Easy enough for some judge to order, and apparently simple enough to some state officials and school administrators to demand, but doing so will always be doomed to fail due to its proven impracticality: few parents see their children as having been placed on this planet in order primarily to serve as some judge's or educator's "social experiment", a pawn to be shuffled around a "diversity chessboard". That parental stance usually stems not from "ethnic hatred" (believe it or not), but instead from the simple fact that they don't want their kids in a school possibly two hours from home. (When little Johnny falls sick, for example, will the judge or the state official be willing drive the two hours to the school to pick Johnny up and then take him back home?)

To put that U.S. dilemma more into U.K. terms, consider this. If Mr Alam and Lord Bruce-Lockhart both lived in, say, Camberley, would they be thrilled if in order to achieve better "ethnic balance" the government informed them that starting next September their young children would be removed from their local school and be bused instead to a school in Southampton every day? Well, if they were ecstatic at that prospect . . . they would be really odd.

CITIZENSHIP MATTERS

2006-10-12T13:02:00.000+01:00

Previously, all we had heard was the likes of how "their citizenship mattered", and that "as British citizens, they should be brought home". That made sense. And they were.

Now, about others we are hearing the likes of how "their citizenship doesn't matter", and that "even though they are not British citizens, they should be brought home" . . . well, it's not home, technically, but let's say rather they should be brought here, where they had previously been granted "leave to remain", but then left the country sans UK citizenship, and got caught up in the jihad. However, the BBC reports:

The families of three British residents held in Guantanamo Bay since 2002 have failed in a bid to force the government to request their return to the UK.

Appeal court judges rejected claims the men should be treated as UK citizens.

Libyan-born Omar Deghayes, 37, from Brighton, Jordanian Jamil el-Banna and Iraqi Bisher al-Rawi, both from London, all have leave to remain in the UK...

Ah, this is refreshing indeed. For it is not too often these days that a court actually follows longstanding precedent under "international law", as well as reasonable interpretation, instead of attempting to make exciting, new law. By that I mean that the judges ruled that (yes, incredible as it may seem) you do actually happen to have citizenship that is a result of . . . your citizenship.

Next up presumably, the appeal.