Month: May 2006

Channel 4 yesterday had two documentaries on Iraq – both with good aspects, but both quite seriously flawed.

The first was devoted to Dispatches: women in Iraq. It’s quite poorly edited and planned for a mainstream documentary like Dispatches, the same footage keeps on cropping up multiple times, and there are some dubious-sounding statistics. Despite that, it’s good to see footage of Iraq from beyond the usual ‘violence and high politics’ perspective, and having programmes made by Iraqis rather than Brits is a Good Thing.

Then a couple of hours later we had John Snow in “the real Iraq”, talking about why documentaries like that one are made by Iraqis – or rather, about how impossible it is for Western journalists to get enough access to interact with the real Iraq. He’s right, and it’s a useful thing to drum on about. But it all falls down because his perspective is not “why the world can’t know about Iraq” but “why Jon Snow can’t know about Iraq”.

It doesn’t do the rest of us any harm at all to be forced to rely on Iraqi journalists and bloggers, and to ignore Western reporters for anything except high politics.

He did at least make a very good point about the lack of nuanced understanding of Iraqi current affairs, in what could almost be a mission statement for the Iraq Analysis Group:

“What we have in iraq as a result of bloggers, fledgling journalists, new media of all sorts, is a kind of scattergun effect – we have a a little bit of knowledge about different bits and pieces. What there is very little of, partly because there is so little western media here, is any real analysis or interpretation of events that we can relate to”

[Zeugma](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeugma_%28city%29) is such a fantastic name for a city; I’m disappointed not to have run into this one before. Ho-hum, yet another mostly-ignored corner of the ancient world then.

Also, the BBC finds underground pyramids in Bosnia, including one with a 2.4-mile-long underground tunnel. That’s pretty huge, no?

[crossposted from

ohuiginn.net

, as part of the “stop putting everything where nobody can find it” campaign]

Channel 4 yesterday had two documentaries on Iraq – neither very good overall but both with interesting aspects.

The first was devoted to Dispatches: women in Iraq. It’s quite poorly edited and planned for a mainstream documentary like Dispatches, the same footage keeps on cropping up multiple times, and there are some dubious-sounding statistics. Despite that, it’s good to see footage of Iraq from beyond the usual ‘violence and high politics’ perspective, and having programmes made by Iraqis rather than Brits is a Good Thing.

Then a couple of hours later we had John Snow in “the real Iraq”, talking about why documentaries like that one are made by Iraqis – or rather, about how impossible it is for Western journalists to get enough access to interact with the real Iraq. He’s right, and it’s a useful thing to drum on about. But it all falls down because his perspective is not “why the world can’t know about Iraq” but “why Jon Snow can’t know about Iraq”.

It doesn’t do the rest of us any harm at all to be forced to rely on Iraqi journalists and bloggers, and to ignore Western reporters for anything except high politics.

He did at least make a very good point about the lack of nuanced understanding of Iraqi current affairs, in what could almost be a mission statement for the Iraq Analysis Group:

“What we have in iraq as a result of bloggers, fledgling journalists, new media of all sorts, is a kind of scattergun effect – we have a a little bit of knowledge about different bits and pieces. What there is very little of, partly because there is so little western media here, is any real analysis or interpretation of events that we can relate to”

Forgot to say. For those of you interested in the (fluffy Cambridge) Earth First campaign, there’s a facebook group and a petition to sign (for the university to not stop using renewable energy). I’m not entirely convinced by the petition opposing hydro power, but then I don’t know much about hydro, and 1500 people have already signed – so why grumble about details?

Also:

1. I had no idea my angst was so popular
   
2. The Center for Tactical Magic is awesome in a way that makes me wish I was as creatively bonkers
3. Calling comes round again tonight. Sure I’ll be as excited as a four-year old by this evening, but right now I feel “oh, well, here we go again”; regularity has its downside.

…and back another day, to a very very pleasant Friday – the usual goths in the evening, but also a reunion/wander round Cambridge with uisgebeatha (doesn’t meeting somebody you knew four years ago give you an immense sense of getting older?). Her friend in Corpus has the most stunningly beautiful room, which makes me pine for those bits of stereotypical Cambridgeness – and it was quite enjoyable trying to keep up with her geek-talk (much easier than mjg59‘s!).

Between those two, went to a talk on climate change, organised by the

Cambridge eEarth First Campaign

, who despite their name are a CUSU campaign rather than a network of hairy vegan green anarchists. This was unexpectedly good: the room was so full we had to move out and sit on a lawn in Kings (yay!), and all three speakers were good (double-yay!). In particular David Howarth was there, and he’s come on impressively as a public speaker since I last saw him talk over a year ago. Clearly being an MP gives you the arrogance you need to talk in public.

Oh, and Thursday night before that was an excellent get-together of inactive activists with food and grass and political ramblings. What’s not to like?

Surreally hilarious. Stalin vs. Hitler, superhero style. Somebody has also created an English translation (although the original does have English below the cartoons).

It’s another “too lazy to write properly, but don’t want to forget what I’ve been doing” update.

Yesterday was writinghawk‘s barbeque, in which I learnt to play Go very very badly, discovered yet again that mjg59‘s geek-talk is stunningly incomprehensible, met claerwen, remet James (not something I had expected to ever happen), whinged at far too many people, and was unnecessarily nasty to at least one (sorry!). This may have some connection to me going home afterwards and deciding to create an angst filter. Beforehand, I spent the afternoon having one of those incredible dreams that makes you reconsider great swathes of your life. I may write a separate post about it if I can do it justice.

The previous day was the great atreic/emperor wedding ceilidh. Not having been to a ceilidh [

1

], I had the usual feeling of “How have I been alive 22 years and not got involved in this?”. All that was interspersed with simont-like musings about the social-engineering aspects of organised dance. writinghawk: your rant about music makes a lot more sense when transposed to be about dancing, no?

This is getting long – I want to write about Friday and Thursday too, and about that dream, but I’ll leave it at this for now

1: well, I think I remember one barndance, but that was almost a decade ago and I wasn’t paying attention

I’ll be in London this weekend, probably from Saturday until Tuesday. Saturday is full of a picnic followed by warming the_alchemist‘s house, and I have possible plans for Sunday afternoon. Anybody want to meet up the rest of the time, or point me at things I’d enjoy doing? _proserpina_?

Following a conversation with lavendersparkle yesterday, I’ve decided to start using more filters.

I don’t currently use many filters at all. There are a couple for semi-confidential work-related things, and one to separate the Russian livejournals from the ones belonging to people I actually know. I also have a filter for frivolous memes, which consists of friends who post that kind of thing themselves.

I’m mainly adding an angst-filter so that I can post grumpy things without worrying about looking like I’m angling for hugs, and to prod me into moving more things across from my private diary.

So, there will be an angst filter. Who wants in?

Also, has anybody come up with a way to make posts public, without having them appear on my friends’ friendspages? It seems silly to inflict things like Cambridge event announcements on friends in America, but at the same time there are lj-less friends who I’d like to be able to see them.

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