Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: News and politics

  • RIP Rosa

    Rosa Parks died yesterday at the age of 92. Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus was the spark that led to the civil rights movement taking off in the US 50 years ago. RIP, Rosa.

  • Detainee Reporting

    Orwellian Newspeak rears its ugly head again – this time by the head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller. She said:
    "Experience proves that detainee reporting can be accurate and may enable lives to be saved."
    "Detainee reporting" strikes me as a particularly slimy phrase. As Justin, over at Chicken Yoghurt points out:
    "You know what it means. I know what it means. She knows what it means. But she can pretend it doesn’t mean what she knows it means and so can the rest of us if we like".
    Read the rest of Justin’s piece. It’s worth it. And I know that if I was being tortured, I’d say whatever it was I thought the torturers wanted to hear in a vain attempt to get them to stop, just stop, please stop. So the phrase "can be accurate" has very little real meaning as far as I can see.

  • Bombing’s Too Good For ‘Em

    I do realise that that is not supposed to be the appropriate reaction, but I confess that it was my first reaction when I read this story. I never did like the Smurfs – irritating little creatures without any redeeming features whatsoever as far as I’m concerned.

  • The Slippery Slope of Choice

    I mentioned last week that the word "choice" tends to make my hackles rise. It’s because I often think it’s used in false circumstances. For example, New Labour apply it to services in the public sector. Well, I’m sorry, but to me, a public hospital should be the best that it can be, and funding should not be driven by a mythical sense of choice. When I’m ill, I don’t want to consult fucking league tables, I want to go to my local hospital and be rest assured that I am getting good treatment. Anything else is a travesty, and poking free market practices into places where I don’t want them to be. Eddie explains this very well over at The Sharpener.

  • The Elephant in the Room

    Martin Rowson hits the nail squarely on the head with his cartoon in today’s Guardian. Meanwhile, Simon Hoggart writes lightly on the topic. It’s left to Curious Hamster to put into words what Rowson put into his image – pure unadulterated bile aimed directly at a deserving target.

  • Blair’s Speech

    What is it with Tony Blair’s manner of speaking? Can’t he manage joined-up sentences anymore? His address at the Labour Party Conference was a prime example. That, and the fact that it was also a brilliant example of newspeak. Thankfully, Justin McKeating over at Chicken Yoghurt was able to control his growing feeling of nausea long enough to be able to give a pertinent analysis of the dear leader’s tendentious twaddle. I’m afraid I reached for the sick-bucket pretty early on.

  • The PM’s Brain Is Missing…

    Some of us are old enough to remember Spitting Image, with the running joke about Ronald Reagan; to whit: The President’s Brain Is Missing.
     
    Now, Curious Hamster, over at the Big Stick and a Small Carrot blog alerts us to the very real problem that perhaps the brain of the UK’s beloved Prime Minister has gone AWOL. I think he’s right to be concerned.

  • They Work For You

    At last, the European Parliament has launched a new web site, which promises to make the process of the parliament much more transparent and accountable to the likes of you and me. There’s even live video streaming of the debates. Now, where’s my bag of popcorn?

  • Advice for a Manifesto

    Philip Pullman, writing in today’s Guardian, offers some ironic advice to the UK’s Conservative party on how to get votes with a new manifesto. It’s good advice, too; I’d vote for a party that implemented his ideas. Unfortunately, the old ideals of noblesse oblige, service and looking after each other in society seem to have been swept away. Thatcher started the rot, and we’ve all been gleefully stoking the fire ever since.

  • Compare, Contrast, Discuss.

    Professor Simon Schama, writing in today’s Guardian, ably outlines why we should not be conflating 9/11 with Katrina. Go and read it.

  • The Swizz of the Cards

    Courtesy of Boing Boing (once again), here’s a political cartoon taking the mickey out of the UK government’s touching belief that ID cards will actually work…

  • Open Mouth – Change Feet

    President Bush has always struck me as having no charisma whatsoever, to the point of verging on the socially dysfunctional. I was reminded of that while watching him in a TV interview a couple of days ago – he was smiling while discussing what a terrible thing had just happened in New Orleans… (the video is available here, look for "Bush on GMA").
     
    It would seem that he only opens his mouth to change feet. Take this other example, from a speech he gave yesterday:
    "The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Laughter.)
    Er, excuse me, but this attempt at folksiness is so horribly misguided at a time when people are still dying and drowning four days after Katrina struck that it beggars belief. Ezra Klein and Andrew Sullivan are amongst those who also find this bizarre in the extreme.
     
    Update: I’ve just watched the video of the speech. Un-fucking-believable. Empty words from an empty President. And what were all those military personnel and helicopters doing just standing around in the background of this stupid photo-op? Had they nothing better to do, like being out there helping to save lives, for instance? Americans can be better than this.

  • Song Dedication…

  • Help Save the Post Office

    A heartfelt cry that pulls at my heartstrings, even if Mr. Crozier’s heart is made of stone.

  • Mo Mowlam

    Sad to hear that Dr. Mowlam has died. When she was a politician, she was one of the few of that breed whom I respected. 

  • EU Newspeak

    Pick up a carton of eggs at your local shop or supermarket, and if you see the words "free-range", you might think that the hens who laid them were merrily scratching around in pasture.
     
    Wrong.
     
    A spokesperson for the European Commission said yesterday that hens in closed coops could also have their eggs labelled as "organic" and "free-range".
     
    The reason is that because of the fears of bird flu, the Netherlands has decreed that hens can no longer be let outside, but must be kept inside sheds at all times. And there just happens to be a get-out clause in the rules governing the labelling of eggs that allows for the egg producers to carry on labelling their eggs as free range as though nothing had changed if the veterinary authorities decree that hens must be kept indoors.
     
    Black = white
    Battery = Free-range
     
    Ain’t newspeak wonderful?

  • A Eulogy for Robin Cook

  • Online Petition

    Frank van Dalen, chairman of the board of the COC (the Dutch Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender organisation) has set up an online petition to protest against the hangings of the two gay Iranian teenagers. You can sign it here.

  • Robin Cook

    I was sad to hear of his untimely death. He was one of the few politicians that I could respect. Without his presence in the UK parliament, I wonder how effective the checks and balances will be against the current British government?

  • George, Don’t Do That*

     
    Well, George has been using his powers of oratory again, but this time to rather more shameful rabble-rousing and tub-thumping. You can see the video transcripts here. As ButterfliesAndWheels says, this is lynch-mob language. It is misogynist, sexist racist communalist slavering garbage.
     
    I think Hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings sums up the sinking feeling I had when I watched the video and heard Galloway’s words.
     
    * With apologies to dear, gentle Joyce. Those were simpler times.