Natalie Solent |
|
|
Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.) Back to main blog RSS thingy 
Jane's Blogosphere: blogtrack for Natalie Solent. 
Links ( 'Nother Solent is this blog's good twin. Same words, searchable archives, RSS feed. Provided by a benefactor, to whom thanks. I also sometimes write for Samizdata and Biased BBC.) The Old Comrades:
Archives
November 2001
December 2001
January 2002
February 2002
March 2002
April 2002
May 2002
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
August 2007
October 2007
February 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
March 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
October 2009
January 2010
March 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011
April 2011
June 2011
August 2011
September 2011
October 2011
November 2011
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
May 2012
|
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
An email that stood out. Although a helpful friend has reduced our computer problems, my email is still a mess. I'm ashamed to admit that I have almost given up on it as a means of communication. However I belatedly spotted a familiar name when doing a mass delete and managed to pull this one out of the group earmarked for deletion. I am very glad I did. "Glad" in a specialised sense of the word; for it adds to the horror of a horrific story. Alex Bensky writes: I was living in Israel at the time of the Ma'alot massacre and I remember gathering in the kibbutz lounge along with other stunned and horrified people to watch the outcome on tv. Something was nagging at me while I did, something out of order, and it wasn't until the next day that I figured out what it was. Monday, September 13, 2004
My take on the forged Bush memos is that this was an early draft of what was originally intended to be a far better forgery. The writer composed them on his own computer at home, using the default fonts on his own computer. Hence the carelessness over sometimes using and sometimes disabling the superscripted "th"; he had spotted the need to avoid superscripts for when he would re-cast the memos into a semblance of typescript later, but hadn't quite finished going through the text to find them. Hence the "P.O. Box 34567": he was going to look up something plausible later. Then, for some reason, the forger lost control. Perhaps he tried it out on a few friends, who showed it to their friends, one of whom took a copy. Or perhaps something triggered him to decide that if the memo wasn't released now it would be too late. The little bird had to fly on its own too soon. P.S. I don't ever blog in pajamas. Pyjamas, maybe. [UPDATE SEP 15: a reader, Ken Dobson, informs me that the 34567, odd though it looks, is real after all. Scroll up to see more. Farce repeats itself as tragedy. I have a post comparing a headline about September 11 2001 in the Independent to one of the Carry On films over at Samizdata. The dead sleep; the living move on. Dunblane teenager takes US Open "A Scottish teenager who survived the Dunblane school massacre has won the US Open tennis junior title. Andrew Murray, 17, became the first British winner of the prestigious competition when he beat Ukrainian Sergei Stakhovsky 6-4 6-2 on Sunday." For each person there comes an event that brings it home: there really is evil in the world. Dunblane was mine. Of course I knew about the great slaughters of history and about contemporary massacres in far lands. Knew but never quite believed. Dunblane brought it home. As I wrote here I thought about Thomas Hamilton’s victims, or their families, or the surviving members of the class almost every day for two years or more. For the most part this was a useless procedure. When brooding became prayer perhaps it helped a little. (Do I mean helped them, in their great trauma, or helped me in my little shadow of it? Both.) I don't know whether I'll end up depressing myself in the same way over the Beslan massacre. I have thought of it every day so far, but the days have been few. One thing I am grateful for is that the press stayed away from the Dunblane survivors as they grew up. Whether this restraint on the part of the press was in obedience to their consciences or to some sort of injunction I do not know, but it is good that the children were spared the shrivelling light of unending public attention. Human beings, particularly growing human beings, are not made to be stared at too hard. That is why I also hope that they were not over-counselled; eight years of in-depth counselling might be a longitudinal version of a year of worldwide fame. I assume that Andrew Murray was not in the actual class that was massacred, as the article says he was eight at the time and they were four and five. The children at the epicentre are still children. In the next couple of years we may hear more about them. May it be in the context of their achievements, as it has been for Andrew Murray. Saturday, September 11, 2004
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.Matthew 10:29-31 Friday, September 10, 2004
Department of smug. The Independent and the Guardian are both carrying stories about how newly discovered memos from Bush's time in the National Guard reveal he pulled strings to get out of his duties. Because I read US blogs I knew hours ago that this story has, to put it mildly, moved on.
Teehee!
UPDATE: Spent most of the day wearing flip-flops specially but not one lefty gloated over Bush so I could say, "Oh, we -" (Honorary 'we' - I'm a blogger, aren't I?) " - we have already dealt with that one." Much annoyed. Thursday, September 09, 2004
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
The Jews are the canary, as always. Once it became acceptable to a broad section of Islam (and to Western apologists for terrorism) to select Jewish children as targets it was only a matter of time before non-Jewish children would also be selected. Children are the most convenient terrorist target as they are physically easy to control or kill, and because people will concede more to save them. The only thing that stops a Beslan happening every week is the shreds of morality that remain even in the minds of terrorists. Once the taboo was breached for Israeli victims it was breached for everyone. I am surprised that there has been little mention outside the Israeli press of the massacre at the school in Maalot in which 21 children were killed by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This is how the Wikipedia entry linked to above describes what happened: Palestinian terrorists broke into the high school in Maalot, a community in northern Israel. The terrorists immediately killed a security guard and some of the children, the remaining children and teachers were held as hostages. Computer problems. I'm having them. The sclerosis of this computer has increased, is increasing and should decrease. And don't talk to me about how many tries it took me to finally connect to the internet to post this. Really don't talk to me; the last time something like this happened I ended up wiping out all my email records to free up memory. What I've needed and haven't had over the last few weeks is an uninterrupted day or several to work out what to do. I shall bring to this task all the enthusiasm I usually bring to dentist's waiting rooms, but now that the school term has started it may finally get done. Wednesday, August 18, 2004
I will be away for a week. See you next Wednesday-ish. I have made a mighty vow, the execution of which is conveniently far distant in the future, to have sorted out my email problems by then. Tuesday, August 17, 2004
It's only a game. In Saint-Exupéry's book Flight to Arras describing his experience in 1940 as a pilot fighting a losing battle against the advancing Germans, he somewhere observes that if the only weapon one had to fight a raging forest fire was a glass of water, then, yes, one would throw the glass. There are cases like that; as desperate as that - may the Lord have mercy on us all. And there are cases not like that. There are cases when, really, the best thing to do is to sip a cooling drink and enjoy the spectacle of the flames.
Drugs in the Olympics are an example of the latter type. The athletes who take drugs to gain a secret advantage over those who obey the rules are cheats and scoundrels. Individually they deserve to be punished for breaking the rules they freely agreed to. But as scandal after scandal shows, the incentive to cheat is so great that they keep on doing it. Very sad, but, guys, guys, this one's not worth fighting over. It's all only a game.
When a mere game has unenforceable rules, you can just change the rules with no great loss to your honour. Who remembers now that there was once a time when the notion of amateur status was taken so strictly that an Olympic athlete such as Jim Thorpe could be stripped of his medals for taking having played some minor league baseball at $2 a day? All that proved unenforceable, so it was dropped. Do the same with drugs.
I am not here arguing in favour of ending the prohibition of drugs generally, though I do believe it should be ended. Very few of the performance enhancing drugs are illegal in normal life. Many of them are not even on prescription. What a relief it would be if extracting the urine from athletes could be restricted to the pages of satirical magazines. Instead commentators could learnedly compare A's training regime of pheno-ployxl-plasmasteroids to B's of speedilex buzzboosters.
It's true that some of these drugs might cause harm in later life. This bears watching, but it is no overwhelming argument in favour of banning them. Ordinary participation in sports might and often does cause harm in later life. Rugby players break their necks. Gymnasts get arthritis. Horseriders and rock climbers fall off horses and rocks and die. Boxers get brain damage. There are busybodies who want to ban those dangerous sports that are practised by men (they are oddly quiet about the ones, like riding, practised mainly by women) but that won't wash either - sitting in front of the TV refraining from dangerous sport will also cause you harm later in life.
Anyway, it's not as if a world where athletes are not harmed by performance enhancing drugs is a realistic option. All the rules and tests and punishments against drug-taking are evidently not enough to stop people doing it. The severity of that harm will be lessened if information on the drugs and their effects can be exchanged and assessed openly.
Perhaps, under my proposed dispensation, there would still be scope for "all natural" competitions where the present regime of drug testing would still apply. Given the smaller field of competitors the sports authorities would have a better chance of catching the cheats; and given that drug use would be legal for those athletes who wanted it, fewer cheats to start with. If there was a demand for that, fine. However I suspect that most of the appeal of athletics lies in watching people run fast and jump high irrespective of what they put in their bodies to do it.
Let's save our intransigence for battles that really matter. Sunday, August 15, 2004
Lest I forget and repeat my "disappearing act" of earlier this month, please note that I am going away to visit family for a week on Wednesday. I have until then to read the email from last time I was away. Yes. You heard right. Your lovingly composed words are still crouching there, unread, impatient, threatening yet enticing, prowling like pumas through my dreams... Normal people do not get this worked up about unread email. |