Thursday, April 22, 2010

Comment Trail:

I've been spending too much time on The New Republic:

Editing as a strategy to win friends and defeat enemies

Discombobulating American Jews


Job search in Israel

Art thou contented, Jew? Margaret Drabble picks up her skirts and tip toes among the Jews and the antisemites, while trying to keep herself clean of both as well as a friend of both. though she seems singularly deaf to antisemitic music around her.

I left the following comment:

"...the BBC probably gets it right, and its veteran reporter on the Middle East, Jeremy Bowen, is reassuringly reliable, rising calmly above the waves of partisan extremism." [Drabble opines]



1. "In a significant ruling, the BBC's highest body has substantially upheld CAMERA's complaint that BBC News's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen violated the broadcaster's guidelines that require impartiality and accuracy. Below is CAMERA's press release on the breaking development."

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=12&x_article=1655



2. Following the terrorist massacre at a Jewish religious highschool in Jerusalem, the BBC's Jeremy Bowen enters the mind of a murderer to make excuses:

."..the school was no ordinary seminary. It was the ideological cradle of the settler movement in the West Bank, which could be the reason it was targeted."

http://contentious-centrist.blogspot.com/2008/03/terrorism-excused-following-yesterdays.html



3. "A BBC mole has sent me this briefing for BBC staff from the BBC's Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, on what lies ahead this year.

It’s all too predictable. The "fragmentation" of Palestinian society has, in Mr Bowen’s view, nothing to do with the Palestinians and everything to do with Israel (“the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building – and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government�). Indeed, Israel is to blame for almost everything. The Palestinians are not responsible for anything; Israel is the culpable party.



He has contempt for every Israeli politician he mentions; Ehud Barak, for instance, is described as having killed "various Palestinians", written as if he did so for the sake of it.

If this is what passes for high-level analysis at the BBC, is it any wonder its reporting is so poisonous?"

http://www.stephenpollard.net/003098.html/


_____________


These are the expressions and reports of Drabble's "reassuringly reliable, rising calmly above the waves of partisan extremism." Bowen. Her words, with the testimonials so divorced from the image she wishes to invoke, remind me of Anne Carson's description of liars:

"What really connects words and things?

Not much, decided my husband

and proceeded to use language

in the way that Homer says the gods do.

All human words are known to the gods but have for them entirely other meanings

alongside our meanings.

They flip the switch at will. "


2 Comments:

At 11:47 PM EDT, Blogger EscapeVelocity said...

You might find this interesting Noga. A Gates of Vienna story went to front page of Reddit. The commentary is interesting. Not that most of it is deep and well informed, but this is a young crowd and its interesting what they have been taught and what they think. Id be interested in your thoughts on it. These are wealthy European and Anglo Nation young people, ignorant and technological navel gazers. They dont seem to understand what is at stake. The fertility rates, the lack of the Euro Nations ability to limit immigration, lawfare, the threat to liberty from Islam, and so on and so forth.

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/buqjz/a_saudi_law_firm_claiming_to_represent_94000/?all=true

 
At 10:22 AM EDT, Blogger Birdalone said...

time consumed at TNR.com does get time consuming! I went back to Drabble, and then read tabletmag's terms of service, which are stricter than The Economist. But, glad to read your comment here.

Developing a contentious centrist online community of interest is a worthy quest :)

 

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