Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Australia's shiny new carbon tax is an empty promise

Was George Orwell a fan of the News of the World?

In its final issue, the News of the World made much of a 1946 George Orwell essay in which the great writer had namechecked it. But was the Animal Farm author really an admirer of the paper?

History was always going to play a major part in the News of the World's final issue. With few big stories, past glories were to the fore, including the paper's first ever front page from 1 October 1843.
On page three, the paper opted for a farewell editorial. It began with a quote from George Orwell - used as a character witness for the paper - repeating the opening of his famous essay Decline of the English Murder.
"It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose and open the News of the World."
The News of the World editorial said of Orwell's words: "They were written in 1946 but they have been the sentiments of most of the nation for well over a century and a half as this astonishing paper became part of the fabric of Britain, as central to Sunday as a roast dinner."
But was that what Orwell was really saying? The blogger and communications expert Max Atkinson says they have linked the great writer to some dubious claims. "Are they part of the fabric of Britain? No! As central to Sunday as roast dinner? No! This is self aggrandising, megalomaniac, boastful and untrue stuff."
Orwell was interested in the lives of the working class. But while the essay depicts the quintessential lazy Sunday, it also satirises the prurience that newspapers - the News of the World is the only one mentioned by name - encourage.
"In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?" the essay reads. "Naturally, about a murder." Orwell goes on to relate how these murders are "re-hashed over and over again by the Sunday papers".

Atkinson remembers the paper even in the late 1950s as being too racy for him to be allowed to read at boarding school. "In those days they'd send stringers around to the local Crown Courts to report on the local sex cases. They were constantly talking about people having carnal knowledge with underage girls."

For him, Orwell's essay is far from complimentary to the News of the World. "It doesn't sound to me as though the quote they used was Orwell doing a top reader recommends. They're misrepresenting Orwell to suggest he's a fan of the paper."
Orwell bibliographer Peter Davison says that in Decline of the English Murder he neither approves nor disapproves of the paper. "He's describing a scene in ordinary households about what's happening on a Sunday afternoon. He had a very good idea of how ordinary people lived."
He has no problem with the News of the World's use of the essay - "they picked up a good quote and used it". But Orwell was often critical of the press. He worried about the power of right-wing press barons then and it is unlikely he would have approved of a Rupert Murdoch now, he says.
"I don't think he would have approved of a newspaper baron who lived abroad and changed his nationality to advance his business interests."
Nick Cohen, author of What's Left, says Orwell loved the "vulgar working class culture" that went hand-in-hand with the News of the World.
In today's terms the 1946 News of the World fitted into the notion of English decency that the Decline of the English Murder was about, Cohen argues. "It was very genteel, it wouldn't run a story like today's paper would have done. It was raucous but also very well written."
Orwell saw the paper as part of decent working class life. For that reason the News of the World are entitled to trumpet his essay about the paper's past, Cohen says. But that was 1946.
"How can you tell what a writer who died in 1950 would say about 2011?" he asks.
Cohen guesses that if Orwell were alive today, he would have been "depressed" by what he read.
Tom de Castella @'BBC'

Beck meets former chair of terror organization

One of the visitors on the Knesset’s Committee discussion that hosted Glen Beck today was a settler named Baruch Marzel. Marzel, seen below meeting Beck, was the secretary of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach movement. After the assassination of Kahane, Marzel, a resident of Hebron, chaired the party.
Kach and Kahane Chai (a faction of the party, formed after Kahane’s death) were outlawed in Israel. Both groups are considered terrorist organizations by Canada, the European Union and the United States.
See, for example, item 20 of the State Department’s current list of designated foreign terrorist 0rganizations.
I am sure that Beck, a self appointed expert on terrorism and the new world order, will explain this as part of his field work.
Don’t miss Ami Kaufman’s report from the historic event.
@'+972'

Anonymous Leaks 90,000 Military Email Accounts in Latest #AntiSec Attack

Israel Begins Deporting "Fly-In" Activists

Bethlehem, West Bank - Israel prevented a gathering of foreigners here on Friday by blocking, deterring or deporting hundreds of air travelers who had been invited by Palestinian activists to fly into Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport and then travel to the West Bank for a week of “fellowship and actions.”

Israel has traditionally been welcoming of foreign tourists, including more than a million Christian pilgrims who visited this Palestinian city of the Nativity last year. But the Israeli authorities prepared for days to head off Friday’s planned fly-in. The Israeli news media added to the hype by calling it a “flightilla” — a reference to the flotilla of boats that was supposed to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza last month but has been stymied by Israeli pressure and by the cooperation of the Greek port authorities.

As a result, most of the foreigners who planned to fly to Tel Aviv and join the “Welcome to Palestine” initiative were either deterred from trying to come or were prevented from boarding flights to Israel by foreign airlines, on instructions from the Israelis.

The Palestinian hosts decried the Israeli measures, but also chalked up a small victory.

Fadi Kattan, a Palestinian organizer, said at a news conference in Bethlehem that he was “pleased — sadly pleased” that the episode had exposed what he described as Israel’s draconian anti-Palestinian policies...

Continue reading

Isabel Kershner @'truth-out'

Israel expels 39 pro-Palestinian activists over weekend, holds 81 more in jail

Despite Millions in Hourly Profits, Exxon Oil Spill Cleanup is Paper Towels and Duct Tape

Brazil Reaches Wind Energy Milestone

Brazil has reached a renewable energy milestone, among the first of many as the nation pushes to meet its ambitious pledge to reduce carbon emissions. Beginning in June, Brazil now generates 1 gigawatt of electricity from wind turbines, sufficient to power around 1.5 million homes, and is the first in South America to do so. Currently, 51 wind farms are in operation throughout the Brazilian northeast and southern states and over thirty more are currently under construction thanks to a program of government incentives which is expected to add an additional $15 billion in clean energy investments -- though there still may be a long way to go before its full potential is met.
According to the Brazilian Association of Ecological Energy ABEEólica, by 2013 the nation is on track to produce as much as 5.3 gigawatts of electricity through wind farm projects, and an eight-fold increase in capacity over the next five years -- the highest growth potential in South America, says Renewable Energy Focus.
But despite Brazil's improving clean energy infrastructure derived from wind, it is not without its shortcomings, particularly compared to gains being made in other developing countries. There remains huge swaths of land that have yet to be explored as potential sites for wind farms, largely because the cost to build them is too high compared to other energy sources. Currently, wind accounts for less than one percent of total energy produced in Brazil, though that number is bound to rise...