mardi 11 mars 2003

Deliberately diverse "I've been trying to work out what your weblog is about," somebody remarked today. This was a 'good thing'. I stumbled on one by a New Yorker who blogged crisply about war, his midlife crisis, war, sexism, war, war, Ebola in Congo, war, pollution in Mexico, harassment at his job, war, war, war, reality shows, Palestine and war. That was the first page. Since the latest Ebola outbreak was drawn to his attention by its effect on central Africa's gorillas (and incidentally Congolese villagers, of whom now more than 100 have died), perhaps I should e-mail him about Portugal's rabbits. I was paying little attention when that story went out to the world today, but can only assume lthat the dam in question must be the Alqueva one. Apparently, rabbits are fleeing to shrinking little islands by the thousands as the waters steadily rise. Their plight is such that even the hunters feel sorry for the poor little buggers. Not to speak of the lynxes. zzz If David Pogue didn't write well about computers, I wouldn't have cited the feller in an earlier entry. But when it comes to the Mac and Steve Jobs, Pogue can get up my nose, which is why I'd rather buy other people's books. I don't deny that those 'Missing Manuals' do what Apple used to do more often itself. But occasionally I'd like to see Pogue bite the hand that feeds him rather hard, instead of behaving like John the Baptist announcing the good news from heaven. In one NYT column last July, he refutes being a Mac bigot, "but the company itself has a history of brattiness." More, David, more! There's been a most readable discussion going on Techsurvivors sparked by 'ejc', who explained "Why I see no need to adopt OS X". One of many, sure, but it stayed clear of a dogfight, as virtually every chat does in that remarkably self-regulating community. I like OS X, but I like OS 9 too, now relegated to 'Classic' status and henceforth sold as a bootable operating system on machines almost nobody I know can afford. I did not appreciate the high costs entailed in the upgrade, a still risky "like it or leave it" marketing strategy from Cupertino, all the hype and the often lamentable quality of Apple's so-called support service for the individual user. And Pogue can tend to be too much of a hyper-guru for my taste. Rory, who is Irish, tells me that the band the Pogues were initially banned on the BBC. They started out with the name Póg Mo Thóin (pronounced, roughly, Pogue Mahone). This does not mean, as at least one cheeky website will tell you, "Have a nice day." It means "Kiss My Ass". David, evangelism's fine, but the odd tongue-lashing for the patron Saint Steve would not be the original sin. zzz Somebody else who generally knows what to do when a Mac runs into trouble is Randy S. Singer. Randy, like my Dad, is proof that not all lawyers can be bad or that lawyers cannot be all bad. Both freely contributed valuable counsel - with all due disclaimers attached - when we set up Techsurvivors. Unlike my father, Randy also offers advice on troubleshooting ill-behaved Jaguars. This went down so well that a translation won plaudits in a French Mac mag. It's also in Dutch and, er, Castellano. Several other TSers maintain sites I enjoy. Here's a handful from all over the shop: for giantmike in Wisconsin, 'Macintosh is THE rule' but there's more to it than that! Marcel in Antwerp never seems to stop "fixing" his museum, but it's usually open, Petra of somewhere I can't pronounce (Luleå) in Sweden sometimes defies us all at TS with 'mystery pictures', while 'Snuffy' of Nebraska invites us to "LOOK" at a quite different kind of design studio. In Georgia, Thomas is into photography in an international way. How about that for evangelism? 11:25:01 PM  link   your views? [] Naked diplomacy Avoiding punditry is not one of my strong points, but anybody expecting coherent and distanced reflections today on the rift in Britain's governing party broadened by Clare Short's resignation threat over war with Iraq will find me bemused. What a mess! A dangerous and worrying mess. I have long admired Short's career as Britain's international development secretary, which has taken in African countries the United States sought to win round in the UN Security Council ahead of France's current bid to do likewise. But I can think of no precedent for Short's weekend statements summed up by much of the media as a qualification of her own prime minister as "reckless" in his pro-war, pro-Washington line. My American friends, wherever they stand, can scarcely underestimate the seriousness of this breach of collective responsibility in a British cabinet. Hounds are already baying at the door, with talk of a ruinous "leadership crisis" on the very eve of war. If a semblance of unity were not paramount and Short's views failed to reflect a fair chunk of public opinion in the UK, she'd already be out on her ear and in the cold. She wouldn't have lasted a day. Yet I can't blame the woman for cracking under the strain and letting her conscience speak now, for all the damage it can only do to government. This state of affairs is rendered all the worse for a Briton looking in on his native country from abroad who sees no viable and serious alternative to the government it's got, a view which I believe many share on the island itself. Now there's a sound argument, which even I find it hard to refute for all my anti-war views, that Saddam Hussein would have done nothing at all to meet the demands of the United Nations without the massive military build-up on his doorstep. A related alarming development came in the Security Council on Friday, where I followed proceedings closely, as one or two key participants, and most notably Britain's foreign minister, led the debate away from the latest Hans Blix report and the issues on the table to ad hominem point-scoring and pleading. Jack Straw appeared sometimes almost to forget where he was in addressing himself directly to France's Dominique de Villepin. Several of us picked up on this turn of events as we worked and watched it all on telly at the same time. I hung around "after hours" to see what the Africans might say, but that brought no surprises: they were far too stuck to climb down off the fence. Blair is in very deep trouble. In the past, I've felt frustration and admiration in equal measure at the ability of successive British governments to maintain a balancing act between the "special relationship" with Washington and a professed commitment to Europe, but only as far as it has suited them. This has changed in four short months, perhaps for ever, let alone the stakes for the UN. Ah, a cud I should like to have chewed over dinner last night with my wise old friend Tony, had I not had other commitments. But I understand better a remark Monsieur Baudier made a couple of weeks back when he said: "Aujourd'hui, le monde politique est à nu!" So it is. Even the world of diplomacy has almost been divested of clothes and conventions as we start to see the boys - and the girls - fighting it out, rather than a focus on issues and ethics, while the veils that guise the interests have begun to lift. In part, the old media and the new have seen to this. Today, I shall be skimming what the pundits back in a deeply divided Britain have to say for themselves with considerably more than my usual attention. 11:21:42 AM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.