Summer is here, but, oh!, how it pours
Summer is officially here: the exams are over. Woo hoo! But, and how sod's law can you get after the past week of glorious weather, the rain has begun to pour. Let's hope it's not for long, i.e. it stops over night.
I've just heard on the radio news (or read here at the Beeb) about the EU Parliament has voted to cast a motion calling on the US Government to close down the monstrous Guatánamo Bay. Only this evening friends and I were talking about our disgust that it is still operating, so thank goodness an organisation that the US might actually listen to is standing up to them. The awful shame is that it took the suicides of three detainees for this to happen, and moreso beggars belief that what is effectively a concentration camp holding nearly 500 prisoners exists at all.
While I'm on a political thing, there's a few more things just to get off my chest. Next up is about that James Bulger chain email going round. A bit of research reveals it's been going since 2001 or so, but has experienced a recent revival. Further research reveals it's actually loaded with misinformation, and some downright lies. Now, what Venables and Thompson did to that poor boy can't be described in words—repulsive and abominable don't come close enough—the propagation of emails like this is totally unneccessary. I'm not going to go into the details, for that, read here. Or, as ever, Wikipedia makes for an interesting read.
Lastly (for now at least!) in my rant today is the BBC's use of the noun "illegals" in an article on their News site today. I always complain whenever I see this in the toilet-paper press (the Daily Express wouldn't even suit this purpose; the journalism being so flimsy)— the term "illegals" to describe illegal immigrants is totally derogatory. Why not go the whole hog and label them further, label them as "those darkies" perhaps? Most of the time too, when you read into it, they use the term "illegal immigrant" to mean a migrant of any persuasion. Gah.
Ohmygosh! The BBC have now changed the article I describe above, removing any mention of the term "illegals". They must have had complaints, unless they read my blog :)
Enough bitching about poor journalism (and I can't say anything myself, I'm writing this rather tired and lord knows if any of this is readable), it's time to celebrate the fact that my exams are now over! Huzzah! While I wait for results to come out, I think I'll be taking a well earned rest in amongst flitting from garden party to garden party, and of course the Peterhouse May Ball next week. Exciting stuff. Expect pictures.
MEWSIK : BBC 6 Music is doing a Beginners' Guide To Reggae, which is a little bit cool. Go listen.
Posted: 13-06-06 23:44 :: Permalink: http://ben.corale.co.uk/archive/v1/229.html
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Wolfie writes
it is a sure and certain law of nature -- as sure and as certain as F=ma -- that on the day one's first year exams at Cambridge end the oppressively hot and sunny weather will immediately stop and be replaced with rain. It happened to me back in 1989.
What compounded the evil of Guantanamo Bay was the description of the suicides by the US authorities as "acts of war".
And the hounding of Bulger's killers is no less monstrous than their own acts.
Commented: 18-06-06 18:54
The blog author writes
Grr, I'm being defeated by the robots again. Oh, Yoshimi!
I'm working on a new improved version to combat this. Rah.
Commented: 17-07-06 11:10