The Interior Space of Trees

The trees of Newport Beach, California - their graceful shapes, and the lovely negative spaces contained within their bare branches and high-domed canopies - are spectacular, no doubt about it.  

Newport Beach is an upscale but (it has to be said) physically charmless town in a gorgeous position adjoining beach, harbour and bay in southern California.  Apart from many lovely maritime views, it has little of beauty to offer, being mostly encased in concrete.  But along its highways and side-streets, scattered across its vast acres of mall and parking lot, are many large and stunning trees.

I know that they are not native species, which are to be preferred ecologically of course, but they are beautiful, so I hope that they are not too rapacious, and make their due contribution to diversity by sustaining colonies of birds and insects, as they should.

Here is a sampling, from a walk around town this sunny Monday morning, the last in January.

The trunks are also interesting

And quite often the roots are too:

But when it comes to the interior space of trees, this is my favourite:

And for those of you uncertain of your geography, Newport Beach is right here, in Orange County (right hand map), which is in southern California (as shown on the left),

Below that is an ariel view of the town (in the distance).  In the foreground is part of Corona Del Mar, famed as the former residence of the great John Wayne.  The pic shows clearly how built-up the whole area is (with the exception of a few bluffs), and the the trees with which its residential areas are so luxuriantly planted.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedi

You may enjoy another short photo essay:  The Trees of Orange County, and perhaps even Five Things I Like about Newport Beach (and three things not so much)

How to Interpret Hilary Clinton

Lovely!  Couldn't say it better!

My Two Cats: Babes and Sophie.

It is almost two years since my vagabond status forced me to find a new home for my two cats.

Which I did, and a very nice home it is too.  I speak to their new owner from time to time, just to catch up.  In fact we have become friends, which is nice.

*sighs*

Babes and Sophie.

Still haven't got over it !

*sighs*

Babes is the daughter, the darker of the two.  Her father was a big old ferral Tom who we never knew was living underneath our porch, until one day .......

She was born in my sweater drawer, and has hardly ever been separated from her mother since. We could never even think of a real name for her, except as the child of her mother.

Sophie, on the other hand, was an orphan, born in a Newark, NJ. dumpster and abandoned almost immediately.

Here she is on the day we brought her home.

She grew up to be a teenage Mum, but we supported her through that.

Hard knocks, but she got through it.

You know, I promised myself a while back that I would not become one of those people who are always talking about her cats.

*sighs*

Six of the Best, and a few more for fun

Not all of my favourite posts feature in the Most Visited section on the right (although several do - you could check that out too)

So here are six more that I really like, and a few more for fun.

Political (in the broadest sense)

Alexander McQueen: Why I, A Feminist, Will Miss Him
Did his critique of the the fashion industry have a feminist tinge? It certainly looks like it, but hard to be certain.....

A Poem for 9/11 by Emmanuel Ortiz
Read with care.  The rage is incandescent (and righteous).


Bringing Berlusconi Low
Wrong pecker, Sr Tartaglia, but thanks anyway!


Personal


A Magic Summer Evening Long Ago and A Moment of Truth (which go together)
Father and Daughter.  Sometimes thirty seconds can last a lifetime

Five Things I Like about Newport Beach (and three things not so much)
Life in the OC is really something else

Newport Beach from the Air  Image via Wikipedia

It's True!  I met Rihanna....
It really is true, and the laugh's on me.

Fun


The Trees of Orange County
Short photo essay

Jim Jarmusch: Nothing is Original, Steal from Anywhere.
Lovely quote by a lovely guy.

My Garden is Extremely Green (literally)
Another photo essay.


And the Funnest of all

The Needy Blogger.
And which among us doesn't need links?

End-year Round Up

This year I got much clearer on the corruption and incompetence of our various leaderships.  

All the information coming to me via Twitter, some great Tweeps out there, and several super blogs have helped me get a lot clearer this year, and here they are, fyi.

But first of all, a couple of websites have also been really useful, data-wise:

• "The Spirit Level" is an excellent explanation of why social democracy, at a minimum, and re-distributive fiscal policies are pre-conditions for a semi-decent, non-barbarous society. The related website of The Equality Trust has all the data, and the principal critiques of the analysis. 
•  False Economy also has lots of data on how and why the decision to cut rather than increase public spending will protect the wealth of a lot of already rich people, and provide massive new sources of income to others through privatisation, but not solve the underlying tensions.  It also has a great little video.

And very importantly for me personally, a friend shared a terrific paper on social democracy, by the late, much admired Tony Judt:  What is Living and What is Dead about Social Democracy.  This really clarified for me what we are fighting for right now, and the limitations of that fight.

Image via Wikipedia

Of course, this could/should be about way more than social democracy, but we've got to defend that first off.

But back to blogs ....

The brilliant and very funny Madam Miaow has done a good brief  round-up of some of the greats of the leftist blogosphere, including HarpyMarx, Gauche, Laurie Penny at the New Statesman, not to mention herself of course.  And she includes fellow Orwell Prize short-listee Jack of Kent, who's so lovely and interesting we wish he was a lefty.  Madam M also mentions Dolphinarium, but she is just way too into the catholic hierarchy for me.

In addition, I keep going back to these ones :-

• One of yer actual (former) bankers gives an inside view on what's going on via Leftbanker

• Also, there are some very useful progressive tax blogs, which have all the counter-arguments.  I will get the links to these.  And who'da thunk that tax issues could actually be interesting?

• Not Just the Minutiae has loads of interesting articles, videos and other bits of leftist this and that, always illuminating

• And for sheer solid up to the minute analysis, New Left Project, Lenin's Tomb, Michael Meacher and Counterfire are all great.

• Too Much To Say For Myself has a solid feminist perspective, often tackling issues others are not.

• And currently for stuff on Wikileaks, but a whole lot of other things too, you can't do better than Glenn Greenwald over there at Salon.com

• Oh, and don't forget to check out the truly great Amy Goodman at Democracy Now VERY regularly (wish we had something like this in UK) 

And, finally, I really liked Socialist Unity's Blogging at the Crossroads.  It gives a solid overview of the status of left blogging and social media organizing just now. Very interesting, with lots of links in case, like me, you missed stuff.

I could go on and on of course .......

What Jody Did Right: or talking points we could all use

The spin-doctor and the activist: analysis shows just what Ben Brown did, and just what Jody did to get all his points across successfully, even so.


On Monday 13 December blogger and activist Jody McIntyre was interviewed by Ben Brown, anchorman of the BBC's 24-Hour News.

The topic was the assault on Jody by a policeman, in which he was pulled out of his wheechair and dragged across the street while peacefully demonstrating against increases in student fees on 9th December, a short video of which incident was shown at the outset.

Across the country hundreds of thousands of us watched the interview goggle-eyed, jaws dropping to the floor as we observed the clearest possible articulation of government spin: demonise the demonstrators and avoid discussion of provokative police action (spelling intended).

It was a dismal example of the interviewer's art, and a master class on how to handle negative and manipulative questioning.

Review of the video, and the transcript, reveals that Jody stayed right on message throughout the interview, despite the slurs that characterised it.  And so did Ben, but then that's his job.

Jody's four messages could be summarised as follows - they are very good:

• This is not an isolated incident
• The real issue is government policy (specific details according to the topic of the demo)
• The police strategy is to provoke violence by demonstrators (with examples)
• The media (in this case the BBC) is supporting this strategy (with examples)

Here is the video in case you havn't seen it already.

Here's what Ben Brown did:

The nominal topic of the interview was the evident police assault on Jody (apparently perpetrated by Officer KF936 of Newington Green manor): the hook in the story was Jody's allegation that this may have been done deliberately in order to provoke violent response among the protestors, particularly so in view of his disablement.

This was political dynamite on Jody's part, I think you'll agree, which required exploration.

This was the story, and this is what Ben Brown (a professional journalist, after all) should have tested. Instead, nighmarishly, in Kafka-esque style, Brown calmly and repeatedly insinuated that in some way Jody himself had violent intent, and this legitimated the assault. 

Perhaps it was his wheelchair, Brown implied, possibly "rolling towards the police", perhaps simply Jody's being there, his revolutionary beliefs, his writings in his blog.  By various flimsy hints Brown suggested that Jody merited the assault, that the officer had behaved appropriately.  No wonder several of the comments described the interview as "shameful".

It was a very weak line of questioning to adopt as Brown manifestly had nothing to go on, so why, one wonders, would a self-respecting journalist do it? Why did he relentlessly pursue this failing line of questioning as if his job depended on it? 

He too was right on message.  And as a spin doctor, it has to be said, Ben Brown is very good indeed, very neutral-seeming. And with a lesser man than Jody it might have worked.

Of the thirteen questions put to Jody:

• Three (23%) could have been a basis for exploring the context, as is the journalistic obligation.  However, Brown interrupted Jody’s response to two of these questions (see below), and failed to pursue the contextual issues further.
• One question (repeated four times) addressed whether or not Jody had submitted a formal complaint (this was driven by the police press release to that effect), as if Jody's concerns about brutality were thereby rendered frivolous.
• Six sought to smear Jody by associating him in various ways with violence.

Thus more than three quarters of Brown's questions explicitly articulated, and appeared to be consciously grounded in, what is evidently the government spin on the demos.

Brown interrupted Jody four times, and these too are instructive. Each interruption occurred when Jody was introducing his very coherent analysis of police tactics at the demonstration.  These interruptions came quite systematically, after Jody had successfully got two complete political statements past Brown.

The interrupted points were nevertheless clear, and perhaps constitute Jody's thesis.  These are what I distilled into the "talking points" above. They were:

• his experience is not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of unprovoked police violence at demonstrations, which is grossly under-reported;
• the real issue is not the violence but the political issues underlying all these demonstrations, namely the government policy towards the cuts;
• the police picked on him precisely because he is disabled, and this would be more likely to inflame the protesters (as it did); and
• there are parallels between the BBC’s marginalization of discussion of the issues underlying the demontrations with its marginalization of progressive discussion in other fora, such as Palestine in discussion of Middle East Politics.

The last point was clearly confirmed by the John Pilger documentary The War You Don't See, which by fortunate coincidence was aired the following night, making similar points on official concealment of policy (in Pilger's case, warmongering), supported by government spin (which one would expect) and biased reporting (which is unprofessional, at a minimum).  

You can see this important film here until about 14 January 2011.  In his most recent blog post (The Media's War) Jody McIntyre contrasts Pilger's principled career as a war correspondent with Ben Brown's war reporting experience as an uncritical hack embedded with the British Army in Iraq. The latter may also be examined in Ben Brown's Book:   Sandstealers: War is One Hell of a Story 

But there is more than just the wrongness of the interviewing to consider, there is the necessity of responding politically, as Jody demonstrated.


Here's what Jody did:

• He was prepared
• He knew exactly what he wanted to say (the talking points)
• He said them, regardless of what he was asked
• He knew what the main talking point was (it was a deliberate attack, part of police strategy)
• He knew that Ben Brown was likely to blame him for the assault he had experienced, and was ready with responses to this line.
• He responded to Brown's assertion of violent intent on his part, but did not allow this to deviate him from his message that it was the police who were violent in his case, and more generally.
• He slapped down the interviewer early on ("I am surprised that you have just tried to ...), asserting himself, forcing Brown to become more extreme and ridiculous.
• He stayed calm (no matter what)

Then of course there were the indefinables - his "presence" on the screen, his charisma, his evident courage and integrity.  All critical to the message.

But there are also two elephants in this room, which we really need to think about more explicitly than we are at the moment.

What really is the BBC's role?

This situation is clarifying the BBC's multi-layered role in the dissemination of the government perspective.  Jody's interview is only a particularly egregious example of a widely observable, and hardening, bias towards the presentation of information that tends to support the ConDem plans for the cuts (that is, to inflate public anxiety about the deficit and divert it into acceptance of a long-desired but not financially necessary re-structuring and partial dismantling of the Welfare State, leading inescapably to greater inequality).  The demonstrations that we have seen so far, and which will continue, are consistently in defense of the Welfare State and to maximise equality in all social indicators


This bias is expressed in two ways, it seems to me. First in failure to explore equivalently the several alternative approaches to the deficit and the position of those who support these alternatives.  Secondly, this bias is  expressed in demonising those who legitimately criticise and peacefully demonstrate. This interview is a perfect example of both of these, most obviously in the attempt to demonise Jody, and flip responsibility for the incident to him, and away from the police officer.  For many, this long term and currently intensifying role of the BBC as state propagandist has been masked or tolerated because of the quality of the programming.  However, such self-deception is becoming less and less tenable.

Part of the mix must be Murdoch and SkyCorp, and there seems to be some kind of Faustian pact to sustain the BBC's broadcasting pre-eminence only at the cost of a closer adherence to Murdochian priorities. I keep thinking of the BBC Director-General walking into No. 10 on the very first day of the LibDem government, only the second appointment in the Prime Minister's diary, even as the first, Rupert Murdoch, slipped un-noticed out of the back door.  And Coulson's presence in the Prime Minister's office must mean that the pact, if such there be, can be closely enforced.


(Update: on 18th December we had the astonishing situation of Director General Thompson advocating a greater role for Fox News in UK broadcasting (owned of course by Murdoch), because the BBC and other should not have "a monopoly"of the airwaves.  This on the very day that the New York Times was reporting that, in the US at least, news tends to disseminate disinformation, the more news people watch the more disinformed they are, and that viewers of Fox News are the most disinformed of all.)


There is question as to whether such a pact, if it exists, makes a substantive difference to the BBC content.  I would say that it is more a matter of degree that actual difference.  The objective relationship  with the state is there, and no doubt there are struggles over it within the BBC (and if so we can hope for leaks in due course). But there does seem to have been a rightward movement in BBC news and comment in particular, whether derived from normal government pressure or an intensified form of it will require research.  At the very least one would think that ConDem pressure is greatly enhanced and focused by spinmeister Coulson in the Prime Minister's office, and reduces the elbow-room of those within the BBC who might otherwise choose to include a wider range of material.

Are the BBC journalists briefed on the governments spin strategy? Are they provided with the messages, as CNN journalists were by the Israeli government during the 2006 invasion of the West Bank? (Democracy Now has a recording of this somewhere).  This is normal practice on a range of issues, and there is no reason to believe that it is not taking place with regard to the anti-cuts campaigns.  I hope that a future leak or leaks will prove it.

I hope also that media monitors are tracking the BBC's apparently intensifying role in advancing the government's line on the cuts, perhaps in the semi-quantitative manner that I have attempted here, and look forward very much to hearing what they have to say.

What really is the police role?

Are undercover police at work among the demonstrators, as one would expect and was admitted by the Met in November 2009 after the G20 demonstrations (Guardian).  More seriously, are any of the violent individuals seen so prominently on television in fact infiltrated thugs? Agents provocateurs?  There is no evidence of this so far, and I have seen no discussion of it,  but it is a question that must at least be asked, and I am staying tuned.  

Furthermore, we need to know who it was who assaulted Jody (and more than one officer seems to have been involved), what group or groups within the police force, covert or otherwise, they belong to, and what training they have received.

But all in all, it has to be said, this radical, principled, tough and savvy young man, Jody McIntyre, 20 years old, has shown us all how to handle media bias. 

He knocked the conventional and compromised Ben Brown, and all he represents, into the long grass.  

In a word, I would say, he nailed Ben Brown, and exposed the BBC.

Now we have to follow up, and nail the whole cuts agenda.

In case you were not following this at the time, here is what happened after the interview.

Within a couple of hours of the broadcast, an unofficial video of the interview it was posted on the web (YouTube), forcing the BBC to follow suite on its own website shortly afterwards.  Four days later the YouTube versions had been viewed over half a million times, and apparently on 16 December it was the most watched video on YouTube, worldwide.

Immediately after the interview Twitter went wild, and within an hour or so Jody was trending in the UK, and complaints about Ben Brown’s approach poured into the BBC website. In fact, Jody trended to No.1 that night, right after the promoted rubbish.

Next day a distinctly lame defense of the interview by the BBC News Controller, Kevin Bakhurst, was placed on the BBC blog, and rapidly accumulated over 2000 comments, with major delays in posting.  One commentator "an insider" apparently, indicated that over 5000 had been received.

I eyeballed the complete set of comments when they had reached about 1,500: they were overwhelmingly critical of Ben Brown and of Keven Bakhurst's poor handling of the response.  There were very few, perhaps ten, comments in support, arguing mainly that Ben Brown was legitimately acting as "Devil's Advocate" (for example by ex Lib-Dem MP Dr. Evan Harris).

It is not devil's advocacy when you are a witness to the demonstration (as was Ben Brown), when you must have seen (as a thinking person) what a politically complex event it was, and that the overwhelming, huge majority of demonstrators were angry, yes, but not violent, and yet you choose to pursue one simple line of questioning which happens to reflect the government's spinning of the topic as a matter of demonstrator violence, even though this theme has clearly nothing to do with the interviewee in front of you.  That is not devil's advocacy:  that is bias.

There were other angles that could have been taken, which could have led to a stellar interview exploring the issues, but they were never on the agenda, it seems.

For the record, a selection from the scores of related articles

First of all, a post-Brown interview with Jody McIntyre that does explore the issues.  Electronic Intefada

• The BBC and Jody McIntyre (James Martin Charlton - within 1 hour of the broadcast)
• BBC News controller defends interview with wheelchair-bound protester (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Interview with Jody McIntyre (bbc.co.uk)
• You: Interview: The wheelchair protester (guardian.co.uk)
• How the Disabled are Dehumanised (Penny Laurie at the New Statesman)
• When we can't believe our own eyes: Balance, objectivity, or transparency? (onlinejournalismblog.com)
• How the police and then the BBC tried to humiliate Jody McIntyre (liberalconspiracy.org)
• Disabled protester Jody McIntyre should be applauded, not criticised (leftfootforward.org)
• If you thought the students were trouble, wait for the disability movement (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• "Were you rolling towards the police?" (cedarlounge.wordpress.com)
• Mark Steel: A clear case of attack by wheelchair (independent.co.uk)
• Shameless  (Lenin's Tomb)

Some Beautiful Thoughts on Getting Old.

BUGGER

I've forgotten what they were......

Some thoughts on thought Itself, in poem and painting

The older I get the more I find myself lost in thought, and very pleasant it is too.  So it was a joy to find my feelings about it so well described in two different media, separated by 2000 years: a poem by D.H Lawrence, and a fresco by an unknown artist in Pompeii.


I love this poem;  both thought-provoking, and straight out provoking.  

Thought:  by D.H. Lawrence
Thought, I love thought.

But not the jiggling and twisting of already existent ideas

I despise that self-important game.

Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness,

Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of the conscience,

Thought is gazing on to the face of life, and reading what can be read,

Thought is pondering over experience, and coming to a conclusion.

Thought is not a trick, or an exercise, or a set of dodges,

Thought is a man in his wholeness, wholly attending.

See what I mean?  Hopelessly flawed!  Banal and arrogant in the opening, betraying the very self-importance that he disavows, followed by soaring and beautiful descriptions of inner experience in the middle, and an ending which I (not a man) find highly affronting, and at the same time totally descriptive of exactly what happens to a person lost in thought.  Most provoking.  But I love it even so.

I also love, perhaps even more, the way in which this ancient artist has captured exactly the same moment of full engagement, of gazing into the middle distance, but without a touch of self-importance.

Sapho (?).  Pompei.  

In fact, I'm finding this really a haunting picture, of the moments, perhaps long moments, before writing.


__________________


You may also enjoy The Gift.  It, too, includes a quote about the inner person, and if I remember rightly was also dogged by inappropriate use of the masculine pronoun.  Although there I did not resist the temptation to excise it.

The Dog Jed

Dog-lovers among you will know that the Lurcher is a breed of exceptional charm and sweetness.  Not only very fast, but very calm and easy-going.

And of his peers, Jed must be as far out on the well-adjusted end of the personality spectrum as it is possible to get.

Although more of a cat-person myself, Jed is one of my all-time favourite characters, and I am totally happy to be his companion for a few weeks while his owners are elsewhere.

Here he is, brindled, smooth-haired and calm, and, it has to be said, distinctly micro-cephalic, resting quietly behind the sofa.

The reason for his lovely nature is said to be that the life he leads corresponds almost exactly with that for which he was bred, and the Lurcher is a runner.

Caught here in a rare moment of stillness as he waits to go through the kissing-gate, you can see that Jed is not so much small-headed as big-bodied, with strong, muscular legs and shoulders, and above all a huge chest to accommodate the pump and bellows needed to keep his muscles supplied with everything  they need, often at very short notice.

Derived from the Greyhound, dog of the aristocracy and forbidden to the poor (thus did the rich seek to appropriate to themselves the free goods of the forest), the Lurcher was bread essentially for poaching, mainly by Travellers.  Lur means "thief" in Romany, and I like to think that they used the term ironically.

Be that as it may, Jed loves nothing more than chasing hare and rabbit, squirrel and deer over open ground. He is delighted by all the scents of woodland, but is in his element where he can run completely free.

He walks and runs daily over the rolling open fields of the Weald of Kent, which is scattered with copse and woodland full of the creatures he is hard-wired to pursue.  These not infrequently venture into the open, and he, being a sight-hound, can see them from a very great distance.  I'm glad to say, despite his speed, they usually make it back to cover well before he reaches them.

Nevertheless, he has so much fun causing mayhem in the rodentine and ruminant communities around that he never seems disappointed. Perhaps he is just suffused with endorphins. Perhaps he knows instinctively, as part of his inner balance, that its the journey, not the destination, that counts in life.

I have tried to take photos of him doing what he loves best, but either I or my camera just aren't up to it:  this is what I got.

Oh well ......

Pity about the jump especially.  Like most hunting dogs, he can clear a five-bar gate like a cricket.

In many ways Jed lives in a doggie time-warp, rarely seeing roads and traffic, rarely in places he does not know, and almost always close to his owner, whether striding field and hedgerow or sitting not far apart while one works, the other dreams.

When not outdoors he is generally in his much-loved basket, where with blanket and a chewy toy or two he seems to achieve a zen-like state of contentment:-

....  through quiet contemplation,

... a little side snoozing ..

...some front snoozing ...

sometimes a bit of back snoozing for a change (he really is asleep here),

and Yoga

Thus does this gentle and disarming creature spend his pleasant days.

And among the best of his several gifts to me is that of a sufficient amount of exercise.

I have been for many weeks curtailing my daily walks due to joint pain.  But, forced by his need to expend energy, I have been walking at least two hours daily, sometimes more, and the pain apparently is no more, within a very few days.

This is a very welcome change.

So I will continue to re-learn from Jed the joy of walking, although I doubt you'll see me, cricket-like, clear fence or gate in a single bound.

But stay tuned.  You never know.  Life is full of surprises.

Hitch and Fry the Vatican

Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens, I salute you!

The BBC World Service's Intelligence Squared Debate: The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World took place almost a year ago - in November 2009.

Its protagonists were:
For the motion - Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, former Conservative MP Anne Widdicom; seriously outgunned by, against the motion -  commentators Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry

Image via Wikipedia

Hitch and Fry comprehensively, systematically and courageously express my own scepticism in general, and disgust at the Vatican, its hierarchy and its flying monkeys in particular.

Although neither new nor timely, and already available in all the usual places, I am posting their remarks because I agree totally with them on this.

The older I get the more anti-clerecist (sp?) I become

It is really good to see the mysticism and obscurantism, not to mention the moral and legal criminality, of this dangerous and extremely worldly structure (regardless of whether its spiritual teachings are true or not) so directly and comprehensively hollowed out by rationality. 

Good that it was broadcast world-wide by the Beeb.  I hope that it gets many repeats.

You can find the whole debate and question and answer period on Youtube.